when in harmony, the State is awakened to the sense of an imperium in imperio, and asserts its right to a supreme controul." "V. Whether any man's religion can be taken from him, so long as his personal faith, and his immortality, remain." ANSWER. The open profession of the Protestant religion is impeded, as far as the laws of nations will permit, by Papists at this moment at Naples: and with any man's personal faith the present question has not any thing to do. I cannot distinctly make out why personal faith and immortality are mentioned. REMARKS. The distinction between religion and faith is not apparent to me but the question may be construed into a statement, that, if the Church of England be overthrown, and so the churchman lose his external religion, he may yet keep his internal religion or faith. It is matter of thankfulness, that an individual's religion cannot be taken from him, so long as he adheres to its truth, and God is pleased to continue him the gift of immortality; but a man ought not, therefore, to abandon all concern for his religion, but ought rather so to live, and so to strive, his life through, with all the talents entrusted to his stewardship, that his conduct may evince the sincerity of his prayers, "that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered, that both he and all his brethren may joyfully serve God in all godly quietness." "VI. Whether it be not a principle of the British Constitution, that the free subjects of the empire shall be eligible to bear a share in the making of those laws by which they are to be governed." ANSWER.-If it were, such a principle could not be extended beyond those subjects who are not mischievous. REMARKS. Freedom is a balance between what each individual con : cedes, and what he receives and a subject may be free who is not eligible to bear a share in the making of those laws by which he is to be governed. A share must mean a direct share; for an indirect share in making our laws is borne by every subject of Great Britain inevitably. When laws are made by those who will not obey them, the term "free" does not appear applicable, either to the legislators, who are then tyrannical, or to the subject who is then tyrannized over. The term "British Constitution," implies to me the governing all subjects according to the whole purport of all the laws in existence at any given time. The character of those laws, taken in the aggregate, has remained substantially the same from the reign of William and Mary to the present time: if the present Bill of Concessions change the general character of our laws, it changes the Constitution, in a sense entirely different from that, in which any new bill, accordant with the character of our laws, can truly be said to change the Constitution. Undoubtedly the Constitution, at any given time, when human policy alone is considered, is a system of many expedients combined for one purpose: and any one expedient, out of the many, may from time to time be superseded by another apparently better adapted for that purpose, so steadily kept in view. After a succession of such changes, it may happen that every expedient, that is to say, every law of those once co-existent together, may have been changed, and yet the Constitution remain exactly the same: even as the infant retains his personal identity through youth and manhood. During the last century, the Constitution is truly said to have remained the same; meaning, that its principles have not been changed upon the whole, though one or two acts of Parliament have been passed at direct variance with them: and these acts of Parliament have been defended on the plea of necessity, much in the same way that arsenic and other violent poisons have been admitted into medicine. When any new expedient is of such magnitude as to affect by itself the character of our laws, and, being of that magnitude, entirely changes that character, it is justly said to change the Constitution. In the present case, a Constitution that has worked very well for a century and a half, is to be changed by an untried and inadequate expedient, the only merit of which is its departure from ancient principles. It is acknowledged to be in itself a half measure; and is mistrusted by its proposer at the very time of its proposal, and by its friends; and adopted as a temporary expedient only, which years will change into a completer revolution, than it is deemed prudent to proclaim at once. So that, for checking present contests and disturbances, an expedient is proposed, which will not check them, but leave the same parties to continue them upon the same principles, and for a part of the same end. For a royal palace, many state apartments, many comfortable rooms may be made out of the space included within its venerable walls; and, for that purpose, those walls may have been reduced into a mere shell, yet, as a shell, of impregnable strength, and commanding the whole plain beneath its castled height, and never losing its royalty; but the character of palace would utterly be lost, if the inside were made into a stable or manufactory; or if the ancient walls were pulled down, and replaced by such as would bespeak a mausoleum. Happy, indeed, were any State, of which the realm could pronounce every free subject eligible to its legislature. But the duty of legislation is a high trust, and requires that every possible care should be taken to obtain trustees duly qualified in every way for its discharge. And for this end our laws require special qualifications, not only in the elected, but in the electors. The most obvious qualification is property; but not the only one: men may have that, and lack other qualifications as essential: our Commons at once represent both the persons and property of the people of this realm. When a man's property is at stake, he will be supposed to examine brilliant and plausible proposals, or new theories, with attention; but to act rather upon tried rules and principles, with a business-like wisdom, adapting itself from a knowledge of his own interest, to that of his fellow-subjects, a purpose for which it is most admirably fitted. Whatever the course of the world requires to be done, while Revelation does not prescribe the mode of doing it, is probably left unprescribed, for the improvement of human-nature, by the exercise of its powers of head and heart, on high and important subjects, which such exercise renders higher and more important every day. "VII. Whether to give men an interest in the Constitution be the certain way of making them its enemies." ANSWER.-An interest in the Constitution cannot be given to those who will not receive it. What they ask, is a change of the Constitution, to please a minority. REMARKS. The danger of such a change is evident: although it does not give the persons forming that minority an interest in the Constitution as it would then be, it does make them its enemies as it would then be; and gives them, as such, more power than they would else have had. With the additional power so given to them would increase, in rapid progression, their desires to make that Constitution entirely Popish; and those desires, if not carried into effect, would create a greater discontent than is complained of at present. The Papists cannot have such an interest in a mixed constitution, as to preclude them from endeavouring to make it entirely Popish. The Popish bishop, before his consecration, swears, among other things, that he will prosecute and attack, according to his power, heretics, schismatics, and rebels to the Pope his master. The Popish priest swears, among other things, true obedience to the Pope, and that he undoubtingly receives and professes all things delivered down, defined, and declared by the sacred Canons and general Coun cils, and principally (præcipuè, to the exclusion of others in case of any clashing), by the inviolable (sacro-sancta) Synod of Trent and at the same time, "all things contrary thereto, and whatsoever heresies the Church may have condemned, rejected, and anathematized, he likewise condemns, rejects, and anathematizes:" and the oath concludes with a determination" to take care, as far as in him shall be, that the true Catholic Faith, out of which no man can be saved, shall be held, taught, and preached by those subjected to him, or those whose care shall belong to to him in his charge." Townsend's Speech, pp. 55, 58, and 59. One of these canons is given in words which render translation difficult, "Juramentum contra ecclesiasticam utilitatem præstitum non tenet." Decret. Greg. lib. ii. tit. xxiv. cap. 27. Boehm, Vol. II. p. 346. It is given on p. 298 of my copy of the Corpus Juris Canonici, printed in 1682, 1 Vol. 4to., where it is observed, in a note, that an oath was not instituted that it should be a bond of iniquity. This canon appears to mean, that when the observance of an oath would make against the interest of the Church, such oath is not binding. The parties interested are the sole judges of what may or may not make against the interest of the Church. "VIII. Whether the exclusion from the Legislature, and from offices of civil power, trust, or emolument, of five millions of subjects, be not an obvious anomaly in the State; and whether, therefore, prudent and well-combined measures ought not to be taken to reform that anomaly." ANSWER. This is not any wrong or unusual anomaly: and if it were, we knew nothing of the prudent and well-combined measures that were to reform it, And we were asked to believe Mr. Peel's measures good, without any intimation of what they were. They might have been approved, if known, REMARKS. If we mean to be safe, we must not consider how many we |