sion of James, waited on him with the Protestation of Allegiance, as containing their true and loyal sentiments, it is probable that we should have heard no more of recusancy, or of penal prosecutions. His good will to the professors of that religion, was, from the earliest impressions, deeply marked on his heart; but in the creed of the majority, at least of a majority of their ministers, he knew there was a principle admitted, that of the papal prerogative over the crowns of princes, which could ill accord with the exalted opinion he entertained of his royal dignity and independence. Both parliament and king, aware that some Catholics, from conscientious scruples, objected to the oath of supremacy, and still that there were many whose civil principles were sound and loyal, seriously desired to offer them a political test, which should establish a just discrimination; that is, should show them who might be safely trusted. With this view, the oath of allegiance was framed, to which it was thought every Catholic would cheerfully submit, who did not believe the Bishop of Rome to have power to depose kings, and give away their dominions. The oath, accordingly, was taken by many Catholics, both laity and clergy; and a ray of returning happiness gleamed around them. But a cloud soon gathered on the seven hills; for it could not be, that a test, the main object of which was an explicit rejection of the deposing power, should not raise vapours

there -The Catholics were thrown into the utmost confusion; new dissensions arose; controversies were renewed; while the king, the government, and the nation, strengthened in their first prejudices, were now authorized to declare, that men whose civil conduct was subject to the controul of a foreign court, could with no justice claim the common right of citizens. The laws of the preceding reign were ordered to be executed, and new ones, additionally severe, were enacted. With what face, then, can it be asserted, that the Roman bishop or his court have constantly promoted the best interests of the English Catholics, when their religion itself was exposed to danger, and themselves and their posterity involved in much misery, that an ambitious prerogative might not be curtailed?' The priests who took the oath of allegiance were harassed by a papal decree, whereby they were deprived of all their jurisdiction, and consigned to penury and ignominy. Of these, many surrendered themselves into the hands of justice, to obtain a scanty maintenance, an act of direful necessity, which the men of their own faith could represent as a sinful apostasy from religion. Others retracted, and among them, two of the thirteen who had signed the protestation of allegiance; but the bulls of Paul, it seems, had extinguished all consistency of reason, and inspired them with a love of martyrdom. They died, because, when called upon by the legal authority

of their country, they would not declare that the Roman bishop had no right to dethrone princes.' *

Some priests, fellow-prisoners of the two who had been executed, addressed an affecting petition to the pope, praying that he would explain, in what particulars the oath was unlawful. • Immured,' said they, in a dungeon, surrounded by all that is pernicious and revolting, bereft of the solace of friendly communion and the society of all good men, we live in darkness. From this place, in which thirteen of us had been confined for our rejection of the oath, two of our number went forth last year to suffer as invincible martyrs, and exhibited a sight of sublime interest, to God, to angels, and to men.- By the blood of these martyrs, by our own toils and sufferings, by our chains and tortures and all-enduring patience, and if these things do not move you, by the bowels of the Divine Compassion, we implore you, turn a portion of your consideration to the afflictions of the English Catholics. There are some who fluctuate between yout and Cæsar; in order, therefore, that the truth may be made manifest, we pray, that your holiness would vouchsafe to point

* Berrington, Memoirs of Panzani, Introduction, 68-78. Mr. Butler mentions the execution of these priests, but with his customary reserve, leaves his readers to conjecture the

cause.

The word in the Gospel, it will be remembered, is GOD. The passage above given is quoted by Dr. O'Conor, from Dodd's Church History, vol. iii. 524.

out those propositions in the oath of allegiance, which are opposed to faith and salvation.' The vicar of Christ would not condescend to explain: he could sit' it is a papal bishop who thus vents his indignation, he could sit undisturbed in the Vatican, hearing that men were imprisoned, and that blood was poured out, in support of a claim, which had no better origin than the ambition of his predecessors, and the weak concessions of mortals; he could sit and view the scene, and not, in pity at least, wish to redress their sufferings, by releasing them from the injunctions of his decree.'

The Irish priesthood gave, as usual, more serious provocation, and, as usual, escaped with lighter penalties. The growing confidence of their faction, the weakness of the government, the predilection of the landlords for a Roman Catholic tenantry, and the execration in which all classes held the character of an informer, contributed to encourage and protect their intrigues. Far from being exposed to too severe a scrutiny, that speculative treason which contented itself with refusing a pledge of allegiance, seemed, from its rarity and the strong relief of contrast, as if almost elevated to the merit of loyalty. It would, indeed, be strange, if, in a country, where the spirit of the order, and the arts of the Roman court, were producing their annual fruits of sedition, these ecclesiastics had enjoyed, in every case, an unclouded and tranquil impunity. A statute, passed in the

second year of Elizabeth, had armed the executive with considerable powers against them; and, from time to time, at seasons of peculiar alarm, a proclamation from Dublin Castle was discharged over their heads, to announce the probability of its enforcement: but their admirable discipline at first, and afterwards, experience of the slightness of the danger, taught them to stand the ineffectual fire. From Henry the Eighth, to George the Third, a period of two troubled and eventful centuries, in which, with the exception of a few Franciscans, not one of the priesthood was found trust-worthy, the diligence of faction has not been rewarded with the discovery of half a dozen instances of vindictive animadversion.

It is said, by modern writers of the church of Rome, by Dr. O'Conor on the Roman Catholic side, by Mr. Plowden in the opposite extreme, and by Mr. Butler, who wishes to mediate between these conflicting parties, that the oath of James is substantially the same, with that which has been taken for the last fifty years. If their agreement could be clearly shown, and if it were also certain that the present is an adequate test, there would remain little reason for doubting, that popery is extinct in the British islands. But those who reflect on the refined and systematic equivocation of the papal schools, will be slow to admit an identity of import, without a precise correspondence in

* See, however, the Digest of Evidence, part 2. chap. 8.