fessed, was held upon this subject, so long since as the beginning of the present century, by a bishop in the house of lords.

Now although it should be admitted, that the fact was, as it is represented by the protestant dissenters; still it may be reasonable to ask them, whether they conceive that the general danger from popery, which their ancestors so much dreaded, is now in such degree removed, that papists may with safety be admitted to those places of authority and trust, from which the Corporation and the Test Acts exclude them. Because if the danger still continue, it may become the non-conformists of the present times to imitate the example of their ancestors, which they so much extol; and to submit chearfully to particular inconveniences for the general good.

But to this they have a ready answer. The oaths of allegiance and supremacy, they say, with the declaration against transubstantiation, would be sufficient for the security of Protestantism against popery, without the sacramental Test. Our ancestors indeed thought otherwise. They thought oaths and declarations insufficient without the barrier of the Test. Perhaps it might ill become private citizens, without some better authority than merely that of their own judgments, to agitate a question, which the legislature of the country hath once solemnly decided. But to experience, in this age of experiment, an appeal will lie even against the decisions of public legislative wisdom. The oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the declaration against transubstantiation have been found effectual for more than a cen

tury, to exclude papists from both houses of parliament*." Why then should not the same oaths, with the declaration, be effectual, without the sacramental Test, to exclude papists from all those offices, from which the Corporation and Test Acts were intended to exclude them?

But this reasoning is fallacious, proceeding to its conclusion through the medium of a false fact, assumed upon the evidence of an imaginary or misinterpreted experience. The exclusion of papists, for more than a century, from both houses of parliament, if it hath not been effected by the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the declaration against transubstantiation, can be no argument of the probable efficacy of the same oaths and the same declaration for other exclusions. Now the truth is, that the exclusion of papists for the last century, from parliament, hath not been the effect of any oaths or declarations. For if it be supposed that papists, during all this time have been governed by their old principles, no oaths or declarations, made to a government, which their Church hath deemed heretical, can have bound their conscience. The notoriety of their popery, and the dread and abhorrence of the principles of the Church of Rome, which the people of this country in general entertain, have been the real, oaths and declarations have been only the apparent means of their exclusion from the house of commons. No one can withput some notoriety of character, become a candidate for a seat in parliament. His situation in life must

See the Case. 8. 5.

be conspicuous and respectable: his family and his connections must be known. It is difficult for any one, in this rank of life, to make a secret of his religion; and to a papist, the difficulty is heightened by the very nature of his religion; which delighting, as it does, in externals, tends to the discovery. And so great, even in these times of indifference, is the dread of popery, that were a reputed papist to become a candidate to represent the most corrupt borough in the kingdom, it would be impossible that he should carry his election. In the upper house, papists have been excluded from the seats, to which birth might entitle them, not by oaths and declarations, but by the sentiments inseparable from hereditary no bility. A person in this high rank appears as a patron and protector of any party to which he may belong. And whatever general opprobrium may follow the party, something of respect and honour waits upon the character of a powerful chief. The distinction gained in his own party, is a compensation to every peer of the Roman communion, for the consequence which he loses in the State, by an adherence to the religion of his ancestors. He therefore chearfully excludes himself from his hereditary place in the legislative council; especially when his admission to it cannot be attained, without mean dissimulations, which would wound his feelings as a man of honour, whatever subterfuges the casuastry of his Church may have provided for his conscience. The end of the Corporation and the Test Acts, is to exclude persons of a far inferior condition, from far inferior situations; and persons of all conditions, from situa

tions to which neither birth, nor the choice of the people, but the favour of the court gives admission. It was the purpose of these acts to exclude persons, upon whom the generosity of inbred sentiment might lay no powerful restraint, persons whose attachments and persuasions might be more easily concealed, from offices in corporations; in which the share, which those who are placed in them acquire, in the management of elections, in the patronage of livings, in the superintendance of religious, literary, and charitable foundations, would, in the hands of those who should not be friends to the establishment in Church and State, to which it was supposed no one of the Roman Church at that time could be a friend, be a means of slowly and secretly undermining the constitution; and to exclude unfit persons of all ranks from places conferred by the favour of the crown; that the crown might not be at liberty, if at any time ill-advised it should have the inclination, to exert its influence, for the re-establishment of the papal tyranny. These were the views with which the Corporation and the Test Act were introduced. And unless it can be allowed, that the danger from popery is in such degree diminished; that papists may, with safety to the civil and religious constitution, be allowed to have a principal share in the elections of members of parliament, in the patronage of Churchlivings, in the appointment of professors, of masters of colleges and schools, and governors of hospitals; (of colleges, schools, and hospitals endowed too with the wealth of pious church-men) unless it be allowed that papists are fit persons to bear commissions in

the army and the navy, to bear offices of command and trust under his majesty, or by authority derived from him, from many of which places they cannot be excluded by the same means, which have effected their exclusion from either house of parliament; nor by any oaths or declarations, with which their Church takes upon her to dispense; unless the safety of admitting papists to all these places be allowed, the necessity of the sacramental Test, for the security of the reformed Religion in this country, must be the same now, as when the Test was first exacted; and the political inexpediency of the proposed repeal must over-rule the plea, which the nonconformists of the present day would build upon the good services of their ancestors.

Indeed, without extending our views to the interests of the protestant cause in general, any otherwise than as those general interests must, in the nature of the thing, in every country depend upon the stability of some particular establishment; the political argument against the proposed repeal, as it respects only the particular security of the Church by law established, will greatly countervail any plea of hereditary merit on the side of the nonconformists. Not but that churchmen will readily allow, what the nonconformists, if they would be consistent with their own conduct upon a late occasion, must be careful how they deny; that the danger from popery either to the protestant cause in general, or to the constitution of this country in particular, is from various causes much diminished. The spirit