looking upon them all as equally in the way of perdition, would, if they had the power, compel them all to come within St. Peter's fold, or, in pure papistical charity, burn them out of its neighbourhood. Even the Quakers, who expel from their own society every member that marries one of another sect, join in the senseless clamour for toleration and political power, (toleration, which they already possess, and power, which, from their notions respecting war, they could not use,) because they hope that it will shake the steeple-house. To these must be added the united Calvinists, a formidable body, fearfully numerous even now, and increasing with fearful rapidity; proud of their numbers, conscious of their strength, active and indefatigable, inflamed with the fiercest, zeal, and directed with the coolest foresight; a Manchineal, which day by day striking its roots deeper, and sending forth wider branches, threatens to overshadow the land, and darken it with its baleful shade. If, in addition to these confederated enemies, other co-operating circumstances be considered; the growth of indifference on one side, and of fanaticism on the other; the long torpor of the clergy themselves, from which they are now only beginning to awake; the ruinous policy, which makes birth or interest the guide to the dignities of the Church, and is thus filling the bench of bishops with men, some of whom are unwilling and others incapable of defending her; the outcry against tithes, kept up by ignorant or half-thinking men; the combinations and litigations arising from this cause; the temptation which the tithes offer to the first needy minister of a bold and de cisive temper, who shall have no feelings of reverence and religion to restrain him; above all, that endemic moral malady, which marks the cha racter of these times, when the spirit of Revolution seems to be going his rounds:.. he who considers these things, and has a due sense of the benefits which we derive from our establishment, and the tremendous evils from which it preserves us, though he should not himself entirely accord with that Church, or be in communion with it, ought strenuously to oppose every attempt at giving political power to its old, inveterate, and irreconcilable enemies. The Roman Catholics, if admitted into Parlia ment, will lose no means, which their share in the legislature may allow them, of injuring our Church, and advantaging their own. Ours they would have an opportunity of injuring whenever its interests were discussed; for instance, if it should be proposed to sell the tithes, and fund the produce. Their own they have a direct prospect of serving, by accomplishing its establishment in Ireland. It may perhaps be contemptuously asked, how half a dozen, or half a score, Irish members are to effect this? They who think this a satisfactory reply know little of the nature of Popery, and can have reflected little upon the state of the British parliament. In addition to the power which property will always procure, there is one great borough interest, which in the next succession will revert to the Catholics. If it were supposed important to the success of their object, that more members of their community should be returned, and money could purchase their return, which, in spite of all enactments against bribery, it will do (unless the whole form and system of representation be changed,) money would be raised for that purpose throughout every Catholic kingdom in Europe; it would be begged as it is for the souls in Purgatory, and part of the regular commutation for sin would be converted into a tax for this great purpose. This too must not be forgotten; that a body of members, insignificant as they might be upon general questions, who could turn the scale when weighty ones make the beam tremble, would be able to make their own terms with an English minister, such as ministers are upon our miserable party-system. Whether any means can preserve the Church of England, is a question which may, perhaps, be regarded with more of fear than of hope; but it ought not to be doubted that the admission of the Catholics to political power, which is what is meant by Emancipation, would increase its danger, and might, too probably, accelerate its overthrow. |