they pretend to have found among us. If this be true, and that the Test must be delivered up by the very superiors appointed to defend it, the affair is already, in effect, at an end. What secret reasons those patrons may have given for such a return of brotherly love I shall not inquire; "For, O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united; for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel."

This method is strictly observed, even by our neighbours the Dutch, who are confessed to allow the fullest liberty of conscience of any Christian state, and yet are never known to admit any persons into civil offices, who do not conform to the legal worship. As to their military men, they are indeed not so scrupulous; being, by the nature of their government, under a necessity of hiring foreign troops of whatever religious denomination, upon every great emergency, and maiutaining no small number in time of peace.

This caution, therefore, of making one established faith seems to be universal, and founded upon the strongest reasons; the mistaken or affected zeal of obstinacy and enthusiasm having produced such a number of horrible destructive events throughout all Christendom. For, whoever begins to think the national worship is wrong in any important article of practice or belief, will, if he be serious, naturally have a zeal to make as many proselytes as he can: and a nation may possibly have a hundred different sects with their leaders, every one of which has an equal right to plead, that they must "obey God rather than man;" must 66 cry aloud and spare not;" must "lift up their voice like a trumpet."

This was the very case of England during the fanatic times. And against all this there seems to be no defence, but that of supporting one established form of doctrine and discipline, leaving the rest to a bare liberty of conscience, but without any maintenance or encouragement from the public.

Wherever this national religion grows so corrupt, or is thought to do so by a very great majority of landed people joined to the governing party, whether prince or senate, or both, it ought to be changed, provided the work may be done without blood or confusion. Yet, whenever such a change shall be made, some other establishments must succeed, although for the worse; allowing all deviations, that would break the union, to be only tolerated. In this sense, those who affirm that every law, which is contrary to the law of God, is void in itself, seem to be mistaken; for many laws in popish kingdoms and states, many more among the Turks, and perhaps not a few in other countries, are directly

against the divine laws; and yet, God knows, are very far from being void in the executive part.

and

Thus, for instance, if the three estates of parliament in England (whereof the lords spiritual, who represent the church, are one) should agree and obtain the royal assent to abolish episcopacy, together with the liturgy, and the whole frame of the English church, as burdensome, dangerous, and contrary to Holy Scripture ; that Presbytery, Anabaptism, Quakerism, Independency, Muggletonianism, Brownism, Familism, or any other subdivided sect among us, should be established in its place, without question, all peaceable subjects ought passively to submit, and the predominant sect must become the religion established; the public maintaining no other teachers, nor admitting any persons of a different religious profession into civil offices, at least if their intention be to preserve the nation in peace.

Supposing then that the present system of religion were abolished; and Presbytery, which I find stands the fairest, with its synods and classes, and all its forms and ceremonies, essential or circumstantial, were erected into the national worship; their teachers, and no others, could have any legal claim to be supported at the public charge, whether by stipends or tithes; and only the rest of the same faith to be capable of civil employments.

If there be any true reasoning in what I have laid down, it should seem that the project now in agitation for repealing the Test Act, and yet leaving the name of an establishment to the present national church, is altogether inconsistent, and may admit of consequences which those who are the most indifferent to any reliligion at all are possibly not aware of.

I presume whenever the Test shall be repealed, which obliges all men who enter into office under the crown to receive the sacrament according to the rites of the church of Ireland, the way to employments will immediately be left open to all dissenters (except Papists) whose consciences can suffer them to take the common oaths in such cases prescribed; after which they are qualified to fill any lay station in this kingdom, from that of chief governor to an exciseman.

Thus, of the three judges on each bench, the first may be a Presbyterian, the second a Free-will Baptist, and the third a Churchman; the lord chancellor may be an Independent; the revenues may be managed by seven commissioners of as many different sects; and the like of all other employments; not to mention the strong probability that the lawfulness of taking oaths may be revealed to the Quakers, who then will stand upon as good a foot for preferment as any other loyal subjects. It is obvious to imagine that, under such a motley administration of affairs, what a clashing there will be of interest and inclinations; what pullings and haulings backward and forward; what a zeal and bias in each religionist to advance his own tribe and depress the others. For I suppose nothing will be readier granted than that, how indifferent soever most men are in faith and morals, yet, whether out of artifice, natural complexion, or love of contradiction, none are more obstinate in maintaining their own opinions and worrying all who differ from them than those who publicly show the least sense either of religion or common honesty.

As to the latter, bishop Burnet tells us that the Presbyterians, in the fanatic times, professed themselves to be above morality; which, as we find in some of their writings, was numbered among the beggarly elements and accordingly at this day no scruples of conscience with regard to conformity are, in any trade or calling, inconsistent with the greatest fraud, oppressions, perjury, or any other vice.

This brings to my memory a passage in Montaigne, of a common prostitute, who, in the storming of a

town, when a soldier came up to her chamber and offered violence to her chastity, rather chose to venture her neck by leaping out of the window than suffer a rape; yet still continued her trade of lewdness while she had any customers left.

I confess that, in my private judgment, an unlimited permission of all sects whatsoever (except Papists) to enjoy employments would be less pernicious to the public than a fair struggle between two contenders; because, in the former case, such a jumble of principles might possibly have the effect of contrary poisons mingled together, which a strong constitution might perhaps be able for some time to survive.

But, however, I shall take the other and more probable supposition, that this battle for employments is to be fought only between the Presbyterians and those of the church yet established. I shall not enter into the merits of either side by examining which of the two is the better spiritual economy, or which is most suited to our civil constitution: but the question turns upon this point; when the Presbyterians shall have got their share of employments, (which must be one full half, or else they cannot look upon themselves as fairly dealt with,) I ask whether they ought not, by their own principles and by the strictest rules of conscience, to use the utmost of their skill, power, and influence, in order to reduce the whole kingdom to an uniformity in religion, both as to doctrine and discipline, most agreeable to the word of God. Wherein if they can succeed without blood, (as under the present disposition of things it is very possible they may,) it is to be hoped they will at last be satisfied: only I would warn them of a few difficulties. The first is, of compromising among themselves that important controversy about the old light and the new, which otherwise may, after this establishment, split them as wide as Papist and Protestant, Whig and Tory, or churchman and dissenter; and consequently the work will be to begin again; for in religious quarrels, it is of little moment how few or small the differences are, especially when the dispute is only about power. Thus the zealous Presbyterians of the north are more alienated from the established clergy than from the Romish priests; taxing the former with idolatrous worship as disguised Papists, ceremony-mongers, and may other terms of art; and this for a very powerful reason; because the clergy stand in their way, which the popish priests do not. Thus, I am assured that the quarrel between old and new light men is managed with more rage and rancour than any other dispute of the highest importance; and this, because it serves to lessen or increase their several congregations, from whom they receive their contri

butions.

Another difficulty which may embarrass the Presbyterians after their establishment will be, how to adjust their claim of the kirk's independency on the civil power, with the constitution of this monarchy? a point so delicate that it has often filled the heads of great patriots with dangerous notions of the church-clergy without the least ground of suspicion.

As to the Presbyterians allowing liberty of conscience to those episcopal principles when their own kirk shall be predominant, the writers are so universally agreed in the negative, as well as their practice during Oliver's reign, that I believe no reasonable churchman (who must then be dissenter) will expect it. I shall here take notice, that in the division of em ployments among the Presbyterians, after this approaching repeal of the Test Act, supposing them in proper time to have an equal share, the odds will be three or four to one on their side in any further scheme they may have toward making their religion national. For I reckon all those gentlemen sent over from England, whatever religion they profess, or have been edu

cated in, to be of that party; since it is no mark of prudence for any persons to oppose the current of a nation where they are in some sort only sojourners; unless they have it in direction.

If there be any maxim in politics not to be controlled, it must be the following: that those whose private interest is united with the interest of their country, supposing them to be of equal understanding with the rest of their neighbours, will heartily wish that the nation should thrive. Out of these are indubitably excepted all persons who are sent from another kingdom to be employed in places of profit or power; because they cannot possibly bear any affection to the place where they sojourn, even for life, their sole business being to advance themselves by following the advice of their principals. I except likewise those persons who are taken into office, although natives of the land; because they are greater gainers, while they keep their offices, than they could possibly be by mending the miserable condition of their country.

I except, thirdly, all hopers, who, by balancing accounts with themselves, turn the scale on the same side; because the strong expectation of a good certain salary will outweigh the loss by bad rents, received out of the lands in moneyless times.

If my lords the bishops, who I hear are now employed in a scheme for regulating the conduct and maintenance of the inferior clergy, shall, in their wisdom, and piety, and love of the church, consent to this repeal of the Test, I have not the least doubt that the whole reverend body will cheerfully submit to their spiritual fathers, of whose paternal tenderness for their welfare they have found so many amazing instances.

:

I am not, therefore, under the least concern about the clergy on this account. They will (for some time) be no great sufferers by this repeal; because I cannot recollect among all our sects any one that gives latitude enough to take the oaths required at an institution to a church-living and until that bar shall be removed, the present episcopal clergy are safe for two years. Although it may be thought somewhat unequal that, in the northern parts, where there may be three dissenters to one churchman, the whole revenue shall be engrossed by him, who has so small a part of the cure.

It is true, indeed, that this disadvantage, which the dissenters at present lie under, of a disability to receive church preferments, will be easily remedied by the repeal of the Test. For the dissenting teachers are under no incapacity of accepting civil and military employments; wherein they agree perfectly with the popish clergy, among whom great cardinals and prelates have been commanders of armies, chief ministers, knights of many orders, ambassadors, secretaries of state, and in most high offices under the crown; although they assert the indelible character, which no secretaries among us did ever assume. But that many, both Presbyterians and Independents, commanders as well as private soldiers, were professed teachers in the time of their dominion, is allowed by all. Cromwell himself was a preacher; and has left us one of his sermons in print, exactly in the same style and manner with those of our modern Presbyterian teachers ; so was colonel Howard, sir George Downing, and several others, whose names are on record. I can therefore see no reason why a painful Presbyterian teacher, as soon as the Test shall be repealed, may not be privileged to hold, along with the spiritual office and stipend, a commission in the army or the civil list in commendam: for as I take it, the church of England is the only body of Christians which in effect disqualifies those who are employed to preach its doctrine from sharing in the civil power further than as senators; yet this was a privilege begun in times of

popery, many hundred years before the Reformation, and woven with the very institution of our limited monarchy.

There is indeed another method whereby the stipends of dissenting teachers may be raised and the farmer much relieved; if it should be thought proper to reward a people so deserving and so loyal by their principles. Every bishop, upon the vacancy of a church-living, can sequester the profits for the use of the next incumbent. Upon a laps of half a year the donation falls to the archbishop, and after a full year to the crown during pleasure; therefore it would be no hardship for any clergyman alive, if (in those parts of Ireland where the number of sectaries much exceeds that of the conformists) the profits, when sequestered, might be applied to the support of the dissenting teacher, who has so many souls to take care of; whereby the poor tenants would be much relieved in those hard times, and in a better condition to pay their rents. But there is another difficulty in this matter, against which a remedy does not so readily occur. For supposing the Test Act repealed, and the dissenters, in consequence, fully qualified for all secular employments, the question may still be put, whether those of Ireland will be often the persons on whom they shall be bestowed; because it is imagined there may be another seminary [Scotland] in view, more numerous and more needy, as well as more meriting, and more easily contented with such low offices; which some nearer neighbours hardly think it worth stirring from their chimney sides to obtain. And I am told, it is the common practice of those who are skilled in the management of bees, that when they see a foreign swarm at soine distance approaching with an intention to plunder their hives, these artists have a trick to divert them into some neighbouring apiary, there to make what havoc they please. This I should not have hinted, if I had not known it already to have gotten ground in many suspecting heads; for it is the peculiar talent of this nation to see dangers afar off; to all which I can only say, that our native Presbyterians must, by pains and industry, raise such a fund of merit as will answer to a birth six degrees more to the north. If they cannot arrive at this perfection, as several of the established church have compassed by indefatigable pains, I do not well see how their affairs will much mend by repealing the Test: for to be qualified by law to accept an employment, and yet to be disqualified in fact, as it will much increase the mortification, so it will withdraw the pity of many among their well-wishers, and utterly deprive them of that merit they have so long made, of being a loyal, true, Protestant people, persecuted only for religion.

If this happen to be their case, they must wait maturity of time, until they can, by prudent gentle steps, make their faith become the religion established in the nation; after which, I do not in the least doubt that they will take most effectual methods to secure their power against those who must then be dissenters in their turn: whereof, if we may form a future opinion from present times, and the dispositions of dissenters, who love to make a thorough reformation, the number and qualities will be very inconsiderable.

Thus I have with the utmost sincerity, after long thinking, given my judgment upon this arduous affair; but with the utmost deference and submission to public wisdom and power.

QUERIES RELATING TO THE SACRAMENTAL TEST, 1732. WHETHER hatred and violence between parties in a state be not more inflamed by different views of

interest than by the greater or lesser differences between them, either in religion or government?

Whether it be any part of the question at this time, which of the two religions is worse, popery or fanaticism; or not rather which of the two (having both the same good-will) is in the hopefulest condition to ruin the church?

Whether the sectaries, whenever they come to prevail, will not ruin the church as infallibly and effectually as the Papists?

Whether the prevailing sectaries could allow liberty of conscience to dissenters, without belying all their former practice, and almost all their former writings?

Whether many hundred thousand Scotch Presbyterians are not fully as virulent against the episcopal church as they are against the Papists; or as they would have us think the Papists are against them?

Whether the Dutch, who are most distinguished for allowing liberty of conscience, do ever admit any persons, who profess a different scheme of worship from their own, into civil employments, although they may be forced by the nature of their government to receive mercenary troops of all religions?

Whether the dissenters ever pretended, until of late years, to desire more than a bare toleration?

Whether, if it be true, what a sorry pamphleteer asserts, who lately writ for repealing the Test, that the dissenters in this kingdom are equally numerous with the churchmen, it would not be a necessary point of prudence, by all proper and lawful means, to prevent their further increase?

The great argument given, by those whom they call low-churchmen, to justify the large tolerations allowed to dissenters, has been, that by such indulgences the rancour of those sectaries would gradually wear off, many of them would come over to us, and their parties in a little time crumble to nothing.

Query, Whether, if what the above pamphleteer asserts, that the sectaries are equal in number with conformists, be true, it does not clearly follow that those repeated tolerations have operated directly contrary to what those low-church politicians pretended to foresee and expect?

Whether any clergyman, however dignified or distinguished, if he think his own profession most agreeable to Holy Scripture and the primitive church, can really wish in his heart, that all sectaries should be upon an equal foot with the churchmen, in the point of civil power and employments?

Whether episcopacy, which is held by the church to be a divine and apostolical institution, be not a fundamental point of religion, particularly in that essential one of conferring holy orders?

Whether, by necessary consequences, the several expedients among the sectaries to constitute their teachers are not absolutely null and void?

Whether the sectaries will ever agree to accept ordination only from bishops?

Whether the bishops and clergy will be content to give up episcopacy, as a point indifferent, without which the church can well subsist?

Whether that great tenderness toward sectaries, which now so much prevails, be chiefly owing to the fears of popery, or to that spirit of atheism, deism, scepticism, and universal immorality, which all good men so much lament?

Granting popery to have many more errors in religion than any one branch of the sectaries, let us examine the actions of both, as they have each affected the peace of these kingdoms, with allowance for the short time which the sectaries had to act in, who are in a manner but of yesterday. The Papists in the time of king James II. used all endeavours to establish their superstition, wherein they failed by the united power

of English Church Protestants, with the prince of Orange's assistance. But it cannot be asserted that these bigoted Papists had the least design to oppose or murder their king, much less to abolish kingly government; nor was it their interest or inclination to attempt

either.

On the other side, the puritans, who had almost from the beginning of queen Elizabeth's reign been a perpetual thorn in the church's side, joining with the Scotch enthusiasts in the time of king Charles I., were the principal cause of the Irish rebellion and masacre, by distressing that prince, and making it impossible for him to send over timely succours. And after that prince had satisfied his parliament in every single point to be complained of, the same sectaries, by poisoning the minds and affections of the people, with the most false and wicked representations of their king, were able, in the compass of a few years, to embroil the three nations in a bloody rebellion, at the expense of many thousand lives; to turn the kingly power into anarchy; to murder their prince in the face of the world; and (in their own style) to destroy the church, root and branch.

The account therefore stands thus:-The Papists aimed at one pernicious act, which was to destroy the Protestant religion; wherein, by God's mercy and the assistance of our glorious king William, they absolutely failed. The sectaries attempted the three most infernal actions that could possibly enter into the hearts of men forsaken by God; which were, the murder of a most pious king, the destruction of the monarchy, and the extirpation of the church; and succeeded in them all. Upon which I put the following queries: Whether any of those sectaries have ever yet, in a solemn public manner, renounced any one of those principles upon which their predecessors then acted?

Whether, considering the cruel persecutions of the episcopal church during the course of that horrid rebellion, and the consequences of it until the happy Restoration, it is not manifest, that the persecuting spirit lies so equally divided between the Papists and the sectaries, that a feather would turn the balance on either side.

And therefore, lastly, Whether any person of common understanding, who professes himself a member of the church established, although perhaps with little inward regard to any religion, (which is too often the case,) if he loves the peace and welfare of his country, can, after cool thinking, rejoice to see a power placed again in the hands of so restless, so ambitious, and so merciless a faction, to act over all the same parts a second time?

Whether the candour of that expression, so frequent of late in sermons and pamphlets, of the strength and number of the Papists in Ireland, can be justified? for as to their number, however great, it is always magnified in proportion to the zeal or politics of the speaker or writer; but it is a gross imposition upon common reason to terrify us with their strength. For popery, under the circumstances it lies in this kingdom, although it be offensive and inconvenient enough from the consequences it has to increase the rapine, sloth, and ignorance, as well as poverty of the natives, is not properly dangerous in that sense, as some would have us take it; because it is universally hated by every party of a different religious profession. It is the contempt of the wise; the best topic for clamours of designing men, but the real terror only of fools. The landed popish interest in England far exceeds that among us, even in proportion to the wealth and extent of each kingdom. The little that remains here is daily dropping into Protestant hands, by purchase or descent; and that affected complaint of counterfeit converts, will fall with the cause of it in half a generation, unless it

be raised or kept alive as a continual fund of merit and eloquence. The Papists are wholly disarmed: they have neither courage, leaders, money, nor inclinations to rebel: they want every advantage which they formerly possessed to follow their trade; and wherein, even with those advantages, they always miscarried: they appear very easy and satisfied under that connivance, which they enjoyed during the whole last reign; nor even scrupled to reproach another party, under which they pretend to have suffered so much severity.

Upon these considerations, I must confess to have suspended much of my pity toward the great dreaders of popery, many of whom appear to be hale, strong, active young men, who, as I am told, eat, drink, and sleep heartily; and are very cheerful (as they have exceeding good reason) upon all other subjects. However, I cannot too much commend the generous concern which our neighbours, and others who come from the same neighbourhood, are so kind to express for us upon this account, although the former be farther removed from the danger of popery by twenty leagues of salt water; but this I fear, is a digression.

When an artificial report was raised here many years ago, of an intended invasion by the pretender, (which blew over after it had done its office,) the dissenters argued in their talk and in their pamphlets after this manner, applying themselves to those of the church :Gentlemen, if the pretender had landed, as the law now stands, we durst not assist you; and therefore, unless you take off the Test, whenever you shall happen to be invaded in earnest, if we are desired to take up arms in your defence, our answer shall be, Pray, gentlemen, fight your own battles, we will lie by quietly; conquer your enemies by yourselves, if you can; we will not do your drudgery." This way of reasoning I have heard from several of their chiefs and abettors, in a hundred conversations; and have read it in twenty pamphlets and I am confident it will be offered again, if the project should fail to take off the Test.

Upon which piece of oratory and reasoning I form the following query: Whether in case of an invasion from the pretender, (which is not quite so probable as from the grand signior,) the dissenters can, with prudence and safety, offer the same plea, except they shall have made a previous stipulation with the invaders? And whether the full freedom of their religion and trade, their lives, properties, wives and children, are not, and have not always been reckoned, sufficient motives for repelling invasion, especially in our sectaries, who call themselves the truest Protestants, by virtue of their pretended or real fierceness against popery?

Whether omitting or neglecting to celebrate the day of the martyrdom of the blessed king Charles I., enjoined by act of parliament, can be justly reckoned a particular and distinguishing mark of good affection to the present government?

Whether, in those churches where the said day is observed, it will fully answer the intent of the said act, if the preacher shall commend, excuse, palliate, or extenuate the murder of that royal martyr, and place the guilt of that horrid rebellion, with all its consequences, the following usurpations, the entire destruction of the church, the cruel and continual persecutions of those who could be discovered to profess its doctrines with the ensuing Babel of fanaticism, to the account of that blessed king; who, by granting the Petition of Right, and passing every bill that could be asked for the security of the subject, had, by the confession of those wicked men before the war began, left them nothing more to demand?

Whether such a preacher as I have named, (whereof there have been more than one, not many years past,

even in the presence of viceroys,) who takes that course as a means for promotion, may not be thought to step a little out of the common road, in a monarchy where the descendants of that most blessed martyr have reigned to this day?

I ground the reason of making these queries on the title of the act; to which I refer the reader.

SOME FEW THOUGHTS CONCERNING THE REPEAL OF THE TEST.

THOSE of either side who have written upon this subject of the Test, in making or answering objections, seem to fail, by not pressing sufficiently the chief point upon which the controversy turns. The arguments used by those who write for the church are very good in their kind; but will have little force under the present corruptions of mankind, because the authors treat this subject tanquam in republicâ Platonis, et non in fæce Romuli.

It must be confessed that, considering how few employments of any consequence fall to the share of those English who are born in this kingdom, and those few very dearly purchased at the expense of conscience, liberty, and all regard for the public good, they are not worth contending for; and if nothing but profit were in the case, it would hardly cost me one sigh, when I should see those few scraps thrown among every species of fanatics, to scuffle for among themselves.

And this will infallibly be the case after repealing the Test. For every subdivision of sect will, with equal justice, pretend to have a share; and, as it is usual with sharers, will never think they have enough while any pretender is left unprovided. I shall not except the Quakers; because, when the passage is once let open for sects to partake in public emoluments, it is very probable the lawfulness of taking oaths, and wearing carnal weapons, may be revealed to the brotherhood; which thought, I confess, was first put into my head by one of the shrewdest Quakers in this kingdom.b

OBSERVATIONS

ON HEYLIN'S HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIANS.
WRITTEN BY THE DEAN IN THE BEGINNING
OF THE BOOK.

THIS book, by some errors and neglects in the style, seems not to have received the author's last correction. It is written with some vehemence, very pardonable in one who had been an observer and a sufferer, in England, under that diabolical fanatic sect, which then destroyed church and state. But by comparing, in my memory, what I have read in other histories, he neither aggravates nor falsifies any facts. His partiality appears chiefly in setting the actions of Calvinists in the strongest light, without equally dwelling on those of the other side; which, however, to say the truth, was not his proper business. And yet he might have spent some more words on the inhuman massacre of Paris, and other parts of France, which no provocation (and yet the king had the greatest possible)

The Quakers were more likely to admit this relaxation of their tenets.

b The Quaker hinted at by Dr. Swift was Mr. George Rooke, a lineodraper. In a letter to Mr. Pope, Aug. 30, 1716, Dr. Swift says. There is a young ingenious Quaker in this town who writes verses to his mistress, not very correct, but in a strain purely what a poetical Quaker should do, commending her look and habit, &c. It gave me a hint, that a set of Quaker pastorals might succeed, if our friend Gay would fancy it. This hint was acted, upon by Gay, who wrote the "Espousal, a sober Eclogue, between two of the people called Quakers," in which their peculiarity is well delineated.

It is well known that the first conquerors of this kingdom were English Catholics, subjects to English Catholic kings, from whom, by their valour and success, they obtained large portions of land, given them as a reward for their many victories over the Irish; to which merit our brethren the dissenters, of any denomination whatsoever, have not the least pretension.

It is confessed that the posterity of those first victorious Catholics were often forced to rise in their own defence against new colonies from England, who treated them like mere native Irish, with innumerable oppressions, depriving them of their lands, and driving them by force of arms into the most desolate parts of the kingdom; till, in the next generation, the children of these tyrants were used in the same manner by new English adventurers; which practice continued for many centuries. But it is agreed on all hands that no insurrections were ever made, except after great oppressions by fresh invaders: whereas all the rebellions of Puritans, Presbyterians, Independents, and other sectaries, constantly began before any provocations were given, except that they were not suffered to change the government in church and state, and seize both into their own hands; which, however, at last they did, with the murder of their king, and of many thousands of his best subjects.

The Catholics were always defenders of monarchy, as constituted in these kingdoms; whereas our brethren, the dissenters, were always republicans, both in principle and practice.

It is well known that all the Catholics of these kingdoms, both priests and laity, are true Whigs, in the best and most proper sense of the word: bearing as well in their hearts as in their outward profession an entire royalty to the royal house of Hanover, in the person and posterity of George II., against the Pretender and all his adherents; to which they think themselves bound in gratitude, as well as conscience, by the lenity wherewith they have been treated since the death of queen Anne, so different from what they suffered in the four last years of that princess, during the administration of that wicked minister the earl of Oxford.

The Catholics of this kingdom humbly hope that they have at least as fair a title as any of their brother dissenters to the appellation of Protestants. They have always protested against the selling, dethroning, or murdering their kings; against the usurpations and avarice of the court of Rome; against Deism, Atheism, Socinianism, Quakerism, Muggletonianism, Fanaticism, Brownism, as well as against all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and heretics. Whereas the title of Protestants, assumed by the whole herd of dissenters (except our