The men of England, the men, I mean, of light and leading in England, whose wisdom (if they have any) is open and direct, would be ashamed, as of a silly, deceitful trick, to profess any religion in name, which by their proceedings they appear to contemn.
In 'Reflections on the Revolution in France,' Burke asserts that English leaders would consider it shameful to outwardly profess a religion they inwardly disregard through their actions.
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The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.
They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they…
By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
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