is more clear than the following: "A perfon "who does not think perjury a crime, would "not forfeit a guinea from reluctance to an "oath." The Roman Catholics forfeit every privilege rather than take an oath against their confcience.

Are not they Adam's children? Have they not the fame fenfations of pain and pleasure as other men? Their vices and virtues, do they not run in the fame channels with those of their Proteftant neighbours? Are they not animated with the fame defires of glory, allured by the blandishments of pleasure, courted by the charms of riches, as eager for the enjoyment of ease and opulence? If perjury be their creed, if their clergy be endued with the magic power of forgiving not only present but future fins, why do not they glide gently down the stream of legal liberty, instead of stemming the torrent of oppreffion? Why do not they qualify themfelves for fitting in the fenate, and giving laws to the land in concert with their countrymen, inftead of being the continual objects of penal fanctions? It is, that they are diametrically the reverse of what they are reprefented. Their religion forbids them to sport with the awful name of the Divinity. They do not choose to impose upon their neighbours, or themselves, by perjury;

nor

nor run the rifque of eternal death for a little honey. Were it otherwife, in three weeks time they could all read their recantations, and be on a level with the reft of their fellow-fubjects: they could imitate that philofopher who had two religions,-one for himself, and another for his country. Yet the archives of national justice can prove, that Catholics, reduced to the neceflity of difcovering against themfelves, preferred the lofs of their eftates to the guilt of perjury, when a falfe oath could have fecured them in their property. Notwithstanding this imputed creed, they prefer the fmarting afflictions of the body to the flinging remorfes of the foul; and when worldly profperities ftand in competition with conscience, they rather choose to be its martyrs than executioners.

Gentlemen, reconcile, if you can, perjurers from principle, with fufferers from delicacy of confcience, and I fhall ftyle you the children of the great Apollo. But are not the Catholics a fet of paffive machines, veering at the breath of the Pope, who can difpenfe with them in any thing? "Or what fecurity can they give "to Proteftant governors, whilft they acknowledge his fpiritual power?" If this be any objection to their loyalty, Catholic kings fhould banish their Catholic fubjects, and introduce Proteftants

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Proteftants in their ftead :-for, as the Roman Catholic faith is the fame all over the world, and that France and Spain are more convenient to the Pope than the Britannic islands, he would have more machines to move, more votaries to obey his mandates, and more facility in compaffing his defigns. In England and Ireland all the Proteftants would oppose him; whereas in Catholic kingdoms, if his power has fuch an unlimited fway over the confcience of man, as Mr. Wefley afferts, every subject, nay, kings themselves, would be bound to obey him. But Catholic fubjects know, that if God must have his own, Cæfar must have his due. In his quality of pontiff, they are ready to kifs the pope's feet: but if he affume the title of conqueror, they are ready to bind his hands. The very ecclefiaftical benefices, which are more in the fpiritual line, are not at his difpofal. When England had more to dread from him than now, a Catholic parliament paffed the ftatute of premunire; the bishops and mitred abbots preferred their own temporal intereft to that of the pope, and referve the benefices to themselves, and the clergy under their jurifdiction. Charity begins. at home, and I do not believe any Catholic fo divested of it, as to prefer fifty pounds a year under the pope's government, to an hundred under that of a Proteftant king. Queen Mary,

fo

fo devoted to the pope's caufe, both on account of her religion, and the justice done to her mother by the inflexible refolution of the fovereign pontiff, ftill would not cede her temporal rights, nor those of her fubjects, in compliment to his fpiritual power. After the reconciliation of her kingdom to the apoftolical fee, a ftatute was passed, enacting, that the pope's bulls, briefs, &c. fhould be meerly confined to fpirituals, without interfering with the independence of her kingdom, or the rights of her fubjects. The hiftory of Europe proclaims aloud, that the Roman Catholics are not paffive engines in the hands of popes, and that they confine his power within the narrow limits of his fpiritual province. They have often taken his cities, and oppofed Paul's fword to Peter's keys, and filenced the thunders of the vatican with the noife of the cannon. They know that Peter was a fisherman when kings swayed the fceptre, and that the subsequent grandeur of his fucceffors could never authorise him to alter the primitive inftitution that commands fubjects to obey their rulers, and to give Cæfar his due.

With regard to his fpiritual power, you will be furprised, Gentlemen, when I tell you, that, from Lodowic Muggleton down to John Wesley, those who have inftituted new fects

amongst

amongst the Chriftians, have affumed more power than the pope dare to affume over the Catholics.

They may add or diminish: but, with regard to the pope, the landmarks are erected, and we would never permit him to remove them. If he attempted to preach up five facraments inftead of feven, we would immediately depofe him. Mr. Wesley may alter his faith as often as he pleases, and prevail on others to do the fame; but the pope can never alter ours: we acknowledge him, indeed, as head of the church, for every fociety must have a link of union, to guard against confusion and anarchy; and, without annexing any infallibility to his person, we acknowledge his title to precedence and pre-eminence. But, in acknowledging him as the first pilot to fteer the vellel, we acknowledge a compass by which he is to direct his course. He is to preserve the vessel, but never to expose it to shipwreck. Any deviation from the laws of God, the rights of nature, or the faith of our fathers, would be the fatal rock on which the pope himself would split. In a word, is our first paftor; he may feed, but cannot poifon us: we acknowledge no power in him, either to alter our faith, or to corrupt our morals.

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pope