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BOOK It was an irreverent and impious opinion to main tain that the church must depend for support as an engine or ally of the state, and not on the evidence of its doctrines, and the excellency of their moral effects. Moderation and indulgence to other sects were equally conducive to the happiness of mankind and the safety of the church. Since the era of the revolution the church had flourished, because her imaginary fears had been dissipated. She had improved in knowledge and candor, because, instead of being enabled to impose silence on the dissenters by the strong hand of power, she had been obliged to hear their arguments; and the community at large had found the happy. effects, which a collision of opinions in open and liberal discussion, among men living under the same government, never fails to produce. There were many men not of the establishment, to whose services their country had a claim. Surely a citizen of this description might be permitted without danger or absurdity to say, 'Though I dissent from the church, I am a friend to the constitution; and on religious subjects I am entitled to think and act as I please.' Ought the country to be deprived of the benefit she might derive from the talents of such men, and his majesty be prevented from dispensing the favors of the crown except to one description of his subjects? Mr. Fox declared himself a friend to an establishment

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of religion in every country, framed agreeably to BOOK the sentiments of the majority of its inhabitants. -But to invest that establishment with a monopoly of civil and religious privileges was palpably unjust, and remote from the purpose of an establishment, which was no otherwise connected with the state, than as it tended to promote morality and good order among the people. The Test and Corporation Acts had subsisted, it was contended, for more than a century. True! But how had they subsisted? By repeated suspensions. For the Indemnity Bills were, literally speaking, annual acts. Where then would be the impropriety of suspending them for ever by an act of perpetual operation?-Let not Great Britain be the last to avail herself of the general improvement of the human understanding. Indulgence to other sects, a candid respect for their opinions, a desire to promote charity and good will, were the best proofs that any religion could give of its divine origin. To the church of England in particular he would say,

Tuque prior, tu parce genus qui ducis Olympo.'

Such are the noble and exalted sentiments which have long elevated Mr. Fox to the rank of the first statesman of his age and nation.

The motion of Mr. Beaufoy was zealously op. posed by lord North, in a speech consisting, as it was justly described by a member of the house in

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BOOK debate, of " a series of pompous nothings." Mr. Pitt also again appeared as its opponent, in an artificial harangue decorated with a great external shew of candor and speciousness of language.

1788.

Lord Stan

hope's mo

pealing va

statutes.

On a division the numbers were, ayes 104, noes 124; so that this important question-important indeed even beyond what the minister himself probably had at this period any conception of— was lost by twenty voices only. This therefore might be regarded as a decided victory on the part of the dissenters, had they known how to improve their advantage. But their resentment against the court and the minister was not at all abated by the soft and soothing expressions by which Mr. Pitt attempted to disguise and palliate his refusal : and the ground they had gained, in despite of the courtly machinations against them, excited a degree of clation which led to gross and fatal indiscretions.

About this period, a bill of a nature very merition for re- torious was introduced into the house of peers by rious penal lord Stanhope, for the repeal of a number of obsolete and vexatious laws, inflicting penalties upon persons absenting themselves from the service of the church, speaking in derogation of the book of Common Prayer, &c. On the second reading, Dr. Moore, archbishop of Canterbury, a prelate of a disposition naturally mild and generous, roused by this alarming attack upon the CHURCH, rose to

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give his decided opposition to the measure. "The BOOK bill under their lordships' discussion, if permitted to pass, would serve as a cover (his grace affirmed) to every species of irreligion. If unrestrained speaking, writing, and publishing, on the subject of religion were tolerated, there was scarcely any mischief to the church or to civil society that imagination could frame which might not be effected. The very foundation of religion, as by law established, might be undermined and overthrown."

Dr. Warren, bishop of Bangor, observed, “ that it remained for these days of licentiousness to call in question the propriety and wisdom of those regulations which their lordships were now solicited to repeal. To compel men by penalties not to absent themselves from the public places of worship did not militate against any sort of religious liberty, since the dissenters were allowed to resort to : their own congregations: and he who would not communicate with either, might well be supposed to hold doctrines injurious to the state, and which ought not to be tolerated."

Dr. Halifax, of St. Asaph, enforced this assertion, and reminded the house of the institution among the Locrians, which obliged every man that proposed a repeal of an existing law to come into the assembly with a rope about his neck.

Dr. Horseley, of St. David's, expressed himself in terms still more indignant, and with still greater

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BOOK ardor of holy zeal. He said, " the bill in question was calculated to tear away the foundations of the church of England, and through her means to destroy the very being of the English constitution. The act of Elizabeth, imposing a fine upon the non-attendants on divine worship, was a salutary law. It was a mistake to suppose the right of private judgment in religion unlimited. The magistrate had a right to punish atheism, as a crime against the welfare of society; and, by the same rule, to punish a contempt for the revelation of God in the Christian religion. There was moreover always danger in disturbing ancient laws, for the existence of which, at a distant period, no good reason could be given. Their wisdom, though not obvious at the period of the repeal, was generally proved by the mischief that ensued upon their annihilation."

Lord Stormont, enlightened and enraptured with these arguments, paid high compliments to the bench of bishops, declaring that they had that day done themselves infinite credit, and rendered their characters sacred in the public estimation. It is needless to say that the bill was rejected.

On the approach of the summer recess, Mr. Dundas, agreeably to the tenor of the India Regulation Bill, made his annual statement of the finances of the Company, which he represented as in a most prosperous and flourishing condition;