England should appear in the petition of some Dissenters, with whom, I
believe very few in this House are yet acquainted, and of whom you know
no more than that you are assured by the honorable gentleman that they
are not Mahometans. Of the Church we know they are not, by the name that
they assume. They are, then, Dissenters. The first symptom of an alarm,
comes from some Dissenters assembled round the lines of Chatham: these
lines become the security of the Church of England! The honorable
gentleman, in speaking of the lines of Chatham, tells us that they serve
not only for the security of the wooden walls of England, but for the
defence of the Church of England. I suspect the wooden walls of England
secure the lines of Chatham, rather than the lines of Chatham secure the
wooden walls of England.

Sir, the Church of England, if only defended by this miserable petition
upon your table, must, I am afraid, upon the principles of true
fortification, be soon destroyed. But, fortunately, her walls, bulwarks,
and bastions are constructed of other materials than of stubble and
straw,--are built up with the strong and stable matter of the gospel of
liberty, and founded on a true, constitutional, legal establishment.
But, Sir, she has other securities: she has the security of her own
doctrines; she has the security of the piety, the sanctity, of her own
professors,--their learning is a bulwark to defend her; she has the
security of the two universities, not shook in any single battlement, in
any single pinnacle.

But the honorable gentleman has mentioned, indeed, principles which
astonish me rather more than ever. The honorable gentleman thinks that
the Dissenters enjoy a large share of liberty under a connivance; and he
thinks that the establishing toleration by law is an attack upon
Christianity.