My

society, he has, upon the same ground, a right to punish whatever tends to render perjury frequent-whatever tends to lessen the general veneration of an oath. Lords, upon this principle, the magistrate has a right to restrain and punish open atheism, and the disavowal of God's providential government of the world. And, my Lords, we must go one step farther: Since the magistrate, in this country, believes that he is possessed of a written revelation of God's will, he must punish the open disbelief and denial of that revelation: He has no right to persecute particular opinions, however erroneous, of sects professing a general belief in the revelation; but he has a right to punish the general disbelief and total rejection of it. And since he has a right to punish atheism, a disavowal of God's providence, and a total rejection of the Christian revela

tion, he has a right to restrain and punish actions, in which, as they are interpreted by the general sense of mankind, these pernicious opinions are implied: He has therefore a right to restrain and to punish the neglect of public worship, which is one of those actions: And any man whose conscience is of that singular construction as to disapprove all public worship, would deal but handsomely by his country in submitting cheerfully and silently to the very moderate penalty which our laws impose. My Lords, besides this statute of Queen Elizabeth, the bill upon the table, should

it

pass into a law, will repeal the act of Charles the Second for the better observation of the Lord's-day (29th Charles II. cap. 7.); and from this time forth, stagecoaches and waggons will travel the road -watermen will ply upon the Thameshackney-coachmen in the streets, upon the

Lord's-day as on any other, under the express sanction of the law. The bill will also repeal the act of Henry the Sixth (27th Hen. VI. cap. 5.) against the keeping of fairs and markets on the Lord's-day; for the bill takes away all prosecution in any court for the neglect of any rite or ceremony of the church of England. The observation of the Lord's-day is enjoined by these laws only as a ceremony of the church; therefore all prosecutions are staid that might be founded upon these statutes, and the statutes are virtually repealed.

My Lords, I should now consider the effect of this law upon the ecclesiastical jurisdiction; but I fear your Lordships are already tired with the length of this dry debate. I shall therefore confine myself to a few short remarks upon points which I think have not been touched by the right reverend lords who have gone before me.

My Lords, the bill goes to the abolition of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in all offences against religion. The noble earl, in his speech on the first reading, expressed great dislike of the ecclesiastical courts: His lordship thought it a great objection, that the mode of trial in them is not by jury. My Lords, will the noble earl extend this objection to every court in which he finds the same defect? Has the Court of Chancery a jury? has the Admiralty Court a jury? Would the noble earl abolish the jurisdiction of every court in which the mode of trial is not by jury? I do not remember whether his lordship made another objection to the ecclesiastical courts, which, in my opinion, is of much greater weight,—their way of taking the depositions of witnesses; not vivá voce, by examination and cross-examination in the presence of the

parties and their counsel, but by answers given in private to written interrogatories. My Lords, in my judgment this practice in the ecclesiastical courts is a thing much more exceptionable than the want of a jury; and, to confess the truth, my Lords, I am one of those who think that the change was much for the worse which was made by our Norman kings, when they separated the ecclesiastical from the secular jurisdiction. My Lords, the change was much for the worse: But I beseech your Lordships to remember that it is now seven hundred years old. old. We are got to such a distance from the period when the change took place, that the present practice has acquired the authority of a venerable prescription; and the attempt to bring things back to their former state might not be very politic. My Lords, instead of troubling your Lordships with any arguments