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From what we have above established, it may be appa rent, with what justice the late acts in favour of Popery

are

"of a real reformation;" according to the words of the covenant itself, a copy of which is fubjoined In the Appendix.

Whether thefe nations (for thefe oaths were public and national) were rightly acquitted and abfolved from this great and tremendous oath by the impious cafuiftry of a licentious court, the arbitrary acts of a perjured and abandoned prince, fupported by a faction, like himself, openly at war with the religion and liberties of Proteftants, or whether they are yet in fact, to this day, abfolved from it ; or whether they ever can be fo while they are nations, are queftions that des ferve to be more feriously confidered by all ranks, than they ever yet have been fince the commencement of that unhappy æra.For my part, though we can not here enter on the difcuffion of the subject, I think it clearly demonftrable on the principles of reafon, the eternal laws of morality, and the facred doctrines of the Bible and of the Reformation, that they are not and cannot. They must either fulfil the terms of that folemn oath, which hath never yet been done, or be refponfible at the bar of the fupreme Judge for their continued violation of it, and ftand condemned for the deepest perjury.-The whole feries of those infamous laws made on this fubject, in the reigns of the two brothers, overturning to the bottom that reformation in church and fiate, fo happily begun, and so far advanced, in the preceding period, before anarchy and military force had prepared the way for the return of royal and legal tyranny;-laws infringing the strongest obligations of religion and morality; which eftablished the doctrine of paffive ●bedience and non-refiftance, annulling paft laws and deeds, and precluding every future attempt in favour of reformation; and which buried these, with the most valuable rights and liberties of the subject, in one common grave, call for a more careful review, and a fuller repeal than have yet taken place in either kingdom. While one of them is suffered to remain ftanding, it will be an indelible difgrace to the British code, and perpetuate the public guilt and infamy. Particularly the rescissory acts whereby the authority of all the parliaments and affemblies, which had maintained the noble Aruggle, was at once abolished, and all their acts and proceedings left promifcuously under the stigma of fedition and rebellion, are no less dishonourable to the cause which they were meant to condemn, than dangerous precedents for striking at the root of all human fecu. rities, by which even our prefent conftitution may poffibly be found to be illegal, and its existence precarious, and every parliament of Great Britain, fince the Revolution, may be liable to the charge of nullity and fedition.

The fhocking cruelty of that hateful period is now generally condemned and abhorred but the heaven daring perfidy, apoftacy, and malignant antipathy against the covenants and caufe of reformation, which was the leading and perhaps the principal part of its infamy and guilt, from which all the reft origina ted, are not fo attentively confidered, nor fo generally condemned and abhorred; but, on the contrary, are equally common to the prefent age. Nay, every a& of fettlement pofterior to that time, and every law fince paffed in the three kingdom's

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are reprefented as an improvement on the law of toleration, and a neceffary and equitable enlargement of the plan of true British liberty. Their friends boast, that they are entirely in the fpirit of the Proteftant religion, and framed on the

doms with reference to religion, fuppofe the nullity and abrogation of thefe public vows, as well as the abfolute nullity of thofe parliaments and affemblies whereby they were promoted and established. These have ftill uniformly proceeded on the refcinding and difpenfing doctrine, and our prefent conftitution and the fabric of our laws are built upon the grave of these buried covenants, and of thefe murdered parliaments and their laws. By the fettlement of religion at the Revolution they were, ipfo facto, made void as really as by the most explicit and bloody acts framed against them in the preceding period; and, by the fubfequent treaty of Union, the fulfilment of that former oath and covenant, in one of its main articles relating to the public legal uniformity of religion, was for ever rendered impracticable, and every man, by a fundamental law of the united conftitution of Great Britain, is prohibited, and precluded the liberty of attempting the reformation of religion in all the three kingdoms, according to the Scriptures, and the example of the beft reformed churches;-a law which involves in it the moft palpable and dangerous abfurdity; which, in any case, must be accounted a violation both of revelation and common fenfe, but is, with refpect to Britain, accompanied with the aggravated criminality of grofs perjury, open treachery, and impious apoftacy. In confequence hereof, every public oath binding to, or reduplicating upon the prefent fettlements of religion and laws of the land, must be, in effect, an oath abjuring the folemn league, and the reformation fworn to therein; and the fwearer, in all of them, is interpretatively obliged to fay, what fubjects were expressly required to say and swear, by the tefts and declaratory oaths of Charles and James, nainely, "That the fo"lemn league and covenant was an unlawful oath, and that there lies no manner of obligation upon them, or any other perfons in thefe kingdoms, from thefe, to attempt any alteration whatever in church or state, and that they "fhall never attempt fuch alterations, nor vindicate or renew fuch a covenant, 66 nor profecute the ends of it themselves, nor, fo far as in their power, fuffer "others to do fo." Whether perions who have a due regard and veneration for caths, particularly those who are convinced of the lawfulness and moral obliga. tion of that folemn league, and who reckon themselves ftill obliged to profecuse the great ends of it, and who are perfuaded of the evil of prelacy, can take eaths of fuch an import, any may judge.—I will yet go farther and fay, that it is owing more to the reigning spirit of the times, and the mildnets of administration, than to any effential change in the fyftem of government, or in the prin ciples or letter of the British laws, fince the days of the Stuarts, with refpect to the principles and cause of the Covenanters, that all who are of the fentiments above expreffed, (which include the whole body of confcientious and confiftent Prefbyterians) are not legally inhibited, and openly perfecuted: for they are not

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the principles of the Revolution, of which the repealed laws were a violation. They celebrate them as a noble effort of increasing freedom, defigned to maintain the rights of confcience, and to extinguish every remainder of that antichriftian spirit of impofition and perfecution on religious accounts, which raged fo violently, and fatally, in times. past, and which is one of the worst things in Popery.— This plea looks fo fair and amiable, it is the greatest pity it cannot be admitted. If our legiflators really acted from fuch principles, we may regret that they have been so egregiously misapplied. For what can be more incongruous than an attempt to promote a plan of true Proteftant liberty, and to fecure the rights of confcience, by fupporting their most avowed and implacable foes;-or to think to chafe away antichriftian perfecution, by bringing antichrift's bloody hounds again upon the field? The fox may, with as much propriety, be affigned the watchful guardian of the lambs; and Satan may as foon be expected to caft out with Satan. While they meant to improve on the law of toleration, they have unawares made it a felo de fe, and turned its sword upon its own bowels. Inftead of the fpirit of heaven-born liberty, they have conjured up the grim ghost of perfecution, to stalk once more abroad to the no fmall terror of his majesty's good and peaceable subjects. Like the romantic knight of La Mancha, they have paid

only by the ftanding laws, and qualifying oaths, abfolutely excluded from every place of power and truft, but also caft out of the protection of law, and left expofed to the mercy of every petty angry magiftrate, and the caprice of a changeable miniftry; and confequently are in a worse state than Papists, Quakers, and others, who are legally fecured and protected-for any act of toleration in their favour, of which they can take or claim the legal benefit, confiftently with their forefaid principles and fruples; there is, in fact, none in Scotland, England, or Ireland. This may probably appear furpifing to fome; but I am confident, that all who have narrowly examined this fubject, and who properly under Aand the nature of the British united conftitution and laws, will readily ac knowledge the truth of what is here afferted.-Doth not this defeive the attention of the legislature, as it is a matter in which many thousands of his Majesty's most loyal and confcientious fubjects are deeply interested?

their homage to an imaginary Dulcinea; or like fome blundering gallant in the dark, inftead of their intended miftrefs, they have, by an unlucky mistake, ftumbled upon her most hateful rival, and careffed her most deadly enemy.

We have hitherto avoided entering into abftract reafonings on the fubject of toleration and liberty of conscience, nor is it here needful to enter into them. This question has been fo often handled, and fo fully difcuffed by men of the greatest abilities, and the Proteftant part of the world are now fo nearly agreed about it, that any difcuffion of it here would be entirely fuperfluous. We have all along proceeded on the doctrine of toleration, most commonly embraced in Britain, and reafon upon principles which thofe on both fides of the debate admit without controverfy. There are none who pretend to doubt but that the civil powers are bound to preferve the rights of civil society, and watch over the public peace; and to restrain and punish with civil pains whatever is inconfiftent therewith and confequently, that religious opinions and prac tices, fo far as they are fo, belong to their department. All readily confefs the neceffity of laying certain restrictions upon natural liberty in a state of fociety: and the greatest advocates for toleration, who have carried the principles of civil and religious liberty to the greatest length, are obliged to admit, that toleration can never be abfolutely unlimited, and they are unanimous in excepting those from it, whofe profeffed opinions or practices strike either against the safety and interests of fociety in general, or the lawful established government of a particular kingdom; or whofe principles are utterly intolerant, and deftructive to the civil and religious rights of their neighbours. Such, they hold, may juftly be fubjected to legal incapacities and penalties, whatever pretext of religion or confcience they may use; and none of them ever thought of calling this

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by the odious name of perfecution for confcience fake, nor confidered it as a violation of true liberty, but as a neceffary mean of its prefervation. Nor have our Proteftant writers, in pleading the caufe of toleration, fcrupled to mention the religion of Papifts as anfwering to the preceding defcription, and confequently as deferving to be profcribed, at least in every Proteftant ftate. We may farther. add, that at the period in which the laws against Papifts, now ftigmatized and condemned, were enacted, the subject of toleration, and the rights of confcience, were as narrowly and thoroughly examined, and perhaps as well understood, as at prefent; and they owe their birth to the fame legiflators and councils which had a little before overturned the bulwarks of tyranny, and broke the rod of the perfecutors, and which had, in a very eminent degree, afferted and established Britain's liberties. Thefe laws, indeed, appear to have been only a neceffary fequel to the former framed at the Revolution, without which that great work had been left entirely incomplete and defenceless. They were added as pieces of defenfive artillery, to render the lovely and glorious fabric more ftrong and impreg

nable.

The queftion then comes to this: Whether the above characters belong to the Popish religion or not? As this is the main hinge on which the controverfy turns, to afcertain this has been the chief object in eye in the foregoing review of its principles and history; and if this be once afcertained, the question is decided. For if fuch be the principles and genius of Popery, our opponents themselves readily grant, that it is a proper object of coercion and penal laws, and may lawfully be reftrained and even extirpated by the fecular arm *. But by this conceffion the charge

"It has been faid, and very juftly, that in every ftate, as in every individual, there is a right of felf-preservation, which implies, amongst other things, that of protecting itself against violence offered, either from without

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