r weight of numbers, and under imminent peril of
disrupture in the Church. Therefore, they did not even attempt it, and
were content to labour toward the same ends by more indirect means.

In the middle of the century--at a time when, except among the
Methodists, religious zeal seemed almost extinct, and when (to use
Walpole's words) 'religious animosities were out of date, and the public
had no turn for controversy'--thoughts of comprehension revived both in
the English Church and among the Nonconformists.

'Those,' wrote Mosheim in 1740, 'who are best acquainted with the state
of the English nation, tell us that the Dissenting interest declines
from day to day, and that the cause of Nonconformity owes this gradual
decay in a great measure to the lenity and moderation that are practised
by the rulers of the Established Church.'[375] No doubt the friendly
understanding which widely existed about this time between Churchmen and
Dissenters contributed to such a result. Herring, for instance, of
Canterbury, Sherlock of London, Secker of Oxford, Maddox of Worcester,
as well as Warburton, who was then preacher at Lincoln's Inn, Hildersley
afterwards Bishop of Sodor and Man, and many other eminent
Churchmen,[376] were all friends or correspondents with Doddridge, the
genial and liberal-minded leader of the Congregationalists, the devout
author of 'The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.' Much the same
might be said of Samuel Chandler, the eminent Presbyterian minister. An
old school fellow of Secker and Butler, when they were pupils together
at a dissenting academy in Yorkshire, he kept up his friendship with
them, when the one was Primate of the English Church, and the other its
ablest theologian. Personal relations of this kind insured the
recognition of approaches based on more substantial grounds. There was
real friendly feeling on the part of many principal Nonconformists not
only towards this or that bishop, this or that Churchman, but towards
the English Church in general. They coveted its wider culture, its freer
air. With the decline of prejudices and animosities, they could not but
feel the insignificance of the differences by which they were separated
from it. Many of them were by no means unfavourable to the principle of
a National Church. This was especially the case with Doddridge. While
he spoke with the utmost abhorrence of all forms of persecution, he
argued that regard alike to the honour of God and t