an acquiescence of the principle of your bill. Other reasons may perhaps be assigned for that silence, which has been so highly eulogized. If in respect for the opinion of Parliament; if in confidence that the representatives of the state will not give their sanction to those measures which may vitally affect the interests of the constitution; if in a spirit of generous liberality towards their dissenting brethren, they abstain from sounding the note of alarm, or of raising the standard of hostility: if all or some of these motives have actuated the friends of the Church in its present silence, then they are entitled to praise, though their conduct must be attributed to its true motive. But may it not be presumed, that the Church has been taken by surprise? Has not this measure been brought forward with precipitation thus early in the session, with the view of anticipating defeat, with the intent of carrying the House by storm, ere the minds of members were made up on this subject, or the sense of the country ascertained? It is rather a curious argument to presume, that the silence of the Church is a proof of its approbation of the measure. This in common life H would approximate very nearly to the idea, that a man might give his antagonist a blow, and before he has time to remonstrate, or to ward off the attack, to argue from his silence that he does not feel it. Indeed, my Lord, whatever may have been the secret sittings at Brooks's, and the tact of the select conclave to get up the parts of this subject, with the greatest stage effect on the boards of the House, surely this argument is but clumsily selected. It put us in mind of what was said of the attempts of your friends on another occasion, by the late eloquent Mr. Canning, that he adduced these things to "shew, that when they wanted a stick to beat a dog, with how little judgment was the stick selected." The number of petitions presented to the House, and those emanating from a quarter where the greatest hostility to the Establishment is known to exist, prove that this is a preconcerted plan, a long premeditated system of warlike preparation. For it is a singular fact, that none of the petitions, in any instance I believe presented to either House of Parliament, have originated with the Wesleyan Dissenters. The reason is apparent-they are E most favourable to the existence of the Esta blishment. I will now beg leave briefly to comment on three points which are touched upon in the course of your speech: the impropriety of the Holy Sacrament as a Test for admission to office -the Annual Indemnity Bill-and the practical injustice done to the Dissenters by the operation of the Test Laws. You argue very strongly against the Eucharist as a qualification for office--we should take care in all debate, as well as in all controversy, to have a regard to the accurate definition of terms. The Eucharist is not required by the Test laws to be taken as a qualification for office. If it were, the law indeed would be chargeable with the desecration of that heavenly rite. It would be guilty of debasing its character; and in the language of the unfortunate poet, "Would make the symbol of atoning grace But the Sacrament is not a qualification or price of office; the law does not compel persons to participate in this ordinance from fear of pain or penalties; it simply prescribes this as a religious proof, that the person receiving according to the rites of the Established Church, is eligible to office in a state of which that Church forms an integral part. Some proof or examen must be given, if the Church is to preserve her preeminence. And though the Dissenters as a body may in general be well affected and loyal, yet in their very character as separists from the Church, it is too well known that they are averse to its power and preeminence. Hence the danger to the state. If the church and state are in strict alliance, any thing that tends to weaken that alliance must be detrimental to both. If you must uphold the state, with the view of preserving the church, you must exalt the church with the view of benefiting the state, and this not to make the church political, but the state religious. Bishop Sherlock has observed, in justifying the use of the Lord's Supper as a test for office, "that the only thing that remained to be considered was, what particular act of Church Communion would be the most probable evidence that a man was sincerely well affected to the Established Church. In this view, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper naturally offered itself: it is that part of religious worship which the generality of Christians perform with the greatest devotion, and to which they think themselves most obliged to approach with sincerity and uprightness of heart. To this it may be added, that as a distinction was intended to be made between those who approved, and those who did not approve, the ecclesiastical constitution of these kingdoms, it was well known that the latter had as strong prejudice against the usage of the church in the celebration of the Sacrament, as against any other usage of it whatsoever, and yet were supposed to have the same awful reverence for the institution itself; so that it was reasonably presumed, that no Dissenter would easily be led to such an act of insincerity as receiving the Sacrament in a manner condemned by himself."* With respect also to the objection to the Sacrament, the same reasoning which would exclude that as a test from the Statute Book, would operate equally against the appeal to |