Thus is the King's coronation oath the great constitutional sacrament of our liberty. The monarch is unalterably bound to maintain the church establishment: and it is a question for the royal mind to determine, whether the claims of the Catholics can be granted consistently with this oath which again must depend upon the view he takes of the probable consequence of the proposed concession. The oath is not express to exclude the Catho lics; but virtual to that extent, if he who has taken it be not satisfied that the time is come when they may be admitted without endangering "the Protestant reformed religion as established by the law." In this view of the subject there is an end of the argument drawn from the concessions already made. These con-* cessions we are reverentially to presume his Majesty has not thought inconsistent with the safety of the church, of which he is the nursing father. Whether more can be conceded without breaking in upon the integrity of his oath, the King will judge for himself.

We would have added a word or two about the pledge said to have been given by the late Mr. Pitt; but it seems to us that this is a question, which, however it may concern the credit of a party, is not to decide a nation. If such a pledge was given, which, however is authoritatively denied, we, the country, are not involved in it: we are not bound to redeem it.

The nation is by an antecedent obligation pledged to do justice and to cherish the rights of mankind, and no individual can pledge it to do more or less.

Before we part with our readers, we wish to say something on what we consider as a dangerous mistake of some of our established clergy, and other friends of the established church. We allude to a jealous disposition to cavil at the exertions of those among our own members, who, without any doctrinal difference from our church, are in general only distinguishable by an active and energetic discharge of their duties.

Hypocrisy, puritanism, and methodism, are the terms by which every man designates that degree of warmth which exceeds the temperature of his own piety. They are terms so much abused, so stultified and distorted by the use made of them, that they are no longer fit for the organs of a gentleman, and every honest man who wishes to describe things as they are, is forced to strike them out of his vocabulary. These terms are too frequently applied to persons who have no other pretensions to them than a rational care of their souls.

But it is painful to observe some of the heads of our church taking up the dangerous clamour, and endeavouring to degrade those who, for what reason we know not, unless for one very much

to their honour, are called evangelical clergymen, into the class of dissenters from the Church of England. What is to become of this church, so holy and spiritual, if the serious and devout are not to be recognised as its children, but driven out of its pale as dissenting enthusiasts. Let not the zealous ministers of our establishment imagine that they are supporting our church by spinning the thread of their orthodoxy so fine, that a man's only security against doing what is wrong, lies in his doing nothing at all. Let them not imagine that by a pious regard only to the rights, revenues, and dignities of the establishment, they are maintaiming its strength and durability. Nothing is strong or stable, but that which has its foundation in the public esteem. They are in a fatal error, if they think that by blackening or ridiculing the character of the dissenters, or, what is equally unfair, by classing men of very different opinions and habits under one offensive denomination, they advance the interests of that benevolent institution, whose cause they undertake. Our church disclaims all such defenders. The weapons of her warfare are not of this temper. There is no way so good of justifying her to the world, as by an amiable and efficacious activity in doing her work; by attending to the weightier matters of the law, rather than to minute variations in the forms of doctrine; by holding fast the true faith without an exclusive spirit, or a readiness to wrangle about non-essentials; and lastly, by a candid conduct towards dissenters themselves, and even accepting their co-operation in every scheme of christian benevolence.

Let these champions of our church reflect, that among the sects which trouble its repose at the present moment is one of a very numerous and dangerous description-the enemies of piety in general, such as in the reign of the second Charles gave the deathblow to that moral grandeur and devout seriousness of character, which marked till then the high born gentry of this land, and which gave that masculine strengthening to the features of our liberty, not easily, we trust, to be counterfeited or erased. All that was great was in those times religious, and hardly a statesman or a patriot of that age, had he lived now, would have escaped the flippant ridicule of these ill-judging sons of the church. We are therefore sorry to find in any public charges of our bishops and dignitaries, to the clerical body, words of slang and opprobrium, such as methodists and puritans, thrown out against persons executing the functions of the church with a strenuousness of opinions on some topics, and an elevation of zeal for the interests of religion in general, which however they may perhaps, in some non-essential respects, offend the taste of the judicious friends of the establishment, can properly excite in their bosoms no active sentiment but that of virtuous emulation.

The venerable prelates and clergy of our national church (we do not address ourselves to slumbering dignitaries and beneficed non-efficients) will pardon us for reminding them that the state does not undertake, by the terms or spirit of its alliance with the church, to maintain her character, and secure her from that decline or fall which may arise from her own inattention to the legitimate means of her interior security. The state has promised by this alliance to protect her from exterior injury, it can hedge her round by test laws, it can strengthen her outworks and fortifications, but it cannot provide for the vigour of her internal discipline. She is the guardian of her own purity and honor.

That the church is in danger can not be dissembled. It is a problem how any church can stand when (we had almost said) a numerical majority of the people are seceders from it, who though at variance among themselves, are combined in jealousy and hostility against a favoured and beneficed institution. Her enemies are no longer mere negative separatists, and non-conformists. They are in array against her. What then are her resources and means of defence? Let every minister be at his post: let him qualify himself for giving due effect to our sublime liturgy: let him avoid as far as possible all contests with his parish about tythes: let the poor be his family: let him guard the access to his pulpit: let him abstain from employing hirelings from register-offices: instead of proprietary chapels, built for private speculation and profit, let us have a sufficient number of parochial churches, commensurate with the increased population of this city, with proper and stable provisions for the ministers meted out by the shekel of the sanctuary, and with comfortable, warm, and free accommodations for the poor, instead of the seat by sufferance, with the pew-opener's tax upon admission; and then the victory over sectaries will be short and complete.

We will finish with observing, that so long as the church preserves her own character, and intrinsic excellence, the state is bound to maintain her security, and to watch over her peace, By giving up her supremacy, she has purchased the fullest right to civil protection and exclusive establishment. If other religions are let into political power, being the only one which will have parted with her supremacy, she will contend against them with unequal strength. Her wealth and dignity will be but an unwieldy defence, while it will serve to unite against her, enemies of a very different character, in a confederacy for a common purpose. We trust that our goodly edifice is not doomed so to fall; but if such be its destiny, whatever temple shall arise in its place, the spectacle will be gloomy indeed to those who will remember the glory of the first house,

ART. XII. Hints on Toleration: in five Essays: I. on the Right of Society to investigate the Religious Principles of its subjects; II. on Specific Limitations to the extent of an enlightened Religious Toleration; III. on Eligibility to Offices of Public Trust; IV. on Licensing Persons and Places for the Performance of Divine Worship; V. on the Liberty of the Press. Suggested for the Consideration of the Right Hon. Lord Viscount Sidmouth, and the Dissenters. By Philagatharches. London, 1810. Cadell and Davies.

We have just met with the above-mentioned book, and are led briefly to notice it, at this time, by the probability that the subject to which it principally refers, will be brought into public discussion during the present session of parliament. It is not without merit as a composition, and if we were actuated by feelings of inveterate hostility towards dissenters, we should have read a considerable part of it with delight: for it is too well calculated to create in the mind of some, and to confirm in that of others, the persuasion that no persons are more intolerant than those who are in the full enjoyment of the benefits of that religious toleration, so happily established in this free and enlightened country. We trust, however, and firmly believe, that a very large proportion, if not the majority of protestant dissenters, must reprobate many of the principles of this their champion. They will view with equal disgust, the laxity and the rigor, the tyranny and the licentiousness of many of his favourite doctrines. They will not concur in such sentiments as "that it would be grossly absurd to receive the oath of a Roman Catholic in confimation of any fact under judicial investigation:" that" atheists and deists should be allowed publicly to inculcate their sentiments," " ""to advocate the cause of infidelity;" but that "whilst the liberty of publicly asserting and defending their religious principles is granted both to atheists and deists, it cannot safely be extended to Roman Catholics without specific limitations," which specific limitations are no other, than covenants to be exacted from persons of that communion, that they shall abstain from preaching, or teaching certain doctrines, which the author admits and contends to be "distinguishing tenets of their faith."

He charitably adds, that "persons thus allowed by licence to teach the precepts of their faith, and perform the ceremonies of the Romish church, should be banished the realm for ever, if they presumed to teach those principles upon which they had covenanted to be silent." Here is a spirit of intolerance and perse

cution with a vengeance! a spirit, which pervades many pages of the work of this friend to civil and religious liberty. For ourselves, although members of the established church, and anxious to preserve and maintain all the guards and securities which the wisdom of our ancestors has provided for its protection, we spurn at the invidious distinctions thus taken between the degrees of toleration respectively due to Roman Catholics, and protestant dissenters; earnestly wishing to both the perpetual enjoyment of that freedom of religious worship which has been afforded them by the comprehensive policy and justice of the legislature.

Under these impressions, however, we cannot admit that the 1st of W. and M. and the 19th of his present majesty, were intended by their authors as encouragements to schism, as cloaks to fraud, and as instruments to bring religion itself into derision and contempt. Yet these effects are produced to a great and formidable extent by an abuse of the meaning, and a perversion of the words of these wise and benevolent statutes: for it is notorious that, for several years past, the practical interpretation, which has been generally, though not universally given to them, has been, that any person, however illiterate, and however profligate, may, after having sworn at the quarter sessions of the peace, that he is a good subject, and declared that he is a Christian, demand a certificate of his having done so; and that such a certificate is not only a licence to preach and teach whatever and wherever he pleases, but a protection, by which he is exempted from all parochial offices, from serving on juries, and from ballot for military service.

Even in the work before us, it is admitted that lay preachers have no just claim to exemptions, and that the proposals which have been made, and the regulations which have been adopted by different bodies of dissenters who are fully sensible of the enormity of the abuse, " do not meet the case." In fact it can only be prevented by a legislative provision subjecting to their fair proportion of the secular burthens those licensed persons who are engaged in secular occupations. It is also admitted by this author, that there may be grounds, which indeed he states, upon which the magistrate might be justified in refusing an application for a licence. We confess our unwillingness to vest such an authority in magistrates, except in cases of unquestionable depravity; and for that reason, in addition to many others, we hold it to be indispensably necessary that a local appointment of the individual claiming a licence, by persons actually forming, or ready to form a congregation, should precede the application. This, we are convinced, is