and for that moderation and liberality of sentiment, by which the church had flourished during the two last reigns and the present, was she indebted to those very dissenters from whom she thought herself in danger.

With regard to the test act, he thought that the best argument which could be used in its favour was, that if it had but little good effect, it had also little bad. In his opinion, it was altogether inadequate to the end which it had in view. The purport of it was, to protect the established church, by excluding from office every man who did not declare himself well affected to that church. But a professed enemy to the hierarchy might go to the communion table, and afterwards say, that in complying with a form enjoined by law, he had not changed his opinion, nor, as he conceived, incurred any religious obligation whatever. There were many men, not of the established church, to whose services their country had a claim. Ought any such man to be examined before he came into office, touching his private opinions? Was it not sufficient that he did his duty as a good citizen? Might he not say, without incurring any disability, "I am not a friend to the church of England, but I am a friend to the constitution, and on religious subjects must be permitted to think and act as I please." Ought their country to be deprived of the, benefit which she might derive from the talents of such men, and his majesty prevented from dispensing the favours of the crown, except to one description of his subjects? But whom did the test exclude? the irreligious man, the man of profligate principles, or the man of no principle at all? Quite the contrary; to such men the road to power was open; the test excluded only the man of tender conscience; the man who thought religion so distinct from all temporal affairs, that he held it improper to profess any religious opinion whatever, for the sake of a civil office. Was a tender conscience inconsistent with the character of an honest man? or did a high sense of religion shew that he was unfit to be trusted?

But the noble lord contended, that the established church ought to be protected. Granting this, it was next to be enquired, what was the established church? Was the church of England the established church of Great Britain? Certainly not; it was only the established church of a part of it; for, in Scotland, the kirk was as much established by law, as the church was in England. The religion of the kirk was wisely secured as the established religion of Scotland by the articles of union; and it was surely absurd to say, that a member of the kirk of Scotland, accepting an office under government, not for the service of England

1

exclusively, but for the service of the united kingdoms, should be obliged to conform, not to the religious establishment of Scotland, in which he had been bred, but to the religious establishment of England. It was singular to contend for any principle of persecution, when the only principle on which it could ever have been reconciled to a rational mind was abandoned, not only in speculation, but in practice. In ancient times, persecution originated in the generous, though mistaken principle, that there could be but one true religion, but one faith, by which men could hope for salvation; and that it was not only lawful but meritorious, to compel them to embrace the true faith, by all the means, of whatever nature they might prove, which offered. The rectitude of the intention might, perhaps, be some excuse for the barbarity of the practice. But how did we act? We acknowledged, not one true religion, but two true religions; a religion for England, and a religion for Scotland; and having been originally liberal in the institution of two churches of equal right, we became illiberal in our more enlightened days, and granted to the members of one established church, what we denied to those of another, equally established. According to this doctrine of protecting the church of England, if the practice had kept pace with the principle, the country must have been deprived of all those gallant characters of the kirk of Scotland, who had so eminently distinguished themselves in the army and the navy; and of all those celebrated legislators and senators who had added learning and dignity to the courts of justice, and wisdom to his majesty's councils. If tests were right, the present was clearly a wrong test, because it shunned all the purposes for which tests were originally introduced.

The candour of the noble lord, and the information which, doubtless, he had collected upon enquiry since, Mr. Fox said, had enabled him to satisfy the House in a point which had not been answered two years ago, and that was, in the case of a person who was a notorious evil doer, who applied for the sacrament. The manner of the noble lord's answer was rational, and, from the good sense of it, he had no doubt that it was the true answer; but, upon this ground, it might be proper to take a serious view of the melancholy situation of the person who, upon application to a minister, had been refused, the sacrament. From that very moment, did he incur the penalties of the act; from that moment, was he punished in a manner perfectly unexampled, and unauthorised by the laws of the land; from that moment, was he convicted without a trial by jury, and disabled from enjoying an office which his majesty, in the legal exercise

of his prerogative, might have thought proper to confer upon him.

Much boasted reliance had been placed upon the old argument of the length of time that the test and corporation acts had subsisted. It was true, that they had so subsisted for nearly a century: but how had they subsisted? By repeated suspensions; for the indemnity bills were, he believed, literally speaking, annual acts. With regard to the noble lord's argument relative to the evading of these indemnity bills, he admitted, that if any person neglected to conform merely for the sake of evading the law, he certainly acted in direct opposition to an act of parliament, and did not conduct himself as a good subject ought to do. While an act was deemed fit to remain in force, it was the duty of every good subject not to evade it. Indeed, the only justification of evading a statute which could be for a moment maintained, was, where that statute notoriously ought not to remain in force. He trusted, however, that the House would consent to go into the committee, to examine whether it was fitting or necessary to be repealed or not, and not deny the requisition, as if they were ashamed even to look at the statutes in question. He trusted that it was scarcely necessary to remind the House that, in consequence of a violent alarm from the papists, the test act had been introduced, with a view to exclude them, and them only, from office; that the dissenters had cordially joined in it, and consented to their own exclusion, thinking that a less evil than to leave the door open to papists. And is it possible, therefore, (added Mr. Fox,) that you can thus ungenerously requite them; thus take a most unbecoming advantage of their patriotism, and convert what they consented to as necessary for the general safety at that time, into a perpetual exclusion against themselves! Is it thus that the church would reward the service which they had done her in the day of her distress!

Adverting to the Occasional Conformity act, which had been repealed a few years since, Mr. Fox observed, that they had heard, during the course of the debate, that the church of England was in its glory. The church of England, therefore, according to the arguments of the noble lord, and the advocates for the continuance of the statutes, which, he contended, were at once too needless and too unjust to remain in force any longer, had not suffered, but gained by what they feared would have proved detrimental to her interests. The dissenters had been stated to be pious and good men; but it had been said, that they might nevertheless be no friends to the church of England. Surely, if they were dangerous any where, it must be as members of parliament, and

as electors of the representatives of the people; and yet they were suffered to sit as the one, and vote as the other. Mr. Fox declared that, for his own part, he was a friend to an established religion in every country, and wished that it might always be that which coincided most with the ideas of the bulk of the state, and the general sentiments of the people. In the southern parts of Great Britain, hierarchy was the established church, and in the northern, the kirk; and for the best possible reason, because they were each most agreeable to the majority of the people in their respective situations. It would, perhaps, be contended, that the repeal of the corporation and test acts might enable the dissenters to obtain a majority. This he scarcely thought probable; but it appeared fully sufficient to answer, that if the majority of the people of England should ever be for the abolition of the established church, in such a case, the abolition ought immediately to follow.

To the opinion of the honourable gentleman who opened the debate, that there were too many oaths imposed by the statutes in force, Mr. Fox observed that he most thoroughly assented. What, he desired to know, could be a greater proof of the indecency resulting from the practice of qualifying by oaths, than if, when a man was seen upon the point of taking the sacrament, it should be asked, "Is this man going to make his peace with Heaven, and to repent him of his sins?" the answer should be, "No; he goes to the communion table, only because he has lately received the appointment of first lord of the treasury!" When the noble lord in the blue ribband represented the corporation act to have been forced from the legislature as an act of selfdefence, he might truly be said to have entered into the exact description of an act which, after the lapse of a century, when the grounds and reasons for passing it no longer existed, ought to be repealed. The noble lord had accurately stated, that the corporation act was forced from the legislature in the reign of Charles the second, by the violence of the sectaries, which had not only overturned the church, but the state, and that so lately, that threatening to do the same again, it became necessary to apply a present preventive, to guard against the impending danger. No better argument, he repeated, need be urged against it now, than that it had been extorted a century ago from the legislature, by resentment of past and the dread of future injuries. Fear and indignation had operated on the parliament of Charles the Second. Did the same motives operate on the parliament of George the Third? Certainly not; and could there be any reason for continuing an act, when the violence which gave birth to it

had, long since, subsided? Party and religion were separate in their views and in their nature; and as it was for the reputation of both that they should remain so, he therefore urged the injustice of harassing with penalties, disabilities, and statutable restrictions, the dissenters; a respectable body of men, whose morals were not inconsistent with the religion of the church of England, and whose sentiments were favourable to the family on the throne.

It had been said, that in France it was customary for protestants to be employed in the army and in civil offices, and that in protestant countries abroad, papists were also employed. For the purpose of invalidating this remark, the noble lord had given an ingenious and able answer; but let it be examined. The noble lord had said, that the monarch of a free country was limited, while the employing whom the prince pleased was one of the trivial advantages incidental to absolute power. Let not, then, Great Britain be the last to avail herself of such an advantage. Wisdom had been described as the offspring of freedom; and should a people, who boasted of their freedom, and amongst whom, he firmly believed, men of enlightened understandings were more common than among those who lived under a less happy form of government, reject those liberal principles of toleration which other nations had adopted? It was upon such a ground that, addressing himself to the church of England in particular, he felt himself justified in accosting her, as a friendly adviser, in language to this effect;

"Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo!"

any

And surely the church of England ought, if possible, more than other ecclesiastical establishment upon earth, práctically to inculcate the glorious idea that indulgence to other sects, the most candid allowance for the diversity of their opinions, and a sincere zeal for the advancement of mutual charity and benevolence, were the truest and the happiest testimonies which she could give of the divine origin of her religion! Mr. Fox concluded with giving his hearty assent

to the motion.