of religion, and with the importance and solemnity of that rite of religion in particular, could reconcile to their consciences the selection of the Lord's Supper as a test and qualification for worldly offices. I do not question their sincerity; I am, on the contrary, satisfied of it; but I own I consider it as one among the many humiliating proofs of the strange contradictions in the human understanding -for mark the operation of this law, and consider the extent and consequences of the profanation, which, if it does not compel, it tempts so many to commit! In the first place, to the scoffer, to the man of no religion, it prostitutes the most holy ceremony of the church. He has no scruple, though he may have no desire, to take the communion; but this law makes it his interest; and, to serve his interest, the Church must administer it to him; and this, too, for its security! What security in a test which its bitterest enemies can take, and which is not so likely to disarm their enmity, as to invite their impiety and derision? The hypocrite and the infidel are admitted, the conscientious Dissenter is excluded. What is the justice -where is the sense of such a proceeding? What is the nature of that device which, miscalled protection, lets in your enemy, if enemy you have-lets in the unprincipled, and excludes none but the conscientious? If a man is sincerely a Dissenter, this law exposes him to temptation. Does he resist it?-the State is deprived of the services of an honest man. Does he yield?-where is your security against his opinions, or, if you will have it so, his hostility? Do you think it is disarmed or mitigated because you have galled him in the tenderest point, wounded his conscience, and disturbed his repose ?

But not Dissenters only are exposed to such painful trials by this law-look to its operation on the Churchmen, for they, too, are exposed to temptations; they, too, may be betrayed by its operation to commit a sin which may embitter the rest of their lives with self-reproach and remorse. The strict doctrine of the Church, with respect to this holy rite, is, if I mistake not, no less than this:Every communicant must approach the altar with faith, charity, repentance, and a steadfast purpose to lead a new life; he must be prepared to partake of the Lord's Supper in a temper suitable to so solemn a covenant with the Deity-nay more, the absence of such disposition, at such a moment, is a sin, and visited with anathemas dreadful

even to repeat. He that eats of the bread and drinks of the cup unprepared, eats and drinks, according to the strict interpretation of the Church, his own damnation. Such, if I mistake not, is the awful denunciation, the orthodox principle, of the Church of England. What, then, says the law? It says to the member of that church, when appointed to office, "You must either renounce your pros pects and your office, or you must take this awful Sacrament, without reference to your being properly prepared to do so or not." It says to him, at the moment his ambition is gratified, and worldly prospects are opening before him, that is, in the hour of his elation and prosperity, a season surely not particularly propitious to self-abasement and repentance, "Eat and drink at the risk of your salva tion hereafter, or refuse at the certain loss to yourself and your family of all worldly advancement and prosperity here." Gracious God! my Lords, can there be a system more horrid, or torture more refined than this? One's reason revolts, one's heart recoils, at so iniquitous, so cruel an alternative. The ingenuity of man can scarcely devise a more exquisite torment for a mind impressed with religious awe, and at the same time glowing with zeal and affection for his country, his family, and his friends. Nor is it the communicant alone who is exposed to these cruel dilemmas. The clergyman who, in the discharge of his sacred functions, is sincerely and painfully anxious to administer the Sacrament in a manner agreeably to the injunctions of his church, and pleasing in the sight of the Deity himself, is placed by this law in a cruel and perplexing predicament. He is exposed both to self-reproach and to ecclesiastical censure, if he administers the Sacrament to the unworthy, and he is equally exposed, if I am rightly informed, to penal consequences, or at least to legal vexations and humiliation, if he refuses it. I know not how far a beneficed clergyman can be compelled to observe the rubric and the canons; but I conclude there is some process, and I am sure if there is not the means of enforcing the obligation, he has by his oath and his office contracted that of observing them. Yet by the legal consequences arising from these Test and Corporation laws, that observance may expose him to temporal punishment, or at least to being questioned in temporal courts. The canons, and I think the rubric, say, he shall not administer the Sacrament to bad livers, to the profligate, to the blas

phemers, to persons who live in enmity with their neighbours; but if any of those, on appointment to office, come to take the Sacrament, and he refuses it, an action against him will lie-at least, I believe so. I see a Noble and Learned Lord seems to doubt it, and I may be wrong; but even if I be, it is equally favourable to my argument. I have a dilemma from which there is no escaping, as I shall presently explain. It certainly is the general opinion, and not an unreasonable one, that while these laws are in force, an action will lie in the common courts of law against a clergyman who refuses the Sacrament to a man who applies to be qualified for an office by taking it. There is a civil injury and damage, and if it is said that the clergyman may justify, his spiritual functions are equally subjected to the cognizance of a secular tribunal. Now mind, my Lords, what might happen.-I will suppose it possible-an extreme case, perhaps, but yet possible that a King should appoint a Lord Chancellor not quite so moral as the famous Lord Shaftesbury, and a Secretary of State not quite so pious and religious as the equally famous Lord Bolingbroke. I will further suppose, that to some subordinate situation in the law, was advanced, at the same time, a smart barrister, who was more remarkable for his ready acuteness, learning, and vivacity, than for sweetness of temper, or mildness of disposition. Well, we will conduct these three persons together to church to qualify for their recent appointments, and there we will further suppose that the parish priest, without being an absolute parson Adams, has yet the simplicity to imagine that his spiritual duties supersede all other considerations, and that, in observing the injunctions of his ecclesiastical superiors, and the canons of his church, he can incur neither injury nor reproach, or offend the laws of God or of man. Well, then, when the two Noblemen and the Lawyer present themselves, he says to the first, My Lord, I really am very sorry, but I cannot receive you at the communion-table; really, there are some circumstances so notorious in my parish respecting your Lordship's moral character and conduct, that I must conscientiously consider you as one of the bad livers' from whom I am compelled to withhold the Sacrament. And as to you, my Lord," turning to the Secretary of State, "I really have seen in manuscript and in print such writings, and have heard from credible authority such language of your Lordship's respecting the very ceremony I am about

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to administer, and the Deity, whose altar you now wish to approach, that till I am enjoined by my ecclesiastical superiors to communicate with blasphemers and infidels, I must decline handing the bread and wine to your Lordship. As to you, Sir," turning to the lawyer, "it is equally impossible for me to admit you. Why, it is notorious, you have brought lawsuits, and stirred about disputes among my parishioners. You are not upon speaking terms with one half of them, and there is a want of charity and good-fellowship in all your conduct in the parish, that clearly brings you within the description of persons to whom I am precluded from offering the Holy Sacrament."

Now what, as the law now stands, would be the answer to the clergyman so conducting himself, according to the strict duties of his sacred profession? The two Lords possibly would withdraw themselves in silence, and with that politeness and courtesy which the habits of such high station and the intercourse with members of this House so naturally create. But not so the little lawyer, who, by the terms of my hypothesis, is a captious, sharp, and disputatious practitioner. What then could he, and what in probability would he, say? Something like this: "You won't give me the Sacrament, Mr. Reverend, won't you? Very well, we'll see who'll gain at that game. We'll have you in Banco Regis in no time. I'll have swinging damages of you. You have spoilt my preferment, lost me my place, and you shall pay for it. I'll let fly my little Per Quods at you, and we shall soon see who'll smart for the costs." Oh, but it may be said, the clergyman may justify, may plead the fact and the law, and get a verdict in his favour. Be it so, and be the judges and jury (the latter of which may, by the bye, be all Dissenters) as impartial, as just, and as discerning, in such a case, as the Ecclesiastical Court itself; still there is the anomaly of a Secular Court deciding on a matter purely spiritual, namely, the fitness of a man to take the Holy Sacrament, and the propriety of the conscientious motives which induced the priest to refuse it. My Lords, this anomaly is, as far as it goes, an indignity to the clergy. Let me not be told, that no church, but the Church of Rome, would so consider it; that no priesthood, but such as are Popish, hold their heads so high, or view with any jealousy, even an unnecessary and unusual interference of secular authorities. It is not so; all churches-and Protestant Churches-feel in

some degree such a jealousy. I will not quote Bishop Gibson and others of minor authority. I will go to the first and greatest authority among Protestants, to the early Reformers themselves. What will the learned Lord say to Luther himself? Speaking of the mania of meddling with ecclesiastical matters, which it seems that some of the learned profession of the law were affected with, even in his day, he has the following passage; but when I read part of it, I must beg the House and the Right Reverend Prelates to recollect, that certain strong phrases in it are not mine, but those of an intrepid and sanctified Reformer. "I could wish," says he, "the lawyers would appear in the game, so would I thoroughly try and teach them what Subjectum Juris is. I acknowledge Jus is a fair spouse, so long as she remaineth in her own bed, but when she strideth into that of another, and will rule divinitie in the Church, then she becometh a great strumpet and—” (Illud quod dicere nolo, my Lords, for the word is too strong for polite ears). "I never read such fundamental and fearful examples of heart's-hardening as in lawyers. They far surpass the Jews, Pharoah and the others. In a word, they are next neighbours to the devil. My heart panteth and quaketh whenever I think of them." *

But to return to the question, whether such an action against a clergyman, as I have made a lawyer describe, would lie or not. I will tell your Lordships my authorities, without pretending they are conclusive, and with this remark, that it is indifferent to my argument whether they be so or no; because either way the anomaly produced by the statute in question, injurious in one case to the clergy, in the other to the state and the community, is a grievance. I have no positive rule of law or dictum of a judge to justify me in the supposition that such an action would lie; but there has always been a persuasion that it would, and that persuasion expressed, if not by great lawyers, yet by grave, sedate, and learned men. I will not quote Oldmixon as one, though, with all his partiality and bitterness, he is a writer by no means despicable for his acuteness and knowledge; and on this point more entitled to notice, as living and writing near the time between the passing and the repeal of the Occasional Conformity Bill; when the provisions of the Test Act were actually and strictly exe

* Luther's Works translated into English, p. 418.