sisting simply of all people who ' sincerely and willingly' accept Christ for their ruler. Such a body has, of course, no organs for legislation or jurisdiction. Nobody can speak in its name without usurping its authority. Its laws-for in Hoadly's view Christianity meant little else-are the unalterable laws of morality; its king and judge is Christ; its rewards and punishments are heaven and hell; and its laws apply to the inward affections, not, like the human laws, to the outward actions alone. In short, it is plain that Hoadly is really discussing the distinction between the spheres of morality and legislation, whilst his opponents thought that he was discussing the distinction between ecclesiastical and civil legislation. No wonder if the whole argument became hopelessly perplexed!

39. Hoadly, in fact, comes to make the distinction between Christ's kingdom and human kingdoms coincident with the distinction between inward and outward. God rules the heart, and man the outward actions. That, said Sherlock, is to divest the law of all its moral rectitude '-a reply which led to some profitless discussion as to the definition of an ' outward action.' Hoadly's meaning, however, evaporates as usual. All that he means is that, as the magistrate cannot see into the heart, he cannot punish vice as such. God alone. can damn the man who hates his brother; the magistrate can do no more than hang the murderer. So far, too, as a man acts from the fear of the gallows he does not act from the fear of God. But it does not follow that the magistrate is to be indifferent to virtue and vice. 'Whatever directly affects the happiness of public societies, and is within the power of the magistrate, is likewise within his care.' In support of this doctrine Hoadly not only admits but declares that the magistrate is to encourage the same outward actions which are commanded by the laws of God upon a higher principle, and to discourage the contrary,' and therefore that he is to 'do everything in his power and belonging to his office for the encouraging morality and discouraging the contrary.' The only restriction implied in such language is that the magistrate is

'Hoadly's Works, ii. 408, Sermon 477; Answer to Committee.'

* Sherlock, iv. 390.

3 Hoadly's Works, ii. 512, 'Answer to Representation.'

Ib. ii. 538, ib.

not to do what is impossible or illegal. Hoadly pushes his principle a step further, and claims to be, as indeed he seems to be, in full agreement with Sherlock. The magistrate is to punish actions which are injurious to society, whatever the motive, whether want of principle or perverted principle be at the bottom of them. He is to terrify' men from any destructive practices, whether they themselves think them right or wrong.' If, he adds, all the robbers and murderers in the world thought it a duty to rob and murder, ' as many rebels and traitors do," it would not be the less the magistrate's duty to suppress them. Louis XIV. could not have wanted a better pretext for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Hoadly, no doubt, failed to observe the consequences of his argument, owing to his tacit assumption that virtue and vice were independent of church differences. He allowed the magistrate to act only with a view to the public good, and could not conceive that legislation on behalf of the Athanasian Creed could be brought under that category. The conclusion, however, is in sufficient harmony with his real principles. His whole purpose was to get the church of supernatural claims out of the way; he had disarmed it effectually enough, but had to allow the civil magistrate to succeed to its authority, though with less exalted claims.

40. Sherlock, with his clear legal intellect, has a great superiority over Hoadly in this part of the argument. He arrives at similar conclusions by a shorter road, and expresses them in excellent language. The controversy, as Sherlock substantially says, is whether certain consequences, repudiated by both parties, logically flow from Hoadly's principles.2 On one definite conclusion, indeed, there was a clear difference, and there Sherlock, if a better writer than Hoadly, is a less straightforward reasoner. Both parties were agreed that religion should not be propagated by persecution; they were agreed that the Established Church might be maintained, and they were agreed, further, that disqualifications might be imposed upon people whose religious opinions were dangerous. But Sherlock maintained, whilst Hoadly denied, that Protestant dissenters should be excluded from certain offices of Hoadly's Works, ii. 543, 'Answer to Representation.' 2 Sherlock iv. 386.

profit and privilege. And thus a dispute, stated in the most abstract terms, dwindled down to a squabble over the Test and Corporation Acts. Sherlock tries to prove that the sacrament is not desecrated by being used with a test, and that there is a broad distinction between positive penalties and negative disqualifications. The result was characteristic of the whole dispute. The Test Act survived the Bangorian controversy for more than a century, but an Act of Indemnity was regularly passed, after a few years, until its final repeal.' The legislature, like the controversialists, affirmed a general principle, and took care that it should have no practical effect.

41. The whole question ceased to be interesting, though some feeble attacks upon the Establishment were made in the last half of the century. When passions are calm, shams flourish. Mere verbal theories which could not stand the strain of a real agitation, pass muster in the calmer intervals. Warburton's theory, set forth in the 'Alliance between Church and State,' is a good specimen of that verbal ingenuity which passed with himself and others for reasoning. It is tempting, though the temptation must be resisted, to take from its pages a few more specimens of the peculiar Warburtonian mixture of sham logic and bluster. It is enough to say that Warburton starts with Locke, and accepts his social compact and general outline of theory. But Locke's theory would sanction pure voluntaryism, or deprive the Church of all 'coactive' power. Tindal's theory, on the other hand, tended to Erastianism or Hobbism; that is, to make the Church a mere department of state. The English practice was a compromise between the two, and Warburton's whole artifice is to represent this compromise as the result of a permanent compact between the two bodies. He has little difficulty in deducing the precise arrangements of a British constitution from an a priori necessity; and thus mathematically demonstrates, for example, that the bishops ought to have seats in the House of Lords.2 In a word,' as he says in the Divine Legation,' 'an established religion with a test-law is the universal voice of nature'--surely, the strangest of all the utterances of that ambiguous authority. Do you ask how

Hallam's 'Constitutional History,' iii. 247.

2 Works, vii. 111.

Ib. ii. 292.

such a bargain could be made-seeing that, according to Warburton, church and state consist of the same individuals, and it is, therefore, like a bargain made by a man with himself-his answer is easy. Because two societies, composed of the same persons, may have 'two distinct wills and two distinct personalities.' The majority in a 'factitious body' has the denomination of the person and the will of the society;' therefore it is the personality. Therefore, the two societies can make bargains with each other. This sounds rather like a still deeper mystery. But where, you ask, is this bargain to be found? It may be found,' replies Warburton, in the same archive with the famous original compact between magistrate and people.' There let us leave it. Stripping Warburton's arguments of these obsolete assumptions, pushed by him, as usual, to the extreme of unreality, we may say that he really asserts that the existing compromise was very convenient. Most people agreed with him, and, therefore, did not trouble themselves about its theoretical basis.

2

IV. THE WALPOLE ERA.

42. The accession of George I. marked the beginning of a period of political stagnation which lasted for near half-acentury. The country prospered and waxed rich. Harvests were abundant; towns began to grow; and the seeds of much that was good and much that was evil in our later history were sowed. Nor was it a period of intellectual stagnation. The deist controversy was raging; and in literature Pope, Swift, Richardson, Fielding, and Thomson were producing some of their best work. Politically, however, the times were quiet, and, it may be, a golden opportunity was being lost. The governing classes enjoyed the power which they had acquired by the revolution, and were content to keep what they had gained. They would oppress nobody actively; on the other hand, they would introduce no reforms. Their highest virtue was in leaving things alone. The Jacobites represented a vague danger in the background until their suppression in 1745. But the Jacobites were unable to put any real pressure upon the country; and a governing class

Works, vii. 210.

2 Ib. ii. 287.

which has nothing to do except languidly to hold the reins of power and divide the spoils naturally becomes corrupt. Not one constitutional question of the least importance arose until the reign of George III. The Church retained obnoxious privileges on the condition of making very little use of them; and the nation indolently drifted towards the unknown future, carelessly contented for the most part, amused as much as scandalised by the intrigues of unprincipled politicians, and only once insisting upon having a war for the benefit of its

commerce.

43. The fitting representative of such a period was Sir Robert Walpole; a statesman of admirably shrewd sense and great force of character, whose favourite motto and sole principle of government was quieta non movere. Walpole found no exponent of his political theories, whatever they might be, for the best exposition of such theories was silence. But opposed to Walpole was a man of no common reputation for philosophical and literary ability. Bolingbroke supplied the brains of the party by which Walpole was opposed, and to which Walpole's greediness of power gradually drove the ablest of his former allies. Bolingbroke was, therefore, the natural mouthpiece of that accumulated discontent which, after twenty years' preparation, at length gathered force enough to sweep Walpole from office. Exiled from Parliament, Bolingbroke was forcibly confined to literary modes of expression. A bitterly disappointed man, he was restrained by no scruples from aiming at the most vulnerable points of his hated opponent. Whatever could be said against Walpole was sure to be suggested to him, and his reputation seemed to insure that it should be said as forcibly as possible. In his writings, then, we might expect to find an expression of the political philosophy of the time, for Bolingbroke professed to have a philosophy, carefully digested in solitude, and brought to bear upon a conspicuous instance. We might expect to find anticipations of the coming outburst of revolutionary feeling, or attempts to restore the dying energy of the ancient political creeds, of which Bolingbroke was, for a time, the acknowledged representative. What do we find, in fact?

44. Two phrases are generally quoted in regard to Bolingbroke, and their conjunction is significant. The younger Pitt,