r wishing it well: it is, that in the present time I consider it as
one of the main pillars of the Christian religion itself. The body and
substance of every religion I regard much more than any of the forms and
dogmas of the particular sects. Its fall would leave a great void, which
nothing else, of which I can form any distinct idea, might fill. I
respect the Catholic hierarchy and the Presbyterian republic; but I
know that the hope or the fear of establishing either of them is, in
these kingdoms, equally chimerical, even if I preferred one or the other
of them to the Establishment, which certainly I do not.

These are some of my reasons for wishing the support of the Church of
Ireland as by law established. These reasons are founded as well on the
absolute as on the relative situation of that kingdom. But is it because
I love the Church, and the King, and the privileges of Parliament, that
I am to be ready for any violence, or any injustice, or any absurdity,
in the means of supporting any of these powers, or all of them together?
Instead of prating about Protestant ascendencies, Protestant Parliaments
ought, in my opinion, to think at last of becoming patriot Parliaments.

The legislature of Ireland, like all legislatures, ought to frame its
laws to suit the people and the circumstances of the country, and not
any longer to make it their whole business to force the nature, the
temper, and the inveterate habits of a nation to a conformity to
speculative systems concerning any kind of laws. Ireland has an
established government, and a religion legally established, which are to
be preserved. It has a people who are to be preserved too, and to be led
by reason, principle, sentiment, and interest to acquiesce in that
government. Ireland is a country under peculiar circumstances. The
people of Ireland are a very mixed people; and the quantities of the
several ingredients in the mixture are very much disproportioned to each
other. Are we to govern this mixed body as if it were composed of the
most simple elements, comprehending the whole in one system of
benevolent legislation? or are we not rather to provide for the several
parts according to the various and diversified necessities of the
heterogeneous nature of the mass? Would not common reason and common
honesty dictate to us the policy of regulating the people, in the
several descriptions of which they are composed, according to the
natural ranks and classes of an orde