thing to the religion of those times. It has already been shewn, that Magna Charta was no way a consequence of it, as the argument, if it means any thing to the purpose, should assume. Neither were the juridical institutions of the first Edward any consequences of it; but rather the reverse. As to the constitution of England, it grew out of causes perfectly distinct from religion, as far as it proceeded, until the time of the Reformation; it grew out of the struggles of a spirited and wealthy nation with the almost absolute power of the Crown.

In a political point of view, the direct tendency of the whole system of the Romish doctrines is to favour absolute power. Enslaving the mind from infancy, by forbidding research on the subjects the most important to human beings; making the conduct the mere instrumental effect, by the direction of its superiors, as far as it can be done; and though it may be true, that the glaring contrast, which the avarice and ostentation of the clergy exhibited with the doctrine of many of its teachers, as to the merits of benevolence and humiliation, did, when irritated by the defalcations of natural rights of property or privileges, rouse the sense of natural justice to oppose the clergy in these respects; in others, they were too much habituated to assent, to dare to inquire; and to obey, to dare to resist. In men thus dependent upon, and guided by, the clergy, whose power they consider as deciding upon their eternal salvation, and whose influence over all their actions is so unlimited by the intervention of confession, the mind must necessarily, except in a few, and uncommon cases, be broken

down from that strength and energy of inquiry, upon which alone a rational system of conduct, private or public, can be founded.

Yet even these, were the minds of the instructors themselves free, would be, by so much, the less an evil; but it is not in the nature of despotism to negleet any link of the chain that binds its victims. In the whole gradation of the priesthood, every inferior is firmly bound in his obedience to his superior; and the Sacred College guides the whole with a firm and assured hand, confident of a general implicit submis sion from a body, whose interests it has found means to detach from the general interests of mankind, and the local ones of inheritance and family; and to make them its own, by including all prospect of temporal advantage, as much as possible, within its own power to confer. Thus the esprit de corps co-operates to the utmost with the superior power; and as it is uniformly found to act with the greatest force, where the command is the most absolute, so is dissent, or deficiency in deference, punished with the utmost rigour.

There are but two distinct principles upon which power can be maintained, or submission secured. It must either be force, in which no discussion of the principle can be permitted; or an equitable moral necessity, in which a rational investigation proves the necessity and the equity. In practical Government, absolute power must borrow so much of the moral principle as to give some colour to its pretensions ; and a Government founded on the equitable moral necessity must have sufficient power to enforce its regulations. There will, however, the decisive dif

ference subsist between them, that the former dreads, and the latter does not fear, investigation; but, on the contrary, rather encourages it. Hence then it is that a sect, subject to such a domination as that of the Romish church, must be inimical to freedom of opinion, and to the policy of a free state. Its title must not be scrutinized upon rational principles, but up held by blind assent, or the submission of ignorance; by a devotion without knowledge, the impressions of superstition, or whatever else can divorce the understanding from the imagination, or impress such associations of ideas on the imagination, that, spell-bound, as it were, it shall be incapable, or afraid, of exerting the powers of the understanding.

It is then to the Reformation only that Britain owes the superiority of her code over that of any other nation. With it the spirit of rational inquiry went forth from the imprisonment, in which Rome held, and still would hold it captive, and its progress was illuminated by the radiations of sacred truth. The social duties were learned and impressed upon the mind from the pure word of God; the governors and governed became equally acquainted with all, that is necessary to common life, of the revealed will of him who formed them for their mutual benefit. Hence the laws assumed a milder spirit, and the obedience of principle succeeded to the obedience of necessity; and hence only can be solved the difficulty, which De Lolme states, of accounting for the tranquil and prompt obedience to the laws in this country. It is because the people learn their duty, not from what a man like themselves may tell them, but from divine

authority itself, unsophisticated by human comment, and equally open to, and equally obligatory on, the Legislature and the people, the teacher and the taught.

What the sciences owe to the Romish religion may. be comprehended in a few words. Some knowledge of the Latin tongue was indispensable to ecclesiastics; and whilst superior knowledge could be confined in general to them, and a few more in the higher rank of society, the ecclesiastical order preserved with great care all the records of antiquity, from which no danger to their church was apprehended. Others, however, they interpolated, or destroyed, with equal care. How far that religion was favourable to science, the fate of Roger Bacon and Galileo, as to individuals, and the state of science in the two kingdoms the most devoted to Rome, Spain and Portugal, may determine conclusively. Is it favourable to science, that a man dare not suggest a new idea, in many respects, with out being liable to be punished as suspected of heresy? Yet such are the effects of the Romish religion, where it has the power.

But to pursue the subject a little further. To whom are we properly indebted for the arts and sciences? To Egypt, to Asia, and to Greece, for astronomy, medicine, logic, mathematics, oratory, and history; and for their greatest improvements in science to Protestants, chiefly Sir Francis Bacon, Newton, Boyle, Locke, Harvey, Boerhaave, and Linnæus. The men who have made new, and the greatest, æras in the progress of science, were Protestants; and it was the misfortune of Galileo to have

been otherwise, entitled as he was to rank with them. When it is also remembered, that even the learned members of that once-powerful body, the Jesuits, were obliged to apologize for their Commentary on the Principia of Newton, by waving the consideration of the truth of the principle, and professing to consider the work merely as an hypothesis, so far useful as it might be applied to the explanation of the mundane system, it is to be hoped the argument of the Romish religion's being favourable to science may not be insisted upon.

The systems of Christian doctrines which the church of Rome has propagated, at various times, have been so different, that it would be very difficult for one who compared them to recognise the first in the last, so much of the foundation has the superstructure subverted or obscured. The first received in this island was Christianity in its primitive form; the second, Christianity in a state rapidly declining from its original purity: but still it was of value, as leading to a knowledge of the true God, and preparing the way for a more perfect knowledge. But as the dif ference between the primitive and the modern Christianity of Rome has been already noticed in part, and will hereafter be somewhat further considered, it shall suffice here to attend to other statements in favour of the modern Romish religion, which appear to re quire it.

This religion is said to form" (in the present day)" the belief of the wisest politicians, and the most

* P. 2.