which it is received, implies no civil obligation at all. The communicant may consider the action in his own light, and many will do it as a token of Christian fellowship with other Christians of a different communion. On this idea the famous Mr. Baxter, though a steady Dissenter, (having refused a bishopric that was offered him,) chose to communicate once a-year with the Church of England; and other Dissenters have voluntarily done the same; not as members of the Church of England themselves, but to shew their brotherly respect for it.

If the sense of the legislature may be adınitted in the interpretation of any law, a Dissenter may have less scruple in communicating with the Church of England in order to his admission into any civil office, because it is well known that the law was not meant to exclude Dissenters, but only Catholics.

According, therefore, to the manner in which the Lord's Supper is required to be received by candidates for civil offices, it is no security at all to the Church of England, but a horrible profanation of one of her sacred rites, and such as must be the occasion of much scandal to the truly pious members of your church. If a man perform any religious act, whatever it be, he should be left to his own liberty to perform it when he finds himself in a proper disposition for it. But in this case, whether a man think himself qualified or unqualified, whether he be disposed or indisposed to the religious exercise, the ceremony must be performed. What pain, then, must this give to serious clergymen, who are directed by the canons of the church not to give the communion to persons whom they deem to be unworthy, and yet are compellable by act of parliament to administer it, without distinction, to all who are appointed to public offices! †

Now, though I differ from you, who are of the Church of England, with respect to some of your tenets, and the form of your church government, I trust we feel alike for the honour of what is common to us as Christians; and this, you must confess, is disgraced by the statutes which we petition to have repealed. They are such statutes as unbe

See Reliq. Baxt. Pt. ii. p. 444; Pt. iii. pp. 46, 52.

+ A serious member of the Church of England happening to attend prayers in a church where, without his knowing it, it was the custom to administer the Lord's Supper for the sake of qualifying persons to receive civil offices, chose to communicate with them. But when he was afterwards taking his hat to walk out, the clerk stepped up to him, and said, "Sir, it will do you no good if you have not a certificate." (P.)

lievers would have made, in order to turn your sacraments and your religion into ridicule. If, therefore, you really wish to exclude us Dissenters from all civil offices, do it effectually, but in a more decent and proper manner, such as will shew that it is your religion that you value, and that you wish to guard by this provision. But if you find, as you must have done already, that no inconvenience has, in fact, arisen from Dissenters (among whom are to be reckoned Scotchmen, who, though Presbyterians, must take the Test as well as we) being in civil offices, and there are, perhaps, as many of them in such offices now, as there would be if the Test was abolished, throw it aside at once, as a thing that is equally disgraceful and useless, and provide no substitute for it at all.

How weak, then, you see, is this barrier, which Mr. Madan says, "the wisdom of a former age has erected for its defence," viz. that of your church," and which the experience of a century has proved to be effectual!"* I think, however, that I have abundantly shewn, that this is ascribing a great deal too much to this boasted statute, whereas it is only like a fly upon the chariot wheel, saying, What a dust I raise! If the experience of a century has proved this barrier to be effectual, the experience of two preceding centuries, and also that of Ireland at present, proves it to be perfectly insignificant.

If you look into the Resolutions passed by the clergy at their several meetings, to defeat our application to parliament, or into the pamphlets that have been written by the friends of the Establishment on the subject, you will find them triumphing most of all in asserting the right that all men, and all societies of men, have to choose their own servants, and to say who they are that they think proper to trust with any degree of power. This country, they say, has even laid similar restrictions on the exercise of kingly power, by making a Roman Catholic ineligible to that office. What, then, say they, have Dissenters to complain of more than other classes of persons, even the highest?

Now, my friends, we never questioned the absolute right of the legislature to pass any act respecting Dissenters, or any other description of men, but only the wisdom of their conduct. It will not be denied but that any man has a right to employ one of his hands to cut off the other, but would not all the world call him a fool for so doing?

The legislature of this country may, no doubt, carry their • Sermon, p. 23. (P.)

plan of disabilities, in a variety of respects, much farther than they have done. They might exclude all officers of the army or navy, all lawyers, all tradesmen, and even all bishops, from a seat in either house of parliament. An act may be made to prevent the king employing in his service all men who have red hair, or, if that be complained of as a natural incapacity, all who should wear wigs. But the question is, whether it would be wise to act in this manner, whether it would be consulting the good of the country to subject the executive power to such restrictions. Now, we think it as unwise, and therefore, strictly speaking, as wrong, and as contrary to proper and natural right, to say that the king and the country shall not be served by Dissenters, if, in other respects, they be well qualified to serve them.

I would farther observe, that this business would be better conducted if Dissenters, as such, were absolutely prohibited from being admitted into civil offices; so that their nomination and election should be null and void, and not permit them, as is the case at present in corporate towns, to have a regular nomination to an office, and to allow the validity of their acts while they are in it, and then subject them to a dreadful penalty, such as nothing but the greatest of crimes can justify, for having accepted it. For the penalty is the payment of five hundred pounds, being disabled from suing or prosecuting in any court of law, being guardians of any child, being executors or administrators of any person, and being incapable of receiving any legacy or deed of gift. * There is nothing in the civil policy of any other country so cruel, and at the same time so insidious, as this. This is in a country the laws of which, and especially its criminal law, is so much the boast of its inhabitants !+ However, great numbers of the members of your church are just now in the same situation, so that, if the Dissenters were so disposed, they might take ample revenge. For if the prosecution be begun before the Act of Indemnity (which, from: the general neglect of complying with the Test, is always found necessary every sessions of Parliament) be passed, the law must have its course. But I hope no Dissenters will follow such an example, if it should be set them by any members of the Church of England. I trust we are better Christians. I am, &c.

"Or to bear any office." See "The Penal Laws against Papists and Popish Recusants, Nonconformists and Nonjurors," 1723, p. 64.

Who are rather now (1821) beginning to feel the deep disgrace of the sanguinary character which distinguishes their criminal law from that of other civilized nations.

LETTER V.

Of the Defeat of the Dissenters in the House of Commons, March 2, 1790, and the Conduct of the Clergy in procuring it.

SINCE I wrote the preceding letter, your clergy (for it has been their measure and not yours, and in the pursuit of it they have consulted their enmity to the Dissenters rather than either their own reason, or your interest) have gained their point. After a full discussion of the question before the House of Commons, a great majority appeared against the repeal. The clergy have had their triumph, and, no doubt, exult in our defeat; nor do we envy them; for we are not in the least discouraged. We know mankind too well to expect that, imposed upon as they have been so long, they will hear the plainest reasons the first, or the second time that they are presented to them. Assure yourselves that they will be presented again and again, a fourth, a fifth; and, if necessary, a fiftieth time. We shall give abundant exercise for the talent your clergy appear to have for invective, and many more inflammatory sermons, such as Mr. Madan's, will be preached and published. We also, while we are able to speak, shall preach, and while the press is open to us, we shall not fail to write, in our own defence; and after a few years more, the nation at large must be stupid indeed, if they do not perfectly understand the subject. And as we are more than ever confident that reason, justice, and sound policy are clearly on our side, we have no doubt but that the final decision will be in our favour. We shall even ask more than we have hitherto done, and shall not be refused.

When we consider how many more friends we have now, that all the influence of a popular king, and all the arts of an insidious minister are against us, (no stone having been left unturned to defeat our application,) than we had in the two last reigns, when the court was uniformly in our favour, we are convinced that liberal sentiments, favourable to our just claims, have gained much ground; and we are confident, from the increasing liberality of the age, (the progress of which all the clergymen in England can no more put a

• On a division the numbers were, Noes 294, Yeas 105. See supra, p. 137.

stop to, than they can prevent the sun, after he is risen, from ascending to his meridian altitude,) will gain ground more and more. As to the clergy, we make ourselves perfectly easy about them. For should the court once more smile upon us, (and courts, you know, are changeable things,) should the minister of the day only give a single nod, their opposition will vanish as by a charm. It will be like throw. ing a few drops of Dr. Franklin's oil upon the waves, which will make their troubled waters as smooth as a lookingglass. Mr. Madan may preach again from the same text, to "speak evil of no man," and to "be gentle towards all men," but it will be a very different sermon from that which is now hefore you, and much more agreeable to the spirit of the apostle. The bishops of this reign would, in such a case, instantly become as liberal as those of the last; and as to the inferior clergy, they would wheel about as quickly as soldiers on a parade when the word of command is given in the presence of the King in St. James's Park. Indeed, to be consistent with themselves, they must obey the higher powers, whatever they are. For "the powers that be, are ordained of God," and therefore "to resist the power," as Mr. Madan has been careful to remind you, is "to resist the ordinance of God."

Should the King, like Ahasuerus in the book of Esther, (vi. 1,)" not be able to sleep," and call upon one of the Lords of his Bedchamber" to read to him out of the book of the records of the Chronicles" of the Kings of England, and should there find who had been the most zealous for the revolution under King William, for the accession of the House of Hanover, and for the suppression of the rebellions in 1715 and 1745, and who took his part even in a late change of administration,† and then inquire what honour and dignity (vi. 6,) had been done to his friends, and the friends of his family, and learn that, instead of any thing having been done to reward, much had been done to mortify and punish them; that to this very day they had been persecuted by lies and calumnies, as men whose "laws are divers from all people, neither keep they the King's laws," and therefore say, that "it is not for the King's profit to

* Dr. Franklin, " on his passage to America, in the summer of 1762, observed the singular effect produced by the agitation of a vessel, containing oil, floating on water. The surface of the oil remains smooth and undisturbed, whilst the water is agitated with the utmost commotion." Works of Franklin, 1802, I. p. 153. See Ann. Reg. XVIII. pp. 70, 78.

In 1783. See supra, p. 152; High-Church Politics, pp. 167, 173, 174.