in law, is the statute 25 Car. II. cap. 2. which directs all officers, civil and military, to take the oaths, and make the declaration against transubstantiation, in the court of King's Bench or Chancery, the next term, or at the next quarter-terms, or (by subsequent statutes) within six months after their admission; and also within the same time to receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the usage of the church of England, in some public church, immediately after divine service or sermon, and to deliver into court a certificate thereof, signed by the minister and church warden, and also to prove the same by two credible witnesses, upon forfeiture of 500l. and disability to hold the said office.

The avowed object of this act was to exclude from places of trust all members of the church of Rome; and hence the dissenters of that age, if they did not support the bill when passing through the two houses of parliament, gave it no opposition. For this part of their conduct they have been often censured with severity, as having betrayed their rights from resentment to their enemies. But is this a fair state of the case? Were any rights in reality betrayed? That the dread of a popish successor and of popish influence was the immediate and urgent cause of passing the test-act, is indeed true; but that the legislature, when guarding against an impending evil, had not likewise a retrospect to another from which they had to recently been delivered, is not so evident. If it be proper to support an established church as a branch of the constitution, and if the test-act be calculated to afford that support to the church of England, it is probable that the deliberations of parliament were as much influenced by the dread of puritanic fury, and a renewal of the covenant, as by apprehensions of a persecution from a popish king and popish councils. That the members of the church established by law in England had as much reason to dread the effects of power in the hands of Puritans as in the hands of Papists, no impartial man will controvert, who is not a stranger to that period of our national history; and that it was the duty of the legislature by every method in their power to provide for the security of the constitution against the machinations of both its enemies, will be admitted by all but such as are in love with anarchy on the one hand, or with despotism on the other.

Many people, when they talk or write of the test-act, seem to think that it was framed in opposition to the religious opinions of the church of Rome; and finding the Protestant dissenters, who abhor these opinions, deprived by it of their civil rights, they speak with indignation of a law which confounds the innocent with the guilty. But all this proceeds from a palpable mistake of the purpose of the test. As the legislature had no authority to make laws against any opinions whatever, on account of their being false in theology; so it is not to be supposed that, in their deliberations on the test-act, the members of that august body took into their consideration the comparative orthodoxy of the distinguishing tenets of the Catholics and Puritans. As a religious test they might esteem the latter much more than the former; but if they found that both had combined with their theological doctrines opinions respecting civil and ecclesiastical government, inconsistent with the fundamental principles of the English constitution, they had an undoubted right to enact a law, by which none should be admitted to offices, in the execution of which they could injure the constitution, without previously giving security that their administration should support it in all its branches. It had not then been doubted, nor is there reason to doubt yet, but that an established religion is necessary, in conjunction with civil government, to preserve the peace of society; and therefore in every well regulated state an established religion must be supported, not because it is the duty of the civil magistrate to conduct his subjects to future happiness, but because he cannot without such an establishment preserve among them present tranquility. The establishment which must best answer this purpose, is that which, teaching the great and unchangeable duties of morality, is most acceptable in its government and forms of worship to the majority of the people; and therefore in giving a legal establishment to one constitution of the church in preference to all others, it is only this circumstance, and not the comparative purity of the rival churches, viewed merely as ecclesiastical corporations, to which it is the business of the legislature to pay attention. At the time when the test-act passed the two houses of parliament, the established church of England was certainly more acceptable to the great body of the people and to all ranks in the state, than any one of the sects, whether Catholic or Protestant, which dissented from her; and therefore it was the duty of the legislature to preserve to that church all her privileges and immunities, and to prevent those hostile sectaries from doing her injury in the discharge of any civil office with which they might be entrusted. It was with this view that the test-act was formed; and it is with the same view that the legislature has hitherto rejected every petition for its repeal. In doing so, it deprives no man of his rights, far less of rights which confidence calls upon him to maintain at every hazard; for the rights of individuals to hold civil offices are not inherent, but derived from the legislature, which of course must be the judge upon what terms they are to be held. The legislature of England has excluded from many offices, civil and military, every man who will not give security, that in the discharge of his public duty he will support the church established by law; and as the test of his intention, it requires him, before he enters upon his office, to renounce the doctrine of transubstantiation, and receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in some public church, according to the liturgy of the church of England. Whether this be the most proper test that could have been exacted, may well be questioned; but that in a country abounding with sectaries of various denominations, minations, who agree in nothing but venomous hostility to the religious establishment, some test is necessary, seems incontrovertible, if it be the business of the legislature to preserve the public peace.

To this it will be replied, That the public peace in Scotland is preserved without a test, and that therefore a test cannot be necessary in England. This is plausible, but not conclusive. For forty years after the Revolution, there was in Scotland no denomination of Christians but those of the Presbyterian church, established by law, the Protestant Episcopalians, whose church had been established prior to that event, and the adherents to the church of Rome. The Episcopalians and Papists were effectually excluded from every office in which they could injure the ecclesiastical establishment, by the several restrictions under which they were laid, on account of their attachment, real or supposed, to the abdicated family of Stuart. The penal laws operated upon them more powerfully than a religious test. It is to be observed too, that in the church of Scotland, though her clergy are better provided for than any other parochial clergy perhaps in Europe, there is nothing of that splendor and temporal power which in England excite envy to clamour against the establishment, under the pretence of maintaining the cause of religious liberty. Yet even in Scotland a religious test is occasionally exacted of civil officers. In the royal boroughs of that part of the united kingdom, no man can hold the office of a magistrate without previously swearing the burgess-oath (see Seceder, p. 8.), and every instructor of youth, whether in schools or colleges, may be called upon to qualify himself for his office, by subscribing the established Confession of Faith. The burgess-oath is a more effectual test than that which is required of magistrates in England; for a man might with a safe conscience receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper occasionally in a church, "at which he would not swear to abide and defend the same to his life's end." This test appears to us to be necessary in boroughs, where faction is commonly blended with fanaticism; and if those sectaries which, at their first appearance in 1732, were insignificant, if not contemptible, continue to multiply, and to imbibe principles much more pernicious than those which were held by their fathers, it may perhaps be found expedient to extend some test over the whole country.

We do not, however, by any means, wish to see the sacramental test introduced into Scotland. A test may be necessary to secure to the church all her rights and immunities; but to receive the sacrament can give her no such security, whilst it leads inevitably to the profanation of a sacred ordinance. A much better test would be, to require every man, before he be admitted to an executive office, to swear that in the discharge of it he will be careful to maintain all the rights and privileges of the church established by law. Such an oath no sensible and peaceable dissenter could refuse; for it would not bind him to communicate with the established church; and he cannot be ignorant that it belongs not to the executive government, but to the legislature, to determine what shall be the religion of the state. On this account, we cannot help thinking that the members of the legislative body should be subjected to no religious test whatever, that they may be at freedom to reform the corruptions of the church, or to exchange one establishment for another, should they find such exchange expedient. If this reasoning be just, it will be difficult to vindicate that clause of 25 Car. II. and of 1 Geo. I. in which it is enacted, that no member shall vote or sit in either house of parliament till he hath, in the presence of the house, subscribed and repeated the declaration against transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass. The church of Rome is indeed a very corrupt society; but if it be not for the purity of her doctrines and government that any church is established in preference to all others, why should that particular church be precluded from the possibility of obtaining a legal establishment in Great Britain, even though she were to become most acceptable to the majority of all ranks in the kingdom? The English Catholics have unquestionably greater reason to complain of this test, than either they or the dissenters have to complain of the law which requires every civil and military officer to receive the Lord's Supper in the established church.

Test for Acids and Alkalis. See Chemistry, p. 595, n° 1549.

Test Liquors for Wines. See Lead, p. 741, col. 2, and Arsenic, n° 16.