You do not however intend “to deny the possibility of any _sort or degree_ of union among certain descriptions of persons composing the Society.” {37a} You are “perfectly aware that all the various and discordant tribes of dissenters from the church of England may unite from the Papist down to the Quaker; for they frequently have, and frequently do unite _against_ the church.” {37b}—“But when (say you) was it ever known that they have united _with_ the church? Show me the history, lay your finger on the page, and say, my Lord, _when_, _where_, and upon what _occasion_, did they ever unite _with_ the church for any important and righteous design. I must be satisfied on this point; I must request some fair example and precedent, to prove that the thing is neither impossible nor improbable, before it can be even prudent to listen to your Lordship’s proposal.” {37c} Now here, Sir, you throw out a challenge, which, with his Lordship’s permission, I am willing to accept. I will show you the history of such union as you indirectly deny: I will lay my finger on the page, and say, _when_, and _where_, and upon what _occasion_ the different tribes of Dissenters _did_ unite with the church for an important and righteous design. The _history_ then to which I refer is that portion of our country’s annals which commenced with the autumn of 1803, and which is not yet completed. The _page_ upon which I lay my finger is that which displays the voluntary creation of a national force; in which, if one feature was more illustrious than another, it was the magnanimity with which the subjects of the same government agreed “to put away all rancour of religious dissension,” and to unite in the prosecution of that _righteous_ and _important_ design in which they had embarked, “notwithstanding their differences upon points of doubtful opinion, and in the forms of external worship.” Let the Country Clergyman peruse this awful yet luminous page of our history; let him weigh well the danger which threatened the throne, the church, and the nation; let him read in those discourses, which gratitude will not allow us to forget, how that danger was proclaimed by preachers of every denomination; let him walk through the land, in the length of it and the breadth of it, and see how many myriads were added to the national force by those powerful and seasonable appeals to the feelings, the conscience, and the spirit of Britons; and he will want, I think, no other “example and precedent” to prove that an union of the various tribes of Dissenters WITH the church of England, for an important and righteous design, “is neither impossible nor improbable.”