tion itself be, but prejudicial to the particular end propofed by the inftitution; for it is this laft circumftance which proves that the founder would have difpenfed with it in purfuance of his own purpose.

The ftatutes of fome colleges forbid the fpeaking of any language but Latin, within the walls of the college; direct that a certain number, and not fewer than that number, be allowed the ufe of an apartment amongst them; that fo many hours of each day be employed in public exercises, lectures, or difputations; and fome other articles of difcipline adapted to the tender years of the students, who in former times reforted to universities. Were colleges to retain fuch rules, nobody now-a-days would come near them. They are laid afide therefore, though parts of the ftatutes, and as fuch included within the oath, not merely because they are inconvenient, but because there is fufficient reafon to believe, that the founders themfelves would have difpenfed with them, as fubverfive of their own defigns.

CHAP.

CHA P. XXII.

SUBSCRIPTION TO ARTICLES OF RELIGION.

SUBS

UBSCRIPTION to Articles of Religion, though no more than a declaration of the fubfcriber's affent, may properly enough be confidered in connection with the fubje&t of oaths, because it is governed by the fame rule of interpretation:

Which rule is the animus imponentis.

The inquiry therefore concerning fubfcription will be, quis impofuit, et quo animo.

The bishop who receives the fubfcription, is not the impofer, any more than the cryer of a court, who adminifters the oath to the jury and witneffes, is the person that imposes it; nor confequently is the private opinion or interpretation of the bishop of any fignification to the fubfcriber, one way or other.

The compilers of the thirty-nine articles are not to be confidered as the impofers of fubfcription, any more than the framer or drawer up of a law is the person that enacts it.

The legiflature of the 13th Eliz. is the impofer, whofe intention the fubfcriber is bound to fatisfy.

They who contend, that nothing lefs can justify fubfcription to the thirty-nine articles, than the actual belief of each and every feparate propofition contained in them, muft fuppofe, that the legiflature expected the confent of ten thousand men, and that in perpetual fucceffion, not to one controverted propofition, but to many hundreds. It is difficult to conceive how this could be expected by any, who obferved the incurable diverfity of human opinion upon all fubjects fhort of demonftration.

If the authors of the law did not intend this, what did they intend?

They

They intended to exclude from offices in the church,

1. All abettors of popery.

2. Anabaptifts, who were at that time a powerful party on the continent.

3. The Puritans, who were hoftile to an epifcopal conftitution; and in general the members of fuch leading fects or foreign eftablishments, as threatened

to overturn our own.

Whoever finds himfelf comprehended within these defcriptions ought not to fubfcribe.

During the present state of ecclefiaftical patronage, in which private individuals are permitted to impofe teachers upon parishes, with which they are often little or not at all connected, fome limitation of the patron's choice may be neceffary, to prevent unedifying contentions between neighbouring teachers, or between the teachers and their refpective congregations. But this danger, if it exift, may be provided against with equal effect, by converting the articles of faith into articles of peace.

CHAP.

СНА Р. XXIII.

WILL S.

HE fundamental queftion upon this fubject is, whether Wills are of natural or of adventitious right? that is, whether the right of directing the difpofition of property after his death belongs to a man in a state of nature, and by the law of nature, or whether it be given him entirely by the pofitive regulations of the country he lives in?

The immediate produce of each man's perfonal labour, as the tools, weapons, and utenfils, which he manufactures, the tent or hut he builds and perhaps the flocks and herds which he breeds and rears, are as much his own as the labour was which he employed upon them, that is, are his property naturally and abfolutely; and confequently he may give or leave them to whom he pleafes, there being nothing to limit the continuance of his right, or to restrain the alienation of it.

But every other fpecies of property, efpecially property in land, ftands upon a different foundatí

on.

We have feen in the Chapter upon Property, that, in a state of nature, a man's right to a particular spot of ground arifes from his ufing it, and wanting it, confequently ceafes with the ufe and want; fo that at his death the eftate reverts to the community, without any regard to the last owner's will, or even any preference of his family, farther than as they become the first occupiers after him, and fucceed to the fame want and ufe.

Moreover,

Moreover, as natural rights cannot, like rights created by act of parliament, expire at the end of a certain number of years; if the teftator have a right by the law of nature, to difpofe of his.property one moment after his death, he has the fame right to direct the difpofition of it, for a million of ages after him; which is abfurd.

The ancient apprehenfions of mankind upon the fubject were conformable to this account of it: for wills have been introduced into moft countries by a pofitive act of the ftate, as by the laws of Solon into Greece, by the twelve tables into Rome; and that, not till after a confiderable progrefs had been made i legiflation, and in the economy of civil life. Tacitus relates, that amongst the Germans they were difallowed; and, what is more remarkable, in this country, fince the conqueft, lands could not be devised by will, till within little more than two hundred years ago, when this privilege was reftored to the fubject, by an act of parliament in the latter end of the reign of Henry the Eighth.

No doubt many beneficial purposes are attained by extending the owner's power over his property beyond his life, and beyond his natural right. It invites to induftry; it encourages marriage; it fecures the dutifulnefs and dependency of children. But a limit must be affigned to the duration of this power. The utmoft extent to which, in any cafe, entails are allowed by the laws of England to operate, is during the lives in exiftence at the death of the teftator, and one and twenty years beyond thefe after which, there are ways and means of fetting them afide.

From the confideration that wills are the creatures of the municipal law which gives them their efficacy, may be deduced a determination of the queftion, whether the intention of the teftator in an informal will be binding upon the confcience of thofe, who, by operation of law, fucceed to his

eftate.