lieve there have been two Catholics put to death for religious causes in Great Britain for one Protestant who has suffered; not that this proves much, because the Catholics have enjoyed the sovereign power for so few years between this period and the Reformation, and certainly it must be allowed that they were not inactive, during that period, in the great work of pious combustion.

of 2000 livres. A married Protestant woman when convicted of being of that persuasion was liable to forfeit two-thirds of her jointure; she could not be executrix to her husband, nor have any part of his goods; and during her marriage, she might be kept in prison, unless her husband redeemed her at the rate of 200 livres a month, or the third part of his lands. Protestants convicted of being such, were, within three months after their conviction, either to submit, and It is however, some extenuation of the Catholic exrenounce their religion, or, if required by four magis- cesses, that their religion was the religion of the whole trates, to abjure the realm, and if they did not depart, of Europe, when the innovation began. They were or departing returned, were to suffer death. All Pro- the ancient lords and masters of faith, before men intestants were required, under the most tremendous troduced the practice of thinking for themselves in penalties, to swear that they considered the pope as these matters. The Protestants have less excuse, the head of the church. If they refused to take this who claimed the right of innovation, and then turned oath, which might be tendered at pleasure by any two round upon other Protestants who acted upon the magistrates, they could not act as advocates, procu- same principle, or upon Catholics who remained as reurs, or notaries public. Any Protestant taking any they were, and visited them with all the cruelties office, civil or military, was compelled to abjure the from which they had themselves so recently escaped. Protestant religion; to declare his belief in the doc. Both sides, as they acquired power, abused it; and trine of transubstantiation, and to take the Roman both learnt from their sufferings, the great secret of Catholic sacrament within six months, under the pen- toleration and forbearance. If you wish to do good in alty of 10,000 livres. Any person professing the Pro- the times in which you live, contribute your efforts to testant religion, and educated in the same, was requir- perfect this grand work. I have not the most distant ed, in six months after the age of sixteen, to declare intention to interfere in local politics, but I advise you the pope to be the head of the church; to declare his never to give a vote to any man, whose only title for belief in transubstantiation, and that the invocation of asking it is, that he means to continue the punishsaints was according to the doctrine of the Christian ments, privations, and incapacities of any human bereligion; failing this, he could not hold, possess, or ings, merely because they worship God in the way inherit landed property; his lands were given to the they think best: the man who asks for your vote upon nearest Catholic relation. Many taxes were doubled such a plea, is, probably, a very weak man, who beupon Protestants. Protestants keeping schools were lieves in his own bad reasoning, or a very artful man, imprisoned for life, and all Protestants were forbidden who is laughing at you for your credulity: at all to come within ten miles of Paris or Versailles. If events, he is a man who, knowingly or unknowingly, any Protestant had a horse worth more than 100 livres, exposes his country to the greatest dangers, and hands any Catholic magistrate might take it away, and down to posterity all the foolish opinions and all the search the house of the said Protestant for arms.' Is bad passions which prevail in those times in which he not this a monstrous code of persecution? Is it any happens to live. Such a man is so far from being that wonder, after reading such a spirit of tyranny as here friend to the church which he pretends to be, that he exhibited, that the tendencies of the Catholic religion declares its safety cannot be reconciled with the franshould be suspected, and that the cry of no Popery chises of the people; for what worse can be said of should be a rallying sign to every Protestant nation the Church of England than this, that wherever it is in Europe? Forgive, gentle reader, and judged necessary to give it a legal establishment, it gentle elector, the trifling deception I have practised becomes necessary to deprive the body of the people, upon you. This code is not a code made by French if they adhere to their old opinions, of their liberties, Catholics against French Protestants, but by English and of all their free customs, and to reduce them to a and Irish Protestants against English and Irish Ca- state of civil servitude? tholics; I have given it to you for the most part, as it is set forth in Burns' 'Justice' of 1780: it was acted upon in the beginning of the late king's reign, and was notorious through the whole of Europe, as the most cruel and atrocious system of persecution ever instituted by one religious sect against another. Of this code, Mr. Burke says, that it is a truly barbarous system; where all the parts are an outrage on the laws of humanity and the rights of nature; it is a system of elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, imprisonment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.' It is in vain to say that these cruelties were laws of political safety; such has always been the plea for all religious cruelties; by such arguments the Catholics defended the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the burnings of Mary.

A SERMON

SIDNEY SMITH.

On those Rules of Christian Charity by which our Opinions of other Sects should be formed: Preached before the Mayor and Corporation, in the Cathedral Church of Bristol, On Wednesday, November 5, 1828.

I PUBLISH this sermon (or rather allow others to publish it), because many persons, who know the city of Bristol better than I do, have earnestly solicited me to do so; and are convinced it will do good. It is not without reluctance (as far as I myself am concerned) that I sent to the press such plain rudiments of common charity and common sense.

Nov. 8, 1828.

SYDNEY SMITH.

With such facts as these, the cry of persecution will not do; it is unwise to make it, because it can be so very easily, and so very justly retorted. The business is, to forget and forgive, to kiss and be friends, and to say nothing of what has past, which is to the credit PUT ON, AS THE ELECT OF GOD, KINDNESS, HUMBLENESS OF

COL. III. 12, 13.

MIND, MEEKNESS, LONG-SUFFERING, FORBEARING ONE AN-
OTHER, AND FORGIVING ONE ANOTHER.'

THE Church of England, in its wisdom and piety, has very properly ordained that a day of thanksgiving should be set apart, in which we may return thanks to Almighty God for the mercies vouchsafed to this na.

of neither party. There have been atrocious cruelties, and abominable acts of injustice on both sides. It is not worth while to contend who shed the most blood, or whether (as Dr. Sturgess objects to Dr. Milner,) death by fire is worse than hanging or starving in prison. As far as England itself is concerned, the balance may be better preserved. Cruelties exercised upon the Irish go for nothing in English reasoning: back he has done so; and desires to know whether his but if it were not uncandid and vexatious to consider highness would choose as many girls to be caught up; and Irish persecutions* as part of the case, I firmly be.

*Thurloe writes o Henry Cromwell to catch up some thousand Irish boys, to send to the colonies, Henry writes

he adds, doubtless it is a business, in which God will ap pear. Suppose bloody Queen Mary had caught up and transported three or four thousand Protestant boys and girls from the three ridings of Yorkshire!!!!!!

tion in their escape from the dreadful plot planned for | charity are general, and of universal application. the destruction of the sovereign and his Parliament,- What you choose to do, and which way you incline the forerunner, no doubt, of such sanguinary scenes as upon any particular question, are, and can be, no were suited to the manners of that age, and must have | concern of mine. It would be the height of arrogance proved the inevitable consequence of such enormous and presumption in me, or in any other minister of wickedness and cruelty. Such an escape is a fair and God's Word, to interfere on such points; I only enlawful foundation for national piety. And it is a come- deavour to teach that spirit of forbearance and charily and Christian sight to see the magistrates and high ty, which (though it cannot always prevent differen authorities of the land obedient to the ordinances of ces upon religious points) will ensure that these difthe church, and holding forth to their fellow subjects a ferences are carried on with Christian gentleness. I wise example of national gratitude and serious devo- have endeavoured to lay down these rules for differtion. This use of this day is deserving of every com- ence with care and moderation; and, if you will at mendation. The idea that Almighty God does some- tend to them patiently, I think you will agree with me, times exercise a special providence for the preserva- that, however the practice of them may be forgotten, tion of a whole people is justified by Scripture, is not the propriety of them cannot be denied. repugnant to reason, and can produce nothing but It would always be easier to fall in with human pasfeelings and opinions favourable to virtue and religion. sions than to resist them; but the ministers of God Another wise and lawful use of this day is an honest must do their duty through evil report, and through self-congratulation that we have burst through those good report; neither prevented nor excited by the inbands which the Roman Catholic priesthood would terests of the present day. They must teach those impose upon human judgment; that the Protestant general truths which the Christian religion has comChurch not only permits, but exhorts, every man to mitted to their care, and upon which the happiness appeal from human authority to the Scriptures; that and peace of the world depend. it makes of the clergy guides and advisers, not masters and oracles; that it discourages vain and idle ceremonies, unmeaning observances, and hypocritical pomp; and encourages freedom in thinking upon religion, and simplicity in religious forms. It is impossible that any candid man should not observe the marked superiority of the Protestant over the Catholic faith in these particulars; and difficult that any pious man should not feel grateful to Almighty Providence for escape from danger which would have plunged this country afresh into so many errors and so many absurdities.

In pressing upon you the great duty of religious charity, the inutility of the opposite defect of religious violence first offers itself to, and, indeed, obtrudes itself upon my notice. The evil of difference of opinion must exist; it admits of no cure. The wildest visionary does not now hope he can bring his fellow-crea tures to one standard of faith. If history has taught us any one thing, it is that mankind, on such sort of subjects, will form their own opinions. Therefore, to want charity in religious matters is at least useless; it hardens error and provokes recrimination; but it does not enlighten those whom we wish to reclaim nor does it extend doctrines which to us appear so clear and indisputable. But to do wrong, and to gain nothing by it, are surely to add folly to fault, and to proclaim an understanding not led by the rule of rea. Ison, as well as a disposition unregulated by the Christian faith.

I hope, in this condemnation of the Catholic religion (in which I most sincerely join its bitterest enemies), I shall not be so far mistaken as to have it supposed that I would convey the slightest approbation of any laws which disqualify or incapacitate any class of men from civil offices on account of religious opinions. regard all such laws as fatal and lamentable mistakes in legislation; they are mistakes of troubled times, and half-barbarous ages. All Europe is gradually emerg. ing from their influence. This country has lately, with the entire consent of its prelates, made a noble and successful effort, by the abolition of some of the most obnoxious laws of this class. In proportion as such example is followed, the enemies of church and state will be diminished, and the foundation of peace, order, and happiness be strengthened. These are my opinions, which I mention, not to convert you, but to guard myself from misrepresentation. It is my duty, -it is my wish, it is the subject of this day to point out those evils of the Catholic religion from which we have escaped; but I should be to the last degree concerned, if a condemnation of theological errors were to be construed into an approbation of laws which I can not but consider as deeply marked by a spirit of intolerance. Therefore, I beg you to remember that I record these opinions not for the purpose of converting any one to them, which would be an abuse of the privilege of addressing you from the pulpit; not that I attach the slightest degree of importance to them because they are mine; but merely to guard myself from misrepresentation upon a point on which all men's passions are, at this moment, so powerfully excited.

I have said that, at this moment, all men's passions are powerfully excited on this subject. If this is true, it points out to me my line of duty. I must use my endeavours to guard against the abuse of the day; to take care that the principles of sound reason are not lost sight of; and that such excitement, instead of rising into dangerous vehemence, is calmed into active and useful investigation of the subject.

I shall, therefore, on the present occasion, not investigate generally the duties of charity and forbearance, but of charity and forbearance in religious matters of that Christian meekness and humility which prevent the intrusion of bad passions into religious concerns, and keep calm and pure the mind intent upon eternity. And remember, I beg of you, that the rules I shall offer you for the observation of Christian |

Religious charity requires that we should not judge any sect of Christians by the representations of their enemies alone, without hearing and reading what they have to say in their own defence; it requires only, of course, to state such a rule to procure for it general admission. No man can pretend to say that such a rule is not founded upon the plainest principles of justice upon those plain principles of justice which no one thinks of violating in the ordinary concerns of life; and yet I fear that rule is not always very strictly adhered to in religious animosities. Religious hatred is often founded on tradition, often on hearsay, often on the misrepresentations of notorious enemies; without inquiry, without the slightest examination of opposite reasons and authorities, or consideration of that which the accused party has to offer for defence or explanation. It is impossible, I admit, to examine every thing; many have not talents, many have not leisure, for such pursuits; many must be contented with the faith in which they have been brought up, and must think it the best modification of the Christian faith, because they are told it is so. But this imperfect acquaintance with religious controversy though not blameable when it proceeds from want of power, and want of opportunity, can be no possible justification of violent and acrimonious opinions. I would say to the ignorant man, 'It is not your ignorance I blame; you have had no means, perhaps, of acquiring knowledge: the circumstances of your life have not led to it-may have prevented it; but then I must tell you, if you have not had leisure to inquire, you have no right to accuse. If you are unacquainted with the opposite arguments,-or, knowing, can balance them, it is not upon you the task devolves of exposing the errors, and impugning the opinions of other sects. If charity is ever necessary, it is in those who know accurately neither the accusation nor the defence. If invective,-if rooted antipathy, in religious opinions, is ever a breach of Christian rules, it is so in those who, not being able to become wise, are not willing to be. come charitable and modest.

Any candid man, acquainted with religious contro

versy, will, I think, admit that he has frequently, in |tion,—this silent antiquation of doctrines, this real the course of his studies, been astonished by the force improvement, which the parties themselves are too of arguments with which that cause has been defended, wise not to feel, though not wise enough to own, must, which he at first thought incapable of any defence at I am afraid, be generally conceded to human infirmity. all. Some accusations he has found to be utterly They are indulgences not unnecessary to many sects of groundless; in others the facts and arguments have Christians. The more generous method would be to adbeen mis-stated; in other instances the accusation has mit error, where error exists, to say these were the te been retorted; in many cases the tenets have been nets and interpretations of dark and ignorant ages; widefended by strong arguments and honest appeal to der inquiry, fresh discussion, superior intelligence have Scripture; in many with consummate acuteness and convinced us we are wrong; we will act in future upon deep learning. So that religious studies often teach to better and wiser principles. This is what men do in opponents a greater respect for each other's talents, laws, arts, and sciences; and happy for them would it motives, and acquirements; exhibit the real difficulties be if they used the same modest docility in the highest of the subject; lessen the surprise and anger which of all concerns. But it is, I fear, more than experience are apt to be excited by opposition; and, by these will allow us to expect; and therefore the kindest and means, promote that forgiving one another, and for- most charitable method is to allow religious sects sibearing one another which are so powerfully recom-lently to improve without reminding them of, and mended by the words of my text.

taunting them with, the improvement; without bring. A great deal of mischief is done by not attending to ing them to the humiliation of former disavowal, or the limits of interference with each other's religious the still more pernicious practice of defending what opinions, by not leaving to the power and wisdom of they know to be indefensible. The triumphs which God that which belongs to God alone. Our holy reli- proceed from the neglect of these principles are not gion consists of some doctrines which influence prac-(what they pretend to be) the triumphs of religion, but tice, and others which are purely speculative. If reli- the triumphs of personal wanity. The object is not to gious errors are of the former description, they may, extinguish dangerous errors with as little pain and deperhaps, be fair objects of human interference; but if gradation as possible to him who has fallen into the the opinion is merely theological and speculative, error, but the object is to exalt ourselves, and to dethere the right of human interference seems to end, preciate our theological opponents, as much as possibecause the necessity for such interference does not ble, at any expense to God's service, and to the real exist. Any error of this nature is between the Creator interests of truth and religion. and the creature,-between the Redeemer and the redeemed. If such opinions are not the best opinions which can be found, God Almighty will punish the error, if error seemeth to the Almighty a fit object of punishment. Why may not man wait if God waits? Where are we called upon in Scripture to pursue men for errors purely speculative ?-to assist Heaven in punishing those offences which belong only to Heaven?-in fighting unasked for what we deem to be the battles of God, of that patient and merciful God, who pities the frailties we do not pity-who forgives the errors we do not forgive,-who sends rain upon the just and the unjust, and maketh his sun to shine upon the evil and the good?

Another canon of religious charity is to revise, at long intervals, the bad opinions we have been compelled, or rather our forefathers have been compelled, to form of other Christian sects; to see whether the different bias of the age, the more general diffusion of intelligence, do not render these tenets less pernicious: that which might prove a very great evil under other circumstances, may, perhaps, however weak and erroneous, be harmless in these times, and under these circumstances. We must be aware, too, that we do not mistake recollections for apprehensions, and confound together what is past with what is to come,history with futurity. For instance, it would be the most enormous abuse of this religious institution to imagine that such dreadful scenes of wickedness are to be apprehended from the Catholics of the present day, because the annals of this country were disgraced by such an event two hundred years ago. It would be an enormous abuse of this day to extend the crimes of a few desperate wretches to a whole sect; to fix the passions of dark ages upon times of refinement and civilization. All these are mistakes and abuses of this day, which violate every principle of Christian charity, endanger the peace of society, and give life and perpetuity to hatreds, which must perish at one time or another, and had better, for the peace of society, perish now.

There is another practice not less common than this, and equally uncharitable; and that is to represent the opinions of the most violent and eager persons who can be met with, as the common and received opinions of the whole sect. There are, in every denomination of Christians, individuals, by whose opinion or by whose conduct the great body would very reluctantly be judged. Some men aim at attracting notice by singularity; some are deficient in temper; some in learning; some push every principle to the extreme; distort, overstate, pervert; fill every one to whom their cause is dear with concern that it should have been committed to such rash and intemperate advocates. If you wish to gain a victory over your antagonists, these are the men whose writings you should study, whose opinions you should dwell on, and should carefully bring forward to notice; but if you wish, as the elect of God, to put on kindness and humbleness, meekness and long-suffering,-if you wish to forbear and to forgive, it will then occur to you that you should seek the true opinions of any sect from those only who are approved of, and reverenced by that sect; to whose authority that sect defer, and by whose arguments they consider their tenets to be properly defended. This may not suit your purpose if you are combating for victory; but it is your duty if you are combating for truth; it is the safe, honest, and splendid conduct of him who never writes nor speaks on religious subjects, but that he may diffuse the real blessings of religion among his fellow-creatures, and restrain the bitterness of controversy by the feelings of Christian charity and forbearance."

Let us also ask ourselves, when we are sitting in severe judgment upon the faults, follies and errors of other Christian sects, whether it is not barely possible that we have fallen into some mistakes and misrepresentations? Let us ask ourselves, honestly and fairly, whether we are wholly exempt from prejudice, from pride, from obstinate adhesion to what candour calls upon us to alter, and to yield? Are there no violent and mistaken members of our own community, It would be religiously charitable, also, to consider by whose conduct we should be loath to be guided,-by whether the objectionable tenets, which different sects whose tenets we should not choose our faith to be profess, are in their hearts as well as in their books. judged? Has time, that improves all, found nothing There is, unfortunately, so much pride where there in us to change for the better? Amid all the manifold ought to be so much humility, that it is difficult, if not divisions of the Christian world, are we the only almost impossible, to make religious sects abjure or Christians who, without having any thing to learn recant the doctrines they have once professed. It is from the knowledge and civilization of the last three not in this manner, I fear, that the best and purest centuries, have started up, without infancy, and withchurches are ever reformed. But the doctrine gradu-out error, into consummate wisdom and spotless perally becomes obsolete; and, though not disowned, ceases in fact to be a distinguishing characteristic of the sect which professes it. These modes of reforma

fection?

To listen to enemies as well as friends is a rule which not only increases sense in common life, but is

highly favourable to the increase of religious candour. | religious disputes which appear to be coming on in the You find that you are not so free from faults as your world. If you choose to perpetuate the restrictions friends suppose, nor so full of faults as your enemies upon your fellow-creatures, no one has a right to call suppose. You begin to think it not impossible that you may be as unjust to others as they are to you; and that the wisest and most Christian scheme is that of mutual indulgence; that it is better to put on, as the elect of God, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another.

Some men cannot understand how they are to be zealous if they are candid in religious matters; how the energy necessary for the one virtue is compatible with the calmness which the other requires. But remember that the Scriptures carefully distinguish between laudable zeal and indiscreet zeal; that the apostles and epistolary writers knew they had as much to fear from the over-excitement of some men as from the supineness of others; and in nothing have they laboured more than in preventing religion from arming human passions instead of allaying them, and rendering those principles a source of mutual jealousy and hatred which were intended for universal peace. I admit that indifference sometimes puts on the appearance of candour; but though there is a counterfeit, yet there is a reality; and the imitation proves the value of the original, because men only attempt to multiply the appearances of useful and important things. The object is to be at the same time pious to God and charitable to man; to render your own faith as pure and perfect as possible, not only without hatred of those who differ from you, but with a constant recollection that it is possible, in spite of thought and study, that you may have been mistaken-that other sects may be right, and that a zeal in his service, which God does not want, is a very bad excuse for those bad passions which his sacred word condemns. Lastly, I would suggest that many differences between sects are of less importance than the furious zeal of many men would make them. Are the tenets of any sect of such a description, that we believe they will be saved under the Christian faith? Do they fulfil the common duties of life? Do they respect property? Are they obedient to the laws? Do they speak the truth? If all these things are right, the violence of hostility may surely submit to some little softness and relaxation; honest difference of opinion cannot call for such entire separation and complete antipathy; such zeal as this, if it be zeal, and not something worse, is not surely zeal according to discretion.

The arguments, then, which I have adduced in support of the great principles of religious charity are, that violence upon such subjects is rarely or ever found to be useful; but generally to produce effects opposite to those which are intended. I have observed that religious sects are not to be judged from the representations of their enemies; but that they are to be heard for themselves, in the pleadings of

you bigoted; if you choose to do them away, no one has any right to call you lax and indifferent; you have done your utmost to do right, and whether you err, or do not err, in your mode of interpreting the Christian religion, you show at least that you have caught its heavenly spirit-that you have put on, as the elect of God, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another.

I have thus endeavoured to lay before you the uses and abuses of this day; and, having stated the great mercy of God's interference, and the blessings this country has secured to itself in resisting the errors and follies, and superstitions of the Catholic Church, I have endeavoured that this just sense of our own superiority should not militate against the sacred principles of Christian charity. That charity which I ask for others, I ask also for myself. I am sure I am preaching before those who will think (whether they agree with me or not) that I have spoken conscientiously, and from good motives, and from honest feelings, on a very different subject-not sought for by me, but devolving upon me in the course of duty;-in which I should have been heartily ashamed of myself (as you would have been ashamed of me), if I had thought only how to flatter and please, or thought of any thing but what I hope always to think of in the pulpit-that I am placed here by God to tell the truth, and to do good.

I shall conclude my sermon, (pushed, I am afraid. already to an unreasonable length,) by reciting to you a very short and beautiful apologue, taken from the rabbinical writers. It is, I believe, quoted by Bishop Taylor, in his Holy Living aad Dying.' I have not now access to that book, but quote it to you from me mory; and should be made truly happy if you would quote it to others from memory also.

'As Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent. there came unto him a wayfaring man; and Abraham gave him water for his feet, and set bread before him. And Abraham said unto him, "Let us now worship the Lord our God before we eat of this bread." And the wayfaring man said unto Abraham, "I will not worship the Lord thy God, for thy God is not my God, but I will worship my God, even the God of my fathers." But Abraham was exceeding wroth; and he rose up to put the wayfaring man forth from the door of his tent. And the voice of the Lord was heard in the tent,-Abraham, Abraham! have I not borne with this man for three score and ten years, and canst thou not bear with him for one hour?'

LETTERS,

their best writers, not in the representations of those On the subject of the Catholics, to my Brother Abraham,

whose intemperate zeal is a misfortune to the sect to which they belong. If you will study the principles of your religious opponents, you will often find your contempt and hatred lessened in proportion as you are better acquainted with what you despise. Many religious opinions, which are purely speculative, are without the limits of human interference. In the numerous sects of Christianity, interpreting our religion in different manners, all cannot be right. Imitate the forbearance of God, who throws the mantle of his mercy over all, and who will probably save, on the last day, the piously right and the piously wrong, seeking Jesus in humbleness of mind. Do not drive religious sects to the disgrace (or to what they foolishly think the disgrace) of formally disavowing tenets they once possesed, but concede something to human weakness; and, when the tenet is virtually given up, treat it as if it were actually given up; and always consider it to be very possible that yourself may have made mistakes, and fallen into erroneous opinions, as well as any other sect to which you are opposed. If you put on these dispositions, and this tenour of mind, you cannot be guilty of any religious fault, take what part you will in the

who lives in the country,

DEAR ABRAHAM

BY PETER PLYMLEY.

LETTER I.

A worthier and better man than yourself does not exist; but I have always told you, from the time of our boyhood, that you were a bit of a goose. Your parochial affairs are governed with exemplary order and regularity; your are as powerful in the vestry as Mr. Percival is in the House of Commons,-and, I must say, with much more reason; nor do I know any church where the faces and smock-frocks of the congregation are so clean, or their eyes so uniformly di rected to the preacher. There is another point upon which I will do you ample justice, and that is, that the eyes so directed towards you are wide open; for the rustic has, in general, good principles, though he cannot control his animal habits; and, however loud he may snore, his face is perpetually turned towards! the fountain of orthodoxy.

Having done this act of justice, I shall proceed, according to our ancient intimacy and familiarity, to

explain to you my opinions about the Catholics, and to reply to yours

In the first place, my sweet Abraham, the pope is not landed-nor are there any curates sent out after him-nor has he been hid at St. Alban's, by the Dowager Lady Spencer-nor dined privately at Holland House-nor been seen near Dropmore. If these fears exist, (which I do not believe,) they exist only in the mind of the chancellor of the exchequer; they emanate from his zeal for Protestant interests; and though they reflect the highest honour upon the delicate irritability of his faith, must certainly be considered as more ambiguous proofs of the sanity and vigour of his understanding. By this time, however, the best informed clergy in the neighbourhood of the metropolis are convinced that the rumour is without foundation; and, though the pope is probably hovering about our coast in a fishing-smack, it is most likely he will fall a prey to the vigilance of our cruisers; and it is certain he has not yet polluted the Protestantism of our

soil.

Exactly in the same manner, the story of the wooden gods seized at Charing Cross, by an order from the Foreign Office, turns out to be without the shadow of a foundation: instead of the angels and archangels, mentioned by the informer, nothing was discovered but a wooden image of Lord Mulgrave, going down to Chatham, as a head-piece for the Spanker gun-vessel; it was an exact resemblance of his lordship in his military uniform; and therefore as little like a god as ⚫ can well be imagined.

Having set your fears at rest as to the extent of the conspiracy formed against the Protestant religion, I will now come to the argument itself.

lishment in any shape; but what have I to do with the speculative nonsense of his theology, when the object is to elect the mayor of a country town, or to appoint a colonel of a marching regiment? Will a man discharge the solemn impertinences of the one office with the less zeal, or shrink from the bloody boldness of the other with greater timidity, because the block. head believes in all the Catholic nonsense of the real presence. I am sorry there should be such impious folly in the world, but I should be ten times a greater fool than he is, if I refused, in consequence of his folly, to lead him out against the enemies of the state. Your whole argument is wrong; the state has nothing whatever to do with theological errors which do not violate the common rules of morality, and militate against the fair power of the ruler: it leaves all these errors to you, and to such as you. You have every tenth porker in your parish for refuting them; and take care that you are vigilant and logical in the task. I love the church as well as you do; but you totally mistake the nature of an establishment, when you contend that it ought to be connected with the mili tary and civil career of every individual in the state. It is quite right that there should be one clergymau to every parish interpreting the Scriptures after a par ticular manner, ruled by a regular hierarchy, and paid with a rich proportion of haycocks and wheatsheafs. When I have laid this foundation for a rational religion in the state-when I have placed ten thousand well-educated men in different parts of the kingdom to preach it up, and compelled every body to pay them, whether they hear them or not-I have taken such measures as I know must always procure an immense majority in favour of the established church; You say these men interpret the Scriptures in an but I can go no farther. I cannot set up a civil inquiunorthodox manner; and that they eat their God.-sition, and say to one, you shall not be a butcher, beVery likely. All this may seem very important to cause you are not orthodox ; and prohibit another from you, who live fourteen miles from a market town, and, brewing, and a third from administering the law, and from long residence among your living, are become a a fourth from defending the country. If common kind of holy vegetable; and, in a theological sense, it justice did not prohibit me from such a conduct, comis highly important. But I want soldiers and sailors mon sense would. The advantage to be gained by for the state; I want to make a greater use than I quitting the heresy would make it shameful to aban now can do of a poor country full of men; I want to don it; and men who had once left the church would render the military service popular among the Irish; continue in such a state of alienation from a point of to check the power of France; to make every possible honour, and transmit that spirit to the latest posexertion for the safety of Europe, which, in twenty terity. This is just the effect your disqualifying laws years' time will be nothing but a mass of French have produced. They have fed Dr. Rees and Dr. slaves: and then you, and ten thousand other such Kippis; crowded the congregation of the old jewry to boobies as you, call out,' For God's sake, do not think suffocation; and enabled every sublapsarian, and sup of raising cavalry and infantry in Ireland! ralapsarian, and semipelagian clergyman, to build They interpret the Epistle to Timothy in a different himself a neat brick chapel, and live with some distant manner from what we do! They eat a bit of resemblance to the state of a gentleman. water every Sunday, which they call their God!'. . . I wish to my soul they would eat you, and such reasoners as you are. What! when Turk, Jew, Heretic, Infidel, Catholic, Protestant, are all combined against this country; when men of every religious persuasion, and no religious persuasion; when the population of half of the globe is up in arms against us; are we to stand examining our generals and armies as a bishop examines a candidate for holy orders? and to suffer no one to bleed for England who does not agree with you about the 2d of Timothy? You talk about the Catholics! If you and your brotherhood have been able to persuade the country into a continuation of this grossest of all absurdities, you have ten times the power which the Catholic clergy ever had in their best days. Louis XIV., when he revoked the Edict of Nantes, never thought of preventing the Protestants from fighting his battles; and gained accordingly some of his most splendid victories by the talents of his Protestant generals. No power in Europe, but yourselves, has ever thought, for these hundred years past, of asking whether a bayonet is Catholic, or Presbyterian, or Lutheran; but whether it is sharp and well tempered. A bigot delights in public ridicule; for he begins to think he is a martyr. I can promise you the full enjoyment of this pleasure, from one extremity of Europe to the other.

You say the king's coronation oath will not allow him to consent to any relaxation of the Catholic laws Why not relax the Catholic laws as well as the laws against Protestant dissenters? If one is contrary to his oath, the other must be so too; for the spirit of the oath is, to defend the church establishment; which the Quaker and the Presbyterian differ from as much or more than the Catholic; and yet his majesty has repealed the Corporation and Test Act in Ireland, and done more for the Catholics of both kingdoms than had been done for them since the Reformation. In 1778, the ministers said nothing about the royal conscience; in 1793* no conscience; in 1804 no conscience; the common feeling of humanity and justice then seem to have had their fullest influence upon the advisers of the crown; but in 1807-a year, I suppose, eminently fruitful in moral and religious scruples, (as some years are fruitful in apples, some in hops,)-it is contended by the well paid John Bowles, and by Mr. Perceval (who tried to be well paid), that that is now perjury which we had hitherto called policy and benevolence! Religious liberty has never made such a stride as under the reign of his present majesty ; nor is there any instance in the annals of our history, where so many infamous and damnable laws have been repealed as those against the Catholics which have been put an end to by him; and then, at the

I am as much disgusted with the nonsense of the Roman Catholic religion as you can be; and no man *These feelings of humanity and justice were at some who talks such nonsense shall ever tithe the product periods a little quickened by the representations, or 40,000 of the earth nor meddle with the ecclesiastical estab-armed volunteers.