Page:Thoughts on a French invasion.pdf/18

 18        The Bishop of Llandaff’s Address

common people. They are sensible that no govern- ment can long subsist, if the bulk of the people have no reverence for a, supreme Being, no fear of perjury ; no apprehension of futurity, no check from conscience, and foreseeing the rapine, devastation, and bloodshed, which usually attend the last convulsions of a state struggling for its political existence, they wish to pre- pare proper actors for this dreadful catastrophe, by brutalizing mankind; for it is by religion more than any other principle of human nature that men are dis- tinguished from brutes.

The mass of the people has, in all ages and countries, been the mean of effectuating great revolutions, both good and bad. The physical strength of the bulk of a nation is irresistible, but it is incapable of self-direction. It is the instrument which wise, brave, and virtuous men use for the extinction of tyranny, under whatever form of government it may exist; and it is the instrument also which men of bad morals, desperate fortunes; and licentious principles, use for the subversion of every go- vernment, however just in its origin, however equitable in its administration, however conducive to the ends for which society has been established among mankind. It is against the' machinations of these men, secret or open, solitary or associated, that I wish to warn you; they will first attempt to persuade you that there is nothing after death, no heaven for the good, no hell for the wicked, that there is no God, or none who regards your actions; and when you shall be convinced of this, they will think you properly prepared to per petrate every crime which may be necessary for the furtherance of their own designs, for the gratification of their ambition, their avarice, or their revenge.

No civil, no ecclesiastical constitution can be so formed by human wisdom as to admit of no improvement upon an increase of wisdom; as to require no alteration when I an alteration in the knowledge, manners, opinions, and circumstances of a people has taken place. But men ought to have the modesty to know for what they are fitted, and the discretion to confine their exertions to subjects of which they have a competent knowledge. There