confideration, that can difpenfe with my fubmitting to my countrymen a new chart of that coaft, upon which fo many of them have unfortunately perished.

Whatever divifions of parties have existed in our country for these three laft centuries, whether between the retainers and reformers of the old religion, between the church and the prefbytery, the round heads and the royalifts, the whigs and the tories, the nonjurors and the revolutionists, the original efficient caufes of the feveral divifions into party have ceafed or nearly disappeared in the variety and change of circumstances, which the kingdom has fince experienced. Such (if any) of these parties as ftill fubfift, feem rather to have received a mere nominal existence by hereditary defcent, than to retain any of their constituent parts or fundamental properties, The nation, in fact, at prefent appears to me to be divided into two parties only, which have abforbed all the other; the contents with the prefent establishment, and the non-contents. The former far exceed the latter in numbers; and from the nature of the divifion, the majority must be actuated by a more uniform principle, than the minority. For the approbation of the particular conftitution and government, which

the

motives of the

malcontents.

the nation has received from their ancestors, retains the majority in one body; whereas, the dislike of the whole, or part of the fame conftitution and government; the preference of any other, than the established religion and Principles and government; the averfion from any church or ftate establishment whatever; the withes and expectancies of the indigent and diftreffed to profit by a fyftem of equalization; the allurements of a scramble to luft, avarice, and ambition; the perfonal envy, jealousy, hatred, infult, injury, difappointment, or loffes of individuals, are amongst the multifarious motives, reafons, and inducements, which bring together a fet of difcordant individuals, who, from the moment, and by the terms of their engagement, facrifice their feveral heterogeneous principles to the common erected standard of difcontent; for in the political, as well as in the phyfical system, the moft oppofite ingredients may, like vinegar and oil, be fo incorporated as to bear the appearance of a perfect coalition. When, therefore, I fhall in future confider or speak of this oppofite party, which I fhall in general call the minority, I fhall drop every idea of the nature of their original component parts, and diftinguifh them only from their opponents by that common quality, which confti

tutes

tutes them a party of malcontents, in oppofition to the majority of the community, who are happy under, and therefore wifh and intend to preferve the prefent form of their conftitution and government.

Whoever views with perfect impartiality the prefent internal political ftate of this country, will, I am confident, readily admit, that it would be a fruitless attempt to fingle out one individual from the whole minority, who fides with that party, merely from the motives, which diftinguished one of the old parties of this country from the other, at the time of their original formation.

I may, perhaps, be fingular, (this publication will prove how far I am warrantable) in attributing the formation, the continuance and the encrease of all fuch parties, as have at different times divided our country, to the inconfiderate and hafty, though, perhaps, well meant denial of true principles. It is no lefs fingular than true, that the churchman, the royalift, and the tory, admitting and wifhing to preferve the true conftitutional form of the government in being, were fo blinded in their zeal, as to deny the truth of first principles, upon which the puritan, the independant, and the republican, unwarrantably engrafted the falfeft doctrines. Inftead of fhewing,

9

Greateft evils inconfiderate principles.

arife from the

denial of true

fhewing, that these doctrines were not confequences deducible from the principles, (for every confequence is virtually contained in its premises), they denied abfolutely the principles, which were true, because they difapproved of doctrines, which were false, and which, confequently, could not be fairly drawn from true principles. Thus, when the alterations and differences of the opposite parties came to be publicly agitated, they feldom went further, than the truth or falfity of the principles themselves; in which contests the strength of the argument was neceffarily with thofe, who contended for the principles; and whilst that party had the addrefs to keep up the controverfy upon this ground only, they were fure of making profelytes of all those, who had refolution or ability to form a judgment of their own.

The misfortunes, which have heretofore happened to our unhappy country, from the contefts of these oppofite parties, are of too ferious a nature not to rouze every true patriot to the exertion of his utmost efforts to prevent a repetition of them. Nothing can be more certain, than that a party of no inconfiderable number of malcontents does at this moment exift in this country; nothing more evident, than that the party will gain

or

or lofe ftrength in proportion to the acceffion or desertion of its numbers; and nothing fo attractive, as the plausibility and truth of the principles, which are supposed or represented to actuate and fupport the party. It is flattering to all men to judge in their own caufe; it is the favourite maxim of modern politicians, to inculcate the right of every one to judge and act for himself; and it is artfully holden out by many, that whoever is not directed by his own opinion and judgment, is kept in darkness, and deprived of that freedom, which has been given to every individual by an allwife Creator.

When I call to my recollection the effects of former attempts to deduce falfe doctrines from true principle, I am neceffitated to conclude, that if fome true principles now established and fupported by the minority, are denied by the majority, the daily defertions from the one to the other will very quickly invert the prefent proportion of their respective numbers; for undeniable truth will ever make its own way, and by degrees

gain over the multitude; amongst whom more will be, in the end, left to the unbiaffed freedom of their own judgment, than to the dictates of interested power and influence, It was long ago faid, decipimur fpecie recti:

when

Truth will in its own way.

the end make