ter is rewarded with the emoluments of the Establishment He is not, I presume, so steeled to shame as to pretend to cure the bodies of the laity, whatever empirical receipts he may have for the diseases of their souls. There is still another sample of "blasphemy" to be produced from this quarter; namely, that spiritual polygamy which grasps pluralities and commendams, among those non-resident absentees, who, undertaking to feed the flock of Christ, carry the tenth of its food away, and grudge it even the benefit of their personal example as a pattern of virtue, never giving a thought to the exhortation of Peter, "Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind'; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to his flock." 1 Ep. v. 2.

I can trace irreligion in that bigoted adhesion to a system which excludes Catholics and Protestant Dissenters from the public Universities, so impolitic towards the interests of the Establishment, and so glaringly unjust towards the Catholic, whose ancestors founded and endowed those colleges, and whose advantages they bequeathed to their posterity, solemnly sanctioned by Acts of Parliament; a bigotry which (as if the various characters of men's minds, the passions and frailty of most, the self-love, pride, and vain conceit of our own opinions, common to all-as if the constant and intimate acquaintance with men and books of our own pre-conceived opinions, the avoidance of all writers and persons differing from us as if all these unavoidable causes of dissension and error were not sufficient to set mankind by the ears) endeavours, by operation of law, to widen these natural breaches of charity, and perpetuate ignorance, by pounding up the Conformist in his own stagnant opinions, and by driving the Dissenters to their nar row seminaries of dogmatical education, where they learn to riddle

gospel. In looking at war, which was one of them, he speaks thus: "Suppose thyself," says he, " with me on the top of some very exalted eminence, and from thence looking down upon the appearance of things below. Let our prospect take in the whole horizon, and let us view, with the indifference of persons not concerned in them, the various motions and agitations of human life. Thou wilt then, I dare say, have a real compassion for the circumstances of mankind, and for the posture in which this view will represent them. And when thou reflectest upon thy condition, thy thoughts will rise in transports of gratitude and praise to God, for having male thy escape from the pollutions of the world. The things thou wilt principally observe will be, the highways beset with robbers, the seas with pirates, encampments, marches, and all the terrible forms of war and bloodshed. When a single murder is committed, it shall be deemed, perhaps, a crime; but that crime shall commence a virtue, when committed under the shelter of public authority, so that punishment is not rated by the measure of guilt, but the more enormous the size of the wickedness is, so much the greater is the chance of impunity.”

and sublimate truth: thus opposing that quick circulation and collision of the products of different minds, which the whole history of human nature proves to encourage the spread of knowledge, and the consequent increase of virtue. How much zeal has thus been lost to the Christian church, and how much festering uncharity has been engendered, it would be difficult to estimate, and scarcely possible to credit.

The same blasphemy" is discernible in those civil disabilities for, conscience sake, so abhorrent to the genius of Christianity, and which cast on it the flagrant disgrace of having left the rights of mankind in a worse condition than it found them; a blasphemy, which builds up again those partition walls that Christ broke down, when he gave to the world a revelation, making no difference of people, tribe, or nation; but, in the all-comprehensive language of the apostle, excluding "neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but all are one in Christ Jesus." No species of bigotry is a greater outrage on the spirit of revelation. Locke, the real friend of the Establishment in church and state, truly says: "The boundaries on both sides are fixed and immoveable. He jumbles heaven and earth together, the things most remote and opposite, who mixes these two societies, which in their original, end, business, and in every thing, are perfectly distinct and infinitely different from each other." Christianity deserves the countenance and support of the state; but the belief of the majority of a country may be treated as the system of the national church, sanctioned and adopted by the state, without any disabilities being politic or just towards those who dissent from its forms or doctrines. That which is the distinctive character of the Christian revelation, as opposed to all human impostures-which constitutes its most irrefutable evidence-is its capacity of adaptation (so to speak) to all nations and all ages of the world; but if speculative opinions are to be the tests of our attachment to our native country, and of our capacity for civil office, what a curse has the Deity sent among us; and if every one who dissents from the ceremony or particular doctrine of a church, is to be robbed of the honorable title of Christian, what becomes of the argument founded on the universal spread of our religion? No; Christianity meddles not with the forms and models of civil government; but leaves them as it finds them, to be made suitable to the law of nature, and to the genius and welfare of the People to which they belong. It accords with the law of nature, discountenancing despotism and anarchy-it can live under all forms of civil policy-it florishes in every soil

'First Letter on Toleration.

and climate, and blossoms with equal beauty in the torrid and the frigid zone. It forbids tumults, seditions, conspiracies, and massacres, whether originating with the people or their governments. It demands rule, according to the law, from Kings, and rational allegiance in the People. It commands prayer for the afflicted, and especially for the sinner, that the Lord would turn his heart from wickedness. This is the catholic spirit of Christianity.

I shall again, therefore, discover "blasphemy" in the instru ments selected for these anti-christian bigotries: in the base prostitution of the Lord's supper, that sacred emblem of concord, that holy legacy of Christ to the whole Christian community, as the test of eligibility to civil office, and the sacrilegious food of a devouring appetite for sinecure and place-the abandoned profanation of the type of love as the black flag of hatred. "For as oft as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of this bread, and drink of that cup." (1 Cor. xi. 26.) A prostitution which, after all, cannot accomplish its end; for it may make hypocrites, and cannot make converts; it may keep out the honest and the scrupulous, but cannot scare the apostate or the perjurer; and is, therefore, a mere bounty on hypocrisy ; making the Church of England like Noah's ark, a place for the clean and the unclean, binding us in "the unity of spirit and the bond of duplicity." No barrier of this sort has ever impeded base ambition, from the time when the see of Rome waxed wealthy, and Prætextatus, its Pagan prefect, is reported to have said, "Make me a Bishop of Rome, and I will be a Christian too :" and when, as Father Paul writes, "the spiritual part was forgot, and nothing but the profits regarded." This is the "blasphemy,'

"Which binding polity in spiritual chains,

And tainting piety with temporal stains,

Corrupts both state and church, and makes an oath
The knave and Atheist's passport into both.""

I shall discover "blasphemy" in that policy which makes religion the kept mistress and strumpet of the "Holy Alliance"-which struck out of our public prayers the name of a reputed sinner without trial or inquest, in the teeth of Christian principles, which

1

The ancients appear to have had their conscience-salve in the same mental reservations of the modern Jesuit:

Ἡ γλῶσσ ̓ ὀμώμοχ', ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώμοτος.
"My tongue has sworn, but not my mind.”

EURIPID. Hippol. 1. 612.

command us to offer up more frequent and earnest, prayers for the wandering sinner-which thus holds up Christianity to the scorn and scoff of those who represent it as a mere state machine of bad governments-which makes the Church of England a pasteboard house built of court cards, and its liturgies prayers for kings, queens, and knaves; a policy which exhibits Christianity as the shuttlecock of nominal Christians, who, because they have read or believe the history of Jesus Christ, conceive themselves practising his morals; and who, in the words of Bishop Fell, "can give no better account of the swaddling clothes of their infancy, and why they took upon them Christ's livery, than that they wear such garments as the common fashion of their country prescribes them." I shall discover" blasphemy" in that nest of rats, who, having turned their backs upon themselves," having deserted all their early predilections," are now quoted, by an Irish viscount, as the disinterested witnesses to his patriotism and wisdom! I can see "blasphemy" in these political fornicators, who barter away the liberties of their country for blue ribands, garters, and knighthood; and who, by the rabid virulence with which they defame the friends they have deserted, seek to raise themselves in their own sunken estimation; who are indeed (like Dr. Slop) genuine Jacobins; and whose fury for their present opinions can only be compared with the violence of their former tenets. Thus it is that vicious zeal throws up its combustion: and, as in the case of the sons of Zebedee, when the explosion has spent itself, a fall ensues, like that which befel Peter!

And loud and upright, till their price be known,

They thwart the King's supplies to raise their own.

These are the men who, with vice imprinted on their head, have brought shame and degradation on the most learned and dignified profession of the country, exhibiting it as a mere bank of apostasy, where the drafts of the Treasury are duly honored. With what coloring of religion will ye whitewashers of "blasphemy" varnish over this matchless turpitude of patricide? "We don't hear that Judas knew the High Priests, till he came to do business with them." But lest the coroner of Oldham should record a verdict against me of "wilful murder," under Lord Ellenborough's Act, "the black act," I shall (in the Christian language of Lord Russell to his enemies in court) pity them, and wish them well; and had rather that their own consciences should reckon up the particulars wherein they have sinned-to which, and the mercies of God, I leave them. Think not, reader, that I honor them too much by believing in the existence of conscience as any part of their composition;-I earnestly hope that they have yet some portion of it VOL. XIX. NO. XXXVII.

Pam.

N

left-that it will remain a mirror of adamant, reflecting their sins, which no treachery can get rid of a demon no man can cast outtheir prosecutor, judge, jury, witness, and executioner !

These, Sir, are a few of the real blasphemies of the times. And if you wish further evidence of zeal for religion and discountenance of blasphemy, mark it in the vile seductions of lotteries and ginshops those national decoys and preserves of vice-those snares and pimps for glutting the severities of our penal code;--which are continued in open defiance of every law, human and Divine, to supply the unnecessary and profligate expenditure of the State.

Such, Sir, are among the blasphemies of the present day; and putting the charge upon the People is something like the impu dence of the pickpocket who turns on his pursuers with the cry of "Stop thief!" It reminds one of the devil rebuking sin. If this is Religion, I will henceforth glory in the distinction of infidel. The calumniators of the People may understand Priestcraft, but know little of Christianity: they care little for the Constitution, however they may love the Commonwealth. To deny that they belong to a Church, is impossible; but it is, as an old author says, in the same sense as a jackdaw who builds his nest in the steeple; they look up to a Church-to the weather-cock on its spire-to discover how the wind blows, and so to conform themselves.

Thus, Sir, I have exhibited to you facts; and facts which I hope will convince you, that whatever may be the intention of our calumniators towards Christianity, they are most unfortunate in its application; and never can I concede to them the character of Religion, so long as the Bible forms the rule of the Religion of Protestants, and a "Bill to revise, amend, or repeal certain obsolete statutes, commonly called the Ten Commandments," has not received the assent of the successor of the "Most High and Mighty Prince, James, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith," &c.; and so long as the said Commandments are by Act of Parliament, and "his Majesty's special command, appointed to be read in Churches."

There is one other point, Sir, I shall but barely allude to, as exhibiting proofs of the saving faith of our rulers: I mean the prosecution of her Majesty the Queen, and the consequent deluge of obscene and odious associations with vice to pollute the minds of youth. So early as the time of Aristotle it is noted,—" That a lawgiver ought above all things to banish all filthy discourse out of a city; for men easily go from saying filthy things to doing them." This abomination cannot fail to aggravate that dissoluteness, which is the deplorable evil of the day, and the moral pestilence of female prostitution which now stalks abroad, to the disgust of all good men, and the degradation of England, and has