On the constitution of the church and state, according to the idea of each: with aids toward a right judgment on the late catholic bill [antikvár]

ADVERTISEMENT. The occasion of this small volume will be sufficiently explained, by an extract from a letter to a friend :— " You express your wonder that I, who have so often avowed my dislike to the introduction even of the word, Religion, in any special sense, in Parliament, or from the mouth of Lawyer or Statesman, speaking as such; who have so earnestly contended, that Religion cannot take on itself the character of Law, without ipso facto ceasing to be Religion, and that Law could neither reco2:nise the obligations of Re- & o ligion for its principles, nor become the pretended Guardian and Protector of the Faith, without degenerating into inquisitorial tyranny—that I, wlio have avowed my belief, that if Sir Matthew Hale's doctrine, that the Bible was a part of the l.aw of CHAPTER I. Prefiilon/ Remarks on the true import of the ivord^ Idca: and what the author means hi/ " according to ihe idea,'' The Bil! lately passed for the admission of Roman Catholics into the Legislature, conies so )iear the mark to whicli my convictions and wishes have through my whole life, since earliest inanhood, unwaverinii'ly pointed, and has so agreeably disappointed my fears, that my first impulse was to suppress the pages, wliicli I had written wdiile the particulars of tlie Bill were yet unknown, in compliance witli tlie request of an abse)it friend, who had expressed an anxiety "to learn from myself the nature and grounds of my apprehension^ that the measure would fail to effect the object immediately intended by its authors/' li 2