With every respect for that great lawyer, his argument on this point does not appear sustainable.  For the bill in question did not sweep away securities for the Established Church, but merely substituted, for one which long disuse and indemnity had rendered wholly inoperative, a fresh security, which, as it would be steadily put in force, might fairly be expected to prove far more efficacious.  And it can hardly be contended that it was not within the province of the Legislature to modify an existing law in this spirit and with this object, however important might be the purpose for which that law had originally been framed.  Nay, it might fairly be argued that the more important that object was, the more were they who strengthened the means of attaining that object entitled to be regarded as faithful servants and supporters of the principle of the constitution.

The measure, however, relieved the Protestant Dissenters alone.  Not only did Lord Eldon’s amendment preserve the Christian character of the Legislature, but the requirement to sign the declaration against Transubstantiation, which was unrepealed, left the Roman Catholics still under the same disqualifications as before.  But the days of those disqualifications were manifestly numbered.  Indeed, many of those who had followed the ministers in their original resistance to the repeal of the Test Act had been avowedly influenced by the conviction that it could not fail to draw after it the removal of the disabilities affecting the Roman Catholics.  As has been said before, the disabilities in question had originally been imposed on the Roman Catholics on political rather than on religious grounds.  And the political reasons for them had been greatly weakened, if not wholly swept away, by the extinction of the Stuart line of princes.  Their retention or removal had, therefore, now become almost wholly a religious question; and the late bill had clearly established as a principle that, though the state had a right to require of members of other religious sects that they should not abuse the power which might arise from any positions or employments to which they might be admitted, to the subversion or injury of the Established Church of England, yet, when security for their innocuousness in this respect was provided, it was not justified in inquiring into the details of their faith.  And if this were to be the rule of government for the future, the conclusion was irresistible that a similar security was all that the state was justified in demanding from Roman Catholics, and that it could have no warrant for investigating their opinion on Transubstantiation, or any other purely theological tenet.  There could be no doubt that the feelings of the public had been gradually and steadily coming round to this view of the question.  The last House of Commons had not only passed a bill to remove Roman Catholic disabilities (which was afterward thrown out in the House of Lords), but had also passed, by a still larger majority, a resolution, moved by Lord Francis Leveson Gower (who was now the Secretary for Ireland), in favor of endowing the Roman Catholic priests in Ireland.  And at the late general election the opinions of the candidates on what was commonly called Catholic Emancipation had been the great cardinal question with a great number, probably a majority, of the constituencies.