ther good or bad. It is not permitted him, in this manner, to make free with her doctrine or privileges, nor, at his pleasure, refign the prerogatives, or abridge, contract, and circumfcribe the immenfe authority of the fovereign pontiffs. And fuch as have fworn to the Catholic faith, or previously taken the oath of canonical obedience *, cannot do fo without direct perjury. Or though any of them fhould be guilty of fuch prefumption, the power of the church muft, after all, be paramount to every thing else, and her laws, by a kind of omnipotence, muft annihilate all other laws, deeds, oaths, contrary thereto. Oaths and engagements of this fort, muft, to the cool reflection of a Catholic, or when he is better inftructed, appear in no other light than a bond of iniquity, which he may break the first opportunity, without needing so much as a Papal difpenfation to warrant him, they being condemned by Popish casuistry and divinity as null and void from the beginning. Every one who, without the permiffion of holy See, thus betrays and gives away its rights, must be in the utmost hazard of being claffed with heretics; and indeed he will bear one mark of a real one, being condemned of himfelf. If the Pope be now as zealous for the cause as his predeceffors, and if he be not himself turned heretic, he will not furely look on as an unconcerned fpectator, but speedily put a stop to fuch a dangerous kind of commerce. *The canonical oath, appointed to be taken by the dignitaries of the Romish church, contains the following claufes: "I will carefully conferve, defend, and promote the rights, honour, privileges, and authority of the Pope. I will not be in any counsel, fact, or treaty, in which any thing prejudicial to the "perfons, rights, or power of the Pope is contrived; and, if I shall know any "fuch things treated of by any whatsoever, I will, to the utmost of my power, hinder them, and, with all poffible fpeed, fignify them to the Pope. I will, to the utmost of my power, obferve the Pope's commands, and make others "obferve them, &c."-If the rights and dignities of the Pope and those of an English monarch be inconfiftent, as they undoubtedly are, (as both, for instance, cannot be head of the church, yet both prerend it), how can any swear to main tain both? or which of the two oaths may a Papist be fuppofed to reckon most facred and obligatory? The fame offence formerly hath made their bulls to bellow and spit fire*: and the thunder of their power what timid fon of fuperftition can withstand. Or if he who pretends to have all laws fhut up in his own breaft, fhould yield a little to the neceffity of circumftances, and either overlook or directly difpenfe with fuch fwcaring, (for difpenfations of this fort have unquestion The oath of allegiance framed for Papifts, and taken by many of them in the reign of James I. which was fo exprefsly prohibited and folemnly condemned by Rome, (fee the note in page 145), was very little different from that now injoined on them, and taken by them; as the reader may readily perceive by comparing them together. He will find a copy of both in the Appendix. This wife king has probably the merit of having furnished our modern politicians with the first idea and architype of their teft: and it feems to be perfectly of a piece with the other politics of that monarch. It was fuch a favourite measure of his that he laboured mightily, with his royal pen, to promote its fuccefs; thinking the Gordian knot so faft tied, that no wit of man could loose it, and that, if Roman Catholics could be once caught herein, they must be for ever tied firmly to his throne. But how egregiously was he deceived, not confidering the genius of the perfons, and the religion he had to do with? His boafted kingcraft was overmatched and outwitted by Jefuitical prieftcraft. If they had not art enough to untie the knot, they had a spiritual fword ready to cut it. Accordingly they derided his folly (and not altogether unjustly) for imagining that the confciences of Catholics, were to be bound by fuch ropes of straw, or caught and held by fuch cobweb. Let us hear the words of Paschenius, who, as well as Bellarmine, wrote against the king, and in condemnation of the oath; and they are words which deferve the particular attention of our present legisla tors: Sed vide in tanta aftutia, quanta fit fimplicitas! Cum omnem fecuri"tatem in eo juramento fibi ftatuiffet, &c. See, in fo great craft, what great "fimplicity doth bewray itself. When he had placed all his fecurity in that "oath, he thought he had/found fuch à manner of oath, knit with fo many "circumftances, that it could not, with fafety of confcience, by any means, "be diffolved by any man. But he could not fee, that, if the Pope did diffolve "that oath, all the tyings of it, whether of performing fidelity to the king, or " of admitting no difpenfation, would be dissolved together. Yea, I will fay another thing which is more admirable. You know, I fuppofe, that an “unjutt oath, if it so evidently known, or openly declared to be such, bindeth no man, but is ipfo fallo quil. That the king's oath is unjust, hath been "fufficiently declared by the pastor of the church himself. You ce, therefore, "that the obligation of it is vanished into smoke: fo that the bond, which by "fo many wife min was thought to be of iron, is become iefs than of fraw." B. P. Epift. J. R. Bp. Ufher, Serm. bef. the Commons, 1620. " ¢་ ably ably been granted *), yet this will nothing mend the matter. Such conduct must arife only from the profpect of greater advantage to the Catholic caufe; and whatever is thus dif *The difpenfing power hath been used occasionally in all the three kingdoms. In the beginning of Queen Elifabeth's reign the Catholics were permitted, for a time, to go to church, and make a fhew of conformity to the established religion; and the Pope in 1580, when Campian and Parfons came into England, fent a difpenfition to them to fubmit to the queen in temporals, but with this limitation, the cafe thus ftanding; accordingly they were foon after difcharged from their allegiance, and prohibited, under the highest pains, from obeying her: and Allen, at the time of the Spanish armament, fignified to her fubjects, that they were bound in confcience to deliver up her armies, cities, caftles, &c. to the king of Spain, becaufe the queen could no longer have a property in any thing. The Irish Catholics were allowed to obferve the fame conduct, till proper opportunities offered for revolt and rebellion, in which they never failed to be encouraged by the Roman See; witnefs the rebellion of Shan O'Neale, and that in 1580 by James Fitz-Maurice, who undertook to reduce the kingdom of Ireland into the obedience of Rome, and was for ifhed by the Pope with a small sum of money, a confecrated banner, letters of recommendation, &c.— Clement VIII. afterwards difpenfed, in like manner, with the Irish for their fidelity to the queen, till he had fome confidence of the earl of Tyrone's fuccefs, and then he wrote to him ftyling him his dear fon, wishing him all health; the rebellion he called an holy league, promifing an happy fuccefs: "God,” fays he, "will fight for you, and tread your enemies under your feet."--Difpenfations, in that age, were no lefs common in Scotland. About the fame time that Campian got a difpenfation for himself and the English Catholics, feveral Jefuits and priests came over into Scotland, and difpenfations were intercepted coming from Rome, whereby the Catholics there were permitted to promife, fwear, subscribe, and do what elfe fhould be required of them, provided that in mind and heart they continued firm. Thefe perfidious practices of Pa pifts were fo notorious at that time, that the national covenant, fworn and subfcribed by King James VI. in 1581, and enjoined on all ranks of perfons, containing a full and particular abjuration of Popery, bears the following claufe : "And feeing that many are firred up by Satan, and that Roman Antichrift, "to promife, fwear, fubfcribe, and for a time ufe the holy facraments in the “ kirk deceitfully, against their own confcience; minding hereby, firit, under "the external cloak of religion, to corrupt and fubvert fecretly God's true reli"gion within the kirk, and afterward, when time may ferve, to become open "enemies and perfecutors of the fame, under vain hope of the Pope's difpen"fation, devised against the word of God to his greater confufion, and their "double condemnation in the day of the Lord Jefus; we therefore, &c." See the covenant at large in the Appendix. Hift. of Engl. Bennet's Memor. of of the Reformat. p. 32, 33. Tong, Account of Rom. Dr. Stevenf. Hift. of the Church of Scotl. Introd. vol. i. p. 150. Spotswood's Hift. p. 308. penfed with is confidered under the notion of evil, and as deftitute in itself of any moral or intrinsic obligation: and that fame plenitude of power which can grant liberty to men to take fuch oaths, can at pleasure again recal it, and ferves equally well the purpose of violating them. Nor can any annexed claufe, difclaiming the difpenfing power, be any real fecurity against this danger; for whoever can take upon him to dispense with the matter of the oath, can as easily abfolve from that circumftance of it, difclaiming difpenfations. It is no fufficient evidence that Papifts do not believe the doctrine of the difpenfing power, or that they will not take the benefit of it in fuch a cafe as the prefent, that they have continued to refufe other oaths required of them by the laws. For though it be true, that the difpenfing power, abstractly confidered, may be applied to any engagements or oaths whatever; yet it is to be remembered, that the doctrine of difpenfations, like A certain Reverend Doctor, in a late public debate, having observed that the Roman Catholics had now given all the fecurity for their being good fubjects, and goed members of fociety, which the wisdom, not only of man, but even the wisdom of God, could devile,-proceeds; " I know it is alledged, that they "either have, or might procure a dispensation from the Pope, to fwear any "oath, however contrary to their principles: but this, I am satisfied, is not "the cafe; for, if fuch a difpenfation could be procured, would not fome Ro"man Catholics, on former occafions, have procured a dispensation to take the oaths required by law, when their doing fo would have put it in their power to promote the Roman-Catholic intereft? and yet it is well known, that, "until the prefent time, they had all of them fubmitted to great hardships ra "ther than take fuch oaths." It is well known," fays another, "that in "England Papifts had it in their power to relieve themselves, by means of cer"tain oaths, before the paffing of the late act. But thofe oaths were different " from that now enacted. Now a man who thinks he may take oaths, and be "under no obligation, or who thinks he has it in his power to obtain a dif"penfation from that obligation, has no reason to make any distinction between one oath and another. The difpenfing power serves equally for all. Now "that thofe in England, who, on no confideration, could be induced to take "the oaths formerly required, do not hesitate to take that required by the late act, is evidence fufficient to a reasonable perfon, that they confider this as what they may, with a good confcience, take, but not the former." Debates in the Synod of Lothian, etc. Caledon. Merc. No. 8934. Dr. Campb. Address to the People of Scotl: upon the Alarms, etc. ch. ii. p. 32. that that of breaking faith with heretics, is only admitted by the Romanists with certain reftrictions, and is to be reduced to practice only on fome particular occafions, and for fpecial ends. And though there is little reafon to doubt but that Papists, under the influence of this principle, may fometimes carry diffimulation as far as it can poffibly go, even fo far as, in fome fuppofeable circumstances, to make a direct and formal renunciation of Popery altogether, for a time; nor is it at all improbable, that fome of them, one time or other, have fwallowed all the oaths hitherto required of them; yet that this can ordinarily contribute to the advancement of the Catholic intereft, (the great reason and common prétence for ufing the difpenfing power), none furely will affirm. Such a fcene of diffimulation and perjury, as it would be more palpably shocking to every principle of integrity and confcience, which can never be totally eradicated, fo it could not long be fupported without evident detriment to their caufe: in order to gain, the fmalleft credit, they would be obliged to ceafe from every act of their religion, and all explicit appearances for it, which, if it were allowed, and generally obtained in any place for a confiderable time, would iffue in its speedy extinction, rather than its promotion. This may füfficiently account for Roman Catholics generally refufing the former oaths. In this respect, there is the greatest difference between these and the new one. And though possibly their principles and confciences might otherwife be got reconciled to the old as well as the new, yet they could not hope to gain the fame purposes by them. Common fense, good policy, and the intereft of their church, equally forbid Papifts to take them; and the pernicious maxim of doing evil that good may come, will not here fo readily apply. Further, it ought to be confidered, what great danger there is of this oath being taken in an equivocal fenfe, quite different |