may make men bypocrites, but it can never render them sincere believers. The operations of reason cannot be controlled by any methods of coercion; nor can the natural influence of truth be counteracted by the terrors of suffering. Simple, however, and almost self-evident, as are these principles, it is strange how slow the minds of men have been to perceive their force, and in what a different direction, in all ages of the world, not only political governments, but professedly christian churches, have shaped their proceedings. No sooner had religion in its most pure and perfect form been developed upon the earth, than the sword of Herod, and the terrors of the Jewish sanhedrim, were employed to crush it. During the ten fiery persecutions which marked the first ages of its history, the powers of imperial Rome arrayed themselves against the meek and humble confessors of the christian faith, and sought its overthrow by every mode of barbarous and unrelenting hostility. In a succeeding age, when, after the conversion of Constantine, christianity had become the established religion of the empire, and a spiri tual domination sprung up in the bosom of the church, the professors of this mild religion, forgetting its most distinguishing characteristic, and in direct opposition to the precepts of its founder, endeavoured to extirpate doctrines held as heretical, by corporeal punishments. Hence arose the persecutions of papal Rome, equal in virulence to those of her pagan predecessor. And when the venerable fathers of the reformation had broken the shackles of popery, even their vigorous understandings perceived but dimly the genuine features of christian liberty. Hence the conscientious Calvin was not guiltless of the blood of Servetus; and, in our own country, we see the pious Cranmer persuading, and almost compelling the tender-hearted Edward to sign the death-warrant of the maid of Kent. From the fathers of the English church, the spirit of intolerance unhappily descended to her sons; and we lament to see protestants turning persecutors, and episcopalians enjoining conformity to a religion established

by law, and visiting with paius and penalties those who conscientiously seceded from its communion. But the roots of this baleful principle are still more widely ramified; for even among nonconformists themselves, whose very principles, one might suppose, would ensure the practice of toleration, history presents us with the affecting spectacle of different sects persecuting and abhorring each other, and wanting, perhaps, but the sword of civil power to give a practical edge to their anathemas. It was not till long after the light of the refor mation had dawned on our island, that, in the times of the commonwealth, and we believe among the despised independents, a sect arose who truly understood and inculcated the first principle of religious liberty, viz. that every kind of persecution for conscience sake, is adverse to the spirit of the gospel; a tenet which was then viewed with suspicion, as dangerous, and by many conceived to be criminal.

At the time of the revolution, however, the genius of civil and religious liberty began to emerge more clearly from the darkness which had so long shrouded it, and the existing government appeared to be, in some degree, awake to the absurdity of endeavouring to bind the conscience by human laws. Hence it was thought necessary to provide some remedy against the practical effect of the laws then in force, and the shackles of penal statutes were first relaxed by the toleration act. From that period, successive governments have made fresh innovations on the rigour of the statute books; particularly during the last reign, when several noble acts, conceived in the true spirit of religious freedom, received the sanction of the legislature. At length the period arrived, which was destined to complete the triumph of liberal principles; and in the recent abolition of the test and corporation laws, and the adoption of that wise and salutary measure, by which a numerous body of British subjects have just felt themselves emancipated from the shackles of civil disabilities, we have seen an enlightened parliament and a beneficent sovereign put the last hand to this grand

achievement. And now the beautiful edifice of civil and religious freedom, whose foundations had been deep laid in the soil of our constitution, at length arises, complete in all its parts; without any unsightly incumbrance to darken its lustre, or impair its symmetry.

If the foregoing observations are just, it follows, that religious opinions, considered simply as such, are not a proper subject for magisterial interference. But when religious sentiments assume a political bearing, and if those very sentiments tend to excite a spirit of resistance to the ruling powers, it can scarcely be denied, that it becomes essential to the wellbeing of a state, to erect a strong barrier against the future efforts of those individuals who profess opinions so dangerous. It is not, therefore, intolerance to watch with a jealous eye those principles which would impair or destroy the wellbeing of the community; nor even to exclude from offices of trust and power those individuals, if such there are, the essential articles of whose creed would sap the foundations of civil government. In all such cases the exclusion from civil privileges would not follow on religious grounds, but purely on political considerations. Now it has been strongly urged in favour of the exclusion of Roman catholics from certain privileges of the state, that some of the leading articles of their faith embrace opinions, the dangerous tendency of which is of such magnitude, as to justify their exclusion, on political grounds. We might here advert to the well known and often repeated arguments adduced by the opponents of catholic emancipation, in support of this position; such, for instance, as that the tenets of the Romish church involve the dangerous principles-that no faith is to be kept with heretics, and that the end sanctifies the means, particularly when the good of that church is the end proposed. We might also refer to the representations which have been usually given in relation to the powerful and dangerous influence of the catholic priesthood over the consciences of the laity, and the intolerant spirit supposed to be inherent in

the religion itself. From this view of the subject it has been thought that the principles of popery, are so hostile to the very existence of a protestant state, as to preclude the union of protestants and Roman catholics in the same community. See a work entitled Hints on Toleration, by Philagatharches, where these arguments are powerfully urged.

But against all these and similar objections, it has been, and we think with great force, insisted, that there is no reason to suppose that the spirit of the Roman catholic religion is necessarily the same in all ages and countries. On the contrary, it is, in the nature of things, much more probable that it should vary under different circumstances of civil government, civilization, moral and intellectual improvement, and the diffusion of scriptural knowledge. Such changes have in point of fact really taken place; and, conceding to the adversary of emancipation, that the sentiments and proceedings of the Romanists of a former age were even such as has been represented, sufficient proof has surely been afforded, that the liberal and enlightened catholic of the present day does not hold such opinions, nor breathe such a spirit. Many of the most obnoxious tenets of popery have been officially disowned by their most celebrated public universities. And if all the dangerous and immoral principles attributed to popery should indeed be found in the creeds or councils of the Romish church, may they not, under the present state of things, be considered as speculative and abstract principles, unsusceptible of practical adoption; and thus, along with the metaphysical subtilties of the schoolmen, or many of the obsolete statutes of our own code, be consigned to an eternal slumber among the rust and lumber of the dark ages,

That Roman catholics may be safely admitted to offices of confidential trust, has already been the subject of actual experiment; of which the history of our own country will furnish abundant examples. In our own times also, we have seen them marching in the rauks of our armies, and conflicting side by side with our bravest heroes. In other countries,

too, in France, in the Netherlands, and in America, Roman catholics and protestants share together the same civil privileges, and with the most perfect security. Moreover, the disabling statutes in question, so far from forming, as some persons suppose, a fundamental part of our constitutional law, were but modern innovations, and mere expedients, devised and adopted to meet a passing exigency, existing in the peculiar circumstances of the times. But the state of things is now widely different; nor does it appear what application the measures then adopted can have to the times and circumstances of the present day. Were we even to suppose that dangerous principles still slumber in a state of abeyance in the bosom of the Romish church, and calculate on the mere possibility of occurrences taking place, which might give to such principles a renewed vigour, and direct them into hostile courses of action, it may be fairly questioned whether it would be politic or expedient in the mere contemplation of a remote, contingent, and, perhaps merely imaginary danger, to incur a present and imminent evil. May we not then, as christians and as protestants, be at length satisfied to rest the interests of truth on their own intrinsic merit, and not on the privilege of law or the patronage of the state; and may we not hope that the breaking up of those political barriers which have so long separated the protestant from the catholic, may, by removing prejudices, and inviting mutual confidence, promote a spirit of inquiry, and thus lead the way to the emancipation of the mind from the chains of spiritual slavery, the increase of religious knowledge, and the final triumph of genuine christianity? Our limits, of course, permit us in this place, barely to glance at some of the principal arguments on both sides of this interesting question. In order to form a more correct idea of their application, the reader is referred to the details contained in the following pages.