a

But there is another difficulty in this matter, against which a remedy does not so readily occur. For, supposing the test act repealed, and the dissenters, in consequence, fully qualified for all secular employments; the question may still be put, whether those of Ireland will be often the persons on whom they shall be bestowed; because it is imagined there may be another seminary* in view, more numerous, and more needy, as well as more meriting, and more easily contented with such low offices; which some nearer neighbours hardly think it worth stirring from their chimneysides to obtain. And I am told, it is the common practice of those who are skilled in the management of bees, that when they see a foreign swarm at some distance, approaching with an intention to plunder their hives, these artists have a trick to divert them into some neighbouring apiary, there to make what havoc they please. This I should not have hinted, if I had not known it.already to have gotten ground in many suspecting heads: for it is the peculiar talent of this nation to see dangers afar off; to all which I can only say, that our native presbyterians must, by pains and industry, raise such a fund of merit, as will answer to a birth six degrees more to the north. If they cannot arrive at this perfection, as several of the established church have compassed by indefatigable pains, I do not well see how their affairs will much mend by repealing the test: for, to be qualified by law to accept an employment, and yet to be disqualified in fact, as it will much increase

*Scotland. F.

the

the mortification, so it will withdraw the pity of many among their well-wishers, and utterly deprive them of that merit they have so long made, of being a loyal, true, protestant people, persecuted only for religion.

If this happen to be their case, they must wait maturity of time; until they can, by prudent gentle steps, make their faith become the religion established in the nation; after which, I do not in the least doubt that they will take most effectual methods to secure their power, against those who must then be dissenters in their turn; whereof, if we may form a future opinion from present times, and the dispositions of dissenters, who love to make a thorough reformation, the number and qualities will be very inconsiderable.

Thus I have, with the utmost sincerity, after long thinking, given my judgement upon this arduous affair; but with the utmost deference and submission to public wisdom and power,

QUERIES

QUERIES

RELATING TO THE SACRAMENTAL TEST. 1732.

Query.

WHETHER hatred and violence between par

ties in a state, be not more inflamed by different views of interest, than by the greater or lesser differences between them, either in religion or government?

Whether it be any part of the question at this time, which of the two religions is worse, popery or fanaticism; or not rather, which of the two (having both the same good-will) is in the hopefullest condition to ruin the church?

Whether the sectaries, whenever they come to prevail, will not ruin the church as infallibly and effectually as the papists?

Whether the prevailing sectaries could allow liberty of conscience to dissenters, without belying all their former practice, and almost all their former writings?

Whether many hundred thousand Scotch presbyterians are not fully as virulent against the episcopal church, as they are against the papists; or as they would have us think the papists are against them?

Whether the Dutch, who are most distinguished for allowing liberty of conscience, do ever admit any persons, who profess a different scheme of worship from their own, into civil employments, although

although they may be forced by the nature of their government to receive mercenary troops of all religions?

Whether the dissenters ever pretended, until of late years, to desire more than a bare toleration? Whether, if it be true, what a sorry pamphleteer asserts, who lately writ for repealing the test, that the dissenters in this kingdom are equally numerous with the churchmen, it would not be a necessary point of prudence, by all proper and lawful means, to prevent their farther increase?

The great argument given, by those whom they call low churchmen, to justify the large tolerations allowed to dissenters, has been; that, by such indulgences, the rancour of those sectaries would gradually wear off, many of them would come over to us, and their parties, in a little time, crumble to nothing.

Query, Whether, if what the above pamphleteer asserts, that the sectaries are equal in numbers with conformists, be true, it does not clearly follow, that those repeated tolerations have operated directly contrary, to what those low-church politicians pretended to foresee and expect?

Whether any clergyman, however dignified or distinguished, if he think his own profession most agreeable to Holy Scripture and the primitive church, can really wish in his heart, that all sectaries should be upon an equal foot with the churchmen, in the point of civil power and employments?

Whether episcopacy, which is held by the church to be a divine and apostolical institution,

be

be not a fundamental point of religion, particularly in that essential one of conferring holy orders?

Whether, by necessary consequences, the several expedients among the sectaries to constitute their teachers, are not absolutely null and void?

Whether the sectaries will ever agree to accept ordination only from bishops?

Whether the bishops and clergy will be content to give up episcopacy, as a point indifferent, without which the church can well subsist?

Whether that great tenderness toward sectaries, which now so much prevails, be chiefly owing to the fears of popery, or to that spirit of atheism, deism, scepticism, and universal immorality, which all good men so much lament?

Granting popery to have many more errors in religion, than any one branch of the sectaries, let us examine the actions of both, as they have each affected the peace of these kingdoms, with allowance for the short time which the sectaries had to act in, who are in a manner but of yesterday. The papists, in the time of king James the Second, used all endeavours to establish their superstition, wherein they failed by the united power of English church protestants, with the prince of Orange's assistance. But it cannot be asserted, that these bigotted papists had the least design to oppose or murder their king, much less to abolish kingly government; nor was it their interest or inclination to attempt either.

On the other side, the puritans, who had almost from the beginning of queen Elizabeth's reign been a perpetual thorn in the church's side, join