Page:Monthly scrap book, for October.pdf/16

and trust in the nation. Could they, in judgment and conscience, approve of these; did they them agreeable to the plainly revealed will of God, which they consider as the standard of human conduct, in civil, as well as in religious, society; and could they once be persuaded in their own minds, that they are consistent with the fundamental laws of the kingdom, in the purest time of that reformation, to which they wish still to adhere; instead of differing from the other inhabitants of Britain, about the acknowledgement of the civil powers, they would find a pleasure in concurring with them. But plainly perceiving that the present terms of advancement to power are of a different description, and especially, seeing that an unwarranted supremacy over the church of Christ is made an essential part of the constitution, and the support of it, in their respective stations, the positively fixed and indispensible conditions upon which persons are admitted to fill the several places of power; the Old Dissenters cannot, in judgment approve, but find themselves under the disagreeable necessity of openly entering their protest against national backsliding, either in church of state. Meanwhile, let it be observed, that after publicly entering their dissent from the Revolution settlement of church and state, and candidly assigning their reasons, it ever hath been, and they trust ever shall be, their study to live peaceably and inoffensively, without giving disturbance either ⟨to⟩ small or great.