must have struck them, that however the measure proposed by them could be considered by themselves as a measure of political expediency, (which I deny), they could not, as Protestants, have thought it conducive to" the true profession of the gospel."

In my next, I will send you some remarks on the oath and declaration.

LETTER IV.-Nullity of the proposed Security.

Saturday, May 8.

SIR, It is evident, I trust, from my last letter, that, of the three reasons alleged in the preamble of Mr. Grattan's bill, for granting the Roman Catholic claims, not one of them is founded; not one of them has truth or consistency or experience to recommend it. Indeed, so radically defective is the bill in its reasons and security, and so ill-digested as a whole, that I cannot help thinking the framers of it got into the committee by surprise, and that they never contemplated so far the success of the original motion. I would gladly accept this as an omen of its final issue. We come now to the security which is offered us, instead of the excluding

statutes.

This security consists in the oath, the solemn word and promise of Roman Catholics, that they will not attempt to subvert or injure the established church. We will now see what this oath contains, and what it does not contain. It begins with this declaration :- ." I, A. B., do declare, that I do profess the Roman Catholic religion." If the framers of this bill had considered what the Roman Catholic religion is, and had studied the tenets, in which it most differs from ours, they must have seen in the principles of its ecclesiastical government, faith, and worship, that the declarations contained in this oath are either nugatory or false : nugatory, so far as they cannot answer their professed purpose; I mean the security of the established Church; and false, by including positive contradictions. The two following declarations are false :-" I do sincerely promise and swear, that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King George the Third."-If they who take this oath refuse to acknowledge the King's spiritual jurisdiction, the allegiance which they bear to the King, is only half of what is due to him by the laws; it is therefore not true allegiance. They are (as Henry VIII and James. 1. observed), only balf subjects to the King.

This is the first falsehood. The next is as follows: "I further declare, that I do not believe that any sin whatsoever committed by me, can be forgiven at the will of any Pope, or of any Priest, or of any person or persons whatsoever, without a sincere sorrow for past sins, firm and sin

cere resolution to avoid future guilt, &c." Any Roman Catholic who should take this oath, will swear to a direct falsehood; because he believes that souls may be released from purgatory (where there is no room for repentance and change of life) by the prayers of the priest.

If by any mental reservation he should except the case of purgatory, then the following declaration will be false :-" I do solemnly, and in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare, that I do swear this oath, and make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever." Under this class of falsehood, will come this declaration." I also declare, that it is not an article of the Roman Catholic faith, nor am I required thereby to believe, that the Pope is infallible; or that I am bound to obey any order that is in its own nature im moral." For it is an act of Roman Catholic faith that the Church, that is, the Pope in council, is infallible; as we know from the catechisms and addresses of their present and former Bishops. As to the conclusion of this declaration, the force of the word immoral depends on their construction of it, as we know it did among the Jews, whose system of traditions very nearly resembled those of Popery. It was immoral to disobey, neglect, and desert parents, and yet from the guilt of this immorality, they were absolved by their traditions. From the guilt of murder, no doubt, they thought themselves absolved, who, when they killed the first Christians, "thought they did God service." I need not here cite Bellarmine and others to prove that what is immoral in itself, ceases to be so, when it is done in the service of" Mother Church."

Among the evasive or nugatory parts of this oath, must be placed every thing that regards their not having any intention to subvert or injure the Established church; their detestation of persecuting heretics; their rejection of the opinion that excommunicated princes may be deposed; their not thinking that they can be acquitted of the obligation of this oath by the Pope or others. For unless they swear that the Pope has no power to absolve them from their oath, or to excommunicate Princes, or to absolve subjects from their allegiance, their declaration, that they think they cannot be acquitted, is good for nothing. Their expressed detestation of persecution, and their having no intention to subvert the Established church, are of as little avail, so long as their Bishops either take an oath to impugn and persecute heretics, or so long as they are subject to the authority of Bishops and Priests, who are sworn subjects of the Pope.

So much for the security intended by this oath. My next letter shall state the securities, which are omitted in this oath and declaration, but which are indispensable to the integrity of the Protestant constitution and to the safety of the Established church.

LETTER V.-Mr. Grattan's and Mr. Plunkett's Criterions decisive against Mr. Grattan's Bill.

Monday, May 10.

SIR,- Before I proceed to the security, which is indispensably necessary for the safety of the Established Church, and for the integrity of our Protestant Constitution, I wish to recall the attention of your readers to two very equitable criterions, (proposed by Mr. Grattan and Mr. Plunkett, but not followed by either,) which are decisive against the Roman Catholic claims, and against Mr. Grattan's bill. Mr. Grattan's criterion was this: "If it can be proved that the Catholics of Ireland have shewn' a disposition adverse to royalty, then my motion ought to be rejected." [Thursday, Fab. 25.] To resist the King's prerogative,- to refuse to acknowledge the entire sovereignty of the King, which they do, who refuse to acknowledge the King's jurisdiction over the State ecclesiastical, is surely to shew a disposition adverse to royalty; and therefore Mr. Grattan's bill, by his own confession, ought to be rejected.

Mr. Plunkett's criterion was the same in fact, though different in words: "If the great bulwarks of the constitution must be overthrown, to satisfy the Catholics, he admitted, their prayer should be refused." The bulwarks of the constitution in Church and State, are the fundamental statutes of the reformation and revolution, which exclude Papists from Parliament and from political power, and which the petitioners pray to be removed. Both criterions are equally decisive against the admission of Roman Catholics into Parliament and high office, without conforming to the laws enacted for the safety of the Established Church, and the integrity of our Protestant Constitution.

If Roman Catholics were to be admitted to Parliament, the indispensable and only adequate security would be, that which the laws, our Protestant barriers, have provided,-their renunciation of all foreign jurisdiction. In doing this, the Roman Catholics would cease to be Papists, but they will still be Catholics; they would cease to be Roman;-but what right has Rome, or the Bishop of Rome, to exercise any jurisdiction in Great Britain or Ireland? The laws have declared the acknowledgement of such jurisdiction to be a treasonable offence against the State, and it was long subject to the penalties of high treason, from which the unexampled lenity of our Government has exempted it.

This foreign jurisdiction is so wholly at variance with the reformation and revolution, that a legislative recognition of it would dissolve the constitution, which has grown out of those two glorious events. The VOL. II. [Prot. Adv. October, 1813.]

D

great work of the reformation consisted in re-union, restoration, abolition, and exclusion.

It consisted in re-uniting the Church with the State, which it was always the policy of the Pope to separate; in restoring to the crown its ancient jurisdiction over the state ecclesiastical, which it has possessed in this country from the days of Constantine, however obstructed or usurped by the Pope at different times; in the abolition of all foreign powers, repugnant to it; and in the exclusion of the Pope and Papists from all spiritual jurisdiction in this country.

The Protestant constitution has brought innumerable blessings upon this country, of which all British subjects, Popish as well as Protestant, have partaken. The question is not then, whether the admission of a few Roman Catholics into Parliament would do any injury to the established church; but whether it would be doing justice to the great body of the Protestant community, to destroy our Protestant constitution, of which the established church is an essential part, (for the repeal of the Protestant statutes would not barely injure, but destroy the constitution), in order to gratify the claims of about one-sixth part of the empire, against the interests, and wishes, and urgent petitions of the great majority of his Majesty's subjects.

23. Substance of the Speech of the Right Hon. Charles Yorke in the House of Commons, 25th Feb. 1813, on Mr. Grattan's Motion on the [Roman] Catholic Claims. (Pp. 26.) Stockdale.

WE beg leave to call the attention of our readers to Mr. Yorke's speech, here given in substance, extracted from the volume of Debates on the Roman Catholic Question printed by our publisher.-Mr. Yorke expresses himself with that manly firmness, and that fund of good sense, (the result of acute observation and diligent enquiry) which have ever distinguished him. Mr. Plunkett's oratorical effort is well characterized. Said Mr. Yorke, (p. 3.) "I cannot withhold my well-merited tribute of applause to the right hon. member who has just sat down [Mr. Plunket] on the brilliant display of eloquence he has made;-eloquent, however, as he has been, he has failed of convincing me."-The same power of discrimination appears throughout the speech. Speaking of the matter in debate, he said, (p. 4,) "It has never appeared to me to be a question of toleration, in the correct sense of the word; for the Roman Catholics are completely tolerated in the free exercise of their religion; and, could it be shewn, that this toleration is really defective in any particular, I, for one, am ready to concur in a proper remedy. Neither is it a question of right; for the right is, undoubtedly, in the state, to protect itself and its

募

establishments, against all those who may be supposed hostile to it. On the other hand, I will readily admit that all these disabling laws are only justifiable on the ground of the necessity of self defence, on the part of the state; if the necessity no longer exists, let them be repealed. The true question therefore is, are they now necessary for the preservation of our Protestant community? It will not be denied, that we are essentially a Protestant state; and that this is a fundamental principle of the constitution. The Bill of Rights decides this point; and it appears, to me, superfluous at least, if not mischievous, to re-enact, as the right honourable mover has proposed to do, the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement, in the bill, which he intends to bring in, upon this occasion. I, for one, am not obliged to the right honourable gentleman [Mr. Grattan] for offering to declare these, our ancient and fondamental laws, in the preamble to a modern Act of Parliament."-Mr. Yorke observed, (p. 9,) that the "Roman Catholic pretensions approach us under a double aspect; as it were, under a mask with two faces. There is the Religio Laici, and there is the Religio Cleri. When it is objected that the opinions and tenets of the Romish church are irreconcilable with, and hostile to, our Protestant establishment, we are told that the higher ranks of the Romish communion, in the United Kingdom, the nobility and gentry, who claim a participation in our privileges, care very little about these dogmas and doctrines, or about the Pope's supremacy. They are of the old Religion; and adhere to it, forsooth, more on the footing of a point of honour, and as a mark of ancient family and clanship, than on account of religious faith or moral conviction. And, indeed, there can be little doubt that freethinking and infidelity have made a progress among Roman Catholics of the above description, as they have done among Protestants of a similar class. But the Religio Cleri, is still a different thing, and the clergy, and many, undoubtedly, of the laity too, are really good and sincere Catholics, and conscientiously adhere to the tenets and principles of the church of Rome, as being applicable to all times and seasons, and in their nature unchangeable, and indestructible; and, with this argument, we are met, when we ask why do the Roman Catholics of this day adhere so pertinaciously to the supreme spiritual authority of the Pope? I must therefore protest against being bound to consider and decide a question, of such immense importance, on such loose and uncertain grounds; and must insist on having a right to treat the Roman Catholics, on this occasion, as sincerely attached to their faith, and to the peculiar doctrines of their church.

" ́I have a right, then, to enquire, first, is the church of Rome, in its doctrines and discipline, materially changed from what it was heretofore?