in acumen to the persons whom you have adduced, and who asserted in their speeches and their writings, the necessity of a Test, as a safeguard to the Church. There is one whose gigantic powers of understanding, profound erudition, and uncommon research, must command the respect of the friend to literature in every age, I mean Bishop Warburton. He considered this subject in the most comprehensive way, and brought the ample stores of his master mind to bear upon it: he has demonstrated, that some sort of test or restriction is necessary for the Church. He observes, that "though many might be inclined to revolt from the principle of the Test Law, yet if the Church and State are in unison, he who cannot give security for his behaviour to both, may with as much reason be deprived of somé civil advantages, as he who before the union could not give security to the state alone." "Amongst diversities of religion, when every one thinks itself the only true, or at least the most pure, every one aims at rising on the ruins of the rest. The means of doing this will be by getting into the public administration, and ap plying the civil power to work. In this imminent danger, the allied Church calls upon the State for the performance of its contract, who thereupon gives her a Test Law for her security, whereby an entrance is shut to all but members of the Established Church." "This law on the first enacting was confessed on all hands so equitable, as well as expedient, that the celebrated Lord Digby, then Earl of Bristol, a Catholic, eminent for his parts of speculation and business, acknowledged the high wisdom of it by arguments of great weight and solidity."* Lord Kenyon, whom you may consider no insignificant authority on this subject, in his able pamphlet on the Catholic Question, thus speaks of the Test system. "The only effectual way of affording security to an Established Church, is to restrict to its members the possession of that power, which, if placed in other hands, would endanger it. Therefore it is required in this country, that not only the Sovereign, but that all persons appointed to offices of power and trust in the state, should be of the Established Religion. This is the true * Alliance between Church and State, p. 244. object of the Test Laws, which require, on the part of such persons, an actual communion with the national church, by taking the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to its rites." I now refer you to the opinion of a Prelate, who by his writings and his eloquence adorned that establishment of which he was a conspicuous defender, I mean Bishop Horsely in a debate which took place in the House of Lords, May 13, 1805, he made the following remarks: My Lords, my mind is so unfashionably constructed, that it cannot quit hold of the distinction between toleration and admission to political power and authority in the state. My mind. is not yet brought to that modern liberality of sentiment, which holds it to be a matter of indifference to the state, of what religion the persons may be who fill its highest offices. I hold that there is danger to the state when persons are admitted to high offices, who are not of the religion of the state, be it what it may. It certainly was the policy of all the states of antiquity, to require that persons in office in the state should be of the established religion of the country. My Lords, I shall argue from the sad experience which modern times afford of the mischief of giving way to a contrary principle." He then proceeds to enumerate in detail the mischiefs resulting from the admission of those to power, whose religious sentiments are not in unison with the established religion of the state, and on that ground opposes the admission of Catholics into office. Arguing, therefore, on the principle here laid down by the Bishop, which appears to be recognized in the late speeches both of Lord Redesdale and Sir Robert Inglis, I ask, my Lord, if you repeal the Test Laws, what barrier do you interpose to persons in dissent from the established religion, rising to the highest seats in the empire, and obtaining the principal government of the state? Alas! if I understand you, you would substitute none, and then, perhaps, when it was too late to retract, would be realized in the decline of the Church, that fearful picture of the Roman poet: Urbs antiqua ruit, multos dominata per annos, Limina. D Virg. Æneid. Lib. II. 363. Bishop Horsely, in the speech to which I have just alluded, attributes the subversion of the ancient French government, and the seeds of the revolution, to the advancing Protestants to places of power in a Catholic government. This principle, which Dr. Phillpotts considers to be nothing short of "an act of suicide," is the very principle which would be introduced by the repeal of the Test Laws. I must be permitted to give you another extract from a Letter by a Prelate of the present day to Lord Somers, who is no less distinguished for his elegant accomplishments as a scholar, than for his solid attainments as a divine. Speaking of the Test Laws, he observes, "You may ask why is not the Test Act repealed? That question shall be met by others. When the morning has brought back a clear light, do you throw away the locks of your doors and the bars of your gate? When the flood has subsided, do you remove your sea banks? When peace is proclaimed, does the nation break up all its shipping? What, in fact, do our legislators say by the Bill of Indemnity. They say this-our object in still retaining the Test Act, is not that it shall injure |