them by such an Act; few of them having, for five and twenty years past, since their solemn affirmation [equivalent to an oath] was enacted, ever refused to comply with it.

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But these few were, it seems, in a secret which Bishop Atterbury, and his compeers in this protest, thought to have kept to themselves, and to have had the silly Quakers believe they were affirming, upon their bare word, what the lords and bishops well knew they were, in all but some difference in the form, swearing. For the protest says, expressly, whereas they have hitherto been under the real obligation of an oath, though dispensed with as to some formalities'—and again, 'since great numbers of them have sworn, though very few have subscribed that profession. Worthy conduct this, in peers of the realm and bishops, and very far, doubtless, from that hypocrisy and falsehood they were so ready to publish their dread of!

They proceed next to a point which indicates, clearly enough, the quarter from whence this adverse wind blew; they say the security of property_appears to be lessened by this Act; to wit, the property of tithes. For if Quakers, with their awful apprehensions of an oath, (as appears from their earnest endeavours to decline it,) tamper with the truth for interest's sake, much more, where the payment of tithes (by them held to be sinful) is concerned, will they disguise it in what they simply affirm, rather than wound their consciences and credit by contributing to such anti-christian payment. In other terms, if not held to an oath (or what is equivalent to it, the old affirmation) the double motive of interest and conscience will influence them to lie with respect to the clergy; whose calling and maintenance they equally condemn.

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Against this injurious and uncandid statement, it may suffice to put the testimony of the great majority of the House in their favour the Act having recited, that it was evident that the Quakers had not abused the liberty and indulgence allowed to them by law, &c. as already quoted; and in all prosecutions of Quakers for tithe, since carried on, I believe it would be difficult to find a single instance to justify this imputation.

The assumption that under this Act they 'simply affirm,' or 'give their bare word' is mere sophistry: we must take the form as it stands, wholly and simply, in each of the cases.

Lastly, Dissentients are uneasy, lest the position (to them doubtful) that Quakers are well affected to the Government, should be improved into a reason for granting the like favours to Deists, Arians, Jews, and even to Heathens themselves [best of all: see Lord Mansfield, further on] to the weakening of that security of all Governments, AN OATH. After which sweeping clause of exception, as to just protection and a quiet living under our Government, for such poor clients, it is added, with singular inconsistency, Our firm persuasion is, that as no man should be persecuted for his opinions, so neither should any man who is known to avow principles destructive of Christianity, however useful he may otherwise be to the State, be encouraged by a law, made purposely in his favour to continue in those principles.'

I found this Protest in a publication entitled "A Key to both Houses of Parliament," consisting of upwards of 900 pages of matter, on subjects connected with the Legislature and the representation of the people. I might have concluded that this document was inserted in a spirit of fairness, had I not met, in page 618, with the following insinuation" It is a coincidence by no means flattering to the character of this body [the Quakers] that the two periods at which they obtained their extraordinary indulgences should be those of the most gross venality and corruption which can be pointed out in the whole history of England. Did money purchase these indulgences ?"

Let us suppose for a moment that money was given, or that by some proffers in the way of outward interest this Act was forwarded to its issue-would not the Editor of the 'Key' have done the like for the security of his own family and property in Turkey? But as no evidence of this appears, I conclude that, amidst all the research employed on other matters, none was met with. I will bring, however, a fact of our own, not as to giving, since it may be said that volenti non fit injuria, but of exaction. At the period of the passing of this Act, the distraints upon the property of Quakers for ecclesiastical purposes amounted, already, to about Two hundred and seventy thousand pounds. Liberty of conscience was the thing sought: this he will perhaps term favour; we, EVEN-HANDED JUSTICE. Nulli vendemus justitiam, says Magna Charta; and the Quaker is as much above buying, as the proudest of Lords on earth can be above selling it!-Ed.

ART. II.

Sentiments of Lord Mansfield on the Quakers'
Affirmation.

In Atcheson v. Everit, Cowp. 382, which was an action of debt for a penalty on the Bribery Act, 2 Geo. 11. c. 34—a verdict had been given for the plaintiff; and the defendant moved for a new trial, because a Friend [Quaker] had been received as a witness on his affirmation; and it was objected, that this being a criminal cause, his evidence ought not to have been received. After the case had been argued, Lord Mansfield made the following observations:-"This question is very important, both as to all the Quakers in the kingdom, and to the general administration of justice. I wish when the statute 7 and 8 Wm. III. c. 34, was made, that the affirmation of a Quaker had been put on the same footing as an oath, in all cases whatsoever : and I see no reason against it; for the punishment of the breach of it is the same. But even the indulgence they enjoy under this statute was obtained with much difficulty and struggle. The Legislature formerly looked upon Non-conformists as criminal; and Quakers in particular, as obstinate offenders. The more generous and liberal notions of the present times do not look upon real scruples in the light of an offence. Upon general principles, I think the affirmation of a Quaker ought to be admitted in all cases, as well as the oath of a Jew or a Gentoo, or of any other person who thinks himself really bound by the mode and form which he attests."

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The Court directed the case to be again argued; after which, Lord Mansfield, in delivering the judgment, made, among others, the following observations When this case was argued before, I was desirous, for many reasons, that the question should be very fully considered, all the cases looked into, and solemnly argued again. I think it of the utmost importance, that all the consequences of the Act of Toleration should be pursued with the greatest liberality, in ease of the scrupulous consciences of Dissenters on the one hand; but so as those scruples of conscience should not be prejudicial to the rest of the King's subjects. For a scruple of conscience entitles a party to indulgence and protection, so far as not to suffer for it; but it is of consequence that the subject should not suffer, too. This sect sprung up during the troubles, and was found at the Restoration, with many other sects of Non-conformists equally scrupulous. At that time, the law considered their scruples of conscience crime; and therefore they were not allowed to be set up as an excuse or justification of another offence. Therefore, when a Quaker, who was subponed to give evidence, absented himself, and an attachment issued in consequence of it, he could not in excuse say that his conscience prevented him from giving evidence, for that were a crime. So in the case of interrogatories, the consequence was, he was obliged to answer or be committed to prison; and if his obstinacy continued, he lay there for life. The experience of eight and twenty years, from the Restoration to the time of the Revolution, shewed that this obstinacy was not merely a pretence or colour given to right and wrong but that it was a scruple, and that the sect was ready to go through all kinds of suffering in the pertinacious adherence to it. A question was referred to all the judges of England, whether a Turk should be permitted to swear on the Alcoran in a prosecution for a capital offence at the Old Bailey; and they were all unanimously of opinion that he might. It is objected that the Quakers are the only people in the world who ever refused to swear; but in substance their affirmation is the same thing.-After the Act of Toleration, it was settled in the case of Sir Thomas Harrison, Chamberlain of the City of London, v. Evans, pursuant to the opinion of all the judges except one, that a dissenter from the Church of England is not guilty of a crime, barely by having that religious opinion. Quakers therefore, since that Act, are not in the eye of the Law guilty of a crime by saying that sincerely they cannot swear according to our form of oath.', Digest of Legislative Enactments relating to the Society of Friends, &c. By Joseph Davis, Conveyancer: Bristol,

1820.

ART. III.-From Milton's prose works: On Scripture as a rule— on Heresy, Sects, Schism, and an equal Toleration. "True religion is the true worship and service of God, learnt and believed from the word of God only. No man or angel can know how God would be worshipped and served, unless God reveal it: [but]

he hath revealed and taught it us, in the Holy Scriptures by inspired ministers, and in the Gospel by his own Son and his apostles; with strictest command to reject all other traditions or additions whatsoever. According to that of St. Paul, Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be anathema, or accursed: And Deut. iv. 2. Ye shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish aught from it: Rev. xxii. 18, 19. If any man shall add-shall take away, &c.' With good and religious reason, therefore, all Protestant churches with one consent, and particularly the Church of England in her thirty-nine articles, Art. 6, 19, 20, 21 -and elsewhere maintains these two points as the main principles of true religion, that the rule of true religion is the word of God, only: and that their faith ought not to be an implicit faith:-that is, to believe (though as the Church believes) against or without express authority of Scripture." Prose Works 4to. vol. 2. p. 138.

'Heresy is a religion taken up and believed from the traditions of men and additions to the word of God: [I should rather refer heresy to a new error, or to the following of a present teacher, who leads away from the truth; and call the derived a superstition, or an opinion :-Sects may be in a true church as well as in a false, when men follow the doctrine too much for the teacher's sake [here we have the people who are in the heresy] whom they think almost infallible: and this becomes, through infirmity, implicit faith-and the name sectary pertains to such a disciple. Schism is a rent or division in the Church, when it comes to the separation of congregations; and. may also happen to a true church as well as to a false: yet, in the true, needs not lead to a breaking of communion, if they can agree in the right administration of that wherein they communicate, keeping their other opinions to themselves, not being destructive of faith. The Pharisees and Saducees were two sects, yet both met together in their common worship of God at Jerusalem.-It is human frailty to err, and no man is infallible here on earth. But so long as all [the sects] profess to set the word of God only before them as the rule of faith and obedience, and with all diligence, in sincerity of heart, by reading, by learning, by study, by prayer for the illumination of the Holy Spirit, to understand the rule and obey it, they have done what man can do: God will assuredly pardon them, as he did the friends of Job -good and pious men; though much mistaken (as there appears) in some points of doctrine.

"But some will say, with Christians it is otherwise, whom God has promised by his spirit to teach all things. True-all things absolutely necessary to salvation. But the hottest dispute among Protestants, calmly and charitably enquired into, will be found less than such."The Lutheran holds consubstantiation-an error indeed, but not mortal. The Calvinist is taxed with predestination and [so] to make God the author of sin; not with any dishonourable thoughts of God, but it may be over zealously asserting his absolute power, not without plea of scripture. The Anabaptist is accused of denying infants

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their right to baptism: again, they say, they deny nothing but what the Scripture denies them. The Arian and Socinian are charged to dispute against the trinity: they affirm to believe the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, according to Scripture and the Apostolic creed. As for terms of trinity,' 'triniunity,' coessentiality,' 'tripersonality,' and the like, they reject them as scholastic notions, not to be found in scripture; which by a general Protestant maxim is plain, and perspicuous abundantly to explain its own meaning in the properest words belonging to so high a matter, and so necessary to be known! A mystery indeed in their scholastic subtleties, but in Scripture a plain doctrine. Their other opinions are of less moment. They dispute the satisfaction of Christ: or rather the word [satisfaction] as not Scriptural, but they acknowledge him both God and their Saviour.

"The Arminian, lastly, is condemned for setting up free will against free grace but that imputation he disclaims in all his writings, and grounds himself largely upon Scripture only. It cannot be denied that the authors or late revivers of all these sects or opinions were learned, worthy, zealous, and religious men, as appears by their lives written. And it cannot be imagined that God would desert such powerful and zealous labourers in his Church (and oftentimes great sufferers for their conscience) to damnable errors and a reprobate sense, who had so often implored the assistance of his Holy Spirit: but rather, having made no man infallible, that he hath pardoned their errors, and accepts their pious endeavours, sincerely searching all things according to the rule of Scripture, with such guidance and direction as they can obtain of God by prayer.

"What Protestant, then, who himself maintains the same principles, and disavows all implicit faith, would persecute, and not rather charitably tolerate such men as these-unless he mean to abjure the principles of his own religion? If it be asked how far they should be tolerated, I answer, Doubtless, equally; as being all Protestantsthat is [to be tolerated] on all occasions to give account of their faith, either by arguing, and preaching in their several assemblies, or by public writing and the freedom of printing.

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"For if the French and Polonian Protestants enjoy all this liberty amongst Papists, much more may a Protestant justly expect it among Protestants and yet sometimes, here among us, the one persecutes the other upon every slight pretence!" Prose Works, 4to, vol. ii. p. 138.

ART. IV. Daniel vi. compared with the Corresponding Matter in the Apocrypha.

I consider the relation given in the Apocrypha, of the transactions which led to the casting of the prophet Daniel into the den of lions, the usual, though cruel and inhuman practice (it seems) towards criminals in Babylon, as having in it more of verisimilitude than that in the sixth of Daniel. The political crisis, in which the events are stated to have happened, suits them better than what we find in the other; a state of perfect tranquillity, which left no motive, beyond