ll continues of
professing whatever new opinion we please? Or how can it be imagined
that the body of dissenting teachers, who must be all undone by such a
revolution, will not cast about for some new objections to withhold
their flocks, and draw in fresh proselytes by some further innovations
or refinements?

Upon these reasons he is for tolerating such different forms in
religious worship as are already admitted, but by no means for leaving
it in the power of those who are tolerated, to advance their own models
upon the ruin of what is already established, which it is natural for
all sects to desire, and which they cannot justify by any consistent
principles if they do not endeavour; and yet, which they cannot succeed
in without the utmost danger to the public peace.

To prevent these inconveniences, he thinks it highly just, that all
rewards of trust, profit, or dignity, which the state leaves in the
disposal of the administration, should be given only to those whose
principles direct them to preserve the constitution in all its parts. In
the late affair of Occasional Conformity, the general argument of those
who were against it, was not, to deny it an evil in itself, but that the
remedy proposed was violent, untimely, and improper, which is the Bishop
of Salisbury's opinion in the speech he made and published against the
bill: But, however just their fears or complaints might have been upon
that score, he thinks it a little too gross and precipitate to employ
their writers already in arguments for repealing the sacramental test,
upon no wiser a maxim, than that no man should on the account of
conscience be deprived the liberty of serving his country; a topic which
may be equally applied to admit Papists, Atheists, Mahometans, Heathens,
and Jews. If the Church wants members of its own to employ in the
service of the public; or be so unhappily contrived as to exclude from
its communion such persons who are likeliest to have great abilities, it
is time it should be altered and reduced into some more perfect, or at
least more popular form: But in the meanwhile, it is not altogether
improbable, that when those who dislike the constitution, are so very
zealous in their offers for the service of their country, they are not
wholly unmindful of their party or of themselves.

The Dutch whose practice is so often quoted to prove and celebrate the
great advantages of a general liberty of conscience, have yet a national
relig