those who refuse to join the established worship.

England, are of two sorts. First, Blackfriars, such as absent themselves from divine worship in the established church through total irreligion, and attend the service of no other persuasion. These, by the stat. 1 Eliz. c. 2. 23 Eliz. c. 1. and 3 Jac. I. c. 4. forfeit one shilling to the poor every Lord's-day they so absent themselves, and 10l. to the king if they continue such default for a month together. And if they keep any innmate thus irreligiously disposed in their houses, they forfeit 10l. per month.

The second species of nonconformists are those who offend through a mistaken or perverse zeal. Such were esteemed, by the English laws enacted since the time of the Reformation, to be Papists and Protestant dissenters: both of which were supposed to be equally schismatics, in not communicating with the national church; with this difference, that the Papists divided from it upon material, though erroneous, reasons; but many of the dissenters upon matters of indifference, or, in other words, upon no reason at all. "Yet certainly (says Sir William Blackstone) our ancestors were mistaken in their plans of compulsion and intolerance. The sin of schism, as such, is by no means the object of temporal coercion and punishment. If, through weakness of intellect, through misdirected piety, through perverseness and acerbity of temper, or (which is often the case) through a prospect of secular advantage in herding with a party, men quarrel with the ecclesiastical establishment, the civil magistrate has nothing to do with it; unless their tenets and practice are such as threaten ruin or disturbance to the state. He is bound indeed to protect the established church: and if this can be better effected by admitting none but its genuine members to offices of trust and emolument, he is certainly at liberty so to do; the disposal of offices being matter of favour and discretion. But, this point being once secured, all persecution for diversity of opinions, however ridiculous or absurd they may be, is contrary to every principle of sound policy and civil freedom. The names and subordination of the clergy, the posture of devotion, the materials and colour of the minister's garment, the joining in a known or unknown form of prayer, and other matters of the same kind, must be left to the option of every man's private judgment.

"With With regard therefore to Protestant dissenters, although the experience of their turbulent disposition in former times occasioned several disabilities and restrictions (which I shall not undertake to justify) to be laid upon them by abundance of statutes; yet at length the legislature, with a true spirit of magnanimity, extended that indulgence to these sectaries, which they themselves, when in power, had held to be countenancing schism, and denied to the church of England. The penalties are conditionally suspended by the statute 1 W. & M. st. i. c. 18, "for exempting their Majesties Protestant subjects, dissenting from the church of England, from the penalties of certain laws," commonly called the toleration act; which declares, that neither the laws above-mentioned, nor the statutes 1 Eliz. c. 2. § 14. § Jac. I. c. 4. & 5. nor any other penal laws made against Popish recusants (except the test-acts) shall extend to any dissenters, other than Papists and such as deny the Trinity: provided, 1. That they take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, (or make a similar affirmation, being Quakers), and subscribe the declaration against Popery. 2. That they repair to some congregation certified to, and registered in the court of the bishop or archdeacon, or at the county-selections. 3. That the doors of such meeting-house shall be unlocked, unbarrled, and unbolted; in default of which, the persons meeting there are still liable to all the penalties of the former acts. Dissenting teachers, in order to be exempted from the penalties of the statutes 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 4. 17 Car. II. c. 2. and 22 Car. II. c. 1. are also to subscribe the articles of religion mentioned in the statute 13 Eliz. c. 12. (viz. those which only concern the profession of the true Christian faith, and the doctrine of the sacraments), with an express exception of those relating to the government and powers of the church, and to infant-baptism. And by statute 10 Ann. c. 2. this toleration is ratified and confirmed; and it is declared, that the said act shall at all times be inviolably observed for the exempting such Protestant dissenters as are thereby intended, from the pains and penalties therein mentioned. Thus, though the offence of nonconformity is by no means universally abrogated, it is suspended, and ceases to exist with regard to these Protestant dissenters, during their compliance with the conditions imposed by the act of toleration: and, under these conditions, all persons, who will approve themselves no Papists or oppugners of the Trinity, are left at full liberty to act as their consciences shall direct them in the matter of religious worship. And if any person shall wilfully, maliciously, or contumaciously disturb any congregation, assembled in any church or permitted meeting-house, or shall misuse any preacher or teacher there, he shall (by virtue of the same statute) be bound over to the seignors of the peace, and forfeit 20l. But by statute 5 Geo. I. c. 4., no mayor or principal magistrate must appear at any dissenting meeting with the ensigns of his office, on pain of disability to hold that or any other office: the legislature judging it a matter of propriety, that a mode of worship, set up in opposition to the national, when allowed to be exercised in peace, should be exercised also with decency, gratitude, and humility. Neither doth the act of toleration extend to enervate those clauses of the statutes 14 & 13 Car. II. c. 4. & 17 Car. II. c. 2. which prohibit (upon pain of fine and imprisonment) all persons from teaching school, unless they be licensed by the ordinary, and subscribe a declaration of conformity to the liturgy of the church, and reverently frequent divine service established by the laws of this kingdom.

As to Papists, what has been said of the Protestant dissenters would hold equally strong for a general toleration of them; provided their separation was founded only upon difference of opinion in religion, and their principles did not also extend to a subversion of the civil government. If once they could be brought to renounce the supremacy of the Pope, they might quietly enjoy their seven sacraments; their purgatory, and auricular confession; their worship of relics and images; nay, even their transubstantiation. But while they acknowledge a foreign power, superior to the sovereignty of the kingdom, they cannot complain if the laws of that kingdom will not treat them upon the footing of good subjects.

The following are the laws that have been enacted against the Papists; who may be divided into three classes, persons professing Popery, Popish recusants convicted, and Popish priests. 1. Persons professing the Popish religion, besides the former penalties for not frequenting their parish-church, are disabled from taking any lands either by descent or purchase, after 18 years of age, until they renounce their errors; they must at the age of 21 register their estates before acquired, and all future conveyances and wills relating to them; they are incapable of presenting to any advowson, or granting to any other person any avoidance of the same; they may not keep or teach any school under pain of perpetual imprisonment; and, if they willingly say or hear mass, they forfeit the one 200, the other 100 merks, and each shall suffer a year's imprisonment. Thus much for persons who, from the misfortune of family-prejudices, or otherwise, have conceived an unhappy attachment to the Romish church from their infancy, and publicly profess its errors. But if any evil industry is used to rivet these errors upon them; if any person sends another abroad to be educated in the Popish religion, or to reside in any religious house abroad for that purpose, or contributes to their maintenance when there; both the fender, the tenant, and the contributor, are disabled to sue in law or equity, to be executor or administrator to any person, to take any legacy or deed of gift, and to bear any office in the realm; and shall forfeit all their goods and chattels, and likewise all their real estate for life. And where these errors are also aggravated by apostasy or perversion; where a person is reconciled to the see of Rome, or procures others to be reconciled, the offence amounts to high-treason. 2. Popish recusants, convicted in a court of law of not attending the service of the church of England, are subject to the following disabilities, penalties, and forfeitures, over and above those beforementioned. They are considered as persons excommunicated; they can hold no office or employment; they must not keep arms in their houses, but the same may be seized by the justices of the peace; they may not come within 10 miles of London, on pain of 100l.; they can bring no action at law or suit in equity; they are not permitted to travel above five miles from home, unless by license, Nonconformists, upon pain of forfeiting all their goods; and they may not come to court under pain of 100l. No marriage or burial of such recusant, or baptism of his child, shall be had otherwise than by the ministers of the church of England, under other severer penalties. A married woman, when recusant, shall forfeit two thirds of her dower or jointure, may not be executrix or administratrix to her husband, nor have any part of his goods; and during the coverture may be kept in prison, unless her husband redeems her at the rate of 10l. a-month, or the third part of all his lands. And lastly, as a feme-covert recusant may be imprisoned, so all others must, within three months after conviction, either submit and renounce their errors, or, if required so to do by four justices, must abjure and renounce the realm: and if they do not depart, or if they return without the king's licence, they shall be guilty of felony, and suffer death as felons without benefit of clergy. There is also an inferior species of recusancy, (refusing to make the declaration against Popery enjoined by statute 30 Car. II. st. 2. when tendered by the proper magistrate;) which, if the party resides within ten miles of London, makes him an absolute recusant convict; or, if at a greater distance, suspends him from having any seat in parliament, keeping arms in his house, or any horse above the value of 5l.

3. Popish priests are in a still more dangerous condition. By statute 11 & 12 W. III. c. 4. Popish priests, or bishops, celebrating mass or exercising any part of their functions in England, except in the houses of ambassadors, are liable to perpetual imprisonment. And by the statute 27 Eliz. c. 2. any Popish priest, born in the dominions of the crown of England, who shall come over hither from beyond sea, (unless driven by storms of weather and tarrying only a reasonable time), or shall be in England three days without conforming and taking the oaths, is guilty of high treason: and all persons harbouring him are guilty of felony without the benefit of clergy.

This is a short summary of the laws against the Papists; of which the prudent Montesquieu observes, that they are so rigorous, though not professedly of the sanguinary kind, that they do all the hurt that can possibly be done in cold blood. But in answer to this it may be observed, (what foreigners who only judge from our statute-book are not fully apprized of) that these laws are seldom exerted to their utmost rigour: and indeed, if they were, it would be very difficult to excuse them. For they are rather to be accounted for from their history, and the urgency of the times which produced them, than to be approved (upon a cool review) as a standing system of law. The restless machinations of the Jesuits during the reign of Elizabeth, the turbulence and uneasiness of the Papists under the new religious establishment, and the boldness of their hopes and wishes for the succession of the queen of Scots, obliged the parliament to counteract so dangerous a spirit by laws of a great, and then perhaps necessary, severity. The powder-treason, in the succeeding reign, struck a panic into James I. which operated in different ways: it occasioned the enacting of new laws against the Papists; but deterred him from putting them in execution. The intrigues of queen Henrietta in the reign of Charles I. the prospect of a Popish successor in that of Char. II. the assassination-plot in the reign of king William, and the avowed claim of a Popish pretender to the crown in subsequent reigns, will account for the extension of these penalties at those several periods of our history."

But now that all just fears of a pretender may be said to have vanished; and the power and influence of the pope has become feeble, ridiculous, and despicable, not only in Britain, but in almost every kingdom of Europe; and as in fact the British Catholics solemnly disclaim the dangerous principles ascribed to them;†† See their Royal Addresses to the throne, May 1. 1773, as inserted in the Magazines for Annual Magazines or Annual Register for Popish heirs, who had received their education abroad; that year, and whose estates went to the next Protestant heir:

The power given to the son, or other relation, being a Protestant, to take possession of the father's or other relation's estate, during the life of the real proprietor:

And the debarring Papists from the power of acquiring any legal property by purchase.—In proposing the repeal of these penalties, it was observed, That, besides that some of them had now ceased to be necessary, others were at all times a disgrace to humanity. The imprisonment of a Popish priest for life, only for officiating in the services of his religion, was horrible in its nature: And although the mildness of government had hitherto softened the rigour of the law in the practice, it was to be remembered that the Roman Catholic priests constantly lay at the mercy of the basest and most abandoned of mankind—of common informers; for on the evidence of any of these wretches, the magisterial and judicial powers were of necessity bound to enforce all the shameful penalties of the act. Others of these penalties held out the most powerful temptations for the commission of acts of depravity, at the very thought of which our nature recoils with horror: They seemed calculated to loosen all the bands of society; to dissolve all civil, moral, and religious obligations and duties, to poison the sources of domestic fidelity, and to annihilate every principle of honour. The encouragement given to children to lay their hands upon the estates of their parents, and the restriction which debars any man from the honest acquisition of property, need only to be mentioned to excite indignation in an enlightened age.

In order the better to secure the English established church against perils from non-conformists of all denominations, infidels, Turks, Jews, heretics, Papists, and sectaries, there are, however, two bulwarks erected; called the corporation and test acts. By the former of which, no person can be legally elected to any office relating to the government of any city or corporation, unless, within a twelvemonth before, he has received the sacrament of the Lord's supper according to the rights of the church of England; and he is also enjoined to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy at the same time that he takes the oath of office: or, in default of either of these requisites, such election shall be void. The other, called the test act, directs all officers civil and military to take the oaths and make the declaration against transubstantiation, in any of the king's courts at Westminster, or at the quarter- sessions, within six calendar months after their admis- sion; and also within the same time to receive the sac- rament of the Lord's supper, according to the usage of the church of England, in some public church im- mediately after divine service and sermon, and to deli- ver into court a certificate thereof signed by the mi- nister and church-warden, and also to prove the same by two credible witnesses; upon forfeiture of 50l. and disability to hold the said office. And of much the same nature with these is the statute 7 Jac. I. c. 2, which permits no persons to be naturalised or restored in blood, but such as undergo a like test: which test having been removed in 1753, in favour of the Jews, was the next session of parliament restored again with some precipitation.