their persecutors. The friends of the established Church have nothing to fear from Catholic emancipation, if they will only use those weapons of warfare which are not carnal, but mighty through God; if they will shew a willingness to contend with popery, not when they have secured so disproportionately the vantage ground, but by descending from their fastnesses, to the more equal combat of the plain; not when they are surrounded by the terrors of a penal code, and therefore, of necessity invulnerable, but when they depend chiefly for the victory, on the truth and righteousness of their cause, and on the piety, and sanctity, and zeal, of their teachers.

As to the apprehension of Catholics introducing popery through the medium of Parliament, it seems altogether unfounded; since there must always be a great majority of Protestants in both Houses, who would resist every attempt to change the ecclesiastical part of the British constitution, even though "places, and ribbons, pensions and sinecures, and further elevation in the peerage," were held up to their consideration. Indeed, such a change as this, though the protestant members of parliament were to decline the execution of their duty, it is impossible to accomplish: it would kindle the indignation of all classes of

the community; it would again precipitate the Catholics into the very bondage from which they had risen; and in the honest prejudices of the people, would be found a most powerful barrier to their future restoration. But why suppose, that the Catholics must necessarily wish the destruction of the Church establishment? May they not be zealous, and at the same time possess prudence and principle? Or if they are so anxious to overturn the protestant church, why do they not at present take all the oaths, which preclude their entrance on the higher offices of state? For, if they can unite in accomplishing its destruction when they are in Parliament, and after they have taken an oath that they will engage in nothing contrary to the security of our church establishment, the same want of integrity would surely lead them to take any oath, that might facilitate the execution of this darling object.

Some persons, who express the sentiments of a considerable party on this subject, acknowledge, that they would feel little indisposition to the admission of Catholics to political power, if they were not afraid of seeing a popish establishment; and would have no particle of objection to the extension of the like privilege to Dissenters, if they could be secure of the maintenance of our church establishment. This

manifests a most laudable anxiety: could there reasonably be apprehended any danger to the church from the repeal of the penal laws, then, certainly, it is better that these laws should continue in force. But when the moral impossibility of danger arising from Catholic emancipation is considered, and at the same time, the incalculable advantages which must flow to the empire from this measure, it seems desirable that this anxiety, originally just in itself, should be kept within proper bounds. For how can a few Catholic noblemen and gentlemen overturn the protestant church, either in the Parliament, or in the army, either by violence, or by fraud? Before they can accomplish this, the majority of both the army and the Parliament must be converted to popery: they must enter into a conspiracy for this purpose, not merely among themselves, but also with the sons of our ecclesiastical establishment. They can never injure the Church if she is faithful to herself; and if she should be otherwise, the existence of penal laws will not necessarily save her.

But in order to provide fully for the security of the Church, let every Roman Catholic on his entering upon office, take an oath that he will enter into no plan or conspiracy for the destruction of the Church, established

throughout the empire. This no Catholic will object to take, while it will afford some satisfaction to Protestants.

The most popular objection to Catholic emancipation is, that while the authority of a foreign power is admitted by Papists, their admission into the legislative assembly, or into offices of great importance, is unsafe. Now, it should be recollected that they have renounced the deposing power of the pope, and the doctrine of keeping no faith with heretics. The only power which they acknowledge in the Pope is purely spiritual; and if it be purely spiritual, it little imports the state, as far as its temporal interests are concerned, where that power is lodged,-whether with the Patriarch of Moscow, or the Pope of Rome, provided the state is satisfied with such pledges as Catholics are called upon to give, in the oaths of 1791 and 1793: in which they declare," that they do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other foreign prince, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm." It is contended, therefore, the independency of this purely spiritual supremacy, admitted in the person of a foreign prelate, or rather in the church of which he is con

sidered as the chief organ, can, in no manner whatever, interfere with the duties of allegiance to a temporal sovereign. The Kirk of Scotland maintains a supremacy equally independent of the temporal jurisdiction of the crown. The General Assembly considers itself paramount in its definitions of doctrine and decrees of discipline, and convokes and dissolves itself. The King's commission is not allowed to possess any authority or controul over the acts of Assembly. This power claimed by the Church of Rome, as distinct and independent of all temporal authority, we have seen admitted by the most jealous legislatures; and not inconsistently with this acknowledgement, we know that Catholic princes have waged war against the Pope himself, and reduced him to the state of a prisoner in his capital. -But in admitting the existence of this spiritual supremacy of the see of Rome, Catholics do not even admit that the Pope shall himself elect and nominate all bishops, as in some ages, pontiffs have assumed a right to do, in the same manner as they exercised other powers which have not even by human authorities been considered as legitimately inherent in them*.

* Sir John Hippesley's Tract on the Catholic Petition, p. 19.