tivil, or political integrity." The Moral and Civil integrity of the Catho lics, in discharging the duties of private Life, we have already admitted, and do again admit with unqualified approbation. But that their Political Integrity is unimpaired, we cannot so unreservedly and unexceptionably grant. Political Integrity unimpaired, in the full sense of those words, should mean entire acceptance and complete observance of the Constitution. Our Constitution embraces Polity Ecclesiastical as well as Civil; and in the Supreme Government consigned to the King, it combines Spiritual with Temporal Power. The propriety of the Laws, which invest the Sovereign with authority in External Circumstances relative to the Church, the Romanists disallow in principle; and, as far as they can venture, oppose in practice. Acting therefore, as they do, on opinions which prohibit entire obedience to our Constitutional Polity, they can scarcely be said to maintain their Political Integrity unimpaired. On the Ecclesiastical Polity of the Constitution, their avowed sentiments and their open conduct infringe, their Political Integrity therefore can be considered only as defective.

The petition sets forth, that the creed which the Roman Catholics profess," was the creed of those who founded British liberty at Runnymeade, who conquered at Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt." The Bishop of Gloucester's remark upon this pas, sage, here follows:

The mention of Runnymeade, Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, will always excite the most lively sensations in the hearts of Englishmen. It was not therefore without good judgment, that the Petitioners brought those places to our recollection. We shall never cease to honour the mes mory of those illustrious persons, who there signalised themselves. Nor can we cease to venerate their Creed, so far as we acknowledge it to be founded on Scripture. Beyond that, we cannot, we dare not hold it in veneration. We cannot, we dare not approve of those excrescences, which grew out of tradition and decrees, and which in process of time were superadded to the principles of Faith received by Christians at an early age.

It is scarcely possible for any one, who is acquainted with the history of the Church of Rome, to consider the Romanist Creed, and at the same time detach from his mind all remembrance of opinions and proceedings connected with that Creed. Taken with all its combinations, does that Creed suggest no other ideas, than such as are favourable to Protestants? The Creed professed by the Catholics petitioning, was indeed that of their Forefathers, who in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and

fifteenth centuries acted nobly at Runnymeade, Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt. But we cannot forget; it was also the Creed of those, who massacred the Protestants on the day of St. Bartholomew; a day so tragical and so foul, that the Father of Thuanus applied to it these lines of Statius;

"Excidat illa dies ævo, nec postera credant

"Sæcula; nos certè taceamus, et obruta multá

"Nocte tegi nostræ patiamur crimina gentis."

It was the Creed of Mary, who on principles of Conscience devoted Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and Bradford, to the flames. It was the Creed of those, who at one explosion would have sacrificed the Three Estates of the Realm. It was the Creed of those Insurgents, who in the reign of Charles the First went far towards obliterating the name of Englishmen in the kingdom of Ireland; and who against Protestants exercised cruelties, which an eminent Historian asserts, "would shock the least delicate † humanity." It was the Creed of the Second James; who under the semblance of mildness and of equality in privileges to all his subjects (the very plea, now urged by the advocates for Romanists) + dispensed with Laws, imprisoned Bishops, and filled the highest departments with Men of his own persuasion. It was the Creed of those, who not Ninety Years since, occasioned Thirty Thousand Protestants to withdraw from Saltzburgh; and who inflicted punishments of a barbarous nature on the Protestant Magistrates and People of Thorn § It was the Creed of those, who but fifteen years before the reign of His present Majesty, within this Kingdom encouraged a War, which had for its object the total overthrow of the Protestant Government and the utter exclusion of the Protestant Sovereign then existing, on whose head a price was set by the foreign enemy whose cause they favoured. It was the Creed of those, who within our own memory, within the short period of Eleven Years past, in

* See "The Life of Thuanus," by Rev. Mr. J. Collinson, p. 10. Sully's Memoirs, Vol. 1, p. 26. English Translation in 1761. The skilful hand of Vasari was employed to perpetuate the memory of this transaction. See "The History of the Helvetic Republics," by F. H. Naylor, Esq. Vol. 4, p. 500, Note.

+ See Hume's "History of England; " Vol. 6, p. 373. A. D. 1641.

See "The Bill of Rights."

The banishment from Saltzburgh was in 1732; the executions at Thorn were in 1725. Archbishop Secker alludes to those events in his Volume of Nine Sermons, p. 87. Serm. 4. The facts are detailed in a Work entitled "The Historical Register;" Vol. 10. p. 42. and Vol. 17. p. 51. The occurrences at Thorn are related in Vol. 10, those at Saltzburgh in Vol. 17. See also "A complete System of Geography." Ed. Folio. Vol. 1. p. 668 and 989.

See Smollet's " History of England," p. 160. Vol. 3. Ed. 1796.

Ireland instigated a Rebellion, which a Writer of that Country declares to have been " eminently destructive ;" and which he affirms " masssa cred, without mercy, all Protestants, Men, Women and Children.”

My Brethren, can we advert with indifference to the several facts recalled to your memory? Can we lull ourselves into a blind, a fatal security, in full conviction that similar causes will never again produce similar effects? In other words, can we possibly believe, that if opportunity be given, the Romanist Creed will not be enforced on Protestants, if not by sanguinary, yet by all other most compulsive means? If there are hose, who are so persuaded, to them shall the manly, eloquent, and pathetic Sherlock thus speak;

"Our Fathers, who lived under the dread of Popery and Arbitrary Power, are most of them gone off the stage; and have carried with them the experience which we their Sons stand in need of, to make us earnest to preserve the Blessing of Liberty, and pure Religion, which they have bequeathed us. O that I had words to represent to the present Generation, the Miseries which their Fathers underwent; that I could describe their fears and anxieties; their restless nights, and uneasy days; when every Morning threatened to usher in, the last day of England's Liberty.Had Men such a sense of the Miseries of the Time past, it would teach them what consequences they were to expect from any successful attempt against the present † Establishment."

4 Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Lincoln, at the triennial Visitation of that Diocese, in May, June, and July, 1812. By George Tomline, D.D. F.R.S. Lord Bishop of Lincoln Cadell and Davies.

We are happy to number the Bishop of Lincoln amongst those of our prelates who are the active friends of Protestantism, and the firm opposers of the Roman Catholic Claims.

This learned divine had a great share in forming the mind of the late Mr. Pitt. He was his tutor at college, and his confiden

* See "The Nature and Extent of the Demands of the Irish Roman Catholics fully explained; by P. Duigenan, LL.D. and M.P." published in 1810. pages 7. 11. 122. 132. 133.

+ See " A Discourse preached on June 7, 1716.” in the Volume of " Discourses preached on Several Occasions;" by Bishop Sherlock; of whom, and Bishop Butler, it may be said without fear of contradiction, that of all our English Writers, few have qualled, none have excelled them, in close reasoning.

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tial friend through life. He administered to him the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, on his death-bed; he witnessed his decease; and was one of his executors.-From the principles of the tutor, one may form some opinion, at least, of those entertained by his pupil. Mr. Pitt lived and died a Protestant; and it is not likely that he should ever have given that sort of pledge to the Irish Roman Catholics, at the time of negotiating the Union, which has been asserted;—a pledge which that great statesman must have known to be fraught with danger to the constitution of our country, which, dying, he apostrophized! However, we need not rest satisfied with probabilities alone; for Lord Castlereagh, who took the most active part in effecting the union of England and Ireland, has explicitly declared, that no such pledge was ever. given.

The Bishop of Lincoln, in a former charge, had given his clergy reason to expect that he would, at some future period, take occasion to treat upon the Roman Catholic Question; which he views neither in the light of a purely political, nor yet of a mere theological question. His lordship says,

I have never regarded the Roman Catholic Question solely in a political light, because in my judgment it involves in it the safety of the Protestant Interest in these Kingdoms; and I am persuaded that the severing this question from all religious considerations has greatly encreased the number. of Friends to what is called Catholic Emancipation. Under this persuasion, I adverted, in general terms, at the conclusion of my address to you at our last meeting, to the attempt, then recently made, to procure the repeal of the Laws which render Papists incapable of holding certain offices and situations of power and trust; and I promised, if life should be spared me, and circumstances should demand it, to enter more fully into the subject upon a future occasion. As the repeated renewal of this attempt since that time has excited additional alarm and anxiety in the minds of persons most sincerely attached to our Civil and Ecclesiastical Constitution, I shall now proceed to enquire into the ground and nature of the disabilities in question, and to point out the danger, which, I cannot but fear, would attend a compliance with the present claims of the Papists.

We do most earnestly recommend the perusal of this very able Charge, to all who feel an interest in the constitution of the country, or would learn what must be the consequence of placing

power in the hands of the Romanists.—We hope that the following extract will have the effect of inducing our readers to study the whole Charge; and at the same time we avail ourselves of an opportunity to adorn our pages with a passage which speaks the very sentiments of the PROTESTANT ADVOCATE; and satisfies our minds that our opinions are correct, and our views perfectly Constitutional.

The principles of a Church Establishment, and of Toleration of those who dissent from the National Religion, can scarcely be said to have been thoroughly understood, till the time of the Revolution; and perhaps we may go farther, and affirm, that it was impossible to ascertain what regulations would be necessary upon these important points, till the conduct of Papists, living under a Protestant Establishment, was seen and known. This was a new state of things; and what would be its precise effect, what struggles and what contests might arise among men, whose Religious Faith was so fundamentally different, was beyond the reach of human foresight. At the Revolution, more than a century had elapsed since the Reformed Religion was established in these kingdoms; and the knowledge of the dangers to which it had been exposed, during that period, from the restless and hostile spirit of those who still adhered to the Church of Rome, enabled the great and wise men, concerned in settling the Revolution, to make such provisions, as would secure the Protestant Establishment against future attempts of Papists. The Laws against Papists were enacted not upon Theory, but in consequence of perils and evils actually experienced; of facts and events, the object and tendency of which could not be mistaken. Some of the Laws enacted then and soon after, both in England and Ireland, have been repealed; and therefore of them it is unnecessary to take any farther notice. But others are yet in force; and by these Laws, Papists are not allowed to sit in Parliament, to fill the great offices of state, to preside in our Courts of Justice or Equity, or to command our Army or Navy. These are the only disabilities now remaining; and it is material to observe that they do not in the slightest degree infringe the true Principles of Toleration.

Toleration is a permission, under the authority of Law, to every Indi vidual to profess the religious opinions which he conceives most consonantto Scripture, and to worship God in the manner most agreeable to the dictates of his conscience. Internal Faith and external Worship compre hend the Whole, as far as this subject is concerned, of Religious Service; and whoever enjoys unrestrained Freedom in these two respects, enjoys perfect Religious Toleration. The question therefore is, Whether the