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prince of Wales , and to go through him to the King . The letter is a recapitulation of the Bishop's own public services , all which his memory , at seventy years of age , fully retained .
In February 1807 , the Bishop came to London , to preach by appointment at the Chapel Royal : the sermon which he preached was afterwards published , together with another preached in the same place eight years before , under the title of ** A Second Defence of Revealed Re-1
ligion . ' The publication was provoked by the Bishop of London's shaking his head in disapprobation of some parts of it , when it was delivered . Landaff was determined , he says , to let his brother of London see that he had no fear of submitting his
sentiments on abstruse theological points to public animadversion , notwithstanding their not being quite so orthodox as his own ; and he was the more disposed to do this , from having been informed , on the very best
authority , that an imputed want of orthodoxy had been objected to him when the archbishopric of Armagh was given to Stuart . Having thus explained himself , he indignantly exclaims ,
" What is this thing * called Orthodoxy , which mars the fortunes of honest men , misleads the judgment of princes , and occasionally endangers the stability of thrones ? In the true meaning of the term , it is a sacred thing * to which every denomination of Christians lays an
arrogant and exclusive claim , but to which no man , no assembly of men , since the apostolic age , can prove a title . It is frequently amongst individuals of the same sect nothing better than self-sufficiency of
opinion , and pharisaical pride , by which each man esteems himself more righteous than his neighbours . It may , perhaps , be useful in cementing- what is called the alliance between Church and State ; but if such an alliance obstructs candid
discussions , if it invades the right of private judgment , if it generates bigotry in churchmen or intolerance in statesmen , it not only becomes inconsistent with the general principles of Protestantism , but it impedes the progress of the king'dom of Christ , which we all know is not of this world . "—Pp . 451 , 452 .
xhe Bishop delivered an excellent speech in the House of Lords , on the 23 d March , 1807 , on the final debate on the abolition of the Slave Trade ;
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a measure which will be the enduring honour of the Fox ministry . This was , indeed , their last act : it was scarcely completed when Intolerance drove them from the seat of power . On this subject the Bishop writes with just indignation : u Soon after this the able administration ( greatly indeed weakened by the loss of Mr . Fox ) which had been formed on the
death of Mr . Pitt , was dismissed . The ? ostensible reason of their dismission was , the King ' s dislike of a measure which they bad brought forward in Parliament respecting * the Irish Catholic officers . The ministers were wisely moved by a liberal
and prospective policy , to endeavour to consolidate as much as possible the strength of the empire , by opening * to Catholic of * ficers in the army and navy the same road to honour and emolument ) which bad always been open to Protestants . They were sensible that almost every Gazette which announced the success of our
enterprises , made distinguished mention of the gallantry of the inferior Catholic officers ; and they wished to confirm the loyalty , and to stimulate the ambition of such men , by putting them on a level with their fellows
n arms . " Unfortunately the King * did not see this measure in the same light that bis Whig ministers did , and he * required them to give him a pledge that they would never more bring * forward the question of grant * , ing further indulgence to the Irish Catholics . This requisition was not only unprecedented in the annals of the House of Brunswick since its accession to the throne of Great Britain , but it was considered by many as of a tendency dangerous to the constitution ; and to me it appeared to be not in words , but in fact , a declaration of a sic volo . Had his Majesty dismissed his ministers because he disliked their measures , no one would have denied such an exertion of his prerogative to have
been perfectly constitutional , ( how much soever he might have individually questioned the discretion of using it ia such a crisis ) ; but to require from privy counsellors , and much more to require from confidential servants of the crown , that they would at any time cease to advise his Majesty for what they esteemed the public good , was to brand them as unprincipled slaves to the royal will , and traitors to the country . The ministers refused to cover themselves with the infamy which would justly have attended their submission to such a demand ; they refused and were dismissed : such sort of ministers would have lost their beads at Constantinople ; at London , they as yet only lose their places . Whilst there remained a competitor of the Stuart family to the throne
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Review . —Life of the Bi&hop of Landaff * 75 ?
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1818, page 757, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2483/page/29/
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