France, Spain, Portugal, and their Colonies; from Germay, Russia, and even Canada, at the western termination of the British empire, furnish unanswerable motives and precedents for removing them from the heart of the empire without delay, where they can do infinitely greater mischief than in the extremities. And, indeed, the removal of these prime satellites of the See of Rome, the youngest, and the favourite children of the Pope; and also of the other monkish orders too, would not be unacceptable to the Romish Prelates and Secular Clergy. The Prelates dislike them, as being exempt from their jurisdiction and controul; and the Clergy, as intruders into their parishes and benefices; while the restless, domineering spirit, and flagitious tenets of the Jesuits, render them peculiarly odious to all.

How reluctantly the papal yoke is borne in Great Britain and Ireland, by the most intelligent and best informed of the Romish Clergy and Laity, is evident from the Declaration of the Protesting Catholics of England, so respectably and numerously signed; and the spirited Appeal of their Committee from the arbitrary inhibitions of their Vicars Apostolic, noticed in the preceding section; and from the Loyal Irish Remonstrance in 1661, which was defeated only by the opposition of the Pope's Nuncios and Partizans. Even the Catholic Board in Dublin, uncontrolled as it is, by the most respectable of the Irish nobility

and gentry, who forsook their seditious meetings, have not failed, we see, to express their displeasure at the Pope's ill treatment of their delegate, and supercilious neglect of their Remonstrance. And great discontents prevail among the Romish Clergy in Ireland, at the arbitrary disposal of the chief dignities and benefices in their Church, by the Pope and his Hierarchy, to their own creatures, without regard to merit, or the recommendation of the Chapters or Consistories in the several dioceses. This is a grievance of which they openly and loudly complain. Among all their classes, therefore, the reduction of the Pope's usurped supremacy, by the Legislature, to the lowered standard, prescribed by foreign governments, or rather to the primitive standard, in the reign of Constantine the Great, when the Bishop of Rome claimed no jurisdiction whatsoever beyond the limits of his own See, would unquestionably be considered as a great and most desirable emancipation.

From such emancipation the noblest and most important benefits, religious and political, might reasonably be expected to flow.

1. All ranks and classes of Roman Catholics might then shake off the invidious title of Papists, or vassals of the Pope, and freely and fully testify and declare their fidelity to the Crown of Great Britain, and allegiance to the Government; and, having given sufficient securities, may then with safety be put on a par with other Protestant

Dissenters, and admitted to an equal degree of political power.

2. A considerable reform in the doctrine and discipline of the Romish Church in the British Isles, might then be hoped. The Creed of Pope Pius IV., the standard of modern Romish faith, might then be stripped of its supernumerary articles, tacked incongruously to the Nicene Creed; and their beneficed Clergy be exempted from swearing belief and obedience thereto; their Episcopal regimen might then be restored to its native simplicity, and their religion be purged and regenerated to its native purity, according to the primitive Apostolical standard of St. Patrick in Ireland, and St. David in Britain, and St. Columkille in Scotland. A Reformation most devoutly to be wished by all genuine Christians, good citizens, and loyal subjects!

SECTION VI.

PURITY OF THE DOCTRINES OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH OF THE BRITISH ISLES.

THIS subject has been partly anticipated in the second and third sections; in which were noticed the leading doctrines of our early fathers, Patrick, Sedulius, Claudius, Taliessin, &c. respecting the prime articles of Christian Faith, the Holy Trinity, the foundation of the Church upon the rock Christ; and the rejection of the heresy of Pelagius and Celestius, of Purgatory, of prayers to saints and angels. In this section the subject shall be further illustrated, in the important articles of the Holy Scriptures, Grace, Faith, Works, and Justification, the Lord's Supper, Prayers and Maxims.

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

These were considered as the only true standards of religion and morality by our early Divines, rejecting all vain traditions built upon human

"the

authority. St. Patrick finely observes, continual meditation and recital of the Scriptures, gives vegetation to the soul;" or vital growth in grace. And the Abbot Columbanus recommends t, "Let thy riches be the precepts of the Divine Law."

And we are told, ‡ that "his disciples diligently observed only those works of piety and chastity, which they could learn from the Prophetical, Evangelical, and Apostolical writings," or from the Law and the Prophets of the Old Testament, and the Gospels and Epistles of the New.

The proper study of the Scriptures is thus recommended by Sedulius: § "Search the Law, in which is contained the will of God;" on Ephes. v. adopting our Lord's precept, "Search the Scriptures," John v. 39; and also St. Paul's, "Be ye not unwise, but understanding what is the will of the Lord," Ephes. v. 17. But with this sage caution |,

* Bonis semper moribus delectatur et consentit, et assiduis seripturarum meditationibus et eloquiis, anima vegetat. Pa tric. De abusionibus Seculi, cap. 5. de pudicitia.

+ Sint tibi divitiæ, Divina dogmata legis. Columban. in Monastichis, et Epist. ad Hunaldum.

Tantùm ea quæ Propheticis, Evangelicis, et Apostolicis literis discere poterant, pietatis et castitatis opera diligenter observantes. Bede Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 4.

§ Scrutamini Legem in quâ voluntas ejus continetur. Sedul in Ephes. v.

|| Plus vult sapere, qui illa scrutatur quæ Lex non dicit. Id. in Rom. xii.