Having now, he hoped, sufficiently argued the question on the ground of right, he should proceed to discuss its merits on the ground of policy and expedience. The reasons for the adoption of the test laws, by the wisdom of our ancestors, had not, in his opinion, ceased. Political expedience prohibited their abolition. To elucidate this matter he would inquire: First, whether au establishment was not necessary, and materially connected with the state? Secondly, whether the dissenters are not likely to exercise power, should they once have it in possession? Thirdly, would not the repeal of the test laws indulge them with that power? Fourthly, whether the dissenters labour under any practical inconveniences from the operation of the test laws? Fifthly, whether a repeal of them could take place consistently with the safety of the established church.

The necessity of an establishment was generally admitted, he believed, in that House. The right honourable gentleman had declared it highly useful and advantageous: an argument from him, therefore, in support of this position, was unnecessary. A just panegyric had been pronounced from the same high authority upon our present church establishment. It was said to be equally devoid of all unnecessary exterior ceremonies, as its interior rites were of superstition and enthusiasm. An argument to prove that the dissenters would exercise power when in possession of it, was also, in his opinion, useless: since the possession of power, it was well known, was always attended with a natural inclination to the exercise of it. Without intending to throw any stigma upon the dissenters, who were undoubtedly a respectable body, he did not hesitate, however, a moment in supposing it extremely probable that they might exercise their power to the subversion of the present establishment. Their conduct would not be reprehensible in acting from the principles they profess; for it became their duty as honest men, regarding as they do the established church as "sinful and bordering on idolatry," to act a conscientious and consistent part, by exercising every legal means in their power towards its subversion. To

as might endanger the establishment, was highly impolitic. Such a national establishment of religion as ours was capable of rendering essential services to the state: it was therefore entitled to the vigilant protection and support of the state in return. A national religion was calculated to meliorate the morals of the people, especially when its form was congenial to the civil constitution of the country.

He should not comment, he said, on the letters of the bishops, nor on the sermons of dissenting ministers, as he perfectly agreed in opinion with the right honourable gentleman, that matters of state ought not to be blended with religious duty. Such discordant mixture had been always attended with great mischief. It was the duty of men of such character to confine themselves to the purposes for which their employments had been instituted-to cultivate peace and good order; to instil into the minds of the public a rational love of Christian morality; to exhibit in their practice exemplarity of conduct for piety and virtue; to have no other competition than that recommended by the gospel, namely, who shall most contribute to promote the great ends of religion and morality. From such a contention, the state must derive the most important advantages; it were a warfare truly worthy the sacred title of religion. If an ecclesiastical establishment was necessary for the good of the state, as fact and experience had proved in many instances, both before and since the revolution; and as the power to be derived to the dissenters, from a repeal of the test laws, might endanger the church, and hazard the safety of our civil constitution, policy demanded the prevention of all possible danger to the state, from the prudent interference of the legislature, in rejecting every application, however respectable, that might lead to such serious inconvenience. The essence of policy consisted in the general good of the public: where the rights and interests of individuals, therefore, came in competition with those of the public, policy claimed precedence even of justice. Admitting the dissenters to endure some small practical inconvenience from the test laws, yet, if the general good and the public safety demanded such sacri

fices, as he must contend they did, their appeal to the legislature for redress, in the nature of justice, ought to be rejected.

But it had been contended, that no danger whatever could possibly arise to the constitution, either in church or state, from a simple repeal of the test laws, and that the dissenters would rest satisfied, and would trouble the legislature for no farther indulgence, provided their prescnt application proved successful. He would assure the dissenters, that he would neither deny them any right that belonged to them, nor would he refuse them any regulation which did not seem attended with any dangerous consequences; but as the object of their present application did, in his opinion, warrant a sufficient ground for apprehension and alarm, it was the duty of the House, as the faithful guardians of the constitution, to watch and repel the danger in due time. The dissenters had, the House would recollect, succeeded in their application about fourteen years ago, and obtained what had been considered as a completion of their toleration. It was then declared, both in and out of that House, that the dissenters intended to proceed no farther, if they only obtained the relief they then solicited; and Dr. Kippis, a man of no inconsiderable rank and esteem amongst them, in his letter upon the subject, declared, that after obtaining the toleration in question, they would ask no more of the legislature, but would retire, grateful and content, to their books and closets, impressed with a becoming sense of the great indulgence with which they had been favoured.

He must differ from the right honourable gentleman in his opinion, that if the test laws were once repealed, the dissenters would be desirous of proceeding no farther. Many gentlemen among them, who stood foremost in the present application, did, by their declarations, contradict such an opinion; they had openly avowed their disaffection to the constitution of the church; and although they had declared they were perfectly satisfied with the indulgence granted them by the legislature, and should apply no more, yet they had violated their promise by the present application; and from their professions, there was no judging with

what they would be satisfied. If the House should, in compliance with their wishes, consent to the repeal of the test laws, who could tell but their next application might be for an exemption from church dues? to which every argument advanced in support of the present question would equally apply. Now, an established religion had been admitted as necessary, useful, and advantageous to the civil government of a state; such an establishment ought, therefore, to be protected and supported by the government; and its expense should fall equally on all the members of the general community, in a certain proportion. A repeal, therefore, of the test laws could not, in his opinion, take place, consistently with the safety of the church, the security for the safety of which had not commenced at the revolution, as the right honourable gentleman had stated, but had been in existence long anterior to that date; and had there not existed such bulwarks of defence, previous to the revolution, that memorable event itself had never taken place. The continuation of the test laws was, then, highly expedient.

A reference had been made to the repeal of the test laws in Ireland, and no danger had ensued to the constitution. The situation of the Irish and English churches, he observed, were very materially different; the former found a security in the superior numbers of the catholics over the dissenters, which bore a proportion of six to one, and therefore needed not the same protection as the English church from the sanction of test laws: the repeal, too, having only recently taken place, we could not judge by experience of the consequences of its operation. The repeal of the test laws in Ireland was not, therefore, an instance in point, to warrant the adoption of such a measure in this country. The reference also to the kirk of Scotland having no test was equally inapplicable; as a test there would prove a very feeble barrier, since the majority of dissenters from the kirk conformed to the mode prescribed by law for the administration of the sacrament, and since the establishment of the presbytery had been sufficiently secured by a solemn pledge in the act of union. The allusion made to the French church, antecedent to the revo

cation of the edict of Nantz, having no test laws for its protection, was also foreign to the present question. Had there prevailed less bigotry in those times, the church would have been secure, since the sovereign will of the monarch was the only law of the country. The right honourable gentleman's argument that no test laws existed in America, was as inapplicable as the other references and examples he had adduced in elucidation of his point. The American constitution resembled ours neither in church nor state; he most sincerely wished it had, in affording equal security for liberty and happiness to the subject. But in America there was no uniform established religion; no test laws were therefore necessary for the protection of such an establishment. Although the opinions of men were much divided at one time on the subject of the American dispute, while one party was contending that the revolting colonies ought to be coerced to obedience, and another was as strenuously insisting that they ought to be for ever abandoned, and the world in general was willing to believe that England could not exist independent of her colonies: yet the event, however, had happily proved the reverse of these different opinions; for, in the loss of the territorial government of the thirteen American colonies, Great Britain had sustained but a very inconsiderable diminution in her commerce; while she had to boast her deliverance and exemption from that load of expense which attended the support of the civil establishment of the states.

The test laws had been declared inefficacious and nugatory, as the legislature had been obliged every session to pass an act of indemnity. If the fact was so, the ground of all complaint of oppression must cease; for, from the right honourable gentleman's own argument, it was obvious that the laws were not enforced. Although the temperate forbearance of the government from the non-execution of the laws was truly laudable, when the danger was neither imminent nor alarming to the church, whose security and permanent safety was their object, yet to repeal the laws in question, because their execution was not always necessary, would be impolitic in the extreme; as the legis