God; the Catholic compounds with his duty to God his duty to the Church, and takes the will of the Church for the rule and measure of that duty. And hence it will follow, not,-as has sometimes invidiously been argued, that a Catholic is not to be credited on his oath,-but that, in estimating the value of his oath, attention must always be paid to the extent and effect of this reservation. If he knowingly swears in derogation of the rights of the Church, he is guilty of a grievous sin; if unknowingly, his conscience is unhappily snared; but in neither case, may the oath, which is in itself unlawful and null, be lawfully kept. The abuse of this principle has led to much sophistry in reasoning, and much bad faith in action: the subject undoubtedly opens a wide field of distinction and argument: but I hasten to the single conclusion (less strong than is warranted by the premises) that no Catholic, whether honest or not in intention, can bind himself to any engagement so decidedly at variance with this duty to the Church, as the support of a Protestant Establishment. This consideration, my Lords, weighs much on my mind: it weighed, I believe, on the minds of those eminent statesmen, who directed the counsels of Parliament at the time of the Revolution. They could find no security for the religion or liberties of the country, but in making the fabric of government throughout and completely Protestant; disqualifying all Catholics for the exercise of power, and taking the most effectual means to ensure their exclusion from all situations of public trust and authority. And why? be cause power, under the influence of the principle I have mentioned, in a country like this, would infallibly act in the long run to the injury of our existing establishments. The necessity of such a precau tion is admitted, by the framers of this bill, in the case of the King: his liberty of conscience in the choice of his faith is sacrificed to the safety of the constitution. Why give to the subject the confidence we refuse to the sovereign? But the chancellors of Great Britain and Ireland, and the lord-lieutenant of Ireland are still to be Protestants: and why not members of parliament, privy-counsellors, and governors abroad? I take these particular instances, on account of the glar. ing incongruity which they involve. You refuse to a Catholic the powers of the executive sovereignty; you allow him a share in the legislative, and make him a party in the enactment or rejection of laws which concern the Protestant re

ligion. You expect the sovereign to act by advice, and you place men in his council, who lie under a temptation of conscience to offer advice, which can neither be given nor followed without crime and danger. And while you disallow a Catholic king, you allow of Catholic governors representing his person, invested as ordinaries with the ecclesiastical authority of the crown, and exercising its jurisdiction and patronage, not, like the sovereign, through the intervention of a responsible minister, but immediately and personally; and that, in places remote from domestic controul, and where, from my official connections, I have reason to know, that the national religion stands often in need of all the support which can be derived from the countenance of a friendly government. On this particular point my feelings are more than ordinarily strong. If your Lordships knew the state of the colonies as I do, the tendencies to evil that would be strengthened, the tendencies to improvement that might be crushed, by governors hostile or even indifferent to the Protestant Faith, you would never sanction a measure, which could by possibility lead to appointments so fatal to its interests. Not only in the colonies, indeed, but in the whole system of govern ment at home and abroad, the introduction of so strange an anomaly would be followed by confusion, discord, and jealousy, if not more serious evils. But, my Lords, when I turn from the general administration of the empire to the consideration of Ireland, I see cause of still greater alarm. Of the particular dangers which threaten the Protestant Church in that island, should this measure pass into a law, I presume not to speak, in the presence of those who have the advantages, which I do not possess, of local observation and knowledge. But, forming my judgment on general principles and notorious facts, I cannot look without apprehension on such a change in its relative situation, so large and sudden a transfer of power and influence to an adverse party. I abstain from predictions which I trust would be frustrated by the over-ruling wisdom of Providence; but, humanly speaking, I should regard the passing of this bill as alarmingly ominous to that branch of the Established Church.

My lords, I am aware of the disadvan tages ander which I am speaking, in opposition to persons of the highest ability, as well as unquestioned integrity and attachment to the Church, who see in this measure an effectual cure for all the dis

sensions of the sister island. And I can. not deny, that the argument for concession would be strong, if it would have the effect of allaying the irritation of the Catholics, and preventing their farther demands. But what is there to justify an expectation of this kind? We know that little alteration could be made by concessions, however extensive, in the actual condition of the Roman Catholic population. The body at large would obtain no sensible addition of comfort, or wealth, by the removal of disabilities, which concern only the higher classes of the laity; and experiencing none of those advantages which they probably expect from emancipation, they would of course remain as discontented as before, unless they were taught to be satisfied by those on whom they are used to rely for the direction of their opinions and feelings. Now these we know are their clergy; of whom I speak with all possible respect; but regarding them as men, men honest in principle, yet subject to human passions,

I can never believe that they will confentedly relinquish the hope of restoring their church to that eminent station which they are firmly persuaded belongs to it by divine right, and is injuriously withheld from its possession by an intrusive and unhallowed usurpation. In this cause, ambition and interest would in their minds be identified with sense of duty. And can we imagine that, with such incentives to action, they would forbear to work with the power which the attachment of their Blocks, and still more the anthority of their office, have placed in their hands? Concession would thus be the signal of conflict, and not the seal of peace. Complaints of oppression, degradation, and insult, would again be re-echoed from every part of the island. Pretensions, which are now discreetly repressed, would then be advanced in Parliament: they would be forced on the representative by his constituents, to the satisfaction perhaps of the giddy and factions, to the disturbance of the wise and peaceable, who yet must yield in the end to the imperious power from which they hold their political exist ence. The arguments for these ulterior demands would soon be as familiar to your lordships, as those which are at present urged in favour of limited concessions: and, whatever might be their reception in parlament, they would excite much stronger sensations, and more active sympathies, in the Catholic population of Ireland.

without gratifying the wishes of the Ca tholic Clergy in their utmost extent. And, if my reasoning is correct, it applies in all its force to the measure immediately before us. The bill very properly combines the two objects of giving satisfaction to the Catholic and security to the Protest. ant. In fact, it concedes to the Catholic laity almost all they can venture to ask, and takes security from the Catholic Clergy against the abuse of this indulgence. The clergy are alarmed and offended: you have their remonstrances on your table: and thus, the instantaneous effect of a measure avowedly conciliatory in its object, is to irritate the feelings and excite the indignation of a body of men, whom, on account of their influence on the popular mind, it is peculiarly desirable to propitiate. The Protestant, on the other hand, will hardly be satisfied that such a contronl over the Catholic priesthood, though it may be vexatious, will be effective even upon them, much less that it will obviate the dangers which he apprehends from the admission of their laity to power.

Sach, my lords, are the results which I should expect from any scheme of concession adapted to the views of the laity, REMEMBRANCER, No. 29.

On this part of the subject, allow me, my lords, to say a few words. If it is proper so far to alter our laws as to recognize a Catholic Hierarchy, and legalize its intercourse with the Pope, we may fairly require some check on the nomination of Bishops and Deans, some power of regu lation, to prevent even the suspicion of improper communications from Rome. If rebellion were apprehended in Ireland at a time when we were on bad terms with the Pope, such powers might perhaps be of use. But the danger we apprehend from concession is not in open rebellion; it is rather in the changes which in process of time may be wrought in the constitution by the policy and influence of the Roman Catholics, when they have obtained an immediate concern in the legislation and government of the empire. For this, no wis dom of man could provide an adequate remedy. Could we restrain the priesthood in Ireland from abusing their spiritual power for political purposes, and rescue the families of the Catholic laity from the yoke of their confessors, or their youth from the schools of the Jesuits, the pretensions of the church would still form a difficulty, which could only be palliated by abjuration of any foreign authority inconsistent with the duties of a subject. Such oaths are always objectionable, because necessarily ambiguous in their terms. The Catholic, whose honesty would shrink from an engagement which be knew to be invalid and unlawful, may be entrapped by ambiguous language. I request your

lordships' attention to one clause of the oath required by this act. "And I do declare, that no Foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State, or Potentate, hath, or ought to have, any Jurisdiction, Power, Superiority, Pre-eminence, or Authority, Ecclesiastical or Spiritual, within this Realm, that in any manner or for any purpose conflicts or interferes with the duty of full and undivided allegiance, which by the laws of this realm is due to his Majesty, his Heirs and Successors, from all his subjects, or with the civil duty and obedience which is due to his courts, civil and ecclesiastical, in all matters concerning the legal rights of his subjects, or any of them." To determine the sense of this declaration, requires not only a knowledge of the mutual limits of civil and spiritual authority, but an intimate acquaintance with the power of our courts, ecclesiastical and civil, which few Protestants, and still fewer Catholics, have. Who, for instance, will tell me what are the powers assumed by the Pope in regard to the contracting or dissolving of marriages, dispen⚫sation of oaths, and the temporal consequences of excommunication; and how far they are reconcileable with the ordinances, usages, and statutes of this realm? And here I beg leave to cite the illustrious Clarendon, whose expressions I willingly substitute for my own.

"They who conceive that the Pope hath a temporal and spiritual power, in England, must explain what the full intent of that power is, that the king may discover whether he hath enough of either, as to preserve himself and the peace of the kingdom: and they who persist in his having a spiritual power, as most of the most moderate Catholics do, without imagining that it can in the least lessen their affection and loyalty to the king,which they do really intend to preserve inviolable, must as clearly explain and define what they understand that spiritual to be; which may otherwise be extended as far as the former intend the temporal and spiritual shall extend: nor in truth can they be secure of their own conscience, of which they think themselves in possession, until they fully know from those who entangle them with distinctions, what that spiritual power is, and what submission they are bound to pay to it; which seeming to be some obligation upon their conscience, it is fit they may be sure it cannot involve them in actions contrary to their duties, which they can hardly be secure of, and less satisfy others, till they absolutely disclaim any power to be in him at all, with referfence to England,"

I will trouble the house no longer. But your lordships will doubtless observe, that even the friends of the Catholics admit the inexpediency of conceding their claims, without that sort of security, which the clergy are most unwilling to grant. If, therefore, we resolve on concession, we are reduced to the alternative, either of making concession without any adequate security, or of exacting securities which the resistance of the parties on whom they are forced will compel us eventually to abandon. In this extraordinary state of embarrassment, we have a substantial proof of the impracticability of satisfying the Catholics, with due regard to the public safety;-a consideration, which should induce us to pause, before we consent to demolish the barriers raised by our ancestors for the preservation of a Church, which they had established by so many sacrifices and struggles. By their pious and rational policy, the liberties of the nation were in separably connected with the profession of a pure religion; and the soundness of their judgment is seen in the blessing of Providence on their councils. Your lordships, I trust, will not be induced by ingenious argument or powerful eloquence, to undo what they have done; to venture on a dangerous experiment, which leaves us without remedy, if it fails; or to break in upon that tried system of policy, which has hitherto secured to the country the enjoyment of every blessing, intellectual, moral, and social, in a degree altogether unparalleled in the history of any former period.

The Bishop of Chester said, that it was with reluctance he ever rose to trouble their Lordships at all. On a question, however, which appeared, to him at least, to involve the credit, the interest, if not the vital existence of the Church of England and Ireland, he felt himself imperiously called upon to address them. His opinions were the result of a very mature and anxious deliberation. For, after he had a seat in that House, he foresaw that he should have to vote on that very important question. He therefore considered the arguments for and against it; he weighed them in the balance of the sanctuary: and the result was, that he felt himself called upon, as a Protestant, and as a Bishop, to dissent from the second reading of the bill, and indeed to oppose every measure which might tend at present to promote Roman Catholic emancipation. His reasons for so doing he would state as briefly and as clearly as he possibly could.

The Roman Catholics were already in possession of a complete religious toleration, Religion was an affair betwixt God and a man's own conscience. No one had a right to interfere with, or restrain him here. The laws of God were superior to those of man; and every restraint upon the former he was justified, nay called upon by every means in his power to oppose. But it were a waste of time and words to go about to prove, that the Roman Catholics were already in possession of this complete religious toleration. The doors of the Roman Catholic places of worship were as open as the doors of our Protestant churches; and it might be asserted, without any fear of contradiction, that in this favoured land every one was at liberty to worship his God as his reason and his conscience prescribed. But it would be said, and here lies the jet of the argument, that a difference was made between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics; that civil immunities and privileges were given to the one which are denied to the other; and, as it appeared to him, for the wisest reasons. For, if an invariable connection were always observed between a certain set of religious opinions and a certain line of political conduct, the legisla tare, in that case, was justified in interfering. That such had invariably been the case with respect to the Roman Catholics, uniform experience and the tenor of history most incontestably demonstrated. here, if he were to produce instances from the earlier periods of our history, instances of the manner in which the Roman Catholies had always oppressed the Protestants when they had it in their power, such a mode of reasoning might be looked upon as unfair and illiberal. If, however, it could be proved that the same principles were maintained by the Roman Catholics now as then, if it could be shewn that not a single exceptionable tenet or dogma were ever reversed by lawful authority, if, in short, the Roman Catholic religion was still semper eadem, then the inference which he should draw from these premises must be looked upon as perfectly fair and conclusive. In entering upon this line of argument, he disclaimed all reflections upon any individuals whatever of the Roman Catholic persuasion. In no part of the kingdom was there a greater number of Roman Catholics than in the diocese of Chester; and happy was he, and proud to observe, that the most liberal, nay the most friendly intercourse had always subsisted between them. But his objections lay, not to the individuals, not to the respected individuals, but against the religion itself.

And

He did not doubt that the individuals would be desirous of fulfilling all that they had promised; but he more than doubted the ability they would have to put these their promises into execution. Thus, the Roman Catholic Church maintained, that all other Churches, and our's among the rest, were heretical, and, of course, that the members of it were without the pale of salvation. Now here he would ask, why was this tenet, a tenet so loudly and so generally declaimed against, a tenet which had ever formed a line of separation between the Protestant and the Roman Catholic; why was it still suffered to remain upon the statute book, as it were, of the Church; why was it still sanctioned by the canons and councils of that Church? Again, the Roman Catholic Church declared, that all provisoes, contracts, and promises, if contrary to the interests of that Church, were, ipso facto, null and void. Here again he would ask, why was this doctrine, if it never were meant to be acted upon, if it were a mere brutum fulmen, why was it still hanging over the heads of the Protestants; why was it not abrogated by that authority which imposed it? The Roman Catholics, besides, maintained, that the Pope was supreme head of the Church: the Protestants held that the King was supreme head of the Church. Now, as human conduct is influenced and directed by civil and religious motives, these principles must sometimes, nay frequently, counteract and conflict with each other; and, when they did, he could know little of the Roman Catholic religion who could doubt to which of the two the preference would be given. To say, therefore, that the doctrines of a Church had nothing to do with the principles and conduct of the members of that Church, was a mode of reasoning perfectly illusory and unworthy of those who had made use of it. Thus, would the opinion of any dissenting sect of our community be looked upon, by any foreign university or nation, as that which would be binding upon the consciences of the members of our Church, if it were contrary to the Articles, the Liturgy, and Canons of the Church? Would, also, the sentiments of any party in the State, upon a constitutional question, be considered as that which would be binding upon the great mass of the community, if they were contrary to the known laws of the land, and the express authority of our Acts of Parliament? And here the Right Rev. Prelate adverted to the observations of the noble Marquis who preceded him, and said, that this mode of reasoning received the greatest confirmation and weight from

what had actually taken place in this king dom between the years 1789 and 1791. At that time a declaration, or protestation, was drawn up by more than 2000 of the principal Roman Catholics in this kingdom; a declaration containing every thing which the most anxious or timorous Protestant could possibly require or expect. To this declaration was subjoined an oath, and it was intended that the declaration and oath should both be submitted to Parliament. But what was the result? The result was this, a letter was published by three of the Vicars Apostolic. In this letter they declared, that the people had nothing whatever to do in points of doctrine; they forbad their farther interference, and the result was, that the declaration and oath were withdrawn! And why did he mention this instance? Why, but to shew the commanding influence, the paramount authority which the hierarchy pos→ sessed over the minds of every true son of that Church? And we had just reason to apprehend, that what did take place on that occasion would, under similar circum. stances, occur again. Whilst, therefore, the Roman Catholic Church maintained the opinions he had mentioned, and there were many others of a similar nature, whilst it owed allegiance to, and acknowledged the supremacy of a foreign pontiff, whilst, in short, it held divisum imperium, he, for one, most conscientiously thought that we were justified by the spirit and tenor of our holy religion, by the soundest maxims of morals, by a due attention to our own interest and self-preservation, to withhold from the Roman Catholics that farther degree of political power which we had reason to think would, if granted, be turned against ourselves. This appeared to him the first and main objection: he did not think it was capable of being answered; of this, however, he was sure, that it never had been answered yet.

The argument which weighed next with him was, that the British constitution, as settled at the glorious æra of the Revolution, was, in all its parts, anti-Catholic, Thus, the King must be a Protestant of the Church of England: the members of both Houses of Parliament must be Pro testants also. Almost every subscription and declaration for admission to office, were all in their nature and spirit antiCatholic. Thus, the King, in summoning any Peer to Parliament, called upon him to deliberate concerning things which were necessary to the safety of the Church and State. Every Peer, also, before he took his place in the House, subscribed a decla ration which was, as strongly as words

could make it, anti-Catholic. Every clergymau, before he was instituted or licenced to a benefice, was obliged to declare, that no foreign prince had any jurisdiction in this realm. Every incumbent, also, was called upon by law to subscribe the Articles of the Church of England. Now the 37th Article declared, that the Bishop of Rome had no jurisdiction in this realm of England. If this bill, however, should pass, if a spiritual intercourse were allowed with the See of Rome, it was impossible that any clergyman could conscientiously declare, that no foreign prince hath or ought to have any spiritual authority in this kingdom. He did not know a greater anomaly in legislation than what the two oaths in the bill exhibited. In short, Protestantism was the foundation on which the British constitution was erected; the corner-stone, the key which bound the whole edifice together: pass this bill, grant Roman Catholic emancipation, and we undid all which was done for us at the period of the Revolution; we gave up that for which our ancestors sacrificed their blood and treasure. And we had no rea son to think, more particularly from what had taken place during the progress of the bill, that the Roman Catholics of Ireland would remain satisfied even with the at tainment of that. When we recollected all which had been done for them during the reign of our late ever-to-be-revered monarch, more particularly when we re collected the concessions which had been made to them in the year 1793, concessions which contained more than all which they then asked for, we must see that demand had grown by what it fed upon, and we had every reason to fear that if emancipa tion were granted, the Roman Catholics in Ireland would not remain satisfied even with Roman Catholic emancipation itself. These fears, he added, received consider able aggravation in his mind in conse quence of what had taken place in his own diocese, and in its immediate neighbour. hood. A large Roman Catholic seminary had lately been instituted at Stonyhurst, near Preston, in Lancashire; and however reluctantly, yet still be felt it due to the cause of truth and to their Lordships to state, that a number of persons of the order of Jesuits had been brought over to this place from Liege, in Germany, and that to them the care and education of the principal Ronian Catholic youths in this country had been entrusted. Besides, this order was regularly established at Stony. hurst by a papal rescript, and persons were ordained to that order under what is called "titulo paupertutis." If this bill,