people wholly without religion, no traveller hath yet feen and a city might as well be erected in the air, as a ftate be made to unite, where no divine worship is attended to: religion he therefore terms the cement of civil union, and the effential fupport of legislation. That without this influencing principle the ends of government could never be effected, and that by this they are most fucceffully promoted, is too obvious to require much elucidation. I fhall only remark, that as it is the highest civil wifdom to prevent rather than punish crimes, fo the most eligible mode of prevention is by giving every legal help and furtherance to the cause of religion. Other means may alarm fear, abate temptation, fruftrate opportunity, or refift the power of doing evil; but this is to eradicate the inclination of being criminal; this is, at the fame time, beft to confult the interest of rhe private individual, and of the whole community. Befides the regular establishment of divine worship according to law, great zeal has been fhewn in most countries to keep the national ceremonies free from innovation. Dr. Bentley recounts many inftances of perfecutions in vindication of the heathenish idolatries; a rage not to be juftified even in the caufe of truth, but which proves the concern of the ftate in maintaining the religious ordinances. The Epicureans, whofe tenets were fubverfive of all piety and devotion, were expelled out of many cities and the Romans frequently forbad ftrange religions and foreign rites, that had crept into their city, and banished the authors of them. No nation, whose history we are acquainted with, hath been neglectful of inftituting, or of vindicating, this important part of polity, this invigorating principle of government, peace, and order. To fo general concurrence of distant periods and countries, we may add, with applaufe and fatisfaction, the example of the English laws: which, in their different ages, have been diligently attentive to advancing the profperity of the national church, and checking the growth of irreligion. If we look into remote times, we find thefe maxims, Phileleutherus Lipfienf. remark 41. that that "christianity is part of the law of England, that nothing is confonant to the law of England, which is contrary to the law divine, and that fumma eft ratio, quæ pro religione facit," of indefinite antiquity and obligation in this realm. Thefe legal apophthegms, deriving their force from univerfal and immemorial reception, have perhaps a more venerable authority than any written edicts; as the rivers, which adorn and fertilife a country, convey a more auguft appearance, when we neither difcern their fprings, nor trace the exact limits of their course. As to pofitive exprefs inftitutions, the right of making them, I have in another place attempted to maintain, and to fhew, that it belonged to the common legislature. The actual exercife of this dominion is coeval with our earliest accounts in hiftory. "Neither is it fo ftrange a matter (fays an eminent prelate) to fee ecclefiaftical causes debated in parliament. Read the laws of king Ina, king Elfrede, king Edward, king Elem. jur. le&t. III. Bp. Jewell's def. of his apol. p. vi. c. 2. d. 1. Athelstane, king Edmund, king Edgar, king Canute, and you fhall find, that our godly forefathers, the princes and peers of this realm, never vouchfafed to entreat of matters of peace or war, or otherwife touching the common ftate, before all controverfies of religion and caufes ecclefiaftical had been concluded. King Canute, in his parliament, holden at Winchester upon Christmas-day, after fundry laws and orders made touching the faith, the keeping of holy-days, public prayers, the learning of the lord's prayer, receiving the communion thrice in the year, the manner and form of baptifm, fasting, and other like matters of religion, in the end thereof faith thus, jam fequitur inftitutio legum fæcularium, Now followeth an order for temporal laws. Thus we fee, that the godly catholique princes in old times thought it their duty, before all other affairs of the common weal, first to determine matters of religion, and that even by the parliaments of this realm." It is equally memorable, that, in later times, the several charters, obtained from king John and king Henry the third, all begin with confirming the rights and liberties of the church of England, before any temporal grievance is redreffed. From that age downwards, a very laborious, laborious, tho indeed prejudiced researcher', exprefsly enumerates near fifty acts of parliament relating to religion, and declares there are many others. And fuch proceedings have pursued the avowed purpose of affembling the nation in parliament. For the form of writs of election hath for several ages been to the following effect," that the king, by advice of his council, having ordered a parliament to be holden for certain arduous and urgent affairs concerning his faid majesty, the state and defence of his kingdom, and the church, he therefore requires that the elected fhould have from their conftituents full and fufficient power to do and confent to those things, which by the common council of his faid majefty's kingdom, by the bleffing of God, fhould happen to be ordained upon the aforefaid affairs." Which words Which words, or fimilar thereto, relating to the church, I first find inferted in writs of fummons of the feven teenth year of Edward the third; in the forty-fixth year of that reign, the like expreffions were repeated, and have fince in general been continued, as alfo in proclamations' for i Prynne's prefat. dedic. of his anf. to Cozens. * Dugd. Summ. Comm. journ. vol. xxix. fub initio. proroguing |