majority of the inhabitants, yet the fame cannot be faid of any of the parties above mentioned. No lenient arts or acts of favour have hitherto been able to conciliate their minds, or to eradicate thefe rooted principles of difaffection which they have ever cherished among them, and of which their religious meetings have been nothing but fo many feminaries ever fince the Revolution. To the infidious and impolitic toleration granted by Queen Anne's Tory ministry to the Epifcopalians of that kingdom, who were almost universally tainted with fuch principles, and to the relaxation of the laws against the Nonjurants and Papifts, who were then almost as much favoured at court as they are at prefent, but fecretly, may in a great measure be imputed the rebellion which broke out foon after. Upon the extinction of the last rebellion, which may be afcribed to the same cause, an act paffed in parliament to oblige all the Epifcopal clergy in Scotland to register their meetings and take the oaths; yet, from a return made to parliament fome time after, it appeared that only fix Episcopal ministers did fo in the whole kingdom :-and though the legislature then were fufficiently convinced of the danger of tolerating fuch affemblies, and ordered all Popish chapels and Nonjurant meeting-houses to be fhut up *; yet the cautious maxims

and

Before the year 1712, when the toleration was granted, there was fcarce fo much as one Epifcopal meeting in Scotland but what was kept by a Nonjuring clergyman. To fupply these meetings, the bishops, who were outed of their temporalities at the Revolution, conferred orders and confecrated bishops in the room of those who died; and by these means has the fucceffion been hitherto preferved. The act of Queen Anne fuftained these orders, and required no other; fo that the benefit of that act was almoft wholly confined to persons difaffected to the establishment both in church and ftate, which they foon plainly discovered by their adhering to the Pretender's standard. Notwithstanding the qualifications in that act, and though fome of the party took the oaths, yet both the Jurants and Nonjurants were generally men of the fame defcription, and of the fame principles, as they have moftly been all along. It was obferved by an honourable gentleman, in his fpeech in parliament upon the difarming and qualifying bill in 1748, that “ as the Nonjuring Episcopal clergy in Scotland not "only profess, but preach and propagate principles of rebellion against the eftablished government, they never deferved protection, and indeed ought never

Y y

!

and measures then adopted appear to have been too foon forgot, and feem now to be almoft totally departed from: meetings of both forts have been long openly allowed, and in fome places are still very numerous,

It ought likewife to be confidered how very diftant and diametrically oppofite the Popish religion is to that eftablished and generally profeffed in Scotland. Papifts and Presbyterians, in the religious world, are truly antipodes to each other. No eftablished church on the face of the earth is more unlike to the church of Rome, or more inconfiftent with it, than the church of Scotland, in her whole frame and conftitution, in government and wor fhip, as well as in doctrine. While fome others around her, to their great hazard and lafting reproach, were con tent, at the commencement of the Reformation, to tarry in the environs of that fpiritual Sodom, from whence they have never been able to get a step farther to this day, but ftand fixed as monumental pillars of falt, the church of

to have met with any indulgence or connivance." But when the government was again aroused, and convinced of their mistake, by a fecond rebellion, which, befides private loffes and foreign damages, coft the nation 2,000,000, and reduced it to extreme danger, an act was paffed in 1746 for shutting up thefe mee ings where the feeds of it had been fown, and for preventing the opening of fuch in any time to come; by which act a register was ordered to be kept of all the Epifcopal meetings in Scotland, and it was provided, "That the paftor or mi"nifter of any Episcopal congregation there fhould, on or before the ft of Sep. "tember that year, produce to the clerk of the fhire or borough, where his

meeting-houfe was fituated, a certificate, from the proper officer, of his having "qualified himself by taking the oaths appointed by law; of which certificate "an entry was ordered to be made in the faid regifter."-By a claufe in the difarming and qualifying act in 1748, they were further required to regifter their letters of orders; when it appeared from a lift laid before the houses, that no more than fix of their minifters had complied with the injunction in the act paffed two years before; and, of thefe fix, it doth not appear whether any of them had received ordination otherwife than from Nonjuring bishops, or those ordained by them. Proceedings of Parliam. Scots Mag. for 1746. f. 364. and for 748. p. 589, &c.

Scotland

Scotland looked not behind her, till fhe had removed to the greatest distance, from whence the might with more fafety behold the smoke of her torment. However her neighbours may affect a near refemblance, fhe esteems it her privilege, her wifdom and her glory to be totally unlike to her who hath hitherto been accustomed to be called by the most disgraceful epithets. Two fyftems of religion, in all things fo incongruous and incompatible, which have no common principles of union or peace, can never harmoniously confift together in the fame ftate. It must be an unaccountable folecifm in government, to propofe a coalition. The abfurdity and impolicy of the attempt, can only be equalled by its injuftice; for what can be either more abfurd or unjuft, than after a religion has received an unconditional, an exclufive and an irrevocable establishment, to fuperinduce another, diametrically oppofite and destructive to it, by a pofterior act of toleration. This is like thrufting out a robber by the foregate, to admit him again. by the poftern.

The reformed Prefbyterian religion has been fettled in Scotland from the earliest times, and ratified and fecured in the fulleft manner by a variety of laws, which the people there justly confider as their perpetual and inviolable right. If the penal laws against Papists are not a part of that establishment, they are at least a neceffary appendage to it and accordingly they have been coeval therewith: and to repeal these must be to weaken the religious eftablishment. As the religion of Papifts cannot thrive but at the expence of that of Proteftants; fo whatever legal countenance is given to the one, must be withdrawn and - ravished from the other. Any attempt therefore to abolish the laws fecuring the established church of Scotland, or to introduce Popery, must be contrary to the fundamental laws of that kingdom, and injurious to that ecclefiaftical Y y 2 conftitution

conftitution which his majesty *, and others in office, are exprefsly bound by oaths to maintain and defend.

Nor is this all: the folemn faith of treaties and the law of nations forbid any alteration of the ecclefiaftical establishment of Scotland, or of laws fecuring it. This would be an evident violation of the express terms of the incorporate union between the two kingdoms; and, in fact, a diffolution of it. What strong and unequivocal terms are inferted in that treaty for the mutual fecurity of religion, is well known. There is nothing more facredly and inviolably provided for and fecured to the church of Scotland therein, than the full enjoyment of all her legal rights, liberties and fecurities, in all time coming t. This muft

T

* The coronation bath for Scotland runs thus: "I George III. king of Great Britain, &c. do faithfully promife and fwear, that I fhall inviolably maintain and preferve the fettlement of the true Proteftant religion, with the go"vernment, worship and discipline, rights and privileges of the church of "Scotland, eftablished by the laws made there, in prosecution of the claim of

right; and, particularly, by an act for fecuring the Proteftant religion and "Prefbyterian church-government, and by the act paffed in both kingdoms, for "the union of the two kingdoms. So help me God."

The Act for Jecuring the Proteftant religion, and Presbyterian church-go vernment, paffed in Scotland 1707, among other things, for ever confirms the 5th act of William and Mary, entitled, An A& ratifying the Confession of Faith; and fettling Prefbyterian church-government, with the haill other acts of parliament relating therets, in profecution of the declaration of the eftates of this kingdom containing the claim of right; in which acts, particularly by the 5th act parl. 1690, all laws, ftatutes, and acts of parliament, made against Popery and Papifts, and for maintenance of the true reformed religion, are revived, ratified, and perpetually confirmed. This act of fecurity, in its whole extent and in all its contents, was ordained to be a fundamental and effential condition of any treaty of union to be concluded betwixt the two kingdoms, without any alteration thereof, or derogation thereto, in any fort, for ever; and was to be inferted and repeated in an act of parliament that should pass for concluding the forefaid treaty, and therein expressly declared to be a fundamental and effential cons dition of it in all time coming:-all which was accordingly done by the acts paffed in both kingdoms, ratifying the union.

That the articles relating to the fettlement and fecurity of religion were meant to be unalterable, without any power referved to the united parliament to infringe them, is evident not only from the manner in which they are expreffed, but alfo from the nature of the thing; for, if it had been otherwife, the fecu

rity

must be meant of all thefe fhe was then poffeffed of. That the penal ftatutes against Popery were in being at the time of the union is beyond controverfy; and that they were then confidered as part of thefe legal fecurities given to the established religion there, and really were fo, is no less evident. They must therefore be neceffarily comprehended in the fundamental articles of the union, and included in the laws which were ratified for ever

If

rity given to the religious establishment of Scotland would have amounted to nothing at all. If the people there had left these controvertible, subject to the future deliberations and votes of a British parliament, the greater part of which were to be English, and of a different religious profeffion from them, they had left the church in that kingdom to the mercy of its enemies and former oppref fors, and had been chargeable with the highest folly: this they well knew, and therefore they put them beyond the power of fuch a parliament to repeal or al◄ ter.

"Some of the articles of union," fays Sir Richard Steele, are made entire ** and absolute; and others give a power to the parliament of Great Britain'të "alter the fame. So that thefe words in the act of union, So as aforefaid, ra"tified, approved, and confirmed, must be taken, Reddendo fingula fingulis¿ "that is, fuch of the faid articles as exprefs no power to the parliament of Great Britain to alter them, fhall remain entire; and fuch as carry a power of alteration by the parliament of Great Britain are not fo facred." "The powers that made this happy union, the parliaments of England and "Scotland, have no longer a being, and therefore that union, in the express terms thereof, must remain inviolable. The union would be infringed, fhould "there be any deviation from these articles; and what confequences that would "have, no good fubject can think of without horror."-" It becomes the "Englishmen in generofity to be more particularly careful in preferving this union for the late kingdom of Scotland had as numerous a nobility as Eng"land, and the representatives of their commons were also very numerous; they have by the articles of union confented to fend only 16 peers, and 45 commons, to the parliament of Great Britain, which hath the fame number of lords and commons for England that were before the union; fo that the "Scots representatives can make no stand in the defence of all, or any of the

articles of the union, should they be oppofed by fuch unequal numbers of the "lords and commons of England; and therefore it is moft plain, from the impotence in which so many wife and able men of the Scotch nation left themfelves in these particulars, that they understood the points of religion in Eng"land and Scotland refpectively, the fucceffion to the crown of Great Britain, "and all other articles of the union, were never to be controverted." The Crifis, P. 43, 44.

* This is called in question by the reverend author of the Addrefs to the People of Scotland, because the acts now propofed to be repealed were not former

but