offended against them?" Sir, if the In-seded, and that the Dissenters should be demnity Act does protect from the dread- excluded from the service of the State? ful penalties of those statutes, all such That a regard to the general good controls persons as have executed civil offices, or all other considerations is readily admitted; have held commissions in the army or the and therefore all arguments to prove this navy, without the sacramental qualifica- point, if any such should be urged, will tion, then, what inconvenience can arise be very superfluous. But then it is equally from a repeal of the statutes themselves? certain, that considerations of general If, by the annual Indemnity Act, the good can never justify any invasion of execution of the law is relinquished, where civil rights that is not essential to that is the objection to a repeal of the law good: the ends of civil society can never itself? To preserve the claim to a test justify any abridgement of natural rights from the Dissenters, when the exercise that is not essential to these ends. If of the claim is abandoned, may answer then I shall be able clearly to demonstrate the purposes of irritation, but cannot an- that the continuance of those acts which swer the purposes of power. The claim invade the rights of the Dissenters, is not in that case operates merely as a corrosive necessary to the general good of the kingto a wound that otherwise would heal; it dom, is not necessary to the well-being stimulates jealousies that otherwise would of the State, is not necessary to the esta sleep; it agitates passions that otherwise blishment of the national Church, then it would be at rest. will follow, as a certain conclusion, that they ought to be repealed. Stronger still will be the argument for that repeal, if I can prove (as I confidently trust I shall) that those Acts are not only useless, but are actually pernicious both to the State and Church. But, in truth, Sir, the Indemnity Act does not protect the Dissenters from the Test and Corporation laws; for its only effect is, that of allowing farther time to those trespassers on the law, against whom final judgment has not been awarded. Should, for example, a prosecution have been commenced, but not concluded, the Indemnity Act does not discharge the proceedings; it merely suspends them for six months; so that if the party accused does not take the Sacrament before the six months allowed by the Indemnity Act shall expire, the proceedings will go on, and, long before the next Indemnity Act will come to his relief, final judgment will be awarded against him. Thus it appears, that the Indemnity Act gives no effectual protection to the Dissenter who accepts a civil office or military command; for he who cannot take the Sacrament at all, cannot take it within the time required by that Act. The penalties of the Test Act will consequently follow: he becomes incapable of receiving any legacy, of executing any trust, or of suing in any court, or on any occasion, for justice he is placed in the dreadful situation of an outlaw. Since, then, the Dissenters have a right as men to think for themselves in matters of religion, and since they have a right as citizens to a common chance with their fellow-subjects for offices of civil and military trust, if their sovereign should deem them worthy of his confidence, the only remaining question is,-does the public good require, do the ends of civil society require that these rights should be super To show how unnecessary, how very useless, the exclusion the Dissenters from the offices of executive power demonstrably is, it will be sufficient to remark, that to the higher trust of legislative authority the Dissenters are admitted without hesi tation or reserve. Of that power which controls the executive, they have, equally with their fellow-citizens, a full and free participation. From the members of this House, from the members of the House of Peers, no religious test is required. Is then the taking the Sacrament unnecessary in the legislators of the kingdom, who hold in their hands the lives and fortunes of their countrymen; and can it be requisite from the commissioners of the common sewers? Is the profession of a particular faith of more consequence in an exciseman than in a member of the House of Commons? Or must the office of a land-waiter be guarded by other proofs of attachment to the Church than those which are deemed sufficient from a peer? Are oaths without the Sacrament an adequate security from innovation, when administred to those who may change the established religion if they will; and are not the same oaths equally sufficient when administered to those who have no power to introduce the smallest alteration? The advocates for the continuance of the Test Act are reduced to this obvious dilemma. If they say that the state can never be secure unless the test of the Sacrament be demanded from the legislators of the country, experience refutes their assertion. If they say that the security of the state requires from executive officers a stronger pledge than is requisite from legislators-that it requires a stronger pledge from those who cannot change the established religion, than it does from those who can; the assertion refutes itself. I have heard of an idle opinion, that there is something of a republican tendency, something of an anti-monarchical bias in the very doctrines of the Presbyterian church. In reply to that opinion, if indeed it deserves a reply, I appeal to the principles and practice of the inhabitants of that part of the island in which the Presbyterian church is established by law. Are the Scots suspected of an indifference to monarchy? Are they accused of an unwillingness to support the dignity and power of the Sovereign? Is the prerogative of the Crown that part of the constitution which they are the least anxious to uphold? I have heard them taxed with a predilection for those maxims of policy which are the most favourable to power; but of levelling principles, of republican attachments, I have never heard them accused. Or if we speak of the English Dissentters, who will deny that, from the time that the establishment of William 3 on the throne of England gave her a constitution, (for till then her government scarcely deserved this name) the Dissenters have uniformly acted on principles the most constitutional, and have constantly proved themselves the ardent friends, the active supporters, the firm and faithful adherents of that system of monarchy which was then established by law? Or who will deny, that, from the accession of his Majesty's family to the Crown, no class of his subjects have shown themselves more fervently attached to the person of the Sovereign? Can these things be admitted, and can it still be asserted that the exclusion of the Dissenters from the service of the public is necessary or beneficial to the state? "To the state separately considered," (will probably be the reply)" we acknowledge that the exclusion of the Dissenters cannot be deemed beneficial; but we think their exclusion is essential to the security of the Established Church." This point therefore is next to be discussed. In all the controversies I have ever heard [VOL. XXVI.] . on the subject, the persons who object to the repeal of the Test Act, uniformly insist upon a maxim, the truth of which I perfectly admit, but which does not bear upon the point, the maxim "that the Established Church ought not to be destroyed." God forbid that the Church of England should be destroyed, or that I should advise a measure of real hazard to her safety. The apprehension arises from a habit of confounding two ideas which in themselves are perfectly distinct: the idea of giving to a particular church a national establishment, and the idea of confining to that church all the offices of executive government. The establishment of a church requires a legal provision for its ministers; but it does not require for its laity an exclusive right to civil and military trusts. The establishment of the Church of England consists in her tithes, her prebendaries, her canonries, her archdeaconries, her deaneries, and her bishoprics. They constituted her establishment before the Corporation and Test Acts had an existence; and they will equally constitute her establishment if these Acts should be repealed. In Scotland no such laws as the Test and Corporation Acts ever had a being; yet who will assert that in Scotland there is no established church? Or who will de clare, from the history of that church, that she is weakly or imperfectly secured? In Ireland, the relief which is now solicited in this kingdom for the Protestant Dissenters, was granted seven years ago; yet who will say that the established church of Ireland is destroyed? Let me therefore intreat those members of the House who contend that a church establishment cannot be supported without a religious test, to consider for a moment what they undertake to prove. In the first place, they must prove that there never was an established church in England till the 25th year of the reign of Charles 2. In the next place, they must prove that there is not at this hour, and that there never was an established church in Scotland: that there is not, and that there never was, an established church in Holland: that there is not, and that there never was, an established church in the dominions of the empress of Russia, or in those of Prussia or of Hanover: that the emperor of Germany has destroyed the established church through all his dominions; and that the church of Ireland was annihilated seven years ago. [3 F] Thus it appears on the strongest of all evidence, the evidence of facts, that the supposition of the Test and Corporation Laws being necessary to the support of the Established Church is a weak and groundless surmise. Strength to the Church, and not weakness-security, and not danger-I shall prove by unanswerable arguments, will be the consequence of repealing those obnoxious laws; for the different classes of Dissenters have no general interest, no bond of union, no sufficient inducement, to support each other, but that reproachful exclusion from public employments which is common to them all. It is the hardship of being punislied without a crime, of being stript of their rights as citizens, without the suspicion of offence, of being placed by the law on a level with those who are perjured-it is this hardship which has given them a common cause. It is their sense of oppression, their resentment for injuries received, their indignation for unmerited disgrace, which has formed the alliance between the Presbyterian, the Independent, and the Baptist, and which has led them to forget their ancient disagreements in the contemplation of their common wrongs. the laity, and of excluding them from all Perhaps I shall be asked, (for I have heard such a question agitated)," Will not the repeal of the Test Act admit to offices of magistracy, and to every situation of civil and military trust, men of all professions, men of all possible faiths? May not a Roman Catholic be president of the council? May not a Mahometan, if he happen to be born in England, become an expounder of our laws, and preside in the Court of King's-bench? May not a Jew be made keeper of the King's conscience; and a worshipper of fire be seated in the Speaker's chair? If the Test Act be repealed, what security will the kingdom have against these strange and preposterous appointments?" To the first part of the question, that which relates to the Catholics, my answer is:—the oath of abjuration, the oath of supremacy, the declaration against the doctrine of tran Persons who know them not, may possibly suspect them of a secret design to invest their own ministers with the possessions of the Church; and may imagine that, in that design, a sufficient inducement to mutual amity and a common exertion will continue to exist. Yet the very persons who reason on this ground, even those whose suspicions are the most inveterate, must still admit that if, in their present situation, the Dissenters are urged by two different passions to wish the ruin of the Church, that of resentment for ex-substantiation, (every one of which will isting oppression, and that of an eager ambition for her wealth, the removal of the first and strongest of the two will take from them their principal impulse: nor can it be denied, that a league which rests on two motives, will be weakened when the most powerful of those motives is completely done away. Whence it follows, that even on the ground which the bitterest opponents of the Dissenters have taken against them, the proposed repeal will increase the security of the Church. But those who are at all acquainted with their real principles, perfectly well know, that among those principles, no one is more fundamental than that of keeping their ministers in perfect dependance on remain in full force, though the Corporation and Test Acts shall be repealed) are deemed sufficient in law, and have been found in practice actually sufficient to exclude the Catholics from an admission to either House of Parliament. Many gentlemen of that faith are of great fortune, and of the highest worth, and therefore of great influence in the country; yet who among them has ever been admitted to a seat within these walls? Some of them are hereditary members of the House of Peers, yet who of their profession has voted in that assembly? Now, if the oaths, and declaration against an essential doctrine of the Roman faith, have been found sufficient, without the Sacrament, § to exclude the Catholics from situations of legislative power; situations to which every motive of interest and ambition strongly invites them; can there be a doubt of the sufficiency of the same means to exclude them from the humbler offices of executive authority? To the second part of the question, "What security, if the Test and Corporation Acts should be repealed, will the public have that persons who are not even Christians, will be admitted to situations of civil and military trust?"-my answer is, the same security as before those Acts were passed. Their date, when compared with the age of the kingdom, is but of yesterday: yet, during the many hundred years which had elapsed from the time of the Norman conquest to the passing of those laws, I do not recollect that there is any instance upon record, of a Jew's being Lord Chancellor of England, or of a Musselman's advancement to the Court of King's-bench; or of a worshipper of fire being raised to the dignity of the Speaker's office.-Were there not legal obstacles to their admission to public employments, I should not think that the followers of Moses, of Mahomet, or of Zoroaster, would be the objects of the Sovereign's choice. So many things are entrusted to his discretion, that I should imagine this would not be the way in which the confidence reposed in him was most likely to be abused. But I need not dwell on arguments of this sort, for the oath of abjuration expressly excludes all persons but Christians; as it contains a positive declaration, that he who takes it, swears upon the faith of a Christian. Now this oath, (if I am permitted to proceed with my plan, and to bring in a bill for the purpose,) together with the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the declaration against the Catholic doctrine, of the nature of the consecrated bread and wine, will be required from all persons admitted to civil or military trust. When, then, I am asked, "If you abolish the test of the Sacrament, what new test will you establish in its room?" my answer is, that of the abjuration oath, and of the declaration which condemns an essential part of the Romish creed. The first cannot be taken by the Deist or the Jew, or the professor of any religion but the Christian. The last cannot be taken by the Catholic. Upon this plan, then, no person can be admitted to an employment, military or civil, but on two specific con ditions. The one is, that he give the same proofs of attachment to the state, the same pledges of fidelity for the discharge of an executive office, which is deemed sufficient in the members of the House of Commons, and in those of the House of Peers, for the faithful discharge of legislative trusts. The other is, that the Sovereign shall have sufficient confidence in his probity and merit, to select him from his fellow-citizens, as worthy of an employment in his service.-On these conditions, what danger of improper appointments can possibly arise? The offices to which the Dissenter will be admitted are merely executive; to which no legislative authority, no power of altering, in the least degree, the laws or religion of the country is attached; and from which, generally speaking, without any proof of offence, or any reason assigned, he may be removed at the pleasure of his Sovereign.-I hear it said, "but what if we cannot trust the Sovereign? what if the chief magistrate himself, from an enmity to the Church, or a wish to new-model the state, should call the Dissenters to his aid, and invite them to execute his scheme?" Sir, the attempt which is thus supposed has actually been made; the circumstances which are thus imagined have actually existed; for, till the 25th year of Charles the 2nd, the Test Act had not a being; and for some years before that time, it suited the purposes of this monarch to invite the Dissenters to his service, in which he hoped that, as a persecuted people, sheltering themselves under his protection, they would favour the designs he had formed against the laws and established religion of his country. Entreated with earnestness to the sun-shine of favour, the gates of the palace were thrown open to receive them. All that could please the vanity, or gratify the interest, or flatter the ambition of men, was profusely offered on the one hand, while on the other were shown them, scorn and ignominy; every hardship which law, wrested from its pur. poses by the hand of power, could impose, or that the persecuting statutes of Elizabeth could inflict;-penalties that could rob them of their all-bonds, too, and stripes, and the misery of a dungeon, where existence, by slow and lingering means, pines itself away;-they were told to take their choice. In this trying situation, in this dangerous alternative, the severest proof to which virtue can be ex posed, their country saw with what unshaken fortitude, with what constancy of mind, with what stedfast resolution they uniformly sustained their part. Unseduced, unterrified, they rejected with scorn, the offers of the Court, and quietly resigned themselves to those fetters, and to that imprisonment from which, generally speaking, the hour of release was the same, which conveyed them to their graves. The zeal of the Dissenters for the constitution of their country, is, then, undisputed: "But why," (say those who object to their relief) "why should we hazard any change in our laws? are we not in possession of inestimable blessings? does not the nation flourish in prosperity? have we not the experience of a hundred years of happiness in favour of this statute?" I answer, the prosperity you describe is tainted with injustice: the happiness of one part of the people is polluted by the oppression of another: there is no equality in this distribution. The Spaniard, who receives his annual returns from the labour of the Indians in his mine, (I purposely describe a case which, in its circumstances, is widely different from the present, the better to demonstrate the tendency of that principle which is common to them both), the Spaniard, when he hears the complaints of those unfortunate Peruvians, may answer, " Is not the nation prosperous; does not the nation flourish? have we not enjoyed the blessing of a long repose from the disasters that once afflicted the empire? Why, then, do these people complain? 'Tis true we have robbed them of many of their rights, but we have not deprived them of all. Are not many of the comforts of life still theirs? and on certain days of the year, which they belive to be holy, do we not permit them to worship, in their own way, the Being they adore ?-they ought to be satisfied; let us not hear of their complaints." This language of the Spaniard, however different the circumstances that give rise to it, is founded on the same principle on which the prayer of the Dissenters is opposed: for that principle is oppression; and if one degree of oppression may be defended, another degree of it, under different circumstances, may be defended also. Justice is a narrow path across an unlimitable ocean; he who quits her eternal line, whether the distance at which he leaves it be great or small, will equally find that there is no resting-place on which his wearied reason can long repose. But if justice be the principle upon which you decide, shall not the Catholics partake of its benefits? Shall not they as well as the Dissenters enjoy the advan tage of those common privileges of citizenship which you describe as the unquestionable right of all?" I answer, without hesitation-If the Catholics can prove, that though they are of the Church of Rome they are not of the Court of Rome. If they can give a sufficient pledge of loyalty to the Sovereign, and of attachment to the laws and constitution of their country (questions which at this time we are not called upon to decide, and which therefore I mean not to discuss,) I do think they ought to be admitted to the civil and military service of the State. One only objection to the proposed repeal, so far as I have heard the subject at any time discussed, still remains to be answered; and that is, "that the proposed relief of the Dissenters, however just in itself, may introduce less reasonable requests, and may lead to dangerous inno vations; for where shall the Legislature make its stand? Where shall it mark that limit?" My answer is, justice has marked that limit; she has drawn it with so strong a hand, that the most inattentive cannot but observe it, and the most incautious cannot heedlessly pass it. The Church has a right to her establishment, and the Dissenters have a right to a complete toleration. I use the words complete toleration,' because Dr. Paley, the present archdeacon of Carlisle, in his celebrated System of Morals, has observed-That is a right to which the Dissenters are entitled, but which, as long as they are subject to civil incapacities on account of their religious opinions, it is impossible to say they enjoy. Were I to judge from the language I have heard, I should imagine that even that imperfect restoration of their rights, which the Act of Toleration passed by the Legislature in the reign of king William, has granted to the Dissenters, is considered as a boon to which they had no claim, and which arose from pure benevolence. The generosity of that Act is extolled, as if there was a sort of merit in no longer attempting to lash men into conviction; to fetter their minds by the imprisonment of their bodies; to employ the gaoler as a missionary of the Gospel; or to commit violence and outrage in the name of the God of all peace. The Toleration Act restored to the |