*perly belonged to kings-that of administrator of the laws established by the free consent of the community." The house appeared during a long and most interesting difcuffion, greatly agitated by this shock and conflict of opinions. But Mr. Pitt preserved a cautious and politic filence as to the merits of the revolution which had taken place; lavishly applauding, nevertheless, Mr. Burke for the zealous and seasonable attachment he had displayed to the principles of the British constitution.

The spirit by which the court was now actuated still more evidently appeared in their conduct relative to the dissenters, who had fignalized themselves by the exuberance of their joy at the late events in France. Since the favorable decision of the late session relative to the repeal of the test laws, they had not ceased their efforts by every means in their power to increase the number of their friends in the house of commons. Provincial meetings were convened by them in every part of the kingdom; and refolutions, framed in terms for the most part harsh and revolting, passed, expressive of their fentiments of the injustice and oppression under which they fuffered. And in contemplation of the approaching general election, they had even the gross indiscretion, in many of their public votes, to recommend a marked preference in favor of those who had shewn themselves the friends and advocates of equal and univerfal liberty. In the stead of Mr. Beaufoy, a friend and partisan of the minister, Mr. Fox was now folicited to move the house a third time for the repeal of the Acts in question; to which he gave a ready and generous assent. By appearing to confider the repeal of the teft laws as a matter of great magnitude and importance, the nation at large, which had originally regarded the question with indifference, were led to believe it to be a matter of high and ferious import. Counter-meetings of the friends of the church were called, in which the repeal of the test

was

was deprecated as fatal to its security. The clergy revived with incredible success the obfolete and senseless clamor, that the CHURCH was in DANGER. All possible encouragement was given to these artifices of faction and efforts of bigotry by the court; so that when the period arrived at which the destined motion was to be made, the diffenters were astonished to find the government, the church, and the nation combined in paffionate opposition to a claim which to them appeared founded on the clearest principles of reason, policy, and justice.

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On the 2d of March Mr. Fox brought forward his mo. tion of repeal, which, unmindful of its present extreme unpopularity, and fixing his attention only on the effential and immutable rectitude of the measure, he supported with a wonderful display of ability. He said, that it was to him a matter of triumph, that the very people who had imputed to him designs hoftile to liberty and fubverfive of the constitution, had requested him to plead their cause on that day. This was at once a refutation and reparation of the WRONG they had done him. He said, he was himself a member of the established church, and thought an establishment, if not necessary, at least useful and advifable. And should any attempts be made to invade the just rights of the church, she should find him as ready to stand forward the champion of those rights, as he was this day to plead those of the diffenters; and he hoped the time would come, when the church would fee his conduct in its true light, and acquit him of any design upon her splendor, influence, or greatness. Persecution, said Mr. Fox, is a bond of union. Remove the barriers which feparate the difssenters from the community of citizens, and in their collective capacity they would be no longer known. Men unite to resist oppreffion: but cease to oppress, and the union is diffolved. Continue it, and you render the union still more compact and firm, till resistance, at first perhaps weak, gradually becomes formidable, and finally successful, And

And experience shews, that when oppreffion has been carried to certain lengths, men think that the only way to destroy the oppreffion is to destroy the oppreffor. Such is the tendency and such the termination of this wretched system of policy. For any government to extend its jurifdiction over the opinions of individuals, said this magnanimous statesman, is at once absurd and tyrannical. It is absurd, for opinions must and ought to be free. They are not the proper objects of human authority, and they may in fact be perfectly innocent and harmless, when in a mere speculative view they perhaps appear fraught with mischief and danger. It is tyrannical, for it would furnish a pretext for every fpecies of oppreffion and perfecution. It is not to control opinions, but actions, that government is instituted. And then only has the state a right to interfere, when by any overt act a man has offended against any known law. Then, and then only, is punishment justly inflicted, when a man by his conduct has proved himself criminal; and not when it is inferred, and perhaps most unjustly inferred, from his opinions, that he may poffibly become fo. Such, faid Mr. Fox, is the absurdity of the laws in question, that the legislature has for many fucceffive years regularly paffed an act for indemnifying those who prefume to serve their country at their own peril. To this miferable expedient are men driven, rather than repeal a law which they themfelves blush to execute."

Mr. Pitt, who had done himself honor by the temper and moderation with which he had opposed the former applications, now indulged some expressions of asperity. "Neither the merits nor demerits of individuals ought, he said, to have any influence in the difcuffion of the prefent question: yet was the conduct of the diffenters liable to just reprehenfion, who, at the very moment they were reprobating the test laws, discovered an intention of forming affociations through the country for the purpose of impofing a test upon the members of that house, and judging

of

of their fitness for discharging their parliamentary duty from their votes upon this fingle question. He was far from wishing to throw any stigma upon the diffsenters; but he affirmed it to be EXTREMELY PROBABLE, that they might exercise the power they demanded for the fubversion of the present establishment. The important queftion at iffue, he afferted, plainly was, whether the house ought to relinquish at once those acts which had been adopted by the wisdom of our ancestors to serve as a bulwark to the church, whose constitution was so intimately connected with that of the ftate, that the safety of the one must be always affected by any danger that threatened the other. To toleration the diffenters were undoubtedly entitled. They had a right to enjoy their liberty and their property, to entertain their own speculative opinions, and to educate their offspring in fuch religious fentiments as themselves approved. But the indispensable neceffity of a permanent church establishment for the good of the ftate, required that toleration should not be extended to equality; if it were, there would be an end for ever to the wife policy of prevention, and a door would be opened to the abfolute ruin of the constitution."

Mr. Burke seconded the minister in a speech of far more virulence, and in present circumstances therefore of far more efficacy. He expressed his "utter contempt of all abstract principles of natural right; these, he faid, were annihilated by fociety, which secured the poffeffion of every comfort which those proud and boastful rights impotently held out, but could not bestow. He astonished and alarmed the house with reading several passages from the writings of diffenting divines on the subject of ecclefiaftical eftablishments, expressed with the usual acrimony and violence of theological polemics. From these teftimonies Mr. Burke inferred the inveterate enmity of the diffenters to the church; and he adjured the house to fuffer the fatal incidents which had taken place in France, and the fudden fudden ruin of the Gallican church, to awaken their zeal for the preservation of our present happy and excellent establishment." On the division the numbers were, ayes 105, noes 294; so that the majority against the repeal had increased since the last session from 20 to 189 voices.

In consequence of the unhappy manner in which this question was treated, the spirit of religious bigotry, prejudice, and animosity was revived throughout the kingdom in an extraordinary degree. The grand fabric of policy which it had been the labor of a century to rear, and the glory of the house of Hanover for two successive reigns to cherish, was now in a moment of rashness and resentment demolished and overthrown. The dissenters on their part can by no means be acquitted of blame. Confidering the great plausibility which may be given by eloquent and artful men to principles the most absurd and erroneous, it is no wonder that many highly respectable persons, far removed from contempt as to knowledge and understanding, should regard the repeal of the test laws as attended with a degree of risque and dangert. Till the PASSIONS of the public were awakened, it is however extremely evident that the arguments of the dissenters, and of their advocates, both in and out of parliament, made a sensible impreffion in their favor; but when they proceeded to a rude and arrogant mode of urging their claim, the voice of reafon was loft in the subsequent conflict. Had the dissenters conducted themselves with the respect and deference due to the government of a country even when in error, it is by no means improbable that at a future period the court might

† "The sufferings of men in their civil rights upon religious accounts," fays bishop HOADLEY in his memorable answer to bishop SHERLOCK, was the INFLAMING CONSIDERATION-and what gave rise to those passions which in the last century produced such fatal effects. The contrary conduct, therefore, would have the contrary effect. Let all hardships and all oppreffions cease. Let there be no civil punishment, or civil suffering, or civil inconvenience, call it as you please, on account of what is the dictate of men's private confcience, unless it immediately affect the civil government. If the former method has been tried, and has been seen to blow up disaffection into violence, then the true cure for these evils is to prevent