the church to enlarge her pale, and by omissions and concessions, to render it possible for the Dissenters conscientiously to join her communion.

But the difficulty soon started in the House of Lords was, who were the proper persons to decide on these concessions-a committee of the clergy or a committee of the clergy and laity conjointly?

Burnet tells us that he himself made a mistake (and a very egregious mistake it was), and that he argued for the former-the house decided with him, i. e. in favour of a committee of the clergy only.

A protest was, however, again left on the journals, though signed only by three. Among other general and constitutional reasons for the interference of the laity in such subjects, the following one is given more particularly applicable to the case.

"Fifthly, Because the commission being intended for the satisfaction of Dissenters, it would be convenient that laymen of different ranks, nay, perhaps of different opinions too, should be mixed in it, the better to find expedients for that end, rather than clergymen alone of our church, who are generally observed to have very much the same way of reasoning and thinking. WINCHESTER. MORDAUNT. J. LOVELACE."

But the commons were still more intolerant than the lords, and an address soon appeared from them, requesting the king to continue his care for the preservation of the Church of England, whose constitution, they told him, was best suited to the support of this monarchy, praying him to call a convocation of the clergy, assuring him, at the same time, that it was their intention to proceed to the consideration of giving ease to Protestant Dissenters.

When the convocation came to decide on the humane intentions of the king, the reasonableness of the protest of the lords was soon apparent. Burnet, in pages 11 and 30, vol. ii., gives us some account of what passed both before and during these meetings. The more rigid thought “that too much was already done for the Dissenters;" ""that the altering the customs and constitution of our church, to gratify a peevish and obstinate party, was like to have no other effect on them but to make them more insolent;" as if the church, by offering these alterations, seemed to confess she had been hitherto in the wrong;" they thought this attempt would divide us among ourselves, and make our people lose their esteem for the liturgy, if it appeared that it wanted correction.

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To these arguments, which may be considered as the permanent arguments on the subject, the bishop offers his reply, and then goes on thus:-" But while men were arguing this matter on both sides, the party that was now at work for King James took hold of this occasion to inflame men's minds; it was said the church was to be pulled down, and presbytery was to be set up." (Life, &c.) .. "The universities took fire upon this." "Severe reflections were cast on the king as being in an interest contrary to the church." "So that it was soon very visible," says at last the bishop, "that we were not in a temper cool or calm enough to encourage the farther prosecuting such a design."

....

This want of religious moderation, of which the bishop speaks, must be considereasd a striking proof of the deep impression that had been made on the community by the civil wars and long habits of religious dispute; for at the time that the Declaration of Rights was becoming the acknowledged constitution of the country; at the time that England had advanced so far before the great rival country of France in all the doctrines of civil liberty; in

religious liberty she was actually a century behind her; the twenty-sixth article of the edict of Nantz, enacted by Henry IV. (the contemporary of Elizabeth), admitted the Protestants to all civil offices indiscriminately with their fellow Christians, the Roman Catholics.

The real ground on which these religious exclusions were, and always have been defended, is that of terror; terror, lest the inferior sect, by obtaining political power, should, after a struggle for equality, contend at last for superiority.

It is not very creditable to human nature to observe, that when this terror is really felt, it operates in a contrary way. In the settlement of religious claims and differences, the inferior sect often gains something from the fears, but never from the generosity of the superior; the Protestants, for instance, had waged a long and desperate civil war with the Roman Catholics in France, and the terror which they really inspired enabled Henry IV. to procure for them such of the terms of the edict of Nantz as are of an equitable nature. Similar effects have been more or less produced in other countries on similar occasions of reconcilement and pacification, through all the periods of these dreadful contentions.

Afterwards, when the Protestants ceased to be such objects of terror, Louis XIV. could indulge his intolerance, and banish them from their country in a manner the most impolitic and cruel.

In England, in like manner, had the Papists been at all competent to enter into a contest of force with the Protestants, there would never have appeared such a dreadful array of penal laws on our statute books. The Scotch obtained from us, by arms, their kirk; so, too, the nonconformists in William's time would never have been excluded from offices, or even from the pale of the Church of England, if they had really inspired those apprehensions which their opponents affected to feel, or at least persuaded themselves that they, on the whole, might as well act upon. In seasons of real terror, religious factions either conciliate or positively murder and destroy each other, as in the pacifications with the Huguenots and the massacres of France and Ireland: it is in intervals of comparative repose and of considerable security that the superior sect suffers its malignity calmly to expand into penal statutes, sweeping accusations, and ungenerous suspicions; into arguments that admit not of answer (because they turn upon their own feelings and apprehensions), and into amusing exhortations to the inferior sect, "to wait for better times," &c.

LECTURE XX.

JAMES II. REVOLUTION.

ON the death of Charles II., the Duke of York took as peaceable possession of the throne as if no effort had ever been made to debar him from the succession.

If the exclusionists had carried their measure, James would have been always represented by a very large and respectable description of writers, as, on the whole, a victim to party rage.

Without perhaps denying exactly the right of a community to provide for its own happiness, they would have contented themselves with observing that religious opinions were in themselves no just disqualification; that it by no means followed that James, though a Papist himself, would have violated the constitution of his country, rather than not make his subjects the same; that the conduct of men altered with their situation; and that, at all events, the patriotism and good sense of James were not fairly tried.

But happily for one of the most important of all causes, the cause of civil liberty, the experiment was really made; and all that the exclusionists had foreseen, all that with very manly wisdom they had endeavoured to prevent, actually took place.

When, however, the expectations of the exclusionists were verified, and the arbitrary and bigoted nature of James was inflamed rather than pacified by the possession of power, it by no means followed that the community would be then able to relieve itself from the calamity which it had incurred. It is very easy for a theorist to say, that a nation has only to

will to be free, and to be so. ceed in no such manner.

The affairs of mankind pro

On such a subject as the Revolution in 1688, the student will surely think that no pains he can bestow are too great. But he will rise from the whole with very different impressions from what I have done, if he does not entitle this Revolution not only the glorious, but, in the first place, the fortunate Revolution of 1688. If he can but place himself in the midst of these occurrences, and suppose himself ignorant of what is to happen, it is with a sort of actual fear and trembling that he will read the history of these times; let him consider what his country has become by the successful termination of these transactions, and what it might have been rendered by a contrary issue; how much the interests of Europe were at this juncture identified with those of England; and what a variety of events, the most slight and the most natural, might have thrown the whole into a state of confusion and defeat.

The first question to be examined is the conduct of James, his unconstitutional measures, his arbitrary designs.

After the student has perused the history in Hume and Rapin, and compared it with the parliamentary debates of Cobbett, he will see that the indictment that was afterwards preferred against James by the two houses of legislature was strictly founded in fact, point by point.

As it is impossible for me to detail the history, not an incident of which is without its importance, I will just state what that indictment was. When the crown was afterwards offered to William and Mary, both houses prefaced their offer by declaring the reasons that compelled them to adopt a measure so extraordinary. They were these; and they form a sort of summary of the reign of James II., and therefore I shall read them to you; in every word they deserve attention; they are the case of the people of England on this great occasion.

"Whereas the late king, James II., by the assistance of

divers evil counsellors, judges, and ministers employed by him, did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion, and the laws and liberties of this kingdom; By assuming and exercising a power of dispensing with, and suspending of laws, and the execution of laws, without consent of parliament; By committing and prosecuting divers worthy prelates, for humbly petitioning to be excused from concurring to the said assumed power; By issuing and causing to be executed a commission under the great seal, for erecting a court called 'the Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes;' By levying money for and to the use of the crown, by pretence of prerogative, for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by parliament; By raising and keeping a standing army within this kingdom, in time of peace, without consent of parliament, and quartering soldiers contrary to law; By causing divers good subjects, being Protestants, to be disarmed, at the same time when Papists were both armed and employed contrary to law; By violating the freedom of election of members to serve in parliament; By prosecutions in the Court of King's Bench for matters and causes cognisable only in parliament; and by divers other arbitrary and illegal courses: And whereas of late years partial, corrupt, and unqualified persons have been returned, and served on juries in trials, and particularly divers juries on trials for high treason, which were not freeholders; and excessive bail hath been required of persons committed in criminal cases, to elude the benefit of the laws made for the liberty of the subject; and excessive fines have been imposed, and illegal and cruel punishments inflicted; and several grants and promises made of fines and forfeitures, before any conviction or judgment against the persons upon whom the same were to be levied: all which are utterly and directly contrary to the known laws, and statutes, and freedom of this realm."

Such were the articles of accusation preferred, and, it will be found, justly preferred, against James.