individual; and carries off its victims one by one, without external blow, by a secret internal decay.

One mode in which this cause operates is, by destroying the support which each man's conviction ordinarily derives, and may fairly and reasonably derive, from that of his neighbours. For, whatever any one is compelled to profess, we cannot rationally feel sure that he does not inwardly disbelieve; since we know that if he does disbelieve it he dares not openly say so.

But it is in another way that the principle in question produces its most deleterious effects. In proportion as men are accustomed to regard it as right that outward profession should be enforced, they will come to consider this profession as everything, and inward belief,-which cannot be enforced, as insignificant. Conformity will be regarded as the great object, and truth as a matter we need not be concerned about.

"The highest truth," says Dr. Arnold, "if professed by one who believes it not in his heart, is, to him, a lie, and he sins greatly by professing it. Let us try as much as we will to convince our neighbours; but let us beware of influencing their conduct when we fail in influencing their convictions. He who bribes or frightens his neighbour into doing an act which no good man would do for reward, or from fear, is tempting his neighbour to sin; he is assisting to lower and to harden his conscience, -to make him act for the favour and from the fear of man, instead of for the favour and from the fear of God; and if this be a sin in him, it is a double sin in us to tempt him to do it." And any one whose conscience has been thus lowered,-who has been so long habituated to this sin as to cease to consider it as a sin,—will have cast aside all thoughts of sincerity in religious profession, either in himself or in others; and will regard it as even a duty

(like the ancient heathen philosophers) to conform to the religion of his country for the sake of the public good.

It is mere trifling and evasion to pretend (as some have done) to qualify the principle, by saying that the Government is to enforce a true religion, and not any other; since, of course, each Government will decide and proclaim that to be the true one which it patronizes; and from its decisions there is no appeal. If it has a right, then, to make and enforce these decrees,-if it be, as some express it, the duty of a Government to provide a true religion for the subjects, in the sense of deciding what religion they shall be obliged, under a penalty, to adhere to,-and if it be the duty of the subjects, as well as their interest, to acquiesce (as it must be if Government have this right, since right and duty imply each other),-then, since different, and even opposite religions may be, and in fact are, in different countries, thus enforced, all of which cannot be true, but all of which, each in its own country, men are bound to profess, a complete disconnexion is thus effected between religious profession and truth. For it is utterly impossible, on the above principles, that there can be any one true religion revealed from heaven which it is the duty of every individual to adopt. All must be mere creatures of human legislation for the purposes of state policy.

And this, I suppose, was the meaning of a member of the Legislature, of some celebrity, who is reported to have said that he believed all religions to be true, and all equally true. That they could, all and each, be really from Heaven, their palpable discrepancy renders clearly impossible; and, therefore, if they are all on a level, it must follow that none of them is a real revelation. "All equally true" must have meant "all equally false." But all,-I suppose he meant,are alike suited to keep the vulgar in salutary awe, and to

gratify a certain craving in their minds after some superhuman object of veneration.

This seems to be just that description of infidelity which the principle I have been speaking of,—that of compulsory conformity, often actually produces, and always tends to generate and to foster. See Essays on the Difficulties of St. Paul's Writings, &c., Appendix, note E.

THE END.

THE CONDITION OF

COMMUNION WITH ANGELS AND SAINTS.

A SERMON,

PREACHED AT THE CONSECRATION OF THE NEW CHANCEL

OF THE

Church of S. Mary the Virgin and S. Nicholas, Littlemore,

ON THE FEAST OF S. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS,
M.DCCC.XLVIII.

BY THE RIGHT REVEREND

SAMUEL, LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD,

CHANCELLOR OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER,

LONDON:

OXFORD:

ALEXANDER AMBROSE MASSON.

FRANCIS AND JOHN RIVINGTON, S. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD AND WATERLOO PLACE.

M.DCCC.XLVIII.