be in itself a certain sign to Christians of any want of a due concern for the peace of church and state; and therefore that the before-mentioned words, relating to the preservation of the public peace, cannot prove this intended exclusion of non-conformists of all sorts and of all tempers."

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The words of the corporation act to which this noble observation relates are," and for the preservation of the public peace both in church and state." From whence I argued (unfortunately it seems) that the intention of the legislature in this act was to secure the church as by law established. No, says his lordship; that could not be the intention, because a true and real concern for the peace of church and state does not always imply in it so much as a conformity in any one act of communion with the church, which happens to be established in any country." Strange concern for the peace church which is consistent with a total separation from it, and with the most earnest endeavors to destroy it! But does not the act require such a concern for the peace of the church as should be manifested by communicating with the church in the Lord's supper? What have we then to do with a concern for the peace of the church which is consistent with a total separation? If there be in nature such a thing, yet the act has excluded it by requiring communion with the church as an evidence of concern for the peace of it. Will his lordship venture to affirm that the words in the act were meant of any church or state but those established at that time in England? or will he venture to own his position when stripped of the disguise thrown over it by a happy variety of sounds, and say plainly that a real concern for the peace of the established church is consistent with a total separation from the established church, and with an intire aversion to it? Were the first reformers concerned for the peace of the popish church established in Queen Mary's days? did they receive the sacrament in that church? did they subscribe to its articles and liturgy, and press forward to gain its preferments? No; they openly opposed it, openly avowed it to be corrupt and idolatrous, openly pleaded for its removal. By what art, by what logic then does it follow from this example that an act professedly made for the preservation of the established church, and expressly requiring communion with

that church in a very solemn instance of Christian worship, had no intention but what was consistent with any man's refusing conformity with that established church in any one act of communion?

There is no sect whatever but what pretends to be zealous for the church of Christ, and thinks theirs to be that church; it is this and this only that makes it necessary to secure the established church, because dissenters pretending zeal for the church, and holding their own sect to be the church, are enemies to the established church. For this very reason papists and sectaries are excluded from offices of trust in England; and for this very reason his lordship thinks they are not excluded, because, though they hate the established church, yet they are concerned for the church according to the notions they have of it. This argument would fit the mouth of Ludlow with respect to the state; he might say that no act made to preserve the peace of the state could in the intention of it reach him; for though he hated the established constitution of the state with a king at the head of it, yet he was as much for the peace of the state as any man. This is fine reasoning; and after such an instance as this his lordship had much reason to talk of the skill of others in the legerdemain of sounds; I have perhaps less reason to complain of this than his lordship's friends, for he betrays the utmost contempt of his admirers, when he thinks such arguments will go down with them.

SECTION II.

The second thing to be considered is, whether receiving the sacrament according to the usage of the church of England be a proper test to distinguish between those who are and those who are not well affected to the established church. A proper test in this case is that, which, all things considered, yields the most probable evidence. Human affairs do not admit of a mathematical certainty; and if law-makers must do nothing till they can find infallible never-failing methods of attaining their ends, the world must be without law and government. An oath is not an infallible evidence of a man's veracity, for we all know that it too often fails, and the sad effects of it are seen and felt

every day. It is very unreasonable therefore to argue against a test as improper to the end proposed, because in some instances it does or may fail; Christians do not use to communicate with a church, whose communion they do not approve. To approve of the church's communion, and to be well affected to the church, is one and the same thing; therefore a man's communicating with a church is the most probable evidence he can give of his being well affected to it. In answer to this his

lordship says,

1. That many non-conformists do sometimes receive in the church of England, and yet are not well affected to the church. p. 10.

2. He repeats this again, and instances in Mr. Baxter and Dr. Bates, p. 12.

3. We have the same argument a third time, p. 12.

4. And a fourth time, p. 13; and an instance is given in the behavior of papists at the beginning of the reformation.

The same reasoning occurs over and over again in his lordship's answer, which though it be a great weight on the reader, yet it adds none to the argument; for one multiplied by one to the world's end, will still be but one; and I hope I shall be forgiven if I answer it but once.

1. This argument is of no consequence at all with respect to the corporation act, because the proof there does not rest merely on receiving in the church, but on many other particulars, all which no non-conformist (as ever I heard) would comply with. It might be the intention therefore of that act to exclude all non-conformists, even allowing what his lordship has said on this head to be true.

2. With respect to the test act there is a manifest fallacy in this reasoning; for his lordship's argument turns wholly on such a state of dissenters as we have seen since the toleration, which was not the state of dissenters when the test act passed. And surely it is reasonable, in order to know the true meaning of the sacramental test, to consider it in conjunction with the laws in being when it was made, and not in conjunction with the laws as they have been since altered. When the test act was made, there were very severe laws in being against conventicles, and so far were the legislature from not intending to debar all who had offices from going to meetings, (as his lord

ship concludes from their acquaintance with the principles of occasional conformists,) that it was their intention declared in many acts, and inforced by many penalties, to restrain every subject from non-conformity.

So that to prove what his lordship aims at, that the legislature had no intention to exclude all nonconformists from offices by the test act, he must not only show that the sacramental test is not inconsistent with a man's going to meetings, but he must show that it was a licence to go, that it amounted to a repeal of the laws against conventicles, and gave those in places such a liberty of going to conventicles as no other subjects had. For most certain it is, that occasional conformity was not permitted by law when the test act passed, and therefore its pretensions cannot be brought into consideration in determining the intention of the legislature in the test act; for certainly occasional conformity consists of two parts, in going sometimes to church and sometimes to meetings; and can he be said to approve or to allow of occasional conformity, who allows a man to go only to church? And yet thus the law stood when the test act passed: all men were required to come to church, but none were allowed to go to meetings. Since then it was the intention of the legislature not to permit any subject to be a non-conformist, how is it that his lordship finds that it was agreeable to their intention to permit such as could get places to be non-conformists? How is it to be accounted for that there should be any such intention in the legislature at a time when the laws required all conventicles to be suppressed; and was so far from allowing or even supposing persons in places of power to be dissenters, that such persons themselves are appointed to suppress meetings? Could the legislature think that dissenters were proper persons to suppress conventicles? or had there been an intention to permit lieutenants, deputylieutenants, justices of the peace, officers of the militia, chief magistrates in every corporation, and the aldermen of London, to be and continue dissenters, would the law have intrusted these persons with the suppressing of conventicles? What an excellent account does such a supposition give of the wisdom of our legislature?

The test act, in conjunction with the laws against non-conformity then in being, was a much stronger exclusion of non

conformists of all sorts from places of trust than the test act and occasional act were when they subsisted together; and as the whole spirit of the act of toleration is to exempt dissenters from penalties, not to exalt them to power, so there was no design to make their way easier to power in the government; and when it appeared that exempting dissenters from penal laws gave them an advantage which was not intended them, to elude the force of the test act, which the parliament intended to continue them under, it was neither unjust nor inequitable to redeem the law from the unforeseen abuse of it, and to reduce non-conformists by the occasional bill to the original conditions of the toleration; which meant to preserve the test act in its true sense.

And since his lordship lays so much stress on the original design and intention of the legislature in the test act, let him consider that they had made every kind of non-conformity penal to every subject. Not content with this only, they require actual conformity in all who should have places; and as a test of it, require the evidence of their receiving the sacrament according to the usage of the church of England: let him consider this, and then tell us what possibility there is to suppose that they intended to leave room for any non-conformist to enjoy places of trust; and instead of a history of the principles of occasional conformists, and a story of Mr. Baxter and Dr. Bates, whose opinions I dare be confident were no guide to the law-makers, let his lordship give us a history of some occasional conformists who were permitted to hold places, and at the same time to go to conventicles, before the toleration. There could be no such practice consistently either with the letter or the intention of the laws before the toleration; and therefore occasional conformity for places was never known or heard of till after the revolution. Had there been indeed a toleration subsisting when the test act passed, and had it been evidently the practice of any considerable number of men to communicate both in the church and in the meetings, there had been some color for his lordship to say that the legislature, when they required the sacramental test, did not mean to exclude all non-conformists; but since, as the law then stood, no meetings were allowed, the sacramental test was plainly required as a stronger proof of