2

beware left they be cheated out of their liberty and Prote ftantifm both together, and left this new doctrine revive and obtrude again upon us, in another shape, the old exploded cant of hereditary indefeasible right, and end in a motion to bring back the banished.

But is it true, that there is nothing more in the act than merely a restoration of men's natural rights, and a fimple protection of them in their civil property? In this light, indeed, it was artfully reprefented at firft, and the worst fide of it kept from view; so that many were lefs alarmed at it, for a time, than otherwife they would have been. But the vizor foon fell off, and the illufion is now fully vanished. The bare reading of the act even to a very fuperficial obferver, will difcover, almoft with intuitive evidence, that it carries in it a degree of favour to Popery as a religion, and includes a kind of legal countenance to the whole of its doctrine, worship, and hierarchy, the particulars mentioned in the oath only excepted. Can the office of a bishop, prieft, Jefuit, or teacher, be faid to be any man's birthright or property? Yet not only are the laity relieved from their difabilities,-but all thefe are alfo recognized in law, taken into protection, and fully fecured in the exercise of their feveral pretended functions, Now may their bishops and clergy fafely ftrut about in the livery of Antichrist, produce their briefs from his Holinefs, and publicly officiate in his name. Chapels may now be opened, yea they are already opened, in abundance, in all their pomp and dazzling ornaments, for the profane worship of the dead, and for chanting their blafphemous litanies, where a barbarous jargon muft daily refound to feed the gaping populace. Licences must be formally granted to defile again a reformed land by abominable maffes, in which the bleffed Redeemer

The public has been informed, that 50,000 pounds have been already beflowed for building and finishing a mafs-honfe at Bath; which must exceed any thing of the kind ever known in Britaia fince the Reformation,

(abfit

(abfit blafphemia!) must be made and unmade, created and as often devoured at the word of a mumbling priest. Altars must be raised, yea, altars are already raised, for offering up the Son of God in facrifice to the Father, and for crucifying him afresh, and putting him to open fhame. If this be yet too little, fchools too must be licensed, and feminaries opened, for poifoning the minds of rifing youth, and for initiating them early into the mystery of iniquity, that fo the godly caufe may not fail to be more speedily and effectually propagated, and that mother church may yet have

hopeful and numerous progeny born to her in the ifles of the fea. How fuch liberal conceffions and direct encou ragements to a falfe, idolatrous, abjured religion, can be reconciled with the faith, engagements, and confcience of a true Proteftant, they who can beft unriddle paradoxes may explain. Have our ftatefinen a double confcience, and a double faith, like fome of the Pagan fophifts, the one at variance with the other? or have they none at all? Or do they think that they are invefted with a power to do fomething against the truth, as well as for it? Or can their fanctions really warrant fuch hainous enormities,or their licences fanctify or render innocent fuch abominable idolatries? Muft they not rather hereby make themfelves partakers of other men's guilt, and become, in fome fort, refponfible, both in the fight of God and man, for all the mifchiefs which may follow either to the temporal or eternal interefts of the people?

It might have been expected, at leaft, that fome diftinction should have been made, in the late act of favour, between the deceived and the deceivers;-between the poor deluded laity, and the trafficking pricfts who with feigned words make merchandise of fouls. Though the former might claim fome compaffion and favour, yet the latter certainly deferves not to be treated with the fame degree of

indul

indulgence *.—Or if a Popish priesthood was to be legally et up amongst us, and if Popish teachers were abfolutely wanted to complete the British education, at any rate, it might have been expected that the fociety of Jefuits fhould be none of the number. If we were to have Popery, the very lowest and most moderate form of it might very well have contented us, though we had not fought for the very top branches of Antichriftianifm. The loweft degree of heat in the Italian thermometer will be found high enough for the British climate, and the temperature of a Proteftant atmosphere. But, to the aftonishment of all the

"Papifts we must have among us; and, if their religion keepeth them "from bringing honey to the hive, let the government try, at least, by gentle and not by violent means, to take away the fting from them. The firit "foundation to be laid is, that a diftant confideration is to be had of the Popish clergy, who have fuch an eternal interest against all accommodation, that it "is a hopeless thing to propofe any thing to them less than all; their ftomachs "having been fet for it fince the Reformation. They have pined themselves "to a principle that will admit no mean; they believe Proteftants must be “damned, and therefore, by an extraordinary effect of Chriftian charity, they "would destroy one half of England, that the other might be faved. Then ""for this world they must be in poffeffion for God Almighty, and receive his “rents for him, not to account till the day of judgment;—which is a good “kind of tenure, and you cannot well blame the good men, that they ftir up "the laity to run any hazard, in order to the getting them reftored. What is it "to the pricft, if the deluded zealot undoeth himself in the attempt: he fing"eth mafs as jolity, and with as good a voice, at Rome or St. Omer's, as ever "he did; he is a fingle man, and can have no wants but fuch as may be easily fupplied. Yet, that he may not seem altogether infenfible or ungrateful to "those who are his martyrs, he is ready to affure their executors, and, if they "please, will procure a grant fub annulo Pifcatoris, that the good man, by being hanged, hath got a great bargain, and faved a finging of fome hundred of years, which he would elfe have had in purgatory. There is no cure for this "order of men, no expedient to be propofed: fo that, though the utmost se. verity of the laws against them may in fome fort be mitigated, yet no treaty caa be made with them, who in this cafe have left themselves no free will, "but are muffled by zeal, tied by vows, and kept up by fuch unchangeable maxims of the priesthood, that they are to be left as defpe: ate patients, and to be looked upon as men who will continue in an eternal state of hostility "till the nation is entirely fubdued unto them. It is therefore only the lay Papist that is capable of being treated with." Sir Will Coventry's Charallerof a Trimmer. Lond. 1689. p. 30, 31.

46

world,

world, thefe daring and adventurous heroes of Catholicifm, these late Janizaries of the Pope, and pillars of the Papacy, are trusted, and find employment in Britain, when their credit has failed them, and they have been discarded with difgrace every where elfe. This fociety, terrible from its beginning hitherto, if it has been the most learned, it is on all hands agreed to have been alfo the most afpiring, the moft intriguing, the moft deceitful and dangerous of all the numerous orders of the church of Rome. Accordingly, in fome Proteftant ftates where Roman Catholics enjoy most of liberty, Jefuits are exprefsly excepted *. But why do we

speak

*This is the cafe in Holland; there Jefuits, together with all regular and foreign priests, are prohibited exprefsly by the laws.-In 1641 the States published an order forbidding Raman Catholics to invite or employ any Jefuit, or any of the religious or regular clergy to officiate in their chapels, as alfo forbid ding them to fend their children into the dominions of Spain to receive their education. The Jefuits, in contempt of this order, having afterwards crept into Holland, and endeavoured to establish themselves there, the government published another edict in 1721, by which they were ordered to retire forthwith out of the country. With regard to the other monks," fays Janiçon," the fta"tutes are not executed with fuch rigour, but they are generally more connived "at. Yet this inconvenience arifes from this connivance, that these monks fuck their parishioners, that they may nourish and fatten their convents in foreign countries; fo that it would be advantageous to the state, and even to "the Roman-Catholic fubjects themselves, that they admitted none but fecular priests born in the republic." Faniçon, Etat prefent des Provinc. Unies, to. i. 1. i. ch. 1. p. 15.

The late acts are faid to be framed after the model of the laws of Holland in regard to Papifts, and the policy of that republic is often appealed to as a proof of the fafety, wisdom, and excellence of the new toleration. But, if they were meant as copies of these, they have been carried far beyond the original, with this farther notable difference, that the British legiflature hath repealed or dif ábled a variety of laws, generally reckoned religious and falutary, previously settled, and continued down invariably from the earliest days of the Reformation, thus making at once a remarkable change in the policy, and giving a fudden fhock to the conftitution of the country, which thefe prudent States never did. Indeed the policy of the United States hath varied confiderably with regard to Papists, from what it was in the beginning ; but the variation was wholly to the difadvantage of that party. At the establishment of the republic many Papins concurred with and aided the Proteftants in throwing off the infupportable ty ranny and oppreffion of Spain. Some cities and provinces, almost entirely Catholic, entered into their original confederacies for fupporting the common caufe

fpeak of Proteftants, when among all claffes of men, and in every Catholic country, even the moft zealous and bigotted, they are now with one voice pronounced infamous and intolerable, and their principles and practices Vil

of civil liberty; and as the confederate States were independent of each other, as they are in fome fort to this day, the Catholics were allowed the fime liberty with Proteants in the matter of religion. In this condition things were fet led by the pacification of Ghent, 1576, and by the union of Utrecht, 1579. But by the intrigues of the Spaniards, the influence of the Romish priests, and the turbulent spirit of Popery, this union was soon difturbed. The confederated Catholics were earneftly incited and almoft generally inclined to treachery and evolt: the Spaniards promifea them all the other privileges of thefe provinces, excepting the article of religion: factions arofe; a powerful party of malcon tents was formed, who were ready to betray the provinces again into the hands of their oppreffers, as many of them actually did; which facilitated the reduction of fome of them under the duke of Parma. Brabant and Flanders capitu. lated; feveral cities were betrayed by their Popish governors, and the war was carried by their means into the midst of the Seven Provinces, to the great danger of the whole. In fome places, where the Popith faction was ftrongest, they chafed away the Proteftants, as in Boifleduc: the Proteftants, in like manner, drove out the Papifts from Antwerp. That difpofition which appeared among the Catholics to join their brethren in religion, and perfidiously to return to the Spanish yoke, occafioned that new union or fettlement which was made in 1583, whereby it was declared, that in all the provinces, which continued firm to the union, the reformed religion alone fhould be openly exercised. And, in the end, the greater body of Papists, having rendered themselves odious, withdrew into the Spanish provinces, and the Proteftants in the territories of Spain sheltered themfelves in the provinces of the union. At the truce eftablished in 1609, the Archduke Albert and the king of Spain could obtain no alteration of the fettlement of religion already made. Henry the Great, by whofe mediation the truce was conclud d, though he durft not infift for a free toleration to the Roman Catholics during the treaty, for fear of marring it altogether, immediately after, by his amb fiator Joaunin, made preffing folicitations for fuch a toleration, bus without the defi.ed fuccefs. The affembly of the States, after hearing a long harangue in favour of the Catholics, though very unwilling in any thing to difoblige the friendly king, returned an answer amounting to a refusal; they agreed to low-the exercife of the Romih religion, without any change, in thofe places in Brabant that belonged to the republic, where that religion only had hithert been excrcifed: but, as to the public exercite of it in the Seven Provinces which compofed the States, they entreated that tre balfador should represent to the king the neceflity of deferring any decifion about it to another time, because they were of opinion, that “the propofed exercife of the Catholic religion could "not be introduced and authorised by a public law, without endangering their ** infant

PP