3. The one question which the gentleman desires to ask me goes on a very great mistake: his question is, "how an act requiring persons in offices to receive the sacrament according to the rites of the church of England made in 1661, could be intended to exclude presbyterians, when so many of their ministers continued still in possession of the public churches till 1662." If this gentleman had at all considered the corporation act, he would not have asked this question; for though the act was made in 1661, yet receiving the sacrament was not made a qualification for any office to which any person was called or elected before March 25, 1663, and the present act of uniformity took place in August, 1662; so that I must desire this gentleman to answer one question in his turn; whether receiving the sacrament from a non-conformist would have been allowed as a sufficient qualification within the meaning of the corporation act in any law court after March 25, 1663? and before that time there could be no question in law about it.

4. The stating of this case affords a very clear argument to justify the account I gave of this act, and of the true meaning of the sacramental test. By this act all officers in corporations are obliged to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, a new oath against the lawfulness of taking arms against the king, &c. and to subscribe a declaration about the solemn league and covenant, and to be qualified by having taken the sacrament within a year before their election, &c. It is to be observed that the three oaths were to be taken, and the declaration subscribed, by all who were in place on the 24th of December, 1661; but the sacramental test was required of such only as should be elected after the 25th of March, 1663. What was the reason, I pray you, of this difference? Was it not plainly this, that many churches being in the possession of nonconformists in 1661 and the year before, the parliament thought not fit to accept of any persons receiving the sacrament in the churches so possessed as an evidence of what they required, and knew that many persons well affected to the church of England had wanted opportunities of receiving according to the rites of the church for more than a year before the passing of the said act? For which reasons, though they immediately required the oaths and the subscription from all in offices in

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December, 1661, yet they required the sacramental test of such only as should be elected after March 25, 1663; by which time, and long before which time they well knew that the nonconformist preachers would be removed, and the rites of the church of England be established throughout the kingdom by their new act of uniformity. Had they intended to require the receiving the sacrament, as a mere external act, without any regard to the inward sentiments and affection of the receiver, (which is the bishop of Bangor's peculiar dream,) or did they intend to accept of such a receiving of the sacrament as might be consistent with the principles of dissenters, (which is the supposition of the two authors lately mentioned,) why did they not require this sacramental test of all in office in 61 and 62? For this very reason they did not require it, because many non-conformists were in possession of parish churches; and they very well knew that receiving the sacrament among the non-conformists was no evidence or test of conformity, which was the qualification they required, and intended to secure by the sacramental test.

I may be asked perhaps another question, whether the parliament intended to permit non-conformists to enjoy offices in corporations, provided they came in before 63; since they required not of such that they should receive the sacrament according to the rites of the church of England. My answer is, that they had no such intention; and there is a particular and very large power given the commissioners in the corporation act, which seems to me principally designed to supply this defect in the mean time. All who refused the three oaths and subscription were to be turned out of corporation places; but the commissioners had a farther power, which was to turn out of those who did take them, if they thought it expedient any for the public safety. The reason of this plainly was, that the corporations might be settled on a true foot at first; that those who were afterwards to be the electors of members of the corporations, should themselves be persons of unsuspected zeal for church and state. Farther, it may be observed that as the sacramental test did not take place till 63, so the commissioners had a power till 63 to put out of places any, though in other respects qualified by the act; which extraordinary power ceased

at the same time that the sacramental test commenced, which shows, I think, for what end chiefly the extraordinary power was granted, namely, for the effectual exclusion of such as were intended to be excluded by the test; since it was thought necessary only until the sacramental test could take place. If his lordship or his friends can give better or other reasons for not requiring the sacramental test of any in office before 63, and of the extraordinary power granted to the commissioners till that time and no longer, I should be glad to hear them; in the meanwhile this argument appears to me decisive in this case, that the sacramental test was required as an evidence of constant conformity and obedience, and good affection to the ecclesiastical establishment; and that the extraordinary power given to the commissioners was to enable them to exclude such as were justly suspected of non-comformity, lest such should fix themselves in corporations before the sacramental test took place.

His lordship's second argument to show my several very visible mistakes, is—

2. "The test act was particularly and peculiarly levelled at papists, and not at non-conformists in general; nor at all at protestant dissenters, against whom now the dean so strenuously urges it. It was not, in the original design of it, a law for the particular security of the church of England as such, or of the ecclesiastical constitution of the realm, as he is pleased here to affirm it to be; but for the security of the state, and of the whole protestant cause, against papists alone, as he himself in effect afterwards owns."

This cavil might have been spared, had there been any inclination to fair dealing; because to avoid a dispute of no consequence in the present debate, except only to amuse the ignorant, I had referred for the extent of the test act in relation to dissenters, to the act of toleration, which expressly declares it to extend to protestant dissenters: let the particularity therefore and peculiarity of the test act in its original design be what it will, yet ever since the first of William and Mary it has by act of the legislature been bound on dissenters; it is a limitation and condition of their toleration; the same law which gives them one, declares and continues them liable to the other. This

being the fact, is it not of mighty consequence in the present case to repeat it thirty or forty times over, that the original design of the act was particularly and peculiarly against papists?

But what, does his lordship think that king, lords, and commons had lost all their senses in the twenty-fifth of King Charles; and that they passed an act which did and necessarily would (as things then stood) affect all dissenters, and yet without any design or intention to affect them at all? Is making of laws too become a mere external act, to which there goes no reason, design, or intention of the law-maker? This must be the case, or else it was part of the intention of the test act to exclude dissenters; since all the world knows it did, and foresaw that it would exclude them. Have we not been often told, and particularly by the late Bishop of Salisbury,* of the great merit of Alderman Love, a dissenter, who declared for himself and others that they would readily submit to the test, and not oppose it on their own account, for fear of stopping the security which the nation would have by that act? Does not Mr. Lowman tell us that it was an honor to the protestant dissenters that they so readily and generously gave up privileges they then enjoyed by law, for the sake of having the test act passed? And what now? Did the dissenters only see what effect the act would have? nay, did others not see it when the dissenters themselves declared the effect to them? or must we say that the legislature did certainly know that the dissenters would be affected by the act, and yet passed the act without any design or intention to affect them, (though without any exception in favor of them,) but particularly and peculiarly to affect papists, and them only? His lordship tells us that he deals not in legal suppositions, and yet methinks it would be but a small favor in him to suppose that our law-makers have common sense.

The truth is, that the test act was chiefly but not peculiarly designed against the papists. All the world saw what effect it would have on dissenters, and the act passed the more readily because this effect was seen, because it was understood that the test would guard the church and state from the attempts of

*

Speech in the House of Lords on the Occasional Bill, 1704.

papists on one hand, and of dissenters on the other; and so little has this effect on dissenters been disowned or disliked by the legislature since, that at a time when they were most inclined to favor dissenters, and granted them a toleration, they took care explicitly and expressly to continue the test act on them.

His lordship adds, that this act was not made for the particular security of the church of England; that is, it was not made (as he explains himself) for the security of the church exclusive of the state; and who said it was? Let those who said it answer his lordship; but it follows that this act was made for the security of the whole protestant cause. Now the true design of the act was to secure the protestant interest as established in the king's dominions, which is indeed in consequence a security to the whole protestant cause; but will it follow from hence that it was not immediately intended for the security of the church of England? Will his lordship undertake to prove that this act, which excluded all dissenters from places of trust, was intended as much for the security of non-conformity as a part of protestantism, as it was for the security of the church established, whose members only were left capable of any share in the government? Could that parliament which esteemed the separation from the church of England to be a great weakening of the whole protestant cause, which had laid great penalties on all who taught in meeting-houses, and on all who were present at such teaching; could they, to secure the whole, intend to secure conventicles, which they thought destructive of the protestant interest as well as of the church? Whither will some men's abilities carry them, and how dangerous a snare is it to a man to imagine that he can prove or confute any thing at pleasure! But however, how does his lordship prove that the intent of this act was not for the particular security of the church of England? We have only his word that the act has no such meaning; on the other side I had produced the authority of the legislature, the crown, and the two houses of parliament, declaring this act to have been made for the security of the church of England as by law established; and notwithstanding the deference I have to his lordship's opinion even when he pleases to conceal his reasons, I cannot but still think