change of bondage for liberty, of darkness for light, and of a noisome dungeon for the pure and free air of heaven.

I have not patience to rake together the pettyfogging absurdities, contradictions and superstitions about crosses, and rings, and kneeling, and bowing, and altars, and Easter, and such like things, which in rich abundance disfigure the practices of the Church, and to one educated a Dissenter make it a matter of some toil and study to drill himself so as to execute correctly the manœuvres and evolutions of divine worship. If men think they can please God by getting up such exhibitions, let them try; but not impose them on others for Christianity.

It is lamentable to observe, how little of religious liberty there has ever been in the world. Egypt, the first of nations, led the way in making religion the tool of government, and affixing criminality to Nonconformity. The Israelites were prevented by terror, from sacrificing to Jehovah according to the custom of their progenitors. In Babylon, the lions' den awaited praying to God, when the king commanded not to pray; and the fiery furnace, refusing to worship an image, when he commanded its adoration. In free and polished and enlightened Greece, the wisest and purest of sages, the Apostle of nature, the Unitarian of reason, Socrates, was judicially condemned and

executed for impiety to the national gods. In Rome, one of the earliest laws was, "Let no one have particular gods of his own, or bring new ones into his house, or receive strange ones, unless allowed by edict." Proselyting by force is a part of the religion of Mahomet: and the apostate Christian Church, like her apocalyptic emblem, has been "drunk with the blood of saints and martyrs," while her regal slaves have proffered the horrid beverage to her lips, in long succession, from the Lords of ancient Rome to the restored princes of the passing hour. The very notion of establishment includes that of a difference between some who are patronized, and others who are only tolerated; which subjects the latter to a degradation of caste, only to be escaped by the fortunate convert, or the unprincipled apostate. True to the commonly-adopted creed, this decree of political election and reprobation has no respect of good works, but draws a line which neither merit in the excluded, nor worthlessness in the favoured, can efface. It not only deprives of honours and rewards many who deserve well of their country, but applies, their property to the support of the very system which denies the appropriate remuneration of their services : an ingenious refinement, like compelling a prisoner to purchase his fetters or like the law of a certain country, where the victims of its insti

tutions are sometimes doomed to pay the expenses of the trial which condemns them, and of the scaffold on which they are executed.

Infringements of religious liberty invade the rights of princes as well as of subjects, and seem the result of their being blinded by bigotry, or overruled against their own interest by a faction calling itself a church. Their prerogative is limited, and agents and counsellors must be selected from a party. There may be talent, wisdom, loyalty, and zeal; but their possessor must remain unemployed and obscure, perhaps be driven to seek his meed of wealth and fame in foreign service, because a test interposes between prince and subject. This subservience to a church has ruined many sovereigns: this undue power has been their destruction. It lost Spain the United Provinces. It impoverished France, and enriched England by that tide of Protestant emigration, which so mightily advanced our manufacturing superiority. It made execrable the memory of Henry VIII. With Mary's name (herself an amiable woman) it has for ever connected the epithet of bloody. It stained the brilliant reign of Elizabeth. It made James I. the ridicule of all nations. It brought Charles I. to the block. It made Charles II. the pensioner of France. It hurled James II. from the throne, and consigned the royal family of Stuart to beggary, contempt, and exile. What

ever evils sovereigns may dread in religious liberty, surely they cannot be greater than those of intolerance:

But why should not the medium of an establishment with toleration be universally satisfactory? For this reason, that a medium between good and evil is not so desirable as good unmixed. There is something disgraceful and galling in the term toleration. It implies inferiority; it imputes criminality; it brands with disgrace. Admitting the right to tolerate is also admitting the right not to tolerate, i. e. to persecute. It is admitting the authority and capacity of governments to decide between religious truth and error, orthodoxy and heresy, pure worship and idolatry. They are no more qualified than authorized, if we may judge by experience. What idolatry so gross as not to be established? What religion so pure as not to be persecuted? Christianity true? Its author and founders were dissenters and martyrs. Is the Athanasian Creed the gospel? Athanasius was banished. Is Arianism true? Arius was excommunicated and deposed, and perhaps poisoned; and many of his followers put to death. Are Dissenters right? They suffered long and heavily. Is the Church? Its first primate was burnt for heresy. Calvinists, Arminians, Papists, Protestants, Presbyterians, Quakers, all have been legally criminal and punished, and all their discordant theories in

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different circumstances have been the religions of rulers. There should be better credentials than these before their judgment is deferred to. What has a Dissenter done that he is to be only tolerated? He has read the Scriptures, considered their meaning, overcome the prejudices of education, or the power of fashion; made sacrifices to conscience: and is he therefore disgraced? The Episcopalian himself becomes a Dissenter across. the Tweed; he is tolerated there: and why is he there inferior to the very Presbyterian on whom he looks down here? Does crossing a river, or the sea, change religion into superstition, truth into error, conscientiousness into criminality? “Toleration," says an admirable writer," is a disgrace to those who assume the right of granting it, and an insult to those who are compelled to receive it. For what would you tolerate? Would you tolerate what is right, or what is wrong;the performance of a duty, or the commission of a crime?" (*)

But perfect religious liberty would be an innovation. On what? Paganism; for thence came the connexion of religion with the state :-Popery; for thence came dominion over conscience in Christianity. It commends itself, therefore, to the Christian and the Protestant. What are all improvements but innovations? What were Moses, Christ, the Apostles, the Reformers, the founders