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APPENDIX characteristic of whose institute is an inviolable obligation to extend beyond all limits, the despotic authority of the Roman pontiffs; we have seen, say, that order suppressed, banished, covered with deserved infamy, in three powerful kingdoms;b and we see, at this moment, their credit declining in other Roman catholic states. We see, in several popish countries, and more especially in France, the holy scriptures more generally in the hands of the people than in former times. We have seen the senate of Venice, not many months ago, suppressing, by an express edict, the officers of the inquisition in all the small towns, reducing their power to a shadow in the larger cities, extending the liberty of the press; and all this in a steady opposition to the repcated remonstrances of the court of Rome. These, and many other facts that might be collected here, facts of a recent date, shew that the essential spirit of popery, which is a spirit of unlimited despotism in the pretended head of the church, and a spirit of blind submission and superstition in its members, is rather losing than gaining ground, even in those countries that still profess the religion of Rome.

If this be the case, it would seem, indeed, very strange, that popery, which is losing ground at home, should be gaining it abroad, and acquiring new strength, as some imagine, even in protestant countries. This, at first sight, must appear a paradox of the most enormous size; and it is to be hoped that it will continue to appear such, upon the closest examination. While the spirit and vigour of popery are actually declining on the continent, I would fondly hope, that the apprehensions of some worthy persons, with respect to its progress in England, are without foundation. To account for the growth of popery, in an age of light, would

b France, Spain, and Portugal.

This edict was issued out in the month of February, 1767.

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be incumbent upon me, if the fact were true. Un- APPENDIX til this fact be proved, I may be excused from undertaking such a task. The famous story of the golden tooth, that employed the laborious researches of physicians, chemists, and philosophers, stands upon record, as a warning to those who are over hasty to account for a thing which has no existence. My distance from England, during many years past, renders me, indeed, less capable of judging concerning the state of popery, than those who are upon the spot. I shall therefore confine myself to a few reflections upon this interesting subject.

When it is said that popery gains ground in England, one of the two following things must be meant by this expression; either that the spirit of the established and other reformed churches is leaning that way; or that a number of individuals are made proselytes, by the seduction of popish emissaries, to the Romish communion. With respect to the established church, I think that a candid and accurate observer must vindicate it from the charge of a spirit of approximation to Rome. We do not live in the days of a Laud; nor do his successors seem to have imbibed his spirit. I do not hear that the claims of church power are carried high in the present times, or that a spirit of intolerance characterizes the episcopal hierarchy. And though it were to be wished, that the case of subscription were to be made easier to good and learned men, whose scruples deserve indulgence, and were better accommodated to what is known to be the reigning theology among the episcopal clergy, yet it is straining matters too far to allege the demand of subscription as a proof that the established church is verging toward popery. As to the protestant dissenting churches in England and Ireland, they stand so avowedly clear of all imputations of this nature, that it is utterly unnecessary

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APPENDIX to vindicate them on this head. If any thing of this kind is to be apprehended from any quarter within the pale of the reformation, it is from the quarter of fanaticism, which, by discrediting free inquiry, crying down human learning, and encouraging those pretended illuminations and impulses which give imagination an undue ascendant in religion, lays weak minds open to the seductions of a church, which has always made its conquests by wild visions and false miracles, addressed to the passions and fancies of men. Cry down reason, preach up implicit faith, extinguish the lamp of free inquiry, make inward experience the test of truth; and then the main barriers against popery will be removed. Persons who follow this method possibly may continue protestants; but there is no security against their becoming papists, if the occasion is presented. Were they placed in a scene where artful priests and enthusiastic monks could play their engines of conversion, their protestant faith would be very likely to fail.

If by the supposed growth of popery be meant, the success of the Romish emissaries in making proselytes to their communion, here again the question turns upon a matter of fact, upon which I cannot venture to pronounce. There is no doubt but the Romish hierarchy carries on its operations under the shade of an indulgent connivance; and it is to be feared that its members are wiser, i. e. more artful and zealous, in their generation, than the children of light. The establishment of the protestant religion inspires, it is to be feared, an indolent security into the hearts of its friends. Ease and negligence are the fruits of prosperity; and this maxim extends even to religion. It is not unusual to see a victorious general sleep upon his laurels, and thus give advantage to an eneiny, whom adversity renders vigilant. All good and true protestants will heartily wish that this were other

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wise. They will be sincerely afflicted at any de- APPENDIX cline that may happen in the zeal and vigilance that ought ever to be employed against popery and popish emissaries, since they can never cease to consider popery as a system of wretched superstition and political despotism, and must particularly look upon popery in the British isles as pregnant with the principles of disaffection and rebellion, and as at invariable enmity with our religious liberty and our happy civil constitution. But still there is reason to hope, that popery makes very little progress, notwithstanding the apprehensions that have been entertained on this subject. The insidious publications of a Taafe and a Philips, who abuse the terms of charity, philanthropy, and humanity, in their flimsy apologies for a church whose tender mercies are known to be cruel, have alarmed many well meaning persons. But it is much more wise, as well as noble, to be vigilant and steady against the enemy, than to take the alarm at the smallest of his motions, and to fall into a panic, as if we were conscious of our weakness. Be that as it will, I return to my first principle, and am still persuaded, that the protestant church, and its prevailing spirit, are at this present time, as averse to popery, as they were at any period since the reformation, and that the thriving state of learning and philosophy is adapted to confirm them in this well founded aversion. Should it even be granted, that proselytes to popery have been made among the ignorant and unwary, by the emissaries of Rome, this would by no means invalidate what I here maintain; though it may justly be considered as a powerful incentive to the zeal and vigilance of rulers temporal and spiritual, of the pastors and people of the reformed churches, against the encroachments of Rome.

The author of the Confessional complains, and perhaps justly, of the bold and public appearance

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APPENDIX which popery has of late made in England. "The papists, says he, strengthened and animated by an influx of jesuits, expelled even from popish countries, for crimes and practices of the worst complexion, open public mass houses, and affront the laws of this protestant kingdom in other respects, not without insulting some of those who endeavour to check their insolence. And we are told, with the utmost coolness and composure, that popish bishops go about here, and exercise every part of their function, without offence, and without observation." This is, indeed, a circumstance that the friends of reformation and religious lib. erty cannot behold without offence; I say, the friends of religious liberty; because the maintenance of all liberty, both civil and religious, depends on circumscribing popery within proper bounds; since popery is not a system of innocent speculative opinions, but a yoke of despotisın, an enormous mixture of princely and priestly tyranny, designed to enslave the consciences of mankind, and to destroy their most sacred and invaluable rights. But, at the same time, I do not think we can, from this public appearance of popery, rationally conclude that it gains ground; much less, as the author of the Confessional suggests, that the two hierarchies, i. e. the episcopal and the popish, are growing daily more and more into a resemblance of each other. The natural reason of this bold appearance of popery is the spirit of toleration, that has been carried to a great height, and has rendered the execution of the laws against papists, in the time past, less rigorous and severe.

How it may be proper to act with regard to the growing insolence of popery, is a matter that must be left to the wisdom and clemency of government. Rigour against any thing that bears the name of a religion, gives pain to a candid and generous mind; and it is certainly more eligible to