He seems to affirm that the clergy had no right to temporal jurisdiction; yet that Christ is the supreme legislator of the Church; and that no power, temporal or human, ought at all to infringe his authority. To this perplexed argument, Snape and Sherlock wrote replies; while a Committee of the Convocation passed a censure on the Discourse, as tending to exempt the Church from due subordination to the state. If this were really the case, it is somewhat puzzling to determine, why the King should fall so violently in love with the Sermon, or why it should be considered as bearing hard against the Nonjurors. So far as the writer comprehends the argument of Hoadly, it certainly cuts in two directions; taking away all temporal power and privileges whatever from the Church, when it is regarded with reference to the sects; and all authority over it from the Crown, when it is considered in its relation to the state. An order from Government arrested the proceedings of the Convocation; but was too feeble to stop the mouths of the controversialists. Snape and Sherlock were removed from the office of Chaplains to the King; and the Convocation has never since been permitted to assemble for the regular transaction of business. This controversy continued to employ the press for years; in the course of which, the matter in debate was either shifted, or made more ex

plicit, as it came to respect the power of the Sovereign in ecclesiastical politics.

It may be necessary to state, that the Nonjurors were those who declined taking the oath of allegiance to King William. They were High Tories who relinquished not their attachment to the expatriated family, till 1788, when the last pretender to the throne died. It was then that their remnant, the Protestant Bishops in Scotland, began to pray for the present royal family; still, however, some trivial differences existed betwixt them and the English Episcopal clergy of that kingdom. These were happily compromised in the year 1806, when Bishop Sandford, an English clergyman of learning and great worth, resident in Edinburgh, delivered an inaugural charge to the ministry of that district*.

IV. During the violence of the Bangorian controversy (1717), an act for strengthening the Protestant interest, by uniting all well

* See Park's Life of Steevens, Skinner's Primitive Order, and History of the Scottish Church. The time of taking episcopal orders is earlier in Scotland than England; yet it is somewhat strange, that though a Catholic priest, recanting, becomes ipso facto a priest of the Church of England, a minister ordained by a Scotch Bishop, in a church adopting the Thirtynine Articles, and a pure church (if the author's information be correct), is not to be permitted to officiate in England.

affected Christians, was proposed by Earl Stanhope, in the House of Lords. Its purport was to repeal, in pursuance of Hoadly's principles, the acts against the growth of schism, and occasional conformity; together with some clauses in the Corporation and Test Acts. To this bill, concerted between the ministry and leading Dissenters, the Tory Lords, though taken unexpectedly, excited a violent opposition; affirming that, instead of strengthening the Church Establishment, it would only strengthen the enemies of the Church, and enable them to pull her down; and that no advantage, to the prejudice of Dissenters, had been taken of the acts complained of. These arguments were contravened by Bishop Hoadly, who maintained, that the Schism and Occasional Conformity Acts were persecuting statutes; and that an admission of the principle of intolerance in self-defence, would justify the heathen persecution of the Christians, and the direst severities of the Inquisition. The measure was carried, so far at least as related to a repeal of the Schism and Occasional Conformity Acts; but the clause for abolishing the Sacramental Test was struck out,

Ever since that period, to declaim against the Test Act has been a frequent and favourite exercise with popular orators. Their various arguments may be included under two heads: first,

that toleration is persecution while a test remains; and, secondly, that it makes hypocrites, and only excludes the well-principled. To these objections it may be replied, that toleration is simply indulgence in the free exercise of worship; that to seek any advantage beyond this point, is to convert a religious into a civil question; that an established church ought to have privileges, and ought to be supported; that it is not likely that the advocates of another religion would properly support it; and that some of those religionists who are loudest in their clamours for power, would attempt to exclude others differing from them in profession, with far greater intolerance than that of which they complain. As to the Test's making hypocrites, it may be replied, that in cases where conformity is insincere, it is not owing to the law, but to the interested and base motives of unworthy Dissenters; and it is a smaller evil that the Church should contain a few such insincere friends, than that certain places should be withheld from those whose natural bias would incline them to dismember the established constitution of the country, as composed of Church and state.

These arguments will, however, by no means apply to an attempt made by the Tories in the reign of George I. to procure a penal statute

against Arians and Socinians. The Test is a measure of prudent self-defence. A penal statute is a measure of wanton persecution. And even a test should be regulated by two considerations; namely, by the indication of dangerous political principles, which the creed to be excluded affords; and by the danger resulting to the Church establishment from an admission of the professors of that creed to power. This regard to both the civil and ecclesiastical establishment ought to direct all maxims of toleration. Complete toleration, with the abolition of a test, is dangerous to the Church but serviceable to the state; for it tends to unite the members of the community; and hence all lukewarm politicians will ever be its advocates. Toleration, with a test, is the safety of the Church, but injurious to the state, abstractedly considered; hence its propriety will be urged by men of devotion and zeal, who consider their religion as more valuable than their civil privileges; and regard the Church established as the wisest and purest form of worship.

V. In 1722, a conspiracy was either discovered or pretended by the Whigs, for establishing the Pretender on the English throne; and Bishop Atterbury, on the doubtful evidence of some letters written in cipher, was deprived of all his dignities and benefices, and sent into