III. ANOTHER Species of offences against religion are those which affect the established church. And these are either positive or negative: positive, by reviling it's ordinances; or negative, by non-conformity to it's worship. Of both of these in their order. 1. AND, first, of the offence of reviling the ordinances of the church. This is a crime of a much grosser nature than the other of mere non-conformity: since it carries with it the utmost indecency, arrogance, and ingratitude; indecency, by setting up private judgment in virulent and factious opposition to public authority: arrogance, by treating with contempt and rudeness what has at least a better chance to be right than the singular notions of any particular man; and ingratitude, by denying that indulgence and undisturbed liberty of conscience to the members of the national church, which the retainers to every petty conventicle enjoy. However, it is provided by statutes 1 Edw. VI. c. 1. and 1 Eliz. c. 1. that whoever reviles the sacrament of the Lord's supper shall be punished by fine and imprisonment; and by the statute 1 Eliz. c. 2. if any minister shall speak any thing in derogation of the book of common prayer, he shall, if not beneficed, be imprisoned one year for the first offence, and for life for the second: and if he be beneficed, he shall for the first offence be imprisoned six months, and forfeit a year's value of his benefice for the second offence he shall be deprived, and suffer one year's imprisonment: and, for the third, shall in like manner be deprived, and suffer imprisonment for life. And if any person whatsoever shall, in plays, songs, or other open words, speak any thing in derogation, depraving, or despising of the said book, or shall forcibly prevent the reading of it, or cause any other service to be used in its stead, he shall forfeit for the first offence an hundred marks; for the second, four hundred; and for the third, shall forfeit all his goods and chattels, and suffer imprisonment for life. [51] These penalties were framed in the infancy of our present establishment, when the disciples of Rome and of Geneva united in inveighing with the utmost bitterness against the English liturgy and the terror of these laws (for they seldom, if ever, which are necessary for its determination, though in themselves they belong to another jurisdiction. See Hawk. Pl. C. B. 1. c. 2. were fully executed), proved a principal means, under Providence, of preserving the purity as well as decency of our national worship. Nor can their continuance to this time (of the milder penalties at least) be thought too severe and intolerant; so far as they are levelled at the offence, not of thinking differently from the national church, but of railing at that church and obstructing it's ordinances, for not submitting it's public judgment to the private opinion of others. For, though it is clear that no restraint should be laid upon rational and dispassionate discussions of the rectitude and propriety of the established mode of worship; yet contumely and contempt are what no establishment can tolerate". A rigid attachment to trifles, and an intemperate zeal for reforming them, are equally ridiculous and absurd; but the latter is at present the less excusable, because from political reasons, sufficiently hinted at in a former volume", it would now be extremely unadvisable to make any alterations in the service of the church; unless by it's own consent, or unless it can be shewn that some manifest impiety or shocking absurdity will follow from continuing the present forms. 2. NON-CONFORMITY to the worship of the church is the other, or negative branch of this offence. And for this there is much more to be pleaded than for the former; being a matter of private conscience, to the scruples of which our present laws have shewn a very just and christian indulgence. For undoubtedly all persecution and oppression of weak consciences, on the score of religious persuasions, are highly unjustifiable upon every principle of natural reason, civil liberty, or sound religion. But care must be taken not to carry this indulgence into such extremes, as may endanger the national church: there is always a difference to be made [ 52 ] between toleration and establishment. NON-CONFORMISTS are of two sorts: first, such as absent themselves from divine worship in the established church, through total irreligion, and attend the service of no other ▾ By an ordinance 23 Aug. 1645, which continued till the restoration, to preach, write, or print any thing in derogation or depraving of the directory for the then established presbyterian worship, subjected the offender upon persuasion. These by the statutes of 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 20l. to the king if they continue such default for a month together. And if they keep any inmate, thus irreligiously disposed, in their houses, they forfeit 10l. per month. THE second species of non-conformists are those who offend through a mistaken or perverse zeal. Such were esteemed by our laws, enacted since the time of the reformation, to be papists and protestant dissenters: both of whom 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 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 it's 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 [53] colour of the minister's garment, the joining in a known or an unknown form of prayer, and other matters of the same kind, must be left to the option of every man's private judgment. WITH regard therefore to protestant dissenters, although the experience of their turbulent disposition in former times oc casioned 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 spirit of true 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. 1. 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 is confirmed by statute 10 Ann, c. 2., and declares that neither the laws above mentioned, nor the statutes 1 Eliz. c. 2. § 14., 3 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 2), 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 sessions; 3. that the doors of such meeting-house shall be unlocked, unbarred, 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., 15 Car. II. c. 6., 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. (which only concern the confession 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, [54] and to infant baptism; or if they scruple subscribing the same, shall make and subscribe the declaration prescribed by statute 19 Geo. III. c. 44. professing themselves to be christians and protestants, and that they believe the scriptures to contain the revealed will of God, and to be the rule of doctrine and practice. Thus, though the crime of non-conformity is by no means universally abrogated, it is suspended and ceases to * 23 Eliz. c. 1. 29 Eliz. c.6. 35 Eliz. c. 1. 22 Car. II. c. 1. The ordinance of 1645 (before cited) inflicted imprisonment for a year on the third offence, and pecuniary penalties on the former two, in case 2 See stat. 8. Geo. I. c. 6. exist with regard to these protestant dissenters, during their compliance with the conditions imposed by these acts: and, under these conditions, all persons, who will approve themselves no papists or oppugners of the Trinity (4), 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 contemptuously 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, 1 W. & M.) be bound over to the sessions of the peace, and forfeit twenty pounds. 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. Dissenters also, who subscribe the declaration of the act 19 Geo. III. are exempted (unless in the case of endowed schools, and colleges,) from the penalties of the statutes 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 4. and 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. (5) a Sir Humphry Edwin, a lord mayor of London, had the imprudence soon after the toleration act to go to a presbyterian meeting-house in his forma lities; which is alluded to by Dean Swift, in his tale of a tub, under the allegory of Jack getting on a great horse, and eating custard. (4) As to these last see ante, p. 50. n. 3. (5) An important statute upon this subject was passed in the close of the last reign (the 52 G.3. c.155.) by which the 13 & 14C. 2. c.1. 17 C. 2. c. 2. and 22 C. 2. c. 1. are repealed; and it is enacted, that places of religious worship for protestants shall be certified to, and registered in the bishop's or archdeacon's court, and at the general or quarter sessions, that persons officiating in, or resorting to places of worship so certified, shall be exempt from all pains or penalties relieved against by the toleration act, as fully as if they had taken the oath, and made the declaration mentioned in that act. But every one preaching or teaching at such place, shall, when required by a magistrate, take and subscribe the oath and declaration specified in the 19G.3. c. 44.; and if not required so to do, he may call upon any |