; since then, disconnected, and protesting
against some of her doctrines, and against the whole of her authority,
as binding in our national church: nor did the fundamental laws of this
kingdom (in Ireland it has been the same) ever know, at any period, any
other church _as an object of establishment_,--or, in that light, any
other Protestant religion. Nay, our Protestant _toleration_ itself, at
the Revolution, and until within a few years, required a signature of
thirty-six, and a part of the thirty-seventh, out of the Thirty-Nine
Articles. So little idea had they at the Revolution of _establishing_
Protestantism indefinitely, that they did not indefinitely _tolerate_ it
under that name. I do not mean to praise that strictness, where nothing
more than merely religious toleration is concerned. Toleration, being a
part of moral and political prudence, ought to be tender and large. A
tolerant government ought not to be too scrupulous in its
investigations, but may bear without blame, not only very ill-grounded
doctrines, but even many things that are positively vices, where they
are _adulta et praevalida_. The good of the commonwealth is the rule
which rides over the rest; and to this every other must completely
submit.

The Church of Scotland knows as little of Protestantism _undefined_ as
the Church of England and Ireland do. She has by the articles of union
secured to herself the perpetual establishment of _the Confession of
Faith_, and the _Presbyterian_ Church government. In England, even
during the troubled interregnum, it was not thought fit to establish a
_negative_ religion; but the Parliament settled the _Presbyterian_ as
the Church _discipline_, the _Directory_ as the rule of public
_worship_, and the _Westminster Catechism_ as the institute of _faith_.
This is to show that at no time was the Protestant religion,
_undefined_, established here or anywhere else, as I believe. I am sure,
that, when the three religions were established in Germany, they were
expressly characterized and declared to be the _Evangelic_, the
_Reformed_, and the _Catholic_; each of which has its confession of
faith and its settled discipline: so that you always may know the best
and the worst of them, to enable you to make the most of what is good,
and to correct or to qualify or to guard against whatever may seem evil
or dangerous.

As to the coronation oath, to which you allude, as opposite to admitting
a Roman Catholic to the use of