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However strong may be the theoretical reasons for the abolition of the penal sanctions to orthodoxy, they do not dispense with the confirmation of experience; and I must next refer to the more prominent examples of Churches constituted on the principle of freedom to the clergy.

[THE ENGLISH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH EXEMPLARY.]

The most remarkable and telling instance is that furnished by the English Presbyterian Church, with its coadjutor in Ireland.  The history of this Church is not unfamiliar to us; the great lawsuit relating to Lady Hewley’s charity gave notoriety to the changes of opinion that had come over it in the course of a century.  But whoever is earnest on the question as to the expediency of tests should study the history thoroughly, as being in every way most instructive.  The leading facts, as concerns the present argument, are mainly these:—­

First, the great decision at the Salters’ Hall conference, on the 10th of March, 1719, when, by a majority of 73 to 69, it was resolved to exact no test from the clergy as a condition of their being ordained ministers of the body.  The point more immediately at issue was the Trinity, on which opinions had been already divided; but the decision was general.  The principle of the right of private judgment admitted of no exceptions.

Second.  Long before this decision, the minds of the ministers had been ripening to the conviction, that creeds and subscriptions could do no good, and often did harm, indeed, the terms employed by some of them are everything that we now desire.  For example, Joseph Hunter, on the eve of the decision, wrote thus:  “We have always thought that such human declarations of faith were far from being eligible on their own account, since they tend to narrow the foundations of Christianity and to restrain that latitude of expression in which our great Legislator has seen fit to deliver His Will to us”.

Third.  Most remarkable is it to witness the consequences of this great act of emancipation.  A hundred and sixty-five years have elapsed—­a sufficient time for judging of the experiment.  The Presbyterian body at the time were made up partly of Arians, partly of Trinitarians, who held each other in mutual tolerance; the ministers freely exchanging pulpits.  No bad consequence followed.  We do not hear of individual ministers going to extravagant lengths in either direction.  A large body gravitated, in the course of time, to the modern Unitarian position; but, considering the start, the stride was not great.  In such a century as the eighteenth, there might well have been greater modifications of the creeds than actually occurred.  Evidently, in the absence of any compulsory adherence to settled articles, there was an abundant tendency to conservatism.  Commencing with Baxter, Howe, and Calamy, we find, in the course of the century, such names as Lardner, Price, Priestley, Belsham, Kippis, James Lindsay, Lant Carpenter—­men of liberal and enlightened views on all political questions, and earnest in their good works.  These men’s testimony to what is truth in religion, is of more value to us than the opinions of the creed-bound clergy.  Reason is still reason, but the weight of authority is with the free enquirers.