er
of that discourse. It was passed by those who came reeking from the
effect of the sermon, without any censure or qualification, expressed or
implied. If, however, any of the gentlemen concerned shall wish to
separate the sermon from the resolution, they know how to acknowledge
the one and to disavow the other. They may do it: I cannot.

For my part, I looked on that sermon as the public declaration of a man
much connected with literary caballers and intriguing philosophers, with
political theologians and theological politicians, both at home and
abroad. I know they set him up as a sort of oracle; because, with the
best intentions in the world, he naturally _philippizes_, and chants his
prophetic song in exact unison with their designs.

That sermon is in a strain which I believe has not been heard in this
kingdom, in any of the pulpits which are tolerated or encouraged in it,
since the year 1648,--when a predecessor of Dr. Price, the Reverend Hugh
Peters, made the vault of the king's own chapel at St. James's ring with
the honor and privilege of the saints, who, with the "high praises of
God in their mouths, and a _two_-edged sword in their hands, were to
execute judgment on the heathen, and punishments upon the _people_; to
bind their _kings_ with chains, and their _nobles_ with fetters of
iron."[77] Few harangues from the pulpit, except in the days of your
League in France, or in the days of our Solemn League and Covenant in
England, have ever breathed less of the spirit of moderation than this
lecture in the Old Jewry. Supposing, however, that something like
moderation were visible in this political sermon, yet politics and the
pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No sound ought to be heard
in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of
civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion
by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character to
assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant
both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.
Wholly unacquainted with the world, in which they are so fond of
meddling, and inexperienced in all its affairs, on which they pronounce
with so much confidence, they have nothing of politics but the passions
they excite. Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to
be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind.

This pulpit style, revived after so