1 William & Mary, statute I., c. 6., it was enacted that the Coronation Oath shall be administered to every king and queen, who shall succeed to the imperial crown of these realms, by one of the archbishops or bishops of the realm, in the presence of all the people, who on their parts do reciprocally take the oath of allegiance to the crown. The Coronation Oath as now prescribed by law.

"Will you

The archbishop or bishop shall say :— "solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this "kingdom of England, and the dominions thereto belonging "according to the statutes in parliament agreed on, and "the laws and customs of the same?"

The king or queen shall say :— "I solemnly promise so to do."

Archbishop or bishop:-"Will you to your power cause law and justice, in mercy, to be executed in all "your judgments ?”

Archbishop or bishop:-" Will you to the utmost of "your power maintain the laws of God, the true profession "of the Gospel, and the Protestant Reformed Religion "Established by the law? And will you preserve unto of this realm, and to the

"the Bishops and Clergy

"churches committed to their charge, all such rights and "privileges as by law do or shall appertain unto them, or "any of them ?”

After this the king or queen, laying his or her hand upon the Holy Gospels shall say :-"The things which I have here before promised I will perform and keep; So help me God: "—and then shall kiss the Book.

Here then the monarch accedes to the crown only on condition of an oath taken publicly and solemnly to observe all the duties that a monarch can owe to his people; namely, to govern according to law; to execute judgment in mercy; and to maintain the Established Religion."

Nay more. "With respect to the last named of these three branches of monarchical duty the law makes the most anxious provision. For, First. By the Bill of Rights, 1 William & Mary, statute II. c. 2., and the Act of Settlement, 12 & 13 William III., c. 2., every king and queen of the age of twelve years either at their coronation, or on the first day of the First Parliament. which shall first happen, upon the throne in the House of Peers, shall repeat and subscribe the declaration against popery, according to 30 Car. II., statute II., c. 1. Secondly. It is provided by the Act of Union with Scotland, 5 Anne, c. 8. -in which two former acts are recited and confirmed,that every king or queen at his or her accession shall take and subscribe an oath, to preserve the Protestant religion, and Presbyterian Church Government in Scotland;—and that every such king or queen shall at his or her coronation take and subscribe a similar oath to preserve the settlement of the Church of England within England,

Ireland, Wales, and Berwick, and the territories thereunto belonging.

Now, from such facts and statutes as these, it is indubitably manifest that no monarch of these realms has the power as such to yield assent to any measure, which in its design and effect is in direct contravention of those most solemn oaths upon the observation of which the very tenure of the crown has been conditioned.

The Revolution of 1688 expressly established the existence of a contract between king and people, the terms of which contract are definitively laid down in the Coronation Oath. Should the monarch, therefore, so far exceed the limits there placed upon his or her prerogative, as to declare assent to any measure tending to disturb, rather than 'preserve the settlement of the Church of England”— then such monarch would in virtue of such breach of contract forfeit all right and title to the throne. Such assent would in the eye of the law be of the same effect as an abdication of the royal functions. From that moment forth the throne would ipso facto be, and remain vacant, until another Convention should declare a successor. For, it is the grand principle of the Revolution of 1688, that the Sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland shall be empowered to hold and retain the ecclesiastical and temporal supremacy of these realms, only on condition of his professing the doctrine, worship, and discipline of the Protestant Episcopal Church,-of his maintaining the same as the Church Established—and

of his "preserving to the Bishops and Clergy of this realm, and to the churches committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them, or any of them." *

Such, then being the case, it is incontestably and irrefutably demonstrated that anti-state church legislation is anti-constitutional. Politically considered it is impracticable. Its consummation is compatible only on condition of the total disruption and dismemberment of the social fabric. It is the fashion to talk of bloodless revolutions. But that will, if we mistake not, be no bloodless revolution, which democratic Dissenters, Papists, and Infidels are toiling with might and main to carry to its height and climax. Whatever some may have to say to the contrary, one thing is certain that England is upon the eve of a mighty political and religious crisis. Dissent has gone back to its old locus standi of the seventeenth century. It is no longer allied with the friends of order. It is no longer loyal either in principle or practice. It is no longer faithful to the British constitution. For, with the accession to itself of political power, there has passed over it a viler than Batrachian metamorphosis.

Towards true conscientious religious Dissenters, as such, we entertain, though differing from them, the measure of respect which is their due. But that race is now well nigh extinct. For, since Dissent has acquired the

* Coronation Oath, Q. 4, and 5 Anne, c. 8.

completest toleration-the fullest measure of civil and religious liberty-it has changed its suppliant tones for those of imperious and arrogant defiance.

Dissent has declared its policy. "We want," and to cite the words of the Liberator, an organ of the Liberation Society, "intend ultimately to have religious equality;" but, we expect to get it by a series of instalments and not by a coup de main.” But this, "religious equality" can

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never be realized except by the subversion both of church and state. Are they not striving strenuously and fiercely to swamp the intelligence and capital of the country by the blind force of the multitude,-knowing, as they do, that if they can only disturb the present distribution of political power-if they can only give to the masses political preponderancy-that, in a word, if they can only revolutionize the House of Commons,—their ulterior designs—their anarchical devices will then be facile of accomplishment.

The real aim of dissent is therefore the overthrow and downfal of the constitution. These fast and loose reformers would sweep away every vestige of it. They hate the church. They hate the aristocracy-perhaps also the They pretend that the "means" to which they have and will have resort shall be "moral and constitutional only." But the trick is too transparent.

crown.

Is it "moral and constitutional" to aim at the annihilation of any one of the three Estates of the realm ? Is it "moral and constitutional" to pester and tease the Commons with Quixotic measures which according to the