becomes the property of the person to whom it is bestowed, if there be no legal difqualification on either fide. But the misfortune is, that the Catholics and the framers of the fictitious creed fo often refuted, and ftill forced on them, refemble the Frenchman and the blunderer in the comedy; one forces into the other's mouth a food which he cannot relifh, and against which his ftomach revolts.

Mr. Wesley places in the front of his lines, the general council of Conftance, places the pope in the centre, and brings up the rere of his fquadrons with a confabulation between a priest and a woman, whilft his letters are fkirmishing on the wings. Let us march from the rere to the front, for religious warriors feldom ob Serve order.

..

A prieft then faid to a woman whom Mr. Wefley KNOWS, "I fee you are no heretic: you have the experience of a real Christian.' "And would you burn me ?" faid fhe. "God "forbid !" replied the priest, "except for the "good of the church." Now this priest must be defcended from fome of thofe who at tempted to blow up a river with gunpowder, in order to drown a city *. Or he must have

* Among other plots attributed to the Roman Catholics in the reign of Charles the firft, this extraordinary one was charged upon them.-See Hume.

have taken her for a witch; whereas, by his own confeffion, "fhe was no heretic." A gentleman whom I know declared to me upon his honour, that he heard Mr. Wesley repeat in a fermon, preached by him in the city of Cork, the following words: "A little bird. "cried out in Hebrew,-O Eternity! Eter

..

nity! Who can tell the length of Eternity?" I am then of opinion, that a little Hebrew bird gave Mr. Wesley the important information about the priest and the woman: one story is as interesting as the other; and both are equally alarming to the Proteftant intereft. Hitherto it is a drawn battle between us; from the rere then, let us advance to the van, and try if the general council of Conftance, which Mr. Wesley places at the head of his legions, be impenetrable to the fword of truth.

After reading the ecclefiaftical history concerning that council, and Dr. Hay's answer to W. A. Drummond, I have gone through the drudgery of examining it all over in St. Patrick's library, when Mr. Wesley's letters made their appearance. The refult of my refearches is, a conviction that there is no fuch doctrine as "Violation of faith with heretics," authorized by that council. Pope Martin V. whom the fathers of that council elected, published a bull, wherein he declares, "That it is

"not

"not lawful for a man to perjure himself on

any account, even for the faith." Subfequent pontiffs have lopped off the excrefcences of relaxed cafuiftry.

The pope's horns then are not fo dangerous as to induce Mr. Wefley to fing the lamentations of Jeremiah the prophet, deploring the lofs of Jerufalem, or to fend us from London an Hebrew elegy to be modulated on the key of the Irish Ologone. "Their fouls are pained, "and their hearts tremble for the ark of God*. "Tell it not in Gath, publifh it not in the "streets of Afkelon; left the daughters of the "Philiftines rejoice, left the daughters of the "uncircumcifed triumph."

L

This fame elegy refounded through Great Britain a little before the ark of England was deftroyed, the fceptre wrefted out of the hands of her king, her pontiffs deprived of their mitres, and her noblemen banished from her fenate. Thus, as the Delphian fword flaughtered the victim in honour of the Gods, and dispatched the criminal on whom the sentence of the law was paffed, the fcripture is made fubfervient to profane, as well as facred purpofes. It recommends and enforces fubordination, and, at the fame time, becomes an arsenal from

*Defence of the Proteftant Affociation,p. 202.

from whence faction takes it arms.

Like Boi

leau's heroes, in the Battle of the Books, we ranfack old councils; we difturb the bones of old divines, who, wrapped up in their parchment blankets, fleep at their eafe on the fhelves of libraries, where they would fnore for ever, if the noife of the gun-powder upon an anniverfary day, or the restlefs hands of pamphlet writers, industrious in inflaming the rabble, did not rouse them from their flumber. Peace to their manes! The charity fermon preached in Dublin by Doctor Campbell, the anniverfary fermon preached in Cork laft November by Doctor la Malliere, and the difcourfe to the Echlinville volunteers, by Mr. Dickson, have done more good in one day, either by procuring relief for the diftreffed, or by promoting benevolence, peace, and harmony amongst fellow-fubjects of all denominations, than the folios written on pope Joan have done in the fpace of two hundred years.

I must now found the retreat, with a defign to return to the charge, and to attack Mr. Wefley's first battery, on which he has mounted the canons of the council of Conftance. If I cannot fucceed from want of abilities, but not from want of the armour of truth, I am fure of making a retreat, in which it is impoffible to cut me off. For in the very fuppofition that the council of Conftance, and all the councils of

the

the world, had defined "violation of faith with "heretics," as an article of faith, and that I do not believe it, "violation," then, "of faith "with heretics," is no article of my belief. For, to form one's belief, it is not sufficient to read a propofition in a book. Interior conviction muft captivate the mind. The Arian reads the Divinity of Chrift in the New Teftament, and till denies it would Mr. Wesley affert that the Divinity of Chrift is an article of the Arian faith? If then " violation of faith with "heretics," be the teffera fidei, the badge of the Roman Catholic religion, the Roman Catholics are all Proteftants, and as well entitled to fing their pfalms, as Mr. Wefley his canticles. I would not be one hour a member of any religion that would profefs fuch a creed as Mr. Wesley has fent us from London.

You may, perhaps, be furprized, Gentlemen, that the introduction to a ferious fubject fhould favour fo little of the gloom and fullennefs fo familiar to polemical writers; or, that the ludicrous and ferious fhould be so closely interwoven with each other.

But, remark a fet of men who tax the nobility, gentry, and head clergy of England with degeneracy, for not degrading the dignity of their ranks and profeffions. Remark them expofing their parchments in meeting-houfes and

veftries,