stood as a prohibition of the practice of wor shipping at all in public; and he thought the statute of Queen Elizabeth a constraint upon the conscience of a man who should so interpret our Saviour's maxim. My Lords, I understand very well that men may think differently of particular modes of worship,-that the conscience of one man may scruple what another approves ; but I had so little apprehension that conscience could doubt the propriety of public worship in every shape, that I really thought the noble earl was not in earnest in that part of his argument. My Lords, the noble earl was in earnest: His lordship has since mentioned an instance to me of a person, in the circle of his own connexions and of my acquaintance, who was afflicted with one of those strange consciences; a nobleman eminent for the probity of his character and the severity of his morals, who,

from conscientious scruples, never in his life mixed with any congregation of Christians in their public rites. My Lords, I am compelled by this instance to admit, that that sort of conscience, which I thought a mere fiction, may exist; and I must admit that the statute of Queen Elizabeth lays some degree of force upon such a conscience. I must therefore beg your Lordships' indulgence while I say a few words upon this great question of the right of private conscience; which I think is not generally understood.

My Lords, the noble earl, in the second clause of his bill, lays down this maxim, that the right of conscience is and ever must be "the unalienable right of mankind; and as such, ought always to be held sacred and inviolable." My Lords, I agree entirely with the noble earl in that maxim. I am not certain that his lordship will a

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gree with me in what I am going to advance ;-I think he will; for I really think no one can differ from me who allows that civil government is a thing consistent with the revealed will of God. My Lords, the right of conscience is unalienable; but it is not infinite, it is limited. The right of

conscience is unalienable within the limits of a certain jurisdiction. Conscience and the magistrate have their separate jurisdictions; each is supreme, absolute, and independent, within the limits of their own. The jurisdiction of conscience is over the actions of the individual as they relate to God, without reference to society: Conscience judges of what is sinful or not sinful in our actions. The jurisdiction of the magistrate is over the actions of men as they respect society: He is the judge of what harm may or may not result to society from our actions; and this harm he has

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a right to restrain and to punish, in whatever actions he descries it, in defiance, my Lords, of the plea of conscience. In the exercise of this right, my Lords, the civil magistrate is supreme and absolute, as conscience in the exercise of hers. science, my Lords, cannot be conscientiously pleaded against the magistrate in the exercise of this right. My Lords, if the principle which I advance is rightly taken, I shall not be suspected of wishing to narrow the limits of toleration. My Lords, I advance a principle which carries toleration to the utmost effect to which it can be carried, consistently with the security of civil government. My Lords, according to my principle, the magistrate has no right to punish an action, be it ever so sinful, merely because it is sinful; he has no right to punish it, unless beside the sin it contain crime, that is, harm to society.

Thus, in the instance of perjury: Perjury is an action sinful in so high a degree that the sin may justly be considered as by far the greater part of the whole guilt; and this action is punished by the magistrate: But the object of the magistrate's animadversion is not the sin of the action, enormous as it is; but the crime of it-the harm it brings to society: An oath is the very first and highest of all civil obligations and securities; and society must break up were perjury to go unpunished. My Lords, I think I have been fortunate in falling upon this instance for the illustration of my argument; because it will serve as a principle to determine the extent of the magistrate's authority over the religious conduct of the subject, notwithstanding any plea of conscience. My Lords, since the magistrate has a clear right to punish perjury on account of the ruin it would bring upon