Independents will court popularity, as they have always courted it; by fostering some favourite and discriminating opinion of their hearers. The old subjects of debate have now lost their zest, and I should fear that the teachers would find it a successful, as it is an easy road to popularity, to lead their hearers through a series of refinements, till they are landed, much to their satisfaction, in the Materialism of Dr. Priestley, from which it is but a step to the Atheism of Diderot and Condorcet.
Seeing that there are such grounds of apprehension, I think that we have cause to be upon our guard, and that every man who has enjoyed the sweets of British liberty should be very anxious indeed to preserve it. We should discourage all secret assemblies, which afford opportunities to the disaffected, and all conversations which foster any notions of political perfection, and create hankerings after unattainable happiness. These only increase the discontents of the unfortunate, the idle, and the worthless.—Above all, we should be careful to discourage and check immorality and licentiousness in every shape. For this will of itself subvert every government, and will subject us to the vile tyranny of a profligate mob.