hereditary and elected guardians. For services which might thus be rendered it is but the mockery of a compensation, to coalesce with a party, insufficient when in power, except for an insulated act which may be overrated, and frequently vexatious when out of power. Neither ought gratitude for a great, but certainly limited, service, to be carried to such a point of apparent obsequiousness, as to induce those, who may consider thomselves under its obligation, to join in the illiberal clamour raised against the clergy, for their exertions in a cause, in which, whether they have, or can have, greater interest than their fellow-protestants or not, they have certainly as good a judgment, and possibly one which need not fear comparison with that of the wisest of their opponents. To say the least, it is hardly decorous even to appear to adopt the principle of a sect, infamous, as well as notorious, for its brutal intolerance; and to deny to the authorized Christian instructors of the empire, that right of being heard by the legislature, on a subject peculiarly within their province, which is secured to some in the class of the humblest subjects of the British dominions on any.

The reflexions which have thus naturally arisen from the preceding inquiry, whatever their aspect, have so little of hostility in them, that it is the most fervent wish and prayer of him who has felt

himself bound to make them, that the subjects of a system, against which singly his antipathy is directed, may discover the fallacy and iniquity of that system; and by a generous, but certainly difficult, effort, effect for themselves, as it is in their power to do, the real EMANCIPATION which they need. Let them examine the subject impartially and resolutely; and the event, with the Divine Blessing, will be, that their chains, their worst chains, their spiritual chains, will fall at their feet; and, besides the best of blessings, the spiritual ones suited to such a deliverance, they will no longer feel it a point of conscience to be bad subjects; but while they give to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, they will give to Godnot to the Pope-the things which are God's. It will then be no longer necessary to treat them as more than half foreigners: but the capacity and performance of an undivided obedience will open the door to every privilege which a grateful nation can grant to faithful subjects; and all their fellow-subjects, who understand their duty, will embrace them with cordial affection as their brethren*. There is not a future fact, of which I feel

*I do not feel it necessary to accommodate this or any of the preceding passages, to the papal revolution of 1829, because I wish it to stand as a record of an unchanged opinion; and it remains yet to be proved by the event, even as far as that fallacious argument may be allowed, whether any

better authority to be satisfied, and in the view of which I believe most intelligent persons will unite with me, than this-that were the whole of the

thing like the same result can be effected in any other way, or in the unchristian and unphilosophical one which has been attempted.

Were it not too much to require, I should be glad, that, on this subject, the legislative utterers of some such expressions as the following, not much more than a year old, would be content not to dismiss them entirely from their recollection—The regeneration of Ireland—Religious discord no more, and the most valuable benefit rendered by Parliament for the last century— A pledge of tranquillity to be remembered at solemn meetings, and hours of conviviality-Train of blessings, sursum corda! - Blessings of domestic peace and universal harmony-March of intellect a security-Benefit of increased vigilance in the pastors of the national church-(such as by parity of circumstances would be derived to a shepherd and his flock by a gratuitous introduction of wolves into the fold.) And certainly the least grateful reception of the Protestant petitions was that, which in the lower house deduced from their cogency and number an argument for the safety with which they might be denied. Had the opponents been as wise as the defendants of the papal claims, they would have petitioned, not against, but for them.

But perhaps disappointment in the object proposed is the most suitable rebuke which Providence can give to measures avowedly originating in the principles of General Expediency-principles, which have provoked the strong and victorious reprobation of the eloquent Mr. Gisborne, in his Principles of Moral Philosophy, &c., 1798. In page 23 of that edition, he writes-Persons of the opposite description' (to well-disposed minds) 'who may find it convenient to affect a sense of virtue, will gladly profess a principle which authorises them to depart, at their own discretion, from the most positive rules of morality; teaches them that every unbending precept, however generally received, is founded on false and contracted views of things; and thus promises them a plausible and never-failing defence for any measures, which they may chuse to adopt.' Again, page 38-The supreme magistrate' (and the argument applies to any inferior officer in power) 'can scarcely meet with a principle more likely to mislead himself; nor need he wish for one more convenient, when he is desirous of imposing upon others. If he be a good man, conscious of the purity of

records of history, ecclesiastic in particular, intervening between the establishment of Christianity and the present time, annihilated, and nothing

his views, and strongly impressed with a conviction of the blessings which would arise from the success of his plans; how easily will it vindicate to his own satisfaction any line of conduct which he may wish to pursue! If he be ambitious and designing, it will never fail to supply him with specious reasoning, with which he may dazzle or blind a large proportion at least of his subjects, and prevent them from opposing with firmness and vigour those schemes against the public liberty, which, either by bold encroachment or by insidious machinations, he is attempting to carry into effect.' In page 41, he asks 'Was it not' (the principle of Expediency) 'the foundation of the abominable doctrines of the Jesuits; of their intriguing counsels as politicians, their unchristian compliances as Missionaries? The Christian Observer likewise, vol. iii., for 1804, pp. 95, &c., in the Review of a Fast Sermon, by Robert Hall, in which that energetic writer combats what the Reviewer justly calls the fashionable but mischievous system of expediency,' introduces the author as affirming, 'Should it' (the principal of expediency) 'ever become popular,' &c., 'no imagination can pourtray, no mind can grasp its horrors.'

The Act, which received the royal assent April 13, 1829, from that time became a law of the realm, and it is, doubtless, a Christian duty conscien tiously to submit to it as such, and as a national judgment justly merited But it is no Christian duty not to consider a judgment as an evil—it is no Christian duty to believe, that an Act of Parliament alters the moral quality of any measure, and that, by its magic touch, all that treachery and artifice, that utter disregard to religion, that contempt of public opinion and petition, with which the measure in the act of carrying it was distinguished, are annihilated and converted into something justifiable and even laudable. This will never be a Christian duty, till it is such to call evil good and good evil. Never will it be a duty to regard this papal act with any other feelings substantially than those with which Christians regarded the acts of the parliaments of Mary I. For submission, we need not the officious and interested admonition of those who have aided and abetted in inflicting the judgment: submission is not approbation.

I wish those individuals, who defend their approbation and support of the papal measure, or even neutrality, by professing strong, and it may be

remaining but the authorized records of that religion, the Scriptures of the New Covenant, not an individual of those, who now adhere with the most bigoted and pertinacious attachment to the dogmas and practices of the Latin church, would deduce from such source any system of religion in almost the slightest degree resembling that which he now embraces; and, were such a system, in that insulated way, proposed to him, could or would do otherwise than, both at the instant and after deliberation, reject the absurd and pernicious compound, as most opposite, and most disgraceful, to the pure religion, which the authentic documents of Christianity exhibit. And what is there in the intervening documents to make the difference? Many of these, indeed, we are far from distrusting or undervaluing; but we would gladly surrender them all, provided the rest were abandoned, provided we could be fairly rid of the pes

sincere, abhorrence of papism, may not be found to elevate with one hand what they depress with the other. If they have advocated the cause by representing it as simply a political question, and yet reprobate the interference particularly of Christian ministers in questions of that description, they fall themselves under the lash of their own censure; and that which they attempt, most unjustly, to inflict upon their opponents for the imputed absence of religious considerations in their opposition to the act in question, is, to say the least of it, a charge not distinguished by consistency. But of the whole transaction, whatever be its merits or demerits, there are many, I believe, who agree with me, that they are all divided between the deceivers and the deceived.