may

be reserved for the farther glory of this reign to abolish all penal laws in matters of religion, and to put every man on the fair footing of being answerable to God only for his confcience, while he gives fecurity for his civil allegiance and peaceable behaviour, as a member of the community."

CON

CONCLUSION.

N the variety of matter, which the nature

IN

of my undertaking has obliged me to touch upon, I have unintentionally exceeded the limits, to which I originally meant to confine myself. The importance however of the questions themselves will, I hope, screen me from the imputation of prolixity. I have throughout the work endeavoured to make a faithful and candid representation of every fact, that I had occafion to speak of; if any however fhall be found to have been mifconceived or mifreprefented, I folemnly disavow the intention of misleading others, though I may have erred myself.

Attempts have been lately made with much rancour and much infolence to misrepresent and vilify our conftitution. I have exerted my humble efforts to counteract them; and I shall ever boast of my wishes to represent to my countrymen the constitution of this kingdom as the most perfect work of human polity. If in the gradual formation of it, we have been more fortunate or more wife, than our neighbours, we may also still boast of being the foremost towards attaining the highest poffible perfection

perfection of civil government. We have a basis still to work and improve upon, formed of the venerable materials of millennial experience, which time and circumstances have cemented, fettled, and incorporated into a body of the most durable folidity. A bafis widely different from those compofed of the crumbling plaifter of Paris, upon which the modern state architects have been unable to erect with ftability the flighteft temporary fuperftructure.

The alliance which our conftitution has inftituted between church and ftate has obliged me to enter further into the topic of religion, than a mere differtation upon the civil constitution of a country might feem to require. I am aware of the extreme difficulty of treating religious subjects in a manner fatisfactory to all perfons. It has neither been my province nor my intention to difcufs the merits of any gious perfuafion whatever; and if any reflection or obfervation has escaped me, that can displease or offend the theologians * of any religious

reli

* I am fenfible, that in quoting the authorities of fome of our constitutional and legal writers, I have fometimes adopted phrafes, which may not ftand the fevere ordeal of theological precision: for inftance, it is ufually faid, that the king of England appoints! bishops, &c.; now neither in legal, conflitutional, nor theological accuracy, is this word appoint proper; because it is not confonant with the fact. For if by the word appoint we are to understand the gift or collation of real spiritual power or jurifdiction, which the act of confecrating gives not, and which confifts in the power of commanding in fpiritual matters under pain of fin, fpiritually cenfuring

religious fociety, I truft in the fpirit of that christian meeknefs, to which they all lay claim, that the unintended offence will be forgiven. But if in tracing and difcuffing the principles of civil government, I have endeavoured to caution my countrymen against the effects of cer tain political doctrines, which have already proved fundamentally injurious to our conftitution, I have done it from the conviction that as the English constitution is not repugnant to the faith of a true christian, so principles fubverfive of this conftitution cannot have been revealed by the divine author of that faith. I no more attribute these turbulent and anarchiçal principles to the doctrines and faith of any

fociety

cenfuring and excommunicating, &c. it is evident, that the law vefts no fuch prerogative, right, or power in the crown. For upon the avoidance of a bishoprick, by ftatute 25 H. VIII. c. 20. the king (Bl. vol. i. p. 379) fends to the dean and chapter his ufual licence to proceed to election, called the congè d'elire, which was the conftant ufage for many centuries before the reformation, and this congè d'elire is accompanied with a letter miffive from the king, containing the name of the perfon, whom he would have them elect; and if the dean and chapter delay their election above twelve days, the nomination fhall devolve to the king, who may by letteis patent appoint fuch perfon, as he pleafes. This election or nomination, if it be of a bishop, must be fignified by the king's let ters patent to the archbishop of the province; if it be of an archbifhop to the other archbishop and two bishops, or to four bifhops, requi ing them to confirm, inveft, and confecrate the perfon fo elected.' This confirmation, inveftiture and confecration are the acts, by which the conflitution fuppofes the real Spiritual jurifdiction to be conferred upon the bishop. Before the reformation this confirmation and inveftiture were made by the bishop of Rome, as the Roman catholics held him to be the fpiritual fupreme head of the church, and from him deduced the gradations and regularity of their hierarchy, But though the nation have renounced that religion, and have transferred to their king whatever part of the headship of the

fociety of chriftians, than I lay to their charge the maxims and practices of robbers and pirates. Το prove, that any human inftitution has attained its ne plus ultra of perfection is to produce internal evidence of a radical deficiency or vice in the fyftem; and to prove a continued progrefs in the melioration or improvement of a fyftem is conclufive evidence, that the ground-work of the superstructure is in its nature firm and permanent. I have endeavoured to trace and mark the advances, which our conftitution has been gradually making fince its first inftitution towards the perfection

civil establishment of religion they formerly allowed to the pope, yet it is evident beyond cavil or doubt, that they neither attempted nor intended to invest, nor did they by law inveft the king with a power of collating spiritual jurisdiction; for they expressly direct the bishop to apply to the archbishop or other bithops for that, which was not in its nature conferable by the laity; for though the law fubjects the archbishop and bishops to the fevereft penalties and forfeitures, if after fuch election or nomination they refufe to confirm and inveft the perfon elected or nominated, yet it authorizes not the king or any other perfons to confirm and inveft, or to grant or collate the real fpiritual jurisdiction, nor does it say or fuppofe that the perfon elected or nominated becomes a real fpiritual paftor of Chrift's church without fuch confirmation or inveftiture. When the bishop has been elected or nominated, and confirmed and invefted, he then is to fue to the king for nis temporalities, which as appendages of the civil establishment of religion were holden by our Roman catholic ancestors, as well as by the nation at this day, to be at the difpofal and under the controul of the state, and not of the fupreme or other fpiritual minifters of the church of Chrift; for in the year 1350 (25 Ed. III.) though they then did and for many centuries afterwards, continued to acknowledge the spiritual fupremacy of the pope, they complained, that he affumed a right to give and grant church benefices to aliens and denizens, as if he had been patron and adwowee of the faid dignities and benefices, as he was not of right by the law of England.

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