Papifts were to be found, who, with the fame facility, and with equal confidence, could condemn, renounce, and abjure too, the fcandalous doctrines of depofing kings, breaking faith, destroying heretics, &c. as any of our modern

1

in agitation, a pamphlet appeared, called, The Lay Catholic's Petition, offered to his Majesty for toleration of Popery; wherein they protested their fidelity and unfeigned love to his Majefty, offering to be bound life for life, with good fureties for their loyal behaviour: yet, at the inftant when this petition was exhi. biting, their chief leaders were labouring, with all their might, to shake the pillars and whole frame of the kingdom to shivers. When they thought their plot fure of fuccefs, Father Garnet was pleased to talk much of bulls and mandates from his Holiness to charge all the priests and their Catholic flocks in England to carry themselves with profound peace and quiet. He sent Faux to Rome with a letter to the Pope, fupplicating, "That commandment might "come from his Holiness, or elfe from Aquaviva the general of the Jefuits, for

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ftaying of all commotions of the Catholics in England;" farther requesting, "that his Holinefs would please to injoin this profound quiet and filence among "the Catholics, on the penalty of the cenfures of the church to be inflicted on "the difobedient." After the difcovery of the plot, when a teft was required of them, of the fame nature with that appointed by the late act for the relief of the Roman Catholics, both the laity and clergy, with Blackwell their fuperior, took it without fcruple, till they were prohibited from doing it, by the confiftoof Rome, under pain of damnation. So likewise, afterwards, upon forming the Popish plot against Charles II. a noble lord of the party drew up a fine apology in their behalf, beginning with these sweet words, "My lords and gentle"" men, the arms which Chaistians can use against lawful powers, in their fe"verity, are only prayers and tears."-And in that, and the fubfequent reign when they had a prince of their own religion, what strange guises did they put on, and what new fpurious principles did they pretend to adopt? They cried out upon perfecution, and all force and severity in matters of religion; became the warmest advocates for religious freedom; fet on foot acts of toleration, and indulgences for tender confciences, while all they meant by them was only to pave the way for the establishment of their own religion; which they were convinced could only be done in this gradual and indirect method. It was, no doubt, fomewhat extraordinary to hear liberty of conscience, and universal toleratinn, the current languge of a Popish court, and the conftant burden of the edicts and clamations of a bigotted arbitrary fovereign, whofe confcience and councils were entirely in the management of Jefuitical priefts. But though nothing could poffibly be more contrary to the true genius and principles of their religion than thefe means, yet they fcrupled not to have recourfe to them, and to plead for the lawfulness of them, when they served to advance their darling project, and promised to haften their much defired revolution. Memor. for Protest. p. 55. Hift. of the Engl. College of Douay, p. 15. Nova Britannia, or Planting in Virginia, Lond. 1609. Speech of Sir Edw. Coke at the Trial of the Traitors. Burnet, Hift. of his own times. Hift. of Engl.

Kennet's Serm. p. 15.

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Catholics;

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Catholics; while yet they were maintained at Rome, and continued to be taught, and occafionally practifed, to the great disturbance and danger of society, and perhaps by these very perfons who had renounced them. So that I know no fufficient reafon for believing that either Popery or Papifts are really different from what they were in times paft; nor do I see what cause we have to trust more to their integrity, liberal principles, their kind and humane difpofitions, than our fathers had. Men of freer fentiments, of honefty, humanity, and generous and charitable difpofitions, doubtlefs, may be among them:-fo there have always been. Perhaps, too, individuals of this defcription may now be more commonly found among them than in fome former periods. But we fpeak of the fociety, not of individuals which compofe it. We fpeak not of them as men, but as Papifts. We fpeak not of perfons which are perishing, but of their faith which is perpetual. We have nothing to do with private difpofitions, which are ever precarious, changeable, and fluctuating; but of the public fpirit and principles of their religion, which are fixed and permanent; and thefe, alas, will be ever at war with generous fentiments, and the best difpofitions.-What can, at this moment, be urged in exculpation of Popery, or for the pretended reformation of its profeffors, which could not, with equal truth and plausibility, have been pled long ago in their favour? They are but trying again their old fallacious arts, and to fuffer ourselves to be deceived by them, would bespeak the greatest weakness and fimplicity. They are filly birds, indeed, who allow themselves, again and again, to be taken in the fame fnare.

But it will be faid, "All furmifes and jealoufies of this "kind must be as groundless as they are uncharitable. "Is not all danger to the ftate, which might otherwise "arife from the fuppofed dangerous principles of Papifts,

effectually provided against by the oath required of

"them

"them in the act for their relief? Hereby all their political "herefies are folemnly abjured, and the moft ample alle

giance to the king and government promised, and fworn. "Ought not this to put their principles and loyalty beyond "all reasonable doubt? What is more facred than an oath? "or what farther fecurity can a government demand or ob "tain for the fidelity and good behaviour of any fubjects

whatever?"-This reafoning is more fpecious than fatisfactory in the prefent cafe, as may evidently appear from fome things already advanced: but, as great ftrels feems to be laid upon this, we may confider it a little more particularly. Nothing, it is granted, can be more facred than an oath. Hence it has juftly been confidered, by all mations, as the laft and highest appeal in important masters of doubt and difficulty; and an oath for confirmation is the

"The Roman Catholics in England and Ireland, where the repeal has already taken place, have not been wanting in their dutiful correfpondence; "they have given every proof required of their attachment to their king and "country, and, in the moft faered and folemn manner, purged themselves and "their religion of those execrable tenets, which had been so unjustly laid to their charge- "The Roman Catholics have given, and are ftill ready to give, the most convincing proofs that can be defired of their attachment to their king and country; they have in the meft folemn manner, in the name "of the great God that made them, renounced, with abhorrence, those impious "tenets which have been laid to their charge."-" It is honourable for them, that their tenets have been declared harmless in the parliament itself, and not in the leaft contrary to the quiet and tranquillity of the ftate, without one "fingle voice in either house to gainfay it. The equitable part of mankind "will readily allow, that this declaration, joined to the folemn renunciationupon oath, which the Catholics in England have already made, of the im"pious tenets falfely laid to their charge, and which thofe in this country are "ready to make whenever it is required of them, is fully fufficient to convince "the world of their innocence; and it will even feem a very odd undertaking,

to attempt to fix thefe impious tenets upon them, whether they will or not, "and in spite of fuch evidence to the contrary."-" In fact, we have not heard "of a fingle Papift in England or Ireland, who has made the leaft fcruple to " take the oath of allegiance prescribed by the late acts of their respective par"liaments; although the abjuration of all the forementioned tenets be ex"prefsly contained in it. From this conduct of the British Catholics is deduced an argument, which, I apprehend, is alone decifive of the question in debate, * &c.” Answ. to Mr. IV. A. D.'s Lett. to G. H. p. 10, 11, 13, and 150. «Erafm. Lett.

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end of all frife. Yet it is well known, there are many things, which, from their nature or concomitant circumftances, cannot be referred to this decifion, and in which oaths can with no propriety be admitted, nor deemed fatisfactory though taken. And of this kind, we humbly judge, the prefent cafe to be. The folemnity of an oath can, by no means, determine what are the real doctrines of the church of Rome, nor confequently what is the faith, or what shall be the future conduct of her members. If they were Popish principles before, which are renounced, as the objection and indeed the nature of that oath of abjuration fuppofes, no oaths whatever can make them ceafe to be fo, nor annul their influence, nor prevent their effects upon the confcience and practice of a Papift. Such an oath from a profeffed Papist, acknowledged as fuch, and continuing fuch, is utterly prepofterous, and entirely infignificant: it runs counter to his known principles, to his previous engagements, and to the religious profeffion which he still conti nues to make. Such an oath in him muft originate purely from ignorance, error, or perfidy, and is, ipfo facto, deftructive of the fwearer's own faith and confcience, and therefore can deferve very little credit from another. He that fwears against principle declares to all the world, that he ought not to be believed. Can fuch an oath be reafonably supposed to terminate all fufpicion, when not only every concurring evidence to render it credible is wanting, but also the ftrongest imaginable appears, on the other fide, to deftroy its credibility? Or can it be deemed want of charity to make the fame account of an oath of this kind as the fwearer himself must do? for the Papift will frankly own, that if this oath, or any oath whatever he can fwear, be, in the least, oppofite to the doctrine of the Catholic church, it is not obligatory upon him: it ought neither to be taken, nor kept, and therefore should not be believed or trusted.

When it is maturely confidered, it is indeed hard to fay whether this oath be a greater reproach to the wisdom and fagacity

fagacity of the legislature in requiring it, or to the honesty and fincerity of the jurors for taking it. It is a strange fort of compromise betwixt the government and the indulged, whereby the latter are bound to facrifice a part of their religious fyftem as a condition of preferving the reft; while it cannot truly answer the purposes of either. It is not fufficient for the purpose of a full fecurity to the one, nor confiftent with the defign of a free and full toleration to the other. It is infufficient for the former, because many things are wanting in it, effentially neceffary to complete the fecurity of a Proteftant government, particularly the fpiritual fupremacy of the Pope, the infallibility of the church, and implicit faith in all her decifions, which conftitute the very life and quinteffence of Popery, and comprehend every other part of it in them, which, not being abjured, make the abjuration of the other particulars in the oath, or any others whatever belonging to Popery, pure mockery and illufion. It is equally inconsistent with the latter; because, while the act professes to give relief to Roman Catholics, the conditionary oath, on the matter, requires them to be none of that number, before they can fhare of the promised relief: for I aver, and hope have already proved, that fome, if not all, of the abjured tenets as really belong to the principles of the church of Rome, as tranfubftantiation, or the worship of images. This oath, therefore, is lame on both fides; and errs on two oppofite extremes. It errs in defect, while it requires a partial and inconfiftent abjuration of Popery, instead of an entire, formal, and complete one :-it errs in excefs, while it encroaches on the principles, and infringes the faith of the tolerated, requiring him to contradict his own profeffion. It afks too little, and it afks too much:-it afks less than a Proteftant government ought to have; it afks more than a Papist can grant. For no Papift has his faith, or declarations about it, in his own power; he cannot, in this refpect, go beyond the profcription of the church, to fay, or fwear, ei

ther