Nero, they had
made haste to save themselves. Grant,--such was the cry of these
eager disputants,--grant that, in saving themselves, they saved the
constitution. Are we therefore to forget that they had previously
endangered it? And are we to reward them by now permitting them to
destroy it? Here is a class of men closely connected with the state.
A large part of the produce of the soil has been assigned to them for
their maintenance. Their chiefs have seats in the legislature, wide
domains, stately palaces. By this privileged body the great mass of the
population is lectured every week from the chair of authority. To this
privileged body has been committed the supreme direction of liberal
education. Oxford and Cambridge, Westminster, Winchester, and Eton, are
under priestly government. By the priesthood will to a great extent be
formed the character of the nobility and gentry of the next generation.
Of the higher clergy some have in their gift numerous and valuable
benefices; others have the privilege of appointing judges who decide
grave questions affecting the liberty, the property, the reputation of
their Majesties' subjects. And is an order thus favoured by the state
to give no guarantee to the state? On what principle can it be contended
that it is unnecessary to ask from an Archbishop of Canterbury or from
a Bishop of Durham that promise of fidelity to the government which all
allow that it is necessary to demand from every layman who serves the
Crown in the humblest office. Every exciseman, every collector of the
customs, who refuses to swear, is to be deprived of his bread. For these
humble martyrs of passive obedience and hereditary right nobody has a
word to say. Yet an ecclesiastical magnate who refuses to swear is to
be suffered to retain emoluments, patronage, power, equal to those of a
great minister of state. It is said that it is superfluous to impose the
oaths on a clergyman, because he may be punished if he breaks the laws.
Why is not the same argument urged in favour of the layman? And why, if
the clergyman really means to observe the laws, does he scruple to take
the oaths? The law commands him to designate William and Mary as King
and Queen, to do this in the most sacred place, to do this in the
administration of the most solemn of all the rites of religion. The
law commands him to pray that the illustrious pair may be defended by
a special providence, that they may be victorious over every enemy,