Wesley Corpus

27. But can anything be done to open the eyes, to restore the senses, of an infatuated nation? Not unless the still renewed, still operating cause of that infatuation can be removed. But how is it possible to be removed, unless by restraining the licentiousness of the press? And is not this remedy worse than the disease? Let us weigh this matter a little. There was an ancient law in Scotland, which made leasing-making a capital crime. By leasing-making was meant, telling such wilful lies as tended to breed dissension between the King and his subjects. What pity but there should be such a law enacted in the present session of Parliament! By our present laws, a man is punishable for publishing even truth to the detriment of his neighbour. This I would not wish. But should he not be punished, who publishes palpable lies? and such lies as manifestly tend to breed dissension between the King and his subjects? Such, with a thousand more, was that bare-faced lie of the King’s bursting out into laughter before the city Magistrates ! Now, does not the publisher of this lie deserve to lose his ears more than a com mon knight of the post? And if he is liable to no punishment for a crime of so mischievous a nature, what a grievous defect is in our law ! And how loud does it call for a remedy 28. To return to the point whence we set out. You see whence arose this outcry for liberty, and these dismal com plaints that we are robbed of our liberty echoing through the land. It is plain to every unprejudiced man, they have not the least foundation. We enjoy at this day throughout these kingdoms such liberty, civil and religious, as no other king dom or commonwealth in Europe, or in the world, enjoys; and such as our ancestors never enjoyed from the Conquest to the Revolution. Let us be thankful for it to God and the King ! Let us not, by our vile unthankfulness, yea, our denial that we enjoy it at all, provoke the King of kings to take it away. By one stroke, by taking to himself that Prince whom we know not how to value, He might change the scene, and put an end to our civil as well as religious liberty.