his from being the fact, that, as must be well known to your
Lordships, some corporations are absolutely and entirely in the
possession of dissenters. Can you suppose that the repeal of laws so
inoperative as these, can afford any serious obstacle to the perfect
security of the church, and the permanent union of that establishment
with the state? The fact is, that the existing laws have not only failed
completely in answering their intended purpose, but they are anomalous
and absurd--anomalous in their origin, absurd in their operation.

If a man were asked the question, at his elevation to any corporate
office, whether he had received the sacrament of the church of England,
and if he said "No," he lost every vote that had been tendered on his
behalf, and there was an end of his election, but if, on the contrary,
by accident or design, he got in without the question relative to the
sacrament being put to him, then the votes tendered for him were held
good, and his election valid; so that no power could remove him from the
office which he held. I ask, is there any security in that? My noble
friend says, that the original intention of the framers of these acts,
was that the sacrament should not be taken by dissenters; but the law
requires that a man, on entering into any corporation, shall receive the
sacrament, without regard to his religious belief. Thus an individual
whose object it is to get into a particular office, may feel disposed,
naturally enough, to take the sacrament before his election, merely as a
matter of form, and thus a sacred rite of our church is profaned, and
prostituted to a shameful and scandalous purpose. I confess my Lords, I
should have opposed this bill, if I thought it calculated to weaken the
securities at present enjoyed by the church. However, I agreed not to
oppose the bill; though I consented in the first instance to oppose it,
in order to preserve the blessings of religious peace. I was willing to
preserve the system which had given us this peace for forty years, for
during that time the name and the claims of the dissenters not been
heard of. But now they have come forward, and their claims are approved
of by a great majority of the House of Commons, and the bill has come up
to this house. If it be opposed by the majority of this house, it is to
be feared, now that the claims are made, that such an opposition will
carry hostility throughout the country, and introduce a degree of
rancour i