Reasons for joining the Norfolk & Norwich Protestant Association / in a letter to a clerical friend

Transcribed from the 1840 John Stacy edition by David Price.
A LETTER
TO A CLERICAL FRIEND.
BY THE REV. WILLIAM HULL, MINISTER OF ST. GREGORY’S. NORWICH.
NORWICH: PRINTED BY JOHN STACY, OLD HAYMARKET.
MDCCCXL.
My dear Sir,
You have not stated the nature or the grounds of those scruples which prevent your immediate adhesion to our recently-formed association;—nor will I attempt to conjecture what they may be; especially since you avow your cordial approbation of every well-timed effort in defence of our Protestant faith and liberties against the malignant aggressions of Popery. I am not able to imagine any substantial objection on the part of a truly Protestant mind.
Believing, as I firmly do believe, that our National Church is founded on truth, and that the Protestant ascendancy involves the temporal and spiritual welfare of the people of these realms,—believing also that the agents and emissaries of Popery have, for a series of years, been actively employed in embroiling the affairs of this kingdom, with an ultimate view to the restoration of the popish priesthood, together with their dark superstitions and inhuman despotism,—believing that new and unwonted energies must be called into action, in defence of our national religion, or that, by secret undermining and open assault, “our holy and beautiful house where our fathers worshipped” will soon be levelled with the dust, “and all our pleasant things laid waste,”—I hail the formation of the Protestant Association as a propitious event, and deliberately, from the religious conviction that I am in the path of duty, enrol my name as a member.
In stating thus freely my own forcible impressions, I disclaim any intention of impugning the motives of those who are not, equally with myself, convinced of the expediency or utility of this association. Whatever may be the ground of your hesitation, I have entire confidence in the purity and integrity of your principles.
Nevertheless, allow me to say, with deference, that your indecision, in this case, does not for a moment cause me to waver in my own convictions, since I cannot but suspect that your doubts originate in an imperfect conception of the perils to which our religion and our country are exposed. Were these dangers of less appalling magnitude, I also should have strong scruples against this or any similar association. They are justifiable on no other ground than that of absolute necessity. They bring with them many incidental evils.—They lead into collision adverse parties, and produce impassioned controversies; they create evils which no man can be right in abetting, even indirectly, but with a view to ward off others which are more injurious to the public welfare. Besides which, no man of feeling would rashly hazard the obloquy which will be cast upon him by his opponents in this age of low-minded invective and scurrilous defamation. Nor is it a small evil to lose the favourable regards of upright and conscientious persons who take an opposite view of the exigencies and the duties of the times. For myself, I have no sickly ambition for this species of martyrdom. I sacrifice with painful reluctance the esteem of the wise and the good, from whom it is my misfortune, at any time, to be separated by conflicting opinions and irreconcileable interests. But there are occasions which call for higher duties than those of conciliation or friendship,—when private affections must be merged in a holy patriotism, and when the strength of our principles must be proved, not by the extinction of our finer sensibilities,—God forbid!—but by their yielding, with whatever bitterness of grief, to a commanding sense of Duty. I am strongly impressed with the conviction, that such an occasion presents itself in “this day of trouble , and of rebuke , and of blasphemy .”