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constitution should rather induce the approval than excite the alarm of the prelates of a protestant episcopal church. It is plain that it would be, at least, as inconsistent with their religious principles and as irreconcilable with their sense of propriety, as with our own, that your protestant bishops should become the pastors and guar dians of our Roman catholic church; and, therefore, there is but one mode left for our retaining the episcopal constitution, namely, that which at present prevails, of maintaining bishops of our own faith, for the government of our own church. We trust that the charge of contumacy which has been repeatedly made against us in consequence of the existence of a distinct Roman catholic episcopal institution in Ireland, shall no more be urged or entertained; as its injustice and inconsistency must appear manifest to the contemplation of every rational protestant mind.

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(33 Geo. iii. cap. 21,) which provides not only (section 10) that no persons professing the Roman catholic religion, shall be enabled to exercise any right of presentation to any ecclesiastical benefice whatsoever: but also, (sec. 4.) that nothing in that act contained, shall 66 extend, or be construed to extend to give papists, or persons professing the popish religion, a right to vote at any parish vestry, for levying of money to rebuild or repair any parish church, 66 or respecting the demise or disposal of "the income of any estate belonging to 66 any church or parish, or for the sa"lary of the parish clerk, or at the "election of any churchwarden."

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When our protestant countrymen evince such anxious vigilance, and exercise such jealous precaution, as to exclude the interference of Roman catholics not only in the presentation to benefices, but to the disposal of parish funds, the payment of a parish clerk, or the election of a church-warden; it It would afford as much gratification, cannot be deemed unreasonable, on our to be confident of having satisfied our part, to use at least an equal vigilance countrymen, of the established church, and precaution in the appointment of that our objections to the measure of a the chief pastors of this portion of the royal veto do not originate in an illberal Roman catholic church; by excluding, or unaccommodating spirit, on our part; as far as in us lies, the interference of but are founded on a conscientious and persons of opposite or different commureasonable vigilance in the protection of nions. We claim nothing more, in our religion; and we have been thus this behalf, than the right of entertain explicit in the declaration of our feeling a portion of those anxieties for our ings, upon this subject, because we know that it is one, upon which very much misconception has prevailed, even amongst men of liberal disposi

tions.

There is not any protestant who would chuse to have the prelates of his church, directly or indirectly appointed, or his ecclesiastical concerns conducted by members of the Roman catholic communion, or even of doubtful faith. The truth of this position has been repeatedly manifested, and was alledged to constitute a principal ground for the Revolution of 1688. But it is not necessary that we should refer to so distant a period in support of this position. The disinclination of our protestant fellow-subjects to admit any interference, however remote, of persons professing the Roman catholic faith in the concerus of the established church, is also apparent in the statute that was enacted for our relief, in the year 1793,

religion, which you have manifested for your own; and we therefore trust, that a sense of justice will induce you to discountenance such an unnecessary and liberty, as some persons appear desirous unjustifiable violation of our religious to associate with any measure of relief that may be extended to us,

Our objections to this ministerial interference, in the appointment of our bishops, are not either confined to spiritual considerations; for, were it even possible, which it is not, that our consciences could be reconciled to it; still, we should feel ourselves bound, as friends to civil freedom, to oppose, by every constitutional resistance, its enactment; because it tends, obviously and directly, to encrease the already overgrown in fluence of the crown, and to provide a new and extensive source of which, should corrupt intrigue be so enpatronage, couraged, might, at ne distant period, produce results most fatal to the liber

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488 Address of the Irish Catholics to their Protestant Brethren.

ties of all classes of our fellow-subjects. The minister of our church would, in such an event, look for his promotion to the minister of the crown, who would, in return, require the devotion of the clergyman as the price of his patronage; and it cannot be necessary to particuJarize the national calamities to which such an anomalous connexion would tend.

against it, to the conduct of Roman ca tholics in society, in the several relas tions of subjects and fellow-citizens. To that conduct we refér, as a more just criterion of their merits or demerits than the imputations of their avowed opponents. We do not, by our petitions to the legislature, ask for offices or honours; we only desire that we may not be pointed at by the law as a christian community, rendered, by our faith, unworthy of trust or confidence, in a state which we mainly contribute to uphold. It will still rest with those who are invested with the power of confering rank or office, whether ema nating from the crown or the people, to estimate the pretensions of each individual, and to grant or withhold fa vours, according to the qualities of the candidate.

Neither are these the only evils which would result from the enactment of such á measure. It would produce an immediate commotion in the public mind, the ultimate consequences of which it would be equally painfulto conjecture as difficult to ascertain. The influence of the clergy over their flocks, which is admitted to have been hitherto exercised in the most beneficial man. ner, would be utterly extinguished; and thus, irritation and disorder would Behold, then, six millions of your supplant tranquillity and concord, fellow-subjects deprived, without ofshould the legislature sanction the de- fence, of those civil privileges, the ensires of those persons, who seek to sub-joyment of which you have repeatedly stitute an experimental and obnoxious speculation, in the room of a conciliatory principle of relief.

Those who seek the establishment of this royal interference, as a concession on our part, in return for emancipation, should recollect, that though we are willing to accept of freedom as a boon, we, nevertheless, feel that as loyal subjects of this realm, we are entitled to demand it as a constitutional right, in common with our countrymen; and, therefore, it is not reasonable to expect from us, that we should pay an additional price for that which every loyal subject may justly aspire to enjoy. The only concession we can offer, and which, alone, you shall feel disposed to accept or expect, is the abandonment of the recollection of those injuries and grievances which we and our ancestors so long and so unjustly endured on account of our religion. We are willing, nay most anxious, to concede every feeling of resentment, and every încentive to irritation; in the hope, that the equalization of civil privileges may be founded on the basis of national conciliation.

We have endeavoured to point out the injustice of every objection that has been raised to our enjoyment of the henefits and privileges of the constitution. Should any remain unnoticed, we can only appeal, for our defence

declared to be the birth-right of every subject of these realms. You, who have entertained the claims of foreigners for your sympathy and support, when they complained of treaties vio lated or persecutions inflicted; — you, who laboured zealously, honourably and successfully for the emancipation of the pagan slave of Africa; will you, -can you suffer it any longer to be supposed, that your christian brethren and fellow subjects are held in ignominious exclusion, in deference to your uncharitable prejudices? Or will you not rather prove, by a constitutional support of our humble appeal to the legislature, that you prefer the fellowship of a free people to the intercourse of a degraded cast.

We, therefore, invite you, as you value the royal word and national faith of Great Britain, to redeem the plighted word of the British king, with whom we expressly covenanted for unqualified liberty of conscience in the name of your religion, we call upon you to prove that protestantism does not require persecution for its subsistence; and in the name of christian truth, we charge you to manifest to the nations of the earth the sincerity of your declarations, in defence of the sacred cause of civil and religious freedom.

END OF THE FIFTH VOLUME.

W. E. Andrews, Printer, Garliek Hill, Bow Lane, London.

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