5§ OM THE TEST ACT. May l8, 



teud to the ordinary principles of conftruftion. If 

 what article- 4th communicates, it communicates pure- 

 ly; if it expreffes neither the condition of the teft, nor 

 any other ; nay, if a motion for inferting fach a con- 

 dition, though fandioned by the authority of the arch- 

 bifliop of Canterbury, was reprobated by a great ma-, 

 jority of the Englifli Parliament, what ground is there 

 fo» implying any fuch condition? Indeed, whatever lax- 

 ity of fentiment may obtain in thefe days, would not 

 the Scots of thole days, who had but recently emerged 

 from the miferies and bloodfhed of the perfecution, who 

 had oppofed the introduction of Epifcopacy with as 

 much zeal nnd refoliu.ion as their forefathers had dif- 

 played againfl popery, and who regarded the former 

 with little lefs rancour and abhorrence than the latter, 

 would they not have deemed a communication fo qua- 

 lified, a virtual exclufion ? 



It cannot indeed be denied, that Belhaven propofed 

 to ihfert the following claufe, " that they (the Scots) 

 " (hall be capable of any office civil or military, and 

 " to receive any grant, or gift, commilTion, or place of 

 " truft, from and under the fovereign, within any 

 " part of Great Britain." /But this proves, not, either 

 that the teft at common law extends to Prtibyterxans, 

 or e%'en that his Lordlhip believed it to do fo, but on^- 

 ly, that he thought it advifeable, when we had a par- 

 liament of our own, to put a matter of that importance 

 beyond all doubt or controverfy. Befides, any conclu- 

 lion which might be drawn from the rejection of Bel- 

 haven's motion, is obvioufly counterbalanced by the 

 rejeclion of the archbiftiop's in the Englilh houfe o£ 

 peers. Tl>e faft (to be plain) flood thus : In either 

 country, the enemies of the union, on the one hand, 

 tried to throw obftacles in its way, by fuggeftlng un- 

 reafonable deroandsj and to fet the two nations at vari- 

 ance, by perplexing them with minute difcuffions of 

 fubjeds, where the pafffonsof both were extremely vio- 



