' 
 
 
 J^mi^*^^ 
 
 
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LIBRAEY 
 
 * OP THE 
 
 Theological Seminary, 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 ' BKHrW) Mfil8. 04 S) 1821 , 
 
 , O'Leary, Arthur, 1729-1802 
 Miscellaneous tracts 
 
 A DONATION 
 
 
 Heceived 
 
 
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 V 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS, 
 
 ■f/) BY THE j . ) 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 1. A Defence of the Divinity of Christ 
 and the Immortality of the Soul: in an- 
 swer to the Author of a work, lately pub- 
 lished in Cork, entitled, " Thoughts on 
 Nature and Religion." Revised and cor- 
 rected. 
 
 2. Loyalty Asserted : or, a Vindication 
 of the Oath of Allegiance ; with an im- 
 partial Enquiry into the Pope's Temporal 
 Power, and the present Claims of the 
 Stuarts to the English Throne : proving 
 that both are equally groundless. 
 
 3. An Address to the Common People 
 
 of Ireland, on occasion of an apprehended 
 Invasion by the French and Spaniards, in 
 July, 1779, when the united fleets of 
 Bourbons appeared in the Channel. 
 
 4. Remarks on a Letter written by Mr. 
 Wesley, and a Defence of the Protestant 
 Aseociations. 
 
 5. Rejoinder to Mr. Wesley's Reply to 
 the above remarks. 
 
 6 Essay on Toleration: tending to 
 prove that a man's speculative opinion 
 ought not to deprive him of the Rights of 
 Civil Society. 
 
 — s»£«s»— 
 
 IN WHICH ARE INTRODUCED, 
 
 THE REV. JOHN WESLEY'S LETTER, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 DEFENCE OF THE PROTESTANT ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 THE AUTHOR'S LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF CLOYNE, 
 
 &c. &c. &c. 
 
 — «©a 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL WALKER, 
 
 FOR D. SULLIVAN, 148, CHERRY-STREET. 
 
 1821. 
 
TO THE 
 
 DIGNITARIES AND BRETHREN 
 
 OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS ORDER OF 
 
 • # 
 
 Rev. Fathers, and illustrious Brethren, 
 
 THE purport of the work which 1 have the honour to 
 dedicate to your order, is to cement the bands of society ; 
 to secure the safety of our country, by union and mutual 
 confidence ; to render the subject's allegiance firm, and at 
 the same time reasonable, by establishing it on its proper 
 grounds; to dispel the mists of long reigning prejudice; 
 after disarming infidelity, which strikes at the foundation of 
 religion, and the dignity of our nature, to induce the Chris- 
 tians of every denomination to lay aside the destructive 
 weapons which frenzy has so often put into their hands ; and, 
 under their peculiar modes of worship, to inspire them with 
 that benevolence and charity enforced by the first principles 
 of the Law of Nature, and confirmed by the sacred oracles 
 which they all revere. 
 
 In my fugitive pieces, to which the circumstances of the 
 times have given rise, you discovered the sincerity of my 
 
 * A society of nobles and gentlemen, composed of the greatest orators and writers 
 m Ireland; who, unsolicited, have done the author the honour of adopting him as on« 
 of their members. 
 
IV THE DEDICATION. 
 
 designs, in attempting to diffuse to the community at large, 
 the influence of benignity. My feeble efforts have attracted 
 your attention, and procuied me the honour of your esteem. 
 With regard to the rights of society, and protection due to 
 the man who does not forfeit them by his misconduct, the 
 learned, the virtuous, the liberal-minded of all denominations, 
 make no distinction; but, with every respect due to religion, 
 leave fanaticism, the noxious vermin that nestles in its wool, 
 to prey upon the ulcerated heads of the bigots. Hence, 
 neither my character of a Catholic Clergyman, which, in 
 these kingdoms, the prepossession of ignorance has rendered 
 so odious, nor the discountenance of the laws, which doom 
 me to transportation, with the common malefactor, nor the 
 disagreeable circumstances of a profession still exposed to 
 the wanton lash of every religious persecutor, were deemed 
 a sufficient plea for exclusion from a society composed of 
 so many great and shining men. 
 
 Robertson's religion has proved no obstacle to his admis- 
 sion among the Spanish academicians. You, my brethren, 
 have set the brilliant example of philanthropy in this king- 
 dom ; and soared far above the sphere of contracted minds. 
 Happy for the world had the gentle voice of Nature been 
 always listened to, and his religion forgotten in the man ! 
 
 The calamities, of which a contrary conduct has been 
 productive, are slightly glanced at in my treatise on tolera- 
 tion. In the two neighbouring kingdoms, the scenes which 
 have been exhibited last year, are melancholy proofs, that 
 a tolerating spirit, the fair offspring of candour and benevo- 
 lence, confers happiness on individuals, and gives nations a 
 bloom and vigour which intolerance blasts and enervates. 
 
THE DEDICATION. 
 
 In consequence of the happy change in the dispositions of the 
 people, Ireland has seen her peaceful natives employed in 
 the useful labours of life ; her citizens, confident in each 
 other, improving trade and commerce, under a variety of 
 difficulties; her judges respected on their tribunals; and 
 the pleasing scenes of harmony and union spread through 
 every province. Such the result of benevolence ! Such the 
 fruits of toleration ! Such was our situation, when in Great 
 Britain nothing could be seen but the course of public 
 justice suspended, and martial law proclaimed ; the law and 
 the legislature trampled in their awful sanctuary ; the torn 
 canonicals of bishops, the lacerated robes of temporal 
 peers, the streets ensanguined with the streaming blood of 
 deluded victims; sumptuous edifices changed into blazing 
 piles ; the conflagration of Rome renewed by the torch of 
 religious frenzy; the houses of inoffensive citizens chalked 
 out for destruction; a city given up to plunder; assassins 
 and malefactors let loose from their chains, and invited, 
 by the hollow voice of fanaticism, to share the spoils; a 
 king on the verge of destruction ; a kingdom on the eve 
 of being plunged into the calamities of civil war; the sword 
 taking the place of the robe, and dictating to the violaters 
 of the law; and the stern hand of justice succeeding, in 
 its turn, to the sword, and sweeping from the face of the 
 earth, the gleanings of military execution. Such the 
 poisonous fruits of misguided zeal, and religious intolerance ! 
 The seeds of such disasters have been sown in distant 
 times, when barbarity, or the competition of princes, con- 
 tending for the throne, contributed to divide the people; 
 and, from a mistaken policy, sovereigns themselves, in op- 
 position to the maxims of legislation and wisdom, thought 
 it more eligible to become heads of the half, than the fathers 
 of all their subjects. 
 
?1 THE DEDICATION. 
 
 Such measures weakened their arms abroad, and will 
 ever prove destructive at home. In every plain the 
 English generals met with their fellow subjects, disputing 
 the laurel, under the banners of kings who gave them 
 encouragement. 
 
 The Catholic and Protestant powers on the Continent, 
 hj adopting a different plan, and uniting their subjects of 
 every denomination in the ties of one common interest, 
 strengthened their respective states against the encroach- 
 ments of each other, and prevented their dominions from 
 being changed a second time, into extensive fields of battle, 
 covered with bodies, fallen by the sword of religious mad- 
 ness ; or desolate wastes similar to those from whence re- 
 straints and distress have banished the human species : the 
 present Emperor's mother restored her Christian subjects 
 of every denomination, to the freedom and rights of citizens. 
 The son has opened his calm bosom to the Jew, and is 
 become the father of the man who blasphemes the Saviour 
 whom his Sovereign adores. Ireland ! Ireland, where the 
 Protestant gentleman gives alms to the pilgrim without 
 enquiring into his religion, and where the Catholic peasant 
 presses his distressed fellow creature to take share of a 
 handful of vegetables, scarce sufficient to support his own 
 wretched existence: Ireland, whose generous sons have 
 more compassion and feelings for the stranger, than their 
 neighbours for the brothers of their blood — Ireland, where 
 some strokes given by a peer of the realm, to a poor 
 inoffensive priest in the last stage of a decay, which in a 
 few days rescued him from the miseries of this life, " the 
 " law's delay, and the proud man's contumely." — Ireland, 
 where this scene raised such indignation in the generous 
 breast of every Protestant, that a lawyer,* who to the 
 
 * Counsellor Cuna». 
 
THE DEDICATION. VII 
 
 powers of the orator joins the courage of the hero, without 
 fee or reward, pleaded for obscurity against eminence, for 
 weakness against power, and, after asserting the* rights of 
 humanity at the bar, went to encounter death in the field 
 for a helpless client, in the last struggles of the agony. 
 Ireland, so famous for the generous sentiments of her in- 
 habitants, is the devoted spot, where out of a million and 
 half of subjects, not one can become a coal measurer, a 
 common soldier, an excise-man, nor have more than two 
 apprentices at a time ! Their dissenting brethren, so humane 
 in their private characters, and the professors of whose 
 religion are so tolerant in Holland and Switzerland, consider 
 their Catholic neighbours as so many slaves ready to cut 
 their throats, at the first signal given by their royal masters, 
 without whose concurrence the chain could never have 
 been fastened to their bodies. The kings of England, on 
 the other hand, whose treasury would be better supplied 
 by opulent subjects than by a million of naked and famished 
 objects, are obliged, at an enormous expense, to hira 
 foreign mercenaries of every religion, with their respective 
 chaplains, whilst their dauntless subject, are forced to throw 
 themselves into the arms of those sovereigns who pay them 
 for fighting, and permit them to pray as they think fit. 
 
 Thus government is distressed on one hand, and the king- 
 dom is deprived of its strength and internal resources on 
 the other. The Catholics, between their fellow subjects 
 and the throne, are like the forlorn hope between two 
 armies. They are doomed to civil destruction between 
 both. 
 
 Europe will soon bear a different aspect: and the ex- 
 amples set by those princes, who, for the aggrandizement 
 
V1H THE DEDICATION. 
 
 of their states, are doing away all religious distinctions, arc 
 so many warnings to copy after them. The Gauls, the 
 Romans, the Carthaginians, thought themselves once in- 
 Tincihle. Their divisions precipitated their downfal. No 
 oracle has as yet declared that foreign candidates for glory 
 and conquest will be deterred from attempting to become 
 our masters. The power to resist becomes greater in pro- 
 portion to the number of the subjects ; in proportion to the 
 stake they have to defend, their attachment to their 
 country, their attachment to each other. A small state, 
 rich, populous, and well united, is preferable to a large 
 but divided kingdom. Let religious distinctions, then, 
 be laid aside. It is equal to the Israelite, released 
 from bondage, whether his temple be built by Solomon or 
 Cyrus ; provided he has liberty to pray unmolested, and to 
 sleep under his vine and fig-tree. Diseases, sickness, death, 
 which mows down the young and old, emigrations, the 
 waste of war, countries, now unknown, which will be here- 
 after discovered, colonies that ever and always depopulate 
 the parent state, rising empires, and princes inviting 
 strangers to settle in their dominions, will leave land 
 enough in Ireland, to the end of time, for ten times the 
 number of its inhabitants. 
 
 The world is in a continual change. New monarchs 
 sway the sceptre. New ministers direct their councils. 
 New characters are daily mounting the stage of life, to be- 
 come the object of applause, derision, or censure of man- 
 kind. Every new generation is a new world, raised on the 
 ruins of the former, aiming at their present advantages, with- 
 out any retrospect to past transactions, in which they are no 
 ways concerned. We frequently change our bodies. Reason on 
 its travels from age to age, acquires a new mode of thinking. 
 
X THE DEDICATION. IX 
 
 In a word, every thing is liable to change ; and it is high 
 time to chancre from division to union. 
 
 Let not religion, the sacred name of religion, which even 
 in the face of an enemy discovers a brother, be any longer 
 a wall of separation to keep us asunder : though it has been 
 often perverted to the worst of purposes, yet it is easy to 
 reconcile it with every social blessing. 
 
 In the course of this work, I intend to make it a citizen 
 of the world, instead of confining it to one kingdom or 
 province. I am not an able, neither am I a partial advo- 
 cate. I plead for the Protestant in France, and for the 
 Jew in Lisbon, as well as for the Catholic in Ireland. In 
 future ages should fanaticism attempt to re-establish her 
 destructive empire, and crying out with the frantic queen, 
 exoriare oliquis ex ossibus nostris, summon the furies to spring 
 from her embers, which I attempt to disperse and deprive 
 of their noxious heat, let this votive offering, hung up in the 
 temple of the order of the Monks of St. Patrick, announce 
 to posterity, that in 1781, the liberal-minded of all deno- 
 minations in Ireland, were reconciled, maugre the odious 
 distinctions which the laws uphold, and that those very 
 laws, enacted before we were born, but not the dis- 
 positions of the people, are the only sources of our mis- 
 fortunes. 
 
 Whatever tends to promote the public good, is a tribute 
 due from an adopted brother, to great and illustrious 
 characters, whose refined feelings can only be equalled 
 by the culture of their minds: who have transplanted to 
 the Irish nursery the flowers of Rome and Athens: who, 
 in their writings and speeches, have displayed to Europe 
 
 B 
 
 4 
 
X THE DEDICATION. 
 
 the scene of eloquence, diversified with the fire of De- 
 mosthenes and the majesty of Tully, and wrested their 
 thunderbolts from those orators, in order to assert what 
 they deemed the rights of mankind, and to crush the 
 false divinities that should attempt to erect their altars on 
 their ruins. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 Rev. Fathers, and 
 
 Illustrious Brethren, 
 
 Your affectionate Brother, 
 
 ARTHUR O'LEARY. 
 
 Bubliu, July 15, 17*1. 
 
DEFENCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 aHt^ssrsVY <&w 
 
 OR, REMARKS ON A WORK, ENTITLED 
 
 THOUGHTS ON NJTURE AND RELIGION. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 to the author.* 
 Sir, 
 
 YOUR long expected performance has at length made its 
 -appearance. If the work tended to promote the happiness 
 of society; to animate our hopes; tp subdue our passions ; to 
 instruct man in the happy science of purifying the polluted re- 
 cesses of a vitiated heart; to confirm him in his exalted notion 
 of the dignity of his nature, and thereby to inspire him with 
 sentiments averse to whatever may debase the excellence of 
 his origin ; the public would be indebted to you ; your name 
 would be recorded amongst the assertors of morality and re- 
 ligion ; and I myself, though bred up in a different persuasion 
 from yours, would be the first to offer my incense at the shrine 
 of merit. But the tendency of your performance is to deny 
 the divinity of Christ, and the immortality of the soul. In 
 denying the first, you sap the foundations of religion; you 
 cut off, at one blow, the merit of our faith, the comfort of our 
 hope, and the motives of our charity. In denying the im- 
 mortality of the soul, you degrade human nature, and con- 
 found man with the vile and perishable insect. In denying 
 both, you overturn the whole system of religion, whether na- 
 tural or revealed : and in denying religion, you deprive the 
 
 * A Scotch physician, who styles himself Michael Servetus. 
 
2 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 poor of the only comfort which supports them under their 
 distresses and afflictions; you wrest from the hands of the 
 powerful and rich, the only bridle to their injustices and pas- 
 sions ; and pluck from the hearts of the guilty, the greatest 
 check to their crimes ; I mean, this remorse of conscience, 
 which can never be the result of a handful of organized mat- 
 ter; this interior monitor which makes us blush, in the morn- 
 ing, at the disorders of the foregoing night ! which erects in 
 the breast of the tyrant, a tribunal superior to his power, and 
 whose importunate voice upbraids a Cain, in the wilderness, 
 with the murder of his brother; and a Nero, in his palace, 
 with that of his mother. Such are the consequences naturally 
 resulting from the principles laid down in your writings. 
 
 It is no intention of mine to fasten the odium of wilful in- 
 fidelity on any person, who professes his belief in the Scrip- 
 tures : though I am equally concerned and surprised that a 
 gentleman, whose understanding has been enlightened by the 
 Christian revelation, and enlarged by all the aids of human 
 learning, should broach tenets, which equally militate against 
 the first principles of reason, and the oracles of the Divinity; 
 and which, if true, would be of so service to mankind. Who- 
 ever is so unhappy as to work himself into a conviction, that 
 his soul is no more than a subtile vapour, which in death is 
 to be breathed out into the air, to mix confusedly with its 
 kindred element, and there to perish, would still do well to 
 conceal his horrid belief with more secrecy than the Druids 
 concealed their mysteries. In doing otherwise, he only 
 brings disgrace on himself: for the notion of religion is so 
 deeply impressed on our minds, that the bold champions who 
 would fain destroy it, are considered by the generality of 
 mankind, as public pests, spreading disorder and mortality 
 wherever they appear; and in our feelings we discover the 
 delusions of a cheating philosophy, which can never intro- 
 duce a religion more pure than that of the Christians, nor 
 confer a more glorious privilege on man, than that of an 
 immortal soul. In a word, if it be a crime to have no re- 
 ligion, it is a folly to boast of the want of it. 
 
 Whence, then, this eagerness to propagate systems, the 
 tendency whereof is to slacken the reins that curb the 
 irregularity of our appetites, and restrain the impetuosity of 
 passion ? In our dogmatizing philosophers, it must proceed 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 3 
 
 from the corruption of the heart, averse to restraint ; or 
 the vanity of the mind, which glories in striking from the 
 common path, and not thinking with the multitude. 
 
 Your unspotted character justifies you from any imputa- 
 tion of a design to infect others with the poison of a licentious 
 doctrine. But vanity is one of those foreign ingredients, 
 blended by the loss of original justice, into our nature. It 
 prefers glorious vices to obscure virtues. It animates the 
 hero to extend his conquests, at the expense of justice; and 
 stimulates the philosopher to erect the banners of error on 
 the ruins of truth You seem to acknowledge it, in your en- 
 quiries into the causes of error: 'It was vanity in philosophers 
 * which caused so many different sects and systems.' I believe 
 it, and Montaigne was of the same opinion. Immersed in an 
 ocean of disorders, glorying in appearance, in an utter ex- 
 tinction of remorse, and conversant with the doctrine taught 
 in Epicurus's garden, he acknowledges, that 4 vanity induces 
 4 free-thinkers to affect more impiety than they are really ca- 
 pable of.' Lucretius, in like manner, whose arguments 
 against the immortality of the soul are the same with yours, 
 corroborates your opinion, relative to the bias vanity gives 
 those soaring and philosophical geniuses, who strike from the 
 trodden path. When in glowing numbers he enforced his 
 fond opinion of careless goods and material souls, as favour- 
 able to the calrn^ repose which the voluptuous bard, who 
 makes his invocation to Venus, would fain enjoy without re- 
 morse here, or punishment hereafter, he was well aware that 
 his doctrine clashed with the general sense of mankind. But 
 the philosophical poet consoles himself, with the flattering 
 expectation of gratifying his vanity : 
 
 " 'Tis sweet to crop fresh flowers, and get a crown, 
 " For new and rare iuveutions of my own."* 
 
 In a word, some men of learning plume themselves upon 
 the singularity of their opinions: and, however they may dis- 
 claim vanity, as the spring of their literary performances, yet 
 it is one of those ingredients which gives a zest to their com- 
 position. And if singularity and novelty of invention, be 
 stimulatives to self-love, few authors of the age are more 
 
 * Creech's Lucretius. 
 
4 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 bound to guard against this dangerous and agreeable poison, 
 than the author of the 4 Thoughts on Nature and Reli- 
 
 gion? 
 
 To range those singularities under their proper heads, is 
 almost impossible : and modesty does not permit to tran- 
 scribe from your book several passages of your allegori- 
 cal commentary, on the second chapter of Genesis. ' The 
 coat of skins,' then, 4 with which God covered the man 
 and woman after their fall,' as well as 4 the fruit so pleas- 
 ing to the eye, which the woman tasted,' 1 leave the doc- 
 tor in full possession of. He is a married man, and skilled 
 in the anatomy of all parts of the body. 
 
 After giving his readers the important information, that 
 Adam was displeased with his wife, for inducing him to a 
 faux pas, which 1 believe no married man, except Adam, (if 
 we believe the doctor.) ever scrupled ; he allegorizes some 
 of the rest of the chapter, in the following manner: 4 God 
 4 planted a garden eastward in Eden,' says the inspired 
 writer, * and there he put the man whom he had formed.' 
 4 What is called a garden,' says the doctor, ' I take to be 
 4 the human mind. By the river which watered the garden, 
 4 and afterwards divided into four branches, is meant inno- 
 4 cence, divided into the four cardinal virtues.' Here he 
 loses breath: for to allegorize all would be too tedious; and 
 doubtless the public have room to regret the doctor's 
 omission in not continuing the allegory to the end of the 
 chapter. 
 
 He professes his belief in the Scriptures ; but has the 
 good luck to elude every difficulty that falls in his way, by 
 the assistance of metaphors ; and thinks himself the more 
 authorized to take this freedom with Moses, as he dis- 
 covers a mistake in the Bible. ' I will strike Egypt, saith 
 4 the Lord, from die tower of Syene to the borders of 
 4 Ethiopia.'* 4 Instead of Ethiopia,' says the doctor, 4 it 
 4 should be Arabia : for Syene was situated on the borders 
 4 of Ethiopia.' 
 
 Pray, doctor, does a mistake in geography, on the part of 
 the translators of the Bible, invalidate the Mosaical account 
 of man's innocence, together with his felicity in Paradise ; 
 
 * Ezechiel. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. if 
 
 the malice of the tempting spirit, and his appearance under 
 the form of a serpent ; the fall of Adam and Eve, fatal to all 
 their posterity; the first man justly punished in his children, 
 and mankind cursed by God; the first promise of redemp- 
 tion, and the future victory of man over the Devil, who had 
 undone them? Has not the memory of those great events, 
 and the fatal transition from original justice to the corruption 
 of sin, been preserved in the golden and iron ages of the 
 poets, their Hesperian gardens watched by dragons, and in 
 the enchantments and worship of idolatrous nations, in whose 
 incantations and superstitions, the serpent always bore, as it 
 bears still, a principal part ? Allegorize Moses as much as 
 you please; he relates that God promised, that 'the woman's 
 ' offspring would crush the serpent's head.' This very pro- 
 mise of a Redeemer, and man's victory through his grace, are 
 foretold in the oracles of the Gentiles. Even Tacitus, though 
 a mortal enemy to the Jews and Christians, acknowledges 
 that it was a constant tradition among the Oriental nations, 
 that from the Jews would spring a conqueror, who would 
 subdue the world. A translator's mistake, as to the name of 
 a town or tower, is no plea for scepticism ; especially as there 
 are and have been, several towns of the same name, in dif- 
 ferent places; which might have been the case with Sycne ; 
 and cities which, in a long succession of time, have changed 
 their names, or borne different names at the same time: as is 
 the case with Constantinople, which the Turks call Stam- 
 boul, and others Byzantium. 
 
 But let us suppose that the tower of Syene was situated on 
 the same line, in an opposite direction, with the frontiers of 
 Ethiopia : is there any impropriety in saying, ' I will strike 
 'Egypt from the tower of Syene to the borders of Ethiopia?' 
 Solinus relates, that there was a tower, called Syene, in lower 
 Egypt. Ethiopia borders Egypt on the south. In striking 
 Egypt, then from the tower of Syene to the borders of Ethi- 
 opia, it is struck from north to south: that is, from one ex- 
 tremity to the other. The doctor, then, has lost his time in 
 correcting the prophet Ezechiel's map, and substituting Ara- 
 bia for Ethiopia. Yet this passage of Ezechiel is his chief 
 plea for allegorizing Genesis: with what success let the 
 reader judge. 
 
 A warm fancy, in a paroxysm of zeal, may indulge its 
 
b MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 boundless excursions in the path of allegory, when obscure 
 passages and mystical expressions open a field for interpreta- 
 tions and allusions. Mead, Whiston, Wesley, and the doctor 
 himself, may discover the Pope in the beast with ten horns ; 
 and Rome in the great city built on seven hills. The Jewish 
 rabbins, after obtaining permission from the prince of Orange 
 to build a synagogue, applied to their benefactor this famous 
 passage of Isaiah : ' On that day seven women will take hold 
 'of one man,' alluding to the Seven United Provinces that 
 had elected him stadtholder: and I myself, if I were in hu- 
 mour, could, in a long-winded discourse, enlarge upon the 
 seven sacraments, or the three theological and four cardinal 
 virtues; and compare them to the seven golden candlesticks 
 mentioned in the revelations of St. John. But in an historical 
 narration, giving an account of the origin of the world : of a 
 garden planted with trees, watered with four rivers ; with 
 their names ; the countries through which they flow ; the 
 precious stones, mines, and minerals, to be found in those 
 countries, &c. : the introduction of an allegory is the sub- 
 version of reason. 
 
 Even where allegories can be used with any propriety, our 
 masters in rhetoric lay down as a rule, that, 'in the chain of 
 4 metaphors continued through the discourse, aptness, resem- 
 4 blance, and justness of allusion, must be strictly observed.' 
 What justness of allusion is therebetween the human mind^ 
 and a garden planted eastward in Eden, where God put the 
 man he had created? As much as there is in saying, God made 
 mail, and placed him eastward in his mind. What analogy is 
 there between the four rivers and the four cardinal virtues ? 
 Between fortitude and Pison, or the Ganges, with the effimi- 
 nate natives that inhabit its banks ? Between prudence and the 
 Euphrates ? Justice and Gihon or the JW/e, with its crocodiles ? 
 Temperance and Hiddekel or the Tygris, which, as Moses re- 
 lates, and as geography informs us, goeth towards the east of 
 Assyria, a country famous in former days for the intemperance 
 of its inhabitants ? The four cardinal virtues being set afloat 
 on the four rivers, and the doctor's imagination having spent 
 the fire of his allegory, we are at a loss what virtue to de- 
 scribe by the onyx-stone mentioned by Moses in the fol- 
 lowing words : ' The name of the first river is Pison ; that is 
 4 it which compasseth the land of Havilah, where there is« 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 7 
 
 * is gold : and the gold of that land is good : and there h 
 
 * bdellium and the onyx-stone.' By gold, doubtless, he mur.t 
 mean charity or patience. But of the onyx-stone there are 
 four kinds ; and we would be obliged to our dog-matizins; 
 philosophers for describing their four correspondent virtues. 
 
 Let them inform us, in like manner, whether the bdellium 
 mentioned by Moses, be one of the theological or a branch of 
 the cardinal virtues. For though in dispensatories, the bdel- 
 lium be allowed to be a good nostrum, of an emollient and 
 discutient quality; yet the learned, whether commentators of 
 Scripture,or natural philosophers, are no more agreed about 
 the true nature of bdellium, than they are about the manner 
 how it is produced: and it is much doubted whether the bdel- 
 lium of the ancients be the same with the modern kind. 
 
 Thus, in the disputes about a drop of gum resin, the na- 
 ture and production whereof perplex the most learned, wo 
 discover the weakness of human reason. We cannot dissect 
 a fly; and we would fain comprehend the ways of Providence. 
 We would fain sound the unfathomable ocean of the Chris- 
 tian religion, and arraign its mysteries at the tribunal of a 
 glimmering; reason : when the smali atom that swims on the 
 surface, baffles our severest scrutiny. 
 
 I have the honour to be, &c. 
 
 ARTHUR O'LEARY. 
 
S MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 TO our modern philosophers, who set up the proud idols 
 of their own fancies in opposition to the oracles of the divi- 
 nity, and, endeavouring to discover absurdities in the 
 Christian religion, fall into greater, we can, without dis- 
 claiming our title to good manners, apply what St. Ptmi ap- 
 plied to the philosophers of his time : ' they became vain in 
 ' their imaginations : professing themselves to be wise,, they 
 * became fools.' In order to sap the foundations of revealed 
 religion, and to make man the sport of chance, who neither 
 lost any privilege by Adam's fall, nor gained any thing by 
 Christ's redemption, they endeavour to obtrude Moses on 
 the public as an allegorical writer. Examine his character, 
 and acknowledge their follv. 
 
 Besides his divine mission, in what historian, does truth 
 shine more conspicuous ? He relates his personal defects, as 
 well as the extraordinary powers with which the Lord in- 
 vested him ; deduces a long chain of patriarchs from the first 
 man down to his days ; traces a genealogy, in which every 
 chief is distinguished by his peculiar character. In quitting 
 Egypt, the nursery of fiction, did it comport with the dig- 
 nity of the legislator and commander of a chosen people, to 
 write romances ? In the space of five hundred years, from 
 Noah's death to Moses' time, could the fall of man and his 
 expulsion from Paradise be forgotten ? And, as he had 
 enemies, would not they have charged him with imposture ? 
 Or was he the only person amongst the Jews, who was in- 
 structed by his father ? In a word, it was out of his power to 
 deceive the Jews ; much less was it his inclination or interest. 
 All, then, is coherent in Moses : and to his genuine narra- 
 tive we are indebted for the knowledge of ourselves ; for, 
 without the aid of revelation, man would ever be an inex- 
 plicable mystery. 
 
 In believing my descent from a father created in a state of 
 perfection, from whence he fell ; a father on whose obedi- 
 ence or disobedience my happiness or misery depended ; I 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 9 
 
 can account for the corruption of my nature, and all the 
 train of evils which have descended to Adam's children. 
 Without this clue to direct me, 1 must be for ever entangled 
 in a labyrinth of perplexities. Let philosophy glory in le- 
 velling man with the brute, and say that there was never any 
 difference in his state ; that he was always the same, destined 
 to gratify his appetites, and to die ; — I am really persuaded 
 that I must renounce common sense, if I believe that man is 
 now the same that he was in coming from his Maker's hands. 
 The opposition between our passions and reason is too pal- 
 pable, to believe that we were created in such an excess of 
 contradictions. Reason dictates to be temperate, just, and 
 equitable ; to deal with others as I would fain be dealt by ; 
 not to infringe the order of society ; to pity and relieve the 
 afflicted : my passions, those tyrants so cruel, prompt me to 
 raise myself on the ruin of others ; to tread in the flowery 
 paths of criminal pleasures ; and to sacrifice my enemy to my 
 resentment. If God, then, be the author of reason, — and 
 that it is granted to man to regulate and curb his inclina- 
 tions, — misery and corruption were not our primitive state. 
 
 Philosophers, in a strain of irony, may deride our Bible 
 and Catechism, and laugh at our folly for believing that an 
 apple could entail such miseries on mortals : but let them 
 seriously consider the multitude and greatness of the evils 
 that oppress us ; and how full of vanity, of illusions, of suf- 
 ferings, are the first years of our lives; when we are grown 
 up, how are we seduced by error, weakened by pain, inflamed 
 
 by lust, cast down by sorrow, elated with pride : and ask 
 
 themselves, whether the cause of those dreadful evils be the 
 injustice of God or the original sin of man ? 
 
 The evidence of those miseries forced the pagan philoso- 
 phers to say, that we were born only to suffer the punish- 
 ments we had deserved for crimes committed in a life before 
 this. They, doubtless, were deceived as to the origin and 
 cause of our miseries : but still some glimmering of reason 
 did not permit them to consider those calamities as the na- 
 tural state of man. But religion reforms the error, and 
 points out, that this heavy yoke, which the sons of Adam are 
 forced to bear, from the time their bodies are taken from 
 their mothers' womb, to the day that they are to return to 
 the womb of their common mother, the earth, would not 
 
10 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 have been laid upon them, if they had not deserved it, by the 
 guih they contract from their origin. 
 
 Hut religion, as far as it includes mysteries, you think 
 yourself at liberty to discard; because you * cannot conceive 
 ' how God could require of man, a belief of any thing which 
 ' he has not endowed him with powers to conceive.'* Hence 
 you rtje ct the mystery of the Trinity, as an invention of the 
 clergy, borrowed from the poetical fable of the three brothers, 
 Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto ; the Divinity of Christ, as an 
 imposition of the clergy : and the immortality of the soul, as 
 tile invention of scholastic subtlety. 
 
 You think the religion of nature a sufficient guide ; and 
 prefer Socrates and Cato to the clergy of the Christian reli- 
 gion, — the great Cato whom you applaud for his bon mot, 
 when he said, that he was surprised how two priests could meet 
 v:'fhout bursting out into a Jit of laughter. Do not confide too 
 much, my dear Sir, in reason and this boasted law of nature, 
 which formed an Aristides, a Socrates, a Cato, whom you 
 applaud/or laughing at priests. Whatever tricks or juggles 
 might have been played in the recesses of the Capitol, where 
 tlie Sibylline oracles were deposited, to answer the purposes 
 ci' state, — to animate the people to war, from an expectation 
 oi success, under the protection of Jupiter or Apollo, — and 
 to support the pride and policy of Roman grandeur ; — the 
 priests of the Christian religion do not conceal their belief. 
 Cato inight laugh in seeing his colleague, for reasons best 
 known to themselves : and doubtless, the priest, who came 
 to the Roman lady, with a message from Apollo, informing 
 her that the god intended to honour her that night with his 
 company, by sleeping with her in his temple, laughed heartily 
 in seeing the young gentleman who bribed him to the cheat, 
 aiid the more so, as on the day following the lady gave the 
 public to understand, that however great Apollo might have 
 been, in his quality of God, honoured with altars and temples, 
 he had nothing extraordinary in his quality of companion. 
 Giito's priests then might have laughed in seeing one another; 
 the mysteries and rites of their Gods, as debauched and Cor- 
 fu pt as themselves, afforded scenes of impure mirth : and the 
 Christian clergy are obliged to the Doctor for putting them 
 c<::d the three brothers, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
 
 * Thoughts on Nature and Re! igioB, pag e 127. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 11 
 
 whom they worship, on a level with the heathen priests and 
 their Jupiter, who ravished Ganymedes, Neptune and his sea 
 nymphs, and Pluto, who carried off' Proserpina. 
 
 In spite of the preference, given by the Doctor to Cato 
 and Socrates, over the Christian clergy, and the sufficiency 
 of the law of nature to regulate the conduct of man, we can 
 assure him, that under the direction of a Christian mother, 
 who never studied philosophy \ a child imbibes sublimer no- 
 tions of divinity, and purer ideas of virtue, than Plato ever 
 taught in the academy, or Aristotle in the Lyceum. Whfct 
 were those boasted sages whom our modern Free-thinkers so 
 often introduce on the stage, as paragons of wisdom, in or- 
 der to play the dazzling glass in the eyes of the unwary, by- 
 making reason their only oracle, and painting religion as 
 priest-craft ? Some doubted of their own existence, and con- 
 sequently of the existence of a God. Some figured to them- 
 selves an indolent God, who never concerned himself in the 
 affairs of mortals, equally indifferent about vice or virtue ; 
 who, to use the words of Lucretius, ' ne'er smiles at good, 
 ' ne'er frowns at wicked deeds.' Some considered the Su- 
 preme Being as the slave of destiny. Others as incorporate 
 with the universe, and a part of a world which is the work 
 of his hand. 
 
 What extravagant notions concerning the nature of the 
 soul ! In one school it was an assemblage of atoms ; in ano- 
 ther it was subtile air ; in a third school it was a something 
 which, after its separation from one body, entered into 
 another, roaming from heaven to earth and from earth to 
 heaven, without any permanent abode ; alternately swaying 
 the sceptre of authority in the hands of the monarch, and 
 animating the body of a beast of burden. Their great re- 
 medy against the terrors of death, consisted in a false but 
 flattering way of reasoning. ' Either the soul dies with the 
 4 body, or survives it. If it dies with the body it cannot suf- 
 ' fer. If it survives it, it will be happy.' Not reflecting that 
 the horrors of sin, and infinite justice, may appoint an in- 
 termediate state, wherein man is eternally miserable. Hence 
 all the reins were slackened, and the most abominable crimes 
 honoured with priests, altars, and temples. Public worship 
 became a public prostitution. Incest, impurity, drunkenness, 
 hatred^ pride* were deified under the fictitious names of Ju- 
 
12 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 piter, Juno, Venus, Mars, &c. and criminal Gods were wor- 
 shipped with crimes. 
 
 It was not the mountain inhabited by the rude and unci- 
 vilized, which alone was polluted with the smoak of profane 
 incense : the nations most renowned for learning and re- 
 finement, — Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians, — in the midst 
 of their cities, saw sumptuous edifices consecrated to the 
 passions which the Gospel condemns. By their mistakes and 
 errors it is easy to perceive the weakness of reason, and the 
 necessity of repealed religion. 
 
 Your philosophers whom our modern free-thinkers are 
 ever extolling, with a view to degrade, the Christian religion 
 and its ministers, never escaped the general contagion. — 
 Your Cato, besides suicide, was guilty of levities of a softer 
 nature than the steel with which he killed himself. Your 
 Socrates, whom you would fain obtrude on the ignorant, as 
 a martyr to truth and the original religion of nature, acknow- 
 ledges in his defence, that he worshipped the Gods of his 
 city, and was seen on public festivals sacrificing at their altars. 
 His wrestling naked with his pupil, Alcibiades, was an atti- 
 tude ill suited to the character of a man, entitled to a place 
 in the calendar of saints. What shall I say of the Cynics, 
 who laid aside all the natural restraints of shame and modesty? 
 Of Chrysippus, the advocate of intermarriages between fa- 
 thers and daughters ? Of the Persian Magi, who married 
 their mothers ? Of Seneca, playing the moralist in public, 
 debauching his sovereign's wife in private, and preferring his 
 pretended wise man to God himself? What shall I say of 
 the divine Plato, who annihilates the institution of connubial 
 ties ? Who by introducing a community of women, and 
 refusing the husband any exclusive property in the marriage 
 bed, would fain introduce a horrid confusion amongst men ; 
 confound all paternal rights, which nature itself respected, 
 and people his republic with inhabitants, uncertain of their 
 origin, without tenderness, affection, or humanity; whereas 
 in such a state it would have been impossible for the son to 
 know his fatner. 
 
 Such is the boasted reason you take for your guide, and 
 lo. the great luminaries it has produced! Aset of proud men, 
 bewildered in a labyrinth of the most monstrous errors. If 
 our modern philosophers are more refined than those ancient 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 13 
 
 sages, it is to the Christian religion, which they would fain 
 overthrow, to the writings of its doctors, whom they deride, 
 and to the first principles of a Christian education, which 
 they cannot entirely forget, that they are indebted for their 
 superiority. 
 
 Before revealed religion dispelled the mist, reason was 
 overspread with error, in the breasts of the greatest men. 
 It is no more than a bare capacity to be instructed ; an en- 
 gine veering at every breath ; equally disposed to minister to 
 vice as well as to virtue, according to the variety and customs 
 of different climates. It did not hinder the Egyptian from 
 worshipping leeks and onions, nor the i\.thenian, Socrates, 
 from offering a cock to Esculapius. 
 
 But is man to be debarred the use of his reason, or has he 
 any thing to dread for not believing mysteries he cannot 
 comprehend? Make full use of your reason, not with a design 
 to fall into scepticism, but with a sincere desire to come at 
 the knowledge of the truth. Reason is never better em- 
 ployed than in discovering the will of its author : and when 
 once we discover that it is his will we should believe, reason 
 itself suggests that it is our duty to submit; otherwise we 
 are guilty of rebellion against the first of sovereigns : and to 
 deny his power to punish the disobedience of his creatures, 
 is more than you have attempted. 
 
 This important enquiry should be attended with a pure 
 heart and fervent prayer. However a philosopher may laugh 
 at the hint, as Cato would laugh if he met a priest. It was 
 after a fervent prayer Solomon received his wisdom : after a 
 fervent prayer, Cornelius the Centurion, obtained the privi- 
 lege of becoming the first convert from amongst the Gentiles. 
 Even the heathen, Democritus, who figured so much amongst 
 the literati of his time, constantly prayed the Gods to send 
 him good images. Religion would not seem so absurd, the 
 number of free-thinkers would not be so great, if we made 
 it our business to purify the heart, and earnestly to beg of 
 the Divinity to enlighten our understanding. For the pas- 
 sions of the heart, and too much confidence in ourselves, 
 pave the way for the errors of the mind. Solomon became 
 dissolute and voluptuous before he fell into idolatry. We 
 ever and always lose our innocence before we laugh at cur 
 catechism. 
 
14 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS, 
 
 But a philosopher requires argument, and leaves prayer to 
 the vulgar. Reason is too precious a gilt to be offered at the 
 shrine of religion : yet from St. Paul, to whom the Roman 
 governor said that too much learning had turned his head, 
 down to John Locke, the great historian of the human un- 
 derstanding, the greatest men the wond ever produced, have 
 believed mysteries beyond their comprehension. They all 
 knew that God cannot lie, nor deceive mortals, but that man 
 is liable to error. If then my reason discovers, that the mo- 
 tives of credibility are sufficient to induce me to believe, that 
 God has proposed such and such a doctrine; the same reason 
 immediately whispers, believe your God, for he can do more, 
 than you can comprehend. 
 
 In denying mysteries, because we cannot comprehend them, 
 we may as well deny our existence. For our very existence 
 is a mystery we can never comprehend. How many valves 
 and springs, how many veins and arteries, what an assemblage 
 of bones,muscles, canals, juices, nerves, fluids, tubes, vessels, 
 are requisite to make tnat frail being called man? Great par- 
 tizans of nature and reason (words often used to vt il your ig- 
 norance), take a handful of dust and shape it in the figure of 
 a man, bore the veins and arteries, lay the sinews and ten- 
 dons, fit the joints and blow into its nostrils your philosophi- 
 cal breath, make it move, walk, speak, concert plans, form 
 schemes; make it susceptible of love, fear, joy, hope, de- 
 sire, &c. then we will recognize ycur comprehensive know- 
 ledge of the imperceptible progress, and divine mechanism 
 of the human frame. For the formation of each of us is as 
 wonderful as the formation of the first. Your very bodies of 
 which you are so fond, are mysteries in which your reason is 
 lost ; and you would fain have a religion which proposes no- 
 thing but what your reason comprehends. Thousands of 
 vears elapsed before Harvey discovered the circulation of the 
 blood. Thousands will elapse before the delicate texture of 
 the human frame is know r n. 
 
 Disengage yourselves, if you can, from the impenetrable 
 folds and darkness of our own frames. Take a survey of 
 all the objects that surround you ; you plunge into an abyss 
 overspread with darkness and obscurity. Explain to us how 
 one and the same water paints and dyes the different flowers 
 into various colours, the pink, the lilly, the tulip, the rose ; 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 15 
 
 vtT how from an inodorous earth they draw their sweet per- 
 fumes ! The cell of the bee, which that little insect makes 
 according to the nicest rules of geometry, without studying 
 the mathematics, and in the construction whereof the curious 
 have observed all the advantages which geometers derive 
 from Newton's doctrine of fluxions, the minima and maxima, 
 and the extraordinary contrivance, whereby a less quantity of 
 surface is sufficient to contain a given quantity of honey, which 
 saves that creature much wax and labour. The cell of the 
 bee, the granary of the ant, the heart, lungs, liver, &c. of the 
 mite, baffle your learned researches. 
 
 From the immense bodies swimming in the azure fluid 
 above, to the blade of grass which springs under your feet, 
 every thing h a mystery to man. 
 
 If you range in the boundless region of the abstract sciences, 
 what a fathomless ocean of truths which you must acknow- 
 ledge, without comprehending ! Lines eternally drawing near 
 to each other, without ever meeting ! Motion for ever slacken- 
 ing, without ever coming to a point of rest ! The infinite di- 
 visibility of matter, whereby a small grain of wheat incloses in 
 itself as many parts (though lesser in proportion) as the whole 
 world ! The smallest part of the same grain containing ano- 
 ther world, and the least part of that part, as small, with re- 
 spect to the grain, as the grain is, with respect to the entire 
 frame of the universe, and so on, to infinity ! 
 
 If, then, the vigour of our wit must yield to an atom of 
 matter, is it not an abuse of reason, to refuse our assent to 
 truths propounded by an all- wise and omnipotent Being, only 
 because they are above our conception ? 
 
 If nature be, then, a mysterious Book, closed up with a 
 seven-fold seal, is it not presumption and blindness in man 
 not to submit to unerring wisdom ? Revealed religion once 
 secluded, a faint light and lame kind of liberty would be our 
 boasted privilege. Wounded man could never find, in his 
 reason, sufficient light to discover the truths of eternal life ; 
 nor in his liberty ^ sufficient strength to follow their dictates. 
 Like the bleeding traveller, on the road of Jericho, he stands 
 in need of the assistance of some foreign and healing hand. 
 
 * It is none of his fault,' says St. Austin, who had himself 
 been a proud and voluptuous Philosopher, ' if he cannot make 
 * use of his broken limbs : but he is guilty, if he despises the 
 
16 miscellaneous tracts. 
 
 * physician who proffers to cure him : and he is humbly to 
 ' acknowledge his weakness, to obtain help. This assistance 
 1 is ministered, not by the law of nature, but by the tree of 
 
 * life, who says of himself: I am the vine : you are the 
 
 * branches : without me you cannot do any thing/ 
 
 The two fatal springs of our evils, are — the error of the 
 mind, and the infirmity of the will. In him we find the re- 
 medy : the light of revelation to dispel our darkness, and his 
 enlivening grace to purify the heart. You are ready to ac- 
 knowledge him as the divine and inexhaustible fountain of 
 both, if once some passages, which, in your opinion, militate 
 against his Divinity, could be reconciled. An attempt sUall 
 be made in my next letter. 
 
 I have the honour to be, &c. 
 
 ARTHUR O'LEARY. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 17 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 AN incarnate God, whose bleeding wounds have paid our 
 ransom, is one of those mysteries that stuns and disconcerts 
 human reason, liable to stray through the winding paths of 
 roving error, if the clew of faith do not direct our steps and 
 minister its assistance. He appeared on earth to cancel our 
 crimes ; to nail to the cross the schedule of our condem- 
 nation ; to lacerate and tear the woeful hand- writing that gave 
 us over to rebel angels ; to snatch sinful man from the hands 
 of divine justice ; and to unlock the awful gates of the eternal 
 sanctuary, whither no mortal has access, but through the 
 blood of the spotless Pontiff. He appeared, in fine, to raise, 
 through his merits, all those who fell by Adam's guilt ; to 
 form a faithful and holy people, a faithful people, * by capti- 
 f vating their understanding to the yoke of faith,' and a holy 
 people, whose conversation, according to St. Paul, ought to 
 be in heaven ; and who are to follow no longer the dictates 
 of the flesh. 
 
 Our ignorance of his nature would expose us to the fatal 
 alternative — either of becoming idolaters in worshipping a 
 man, which is the case of all Christians, if your opinion be 
 well grounded, or of refusing God the homage that is due to 
 him, which is your case, if you mistake and err. If Christ 
 be not God, the Christians are in the same case with theido- 
 latrous Tartars, who worship a living man : and if he be God 
 above all, and blessed for ever, you may as well believe the 
 Alcoran, as believe the Scriptures ; and invoke Mahomet, as 
 invoke the son of Mary. He declares, ' that life eternal 
 ' consists in the knowledge of Himself, and of the Father who 
 * sent him.' In such an important article, it is too hazardous 
 to plead ignorance, in hopes of impunity : for the Scripture 
 says, that * there is a way which man thinks to be the right 
 ' one ; and the end thereof are the ways of death.' The Di- 
 vinity of Christ, evidenced by the accomplishment of so many 
 oracles, and supported by the concurrent testimonies of all 
 nations and ages, since his appearance on earth, has so many 
 
18 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 apologists, that the doctor can easily meet with some of them 
 in every library, and, I doubt not, in his own ; and that it 
 were presumption in me to attempt going over the same 
 ground ; especially, after what Abadie and Houteville have 
 said on this important subject. Moreover, Sir, you acknow- 
 ledge the authenticity of the Scriptures ; and found your 
 doubts, either on the obscurity of some passages, or the mis- 
 application of some prophecies, or the numberless texts, re- 
 lating to Christ's humanity. In this walk, I take the liberty 
 of attending you, step by step; and shall avoid, as much as 
 possible, any long digression ; lest we may stray too far from 
 the path. 
 
 OBSCURITY. 
 
 You affirm, that the first chapter of St. John, in which the 
 Divinity of Christ is asserted, * In the beginning was the 
 1 Word ; and the Word was with God ; and the Word was 
 ' God ;' is intricate and obscure. It is quite the reverse ; and 
 Christ's Divinity cannot be read in more legible characters. 
 You understand by the Word, ' the Man Jesus, whom God 
 ' raised up in time, and to whom God imparted extraordinary 
 
 * gifts.' In understanding by the Word, the Man Jesus, you 
 are in similar circumstances with king Agrippa, who said: 
 ' Paul, Paul, you have made me almost a Christian.' You 
 Mould be entirely a Christian, if you added to ' the Man Jesus, 
 whom God raised up in time,' the God Jesus, who was be- 
 gotten from eternity : according to the saying of the Psalmist, 
 
 * before the morning star I have begotten thee :' words which 
 Christ applies to himself. Or you understand by the fore- 
 going words, ' In the beginning was the word,' &c. truth and 
 righteousness, co-eternal tvith the Divinity. Permit me to tell 
 you, that you explain one obscurity by another ; and that, 
 notwithstanding all your shifts, either the Evangelist did not 
 know what he was saying, or you must absolutely allow 
 an eternal and pre-existent principle, united to human nature, 
 
 * in the fulness of time.' 
 
 To prove what I advanced, I shall adopt your interpre- 
 tation, and place truth in the room of word. * In the begin- 
 
 * ning was the truth ; and the truth was with God : and God 
 
 * was the truth.* Remark, here, that God and the truth ate 
 identified :— God was the truth. In the same chapter, it is 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 19 
 
 said : ' the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.* In 
 adopting your interpretation, it will be : ' the truth was made 
 
 * flesh and dwelt among us,' viz. the same truth of which he 
 said before, that it was God himself; and then the entire 
 sense will be, God, the truth, was made flesh, and dwelt 
 amongst us. Upon the whole, you are to acknowledge an 
 eternal, pre-existent principle, assuming human nature ; or to 
 reject this chapter as suppositious, which no Arian or So- 
 cinian ever did. 
 
 You accuse the English translators of some design, in 
 transposing these words, ' k*1 ©eo? w b Aoy©^ < And God was 
 
 * the Word,' which they have Englished, 'and the Word 
 
 * was God,' as if they intended to promote the Christian 
 cause by an artful transposition. 
 
 I see no advantage you can derive from so severe and in- 
 jurious an intimation. Whether we say, ' God was the 
 'Word,' or 'the Word was God,' the sense is the same: 
 for, in all languages, it is the nature of the copulative verb 
 (is) to identify the predicate and the subject, if it be not fol- 
 lowed by some exclusive particle or negative word. Peter 
 was or is that man : transpose the words, and such will be the 
 result of the transposition : that man was or is Peter. The 
 sense is the same in both cases : and the same may be said, 
 and is true, whether we say, ' God was the Word,' or ' the 
 ' Word was God.' 
 
 This chapter is as clear as the first chapter of St. Paul's 
 epistle to the Colossians, wherein he sets forth and extols the 
 qualities of our divine Redeemer, ' by whom were made all 
 'things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible; 
 ' whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers : 
 ' all things were created by him and in him : and he is before 
 ' all : and all things subsist in him.'* 
 
 If all things, that are, were made by him, he himself was 
 not made : and his divine power is signified, when it is said, 
 ' all things subsist,' or are preserved by him. 
 
 Further : critics lay down a general rule, whereby to elu- 
 cidate the sense and meaning of authors, viz. to know the 
 time in which they lived ; the circumstances in which they 
 wrote ; and the adversaries with whom they were engaged. 
 The application of the rule evinces the literality of the first 
 
 9 Verse IS, 17. 
 
20 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 chapter of St. John, which puzzled and perplexed the Arians 
 and Socinians, and exhausted the metaphysics of the subtle 
 Crellius. St. John wrote his gospel at the request of the 
 Asiatic bishops, in opposition to the false doctrine of Ebion 
 and Cerinthus, who denied the divinity of the Son of God. 
 Motives, circumstances, the nature of the question, the doc- 
 trine of his adversaries, all concur to prove that he is to be 
 understood in a literal sense : a sense so free from any mys- 
 terious obscurity, that the Platonic philosophers, according 
 to St. Austin, discovered, in this chapter, the Divinity of the 
 Son of God. ' But they were too proud,' says this father, 
 
 * to acknowledge the lowness of his humanity.' 
 
 SECOND OBSCURITT. 
 
 To invalidate our ^belief of Christ's conception in a 
 virgin's womb, you oppose St. Matthew, who says, 'that 
 
 * Jacob was father to Joseph, the husband of Mary,' to St. 
 Luke, who says, ' that Heli was Joseph's father.' But this 
 seeming contradiction vanishes, if we pay attention to the 
 manner in which the Jews sometimes traced their genealogy. 
 In Deuteronomy,* the law declares, * that if one brother dies 
 
 * without children, the surviving brother shall marry his re- 
 c lict, in order to raise up issue for the deceased,' which issue 
 was to bear his name. Hence, a twofold genealogy amongst 
 the Jews ; the one legal, the other natural. Jacob and Heli 
 ivere brothers. Heli died without issue. Jacob married his 
 relict, and begot Joseph, the husband of Mary. Thus, when 
 St. Luke calls Heli ■ Joseph's father,' he means, his father, 
 according to the law : and when St. Matthew calls Jacob 
 c Joseph's father,' he means, his father, according to nature : 
 and by this means, the Evangelists are easily reconciled. 
 Other solutions are given to this difficulty, and you are at 
 3'our option to give the preference to which you choose. 
 The Jewish records, and their family registers have been 
 burnt with the archives of their temple. We live at too great 
 a distance to settle the genealogies of their families. The 
 Evangelists, besides the gift of inspiration, had every in- 
 formation, as they were nearer the times. In certain coun- 
 tries, there are some traces of this ancient custom of giving 
 the denomination of father or uncle to a person who is not 
 
 * Cliap. xxv. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 21 
 
 cither the one or the other, but by a fiction of law. Hence, in * 
 the province of Britany, in France, by their municipal law, u 
 relation, in a remoter degree, inherits as an uncle ; and has 
 the title of ' Oncle a la mode de Bretagne,' an uncle, accord- 
 ing to the custom of Britany. 
 
 If, of two historians, in writing the life of one of their no- 
 bles, one said, that he was nephew to one, and the other, that 
 he was nephew to another, could we impeach either with ig- 
 norance, when both could be reconciled by examining into 
 the customs of the country in which they wrote ? And, if the 
 rule stands good with regard to authors of credit and repute, 
 how much more so, with regard to inspired writers ? 
 
 Let us now examine your difficulty relative to this famous 
 prophecy of Isaiah,* applied to Jesus Christ by St. Matthew,f 
 
 * a virgin shall conceive, and bring forth a Son : and they 
 
 * shall call his name Immanuel : that is to sav, God is with 
 'us.' 
 
 You assert, that, ' St. Matthew did not well understand the 
 ' Prophet's meaning :' and, ' that this prophecy concerns one 
 4 Maher-shalal-hashbas, born of a prophetess, and given as a 
 
 * sign to Ahaz, king of Judah.' An easy way to elude a text 
 of Scripture ! Mistakes and ignorance attributed to inspired 
 writers ! 
 
 We are to state the fact that gave occasion to this prophecy, 
 before we attempt to unfold its mysterious sense, and to shew 
 how the coincidence of circumstances makes it applicable to 
 Jesus Christ, and to him alone. 
 
 The kings of Israel and Syria laid siege to Jerusalem, with 
 a design to cut off the house of David, and place a stranger 
 on the throne. Ahaz, who could not be ignorant of Jacob's 
 prophecy, who had foretold, ' that the sceptre should not de- 
 part from the house of Judah, until Shiloh, or the Messiah, 
 *was come'| apprehended, not only the reduction of the 
 city, but moreover the total excision of the Jewish polity, 
 which was to happen when the sceptre was to depart from the 
 house of David: as it afterwards came to pass, about the time 
 of the birth of Christ, when the Jews were obliged to receive 
 such kings as the Romans chose to appoint. 
 
 To dispel the fears of the desponding king, the Prophet 
 gives him two signs, confirming, first, that the sceptre should 
 
 - Chan. vii. vrvse 14. -f Chsp. i. % Genesis, vhan. xxix. 
 
'22 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 not depart from the house of David, until a child is born of a 
 virgin, in a miraculous manner, who would be God himself, 
 Immanuel: and, as there was not such a miraculous child in 
 his kingdom, he might rest secure that the sceptre should 
 not depart so soon from the royal line. Thus, his alarms, 
 concerning the house of David, are quieted, in hearing the 
 prophecy foretelling a miraculous birth, which was to happen 
 at a distant period. There still remained another doubt, 
 viz. whether the confederate kings would take Jerusalem, be- 
 sieged by such powerful forces "? And this the prophet re- 
 moved, by telling him, that his own child* should not be of 
 age to discern good from evil, before the two kings would be 
 cut off. 
 
 Between Immanuel and Maher-shalal-hashbas there is not 
 the least connexion. The first signifies, in Hebrew, God with 
 us : the second signifies, hasten to take the spoils : make haste 
 to take the prey. ' The one is conceived by a virgin, the other 
 is the fruit of connubial ties: and the Prophet expressly de- 
 clares it.f Upon this occasion, we do not read, 'hat he mar- 
 ried a second wife : neither was polygamy familiar to austere 
 persons of the prophetic profession : and the third verse, of 
 the seventh chapter, absolutely precludes a state of virginity, 
 whereas the Prophet is commanded to go with his son to meet 
 the kins;: and this son must be older than Maher-shalal- 
 hashbas. 
 
 The prophecy, then, relates to two different persons, Im- 
 manuel and Maher-shalal-hashbas ; two different objects, the 
 excision of the royal line of David, and the reduction of Je- 
 rusalem ; two different events and signs ; the raising of the 
 siege, and the defeat of the two confederate kings, which was 
 to be accomplished speedily, before the prophet's child could 
 cry to his father and mother : and the other, I mean the total 
 extinction of the Jewish regal authority, when the sceptre was 
 to be wrested from David's descendants, and lodged in the 
 hands of the Essenian kings, under the protection of the 
 Romans, about the time of Immanuei's birth, * who is God 
 * above all, and blessed for ever.' 
 
 Should any doubt still remain, concerning this famous 
 prophecy, faith is the firm anchor that ought to fix the doubts 
 of a fluctuating mind : and humility should be so far preva- 
 
 * Mentioned, chap. viii. yer. 4. f In chap. Tiii. ver. 3. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 23 
 
 lent, as to induce us to prefer the opinion of an inspired 
 writer before our own. We must renounce the Scriptures, 
 or acknowledge that an Evangelist is a more competent judge 
 of a prophet's meaning than we can pretend to be. 
 
 After wading through those difficulties, I shall not swell 
 my page with all the passages quoted in your book, to prove 
 Christ's humanity : I allow them all. But what are we to do 
 with all the texts that prove his divinity ? ' The Alpha and 
 ' Omega.' 'The beginning and end.' 'My Father and I 
 'are one.' ' The first and the last.' 'A God manifested in 
 'flesh; a God mortified in flesh.' 'God was the Word.* 
 Supreme worship due to God alone. ' Let all the angels of 
 ' God adore him.' Eternal generation. ' This day I have 
 ' begotten thee.' The express appellation of a God, and his 
 sovereign dominion. ' Unto the Son he saith, thy throne, 
 ' O God, is for ever and ever,' &c. &c. &c. 
 
 To elude the texts that assert his divinity, you take refuge 
 in a vain distinction of two characters in which Christ ap- 
 peared ; the one private, the other public: a man, in his 
 private character ; an ambassador or messenger of God, in 
 his public ministry, by shewing his credentials, and assuming 
 the title of God, in quality of an ambassador. I appeal to the 
 judgment of the public, if this be not sporting with words, 
 and perverting the use of language. 
 
 In the most solemn negociations between monarchs, do 
 their ambassadors or envoys arrogate to themselves the title 
 of kings ? And in the most authentic ratifications of treaties, 
 do not they sign in their masters' names ? Has any of them 
 the presumption to pass for the son of his master? When 
 Christ said to his disciples, ' as my living Father has sent me, 
 1 so I send you.' When St. Paul said, ' we are Christ's am- 
 ' bassadors,' did either he or any of the Apostles say, ' I am 
 ' Christ; Christ and I are one. Whatever Christ does, I do 
 4 in like manner. I am before Abraham. I am before all 
 ' things V 
 
 When, by way of allusion, the title of God is given to any 
 mortal in the Scriptures, the limitations and restrictions, 
 under which it is given, evidently preclude an indisputable 
 claim to such an awful title. It is a gift bestowed with a par- 
 simonious hand. 'I have made thee the God of Pharaoh*' 
 says the Almighty to Moses. This word, Pharaoh, limits 
 
 z 
 
24 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 and circumscribes the power of the deified mortal, and evinces 
 a precarious title. ' I have said ye are Gods,' but the addi- 
 tion of the following words, 'ye shall die,' clears up the pro- 
 phet's meaning. Besides, this appellation is given by some 
 others : no person assumes it himself. Christ declares, that 
 he is the Son of God, the same with his Father. In his per- 
 son, all the lineaments of the Divinity are united. Pro- 
 phecies and oracles, predicting ' that God himself will come 
 ' to save us,' are applied to him. He declares himself to be 
 the same : and St. Paul affirms, that he thought it no usurpa- 
 tion to be equal to the Most High. 
 
 In vain, then, it is alleged, that Christ and his Apostles 
 applied these oracles and passages to the Son of God, in a 
 figurative manner, or, to use the term of the schools, in an 
 accommodate sense. 
 
 Lucifer himself, who attempted ' to raise his throne above 
 ' the clouds, and make himself like unto the Most High,' 
 could not have used a more impious and blasphemous figure, 
 than to usurp the name and attributes of the sovereign 
 Being; to require the same homage, adoration, and love, that 
 are due to the Divinity. ' He that loves father and mother 
 ' more than me, is not worthy to be my disciple.' ' Whoever 
 ' loves his soul more than me, is not worthy to be my dis- 
 ' ciple.' Did mortal before ever use such words ? 
 
 All other figures and allegories are explained in some part 
 of Scripture, or wrapped up in mysterious clouds, to be dis- 
 pelled by the brightness of eternal day, after exercising our 
 belief: but with regard to the Divinity of Christ, if it be a 
 figure, it is a metaphor continued through a long chain of 
 prophecies and oracles, without the least explication to unfold 
 its mysterious sense, repeated almost in every page of the 
 New Testament, and sealed with the blood of Christ,, his 
 Apostles, and Martyrs. When he appeared on earth to 
 convert the Jews and Gentiles, and destroy idolatry, which 
 blindfolded mankind, could he have taken more opposite 
 steps to his mission, than to raise, the dead, and change the 
 course of nature, in proof of a doctrine insinuating his Di- 
 vinity, if he had no real claim to the title ? At a time when 
 the credulous multitude were apt to enrol extraordinary men 
 in the number of their Gods; when they worshipped the 
 Garth that nourished them ; the air that refreshed them ; the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 25 
 
 sun that enlightened them ; the moon that directed their 
 steps in the obscurity of night ; the fire that warmed them ; 
 the heroes that cleared the woods and forests of lions and 
 serpents that annoyed them ; the conquerors who delivered 
 them from their enemies ; the wise and generous princes who 
 rendered their subjects happy, and the memory of their reign 
 immortal. At a time when altars were erected at Athens, to 
 the Unknown God ; when the priests of Salamis raised the 
 sacrifice knife, to offer victims in honour of Paul, whom they 
 took for Mercury, on account of his eloquence, and the no- 
 velty of his doctrine ; and in honour of Barnabas, whom they 
 revered as Jupiter, on account of his venerable aspect : and 
 when the sortileges of Simon, the magician, procured him the 
 honour of a temple at Rome, and the appellation of the great 
 God. At such a critical period, when gratitude deified be- 
 nefactors, and extraordinary powers laid the foundations of 
 temples, and swelled the catalogue of false Gods ; it was a 
 dangerous and ill-timed doctrine, to preach that he was equal 
 to God ; that he was the Son of God ; that eternal life con- 
 sisted in the knowledge of himself and of his Father ; to com- 
 mand his followers to lay down their lives, sooner than deny 
 him, &c. and to confirm this doctrine by silencing the winds 
 that subsided at his nod; by calming the stormy seas ; chang- 
 ing the nature of the elements ; restoring sight to the blind ; 
 the use of their limbs to the lame ; forcing Death to surrender 
 his spoils ; and all nature to acknowledge his power and em- 
 pire. Shall a Paul and Barnabas tear their garments in being- 
 taken for something more than mortal men ; and shall Jesus 
 Christ, if he be not God, in a calm, deliberate manner, rob 
 the Creator of all things, of his glory and the worship due to 
 him, in affirming that himself and the God of heaven are one ; 
 in applauding the faith of the apostle who said that he was the 
 Son of the living God : and in not checking the disciple who, 
 after thrusting his hand into his side, exclaimed, ' my Lord, 
 and my God ! ' 
 
 It is not only in the time of his liberty, when he visits the 
 cities of Israel, healing their sick, raising their dead, feeding 
 multitudes with a few loaves, and refusing the temporal so- 
 vereignty which the people offered him, that he attributes to 
 himself the prerogatives of the divinity. It is in chains, in the 
 the course of his trial, and on the cross : conjured by the high 
 
26 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 priest to tell whether he is Christ the son of God, he answers 
 in the affirmative ; and, in proof of his assertion, says that 
 they shall see him on the right hand of God. ' Do you hear 
 'the blasphemy V cries out the other. Had he used any men* 
 tal reservations on this occasion, by saying one thing and 
 meaning another; by expressing outwardly, 'lam the son 
 ' of God,' and restraining in his mind the sense of the words, 
 to the quality of a messenger; he would not have answered 
 according to the Pontiff's meaning, who knew but too well 
 the difference between a messenger, such as any prophet may 
 be, and a son, who must be of the same nature with his father. 
 What a precedent for perjurers ! And what blasphemy in St. 
 Paul, who affirms, 'that he thought it no usurpation to make 
 * himself equal to God !' 
 
 Common sense often supplies the room of metaphysical 
 demonstrations. And common sense will inform you, that 
 Jesus Christ is either the greatest impostor that ever ap- 
 peared, or that he is literally what he declared himself to be, 
 God and Man, for whom the martyrs suffered, whom the 
 Christians adore, and to whom all knees are to bend one day. 
 If he is an impostor, in vain has the blood of impure vic- 
 tims been drained ; in vain have the altars of false deities been 
 overturned; in vain have their idols been crushed, and their 
 temples destroyed ; a new idol has been set up in their room, 
 and the worship due to the sovereign Being has been trans- 
 ferred to an impostor. If this be the case, God, then, must 
 have deceived mortals, in investing an impostor, during his 
 life, and his disciples, after his death, with such extraordinary 
 powers. And the miracles wrought in confirmation of their 
 doctrine, and which could never be wrought but by his ex- 
 press and immediate power, must have been wrought with an 
 express design to mislead his creatures into delusion and er- 
 ror. Reconcile this, if you can, to his goodness, wisdom, 
 and providence ; and behold the absurdities to which incre- 
 dulity leads. 
 
 If you intend to reconcile those texts, that attribute to the 
 same person, an eternal generation and birth in time ; tran- 
 scendant glory and profound humility ; the power and majesty 
 of a God, with the sufferings and death of a man : admit in 
 the same person the divine and human nature. Then, all 
 seeming contradiction vanish, His infirmities and sufferings 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 27 
 
 are applicable to him, as Man ; whilst his glorious characters 
 and titles are to be attributed to his Godhead, disguised un- 
 der a human veil. Thus, in Jesus Christ we find the God 
 that created us, whereas he is the same with his father : the 
 redeemer who purchased us, by paying our ransom : the 
 spotless Pontiff, through whom we find access to the throne 
 of mercy. His cross is folly to the Jew, and a scandal to the 
 Gentile : but to the Christian it is the power and wisdom of 
 God. For if he was not man, he could not suffer ; and if 
 he were not God, his sufferings would not avail us. He be- 
 comes man, to suffer for our sake : and, as God he gives his 
 suffe rings an infinite price. 
 
 I remain, &c. 
 
 ARTHUR O'LEARY. 
 
28 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 IN the preceding letters, we have touched upon the 
 weakness of" reason, and the necessity of revealed religion ; 
 the obscurity in which mortals were involved, and the incon- 
 gruity of denying religious mysteries, when the book of na- 
 ture, open to our eyes, is scarce legible ; our fall in Adam, 
 and our restoration in Christ. 
 
 It is now time to examine your opinion concerning the 
 soul of man: an opinion which you deliver in the seventy- 
 second page of your work, in these words : ' Hence, I con- 
 ' elude that the soul dies with the body. It is an opinion 
 ' conformable to reason, observation, and to the doctrine 
 * taught by Jesus Christ and his apostles.' Whatever argu- 
 ments you might have drawn from observation, you should 
 have passed over the authority of Christ and his apostles ; 
 an authority never adduced before in support of a doctrine 
 which in every page they condemn. Or, at least, you should 
 have first a bible of your own, and forced it on the world, as 
 handed to you by the angel Gabriel. 
 
 Man must certainly be liable to error, when, in the blaze 
 of revelation, and after the progress philosophy has made in 
 the world, he still cries out, with the disciple Epicurus : 
 
 ' We know not yet how our soul's proi'uc'd, 
 ' Whether by body born, or else iufns'd • 
 ' Whether in death, breath'd out into the air, 
 4 She doth coufus'dly mix and perish there, 
 ' Or through vast shades and horrid silence g-o, 
 ' To visit brimstone caves and pools below.'* 
 
 Your observation must be quite different from the obser- 
 vations of the greatest men the faculty of physic ever pro- 
 duced : men who were, and are still, as great ornaments to 
 the literary world, as they are useful to mankind. 
 
 We observe, sir, within ourselves, a principle that is 
 obeyed as a sovereign ; that now finds fault with what it be- 
 fore approved ; that covets with passion what it despises after 
 
 * Creech's Lucretius, Book 1. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 20 
 
 enjoying; and now rejoices and then mourns; that reasons 
 and judges. I consult my reason ; and it informs me, that 
 this principle, so noble, and, at the same time, so liable to 
 such conflicting agitations, cannot be a particle of matter, 
 round or square, red or blue ; a volatized vapour dissolvable 
 into air; a contexture of atoms interwoven or separated by 
 a sportive brain. 
 
 My reason informs me, that a being, capable to take in hands 
 the government of a vast empire; to form projects, the suc- 
 cess whereof depends on an infinity of different springs, whose 
 motions and accords must be studied and combined, is some- 
 thing mere than a little subtilized mud. 
 
 I observe matter with all its mutations and refinements ; 
 and I perceive nothing but extension, divisibility, figure, and 
 motion. 
 
 My reason tells me, that the combinations of the different 
 particles of matter, let their velocity be ever so great, can 
 never reveal the sacred mysteries of faith ; the holy rules of 
 equity ; the ideas of piety, order, and justice. 
 
 Moreover, reason informs us, that matter is indifferent to 
 motion or rest, to this or that situation. When moved in 
 any direction, the smallest particle of any body or mass of 
 matter, must yield to the motion of the whole. On the other 
 hand, in our temptations and struggles, amidst the solicita- 
 tions of sense, and the cravings of appetite, we can say with 
 St. Paul, that we feel an interior conflict and two opposite 
 laws in ourselves : * the law of the body warring against the 
 ' law of the mind, and attempting to captivate us to the law 
 ' of sin.' Under the inconvenience of such struggles and 
 conflicts, a part of ourselves still remains the directing prin- 
 ciple, always asserting its rights, and constantly supporting 
 its native title to dominion. 
 
 Reconcile, if you can, to the laws of mechanism, to the 
 cohesion of atoms, and to the motions of particles of matter, 
 the infinite capacity of the soul, its strong desires after im- 
 mortality, its power to infer conclusions from principles, in 
 mathematical demonstrations, and logical arguments; its 
 arbitrary and voluntary determinations, this shifting and 
 changing, those strange and sudden returns, reflections, and 
 transitions in thought, which, by experience, we find it in 
 ©ur power to make. 
 
30 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 We all agree, that matter touches in contact, and that 
 whatever moves, is put in motion by another. We know, 
 on the other hand, that, in reasoning, argumentations, de- 
 monstrations, &c. wherein we infer one thing from another, 
 and another thing from that inference, and a third from 
 thence, and so on, there is an infinity of different modes of 
 thought. If those different modes of thought be no more 
 than the different states of the solid, figured, divisible parts 
 of matter, with respect to velocity and direction, it is neces- 
 sary that they should have been put into these different 
 states, by the impulse of some foreign power. 
 
 If this mover, which is the cause of motion, be matter, it 
 must be moved or acted on itself: for otherwise it could not 
 produce a change of motion in other contiguous parts of 
 matter. There must still be a mover prior to the former, 
 and another prior to that, and so on to infinity, in every 
 act of reason and argumentation. But a progression to 
 infinity is discarded by all philosophers, both ancient and 
 modern. 
 
 To spin out the subject in metaphysical arguments, were 
 loss of time. Suffice it to say, that we would contradict our 
 reason, and belie our hearts, in supposing that the troubles, 
 agitations, and importunate remorses we feel after the com- 
 mission of some horrid crime, the secret reproaches of a 
 guilty conscience, which made the Athenian parricide cry 
 out, twenty years after having murdered his father, that the 
 crows upbraided him with his death : we would, 1 say, only 
 belie our hearts, in supposing such interior punishments, 
 which tread in the heels of guilt, to be no more than an 
 assemblage of little atoms, with hooked or rough surfaces. 
 In supposing that patience and resignation in our afflictions, 
 from an expectation of immortality and the spiritual joys of 
 future bliss, the distant reward of our trials, are the result of 
 smooth atoms gliding through the brain; or that the horrors, 
 which haunt the guilty, proceed from the same cause which 
 produces a pain in the head, back, or stomach. 
 
 Further, under the dispensation of a just and powerful God, 
 crimes must be punished, and virtue rewarded. What 
 notion can we form of a God, who makes no distinction be- 
 tween the wretch who strangles his father, in order to take 
 possession of his estate, and the just man who is disposed to 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 39 
 
 of all things has ord .dried their acting in concert, during our 
 short pilgrimage here on earth. 
 
 Ignorance in children, and stupidity in old people, arise 
 from the insertion of an active and spiritual substance in 
 matter not fitly disposed, and yet ordained to be its organ 
 and instrument. The brain is too moist in children', and 
 too dry in old people ; consequently, unapt either for the re- 
 ception or retention of the images transmitted from exterior 
 objects; which images or representations are the materials 
 for the soul to work on. The pencil cannot delineate well, 
 if the canvas be unfit. Letters cannot be formed with nice 
 and delicate strokes, if the pen be bad. It is neither the 
 painter's nor writer's fault, if their skill does not shine in 
 their respective performances, the defect originates in the 
 unaptness of the materials : it is the same case with the soul. 
 This spiritual and immortal substance, seated in the head, 
 as a pilot at the helm, who, besides his innate skill, wants 
 the assistance of the sails and rudder, to steer the un- 
 wieldy vessel, or as a monarch in his palace, who has 
 none but sickly and disordered subjects to command, the 
 soul, I say, stands in need of the organs of the body, as 
 so many ministers of sensation, towards the exertions of 
 its faculties. 
 
 If I am confined to a chamber that has but one window, 
 I cannot see through more than one. If there be more, 
 I can see through all. The visual faculty, in both cases, 
 is the same ; and the difference consists in the removal of 
 the obstacles. Thus, on the loss of an eye or limb, 
 the soul is neither blind or lame ; it is still the same, 
 though its instrumentality be partly destroyed. But if the 
 brain, whose inexplicable folds and spacious palaces are tlie 
 repositories of the various images coming in through their 
 respective avenues from exterior objects, be disordered and 
 obstructed by drunkenness, apoplexy, &c. the passages be- 
 come impracticable; the canvas becomes wrinkled and uneven, 
 the glowing colours cannot spread, the size and attitude of 
 the figures are confounded, and all the requisites of reason- 
 ing are wanting. Let the drunken man sleep, and the sick 
 man recover, 'hen the obstacles are removed, and reason will 
 inform you, that the soul is still the same. 
 
 If the soul, then, under the inconveniences of the foregoing 
 
40 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 circumstances of drunkenness, fever, &c. still retains a faculty 
 or power of perceiving, reasoning, and judging, to be exerted 
 when these obstacles are removed; how much more capable 
 will it not be of those spiritual functions, after its separation 
 from the mass of clay, when disentangled from its fetters, with 
 its enlargement from the body, ' it will return to the God who 
 ' gave it!' 
 
 But you inform us, that * God can do any thing that does 
 ' not imply a contradiction :' and that, ' by an infinite power, 
 * he can add thought to matter.' 
 
 But, Sir, must not a man be very sanguine in the cause 
 of scepticism, and eager to work himself into incredulity, 
 when he has recourse to infinite power, sooner than admit a 
 spiritual soul? If God can add thought to matter, why deny, 
 in a peremptory manner, the possibility of uniting spirit to 
 body ? Locke acknowledges the possibility of adding thought 
 to matter, to the great comfort of our modern free-thinkers ; 
 but still he acknowledges his soul to be spiritual and im- 
 mortal. 
 
 No unhappy comfort can then arise to those whose greatest 
 joy would consist in being a lump of animated earth, from 
 Locke's opinion : for God can do several things which he 
 will never perform . He never will animate a stone, or 
 tree ; and cover them with flesh, susceptible of passions, 
 and willing to gratify them ; give them the organs of speech, 
 and thtis introduce on the stage of life, a set of dogmatizing 
 philosophers, who will glory in being the brothers of 
 plants and mushrooms : as Bisas, the philosopher, said of 
 the Athenians, who gloried in being originally sprung from 
 the earth. 
 
 Sound logic does not allow to argue from possibility to 
 fact ; and, though every respect is due to Locke's authority, 
 yet his possibility of thinking matter , and others of his hypo- 
 theses, are objected to, by the learned. Nor has he any room 
 to complain, if the world does not pay him the same implicit 
 obedience which the disciples ot Pythagoras paid their 
 master, for several great mathematicians and metaphysicians 
 consider, as very possible, systems which Locke rejects, as 
 contradictions. 
 
 We cannot account for the operations of the soul, upon 
 the principles of mechanism. We kuow that the motions of 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 41 
 
 parts, and the artful manner of combining them, can produce 
 nothing but an artful structure, and various modes of motion. 
 Hence, all machines, however artfully their parts are put to- 
 gether, and however complicated their structure, though we 
 conceive innumerable different motions variously combined, 
 and running into one another, with an endless variety, yet 
 never produce any thing but figure and motion. Much less 
 can we account for our mental operations, from the proper- 
 ties of matter. Lucretius and his followers may employ their 
 plastic powers in forming a soul composed of particles of air, 
 firt, vapour, and a fourth something which that poet does not 
 describe. 
 
 They will acknowledge, that none of those elementary par- 
 ticles, separate from the rest, can think ; but that, from 
 their mixture and collision, thought results ; which they 
 attempt to prove by the example of the tree and the earth, 
 neidier of which produces fruit in a separate state. But 
 it is obvious, that the tree contains in itself the seed of the 
 fruit, which the earth stirs and developes; and, to give 
 justness to the comparison, by the same rule, either the fire 
 or air should contain in itself the origin of thought, which is 
 an absurdity. 
 
 If you admit, that God can superadd thought to matter, 
 this thought, then, must be a quality superior to matter, 
 and, consequently, distinct from it. Then the contradiction 
 is palpable, for it will follow, that it is matter and not matter 
 at the same time. 
 
 As to the brutes, become of late the subjects of philosophi- 
 cal panegyric, that raises them to an equality with man, we 
 like them for the service or diversion they afford us ; but, less 
 virtuous than our philosophers, we have not humility to wish 
 to be on a level with them. Pity our pride and ignorance, 
 great oracles, who revile the Christians and extol the cun- 
 ning of the fox, the imitative powers of the ape, the archi- 
 tecture of the beaver, and the provident foresight of the 
 ant. 
 
 Since you believe them of the same nature with your- 
 selves, why do you not arraign the cruelty of the magis- 
 trates, under whose eyes so many murders are daily com- 
 mitted on your brethren ? For if man and the brute be of 
 
4fc MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 the same nature, why should beasts be killed with impunity, 
 whilst the assassin is doomed to the gibbet? The question 
 may seem childish; yet your refined philosophy is humbly 
 requested to give a solid answer. Your Catechism can illus- 
 trate the subject. 
 
 THE 
 
 FREE-THINKER'S CATECHISM ; 
 
 Faithfully collected from some of the most celebrated 
 Free- thinkers of this Age. 
 
 Question. Who made man ? 
 
 Answer. Nothing. 
 
 Q. How did he come into the world? 
 
 A. He sprung out of the earth, spontaneously, as « 
 mushroom.* 
 
 Q. The souls of men and brutes, are they of the same 
 nature ? 
 
 A. Yes.f 
 
 Q. What difference, then, is there between man and the 
 brute ? 
 
 A. Man is a more multiplied animal, with hands and flexi- 
 ble fingers, The paws and feet of other animals are 
 covered, at the extremities, with a horny substance; or 
 terminate in claws or talons.J 
 
 Q. Our superiority over the brute creation, in arts, sci- 
 ences, modesty, civilization, is, then, owing to our hands; 
 and fingers, not to any innate principle of reason ? 
 
 A. Doubtless. 
 
 Q. But the apes, whose paws are much like ours, why 
 have not they made the same progress ? 
 
 * Voltaire on the population of America. 
 
 + Servetus of Cork^ 
 
 J Helvetius, livie de l'Esprit, p. 233. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACT*. 43 
 
 A. Apes live on fruits: and being, like children, in perpe- 
 tual motion, th* y are not susceptible of that ennui, or of 
 wearisomeness, to which we are liable.* 
 
 Q. Is there any virtue in worshipping God, in loving 
 our father, in serving our country, or in relieving the 
 distressed ? 
 
 A. No. 
 
 Q. In what light, then, are we to consider virtue ? 
 
 A. Cry out with Brutus : 4 O vertu tu ne'es qu'un vain 
 nom! 1 4 O virtue, thou art but an empty sound !'t 
 
 Lo, the refined system introduced by those great oracles 
 of human wisdom. If the cannibals, who eat their ao-ed 
 parents, ever learn to read, they will find their justification 
 in your Catechism. 
 
 Our philosophers are the great panegyrists of the instinct 
 of animals, whilst they degrade the reason of man. The 
 cause is obvious ; in pointing out the brutes as rivals quali- 
 fied to contend for superiority with us, they can ar<me with 
 ease and satisfaction. i All dies with the brutes : all dies 
 4 with man. Let us then live as they do; for our end will 
 4 be the same.' But still this way of reasoning, how flatter- 
 ing soever to sensuality, cannot remove the perplexing 
 doubt; for if the brute's soul be of the same nature with 
 that of man, then there is no certainty that the soul of the 
 brute dies. For, laying aside religion, which has decided 
 the question, 'fear not those who can kill the body, but are 
 4 not able to kill the soul,' there is no demonstration that 
 the soul of man dies, but every thing demonstrates the re- 
 verse. To argue, then, with any colour of reason, from the 
 brute to the man, y0u must have a thorough conviction of 
 two things: first, that the soul of the brute is of the same 
 nature with the soul of man; secondly, that the soul of man 
 dies. Neither can be demonstrated, and consequently the 
 assistance which our two-footed philosophers expect from this 
 league and confederacy, into which they would fain enter 
 with apes and four-footed animals, for the destruction of our 
 souls, is no more than a broken reed. 
 
 * HelveJius, livre de l'Esprit, p. 3- f Ibid. p. 397, 
 
44 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 But you will ask me, i in what this instinct of the brutes, 
 
 * and the nature of their souls consists?' 1 answer, candidly, 
 that I know not. Some philosophers are of opinion, that the 
 brutes are meie machines, moved by some exterior agent. 
 Others allow them an inherent principle of life and industry. 
 To the opinion of the latter I accede ; and believe, that what 
 we call instinct, is a certain sagacity and inclination given 
 them by the Creator for their preservation and our use. — 
 But you, who know the nature of your own soul, which you 
 affirm to be of the same nature with that of apes and foxes, 
 can resolve the question. 
 
 ButTon, the French academician, acknowledges, that, in 
 the anatomy or dissection of apes, he could not discover any 
 difference between their organs and those of the human 
 species ; yet the same BufFon, in spite of the similiarity of 
 organs, admits, that the distance between man and the ape 
 is infinite, on account of thought, reason, and consciousness, 
 which proceed from a spiritual principle : and the Royal 
 Psalmist recommends to us, not to ' resemble the horse and 
 
 * the mule, that have no understanding.' Our ignorance of 
 the nature of their instinct, souls, &c. does not imply 
 an ignorance of the nature of our own. If, through 
 the veil of a mortal body, we can know and love our Maker, 
 why should we cease to know him, when the mask falls, and 
 the veil is removed ? If we admit no annihilation in 
 nature, and that matter, in spite of its changes, never 
 perishes, why should we refuse the soul the same privilege ? 
 If brutes could reason, judge, abstract, divide, compare 
 the rules of order, justice, good and evil, as rational beings 
 do, they would not answer the end of nature ; and what 
 has been made for the use of man, would become his 
 destruction. 
 
 By dint of blows and other means, we can train up a 
 horse to point out the hour on a dial; a bear to dance; 
 a monkey to supply the place of a postillion; and a dog 
 to move a minute. Several instances of the sagacity of 
 animals are adduced by Plutarch and others. But, 
 whatever variety of turns and motions they may ac- 
 quire by such a culture, it is not to a principle of 
 reason, but to the address of their tutors, we are to 
 attribute it: for, however quick their hearing, how sagaci- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 45 
 
 «us soever their Instinct, it would be vain to attempt instruct- 
 ing them in the beauty of order, the rules of justice, the 
 rights of society, the origin of the world, the love of their 
 Maker, the terrors of the last judgment, the pains of hell, or 
 the ineffable joys of a future state. Whoever doubts me, 
 let him try the experiment. 
 
 It is not so with the savage or child. They are capable 
 of instruction in all those points, and susceptible of the im- 
 pressions arising from the notions of moral o- od or moral 
 evil. 
 
 Hence, neither from the sagacity of brutes, nor the expe- 
 rience of mankind, nor the observations of philosophers can 
 arguments be adduced in support of a doctrine tending; to 
 overthrow the spirituality and immortality of the soul. And, 
 when you attribute the doctrine of the soul's immortality to 
 the subtilty of schoolmen, and when Helvetius fixes its first 
 introduction in Nero's time, when the Gospel was preached 
 at Rome,* we cannot arraign either you or him for igno- 
 rance, as both are well read; but we charge you with 
 wilful imposition, which is worse. 
 
 Scattered sparks of the soul's immortality are to be found 
 in the Old Testament. Resurrection, judgment, the rewards 
 and punishments of a future life, are mentioned by the in- 
 spired writers, long before the introduction of the Gospel, or 
 Hesiod's theogony. Pythagoras taught the metempsychosis, 
 or transmigration of souls, long before Seneca taught Nero 
 to declaim. Even ancient errors shew how ancient was the 
 belief of the soul's immortality; and demonstrate, that it is 
 to be ranked amongst the first traditions of mankind. Did 
 not almost all men sacrifice to the manes, that is, to the souls 
 of the dead? From one extremity of the world to the other, 
 people of different humours, countries, worship and interest, 
 agree in this important article of immortality. It is no col- 
 lusion; for a general association of mankind could never be 
 formed : nor a prejudice of education, for manners, customs, 
 and education, are different in different nations. This notion 
 of immortality is common to all : remote isles, and foreign 
 nations figured to themselves shades and climes, through 
 which the roving spirit was to travel, after its separation from 
 fhe body. Hence the custom of killing wives and of- 
 
 * Helvetius, Uvre de l'Espn't, 
 
46 MISCELLANEOUS fRACTS, 
 
 ficers, at the death of their kings; lest the royal ghost 
 should travel without attendants. This several nations 
 practised, and the Indians, distinguished by pagan authors, 
 amongst the assertors of the immortality of the soul, were 
 also the first that introduced those horrid murders upon 
 earth, which they practise to this very day. Nature, then, 
 taught the soul's immortality, without a monitor ; or 
 rather, the Almighty has stamped its notion on our ex- 
 istence; and savage people, in forgetting God, could not 
 forget themselves. 
 
 There are still some religious, as well as philoso- 
 phical paradoxes in your writings, besides the capital 
 errors already mentioned, I have not leisure to examine 
 them all. 
 
 You say, that, * from the continual waste of mould, 
 4 washed away by the rain, the animal world will become ex- 
 1 tinct, for want of food.' This, I suppose, is advanced with 
 a design to invalidate the oracles which foretel the world's 
 dissolution by fire. A prodigious quantity of the liquid 
 element is wasted in watering fields, woods, &c. Doctor 
 Halley is of opinion, that the Mediterranean loses in 
 vapour, five thousand, five hundred, and eighty millions 
 of tons, in a day ; and receives but one thousand, eight 
 hundred, and twenty-seven, from rivers: so that it would 
 soon be drained, unless a great quantity returned in dew 
 and rain upon it. 
 
 It seems, then, to me, that the animal world will be extinct 
 for want of drink : but a greater prophet than either of us, 
 foretold the world's dissolution by fervent heat. 
 
 You argue against the Chinese antiquities, from the waste 
 of mould: by the same rule, you can argue against Moses' 
 account of the creation. But, to argue against the an- 
 tiquities of any nation, from the waste of mould, is nothing 
 better than the waste of time. The European missionaries 
 convinced the Chinese of their error, by reckoning the 
 eclipses of the sun, in a conference with their learned men, 
 when the emperor of Tartary became master of China. It 
 was the surest method, and that by which Callisthenes 
 baffled the pretended antiquity of the Babylonians, when 
 Alexander took their city. 
 
 If Moses be an allegorical writer, it is hard, ' from the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 47 
 
 * waste of mould,' to determine when the Alps emerged 
 from the chaos. 
 
 You are of opinion, that, before the deluge, l none but 
 
 * giants inhabited the earth.' Before the deluge the world 
 had its Davids and Goliahs, its Fionnmacools and Ushions. — 
 Moses talks of giants, as rarities : ' in them days, there 
 4 were giants on the earth.' A rarity is an exception to 
 the general rule, and supposes a more extensive class of 
 beings. 
 
 The longevity of the antediluvians can be ascribed to two 
 causes : the one supernatural, in order to perpetuate re- 
 ligion, and give the aged patriarchs time to instil it into the 
 minds of their spreading generations: the other natural, 
 viz. their sobriety, the simplicity of their diet, the salubrity 
 of the air, not corrupted by the noxious vapours which rose 
 from the earth, after the flood, the fertility of the soil, &c. 
 You know the state of the world, before the deluge so well, 
 that you fix 4 the age of puberty at the age of sixty-five.' I 
 believe that procreation began, before the deluge, as early 
 as at present. Or else, they must have been monstrous 
 babes that were at the breast, and fed with spoon-meat, at 
 the age of twenty. By the rules of analogy, we may judge 
 of their nubile state, by the tall Prussian, and low Lap- 
 lander. The size is disproportionate : but the age for mar- 
 rying is the same in both. 
 
 You deny any confusion of tongues at the dispersion ; 
 because what has been translated language, signifies lip, in 
 Hebrew. Sometimes it does, but the addition of speech 
 signifies something more. * And the whole earth was of one 
 
 * language, and of one speech.'* And what is here trans- 
 lated speech, signifies words, in the original Hebrew. 
 
 You deny that there were any propitiatory sacrifices. 
 There are sin-offerings, notwithstanding, mentioned in the 
 Scriptures, 4 for the bodies of those beasts, whose blood for 
 4 sin is brought into the sanctuary, by the high priest, are 
 
 * burnt without the camp. In proof of your opinion, you 
 4 mention, Pythagoras's hecatomb for being able to prove 
 
 * the properties of a right-angled triangle; Jephtah , s offer* 
 4 ing up his daughter; Baal's priests cutting themseives 
 
 * with knives,' to propitiate their god; and, to crown all, 
 
 * Genesis, chap, ii, 
 H 
 
48 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 you assert, that the God of Israel changed sides, when 
 the king of Moab sacrificed his son on the walls of his 
 
 But, Sir, were not sacrifices instituted by the Almighty 
 God? Why should his holy rites and ceremonies be set on a 
 level with heathen profanations, Baal's priests, and Pytha- 
 goras's idols ? A sacrifice is the oblation of a sensible thing, 
 by a lawful minister, in honour of the divinity, in acknow- 
 ledgment of his supreme power over life and death. Not 
 only human victims were interdicted by the law, but even 
 several animals; such as asses, hares, &c. Hence, Jephtah's 
 sacrifice, if he killed his daughter, was a cruel murder; he 
 was no fit priest; his daughter was no fit victim; and God 
 cannot be honoured by a breach of his own law. 
 . I say, ' if he killed his daughter,' because, in the original 
 Hebrew, it may as well signify, ' devoted to the Lord ? 
 meaning that he devoted her to perpetual chastity: as 
 several modern critics explain it, and as it seems to be 
 the case. For, inspired as he was, it is not to be presumed 
 that he was guilty of such a fatal mistake: and St. Paul 
 reckons him amongst the worthies who, by faith, obtained 
 the promised reward. 
 
 How, then, could the God of Israel ' change sides,' by 
 relishing the profane vapours of idolatrous blood, smoaking, 
 not in his honour, but in honour of the idols of the Moabites ? 
 The text you quote, ; and there was great indignation 
 4 against Israel,' proves no more, than that the confederate 
 kings were angry with themselves for having forced the 
 unhappy father to plunge, as it were, the dagger in his 
 own bowels, in the person of his son. 
 
 When, to deny propitiatory sacrifices, you say, that 
 4 God cannot be bribed or flattered,' I agree with you: but, 
 you would not controul his power, nor contest his authority, 
 to impose laws and obligations on his creatures ; to annex 
 to the observance and infraction of those laws, rewards and 
 punishments ; to require their submission by visible symbols : 
 in the victim stretched and bound on the altar, to remind 
 them of the chains of sin, and of their state under their 
 Creators hand, who, each instant, can deprive them of their 
 lives; in the sable sinoak rolling from the blazing holocaust, 
 
 * 2 Kings, chap. iii. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 49 
 
 to moke thern perceive a raj of hope, directing their eves 
 to a distant victim, the effusion of whose blood was lo quench, 
 one day, more active flames, and to change this scene of 
 carnage and misery, into means of expiation; not indeed by 
 the virtue and efficacy of the sacrifices in themselves, but in- 
 asmuch as they typified the immolation of 4 the Lamb that 
 ' is slain from the foundations of the world,' in the observance 
 of whose law, and in the love and knowledge of whose 
 person, consists eternal life. Age, a variety of accidents, 
 and the uncertainty of death, press our return to a merciful 
 Redeemer. It is too late to dispute with Jesus Christ his 
 divinity, or with the soul its immortality, when the spirit is 
 arraigned at the awful tribunal of the Judge of the living 
 le dead. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 Your affectionate servant, 
 
 ARTHUR O'LEARY. 
 
 and the 
 
LOYALTY ASSERTED, 
 
 OR THE 
 
 NEW TEST OATH VINDICATED, 
 
 And proved by the Principles of the Canon and Civil Laws, and 
 
 the Authority of the most eminent Writers. ..With an 
 
 'Enquiry into the Pope's deposing Power, 
 
 and the groundless Claims of the 
 
 Stuarts, fyc. fyc. fyc. 
 
 IN A LETTER TO A PROTESTANT GENTLEMAN. 
 
 — ^©^>- 
 
 ' Duo sunt, Iinperator Aug-uste, auctoritas sacra 
 ' Pontificnin, et regalis potestas.' 
 
 Gelasius, in eplst. ad Anastasiuot. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Notwithstanding newspaper declamations, and the very 
 heavy charges brought against popery, you are candid 
 enough to tell me, that ' you do not look on my profession 
 < as an imputation so dangerous that it entirely destroys all 
 4 correspondence.' You are not mistaken in your conjec- 
 tures. However we may differ in belief, you hare nothing 
 to apprehend; as speculative tenets do not interfere with 
 the duties of civil life, and that my practical doctrine 
 tends more to improve, than corrupt the heart. 
 
 We have been school-fellows, and well united. We have 
 met in foreign kingdoms, and the remembrance of an early 
 acquaintance has cemented our friendship anew. We are 
 restored once more to our native isle, floating in an ocean 
 of politics, and exhibiting as great a variety of religions, 
 opinions, and sentiments, as you have seen curiosities at the 
 fair of St. Ovid's in Paris. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 51 
 
 What party shall we side ? What plan shall we pursue ? 
 If we treat as enemies all those whose persuasion is diffe- 
 rent from ours, the number of our friends will be but small. 
 Let us then be retainers to Dean Swift's doctrine. Let the 
 Christians agree in the points allowed on all sides, as much 
 as they differ with regard to private opinions, and dissen- 
 tions shall be soon at an end. They all agree, that the first 
 of their laws, is a law of eternal love, expanding into sen- 
 timents of benevolence, and teaching its votaries to return 
 affection for hatred, and good for evil : that it is a divine 
 legacy bequeathed by their common Redeemer to his fol- 
 lowers ; and that Christians, cemented together by the blood 
 of a God, should never be divided. 
 
 This is a point of doctrine liable to no controversy. Oh ! 
 could it be enforced on the mind, factions would soon 
 expire, and charity ascend the throne, holding broils, 
 dissentions, slanders, calumnies at her feet, as so many 
 captives in chains. 
 
 ' Toleration in a Popish priest !' if by toleration is 
 meant indifference as to religion, God forbid ! In this 
 sense it implies an error; and though it makes a great 
 figure in the disputes among divines, yet in two words 
 we can ascertain its degrees and measures. Let us 
 never tolerate error in ourselves : let us pity it in our neigh' 
 bours. ' Detest the error,' says St. Augustine, ' but love the 
 * man.' For in the conflict of different opinions that will 
 divide the world to the end of time, Christian charity still 
 asserts her prerogatives. Her oily balsam heals the ranking 
 ulcer caused by a religious inflammation, and attenuates the 
 black and viscous humours, which so often degenerate into 
 an evangelical spleen. 
 
 But, if by toleration we mean impunity, safety, and pro- 
 tection granted by the state, to every sect that does not 
 maintain doctrines inconsistent with the public peace, the 
 rights of sovereigns, and the safety of our neighbour, to 
 such a toleration I give my patronacy ; and expect that the 
 following proofs of the articles of the test, will evince the 
 justness of entitling the Roman Catholics to the lenity of 
 government, and the confidence of their fellow-subjects. 
 
52 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 THE 
 
 OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. 
 
 ART. I. 
 
 * I, A. B. do take Almighty God to witness, that I will be 
 4 faithful and bear true allegiance to our most gracious So- 
 ' vereign Lord, King George the Third, and him will de- 
 
 * fend to the utmost of my power, against all conspiracies 
 
 * and attempts whatever, that shall be made against his 
 ' person, crown and dignity.' 
 
 Although I should never swear any allegiance in form, yet 
 there is an original and natural allegiance from subject to 
 king ; a debt that forbids all conspiracies and treasonable 
 practices ' against his person, crown, and dignity.' At my 
 birth I was under his protection ; and in a tender infancy, 
 when I could not protect myself, I was shielded by his name. 
 His tribunals are still open to secure my life and liberty; 
 and as there is an implied contract between king and sub- 
 ject, my oath does not change the nature of my obligations. 
 It only strengthens the civil band by the tie of religion, and 
 superadds to treason the guilt of perjury in the transgressors. 
 This obligation is corroborated by the positive injunctions 
 of the Scripture, enforcing obedience to the prince whose 
 image is stamped on his coin, and grounded on the laws of 
 the nation, which, from the earliest periods, have transferred 
 the subject's allegiance to the king, for the time being, and 
 declared it high treason in a subject to attempt any thing 
 even against an usurper, while he is in full possession of the 
 sovereignty. This the laws have wisely ordained, in order 
 to prevent anarchy and confusion ; because the common peo- 
 ple cannot judge of the king's title. But here I thrust my 
 sickle into the civilian's field; though in the end, oaths of 
 allegiance should be determined by the laws and maxims of 
 the realm, as well as by principles of divinity.* Further, let 
 
 * Vide Blackstone's Commentaries, book I. chap. 10. Cooke, 3 Inst. 7. Kel. 
 rep. 15. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 53 
 
 it be remarked, that the foundation of this decision has been 
 laid in Catholic times ; and that in applying it to the actual 
 circumstances, 1 do not mean to distinguish between right 
 and fact in our most gracious Sovereign. I only argue a 
 minpri ad majus, to shew the guilt of attempting any thing 
 against a lawful Sovereign, whereas it is high treason to con- 
 spire against an usurper. 
 
 The famous distinction between i rcx dejuref and i rex de 
 facto? how interesting soever in the times of the contending 
 families of York and Lancaster, James II. and William III. 
 is now of as much importance as this great question, so 
 warmly debated among our grave moralists : ' Who is hap- 
 ' pier, a king awake, or a cobler asleep, who dreams that he 
 ; is a king ?' I do not choose to disturb the rest of sleeping 
 monarchs, and whoever has a relish for dreams, lias my con- 
 sent, though I like more solid food. 
 
 ART. II. 
 
 * AND I do faithfully promise to maintain, support, and de- 
 4 fend, to the utmost of my power, the succession of the 
 4 throne, in his Majesty's family, against anv person or 
 i persons whatsoever.' 
 
 Any thing that does not clash with the laws of God, what- 
 ever is conducive to the public good, and has for its imme- 
 diate object, the peace of society, and aioidance of bloodshed, 
 civil wars, and public calamities, can be safely sworn to, 
 and the object of a lawful oath; but such is the nature of the 
 second article of the test, which, according to the wise laws 
 of a nation wherein the crown is hereditary in the wearer, 
 equally guards against revolutions so frequent in despotic 
 states, and elective kingdoms. In the first, the prince 
 names his successor; and, as others may think themselves 
 injured by such a partial preference, the throne is as totter- 
 ing as the succession is arbitrary. Witness the history of the 
 oriental nations. 
 
 In elective kingdoms, corruption, violence, and bribery 
 precede the coronation : bloodshed and misery are the con- 
 sequeuces. Poland is no more, because there have been 
 many candidates, but no heir to the throne. Her liberum 
 
54 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 veto, or charter of unbounded liberty to oppose the king, 
 has aided Prussia and Austria in riveting her chains. Here 
 we know our king from his cradle. The object of our ho- 
 mage depends not on the caprice of a father, nor on the am- 
 bition of the nobles. It is determined by the law. As our 
 king never dies, we are exposed to no revolutions by the 
 choice of a successor. ' The order of succession is, in mo- 
 narchies, founded on the welfare of the state : it is not 
 ' fixed for the reigning family ; but because it is the interest 
 ' of the state, that it should have a reigning family.,'* 
 
 ART. III. 
 
 * HEREBY utterly abjuring any allegiance or obedience 
 
 ' unto the person taking upon himself the style and title 
 'of Prince of Wales in the life-time of his father, and 
 * who, since his death, is said to have assumed the style 
 'and title of King of Great Britain and Ireland, by the 
 'name of Charies the Third, and to any othtr person 
 ' claiming or pretending a right to the crown of these 
 ' realms.' 
 
 The proofs of this article may be seen in the explanation 
 of the first. ' It is impossible to serve two masters.' Alle- 
 giance is due to the reigning sovereign, and from the earliest 
 times, to him alone. In whose name is justice administered ? 
 'In the name of George the Third.' In whose name are 
 we protected from the midnight robber ? ' In the name of 
 
 * George the Third,' &c &c. 
 
 Now, Sir, I must entreat your patience. You know, that 
 in all parliamentary debates on the oppressive operation of 
 the penal laws, the Stuarts are the greatest obstacle in the 
 Catholic way to a legal indulgence. They are considered 
 by some of the illustrious . members, as the polar star by 
 which we expect to steer one day into a haven of safety and 
 deliverance ; whilst we ourselves look on them as planets of 
 a malific influence. 
 
 " Aut Sinus ardor, 
 "Ille sitiin inorbosque ferens mortalibus aegris, 
 "Nascitur, et laevo contristat liimine ccelum." 
 
 VlRCIL. 
 
 * Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, vol. II. p. 192. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 55 
 
 To state the case, and disabuse gentlemen, amiable and 
 humane, in all other respects, but, unluckily for our interest, 
 too suspicious of a foreign attachment, which we absolutely 
 disclaim, let us view the Stuarts in three respects : first, with 
 regard to the obligations they have conferred on us : second, 
 with regard to what we expect from them : third, with regard 
 to their claims to the crown of England, in quality of descen- 
 dants of its ancient and rightful kings. If there be no incen- 
 tive to gratitude on our part, no right to our allegiance 
 on theirs, the bonds of attachment are dissolved, and the 
 great panegyrists of our love for the Stuart line, reduced 
 to the alternative of adopting the unreasonable whim of the 
 poet: 
 
 * Amo te, Zabede, sed nescio dicere quare.' 
 ' I love you, Charles, but I know not why.' 
 
 or persuading themselves, that love is kindled by the flames 
 of tyranny and oppression. The first is absurd, the second 
 unnatural. 
 
 First, as to our obligations to this inauspicious family: 
 history can inform you, that James the First signalized his 
 generosity in our favour, by giving, under the finesse of 
 laws, six counties in Ulster to Scotch planters. Hume 
 attempts to justify his countrymen by the following shift: 
 'he gave them arts and manufactures in exchange.' The 
 cruel Ahab was more generous ; he offered real money for 
 Naboth's vineyard. Grateful souls ! bless your benefactor; 
 he improved your minds at the expense of your bodies ; and, 
 like your preachers in Lent, famished your flesh to fatten your 
 spirit. 
 
 Charles the First ran the same course with his father. No 
 end of seizures, inquisitions, and regal plunder. Shamed at 
 last into desistance by the Irish parliament, an artful stratagem 
 is devised, equally calculated to answer the ends of rapacity, 
 and exculpate the monarch. You have read in Suetonius, 
 how Tiberius eluded the law that prohibited virgins to be put 
 to death. A young lady is arraigned and condemned: 
 the emperor permits the. hangman to violate her, and 
 throws the blame on her executioner. Remove the scene 
 of action from Rome to Ireland, and in a dissimilar plot, 
 the characters are much the same. The Earl of Strafford 
 is named vicegerent, and takes the blame upon himself: 
 
56 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 the king thanks him for his seasonable advice ; and Ire- 
 land sees Tiberius and Sejanus revived in the persons of 
 Charles and his favourite. In these two reigns, pursuits 
 were not extended to goods and chattels alone. The sword 
 of tyranny reached to conscience itself. Spiritual supremacy 
 and religious uniformity, were inforced with such rigour, 
 that according to Borlase, some of the clergy used to hang 
 themselves. A sarcastic remark ! the falsity whereof, was 
 more owing to their constancy, than to the lenity , of the 
 Stuarts. Charles the Second, who, according to Lord 
 Lyttleton, could have become as despotic a prince as any 
 in Europe, sets up a sham court of claims, to save the 
 appearance of justice. He confirms Cromwel's grants to the 
 adventurers, who followed the banners of this regicide, tinc- 
 tured with the blood of the royal martyr, obliges his enemies 
 by the sacrifice of his defenders, consents to the special ex- 
 ception of Irish Catholics from the general act of indemnity, 
 refuses the least assistance to Lord Rochfort, who sold his 
 estate to support him during his exile, and give his sanction 
 to a ridiculous law, declaring it high treason to call the king 
 a Papist. Of ail the transgressors of this law, he himself 
 was the most signal, whereas he was confessed and anointed 
 by a Benedictine monk : and the magistrates must have been 
 very remiss that did not hang him for contravening such an 
 important decree, prohibiting to suspect for religion, a king 
 who practised none. 
 
 ' Nee lex requior ulla est, 
 
 ' Quam necis artifices arte perire sua.' 
 
 Ovid. 
 
 However, the Irish Catholics can never sufficiently thank 
 him, for not punishing with halter, gibbet, and exenteration, 
 a requiescat in pace. 
 
 To this long train of Stuart hostilities, James the Second 
 is the only exception. As Dissenters and Roman Catholics 
 were equally disqualified, he removed ail penal restraints. — 
 Religion influenced him, doubtless. But did not his favours 
 and indulgence extend to Scotch dissenters, as well as to 
 Irish Catholics ? Did not the good of the state, strengthened 
 by the affections and power of its subjects, ever and always 
 weakened by their tepidity and indigence, require then, as it 
 does now, a relaxation of oppressive laws ? And was it 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 57 
 
 not the king's interest, to endeavour to render all his subjects 
 prosperous and happy ? Did he but proceed on a legal plan 
 with the consent of his parliament, without arrogating to him- 
 self a dispensing power, which the nation vests in the aggre- 
 gate body of king, lords, and commons ? But can the conduct 
 of James the Second stand the test ? Or must not an Irishman 
 be blind in not perceiving the partiality of this cherished twig 
 of the Stuart stem ? 
 
 Ambition, or love for their fellow subjects^ induces kings 
 to exchange the gaieties of a palace for the fatigues of the 
 field, and to fly into the arms of death, from the bosom of 
 sensuality and voluptuousness. But more especially in those 
 critical junctures, when the crown is at stake, and the majesty 
 of the monarch, on the point of sinking into the subject, the 
 springs of nature play with an extraordinary elasticity ; the 
 radiancy of the throne, glistening in the monarch's eyes, ab- 
 sorbs and eclipses the perception of danger : pride supplies 
 the place of valour, and despair metamorphoses the coward 
 into the hero. 
 
 In the vicinity of an army of thirty thousand men, master 
 of the strong holds and garrisons of his realms, at the first 
 report of the Prince of Orange's arrival in England, James 
 the Second, with the apathy of a Stoic, or the timidity of an 
 old woman, throws the royal seals into the Thames, disap- 
 pears, leaves three kingdoms in the utmost anarchy and con- 
 fusion, the reins of government without a hand to manage 
 them, and his subjects uncertain to whom they are to trans- 
 fer their allegiance. 
 
 Instances of the kind are scarce to be met with in the 
 chronicles of kings; a hand that would not un sheath a 
 sword in defence of three realms is better calculated for 
 a muff than a sceptre. Queen Elizabeth, almost in sight 
 of an army of fifty thousand Spaniards, reviews her troops, 
 rides through the ranks, animates, incites, encourages her 
 men : ' Behold, your queen ! Victorious, I shall reward 
 1 you ; defeated, I will die with you.' But Buchanan's 
 contrast of James the First to Queen Elizabeth, is ap- 
 plicable to James the Second. 
 
 Rex fuii Elizabeth, nunc vero reg-ina Jacobus, 
 Error naturas par in utroque fuit. 
 
58 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 In English: 
 
 " Nature was mistaken in those two extraordinary productions : Elizabeth was 
 a a man: James a woman," 
 
 Recalled by Tyrconnel from France to Ireland, our 
 Alexander lays siege to Londonderry, from whence he is 
 repelled by a Protestant minister, at the head of a hand- 
 ful of men half famished. This was a glorious contest 
 between a king and a priest : the sword and the gown. 
 Cedant anna toga. 
 
 The banks of the Boyne are quite as inauspicious to his 
 laurels. Here, contrary to the advice of his officers, he 
 compels them to encounter a formidable army of fifty 
 thousand veterans, commanded by the ablest generals of 
 that age. Remark his orders and depositions. With a 
 select party of his army he places himself on Dunmore hill, 
 out of cannon reach ; and gives a strict charge to Sarsfield, 
 (Lord Lucan) not to fire at his son, who was come sword in 
 hand to deprive him of his crown. A boding omen of future 
 victory ! In battle, let a general ride up and down to animate 
 his troops, never fire into his quarters ; you will gain the field. 
 Seeing the Irish, though dispirited by his partial commands, 
 and unanimated by his example, repel the enemy, and keep 
 the battle in suspense, he cries out, * spare my English sub- 
 jects, spare my English subjects.' Lo, the most beloved 
 king of the Stuart race ! Pious, and tender- hearted, he would 
 not have scrupled to re-possess himself of the throne at the 
 expence of Irish blood, but the purchase would have been 
 too dear, when acquired with the loss of English subjects. 
 
 It was the dutv of the Irish to fiVht for their kinar. But 
 when they perceived that he preferred his son-in-law's life to 
 their security, and his own interest, in my humble opinion, 
 they were acquitted of their allegiance. It was his own 
 choice. His daughter, queen Mary, during her husband's 
 absence, ordered all Papists and reputed Papists, to depart 
 ten miles from London. Her reign would have swelled the 
 code of penal laws, and expanded the ten miles into a wider 
 circuit, had not king William controuled the spirit of op- 
 pression, so co- unnatural to the Stuarts. Exposed to the 
 power of Lewis the Fourteenth, ready to back the claims of 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 59 
 
 an abdicated king', stilt grasping at the remains of expiring 
 royalty. William the Third never deprived the Catholics of 
 their property. He even allowed the most part of the Catho- 
 lic gentry the use of such arms as were necessary for their 
 defence and diversion : a sword and a gun. Their total de- 
 struction was completed by the last sovereign of the Stuart 
 line. 
 
 Queen Anne, by reducing the leases to thirty-one years, 
 and introducing the bills of discovery, threw the nation into 
 a convulsion, from whence it can never recover, until more 
 lenient hands slacken the stiff chain of penal restraints. — 
 Under the happiest of constitutions, s?u has made Ottoman 
 slaves, and impressed one cf her kingdoms with the traces 
 of Turkish misery. 
 
 ' Under this sort of government,' says Montesquieu, 
 speaking of the Ottoman empire, ' nothing is repaired or im- 
 
 * proved. Houses are built only for the necessity of habi- 
 
 * tations ; every thing is drawn from, but. nothing restored to 
 1 the earth : the ground lies untilied, and the whole country 
 ' becomes a desart.' Whoever travels over the most part 
 of Ireland, can see the description realized. One of her 
 laws, whereby it is decreed, ' that where the son and heir 
 ' of a Papist, shall become a Protestant, his father shall be 
 ' tenant for life,' is the horror of Christendom, and an in- 
 delible stain on her memory — ' Laws written in characters 
 
 * of blood,' says an illustrious member, in his speech on 
 the Popery bills. This law effectually dissolves the ties of 
 nature, reverses filial duty, and subjects a tender and aged 
 father to the empire of a profligate son, who, for the sake 
 of pleasure and dissolution, would subscribe the Alcoran in 
 Constantinople, as soon as he would the thirty-nine arti- 
 cles in Dublin, and say with the Count of Bonneval, 'in 
 
 * turning Turk I have only exchanged my hat for a tur- 
 4 ban.' It is true, that her victorious generals have graced 
 the annals of the queen ; but in the eyes of a Christian, her 
 inclemency and ductility shall for ever disgrace the history of 
 the Stuarts. 
 
 Hitherto we have a retrospective view of our obligations 
 to those our royal benefactors : let us now look forward to the 
 agreeable scene, and enchanting prospect of riches and bless- 
 ings, we expect from their restoration. 
 
60 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 In reality, Sir, a dear bought experience has broken this 
 charm that bewitched our ancestors in favour of the Stuarts. 
 Whilst they were our kings, we exerted ourselves to support 
 them on the throne, more from principle than faction ; and 
 had other monarchs swayed the sceptre, we would have done 
 the same. In a word, we fell with our kings, and the very 
 offspring of those kings have chained us closer to the ground. 
 Now the tide of those fatal commotions has subsided. This 
 tumult that distracted the nation in the Stuart's reign is 
 allayed. Are we to quit the reality in pursuit of a shadow ? 
 What would we have gained, had the Pretender been crowned 
 at Westminster? An aggravation of our yoke, and new 
 calamities ? The penal laws, relaxed in their execution by 
 the clemency of government, would have been revived with 
 new vigour. The edge of persecution, blunted by the very 
 humanity of our fellow-subjects, would have been new tem- 
 pered and sharpened. 
 
 You will answer, perhaps, that such usage could not be 
 expected from a Catholic Prince. Folly ! pardon the expres- 
 sion. You know that the throne is the most dazzling object 
 of human ambition. Though a great distance from its steps, 
 and the impossibility of obtaining it renders the most part of 
 mortals insensible to its charms, yet in regard to those who 
 are entitled to it by their birth, it is a magnet that attracts 
 their hearts, the great idol, to vvhich they would sacrifice 
 their very blood, and the water of Lethe, erasing by its 
 oblivious qualities all impressions of friendship, gratitude, 
 and even religion. Of this, history, both sacred and pro- 
 fane, afford several instances. Athalia murdered the princes 
 of the royal house of Judah. Tullia drove her chariot over 
 her father's body, and dyed its wheels in his blood, from an 
 eagerness to be saluted queen. In the time of the crusades, 
 a Catholic prince was found in the number of the slain, with 
 the marks of the circumcision on his body. He expected 
 the kingdom of Jerusalem from Saladin ; and this fervent 
 Christian, who a few years before would have spilt his 
 blood in defence of Christ's sepulchre, sold Christ him- 
 self, for the dominion of a city in which he had been 
 crucified. 
 
 I do not mean, Sir, that any of our regal candidates 
 would turn Turks for the sake of a crown. But certain I 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 61 
 
 am, that the transition is easy from Popery to Protestant- 
 ism, and from Protestantism to Popery, when a diadem is 
 the reward of conversion. In my humble opinion, Charles 
 the Third would have removed Pope and Popery out of his 
 way to the throne. To clear himself from the suspicion of 
 a Popish cancer, the oppression of Papists would have 
 been the best detersive. A Catholicon very familiar to the 
 Smarts ! 
 
 Perhaps I pass a rash judgment on this cherished twig 
 of the Stuart stock: if so, I retract. But all we expect 
 from him is the liberty to fast and pray ; this we enjoy 
 without his mediation, and it would be madness to forfeit. 
 Incapable and unwilling to hurt the public, willing and 
 incapable to serve it; equally destitute of property and arms 
 to defend it, our duty is confined to passive loyalty, inforced 
 by religion. Let interest and the liberty of purchasing step 
 in as an active principle, you will not find one Catholic in the 
 kingdom but wiil be as sanguine as yourselves in the defence 
 of his substance, and the common cause, against Pope or 
 Pretender. We daily see two brothers fight with the ani- 
 mosity of open enemies, for a legacy or a spot of ground. — 
 We read of Popes, who in defence of their territories, have 
 entered into leagues with Protestant princes against Catholic 
 powers. Property then is so interwoven with self-preserva- 
 tion, that few or none will run the hazard of losing it in 
 compliment to another, were he even a saint; and of all 
 mortals the Stuarts are the least entitled to the sacrifice of 
 our acknowledgment. 
 
 Yet, as the frowardness of superiors does not avert their 
 authority, and as the descendants of bad princes may have a 
 rightful claim, one point more remains to be discussed, viz. 
 Whether we can in conscience renounce, all allegiance unto 
 the grandson of James the Second, whose abdication of the 
 throne has been the effect of fear and compulsion ? Has not 
 the son a right to the estate of which his father has been de- 
 prived by force ? And in opposing this right do I not com- 
 mit a flagrant injustice ? 
 
 Tnis important question is to be solved by the fundamen- 
 tal laws of the realm, general principles, grounded on im- 
 partial reason, and the ordinary dispensation of Provi- 
 
 \ 
 
62 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 dence, directing the revolutions and vicissitudes of human 
 affairs. 
 
 From the earliest times, the laws have decreed, that 
 although the crown be hereditary, yet the right of accession 
 is not indefeasible. The English have defeated, and altered 
 the succession as early as the time of Edward the Confessor, 
 who was chosen king during the life of the lawful heir. 
 The history of England affords several instances of the 
 kind, a long time before the accession of the .Stuarts to the 
 throne. The law both in present and past times, is, and 
 has been, ' that the crown is hereditary in the wearer: that 
 4 the king and both houses of parliament can defeat this 
 4 hereditary right, and by particular limitations exclude the 
 4 immediate heir, and vest the inheritance in any one else.' 
 Thus not only the Pretender, but even the present Prince of 
 Wales can be excluded from the throne, with the consent 
 of the king, lords, and commons. 
 
 Grotius, a learned and sanguine stickler for indefeasible 
 right, though he cannot agree that the son of a dethroned 
 king can be lawfully excluded, yet is forced to acknowledge, 
 that the same son, if not born whilst his father was in posses- 
 sion, can be deprived of his right to the throne with the consent 
 of the people, because such a prince, says he, has no acquired 
 right. ' Illud interest inter natos et nascituros, quod nas- 
 4 cituris nondum quaesitum sit jus, atque adeo iis auferri 
 4 possit popuii voluntate.' Grot, de jure belli, lib. 2. c. 7. 28. 
 This decides for ever the fate of Charles the Third, who 
 was born a long time after his grandfather's expulsion. It 
 is moreover grounded on the clearest principles of 
 reason. 
 
 In effect, does reason allow that subjects should be dis- 
 tracted, between kings in actual possession of the throne, 
 and the grandsons and great grandsons of kings who 
 had formerly enjoyed it? Bound by the law of God to 
 pay tribute to, and obey the king, whose image is stamped 
 on his coin : Cujus est hcec imago ? Bound by the dictates 
 of conscience to assert the claims of his rival: to pull down 
 their king with one hand, to support him on the throne with 
 the other. Carrying within themselves two opposite laws, 
 which mixing and encountering like certain chemical liquors, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 03 
 
 raise a fermentation that cannot be allayed to the end 
 of time. 
 
 Let us suppose that Charles Stuart had a right to the 
 throne ; his posterity (if ever he chance to have any) to 
 the last generation will claim the same. Let us suppose 
 the Hanoverian line in possession to the end of time. Lo, 
 a curious sight ! The frame of government turning on two 
 hinges, without being supported by either; two mathe- 
 matical lines always approaching, without ever touching, 
 and all future generations balanced and suspended between 
 both, without knowing which of the two to incline to. 
 Good sense, the law of nature, or the general good of 
 mankind, to which the claims and interest of one man 
 should be subordinate, do they admit such rigorous 
 enquiry? 
 
 Celebrated objection of civilians, canonists, and divines : — 
 4 Time is no active principle. Every thing is done in 
 
 * time, but nothing by it; and a long prescription, without a 
 
 * lawful title, is no lenitive to the alarmed conscience of 
 4 the possessor, nor bar to the claims of the dispossessed.' 
 The civil law has decided so. L. 3. 11. 3. ff. de acq. vel 
 amit. poss. 4 Non capit longa possessione qui scit alienum 
 ' esse.' And the canon law, Cap. possessor de reg. juris in 
 6. * Possessor mala? fidei ullo tempore non pra3scribit.' 
 
 Answered : If a long prescription, without an original 
 title, cannot secure the consciences of kings and subjects, 
 God help the world ! For great kingdoms, if traced back 
 to their origin, are great robberies. 4 Sine justitia magna 
 4 regna sunt magna lacrocinia.'* By this rule, the Stuarts 
 had no right to the throne of England : for their original 
 title was defective, as derived from William the Conqueror, 
 an usurper, or from the ancient Saxons, who plundered and 
 dispossessed the Britons. How can we calm the consciences 
 of the Dutch, Portuguese, &c. formerly the subjects of 
 Spain ? I believe the most scrupulous amongst them are 
 unconcerned for the rights of their former masters. 
 
 However, I acknowledge that time alone, without some 
 concurrent cause, cannot legalize a prescription. But in 
 regard to kings and the allegiance due from their subjects, a 
 great number of reasons supply the deficiency of the original 
 
 * St. Augustine- 
 K 
 
64 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 title requisite to commence a prescription, viz. the consent of 
 the greatest and wisest part of a nation, the acquiescence of 
 the whole community — the peace of the public, disturbed by- 
 factions and civil wars, ever and always attendant on 
 changes in government — the general good of mankind ; in- 
 consistent with the revival of old claims — in fine, the dis- 
 pensation of a just God, who visited on Saul's posterity, their 
 father's cruel treatment of the Gibeonites; and who posi- 
 tively declares, that * he wrests the sceptre from one family, 
 ' to lodge it in the hands of another, in punishment of former 
 ' crimes.' Transfert sceptrum de regno et degente, adpopuhim 
 alterum. — ' When the political law has obliged a family to 
 ' renounce the succession,' says the president Montesquieu, 
 ' it is absurd to insist on the restitutions drawn from the 
 1 civil law. It is ridiculous to pretend to decide the rights of 
 ' kingdoms, of nations, and of the whole globe, by the same 
 1 maxims on which we should determine the right of a gutter 
 4 between individuals.'* 
 
 Further, king James the Second's quitting England, with- 
 out even appointing a regent, and his subsequent behaviour 
 at the Boyne, is an abdication of the throne, or else there 
 never has been a resignation of royalty. Fear! He was 
 intrepid enough before his son-in-law became his competitor; 
 and though prince William wanted neither courage nor 
 wisdom, yet his prowess was not so famed in the history of 
 the times, as to strike terror into a tolerable general, much 
 less into the heart of a king, whom an exalted rank, the 
 love of his subjects, and paternal authority, should have 
 animated with courage and resolution. Old captain O'Regan 
 was not afraid when he desired king William's officers i to 
 4 change generals, and fight the battle over again.'f 
 
 In times of invasion, thrones cannot be secured without 
 bloodshed. If the fear of a ball cannot dispense subjects 
 with fighting for their prince, the prince is bound to share 
 the danger, or at least to remain in some part of the kingdom 
 to watch and direct their operations. If the safety of the 
 people be the supreme law, solus populi suprema esto, and that 
 kings are appointed guardians of the property and lives of 
 their subjects, who in the beginning could have instituted a 
 
 * Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, Vol. II. page 193. 
 f Hist, of EDg. in a series of letters, &c. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 65 
 
 republican as well as a regal government, the king who pre- 
 fers his personal safety to that of his subjects, flies into a 
 foreign country, and abandons them a prey to the first occu- 
 pant, forfeits all right to their allegiance. The law forbids 
 the use of two weights and two measures, and there is no jus- 
 tice without equality. 
 
 To the Irish, then, king William with propriety might 
 have applied Curio's speech to Domitius's soldiers : 4 But 
 4 did you desert Domitius, or Domitius his soldiers ? Were 
 ' you not ready to endure the last extremities, whilst he 
 4 privately endeavoured to escape ? And how can the oath 
 4 any longer oblige you, when he to whom you swore, 
 4 having thrown aside all marks of consular dignity, became 
 4 a private person, and a captive to another?'* 
 
 Several generations have decayed and succeeded since 
 James the Second has abdicated the throne. Time expunges 
 the impressions of the nearest and dearest connections. We 
 cheerfully converse in walking over the graves of friends, (or 
 whom we formerly cried. Had then our attachment to the 
 Stuarts been formed of links of steel, it could not endure 
 to the present generation. 
 
 But after having expatiated so long on the claims of a 
 family, commencing in our misfortune, and concluding in our 
 ruin, let us attribute to a superior cause the revolutions of 
 kingdoms, and in the very sport of human passions trace 
 the footsteps of divine Providence. 4 That long concatena- 
 4 tion of particular causes, which make and unmake em- 
 4 pires, depends upon the secret orders of divine Providence,' 
 says the bishop of Meaux. 4 God from the highest Heavens 
 4 holds the reigns f a ]l the kingdoms of the earth : he hath 
 4 all hearts in his hands : sometimes he gives a loose to 
 4 them; and thereby moveth all mankind. He it is who 
 4 prepares effects in their remotest causes, and he it is who 
 4 strikes those great strokes, the counter-stroke whereof is 
 4 of such extensive consequence. Let us talk no more of 
 4 chance, or of fortune. What is chance in regard to our 
 4 uncertain counsels, is a concerted design in a higher coun- 
 4 sel. Thereby is verified the saying of the apostle, that 
 ' God is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings, 
 
 * Csesar de Bell. Cir. 1 2. c. 13- 
 
66 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 4 and Lord of lords, who causes all revolutions by an immu- 
 ' table counsel ; who gives and takes away power, who 
 4 transfers it from one man to another, from one house to 
 4 another, from one people to another, to shew, that they all 
 4 have it only borrowed, and that it is he alone in whom it 
 * naturally resides ?'* Let us then talk no more of the 
 Stuarts, but bid them an eternal farewell. 
 
 ART. IV. 
 
 4 And I do swear that I do reject and detest as unchristian 
 4 and impious to believe, that it is lawful to murder or 
 4 destroy any person or persons whatsoever : for or under 
 4 pretence of their being heretics, and also that unchris- 
 4 tian and impious principle, that no faith is to be kept 
 4 with heretics.' 
 
 Any attempt to prove this article would be an idle task, 
 whereas we are sure never to convince, when we attempt 
 to prove things too clear. In a word to buy a piece of cloth, 
 and instead of paying to murder the draper, 4 for or under 
 4 pretence of his being a heretic,' is a doctrine unknown to 
 the most relaxed of our casuists We appeal to the gen- 
 tlemen of different persuasions, to whom restitutions are 
 daily made, through the hands of the Catholic clergy, and 
 to such of them as have been stopt on the high road, whe- 
 ther the robber has enquired into their religion? Murder 
 is against the fifth commandment: injustice and fraud against 
 the seventh. To suppose then that it is a principle of Ro- 
 man Catholics to murder or cheat ' any person or persons 
 4 whatsoever, for or under the pretence of their being here- 
 tics,' is to suppose them ignorant of the commandments of 
 God. 
 
 Since the time of the emperor Theodosius, laws have been 
 enacted concerning heresy. Lawyers and divines of both com- 
 munions have been divided in their opinions: Geneva and Lon- 
 don, Calvinist magistrates, and Protestant kings, have concur- 
 red with the Spanish inquisitors in blazing the fagot, and fore- 
 stalling the rigour of eternal justice. The writ De Hceretico 
 Comburendo (of committing heretics to the flames) was in force 
 down to the reign of Charles the Second, and hasmetwitk 
 
 f Bossnett's Histoire Universelle, Vol. 2. p. 403. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 67 
 
 a learned apologist in Calvin. By the statute and common 
 laws of England, some punishments are still in force against 
 heretics ; but how far these and severer punishments inflicted 
 by the civil and imperial laws, are impious and michristian, 
 kings, not subjects, are interested to determine. 
 
 In every Christian country, the Christian religion is a 
 part of the national laws; on the other hand, heresy, in its 
 loosest latitude comprehends errors subversive not only of 
 revealed religion, but moreover of morality, and justice ; such 
 as the error of the Priscillianists, authorizing false oaths ; and 
 the errors of those who give loose to private and public vices, 
 by denying all rewards and punishments beyond the grave. 
 Should then the supreme magistrate, to whom the right of 
 the sword is reserved, determine the degree of punishment, 
 and instead of imprisonment, banishment, &c. make it capital, 
 let his conscience condemn or acquit him. Every subject 
 should still 'reject and detest, as unchristian and impious to 
 
 * believe, that it is lawful to murder or destroy any person 
 ' or persons whatsoever, for or under the pretence of their 
 'being heretics.' We are never to arrogate to ourselves the 
 power of life and death, which God has entrusted to the 
 legislators, and to them alone. 
 
 To Catholic and Protestant magistrates let us, however, 
 venture to propose the advice of St. Bernard: 'Haeretici 
 % 'capiantur non armis, sed argumentis f* ' Let heretics be 
 'convinced not with blows, but arguments ;' and the opinion 
 of St. Augustine, in his letter to Count. Marcellin : ' No doc- 
 ' trine should strike a deeper horror in the human heart, 
 ' than that which teacheth that it is lawful to kill any person 
 
 * or persons under pretence of heresy, and under the mask of 
 'religion, spread the dismal seeds of the greatest evils in the 
 
 * Christian world, — murders, dissentions, wars.' In fine, the 
 opinion of a learned Protestant Bishop : 'Among all the he- 
 ' heresies this age has spawned, there is not one more con- 
 i trary to the whole design of religion, and more destructive 
 i of mankind, than is that bloody opinion of delending reli- 
 t gion by arms, and of forcible resistance upon the colour of 
 t religion. 'f 
 
 * Bernard, in Cant. Serin. 62. 
 
 f Bishop of Saium, Preface to the Vindication of tlie Churcu and State of 
 Scotland. 
 
68 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 However upon closer inspection into those persecutions 
 which have changed Europe into a scene of Gothic barbarity, 
 we shall find a combination of various causes, amongst 
 which religion was a pretext, passion and policy the main 
 springs. 
 
 Examine all your former wars, (commonly stiled wars of 
 
 * religion)' says the most famous writer of the age, ' you will 
 1 see the first sparks of them kindled in the dark recesses of 
 
 * the court, or in the ambitious breasts of the grandees. — 
 
 * Matters were first embroiled and entangled by the intrigues 
 1 and debates of the cabinet ; and afterwards the leading men 
 
 * raised the people in the name of God.' 
 
 In effect, Sir, under the empire of grace, our passions 
 retain a fatal liberty, and even uniformity of belief does not 
 always preclude factious divisions. Whigs and Tories, 
 Guelphes and Gibelines,* may repeat the same creed, and 
 be still divided. The Sicilians and French went to the 
 same churches to sing the hallelujahs upon an Easter Sun- 
 day, when soon after the air began to resound with the 
 groans of bleeding victims, and the harmonious sounds of 
 chiming bells. Had the sufferers been of a different per- 
 suasion from that of their aggressors, religion would appear 
 as the chief character in the tragedy, when represented by 
 some of our English historians, especially Sir John Temple, 
 who spreads the wild theatre of imaginary massacres, abuses 
 the public faith, and blends the mendacity of heathen 
 Greece into the history of Christians. ' Et quidquid, Grcecia 
 
 * mendax peccat in historia.' 'f 
 
 To clear religion from those bloody imputations, let us 
 contrast the present with the past times ; the Huguenots, for- 
 merly victims to the policy of Catharine de Medicis, live now 
 in peace and opulence, and enjoy their rich estates in Poitou, 
 Lower Normandy, &c. The order of military merit is in- 
 stituted to reward the valour of their officers : and in France 
 no man's religion is a bar to his promotion in the career of 
 military honours, whereas nothing is more common than to 
 see the French legions commanded by Protestant Generals. 
 Here in Ireland, the Catholics, formerly driven by thousands 
 into woods and caverns, and their clergy hunted like wild 
 
 * Two formidable factions iu Italy- 
 t Juvenal, Sat. 10. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 69 
 
 beasts, live unmolested, though debarred of the privilege 
 of becoming soldiers or mayor's Serjeants. The respective 
 religions of the two kingdoms are now what they were then: 
 whence proceeds this happy transition from persecution to 
 lenity? Not from the Christian religion, whose spirit 
 never changes, but from the different characters of its 
 professors. 
 
 The French Huguenots are now under Lewis XVI. 
 They have been formerly under the sway of a Medicis. 
 Formerly under the Stuarts, we are now governed by the 
 Brunswics. Our magistrates are Protestants, but quite dif- 
 ferent from those who, instead of redressing grievances, used 
 to foment the rebellion, with a view of enriching themselves 
 by the spoils of oppression. In line, Sir, let us divest our- 
 selves of passion : religion will never arm our hand with the 
 poniard. 
 
 ART. V. 
 
 ' I further declare, that it is no article of my faith, and that 
 ' 1 do renounce, reject, and abjure the opinion, that princes 
 
 * excommunicated by the Pope and council, or by any au- 
 
 * thority of the see of Rome, or by any authority whatso- 
 
 * ever, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or 
 
 * by any person whatsoever : and I do promise, that I will 
 
 * not hold, maintain, or abet any such opinion, or any other 
 
 * opinion, contrary to what is expressed in this decla- 
 
 * ration.' 
 
 This article of the test requires a peculiar discussion : as 
 the Pope's deposing power has caused such confusion in Eu- 
 rope, during the great struggles between the priesthood and 
 empire, and is often an engine employed in parliament, to 
 defeat the good intentions of the members, who, from prin- 
 ciples of humanity and zeal for the prosperity of the king- 
 dom, endeavour to remove the heavy yoke of penal restraints. 
 The question is — Whether the deposing power be an article 
 of the Catholic faith ? For my heart startles and my hand 
 recoils at the words, ■ murdered by their subjects.' As if 
 the principles of any sect of Christians authorized a gloomy 
 ruffian to plunge the dagger in the royal breast. To deter- 
 mine the question, let us enquire, first, into the doctrine of 
 
70 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 the Church concerning the deposing power : secondly, into 
 its origin. 
 
 Resistance to princes has been an early charge against the 
 Church : and from her infancy down to this day, her pastors 
 and doctors have repelled the calumny. An imputed doc- 
 trine then, yet still disclaimed, can never be an article of her 
 faith. 
 
 It is true that the concessions of princes to the Apostolic 
 see — an excessive veneration for the first Pastor of the 
 Church — flattery in some — rash zeal in others — have raised 
 up Bellarmin and some other champions for the deposing 
 power, beyond the Alps. But the deviations of some indi- 
 viduals should be considered as spots in the sun, or the mis- 
 conduct of a citizen whose fault should not be charged upon 
 a large community. 
 
 The apologists of the deposing power (now grown obsolete) 
 are few : and their doctrine must either stand or fall with the 
 evidence or inevidence of their arguments, unsupported by 
 authority, and contradicted by the practice and doctrine of 
 all ages and nations. 
 
 In the Apostles time, the Jews began to revolt, and sow 
 the seeds of that rebellion which assembled the Roman eagles 
 round their walls, and involved their nation in final destruc- 
 tion: their great pretence was — the seeming impropriety of 
 the subjection of God's chosen people to a heathen domi- 
 nion : and, as the first converts sprung from the Jews, the 
 Heathens confounded together Jews and Christians, and 
 charged them alike with the doctrine of resistance to subor- 
 dination and government. The great St. Paul vindicates 
 the Christians, and lays down for a general rule, * that every 
 
 * soul must be subject to higher powers ; that there is no 
 
 * power but from God, and, that those who resist receive 
 damnation unto themselves.'* Should any one reply, that, 
 ' the church has more power over Christian kings, as 
 
 * by baptism they become her children,' it can be easily an- 
 swered, that dominion and temporal power are founded in 
 free-will and the laws of nations, but not conferred nor taken 
 away by a spiritual regeneration : and Bellarmin himself is 
 forced to acknowledge, that ' the Gospel deprives no man of 
 
 * Romans, xiii. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 7l 
 
 * his right and dominion, but gets him a new right to an 
 
 * eternal kingdom.'* 
 
 The apostolical constitutions, whether genuine or spurious, 
 are certainly of an ancient date, and give us great insight 
 into the discipline of the primitive times. They command 
 4 to fear the king as God's institution and ordinance. 'f ' The 
 4 Christians worship God only,' says St. Justin Martyr, 
 4 they are subject to the emperors in all things else. 'J ' By 
 4 whose command men are born,' says St. Irenaeus, ' by his 
 
 * commands also are kings ordained, as suits the circum- 
 4 stances of those over whom they are set : some for the 
 4 amendment and benefit of their subjects ; and some for 
 4 fear and punishment; for reproof and contempt as the 
 4 people shall have deserved; the just judgment of God 
 4 reaching equally to all.' Tertullian, St. Ambrose, St. 
 Augustine, St. Gregory Nyssen, Optatus Milevitanus, in 
 fine, ail the fathers declare, 4 that kings have none above 
 4 them, but God alone, who made them kings ; that God 
 4 bestows the heavenly felicity on the godly only, but the 
 4 kingdoms of the earth on both godly and ungodly: and 
 4 that to him alone, the cruel Marius and the gracious 
 4 Caesar, Augustus, the best of princes, Nero, one of 
 4 the worst, Constantino the Christian, and Julian, the 
 4 apostate, are equally indebted for their authority and 
 4 power.' 
 
 If from the fathers you continue the long chain of vene- 
 rable antiquity through tho successive reigns of the Roman 
 pontiffs, you will find the deposing power assumed by few; 
 the pre-eminence of kin^s. and their dependence on God 
 alone, asserted by the mildest and most learned, and those 
 by far the greatest number. 
 
 St. Gregory the Great not only disclaims any temporal 
 power over kings, but even acknowledges himself their 
 subject. The Emperor insists on the publication of a law. 
 The Pope writes to him : ' 1 being subject to your command, 
 4 have caused the law to be sent into several parts, and be- 
 4 cause the law agrees not with God omnipotent, 1 have by 
 4 letter informed my serene lord. Wherefore I have in both 
 
 * BeHariniri; de Rom. Pontif. lib. v. c. 3. 
 t Lib. VII. % Apolog-. 2. 
 L 
 
72 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 ' done what 1 ought, obeyed the Emperor, and not con- 
 4 cealed what I thought for God.' Eleutherius, Anastasius 2, 
 Galasius, Symmachus, Gregory 2, Leo 4, Nicholas 3, 
 Adrian 1, Nicholas 2, John 8, and Celestin 3, call 
 the king ' God's vicar on earth :' forbid the priest to 
 s usurp the regal dignity ;' and confine the power of the 
 ' Church ' to the dispensation of divine, that of the prince 
 ' to the administration of temporal things.' 
 
 If you consult cardinals, who have heightened the glory 
 ofthair purple by their learning and piety, you will meet 
 with numerous and steady assertors of regal independence. 
 4 I pre-suppose what is known even to the vulgar,' says Car- 
 dinal Cusanus, ' that the- imperial celsitude is independent 
 of ' the sacerdotal power, having an immediate dependence 
 ' on God.* Between the kingdom and priesthood, the 
 4 proper offices of each are distinct, that the king may make 
 4 use of the arms of the world, and the priest be girt with 
 4 the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God,' says 
 Cardinal Damianus.t In answer to some objections drawn 
 from the conduct of a Pope, regular and exemplary in other 
 respects, but too ready to interfere in temporal concerns, 
 this great man replies : ' I say what I think, that neither 
 Peter obtained the ' apostolical principality, because he 
 * denied Christ, nor David deserved the oracle of prophecy, 
 ' because he defiled another man's bed.' As much as to 
 sav, that this Pope committed a fault, which he afterwards 
 cancelled by repentance. 
 
 If vou stiil fear that the long-famed British throne should 
 be overturned by syllogisms, or that the jars of schoolmen 
 may silence the English cannon, (for you have nothing more 
 to apprehend from the Pope) I can march to your aid a for- 
 midable army of scholastic divines, armed cop-a-pee in sup- 
 port of regal pre-eminence. — Navar, Durandus, Joan, Paris, 
 Almain, Gerson, Victoria, Thorn. Wald. Anton, de Roselli, 
 iEsridius, Rom. Ambros. Catharinus, &c. &c. some of whom 
 qualify the deposing power with the epithets of horrible and 
 seditious : and others style it downright ma.dness.% Add to the 
 
 * Cihs. 1. 3. Cone. c. 5. t Damianus, Lib. iv. Epist. 9. 
 
 X Ambros. Cathar. in 13. Rom. Rowlli. de pot. pap. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 73 
 
 foregoing authorities, the Council of Constance in the year 
 
 1415. The declaration of the provincial congregation of the 
 
 Jesuits at Ghent, in the year 1681, and that of :he clergy of 
 
 France in 1682; who declare that * kings and princes by 
 
 ' God's ordinance are not subject in temporals to a! y eccle- 
 
 ' siastical power, and that they cannot be deposed directly 
 
 4 nor indireetly, by the authority of the keys of the Church, 
 
 4 neither can their subjects be freed from fealty and obedi- 
 
 ' ence, nor absolved from their oath of allegiance.' ' Reges 
 
 ' ergo et principes in temporalibusnulli ecclesiastical potestati 
 
 4 Dei ordinatione subjici, neque authoritate clavium ecclesias 
 
 4 directe vei indirecte deponi, aut illorum subditos eximi a 
 
 ' fide atque obedicntia, ac pneslito fidelitatis sacramento soivi 
 
 ' posse: eamque sententiam, ut verbo Dei, patrum traditioni, 
 
 * et sanctorum exempiis consomam, omnino retinemdam-'* 
 
 Exen in the canon law it is declared, that 4 kings ackiK w- 
 
 4 ledge no superior in temporals :' and, that 4 appeals con- 
 
 4 cerning temporals should not be brought to the Pope's tri- 
 
 4 bunal.'f 
 
 In fine, the deposing power was so unknown in primitive 
 times, that Bellarmin, who has ransacked the works of the 
 fathers, and enriched himself with their spoils, in defending 
 the doctrine of the Church, cculd cite none but St. Bernard 
 in support of the novel doctrine of deposition : and yet this 
 father, who mentions two swords in the Church, onlymems 
 that in the Church are Christian princes invested with the 
 right of the sword : For, in writing to Pope Eugenitis, the 
 saint uses these remarkable words : ' Earthly kingdoms have 
 4 their judges,, princes and kings. Why do you thrust your 
 4 sickle into another man's harvest ? St. Peter could not give 
 4 what he had not : did he give dominion ? It is the saying 
 4 of the Lord in the gospel, the kings of the Gentiles have 
 4 dominion over them, but you not so. It is plain dominion 
 4 is forbid to apostles. Go now and dare usurp either domi- 
 4 nion with the apostleship, or with the apostleship dominion. 
 4 You are plainly forbid the one. If you will have both, you 
 4 will lose both: you will be of the number of those of whom 
 
 * Declaiatio Cleri Oallicani, anno 1662; 
 f Cap. si duobiis. Extra de appcl. 
 
74 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 4 God complains, they have been princes, and I knew them 
 4 not.'* 
 
 Bcllarmin's misapplication of St. Bernard's text, was not 
 the only mistake his antagonists have censured. His wild 
 conjecture, that 'the Christians would have deposed N ro 
 4 and Julian the Apostate, and the like, had they had the 
 4 power to do so,' raised the indignation of the Catholic uni- 
 vertities. ' Quod si Christiani ohm non deposuerint Nero- 
 4 nem, et Juiianum Apostatem, et similes, id fuit quia defue- 
 4 raot vires temporales Christianis.'f The decision was 
 considered by the Catholic divines, as more becoming the 
 seaiiet robe of the stern Brutus, who beheaded his children 
 for siding with their king, than the purple of the Christian 
 Cardinal. It was revised by the university of Paris; corrected 
 bv the hangman with a blazing fagot; and contradicted by 
 the unexceptionable testimony of Tertullian and St. Augus- 
 tine. ! Should we want numbers or forces, if we had a 
 4 a mind to be open enemies ?' says Tertullian. 4 Are the 
 ' Moors, the Marcomans, and Parthians, and whatever na- 
 4 tions of one place, and confined to their own limits, more 
 4 than those of the whole world ? We are but men of yes- 
 4 terday ; and yet have filled all the places you have — your 
 4 cities, islands, and castles, boroughs, councils, and camp 
 4 itself, your tribes, courts, the senate and the market. We 
 have left you only the temples. For what war are we not 
 fit and ready, (even though we were inferior in number) 
 4 who endure death so willingly, if in this discipline it 
 4 were as lawful to kill as to be killed ?'| ' They could 
 4 at their pleasure have deposed Julian,' says St. Augustine, 
 4 but would not because they were subject for necessity, 
 4 not only to avoid anger, but for conscience and love, and 
 4 because oui Lord so commanded.'^) In effect, Sir, laying 
 aside the truth of history, had Peter and Paul been as will- 
 ing to depose kings, for the glory of God, and the pro- 
 pagation of religion, as some of our modern zealots of all 
 communions, how could Nero have withstood those Apos- 
 tles, whose word alone was to Ananias and Saphira a 
 
 * St. Bernard, Lib. 2. de Consid. 
 
 f Bellarmin, de Rom. Pontiff, Lib. y. c. 7. 
 
 X Tert. Apol. c. 37, § In Psal. 124. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 75 
 
 messenger of death, struck the magicians blind, and raised 
 the dead to life ? 
 
 I say, of all communions : for in every communion there 
 are men of deposing principles, which their religion dis- 
 claims. ' Iiiacos intra muros peccatur et extra.' Dole- 
 man, Buchanan, Milton, Sam. Johnson, Hobbes, Hoadiy, 
 Locke, and several other advocates of republican princi- 
 ples, and sticklers for popular rights, are more dangerous 
 than Bellarmin, who disowns the deposing power, except in 
 the case of a prince forcing his subjects to change their re- 
 ligion : * Si tnim tales principes non conentur fideles a fide 
 
 * avertere, non existimo posse eos privari suo dominio '* 
 A salvo winch, I hope, will remove all umbrage and suspi- 
 cion from the mindt of our governors : as they do not reckon 
 persecution in th<- number of their cardinal virtues : even if 
 they did, resistance is not a principle of the Catholic reli- 
 gion. 
 
 But I am clearly of opinion, that had Mr. Locke, the 
 wisest and most moderate of those English writers, been an 
 officer in Julian's army, he would have reasoned the sol- 
 diers into open rebellion. He that compares subjects, who 
 would brook the violence and oppression of their supreme 
 ruler, to fools, ' who take care to avoid what mischiefs mi.y 
 
 * be done them by pole-cats or foxes, but are content, nay 
 1 think it safety to be devoured by lions/f and illustrates his 
 doctrine with the following example: ' he that hath autho- 
 ' rity to seize my person in the street, may be opposed as a 
 ' thief and a robber, if he endeavours to break into my house 
 
 * to execute a writ, notwithstanding that I know he has such 
 ' a warrant, and such a legal authority as will empower him 
 1 to arrest me abroad. And why this should not hold in the 
 
 * highest, as well as in the most inferior magistrate, I would 
 ' gladly be informed. 5 J. 
 
 Here you see a philosophical freedom breaking the shackles 
 of restraint and ceremony, and under the pretence of redress- 
 ing imaginary grievances, introducing real mischief and a 
 state of nature, wherein the most factious and daring adven- 
 turers would take the lead. ' For this devolution of power 
 
 * Bellarmin, de Ram. Pontif. 1. v. c. 7. f Locke on Government, page 253, 
 
 J Ibid- page 313. 
 
70 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 to the people at large, includes in it a dissolution of the 
 whole form of government established by that people,' says 
 udge Blackstone, * reduces all the members to their origi- 
 nal state of equality, and by annihilating the sovereign 
 power, repeals all positive laws whatsoever before enacted. 
 No human laws will therefore suppose a case, which at 
 once must destroy all law.'* ' Woe to all the princes upon 
 earth,' says a Protestant archbishop, * if this doctrine (of 
 resistance) be true and becometh popular ; if the multitude 
 believe this, the prince not armed with the scales of the Le- 
 viathan, can never be safe from the spears and barbed irons, 
 which ambition, presumed interest, and malice will sharpen, 
 and passionate violence will throw against him. If the 
 beast we speak of but knows its own strength, it will never 
 be managed.'f 
 
 * But the same equality of justice and freedom that obliged 
 me to lay open this,' says the Bishop of Sarum, c ties me to 
 tax all those who pretend a great heat against Home, and 
 value themselves on their abhorring all the doctrines and 
 practices of that church, and yet have carried along with 
 them one of their most pestiferous opinions, % pretending re- 
 formation when they would bring all under confusion ; and 
 vouching the case and work of God, when they were de- 
 stroying the authority he had set up, and opposing those 
 impowered by him ; and the more piety and devotion such 
 daring pretenders put on, it still brings the greater stain and 
 imputation on religion, as if it gave a patronacy to those 
 practices it so plainly condemns.' $ The borders of the 
 Thames and Tweed afford then advocates for the deposing 
 power, as Weil as the banks of the Tiber and Po. 
 
 On the banks of the Tiber a bigotted divine vests in the 
 Pope an indirect power over wicked kings. On the banks 
 of the Thames an enthusiastic Englishman vests in the sub- 
 ject a direct power over his sovereign. Religion points out an 
 intermediate course, without giving a patronacy to reveries, 
 
 * Blaf ketone's Comm. b. 1. p. 162. 
 
 f Creed of Mr. Hobbes, examined by the archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 % The Bishap'sheat against Rome often mistakes or disguises their r«al opinioua. 
 
 ^ Sermon of Subjection. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 77 
 
 and mankind shall always find their account, better in 
 mediums, than in extremes. The doctrine of the Italian 
 has fattened the German soil with dead bodies, and in- 
 duced a Pope*. to attempt placing his flesh and blood ort 
 the throne of the Caesars. The doctrine of the English- 
 man has placed dray-men and coolers in the seats of Bri- 
 tish peers ; and by an extraordinary vicissitude in bringing 
 a king to the block in England, raised a tailor to the throne 
 in Germany.f 
 
 Such are the fruits of those two systems, equally perni- 
 cious to the safety of kings, and the peace of society. 
 Their respective authors, in striking from the plain road 
 of the Christian doctrine, ■ Let every soul be subject to 
 ' higher powers,' into the airy paths of speculation, have 
 busied themselves in pursuit of a plan the most alarming 
 to mankind. Kings were beheaded, and others deposed, 
 before some of those authors had published their works, 
 it is true : but are they the more justifiable id publishing 
 a doctrine which may tincture the scaffold a second time ? 
 The difference between them is, that the Englishman, in 
 terse and popular language, engages the imagination: 
 adorns his subjects by a long chain of deduction : makes 
 truth bend to arguments, reality to appearance ; and is 
 read by all. In this great arsenal, every common reader 
 can find arms to reduce his king to reason ; the ship- 
 wright and carpenter are enabled by the rules of political- 
 logic, to trim the vessel of state, and steer it through the 
 unbounded ocean of constitutional liberty. But the ultra- 
 montane divine bristling with barbarous Latin, is not read 
 by one in three millions. Powdered with dust, and 
 stretched on the shelf of a college library, he sleeps as sound 
 as Endimion in his cave, and more is the pity : for his doc- 
 trine of the deposing power is founded on as solid proofs as 
 the history of that Spaniard who made a voyage to the moon : 
 and displayed in a style not inferior to that of Valentine and 
 Orson. Of his style and arguments I send you the following- 
 sample : 
 
 ' Probatur per simiiitudinem ad artem frcenifactoriam% et 
 
 * Alexander VI. 
 
 f John of Leyden, a taylor, made king- «f Munster. 
 
 £ New-coined Laiin, much of the same cUte v>1th the Ueppsinj power. 
 
73 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 ' equestrcm. Ut enim duae ille artes sunt inter se diverse, 
 ' quia distincta habent objecta, et subjecta, et actiones ; et 
 1 tamen quia finis unius ordinatue ad finem alterius, ideo una, 
 'alteri prasst, et leges ei praescribk: ita videntur potestas 
 
 * ecclesiastica et politico, diatmctse potestates esse ; et tamen 
 
 * una altcri subordinate, quoniam finis unius ad finem alte- 
 
 * rius natura sua refertur.' * That the Pope has an indirect 
 1 power in temporals is proved by the example of the art of 
 
 * making bridles, and the art of riding : for as these two arts 
 ' are different, because they have different objects, and sub- 
 jects, and actions : and notwithstanding, because the end of 
 
 * one is appointed for the end of the other, therefore one pre- 
 ' sides over the other, and prescribes laws to it: in like man- 
 c ner the ecclesiastical and political powers seem tobe distinct 
 
 * powers, and the one nevertheless subordinate to the other, 
 
 * because the end of the one is by its own nature referred to 
 'the end of the other.' 
 
 There, bir, is learned gibberish, saddling the Pope on the 
 backs of kings, by Aristotle's metaphysics, the object, subject, 
 action, and relation, and end of bridle-making. 
 
 Another advocate for the deposing power disapproves the 
 simile : 'because, says he, very gravely, ' if the art of riding 
 ' were taken away, bridles would be useless : but the political 
 
 * power can subsist without the ecclesiastical.' * Si enim non 
 ' sit ars equestris, supervacanea est ars fraenomm faciendo- 
 ' rum.'* An attempt to rectify the lameness of the com- 
 parison, by one quite as lame. If I had not the authority of 
 a cardinal to apologize for an absurdity, I should not men- 
 tion it, for fear of being censured : but I expect, that, with 
 his eminence's passport, it will be received by the public— 
 He compares the Pope to a shepherd, and the king to mis. 
 ' Pastori est potestas triplex : una circa lupos, altera circa 
 ' arietes, tertia circa oves : unde debet arietem furiosum de- 
 
 * pellere.'f 
 
 You have in these two similies as solid arguments in favour 
 of the deposing power, as Albertus Phigius and Bellarmin 
 have ever advanced in support of their hypothesis : and to 
 them arid their authors, I grant the same passport the satirist 
 granted Hannibal iri crossing the Alps. 
 
 ' I, deuiens, et sssvas curre per Alpes, 
 ' Ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fias ' j 
 
 * Bellarmin, lib. v. de Rom. Pontif. t Bellarmin, ibidem. J Juvenal, sat. xl 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 79 
 
 You are to expect some Scripture, in like manner: for 
 there never has been an error, how monstrous soever, but 
 Scripture was quoted to give it some colour. Arians, 
 Eutychians, Nestorians have wrested the sacred writings 
 to a wrong sense. The advocates for the deposing 
 power have done the same. The) r quote St. Paul, who 
 blames the Corinthians for pleading before heathen ma- 
 gistrates. This proves that you and I could depose a 
 king, because he would advise our neighbour to avoid 
 troublesome and scandalous law-suits, and leave the de- 
 cision to the arbitration of two honest neighbours. 4 Je- 
 4 hoiada, the high priest, ordered queen Athalia to be 
 4 slain.* Ergo, the Pope has an indirect power over bad 
 4 kino's.' 
 
 This proves a direct power, not only to depose, but to 
 murder them: a power which neither Bellarmin nor any 
 Catholic divine has ever vouched. Second : Athalia, who 
 had murdered all the princes of the royal house of Judah, 
 except Joash, was no longer queen, when the sentence was 
 executed on her: for the young prince was crowned in 
 the temple, and recognized by his subjects. His minority 
 could not have deprived him of the right of the sword : and 
 Jehoiada acted as minister of state, not in his pontifical 
 character. This evinces Bellarmin's blunder in confound- 
 ing together the queen and subject, the pontiff and coun- 
 sellor. Third : during the six years she swayed the 
 sceptre, none of her subjects revolted against her, much 
 less did the pious pontiff absolve them from their allegiance, 
 though she re-established Baal's worship, and maintained 
 his priests in the temple of the true God. A circumstance 
 which Bellarmin should have attended to, had he a 
 mind to read his condemnation. Solomon deposed 
 Abiathar, the high priest : will Bellarmin grant me the 
 liberty to infer from this fact, that kings can depose 
 Popes ? 
 
 Such are the ridiculous shifts to which the patrons of a bad 
 cause are inevitably reduced ! Wild and unnatural similies, 
 or facts that prove too much, and can be justly retorted on 
 themselves. Am I accountable for their folly? Or must an 
 
 * Fourth Book of Kings. 
 M 
 
80 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 Irish Catholic starve, because an Italian wrote nonsense in 
 bad Latin, two hundred years ago ? 
 
 Had he not slackened the reins of an enthusiastic 
 imagination, and let it loose to its random flights, he could 
 have spared himself the trouble of soaring to heaven, in 
 pursuit of this offspring of human ambition, or the zeal of 
 earthly kings. For that the deposing power originated 
 either in privileges granted by pious zeal, or covenants 
 entered into and sealed by ambition, history leaves no 
 room to doubt, and religion forbids to believe other- 
 wise. 
 
 Let us begin at home. Inas, king of the West Saxons, 
 renders his kingdom tributary to the Holy See. This con- 
 cession paves the way to future claims. Henry the Second 
 solicits and obtains a bull from Pope Adrian, in order to 
 invade Ireland. The Pope grants it : but, in blessing this 
 new dish that is to be served on the English monarch's 
 table, he carves his own portion. And why not? The one 
 had as good a right to it as the other. 
 
 It is inserted in the bull, that ' the annual pension of one 
 ' penny from every house, should be saved to St. Peter.' If 
 the holy father and his dear and illustrious son, as he styles 
 him, had afterwards quarrelled about the spoils, the re- 
 ligion of the subject should not be concerned in the dispute. 
 King John, in his contestations with Philip Augustus of 
 Francs, appeals to the Pope, and renders him the arbiter 
 of rights that should be decided by the sword. The French 
 monarch lays in his exceptions to the; Pope's tribunal, 
 as incompetent in such a case. The Englishman chooses 
 a master. Lo, the gradual progression of the Pope's 
 temporal power in Great Britain. It takes its first rise 
 from the piety, — acquires additional degrees of strength 
 by ambition, — and is confirmed by the weakness of Eng- 
 lish monarchs. Hence queen Elizabeth's excommuni- 
 cation, and the absolution of her subjects from their alle- 
 giance by Pope Sixtus, were more owing to Peter's pence 
 than to Peter's keys. The noise of the thunder of the 
 Vatican did not reach Sweden or Denmark, becausa 
 the effluvia of their mines, and the filings of their gold were 
 never carried by royal stipulations into the regions of the 
 Italian atmosphere, to kindle into flames and cause an explo- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 81 
 
 sion. But queen Elizabeth could not have pleaded a hun- 
 dred years prescription against the court of Rome. ' Pope 
 ' Paul IV. was surprised at her boldness, in assuming the 
 4 crown, a fief of the Holy See, without his consent.'* Re- 
 mark in the word (fief) a temporal claim, but no divine 
 title. 
 
 If from Great Britain we pass into Germany, we can trace 
 the rise and progress of the deposing power, in the grants of 
 crowned heads, in pacts and stipulations, and in mutual fa- 
 vours and offices of friendship. 
 
 In the eighth century, when the citizens of Rome were 
 harassed by the Lombards, and slighted by the Greeks, 
 their lawful masters, Charlemagne marches to their assist- 
 ance, defeats the Lombards, is crowned by Pope Leo III. 
 and saluted Emperor by the senate and people of Rome. 
 Nicephorus, who afterwards usurped the throne of Constan- 
 tinople, sends Ambassadors to the new Emperor, and con- 
 sents to the dismembering of an empire sinking under its 
 own weight, and exposed to the first soldier of fortune who 
 had the address to form a faction, and courage to plunge the 
 dagger into the breast of the tyrant who filled the throne. 
 What Leo III. has done, proves no right (if it proves any) 
 but that of the law of nature, which authorizes a man, 
 beset by his enemies, to call for assistance to the first 
 who is willing to lend it, and in the effusions of gratitude to 
 thank his deliverer. Bellarmin then has lost his labour in 
 in writing a book, to prove that the Pope has transferred the 
 Empire from the Greeks to the Germans, the better to give 
 some colour to the ' baseless fabric' of the deposing power ; 
 for Leo III. did not deprive the Eastern princes of a foot of 
 ground. 
 
 The Empress Irene, afterwards dethroned by Nicephorus, 
 retained her dominions after the coronation of Charles, who 
 acquired nothing by the title of Emperor, but a sounding 
 compliment, All subsequent accessions were either by 
 right of conquest, the tacit or express consent of the Greeks, 
 or the choice of the Senate and Roman people, who pre- 
 ferred a powerful and useful stranger, to a weak and use- 
 less master. 
 
 The compliment, however, laid the foundation of a power 
 
 * Burnet; 
 
82 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 strengthened by the Emperor's will, sent to Rome for the 
 Pope's approbation, and raised to the highest altitude, by 
 Charles the Bald's purchasing the Imperial Crown, for a 
 sum of money, from Pope John the VIII. Hence federal 
 tram actii ns, promises confirmed by oath, pacts and stipula- 
 tion between Popes and Emperors, who used to swear on 
 St Peters lomb, and subscribe the conditions imposed on 
 them. In the great struggles between the two powers, the 
 Pn\j£9. grounded their claims on customs and oaths, as may 
 bo seen in several passages of the canon law. 4 Adstringere 
 4 vinculo juramenti,' says Pope Clement V. ' prout tarn nos 
 4 observations antiquae temporibusnovissimisrenovata?, quam 
 4 forma juramenti hnjusmodi sacris inserta canonibus niani- 
 4 1« stant.'* Jus divinum, divine right, or a plenitude of apos- 
 ttfUc power, was out of the question. 
 
 In effect, Sir, before the tenth century, there have been as 
 bad Kings, and good Popes as ever since. The cause of 
 religion was equally interesting, and religion itself more vio- 
 lently persecuted. The Roman Pontiffs had the same spi- 
 ritual anthprity, the promotion of piety and faith equally at 
 h in and in the great number some were influenced by dif- 
 ferent passions and views. For in this mortal life, we all 
 retain some impressions of the frailty of our religion. 
 
 STet neither piety, nor ambition, the propagation of faith, 
 nor t :he reformation of morals, ever induced them to attempt 
 the deposing of kings, or arrogating to themselves a power 
 disclaimed bv the Saviour of the world, convicted of false- 
 hood by his apostles, and unheard of in the church for the 
 sppce of ten ages. Why have some of the succeeding pon- 
 ti s deviated from the primitive path? I say some, because 
 it would be unjust to charge them all alike. They are dis- 
 iinx individuals succeeding one another in the same throne, 
 and one is as much to be blamed for the faults of his prede- 
 cessor, as George III. is accountable for the licentiousness of 
 Cnarles If. 
 
 Why have some of them deviated from the primitive path? 
 It is that they had prescription and privilege to plead, oaths 
 and treaties to support their claims. In the conduct of 
 kings, choosing them for arbiters of their quarrels, covers 
 
 * €lemeritin. Roman. Principi de jurej. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 83 
 
 to their usurpations, and liege lords of their territories, they 
 found a specious pretext to punish the infraction of treaties, 
 and the breach of prerogative. A repetition of the same acts 
 introduced custom, custom obtained the power of law, the 
 law bound the parties concerned, and the violation of the law 
 has* been attended with penalties. Hence the deposition of 
 an emperor was more owing to the code and pandects of Jus- 
 tinian, than to the Gospel of Christ. The Popes who 
 stretched their prerogative beyond the bounds of modera- 
 tion, were blamed by the Catholics themselves, whose reli- 
 gion was in no wise concerned in the quarrels of their supe- 
 riors ; and the few enthusiastic flatterers, who have attempted 
 to lodge Paul's sivord and Peter's keys in the same hand, 
 and to make an universal monarch of the vicar of a crucified 
 God, who acknowledged the power of a Heathen magistrate, 
 have injured religion, and betrayed either their madness or ig- 
 norance. They have confounded fact with right, the unal- 
 terable dogmas of fate with the flux and changeable customs 
 of men, and built a Chalcedon, though they had a Byzantium 
 before their eyes. 
 
 They should have considered, that the church pleads an- 
 tiquity, and that her criterion of truth, and test of sound doc- 
 trine, is that golden rule of Vincentius Lerinensis : ' Quod 
 * semjv^r, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus.' ' What has 
 { been H 'd ever, and every where, and by all, ever.' The 
 deposing \. :>wer was never heard of, for the space of one 
 thousand and eighty-seven years, from St. Peter to Gre- 
 gory VII : a great chasm this ! And the chain of tradition 
 must be very short, when you take off a thousand and eighty- 
 seven links. 
 
 The Apostles and their successors preached the Christian 
 doctrine in all its rigour. They taught kings to cherish the 
 cross in their hearts, before it was displayed in their banners, 
 and to prefer a heavenly before an earthly throne. Had they 
 thought (and who could know better ?) that the power to de- 
 pose them, and to absolve their subjects from their allegiance, 
 were conducive to the glory of God and the honour of reli- 
 gion, they never would have concealed it, much less would 
 they have commanded to obey them. 
 
 Every where and by all. The deposing power, though 
 
84 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 grounded, as I remarked before, on temporal claims, has been 
 opposed by the Catholics from its birth. In Germany, by 
 open force and bloody wars : in Ireland, whose kings and 
 prelates paid no attention to the famous bull of Pope Adrian ; 
 in England, by a solemn declaration, 16 Rich. II. Even 
 under Elizabeth, a Protestant queen, the English Catholics 
 joined their sovereign, and paid a greater regard to the com- 
 mand of St. Paul, obey the prince, than to the dispensation of 
 Sixtus Quintus, or the expectation cf being relieved by a 
 Catholic king : which made the Spanish admiral say, ' that 
 
 * if he had landed, he would have made no distinction be- 
 1 tween a Catholic and a Protestant, save what distinction the 
 
 * point of his sword would have made between their flesh.' 
 I believe it ; for a conqueror's sword is an undistinguishing 
 weapon, were even a crucifix tied to the hilt of it.. la inva- 
 ding England, it is the enemy of Spain, not the enemy of the 
 mass, the Spaniards would attack ; where they here this in* 
 stant, they would not deprive a Protestant of his estate, be- 
 cause it belonged three hundred years ago to some old Mi- 
 lesian, whose posterity is now at the plough ; it would not 
 be their interest, the laws of conscience and conquest for- 
 bid it, and the rivals of England will always find their in- 
 terest in the poverty and defenceless situation of her sub- 
 jects. 
 
 In fine, the Pope's temporal power has been baffled by the 
 Venetians in their contests with Paul V. And in France, 
 whoever would argue in its favour would be confuted with 
 a halter, or galley chain. 
 
 According to the canen law, a hundred years prescription 
 in temporals can be pleaded against the Church of Rome. — 
 ' Contra ecclesiam Romanam valet prasscriptio centum anno- 
 
 * rum.' A hundred years and more have elapsed, since no 
 Pope has attempted to dispose of kingdoms, or absolve sub- 
 jects from their allegiance, though armies have been poured 
 into the Pope's territories, and his cities taken by Catholic 
 princes. Out of his own states, his temporal prerogative is 
 confined to a palfrey he receives from the king of Naples 
 every year, as a customary homage. The two late Popes 
 have absolutely disclaimed any temporal power over kings. 
 Thus, things have returned back into the former channel of 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 85 
 
 primitive simplicity : God has his own, and Ceesar his due .* 
 and the two powers which men had confounded, and blended 
 into one Delphian sword, equally adapted to the ministry of 
 the altar and profane uses, arc again divided. 
 
 In tracing thus the temporal power, we have chosen a me- 
 dium between the enthusiasm of some Italians, and the pre- 
 judices of their antagonists. The picture drawn by those 
 different painters, is all light or shadow. In resolving it into 
 the grants of kings and civil contracts, prescription and a 
 colourable title, as its first principles, we prefer the middle 
 tints : and in measuring the portrait by this rule, we give it 
 its due dimensions. 
 
 But in binding the pontiff's hands, and denying him any 
 power directly or indirectly in temporals, I solemnly declare 
 that I do not mean to derogate in the least from his spiritual 
 supremacy. A vindication of my character calls for this de- 
 claration: as two divines of my communion have censured 
 the following passages of the seventh letter to Michael Ser- 
 vetus. 
 
 In mentioning the belief of Rome and Geneva, concern- 
 ing the immortality of the soul, &c. I have made use of 
 the expressions, * their rule of faith is different : but these 
 •'fundamentals of religion are entirely expunged from your 
 * ritual.' Here I was charged with admitting the famous 
 distinction between fundamentals and non- fundamentals: but 
 the truth of this charge I absolutely deny. 
 
 1 Let the word, Church, be understood of the collective 
 1 body of Christians,' &c. Here again I was represented as 
 a Latitudinarian. But with submission to my censors, they 
 mistook my meaning. To alledge the authority of the Church 
 of Rome, against a writer who denies it, is to commit a gross 
 fault against the rules of logic. It is a petitio principd, or 
 begging the question. If ever they argue in this manner, 
 when the dispute turns on articles believed by Christians of 
 all denominations, I believe they would glorify God more by 
 prayer and silence : for a bad argument is an injury to 
 truth. 
 
 To some, this apology may seem unnecessary, but not so 
 to me, whose character has been injured by the imputation of 
 a double doctrine : I who am bound not to scandalize 
 
80 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS 
 
 a weak brother, and who, were I even the first pastor of 
 the Church, should be as docile to her voice, as the least 
 of her children. 
 
 ART, VI. 
 
 'And, I do solemnly, in the presence of God, and of his 
 'only Son Jesus Christ our Redeemer, profess, testify, 
 ' and declare, that I do make this declaration, and every 
 ' part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the 
 ' words of this oath, without any evasion, equivocation, 
 ' or mental reservation, whatever ; and without any dis- 
 ' pensation already granted by the Pope, or any autho- 
 ' rity of the See of Rome, or any person whatever ; and 
 ' without thinking I am or can be acquitted before God 
 ' or man, or absolved of this declaration, or any part 
 ' thereof, although the Pope or any other person or per- 
 ' sons, or any authority whatsoever, shall dispense with, 
 ' or annul the same, or declare that it was null and void 
 ' from the beeinninar. ' 
 
 This last paragraph excludes amphibologies, evasions, 
 equivocations, and mental reservations eversive of natural 
 candour and Christian sincerity, — branded by the pastors of 
 the Church with the odious qualifications of ' rash, scan- 
 'dalous, pernicious, erroneous, opening the way to lies, 
 'frauds, perjury, and contrary to Scripture,' as may be seen 
 in the catalogue of relaxed propositions condemned by Pope 
 Innocent XL and the clergy of France,* and detested by the 
 very heathens : 
 
 ' Ille uiihi in visus pariter eiun faucibus Orci, 
 
 ' Gujus mens aliud cond.it qiium ling-ua profatur.' 
 
 Upon these principles, the Catholics have taken the 
 oath : and on these principles, it can be safely taken. It 
 proposes nothing to their abhorrence and detestation, but 
 what they really abhor and detest : it requires no promise 
 but what is just and lawful. 
 
 But as the oath is complicate, and perplexed with a variety 
 of phrases- — as it minces even a syllable — and that the letter 
 
 * Proposilio 27, inter Gondeuniatas ab Iunoc. XI. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 87 
 
 seems to clash with the spirit — it is not surprising if many 
 objections have been started against it. 
 
 Objections from the Hibernian Journal. 
 
 First : ' In swearing to support the succession of the 
 4 crown in his Majesty's family, I bind myself to that which 
 4 there is a possibility a loyal subject to the constitution 
 4 might not have in his power to perform.' 
 
 Answer. You are not bound to impossibilities, neither 
 does the oath require it, whereas it expresses, ' to the 
 4 utmost of my power.' 
 
 Second : ' I am bound to take the oath in the plain and 
 
 * ordinary sense of the words; consequently, though untrained 
 
 * to arms, and unskilled in military discipline, I must run 
 4 to the field of battle, in case of invasion or rebellion: 
 'otherwise I do not exert myself to the utmost of my power.' 
 
 Answer: You serve your king to 4 the utmost of your 
 
 * power,' by remaining at home. You would only cause dis- 
 order : and an army in disorder flies to the slaughter-house, 
 not to victory: 'Won ad victoriam, sed ad lanienam.'* The 
 magistrate supports the king, 4 to the utmost of his power,' 
 in maintaining the public peace : the surgeon in dressing the 
 soldier's wounds : the clergyman, in preaching loyalty and 
 subordination, regularity and good morals, fraternal love and 
 mutual benevolence. The king requires no more : and, as 
 you write a great deal under the signature of 4 An old 
 4 Derryman,' all his majesty expects from one of your age 
 4 is to light the fire, and to be hospitable, when his soldiers 
 4 are quartered on you.' 
 
 Third : 4 In swearing that I cannot be absolved of this alle- 
 4 giance, by any authority whatsoever, I deny the supremacy 
 4 of the lords and commons.' 
 
 Answer. Your objection is grounded on error. The 
 supreme power of the state is vested in the parliament, com- 
 posed of king, lords, and commons.! 
 
 Fourth: k What happened once may happen again. If 
 4 the king attempts to overturn the constitution, 1 must help 
 4 him, if I pay any regard to my oath, and thus betray my 
 4 country : or perjure myself, if I refuse assistance.' 
 
 * Vejetius de re Militari, f Blackstoue's Comment. B, 1. Ch. 2, p. 147g 
 
 If 
 
88 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 Answer. Lest ' what hath happened once, may happen 
 again,' say with the royal prophet, ' Domine salvum fac re- 
 gem,' ' God save the king.' However, to aliay your anxieties, 
 remember that subjectsdo not swear to kings, as robbers 
 or pirates swear to their leaders. You are not bound to 
 help a king in his attempts against the laws of God and na- 
 ture, when you have clear evidence that his attempts tend to 
 the subversion of both; neither doth the test require, 
 whereas, * true allegiance,' is expressly mentioned. But 
 in a doubt you are bound to obey, because in a doubt 
 concerning the rectitude of their intentions, or the jus- 
 tice of their cause, presumption is in favour of your supe- 
 riors. 
 
 What a kingdom! if all the inhabitants were astronomers, 
 metaphysicians, and casuists, who would neither obey nor 
 promise to be loyal to their sovereigns, until they would 
 have read in the stars the fate of the constitution, and ex- 
 plored the remote regions of metaphysics, in search of the 
 essential and demonstrative relations of unalterable truth to 
 Magna Charta; Gulliver's floating island would be the fittest 
 kingdom for such aerial inhabitants. 
 
 Further: If the remote and possible danger of the con- 
 stitution's overthrow, or the subversion of the fundamental 
 laws of any realm, were a sufficient objection against oaths 
 of allegiance, either all the distinguished subjects of the 
 world are perjured, or no king is entitled to their allegiance. 
 For in swearing to their respective sovereigns, I do not be- 
 lieve that British peers, French nobles, or Spanish grandees, 
 with all the delicacy of honour, Catholic or Protestant, 
 bishops, with all their divinity, use the following form of 
 words : ' I will bear allegiance to your majesty, if you 
 ' behave as an honest man, and do not overturn the consti- 
 4 tution.' 
 
 Before the royal head is encircled with the diadem, the 
 monarch obtests the awful name of the Divinity, and swears 
 that he will govern his subjects in 'justice and mercy.' They 
 acknowledge their sovereign, and swear to be loyal. His 
 future conduct, and the inconstancy of his will, are left to 
 him who holds in his hands the hearts of kings, who, by the 
 laws of England, 'can do no wrong.' The legislative power 
 retains a right, and has the means of examining in what 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 8i) 
 
 manner the laws are executed or infringed, by bringing the 
 king's counsellors to a strict account. ' But whatever may 
 4 be the issue of this examination,' says Montesquieu, ' the 
 4 kind's person is sacred, the moment lie is arraigned or 
 ' tried, there is an end of liberty.'* The constitution then is 
 equally in danger of being overturned by a refusal of alle- 
 giance, 4 applicable not only to the regal office of the king, 
 ' but to the natural person and blood royal. '| 
 
 Objections from the Hibernian Jllagazine. 
 
 First : 4 No man can safely swear to a thing of which he 
 ' is not certain. Now the test obliges the Catholics to de- 
 4 cide by oath, that they have positive and clear reasons not 
 4 to believe that any foreign prince ought to have any civil 
 4 pre-eminence within this realm. Now, what individual 
 4 can pretend to so deep an insight into the much debated 
 4 rights of princes, as to determine with certainty on so dif- 
 4 ficult and so abstruse a question ; especially as the words 
 4 ought and right, extend to any kind of right, whether na- 
 4 tural, i. e. by right of blood, or acquired ?' 
 
 Answer. The test obliges the Catholics to no such 
 thing. All it requires is a negative belief, or a suspence 
 of belief, concerning the rights of foreign princes, (and 
 I do declare that I do not believe.) The paragraph is 
 worded in a negative stile. But in a negative oath, igno- 
 rance of another man's right exculpates the person who 
 swears, from perjury. A familiar example will set ths 
 matter in a clear light. Paul is in possession of a farm from 
 time immemorial ; this possession, and several other strong 
 reasons incline me to believe, that he is the only rightful 
 and lawful owner. Peter revives a dormant claim, which 
 in my opinion is but a shadow. A magistrate interrogates 
 me in this manner : Do you believe that Peter ought to have 
 a right to PauPs farm? I answer, I do declare, that I do not 
 believe it. In the name of goodness, whatever Peter's title 
 may be, do 1 perjure myself in swearing to what is reallv 
 my opinion? 
 
 * Spirit of Laws. vol. 1. p. 181. 
 
 ■\ Blackstonc's Cumneot. vol. 1. p. 371. 
 
90 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 The word right is not mentioned in the oath, and in case 
 it were, the objector's distinction, betwixt natural and ac- 
 quired would give him no advantage ; for with regard to 
 civil pre-eminence and jurisdiction over free states, there is 
 no right when the laws of nations are against it. 
 
 In France, the Salique law excludes females from inherit- 
 ing the throne. Has the king's eldest daughter any right to 
 it? In Portugal, where the crown is hereditary, the law 
 disqualifies every stranger who lays claim to the throne by 
 right of blood. Have foreign princes, though related 
 to the royal family, any right to civil pre-eminence within that 
 realm ? 
 
 Second : ' The words, ought to have, seem to have a re- 
 ' trospect to the revolution, whereby James II. was 
 4 deprived of the throne, because he was a Roman Ca- 
 
 * tholic-: for some members have affirmed, that no one 
 ' could take this oath, but on revolution principles. If this 
 'be so, I swear what is equivalent to this — The being a Roman 
 4 Catholic is a just and reasonable disqualification for not enjoy- 
 4 ing hereditary right. What Protestant in his senses 
 
 * would not think me perjured when I swear in this 
 manner.' 
 
 Answer. Every Protestant, if such were the meaning of 
 the oath ; but neither the sense nor the letter of the oath is 
 susceptible of such a forced construction. The framers of 
 the test have blended together an oath of allegiance, and the 
 old declaration against Popery, compiled by James I. In 
 this declaration, the words ran thus : ' And I do declare, 
 1 that I do not believe that the Pope of Rome, &c. hath or 
 4 ousrht to have* any authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, 
 4 within this realm.' By this declaratien translated into 
 English, and still to be seen in the statutes, the Roman 
 Catholics were obliged to renounce the Pope's spiritual su- 
 premacy, otherwise they had nothing to expect but halters 
 and gibbets from our beloved Stuarts. The Senators of 1775, 
 more humane than the royal pedant of 1603, have expunged 
 in favour of distressed subjects, the words ecclesiastical and 
 spiritual, and substituted temporal and civil in their place. 
 Thus have they enabled the Catholics, to testify their loyalty 
 
 * Habet rel debet habere. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 91 
 
 without swearing against their conscience. The words 
 
 * ought to have,' have then no retrospect to James II. who de- 
 prived himself of the throne, by quitting the realm, after 
 having abdicated the constitution, by arrogating to himself a 
 dispensing power. 
 
 Third : ' Marriage is founded on a civil contract, though 
 
 * of divine institution, and a sacrament in the belief of Catho- 
 
 * lies. In denying the Pope's civil power directly or indi- 
 1 rectly ivitkin this realm, so far at least I deny the church's 
 
 * authority over a sacrament.' 
 
 Answer. A flat sophism ! The Pope has no civil power 
 direct or indirect in this realm, over any sacrament, but a spi- 
 ritual power ratione Sacramenti y precisely as a sacrament, 
 and so far it is a spiritual thing. In virtue of my ordina- 
 tion, I have power to consecrate bread and wine ; have I 
 any civil power over the baker's shop, or the vintner's cel- 
 lar? 
 
 Fourth : * I swear that I do not think that I can be ab- 
 ' solved of this declaration, or any part thereof, although any 
 
 * authority whatsoever shall dispense with or annul the same. 
 
 * Now, 'authority whatsoever' is of universal import. It in- 
 ' eludes the supreme authority of the state, the authority of 
 ' God himself. Can a Catholic or Protestant swear that 
 ' neither God, nor the state can absolve him of any part of this 
 ' declaration, whereas God can deprive a tyrannical king of 
 ' his throne, and the supreme authority of the state can ab- 
 ' solve a subject from his allegiance, and permit him to retire 
 ' to whatever place he chooses, as a master can manumit a 
 ' slave.' 
 
 Answer. By ' authority whatsoever,' is not meant the au- 
 thority of God, nor the supreme authority of the state, but 
 % the authority of Rome, or foreign authority. 
 
 Fifth. ' The oath is to be taken in the plain and ordinary 
 \ ' sense of words. Authority whatsoever, in the plain and or- 
 ' dinary sense of the words includes the authority of God 
 ' and the state.' 
 
 Answer. The plain and ordinary sense of any word, is 
 the sense annexed to it, by the common consent and custom 
 of mankind, according to their respective idioms and lan- 
 guages : but in any legal act, mankind never extends the 
 words 'authority whatsoever,' to the authority of God, who 
 
92 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTa. 
 
 is above the controul of human laws, nor to the supreme au- 
 thority of the state, which is never presumed to bintfitsown 
 hands, whereas it is an invariable maxim in human laws, that 
 the same power which enacts them, can repeal and dispense 
 with them. l Per quascunque causes res nascitur, per eas- 
 
 * dem solvitur.' 
 
 Sixth : ' The oath forbids mental reservations on pain of 
 ' perjury. Now mental reservation is a proposition, which 
 1 taken according to the natural import of the terms, is 
 ' false ; such is this proposition, I declare that no authority 
 1 whatsoever can dispense with any part of this oath ; ac- 
 1 cording to the natural import of the terms, it is false, be- 
 
 * cause God and the state can dispense with a part of it : but 
 ' if qualified by something concealed in the mind (v. g. ex- 
 t cept God or the state) it becomes true. In that vt ry pro- 
 
 * position, there is a mental reservation, the great refuge of 
 ' religious hypocrites, who accommodate their consciences 
 
 * with their interests.' 
 
 Answer. The definition is just, but proves nothing. For 
 reservations were introduced in order to deceive the person to 
 whom we swear. But the magistrates, in whose presence we 
 take the oath, know that by authority whatsoever, is not meant 
 the authority of God, nor that of the state. 
 
 Seventh : ' The last paragraph of the test, tends to con- 
 ' tradict an established doctrine of the Catholic Church, 
 
 * which is, that in the Church there is vested a power of ex- 
 
 * amining into the nature of oaths, (which are acts of reli- 
 ' gion) and of determining whether they be, or be not law- 
 ' ful.' 
 
 Answer. The test does not deprive the Church of the 
 power of examining into the lawfulness of oaths. The last 
 paragraph is entirely levelled against the dispensing power : 
 the right of examination is quite out of the question. 
 Without thinking that I can be acquitted of this declaration, 
 &c. 
 
 Eighth. * A fundamental article of the Catholic faith, is 
 
 * the infallibility of the Church. This article is reversed by 
 1 these words, without thinking that I am or can be acquitted 
 1 of any part of this declaration, although the Pope or any au- 
 ' thority whatsoever, shall declare that it ivas null and void 
 'from the beginning. In fine, in taking the oath, a Catholic 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 93 
 
 * must reason in this manner. It is an article of my faith, 
 'that the church is infallible; the pillar of truth, says St. 
 
 * Paul, which the powers of hell can never overthrow, accord- 
 ing to the promise of Christ. Now should the church de- 
 ' clare, that this oath is null and void from the beginning, I 
 'bind mvself by oath not to believe her. Is this consistent 
 ' with the principles of a Catholic ? To believe that the 
 
 * church is an infallible guide, and to bind himself by a so- 
 'lemnoath not to believe her, although she should define 
 'contrary to his opinion !' 
 
 Answer. A Catholic should sooner expire on the wheel, 
 thin take an oath implying an abjuraiion of any point 
 of his religion. We have not here a permanent city, 
 and in suffering with uprightness and integrity for 
 conscience' sake, we expect a better. We know that life 
 is short, that the Christian is condemned to the cross, and 
 that the pampered tyrant as well as the oppressed slave, 
 must appear naked at the awful tribunal of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 We are not to court the favours of government at the ex- 
 pense of conscience ; neither does the oath impose such a 
 rigorous condition. 
 
 The words, ' without thinking that I am or can be acquit* 
 1 ted of this declaration, although the Pope, or any authority 
 ' whatsoever, shall declare that it was null and void from the 
 ' beginning,' these words, I say, mean no more than that 
 you are convinced of tke truth of what you swear; and that, 
 in case of a dispensation you think yourself still bound to 
 keep your oath. For the words, 'acquitted, absolved,' re- 
 gard the dispensing power. Now that the doctrines 
 mentioned in the declaration, are not our real principles, 
 has been sufficiently proved; and reason, as well as religion, 
 informs us, that a dispensation granted against the law of God, 
 or good morals, ' cannot acquit or absolve us before God and 
 ' man.' ' It is not a faithful dispensation,' says St. Bernard, 
 'but a cruel dissipation.' ' Non fidelis dispensatio, sed 
 'crudelis dissipatio.'* 
 
 Ninth : ' Let us suppose that the church shall declare the 
 1 oath nidi and void from the beginning, you bind yourself 
 ' by oath not to believe her ; and thus renounce your religion 
 1 under cover of loyalty.' 
 
 * De Dispensatione et Pracepto, 
 
94 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 Answer. I do not bind myself by oath not to believe the 
 church in her doctrinal decision ; I only swear that ' I do not 
 1 think myself acquitted or absolved' of my obligations, by a 
 dispensation granted by the Pope, &c. The last paragraph, 
 as I remarked before, is entirely levelled against the dispens- 
 ing povver. 
 
 Our legislators know, that the infallibility of the church 
 is a tenet of Roman Catholics. By the very preamble 
 of the act, they enable us to give public assurances of 
 our allegiance, without prejudice to our real principles. 
 In swearing that ' I do not think myself acquitted of this 
 
 * declaration, although the Pope, or any authority what- 
 1 soever, shall declare that it was null and void from the be- 
 ' ginning,' I do not mean to deny the infallibility of the 
 church, nor the authority of God, nor even the supreme au- 
 thority of the state ; and the magistrate, in whose presence I 
 swear, knows that it is not my intention. As there is no de- 
 sign on one part, nor deception on the other, I neither re- 
 nounce my faith, nor perjure myself, although the severity 
 of the letter seems to import one, or the other, or both. Oaths 
 and laws are liable to interpretations : and one general rule 
 prevails over the world, viz. ' That a greater stress is to be 
 Maid on the sense, than on the words.' 'It is not to be 
 ' doubted,' says the emperor Justinian, ' but that he acts con- 
 
 * trary to the law, who, confining himself to the letter, acts 
 ' contrary to the spirit, and intent of it: and whoever, to excuse 
 1 himself, endeavours fraudulently to elude the true sense of a 
 
 * law, by rigorous attachment to the words of it, shall not 
 'escape its penalties by such prevarication.' ' Non dubium 
 ' est in lege committere eum, qui verba legis amplexus, con- 
 ' tra legis nititur voluntatem : nee pcenas insertas legibus 
 ' evitabit, qui se contra juris sententiam sasva praerogativa 
 ' verborum fraudulenter excusat.' 
 
 ' Whoever swears, must do it according to the intention 
 ' of him to whom he swears, let the mode and form of the 
 4 expressions be what they will,' says St. Isidorus. ' Qua- 
 
 * cumque arte verborum quisque juret, Deus tamen, qui con- 
 4 scientiae testis est, ita hoc accipit, sicut ille, cui juratur, in- 
 ' telligit.'* Far from renouncing the infallibility of the 
 
 » Isidoins apud Gratianum. 22. 9. 5. c. 9. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACT.S. 95 
 
 church, which is neither the purport of the oath, nor 
 the design of a Catholic who takes it, 1 am convinced 
 that the unerring spirit that guides her, will never permit 
 her to define as an article of faith, any proposition rejected 
 in the test, or sanctify any doctrine against the institution 
 of Christ. 
 
 Faith is founded on revelation ; and the church can never 
 make a new article of faith. She can only declare what 
 has been revealed, to prevent the chaff of human opinions 
 from mixing with the pure grain of the Evangelical doc- 
 trine. 
 
 Supposing that faith is founded on revelation, and that, as 
 the bishop of Meaux remarks, after Christ there is no new 
 revelation, for in him is the plenitude — the Catholics rest 
 secure that it is out of the church's power, to declare that 
 their oath is null and void ; as it is out of her power to de- 
 clare that fraud, murder, and perjury are lawful. This 
 shall appear by analyzing the oath. 
 
 First : ' Has God revealed that I am not to bear true alle- 
 4 giance to George III. or to renounce any allegiance to the 
 4 Pretender ? If he has revealed it, Pope Clement XIII. 
 4 died an heretic? he banished an Irish superior for compli- 
 4 menting the Pretender with the title of King of Great Bri- 
 4 tain.'' 
 
 Second : 4 Has God revealed, that I can lawfully and 
 4 piously murder my fellow-creature, and break a just pro- 
 4 mise, or refuse paying what I owe him, because he is of a 
 4 different religion ?' 
 
 Third : 4 Has God revealed that I am to believe that Popes 
 4 and foreign princes ought to have any civil authority within 
 4 this realm ?' 
 
 Fourth : 4 Has God revealed, that kings can be deposed 
 4 and murdered by their subjects, because they are excom- 
 * municated by the Pope and council ?' 
 
 There is the whole substance of the oath : and as God has 
 not revealed any of those assertions, but commanded the 
 reverse, the church can never declare them as articles of 
 faith. Did St. Paul mean to renounce the authority of Hea- 
 ven, when he said, 4 should an angel from Heaven preach 
 4 another doctrine, do not believe him ?' Does a Catholic 
 renounce the authority of the church, in not thinking that 
 
 o 
 
96 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 she can allow perjury? But if such he the case, you will 
 ask nie, ' why some people have written against this oath ?' 
 or, why 4 the small number of Catholics have not united 
 « with the great number who have taken it ?' 
 
 I can assure you, Sir, that the Catholics who have not 
 taken the oath, look on the deposing power as a dream; the 
 murder of heretics as an impious slander, calculated in times 
 of turbulence; to murder the character of the innocent, and 
 only adapted to those distant aeras, when 'Papists attempted 
 4 to blow up a river, with gun-powder, in order to drown a 
 4 city.'* in line, they are ready to swear allegiance to George 
 the Third, and renounce any allegiance to the Stuarts. 
 
 tt ihe chief exception to the oath is — the manner in 
 >vhich it is worded. It must be taken in ' the plain and or- 
 4 dihary sense of the words.' 4 This cannot be reconciled 
 4 v •!/. any authority whatsoever.' A Catholic abjures upon 
 oaiii a doctrine he never believed. Abjuration implies the 
 belief of a previous error. 4 Foreign princes ought not to 
 4 have,' &'c. How can subjects know? or what is it to them? 
 4 Without any dispensation already granted.' You suppose 
 then that we have a dispensation to perjure ourselves; con- 
 sequently it is nugatory to swear, when you are enabled not 
 to believe us. It is too dangerous to sport with the awful 
 name of the Divinity : and if a free-thinker reverenced the 
 Supreme Being, his conscience would be screwed in taking 
 an oath which minces a syllable, and requires a long com- 
 mentary. Further : Every invader, every usurper, would 
 avail himself of a similar oath. In Ireland, he would find 
 it framed to his hand, and makes us swear 4 that George the 
 4 Third ought to have no authority within this realm,' though 
 the lawful king would be at the same time asserting his 
 right in England. The alternative would be; death or 
 perjury. 
 
 Such are the exceptions of the few who have not taken 
 the oath. : exceptions not to be disregarded by those, with 
 whom they may have any weight. For an oath is dreadful 
 in itself: arid we can never act against the dictates of an 
 erroneous conscience, till our scruples are removed, 'Quod 
 non est ex fide, peccatum est.' 
 
 * Walker, p. 349. Hutue, Hist, of England, Vol. I. ' 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 97 
 
 Here below ' we see in a glass darkly,' says St. Paul. Pro- 
 vidence has thrown a sable veil over the human intellect.— 
 The scripture itself this law of spirit and life, proposed as a 
 rule to the learned and ignorant, is become the Subject of 
 disputes and controversies. All legal acts are liable to ip- 
 conveniencies. It is impossible for the legislators who devise 
 them, to read in the minds of otiier men, the doubts which 
 may arise concerning the sense and force of some expres- 
 sions. Hence, new acts to explain and amend former laws. 
 
 Should the wisdom of the legislative powers deign to re.- 
 duce the oath to a few plain words, whereby we should swear 
 allegiance to his Majesty ; renounce any to the Stuarts ; 
 swear never to maintain nor abet any doctrine Inconsist nt 
 with the rights of sovereigns, the security of our fellow-sub- 
 jects, nor ever to accept of any dispensation to the con- 
 trary — all the ends of government would be fully answered, 
 and the few scrupulous Catholics, who cavil about wc res, 
 would join the great numbers who have proceeded upon 
 more enlarged and liberal principles. 
 
 Should our neighbours doubt the delicacy of our con- 
 sciences, when we swear, we have no argument to convince 
 them, but the following : 
 
 We groan under the yoke of mysery and oppression, 
 throughout the long and trying periods of six successive 
 reigns. We suffer for crimes we have never committed. 
 The punishment, which according to all laws should finish 
 with the delinquent, is entailed on the innocent posterity to 
 the fourth and fifth generation, by a rigorous severity, simi- 
 lar to that of those Tuscan princes, who used to fasten living 
 men to dead bodies. The laws, which in other countries are 
 the resource and protection of the errant pilgrim, are here 
 the mortal enemies of the settled natives. These abortives 
 of the Stuart race reign uncontrouled a long time after the 
 death of their inauspicious progenitors. On every part they 
 spread penal bitterness, with an unwearied hand; deal out 
 transportation to the clergy; poverty and distress to the 
 laity. They continually hang as so many swords, over our 
 heads. The lenity of the magistrates, with the humanity of 
 our Protestant neighbours, are the only clouds that intercept 
 the scorching influence of those blazing comets, kindled in 
 times of turbulence and confusion. Were it a principle ot 
 
98 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 our religion to pay no regard to the dictates of conscience— - 
 were our pastors and clergy such as they are described, 
 ' people who dispense with every law of God and man, who 
 
 * sanctify rebellion and murder, and even change the very 
 8 nature and essential differences of vice and virtue ;'* were 
 we people of this kind, the penal restraints would be soon 
 removed. One verbal recantation of Popery, backed with 
 a false oath, would dissolve our chains. In three weeks you 
 would see all the Catholics at Church, and their clergy along 
 with them. Licensed guilt would soon kick in wantonness, 
 where starving innocence shivers without a covering. A re- 
 medy neglected from motives of conscience, is a proof of the 
 patient's integrity. Our sufferings and perseverance plead 
 aloud in favour of our abhorrence and detestation of perjury : 
 and though our Protestant neighbours may laugh at the 
 seeming errors of our minds, yet they will do justice to the 
 integrity of our hearts. 
 
 Now, as in the primitive ages of the Church,, it is our prin- 
 ciple and duty to pray for our kings, 4 that God would be 
 
 * pleased to grant them a long life and a quiet reign ; that 
 4 their family may be safe, and their forces valiant ; their 
 4 senate lawful, their people orderly and virtuous ; that they 
 ■ may rule in peace, and have all the blessings they can de-* 
 
 * sire, either as men or princes.'f 
 
 I have the honour to remain, 
 
 Sir, your most humble, 
 
 And obedient Servant, 
 
 ARTHUR O'LEARY. 
 
 * Leland, b. 5. ch. 3. f Tertull. Apolog. 
 
AN 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 TO 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION, 
 
 CONCERNING THE APPREHENDED FRENCH INVASION. 
 
 Brethren, Countrymen, and Fellow Citizens, 
 
 Religion has always considered war as one of the 
 scourges of Heaven, and the source of numberless scourges 
 and crimes. Men may arm their hands in defence of life and 
 property ; but their hearts shudder at the thoughts of a field 
 of battle, which can scarce afford graves to the armies that 
 dispute it, covered with the mangled bodies and scattered 
 limbs of thousands of Christians, who never saw nor pro- 
 voked each other before ; and whose only fault was obedience 
 to their princes ! which obedience cannot be imputed to the 
 soldier as a crime. The peaceful cottage deserted at the 
 sight of an approaching enemy ! Famine and distress closing 
 the scene, and filling up the measure of calamities ! Such 
 are the misfortunes inseparable from war — misfortunes which 
 induced the great St. Paul to exhort the Christians in the 
 following manner: 'I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, 
 
 * supplications, prayers, intercessions be made for all men, 
 
 * for kings, and all that are in authority : that we may lead a 
 1 quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty,'* 
 And such should be the constant prayer of a Christian. 
 
 But what, my brethren, if the enemy's sword glittered in 
 our streets, and that to the licentiousness of a foreign foe 
 we added domestic dissensions ! If the sound of the enemy's 
 
 * 1 Tiuiotliy, Chap II. 
 
100 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 trumpet would be drowned in the cries and shrieks of the 
 injured neighbour, whom we ourselves would be the first to 
 oppress ! Would not war itself lose its terrors, when com- 
 pared to such outrages? And the calamities we would 
 bring: on ourselves, would not they surpass those which 
 would pour in upon us from foreign nations ? Such, 
 nevertheless, are the fears that haunt us. Both Pro- 
 testants and Catholics declare, that in case of an inva- 
 sion, the common people are the greatest cause of their 
 alarms ; not from dread of your superior power ; but from 
 the sad necessity they would be under, of punishing these 
 whom they are willing to protect, and the general con- 
 fusion that would disturb the peace and tranquillity of the 
 rich, and draw down inevitable destruction on the poor. 
 For in such an unfortunate juncture, every Catholic pos- 
 sessed of a feather bed, and commodious habitation, would 
 join his Protestant neighbour in their mutual defence. The 
 aggregate body of diem would not be a match for regular 
 forces, yet they would be an overmatch for you. They would 
 unite in one common cause ; you would be divided amongst 
 yourselves, exposed to each other's encroachments, and 
 overpowered by all parties. 
 
 Such, my brethren, would be your situation, should you 
 be unhappy enough to strike from the path of a peaceable 
 and Christian conduct. Forbid it Heaven, that it should be 
 ever your case ! I conceive better hopes of you. Your un- 
 shaken loyalty under the most trying circumstances ; the 
 calm and quietness that reigned in your peaceful huts, 
 scattered up and down the extensive counties of Cork and 
 Kerry, where the Catholics are poor and numerous, whilst 
 other parts of the kingdom were infested with Uoughers, 
 White Boys, Hearts of Oak and Steel, and alarmed at the 
 continual sight of judges, chains and gibbets ; the quiet and 
 peaceable manner in which you behaved on a late occasion, 
 when you imagined the enemy at your doors ; all these cir- 
 cumstances are pledges of your loyalty and good conduct, 
 and happy omens of your steady perseverance in the same 
 line. 
 
 Your bishops and clergy have enforced the doctrine of 
 peace, subordination, and loyalty, 'from the sacred altars, 
 where the least lye would be a sacrilege, and crime of the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 101 
 
 first magnitude. The Catholic gentlemen have set forth the 
 example to you. Both have bound themselves to king and 
 government, by the most sacred ties. They have souls to 
 be saved, and would be sorry to lose them by wilful perjury : 
 they who would be on a level with their Protestant neigh- 
 bours, if they took but the qualification oath against the con- 
 viction of their consciences. 
 
 But the doctrine and example of the learned, prudent, and 
 better sort of your profession, should be the only rule of your 
 conduct ; for in ail countries, the generality of the common 
 people are ill qualified to judge or determine for themselves. 
 They are easily governed by the senses ; hurried by their 
 passions ; and misled by a wild and extravagant fancy that 
 intrudes itself into the province of Reason. 
 
 Far be it from me to suspect you for any design to avail 
 yourselves of the calamities of your nation, or to commit, in 
 time of war, a robbery which you would detest in time of 
 peace. Is the crime less heinous, because it is committed 
 against a neighbour, who is doubly miserable from the ter- 
 rors of a foreigH foe, and the outrageous assaults of a 
 treacherous fellow subject ? 
 
 When the soldiers asked St. John the Baptist, what they 
 should do ? He desired them, ' to do violence to no man ; 
 
 * not to accuse any one falsely ; and to be content with their 
 
 * wages.'* Hence all divines are agreed, that the empire of 
 justice is so extensive, that war itself must acknowledge its 
 authority. Kings, in declaring war, make a solemn appeal to 
 the tribunal of heaven, for the justice of their cause. The 
 soldier cannot, in conscience, plunder or oppress the mer- 
 chant or husbandman in his enemy's country : he must 
 strictly abide by the orders of his commander. If justice, 
 then, in certain circumstances, must sheath the enemy's sword, 
 how much more forcibly must it not restrain the citizen's 
 hand from invading what he cannot enjoy without guilt here, 
 and punishment hereafter ? A punishment the more to be 
 dreaded, as perhaps diere would be no time for restitution and 
 repentance ! Indispensable obligations, to which every rob- 
 ber is liable, and without which he has no mercy to expect* 
 But if a robbery committed on a private man, deserve death 
 
 * St. Luke, Chap. riii. 
 
102 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 and damnation, what must not be the guilt of those who would 
 flock to the enemy's standard, to the total overthrow and de- 
 struction of an entire kingdom ? It would be vain to plead 
 the hardships you suffer; the prospect of being reinstated in 
 the lands of which your ancestors have been deprived in 
 times of general confusion ; a more free and unlimited exer- 
 cise of your religion ; in fine, the last argument of a despe- 
 rate man, ' if they come, 1 have nothing to lose.' Those rea- 
 sons I have not heard from yourselves : I have read them with 
 surprise in speeches and essays against the repeal of the penal 
 laws ; and I hope in God, that your conduct shall for ever 
 contradict, them. 
 
 When an enemy lands in a country, every person has 
 something to lose. The labourer who refreshes his weary 
 limbs with balmy sleep, and for whose soft slumbers the 
 gouty rich man would exchange his bed of down, would lose 
 his rest from continual fears and apprehensions. When pub- 
 lic works would be discontinued, and tradesmen dismissed 
 by their employers, carpenters, masons, slaters, Sec. would 
 lose their hire. It would not be with a view to feed an 
 hungry Irishman, that a number of French dragoons would 
 make excursions from their camp : it would be with a de- 
 sign to carry off his calf or pig, and to kill himself if he re- 
 sisted. Whatever distinction the laws of this unhappy king- 
 dom may make between Protestant and Papist, a conqueror's 
 sword makes none. War levels and confounds all religions, 
 where their professors are subjects of a monarch whose king- 
 dom is invaded. 
 
 When the French joined the Americans, it was not from 
 love for the Presbyterian religion. If they landed here, it 
 would not be w T ith a design to promote the Catholic cause. — 
 When Oliver Cromwell beheaded Charles the First, brother- 
 in-law to the King of France, and issued a bloody decree, 
 whereby all the English Catholics were commanded to quit 
 the kingdom in the space of two months, the French, far 
 from resenting the injury offered to the blood-royal and to 
 the Catholic religion, sided Cromwell against Spain; and 
 ordered the Duchess of Saxony to promote and protect her 
 Protestant subjects, whilst the English Catholics were smart- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 103 
 
 ing under the scourge of persecution, and threatened with 
 total extermination.* 
 
 Thus all religions are alike to a political people, whose" 
 only aim is interest and conquest. Hence, in France, Pro- 
 testants of all denominations are promoted in the army. — 
 Protestant generals command her forces : the order 6f Mili- 
 tary Merit is instituted for Protestant officers. It is equal to 
 them whether a soldier prays or curses — whether he handles 
 a bead or a prayer-book ; provided he can manage a sword 
 and gun. And if thirty thousand men, under the denomi- 
 nation of French troops, landed in Ireland, fifteen thousand 
 Protestants, from France, Germany, Switzerland, Sec. would 
 make up half the number. 
 
 Neither are you to confide in their promises of protection. 
 The history of their own nation informs us, that a French 
 king banished his mother at the request of the English. The 
 most part of yourselves can remember, that in the war of 
 seventeen hundred and forty-five, they prevailed on tile Pre- 
 tender to invade Scotland. This adventurer, after suffering 
 more hardships than any romantic hero we read of, no sooner 
 returned from this chimerical expedition to Paris, than, at 
 the solicitation of the English ambassador, he was forced to 
 leave the kingdom of France. He died, about two months 
 since, without issue; and, by his death has rid the kingdom 
 of all fears arising from the pretensions of a family that 
 commenced our destruction, and completed our ruin. — 
 Of this I think fit to inform you, as, in all likelihood, if the 
 French landed here, some might give out that he might be 
 in their camp, in order to deceive you by an imposture that 
 would end in your destruction. For all those who would 
 join the French, would be strung up after the war, and give 
 occasion of charging the whole body of the Roman Catholics 
 with the treachery of some of its rotten members. Or what 
 protection could you expect from people who would sacrifice 
 the ties of kindred and friendship for the good of their 
 state ? 
 
 Expect then nothing from the French on the score of reli-^ 
 £ion, but remain peaceably in your cottages. Mind your 
 
 * Leti's Life of Cromwal!. 
 P 
 
104 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 business as usual, and be free from all groundless apprehen- 
 sions. Work for those who employ you ; for it is against 
 the laws. of war to molest or hurt any, but such as oppose 
 the enemy, sword in hand : and the world must allow that 
 the French are not strangers to the laws of war, or the rules 
 of military discipline. The soldier himself, in the rage of 
 slaughter, feels the impulse of humanity. He is bound to 
 spare the supplicant who cries out for quarter, and to protect 
 the town or pity that surrenders for want of power to resist. 
 Secure your lives, which run the risk of being- lost by the 
 sword in fighting for the foe, or by the rope if you chanced 
 to escape the danger of the fieid : but above all, save your 
 s )\rs, wuich would be lost with >ut resource : for among the 
 crimes that exclude from the kingdom of heaven, St. Paul 
 reckons sedition : and what greater sedition thar* to rise up 
 against your king and country, and to defile your hands with 
 the blood of your fellow-subjects,? 
 
 Should the king and parliament adopt the policy of France, 
 that rewards the soldier's, value, and leaves his religion to 
 God — should they enter on the liberal plan of the Protestant 
 Powers of the continent, who level the fences, and make no 
 distinction between religious parties — should the Catholic 
 gentry, descended in a long line from warlike chieftains, and 
 animated with the same courage and magnanimity that 
 crowned with laurels their relations and namesakes on the 
 banks of the Rhine, the walls of Cremona, in the fields of 
 Germany, and the plains of Fontenoy, where hands disqua- 
 lified from using a gun in defence of their native country, 
 have conquered cities and provinces for foreign kings — should 
 the Catholic gentry, I say, be empowered by parliament to 
 join their Protestant neighbours, and press to the standard 
 of their country, at the head of a spirited and active race of 
 men, preserved by labour from the weakness of indolence, 
 inured by habit to the rigours of manly exercise, and, like 
 the Spartan youth, already half disciplined from the very na- 
 ture of their sports and diversions — then join the banners of 
 your country ; fight in support of the common cause. If 
 you die, you die with honour and a pure conscience: the 
 death of a plunderer and rebel is infamy and reprobation. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 105 
 
 I repeat it ; you have nothing to expect from the French. 
 Ireland they will never keep ; or if they keep it, is it a rea- 
 son that you should forfeit soul and conscience by plunder, 
 treachery, and rebellion ? St. Paul lays it down for a rule, 
 that 'the damnation of those is just, who do evil thai gcod 
 'may come.'* What must not be die damnation of those 
 who do evil for the sake of mischief? And Christ declares, 
 that * it availeth a man nothing, if he gain the whole world 
 *and lose his souL' 
 
 But by the coming of the French, your gain would Fall 
 short of your expectations, if any amongst you would be 
 
 mad enough to entertain any expectations of the kind 
 
 When the French take a Roman Catholic Captain, do they 
 ever return him back to his ship or restore him his liberty, 
 in compliment to his religion ? Are we to expect more from 
 them by land, than by sea ? If then in compliment to the 
 Catholic religion, they would not return a fishing bout to 
 our distressed families, who would imagine they would 
 give us all the estates in the kingdom ? Or is it be- 
 cause these estates belonged in remote times to our an- 
 cestors, that we couid in conscience dispossess the present 
 owners, were it even in our power? The remains of 
 old castles, formerly the seats of hospitality ; and the ter- 
 ritories which still bear our names; may remind us of 
 our origin, and inspire us with spirited sentiments, to which 
 the lower class of people in other countries are entire 
 strangers, and which a wise government could improve to 
 the advantage of the state. Yet these memorials of ancient 
 grandeur and family importance, entitle us to no other 
 pretensions than that of scorning to do any thing base, 
 vile, or treacherous. 
 
 We must imitate that descendant of the Sidonian kings, 
 who, from extreme poverty, worked in a garden : being 
 asked by Alexander the Great, ' How he supported po- 
 'verty?' 'Better,' replied he, 'than I could support gran.. 
 'deur. My hands supply my wants: and I want nothing, 
 1 when I desire nothing.' Pity, my brethren, that this man 
 was not a Christian ! Or pity, that the Christians do not 
 resemble this Heathen ! The most flourishing empires have 
 
 * Romans, chap, iii- 
 
108 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 fallen with time : the world is in a continual change : and 
 tin Reman Catholics must share the same fate with the rest 
 oi mankind. 
 
 There is> no reviving old claims in this or any other coun- 
 t'rj . Or perhaps, if we revived them, they could not 
 stand the test of severe justice. Our ancestors have 
 they ever encroached on their neighbours? On their first 
 h ding in this kingdom, have not they taken these estates 
 from the Carthaginians, Firblogs, and others who were 
 settled here before them? If then the Protestants, who 
 are now in possession, gave them up, to whom would 
 they gn e them ? If they have no right to them, because 
 they belonged to our ancestors — our ancestors had no 
 right tc them, because they belonged to others. If a 
 French general sounded a trumpet, and desired us to 
 take our lands, would there not be a thousand pretenders 
 to very estate? Would not every one be eager for the 
 best spot ? And would not this spot fall to the share of the 
 strongest, who would kill or overpower the weakest? I am 
 ashamed, my brethren, at your reading such trifles in this 
 paper* I should never have mentioned them, had not I read 
 such a nonsensical charge in the writings of some paltry 
 scribblers, who, in order to keep our Protestant neighbours 
 in perpetual dread of inoffensive fellow- subjects, do not blush 
 at- an insult olftred to common sense, and to the rights of 
 mankind, 
 
 •• 04 where property is once settled, secured by the laws of 
 any realm, and confirmed by a long possession, there is no 
 disturbing the proprietor. It is the general consent of nations, 
 and the universal voice of mankind. By the Roman laws, 
 thirft years possession secures the possessor in the enjoyment 
 of his property. Even in Scripture we read, that, when a 
 king of the Ammonites bad challenged some lands which the 
 Israelites had t Len from his ancestors, Jephtah, the ruler of 
 God's people, amongst other reasons, pleads a long pos- 
 session : * While Israel dwelt in Heshbon, why therefore did 
 'ye not recover tnem within that time?'* Thus from the 
 first establishment of civil society, a long possession annihilates 
 ail claims. And by the same principles, every Protestant gen- 
 tleman in Ireland has as good a right to his estate, as any 
 
 * Judges, cliap. ij. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 107 
 
 Milesian had before him. For this I appeal to your con- 
 sciences : as you are to appear before God, if you cut corn 
 in the field of a Protestant, or stole his hay, would not your 
 confessor compel you to restitution ? What right then should 
 you have to the land where you would scruple to take the 
 growth of it ? Far then from giving you estates, the French 
 could not, by the laws of war and the principles of conquest, 
 universally agreed on by civilized nations, take a foot of 
 ground from any person in the kingdom, for their own use ; 
 much less for yours. If the nation should be unable to make 
 head against them, and that the chief men of the kingdom, 
 and the representatives of the people, should prefer preser- 
 vation to death, (as doubtless they will, if they have not 
 superior forces to oppose them) — they neither will nor can 
 require any more than the allegiance of the inhabitants, the 
 same rates, taxes, and government support, that were 
 granted to the king of England. The natives will be 
 secured in the free exercise of their religion, the full enjoy- 
 ment of their property, their laws and privileges. This is 
 always done : the reverse would be an open violation of the 
 laws of nations, which are binding on the very conquerors; 
 and which, according to the present system, they strictly 
 observe. 
 
 Thus, the common people are never interested in the 
 change of government. They may change their masters : 
 but they will not change their burden. The rich will Jbe 
 still rich. The poor will be poor. In France, they have 
 poor of all trades and professions : it will be the same here. 
 But you will tell me, ' that at least you will have the free 
 exercise of your religion.' Pray, my brethren, do not your 
 Protestant neighbours grant you the free exercise of your 
 religion ? Would they not esteem you more, in proportion 
 as you would live up to its maxims ? Even the worthy, 
 learned, and charitable Dr. Mann, the Protestant Bishop, 
 at the head of an assembly of his clergy, recommended 
 benevolence and moderation towards the Roman Catho- 
 lics. The same doctrine has been preached not long ago 
 from the Protestant pulpit. Thus, it is the glory of our 
 days, to see the unhappy spirit of persecution dying away, 
 and christian charity succeeding the intemperate zeal and 
 
103 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 unchristian superstition which, for many years, had dis- 
 graced religion, and dishonoured humanity. 
 
 Bells, steeples, and churches richly ornamented, contri- 
 tribute to the outward pomp and solemnity of worship : but 
 an upright > heart and pure conscience are the temples in 
 which the Divinity delights. We would fain worship God 
 our own way. Doubtless. But are we to worship him 
 against his will ? In lighting up the sacred fire, are we to 
 burn the house of God ? Saul, king of Israel, intended to 
 worship God, in offering up a sacrifice. The Lord rejected 
 him, because he offered it up against the law. His intention 
 was good ; but the action criminal. Thus, the Lord would 
 reject you, if, under pretence of a more free worship, 
 you flocked to the standard of an enemy ; rose up in rebel- 
 lion against lawful authority; plundered your neighbour; 
 and imbrued your hands in the blood of your fellow- 
 subjects. 
 
 Let none then say, ' We will have a Catholic King.' — 
 Subjects are little concerned in the religion of governors. 
 Thousands of Catholics lose their souls in France and Italy, 
 after leading a loose and dissolute life : thousands of them 
 work their salvation in the Protestant States of Holland 
 and Germany. It is then equal to man, what religion his 
 neighbour or king be of, provided his own conscience be 
 pure, and his life upright. 
 
 The Prussian, Dutch, and Hanoverian Catholics live un- 
 der Protestant governments, and join their sovereigns 
 against Catholic Powers. Their religion is the same with 
 yours. And this religion enforces obedience to the king and 
 magistrates under whom we live. Christ commanded tribute 
 to be paid to an heathen prince, and acknowledged the tem- 
 poral power of an heathen magistrate, who pronounced sen- 
 tence of death against him. 
 
 Nero, sovereign of the world, rips open his mother's 
 womb, and begins the first bloody persecution against the 
 Christians ; seventeen thousand of whom were slaughtered 
 in one month; and their bodies, daubed over with pitch and 
 tar, hung up to give light to the city. St. Paul, dreading 
 that such horrid usage would force them to overturn the 
 state, and join the enemies of the empire, writes to them in 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 109 
 
 the following manner: 'Let every man be subject to the 
 6 higher powers; and they that resist receive unto themselves 
 4 damnation.'* A strong conviction then that, in obeying 
 our rulers, we obey God, (who leaves no virtue unrewarded, 
 as he leaves no vice unpunished) sweetens the thoughts of 
 subjection; and under the hardest master, obedience is no 
 longer a hardship to the true Christian. 
 
 So great was the impression made by this doctrine on 
 the minds of the primitive Christians — so great was their 
 love for public order, that, although they filled the whole 
 empire and all the armies, they never once flew out into any 
 disorder. Under all the cruelties that the rage of perse- 
 cutors could invent ; amidst so many seditions and civil 
 wars; amidst so many conspiracies against the persons of 
 emperors, not a seditious Christian could be found. 
 
 We have the same motives to animate our conduct; the 
 same incentive to piety, godliness, and honesty : the same 
 expectations that raise us above all earthly things, and put 
 us beyond the reach of mortality. ' For, here on earth,' 
 says St. Paul, ' we have not a lasting city, but expect a 
 4 better.' — Let not public calamities, bloody wars, the 
 scourges of heaven, and the judgments of God, be incentives 
 to vice, plunder, rebellion, and murder; but rather the oc- 
 casions of the reformation of our morals, and spurs to re- 
 pentance. Let religion, which by patience has triumphed 
 over the Cassars, and displayed the cross in the banners of 
 kings, without sowing disorders in their realms, support 
 itself without the accursed aid of insurrection and crimes. 
 Far from expecting to enrich ourselves at the expence of 
 justice, and under the fatal shelter of clouds of confusion 
 and troubles, let us seriously reflect, that death will soon 
 level the poor and rich in the dust of the grave: that we 
 are all to appear naked before the awful tribunal of Jesus 
 Christ, to account for our actions; and that it is by millions 
 of times more preferable to partake of the happiness of 
 Lazarus, who was conveyed to Abraham's bosom, after a 
 life of holiness and poverty, than to be rich and wicked, 
 and to share the fate of that happy man who, dressed in 
 purple, and after a life of ease and opulence, was refused a 
 
 * Rom, Cbap. xiii. 
 
HO MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 drop of water to allay his burning thirst. In expectation 
 that you will comply with the instructions of your bishop 
 and clergy, not only from dread of the laws, but moreover 
 from the love and fear of God. 
 
 I remain, my dear brethren, 
 
 Your affectionate servant, 
 
 ARTHUR O'LEARY. 
 
 Cork, August 14, 1779. 
 
THE 
 
 REV. JOHN WESLEY'S LETTER, 
 
 Containing the civil principles of Roman Catholics ; also, a De- 
 fence of the Protestant Association. 
 
 to the printer. 
 Sir, 
 
 Some time ago, a pamphlet was sent me, entitled, 'An 
 s Appeal from the Protestant Association to the people of 
 
 * Great Britain.' A day or two since, a kind of answer to 
 this was put into my hand, which pronounces, ' its style con- 
 1 temptible, its reasoning futile, and its object malicious.' — 
 On the contrary, I think the style of it is clear, easy, and 
 natural ; the reasoning, in general, strong and conclusive ; 
 the object, or design, kind and benevolent : and, in pursu- 
 ance of the same kind and benevolent design, I shall endea- 
 vour to confirm the substance of that tract, by a few plain 
 arguments. 
 
 With persecution I have nothing to do. I persecute no 
 man for his religious principles. Let there be * as boundless 
 
 * a freedom in religion,' as any man can conceive : but this 
 does not touch the point. I will set religion, true or false, 
 utterly out of the question : suppose the Bible if you please, 
 to be a fable, and the Koran to be the word of God. I con- 
 sider not, whether the Romish religion be true or false, I 
 build nothing on one or the other supposition : therefore 
 away with all your common-place declarations about intole- 
 rance and persecution for religion ! Suppose every word of 
 Pope Pius's creed to be true — suppose the Council of Trent 
 to have been infallible — yet, I insist upon it, that no govern- 
 ment, not Roman Catholic, ought to tolerate men of the Ro- 
 man Catholic persuasion. 
 
 I prove this by a plain argument : let him answer it that 
 can : — 
 
112 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS 
 
 That no Roman Catholic does or can give security for his 
 allegiance or peaceable behaviour, I prove thus : it is a Ro- 
 man Catholic maxim, established, not by private men, but 
 by a public Council, that, * no faith is to be kept with here- 
 ' tics.' This has been openly avowed by the Council of Con- 
 stance, but it never was openly disclaimed. Whether pri- 
 vate persons avow or disavow it, it is a fixed maxim of the 
 church of Rome : but as long as it is so, nothing can be more 
 plain, than that the members of that church can give no rea- 
 sonable security to any government of their allegiance or 
 peaceable behaviour; therefore, they ought not to be tolera- 
 ted by any government, Protestant, Mahometan, or Pagan. 
 You may say, ' nay, but you will take an oath of aliegi- 
 c ance.' True, five hundred oaths; but the maxim, 'no 
 ' faith is to be kept with heretics,' sweeps them ail away, as 
 a spider's web ; so that still, no governors, that are not Ro- 
 man Catholics, can have any security of their allegiance. 
 
 Again, those who acknowledge the spiritual power of the 
 Pope, can give no security of their allegiance to any govern- 
 ment ; but all Roman Catholics acknowledge this ; therefore 
 they can give no security for their allegiance. 
 
 The power of granting pardons for all sins past, present, 
 and to come, is, and has been, for many centuries, one branch 
 of his spiritual power: but those who acknowledge him to 
 have this spiritual power, can give no security for their alle- 
 giance ; since they believe the Pope can pardon rebellions, 
 high treasons, and all other sins whatsoever. 
 
 'i he power of dispensing with any promise, oath, or vow, 
 is another branch of the spiritual power of the Pope ; and all 
 who acknowledge his spiritual power, must acknowledge 
 this ; but whoever acknowledges the dispensing power of the 
 Pope, can give no security of his allegiance to any govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Oaths and promises are none : they are light as air ; a dis- 
 pensation makes them all null and void. 
 
 Nay, not only the Pope, but even a priest, has power to 
 pardon sins ! this is an essential doctrine of the church of 
 Rome. But they that acknowledge this, cannot possibly 
 give any security for their allegiance to any government. 
 Oaths are no security at all ; for the priest can pardon both 
 perjury and high treason. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 113 
 
 Setting, then, religion aside, it is plain, that upon princi- 
 ples of reason, no government ought to tolerate men, who 
 cannot give any security to that government for their alle- 
 giance and peaceable behaviour ; but this no Romanist can 
 do, not only while he holds, that ' no faith is to be kept with 
 ' heretics,' but so long as he acknowledges either priestly 
 absolution, or the spiritual power of the Pope. 
 
 'But the late act,' you say, 'does not either tolerate or 
 ' encourage Roman Catholics.' I appeal to matter of fact. 
 Do not the Romanists themselves understand it as a tolera- 
 tion ? You know they do. And does it not already, let 
 alone what it may do by-and-by, encourage them to preach 
 openly, to build chapels, at Bath and elsewhere, to raise se- 
 minaries, and to make numerous converts, day by day, to 
 their intolerant, persecuting principles ? 1 can point out 
 if need be, several of the persons : and they are increasing 
 daily. 
 
 But * nothing dangerous to English liberty is to be ap- 
 ' prehended from them.' I am not certain of that. Some 
 time since a Romish priest came to one 1 knew, and after 
 talking with her largely, broke out, 'You are no heretic! 
 'You have the experience of a real Christian!' 'And 
 1 would you, 5 she asked, ' burn me alive V He said, ' God 
 ' forbid ! Unless it were for the good of the church.' 
 
 Now, what security could she have for her life, if it had 
 depended on that man ? The good of the church would have 
 burst all the ties of truth, justice and mercy ; especially, when 
 seconded by the absolution of a priest, or, if need were, a 
 papal pardon. 
 
 If any one please to answer this, and to set his name, I 
 shall, probably reply : but the productions of anonymous 
 writers I do not promise to take any notice of. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Your humble Servant, 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 City Road, 
 Jan. 12, 1780. 
 
A DEFENCE OF THE 
 
 PROTESTANT ASSOCIATION, 
 
 BY JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 Various pieces, under different signatures, having ap- 
 peared in the public prints, casting unjust reflections on the 
 Protestant Association, and tending to quiet the minds of 
 the Protestants at the present alarming crisis, by insinuating 
 that there is no danger arising from the toleration of Popery, 
 and that such associations are necessary ; 1 think it a piece of 
 justice, which I owe to my countrymen, to give them a plain 
 and true account of the views of this assembly, and lay before 
 them the reasons which induced them to form this asso- 
 ciation, and determined them to continue. 
 
 Whether the gentlemen who have favoured the public with 
 their remarks on this occasion, are really Protestants, or Pro- 
 testant Dissenters, as they style themselves ; or whether they 
 are Papists in disguise, who assume the name of Protestants, 
 that they may be able to undermine the Protestant cause with 
 the greater success, is neither easy nor necessary to deter- 
 mine ; but it is easy to see that they are either totally igno- 
 rant of the subject on which they write, or else they wilfully 
 disguise it. 
 
 The pieces I refer to, are written with different degrees of 
 temper. One gentleman in particular, appears to be very 
 angry, and loads the association, and their friends, with the 
 most illiberal and unmanly abuse. If this gentleman had 
 clearly stated the cause of his resentment, he might have 
 been answered ; but as he appears to be angry at he knows 
 not what, he can only be pitied. Others have written with 
 more candour and moderation, and would have been worthy 
 of regard, had they not been deficient in point of argument. 
 If these are sincerely desirous of being informed, they are 
 requested to attend to the following particulars : 
 
 However unconcerned the present generation may be, and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 115 
 
 unapprehensive of danger from the great growth of Popery, 
 how calmly soever they may behold the erection of Popish 
 chapels, hear of Popish schools being opened, and see 
 Popish books publicly advertised, they are to be informed 
 that our ancestors, whose wisdom and firmness have trans- 
 mitted to us those religious and civil liberties, which we now 
 enjoy, had very different conceptions of this matter ; and 
 had they acted with that coldness, indifference, and stupi- 
 dity, which seems to have seized the present age, we had 
 now been sunk into the most abject state of misery and sla- 
 very, under an arbitrary prince and Popish government. 
 
 It was the opinion of our brave, wise, circumspect, and 
 cautious ancestors, that an open toleration of the Popish re- 
 ligion, is inconsistent with the safety of a free people, and a 
 Protestant government. It was thought by them, that every 
 convert to Popery, was by principle an enemy to the consti- 
 tution of this country; and as it was supposed that the Roman 
 Catholic religion promoted rebellion against the state, there 
 was a very severe law made to prevent the propagation of it. 
 Such was the state of things in the reign of the great Eliza- 
 beth : and Popery having, notwithstanding such restriction, 
 gained ground in the reign of James II. though the encou- 
 ragement it then received from the state, was not equal to 
 what it has now obtained, the nation was alarmed ; and the 
 noble and resolute stand which the Protestants then made 
 against the advances of Popery, produced the Revolution. 
 
 In the reign of William the Third, the state was thought 
 to be in danger from the encroachments of Rome ; to pre- 
 vent which, the act of Parliament was made, which is now, 
 in the most material parts, repealed, and several Protestants 
 being of opinion, that this repeal will, in its consequences, 
 act as an open toleration of the Popish religion, they are 
 filled with the most painful apprehensions : they think, that 
 liberty, which they value more than their lives, and which 
 they would piously transmit to their children, to be in dan- 
 ger : they are full of the most alarming fears, that chains are 
 forging at the anvil of Rome for the rising generation : thev 
 fear, that the Papists are undermining our happy constitu- 
 tion ; they see the purple power of Rome advancing, by 
 hasty strides, to overspread this once happy nation : they 
 shudder at the thought of darkness and ignorance, misery 
 
116 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 and slavery, spreading their sable wings over this highly 
 favoured isle : their souls are pained for their rights and 
 liberties as men, and their hearts tremble for the ark of 
 God. 
 
 Inspired with such sentiments, and under the influence of 
 such reasonable and well-grounded fears, they think it a 
 duty which they owe to themselves, their posterity, their 
 religion, and their God, to unite as one man, and take every 
 possible, loyal and constitutional measure, to stop the pro- 
 gress of that soul-deceiving and all-enslaving superstition 
 which threatens to overspread this land. It is to be hoped, 
 that an attempt, so just and reasonable, will be crowned 
 with success; but should it fail through the supineness or 
 groundless prejudices of those who ought to stand first in 
 this cause, the members of this Association will enjoy the 
 satisfaction of a self-approving mind, conscious of having 
 done its duty; while those who meanly desert the Protes- 
 tant cause, and tamely suffer the encroachments of Rome, 
 may see their error when it is too late, and be filled with 
 bitterness and remorse at a conducts© mean and despicable, 
 and so unworthy their profession. 
 
 Whatever such persons may think of themselves and their 
 conduct, and however they may dress themselves up in the 
 splendid robes of candour and moderation, they are to be 
 informed that their conduct is highly criminal, and may be 
 attended with the most deplorable consequences; as, by their 
 neglecting to appear on this great occasion, they give our 
 rulers reason to conclude, that it is the sense of the nation 
 that Popery should be tolerated. 
 
 It is sincerely to be lamented that Protestants in general 
 are not more apprehensive of the danger. Have they forgot 
 the reign of the bloody queen Mary ? Have they forgot 
 the fires in Smithfield, and can they behold the place without 
 emotion where their fathers died? Will it ever be believed 
 in future times, that persons of eminent and distinguished 
 rank among the Protestants, and persons of high and exalted 
 religious characters, refused to petition against Popery ; and 
 let it overspread our nation without opposition? Will it be 
 believed that Englishmen were so far degenerated from the 
 noble spirit of their ancestors, as tamely to bow the neck to 
 the yoke of Rome ? 4 Tell not in Gath, publish it not in 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 117 
 
 * the streets of Askelon ; lest the daughters of the Philistines 
 4 rejoice; lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.' 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that the Papists, either openly 
 or in disguise, take every method to prevent the just and 
 reasonable|view of the Protestant Association, and therefore 
 represent them as factious, seditious, and enemies to tolera- 
 tion. These charges, and every other which the malice of 
 our enemies, or the groundless fears and prejudices of our 
 mistaken friends shall hereafter exhibit, will be separately 
 and distinctly considered in the course of these letters ; and 
 such an account given of the views of the Protestant Asso- 
 ciation, and the Tine of conduct which they have pursued, 
 and intend to pursue, in order to accomplish the great end 
 for which they associate, as will, I hope, obviate every 
 objection, remove every scruple, and excite the Protestants 
 to join hand in hand, and unite as one man, in that cause, 
 in which their present and future welfare is so nearly 
 concerned, by 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 
 
REM AUKS ON THE FOREGOING 
 
 LETTER AND DEFENCE, 
 
 Addressed to the Conductors of the Free Press. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 I know that it is loss of time, and a loss to the public; 
 impatient for a paper in which they have first discovered 
 the outlines of their country's rights, and from whence they 
 daily expect new illustrations, on the most important sub- 
 jects — to take up The Freeman's Journal with idle contro- 
 versy. Were controversy the subject, I should be the last 
 • to enter the list. 
 
 In your paper, which has already made its way to the 
 Continent, on account of the late exertions of the Irish, and 
 which should contain nothing unworthy of the nervous elo- 
 quence and liberal principles of jour numerous and learned 
 correspondents, Mr. Wesley, in a syllogistical method, and 
 the jargon of the schools, has arraigned the Catholics all 
 over the world, with their kings and subjects, their prelates 
 and doctors, as liars, perjurers, patentees of guilt and per- 
 jury ; authorized by their priests to violate the sacred rules 
 of order and justice, and unworthy of being tolerated even 
 by Turks and Pagans* Such a charge carries with it its 
 own confutation, but are there not prejudiced people still in 
 the world ? The nine skins of parchment, filled with the 
 names of petitioners against the English Catholics, owe the 
 variety of their signatures to pulpit declamations and inflam- 
 matory pamphlets, teeming with Mr. Wesley's false asser- 
 tions. And, to the disgrace of the peerage, in this variety 
 of signatures, is not the lord's hand-writing stretched near 
 the scratch of the cobler's awl ? For the parchment would 
 be profaned, if the man who does not know how to write, 
 made the sign of the cross. 
 
 I am a member of that communion which Mr. Wesley 
 aspersed in so cruel a manner. I disclaimed upon oath, in 
 
 * See Mr. Wesley's letter, page 112. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 119 
 
 the presence of Judge Henn, the creed which Mr. Wesley- 
 attributes to me. I have been the first to unravel the intri- 
 cacies of that very oath of allegiance, proposed to the Roman 
 Catholics ; as it is worded in a manner which, at first sight, 
 seems abstruse. And, far from believing it lawful to ' violate 
 * faith with heretics,' I solemnly swear without equivocation, 
 or the danger of perjury, that in a Catholic country, where I 
 was chaplain of war, I thought it a crime to engage the king 
 of England's soldiers or sailors into the service of a Catholic 
 monarch, against their Protestant sovereign. I resisted 
 the solicitations, and ran the risk of incurring the dis- 
 pleasure of a minister of state, and losing my pension : 
 and my conduct was approved by all the divines in a 
 monastery to which I then belonged ; who all unanimously 
 declared, that, in conscience, I could not have behaved 
 otherwise. 
 
 Mr. Wesley may consider me as a fictitious character ; 
 but, should he follow his precursor, (I mean his letter, 
 wafted to us over the British channel), and, on his mission 
 from Dublin to Bandon, make Cork his way — Doctor 
 Berkely, parish -minister, near Middleton — Captains Stanner, 
 French, and others, who were prisoners of war, in the same 
 place, and at the same time — can fully satisfy him as to the 
 reality of my existence, in the line already described ; and 
 that in the beard which I then wore, and which like that of 
 Sir Thomas More, never committed any treason, I never 
 concealed either poison or dagger to destroy my Protestant 
 neighbour ; though it was long enough to set all Scotland in 
 
 ablaze, and to deprive Lord G G of his 
 
 senses. 
 
 Should any of the Scotch missionaries attend Mr. Wesley 
 into this kingdom, and bring with them any of the stumps of 
 the fagots with which Henry the Eighth, his daughters, Mary 
 and Elizabeth, and the learned James the First, ro?.sted the 
 heretics of their times, in Smithfield — or some of the fagots 
 with which the Scotch Saints, of whose proceedings Mr. 
 Wesley is become the apologist, have burnt the houses of 
 their inoffensive Catholic neighbours ; we will convert them 
 to their proper use. In Ireland, the revolution of the great 
 Platonic year is almost completed. Things are re-instated in 
 their primitive order. And the fagot, which, without any 
 
 R 
 
120 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 mission from Christ, preached the Gospel by orders of 
 Catholic and Protestant' kings, is confined to the kitchen. 
 Thus, what formerly roasted the man at the stake, now 
 helps to leed him ; and nothing but the severity of winter, 
 and the coidness of the climate in Scotland, could justify 
 Mr. Wesley in urging the rabble to light it. This is a 
 bad time to introduce it amongst us, when we begin to 
 be formidable to our foes, and united amongst ourselves. 
 And to the glory of Ireland, be it said, we never con- 
 demned but murderers and perpetrators of unnatural crimes 
 to the fagot. 
 
 By a statute of Henry the Sixth, every Englishman of the 
 Pale* was bound to shave his upper lip, or clip his whiskers, 
 in order to distinguish himself from an Irishman. By this 
 mark of distinction, it seems that what Campion calls in his old 
 English, glib, and what we call the beard, as well as the com- 
 plexion and size of both people, were much the same. In mjr 
 opinion, it had tended more to their mutual interest, and the 
 glory of that monarch's reign, not to go to the nicety of 
 splitting a hair, but encourage the growth of their fleeces, and 
 inspire them with such mutual love for each other, as to in- 
 duce them to kiss one another's beards ; as brothers salute 
 each other* at Constantinople, after a few days absence. I 
 am likewise of opinion, that Mr. Wesley, who prefaces his 
 letter with ' the interest of the Protestant religion,' would re- 
 fleet more honour on his ministry, in promoting the happiness 
 of the people, by preaching love and union, than in widening 
 the breach, and increasing their calamities by division. 
 The English and Irish were, at that time, of the same 
 religion ; but, divided in their affections, were miserable. — 
 Though divided in speculative opinions, if united in senti- 
 ment, we would be happy. The English settlers breathed 
 the vital air in England, before they inhaled the soft breezes 
 of our temperate climate. The present generation can say, 
 'our fathers and grandfathers have been born, bred, and 
 'buried here. We are Irishmen, as the descendants of 
 'the Normans, who have been born in England, are 
 ' Englishmen.' 
 
 * Seethe statutes of that king'; and lament the effects of divisions fomented ht 
 sovereigns. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 121 
 
 Thus, bom in an island in which the ancients might have 
 placed their Hesperian gardens and golden apples, the tem- 
 perature of the climate, and quality of the soil inimical to 
 poisonous insects, have cleansed our veins from the sour and 
 acid blood of the Scythians and Saxons. We begin to open 
 our eyes and to learn wisdom from the experience of ages.— 
 We are lender-hearted : we are good-natured : we have feel- 
 fogs. We shed tears on the urns of the dead; deplore the 
 loss of hecatombs of victims slaughtered on the gloomy altars 
 of religious bigotry ; cry in seeing the ruins of cities over 
 which fanaticism has displayed the funeral torch ; and sin- 
 cerely pity the blind zeal of our Scotch and English neigh- 
 bours, whose constant character is to pity none, for erecting 
 the banners of persecution, at a time when the inquisition is 
 abolished in Spain and Milan, and the Protestant gentry are 
 caressed at Home, and live unmolested in the luxuriant plains 
 of France and Italy. 
 
 The statute of Henry the Sixth is now grown obsolete.-— 
 The razor of calamity has shaved our lower and upper lips, 
 and given us smooth faces. Our land is uncultivated ; our 
 country a desart ; our natives are forced into the service of 
 foreign kings, storming towns, and in the very heat of slaugh- 
 ter, tempering Irish courage with Irish mercy.* All our 
 misfortunes flow from long- reigning intolerance, and the 
 storms which, gathering first in the Scotch and English at- 
 mosphere, never failed to burst over our heads. 
 
 We are too wise to quarrel about religion. The Roman 
 Catholics sing their spalms in Latin, with a few inflections of 
 the voice. Our Protestant neighbours sing the same psalms 
 in English, on a larger scale of musical notes. We never 
 quarrel with our honest and worthy neighbours, the Quakers, 
 for not singing at all ; nor shall we ever quarrel with Mr. 
 Wesley for raising his voice to heaven, and warbling forth his 
 canticles on whatever tune he pleases ; whether it be the tune 
 of guardian angels or langolee. We like social harmony; 
 and, in civil music, hate discordance. Thus, when we go 
 
 * Count Dillon and the Irish brigade could not be prevailed on by D'Estaing- to put 
 the English »:irrison to the sword. ' We will not kill our countrymen,' said they ; 
 ' would it not be wiser to let these gallant men go to mass, and serve their ow t 
 king-? 
 
122 MISCELI#NE0US TRACTS. 
 
 to the shambles, we never enquire into the butcher's reli- 
 gion ; but into the quality of his meat. We care not whe- 
 ther the ox was fed in the Pope's territories, or on the moun- 
 tains of Scotland, provided the joint be good ; for, though 
 there be many heresies in old books, we discover neither he- 
 resy nor superstition in beef and claret. We divide them 
 cheerfully with one another ; and, though of different reli- 
 gions, we sit over the bowl with as much cordiality as if we 
 were at a love -feast. 
 
 The Protestant associations of Scotland and England may 
 pity us ; but we feel more comfort than if we were scorching 
 one another with fire and fagot. Instead of singing * peace 
 * to men of good will on earth,* does Mr. Wesley intend to 
 sound the fury of Alecto's horn, or the war-shell of the Mex- 
 icans ? The Irish, who have no resource but in their union, 
 does he mean to arm them against each other ? One massa- 
 cre, to which the fanaticism of the Scotch and English regi- 
 cides give rise, is more than enough : Mr. Wesley should 
 not sow the seeds of a second. When he felt the first-fruits 
 and illapses of the spirit — when his zeal, too extensive to be 
 confined within the majestic temples of the church of Eng- 
 land, or the edifying meeting-houses of the other Christians^ 
 prompted him to travel most parts of Europe and America, 
 and to establish a religion and houses of worship of his own, 
 what opposition has he not met with from the civil magis- 
 trates ! with what insults from the rabble ! broken benches, 
 dead cats, and pools of water bear witness. Was he then the 
 trumpeter of persecution ? Was his pulpit changed into Hu- 
 dibras's * drum ecclesiastic ?' Did he abet banishment and 
 proscription on the score of conscience ? Now that his ta- 
 bernacle is established in peace, after the clouds having borne 
 testimony to his mission,* he complains in his second letter, 
 wherein he promises to continue the fire which he has already 
 kindled in England, that people of exalted ranks in church 
 and state, have refused entering into a mean confederacy 
 against the laws of nature, and the rights of mankind. In his 
 first letter, he disclaims persecution on the score of religion ; 
 
 * See an abridgment of Wesley's journal, wherein he says, that in preaching' one day 
 at Kinsale, a cloud pitched over him. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 123 
 
 and, in the same breath, strikes out a creed of hisown for 
 the Roman Catholics ; and says, that ' they should not be 
 4 tolerated even amongst the Turks.' Thus, the satyr in the 
 fable breathes hot and cold in the same blast ; and a Iamb 
 of peace is turned inquisitor ! ' But is not that creed men- 
 mentioned 4 by Mr. Wesley, the creed of the Roman Ca- 
 tholics?' By right it should be theirs: as it is so often 
 bestowed on them, and that, according to the civil law, a 
 free gift becomes the property of the person to whom it is 
 bestowed, if there be no legal disqualification en either side. 
 But the misfortune is, that the Catholics and the framers of 
 the fictitious creed, so often refuted, and still forced on them, 
 resemble the Frenchman and the blunderer in the comedv : 
 one forces into the other's mouth a food which he cannot 
 relish, and against which his stomach revolts. 
 
 Mr. Wesley places in the front of his lines, the general 
 Council of Constance ; places the Pope in the centre : and 
 brings up the re re of his squadrons with a confabulation 
 between a priest and a woman; whilst his letters are skir- 
 mishing on the wings. Let us march from the rere to the 
 front: for religious warriors seldom observe order. 
 
 A priest then said to a woman whom Mr. Wesley knows, 
 ' I see you are no heretic: you have the experience of a 
 • real Christian.' 4 And would you burn me ?' said she, 
 4 God forbid,' replied the priest, ' except for the good of 
 4 the church.' Now this priest must be descended from 
 some of those who attempted to blow up a river with gun- 
 powder, in order to drown a city.* Or he must have taken 
 her for a witch ; whereas, by his own confession, ' she was 
 no heretic' A gentleman whom / know, declared to me, 
 upon his honour, that he heard Mr. Wesley repeat, in a 
 sermon preached by him in the city of Cork, the following 
 words : 4 A little bird cried out in Hebrew — O Eternity ! 
 4 Eternity ! who can tell the length of Eternity ?' I am then 
 of opinion, that a little Hebrew bird gave Mr. Wesley the 
 important information about the priest and the woman. One 
 story is as interesting as the other : and both are equally- 
 alarming to the Protestant interest. Hitherto it is a drawn 
 battle between us : from the rere, then, let us advance to 
 
 * Among other plots attributed to the Roman Catholics in the reign of Charles the 
 First, this extraordinary one was thrown upon them. See Hume. 
 
124 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 the van, an J try if the general Council of Constance, which 
 Mr. Wesley places at the head of his legions, be impenetrable 
 to the sword of truth. 
 
 After reading the ecclesiastical history concerning that 
 council, and Doctor Hay's answer to Archibald Drummond, 
 I have gone through the drudgery of examining it all over 
 in St. Patrick's library, when Mr. Wesley's letters made 
 their appearance. The result of my researches is, a con- 
 viction, that there is no such doctrine as * violation of faith 
 
 * with heretics,' authorized by that Council. Pope Martin 
 V. whom the fathers of that Council elected, published a 
 bull, wherein he declares that 4 it is not lawful for a man to 
 ' perjure himself, on any account j even for the faith.' Sub- 
 sequent pontiffs have lopped off the excrescence of relaxed 
 casuistry. 
 
 The Pope's horns, then, are not so dangerous, as to in- 
 duce Mr. Wesley to sing the Lamentations of Jeremiah the 
 Prophet, deploring the loss of Jerusalem : or to send us 
 from London an Hebrew elegy, to be modulated on the 
 key of the Irish Ologone. 4 Their souls are pained, and 
 fc their hearts trembling for the ark of God.* Tell it not in 
 4 Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askelon : lest the 
 
 * daughters of the Philistines rejoice : lest the daughters of 
 ' the uncircumcised triumph.' 
 
 This same elegy resounded through Great Britain a little 
 T>efore the ark of England was destroyed, the sceptre wrested 
 out of the hands of her king, her pontiffs deprived of their 
 mitres, and her noblemen banished from the Senate. Thus, 
 as the Delphian sword slaughtered the victim in honour of 
 the Gods, and dispatched the criminal on whom the sentence 
 of the law was passed ; the scripture is made subservient to 
 profane, as well as sacred purposes. It recommends and en- 
 forces subordination; and, at the same time, becomes an ar- 
 senal from whence faction takes its arms. Like Boileau's 
 heroes, in the Battle of the Books, we ransack old councils ; 
 we disturb the bones of old divines, who, wrapped up in their 
 parchment blankets, sleep at their ease on the shelves of libra- 
 ries, where they would snore for ever, if the noise of the 
 gunpowder, upon an anniversary day, or the restless hands 
 of pamphlet-writers, industrious in inflaming the rabble, did 
 
 * Defence of the Protestant Association, p. 116. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 125 
 
 not rouse them from their slumbers. Peace to their manes ! 
 The charity sermon preached in Dublin, by Doctor Camp- 
 bell — the anniversary sermon preached in Cork, last No- 
 vember, by Doctor la Malliere — and the discourse to the 
 Echlinville volunteers, by Mr. Dickson — have done more 
 good in one day, either by procuring relief for the dis- 
 tressed, or by promoting benevolence, peace, and harmony 
 amongst fellow-subjects of all denominations, than the folios 
 written on Pope Joan have done in the space of two hun- 
 dred years. 
 
 I must now sound the retreat, with a design to return to 
 the charge, and to attack Mr. Wesley's first battery, on 
 which he has mounted the canons of the Council of Con- 
 stance. If I cannot succeed (from want of abilities, but not 
 from want of the armour of truth,) I am sure of making 
 a retreat, in which it is impossible to cut me off. For, in the 
 very supposition that the Council of Constance, and all the 
 councils of the world, had defined * violation of faith with 
 * heretics,' as an article of faith, and that I do not believe it; 
 4 violation,' then, » of faith with heretics,' is no article of my 
 belief. For, to form one's belief, it is not sufficient to read 
 a proposition in a book : interior conviction must captivate 
 the mind. The Arian reads the divinity of Christ in the 
 New Testament, and still denies it. Would Mr. Wesley 
 assert that the divinity of Christ is an article of the Arian 
 faith? If, then, i violation of faith with heretics,' be the 
 tessera jidei, the badge of the Roman Catholic religion, the 
 Roman Catholics are all Protestants, and as well entitled to 
 sing their psalms, as Mr. Wesley his canticles. I would 
 not be one hour a member of any religion that would 
 profess such a creed as Mr. Wesley has sent us from Lon- 
 don. 
 
 You may, perhaps, be surprised, Gentlemen, that the 
 introduction to a serious subject should savour so little 
 of the gloom and sullenness so familiar to polemical writers; 
 or that the ludicrous and serious should be so ciosely inter- 
 woven with each other. — 
 
 But remark a set of men who tax the nobility, gentry, 
 and head clergy of England with degeneracy, for not de- 
 grading the dignity of their ranks and professions. Remark 
 them exposing their parchments in meeting-houses and 
 
126 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 t 
 
 vestries, begging the signatures of every peasant and men- 
 dicant, who comes to hear the gospel : 4 Wrong no man ; 
 * he that loves his neighbour fulfils the law,' &c. and those 
 pious souls ' pained and trembling for the ark of God,' run- 
 ning wi til the faggot to kindle the flames of sedition, and to 
 oppress their neighbours. Remark, in seventeen hundred 
 and eighty, a lord with his hair cropped, a bible in his hand, 
 turned elder and high-priest at the age of twenty- three, and 
 fainting for the Ark of Israel 
 
 In the fore-ground of this extraordinary picture, remark 
 a Missionary, who has reformed the very reformation ; se- 
 parated from all the Protestant churches, and in trimming 
 the vessel of religion, which he has brought into a new dock, 
 has suffered as much for the sake of conscience, as Lodowick 
 Muggleton or James Nailer could register in their martyro- 
 logy. Remark that same gentleman inflaming the sabble, 
 dividing his Majesty's subjects, propagating black slander, 
 and throwing the gauntlet to people who never provoked 
 him. Is not fanaticism, the mother of cruelty, and the 
 daughter of folly, the first character in this religious mas- 
 querade ? Is it not the first spring that gives motion to 
 these extraordinary figures, so corresponsive to Hogarth's 
 Enraged Musician ? And in fencing with folly, have not the 
 gravest authors handled the foils of ridicule ? To the mo- 
 dern Footes and Molieres, or to the young student in rhe- 
 toric, who employs irony in enlarging on his theme, should 
 I for ever leave the « pained souls and trembling hearts,' of 
 the Scotch Jonathan and the English Samuel, with their 
 squadrons of Israelites fighting 'for the ark of the Lord,' if 
 what they style in England the Gordonian Associations, had 
 not voted their thanks to Mr. Weslev, for what they call his 
 excellent letter. Such a performance is worthy the approba- 
 tion of such censors : and in their holy shrines the sacred 
 relic should be reposited. In examining a performance 
 which contains in a small compass, all the horrors invented 
 by blind and misguided zeal, set forth in the most bitter 
 language, I shall confine myself to the strict line of an 
 apologist, who clears himself and his principles from the 
 foulest aspersions. To the public and their impartial rea- 
 son, the appeal shall be made : to the sentiments implanted 
 in the human breast, and to the conduct of man, not to the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 127 
 
 rubbish of the schools, Mr. Wesley should have made applica- 
 tion, when tie undertook to solve the interesting problem, whe- 
 ther the Roman Catholics should be tolerated, or persecuted? 
 But inspired writers partake of the spirit of the seers, and 
 copy as much as possible after the prophets ; the prophet 
 Ezekiet breathed on a pile of bones, and lo ! a formidable 
 army starting from the earth and ranging itself in battle 
 array. Mr. Wesley blows the dust of an old book, andlo ! 
 squadrons of religious warriors engaged in a crusade for the 
 extirpation of the infidels. 
 
 The loyalty, the conduct, the virtues common to all, the 
 natural attachment of man to his interest and country, the 
 peaceable behaviour of the Roman Catholics, have no weight 
 in the scale of candour and justice. An old Council, held 
 four hundred years ago, is ransacked and misconstrued ; a 
 Roman Catholic is unworthy of being tolerated amongst the 
 Turks, because Mr. Wesley puts on his spectacles to read 
 ©Id Latin. 
 
 I have the honour to remain, 
 .: Gentlemen, 
 Your humble, and obedient Servant, 
 
 ARTHUR O'LEARY. 
 
 MaryVLane, Dublin, 
 February '28, 1780 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 (Addressed as the Former.) 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Fanaticism is a kind of religious folly. We laughed at 
 it in a former letter. Whoever has a mind to indulge his 
 humour at our expence, is heartily welcome. You now ex- 
 pect a serious answer to a serious charge. I send you such 
 as occurs. 
 
 ' The Council of Constance has openly avowed violation 
 4 of faith with heretics : but it has never been disclaimed. — 
 4 Therefore,' concludes Mr. Wesley, ' the Roman Catholics 
 4 should not be tolerated amongst the Turks or Pa- 
 4 gans.' 
 
 A Council so often quoted in anniversary sermons, parlia- 
 mentary debates, and flying pamphlets, challenges peculiar 
 attention. We shall examine it with as much precision as 
 possible, and with the more impartiality, as strict justice 
 shall be done to all parties. Mr. Wesley knows that we are 
 all Adam's children, who feel the fatal impressions of our 
 origin, and that ambition which took its rise in heaven itself, 
 often lurks in a corner of the sanctuary where the ministers 
 of religion offer up their prayers, as well as in the cabinets 
 of kings, where shrewd courtiers form their intrigues. At a 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 129 
 
 time, then, when ambition, that insatiable desire of elevation, 
 that worm which stings the heart, and never leaves it at rest, 
 presented the universe with the extraordinary sight of three 
 prelates reviving the restless spirit of the Roman triumvirate, 
 and disturbing the peace of mankind as much with their spiri- 
 tual weapons, as Octavius, Athony, and Lepidus had dis- 
 turbed it with their armed legions — at a time when the 
 broachers of new doctrines were kindling up the fire of se* 
 dition, and after shaking the foundations of what was then 
 the established religion, were shaking the foundations of 
 thrones and empires — at that critical time, in. 1414, was 
 held the Council of Constance, with a design, as the fathers 
 of that Council express themselves, to reform the church in 
 her head and members; and put an end to the calamities 
 which the restless pride of three bishops, assuming the titles 
 of Popes by the names of Gregory the Twelfth, Benedict the 
 Thirteenth, and John the Twenty-third, had brought on Eu- 
 rope, split into three grand factions by the ambition of the 
 above-mentioned competitors. Such transactions in the 
 ministers of a religion that preaches up peace and humility, 
 as the solid foundations on which the structure of all Chris- 
 tian virtues is to be raised, may startle the unthinking reader, 
 and give him an unfavourable idea of religion : but we are 
 never to confound the weakness of the minister with the ho- 
 liness of his ministry. We respect the sanctuary in which 
 Stephen officiated — though Nicholas profaned it: we revere 
 the place from whence Judas fell — and to which Matthias 
 was promoted: the scriptures respect the chair of Moses — 
 though they censure several pontiffs who sat in it; and no 
 Catholic canonizes the vices of Popes — though he respects 
 their station and dignity. The pontifical throne is still the 
 same, whether it be filled with a cruel Alexander the Sixth, 
 or a benevolent Ganganelii. 
 
 To the Council of Constance was cited then John Huss, a 
 Bohemian, famous for propagating errors tending to tear 
 the mitre from the heads of bishops, and wrest the sceptre 
 from the hands of kings : in a word, lie was obnoxious to 
 Church and State ; and if Mr. Wesley and 1 preached up 
 his doctrine in the name of God, we would be condemned in 
 the name of the King. The Protestant and Catholic divines 
 would banish us from their universities*, and the judges of 
 
130 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 assize would exterminate us from civil society. Such a 
 Doctor had no indulgence to expect from a Council, which, 
 after deposing two rivals for the Popedom, condemned a 
 third for contumacy, and elected another in his room. 
 
 Burin mentioning John Huss, whose trial and execution 
 at Constance have given rise to the foul charge of violation 
 of faith with heretics, let none imagine that I am an apolo- 
 gist for the fiery execution of persons, on the score of reli- 
 gious opinions. Let the legislators who were the first tp 
 invent the cruel method of punishing the errors of the mind 
 with the excruciating tortures of the hody, and anticipating 
 the rigour of eternal justice, answer for their own laws. I am 
 of opinion that the true religion, propagated by the effusion 
 of the blood of its martyrs, would still triumph without 
 burning the flesh of heretics ; and that the Protestant* and 
 Catholic legislators who have substituted the blazing pile in 
 the room of Phalaris's brazen bull, might have pointed out 
 a more lenient punishment for victims, who, in their opinion, 
 had no prospect during the interminable space of a bound- 
 less eternity, but that of passing from one fire into another. If 
 in enacting such laws they had consulted the true spirit of 
 religion, I believe the reformation of their own hearts would 
 have been a more acceptable sacrifice to the Divinity, than 
 hecatombs of human victims. ' No God nor man,' says Ter- 
 tullian, ' should be pleased with a forced service.' ' We are 
 4 not to persecute those whom God tolerates,' says St. Au- 
 gustine. That faith is fictitious which is inspired by the 
 edge of the sword. 
 
 But still the nature of society is such, that when once 
 the common land-marks are set up, it opposes the hand of 
 the individual that attempts to remove them. Where one 
 common mode of worship is established, and fenced by the 
 laws of the state, whoever attempts to overthrow it, must 
 expect to meet with opposition and violence, until custom 
 softens the rigour of early prejudices, and reconciles us to 
 men whose features and lineaments are like our own, 
 but still seem strange to us, because their thoughts are 
 different. 
 
 * The imperial laws winch condemned heretics to the flames, hare been put into 
 execution by Calviu,Qneea Elizabeth, James the First, &c. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 131 
 
 How far opposition to religious innovations is justifiable, 
 is not our business to discuss. But the experience of ages 
 evinces the fact ; and in dissimilar circumstances, Mr. Wes- 
 ley has made the trial. In kingdoms, where, as in the Ro- 
 man Pantheon, every divinity had its altars, speculative de- 
 viations from the religion established by law, the singularity 
 of love-feasts and nocturnal meetings, so unusual among the 
 modern Christians of every denomination, roused the vigi- 
 lance of the magistrate, and influenced the rage of the rab- 
 ble. Now, that custom has rendered Mr. Wesley's meet- 
 ing-houses and mode of worship familiar, and that all deno- 
 minations enjoy a share of that religious liberty, whereof he 
 would fain deprive his Roman Catholic neighbour, his matin 
 hymns give no uneasiness either to the magistrate, or his 
 neighbours. But had Mr. Wesley raised his notes on the 
 high key of civil discordance — had he attempted by his ser- 
 mons, his writings and exhortations, to deprive the Bishops 
 of the established religion, of their croziers; kings of their 
 thrones; and magistrates of the sword of justice ; long ere 
 now would his pious labours have been crowned with mar- 
 tyrdom, and his name registered in the calendar of Fox's 
 Saints. Such, unfortunately, was the case of John Huss. 
 Not satisfied with overthrowing what was then the established 
 religion, and levelling the fences of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 
 he strikes at the root of all temporal power, and civil autho- 
 rity. He boldly asserts that * princes, magistrates, &c. in 
 
 * the state of mortal sin, are deprived ipso facto of all power 
 
 * and jurisdiction.'* In this doctrine was enveloped the 
 seeds of anarchy and sedition, which subsequent preachers 
 unfolded to the destruction of peace and tranquillity, almost 
 all over Europe ; and which Sir William Blackstone de- 
 scribes as follows : ' The dreadful effects of such a religious 
 
 * bigotry, when actuated by erroneous principles, even of 
 
 * the Protestant kind, are sufficiently evident from the his- 
 4 tory of the Anabaptistsf in Germany, the Covenanters in 
 
 * See the acts of the Council of Constance in L' Abbe's collection of Councils. 
 
 •f This is no imputation on the Anabaptists of our days, who are as peaceable and 
 good men as auy others. Men's opinions change with the times, as in different stages 
 of life we change our thoughts, and settle at the age of forty the roving imagination of 
 sixteen. Custom and mutual intercourse amongst fellow-subjects of every denomina- 
 tion, would soon quench the remaining sparks of religious feuds, if distinctive laws 
 were abolished. But, unfortunately for the society in which we live, the laws, whose 
 aim should be to unite the inhabitants, are calculated to divide tUem. My neighbour 
 
132 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 * Scotland, and the deluge of sectaries in England, who 
 
 * murdered their sovereign, overturned the church and mo- 
 
 * narchy, shook every pillar of law, justice, and private pro- 
 
 * perty, and most devoutly established a kingdom of saints 
 { in their stead.'* 
 
 John Huss, then, after broaching the above mentioned doc- 
 trines, and making Bohemia the theatre of intestine war, is 
 summoned to appear before the Council. He obtains a safe 
 conduct from the Emperor Sigismund, commanding go- 
 vernors of provinces, &c. not to molest him on his journev 
 to, or return from Constance ; but to afford him every aid 
 and assistance. In all the provinces and cities through which 
 he passes, he gives public notice of his intention to appear 
 before the Council and stand his trial. But instead of stand- 
 ing his trial, and retracting his errors, he attempts to make 
 his escape, in order to disseminate, and make them take 
 deeper root. He is arrested and confined, in order that he 
 should take his trial, after having violated his promise, and 
 abused a safe conduct granted him for the purpose of excul- 
 pating himself, or retracting his errors, if proved against him 
 before his competent judges. It is here to be remarked, that 
 John Huss was an ecclesiastic ; and that in spiritual cases the 
 bishops were his only and competent judges. The bounda- 
 ries of the two powers, I mean the church and state, being 
 kept distinct ; the censer left to the pontiff, and the sword to 
 the magistrate ; the church confined to her spiritual weapons ; 
 privation of life and limb, and corporeal punishments being 
 quite of the province of the state ; one should not interfere 
 with the other. As the bodv of the criminal is under the 
 controul of the magistrate, too jealous of his privilege to per- 
 mit the church to interfere with his power — so, erroneous 
 
 distrust's mc, because the penal laws held me forth as a reprobate before I was horn, 
 and during my life encourage him to seize my horse, or drag ine before a magistrate for 
 saying my prayers, which reduces me to the sad necessity of hating him, or considering 
 liim a., an enemy, if in the great struggle between nature and grace, religion does not 
 triumph. Before Lewis the Fourteenth and George the First, repealed the lawtagainst 
 witches, every disfigured old woman was in danger of her life, and considered as a sor- 
 ceress Since the witch-making laws have been repealed, there is not a witch in the 
 land, and the dairy-maid is not under the necessity of using counter-charms to hinder 
 the milk from being enchanted from her pail Thus, if the penal laws, which by a 
 kind of omnipotence create an original sin, making rogues of Catholics before they 
 reach llieir hands to the tempting fruit, were once repealed, they would be as honest as 
 their neighbours, and the objects of their love and confidence. 
 
 * Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. IV. chap. 8. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 133 
 
 doctrines are under the controulof spiritual judges, too jea- 
 lous of their prerogatives, to permit the civil magistrate to 
 interfere with their rights. Hence, when the partizans of 
 Huss raised clamours about his confinement, and pleaded his 
 safe conduct, the Council published the famous decree which 
 has given rise to so many cavils, for the space of four hun- 
 dred years, though thousands of laws of a more important 
 nature, and of which we now think but little, have been 
 published since that time. The Council declares, ' that every 
 
 * safe conduct granted by the Emperor, Kings, and other 
 ' temporal princes, to heretics, or persons accused of heresy, 
 1 ought not to be of any prejudice to the Catholic faith, or to 
 
 * the ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; nor to hinder that such per- 
 
 * sons may and ought to be examined, judged, and punished, 
 'according as justice shall require, if those heretics refuse to 
 ' revoke their errors : and the person who shall have pro- 
 
 * mised them security, shall not, in this case, be obliged to 
 *. keep his promise, by whatever tie he may be engaged, be- 
 ' cause he has done all that is in his power to do.' I ap- 
 peal to the impartial public, whether that declaration of the 
 Council does not regard the peculiar case of safe-conducts, 
 granted by temporal princes, to perons who are liable to be 
 tried by competent and independent tribunals? And, 
 whether it be not an insult to candour and common sense, 
 to give it such a latitude as to extend it to every lawful 
 promise, contract, or engagement between man and man ? 
 As if the Council of Constance meant to authorize me 
 to buy my neighbour's goods, and after a solemn promise 
 to pay him, still to keep his substance, and break my 
 word. The church and state are two distinct and inde- 
 pendent powers, each in its peculiar line. A man is to be 
 tried by the church for erroneous doctrines: a temporal 
 prince grants this man a safe-conduct, to guard his person 
 from any violence which may be offered him on his jour- 
 ney; and to procure him a fair and candid trial, on his 
 appearance before his lawful judges. — Has not this prince 
 done all that is in his power to do ? Doth his promise to such 
 a man authorize him to interfere with a foreign and inde- 
 pendent jurisdiction, or to usurp the rights of another? Do 
 not the very words of the Council, ' because he has done all 
 
131 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 * that is in his power to do,' prove that lawful promises 
 are to be fulfilled ? 
 
 Such jurisconsults, whether Catholics or Protestants, such 
 as Prenus, Speklam, and others, as I have accidently read, 
 concerning the nature of safe-conducts, lay down for a gene- 
 ral rule, that they are never granted to suspend the execu- 
 tion of the laws. Sakus conductus contra jus non datur. Ft 
 were nugatory in the Emperor Sigismund, presumptive heir 
 to a kingdom, which Huss's doctrine had changed into a 
 theatre of intestine wars, to grant a safe-conduct, the mean- 
 ing and sense whereof would be equivalent to the following 
 pass : ' Although you have set kingdoms in a blaze, by strik- 
 ing at the vitals of temporal authority, and overthrow the 
 ' established religion of the land, yet go to Constance and 
 'comeback, without appearing before your lawful judges, 
 ' or retracting doctrines which have caused such disturbances 
 * in church and state.' Safe-conducts then are not granted 
 to screen delinquents from punishment, when legally con- 
 victed ; much less, to countenance disobedience to the laws, 
 and disorder, by impunity. 
 
 The Council was the most competent judge of Huss's doc- 
 trine, in which he steadfastly persevered. Neither king nor 
 emperor could deprive the bishops of privileges inseparably 
 annexed to their characters, viz. spiritual jurisdiction, and 
 the right of judging doctrines. Huss was degraded, and re- 
 trenched, according to the usual formalities, from a commu- 
 nion from which he had separated himself before. This is 
 all the bishops could have done ; this they acknowledge after 
 the sentence of Huss's degradation was pronounced. * This 
 ' sacred synod of Constance, considering that the church of 
 ' Christ has nothing further that it can do, decrees to leave 
 'John Huss to the judgment of the state.' His execution 
 was in consequence of the imperial laws, enforced by the civil 
 magistrate, as the execution of heretics in England and other 
 Protestant states, has been in consequence of the imperial 
 laws adopted by such powers. The Protestant clergy, as 
 well as the clergy of Constance, decided upon points of doc- 
 trine, and went no farther. 
 
 Thus we see, that this superannuated charge of violation 
 of faith with heretics, resembles those nightly spectres which 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 135 
 
 vanish upon a nearer approach. We find nothing in this 
 Council, relative to such a charge, but a dispute about a pass 
 granted to a man who goes to takes his trial before judges 
 whose jurisdiction could not be superseded. Or if we ia- 
 tend to do justice to men with the same eagerness that we 
 are disposed to injure them, we must acknowledge that the 
 fathers of that Council condemned lies, frauds, perjury, and 
 those horrors which Mr. Wesley would fain fix upon the 
 Roman Catholics. The foundations, then, on which Mr. 
 Wesley has erected his serial fabric, being once sapped, the 
 superstructure must fall of course; and his long train of 
 false and unchristian assertions are swept away as a spider's 
 web, before the wind of logical rules. From absurd premises 
 follows cm absurd conclusion. 
 
 What greater absurdity than Mr. Wesley's insisting upon 
 a general Council's disclaiming a doctrine it never taught? 
 ,lf Mr. Wesley be so credulous as to believe that the Pope 
 has horns, we must convene a general Council to declare 
 that his forehead is smooth ? Is it not sufficient to disclaim 
 the truth of the odious imputation, when the false creed is 
 fixed on us ? We are really of opinion, that whoever be- 
 lieves us capablo of harbouring such sentiments, is capable 
 of putting the horrid maxims in practice. He must have 
 studied the human heart, not in the books of nature, but in 
 Hobbes's Leviathan ; and should curse his fate that Provi- 
 dence had been so unkindly partial to him. 
 
 Rousseau declares, that if he had been present at the re- 
 surrection of Lazarus, he would not have believed it. 4 The 
 4 apparation,' says he, 4 would have made a fool of me, by 
 4 frightening me out of my senses, but it would never have 
 4 made a convert of me.' 
 
 If a general Council were held in order to disclaim the ridi- 
 culous and abominable creed imputed to Roman Catholics, 
 the sceptic, who gives no credit to their doctors and uni- 
 versities, to the oaths and declarations of millions, would 
 give no credit to a convention of Bishops with the Pope 
 at their head. 
 
 Let the appeal be made, not to stubborn sceptics, but to 
 those who listen to the voice of reason, and consult the 
 heart. This interior monitor, when passion and prejudice 
 
136 JIISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 are hushed into silence, is seldom consulted in vain. Let us 
 not travel into Catholic States where perjury is punished with 
 death, and every argument tending to prove that the Pope 
 can absolve subjects from oaths, and grant a dispen- 
 sation to commit all kinds of crimes, is confuted with a 
 halter. Let us look nearer home, aitd compare what 
 we see on one hand, with what is supposed on the 
 other. 
 
 We see a million and half of Roman Catholics smarting 
 under the most oppressive laws that the human heart could 
 ever devise. When they were enacted, our ancestors had the 
 lands of their fathers and the religion of their education. 
 If perjury had been an article of their belief, they could 
 have secured their inheritance, by taking an oath of abju- 
 ration If papal dispensations were, in their opinion, leni- 
 tives to an ulcerated conscience, when, or where could they 
 have been more seasonably applied, than at that time and 
 place, where the properties of millions depended on the 
 application ? 
 
 If oaths against conviction, dispensations with perjury, 
 and anticipated absolutions from future crimes, were articles 
 of their belief, they would have prevented the blazing co- 
 mets which scorch the living, and spread their influence to 
 the dormitories of the dead, from kindling in their native 
 air ; and hindered cruelty, which is disarmed in the tyrant's 
 breast at sight of the expiring victim, from pursuing them 
 to the grave, and depriving them of the cold comfort of 
 of muigjliog their ashes with those of their ances- 
 tors.* 
 
 Those laws which have banished our nobility from the 
 Senate; deprived our gentry of the liberty of wearing a 
 sword, either as a means of defence against the midnight 
 assassin, or as a part of dress in the open day; the merchant 
 of the power of realizing the fruits of his industry, in ob- 
 taining landed security for his money, or the liberty of pur- 
 chasing; the lower class of people of the liberty of becom- 
 
 * The peual laws offered the most galling- insult to the Roman Catholic gentry, at 
 the time of their being enacted. Their burying places were in the ruins of old ab- 
 beys, founded by their ancestors, A law was enacted, prohibiting- to bury in those 
 dreary haunts of cats and weasels, and a fine of ten shillings was to be levied on erer.y 
 person who assisted at the funeral. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 137 
 
 ing common soldiers, mayor's Serjeants, or coal-measurers, 
 and the valiant youth of serving his king, and reaping lau- 
 rels in defence of his country — these laws are all still in 
 being. It is true, to the honour of the Irish senate, thev 
 have staunched the blood flowing this long time past from 
 one of the most tender veins of the human heart, by putting 
 it out of the power of the profligate son to betray and rob his 
 tender and hoary father. But, still the insidious neighbour 
 can seize his neighbour's horse ; the unfaithful husband can 
 banish his chaste and virtuous wife, after the oath pledged if) 
 presence of God, at the nuptial solemnity ; the designing; 
 villain can set fire to his house, and build a new one, at the 
 expense of his Catholic neighbours, who were asleep whilst 
 he himself was lighting the fagot.* 
 
 Thus like a running evil, in a successive gradation, they 
 ulcerate every part of the body ; and, though the lenity of 
 the magistrate is a kind of mollifying application, that may 
 assuage the sore for a certain time ; yet whilst the noxious 
 humour lurks within the recess of the law, we can never ex- 
 pect a radical cure. 
 
 ' It is needless to comment upon the spirit of such laws. — 
 1 The very recital chills with horror.' So remarks my 
 learned and worthy acquaintance, Doctor Campbell. * Let it 
 
 * not be argued, that these laws are seldom put in execution. — 
 
 * Is property to depend upon the courtesy of an avaricious, 
 4 malignant neighbour ! Damocles was, perhaps, safe enough 
 'under the suspended sword of Dionysius; but the appre- 
 1 hension of danger scared away those visions of happiness 
 ' which he had seen in the envied pomp of tyranny. f * Laws,' 
 says the President Montesquieu, * which do all the mischief 
 'that can be done, in cold blood ;' and to which Lucretius 
 might allude in his famous Epiphonema : Tanium religiopo- 
 tuit suadere malorum ! Could religion be productive of such 
 mischief! That philosopher, who in reading the epitaph of a 
 voluptuous monarch, cried out that it was better suited to 
 
 * Mr. O'Leary was present when the case was tried in (he county Court-house of Cork. 
 He has likewise seen the venerable matron, after twenty-four years marriage, banished 
 fi'om the perjured husband's house, though it was proved in open court, that for six 
 months before his marriage, he went to mass. But the law requires that he should 
 be a year and a day of the same religion. 
 
 ■\- Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland, p. 251, 2. 
 
138 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 an ox than to a king : Bove quam rege dignkts, in reading 
 the penal code, could form another antithesis : ' The seal 
 'that «:ave a sanction to such laws, should rather bear 
 ' the impression of the claws of a lion than the head of a 
 * queen.'* 
 
 Such are the laws to whose unrelenting rigour we are 
 every day exposed. The disposition of man, so averse to 
 restraint, would soon suggest a method of dissolving the 
 odious chains, which like those used by the Tuscan princes, 
 who fastened living men to dead bodies, punish for an en- 
 tire century, the living for the dead. The disposition of 
 man, so averse to restraint, would soon shake off the op- 
 pressive burden, if the importunate voice of conscience did 
 not silence the cries of nature, and intimate to the Ca- 
 tholic, that, ' death is preferable to perjury.' The remedy 
 is in our own hands, and we daily refuse to apply it, 
 though a small bandage could soon close up the bleeding 
 veins of oppression, and a slight palliative remove the tem- 
 poral grievances of which we complain. The churches are 
 open, and though Mr. Wesley says, that 'our oaths are 
 'light as air,' yet one oath taken against the conviction 
 of our consciences, would level the fences, and sweep away 
 ail the penal laws, as so many spiders' webs, to use his 
 delicate expression. This is an argument which speaks to 
 the feelings of man, and which no sophistry can ever refute. 
 The priests themselves are interested in the profanation ; for, 
 by entering into a collusion with their flocks, and using their 
 magic powers to forgive all sins, past, present, and to come, 
 they could permit them to graze on the commons of legal 
 indulgence ; and by turning them into a richer pasture, ex- 
 pect more milk and wool. Avarice has ever been the re- 
 proach of the sanctuary : it is recorded in Scripture, that the 
 priests of the old law used to take the best part of the victim 
 to themselves, before it was offered to the God of Israel, and 
 
 * Queen Anne, the last sovereign of the Stuart line, who, after combining 1 against 
 her father, and violating the articles of Limerick, under pretence of strengthen- 
 ing- the Protestant religion, gave a sanction to those lawjs; though her chief 
 aim was to secure herself against the claims of her brother. Thus, religion often 
 becomes an engine of policy, in the hands of sovereigns. Quere to Civilians -. 
 Should not oppressive laws cease, when the motives that gave rise to them subsist 
 no more? 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 139 
 
 that Judas sold our Saviour for thirty pieces of silver. Mr. 
 Wesley then must charitably presume, that no priest will 
 forego his personal interest in compliment to his successor, 
 and as it is his interest to impose upon his votaries, to slack- 
 en the rein, and shelter himself under the shade of the laws ; 
 either perjury is no part of his belief, or he must be too scru- 
 pulous ; which in Mr. Wesley's opinion is heresy to believe. 
 In ethics, as in mathematics, there are self-evident demon- 
 strations ; no proposition in Euclid is more clear than the fol- 
 lowing : * A person who , does not think perjury a crime, 
 * would not forfeit a guinea from reluctance to an oath.'- — 
 The Roman Catholics forfeit every privilege rather than take 
 an oath against their conscience. 
 
 Are not they Adam's children ? Have they not the same 
 sensations of pain and pleasure as other men ? Their vices 
 and virtues, do they not run in the same channels with those 
 of their Protestant neighbours ? Are they not animated with 
 the same desires of glory, allured by the blandishments of 
 pleasure, courted by the charms of riches, as eager for the 
 enjoyment of ease and opulence ? If perjury be their creed, 
 if their clergy be endued with the magic power of forgiving 
 not only present but future sins, why do not they glide gently 
 down the stream of legal liberty, instead of stemming the 
 torrent of oppression ? Why do not they qualify themselves 
 for sitting in the Senate, and giving laws to the land in con- 
 cert with their countrymen, instead of being the continual 
 objects of penal sanctions ? It is, that they are diametrically 
 the reverse of what they are represented. Their religion for- 
 bids them to sport with the awful name of the Divinity. — 
 They do not choose to impose upon their neighbours, or 
 themselves, by perjury ; nor run the risk of eternal deatli 
 for a little honey. Were it otherwise, in three weeks time 
 they could all read their recantations, and be on a level with 
 the rest of their fellow -subjects : they could imitate that phi- 
 losopher who had two religions — one for himself, and ano- 
 ther for his country. Yet the archives of national justice 
 can prove, that Catholics, reduced to the necessity of disco- 
 vering against themselves, preferred the loss of their estates 
 to the guilt of perjury, when a false oath could have secured 
 
140 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTs. 
 
 them in their property. Notwithstanding this imputed creed, 
 .they prefer the smarting afflictions of the body to the sting- 
 ing remorses of the scul ; and when worldly prosperities 
 stand in competition with conscience, they rather choose to 
 be its martyrs than executioners. 
 
 Gentlemen, reconcile, if you can, perjurers from princi- 
 ple, with sufferers from delicacy of conscience, and I shall 
 style you the children of the great Apollo. But are not the 
 Catholics a set of passive machines, veering at the breath of 
 the Pope, who can dispense with them in any thing ? ' Or 
 
 * what security can they give to Protestant governors, whilst 
 
 * they acknowledge his spiritual power?' If this be any ob- 
 jection to their loyalty, Catholic kings should bisnish their 
 Catholic subjects, and introduce Protestants in their stead — 
 for, as the Roman Catholic faith is the same all over the world, 
 and that France and Spain are more convenient to the Pope 
 than the Britannic islands, he would have more machines to 
 move, more votaries to obey his mandates, and more facility 
 in compassing his designs. In England and Ireland all the 
 Protestants would oppose him; whereas in Catholic king, 
 doms, if his power has such an unlimited sway over the con- 
 science of man, as Mr. Wesley asserts, every subject, nay, 
 kings themselves, would be bound to obey him. But Ca- 
 tholic subjects know, that if God must have his own, Caesar 
 must have his due. In his quality of pontiff, they are ready 
 to kiss the Pope's feet : but if he assumes the title of con- 
 queror, they are ready to bind his hands. The very ecclesi- 
 astical benefices, which are more in the spiritual line, are not 
 at his disposal. When England had more to dread from 
 him than now, a Catholic parliament passed the statute of 
 premunire ; the bishops and mitred abbots preferred their 
 own temporal interest to that of the Pope, and reserve the 
 benefices to themselves, and the clergy under their jurisdic- 
 tion. Charity begins at home, and I do not believe any Ca- 
 tholic so divested of it, as to prefer fifty pounds a year un- 
 der the Pope's government, to an hundred pounds under that 
 of a Protestant king. Queen Mary, so devoted to the Pope's 
 cause, both on account of her religion, and the justice done 
 to her mother by the inflexible resolution of the sovereign 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 141 
 
 pontiff, still would not cede her temporal rights, nor those of 
 her subjects, in compliment to his spiritual power. After 
 the reconciliation of her kingdom to the apostolical see, a 
 statute was passed, enacting, that the Pope's bulls, briefs, 
 &c. should be merely coniined to spirituals, without inter- 
 fering with the independence of her kingdom, or the rights 
 of her subjects. The history of Europe proclaims aloud, 
 that the Roman Catholics are not passive engines in the 
 hands of Popes, and that they confine his power within 
 the narrow limits of his spiritual province. They have often 
 taken his cities, and opposed Paul's sword to Peter's keys, 
 and silenced the thunders of the Vatican with the noise of 
 the cannon. — They know that Peter was a fisherman when 
 kings swayed the sceptre, and that the subsequent grandeur 
 of his successors, could never authorize him to alter the 
 primitive institution that commands subjects to ohey their 
 rulers, and to give Caesar his due. 
 
 With regard to his spiritual power, you will be surprised, 
 gentlemen, when I tell you, that, from Lodowic Muggleton 
 down to John Wesley, those who have instituted new sects 
 amongst the Christians, have assumed more power than the 
 Pope dare to assume over the Catholics. 
 
 They may add or diminish : but, with regard to the Pope, 
 the landmarks are erected, and we would never permit him 
 to remove them. If he attempted to preach up five sacra- 
 ments instead of seven, we would immediately depose him. 
 Mr. Wesley may alter his faith as often as he pleases, and 
 prevail on others to do the same; but the Pope can never 
 alter ours: we acknowledge him, indeed, as head of the 
 Church, for every society must have a link of union, to guard 
 against confusion and anarchy ; and, without annexing any 
 infallibility to his person, we acknowledge his title to prece- 
 dence and pre-eminence. But, in acknowledging him as the 
 first pilot to steer the vessel, we acknowledge a compass by 
 which he is to direct his course. He is to preserve the vessel, 
 but never to expose it to shipwreck. Any deviation from 
 the laws of God, the rights of nature, or the faith of our 
 fathers, would be the fatal rock on which the Pope himself 
 would split. In a word, the Pope is our first Pastor; he 
 may feed, but cannot poison us : we acknowledge no 
 
112 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 power in him, either to alter our faith, or to corrupt our 
 morals. 
 
 If the Pope's power were then rightly understood, his 
 spiritual supremacy would give no more umbrage to 
 the King of Great Britain, than the jurisdiction of a dio- 
 cesan bishop. But deep rooted prejudices can scarcely be 
 removed ; and little can be expected from the generality, 
 when the learned themselves are hurried by the tide of 
 popular error. 
 
 From want of rightly understanding the case, and atten- 
 tion to the discriminating line drawn by the Catholics be- 
 tween the Pope's spiritual and temporal power, Sir William 
 Blacksione himself gave into the snare of vulgar delusion. 
 This learned expositor of England's common law, declares 
 the Roman -Catholics as well entitled to every legal indul- 
 gence as the other dissenters from the established religion, 
 maugre their real presence, purgatory, confessions, &c. But 
 still the Pope's ghost haunts him to such a degree, that 
 he would fain have the Catholics abjure his spiritual su- 
 premacy. But Sir William, who has exposed himself to 
 the censure of Mr. Sheridan, in establishing the formidable 
 right of conquest over Ireland, and to the animadversions 
 of the divines, by declaring that ' an act of parliament 
 4 can alter the religion of the land,' (as if, by act of par- 
 liament, we should all become Turks, be circumcised, and 
 expect an earthly Paradise ;) has exposed himself to the 
 reproaches of every smatterer in divinity, who could ask 
 him : If, in acknowledging the spiritual jurisdiction of the 
 bishop of London, he encroached upon the privileges of 
 the Lord Mayor. « 
 
 But in talking of the power of parliament ' to alter the 
 4 religion of the land,' Sir William has argued from facts : 
 and in talking of the spiritual power of the Pope, he must 
 have argued from hear-say. The lawyer may be excused 
 when he talks of spiritual powers : but what apology can be 
 pleaded by the apostle and divine, who, like Tristram 
 Shandy's priest, baptizes the child before he is born, and 
 grants Popes and priests the power of forgiving all sins, not 
 only past and present, but sins to come; this Mr. Wesley 
 asserts : it is surprising magic that forgives now, the sin that 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 143 
 
 is to be committed a hundred years hence : let no one de- 
 prive Mr. Wesley of the glory of the invention. Past sins, 
 in our belief, can be forgiven by Popes and priests, not as 
 primary agents, but as subordinate instruments in the hands 
 of the Divinity ; not according to the absolute will of the 
 priest, but according to the dispositions of the penitent, and 
 the clauses of the covenant of mercy, which the priest can 
 neither alter nor disannul. 
 
 The dark recesses of the criminal consciences must be 
 searched. The monster must be stifled in the heart that 
 gave it birth. A sincere sorrow for past guilt, a firm 
 resolution to avoid future lapses, and every possible atone- 
 ment to the injured Deity, and the injured neighbour, 
 are the previous and indispensable requisites. Take away 
 any of the three conditions, and the Pope's and priest's 
 absolution are but empty sounds ; the keys of the church 
 rattle in vain, they are no more than the mutterings of 
 sorcerers, or words of incantation pronounced over a dead 
 body, without ever imparting to it the genial heat of ani- 
 mation and vitality. — Popes nor priests can do no more 
 than God himself — and the Scriptures declare, that God 
 will never forgive the sinner, without sorrow and repentance. 
 And the schoolmen dispute, whether, by an absolute power, 
 he could raise to the beatific vision, a soul polluted with the 
 defilements of guilt. If then the priest's absolution be 
 any plea against Roman Catholics, it may as well be said, 
 that the promise of the Most High, ' to pardon the re- 
 'pentant sinner, although his sins were as red as scarlet,' 
 encourages men to commit sin ; or that a man may 
 take an oath contrary to his conscience, under the idea, 
 that a subsequent repentance will gain forgiveness and 
 pardon. # 
 
 ' But is it not intolerable presumption in man to arrogate 
 4 such power ?' Be it so ; I am no apologist when I write in 
 a public paper : controversy I leave to the schools. If I make 
 my confession to a priest, what is it to my neighbour? So- 
 ciety will gain by the pretended superstition ; for the most 
 immortal Catholics are those who seldom or never frequent 
 the sacraments. I look on the pretended conferences ot Numa 
 Pompilius with the nymph Egeria, as a mere fiction, devised 
 
 u 
 
144 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 by that political prince. Yet I admire the wisdom of the 
 legislator, v. ho introduced a plan of softening the savage 
 manners of his uncivilized subjects, and smoothing the aspe- 
 rity of stubborn nature by religious awe. Those who are 
 unacquainted with the nature of confession, may consider 
 it as priest-craft, yet neither master nor landlord will ever 
 lose by the imposture ; when their servants and tenants kneel 
 to a priest, whose duty is to revive in their minds the notions 
 of probity and virtue. Thus, the wisest of the Protestant 
 churches have never discountenanced confession : the form 
 of absolution, and the previous dispositions required on the 
 part of the penitent are set down at large in the liturgy ; and 
 as to the power of forgiving sins, granted to the ministers of 
 religion, express mention is made of it in the Scriptures. Mr. 
 Wesley must acknowledge the power, whether it consists in 
 the priestly absolution, or in the preaching of the Gospel, 
 or ' in pious canticles, sung with a skilful tongue and 
 ! harmonious voice, lifting the rising soul and plunging it into 
 1 a mystical slumber, as soothing and soft as the balm of 
 'Gilead.'* 
 
 Such Christians as acknowledge original sin, and the vir- 
 tue of baptism to cancel the unavoidable debt, must acknow- 
 ledge that the minister of religion effaces the stain by ap- 
 pKing the elements. If the Catholics believe that by the 
 institution of Christ, the minister of religion can forgive sins ; 
 they are convinced at the same time, that he is no more than 
 a subordinate agent, who derives his power from a superior 
 being, in absolving the adult, as he derives his power from 
 the same source, when he purifies the soul of the infant. I 
 know full well that God could change the heart of man, and 
 forgive sins in young and old, without the interposition of 
 a human being. The prophet, who was consulted by two 
 Jewish kings, and before he would give an answer, called for 
 a harp, could have received the prophetic inspiration, with- 
 out touching the strings of the tuneful lyre. Christ could 
 have restored the blind man to his sight without applying 
 
 * See an abridgment of Wcsloy's journal, where he compares the impressions lie 
 made on his hearers to the balm of Gilead. As far as I can recollect, he relates 
 in his huge journal a surprising hi>tory of one of his acquaintances, who fell 
 into a pious slumber, which deserves to be recorded in the History of the Seveu 
 Sleepers, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 145 
 
 the mud to his eyes, and converted the world without expos- 
 ing his apostles to martyrdom. But am I to bring him to an 
 account for using intermediate agents; or what I think to be 
 an institution of the Divinity, is it not my duty to abide by 
 it? Happy those who can save themselves without the assist- 
 ance of any other! Thrice happy Mr. Wesley! who is al- 
 ready registered in the book of life, and empowered to grant 
 inamissable security to others for the anticipated enjoyment 
 of eternal bliss. He can sum up the number of the holy 
 souls who have climbed up the steps of the mystical ladder, 
 and on the highest step of all, as on the ramparts of an im- 
 pregnable fortress, reckon so many souls confirmed in a state 
 of inamissable sanctity;* whilst I am so miserable as not to 
 know whether I am worthy of love or hatred, and have mil- 
 lions of times more reason than St. Paul to solicit the pravt is 
 of my fellow-christians, lest that in praying for others, / my- 
 self may become a reprobate. 
 
 In our communion, Gentlemen, we never hold forth our 
 confessions and absolutions as licences for guilt, but as curbs 
 to the passions. Our priests make their confession, as well 
 as the laity ; for no priest can absolve himself, nor flatter 
 himself with impunity in committing present or future 
 crimes. — Our directors point out the path to the wayfaring 
 pilgrim, between the two extremes 01 despair and presvm >- 
 tion: to guard against the first, the gates of penance me 
 thrown open, as so many avenues that lead to mercy: to 
 guard against the second, the dread of God's judgments, the 
 uncertainty of the last hour, the abuses of God's graces, 
 which, if neglected, swell the long list of crimes and punish- 
 ments, are held forth in all their terrors. 
 
 We represent to the guilty conscience, sinking under a 
 weight of anxieties and crimes, the penitent thief crying out 
 for mercy, and obtaining pardon. We represent to the 
 obstinate and presumptuous sinner, the impenitent thi< f, 
 
 * See Wesley's journal, where he declares, that on his visitation, he met so many 
 sanctified, so many justified, and so many confirmed in love. Qui potest capiat I can- 
 not comprehend this mystical divinity. By confirmation in love he must mean, that 
 whoever believes himself once arrived at that happy state, can sin no more. I am glad 
 to see a fellow-creature confirmed in the love of God. Bui I am sorry to find souse go 
 ill-confirmed in the love of their neighbour, as to tell half Europe to their facts, that 
 they are perjurers, and to apologize for a rabble, who set fire to their neighbours 
 houses. This is what we call an ardent, nr bcrmxg love. 
 
146 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 threatening reprobation. We know, that whilst the serpent 
 is raised up in the wilderness, no wound is incurable : we 
 know, on the other hand, that, when criminal cities had filled 
 up the measure of their iniquity, in vain did Abraham lift up 
 his hands to heaven, to solicit their pardon. If Ave place be- 
 tween the Judge and the sinner a great Mediator ; though 
 the Mediator and Judge be the same, yet we place between 
 the Mediator and sinner an awful Judge. We earnesly re- 
 commend the frequent use of confession, because man is so 
 frail that he stands in frequent need of it. But still we recom- 
 mend it, not as loose reins to humour the sinner's passions, 
 but as a stiff bridle to check their sallies. We never encou- 
 rage our penitents to new disorders, but inspire them with 
 detestation for former guilt, and fear of swelling the score ; 
 for we know the danger of affronting mercy by new crimes, 
 but cannot know the fatal point where paternal goodness is 
 limited. Thus we lead our penitents in the intermediate 
 path between despair and presumption, by the delicate clue 
 of hope and fear, until they reach the critical term, where 
 the soul, after bursting the chains of its earthly prison, takes 
 its flight into the vast region of spirits; and even when ar- 
 raigned before the judgment seat, we tremble for its destiny. 
 Such, Gentlemen, is the nature of confession, whether you 
 consider it in a useful or abusive light. 
 
 Had Mr. Wesley, who, after publishing twenty-six vo- 
 lumes, knows every thing, even the language of birds, known 
 its nature, he would not have adduced it as an argument in 
 justification of intolerance, but rather left the imputed power 
 of forgiving all kinds of sin, past, present, and to come, as a 
 flower of rhetoric to grace the garden of the Cynics. Away 
 then with his priestly absolutions and dispensing powers. — 
 He assumes more power than any priest could pretend to. 
 Away with violation of faith with heretics: we acknow- 
 ledge no heresy in the duties of social life, or the obligations 
 of Christian virtues. 
 
 Such, Gentlemen, arc the principles of the Roman Catho- 
 lics, they are quite the reverse of Mr. Wesley's charges. — 
 Let the impartial public decide, whether a set of perjurers, 
 authorised to commit all kinds of crimes with impunity, 
 (such as the Roman Catholics are painted) would suffer one 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 147 
 
 week on the score of conscience ? In our faith we follow 
 the maxim of St. James, 4 Whoever transgresses the law in 
 * one point, is guilty of all.' The same rule holds good in 
 moral ; in allowing that a man is bad in committing one 
 crime, we do not allow that he is guiltless in committing ano- 
 ther. The sacrifice must be entire; and grace never sanc- 
 tifies a divided victory. The fabric of our religion is so 
 closely cemented — the links of the chain which unites all 
 the articles of our faith, are so fastened within each other, 
 that if you take off one of the links, or loosen a stone in the 
 edifice, the whole system is entirely destroyed. If then all 
 the horrors fixed upon us by the dark pencil of misrepresen- 
 tation, be articles of our belief, when we disclaim them upon 
 oath, we are real heretics, and as well entitled to every 
 legal indulgence, as those who go to church, and swear 
 against Transubstantiation. 
 
 We admire the integrity of Regulus, who suffered the 
 most exquisite tortures, rather than violate an oath given to 
 his enemies. In the administration of distributive justice, 
 the magistrate must give credit to the Heathen, who swears 
 by his false gods, to the Jew, who swears by the Old Testa- 
 ment, and to the Turk, who swears by the Koran. In cases 
 of life and property, he gives credit to the oath of a Roman 
 Catholic, whether he appears as a witness or juror. In 
 giving no credit to the oaths of Roman Catholics, when 
 they disclaim perjury, dispensations for frauds, rebellion, 
 treachery, &c. he betrays his judgment, and insults humanity. 
 But, if judgment has been ever betrayed, or humanity in- 
 sulted, they are now betrayed and insulted by those per- 
 sons who compose what they call the Protestant Asso- 
 ciations, of whom Mr. Wesley is become the apologist. 
 In taking up the pen to conclude this letter, I received their 
 Appeal to the People of Great Britain, printed in London by 
 J. W. Pasham. 
 
 Mr. Wesley, who has abridged his own journal to give it a 
 greater circulation, has abridged this six-penny pamphlet, in 
 his first letter. In the beginning of the American war, he 
 published his 'Calm Address,' in order to unite the colonies 
 to the mother country. The ' balm of Gilcad' proving inef- 
 fectual beyond the Atlantic, he now has recourse to caustic* 
 
148 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 at home. Three years ago he intended to unite us : now 
 he intends to divide us. Thus we find Penelope's web in 
 his religious looms : what he wove three years ago, he now 
 unraveis. 
 
 In this ' Appeal,' on which he passes such encomiums, 
 and the design whereof he declares to be ' benevolent,' you 
 can perceive the dormant seeds of antiquated fanaticism 
 sprouting anew, and vegetating into religious, frenzy, which 
 has deluged the earth with an ocean of calamities, and which 
 would give heathen princes room to glory, that the Gospel 
 has never been preached in their dominions. An apothe- 
 cary's shop has never been stocked with more drugs, than 
 this ' Appeal' is stocked with massacres. They have inserted 
 in it, the bull, ' In Ccena Domini,' which has never been re- 
 ceived in any Catholic kingdom; and from an old book, 
 which was foisted on the public in the beginning of the 
 Reformation, as containing the fees of the Roman chancery, 
 they conclude, that ' a Roman Catholic can sleep with a 
 1 woman in a church, and commit there other enormities, by 
 4 paying nine shillings ;' and that 4 he may murder a man, 
 * and commit incest,* on paying seven shillings and six- 
 4 pence,' though shillings and six-pences are English coins, 
 not current in Italy ; and in Catholic countries, the murderer 
 expires on the wheel, and whoever commits incest, or pro- 
 fanes the churches by carnal sins, is burnt at the stake. 
 What is more surprising, Gentlemen, these new apostles of 
 the Gordonian Association, who, to use the words of our old 
 friend, Hudibras, 
 
 ' Their holy faith do found upon 
 ' The sacred text of pike and gun.' 
 
 imagine that they are delegates of heaven for the salvation of 
 souls : their hands do not brandish the glittering spear on 
 the American plains, where d'Estaing and Prevost dispute 
 the laurel; but, like Samuel, deploring the loss of Saul, their 
 eyes are bathed in tears, and their ' bowels yearn for mil- 
 ' lions of spirits that have no existence but in the prescience 
 ' of God,' who can pity an error, and forgive it, and who is 
 
 more concerned in their salvation, than Lord G G 
 
 or Mr. Wesley. 
 
 * Sen the "Appeal from the Protestant Associations," p. 18. — Printed by Pasham. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 149 
 
 I am afraid, Gentlemen, that you mind your own souls 
 and bodies more than you mind those of others. To rouse 
 you from your spiritual lethargy, and inflame you with some 
 sparks of love for your neighbour, I send you a piece of a 
 sermon taken from the 'Appeal of the Associations.' 
 
 After deploring the ' loss of millions of common people, 
 1 who are prohibited from reading the scriptures,' (though it 
 were charity to teach them first how to spell,) 'and who have 
 
 * souls as infinite, in value and duration, as the proudest pre- 
 
 * lates. or highest monarcha upon earth,' — they go on: ' to 
 
 * tolerate Popery, is to be instrumental to the perdition of 
 
 * immortal souls now existing, and of millions of spirits that 
 
 * at present have no existence but in the prescience of God ; 
 
 * and is the direct way to provoke the vengeance of an holy 
 
 * and jealous God, to bring down destruction on our fleets 
 ' and armies.'* I really imagined that the Protestant asso- 
 ciations were not so cruel as to refuse me mercy, and exclude 
 me from the kingdom of heaven, if I lead an honest, sober, 
 and virtuous life. I am convinced, that several of Admiral 
 Rodney's sailors are Roman Catholics, and that the bullets 
 which told so ivell, in mauling poor Langara, were fired by 
 hands that crossed a Popish forehead. Oliver Cromwell, 
 seeking the Lord, and preaching upon the Sabbath-day, in a 
 leather breeches and buff waistcoat, with his trusty sabre by 
 his side,f did not scruple to enter into a confederacy with 
 Cardinal Mazarini, against the Spaniards : it was equal to 
 England which of the two was foremost in the breach, the 
 French Dragoon with his whiskers, after saying Hail Mary, 
 or the Round-head with his leather cap, after groaning in tlie 
 spirit. Spain lost Dunkirk, and England triumphed. 
 
 King William, who, to his honour, could never be pre- 
 vailed on to violate the articles of Limerick, had six thou- 
 sand Roman Catholics in his army, when he fought the bat 
 tie of the Boyne ; and the Catholics and Protestants of Swit- 
 zerland maintain their independence against all the powers 
 of the Continent, in consequence of their union. But the 
 Protestant Association, like Ezekiel, have wallowed a book 
 
 * See the " Appeal from the Protestant Associations," page 18, and cry out Qbon« ! 
 •bone ! obone ! 
 
 + See Oreg-orio Leti, in hits Life of Cromwell. 
 
150 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 in which are written verses, and lamentations, and woe ! Al- 
 ready their luminous souls, enlightened by the prophetic spi- 
 rit, see future times unlocking- their distant gates, and pour- 
 ing forth millions of monsters ; and from a desire to procure 
 the salvation of Adam's children, it is to be dreaded, that, at 
 long run, they will imitate the holy fanatics of Denmark, who, 
 in order to procure heaven for young infants, after being bap- 
 tized, used to slaughter them in their cradles. 
 
AN 
 
 HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 SCOTCH AND ENGLISH INQUISITORS, 
 
 By way of an Apostrophe, 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 As a colour to your disorderly and unwarrantable pro- 
 ceedings, you impose on the ignorant by your cant words of 
 violation of faith with heretics* Like Boileau's heroes, you 
 are ransacking old books, canvassing legends of exaggerated 
 massacres,* and like scholars, who, after repeating their les- 
 son, fling about the bones and skulls piled up in charnel 
 houses, you haunt the living with the images of the dead. — * 
 Modern philosophy proves the existence of colours in the 
 eye, but not in exterior objects ; what is true in the physical 
 world, is more so in your system of ethics — the purple hue 
 and black dye in which you would fain misrepresent us to 
 our king and the public, are the result of your organs ; and 
 
 * In their Appeal they relate that a hundred thousand Protestants were massacred in 
 1641 ; at that time there were thirty Catholics for every Protestant, and a hundred es- 
 caped for every single Protestaut that perished Let now a balance be struck, and the 
 numbers of inhabitants calculated, and Ireland must have been bHt one lai^e city, as 
 crowded as the streets of Rome, in the times of Marius and Sylla. This massacre, 
 which should be effaced from the records of the nation, as well as from the memory of 
 man, was begun by a fanatical soldiery, who intended to extirpate the Pa is's and uia- 
 lignants. Whoever has a mind to be informed about this massacre, may read Doctor 
 Warner, Mr. Brooke's Trial of the Roman Catholics, and Doctor lurry's Historical Me- 
 moirs, and his History of the Civil Wars of Ireland. Bat whoev r has a mind to be led 
 astray, let him read Sir John Temple's (Secretary to Ireton) stupid legend. TJie Ap- 
 peal of the Protestant Associations — and Hume's theatrical Description, who, neverthe- 
 less, reduces greatly the number, which could never amount to five or six thousand — 
 lie relates, that in hatred to the English, the Irish used to wound their cows, and 
 in this torturing situation turn them into the woods to prolong their sofieiings. In n;y 
 opinion, under such a government as was ihen, they wanted mine to eat them. An ; I 
 am sorry that the gravity of the Historian has permitted Mr. Hume to rank cows amongst 
 
 the MAUTY8S OF RELIGION. 
 
152 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 the abortives you lay at our doors, derive their existence from 
 yourselves. You would fain deprive us of the rights of 
 mankind, for crimes we never committed ; for thoughts 
 which we disclaim, and whereof the Scrutinizer and Searcher 
 of hearts is the only competent judge. Thus you imitate the 
 tyrant, who put an inoffensive citizen to death, because in 
 his uneasy slumbers, disturbed by the guilt of injuries of- 
 fered to others, he dreamt that he was cutting his throat. 
 Our actions are the best exponents of our sentiments : our 
 conduct is peaceable ; but, as for you, your actions and con- 
 duct betray you, as the roaring, and impression of his claws, 
 betray the lion. And woe to the game that is unprotected 
 by the keeper ! in an enlightened age, when the cheerful 
 eyes of philosophy and religion cannot bear the sight of 
 frantic fanaticism, banished from all quarters of Europe, it 
 found shelter among you, with its distorted features, and nu- 
 merous train of calamities and evils. Generous hosts ! and 
 worthy of such a guest, you sheltered, you warmed, you 
 gave new life, to a refugee entitled to your patronage. And 
 as a prodigal child, thriving ill in foreign countries, you 
 received with the arms of a tender parent, you clad him in 
 his first robes, you killed a fat calf, which the burning rafters 
 of your neighbours' houses have roasted, and at his recep- 
 tion the symphony of pious raptures was heard in your 
 streets. 
 
 Whilst, in Ireland, the ministers of religion, in conformity 
 to the Gospel rule, were preaching love and benevolence ; 
 whilst in Ireland sixty thousand armed Protestants, without 
 any controul, but the great principles of honour and valour, 
 enemy to degenerate cruelty, were protecting the peaceable 
 citizen and defenceless cottager, without any distinction of 
 sects or parties ; whilst the Irish Volunteers were setting to 
 the world the rare example of armed legions, without the se- 
 vere subordination of military discipline, behaving with that 
 noble decorum which precludes complaints, and attracts ad- 
 miration, your pulpits resounded with the harsh language of 
 the savage leader haranguing his warriors, and throwing 
 down the hatchet as a signal of destruction to the neighbour- 
 ing tribes. Some of your women, divested of tenderness and 
 pity, so peculiar to the fair and delicate sex, reviving in their 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 153 
 
 persons the savage sternness of the Spartan matrons urging 
 on their sons to battle, rejoiced in the open day on seeing 
 their neighbours' houses in a blaze, and blessed God that 
 they lived to see the day when Popish abominations were 
 purified with fire. One should imagine, that such of you 
 as petitioned the king and parliament against granting a free 
 trade to Ireland, should rest satisfied, without petitioning 
 against your inoffensive neighbours. If you glory in the 
 purity of your religion, and in treading in the steps of its 
 Author, treat us as Christ himself would treat us, if he were 
 on earth. He deprived no man of his property, nor of the 
 indulgence and protection of the laws. If you glory in the 
 purity of the Christian religion, call to mind that it suggests 
 humility, and deference to people of superior power and 
 judgment. Your king, your peers, and your commons, pre 
 deemed the first in dignity and wisdom; but I forgot that 
 you are well versed in the bible, which says, fc he that is first 
 4 amongst you, let him be the last.' The Scrinture must 
 be fulfilled : take then the lead, and force them to trample 
 on their own laws, and to banish their subjects. 
 
 Mention no longer 4 violation of faith with heretics.' 
 You violate all the laws of civil society; in dissolving the 
 ties of friendship, and pointing out your fellow-subjects as 
 the victims of legal severity, you split and rend the na- 
 tion: you weaken 'Jw power, and trespass upon the re- 
 spect due to your rulers, whom, instead of being the fathers 
 of their people you would fain force to become the heads 
 of factions. 
 
 You violate the sacred rights of nature ; her bountiful 
 Author declares, that ' he makes his sun shine on the good 
 ' and bad.' The light of the sun, the brilliancy of the stars, 
 the sweetness of the fruit, the balsamic effluvia of flowers, 
 are dispensed with a liberal hand to the Heathen and Idola- 
 ter. Must you deprive your neighbours of gifts common to 
 all Adam's children, because they stick to a religion which 
 all your forefathers professed, and which, if wrong, can hurt 
 no man but themselves? 
 
 In vain do you attempt to impose upon the public, with 
 extracts and spurious canons, obsolete decrees, patches of 
 councils, and legends of massacres, in order to fix a creed on 
 
 o 7 
 
154 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 us. The world knows that Roman Catholics sway the 
 sceptre of authority in kingdoms and republics. The very 
 nature then of civil society is a manifest contradiction to the 
 creed you impute to us: for, if we were no more than machines 
 veering at the breath of Popes and Priests, whom neither 
 conscience, religion, the sacred ties of an oath, nor the fear 
 of God's judgment, can restrain, patentees of guilt, and sure 
 of impunity, we could not form a society for the space of one 
 year : for, in such a society, the notions of vice and virtue 
 would be confounded ; the blackest crimes and the purest 
 virtue reduced to the same level; the descipline of morals 
 destroyed ; the harmony of the body politic dissolved ; the 
 brother armed against the brother; and if, by a kind of 
 miracle, in such a cursed number of men, a second Abel 
 could be found, the earth would soon groan with the cries of 
 his blood. If divines have attempted to demonstrate the 
 existence of God from the nature of civil society, the very 
 nature of civil society demonstrates the falsehood of the 
 creed with which you compliment us. And, if the gloomy 
 plan of such a horrid republic pleases your imaginations, go 
 and lay the foundations of it in some distant part of the 
 earth. Be yourselves its members and governors, for no 
 Christian could live there. 
 
 When the delicate pencils of the Gibbons, Reynolds, and 
 Marmontels, will paint the political scenery of the eighteenth 
 century — when on the extensive canvass, they will represent 
 the gloom of long-reigning prejudice scattering, as the clouds 
 of night, at the approach of the rising sun — when they will 
 paint the poniard, drenched in human blood, snatched from 
 the hand of stern persecution — the French praying in concert 
 with the American — the Americans invited into Russia — the 
 order of military merit established in favour of Protestants, 
 in the palace of a Catholic King- — Ireland rising from the 
 sea, covered with her Fabii and Scipios, pointing their spears 
 to distant shores, and holding forth the olive and sheaf of 
 corn to their neighbours of all denominations^ — when they 
 will contrast the present to former times< — shew the happy 
 result of a change of system, and prove that the world is re- 
 fined — You, painted in as frightful attitudes as the group of 
 figures in Raphael's Judgment, with stern fanaticism in your 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 1 5£ 
 
 countenances, a bible in one hand and a fagot in the other — 
 you, I say, will be an exception to the general rule : the 
 world will read with surprise, that, in seventeen hundred and 
 eighty, there have been fanatics in England and Scotland, 
 that gave birth to so many illustrious writers. Your trans- 
 actions shall be recorded in the appendix to the history of 
 Jack Straw and Wat Tiler; and your chaplains and 
 apologies shall be ranked with James Nailer and Hugh 
 Peters. 
 
 And thus. Gentlemen, I finish my Apostrophe. 
 
 Should Mr. Wesley, or any of his associators, think it 
 worth their while to make any remarks on these letters, they 
 cannot justly expect a rejoinder. They have started forth 
 the unprovoked aggressors ; and, not satisfied with at- 
 tempting to deprive the Roman Catholics of their rights 
 as subjects, they have slandered and aspersed their cha- 
 racters. 1 am no stranger to the ground on which they 
 will attack me : either the rusty weapons of old councils, 
 or a catalogue of old massacres, will be drawn out of their 
 mouldering arsenals: arms as ill suited to the eighteenth 
 century, as Saul's helme'" was to David's head. 1 will be 
 attacked with the Council of Lateran, the wars of the Al- 
 bigenses, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, &c. I am a 
 Christian, and deny the transmigration of souls : I am 
 nowise concerned in past transactions, or if my religion 
 be charged with them, I have in my hands the cruel arms 
 of retaliation : — 
 
 I shall divide the charge into two branches — barbarous 
 actions and barbarous doctrine. If Mr. Wesley reckons all 
 those who are not, or have not been, in communion with the 
 see of Rome, in the number of heretics, and himself amongst 
 them, as doubtless he does, I shall then lay at his door, all 
 the abominable and seditious doctrines taught by those whom 
 he styles heretics, from the time of Simon the Magician, down 
 to our days — the impurities of the Gnostics; the enchant- 
 ments of the Ophite- ; the perjury and frauds of the Priscil- 
 lianists ; the errors of the Albigenses, and millions besides. 
 If, from these distant times, I make a transition to a nearer 
 
156 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 sera, I shall prove to him, from the works, not only of insig- 
 nificant writers of the reformed religion, but of the very- 
 founders of the reformation, who assumed as much power 
 over their followers, as the Pope assumes over the Catholics, 
 that they taught doctrines cruel, immoral, and seditious ; and 
 that the most horrid barbarities were committed in conse- 
 quence of those doctrines. Calvin not only commits heretics 
 to die flames, but moreover writes a book in justification of 
 his proceedings ; and in his commentaries on the Scriptures 
 he teaches, that ' Usury is lawful.' Lusher, Mahncthon, and 
 Bucer, have authorized polygamy, and permitted a prince to 
 marry a second wife during the life of the first. The decrees 
 of the Synod of Dort, caused great persecutions in Holland. 
 Knox and his followers propagated the Gospel with fire and 
 sword. I have already mentioned the doctrine of John Huss, 
 and his master Wickliff, so inimical to sovereigns. 
 
 If I take a review of the greatest chai npions who, within 
 these four hundred years, have undertaken the Herculean 
 task of overthrowing the kingdom of Antichrist, 1 see them 
 all claiming a mission from Heaven, as well as Mr. Wesley, 
 and still overturning thrones and empires. I see Germany 
 deluged with oceans of blood ; boors headed by fanatical 
 preachers, promising the deluded multitude to receive the 
 bullets in their sleeves, attacking their princes and sovereigns ; 
 tailors paving their way to the throne over heaps of mangled 
 carcasses, in order to re-establish the kingdom of Jerusalem ; 
 apostles heading armies, and commanding, by the last will, 
 their dearly beloved children reformed from the errors of 
 Popery, to make a drum* of their skins, in order to rouse the 
 saints to battle ; the streets of London ensanguined with the 
 gore of peaceable citizens, destroyed by the fifth- monarchy 
 men, proclaiming king Jesus ; communion tables stained with 
 the blood of Protestant kings ; solemn leagues and covenants 
 sealed for the extirpation of Papists and malignants,f and 
 entered into with as much eagerness as Hannibal entered 
 Italy, after swearing the destruction of the Romans, upon the 
 Carthaginian altars ; the poniard lifted by the hand of religious 
 madness, and committing such slaughter and carnage, that 
 
 * Zisca, a follower of John Huss. 
 
 f A name given to the Protestants of the e^tablishfd church. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 15? 
 
 people propose the disagreeable and odious problem, 4 whe- 
 ther religion has been of greater use than harm to man- 
 4 kind?' 
 
 Still I am inclined to exculpate religion from the blame of 
 calamities which can be traced back to the rage of fanatical 
 preachers, the cruelty of governors, the policy and craft of 
 ministers of state, as to their genuine sources. 'Matters 
 4 were first embroiled in the cabinet,' says Rousseau, ' and 
 4 then the leading men stirred up the common people in the 
 4 name of God.' 
 
 In the midst of this religious rage, I see humanity assert- 
 ing her right, and resuming her empire : I see Catholic go- 
 vernors refusing to comply with the imperious mandates of a 
 cruel king, and a no less cruel queen, at the time of the mas- 
 sacreof St. Bartholomew, and Catholic bishops saving all 
 the Protestants in their diocese : I see in Ireland, the great 
 Protestant bishop Bedel with his clans, and thousands, in 
 the free exercise of their religion, in the midst of a Catholic 
 army, whilst a Protestant bishop bleeds at the foot of a com- 
 munion-table in Scotland, for reading the English liturgy : — 
 Thus, I am convinced that people of all denominations would 
 be happy together, if their clergy recommended mutual love 
 and benevolence; and that, if we divested ourselves of pas- 
 sion, religion would never arm the hand with the poniard. If 
 Innocent the Third excommunicated the heretics of his time. 
 Innocent the Eleventh entered into a league with Protestant 
 kings. 
 
 Thus, gentlemen, you see how the world changes. On 
 the wide theatres spread by the revolutions of time, new cha- 
 racters daily appear, and different circumstances are pro- 
 ductive of different events. It is in vain to ransack old 
 councils, imperial constitutions, and ecclesiastical canons, 
 whether genuine or spurious, against heretics, in order to 
 brand the present generation of Catholics. In the very city, 
 I mean Rome, where the general council of Latcran was held, 
 Protestants are caressed, and live with ease and comfort. 
 Travellers agree, that it is the theatre of civility, benevolence 
 and politeness. In the German empire, where, by the con- 
 stitutions of Frederic the Second, heretics were condemned 
 to the stake, all religions enjoy full liberty. In some places. 
 
158 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 the Catholic priest and Calvinist minister officiate in the 
 same church, and bishoprics are alternately governed by 
 Catholic and Protestant prelates. All law^, whether civil or 
 ecclesiastical, are done away by time, when the motives that 
 gave them rise subsist no longer. And none but a slave to 
 bigotry and prejudice will confound the eighteenth with the 
 thirteenth century. Because Father Roger Bacon was im- 
 prisoned as a sorcerer, on account of his extensive knowledge 
 in astronomy, perspective, &c. or that Gallileo's doctrine of 
 the motion of the earth was condemned by a numerous tribe 
 of divines, headed by seven Cardinals, under the eyes of the 
 Roman Pontiff, must it be obtruded on the public, that the 
 Roman Catholics must consider the motion of the earth 
 round the sun, as heresy, or firmly believe that there is 
 magic or witchcraft in the Camera obscura, because Father 
 Bacon, who described it, was seven years confined in prison ? 
 Hence from the opinions of men, or the actions of Popes, or 
 the disciplinary canons of Councils, or the proceedings of 
 Bishops who composed them, in one age, there is no argu- 
 ing to the belief of men in another. Popes have attempted 
 to absolve subjects from their allegiance to their sovereigns; 
 it is no more an article of my belief that they could do it by 
 the authority of the keys, than it is an article of my belief, 
 that I can strike a king on the cheek, because Calvin teaches, 
 that, 'earthly princes abdicate their authority when thej 
 'erect themselves against God,' and that, 'we ought rather 
 'spit in their faces, than obey them.'* Mr. Wesley and the 
 Association would do well to analyze some of that doctor's 
 writings, and Knox's sermons, and to insert them in their 
 Appeal, as a contrast to the obsolete canons which they have 
 extracted from Sir Richard Steel's Appendix : — Erect them- 
 selves against God, is a phrase merely spiritual, and of a fatal 
 tendency, because the broachers of such doctrines think it a 
 sufficient plea against kings not inclined to receive truths, 
 they themselves arc prompted to preach : and as every one 
 thinks himself in the right, error has many chances for the 
 sword of authority. But in my opinion, Peter's pence, not 
 Peter's keys, have founded the claims of Popes, when they 
 
 * CaNin in Daniel, chap. 6. v. 22. 
 
, MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 159 
 
 made the unsuccessful attempt. To the investiture of bi- 
 shoprics in Germany, which brought on the great broils 
 between Popes and Emperors, was annexed some temporal 
 emolument, founded upon compacts between the two powers. 
 The English monarchs made their kingdom tributary to the 
 apostolical see. If, then, pontiffs have deviated from the pri- 
 mitive paths in meddling in the temporals of kings, the 
 reason is obvious. They had prescription to plead ; oaths 
 and treaties to support their claims. In the conduct of 
 kings, choosing them for arbiters of their quarrels, and 
 liege lords of their territories, they found a specious pretext 
 to punish the infraction of treaties, and the breach of prero- 
 gative. A repetition of the same acts, introduced custom. 
 Custom supported by time, obtains the force of a law. The 
 law bound the parties concerned, and the violation of the 
 law has been attended with penalties. Hence the deposi- 
 tion of an emperor was more owing to the code and pan- 
 dects of Justinian, than to the gospel of Christ. Hence 
 Henry the Eighth, and Queen Elizabeth's pretended danger 
 from the Popes who threatened them, and attempted in vain 
 to absolve their subjects from their allegiance. 
 
 The Popes considered themselves as the liege lords of the 
 kingdom of England, after receiving for so many years a 
 tribute from its sovereigns: they never absolved the Catho- 
 lics of Denmark and Sweden, from their allegiance to Pro- 
 testant kings, because they could plead no stipulations. 
 According to the canon law, a hundred years prescription can 
 be pleaded against the Church of Rome. A hundred years 
 and more have elapsed, since any Pope has attempted to 
 absolve subjects from their allegiance ; though armies have 
 been poured into his territories, and his cities taken by 
 princes. Kings have nothing to dread from an abrogated 
 power, abolished by the same cause that gave it rise. — But 
 if empire be founded in grace, and not in the rights of na- 
 ture, or the laws of civil society; if a deviation from the 
 immutable truth that saw the world in its cradle, and is to 
 preside at its dissolution, be a plea against kings; let them 
 be eternally armed with the scales of the Leviathan, against 
 the barbed irons to which they are exposed, from those who 
 frhink themselves the only persons enlightened with the rays 
 
 Y 
 

 160 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 of trospel knowledge. Nothing then is to be apprehended 
 from Popes. Less is to be apprehended from spurious ca- 
 nons, or the memory of councils which gave up the ghost 
 six hundred years ago. And any inference from the pro- 
 ceedings of the fathers of the council of Lateran, or obsolete 
 texts of the canon law, against former heretics, to alarm 
 the Protestants of our days, is the fruit of ignorance or 
 malice, or both. The Protestants of our days sway the 
 sceptre of authority. Kingdoms and republics, laws and 
 constitutions, fcederal unions, and civil compacts, blessings 
 in peace, and triumphs in war, the allegiance of their sub- 
 jects, and protection the result of allegiance, record them 
 in the annals of fame, and put them on the same level with 
 the Caesars to whom tribute and submission are due. How 
 are they connected with the motley rabble of heretics who 
 appeared and disappeared in former times, overturning and 
 attacking church and state, and attacked by both in their 
 turn! No state acknowledged their power; no band of 
 civil union linked them together; no subjects swore allegi- 
 ance to them; no Catholic recognized a king, parliament, 
 or magistrate amongst the Albigenses, whom people dignify 
 with the title of Protestants; and whom Protestant powers 
 would consider as the pest and bane of society, if such were 
 now id their dominions. Disciples of the Manicheans, they 
 admitted two supreme and independent principles; and 
 granted two wives, called Colla and Colliba, to the God of 
 Truth. Had their doctrine been confined to mere specula- 
 tions, in an age more enlightened than the thirteenth century, 
 when the council of Lateran was held, in all appearance, 
 humanity would pity them, and philosophy would smile at 
 their errors. 
 
 But this wild theory was still surpassed by the most 
 monstrous practices. They considered marriage as a 
 state of perdition ; but chastity was not one of their vows. 
 
 More could be said ; but I am afraid that my readers al- 
 ready blush : and whoever dignifies the Albigenses with the 
 title of Protestants, in order to inflame the rage, and kindle 
 the rancour of fellow- subjects, by a recital of the ill treat- 
 ment of those pretended martyrs, should not only blush, but 
 hide himself. 
 

 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 161 
 
 Let none imagine, that whatever is mentioned in the ses- 
 sions of a general council, is an article of faith. There are 
 decrees of discipline which are at the discretion of kingdoms 
 or provinces either to reject or adopt. There are articles of 
 faith which, in our opinion, neither time, place, or circum- 
 stances can alter. Thus, the council of Trent, which com- 
 mands the Roman Catholics, under pain of anathema, or 
 curse, to believe the necessity of baptism, and the reality of 
 original sin, is universally received in all Catholic countries, 
 as far as it confines itself to the decision of speculative points, 
 and proposes them as articles of belief: but, where the same 
 council decrees, that the manor or land on which a duel is 
 fought, with the connivance of the owner, should be confis- 
 cated and applied to pious uses, it is rejected. Though the 
 motive of the decree is laudable, as it tends to suppress vice 
 and restrain the passions ; yet, as me means, such as the for- 
 feiture of lands, &c. are quite out of the spiritual line, this 
 decree of discipline is not received. By the same rule, two 
 things are to be considered relative to the council of Late ran, 
 often quoted, and as often misapplied. The fathers of that 
 council have anathematized the errors of the Albigenses, so 
 repugnant to reason, morality, and the principles of revealed 
 religion, and every similar error extolling itself against the 
 orthodox faith. So far they confined themselves within the 
 limits of their spiritual provinces, and so far every Roman 
 Catholic submits to their decrees. But when they proceeded 
 further, and granted the lands of the persons whom they 
 condemned as heretics, to the Catholics who would take pos- 
 session of them ; no Roman Catholic is concerned in a ver- 
 dict that disposes of temporal property : for neither popes 
 nor councils have been appointed as the supreme and infal- 
 lible arbiters of succession to thrones, the transfer of pro- 
 perty, or temporal affairs, by Him who refused to compro- 
 mise matters between two brothers, and declared, that his 
 kingdom is not of this toorld. Nor is it to be presumed, that 
 the ambassadors who assisted at the council, would betray 
 the interests of their kings, who often excepted against the 
 competency of spiritual tribunals, as to the decision of tem- 
 poral rights. And as to the distinction between articles of 
 faith, and canons of discipline, we find it even in the New 
 Testament. — 
 
162 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 The same apostles, who preached the divinity of Christ, 
 which we all believe, decreed in a council, that the Chris- 
 tians should abstain from the use of blood, and the flesh of 
 strangled animals.* We believe the doctrine they preached : 
 we overlook the discipline they established, because the 
 prohibition was temporary. The doctrine is permanent : 
 opinions are fugitive : laws, discipline, and decrees vary 
 with time We are but little concerned in the transactions 
 of the twelfth or thirteenth century. We are a new world 
 raised on the ruins of the former, and if hitherto we could 
 not agree as Christians, it is high time to live together as 
 men. There is land enough for us all ; and it is by far 
 better to see towns and cities rearing their heads on the 
 banks of our rivers, than to see our fertile country de- 
 populated by intolerance.^ Let religion be left out of the 
 case. Whigs and tories, Guelphes and Gibelinsf may re- 
 peat the same creed, and be still divided. The French and 
 Sicilians went to the same churches to sing their halle- 
 lujahs upon an Easter Sunday, when, soon after, the groans 
 of bleeding victims began to mingle with the harmonious 
 sound of chiming bells. The Dutch and English were 
 Protestants, when the former massacred the latter in the 
 island of Amboyna. Had the sufferers been of a different 
 persuasion from that of the aggressors, religion would ap- 
 pear as the chief character in the two tragedies. If specula- 
 tive errors be punishable, there is a day of reckoning ; and 
 eternity is long enough for retribution. But during the short 
 span of life, chequered with so many anxious cares, let us not 
 resemble those savages who glory in dispeopling the earth, 
 and carrying the mangled heads of their fellow-creatures on 
 the tops of their reeking spears, as so many trophies of their 
 barbarous victory. In vain do we give ourselves up to hatred 
 and vengeance : we soon discover that such cruel pleasure 
 was never adapted to the heart of man ; that in hating others 
 we punish ourselves ; that humanity disclaims violence ; and 
 that the law of God, in commanding us to love our neighbour, 
 has consulted the most upright and reasonable dictates of the 
 
 * Acts, chap. 15. 
 f Two formidable factions in the time of the disputes between the popes and 
 emperors. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. J 63 
 
 human heart. The world is tired of religious disputes, and 
 it is high time for you, Gentlemen, to be tired of me. 
 
 It is time to agree to a truce, and leave the field to such 
 champions as are willing to engage in national and political 
 contests, infinitely more useful to the public than the thread- 
 spun arguments of polemical divinity, decrees of councils, or 
 obsolete canons. 
 
 Should any of the champions of the eighty- five legions of 
 Glasgow, or any of their allies and confederates sound the 
 trumpet, I shall not prepare myself for battle. If I at- 
 tempted to throw fanaticism into ridicule, they are welcome 
 to discharge at me arrows reposited in the quivers of the 
 Spanish Friar and the Duenna. Of what use is it to the 
 public, if I have recourse to Chrysal, or, the Adventures of 
 a Guinea, where our modern apostles are taken off in the 
 conference between Momus and Mother Brimstone. 
 
 If the attack be serious, the weapons will be taken from the 
 mouldering arsenals of old councils, pope's decrees, and ob- 
 solete canons. There it will be a repetition of the same thing, 
 for ever and for aye, to use the words of old Robin Hood. 
 But should Mr. Wesley, W. A. D — mm — d, or any apostle 
 belonging to the eighty-jive societies, intend to be of use to 
 the public, I shall co-operate with their pious endeavours, 
 with all the veins in my heart. 
 
 We have obtained of late the privilege of planting tobacco 
 in Ireland, and our tobacconists want paper. Let Mr. 
 Wesley then come with me, as the curate and barber went 
 to shave and bless the library of Don Quixote. All the old 
 books, old canons, sermons, and so forth, tending to kindle 
 feuds, or promote rancour, let us fling them out at the win- 
 dows. Society will lose nothing ; the tobacconist will benefit 
 by the spoils of antiquity. And if, upon mature deliberation, 
 we decree that Mr. Wesley's Journal, and his apology for 
 the Association's Appeal, should share the same fate with 
 the old buckrams, we will procure them a gentle fall. After 
 having rocked ourselves in the large and hospitable cradle 
 of the Free-press, where the peer and the commoner, the 
 priest and the alderman, the friar and swaddier, can stretch 
 themselves at full length, provided they be not too churlish, 
 let us laugh at those who breed useless quarrels, and set 
 
164 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 to the world the bright example of toleration and benevo- 
 lence. 
 
 A peaceable life and happy death to all Adam's children ! 
 May the ministers of religion of every denomination, whether 
 they pray at the head of their congregations in embroidered 
 vestments, or black gowns, short coats, grey locks, pow- 
 dered wigs, or black curls, instead of inflaming the rabble, 
 and inspiring their hearers with hatred and animosity, or their 
 fellow creatures, recommend love, peace, and harmony ! 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 Gentlemen, your most affectionate, 
 x\nd humble servant, 
 
 ARTHUR O'LEARY. 
 
REJOINDER TO 
 
 MR. WESLEY'S REPLY. 
 
 THE following extract from Locke's letter on Toleration, together with Mr. Wesley's 
 reply, has been sent to the author, with a request to auswer it, if in his powbb, 
 says the writer of the letter. Mr. Locke in a profound manner opens the gate of 
 toleration to all mortals, who do not entertain any principals injurious to the rights of 
 civil society : but my correspondent is surprised that such an impartial writer should 
 make an oblique charge on the Roman Catholics, if it were not grounded oa 
 truth:— 
 
 4 We cannot find any sect that teaches expressly and 
 < openly, that men are not obliged to keep their promise ; 
 
 * that princes may be dethroned by those that differ from 
 
 * them in religion, or that the dominion of all things belongs 
 
 * only to themselves — but nevertheless we find those, that say 
 « the same thing in other words. What else do they mean 
 4 who teach, that faith is not to be kept with heretics ? — 
 
 * What can be the meaning of their asserting that kings, 
 4 excommunicated, forfeit their crowns and kingdoms ? — 
 4 That dominion is founded in grace, is an assertion by which 
 'those that maintain it, do plainly lay a claim to the pos- 
 « session of all things. 1 say, these have no right to be tole- 
 
 * rated by the magistrate.' 
 
 Again : ' That church can have no right to be tolerated 
 4 by the magistrate, which is constituted upon such a bottom, 
 4 that all those who enter into it, do hereby, ipso facto, deli- 
 4 ver themselves up to the protection and service of another 
 4 prince ; for by this means the magistrate would give way 
 4 to the setting up of a foreign jurisdiction in his own coun- 
 4 try, and suffer his own people to be enlisted, as it were, 
 4 for soldiers against his own government. Nor does the 
 
 * frivolous and fallacious distinction between the court 
 4 and the church, afford any remedy to this inconvenience ; 
 
 * especially when both the one and the other, are equally 
 4 subject to the absolute authority of the same person; 
 4 who has not only power to persuade the members of his 
 
 * Church to whatever he lists, either as purely religious, or 
 
 * as in order thereunto, but also can enjoin them, on pain 
 4 of eternal fire. 
 
 4 It is ridiculous for any one to profess himself to be a 
 4 Mahometan only in his religion ; but in every thing else a 
 
J6G MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 * faithful subject to a Christian magistrate, whilst at the 
 4 sarac time, he acknowledges himself bound to yield blind 
 
 * obedience to the Mufti of Constantinople; who himself is 
 'entirely obedient to the Ottoman Emperor, and frames the 
 1 feigned oracles of that religion according to his pleasure. 
 ' But this Mahometan, living amongst Christians, would yet 
 4 more apparently renounce their government, if he ac- 
 knowledged the same person to be the head of his church, 
 4 who is the supreme magistrate in the state.' 
 
 Locke on Toleration, p 5i!. 
 
 — assies*— 
 
 MR. O'LEARY'S ANSWER. 
 
 Mr. Locke's supposed principle are fully answered in 
 4 Loyalty Asserted.' With every respect due to so great a 
 man, he was as ignorant of the Catholics' creed, as any of 
 the London rioters. ' That the dominion of all things be- 
 4 longs to the saints,' was the doctrine of Wickliff, Huss, and 
 the English regicides in the time of Charles the First : a doc- 
 trine condemned by the Council of Constance, in the thirtieth 
 proposition, extracted from Huss's writings. 
 
 Mr. Locke, in shutting the gates of toleration against the 
 professors of such a doctrine, fully justifies the Emperor 
 Sigismund in putting Huss to death : as that unhappy man 
 not only preached, but practised it. In matters more within 
 the verge of his knowledge, I widely differ from Mr. Locke. 
 When he denies any innate ideas, or the least notion of a 
 God implanted in our souls, independent of the senses, I 
 prefer the Cartesian philosophers, Messieurs de Portroyal, 
 the bishop of Rochester, and several others who were of a 
 different opinion. But, when he supposes that ' the same 
 4 person who is head of the church, is the supreme magistrate 
 4 in the state ; that the people can frame the feigned oracles 
 4 of the Catholic religion, as the Mufti can frame them for the 
 4 Turks, by the direction of the Ottoman Emperor; that he 
 4 can persuade the members of his church to whatever he lists, 
 4 and enjoin it them, on pain of eternal fire,' &c. my honest 
 good English philosopher was either snoring, or as ignorant 
 of the Catholic creed, as the old woman that used to bring 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 167 
 
 him his toast and ale, when he was writing on government, 
 against Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha. 
 
 The universities of Paris, Valentia, Toulouse, Poictiers, 
 Bourdeaux, Bourges, Rheims, Caen, &c. that is to say, 
 the oracles of the doctrine taught in their respective coun- 
 tries, knew their creed better than an English philosopher 
 could teach them. They have stigmatized those assertions 
 obtruded on the public by Mr. Locke ; and, in the con- 
 demnation of Santorellus, who asserted that the Pope could 
 depose kings guilty of heresy, qualify his doctrine as * new, 
 ' false, erroneous, contrary to the word of God, calculated 
 'to bring an odium on the see of Rome, to impair the 
 1 supreme civil authority that depends on God alone, and 
 ' to disturb the public tranquility.' 
 
 Such is the doctrine of Catholics ; and had Mr. Locke 
 read history, or been candid enough to acknowledge it, he 
 would have found the practice of the Catholics, in all ages, 
 conformable to the decision. 
 
 ' The Pope can persuade the members of his church to 
 1 what he lists, and enjoin it them, on pain of eternal 
 'fire.' — Doubtless ! he can persuade me to kill my wothtr, 
 and enjoin it me, on pain of fire. He can persuade me 
 that I eat my victuals with the big toe of my left foot ; 
 or that John Locke's mother was a virgin, when she was 
 delivered of the author of the * Essay on Human Un- 
 derstanding.' 
 
 Still the Pope could not persuade the English Catholics 
 to give their benefices to Italian incumbents, in the time 
 of Richard the Second, nor dissuade a Catholic parliament 
 from introducing the premunire, against provisions obtained 
 at the court of Rome ; an evident proof that they knew the 
 distinction between the church and the court. Pope Boniface 
 VIII. could not persuade the Catholics of his timt* to believe 
 that he was lord paramount of all the kingdoms of the earth ; 
 nor dissuade the king of France from writing the follow- 
 ing letter to him : * We would have your Madness know, that 
 * we acknowledge no superior in temporals but God alone.' 
 
 Pius the Fifth, and Sixtus Quintus, in publishing their 
 bulls of deposition against queen Elizabeth,* and absoJving 
 
 * Such proceedings are accounted for iu Loyalty Asserted, in the discussion of 
 the deposing 1 power. 
 
168 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 .her subjects from their allegiance, could not persuade the 
 Catholics of England to rise up in arms against their so- 
 vereign, though they were superior in numbers, and had 
 room to expect every assistance. 
 
 Two proofs which will ever stand upon record, that Ca- 
 tholics never hold difference in religion, as a sufficient plea 
 for dethroning kings ; nor a Pope's bull a sufficient cause for 
 withdrawing their allegiance. 
 
 In the dark ages, Popes were deposed by the Council of 
 Constance ; and John the Twenty-second, who preached up 
 the Milknarian doctfine, and held that souls do not enjoy 
 the clear sight of God until after the resurrection, could not 
 persuade the members of his church to believe him : nor dis- 
 suade the university of Paris from censuring a doctrine, 
 which the head of their church preached from the pulpit at 
 Avignon, and which he himself retracted before a notary 
 public, and several witnesses in his last sickness; nor dis- 
 suade a French king from writing this short letter to him, 
 ' Retracte, ou je te ferai ardre' — retract, or I will get, you 
 burned. An evident proof that the Pope cannot ' persuade 
 'the members of his church, to what he lists, nor enjoin it 
 'them on pain of eternal fire.' 
 
 For the honour of Locke's memory, let my correspondent 
 throw the fifty-ninth page of his treatise on toleration into the 
 fire, for it is a jumble of nonsense. 
 
 All the Popes' bulls from the time of St. Peter, to the end 
 of ages, cannot make an article of faith for Roman Catholics, 
 without the acceptance of the Universal Church ; and the 
 church has no power over the temporals of kings, much less 
 to command any thing against the laws of God. 
 
 Catholics never folio w an arbitrary doctrine. The stan- 
 dard is fixed ; the boundaries are prescribed, and the Pope 
 himself cannot remove them : they consider him as the head 
 pastor of the church. — Subordination in every society, re- 
 quires pre-eminence in its rulers : but his will is not their 
 creed. 
 
 As to Mr. Wesley, his reply to me is little more than a 
 repetition of his first letter. He denies ' that he himself, or 
 'his followers, were ever persecuted.' For the truth I appeal 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 1 69 
 
 to his own conscience : I appeal to his ' Farther Appeal' to 
 men of reason and religion, wherein he describes the suffer- 
 ings of several of his followers in England; how he himself 
 was dragged by the mob ; and the proceedings of a magistrate 
 who dispersed a pamphlet, entitled ' A parallel between the 
 Papists and Methodists ,' in order to kindle the rage of the po- 
 pulace against him. I appeal to the letter he wrote, many 
 years ago, to doctor Bailey of Cork, wherein he complains 
 that the Grand Jury of that city found indictments against 
 Charles Wesley, who makes the hymns, and ordered him to 
 be transported as a vagabond. Mr. Wesley has got the let- 
 ter printed, with the names of the Grand Jury. Hut, after 
 having weathered the storm, the mariner on shore forgets his 
 distresses as well as his sea chart. 
 
 To show that his friend, John Huss, never * kindled any 
 4 civil wars in Bohemia, and that he was quite innocent of 
 1 any offence whatever,' he quotes the following testimonial, 
 given to John Huss, by the bishop of Nazareth, ' We, Nicho- 
 
 * las, do, by these presents, make known unto all men, that 
 
 * we often talked with that honourable man, John Huss, and 
 1 in all his sayings, doings, and behaviour, have found him 
 'to be a faithful man ; finding no manner of evil, sinister 
 ' or erroneous doings in him, unto these presents.' To 
 this Mr. Wesley subjoins a testimonial from the arch- 
 bishop of Prague, declaring, * that he knew not that John 
 ' Huss was culpable or faulty in any crime or offence what- 
 
 * soever.' 
 
 Let us now suppose those testimonials to be genuine, and 
 grant them to Mr. Wesley to get rid of a bad cause. VV hat 
 advantage can he derive from them ? The bishop of Naza- 
 reth declares, that he talked very often with John Huss, and 
 that in their conversation, he discovered nothing sinister or er- 
 roneous in him. Doubtless, in conversing with a bishop who 
 was an Inquisitor, John Huss was upon his guard. The 
 archbishop ' knew not that he was culpable.' The conversa- 
 tion of the first, and the know not of the other, must coun- 
 terbalance the positive and decisive proofs, produced on a 
 criminal's trial, in presence of a general council, no ways in- 
 terested in the condemnation of a man, in whom there 4 was 
 ' no evil, nothing sinister or erroneous.' Testimonials are 
 
170 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 often granted to people from tenderness, or ignorance, which 
 will avail but little on a trial. 
 
 The thirtieth proposition, extracted from Huss's works, 
 and condemned by the Council, runs thus : ' there is no tem- 
 
 * poral Lord, there is no Pope, no Bishop, when he is in the 
 ' state of mortal sin.' Huss himself acknowledged this sedi- 
 tious proposition, which authorizes the fanatical saint to take 
 the king's crown, if he sees him but once drunk ; or to seize 
 the property of the lord of the manor, if, in scolding his 
 coachman, he curses. The fruits of this doctrine were as 
 visible in Bohemia, as the fruits of Mr. Wesley's Apology 
 for the Associations, are legible in the glowing embers of 
 London. 
 
 L'Enfant, the Calvinist historian of the Council of Con- 
 stance, better informed than Mr. Wesley, can instruct him 
 in these words : ' John Huss, by his sermons and writings, 
 
 * and violent and outrageous conduct, had extremely con- 
 ' tributed to the troubles which then distracted Bohe- 
 ' mia.'* 
 
 What becomes now of testimonials which carry contradic- 
 tion on the very face of them, whereas John Huss was ex- 
 communicated a year and a half before he obtained them ? 
 Those Bishops, then, must have been mistaken if their testi- 
 monials be genuine. Each of them must have been the Bur- 
 net of his days ; of whom Protestant as well as Catholic his- 
 torians remark, that he is never to be believed less, than when 
 he relates facts, of which he pretends to have been an ocular 
 witness. 
 
 Mr. Wesley denies that { John Huss ever attempted to 
 
 * make his escape.' He may deny his own journals. Dacher 
 and Reichenthal, two German historians, present at the Coun- 
 cil, and on whom L'Enfant passes the highest encomiums 
 for candour and integrity, relate that John Huss attempted 
 to make his escape. Here he violated his safe conduct, 
 and forced his judges to confine him. L'Enfant exhausts 
 his wit, to invalidate the relation of those (according to him- 
 self,) i unprejudiced historians.' His chief reasons are 'the 
 1 silence of the acts of the Council about Huss's flight.' To 
 this it is answered, that in the acts of a Council, the judi- 
 
 * L'Enfant, B. 3. No. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 171 
 
 clal acts done in full council, are alone related; not every 
 incident that happens in a city where it is held. Hence 
 Huss's imprisonment is not mentioned. Jerome of Prague's 
 flight is mentioned, because the council sent him a safe- 
 conduct, and the cause required to be specified. Secondly, 
 he says that, ' it appears that John Huss was apprehended 
 4 on the twenty-eighth of November, and consequently could 
 ' not escape in the following March.' Besides other reasons 
 it can be answered that the mistake of a date, (often owing 
 to the fault of copyers or printers,) cannot invalidate the 
 truth of a public fact attested by such ocular witnesses, as 
 L'Enfant describes the two German historians to have 
 been. 
 
 But Mr. Wesley insists, that i the Emperor Sigismund 
 4 granted Huss a safe-conduct, promising him impunity, in 
 4 case he was found guilty.' I explained the nature of safe- 
 conducts, in my Remarks on that gentleman's letters ; and 
 I insist that safe-conducts of the kind are never granted. It is 
 enough for sovereigns to extend the mercy of prerogative to 
 criminals, when they are found guilty by their judges, with- 
 out, saying to a rebel, oran incendiary, or to a highwayman : 
 4 go and take your trial: never fear : 1 will grant you your 
 4 pardon, when you are found guilty, though 1 am convinced 
 1 you are an arrant rogue.' They never enter into compacts 
 of the kind with such people. A man who is to take his 
 trial, and his enemies in the way, may call for a safe-conduct 
 to go to the place of trial, and return unmolested, if he is 
 acquitted ; and this was the case of Huss. He offered of 
 himself to take his trial, and to submit to the sentence, if 
 found guilty. He never upbraided the emperor with his 
 breach of promise, when he was given up to the secular 
 arm ; which he would have done, had the emperor given 
 him such an assurance. The Hussites themselves went, on 
 the faith of a safe-conduct, to the Council of Basil, and 
 never aliened breach of faith with John Huss. 
 
 It was, then, in the sixteenth century, when interested 
 men fomented divisions between Catholics and Protestants, 
 that the hand of calumny wrote false commentaries on the 
 text of the canon of the Council of Constance; and handed 
 it down as a theme to religious declaimers, whom the test o{ 
 
172 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 orthodoxy proposed by the very Council, will ever stare in 
 the face. 
 
 Here is the test inserted in a bull published with the 
 approbation of* a general Council, not by the Pope in his 
 personal capacity, but sacro approbnnte Concilia. ' Let the 
 ' person suspected be asked, whether he or she does not 
 * think that all wilful perjury, committed upon any occa- 
 4 sion whatsoever, for the preservation of one's life, or 
 ' another man's, or even for the sake of the faith, is a mor- 
 « tal sin ?' 
 
 I have read near upon a thousand religious declamations 
 against Popery; not one of the authors of those invectives 
 has candour or honour to produce that test in favour of Ca- 
 tholics ; which shews the spirit that actuates them They 
 should, at least, imitate the limner who first painted Pope's 
 Essay on Man, and contrasted, on the same canvass, the 
 blooming cheek with the frightful skeleton, linked together 
 in the same group. No, they will paint the Catholic reli- 
 gion in profile, and fix a Saracen's cheek into the face of 
 the Christian. The declaration of a general Council, which 
 can afford the least occasion for cavil, will be eternally held 
 forth, whilst the decrees of the same Council, liable to no 
 misconstruction, where fraud and perjury, even for the 
 sake of religion, are condemned, will be overlooked. Bel- 
 larmin, Becanus, and those other Knoxes and Buchanans 
 of the Catholic religion, whose works are burned by the 
 hands of the executioner in Catholic countries, are dragged 
 from their shelves, whilst the decisions of the most learned 
 universities in the world, that condemned the false doc- 
 trine of those incendiaries, are buried in silence. The 
 bee pitches on flowers, but the beetle falls upon nui- 
 sances. 
 
 They will be eternally teasing their hearers and readers 
 with the word heretic, without explaining its sense or accep- 
 tation. They will erect it as a kind of standard to which all 
 the fanatics of the world will flock to fight the battles of the 
 Lord against Antichrist ; and in this confederate army, they 
 will confound the archbishop of Cashel, who fills his see after 
 a long succession of Protestant bishops, with John Huss, 
 who starts up on a sudden, flying in the faces of kings and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 173 
 
 bishops. They will confound the bishop of Cork with 
 Theodoras Sartor, stretching himself naked before a num- 
 ber of prophets and prophetesses, who burn their clothes, 
 and run naked through the streets of Amsterdam, denounc- 
 ing their woes, and foretellino; the destruction of Antichrist. 
 They will put the archbishop of Canterbury on a level with 
 the ratarini, who exclaimed against Popery, and held that 
 no sin could be committed with the lower parts of the 
 body. 
 
 In fine, all those monsters that started up from time to 
 time, and whom our magistrates would doom to the rope or 
 fagot, are made good Protestants, because they exclaimed 
 against Popery ; an enumeration of their sufferings from 
 Papists, is enlarged upon : and the Protestant bishop, or 
 the Protestant king, has no mercy to expect from Papists: 
 for sure they are held in the same light, by them, with James 
 Nailer, who, after fighting against Papists and Malignants 9 
 in Cromwell's army, turned prophet, and rode into Bristol, 
 mounted on an ass, on a Palm Sunday, attended with num- 
 bers of women, spreading their aprons before him, and 
 making the air re-echo to loud hosannahs : 4 Holy, holy, 
 4 holy, hosannah to James Nailer ; blessed is James Nailer, 
 
 * who comes in the name of the Lord !'* Those gentlemen 
 never mention heretics excommunicated by Protestant 
 churches, and put to death by Protestant magistrates. They 
 never mention the description given of heretics by Protes- 
 tant writers ; by Godolphin, the Protestant canonist, and 
 Sir Edward Coke, the Protestant lawyer, who both call 
 heresy, 4 leprum animce.'' — the leprosy of the soul. No, he- 
 resy is the Papist's favourite theme. No Protestant ever 
 made any commentaries on it. 
 
 The same uncandid fallacy that lurks under the word he- 
 retic, with wiiich the Catholics are always taunted, is mani- 
 fest in the strained construction of the canon of the Council 
 of Constance. A spiritual cause is to be tried by ecclesias- 
 tical judges. They declare that ' no safe-conduct granted by 
 4 princes, shall hinder heretics from being judged and pu- 
 
 * nished.' (with ecclesiastical censures and degradation, for 
 &eir power to punish can extend no farther) ' and that when 
 
 * Swell's Life »f Janes Nailer. 
 
174 miscellaneous tracts. 
 
 4 the person who has promised them security' (from this 
 ecclesiastical punishment, for no other can be meant by a 
 spiritual tribunal), ; has done all that is in his power to do, 
 « shall not in this case,' (the case of securing from a spiritual 
 or ecclesiastical punishment inflicted by a lawful superior,) 
 « be obliged to keep his promise :' because a promise of the 
 kind, made to one of their rebellious clergymen, who cor- 
 rupts and falsifies their doctrine, is an unjust usurpation of 
 their rights, and subversive of their spiritual jurisdiction. — 
 And an unjust promise, injurious to the rights of another, is 
 not binding, let the tie be what it will. Herod promised 
 upon oath to give his daughter whatever she would ask for. 
 He was not nound to give her the head of John the Bap- 
 tist. If the king of England, without even depriving a 
 single man of his estate, bound himself by oath, to arrogate 
 to himself the legislative as well as the executive power; 
 every antagonist of Popery, from the Prelate down to the 
 tub-preacher, would cry out, with the fathers of the Coun- 
 cil of Constance : ' He is not, in this case, obliged to keep 
 his promise.' 
 
 In this sense, the canon of the Council is to be under- 
 stood. In this sense, the fathers themselves, the best in- 
 terpreters of their own meaning, understand it. In this 
 sense the Catholic doctors, all over the world, understand 
 it; they who are more competent judges of their own creed, 
 than either Mr. Locke or Mr. Wesley. Such of them as arc 
 of opinion, that the supreme power of the state can make 
 heresy a capital crime, rise up with indignation against the 
 false accusers who say that the Council authorised breach of 
 faith with heretics. They write in Catholic states where 
 they have nothing to fear, and less to expect, from Mr. Wes- 
 ley and his London rioters. 
 
 If Mr. Wesley construes this canon in a different sense, it 
 is no reason for obtruding his tortured construction on me, 
 as an article of orthodoxy. An Arian may as well persuade 
 the public, that I do not believe the Divinity of Christ, be- 
 cause he does not believe in it himself, and tortures the Scrip- 
 tures in support of his errors. John Huss was a priest, or- 
 dained in the Church of Rome, and said mass until the day 
 of his confinement. I suppose Mr. Wesley Avill not allow, 
 that a temporal prince could deprive his spiritual superiors 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 175 
 
 from censuring and degrading him, if found guilty of an 
 erroneous doctrine. 
 
 Every church claims to herself the power of inflicting spi- 
 ritual punishments, independent of the magistrates. The 
 church of Rome, the consistories of Scotland, and all others. 
 When the council of two hundred arrogated to themselves 
 the power of denouncing and absolving from censures, and 
 in consequence intended to absolve one Bertelier, Calvin 
 ascended the pulpit, and, with outstretched hands, threat- 
 ened to oppose force to force ; exclaimed with vehemence of 
 voice against the profanation, and forced the senate to resign 
 their spiritual commission. Bertelier was punished in spite 
 of the promise of the civil power. When Mr. Wesley refused 
 the sacrament to Mrs. Williamson, in Georgia, for opposing 
 the propagation of the Gospel, in giving the preference to 
 Mr. Williamson, the layman, at a time when the clergy- 
 man intended to light Hymen's torch with a spark of grace ; 
 a conflict of jurisdiction between the clergy and laity was the 
 result; Mr. Wesley was indicted; and the following war- 
 rant, copied by himself into his journal, was issued: 
 
 "GEORGIA. SAVANNAH, ff. 
 
 " To all Constables, Ty thing Men, and others whom these may 
 
 " concern. 
 
 " You and each of you are hereby required to take the 
 " body of John Wesley, clerk, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 (Signed) "Til Christie." 
 
 ' Tuesday, the ninth,' says Mr. Wesley, ' Mr. Jones, the 
 * constable, carried me before Mr. Bailiff Parker and Mr. 
 4 Recorder. My answer to them was — that the giving or 
 'refusing the Lord's supper being a matter purely ecclesi- 
 4 astic, I could not acknowledge their power to interrogate 
 4 me upon it.'* If Mr. Wesley, then, thought himself justi- 
 fiable in pleading the clerical privilege, let him not blame 
 the fathers of Constance, for declaring their right to punish 
 with ecclesiastical censures and degradation, one of their 
 own subjects, in spite of any safe-conduct granted by the 
 
 * See this whole affair in Mr. Wesley's Journal of the year 1737, p. 43. 
 
 A A 
 
17& MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 civil power; especially at a time when the superiority 
 over their own clergy was confirmed to the bishops by 
 the laws of the empire, with which Sigismund could no 
 more dispense at that time, than James the Second could 
 in his. 
 
 'But,' says Mr. Wesley, 'sure Huss would not have come 
 i to Constance, had he foreseen the consequence.' That re- 
 garded himself. Obstinate persons seldom think themselves 
 in error. Strange instances of this obstinacy can be met 
 with in the trials of the Regicides; some of whom declared, 
 at the hour of death, that they gloried in having a hand in 
 the king's death, and would cheerfully play over the same 
 tragedy. We have a more recent instance of this obsti- 
 nacy, in one of Mr. Wesley's martyrs. Scarcely could the 
 Protestant clergyman prevail on one of the rioters, who had 
 been very active in plundering the city of London, to take 
 the blue cockade out of his hat, in going to the gallows. He 
 cried out that he died a martyr to the Protestant religion. — 
 We have daily instances of people giving themselves up to 
 take their trial, who are disappointed, without any impu- 
 tation on their judges. 
 
 Jerome of Prague, who maintained the same error with 
 Huss, came to Constance, after his confrere's execution. — 
 The Council sent him a safe-conduct, with this express clause : 
 i salvo jure concilii? reserving to the Council its right to judge 
 you. He came: and the Council judged and punished him 
 with degradation, as it had done with regard to Huss: and 
 left him to the secular arm : as Calvin, Queen Elizabeth, and 
 King James I. did to the heretics whom their consistories 
 and bishops had judged and found guilty of heretical pravity. 
 c But was not the Emperor Sigismund cruel in putting 
 4 those men to death ?' It is not his lenity or cruelty that 
 we examine: 1 only vindicate myself and the Catholic 
 Church from a slanderous doctrine. He was not more 
 cruel for putting seditious men, one of whom had committed 
 wilful murder, to death, than Protestant sovereigns who 
 doomed old women to the stake, for a kind of gibberish 
 about the incarnation. My sentiments on that subject I 
 have explained. 
 
 Jerome of Prague's coming to the Council, shews that it 
 did not violate faith with John Huss. Neither doth any one 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 177 
 
 accuse the Council of violating faith with Jerome. They 
 were both more obstinate than Mr. Wesley, who ran away 
 from the bailiffs of Georgia, and would not return to them. 
 In this he followed Sancho's maxim : * Many go to the 
 * market for tvool, that come home sliorn.' 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 Gentlemen, your most affectionate, 
 And humble servant, 
 
 ARTHUR O'LEARY. 
 
AN 
 
 ESSAY ON TOLERATION. 
 
 MR. O'LEARY'S PLEA FOR 
 
 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 . itrO tCa**- 
 TJIE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 My design, in the following sheets, is, to throw open the 
 gates of civil toleration for all Adam's children, whose prin- 
 ciples are not inconsistent with the peace of civil society, or 
 subversive of the rules of morality ; to wrench, as far as in my 
 power lies, the poniard so often tinged with human blood, 
 from the hand of persecution ; to sheath the sword, which 
 misguided 2eal has drawn in defence of a Gospel which re- 
 commends peace and love ; to restore to man the indelible 
 charter of his temporal rights, which no earthly power has 
 ever been commissioned by Heaven to deprive him of. on 
 account of his mental errors, to re-establish the empire of 
 p< ace, overthrown so often by religious feuds ; and to cement 
 all mortals, especially Christians, in the ties of social harmony, 
 by establishing toleration on its proper grounds. 
 
 The history of the calamities occasioned by difference in 
 religious opinions, is a sufficient plea for undertaking the 
 task. But time does not allow me to enter into a detail of 
 those melancholy scenes, which misconstrued religion has 
 displayed. The effects are well known : but it is high time 
 to remove the cause. 
 
 The mind shrinks back at the thoughts of the cruelties ex- 
 ercised against the Christians by Heathen Emperors, for the 
 space of three hundred years. Scarce did the Christians be- 
 gin to breathe, under the first princes who embraced their re- 
 ligion, than they fell out amongst themselves, about the mys- 
 teries of the bcriptures. Arianism, protected by powerful 
 sovereigns, raised, against the defenders of the Trinity, 
 persecutions as violent as those raised formerly by the Hea- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. J 79 
 
 thens. Since that time, at different intervals, error, backed 
 by power, persecuted truth. And the partizans of truth, 
 forgetful of thr moderation which reason and religion 
 prescribe, committed the same excesses with which they up- 
 braided their oppressors. Sovereigns blinded by dangerous 
 zeal, — or guided by barbarous policy, — or seduced by odious 
 councils, — became the executioners of their subjects who 
 adopted religious systems different from those of their rulers ; 
 or persevered in ancient systems, from which their sovereigns 
 had receded. 
 
 Had those horrors been confined to one sect of Christians 
 only, infidels would not have been so successful in their 
 attacks on the system at large ; though religion disclaims the 
 odious imputation. But all sects execrated and attempted to 
 extirpate one another. Europe became one wild altar, on 
 which every religious sect offered up human victims to its 
 creed. 
 
 The ministers of a religion that had triumphed over the 
 Caesars, not by resistance, but by suffering, became the 
 apologists of calamities that swept from the face of the 
 earth, or oppress to this very day, God's noblest images — 
 upright, virtuous, and dauntless men. Like the warrior 
 in the scriptures, they stept into the sanctuary, to grasp 
 the barbarian's sword wrapt up in the ephod. The code 
 of temporal laws, teeming with sanctions against robbers 
 and murderers, was swelled, to the surprise and de- 
 struction of mankind, with additional decrees against he- 
 retics and Papists. The inoffensive citizen who, from 
 an apprehension of offending the Deity, by acting against 
 his conscience, was confined in the same dungeon, or 
 doomed to the fagot or axe, with the parricide who laid 
 aside every restraint of moral obligation : and the scrip- 
 tures were adduced in justification of the sanguinary con- 
 fusion. The wreath and the rod have been held forth, not 
 to crown the worthy, and punish the pernicious, but to 
 scourge to conformity, candid and steady virtue. The 
 priest gave the sanction of Heaven to the bloody mandates 
 of the civil magistrate : and the civil magistrate unsheathed 
 the sword to vindicate the cause of the God of Heaven, who 
 reserves to himself the punishment of man's conscience. No 
 person has a greater respect for the clerical order, of every 
 
180 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 denomination, than I have. I am of the number, and feel 
 myself wounded through their sides, when the Deist and 
 free-thinker, who hold them all in equal contempt, contend 
 'that in all ages, and in all countries, the clergy are the 
 4 main props of persecution. That had they been as solici- 
 4 tous to heal, and conciliate men's hearts, as they have been 
 1 to inflame and divide them, the world would by this time 
 4 bear a different aspect. That they should have left the laity 
 *in peaceable possession of good neighbourhood, mutual 
 
 * charity, and friendly confidence. That instead of enforcing 
 
 * the great principles of religion, the very basis whereof is 
 
 * charity, peace, and love, they are ever and always the first 
 
 * oppressors of those who differ from them in opinion ; and 
 
 * the active and impelling spring that gives force and elasti- 
 1 city to the destructive weapons of the civil power.' In 
 corroboration of the charge, the free-thinker will unfold the 
 page of history, and open those enormous volumes, made up 
 of religious declamation. He will prove from both, that if 
 
 * popes, and their apologists, have scattered the fire-brand, 
 
 * their spiritual brethren have faithfully copied their example, 
 
 * in succeeding times, wherever their power and influence 
 4 prevailed.' 
 
 4 Though the Protestant divines,' says Hume, * had ven- 
 
 * tured to renounce opinions, deemed certain for so many 
 4 ages, they regarded in their turn, the new system so cer- 
 4 tain, that tbey could bear no contradiction with regard to 
 4 it : and they were ready to burn in the same flames, from 
 
 * which they themselves had so narrowly escaped, every one 
 'that had the assurance to oppose them.'* Hence the scaf- 
 folds reeking in Holland with the blood of many illus- 
 trious men, who, after opposing Philip the Second's efforts 
 to introduce conformity by fire and sword, fell themselves 
 by the hand of the executioner, for denying Gomars predes- 
 tination. Hence hecatombs of victims offered upon the 
 gloomy altar of die Scotch league and covenant, and peopling 
 the regions of the dead, for differing in opinion. 4 Out of 
 4 every contested verse,' says the satirical Voltaire, 4 there 
 4 issued fury armed with a quibble and a poniard, who in- 
 4 spired mankind at once with folly and cruelty.' 
 
 * Hume's History of England, Vol.4, p, 161. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 181 
 
 The same demon that poured the poisonous cup over the 
 kingdoms and provinces of Europe, took his flight over 
 the Atlantic, and spread his baneful influence amongst co- 
 lonists who had themselves fled from the scourge. Their 
 new built cities, like so many Jerusalems, were purified 
 from idolatry. There no Popish priest dared bend his 
 knee to k his idols, or transfer to stock or stone, the 
 'worship due to the God of Israel.' There the Quaker- 
 woman's silent groans were raised on the high key of 
 loud shrieks, when the Lord's deputy ordered her pro- 
 fane breasts to be whipt off by the Gospel scourge, that 
 whipped the profaners out of the temple. There the 
 Quaker was seen, suspended by the neck on high, for 
 daring to pollute the sacred streets with his profane (eet t 
 moved by BaaVs spirit. The holy city,* thus purged from 
 the Jebuseans, and Pheriseans, was split soon after into 
 two factions. The two famous covenants, the covenant 
 of grace, and the covenant of works, soon divided the 
 spiritual militants. The jarring of divinity caused such 
 dissensions, that in the presence of sixty thousand savages, 
 headed by their warriors, giving the signal for scaling 
 the walls, to bury the contending parties under their 
 ruins, grace would not permit works to lend the le-ast 
 assistance for repelling the common foe. It became victo- 
 rious over the Indians and Christians. It drove the first 
 from its walls, and banished the latter from the city into 
 savannahs and deserts, to procure themselves subsistence 
 by the works of their hands. 
 
 In a word, persecution on the score of our conscience* 
 has thinned the world of fifty millions of human beings, 
 by fire and sword. Thousands, who have escaped the 
 sword and fagot, have perished, and are daily perish- 
 ing with hunger and want, for their mode of worship. 
 The London riots, occasioned by a pretext of religion, 
 have added about four hundred more, deluded by reli- 
 gious frenzy, to the enormous number. And thougn they 
 suffered as plunderers and incendiaries, yet religious intol- 
 erance in tneir leaders, occasioned the deluded people's 
 destruction. 
 
 The history of the calamities, occasioned by the gospel of 
 
 * See the History of Massuclmsets Bay, or Boston. 
 
182 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 peace, could be concluded with the poet's Epiphonema. — 
 i Tantum rcligio potuit suadere malorum? ' Such devilish 
 ' acts religion could persuade !'* 
 
 The Quakers, to their eternal credit, and to the honour 
 of humanity, are the only persons who have exhibited 
 a meekness and forbearance, worthy the imitation of 
 those who have entered into a covenant of mercy by 
 their baptism. — William Penn, the great legislator of that 
 people, had the success of a conqueror in establishing and 
 defending his colony amongst savage tribes, without ever 
 drawing the sword; the goodness of the most bene- 
 volent rulers, in treating his subjects as his own chil- 
 dren; and the tenderness of a universal father, who 
 opened his arms to all mankind, without distinction of 
 sect or party, In his republic, it was not the religious 
 creed, but personal merit that entitled every member of 
 society, to the protection and emoluments of the state. Rise 
 from your grave, great man ! and teach those sovereigns who 
 make their subjects miserable, on account of their catechisms, 
 the method of making them happy. They, whose domi- 
 nions resemble enormous prisons, where one part of the 
 creation are distressed captives, and the other their unpitying 
 keepers. 
 
 1 shall examine the charter which is pleaded in justifica- 
 tion of restraints on the score of conscience. The Protes- 
 tant and Catholic are equally concerned in the discussion. 
 Each would plead for toleration in his turn ; and the honour 
 of religion, should be vindicated from the imputation of 
 enormities, which should be transferred to their real princi- 
 ples — I mean the passions of men, or their ignorance of the 
 limits which religion itself prescribes to their power. I know 
 the difficultv there lies in encountering prejudices which have 
 a lono- prescription to plead. 1 shall be asked whether I am 
 ignorant of the rescripts of Popes inserting in the directory 
 of the inquisition the imperial constitutions, dooming he- 
 retics to the flames; the authority of Catholic and Protestant 
 canonists, divines, and Civilians, Calvin, Bellarmin, Go- 
 mar, benches of Protestant bishops, who gave their votes 
 for enacting the law that doomed myself to transportation, 
 
 * Breech's Lucretius. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 183 
 
 and to death if ever I return to ray native country ; though, 
 I am conscious of no crime against the state, but that crime 
 of a legal creation, viz. saying my prayers whilst others are 
 cursing! Ami ignorant of the practice of ages, which has 
 given a sanction of fines, forfeitures, imprisonments, and 
 death itself, on the score of religion ? A practice, supported 
 by the most learned writers of every denomination, and 
 legible in bloody characters in the ai.nals of Protestant 
 states,fas well as in the registers of the inquisition ? I answer, 
 that I am not ignorant of the sanguinary rubric that first 
 taught the manner of preparing the human victim for the 
 altar of religion, in honour of a God, who instead of requir- 
 ing such ateacrifice, died on the cross for his creatures, and 
 with expanded arms prayed for his enemies : Neither am I 
 ignorant of the gloomy ritual, substituted in certain king- 
 doms in the place of the fagot, and which prescribes the 
 manner of stripping the man, in honour of a gospel, which 
 commands to clothe the naked. They must both come un- 
 der the same description. For if religion authorises to de- 
 prive a man of the means of supporting life, and providing 
 for the education of his children, and the maintenance of his 
 family ; the same religion authorises to deprive him of life 
 itself. Religion is alleged on both sides, and as the degree 
 of punishment is arbitrary, and lies at the discretion of the 
 legislator, he can extend, or reduce it to what compass he 
 thinks f^t; and it is well known that a speedv death is pre- 
 ferable to a tedious agony. 
 
 But what if I oppose practice to practice ; pope to pope ; 
 doctor to doctor? Without a cardinal's robe, or a bishop's 
 rochet, what if my arguments in favour of the rights of man- 
 kind, should outweigh the reasoning of the purpled or mi- 
 tred apologists of its oppressors ? What if my authorities 
 should prove more numerous and illustrious than theirs ? 
 W^hat if I should happen to demonstrate, that when they 
 allege religion as a sufficient motive for the exertion of 
 oppressive power, in such an age, or in such a coun- 
 try; it must be the religion of time, or place, but not 
 the religion of the gospel. <■ Fides temporum, non evan- 
 4 geliontm.'* 
 
 B B 
 
184 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 Cartesius, in a stove, by remarking the motion of the 
 smoke that rolled from his pipe, gave the first shock to Aris- 
 totle's barbarous philosophy, that kept the world in igno- 
 rance for so many ages. Succeeding geniuses improved 
 upon the new plan; until at last Sir Isaac Newton dispelled 
 the mist, and made the light shine forth in its full lustre. I in 
 my cell, reflecting on the revolutions that religion has occasi- 
 oned, not for the good, but for the destruction of mankind — 
 revolutions in their morals, by inspiring them with mutual 
 hatred and aversion, by making them believe that they 
 were dispensed with the unchangeable laws of love and 
 humanity, and deluding them into a persuasion, that the 
 death or oppression of a fellow-creature on account of his 
 error, was an agreeable sacrifice to the Divinity — I also, by 
 a feeble attempt to overthrow the altars of an idol, that has 
 put Jesus Christ on a level with Moloch, and whose false 
 oracles persuaded mankind, that the ears of a God of com- 
 passion and tenderness, were pleased with the groans of vic- 
 tims tied to the stake, or famishing in dungeons, or hovels, 
 — may induce others to enlist under the banner of benevo- 
 lence, and pave the way for abler hands to raise the 
 structure of human happiness, on the ruins of religious 
 frenzy. 
 
 Locke has handled the subject as a profound philosopher; 
 Voltaire as a partial satirist in a declamatory style, more 
 with the view to censure the scriptures, than to establish it 
 on its proper grounds : I am confined to the province of a di- 
 vine, and in that quality shall arraign at the bar of religion 
 itself, the calamities to which the mistakes, or passions of 
 men, have given rise, under pretence of vindicating the 
 Deity. The bigot will consider me as a latitudinarian, 
 to whom all religions are indifferent; and as one who writes 
 in such a manner, as dispense men with the obligations of 
 -submitting to the church. He is mistaken: I am not an 
 architect who would build the edifice of my faith on diffe- 
 rent plans ; nor an ambassador who would sign two con- 
 tradictory treaties in my legation. Every person is bound to 
 enquire after the truth, and when he finds it, to embrace its 
 dictates. If he neglected it, let the blame lie at his own door, 
 Let charity and zeal induce his neighbour to instruct, and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 185 
 
 persuade him, when there is a probability of reclaiming him 
 from error. But let not violence, oppression, and wanton 
 insults be used in order to compel him. God has given him 
 free will, and liberty of chusing either fire or water. The 
 sanguinary divines, who think it lawful in the supreme ma- 
 gistrate to inflict a capital punishment, on misguided religion- 
 ists, (for they do not allow one individual to kill or oppress 
 another, on account of difference of religion) acknowledge 
 that heretical and idolatrous kings, should not be deposed 
 or killed, by their Christian or orthodox subject; because, 
 say they, ' dominion is not founded in grace, but in free 
 will.' 
 
 I would fain know, by what right Christian, idolatrous, 
 or orthodox kings, can deprive their heathen, Christian, 
 heretical, or orthodox subjects of their lives or properties, 
 on account of their mental errors. But the scripture com- 
 mands to obey kings in ivhat is lawful : and where does 
 it command kings to kill or oppress their subjects ? When 
 it recommends justice and mercy to the rulers of the earth, 
 does it make any distinction between their heathen, heretical, 
 or orthodox subjects? The church disclaims the right of 
 the sword, and the use of fines and confiscations to promote 
 her spiritual ends. The civil powers are not competent 
 judges of speculative errors. How come people then, to be 
 oppressed between the civil powers, and the established 
 church in any state ? If it be answered, that the established 
 church in any state, can exercise the right of the sword, not 
 by herself but by her magistrate. The death then of the 
 criminal, must entirely lie at the hangman's door ; and the 
 judge who passed a final doom on him has no share in the 
 execution. Away then, for ever, with the odious and falla- 
 cious distinction. 
 
 Are the Catholic and Protestant princes of Germany, 
 who have granted a free exercise of their religion, to all 
 their subjects, worse Christians than the Catholic and Pro- 
 testant princes of barbarous times, who were their subjects' 
 executioners? The Catholics and Protestants, who say 
 their prayers in the same church, in that tolerating country, 
 are they worse Christians, than the Catholics and Protes- 
 tants whom Henry the Eighth used to couple together, on 
 
186 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 the same hurdle, and order to the place of execution ? Or 
 is the Church that sees her children receive the sacraments 
 at the rails of the sanctuary, wherein the Protestant minister, 
 and the Catholic priest officiate by turns, less enlightened 
 and less tenacious of her doctrine, than she was in the time 
 of Pope Innocent the Third? Death, fines, and con- 
 fiscations, then, on the score of conscience, when the reli- 
 gionists behaves as a peaceable subject, are the ungraceful 
 offspring of lawless rule. Tyranny begot it : ignorance fos- 
 tered it: and barbarous divines have clothed it with the 
 stolen garments of religion. 
 
 »«*=— 
 
 STATE OF THE CASE. 
 
 Has the supreme power in any state, a right to vindicate 
 the Deity, by fines, forfeitures, confiscations, oppression, 
 or the death of men, whose only crime is an erroneous re- 
 ligion, which does not disturb the peace of society, whether 
 they be Jews, Mahometans, Christians, heretics or Catholics, 
 provided they believe a supreme Being, and rewards and 
 punishments in a future state ; for all people exclude from 
 civil toleration, those who confound vice and virtue in the 
 horrors of the grave. Because the links of the society are 
 dissolved, when vice loses its horror, and virtue its attrac- 
 tions : when the heart is steeled against the fear of an invisi- 
 ble Judge, and the conscience is unshackled from its 
 bonds ? 
 
 Answered in the negative. For life, liberty, the power 
 to accumulate a fortune by honest means, &c. are rights 
 founded in nature : . and the rights of nature are not reversed 
 by the religion founded by Him, who declares, that he came 
 not to destroy but to save. Much less can they be re- 
 versed by civil rulers, who are born like other men, and 
 who would not be distinguished above the crowd, were it 
 not for the social compact, by which they bound themselves 
 to protect those rights, and preserve them inviolate. If they 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. J 87 
 
 do otherwise, as often they have done, and do to this very day, 
 it is by a stretch of power, not by the rule of right ; and their 
 only plea is that mentioned in Tacitus, * Id enim ast mquius 
 ' quod est fortius.'' 
 
 From the earliest ages the boundaries of religion, and the 
 concerns of the civil magistrate were kept distinct. If in the 
 Jewish theocracy alone, they happened to be interwoven, and 
 that a secession from the established religion was made capi- 
 tal ; it was by a special commission from God, which Jesus 
 Christ repealed in the new law, as we shall hereafter prove. 
 Scattered tribes, before they subjected themselves to civil in- 
 stitutions, believed in God, at whose hands they expected the 
 rewards of their virtues, and dreaded the punishment of their 
 misdeeds. 
 
 Religion, and conscience, its immediate interpreter, were 
 anterior to society, and altars reeked with the gore of victims, 
 before the block was dyed with the blood of malefactors, 
 spilled by the sword of the stern magistrate. 
 
 For his security and defence, man, on entering into so- 
 ciety, gave up part of his liberty to dispose of his actions, 
 his acquisitions, his time, which in die state of nature were 
 at his own disposal. But he could never give up his way of 
 thinking, or submit the dictates of his conscience, to the ma- 
 gistrate's controul. It is an interior monitor, whose voice 
 cannot be silenced by human laws, and which our very pas- 
 sions, our inclinations, our temporal interest, can seldom 
 bribe, how prone soever we may be to the collusive com- 
 pact. Hear this, O ye rulers of the earth ! Usurp no autho- 
 rity over God's inheritance. He alone can water and fertilize 
 it with his grace, or from a hidden judgment, not cognizable 
 by an earthly tribunal, strike it with barrenness and sterility. 
 In this life you have power to kill, or to save the body : 
 but leave the soul of man to the God who gave it. Call to 
 mind that you must be regulated by justice. Illustrious cul- 
 prits, whose authority screens you from the rigour of human 
 laws, if you violate the sacred rules of order, you are also to 
 be judged. The splendour that surrounds you made the 
 prophet cry out, Ye are gods, and sons of the Most High ; 
 but he afterwards eclipses this splendour with the vale of death, 
 ye also must die. Let not bleeding victims, and famished o(> 
 
188 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 jects, for the sake of religion, which the rulers of the 
 earth are the last to observe in their morals, be presented 
 to you by your judge, who will call for your commission, 
 and confront you with the works of your hands. The au- 
 thority with which you are invested is delegated by the 
 people, and while you enjoy it, you claim the sanction of 
 Heaven. But neither Heaven nor man has granted you a 
 power to punish any but malefactors. And no man is kss 
 liable to the imputation, than one who follows the dictates of 
 his conscience. To him it is the oracle of the Divinity. 
 In abiding by its dictates, he imagines to please his Crea- 
 tor. An intention to please God is no crime. Mistaken he 
 may be; but every mistaken man is not a malefactor or 
 cheat. 
 
 If in a wanton fit of cruelty, you imitated those African 
 kings, who leaping into their saddles, cut off their squires' 
 heads with one blow, to display their dexterity ; or that 
 Turkish Emperor, who, to show the limner his mistake in 
 painting the decollation of John the Baptist, called for a 
 slave, and striking off his head, compared it with the picture ; 
 saying to the painter, you see by this head, that the veins in 
 
 that picture are not sufficiently shrivelled would your 
 
 power screen you from the guilt of murder ? If I am doomed 
 to the stake, or deprived of my horse, for not swearing to 
 what I do not believe, the laws will justify the informer and 
 executioner, who will say : * the laws of your governors have 
 * so decreed.' It is, then, incumbent on governors to exa- 
 mine how far God will justify themselves. Nor is it a suffi- 
 cient plea, that such laws were made by others, when it is by 
 their own authority, they are put in execution. It is equal 
 to the individual who is deprived of his life or his property, 
 whether it be by the highwayman or the officer of justice, 
 when life or property falls a sacrifice to the integrity of his 
 conscience. 
 
 God rejects a homage which the heart belies : and woe to 
 the conscience liable to the magistrate's controul. It would 
 be no longer the impregnable fortress that should never sur- 
 render, but on conviction that such is the will of his Master. 
 It would be the ductile wax, on which every new impression 
 would erase the former, and resume it by turns. It would 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 189 
 
 believe the real presence in Rome and Upsal. It would 
 deny it in Geneva and Edinburgh. In Paris, it would hope 
 for an empyreal heaven, and joys spiritual and unspeakable, 
 through the merits of Christ, in a future state; an earthly 
 paradise and a seraglio of women, amongst never-fading 
 bowers, if it worshipped the great Alia, and Mahomet his 
 prophet, in Constantinople. It would worship a living man 
 inTartary, and evil genii in Africa. An evident proof that 
 God has never granted any controul to kings or gover- 
 nors, over the conscience of man ; and that it must be left to 
 itself, and to the grace of him who gave it. 
 
 For, in every kingdom and government, the magistrates 
 would claim the same power. Every one of them believes 
 himself in the right; and should all of them be in the right, 
 I am still in the wrong, when I act against my own consci- 
 ence ; instead of making a sincere convert, they will only 
 make a perjured impostor of me. Hence, the wise Theo- 
 doric and other monarchs would never confer any extraor- 
 dinary privileges on those who conformed to their religion. 
 When one of his courtiers embraced Arianism, (that kind's 
 religion,) 4 how could you have me trust you,' said the mo- 
 narch, 'you, who betray your conscience and Christ whom 
 4 you have worshipped from your early days ?' He preferred 
 steady virtue, blended with what he deemed error, to de- 
 ceitful hypocrisy, resuming the mask of truth ; and never 
 considered a man's religion as a sufficient plea for excluding 
 him from the rights of a subject. 
 
 Must, then, a magistrate be quite indifferent about his re- 
 ligion ? Must he see it insulted ? Must he see error spread, 
 and stand by as a neutral spectator? 
 
 By no means : if he be convinced of the truth of his reli- 
 gion, far from being indifferent about it, his duty is to prac- 
 tise it. And no religion, established by the laws of any state, 
 be it ever so false, is to be insulted. It would be equallv 
 indecent and ridiculous in a Christian missionary, to cry out 
 in the streets of Constantinople, * Mahomet is a devilish im- 
 postor.' He would not succeed so well as that Scotchman 
 who went to Rome in order to convert Pope Ganganelli. In 
 all appearance, he studied the revelations well, and found out 
 'the number of the beast, as well as the year of his downfall. 
 
190 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 Accoutred with his bible, and sure of success, he sets off 
 for Rome; and, meeting the Pope in St. Peter's Church, 
 cries out with a loud voice : « Rome is tlie scarlet whore ; 
 4 and you are the Antichrist. Gang awa for Scotland, and be- 
 4 come a member of the kirk.'* The Pope's attendants 
 requested he would get him confined. < God forbid,' replied 
 the Pope, i that I would punish an honest man, who has 
 4 gone through so many hardships, for what he thought the 
 4 good of my soul.' He made him some presents, and gave 
 him full liberty to be guided by his Revelations. 
 
 With regard to the magistrate's duty in preventing error 
 from spreading. Error may be considered in its different 
 stages : either in its rise or progress. Montesquieu is of 
 opinion, that, when there is but one religion established in 
 a state, it lies at the magistrates' discretion to reject a new 
 doctrine ; but, when many religions have got a footing in 
 the state, they are to be tolerated. 
 
 The first part of this maxim is observed in Spain and 
 Portugal : the second, to the happiness of mankind, and the 
 honour of religion, is practised all over Germany, Switzer- 
 land, Holland, &c. 
 
 It is true, the first beginning of controversy may be checked 
 by a steady severity: and a new doctrine may, perhaps, be 
 eradicated with the death of its authors, without leaving 
 any seeds of future innovations. But still the difficulty re- 
 curs, whether the misguided religionist, whose opinions do 
 not interfere with the peace of society, the property of indi- 
 viduals, and the rights of magistracy — and which are less 
 subjected to the criterion of human understanding, being of 
 the speculative kind, is punishable by the magistrate's sword? 
 Reason combines with religion, to inform us that he is not; 
 and the experience of ages evinces the impotence of such 
 attempts. ' The melancholy with which the fear of death, 
 4 torture, and persecution, inspires the sectaries,' says Mr. 
 Hume, ' is the proper disposition for softening religious zeal. 
 4 The prospect of eternal rewards, when brought near, over- 
 4 powers the dread of temporary punishments : the glory 
 4 of martyrdom stimulates all the more furious zealots, 
 
 * Moore's Travels. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 191 
 
 'Where a violent animosity is excited by oppression, 
 4 men pass naturally from hating the persons of their ty- 
 4 rants, to a more violent abhorrence of their doctrine : 
 4 and the spectators, moved with pity towards the supposed 
 4 martyrs, are naturally seduced to embrace those prin- 
 4 ciples which can inspire men with a constancy almost 
 4 supernatural.' 
 
 At all events, whatever may be said in favour of suppress- 
 ing, by persecution, the first beginnings of error; no solid 
 argument can be alleged for extending severity to multi- 
 tudes. Or if persecution of any kind be allowed, the most 
 violent is the most effectual. Imprisonments, fines,. and 
 confiscations, are heavier torments, than the stake, wheel, 
 or gibbet. For the man is tormented, but the error is not 
 suppressed. 
 
 What is to be done, then, in the first stage of the error. 
 Let the spiritual society, to whom the religionist belongs, 
 when he attempts to alter her doctrine, correct, admonish, 
 and exhort him. If he continues to be obstinate, let 
 her refuse him her sacraments, the participation of her 
 spiritual communion, the communication of her spiritual 
 worship. — To this alone her power is confined : she may 
 caution her members against the contagion of his errors. 
 Life, limb, the enjoyment of his estate, the authority of 
 a husband, are founded in nature, and cannot be alienated 
 by any spiritual jurisdiction ; much less by the civil ma- 
 gistrate, who is not a competent judge of error; and 
 whose sword may pierce the body, but can never con- 
 t'oul the mind. 
 
 But if the laws of God, and the rights of mankind, do not 
 permit to oppress an individual, for his mental errors ; what 
 are we to say when numbers of sects get footing in a state ? 
 Let the door of toleration be thrown open to them all, and 
 not one of them be exposed as a butt to all the rest. Mutual 
 hatred will relax, and the common occupations and plea- 
 sures of life, will succeed to the acrimony of religious dis- 
 putations. 
 
 In vain do Calvin, Bellarmin, and other apologists of per- 
 secution, arm the magistrate with texts of the old law, 
 which commands to stone the false prophets to death, 
 
 cc 
 
192 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 to put idolatrous cities to the sword, and ' to slay Agag 
 4 before the Lord.' The Jewish polity is quite different 
 from modern political institutions. God himself was the 
 immediate governor of society, who worded, by himself, 
 their laws and ceremonies — who blended together their 
 civil and religious institutions — and who had an imme- 
 diate power to deprive sinful man of the life of which 
 he himself was the author. Neither was it every false 
 prophet he ordered to be stoned, nor every city he 
 ordered to be put to the sword ; but such prophets as 
 sprang up from amongst the Jews themselves, and such 
 cities as belonged to the Jewish theocracy — 1 mean, cities 
 inhabited by Jews who had been instructed in his laws 
 and ceremonies. 4 If a false prophet rise up amongst you, 
 * in those days.' * The city which shall worship gods un- 
 4 known there before,' &c. 
 
 This was rebellion against the state which he had 
 taken under his immediate protection, and which was of 
 so peculiar a frame, as to be entirely dissolved by the 
 introduction of idolatry. As, if a set of preachers got 
 up now, and instilled into the minds of the people, a 
 doctrine that would overthrow the three powers of the 
 state in those kingdoms, to introduce a democracy ; or 
 monarchy into Holland, on the ruins of a republican go- 
 vernment—they certainly would suffer in both places, not 
 for their religion, but for treason, in attempting to over- 
 throw the respective governments. 
 
 Hence, the neighbouring cities, plunged in idolatry, which 
 were not under the laws of the Jewish theocracy, were not 
 destroyed on account of their false worship, but on account 
 of crimes committed against the laws of nature, which had 
 filled the measure of their iniquities. And Agag, a name so 
 familiar in the mouths of fanatical preachers, in the time of 
 Charles the First — and which, to the scandal of that age, and 
 the discredit of the English peers and cavaliers, was couched 
 in their address to Queen Elizabeth, requesting the death of 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, 4 as Samuel slew Agag.' Agag, I 
 say, was not put to death for worshipping his false gods, 
 but for his cruelty and violation of the laws of nations : 
 6 As thy sword,' says the prophet, 4 has made many wo-. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 195 
 
 * men childless, so your mother shall be a widow this 
 
 Sensible rewards and sensible punishments were requisite 
 for the Jewish people. It was requisite to raise a wall of 
 separation between them and neighbouring nations to pre- 
 vent the fatal effects of their inclination to idolatry. Their 
 religious worship required to be inseparably interwoven 
 with their civil polity, and considered the infringers of the 
 law of God as rebels to the state, and enemies of their 
 country. Their worship was an instrument in the hands of 
 God, to exterminate people polluted with the most abomi- 
 nable crimes. Hence, afflictive punishments and death itself 
 decreed by the law of Moses, against Jews fallen into idola- 
 try, or into any other crime contrary to the law. 
 
 Those institutions were to have an end : the new alliance, 
 promised in the old, has levelled the barrier that separated 
 Jew and Gentile — uniting both in the profession of the same 
 faith. It proposes more sublime and exalted motives than 
 those proposed by the Mosaic law. In the room of tempo- 
 ral rewards and temporal punishments, it has substituted 
 those of an invisible and eternal nature. It acknowledges 
 no strangers.: it knows no enemy : it opens a door of mercy 
 to all, and an entrance into its mysteries, without terror or 
 compulsion. It is a delicious fruit that attracts the eyes of 
 those who choose to view it ; but never forces the hand to 
 pluck it. Jesus Christ never said : 4 whoever does not fol- 
 4 low me, shall be miserable in this world, shall be consi- 
 
 * dered as a rebel to the state in which he lives, unprotected 
 4 by the laws, doomed to the fagot, or stripped of his pro- 
 ' perty.' — He leaves it to every one's choice, either to fol- 
 low or renounce him : 4 if any one choose to come after me.' 
 4 Si quis VUU? When his very disciples intended to quit 
 him, he does not retain them by compulsion, but says, 
 in a gentle manner, 4 are you, also, willing to quit me ?' 
 And it is in vain to boast a gospel liberty, when people are 
 dragged, by confiscations, forfeitures, and death itself, as 
 so many forced victims, into the sanctuary of religion. 
 
 It is an abominable palliative to say, that, though the 
 fathers are bad proselytes, yet the children or grand-chil- 
 dren may be good Protestants, or good Catholics. As if 
 
194 MISCELLANEOUS- TRACTS. 
 
 the son should be put in the way of salvation, by the perjury 
 and hypocrisy of the father; religion propagated by crimes, 
 and evil committed, in consideration of the good which may 
 arise from it, in express opposition to the tenets of that reli- 
 gion which forbids it. The religion of Jesus Christ is pro- 
 posed to all ; and the more universal it is, the less it employs 
 terrors or constraints to enforce obedience to its injunctions. 
 It stamps the sentiments of humanity, dictated by the law 
 of nature, with a peculiar character of sweetness and charity. 
 
 Scarce had its founder assembled a few disciples, when 
 two of them, storming with rage for being refused the rights 
 of hospitality, requested permission to bring down the fire 
 of heaven on the inhabitants. They imagined themselves 
 in the times of Elias, when God punished with visible chas- 
 tisements the insults offered to his prophets. Jesus Christ 
 undeceives them : ' you know not to what spirit you belong; 
 4 the son of man is not come to kill, but to save.' As if he 
 said, both to them and their successors : 4 It is no longer 
 4 the time of menaces and torments. You live under a law 
 ' whose spirit is not the spirit of error, but the spirit of con- 
 4 fidence and love. The Master whom you serve, does not 
 4 thirst after the blood of his enemies; he does not choose 
 4 to see them at his feet, in a fit of rage and despair. 
 4 Forced homages are odious in his eyes : thunder and the 
 4 exterminating sword are not his arms : he is only come to 
 4 convert and save souls : but not to destroy or famish the 
 4 bodies of men.' 
 
 Hence, he has not given to those whom he charged 
 with the commission of extending and propagating his reli- 
 gion, any instruction but that of imitating his zeal, his pati- 
 ence, and his charity towards mankind. He has furnished 
 them with no other means of making proselytes to his 
 religion, but persuasion, prayer, and good example. The 
 theocratical government is no longer confounded and inter- 
 woven with civil and political institutions. The king- 
 dom of Jesus Christ is not of this world : he leaves the 
 ^jjers of the earth the full enjoyment of their preroga- 
 tives, whether they know him, or whether they blaspheme 
 his name : and he leaves their subjects in full possession of 
 tttftp rights, as men. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 195 
 
 Jesus Christ does not choose for subjects but such as 
 Freely list in his service. Those who are rebellious to his 
 voice, he terrifies with the punishment of a future state ; and 
 has not commissioned any power on earth to enlarge, by 
 force, the boundaries of his kingdom. However his crea- 
 tures may be divided in opinion about speculative points, he 
 has left them one law which is liable to no interpretation, and 
 must ever be interpreted in the literal sense : ' love one ano- 
 4 ther ; and do not to others, what you would not have others 
 c do unto you.' 
 
 Calvin and Bellarmin's remaining arguments consist in 
 similies, and some misconstrued passages of the fathers, who, 
 in their homilies, inveigh against errors in faith, as against 
 adultery, forgery, &c. on account of the divorce, a breach of 
 divine faith causes between God and the Christian soul, and 
 the enormity of forging or counterfeiting the divine creden- 
 tials, with the hand of error. But the disparity is obvious. 
 Adultery, forgery, and similar crimes, fall immediately under 
 the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate, on account of the in- 
 jury offered to society, by invading the property of indivi- 
 duals committed to his care. The man who is in error, hurts 
 none but himself. If others be milled by him, it is their own 
 choice, and the result of their free will, over which the civil 
 power has no controul ; nor the ecclesiastical power, but as 
 far as it can refuse such persons the sacraments and the other 
 religious symbols of her communion, which no other church 
 will give those out of her pale, and which no person, out of 
 her pale \\ ill require. 
 
 But, in every state, is not blasphemy punished, though of a 
 spiritual nature ? 
 
 Blasphemy is punished, because it is an open irreverence to 
 the Deity, the knowledge of whose attributes, and the dread of 
 whose justice, is the very basis of civil society. But an er- 
 roneous opinion, in religion, can subsist-with the respect due 
 to the Deity. 
 
 A man, engaged in error, proposes to himself to serve 
 God in the manner he thinks most pleasing to the Sovereign 
 Being. Though he mistakes the right road, yet his inten- 
 tion is sincere. Moreover, blasphemy involves a breach of 
 manners, which has a natural tendency to disturb the peace 
 
196 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 of society. A friend takes offence, if his friend is abused in 
 his presence ; a brother, if his brother is used in an indecent 
 manner. 
 
 A Jewish rabbin may preach in his synagogue, that the 
 Messiah is not yet come, and extricate himself as well as he 
 can, by doing away the weeks and days of the prophet Da- 
 niel. No Christian can blame him : for 4 we all know that it 
 is the man's belief; and that he is sincere, though in error 
 at the same time. But this Jew, convinced that Christ is 
 respected by the Christians, and worshipped by them, as 
 their God, would expose himself to the rigour of the magis- 
 trate, if he openly called Christ an impostor : because he in- 
 sults the magistrate more than if he gave this denomination 
 to his father or brother. 
 
 The most monstrous absurdity, then, that ever met with 
 apologists in church or state, is the misdirected zeal that 
 punishes the body for the sincerity of an erroneous con- 
 science. Whereas, no person deserves more the severity of 
 human laws, than the impostor who betrays it. The divines 
 themselves, whose forced interpretations of scripture, and 
 theological disputes, have armed sovereigns against their sub- 
 jects, agree that no person can act against the immediate dic- 
 tates of an erroneous conscience. Hence, the Jew, who is 
 under a conviction that Christ is not God, would be guilty of 
 gross idolatry, if, from motives of worldly interest, he wor- 
 shipped him with the Christians. In punishing him for not 
 worshipping Christ, you punish the candour, sincerity, and 
 uprightness of a deluded man, who is afraid to offend his 
 Creator. The same can be said of all others who dissent 
 from any established religion. 
 
 But I will be told, that, in reasoning thus, I renounce my 
 own creed ; whereas the rescripts of Popes, the establishment 
 of the inquisition, and numberless texts of the canon law, re- 
 lating to heretics, shew what a Catholic clergyman ought to 
 believe. 
 
 I have already declared, and sufficiently proved, that the 
 rescripts of all the Popes that ever sat in Peter's chair, or ever 
 will, can never make an article of faith for Roman Catholics ; 
 no more than a king of England's proclamation can make an 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 197 
 
 article of faith for English Protestants, though he is head of 
 their church. 
 
 Positive laws and human establishments, temporary sanc- 
 tions and local regulations, are no creeds, nor articles of* 
 religion: and, happy for the honour of the Protestant 
 religion in these realms, that they are not. No Catholic 
 divine ever attributed such power to a general council, as 
 Sir William Blackstone attributes to the British Parliament. 
 * It can change,' says he, ' the religion of the land, and do 
 'every thing under heaven, that is possible.' If all its acts 
 were to be considered as articles of faith, (as some paltry 
 scribblers would fain obtrude on the public, the texts of the 
 canon-law, and the rescripts of Popes, as articles of Catholic 
 belief,) the world has never seen such a religious creed. 
 
 The reader would see, in Gothic characters, imprison- 
 ment and death decreed against the priest, for saying his 
 prayers ; to pervert or be perverted to the see of Rome, 
 punished as high treason ; a second refusal to take the old 
 oath of supremacy, liable to a similar punishment. He 
 would see the neighbour authorised to take his neighbour's 
 horse ; the son authorised to strip the father of his property ; 
 the articles of Limerick, under the solemn faith of a capi- 
 tulation, violated without the least provocation on the part of 
 the inhabitants. From those he would pass to others of less 
 importance. He would see a solemn act of the legislature, 
 commanding women to declare their own shame, and making 
 it high treason in them to marry the king, if they were not 
 virgins,* another making it high treason in people who saw 
 the nuptial rites performed, and the monarch go to the nup- 
 tial bed with his spouse, to believe that he was married to 
 Anne of Cieves. 
 
 The Catholic orator, who would fain be on equal terms 
 with his Protestant brother, either in the pulpit or in print, 
 would amplify his theme, enumerate the circumstances, and 
 in a long strain of invective, hold forth that it is a principle 
 of the Protestant religion, to persecute to death those of a 
 different religion ; to encourage disobedience and rebellion in 
 children to their parents ; to rob a man of his property ; to 
 violate the laws of nations ; to be so incredulous as not to be- 
 
 * Sec the monstrous Acts of Parliament, in the reign of Henry VIII 
 
198 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 lieve their own eyes ; and to administer to the passions and 
 lust of their kings : than to produce extracts of their statutes, 
 in corroboration of the charge, and to cast those horrors on 
 all the Protestants in the world ! 
 
 The candid, impartial man, would be more nice than to 
 confound the actions of men, and their positive laws, with 
 the principles of the Protestant religion. And candour 
 should induce the ministers of the gospel, not to revile the 
 body of Catholics, by extending local regulations, exagge- 
 rating facts, and erecting the mistakes and prejudices of a 
 few, into a religious creed and a symbol of orthodoxy for the 
 whole. 
 
 Those laws, then, that doom heretics to death, as well as 
 the establishment of the inquisition, are no parts of a Ca- 
 tholic's creed ; no more than the fore-mentioned acts of par- 
 liament are part of the church of England's creed. 
 
 The true religion should be preserved and perpetuated by 
 the same means that established it — by preaching the word 
 of God, attended with prudence and discretion — the practice 
 of all Christian virtues — boundless peace and charity. 
 
 Machiavel is of opinion, that 'disarmed prophets never 
 ' made any conquests.' Whatever respect is due to him, on 
 account of his skill in sanguinary politics and literature, in 
 this maxim he betrays equal ignorance and impiety. No 
 prophet ever appeared more destitute of arms than Jesus 
 ^Christ : no prophet ever made such rapid and extensive con- 
 quests — I mean conquests such as he intended to make, by 
 winning the hearts, changing the interior dispositions of men, 
 and, from bad and wicked, making them better and more 
 virtuous. 
 
 The Christian religion gained ground under the heathen 
 emperors, in the midst of the most violent persecutions, 
 during three centuries. 
 
 The reverend gentlemen, who thought it lawful for kings 
 to handle the sword, in vindication of the Deity, should have 
 recollected that all the fathers, during five centuries, took 
 this famous saying of Tertullian for their motto : ' Non est 
 * rehgionis, religioncm cogereJ' It is not the province of re- 
 ligion, to force religion: it is needless to crowd my page with 
 them. St. Gregory the Great, who lived in the sixth ceii- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 199 
 
 tury, and knew the obligations of religion, as well as any of 
 his successors, writes to a bishop who had beaten one of 
 his clergy for heresy, that it is an unheard of and novel 
 method of preaching the Gospel, to enforce faith with the 
 cudgel. — ' Nova et inaudita pr&dicatio, quce baculo adigit 
 jidem.' No heretics more dangerous in a state than the 
 Pri>cillianists, whose maxim was — to swear and forswear 
 themselves, sooner than betray their secrets. Their doc- 
 trine was condemned in a Council in Spain, but their 
 persons left at liberty. Two Spanish bishops, Ithacus and 
 Ursatius, solicited the tyrant Maximus to put Priscillian to 
 death. Hence St. Martin of Tours, and all the bishops of 
 Gaul and Spain, would never communicate with those 
 sanguinary prelates, who were afterwards banished. Even 
 a council that was held, would not admit any bishop who 
 would communicate with one Felix, who concurred in the 
 accusation of Priscillian, and whom the fathers call, ' a mur- 
 derer of heretics.' 
 
 The Council of Toledo forbids the use of violence to 
 enforce belief: 'because,' add the fathers, 'God shews 
 
 * mercy to whom he thinks fit ; and hardens whom he 
 
 * pleases.' — ' Prcecipit sancta synodus nemini deinceps ad 
 ' credendum vim inferre. Cui enim Dens vult y miser etur ; 
 1 et quem vult, induraV* And the Council of Lateran, 
 under Pope Alexander the Third, acknowledges, that the 
 church rejects bloody executions, on the score of religion : 
 which proves to demonstration, that the canon charged to 
 the fourth Council of Lateran, under Innocent the Third— 
 in Which canon 'the secular powers are addressed to make 
 ' an oath, to extirminate all heretics out of their territo- 
 ' ries, and, in case ot refusal, to have their subjects absolved 
 ' from their allegiance, and the lands of the heretics to be 
 
 * seized by the Catholics,' &c. — is spurious. Collier, the 
 Protestant historian, in his fifth volume of ecclesiastical 
 history, acknowledges that it is not found in any copy 
 coeval with the Council. Some hundred years after the 
 Council, it was produced to light by a German : and we 
 know full well, that, at that time, several spurious pieces 
 were produced, to serve the purposes of rancour. 
 
 * Cap. de JucLeis, dist. 43. 
 D D 
 
20tf MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 Were even such a decree, or any other of a similar nature, 
 genuine, the Catholics would reject them, without any breach 
 of faith : because the church has no power over life, limb, 
 the rights of sovereigns, the property of individuals, or any 
 temporal concern whatsoever. Her bishops, then, whether 
 separately, or in a collective body, cannot graft any such 
 power into their spiritual commission. They would act in 
 an extrajudicial manner, and beyond the limits of their 
 sphere. This I have proved in my Kemarks on Mr. Wesley's 
 letters, and elsewhere. 
 
 Far from countenancing cruelty, death, and oppression, 
 
 * the spirit of the church was, in such a manner, the spirit of 
 ' meekness and charity, that she prevented, as much as in her 
 4 power, the death of criminals, and even of her most cruel 
 
 * enemies,' says Fleury. * You have seen how the lives of the 
 ' murderers of the martyrs of Aunania were saved ; and St. 
 
 * Austin's efforts to preserve the Donatists (who had exer- 
 
 * cised such cruelties against the Catholics) from the rigour 
 
 * of the Imperial laws. You have seen how much the church 
 4 detested the indiscreet zeal of those bishops, who persecuted 
 1 the heresiarch Priscillian to death. In general, the church 
 
 * saved the lives of all criminals, as far as she had power. St. 
 
 * Augustine accounts for this conduct, in his letter to Mace- 
 ' donius, where we read, that the church wished there were 
 'no pains in this life, but of the healing kind, to destroy not 
 1 man, but sin, and to preserve the sinner from eternal 
 
 * torments.'* 
 
 If, in after ages, some Popes and bishops deviated from this 
 plan of meekness and moderation, their conduct should not 
 involve a consequence injurious to the principles of the Ca- 
 tholic church, which condemns such proceedings. The re- 
 ligion of Catholics and Protestants condemns frauds, fornica- 
 tions, drunkenness, revenge, duelling, perjury, &c. Some of 
 their relaxed and impious writers have even attempted not 
 only to palliate, but even to apologize for such disorders. — 
 The children of the Christian religion daily practise them : 
 is the Christian religion accountable for the breach of her 
 own laws? 
 
 * Fleury, Discourse 2, No. 9- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 201 
 
 We prefer, then, the primitive fathers of the church, to 
 Sylvester a Prieris, and some other canonists : and we pre- 
 sume as much knowledge and zeal for the Catholic religion 
 in Gregory the Great and his predecessors, as in any of his 
 successors, in ages less refined. 
 
 The opposition given in Catholic countries to the esta- 
 blishment of the inquisition — the death of the inquisitors by 
 the hands of the people — and the general odium it raised — 
 prove that sparks of the moderation and meekness recom- 
 mended in the Gospel, and practised in the primitive times, 
 with regard to people of a different persuasion, were not quite 
 extinct, even in the ages of darkness and barbarism. Popes 
 themselves opposed its introduction into Venice : and whe- 
 ther from policy or piety, I shall not take on me to deter- 
 mine. 
 
 But Berkley remarks, that, ' if policy induced a Pope to 
 1 oppose its introduction in a certain state, policy might have 
 * induced another Pope to introduce it into his own.'* I am 
 convinced he was not mistaken in his conjectures. 
 
 The Pope was in possession of a city which formerly gave 
 birth to so many heroes, besides a good territory bestowed cfi 
 him by several sovereigns. He thought it high time to look 
 about him, when all Europe was in one general blaze. The 
 liberty of the Gospel, preached by Muncer and several other 
 enthusiasts, threw all Germany into a flame, and armed boors 
 against their sovereigns. As he was a temporal prince, he 
 dreaded for his sovereignty, as well as other crowned heads 
 in his neighbourhood ; and the more so, as his soldiers were 
 better skilled in saying their beads, than handling the 
 musket. 
 
 Great events, the downfal of empires, and the rise or de- 
 struction of extraordinary characters, are commonly foretold 
 in oracles, both sacred and profane ; and he found himself m 
 the same dubious and critical situation with Montezuma, 
 when the Spaniards landed in America. 
 
 " Old prophecies foretel our fall at hand, 
 
 •* When bearded men in floating- «astles land."f 
 
 Long before the reformation, the dimensions of his city 
 
 * Minute Philosopho)-. \ Dryden's Indian Que«n. 
 
202 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 weie taken; the line was extended over its walls,; and it 
 ware discovered that it was the ' great city, built on seven 
 ' bills, tin harlot that had made the kings of the earth drunk 
 
 * with her cup ; and that her sovereign was Antichrist, the 
 ' man of sin,' mentioned by St. Paul, in his epistle to the 
 Tiiessalonians, Wickliff, Huss, and Jerome of Prague, had 
 laid down a rule, many years before, that ' Popes, princes 
 
 * and bishops, in the state of mortal sin, have no power :' 
 and a state of grace was, doubtless, incompatible with the 
 character of Antichrist. Jerome of Prague, who was burnt 
 afterwards at Constance, to shew that Rome was the harlot of 
 the Revelations, after beating a monk, and drowning another, 
 cliessed one day, a prostitute in a Pope's attire, with the three- 
 crowned cap, made of paper, on her head, and in her head- 
 dress, without being so careful of the rest of her body ; leads 
 the female pontiff, half naked, in procession through the 
 streets of Prague, in derision of a religion professed by the 
 magistrates. 
 
 Some well-bred divines there are, who justify such pro- 
 ceedings, on the principle that it was requisite, at that time, 
 
 * to cry aloud, and use a strong wedge to break the knotty 
 
 * block of Popery.' I do not believe there is a well-bred 
 Protestant living, who wouid applaud either martyr or divine 
 who would exhibit such a merry spectacle in the streets of 
 Dublin or London ; or who would shed a tear for his loss, 
 if, after exhibiting such a show in Rome or in Pans, he fell 
 into the hands of the inquisition, or were sent to the gallies. 
 The gospel truth is no enemy to decency. 
 
 St. Paul, in pleading his cause before Festus, did not in- 
 veigh against his vestal virgins, the adulteries of their gods, 
 or the wickedness of his emperors. Let a religion of state be 
 ever so false, the magistrate who professes it, will feci himself 
 insulted, when it is attacked in a gross, injurious manner : 
 and, if iipologies can be made for indecencies and seditious 
 doctrines, under pretence of overthrowing idolatry, some al- 
 lowance must be made for men who think themselves insulted 
 by such attacks. 
 
 The Pope, then, as a sovereign prince, had every thing 
 to dread, when the thrones of the German princes began to 
 totter from the shocks of inspiration : but what still increased 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 203 
 
 his alarms, was — the unfolding of the Revelations, which 
 held him up to all Europe, as the Antichrist, the ge- 
 neral enemy of Christians, who should be destroyed. 
 Lest any one should miss his aim, it was proved from 
 the Revelations, that he was the beast with ten horns; 
 and, in bearing down such a game, the world was to be 
 renewed, and the peaceful reign of the millennium, during 
 which Christ was to reign with the saints on earth, 
 was to begin. The time was approaching. Old John 
 Fox, the martyrologist, says, that ' after long study and 
 4 prayers, God had cast suddenly into his mind, by di- 
 vine inspiration, that the forty-two months must be re- 
 ferred to the church's persecution, from the time of 
 4 John the Baptist.' This calculation was to bring on 
 the Pope's destruction about the year sixteen hundred. 
 Brightraan was more precise, and foretold the final down- 
 fal of the Pope, in the year fifteen hundred and forty- 
 six : others in fifteen hundred and fifty-six : and others 
 in fifteen hundred and fifty-nine. Luther came closer to the 
 famous aera ; and published his prophecy, in which it 
 was revealed to him, that the Pope and the Turk would be 
 destroyed in two years after the date ol his oracle. This cer- 
 tainly, was a close attack on the Pope, who in all appear- 
 ance, did not like to die so soon, even of a natural 
 death. He apprehended the accomplishment of the ora- 
 cles the more, as at that time almost every one was 
 inspired, and ready to do any thing for the destruction 
 of Antichrist. 
 
 Alexander Ross, in his view of religion, describes 
 numbers of those prophets, and amongst the rest one 
 Hermannus Sutor, a cobbler of Optzant, who professed 
 himself a true prophet, and the Messiah Son of God : 
 a very dangerous neighbour for Antichrist ! This man, 
 to receive the prophetic inspiration, stretched himself na- 
 ked in bed ; and, after ordering a hogshead of strong 
 beer to be brought close to him, began to drink in 
 the source of inspiration, and to receive the spirit by 
 infusion; when on a sudden, ■* he,' to use the words of 
 Alexander Ross, ' with a Stentor's voice and a horrid 
 'howling, among other things, often repeated this: Kill, 
 4 cut throats, without any quarter, of all those monks, 
 
204 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 'all those Popes. Repent, repent: for jour deliverance is 
 *at hand.'* However extraordinary such a character would 
 appear now, jet at that time, inspiration was so frequent, 
 that one would imagine all Germany was a nation of pro- 
 phets; and Hermannus, who was afterwards put to death 
 by Charles, lord of Guelderland, had credit enough to make 
 proselytes. 
 
 The Pope, thus aimed at, as an object of destruction, 
 from all quarters — and seeing, almost in every nation in 
 Europe, a nursery of prophets foretelling his ruin, and 
 animating the candidates for sanctity to undertake the 
 pious task — began to tremble, not only for his territo- 
 ries, but moreover for his personal safety. He knew that 
 the imaginations of his Italian subjects were naturally 
 warm ; and that, if but one of them caught the prophetic 
 flame, the stiletto would soon be darted into Antichrist. 
 He found Imperial laws already enacted, and as be was 
 a temporal prince whose person was more exposed than 
 any highwayman in Europe, he copied those laws into 
 his directory ; and erected the Inquisition as a barrier 
 between himself and the formidable foes, who not only 
 foretold his downfal, but encouraged their followers to fulfil 
 the prediction. 
 
 The impartial reader, in tracing this formidable tribunal, 
 will discover a pelitical establishment, and a temporal safe- 
 guard. None can infer from its institution, that it is lawful 
 by the principles of religion, to deprive a man of his life, 
 precisely on account of his worship : and every one must 
 acknowledge, that, if ever a prince, whose life and territories 
 were in danger, was authorised to take the severest precau- 
 tions to secure both, no mortal could plead for greater in- 
 dulgence in having recourse to rigorous measures, than one 
 who united in his person the dignity of a prince, which at 
 that time was both an object of envy and detestation to people 
 who considered sovereignty as subversive of Christian li- 
 berty — and the character of a sovereign pontiff, which made 
 him pass for an outlaw, and the great enemy of Christ, in 
 whose destruction the world was so deeply concerned. Let 
 any person put himself in his case, and judge for himself. 
 
 * Ross's Vi«w of Religions. Id the appeidix, p. 31. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 205 
 
 It is then, to those authors who disgraced themselves, 
 and exposed the oracles of the Christian religion to the 
 derision of infidels, with their fanatical calculations, their 
 beasts, horns, and strained allegories of seven hills — it is to 
 the rage of people who could not take more effectual steps 
 to get him stabbed in his church or his palace — and to the 
 terrors of a man who thought himself justifiable in provid- 
 ing for his personal safety — that the world is indebted for 
 the inquisition in Rome. Its fires are daily extinguishing, in 
 proportion as prophecy is diminishing ; and the liberty of 
 a refined age discovers no horns on the head of a Gangan- 
 nelli, or Benedict the Fourteenth, who united in their 
 persons the grandeur of kings, the discretion of bishops, 
 the elegance of courtiers, and the learning of philoso- 
 phers. 
 
 The two last prophets I have read who have brought the 
 Pope's destruction nearer our own times, are Whiston and 
 Burroughs. The first foretold that the Pope's destruction 
 would happen in seventeen hundred and twenty-four. 
 And the second finding Mr. Whiston's prophecy contra- 
 dicted by time, began himself to prophecy that this great event 
 was to happen in seventeen hundred and sixty. Yet, since 
 those two prophets i have been gathered unto their father,' 
 the air of Rome has not been embalmed with the effluvia 
 of the smoking blood of a Jew; and in Spain and Portu- 
 gal, we hear no longer of human victims being offered up 
 as 4 a sacrifice of agreeable odour to the Lord.' 
 
 In those two kingdoms, the inquisition owes its origin to 
 causes much similar to those which gave it rise at Rome; 
 but causes, however, which did not so immediately affect 
 the sovereign, who was blended with the common mass of 
 monarchs, without any peculiar distinction to expose him 
 to the hatred of mankind ; or to afford his assassin a plea of 
 impunity, bv alleging that he was the deliverer of the 
 world, by ridding it of the enemy of the Son of God, de- 
 scribed in the prophecies of Daniel, pointed out in the 
 Revelations, and whose downfall was foretold at such 
 a time, by the most celebrated interpreters of scrip- 
 ture. 
 
 The Spaniards struggling for a long time with Maho- 
 
206 s MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 met's followers who had invaded their country, and reduced 
 them not only to the most abject slavery, but moreover 
 forced them to supply the fire of their lusts with continual 
 fuel, by sending an annual tribute of Christian virgins to 
 their seraglios, made at last that great effort so memorable 
 in history. 
 
 It is well known that before the defeat of the Moors, and 
 their total expulsion from the Spanish dominions, they were 
 preparing, under hand, for war, and had their leaders already 
 chosen. Banished for ever from a kingdom where they had 
 trampled on the laws which all Christians, and even heathen 
 fathers deemed most sacred, a barrier to their return was 
 erected; and, as by their own laws, every Christian who has 
 any connexion with a Mahometan woman, is to pass through 
 the fire, the tables were turned on themselves, and the ex- 
 pectants of an earthly paradise were threatened with the 
 fagot, if they returned to initiate the children of Christians 
 in their mysteries. 
 
 The most effectual way to remove prejudices, is — to put 
 one's self in other people's situation. And if the establish- 
 ment of the inquisition seems severe and unreasonable, it 
 must be acknowledged, that the love of life, and the abhor- 
 rence of oppression, are passions that very often overpower 
 reason itself. No man would choose to be considered as an 
 outlaw on whose head a price was set, and to whose de- 
 struction thousands were animated, under the sanction of 
 scripture. Neither is it in the nature of Christian Kings, 
 who often destroy their own relations, when they suspect 
 them for aspiring to their throne, to suffer the sworn ene- 
 mies of the Gospel, and the corrupters of the morals it en- 
 forces, in possession of their provinces and palaces, when 
 they can recover what they deem their right. It was, then, 
 dread of danger, and love of liberty, a deep sense of inju- 
 ries, and a provisionary caution against death and oppression, 
 not a principle of religion, that gave rise to the inquisition 
 in Rome, Spain, and Portugal. It is not from the church it 
 can derive any power: and if it has any other motive in view 
 than to secure the peace of society by temporal means, it 
 exceeds the limits of its authority. For error in faith is not 
 a crime, but relatively to a supernatural order, which does 
 
MISCELLANEOUS ^RACTS. 207 
 
 not come within the verge of «civil jurisdiction : and the 
 last resource of the church is only a canonical censure. 
 Those censures she never denounces, but against her 
 own rebellious children, reared up in her bosom: and 
 with regard even to those, she is boimd to use the greatest 
 precaution. 
 
 Her spiritual weapons should not be drawn but against 
 the enormities of individuals ; nor against those, when 
 they are powerful enough to raise a faction or party; 
 nor against any one, when it is probable they will not 
 obtain the end proposed — I mean, the correction of the 
 sinner. 'With regard to the multitude, censures are 
 ' never employed,' says St. Austin. Exhortations, not com- 
 mands — instructions, not menaces — are, then, her only 
 weapons. And when any of her popes or bishops adopted 
 any other plan, they consulted more their power, and 
 the rigour of the law, than the rules of prudence. They 
 behaved like those hot headed princes, who, finding a great 
 number of their subjects guilty of insurrection, would put 
 them all to the sword, at the hazard of seeing their king- 
 doms depopulated. ^ * 
 
 Whence, then, came those rigorous laws on the score 
 of religion to be introduced ? If speculative errors, un- 
 connected with principles subversive of subordination and 
 morality, have been the oniy motives, it must be ac- 
 knowledged, that they originated in an abuse of power, 
 and an error of fact, as well as of right, which made 
 princes believe that, as they were the arbiters of life 
 and death they could punish all kinds of crimes, whether 
 against God, or the peace of civil society. In matters 
 more immediately within the reach of the civil magis- 
 trate, the laws of all nations afford instances of power 
 extending beyond the limits of reason, and confounding 
 the sacred rules of equity, which proportion the punish- 
 ment to the offence. Thus, in Holland, a suhject forfeits 
 his life, if he kill a stork, when a few dollars would 
 be a sufficient penalty : especially for a Dutchman. In 
 England, the cutting down a cherry-tree in an orchard 
 is a capital offence. And in. Ireland, 1 have seen two 
 men put to death — the one, because a sheep was found 
 
 E E 
 
2oa 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 in his bain, which the real thief had left there ; and the 
 other, for a miserable calf-skin, which he bought on the high- 
 road, from the man who stole it; and who, doubtless, 
 did not inform the purchaser of the manner in which 
 he had acquired it: — when the laws dictated by God 
 himself, decreed no more than the restitution of an ass, 
 against the thief who had stolen one from his neigh- 
 bour; and a four-fold restitution against the man who 
 stole an ox. 
 
 If princes and other rulers, then, magnify objects in such 
 a manner as to make trifles capita!, in consequence of their 
 power, to which they imagine no bounds should be pre- 
 scribed ; let us not be surprised if monarchs, who thought 
 themselves the delegates of Heaven, and answerable for any 
 crime against the divinity, which they would countenance 
 if) their state, have enacted laws which torture the body for 
 the errors of the mind. 
 
 It was with difficulty that king Edward the Sixth was 
 prevailed on, not to commit his sister Mary to the flames. 
 For he could not reconcile his conscience, to permit his sister 
 to live in idolatry, when it was in his power to check the 
 progress of such a disorder. 
 
 We see, by the different edicts against heretics, in the 
 Theodosian code, that the first Christian emperors did not, 
 however, consider religious error as a sufficient cause for 
 capital punishment. Constantino grants a free toleration to 
 all Christians, in one of his edicts: in another he restrains 
 this indulgence to Catholics alone. In one edict, he orders 
 the churches to be taken from the Donatists : in another, he 
 moderates the rigour of this edict, by permitting them tore- 
 turn to their country, and to live there quiet; <■ reserving 
 ' to God the punishment of their crime.'' Remarkable words ! 
 We have seen before, how the primitive fathers opposed 
 sanguinary executions, and pleaded for liberty of conscience. 
 St. Hilary earnestly requests the Emperor Constantius to 
 grant his subjects liberty of conscience, whether they be 
 Aliens or no 
 
 If, then, in an age enlightened by the works of the fathers, 
 and after the example set by Constantine, the Emperor 
 Theodosius condemned Maniclueans to the tire; it must b<* 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 209 
 
 more owing to abominable practices, than to speculative er- 
 rors. And, if succeeding emperors continued the same ri- 
 gour, it is that sedition or immorality, or both, kept pace 
 and were incorporated with speculative deviations. Scarce 
 an age, since Theodosius's time until of late years, but 
 brooded some immoral or seditious doctrine, which armed 
 the magistrate's hand with the exterminating sword. Great 
 part of St. Austin's time was taken up in pleading for mercy 
 with the African governors, in favour of the Donatists 
 and Crescellians, who continually exercised the greatest 
 cruelties. 
 
 Another age gave rise to the Patarini and Runcaires, who 
 amongst other errors maintained, that no mortal sin could 
 be committed by the lower part of the body. The theory 
 was reduced to practice ; and, doubtless, the magistrate was 
 roused to severity. 
 
 The Albigenses said that God had two wives. Marriage, 
 however, was condemned, without considering chastity as a 
 virtue. In detestation of the sacrament of the altar, churches 
 were turned into receptacles for the unhappy votaries of 
 venus : and in the sanctuary where the magistrate was ac- 
 customed to see the minister of religion officiate, nothing 
 could be seen but offerings to Cloacina. In twelve hundred 
 and thirty, the Stadings of Germany honoured Lucifer; in- 
 veighed against God for condemning that rebel-angel to 
 darkness ; held that one day he would be re-established, and 
 they should be saved with him. Whereupon, they taught 
 that, until that time, it was not requisite to serve God, but 
 quite the contrary ; and reduced their theory to practice. 
 
 To write the history ot all the sects which gave rise to the 
 severe sanctions of kings, from the time of the Emperor 
 Theodosius down to the sixteenth or seventeenth century, 
 would be to attempt writing a history of all the horrors and 
 abominations of which abandoned man is capable. In this 
 long space of time, the sects most tree from any mixture of 
 immorality, gave umbrage to the civil power, by their sedi- 
 tious tenets and insurrections. 
 
 Huss's doctrine, in Bohemia, sowed the seeds of civil wars. 
 WicklifPs doctrine, in England, was productive of similar 
 fruits. The fagot did not blaze in England until the Lol- 
 
210 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 lards began to overturn the state. In the sixteenth century, 
 what wars, what commotions, in Germany, in consequence 
 of fanatical delusion. The most moderate Protestant divines 
 of that age, complain in their writings, of the confusion in- 
 troduced by sectaries. Hcylin, in his cosmography, talks of 
 seme of them ' begotten in rebellion, born in sedition, and 
 'nui><d by iaction.' And Doctor Walton, in the preface to 
 his Polyglote, says, that ' A ristarchus- heretofore could scarce 
 'find seven wise men in Greece; but that, in his time, so 
 ' n any idiots were not to be found: for all were divinely 
 '^earned.' 'Hence,' continues the Doctor, ' the bottomless 
 ' pit seems to have been set open : and locusts are come out 
 ' with stings, a numerous race of sectaries who have renewed 
 'ali the ancient heresies, and invented many monstrous 
 ' opinions of their own.' In examining, then, the laws en- 
 acted against heretics, and tracing them up to their origin ; 
 in taking a review of the times and .circumstances in which 
 they were enacted, and the tenets of the persons against 
 whom they were levelled — in weighing the Emperor Con- 
 stantine's words, already quoted — and observing the insta- 
 bility of his opinion, in the change of his laws — we can, with 
 every reason, presume that error in doctrine was never 
 deemed a sufficient title to deprive a man of his life 
 or pioperty, by the most pious and enlightened Christian 
 legislators. 
 
 Immorality or sedition, mingling with the speculative 
 opinion unpunishable in itself by any civil tribunal, drew the 
 vengeance of the laws upon the entire system and its abet- 
 tors ; as the circulation of bad coin is punished by the ma- 
 gistrate, net on account of the particles of gold or silver, but 
 on account of the base metal, which predominates and de- 
 bases it. If time, civilization, commerce, a more extensive 
 knowledge of mankind, and the rights of society, helped the 
 mind to work off the feculence of pernicious opinions, as 
 rough wines work off their tartar : freedom of thought, its 
 inalienable prerogative was at last reconciled amongst most 
 men with the principles of morality, and the peace of society. 
 Men have changed, but long habit and the power of rule 
 have still, in many places, kept up laws which confound mis- 
 taken notions of a spiritual nature, with practical principles 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 21 1 
 
 which disturb the order of society. Heresy is of too inde- 
 terminate a signification, to become the object of legal ven- 
 geance. And to punish a man for Popery, is to punish him 
 because another pronounces a word of three syllables. Let 
 the Heretic and Papist, who rob, steal, murder, preach up 
 sedition, rebellion, and immorality, sutler like all other 
 felons. But the magistrate who punishes an honest, peace- 
 able man, for following the religion of his education, and 
 the dictates of his conscience ; and the legislators who au- 
 thorise him to do so : both forget themselves and the rights 
 of mankind. 
 
 The heathen magistrates punished none for worshipping 
 many gods. But we read of a city whose inhabitants were 
 all drowned, for adopting the impiety of Diagoras, who was 
 a declared atheist. 
 
 The Christian magistrate will not punish a man who has 
 no religion ; because the versatile conscience of such a man 
 will mould itself into any frame. But the upright man 
 who, from fear of offending God, will not resign his way 
 of thinking, but upon a thorough conviction that he is 
 in error; is deemed unworthy the protection ofjthe laws. 
 His conscience, which it Avould be a crime to betray, is 
 made a crime by positive institutions. Thus, Tiberius's 
 artifice is revived. It was prohibited by the laws, in 
 his time, to put a virgin to death. A virgin is accused 
 of high treason ; and, on conviction, (an easy matter in 
 his days,) her virginity is pleaded, in bar to the execution 
 of the sentence ; he ordered the executioner to ravish her, 
 and then the law took its course. Thus guilt and punish- 
 ment were reconciled. 
 
 The laws of God command me not to act against the im- 
 mediate dictates of my conscience. The laws of man make 
 this conformity to the dictates of my conscience a crime, and 
 I am accordingly punished. 
 
 Towards people confirmed in the prejudices of their edu- 
 cation, and the religion of their fathers, no severity, 
 tending to deprive them of the rights to which na- 
 ture entitles them, should be used. It is the unanimous 
 opinion of the fathers, and a large volume could be 
 composed of passages, extracted from the works of modern 
 writers of every denomination, in support of the assertion — 
 
212 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 4 We know that faith may yield to persuasion ; but it 
 4 never will be controuled.'* 'Remember that the disease:-; 
 * of the soul are not to be cured by restraint and viojence.'f 
 4 Indulge every one with civil toleration.'^ 
 
 If, to the spirit of the Gospel, the authority of fathers, 
 councils, the practice of the primitive times, and the opinions 
 of the most learned of the modern writers, we add arguments 
 drawn from the sources of divinity, we expect to disarm 
 the magistrate, and to prevail on him to sheath the sword 
 which God never commanded him to wield against the pro- 
 lessors of peaceable errors. 
 
 Faith is a gift of God, which it is not in the power of the 
 state either to give or take away. It depends chiefly on the 
 change of the heart, the interior dispositions of the mind, 
 and the grace of the Almighty, which it is in his power 
 alone to give, in greater or lesser abundance to his crea- 
 tures. We do not pretend to open the gate to error, or to 
 lull mortals asleep in an indifference to the truth. We only 
 beseech the powers of the earth not to add to the calamities 
 of Adam's children, by fines, confiscations, poverty, re- 
 straints, or death, for abstruse and speculative matters be- 
 vond the reach of human controul. We know that God 
 beinp r everv where present to call his creatures to his 
 service, to support them in their hope, to confirm them in 
 his love, to help their endeavours, and to hear their prayers, 
 it is their own fault if they perish. To some he gives 
 the knowledge of his law ; but they reject it. Others he 
 inspires with the spirit of prayer: but they neglect it. He 
 speaks to the hearts of all : but few listen to his voice. 
 Some he converts by an effectual grace, who plunge 
 themselves a second time into their disorders. Some he 
 strengthens and fortifies in the constant love of order and 
 justice to the last moment of their lives : and others he gives 
 lip to their blindness and corruption. He permitted the 
 first man to sin, and thus to involve us in all the miseries, 
 when it was in his power to prevent sin, without thus de- 
 stroying his liberty. And this will ever be an insoluble diffi- 
 culty to man. 
 
 * Flecliier, bishop of Nismes. f Cardinal Camns. 
 
 X Fenelon to the Duke of Burgundy. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 213 
 
 Faith, then, depending entirely on the interior dispositions 
 of the mind, the quantity of grace, and the measure of spi- 
 ritual science, which it is in the power of God either to in- 
 crease, or, from a just but hidden judgment, to diminish; 
 the want of it cannot be punished by any earthly tribunal : 
 because the magistrate's power extends only to outward 
 crimes that disturb the temporal peace of society, but not to 
 the hidden judgments of God, nor to the interior dispositions 
 of the mind, nor to the disbelief of divine truths — the neces- 
 sary result of both. Death, restraints, and confiscations, 
 then, on the score of religion, are murders and robberies, 
 under the sanction of mandatory. 
 
 * We were of opinion,' says St. Austin, writing to the 
 Manicheans, ' that other methods were to be made choice 
 
 * of; and that to recover you from your errors, we ought to 
 1 persecute you with injuries and invectives, or any ill treat- 
 1 ment ; but endeavour to procure your intention by soft 
 
 * words and exhortations, which would show the tenderness 
 
 * we have for you : according to that passage of holy writ — 
 1 The servant of the Lord ought not to love strife and quar- 
 s rels : but to be gentle, affable, and patient towards all man- 
 4 kind ; and to reprove with modesty those who differ from 
 c him in opinion. Let them only treat you with rigour, who 
 ' know not how difficult it is to find out the truth, and avoid 
 
 * error. Let those treat you with rigour, who know not how 
 
 * rare and painful a work it is calmly to dissipate the carnal 
 
 * phantoms that disturb even a pious mind. Let those treat 
 
 * you with rigour, who are ignorant of the extreme difficulty 
 
 * that there is to purify the eye of the inward man, to ren- 
 4 derhina capable of seeing the truth which is the sun and 
 
 * light of the soul. Let those treat you with rigour, who 
 
 * have never felt the sighs and groans that a soul must have, 
 
 * before it can have any knowledge of the Divine Being. 
 
 * To conclude, let those treat you with rigour, who never 
 ' have been seduced into errors near akin to those you are en* 
 
 * gaged in. 
 
 1 I pass over in silence, that pure wisdom, to which but a 
 
 * few spiritual men attain in this life ; so that though they 
 *know but in part, because they are men; yet, nevertheless. 
 
214 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 * they know what they do know with certainty ; for in the 
 
 * Catholic church, it is not penetration of mind, nor profound 
 
 * knowledge, but simplicity of faith, which puts men in a 
 
 * state of safety.'* 
 
 To such an illustrious authority we shall add another, — 
 Salvianus, bishop of Marseilles, discoursing on the Arian 
 Vandals, speaks as follows: 'they are ignorant of what is 
 
 * commonly known among other men ; and only know what 
 
 * their doctors have taught them, and follow what they have 
 1 heard them say. Men so ignorant as these, find themselves 
 
 * under a necessity of learning the mysteries of the Gospel, 
 
 * rather by the instructions that are given them than by 
 
 * books. The tradition of their doctors, and the received 
 1 doctrines, are the only rules they follow, because they know 
 1 nothing but what they have taught them. They are then 
 
 * heretics, but they know it not. They are so in our account, 
 
 * but they believe it not, and think themselves so good Ca- 
 1 tholics, that they treat us as heretics ; judging of us as we 
 
 * do of them. We are persuaded that they believe amiss, 
 
 * concerning the divine generation, when they maintain the 
 
 * Son inferior to the Father ; and they imagine that we rob 
 4 the Father of his glory, who believe them both to be equal. 
 
 * We have the truth on our side, and they pretend it on 
 4 theirs. We give to God his honour, and they think they 
 
 * honour him better. They fail in their duty, but they ima- 
 
 * gine they perform it well ; and they make true piety cqri- 
 ' sist in what we call impious. They are in a mistake, but 
 4 with a great deal of sincerity ; and it is so far from being an 
 4 effect of their hatred, that it is a mark of their love of God ; 
 
 * since by what they do, they shew the greatest respect for 
 4 the Lord, and zeal for his glory. Therefore, though they 
 4 have not true faith, they nevertheless look upon that, as a 
 1 perfect love of God. It belongs only to the Judge of the 
 
 * universe, to know how those men will be punished for their 
 
 * errors at the last day.'* 
 
 1 As to what is concealed from the knowledge of mortals,' 
 says St. Chrysostom, ) let the searcher of hearts determine, 
 1 who alone knows the measure of knowledge, and the quantity 
 
 * Salvianus, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 215 
 
 ' of faith : whose judgments are inscrutable, and ways un* 
 * searchable.'* 
 
 Religion, then, recoils at the thoughts of stripping the vie-' 
 tim for his mode of worship. We should make allowance 
 for the weakness of our fellow creatures ; and reflect that few 
 persons view objects in the same light. What makes a deep 
 impression on me, makes but a slight impression on another. 
 Universal orthodoxy has never been established, since Cain 
 has built the first city, and separated from the children of 
 God, nor never will to the end of time. 
 
 Amidst the dark and doubtful images of things, the sport 
 of the passions, the prejudices of education, the disputes of 
 the learned, and the clouds that hang over weak and fluc- 
 tuating reason, it is hard to separate the clear from the ob- 
 scure, truth from error, and to assign them their proper si- 
 tuations in light and shade. Add to this what I remarked 
 hrfore, that faith is a gift of God, to which the heart must 
 be disposed by the operations of an interior grace, which 
 God alone can give, and which is obtained more by prayer 
 than by disputing. If we take a survey of nature itself, 
 which God has given up to the disputes of men, the smallest 
 insect baffles our severest scrutiny. From the ant up to the 
 elephant, and from the germination of a blade of grass, to 
 the immense bodies that swim in the yielding ether above, 
 every thing is an inexplicable mystery. The very soul with 
 whose nature we should be better acquainted, and from whose 
 active powers we derive our faculties and judgment, is a 
 torch with which we are enabled to view the universe, and 
 yet our philosophers know not where it shines. Some assign 
 the brain for the seat of this immortal spirit: others the 
 blood ; others the pineal gland ; and others, unable to com- 
 prehend how matter and spirit can be so closely interwoven, 
 as to form one compound called man, assert that the soul 
 abides at a distance from the body, and influences it as the 
 sun influences certain plants, that turn round and humour its 
 motion. 
 
 What an immense library could be made up of all the 
 books on this immortal spark that animates us ! Whether 
 
 * Homilia contra anathemati™nfp<:, 
 F V 
 
216 MISCELLANEOUS TRACT3. 
 
 it existed before its union with the body — whether it under- 
 goes the same fate of extinction — if it survives, whether it 
 goes to the silent shades of the dead, naked, or clothed in a 
 thin pellicle, imperceptible to the anatomist's eye, but quali- 
 fying it in the other world for feeling the smarting sensa- 
 tions excited by tormenting fire, which otherwise could not 
 affect a pure spirit, without having recourse to an extraordi- 
 nary power, the miraculous exertion whereof is spared by 
 this coat of imperceptible skins, cut for the spirit in a philo- 
 sopher's brain — the soul's state and residence in the long in- 
 terval between death and the final consummation of all 
 things — 
 
 Burnet, the learned author of the Theory of the Earth, 
 laughs at the purgatory of the Catholics ; but strikes into a 
 path in which few Protestant divines would choose <o take 
 him for their guide. He admits none to the clear sight of 
 God, until after the resurrection ; heaps up testimonies to 
 vindicate prayers for the dead ; establishes Kades, a recepta- 
 cle for souls, and a middle state where they expect the com- 
 ing of Christ, and the sound of the last trumpet.* 
 
 If, from ourselves, and nature that surrounds us, we make 
 an excursion into the region of mysteries, with what dark- 
 ness has not God overspread ' the face of the deep !' What 
 disputes between Catholic and Protestant writers on one side, 
 and the Arians and Socinians on the other, about the divine 
 generation of the Son of God ! What a deluge of blood spilt 
 on that occasion, when the Arians were supported by power- 
 ful emperors, who drew the sword to decide the con- 
 troversy ! 
 
 Should one of the Bramins come amongst us, and after 
 studying our languages, sit down to read the scriptures, to 
 consult our writers, and to determine upon the choice of a 
 religion, what a laborious task ! From the time of Pelagius, 
 down to our days, what disputes about original sin ! How- 
 could it be propagated to a child whose body could not sin, 
 whose soul came pure from its Creator's hands, whose father 
 and mother were purified themselves from original stain, 
 and guiltless in complying with the institutions of God and 
 
 * In his Book De Stalu Mortuorura ct Resurgentium, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 217 
 
 nature. Let this Bramin read the works of the divines of 
 the church of England, in favour of infant baptism, he will 
 regret his not having been consecrated to God before the use 
 of his reason. When he reads the Anabaptist divines against 
 infant baptism, he will rejoice that he did not enter too soon 
 into a covenant, whereof he did not know the conditions 
 and terms. 
 
 When Barclay published his apology for the Quakers, he 
 cut out a good task for the divines of the church of England, 
 who were obliged to display their erudition in order to re- 
 fute him. 
 
 If from baptism we pass to the Lord's supper, what 
 difficulties to encounter ! What arguments against the real 
 presence by Zuinglius, Calvin, Du Moulins, Claude, Til- 
 lotson ! And what formidable opponents have not those 
 writers to engage, in the persons of Luther and the 
 Lutheran divines ; Bossuet, Arnauld, and the numerous 
 tribe of Catholic divines ! Text for text ; reason for rea- 
 son. Assailants and defendants take their weapons from 
 the same arsenal, and handle them with surprising address 
 and skill. 
 
 If the church of England be consulted on the important 
 mystery, her answer only puzzles and perplexes : 
 
 ' What is the inward part of the Sacrament? 
 
 * The body and blood of Christ, verily and indeed received 
 ' by the faithful.' 
 
 For as Doctor Burnet remarks, the divines who com- 
 posed the liturgy, had orders to leave it as a speculative 
 point, not determined ; in which every person was left to 
 the freedom of his own choice.* If the divines, after search- 
 ing the Scriptures and Fathers, call philosophy to their 
 assistance, Mr. Locke, one of its oracles, will tell them, 
 that the idea of body and the idea of place, are so closely 
 connected, that it is impossible to conceive one body in two 
 different places at the same time. Cartesius, who was the 
 first that dispossessed Aristotle of his throne, Gassendi, that 
 famous priest, who revived and improved Epicurus's system 
 of atoms, Cassini, and thousands beside, were as well ac* 
 
 * History of tlie Reform . b. 3. 
 
218 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 quainted as Locke, with the nature of place and bodies, and 
 doubtless his superiors in knowledge of the mathematics; 
 yet they could discover no contradiction in the same body 
 being in different places at the same time, when once 
 they supposed the interposition of infinite power, and the 
 pliancy of space and matter, to the irresistible will of 
 omnipotence, which can either create or annihilate them. 
 
 Thus, after a laborious excursion into the provinces of 
 philosophy and theology, the philosophical divine must 
 return back to the first elements of logic and grammar, 
 that treat of the modes of speech ; and, from the com- 
 bination of time, place, circumstances, the nature of the 
 testament, or last will of a man on the eve of his death, 
 (but a man who united in the same person, the sinless 
 weakness of humanity, with the power and nature of the 
 Godhead,) determine whether he spoke in a literal or 
 figurative sense. For place and body, matter and space, 
 are incomprehensible riddles which the greatest philoso- 
 phers are at a loss how to unravel. The sensations of 
 cold, hunger, thirst, pain, and pleasure, convince us suf- 
 ficiently that we have bodies, whose daily decay we are 
 continually repairing with sleep and aliment. We are, in 
 like manner, convinced that there is such a thing as place, 
 when we remove from the fireside to bed, where, locked 
 up in the close arms of sleep, we are for a while in an 
 intermediate state between life and death : dreaming some- 
 times that we are sovereigns, swaying the sceptre of autho- 
 rity; and at other times trembling under the hands of the exe- 
 cutioner, who has the axe in his hand to sever the head from 
 the body, or the rope to strangle us : alternately enjoying 
 the grandeur of kings, and undergoing the punishment 
 of criminals, without the reality of either. The different 
 impressions we receive from the sun, moon, and stars, scorch- 
 ing flames, and refreshing springs, make us believe that 
 there are other bodies in nature, besides those frail machines 
 we carry about us. 
 
 In a word, sensations from within, and impressions from 
 without, concur to convince us that there are places and 
 bodies. The arguments of divines, and the severity of hu- 
 man laws, in support of those arguments, consigning those 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 210 
 
 bodies to prison, death, banishment, or hunger, are colla- 
 teral proofs that we have those bodies, and that we feel 
 their existence by means of painful sensations. Yes ; the im- 
 mortal Berkley, bishop of Cloyne, has proved by arguments 
 hitherto unanswerable, that there is no demonstration for 
 the existence of one single body in nature. He has recon- 
 ciled the Catholic and Protestant philosophers and divines, 
 about the real presence, by cutting oft", at one blow, both 
 body and place. 
 
 Our whole life, according to this system, adopted by 
 several learned men, is but one continual scene of delu- 
 sion. Objects we never saw, during the day time, are 
 present to us in our sleep, and make a deep and lasting 
 impression. Who knows, then, but all the actions we per- 
 form, when we imagine ourselves awake, are real dreams? 
 We are spirits created millions of years before the Mosaic 
 account. 
 
 In that pre-existent state, we gloried too much in our 
 knowledge ; and, as a just punishment, we are given up 
 for a short time to dreams and deceptions, not on earth, 
 or in corruptible bodies, for there are no such things, and 
 whoever says there are such things, can never prove this 
 assertion : but the great theatre on which we play the 
 sportive farce, is" nothing else but God's immensity, which 
 can never fall within the reach of corporeal organs, eyes, 
 ears, hands, &c. for the existence of such organs is a mere 
 delusion. 
 
 Origenes, the most learned of the fathers, who wrote six 
 thousand books, and was complimented by Porphyry, the 
 heathen philosopher, was of opinion, that the souls of men 
 were angels, who, in the great conflict between the good 
 and bad spirits, observed a strict neutrality, and were 
 doomed to corruptible bodies, in order to try their sincerity. 
 Had Origenes been as well versed in philosophy, as our 
 modern writers, he would have confined himself to spirits, 
 and granted bodies no existence in the class of beings. 
 
 Happy for millions were the philosophers' system founded 
 in reality, and that we had no bodies ! For the disputes of 
 theologians have destroyed and famished a good part of the 
 creation. We have every respect for the Christian religion 
 and its ministers of all denominations, and without any 
 
220 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 doubt, for that system in which we have had the happiness 
 of being reared up. But we are extremely sorry that reli- 
 gion has ever been made a pretext for persecution or op- 
 pression. 
 
 We have taken the liberty, in the course of this treatise, 
 to glance at some religious as well as philosophical systems, 
 to shew the weakness of reason, and the impossibility of 
 establishing universal orthodoxy. 
 
 Should this treatise fall into the hands of any of our 
 legislators, in whose power it is to ease the necks of 
 their inoffensive subjects from the galling yoke of op- 
 pression ; we expect from their wisdom and feelings, that 
 they will no longer consider difference in religion as a 
 sufficient reason for hindering the young gentleman from 
 purchasing a pair of colours, and fighting the battles of 
 his king and country ; the industrious citizen from realizing 
 the fruits of his labour, in getting landed security for his 
 money, and purchasing- an estate, descendible to his chil- 
 dren ; the physician, the opulent farmer, the man of pro- 
 perty, from carrying a gun, a sword, a case of pistols, 
 for their defence from the attacks of the midnight as- 
 sassin or highwayman ; the clergyman, who instils the 
 principles of good morals into the minds of the ignorant 
 who would follow the fierce instinct of savage and un- 
 cultivated nature if they were deprived of their pastors, 
 from the protection of the laws, which now leave them 
 exposed to the caprice and fury of every ruffian, in whose 
 power it is to shut up their chapels, and get them trans- 
 ported : When it is obvious that such restraints arise from 
 speculative points disputed on a narrow ridge by the greatest 
 men the world ever produced — when philosophers them- 
 selves are bewildered in their notions — and when the learned 
 are at variance, about matters far beyond the reach of the 
 bulk of mankind. 
 
 Should it be said that these laws are seldom put in force; 
 it can be answered that the liberty of the subject, which is 
 the birth-right of man, should not depend on the capricious 
 benevolence of his neighbour. The law should be the com- 
 mon mother whose arms should be open to all ; and the 
 ghost of intolerance, more destructive than Attila's sword, 
 should vanish on the approach of the rays of benevolence, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 221 
 
 which are now blazing all over the continent. Attila's 
 sword destroyed but such as it met in its way : but the rage 
 of religious feuds has thinned the world of fifty millions of 
 human beings; and is stili trampling, in these kingdoms, on 
 compassion, on equity, on national interest. 
 
 In Ireland, where such scandalous scenes have not been 
 exhibited, as last vear in Scotland and England, the ghosts 
 of chose legislators who enacted the penal code, are still 
 looking, with a clouded, malevolent joy, over the long wastes 
 and desolated pastures they have made in a fruitful country ; 
 and supplying the want of sword and fagot, with a more 
 lasting and tedious torment — I mean, the hunger and dis- 
 tresses of thousands. They have renewed and perpetuated 
 the torments invented by the former princes of Tuscany, 
 They make the living expire in the arms of the dead. 
 
 The liberality of the times, the interest of the kingdom, 
 the wisdom and humanity of our rulers, every thing cries 
 aloud for the repeal of the laws enacted on the score of con- 
 science. If subordination and policy require what, in every 
 country, is called a religion of state, though in fact an en- 
 croachment on the natural rights of man, when it excludes 
 from him the privileges to which he is entitled by nature: 
 yet this happy system of toleration should be introduced by 
 excluding in this kingdom the Catholics from any high 
 oilices under the crown : secondly, from the privilege of sit- 
 ting in the senate : thirdly, if the use of arms gives any um- 
 brage, from the privilege of carrying them, except to such 
 as have a mind to serve their country in the army, or such 
 persons as are possessed of a real personal estate, amounting 
 to whatever value the legislature thinks fit to determine: 
 all other laws, heretofore enacted, to be null and void. 
 The kingdom would soon flourish: and the brilliant ex- 
 ample, set to such princes as have not as yet thrown open 
 the gates of toleration, would rescue mankind from the 
 heavy yoke which misconstrued religion has laid on their 
 necks. 
 
 The Author of nature intended men for society ; and eiv 
 titles every man to the advantages of that condition, who is 
 free from all principles and practices injurious to the civil 
 .good of society. The great Giver alone can repeal the uni- 
 
222 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 versal charter. He has not done it : and I hope that I have 
 sufficiently proved that he has not delegated that power to 
 any of his creatures. 
 
 The rulers of the earth, whether Catholics or Protestants, 
 owe all social benefits to their loyal subjects of every deno- 
 mination. If one of these powers withhold their people's na- 
 tive rights, it is no excuse for the other, that their conduct 
 is countenanced by their neighbours' example. Honour, hu- 
 manity, and the rights of mankind, should suggest to modern 
 legislators to repair the losses, caused by their predecessors' 
 misguided zeal. And as the clergy of all denominations, 
 consider themselves the delegates of heaven, and invested 
 with the commission to prescribe a mode of worship to man, 
 let them propose it in a manner that may secure its triumph 
 over the heart; brighten it up with the genial rays of hu- 
 manity, benevolence, and love, and not cloud it with the 
 sullen gloom of severity, oppression, and distress. For 
 Christ who is the Creator of all, has not declared in his 
 gospel, that one should be excluded from the protection of 
 the laws, and persecuted for his worship ; and the other au- 
 thorized to famish, starve, and insult the weakness of a fel- 
 low creature. 
 
MR. O'LEARY S DEFENCE ; 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 A VINDICATION OF HIS CONDUCT AND WRITINGS 
 
 DURING THE LATE DISTURBANCES IN MUNSTER. 
 WITH A 
 
 FULL JUSTIFICATION OF THE 
 
 AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE 
 
 RISINGS OF THE WHITE BOYS. 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 MR. O'LEARY'S ANSWER 
 
 TO THE 
 
 FALSE ACCUSATIONS OF THEOPHILUS, 
 
 AND THE ILL-GROUNDED INSINUATIONS 
 OF THE 
 
 MIGHT REV. DOCTOR WOODWARD, 
 
 LORD ETSHOP OF CLQYNE* 
 

THE 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Whoever attempts to give an account of public transac- 
 tions should be above the reach and power of hope and fear, 
 and all kinds of interest ; that he may always dare to speak 
 truth, and write of all without prejudice, religiously observ- 
 ing never to abuse the public faith, but to guard against the 
 bias and affections of those who would endeavour to impose 
 on him by false or exaggerated reports. He should not con- 
 fine himself to a bare recital of the actions of men, but to lay 
 open the motives and principles from which they took their 
 rise, and upon which they proceeded to their final issues. 
 When in public transactions in which all parties are con- 
 cerned, some persons make themselves more conspicuous 
 than others, it is not barely sufficient to mention their names. 
 The hearts of such actors must be laid open. The reader 
 must be let into their most important motives and designs, 
 and favoured with a sight of those secret springs which 
 moved them with enterprise whether it succeeded or mis- 
 carried. He should be disinterested himself, and attribute 
 no bad motive to persons whose actions could bear a favoura- 
 ble construction ; when he is convinced that they had no in- 
 terest in interfering in those scenes of disorder and tumult 
 which he chooses for the subject of his narrative. 
 
 Upon those principles Doctor Woodward should have 
 proceeded when he introduces me on the stage after his ac- 
 count of the disturbances in the south of Ireland ; distur- 
 bances which disgraced the nation, by the manner in which 
 they were heightened in the foreign prints, painting us in 3 
 state of barbarism and rebellion, and which however unjusti* 
 fiable, yet borrow (in the county of Cork at least) their im. 
 portance more from the colourings of exaggerating writer? 
 
226 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 than from any signal or singular event which would suit the 
 dignity of the historian's pencil, whose office it is to pro- 
 nounce the destiny of the great ones of the earth ; to fix their 
 character with posterity, to do justice to virtue and worth, 
 end to admit no figures into his historical group but the figures 
 of the great and illustrious. It is true that public transac- 
 tions should be recorded, though the characters which ap- 
 peared on the scene are far from being illustrious. The Ro- 
 man historians have transmitted to posterity the war of the 
 slaves. And the Right Reverend Bishop of Cloyne has fa- 
 voured the public with a general account of the operations of 
 the Minister rabble. But he differs widely from the patterns 
 after whom he should have copied : for however unworthy 
 of the historian's pen the exploits of shabby heroes may ap- 
 pear, yet when he hands their achievement down to poste- 
 rity, he should paint them in their proper colours, and range 
 them under their respective banners. When Tacitus de- 
 scribes the revolt of the Pannonian legions, incited to sedition 
 by Persennius, a common soldier, and the Captain Right of 
 his time, he informs his readers of that incendiary's profes- 
 sion. But when the Bishop of Cloyne promises, in his title- 
 page, * A general Account of the Insurrections of the South 
 * of Ireland, with their rise and progress,' he leads all his 
 warriors into the field in the same uniform. They are all a 
 Popish mob disarming Protestants to overthrow the esta- 
 blished religion. In this assertion I shall take the liberty of 
 differing in opinion from the Bishop, with the same freedom 
 that Lesley, a dissenting minister, contradicted Archbishop 
 King, when that prelate wrote his History of the State of the 
 Protestants in Ireland under James the Second ; and as Be- 
 verly Higgins, a gentleman of the established religion, differed 
 widely in opinion from Bishop Burnet, when he wrote the 
 history of his own times. 
 
 Happy ! if I could discover nothing reprehensible in the 
 Bishop of Cloyne's pamphlet, but historical inaccuracy ! It 
 would affect me no more than some of the stories of Heredo- 
 tus, who was so liable to misinformation. For a mob is a 
 mob, whether they be Protestants or Papists. A Popish mob 
 may crop horses and burn ricks of corn in Ireland : and a 
 Protestant mob may burn houses and attempt to plunder the 
 
THE INTRODUCTION. 227 
 
 bank in London. It is the crime, not the religion of the 
 criminal, which disturbs the peace of society, and is punished 
 by the judge. 
 
 But when in the Bishop's pamphlet I see myself personally 
 attacked, and (what concerns me more than any personal 
 injury) my religion glanced at as inconsistent with the secu- 
 rity of the state. When I see Catholic prelates, who are an 
 ornament to the age, wounded by an intimation that their 
 allegiance to their king in temporals is a prevarication of 
 their obedience to their supreme pastor in spirituals. For 
 here, according to Doctor Woodward's inuendo, perjury 
 must be the alternative: if they swear allegiance to the 
 Pope, they cannot swear allegiance to the king : if they 
 swear allegiance to the king, they cannot swear allegiance 
 to the Pope — still they swear allegiance to both; perjury 
 then is inevitable. A dreadful dilemma arising from a con- 
 secration oath, translated into English for the purpose of 
 perplexing the ignorant, and left unexplained for the pur- 
 pose of rendering venerable prelates obnoxious to the pub- 
 lic. When 1 see Doctor Woodward one of the pilots of the 
 vessels of the established religion hanging out the signal of 
 distress, and crying aloud on the deck, 'The Church of Ire- 
 •land is at this present moment in imminent danger of sub- 
 * version.' From whom? From the dissenters ready to pull 
 down an ecclesiastical establishment, and the Catholics 
 ready to set up their own. That is to say, from two classes 
 of subjects more interested m improving thirty-nine acres of 
 ground for the support of their families, than in abolishing 
 the thirty-nine articles of Bishop Woodward's profession of 
 faith, which, (however founded in the Scriptures) thousands 
 of Protestant divines all over Europe would not subscribe. 
 When 1 now see the three great classes of High-churchmen, 
 Dissenters and Catholics, whom I have formerly seen to 
 drown their religious distinctions in the noise of the alarm 
 drum, and march under the same banners to protect the beds 
 of their wives, and the cradles of their children against the 
 common foe. — When I see them now disunited, (if they were 
 mad enough to be disunited by the croaking of controversy, 
 and in speculative points which puzzle the mind, to forget 
 
228 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 social friendship which cheers and warms the heart.)* When 
 I see them disunited, or on the eve of a rupture in conse- 
 quence of this alarming proclamation, truths, ivhich at otheY 
 times should be kept in silence for the preservation of harmony, 
 must now be brought to public notice, 1 am at a loss what to say. 
 By such a declaration the Bishop acknowledges that his 
 pamphlet is not calculated to preserve harmony, otherwise 
 he would have been silent; or his words are a riddle which 
 must be unravelled by a greater CEdipus than Mr. O'Leary. 
 
 However, as the unhappy disturbances in the South of 
 Ireland have afforded a pretext for the dissolution of this 
 harmonv which reigned amongst the natives of this kingdom 
 a few years before ; and as the Catholics in general, as well 
 as Mr. O'Leary in particular, have been misrepresented, the 
 following defence, in which the insurrections are mentioned, 
 is humbly submitted to the judgment of the public. If Mr. 
 O'Leary speaks of himself, it is because he is personally at- 
 tacked. Every man who is put on his defence, must do the 
 same. In the course of his defence he will hold up the 
 historical mirror. 
 
 If it reflects any specks on the faces of some who may be- 
 hold it, let them attribute their deformity to themselves. 
 Truths shall guide my pen, and the historian must be 
 impartial. 
 
 If I enter more deeply into the subject than I first in- 
 tended, it is in order to shew by every proof which moral 
 evidence can afford, that the Catholics of this kingdom could 
 not form any design against either church or state, as has 
 been maliciously insinuated in several pamphlets. The 
 Bishop of Cloyne has given the profile ; I shall draw the 
 face in full. 
 
 * Mr. CLeary hopes that none will cavil at these words, as if uttered by a latitudi- 
 narian. He is a steadfast Catholic; but is no more inclined to quarrel with any 
 person on account of his religion, than to quarrel with him en account of the colour of 
 his clothes. 
 
MR. W LEAHY'S DEFENCE. 
 
 The unprovoked attack made on my character was for a 
 long time a mystery to others as well as to myself. The pe- 
 rusal of several pamphlets at length enabled me to unfold it. 
 The murmurs of the lower orders against proctors and tithe- 
 canters, induced the authors of several publications (some 
 of them were beneficed clergymen) to wish for some other 
 mode of supporting the clergy, less oppressive to the poor 
 than the collection of tithes attended with continual litiga- 
 tions, but equally advantageous to the clerical profession, 
 and more honourable, as it would remove every occasion of 
 dispute between pastors and their parishioners. This plan, 
 however countenanced by the ablest men in England, and by 
 many sensible men of the established church in Ireland, 
 made Theophilus mad, and the Bishop of Cloyne somewhat 
 angry. The alarm bell was rung by Theophilus, and the 
 presses began to teem with the Bishop's pamphlets. Some 
 batteries were to be erected to defend the usual mode of col- 
 lecting tithes. And on the walls of the church was planted 
 the rusty cannon of popery to fire, and give notice of the 
 approach of the enemy. It was laid down as a maxim, that 
 in the Catholic church the clergy enforce the payment of 
 tithes jura divino ;* and that the clergy of the church of 
 Rome would resume the tithes with the assistance of foreign 
 powers. This master-piece of generalship (if I may use a 
 word which I cannot find in Johnson's Dictionary) succeeded. 
 What Lord Clarendon said of the reign of Charles the First, 
 was verified in eighty-seven. The Papists were the most 
 
 * See Theophilus, 
 
230 llllSCtiLLANfiOUS TRACTS. 
 
 common place, and the butt against which all the arrows 
 were directed. Ghilinis's letter and the Bishop's consecra- 
 tion oath were roused from their dusty pillows, and stripped 
 of their long Roman dress were introduced into every circle 
 in an English garb. The arrival of those foreigners alarmed 
 several on their first appearance, as much (and with as much 
 reason) as the tidings of the arrival of eight hundred Jesuits 
 mounted on dromedaries, alarmed the citizens of Lon- 
 don in the reign of Charles the Second, though the mes- 
 senger who frightened others knew that he was secure from 
 the danger. 
 
 It happened that in order to reclaim by reason people 
 who had shaken off the yoke of authority, I told the white- 
 boys that if they had grievances to complain of, the legisla- 
 ture alone was competent to redress them ; informing them, 
 at the same time, that no power on earth would permit any 
 set of men to overturn established laws by private autho- 
 rity.* The word grievances alarmed the Bishop,vfor reasons 
 unknown to me, but best known to himself. This was the 
 the signal of war, as if my conduct and writings had been 
 incentives to sedition. Every advantage was taken of me. 
 But it is now time to repel force by force, and to recover the 
 ground of which my aggressors have taken possession during 
 my careless inactivity. 
 
 Pray, then, my Lord Bishop of Cloyae, and you Theo- 
 philus,\vhose mouth, like that of Palinurus, is better qualified 
 for blowing that trumpet which you have thrust into mine, 
 tuba ciere viros martemque accendere cantu. On what ground 
 can you bring the charge against Mr. O'Leary ? Can you 
 oround it on my writings ? You have garbled them ; you 
 have mangled them; you had models to copy after. And 
 imitation is no bad help. A man attempted once to 
 denv the resurrection by the same texts that establish the 
 belief of it. He succeeded by adding a monosyllable, 
 and placing a point of interrogation in the room of a full 
 stop, and transposing a word. Text runs thus i—Surrexit. 
 JVon est hie. He is risen. He is not here. The literary 
 magician got rid of the difficulty by punctuating and trans- 
 posing the. words in the following manner: — Surrexit ne? 
 
 * The letff rs may he seen in the Appendix, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 231 
 
 Noil. Est hie. Is he risen ? No. He is here. There is 
 ingenuity. And by his skill in mangling phrases the Bishop 
 of Cloyne changes the way of the cross is the road to the 
 crown, into sedition 
 
 When I come to the vindication of my writings, I shall 
 show more of the Bishop's ingenuity in scattering limbs, 
 Which I shall restore to their proper places. Doctor Wood- 
 ward and I live in the same country. Can he stand forth, and 
 arnign my conduct ? • 
 
 The disturbances took their rise in the diocese of Cloyne, 
 about the month of September, 1785. I never had been in 
 that diocese but twice on a visit to Mr. Roche of Trabuigan, 
 who, about two years before the disturbances, had retired to 
 Naples for the benefit of his health. I had no acquaintances 
 in the diocese of Cloyne, except the Protestant and Catholic 
 gentlemen of consequence. And however great my esteem 
 for> and the confidence I repose in them, I am not so di- 
 vested of common sense as to put myself in their power ; it 
 Would be the means of losing their esteem. — Want of pru- 
 dence, sayb Lord Littleton, is often times want of virtue. 
 And I would forfeit my claim of both, if I urged a deluded 
 multitude to their destruction by encouraging them to fly 
 in the face of the established laws, and to deprive any per- 
 son of the property secured to him by the state. For whom 
 does the Bishop of Cloyne take me then, when, in his Post- 
 script, interlarded with the garbled passages of my addresses, 
 he throws out insinuations so injurious to my character, and 
 attempts to palliate and extenuate those insinuations under 
 the thin gause of a saivo. I do not say that the reverend 
 author intends to sow sedition, but if such were his design ?.* 
 will any man of sense be satisfied with the excuse of a mo- 
 nosyllable but or iff I am not acquainted with the lower 
 classes in his diocese, though they know me from cha- 
 racter, as a man more inclined to lead them into the path 
 of subordination and peace, than to goad them to mad- 
 ness. 
 
 I have renounced every claim to tithes by sacred vows. 
 
 * Bishop of Cloyne's Pamphlet, p. 103. 
 H H 
 
232 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS, 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Cloyne then may rest satisfied that I 
 never intended to sow sedition from a rapacious view to his 
 ecclesiastical revenues, and that I can frankly say with par- 
 son Adams to his brother Trulliber, in Fielding's Joseph 
 Andrews, Nihil habeo cum porcis. I have no call to your 
 tithe pigs. 
 
 The Bishop and the public must then acknowledge, that I 
 was in no manner whatever interested in tithes, much less in 
 fomenting riots and disorders. But common sense and pru- 
 dence must acknowledge, that a person in my situation could 
 not with propriety stand by as an indifferent spectator of tu- 
 mults and disorders which threatened the peace of the com- 
 munity, and which I well foresaw would be construed by ma- 
 levolence into a Popish confederacy against the state, as 
 Theophilus has since construed it. Neither does the Bishop 
 of Cloyne contradict him in the short and partial account he 
 has given in his pamphlet of risings which he attributes to a 
 Popish mob. 
 
 From one parish in the diocese of Cloyne, the disturbances 
 began to spread to another, and as bad example seldom ends 
 where it first began, the contagion at last reached the bor- 
 ders of the diocese of Cork ; and as a gangrene that eats its 
 way from the extremities of the body to the very vitals. — 
 Captain Right's proclamations made their way to the very 
 heart of the city, about five months after they had been pub- 
 lished in the diocese of Cloyne. On a Sunday morning a 
 seditious notice was posted (and breathing nothing but a 
 downright disrespect to the clergy) on the gate of the parish 
 chapel, inviting such as found themselves oppressed by pam- 
 pered Theologians, whose God ivas their belly, and whose re- 
 ligion iv as a hogshead of wine, (the very words of the notice) 
 to meet at an appointed hour in order to regulate their pit- 
 tance according to the Gospel rule. That very day I was 
 going on business to the country, when to my surprise I met 
 with numbers of common people reading a similar notice 
 posted up against the gate of my own chapel. Was it med- 
 dling with the politics of the Protestant country, as the Bishop 
 of Cloyne's favourite Theophilus upbraids me, to make war 
 upon disorder and licentiousness f Or is it because the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 233 
 
 Bishop of Cloyne was silent and passive during the tumults 
 which had changed his diocese into a scene of disorder and 
 anarchy, that I should be silenced by the clamour of sedition 
 sounding the trumpet at the threshold of my chapel? I de- 
 ferred my excursion, and at every congregation from eight 
 to one o'clock, I enlarged upon the scandal and impropriety 
 of such proceedings, pointed out to the common people the 
 danger to which they exposed themselves, the confusion 
 in which they were involving the community ; and made 
 use of the most persuasive arguments in my power to re- 
 claim them to their duty. If I deserved to be compared to 
 any illustrious character, it is not to Mark Anthony working 
 upon the passions of the multitude, in order to arm against 
 Brutus and his confederates, that the Bishop of Cloyne 
 should have compared me. If he intended a compliment, 
 and wished to temp' my vanity, of becoming a boaster, he 
 should have compared me rather to Junius Biesus appeasing 
 the Pannonian legions, who had been urged to revolt against 
 their officers by a common soldier called Persennius, the 
 Captain Right of his days. 
 
 I thought it my duty both as a loyal subject, a clergy- 
 man, and a member of civil society, to contribute to the 
 preservation of public order, and to guard deluded multi. 
 tudes against destruction, to the utmost of my power. 
 
 The honour and interest of the Catholic body, often mis- 
 represented, and become the theme of scurrilous or fanatical 
 writers, were further incentives to my zeal. I recollected the 
 unmerited abuse given for a long time in the papers to the 
 Catholics, because seventeen house-keepers in Dublin had 
 unguardedly signed a requisition to the High Sheriff for the 
 purpose of convening an aggregate meeting relative to a par- 
 liamentary reform ; though I am confident the seventeen 
 knew as little about the impropriety of their signing that re- 
 quisition, and foresaw as little the offence it would give, as 
 the High Sheriff himself foresaw that he would be attacked 
 by the Court of King's Bench. And as to the Catholics, in 
 their disqualified situation, they could not with either pru- 
 dence or propriety, follow any other line but that of a strict 
 neutrality in a political question, on which neither the friends 
 nor opponents of a parliamentary reform would acknowledge 
 
234 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 them competent to determine. I heard moreover in my very 
 recent recollection, the false alarm rung all over Ireland and 
 Great Britain, on the occasion of Mr. O'Connor, whose lineal 
 descent from Roderick O'Connor, the last Monarch of the 
 Milesian race, in the reign of Henry the Second, was pub- 
 lished in the papers : the formidable forces of that claimant 
 to the royalties of his ancestors, forces which a member in 
 the House of Commons affirmed to amount to a thousand, 
 but which, soon after, in the English papers, were increased 
 to eighteen thou sand, well disciplined men— another mem- 
 ber's declaration in the Senate, that the Protestant interest 
 was now at stake, and that he would stand forth its champion ; 
 and the consequent challenge made on the Minister ot State 
 to know if government had marched the army against King 
 O'Connor. When I recollected a private gentleman, at the 
 head of few servants, armed with spades and clubs, keeping 
 possession of a litigated spot of land, confirmed to him after- 
 wards by a decree of the Courts of Justice ; when I recol- 
 lected this gentleman enlarged into a mighty monarch, 
 through the magnifying glass of misrepresentation, 1 had 
 every room to apprehend that the enemies of the Ca- 
 tholics would misrepresent them to government, according 
 to their usual custom, and that the quarrel between the 
 peasant and the proctor for a basket of potatos, would be 
 misconstrued into a struggle between the king and the 
 subject, for the jewels of the crown. The nobility and 
 gentry of Ireland are now convinced that my conjectures 
 and apprehensions were groundless, when they read the 
 slanders of Theophilus, and the pamphlet published by 
 Doctor Woodward. 
 
 If I were allowed the liberty of using a metaphor, wild 
 and extravagant indeed as to the manner of the expression, 
 but natural enough as far as it may convey my mean- 
 ing, I could say, that my apprehensions on similar oc- 
 casions were not the fruit of fancy. They are the na- 
 tural growth of the county of Cork, and vegetate in 
 that soil. In that county Machiavel's maxim, divide 
 and govern, has been followed for many years, and the 
 plan for changing the pretended dangers of Popery into 
 so many steps of the political ladder whereby to 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 235 
 
 ascend to power and consequence, had been for many- 
 years invariably pursued. The Catholics, excluded from 
 the senate and councils of the nation, could not be 
 known to every English nobleman who came here to 
 manage the reins of administration, during a temporary 
 residence. Chance may bring him acquainted with some 
 individuals, but he must be a stranger to the real state 
 and principles of the body at large. The Catholics, then, 
 could not be known to government but in the colours in 
 which those persons painted them. And from such political 
 limners, a just resemblance between the picture and the 
 original, could not be expected. 
 
 Hence, in the county of Cork, scarce could Catholics 
 breathe until the administration of the Earl of Halifax and 
 Lord Townsend, who, upon a closer investigation into 
 their case, removed the film with which the misrepre- 
 sentations of interested men had overspread the eyes of 
 the former rulers. I had then just grounds to appre- 
 hend that the disorders of a motley group of insurgents 
 would be made out a Popish confederacy; and I know 
 that the silence of a man who stood for his country, in 
 the sight, 1 may say of the enemy, and who has as much 
 influence as any individual in his station, would o«ive a 
 colourable sanction to the accusation. Nor (however 
 plain and simple in other respects) was I so unexperi- 
 enced in life, or ignorant of the events which had hap- 
 pened in this kingdom, as to put myself in the power 
 of my enemies, or expose myself to the rigour of the 
 law, by a seditious conduct. I learned wisdom from the 
 folly of others ; and if I were inclined to be seditious, 
 I knew that it was not my interest to give my incli- 
 nations their exertion or energy. In foreign countries 1 
 had read much about the White-boys in Ireland, and 
 on my arrival in the kingdom, I collected every in- 
 formation in my power, in order to be acquainted with 
 the history of my country. 
 
 The first paper I read after landing in Cork, was the 
 dying speech of Buck Sheehy and others, who had been 
 executed for Whiteboyism at Cloheen. In their speech 
 they declared that their lives were offered them on condi- 
 tion that they would swear asrainst several Catholic o-en- 
 
23& MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 tlemen as confederates and abettors of Whiteboys. And 
 who would not pass for a Whiteboy at that time, when one 
 if the most inoffensive men on earth, Doctor M'Kenna, the 
 p sent Titular Bishop of Cloyne, was escorted under a 
 gti ORg guard, on a pretended suspicion of an insurgent. I 
 read of Nicholas Sheehy's fate, with which the illiberal 
 Theophilus threatens me, and learned that a Catholic cler- 
 gyman in all places, but especially here, should confine him- 
 self to the line of his duty, by enforcing morality and sub- 
 ordination to the laws. That unfortunate man was tried be- 
 fore the Court of King's Bench, for Whiteboyism, and was 
 acquitted. Sheehy, whose blood his enemies thirsted for, is 
 at last indicted for the murder of one Bridges, a man of no 
 good character, whose dead body could not be found, but 
 whose living body (if report be true, was afterwards seen in 
 Newfoundland. The dead bodies of rogues who had been 
 murdered in one kingdom, had been afterwards seen living 
 bodies in another, as so many enchanted dragons, watching 
 the Hesperian Gardens of the temple of Venus, alias bullies 
 to a brothel. That this was Bridges's case I cannot affirm, 
 but for the rest, the history of the kingdom is my voucher.* 
 Sheehy, on hearing that a proclamation was issued against, 
 and a reward offered for apprehending him, wrote to the 
 Secretary of the Chief Governor, that to spare Government 
 the expense, he would give himself up, on condition that he 
 would not be tried in Clonmel, where he said his enemies 
 were too powerful. A promise founded on justice was made, 
 though it was never performed. He was sent to take his 
 trial at Clonmel, where he was found guilty upon the evi- 
 dence of the same identical witnesses whose testimony had 
 been rejected before by the Court of King's Bench, viz. a 
 naughty boy, a lewd woman, and an impeached thief, taken 
 out of Clonmel jail. Hence Sheehy's jury is become as pro- 
 verbial in Ireland, as the ancient justiciaries of Donfront, in 
 Normandy, who used to hang regularly at the hour of one, 
 every prisoner who had been tried at twelve. 
 
 Allez a Donfront, juste ville de malheur. 
 
 Ou bou est accuse a midi, et pendu a une beure. 
 
 Under the impressions which such singular events must 
 make on the mind, and in the delicacy of the clerical si tua- 
 
 * See the continuation of Curry's Memoirs of the Civil Wars of Ireland. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACT&. 237 
 
 lion, who could suspect that any Catholic clergymen would 
 blow the trumpet of sedition in the ears of a deluded p^a- 
 sintry? Or has the Bishop, like Socrates, a sinn'ar spirit 
 to give his information which no mortal besides himself can 
 pretend to ? But reserving the discussion of such an accu- 
 sation for its proper place, 1 must proceed in the course of 
 my narrative. 
 
 The associations were now extending, and a notice 
 posted up against the gates of the parish churches and 
 chapels was a kind of standard to which all parties, with- 
 out distinction of religion, flocked, and entered into a 
 general confederacy. For the public are not to form 
 their judgment of the disturbances from the mad decla- 
 mation of a Theophilus, nor the imperfect one given by 
 the Bishop of Cloyne. The first is a bare-faced slanderer. 
 The Bishop gives the profile of the picture, in entirely 
 shadowing the other side of the face, by makinp- out the 
 insurgents a popish mob, connived at by some Protes- 
 tants, without mentioning the effectual and active con- 
 currences of any. The unprovoked and unmerited at- 
 tack made on Mr. O'Leary, by the right reverend prelate 
 and his less reverend confederate, has forced the pencil 
 into his hand, and now compels him to draw the pic- 
 ture with a full face. The notice alluded to is to the 
 following purport. « You are hereby cautioned not to pay 
 ' ministers' tithes, only in the following manner, viz. potatos 
 '4s. per acre; wheat and barley Is. 6V. per acre; oats and 
 * meadows Is. per acre. Roman Catholic clergy to receive 
 'for marriage 5s.; for baptism 1*. 6d.; for anointing and 
 ' visiting the sick Is. ; for mass Is. : for confession 6c/. You 
 ' are hereby warned not to pay parish priests' clerks money, 
 'nor any other dues concerning marriages. Be all sure not 
 'to go to any expenses at your confession terms, but let 
 ' them partake of your own fare. ' 
 
 This notice which I censured, as may be seen in my 
 letters, seemed moderate however to many acquainted with 
 the distresses of the poor. In vain has the Bishop of Cloyne 
 attempted to justify proctors, tithe-canters, tithe-jobbers, 
 &c. by declaring them to be agents to the clergy, equally 
 necessary as receivers to lay-gentlemen. The general voice 
 
238 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 is against them. Moreover, the comparison does not 
 hold. The gentleman's agent only collects the rent at 
 the expense of his employer; the tenants pay the de- 
 termined sum agreed on by the lease, and if his farm 
 should produce a hundred fold every year, he pays nei- 
 ther more nor less until his lease expires. But these eccle- 
 siastical agents, of whom the Bishop becomes the apologist, 
 are so many locusts, that eat up the peasant's green herb- 
 age without feeding the wind that wafts them. Several 
 instances could be procured to prove that they gain more 
 than their employers, whilst they distress the cottager. 
 When the potato-stalks begin to shoot to a certain dis- 
 tance above the surface of the earth, the sharp-eyed lynx 
 surveys it in the name of God and of our holy mother 
 the church. On the spot where the stalks crowd toge- 
 ther thick and threefold, in order to discriminate the ranks 
 and to avoid confusion, the proctor's hand rears a land- 
 mark, Doctor Woodward thinks it a duty of a bad pastor to 
 appoint agents well qualified for preserving order. The hun- 
 gry peasant whose teeth water for the vegetable he had sown 
 and reared up from its infant state, wishes to try its quality ; 
 but if he approaches within a certain distance of the fatal land- 
 mark, he is sure to share the fate of the benighted mariner, 
 who approaches those hostile shores, when allured by the false 
 lights held out to decoy him to the rock, on which he is to be 
 shipwrecked. The bishop's court is the strand on which the 
 proctor gathers the spoils, it is not the fault of the institu- 
 tion, nor the gentlemen who preside in the courts ; but it is 
 the misfortune of tire peasant, who has neither means nor 
 skill to cope with those agents, who are adepts in their 
 professions. From many instances of the abuse made of the 
 authority of those courts by crafty agents, I shall select one. 
 In the province where Doctor Woodward and I reside, and 
 now the theatre of pamphlets and politics, there lived a poor 
 peasant; his poverty had not deprived him of those qualities 
 which constituted a husband and a father ; to him a child was 
 born, who did not live long enough to enjoy his father's 
 estate, he died; and for want of a shilling to purchase the 
 hallowed ground wherein to deposite the defunct heir of an 
 opulent fortune, the father rolled him up in a bundle of straw 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 239 
 
 and smuggled him into the church-yard in the dead of night- 
 Happy ! thrice happy ! had he met on that fatal night with a 
 custom-house officer. He would have escaped with the con- 
 traband goods. But alas ! his destiny was to meet with one 
 of those officers who have recourse to what the moderator 
 calls the Court Christian. A decree (whether real or fictitious 
 I cannot tell) from the Bishop's-court was produced by the 
 carrion-hunter and another, who were hurrying away the pea- 
 sant, fainting after a violent resistance. Luckily he was met 
 by an intimate friend of mine, who released him by paying 
 the charnel house fees. 
 
 These anecdotes I relate to shew that, notwithstanding 
 Doctor Woodward's zeal in defence of what he writes in fa- 
 vour of ecclesiastical agents, they are oppressive, and 
 impose both on Bishops'-courts and their employers. I 
 do not say, that they do it with their consent : far be it 
 from me. It was against the prophet's will his servant 
 received presents from Naaman the Assyrian officer: and 
 it is against the clergy's consent that their agents are 
 vexatious to the poor. But there is this difference be- 
 tween the Bishop and the prophet : ' the latter struck his 
 
 * agent with the leprosy ; the Bishop of Cloyne spins out a 
 
 * chapter of his pamphlet to shew that his agents are imma- 
 *culate.' > I shall then join the moderator in his litany, from 
 such agents good Lord deliver us ! In parishes where the 
 rectors took the tithes into their own hands, it is acknow- 
 ledged that the clergyman has received much more than 
 ever he did through the mediation of such agents, besides 
 the additional comfort of seeing peace, harmony and con- 
 fidence restored to his district. It is not my business to 
 make calculations, nor is it a part of my duty to run over 
 parishes, in order to know how far a wretched peasant may 
 be relieved by the removal of a relentless agent, who, like a 
 dense cloud, intercepts the rays of benignity, which would 
 certainly cheer him by a more immediate communication 
 with a clergyman, whose ministry is peace, and whose duty 
 is charity. I only glance at such matters as far as they are 
 interwoven with a subject which it is my duty to illustrate, in 
 order to vindicate both the Catholic body and myself from 
 the false and groundless imputation of attempting the over- 
 
 i i 
 
210 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 throw of the established religion, by encroaching upon the 
 rights of its clergy. 
 
 The supineness with which the Bishop of Cloyne upbraids 
 the Protestant gentlemen, shews that the lower classes were 
 truly miserable, and that their table of rates was only 
 proportioned to their circumstances. That they are truly 
 miserable all parties must agree. This supineness also 
 shews that the Protestant nobility and gentry were under 
 no apprehension of the constitution, either in church or 
 state. Neither was the Bishop of Cloyne ; otherwise he, 
 who is one of the pilots, would not have slept for the 
 space of fifteen months at the helm, if he really fore- 
 saw that the ship was in danger of going to the bottom : 
 though he now alarms three kingdoms with the danger 
 to the established church from Catholics and dissenters, 
 jndling down and rising up. But the Catholic nobility and 
 gentry foresaw, from the reasons I have already alleged, 
 that they would be misrepresented to Government, and 
 that the old game of Popish plots and confederacies would 
 be renewed. They had moreover their properties to de- 
 fend, and their character to support : as men and sub- 
 jects they were as much interested as others in the pre- 
 servation of the peace of society. And the history of a 
 country where their ancestors swayed for ages the sceptre of 
 authority, informed them that, in the successive revolutions 
 occasioned either by brave and fortunate aspirers, or by timid, 
 ductile, and unfortunate kings, the Catholics have been in- 
 variably the losers. The Bishop of Cloyne then must be a 
 stranger to the passions of the heart, of which interest has so 
 strong a hold ; or unacquainted with the history of the king- 
 dom ; or under a very strong bias ; or prepossessed with a 
 strange notion of their stupidity — if he supposes they had 
 any thing to expect by the commotions of a rabble. If Go- 
 vernment, however, had been induced to believe that tehy had 
 such prospects in view, and mistaken the shadow for the 
 reality, the Catholics would have become equally obnoxious. 
 And what efforts are now making to persuade Government 
 that phantoms are realities, let the public judge from the 
 pamphlets dispersed all over the three kingdoms. The fox in 
 the fable did well to take to his heels when the lion issued a 
 proclamation, ordering all the horned beasts to quit the 
 
 / 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 241 
 
 forest. And although no branches sprouted from his head, 
 yet his remark was very wise, when he said, What if his ma- 
 jesty thought I had horns. It was then prudent in the Ca- 
 tholic gentlemen to have taken the most effectual steps 
 to remove every suspicion to which their misrepresenters 
 are so industrious in laying them open. They were the 
 first to take the alarm : they transmitted an address to 
 Government through the Secretary of State. On hearing 
 that the common people complained in a few places of 
 the exactions and rigorous conduct of their parochial 
 clergy, they were the first to interfere in writing to the 
 Catholic prelates of the province, pressing them in the 
 most earnest manner to inquire into the conduct of their 
 clergy, and to remove, by every means their wisdom could 
 suggest, any cause of complaint.and every occasion of obloquy. 
 The application could not be made to more proper per- 
 sons than to prelates, whose lives are so many living and 
 animated sermons ; some of them, by their birth, titles, and 
 fortunes, would be this instant seated in the House of Peers, 
 deliberating with che nobles of the land, on these measures 
 on which the fate of a nation must depend, if they could 
 leave their creed at its threshold. Others are, by their 
 knowledge and wisdom, qualified for directing the councils 
 of kings. And the piety and exemplary lives of them all 
 would make them objects of veneration in any age, or in 
 any nation. A letter addressed to these venerable and illus- 
 trious prelates, from the Catholic gentlemen, was attended 
 to with the same condescension, as if it were the man- 
 date of a superior. They assembled, deliberated, and 
 enquired into the conduct of their clergy ; when in four 
 or five parishes, they discovered that the pastors and 
 flocks could not agree, either from inflexibility in the 
 former, who perhaps thought themselves injured by 
 submitting to regulations dictated by their inferiors, or 
 from the obstinacy of the latter, who would abide by no 
 regulating standard for the support of their pastors, but 
 such as they themselves thought fit to determine : or from a 
 personal dislike founded perhaps upon the recollection of 
 severe usage, prompted more by ardent and good-natured 
 zeal, than by this sage discretion, which attains its end by 
 
242 MISCFXLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 more lenient means. Let the motives of discontent be what 
 they may, without having recourse to canonical quibbles, 
 which must ever be superceded when the peace of society 
 interferes, the wise prelates removed the Pastors, and sub- 
 stituted others in their room. A more painful sacrifice could 
 not have been made; nor could a more evident proof be 
 adduced to shew the falseness of the infamous charge, that 
 the ill usage received by the Catholic Pastors from their 
 flocks, was but a sham battle, like that of the Doctor, who, 
 when he beat his wife, said that he beat half himself A silly 
 simile, and worthy of the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's able 
 writer, Theophilus. Not satisfied with giving this proof of 
 their most ardent desire for the restoration of peace and good 
 order, the prelates gave the most public and signal proofs 
 of a disinterestedness worthy the most apostolical times. 
 After declaring that a small stipend was requisite for the 
 support of their clergy, they enjoin that this stipend be not 
 exacted with rigour; and that even if it be refused, they 
 are not to refuse their spiritual assistance, but to shew upon 
 all occasions, that zeal, disinterestedness, and charity en- 
 forced by the Gospel, for the sake of which they had made 
 an anticipated sacrifice of all the prospects of this life, in 
 their early days, at the foot of the altar. No more could 
 liave been said ; no more could have been done. Such of 
 their clergy as had not been forced by violence from their 
 parishes, declared from their altars, that it was for the 
 sanctification of their own souls and those of their flocks, not 
 for the sake of any worldly emolument, that they took orders; 
 that they required nothing of them but what they themselves 
 were willing to give, and that no mercenary views would ever 
 hinder them from going day or night to their assistance, 
 whilst they had strength to perform their functions. All 
 were unanimous in crying out with the Prophet, if it be on 
 my account that this storm is raised, cast me overboard. 
 Are these the prelates whom the Bishop of Cloyne ex- 
 poses to the detestation of such as cannot explain their 
 consecration oath, which he has translated, in his sixth 
 edition, into English for the instruction of the ignorant ? 
 For I am to suppose, he presumes that the Peers and Com- 
 mons of Ireland know Latin, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 243 
 
 Let the zeal, activity, and disinterestedness of those pre- 
 lates be compared with the passive silence of the Bishop of 
 Cloyne for the space of fifteen months. And let the public 
 determine to whom the community is most indebted, for en- 
 deavouring to restore peace and order to a distracted pro- 
 vince. 
 
 Where are now those agitating Friars and Romish Mis- 
 sionaries sent here to sow sedition ; and of whom Doctor 
 Woodward speaks in his Postscript ? I challenge him in the 
 face of the kingdom to produce either agitating Friar, or Ro- 
 mish Missionary, or parish Priest, sent here to sow sedition, 
 or who has sown sedition. The Bishop of Cloyne cannot 
 produce one : he must then prove a negative, which, in his 
 Postscript in extenuation of Theophilus's slanders, he ac- 
 knowledges hard to be proved. The Bishop perceiving that 
 negatives are no proofs, has a recourse to casual affirmations, 
 by saying, perhaps Theophilus alludes to Mr. O'Leary's 
 Letters, &c. Here the attack is personal on Mr. O'Leary, 
 the Friar with a barbarous sirname, whose letters are most 
 artfully contrived to sow sedition. Such a heavy charge re- 
 quires a full investigation, and must plead my apology with 
 my readers for proceeding farther in my defence. Previous 
 to the arrival of the Catholic prelates in Cork, we were con- 
 tinually alarmed with the insurrections in the diocese of 
 Cloyne. They spread gradually, and, as I remarked before. 
 Captain Right's proclamations were at last posted up against 
 the gates of the chapels of that city. Tithes, proctors, and 
 priesVs dues, were alleged as causes of complaint, and be- 
 came the subject of general conversation. 
 
 The common people who, in times of persecution used to 
 follow their clergy into recesses of forests, to hear their 
 prayers and instructions, nailed up chapels in some places 
 against their pastors in the very blaze of toleration. The 
 disorders which would arise from such proceedings were 
 easily foreseen ; and it was requisite that some persons should 
 step forth to stem the torrent. Doctor Mann, the Protestant 
 Bishop of Cork, was absent for the benefit of his health : the 
 Catholic Bishop of the same diocese, the present Lord Dun- 
 boy ne, had been under the necessity of going to Dublin on 
 
244 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 the death of the young Lord Dunboyne, his nephew, before 
 the disturbances broke out in the diocese of Cork. The ti- 
 tular Bishop of Cloyne, Doctor M'Kenna, was sinking under 
 the weight of years, and ignorant of what happened in his 
 district. And Doctor Woodward, who had the administra- 
 tion of the two dioceses, was taken up with rummaging pon- 
 tificals and other old books, in order to collect materials for 
 his pamphlet, whilst the Catholic peasantry were flocking to 
 his churches, and the lower orders of the Protestants going 
 on Sundays to meet the Catholic congregations in his dio- 
 cese, in order to swear the people, and give solidity to the 
 confederacy in support of the regulations of Captain Right ; 
 the head pastor being either absent or infirm, or inactive, and 
 the flocks daily maddening, who was to be applied to ? Or 
 will the Bishop of Cloyne controvert the maxim, that in dan- 
 ger every person is a soldier. The Catholic gentlemen, in- 
 stead of thinking of a confederacy against either church or 
 state, with the assistance of a foreign power, which so often 
 haunts the Bishop's imagination, dreaded that it was rather 
 a confederacy against themselves, by affording such politi- 
 cians as are hostile to their interest, an opportunity of misre- 
 presenting them to Government. In consequence, after wri- 
 ting to Lord Dunboyne, pressing his return as soon as con- 
 veniently possible, they deputed five or six gentlemen to the 
 Catholic Bishop of Cloyne, earnestly requesting of him to 
 enquire into the complaints alleged by some parishes in his 
 diocese, to use his efforts with the people of his persuasion, 
 in order to reclaim them to their duty, and to remove every 
 pretext for aspersing the Catholic body, as far as his influence 
 could extend. 
 
 Unable from age and infirmity to go in person, he re- 
 quested of me to take an excursion into the discontented 
 parishes. 1 set off in order to allay the tumults in the dio- 
 cese of Cloyne, the first in the county where they broke 
 out. Here an extraordinary sight was exhibited. The 
 common people deluded into a belief that by going to Church 
 for a few Sundays they would be less liable to punishment, 
 if not entirely exempt from it ; and authorised to carry arms 
 in conjunction with the lower classes of Protestants, to whom 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 245 
 
 Proctors, Tithe-jobbers, and the Tithes themselves had be- 
 come equally obnoxious, under this delusion they flocked in 
 several places to the Churches, and as they had not David's 
 Psalms in metre, they chose the old ballad of Patrick's 
 Day in the Morning, for an Anthem, and got a piper to play 
 it as a voluntary on his iavourke organ, as a preparation 
 for divine service, in approaching the house of worship. 
 The marriage of Figaro represented on the French Stage 
 did not raise more humour, nor attract more spectators, 
 than did their extraordinary marriage of the Paddereen 
 and the common Prayer-book, in the diocese of Cloyne. 
 Irish wives are remarkably attached to their husbands, and 
 follow them wherever they go. Upon this occasion they 
 gave signal proofs of the constancy of their attachment. 
 Joan followed Darby, and Judy followed Paddy to Church, 
 where the gay and unthinking were highly diverted with the 
 novel spectacle of hands thrust into the Baptismal font, in 
 order to sprinkle about the holy water, and beads drawn out 
 near the Communion-table to reckon the Ave Marias, To 
 the gay and unthinking it was like an after-piece which 
 creates humour, in order to relieve the mind from the 
 impressions of terror and pity, which it had received 
 during the representation of some serious drama. To 
 me it appeared as a prelude to a tragedy. — It struck 
 the serious and sensible gentlemen of both religions in 
 the same light. 
 
 I was happy in an extensive acquaintance, and still more 
 happy that the Protestant gentlemen were convinced of the 
 uprightness of my intentions. My situation was delicate, 
 and without their concurrence my endeavours would have 
 proved abortive. 
 
 They had previous notice of my arrival in their respective 
 districts through which 1 intended to pass ; and I was happy 
 in the full assurance of their co-operation. On a Sunday I 
 arrived in a parish of Doctor Woodward's diocese. — The 
 parish Chapel was quite deserted. The Priest was * aban« 
 *doned by hi* flock,' and the deluded multitude, lulled into 
 a false security, had crowded to the Protestant Church as to 
 an asylum of impunity. — Thus in former times when the 
 privilege of the sanctuary was pleaded, malefactors flocked to 
 the temples as a shelter against the pursuits of violated 
 
246 MISCELLANEOUS TRACT*. 
 
 justice. I considered a crowd of peasants actuated by re* 
 sentment, brooding over some wild scheme, preparing for 
 nightly excursions ; yet saying their beads up near the 
 communion-table, I considered them as the abomination of 
 desolation in the holy place, as mentioned by the prophet 
 Daniel. In every bead I figured to myself the warhoop of 
 a Mexican, ready to sound the nocturnal charge, or the 
 massy club of an Indian, soon to be . ornamented with a 
 Proctor's scalp. 
 
 I must do this justice to the Protestant clergy, in whose 
 churches this religious farce was carried on, that they did 
 not like such proceeding. They in reality could have 
 said with the Psalmist, you have multiplied the people ; but 
 you have not encreased our joy. Multiplicasti gentem sed non 
 magnificasti Icetitiam. But what could they have done ? 
 They had no directions from Doctor Wood ward to shut the 
 doors of the churches against people who had shaken ofFevery 
 subordination to their own pastors. But that was the time 
 for the Bishop himself to appear in my poor opinion, 4 and 
 ' which was however the opinion of every rational man, 
 8 with whom I have conversed on the subject,' and which 
 will be the opinion of every rational man who shall read 
 this narrative, he should have published a pastoral letter 
 upon the occasion, and recommended to his clergy not to 
 permit their houses of worship to be changed into the upper 
 galleries, crowded with a mobility, assembled for the pur- 
 pose of making a farce of religion. 
 
 Had I been in his situation at the time, instead of tali 
 auxilio nee defensoribus istis, I would have thought it no dis- 
 honour to stand at the door of the church, on the right hand 
 of Mr. O'Leary, and to harangue a deluded multitude in 
 the following manner : 
 
 4 My good people, 
 
 I I am a Protestant Bishop, and you (as it appears) are 
 * Roman Catholics. It would be my glory, my comfort, and 
 4 my joy to bring all strayed sheep into my fold, to enlighten 
 4 them with the rays of the Gospel, to dispel the clouds of 
 4 error, and to enlarge the kingdom of truth. It is my wish, 
 ; and my sincere wish — it is the wish of every honest man 
 
Miscellaneous tracts. 247 
 
 who thinks himself in the right way, to wish the same 
 happiness to his fellow- creature. It was the wish of St. 
 Paul that his hearers were not almost Christians, but al- 
 together Christians. And it is my wish that you were not 
 only almost Protestants of the High-church, but altoge- 
 ther Protestants of the High-church. It is the wish of 
 charity, and if charity were banished from the hearts of 
 all other mortals, it should find its last retreat in the heart 
 of a Bishop. Were I then convinced of the sincerity of 
 your motives^ I would be not only the first to unlock the 
 gates of this Church, in order to give you admittance, 
 but I would be the first to go to meet you at a distance. 
 But as a bad motive pollutes the best of actions, and 
 as it is not from conviction of truth, nor a desire to as- 
 pire to a higher degree of perfection, that you crowd 
 about my house of worship, but from a sinister design to 
 seek impunity for licentiousness; and under the cloak of a 
 religion, which you do not believe, to conceal the out- 
 rages you are intent on committing; I cannot, in con- 
 sequence, profane the house of God by the admission of 
 persons who, perhaps to-morrow night, will be disturb- 
 ing the peace of the public, and eluding laws in the dark, 
 which, in all likelihood, will hereafter punish them in 
 the open day : and remind them when too late of the 
 admonition which I now give from the best of intentions. 
 It is not the chime of my bells, but the sound of Captain 
 Right's horn, that has kindled in your breasts this name 
 of extraordinary devotion, which, perhaps hereafter, 
 may be extinguished with your blood. VVill you have 
 me change the house of God into a barrack of sedition ? 
 I see in that crowd an old man, with a pair of beads in 
 his hands. My good man, where are you bringing your 
 beads ? Do you intend to expose yourself and me, re- 
 ligion and its temples, to the derision of the public ? If 
 you come, come from conviction, and leave your beads at 
 home, or bestow them to another. It reminds me of a 
 history that 1 read in the Scriptures. Assyrian colonists 
 were transplanted to Samaria ; they worshipped their 
 idols and the God of Israel by turns in the same temple. 
 
 * It is not then a house of worship, but a good life, that will 
 
 * sanctify you. Instil this truth in the minds of the young 
 
 K K 
 
248 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 people iii your neighbourhood, and caution them against 
 the practices of those who may engage them in outrages. 
 If you are not submissive to your own pastors, but ob- 
 stinate to their advice, what good can I expect from you ? 
 You are, I believe, now too old to learn, and the gene- 
 rality of you all, are not much inclined to alter your 
 creeds. I give you then the advice suggested by an amia- 
 ble Protestant prelate, my brother Bishop of Clonfert, in 
 his letter on Sunday Schools. / cannot expect to make 
 good Protestants of you, therefore I advise you to be good 
 Catholics. If you have any complaints against your own 
 clergy, your Bishops will redress them ; but I cannot, nor 
 will I permit you to come to my churches to erect the 
 standard of sedition, when f have every room to believe 
 that you have no other motive in view. Nor can your- 
 selves reap any benefit from a conduct which, in the eyes 
 of God, is a prevarication. That God who unfolds the 
 recesses of the soul ; who rejects a spotted victim ; and ac- 
 cepts of no sacrifice, but such as A sincere, honest, and 
 pure heart offers upon his altars. Nor would my churches 
 grant you any security against the rigour of the laws. 
 The hand of justice stretches into the inmost part of the 
 sanctuary. In vain did Joah, a mighty man, grasp the 
 comer of the altar: he was slain by the sword of justice. 
 And much more, in vain would you seek for impunity in 
 my house of worship, for the sanctuary itself is no sanc- 
 tion or shelter for crimes. Follow the advice of Mr. 
 O'Leary, who is here on my left hand, as you followed his 
 advice when you imagined that you had more to expect, 
 and were convinced that you had less to lose. 
 
 4 And you, my dearly beloved brethren, of^ my own com- 
 munion, how am 1 to address you ! I address you with that 
 confidence which my zeal for the peace of society, the pre- 
 servation of good order, and the purity of good morals 
 should inspire. Recollect the maxim of the heathen Sage ; 
 a maxim to which the blessed St. Paul has given his sanc- 
 tion, evil communications corrupt good morals. These poor 
 people are wild olive branches going to ingraft themselves 
 on the stock of the Protestant religion in appearance. But 
 alas ! as they intend to use it only as a cloak for temporary 
 outrages, they will be soon disjoined without taking sum- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 219 
 
 ' cient time to be cicurated and mellowed by the sap or vital 
 
 * juice which circulates from the stock through the new in- 
 
 * serted branches. You may judge of their inventions by 
 4 those of some of your own. Has my diocese ever exhi- 
 ' bited such a spectacle as was seen in the parish of Clona- 
 ' kilty last Sunday ? Protestants going to a Popish congre- 
 ' gation to swear the people to Captain Right's regulations ! 
 
 * Was it to become Catholics ? No, neither do these people 
 
 * intend to become Protestants : religious distinctions are of- 
 
 * ten lost in the idea of common oppression — I acknowledge 
 
 * it. And would to God they were for ever lost ! The vices 
 ' and virtues of all men flow in the same channels. Their 
 
 * hearts are the same though their opinions be different ; and 
 ' for those opinions to God alone they are accountable. I 
 
 * like to see all the subjects of every description in my diocese 
 1 well united. Such an union is the strength of the state, 
 ' and should be the glory of a Prelate. But I foresee tnat 
 
 * those mutual visits will consolidate a confederacy which the 
 ' sword of the laws will cut asunder, to the indiscriminate 
 ' ruin of the associations. For the edge of that sword has 
 4 no eyes in it, and justice that handles it, is painted blind. 
 ' You all complain of proctors, canters, and tithes. I shall 
 
 * do what lies in my power to remove every complaint you 
 
 * may have against the two first — no more can be expected. 
 ' but as to tithes, they are established by law : the legislature 
 
 * alone can modify them, or substitute an equivalent in their 
 
 * room. Wait with patience for its decision ; and guard 
 ' against proceedings which must hurt your temporal interest, 
 ' and injure your consciences. Or, if any of you are already 
 4 engaged in the confederacy of disorder, break the engage- 
 
 * ment of iniquity, whose ties cannot bind the conscience. 
 
 * The peace of God be with you alV 
 
 A discourse from a person of Doctor Woodward's credit 
 and authority, would have been of infinite consequence in 
 the beginning. Or a pastoral letter, with an open dis- 
 countenance of the interchange of religious visits would have 
 been productive of the most salutary effects. Principis ob- 
 sta sew medicina paratur, hold good in politics as well as in 
 physic. 
 
 One pastoral letter or sermon in eighty-five, would have 
 been worth a thousand pamphlets in eighty-seven, and few 
 
250 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 persons are so well qualified for such a part of the pastoral 
 charge as the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, had he been as intent 
 upon the discharge of that office which Saint Paul enjoins on 
 pastors, preach the ivord, be instant in season ; as his Lord- 
 ship was intent on writing a pamphlet out of season. 
 
 I should never blame Doctor Woodward for writing a 
 pamphlet in favour of tithes, which (if I am well informed,) 
 bring him an income of eight or nine hundred a year. But he 
 could have written his pamphlet without reviving old contro- 
 versies, and bringing the Catholics and Dissenters on the 
 stage. Much less should he have made a personal attack on 
 Mr. O'Leary, whom he might have left unnoticed. But 
 leaving the Bishop in full possession of his tithes, which to 
 me are matters of no concern, I must proceed in my de- 
 fence. 
 
 Convinced that the Protestant gentlemen who were ac- 
 quainted with the uprightness of my intentions, were willing 
 to co-operate with my endeavours, which had no object but 
 the preservation of public tranquility, when divine service 
 was over, we conferred together ; and presuming, with rea- 
 son, that their resemblance of religious conformity, was but a 
 mask which covered features, which when exposed to view 
 would not exhibit an inviting aspect, we agreed to tear it off, 
 and expose the wearers to their neighbours and themselves. 
 I exhorted them to my utmost, in the most persuasive man- 
 ner, adapted to the circumstances. The magistrates explained 
 the laws with proper comments. The people recovered from 
 their delusion, returned to their duty, fully determined to 
 desist from those dangers and romantic enterprises, which 
 have proved equally destructive to themselves and to the 
 peace of the community, had not the law of God, which Mr. 
 O'Leary explained, and the law of the land explained by the 
 civil magistrate, checked the progress of their pernicious 
 career. 
 
 Thus, with the concurrence of the Protestant gentlemen 
 and magistrates, have I begun my mission in the diocese of 
 Cloy ne.— Sedition, with which mad malevolence has upbraided 
 me, fled as a routed enemy before me ; whilst peace, like the 
 inseparable companion of a man framed by nature, and dis* 
 ciplined by habit to cast its shadow on every side, trod in my 
 steps and humoured my motions. It embraced me so close 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 251 
 
 that the meridian sun could not discover us asunder. I chal- 
 lenge Doctor Woodward, or that infamous libeller, Theo- 
 philus, to disprove this assertion. 
 
 In the interim the Catholic prelates met in Cork, and 
 framed those regulations so worthy of Apostles, who de- 
 spise the grandeurs of this fleeting world, and of whom the 
 world is unworthy. — The words of Saint Paul. 
 
 Their arrival dispensed me with any further trouble; 
 and after bringing on my narrative so far, will dispense me 
 in future with speaking so much of myself. — A personal 
 attack required a personal defence; and as my conduct has 
 been minutely censured, I have been under the necessity of 
 entering into a minute detail. My enemies, or rather the, 
 friends of tithes, to which I have no call, have attempted to 
 brand me with the stigma of sedition. Whoever reads my 
 plain, unadorned narrative, without prejudice or partiality, 
 will wipe away the mark of infamy. 
 
 Had the Bishop of Cloyne been as active in enforcing 
 peace and subordination as I have done, the tire which 
 kindled in his diocese, would not in all appearance have 
 •extended the conflagration. — Nor is his Lordship to take 
 any offence at my freedom for making this remark. I only 
 remind him of the obligations enjoined on him at his con- 
 secration, when he answered the following interroga- 
 tory. ' Will you maintain and set forward, as much as 
 4 shall lie in you, quietness, love and peace among all men; 
 * and such as be unquiet, disobedient, and criminous, within 
 ' your diocese, correct and punish ? Answer. — I will do so 
 4 by the help of God.'* 
 
 God and his own conscience can inform him how far his 
 6ilence and inactivity have contributed to punish and cor- 
 rect the unquiet, disobedient, and criminous within his 
 diocese, in a manner conformable to his pastoral charge, 
 and to that gospel whose author preached nothing but glory 
 to God, and peace to men of good ivill on earth. And the 
 public are now the most competent to judge, how far his 
 pamphlet has contributed to maintain and set forward quiet- 
 ness, love and peace among all men. 
 
 t The Consecration of Bishops in the Euglish Liturjy. 
 
2S2 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 Had he as a Pastor gone forth among his flock, or as the 
 Historian done justice to all parties, he would have disco- 
 vered several of his own sheep amongst the speckled flock 
 of insurgents, and not confine them solely to a Popish mob. 
 Were not they Protestants who proposed the oaths in the 
 congregation at Clonakilty ? Were not they Protestants 
 who overrun the parishes of Affydown, Skibbereen, &c. ? 
 Were not they Protestants who headed a party of four hun- 
 dred White-boys near Butterant ? The most respectable 
 criminals (if a criminal can be respectable) who was ar- 
 raigned before the Judges on the Munster circuit, were 
 Protestants. If from the county of Cork his Lordship had 
 taken an excursion to the county of Kerry, he would find 
 the truth of the assertion made by a gentleman who is both 
 a clergyman and a magistrate, and who bears the happy 
 character of uniting the qualities of the three orders in his 
 person, the liberality of the gentleman, the charity of the 
 clergyman, and the justice and uprightness of the magis- 
 trate. * Many Protestants, (though I thank my God, mostly 
 •of the lower order,) says that gentleman, were engaged in 
 
 ♦ tendering oaths, in procession by day, and in outrages by 
 4 night, as any other description of men whatsoever. Nay, 
 
 * some of them were captains of these lawless corps, and 
 4 have been obliged to fly from the prosecution that awaited 
 4 them.'* 
 
 Who could have been more active in suppressing those 
 tumults than my Lord Kenmare, a Roman Catholic noble- 
 man, the tender father of the honest and industrious tenant, 
 and the just avenger of the injured, without any partial 
 regard to religious distinctions ? Could the public expect a 
 more honourable testimony of his conduct? or can there be a 
 greater proof of the contempt in which the liberal-minded 
 of all persuasions hold feuds and discontents on the score of 
 religious creeds, than the following address of thanks voted 
 to him by the clergy of the established religion ? 
 
 * Short and Civil Answer to a Pamphlet, intitled, " An Address to the Nebility and 
 «' Gentry of Ireland." 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 253 
 
 TO THE BIGHT HONOURABLE LORD VISCOUNT KENMARE, &c. 
 
 T/ie Address of the Clergy of the Established Church, as- 
 sembled at Tralee. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 * We have seen with indignation the progress of a delu- 
 
 * sion, which affected in its object to controul the laws of the 
 
 * realm. — From the spreading contagion, every good citizen 
 
 * felt an encreasing alarm j and the tranquility of the country 
 ' was suspended in the fever of the times. — You, my Lord, 
 
 * came forward in the crisis. — You led the way in zeal and 
 
 * in vigilance ; and borrowing less from the station you pos- 
 
 * sess, than from the esteem you deserve, you interposed ; an 
 
 * example which had a title to success ; by such an exertion, 
 ' and by the native energy of violated justice, we trust that 
 
 * the growing mischief has been effectually repelled. We 
 
 * owe you our acknowledgments, and in the hour of subsid- 
 
 * ing tumult, we thank you for the prospect of repose. To 
 
 * some minds there is a conscious satisfaction, which exceed 
 
 * every other measure of reward'; yet, my Lord, to the testi- 
 ' mony of your own feelings, you will not refuse to join the 
 i tribute of general applause.' 
 
 « MAURICE CROSBIE, 
 
 t 
 
 ( Deaa •! Limerick, and Rector of Castle-Island, Ice/ 
 
 Tralee, Oct. 4, 1786. 
 
 Can then any man in honour to conscience say with the 
 unconscientious Thcophilus, that the insurgents are all Pa- 
 pists ? Or is it not a falsehood bordering upon blasphemy,* 
 for that slanderer to say, * that the parish Priests are in a 
 
 * confederacy with their flocks, in order to plunder the Pro- 
 
 * testant clergy of their tithes, and to appropriate to them- 
 selves a compensation for absolution V These Pastors have 
 suffered more than any in the shipwreck. — Was not a Father 
 
 * Tkese vrords aye n»t enmradictp d b» the. Bjshwv 
 
2.04 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 Burke obliged to quit his parish, the same day that 
 Archdeacon Tisdal quitted his? Were not balls fired at 
 one Father Sheehy? Were not two clergymen, one a 
 Secular, and the other Regular, robbed the same night of 
 their wearing apparel? Another parish Priest, a venerable 
 old man, who was never charged with any extortions, 
 and who, in my own presence, challenged his congre- 
 gation to bring forward any charge against him, was 
 robbed of what little lie had to support him in his old 
 age, even of his very bed. — Another on suspicion of having 
 brought the army to his congregation to prevent the deluded 
 people from swearing, was on the point of being torn limb 
 by limb at his altar, had not a gentleman stepped forward 
 and said, that he himself was the person who had applied to 
 the magistrate for the purpose. The gentleman himself 
 narrowly escaped with his life, through the interposition of 
 the Vicar- general, who had the presence of mind to step with 
 the Crucifix in his hand between the gentleman and the en- 
 raged multitude, crying out to them with a loud voice, J 
 conjure you in the name of the God whose image I hold, not 
 to pollute his altar with murder. 
 
 Is it possible that a man could be so callous to the feelings 
 of honour, and so impenetrable to the impressions of truth, 
 as to obtrude on the public such barefaced slanders as Theo- 
 philus has done ? Could not his zeal against Popery, and 
 that unprovoked vengeance, the offspring of the Demons of 
 night, be sufficiently glutted with the persecution which de- 
 fenceless men suffer from their own, without blackening their 
 character ? Or could the Bishop of Cloyne, who is presumed 
 not to be ignorant of transactions which happened both to 
 his own and the other diocese committed to his care, excuse 
 a Theophilus in saying with such sangfroid) than an appre- 
 hension for the safety of religion will naturally excite a warmth? 
 Will zeal for religion justify what nature and religion con- 
 demn? Or did the Bishop of Cloyne imagine that I would 
 be so divested of honour, or such an enemy to my character, 
 as not to cast a light upon the subject, when once his pamph- 
 let in which I am so cruelly treated, would fall into my hands ? 
 The insurgents then were of every description of the lower 
 orders. They made no distinction between the clergy of 
 either religion, when once they became obnoxious to them. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 255 
 
 Their creeds were different, but they all equally com- 
 plained of tithes and tithe-jobbers, whom the Bishop in his 
 great charity, calls the agents and servants of the clergy. 
 I could add to the number of the persecuted Roman Ca- 
 tholic clergymen of this county, several against whom 
 their parishioners swore, and whose masses they have not 
 heard, in the long space of fourteen months. 
 
 There are powerful Protestant peers in the county of 
 Cork: the Bishop of Cloyne by his profession is of the 
 number. — And those persecuted, defenceless Roman Ca- 
 tholic clergymen had it not in their power to vote a grate- 
 ful and well penned address to the most powerful of the 
 noblemen of the county, for their favourable anfl timely in- 
 terposition, as the Protestant clergy had voted one to the 
 Catholic '.-lobleman. No : the county of Cork is the only 
 county in Ireland, where the temporal peer attacked a se- 
 cular priest with the cane; and where the spiritual peer 
 has made so extraordinary and unprovoked an attack on a 
 regular clergyman with the pen. 
 
 Glorious triumphs indeed ! and battles worthy to be re- 
 corded in histories, written in golden characters, in paper 
 preserved with cedar juice. Histories vere aurece cedroque 
 dignee. 
 
 ..How far the Bishop of Cloyne's history would deserve 
 such an honour, may be conjectured by his account of the 
 insurrections, in which he enlarges on the persecutions of 
 the Protestant clergy, without mentioning a word of the 
 sufferings of the Catholic Pastors. He speaks of a Popish 
 mob. — But why does he not speak out, and unfold the his- 
 torical page, from one margin to the other ? — Why does 
 he leave so many blanks for me to fill up? Or as he at- 
 tempted the tragedy of Orestes : when he placed the Pro- 
 testant sufferers in the front, why did not he place the 
 Catholic sufferers on the back of the page, and finish the 
 piece ? Scriptus et intergo nectum finitus Orestes. Did not 
 the Catholic priest suffer as well as the Protestant minister, 
 only that he had not so much to lose, nor the game expec- 
 tation of being reimbursed ? Was not the Catho!ic farmer 
 as ill treated as the Protestant? Or were there two dif- 
 ferent sounds in Captain Right 1 s horn? arms were taken 
 
 L L 
 
256 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 out of the hands of Protestants by the Bishop's account— 
 
 and I ask him by whom ? Is he sure that the hand that 
 
 wrested them from the Protestants, had ever made the 
 
 sign of the cross ? Beds, clothes and money were taken 
 
 from the Catholic clergy. — Who took them from those 
 
 men to whom (according to the Bishop's favourite Theo- 
 
 philus,) the Catholic laity are slaves ? I must however, do 
 
 the Bishop the justice that he assigns as a partial cause of 
 
 the insurrections 4 the connivance of some members of the 
 
 4 established church, the supineness of more, the timidity 
 
 ' of the generality of magistrates, a corrupt encouragement 
 
 4 of those lawless acts is not a few.' I am extremely 
 
 thankful to him for this figure of rhetoric, called a climax. 
 
 It is an evident confession on his part, that the gentlemen 
 
 of the established church were under no apprehension of 
 
 its danger, much less of the overthrow of the state by a 
 
 Popish mob. But I am doubtful whether they will be so 
 
 thankful to him for bringing them forward as confederates 
 
 • 
 in the insurrections, by connivance and encouragement. — 
 
 1 entertain a better opinion of them. Their supineness 
 then must have originated in a conviction that the poor 
 cottagers and the griping tithe-jobbers did not stand upon 
 favourable terms with each other : and that in the conflict 
 for a potato or sheaf of corn, the Protestant gentlemen 
 would not regret if the latter were worsted. They had 
 their properties and consequence to hazard in case of a re- 
 volution. — And had their imaginations been haunted with 
 the gloomy spectres which Doctor Woodward now raises 
 all over the kingdom, they would have been more active 
 and vigilant ; though they have not read the Roman Pon- 
 tifical with that attention which Doctor Woodward has be- 
 stowed on it, to find out the Catholic Bishop's consecration 
 oath; yet common sense and the knowledge of the world 
 informed them, that there was no danger of the Protes- 
 tant ascendancy, from a Popish mob, assisted by a foreign 
 power. 
 
 When Doctor Woodward promised in the title-page of his 
 pamphlet, a General account of the Insurrections in Munster, 
 we little expected a short martyrology of two or three pages, 
 announcing threats to burn new churches, which are stiH 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 257 
 
 standing, and have no elements to resist but wind and rain : 
 old churches to be changed into mass-houses, which have 
 not yet been sprinkled with holy water; the tongues of cler- 
 gymen to be cut out, which tongues have not yet lost their 
 spring ; and other alarming menaces, for which he acknow- 
 ledges to have no other voucher, but a paper he received 
 from Cork. Thus the boasting poet in Horace promised a 
 mighty description of the feats and achievements performed 
 before the walls of Troy. Fortunam Priami cantabo et no- 
 bele bellum. 
 
 The mountain was in labour (saith the Poet) and was de- 
 livered of a mouse. — From great promises of a General Ac- 
 count of the Rise and Progress of the Insurrections in Munster, 
 we expected mighty matters. We expected that the digni- 
 fied historian, would not be content with moistening the nib 
 of his pen with a small drop of ink, without going deeper 
 into his standish. We had room to expect that he would 
 lay open the sources of information, do justice to all parties, 
 and be religiously accurate in his descriptions. He talks of 
 a Popish mob, taking arms out of the hands of Protestants. — 
 A Church nailed up. — A new Ohurch threatened to be burnt, if an 
 old Church was not left for the purpose of being changed into a 
 mass-house, 4 and vestries controuled in such a manner as 
 4 not to afford elements for the C^imunion, though the Ca- 
 « tholics are excluded from having votes when these vestries 
 
 * are held.' — Those facts and the threats already mentioned, 
 make up this interesting and ' general account of the rise 
 
 * and progress of the Insurrections in Munster.' — And from 
 such facts who would not infer that the overthrow of the 
 established religion was meditated by the Catholics. It must 
 be the author's meaning and drift to create such a belief in 
 the minds of his readers, or there is no meaning in what he 
 writes. — Why does he not mention the chapels that were 
 nailed up ; the Catholic clergy who suffered ; the reduction 
 of their accustomed dues ; the Protestants who headed the 
 Insurgents; his own churches resorted to as so many 
 asylums in order to elude the laws ; the motives and springs 
 of their different transactions; the rise of the evil, and the 
 application of the remedy. 
 
258 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 He informs us that Donoughmore church was nailed up : 
 and leaves his readers to look at the nails without pointing 
 out the hand that fastened them; after having so deeply- 
 impressed his mind with the terrors of Popery, as to make 
 him guess that a Popish hand had raised the hammer. 
 
 The Bishop could not be ignorant of the circumstances 
 which gave rise to this transaction. He knows that the Pro- 
 testant clergyman of that parish was beloved in the place, 
 and had a great number of powerful friends. The Bishop 
 of Cloyne appointed another clergyman to officiate in his 
 room. This was not agreeable to the parishioners : when 
 the strange clergyman came on a Sunday morning to the 
 church he found it nailed up. Let the reader draw the infe- 
 rence. The Bishop of Cloyne should have either not men- 
 tioned the Church of Donoughmore, or not omitted this cir- 
 cumstance, which would either lead his reader into a 
 knowledge that either the Protestant parishioners nailed up 
 the church, or if there were any Catholics amongst them, 
 that it was not from a design to invade the church, but from 
 a love for the clergyman who was to quit the parish. But 
 this manner of relating facts would not answer Doctor 
 Woodward's end : he mentions a clergyman at whom stones 
 were thrown whilst he was officiating, and who would have 
 been murdered by a neighbouring Popish Congregation, hut 
 for a messenger who was dispatched from the same congregation 
 to inform him of the danger. I am not a person of such a 
 cavilling disposition as to deny facts, except when I have 
 sufficient evidence to disprove them. But if the Bishop had 
 related all the circumstances relative to the above trans- 
 actions, the reader would attribute it to some cause different 
 from the design of a popish confederacy to overturn the 
 established church. 
 
 In relating this transaction, which a Catholic would hold 
 in the same detestation in which a Protestant would hold it, 
 has the Lord Bishop, as a candid historian, informed his 
 readers that previous to this insult there had been an un- 
 happy affray ? A warrant which the parishioners of both 
 religions deemed illegal, had been issued in order to levy 
 church rates, after a manner to which the parishioners had 
 not been accustomed. As far as 1 have been informed, the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 259 
 
 rates were to be levied on plough-lands, instead of having re- 
 course to the usual mode. The people resisted, and in the 
 resistance two of the parishioners unfortunately lost their 
 lives. The killers were indicted for murder. The bills were 
 ignored : this exasperated the people : their minds still in a 
 ferment — a new clerg) man was sent to officiate in the parish : 
 they were more disposed in favour of his predecessor : whilst 
 the clergyman was reading his prayers, a boy, perhaps a son 
 to one of the men who had been killed, began to throw 
 stones, and was immediately hindered. As to the fact that 
 the men were killed, 1 appeal to the Lord Bishop of Cloyne 
 himself, who would not have been glad that the affair would 
 have been brought at that time before the Court of King's 
 Bench, as bloodshed on the score of consecrated goods, has 
 ever* wounded the clerical profession in every age, and in 
 every nation: as to the circumstances, I am not acquainted 
 with the minute detail of them. For the truth of the above 
 account, I appeal to the Protestant gentlemen in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Ballivoorna, when he talks of the reduction of 
 the tithes in the foregoing district. The Bishop and I relate 
 the same facts, but our inferences are different. He relates 
 bare facts, without mentioning one single circumstance which 
 mav determine the reader's judgment in favour of an injured 
 and misrepresented people. His only object through the 
 course of his pamphlet, is to prove what no man of sense in 
 Ireland believes, viz. the Church of Ireland is at this present 
 moment in imminent danger of subversion. 
 
 If facts such as are related by the Bishop were really be- 
 lieved, they certainly would be very alarming. But when re- 
 lated with their concomitant circumstances, and the motives 
 that gave them rise, the phantom vanishes. The candid 
 reader will infer from the above fact, that the attack on the 
 clergyman was not a Popish confederacy against the esta- 
 blished religion, but an ebulition of passion occasioned by re- 
 sentment. When Pope Alexander the Sixth, ordered six 
 cardinals to be sewed up in a bag, and cast into the Tyber, 
 none but a fool can imagine that it was with a view to over- 
 throw their religion ; and no wise man will construe into a 
 plot against the church, two or three stones thrown at a 
 clergyman by a boy, after seeing the mangled body of his 
 
260 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 father stretched dead in a field, in consequence of ecclesias- 
 tical dues, however unjustifiable the insult. The Lord Bi- 
 shop of Cloyne must certainly have piercing eyes when he dis- 
 covers every one's religion in a crowd : or when he confounds 
 all religions concerned in the South, and amalgamates or 
 unites them into one Popish mass : we can literally apply to 
 the Historian of the Whiteboys, the remark made on Camb- 
 den, who from partiality to his nation, had both eyes open 
 when he wrote of the English, one eye shut when he wrote 
 of the Scotch, but was quite blind when he wrote of the Irish. 
 
 Angligenus oculis perlustras Camdenne duobus ; 
 Monoculus Scotos : Cjecus Hibernos. 
 
 Hitherto the Lord Bishop has kept me at the doors of his 
 church. Now let us follow him into the sanctuary — he" talks 
 of Vestries being intimidated by the Whiteboys from granting 
 money for the purchase of elements for the Holy Communion. 
 
 How many Vestries have they intimidated ? Or was this 
 intimidation a Popish confederacy, to overturn the established 
 religion by extinguishing fervour and devotion ? I do not 
 perceive this extraordinary zeal for the Sacraments in either 
 Catholics or Protestants, which gives the ministers of religion 
 room to complain of the great consumption of sacramental 
 wine, and consecrated bread. The more they see their in- 
 structors attached to the world, the contempt of which they 
 are bound to enforce; the more they see them intent upon 
 blowing the trumpet of religious war, on the score of specu- 
 lative tenets, which surpass the comprehension of the multi- 
 tude, and neglect charity, peace, and humanity, which are 
 within the reach of all ; the more the laity perceive the mi- 
 nisters of a religion which is the offspring of heaven, intent 
 upon fixing its root in the earth, the more they will relax in 
 their fervour, and be inclined to believe that the sacred mi- 
 nistry is a kind of craft in the hands of skilful interested men, 
 who for the sake of lucre and emolument, would preach up 
 Christ in Europe, and Diana at Ephesus, had they lived in 
 the time of Demetrius, the silver-smith, who complained that 
 his trade would be lost if the temple of the Goddess was de- 
 serted. His Lordship knows that these are the obloquies 
 and reproaches of our modern deists and free-thinkers. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 261 
 
 He knows that in every age, people have availed them- 
 selves of obloquies and reproaches against the clergy, and 
 alleged them as a cause of separation from his church, as 
 well as from mine. The best method of silencing the voice 
 of obloquy raised against the ministers of religion, is a con- 
 duct marked with that charity and disinterestedness which the 
 public arc entitled to expect from persons of their sacred 
 functions. How far the Bishop of Cloyne's pamphlet has 
 contributed to vindicate the clerical profession from the as- 
 persions of obloquy, and to prove that the ministers of the 
 Gospel are the most charitable and disinterested mortals 
 on earth, let his readers judge. He is a minute historian 
 who is not satisfied with informing his readers that the 
 White- boy s intimidated Vestries from collecting Church rates, 
 without alarming the piety of the devoutest souls, by 
 threatening them with a spiritual famine from Popish plun- 
 derers, who deprive them of the elements for the Holy 
 Communion. 
 
 If the Lord Bishop of Cloyne had been as accurate in the 
 enumeration of all the transactions of the Munster peasantry, 
 as he has been in his detail of churches and elements, more 
 figures would rise to view on his historical canvas, and in the 
 groupe would appear persecuted priests and deserted chapels. 
 He has painted one side of the face and shadowed the other. 
 It is incumbent on me to supply the defect. He has given 
 the profile, I must draw the face in full. My readers will 
 excuse my prolixity when they are acquainted with my mo- 
 tives, and the reasons which induce me to enter into so mi- 
 nute a detail. 
 
 The character of the nation has been injured in foreign 
 countries, where we are considered as in a state of barbarism 
 and rebellion, in consequence of the exaggerated accounts 
 industriously circulated in the prints, since the beginning of 
 the disturbances. The Lord Bishop of Cloyne's pamphlet 
 has been read at St. James's ; and his Majesty must entertain 
 an extraordinary opinion of the Dissenters and Catholics of 
 Ireland. The Irish Catholics in particular, are objects of 
 detestation all over Great Britain, in consequence of Theo- 
 philus's address, the marrow of which is inserted in the 
 Monthly Review, which fell into my hands the day I sat 
 
262 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 down to write this defence. In that Review of January,,, 
 eighty-seven, the disturbances in Ireland are the result of a 
 Popish confederacy, cemented ' by Popish clergymen, and 
 ' their votaries, with a design to overturn the established re. 
 
 * ligion. All these misfortunes flow from a relaxation of the 
 
 * Popery laws, as from their genuine source,' &c. &c. 
 
 I am then indispensably bound to undeceive the pubic 
 both in Ireland and wherever this pamphlet may appear. 
 Justice to my country, to the Irish Catholics, and to myself, 
 requires an exact and minute detail. 
 
 A pitched battle, in which ten thousand on each side had 
 fallen in the field, has not employed so many pens, nor occa- 
 sioned such alarms, as the mighty excursions of Captain 
 Right's forces. They disturbed the peace of the commu- 
 nity, it is true ; and for this they are justly censured, and 
 justly punishable. They collected money in two or three 
 places, for the support of their confederates who were in 
 goal. No person exculpates them for this ill- directed be- 
 nevolence ; and if they forced it from the people whose 
 relations were in goal, they deserved death. There was 
 one man cruelly and barbarously murdered in the county 
 of Tipperary : at this murder humanity shudders ; th< re 
 was a respectable clergyman of the established church, the 
 Rev. Mr. Ryan, most cruelly used ; the Rev. Mr. Hare, 
 was way-laid and escaped. In the county of Cork, the 
 Rev. Doctor Atterbury, was forced to swear to the Right- 
 boys table of tithe-rates, but received no other injury; 
 the Rev. Mr. Mayne had some of his out-houses burned ; 
 the Rev. Mr. Kenny, from terror quitted his habitation ; 
 and Archdeacon Tisdal, with Father Burke, the priest of 
 the parish, in which both resided, took shelter in Cork ; 
 the Rev. Mr. Browne had two or three horses cropped : 
 these gentlemen are the clergymen of the established church, 
 who were most materially injured. There was not a sensi- 
 ble Catholic in the county of Cork that did not condemn and 
 detest the usage given to the Rev. Gentlemen now men- 
 tioned, and the more so, as some of them are considered as 
 fathers to the poor ; though the Lord Bishop of Cloyne up- 
 braids me with uttering panegyrics on some of the Protes- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 263 
 
 tant clergy. But equally indifferent to his applause, or 
 censure, F shall ever pay a tribute to merit. Sorry am I, 
 as an Historian and a man of feeling, that he has not enu- 
 merated the Catholic clergymen, who were equal sufferers 
 in the storm. His readers would then be of opinion, that 
 the Rightboys were as hostile to the Church of Rome, as 
 to the established religion. 
 
 In the long space of fifteen months, whilst the distur- 
 bances continued, until the Earl of Carhampton, (then 
 Lord Luttrell) came to Munster, I heard of no murder 
 committed by the Whiteboys; if there has been any such 
 barbarity committed, I shall relate it in the second edition 
 of my pamphlet. 
 
 Every robbery, every outrage has been attributed to 
 those deluded and unhappy people : and to my surprise, (if 
 surprised I would be, after so many falsehoods propagated 
 from the county where I reside,) on my arrival in Dublin, 
 what should I see but an account of four hundred White- 
 boys attacking officers of the army near Cork. Three 
 nights before I set off from Cork, we had an account of 
 this extraordinary encounter : an officer on his return from 
 the sports of the field, for want of other game, shot a pea- 
 sant's dog; before he had time to charge his piece, the 
 active clown with his stick, revenged the death of the 
 guardian of his cabin. This brought on an affray which 
 was construed into Whiteboyism; and had there not been 
 a Whiteboy or a Rightboy in the world, touch mc, touch my 
 dog would be a standing maxim with an Irish peasant ; he 
 commonly answers one question with another, and returns 
 blow for blow : this last part of his education he receives 
 from the instinct of nature, which is forwarded by the Irish 
 soil, so favourable to the growth of valour. If he was 
 guilty of no other fault but that of resenting an unprovoked 
 injury, with a stroke of Shilelah, the nobility and gentry of 
 Ireland would not blame him much. They themselves are 
 remarkable for bravery; and their character is not to be 
 insulted with impunity. 
 
 Far be it from me to countenance disorder, but I must. 
 make allowance for the passions of man ; and I feel when I 
 see every trifling scuffle magnified into rebellion against the 
 
 M M 
 
264 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 state, and every murmer against a proctor or tithe-jobber 
 exaggerated into a confederacy against the Church. Yet to 
 the discredit of the county of Cork in particular, every 
 dwarf is metamorphosed into a giant. Tithe-jobbers strain- 
 ed every nerve to alarm the fears of Government, in order 
 to secure themselves in their extortions, by painting the 
 deluded peasantry as unworthy of the least compassion. 
 In the Reverend author of the letter found on the road be- 
 tween Cork and Cloghnakilty, addressed to Dr. O'Leary, 
 they found a favourite Historian, who, in peasants going 
 before day for sand to manure their spots of ground, could 
 discover Orlandos and Orsons. The sport of school-boys 
 was mao-nified into sieves. In Monkstown, where ladies 
 and gentlemen pass a good part of the summer for the be- 
 nefit of bathing, what uproars and alarms: two wags, for 
 the sake of diversion sounded an old horn in the dead of 
 the night, and threw all the ladies and gentlemen into a 
 panic terror. In the space of three weeks this nocturnal 
 sport appeared in the distant prints a serious blockade by 
 Captain Right, at the head of five hundred men ; in this 
 manner, at a distance from the scene of action, were num- 
 bers alarmed at the report of the talcing of Umbrage* To 
 give a history of the false accounts propagated in the public 
 papers, and of th*e manoeuvres of tithe-dealers, would be an 
 endless task : I must hasten to the vestries, as the Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne complains that they were intimidated 
 from purchasing the elements for the holy communion. 
 
 I have heard but of one vestry in his diocese relative to 
 which there has been any intimidation. The people who 
 complained of tithes complained of the rise of the parish 
 rates, and requested the gentleman who had the superin ten- 
 dance of the vestry, not to increase them. In the year eighty, 
 church-rates in some parts of the diocese of Cloyne, were 
 but 1/. 2s. 6d. The people, both Protestants and Catholics, 
 finding that their piety did not increase in proportion to the 
 
 * As the words require an explanation, for the instruction of several, it is fit to re- 
 mark, that when it was reported in the papers that the French had taken Umbrage at 
 the proceedings of the English, some wiseacres imagined that Umbrage was the name 
 of some great city. The mistake of the meaning' of a word often leads into error: 
 and of this error are guilty those who confound Whiteboyis'n with a Popish Con- 
 federacy. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 265 
 
 rapid rise of the ecclesiastical revenues, and that the clergy 
 were not more holy and disinterested in the year eighty-six, 
 than they were in the year eighty, thought fit that sanctity 
 should not be distanced by so many odds by the price of 
 sanctification. They brought both within nearer view of 
 each other, and hence this mystery of popery controuling 
 vestries, and depriving souls who did not choose to pay too 
 much for their canonization, is unravelled. With regard to 
 the notice ordering a church to be left for a mass-house, and 
 threats to burn a new one, I ridiculed the very idea of it in 
 my last address to the Whiteboys. He says that they bound 
 themselves by oath, in presence of the church-wardens, to 
 burn the new church, if the old one was not left for a mass- 
 house. Who were those who bound themselves by oath to 
 commit such a deed ? Does his church-wardens know them ? 
 If he does, let him bring them to justice ? If he does not 
 know them, how does he know their religion ? And have 
 they fulfilled their engagement ? Was mass said in the old 
 church ? Is the new church burnt ? It is very likely that a 
 set of men who have not heard prayers from their own pas- 
 tors in the long space of fourteen months, and who had 
 flocked to his churches, for the sake of impunity, would (as 
 I remarked in my letter to them) indulge such fervour as to 
 have a church for a mass-house, and die martyrs for prayers. 
 Jlpago nugec ! 
 
 If the Bishop of Cloyne believes this a serious affair, 1 
 applaud him for the strength of his faith. Under the appre- 
 hensions of terror the imagination realizes phantoms. We 
 read in history that armies in the dead of the night encamped 
 on the summit of a hill, imagining that the enemies were 
 drawn up in battle array in a distant plain.* The out-scouts 
 at the dawn of day discovered, to their surprise, that it was 
 an extensive field covered with overgrown thistles, noddino- 
 with the breeze, and seeming to beckon to their pursuers to 
 advance. Doctor Woodward's imagination creates similar 
 foes. Nor can we discover any danger to Doctor Wood- 
 ward's old church ornew church, except what he figures to 
 himself in his pamphlet. 
 
 * The array of the prices in the rnio-ii of Louis the Eleventh. See Father Daniel's 
 History of France. 
 
266 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 But will Mr. O'Leary deny that such notices were posted 
 up, and such letters, threatening to cut out tongues, &c. 
 were written ? By no means : Mr. O'Leary is not a man to 
 controvert facts vouched by the Bishop's authority, except 
 when he has facts to counterbalance them. In that case he 
 will humbly take the liberty of being guided by his own 
 judgment. He does not believe the Pope's infallibility ; 
 much less will he place infallibility in the Bishop of Cloyne's 
 oracles when he delivers them from his tripod. But he is 
 humbly of opinion that such notices and letters came from 
 other quarters. Tithe-proctors, tithe-jobbers, and others 
 were interested in alarming the nation, and awakening the 
 fears of Government. They dreaded the least alteration 
 in the present system, and knew that the best method to 
 secure success to their plan, was to blacken as much as pos- 
 sible deluded men who were already but too obnoxious. 
 Hence the exaggerated accounts of theWhiteboys circulated 
 in the distant prints ; all provisions, and every communication 
 between town and country cut off. Yet our markets were 
 supplied as usual. 
 
 A lady of consequence, who spends her time and income 
 in encouraging arts and manufactures, on whose estate the 
 little girl of five earns her bread by knittings whose tenants 
 wear shoes and stockings, clean shirts and warm frize, 
 whilst the tenants of several are shivering with cold and 
 pinching with hunger ; who, when the peasant dies, gives 
 the warm cabin, and a spot of ground rent-free to the widow 
 and orphans, until the eldest son is able to provide for 
 them; who has diffused a spirit of industry and vigour 
 amongst the naked and unemployed inhabitants of barren 
 rocks ; and who, like another Zenobia, has a manly heart 
 
 in a female breast This lady intended to drain part of 
 
 a lake, in order to enlarge her improvements. A grateful 
 peasantry flocked to the work. It was enough. We soon 
 read in distant papers that a thousand Whiteboys had thrown 
 up intrenchments, and had formed a regular encampment 
 upon her lands. Numberless falsehoods have been indus- 
 triously propagated, to the dishonour of the country. No 
 honest man would justify any breach of the public peace, 
 and no man who pavs any regard for justice or truth would 
 propagate falsehoods and infamy. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 267 
 
 Before the relaxation of the Popery laws, a wretch, after 
 having quitted his house, set fire to it in the dead of the 
 night, and swore to damages which were to be made good to 
 him at the expense of the innocent. The villany was proved 
 in open court. Had the Lord Bishop of Cloyne made enqui- 
 ries, perhaps he would find that some tithe-jobbers tampered 
 with their hirelings to set fire to their own corn. — By this 
 manoeuvre they expected that a tenfold gain would com- 
 pensate for this wilful loss. I doubt not then the reality 
 of the notices, however absurd, nor the threats, however 
 unlikely to be carried into execution. But I suspect the 
 quarter from whence they came. Interest and vengeance 
 combined, are capable of giving greater alarms, but the judg- 
 ment must not be captivated to the yoke of an implicit be- 
 lief, when the motives of credibility are dubious ; and anony- 
 mous letters are bad vouchers. No man intent upon the 
 murder of another, ever forewarns him of the danger. If a 
 person wrote me a letter, threatening to cut out my tongue, 
 I would not be under the least apprehension that he would 
 deprive me of the organ of speech. If he were in earnest, 
 he would watch his opportunity without putting me on 
 my guard. Be this as it may, we all deplore the peace 
 of society disturbed ; the property of individuals in- 
 jured by nightly excursions, and the distraction of the 
 community. 
 
 But the duty of the historian confines him within the li- 
 mits of truth, and in relating events when he cannot know the 
 real causes, he must assign the most probable. The Bi- 
 shop's favourite layman, talks of people hanging in galloivses, 
 noses and ears cut off, &>c. Will the Bishop of Cloyne be 
 his voucher. For while I am on the spot, I shall controvert 
 the legendary tales of any modern Sir John Temple. — No ; 
 the Bishop cannot produce one single instance of any man's 
 being murdered by the Whiteboys, in the counties "of Cork 
 or Kerry, and as for noses, had he discovered any of them 
 to be cut off by the Whiteboys, his zeal for religion would 
 have induced him to collect and fix them in the face of his 
 pamphlet to ornament his picture of persecution, and give 
 it its due proportions. I enquired about those noses and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 ears, I can get no information. The operations then of a 
 campaign of fifteen months, (a campaign, which has attracted 
 the attention of all Europe, thanks to our tithe journalists,) 
 have confined, as I remarked before, to two or three proctors, 
 buried without being dead, and rising immediately without 
 waiting for the sound of the last trumpet ; the burning of 
 some few ricks of corn, and the cropping of nine or ten gar- 
 rans which are still at the plough ; and notabene, the two last 
 garrans that were cropped after Lord LuttreiPs first excur- 
 sion to Minister, though the oldest in studd, were cropt with 
 as much nicety as if a young miss's ears were to be pierce d 
 for the reception of ornamental pendants. A small flit ! but 
 great noise. Such, is the number of the wounded by the 
 Whiteboys in the counties of Cork and Kerry : but where 
 is the number of the slain ? The slain and mortally wound- 
 ed were the deluded bipeds, whom the Bishop of Cloyne did 
 not exhort, nor banish from his churches ; and who goaded 
 by oppression on one hand, and the expecting impunity from 
 hypocrisy on the other, gave into those wild and extravagant 
 measures against which Mr. O'Leary cautioned them. Du- 
 ring the disturbances, the Catholic clergy and laity suffered 
 more than their Protestant neighbours of the same respective 
 orders. And when the Lord Bishop of Cloyne promised his 
 readers a general account of the rise and progress of the in- 
 surrections in Munster, we little expected that his account 
 would be inclosed in a nutshell, of which five or six Pro- 
 testant clergymen were the kernel, whilst the persecuted Ca- 
 tholic clergymen are omitted, as the withered leaves of the 
 tree, left out of his historical dessert. 
 
 Such is the plain, candid, and unadorned account of the 
 disturbances, in the suppression of which I have taken so ac- 
 tive a part, whilst the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, as an uncon- 
 cerned spectator, stood gazing upon an eminence at a great 
 distance from the field of battle. After a large fabric has 
 been on fire for more than twelve months, it is laudable in 
 him to come forward with the doleful news, that a few rafters 
 have been burnt, tie should have been the first to put 
 his hand to the engine, in order to bring the fire under, and 
 to prevent it from communicating to the adjacent buildings. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 269 
 
 When the prophet Jeremiah wrote his Lamentations, it was 
 a long time before the destruction of Jerusalem, in order to 
 caution the people, and induce them to guard against the 
 impending calamity. When the prophet Ezekiel had eaten 
 a book in which were written lamentations, and a song, and 
 ivoe, it was to forewarn an obstinate people. But when the 
 Bishop of Cloyne cries aloud from the walls of Jerusalem, the 
 church of Ireland is at this present moment in imminent 
 dinger of subversion, it is after the Chaldeans had raised the 
 si ge and retired to their country; fifteen months after the 
 disturbances had broken out ; after Lord Kenmare, a Catho- 
 lic peer had suppressed them in Kerry ; after the Lord Chief 
 Baron Yelverton had decreed an atonement to violated jus- 
 tice, by the punishment of such criminals as were found 
 guilty of a breach of the laws ; and after the Earl of Car- 
 hampton (then Lord Luttrell) had pacified the entire pro- 
 vince, a few stragglers excepted. If in the long space 
 of fifteen months he was really convinced that the ves- 
 sel, of the established religion, of which he is one of 
 the pilots, was in clanger, why has he slept at the helm ? 
 When the storm is over and the sea exhibits a smooth 
 surface, he sings the doleful ditty of the shipwrecked 
 mariner all over the three kingdoms ; but where was he 
 when the ship was on the point of sinking? Where was 
 the pastoral letter ? Where was the pathetic address ? Where 
 was the publication replete with those figures and images 
 which would work on the passions of the Protestant nobility 
 and gentry of the province, and awaken them to a sense of 
 their danger? It is no great hardship for a bishop to pub- 
 lish a pamphlet in eighty-seven, which he had all the leisure 
 to write in the year eighty- six. But where were the exer- 
 tions of the pastoral care ? Where was the shepherd's whis- 
 tle heard, when the wolf was devouring the flock ? The Bi- 
 shop of Cloyne acknowledges that the diocese of Cork was 
 committed to his care in the absence of Doctor Mann. This 
 additional charge to that of his own diocese should naturally 
 have redoubled his vigilance: he then should have mada it 
 his business as superintendant of such extensive dioceses, :•; 
 get every information relative to the disorders which dis- 
 tracted the places committed to his care, to endeavour to 
 
270 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 stifle the evil in its birth, and to prevent its spreading any 
 further. 
 
 I shall make no further comments, but leave my readers 
 to their own judgment, without anticipating their reflections. 
 However the learned may admire Tacitus for his art in rais- 
 ing a rich work from poor materials, his judicious reflections, 
 and concise (though obscure) manner of impressing his 
 sentiments ; yet he shall never take him for my guide, 
 because he is too malignant, and ascribes the most casual 
 events to a dark policy. If Augustus names Tiberius for 
 his successor, it is according to Tacitus, with a design 
 that the vices of that tyrant should serve as a foil to set 
 off his own qualities. If Piso is appointed governor of 
 such a province, it is in order to be a spy over Ger- 
 manicus, whom Tiberius envied. If Sejanius is elected 
 prime minister, it is in order to glut the vengeance of 
 the gods : he ascribes the offspring of chance to a gloomy 
 destiny : his characters generally bear the same features : it 
 is not the man whom he describes, but the historian's heart 
 I read : for this very reason 1 do not like him, because he 
 distorts the objects. Had the same events happened in his 
 time at Rome which have happened within those fifteen 
 months in the county where I reside, what a political picture 
 would not Tacitus have left to future ages ! The plebians 
 all up in arms, and the supreme Augur asleep without con- 
 sulting the Omens ! The temples of the gods threatened with 
 destruction, and the Pontiff silent ! And when the danger is 
 over, the empire in commotion, and the Pontiff offering pro- 
 pitiatory sacrifices and inviting the people to burn incense, in 
 order to avert those calamities from which the gods had de- 
 livered them, during his security and somnolence ! Reflec- 
 tions of the kind I leave to such historians as Tacitus or to 
 the Lord Bishop of Cloyne himself, who is so ingenious as 
 to metamorphose me into a being to which I bear no re- 
 semblance, and to cast me in a mould so ill fitted to my 
 frame. 
 
 Can any person in his senses presume that the Catholics of 
 Ireland, after the late indulgence extended to them by the 
 reigning powers, would be so divested of gratitude and com- 
 mon sense as to expose their necks to the chain with which 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 271 
 
 rigorous laws had bound them for so many years.— When 
 their ancestors signed the capitulation of Limerick, and 
 submitted to the son-in-law of their former fugitive and 
 cowardly king, sooner than violate the laws of nations, 
 afterwards so basely violated by the last of the Stuarts, 
 they declined availing themselves of the succours sent by 
 Lewis the Fourteenth. When Alberoni sent the son of 
 James the Second to Scotland, the Irish Catholics remained 
 quiet and peaceful, though they had every reason to expect 
 the assistance of Spain if they joined the son of their former 
 king, when the present family was not sufficiently settled on 
 a throne threatened by foreign foes, and an aspiring candi- 
 date who had his father's title to plead, and numbers of his 
 partizans, each to join hfm in support of his pretensions. 
 When the plains of Fontenoy were dyed with English blood, 
 and George the Second threatened with expulsion from the 
 British dominions, by a young pretender marching to the 
 seat of empire, where was any commotion amongst the 
 Catholics of Ireland ? When Thurot landed at Carrickfer- 
 gus where were the Catholics who flocked to his banners in 
 the North ? Where were the Catholics who caused a diver- 
 sion in his favour in the South ? When England was sur- 
 rounded by a warring world; one of her strongest limbs 
 torn from her body, by the loss of America; her fleets pur- 
 sued by a victorious enemy, displaying their flag on her 
 coasts ; and Ireland, destitute of any assistance but the loy- 
 alty and courage of her sons, who forgot their unhappy 
 and fatal prejudices in the common danger, did the Irish 
 Catholics stand by as neutral spectators, in expectation of 
 the event? Did not they flock to the standard of their Pro- 
 testant neighbours, and march at the signal, either to defend 
 their common country, or to mingle their blood in the same 
 trenches with their fellow-subjects ? Are those the men 
 whose loyalty should be suspected, and character traduced ? 
 Or must the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's clamour about tithes 
 become now a wakeful trump to thunder division amongst 
 three bodies of men, who in time of danger were consoli- 
 dated into one ? He alarms the members of the established 
 church with the danger wherewith they are threatened 
 from the Dissenters inclined to pull it down. He alarms 
 
 N N 
 
272 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 them with the danger wherewith they are threatened from 
 the Catholics ready to set up their own. He excludes both 
 from national confidence ; then shifts the ground, and after 
 having discarded the Dissenters as hostile to his establish- 
 ment, he invites them to his standard, to join him in his attack, 
 upon the Catholics, by reminding them of the lenient usage 
 they met with from his church, when compared with the 
 severe usage they would meet with from the church of 
 Rome. 
 
 The Lion invited one day the beasts to a bunting party, 
 and promised to divide the spoils : the ass with his loud notes 
 roused the game, which was soon run down : the division of 
 the spoil commenced — this belongs to me said the Lion, ac- 
 cording to compact; and this because my name is Lion, and 
 this for such a reason ; and who would dare to touch the 
 rest ? One would imagine that iEsop had read the Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne's pamphlet. 4 Come Dissenters to my 
 ' assistance, though 1 have excluded you before from national 
 4 confidence, enemies to my establishment, which from prin- 
 4 ciple you are inclined to pull down, become my auxiliaries 
 4 in chaining your fellow-subjects of the Catholic persuasion, 
 4 lest they reach their hands to the sacred sheaf. But, as for 
 4 you, you dare not touch it, for my name is Lion.' The 
 Lord Bishop of Cloyne would have some colourable pre- 
 tence for alarming the fears of Irish Dissenters, and preju- 
 dicing them against their Catholic fellow-subjects, if he had 
 the generosity to divide the spoils. But will he divide the 
 tithes with their clergy ? His invitation then and his com- 
 pliments are equally unmeaning. 
 
 Heavens forbid, that the natives of this kingdom (let their 
 religion be what it may) should ever relapse into the irenz? 
 of destructive and unchristian dissensions. 
 
 The Dissenters then will say to the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, 
 4 we will support the State, not in compliance with your cha- 
 4 ritable admonition, but because it is our duty and interest. 
 4 Be we will not make war upon our neighbours for tithes 
 4 and mitres ; we shall not efface from the pannels of the Lord 
 4 Bishop of Cloyne's carriage, that emblem of ecclesiastical 
 4 pre-eminence he has borrowed from the Church of Rome, 
 ■ which he is now exposing to public detestation j' nor dimi- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 273 
 
 nish the number of his dishes, which the Catholic clergy 
 had dressed for him, ages before they imagined that Bi- 
 shops, instead of praying for them and their successors, 
 would disturb the dead in their graves, by attributing to 
 them doctrines they never taught, and exciting the jea- 
 lousy and resentment of the reigning powers against the 
 living, by casting at their thresholds abortives they disclaim. 
 We shall not engage, my Lord Bishop of Cloyne, in a 
 Crusade to make war upon infidels who are not in pos- 
 session of your Holy Land. 
 
 It is extraordinary in you to alarm the public, with the 
 dangers of Popery, when you retain the most oppressive 
 part of a religion, from which you are sprung, tithes that 
 are oppressive to the poor, and pre-eminence which in all 
 ages has not been well relished by the rich. We cannot 
 in reason hate a Catholic for his speculative creed. His 
 belief of the real presence affects us no more than if he 
 believed that Berenices tresses were changed into a comet : 
 nor are we much concerned whether in that immensity be- 
 yond the grave, there may be an intermediate place be- 
 tween the two extremes of complete happiness and com- 
 plete misery. A place where the soul attones for venial 
 lapses, and pays off a part of the debts it has contracted 
 here. It is equal to us where a man pays his debts, whether 
 here or in purgatory, provided he pays ourselves what he 
 owes us. And however clamourous a mitred divine may 
 be about a Popish purgatory, he may perhaps go further, 
 and speed worse. 
 
 The proctor's pound where the cottager's cow or calf is 
 imprisoned, is a greater nuisance to the living, than thou- 
 sands of subterraneous caverns beyond the grave. When 
 you call upon us then to your assistance against our Ca- 
 tholic neighbours, we shall not obey the summons, until 
 you divide with us the spoils of piety which have been 
 transmitted to you by the Catholic clergy, whom you are 
 now attacking. When they were groaning under the yoke 
 of penal laws, we published at Dungannon those resolu- 
 tions which Europe read with admiration ; in them w 7 e de- 
 clared, that as we held freedom of conscience sacred in 
 ourselves, so we held it sacred in others, and gloried in the 
 
274 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 prospect of our Catholic fellow-subjects' emancipation. 
 America copied after the illustrious example. The Em- 
 peror has placed the God-like image of toleration, in the 
 same banner with the Imperial Eagle. Good sense and the 
 general good of society, are restoring to unhappy morals 
 the inalienable charter, which school divinity had usurped, 
 the choice of the religion they think, the best ; and the pri- 
 vilege of being accountable to God alone for their specula- 
 tive tenets. Any person who would preach or practise a 
 contrary doctrine, is an agitator indeed, and an agitating 
 Bishop is as obnoxious to us as an agitating Friar. You 
 have directed your arrows against Mr. O'Leary in particu- 
 lar : he has washed off the paint which your brush nas laid 
 on his face : he has proved in his narrative, that you have 
 not criven an accurate account of the disturbances in Mun- 
 ster ; you have not stemmed the torrent — you have not as- 
 signed the genuine causes of the insurrections, which in 
 your heart you know not to have originated in any Popish 
 confederacy against either church or state, but in the de- 
 spair of wretchedness, ascribable indeed to several causes, 
 amongst which tithes and tithe-canters are to be enumera- 
 ted. Mr. O'Leary has fully justified the Catholic body 
 from the foul aspersion of Theophilus and the insinuation of 
 the Lord Bishop of Cloyne. He has called on you both, 
 to produce one agitating Friar, or Romish Missionary sent 
 here to sow sedition, or who has sown sedition in the land. 
 There is the challenge given by conscious innocence. We 
 shall not then quarrel with our Catholic neighbours, much 
 less with Mr. O'Leary : if he has any more to say we shall 
 hear him: it is the privilege to which every injured man is 
 entitled ; but we consider him as fully acquitted, whatever 
 further remarks he may think fit to make on your pamphlet. 
 
 SECTION THE SECOND, 
 
 Containing a vindication of Mr. O^Lear^s address to the 
 Whiteboys. 
 
 I know not upon what ground the Lord Bishop of Cloyne 
 can say that my addresses are most artfully contrived to sow 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 275 
 
 sedition ? Is it for recommending peace ? No. Is it for re- 
 commending patience under sufferings ? If so, the Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne must burn the Bible. Is it because I did 
 not enlarge upon the miseries of the peasantry, in con- 
 sequence of low wages and rack-rents, as the Bishop in- 
 timates ? The reduction of tithes and the dues of the parish 
 priests were the only objects mentioned in the insurgents' 
 proclamations. In addressing them upon complaints 
 which they did not express, was to represent the orator 
 who finished, by the deluge, his sermon on the resur- 
 rection. The public knew the people were exasperated 
 and outrageous. I had one object in view, which was to 
 work on their passions, by the fittest springs, to move 
 the hearts and allay the passions of a discontented mul- 
 titude. I mean hope and fear ; the dread of punishment, 
 and the hope of redress — I knew that such of the clergy 
 as, from the warmth of zeal, and want of foreknow- 
 ledge that their flock would ever rise against themselves, had 
 recourse to the usual method of reclaiming them by severity, 
 had lost their influence. In vain had they substituted a 
 curse for a prayer, and the oak saplin for the peaceful 
 asperges ; the obstinacy of the flock increased in proportion 
 to the rigour of the pastor ; at last the rupture rose to such 
 a height, that they swore in some places never to hear 
 
 prayers from their present parish priests. This the 
 
 Lord Bishop of Cloyne cannot be ignorant of; and the 
 candour of the historian, when he talks of the insurrections, 
 as well as justice to those persecuted ecclesiastics, should 
 have induced him to advert to this very singular and unex- 
 pected circumstance ; especially when he had read in the 
 slanderous Theophilus the false and infamous charge brought 
 against those clergymen, accusing them of being in a con- 
 federacy with their flocks for the overthrow of the church 
 and state. It was not from want of zeal and loyalty that 
 they miscarried in their attempt to re-establish order. In 
 all probability they would have succeeded better, had they 
 tempered their fire. 
 
 I had to guard against the inconvenience which proved a 
 stumbling-block to others. I knew that oil smooths the 
 ruffled sea, and that a long time before Cicero and Quintilian 
 
27& MISCELLANEOUS TKAC1S. 
 
 had laid down rules for rhetoricians to work on the passions, 
 Solomon, a greater adept in the knowledge of the human 
 heart, had said, A soft ansiver breaketh anger, an d a hard 
 word ralscih up fury. In my ttro first publications I ad- 
 dressed them in the soft language of sympathy ; led them 
 on, step by step, to the temple of hope, at whose gates 
 they should wait with patience, keeping at a distance 
 from the precipices which surround its confines, violence 
 from despair, and licentiousness from presumption. All 
 parties acknowledge they were wretched ; the clergy knew 
 it, and they blamed the landlord ; the landlords knew it, 
 and they blamed the clergy's agent. It was not my duty to 
 dictate to either; but if the Lord Bishop of Cloyne 
 affirms, in his pamphlet, that they did not suffer from 
 such persons as deal in tithes, with every deference he 
 should be better informed. A gentleman of veracity has 
 declared to me that thirty-two shillings have been ex- 
 torted for one acre of potatos ; and that when a pea- 
 sant offered to buy his tithes at a certain price, he was 
 horse- whipped : I do not say that this happened in the Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne's diocese, to which he should have con- 
 fined himself when he became an advocate for ecclesiastical 
 agents : and if report be true, in some places it is said 
 that the tithes which were set by the clergyman for three hun- 
 dren pounds, were raised by those harpies to the enormous 
 sum of £700, and more. This rapid rise must have been 
 oppressive to the poor, without any benefit, but rather a 
 loss to the clergyman : the Bishop of Cloyne would have done 
 well if, in the beginning of the disturbances, and even a long 
 time before, he had inquired, whether there had been in his 
 own diocese a certain tithe -jobber of such art, power, and in- 
 fluence, as to get the tithes for about one hundred and sixty 
 pounds, which he raised to about five hundred. The clergy- 
 man, who is all sweetness and humanity, was under the ne- 
 cessity, in his own defence, to make over a bond to this agent, 
 who had the policy and influence to hinder the peasants from 
 taking the tithes from the lenient and lawful owner, who was 
 willing to set them at a moderate price. But when, by the 
 above stratagem, this man got them into his own possession, 
 they became the scourges of the poor, who were continually 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 277 
 
 harassed by decrees, either real or fictitious, which he either 
 obtained or pretended to obtain from the Bishop's-Court. 
 No music could be heard in his district but the noise of cat- 
 tle, mingled with the cries of the wretched, seeing their little 
 stock sold for half value. That man's pound was like unto 
 a lion's den. The oppressed people came to the clergyman 
 requesting him to take the tithes into his own hands, offering- 
 him twenty pounds more than he got from the jobber ; an 
 offer which the clergyman who feels for the poor, was under 
 the painful necessity of refusing, on account of his engage, 
 ment with the other. All parties then agree that the unhappy- 
 people were oppressed : and the Earl of Carhampton (then 
 Lord Viscount Luttrell) who commanded the army in M mi- 
 ster, and who acquitted himself of his commission with such 
 honour and humanity, is convinced that distress, but not 
 wantonness ; the stings of poverty, but not the design of over- 
 turning church or state, gave rise to the disturbances in the 
 South of Ireland. Had the maxim that it is better to pre- 
 vent crimes than to punish them, been followed ; had all the 
 landlords, both noblemen and getlemen taken an active part 
 at the first breaking out of the insurrections ; had they ex- 
 plained to their respective tenants the danger and impropriety 
 of their proceedings, inquired into their complaints, informed 
 them that the senate of the nation was alone competent to 
 make any alteration in established laws, and that if they did 
 not follow their advice, or obey their injunctions, they would 
 be under the necessity of punishing them, both as landlords 
 and magistrates ; had this plan been adopted, the distur- 
 bances would have been stifled in their very birth. Such of 
 the gentlemen of consequence as had adopted this plan, soon 
 restored peace and tranquillity to their districts. It was the 
 plan which Menenius Agrippa adopted with success, when 
 the discontented plebeians retired to the sacred mountain. 
 It was the plan adopted by Junius Blesus, when the Panno- 
 nian legions revolted at the instigation of a common soldier. 
 It was the plan adopted by Lord Luttrell when he went to the 
 congregations, and reclaimed to their duty several parishes, 
 instead of marking the progress of his march with the impo- 
 verished blood of half-starved wretches. Caesar's clemency 
 outshone the splendour of his victories, And Lord Lut- 
 
2/tJ MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 trell's wisdom and humanity upon that occasion, besides 
 the honour and esteem he acquired, have contributed 
 more to the restoration of order and tranquillity, than if he 
 had let the army loose, and begun with coercion and vio- 
 lence. 
 
 The ministry of a clergyman, is a ministry of charity and 
 compassion ; when I see then, heroes bred in camps, and 
 trained up amidst the clash of arms, sheath upon several oc- 
 casions the sword, and hold out the olive branch ; when in 
 the cure of wounds, lenitives are preferred to caustics, I am 
 not ashamed for having addressed a discontented and op- 
 pressed people, in the style of sympathy and tenderness. 
 But when I see a Prelate, whose very robes are by their in- 
 stitution emblematical of extensive charity, exhibit symptoms 
 of joy in the expectation that the poor will not be relieved by 
 their rulers, I should be more inclined to curse the priesthood 
 than to revere it ; if I were so blind as to confound the un- 
 feelingness and other defeets of the ministers of religion, with 
 the holiness and other duties of their ministry. 
 
 I recommended patience, which softens the afflictions of 
 sufferers, to the distressed, after informing them that the le- 
 gislative powers alone were competent to redress a general 
 grievance, and that a disorderly conduct was a bad recom- 
 mendation to their humanity. 
 
 Here are the comments of the Lord Bishop of Cloyne upon 
 the above texts, ' To what do these lectures of Mr. O'Leary 
 4 tend ? To tell the insurgents that though he knows that 
 c they are more oppressed than any sect of men in the world : 
 ' though he is convinced that they had a right to expect re- 
 ' dress from the humanity of the legislature ; yet the legis- 
 * lature shew no compassion for them ; they must remain in 
 4 their misery : they have no remedy but that of patience, 
 1 which softens the afflictions of sufferers.' 
 
 I am not ashamed of the admonitions — But I blush at the 
 censure : I prefer the charitable Samaritan, who did not offer 
 up sacrifices in Solomon's Temple, yet relieved the bleed- 
 ing man on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho ; I prefer 
 him to the unfeeling Priest and Levite, who passed by un- 
 concerned, without pitying a man whom they saw welter- 
 ing in his blood. I shall ever pity the poor, and shall ever 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 279 
 
 recommend them to their rulers. If this be a crime, may it 
 be the only crime of which I may be found guilty. 
 
 I recommend them to their rulers ; it would have been 
 more becoming in the Lord Bishop of Cloyne to have done 
 the same, than to censure me for the feelings of piety. I 
 still indulge the hope, that the legislators of Ireland will re- 
 dress the grievances of the wretched, at the period which 
 their wisdom will appoint. And I am very confident that 
 they will glory in feelings congenial to those of Francis the 
 Firsts who, on hearing that a nobleman had killed a peasant, 
 dressed himself in mourning, bound up his arm in a scarf, 
 sent for the murderer, to whom he said, Rebel, you have 
 wounded your king in the right arm, in depriving him of one 
 of the props of the state. For without the peasantry, who 
 will feed my armies, or supply my treasury? 
 
 The plough, the spade and reaping-hook, handled by vi- 
 gorous, healthy, and well-fed peasants, are of more benefit 
 to the state, than a thousand goose-quills, brandished by so 
 many controvertists, puzzling the minds and dividing the 
 hearts of men and citizens, who in the interests of society? 
 and the feelings of humanity, would soon extinguish the 
 flames of discord, if (he sacred fire were not continually fed 
 by the very hands that should preserve the temple of peace 
 from the conflagration. It is the peasant's labour, and not 
 his catechism, that should be the object of legislative atten- 
 tion, says Voltaire. 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Cloyne censures me for pointing out 
 to the insurgents the dangers that threatened them from the 
 severity of the law, the eloquence of Crown-lawyers, the 
 perjuries of witnesses, and the prejudices of juries. What 
 was the purport of this enumeration, but to make a deeper 
 impression on the minds of the deluded people, by a greater 
 variety of images ? And thus to attain my end, by preventing 
 them from disturbing the peace of the public, and rushing to 
 their own destruction. 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Cloyne's remark on the above pas- 
 sage is curious, and descriptive of his ingenuity and candour. 
 1 shall give it in his own words, ; After expatiating on the 
 4 severity of the laws, as not being fit for a christian eoun- 
 ' try and warning them that they could not expect a fair 
 
 o o 
 
280 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 execution, even of those cruel ordinances, from the law- 
 officers of the crown, the witnesses or jury, I think one 
 may say with justice, of his address to the common people 
 of Ireland, particularly to such of them as are called 
 Whitcboys, (printed in Dublin, 1786, and revised and cor- 
 rected by himself,) that it is calculated to raise discontent 
 and indignation in the Roman Catholic peasantry, against 
 the national clergy, the legislature, the executive power, 
 and their Protestant fellow-subjects.' 
 Let the reader compare my letters with the Lord Bishop 
 of Cloyne's commentary. Had I said in plain terms to th© 
 insurgents, 4 Do not put yourselves in the power either of 
 i Judge or Jury, King or Parliament, Lawyer or Witness, 
 c what would it amount to ?' No more than if I had 
 said, behave as peaceable subjects, and do not put 
 
 J 'ourselves in the power of any person. I say it now; 
 give the same advice, and will the Lord Bishop of 
 Cloyne say that for giving this advice, I am seditious ? 
 It well behoves the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, who calls 
 the verdict of the Jury in the county of Monaghan, infa- 
 mqus; and who becomes the eulogist of Theophilus, who has 
 the effrontery to compare the Irish House of Commons 
 to plunderers, for passing a vote against the tithes of agist- 
 ment; to carp at my words about witnesses and juries. 
 
 His Lordship's letter verifies the words of Saint Paul, 
 Wherein thoujudgest another, thou condemnest thyself. 
 
 In order to expose me to the detestation of the clergy 
 of the established religion, he attributes the following 
 words to me: These disturbances originate in the dues of 
 the clergy.* 
 
 I never wrote, nor made use of such words : I am 
 sorry that the Lord Bishop of Cloyne has put it in my 
 power to anwer the charge with a flat contradiction : 
 the Lord Bishop of Cloyne dates his pamphlet in 1787, 
 and remarks that 1 think it expedient to inform the 
 VVhiteboys, that the Whiteboy act will be in force till 
 next June. The remark is shrewd, and of a very charitable 
 tendency, 
 
 My first address to the White boys was in March eight v- 
 
 * Lord Bishop of Cloyne's Pamphlet, page 106, third Edition. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 281 
 
 six — a rumour was propagated amongst the insurgents, that 
 the VVhiteboj act would be no longer in force after the en- 
 suing June. To guard a deluded multitude against every 
 danger to which they might be exposed, from an expec- 
 tation of impunity in consequence of their ignorance of the 
 law, I informed them that the Whiteboy act would be in 
 force until the month of June eighty-seven: this was a long 
 warning of fifteen months. What means then the Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne by his remark ? It impresses the minds 
 of his readers with the notion that this is Mr. O'Leary's 
 meaning, viz. ' the Whiteboy act will be at an end next 
 4 June ; after that time you have nothing to dread, you may 
 4 go on.' His Lordship means this, or means nothing. 
 
 What an opinion must not strangers to my principles and 
 conduct, form of me when they read the Lord Bishop of 
 Cloyne's pamphlet ! 
 
 About twenty years ago, when the Whiteboys first rose 
 up in the South, a person of consequence (who is since 
 dead) contributed to the insurrection, in order to defeat a 
 plan that was then intended by Parliament for the relief of 
 the Catholics, whom by this diabolical stratagem, worthy of 
 another Cecil, he intended to render obnoxious to their 
 rulers. 1 intended to reclaim the Whiteboys by every ar- 
 gument which prudence, as well as religion could suggest : 
 and as the report of the expiration of the Whiteboy act in 
 the month of the ensuing June, was propagated amongst 
 the people, I know not by whom, (but I knew that the 
 motive was such) I thought it incumbent on me to guard 
 the deluded multitude against the snare, and to shelter the 
 honour of the Catholic body, by defeating the designs, and 
 disappointing the hopes of such artful politicians. I would be 
 an enemy to the peace of society, the Catholic body, and 
 to myself, if I had written in the sense which the Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne would fain convey to his readers. Far 
 from encouraging the insurgents to proclaim a truce of three 
 months to concert their plan in the interim, and renew the 
 war with fresh vigour, at the expiration of the term, (for 
 such must be the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's meaning,) I ap- 
 plied for information to a Protestant gentleman, who is 
 married to the daughter of a clergyman in the diocese of 
 
282 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 Cloyne, and who wrote to the Whiteboys under the signa* 
 ture of a Dublin Shopkeeper. If 1 intended to encourage 
 them in their proceedings, by marking out the time beyond 
 which they had nothing to dread, 1 would have abridged 
 the term, and pleaded ignorance of the laws. 
 
 To examine further into the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's 
 commentaries on my texts, would be not only a loss of time, 
 but childish. Or what must the public think of the ingenuity 
 of a Prelate, who construes the way of the cross is the road 
 to the crown, into sedition. 
 
 lam surprised that his Lordship has not adverted* to 
 those words of my last address to the Whiteboys, " Mul- 
 titudes are easily misled, and incapable of drawing the de- 
 licate line, to which common sense points out, and of which 
 it says, thus far you shall go, and no farther." 
 
 I am surprised that he has not made the following com- 
 ments on them, ' You have done very well in disturbing 
 * the peace of society, cropping cattle and burning corn ; 
 4 but stop now, and wait for a while.' This would have 
 opened a field for criticism, though he should know that the 
 giddy populace, let their complaints be ever so well founded, 
 is easily misled ; when once in motion never knows where 
 to stop, and can never draw the delicate line which common 
 sense points out, and of which it says, thus far you shall go ; 
 if you have complaints lay them before your rulers ; but go no 
 further. And no further shall I go in explaining letters 
 which may be read in the Appendix. His query then to 
 me about the Emperor of Germany is not in point. But I 
 shall take the liberty of proposing a query very applicable 
 to the present circumstances. 
 
 Quere. What would the Emperor of Germany, who has 
 granted free toleration of all religions with a conjunction to 
 their teachers, not to divide his subjects, or distract his do- 
 minions with the jarings of controversy, but to enforce the 
 principles of morality. What would that tolerating prince 
 think of a Catholic Prelate, who in a pamphlet, would ring 
 the alarm all over his dominions, and inform his Majesty, 
 that none but his subjects of the established religion were en- 
 titled to national confidence, and thus inspire his subjects, 
 not with mutual confidence, but with mutual jealousy, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 283 
 
 fear, and distrust ? I leave the Lord Bishop of Cloyne to 
 judge. 
 
 When the Lord Bishop of Cloyne begins his query, with 
 these words, 4 if there were an insurrection of Protestants 
 4 in Bohemia, for the purpose of robbing the established Ro- 
 ' man Catholic clergy, and there might have been Protes- 
 4 tants enough if the perfidious Cruelty of the late Empress 
 4 had not nearly rooted them out.'* 
 
 When his Lordship begins his query with such words, 
 I must take the liberty of reminding him, that in his short 
 query there are two fallacies. The first fallacy is in these 
 words, if there were an insurrection of Protestants in Bohemia. 
 For the insurgents in the South of Ireland, were merely 
 Catholics, as I have proved in my narrative : they were a 
 motley group of different religions, complaining both of 
 tithes and tithe-jobbers. Our readers will be surprised that 
 in the course of our controversy, we have been so sparing 
 of latin words ; this fallacy then is called by the logicians 
 a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid ; when we confine 
 to a few what is common to many, and vice versa. The 
 second fallacy consists in supposing that my writings have a 
 tendency to rob the Protestant Clergy ; and this fallacy is 
 called by the logicians de falso supponente — a false supposi- 
 tion, which the respondent answers with a flat denial, by 
 saying nego suppositum. 
 
 When the Lord Bishop of Cloyne calls the late Empress 
 Queen, cruel and perfidious, I wish he were a little more 
 courtly and flattering in his epithets ; rudeness to the fair 
 sex, from an ascetick or hermit like me, who by the obliga- 
 tions of celibacy had not an opportunity of polishing and 
 refining my manners by a more frequent and friendly inter- 
 course with the softest and fairest part of the creation; 
 rudeness in me would have some excuse to plead, but in his 
 attack on the illustrious fair, little or no excuse can be 
 pleaded for the Lord Bishop, who from his early days was 
 at liberty to court and pray; to repeat the Penitential 
 Psalms with David, and to compliment with Otway : 
 
 O Woman, lovely woman ! nature form'd thee 
 
 To temper man ; we had been brutes without thee. 
 
 • See the Lord Bishop of Cloync's Pamphlet, page 111 ; fifth Edition. 
 
284 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.. 
 
 Little or no excuse then can be pleaded in favour of the 
 Lord Bishop of Cloyne, when he treats the late Empress 
 Queen with such severity :• for she was neither cruel nor 
 perfidious. His Lordship was not a member of her Privy 
 Council, to know the nature of her compacts with, or pro- 
 mises to her subjects; compacts and promises in the per- 
 formance of which no Sovereign could be more honourable 
 and punctual. She had in her dominions the descendants 
 of those German boors who had attempted to dethrone her 
 ancestors. Those men were under legal restraints for 
 their fathers' guilt, in which they had no part. It was their 
 unhappy fate, in common with many others, to be victims to 
 human laws, which by a faint resemblance of Omnipotence, 
 make of the folly, or madness, or weakness of one genera- 
 tion, a kind of original and hereditary sin, which afflicts in a 
 long succession the innocent posterity, with this difference, 
 that the offence against the Deity is instantly forgiven upon 
 repentance, or the application of the remedy which mercy 
 appoints to counteract the rigour of justice. But human 
 legislators all over Europe, have given proofs of their om- 
 nipotence in penal codes which immortalize the punishment 
 ages after the death of the guilt, and require a rigorous atone- 
 ment from the sober and innocent decendants, for the frenzy 
 of their forefathers. They have their patent in Scripture, 
 wherein we read, I have §aid, ye are Gods and all Sons of the 
 Most High. But Dryden's Indian Emperor was tortured for 
 paying a greater veneration to the bright luminary of the day, 
 than to a book bound up in sheep skin, which Pizzaro's 
 chaplain called the Bible, and of which the unhappy prince 
 knew nothing. To each of those legislators who punished 
 their subjects for'hereditary errors, or their forefathers' guilt, 
 Dryden's Indian Emperor would say, 
 
 If thou art that most croel God, whose eyes 
 Delight in blood, and human sacrifice. 
 
 Such was the state of the Hussites in the Empress Queen's 
 dominions, and such was the case of Catholics and Dissenters 
 under Protestant Sovereigns, when prelates of the Lord Bi- 
 shop of Cloyne's philanthropy directed their councils; as the 
 Reverend Mr. Samuel Barber of Rathfryland, has ingeni- 
 
 * Rudeness would be an improper word when I am animadverting on the writings of 
 a Bishop. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 285 
 
 ously and pointedly remarked to the Lord Bishop of 
 Cloyne.* 
 
 The state of the Hussites in Bohemia was not worse than 
 the state of the Dissenters and Catholics in Ireland, even 
 so late as the beginning of that illustrious Empress's 
 reign. 
 
 That magnanimous Heroine, surrounded by numerous 
 and powerful foes, ready to invade her dominions, and 
 to ornament the triumphal car with the procession of a 
 captive Queen, worked up the softer soul to a martial 
 firmness. Reduced to fifteen thousand men, against the 
 numerous armies of powerful Sovereigns, she took in her 
 arms the present Emperor, who was then in his cradle, 
 shewed him to her subjects of every religious description, 
 ' behold your prince unable to protect you ; defend his rights, 
 4 and when those infant hands will be able to wield the 
 4 Sceptre, the grateful remembrance of your services will 
 4 procure you the love, favour, and protection of your 
 4 Sovereign.' 
 
 It was the characteristic of the rude courtiers and stern 
 divines of Queen Elizabeth's reign, not to pity a Queen in 
 distress ; but at the sight of Maria Teresa controuling: 
 fortune on the verge of ruin, a generous ardour glowed 
 in every breast. Her Protestant subjects of Hungary 
 flocked to her banners, and as the reward of their loy- 
 alty, she repealed the restrictive laws which former So- 
 vereigns had enacted. As a proof of her fidelity to her 
 promise, she ordered her son's picture to be hung up 
 in their houses of worship, making it high treason to 
 molest them in the exercise of their religion. What the 
 mother began in her hereditary kingdom, the son com- 
 pleted all over his dominions. 
 
 This is the historical information which the Lord Bishop 
 of Cloyne should have given his readers. But it would not 
 answer his ends : cruelty, perfidy, and persecution are his 
 favourite theme ; generosity, humanity, and toleration are 
 quite shadowed in his picture. Catholic powers are em- 
 bracing their subjects, without inquiring into their cate- 
 chism: if an enemy of toleration were as industrious in 
 
 * See Remarks on a Pamphlet, entitled " The Present State of the Church of Irc- 
 I*nd," by Samuel Barber. 
 
286 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS'. 
 
 translating into French or German, the Bishop of Cloyne*sr 
 pamphlet, as he has been in translating Ghilini's letter, and 
 the Bishop's consecration oath into English; violation of 
 faith with heretics, and other charges : if in consequence of 
 the impression his pamphlet had made -on the public minds, 
 Catholic princes, prelates, and doctors, read the clause pro- 
 posing to empower the civil magistrates to pull down, level, 
 and prostrate Roman Catholic chapels upon the deposition 
 of one witness; if they read all the pamphlets published of 
 late against the Catholic body, and knew the steps that are 
 taking in order to degrade them; I appeal to his Lordship, 
 and to the public, whether the Bishop of Cloyne's pamphlet, 
 and the proceedings now mentioned, would tend to promote 
 toleration ? 
 
 What was the Bishop of Cloyne's intention in abusing the 
 memory of the Empress Queen ? Why has not he proposed 
 her good qualities, and the tolerating spirit of her son as 
 models for imitation ? Or does he really believe the case of 
 a Bohemian Hussite, now restored to the privilege of the 
 great and inalienable charter, to which a man guilty of no 
 personal crime against the state is entitled ? Does he really 
 believe his case, and that of an Irish Catholic to be quite 
 similar ? If the Irish Catholics profess the religion of the 
 greatest monarchs, and the creed of flourishing Universities, 
 one would imagine that their faith should not make them ob- 
 jects of contempt. They introduced no new religion into the 
 state, nor encroached upon any man's property. They had 
 the lands of their fathers, and the religion of their educa- 
 tion, ages before their Sovereigns thought fit to change their 
 creeds. Their blood flows in the veins of the Protestant 
 nobility and gentry of Ireland, whose pedigree is proclaimed 
 the more illustrious, in proportion as they trace it back to 
 Catholic times. Their loyalty at home, and their valour 
 abroad, when disqualifying laws, and the thirst of glory 
 urged them to dispute the laurel under the banners of foreign 
 kings, cannot disgrace the kindred of affinity the Catholic 
 noblemen and gentlemen may claim to the Protestant nobi- 
 lity and gentry of the land. Had the island been even sub- 
 dued by the sword of the conqueror, conquest itself has its 
 limits circumscribed by justice. Transfer of allegiance, and 
 Xhe tribute paid to the former Sovereign, is all that the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 287 
 
 conqueror is entitled to. Locke would grant him no more, 
 but would secure in the unchangeable profession of their 
 consciences and inheritance, the subjects who had changed 
 their masters. They had the prescription of ages to plead 
 for their religion and properties, when the wrecks of both 
 were secured to them by the laws of nations under the walls 
 of Limerick. This capitulation, which it was in their power 
 to break forty-eight hours after the interchange of the arti- 
 cles, they adhered to inviolably. It was shamefully broken 
 by the daughter of the very king to whom they had sworn, 
 allegiance, though from the day on which it was signed 
 until this very hour, not a pistol was fired, or a sword drawn 
 by a Catholic in this kingdom against the state. Such 
 being the case, which no man can contradict, what must 
 not be the indignation of every man of feeling, when he 
 sees about two millions of Irish subjects treated with 
 as little ceremony as if they were a set of negro slaves 
 upon a West India plantation ; compared to a pack of hounds 
 impatient at the view of the game ; and to a set of treacher- 
 ous, insidious, and faithless Popish rebels, to be cut off by 
 his Majesty's sword.* Could mortals foresee that, in the 
 year eighty-seven, a clause would be introduced into the 
 Irish House of Commons, for the purpose of pulling down, 
 levelling and prostrating Roman Catholic chapels, if one 
 witness swore before two magistrates that an unlawful oath 
 was taken in said chapel, or in any place adjoining thereto ! 
 It would be more honourable to banish the whole Catholic 
 body out of the kingdom, after giving them sufficient time 
 and notice for selling their properties, than to oner them the 
 insult of proposing on the evidence of a single witness the 
 destruction of their houses of worship, in the course of the 
 same session when a member of Parliament talked of heads 
 of a bill to prevent the stealing of dogs. 
 
 We read of two philosophers in antiquity, the one con- 
 tinually laughing, and the other continually crying at the 
 scenes of human life. This contrast would unite them both. 
 Christian houses of worship to be demolished, and the ken- 
 nels of dogs to be protected by the law. 
 
 * See Theophilus, calLed by the Bishop of Cloyne an able writer against whom it is 
 hard to prove a negative, and (Proh Deurn et homiuum fides !) by Counsellor Douiinick 
 Trant, a well meaning- writer. 
 
 P P 
 
288 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 After what I have related in the course of my narrative, 
 and in the vindication of my writings, I cannot see how the 
 Irish Catholics deserved such severe and disgraceful usage, 
 as to have their houses of worship treated with the same in- 
 dignity as if they were houses of prostitution, or cabinets of 
 leagues and confederacies against the crown and dignity of 
 our most gracious Sovereign. If they were either the one or 
 the other, they would not be destroyed upon the evidence of 
 one witness, at a time when twenty witnesses would take a 
 hundred false oaths for the twentieth part of the materials 
 (which were proposed as a reward) for the demolishcrs of 
 chapels : much less would a temple of Venus be demolished, 
 because a thousand unlawful oaths would be taken in places 
 adjoining it. The only fault with which the Catholic body 
 can be upbraided, is their misfortune originating from their 
 attachment to their religion, without any disloyalty to their 
 Kings ; but unfortunate people ought not to be insulted. 
 The most flourishing empires, as well as individuals, are 
 not proof against the revolutions of time, and the vicissi- 
 tudes of fortune. 
 
 Marius, the great conqueror of the Cimbri, was seen in a 
 reclining posture, and forlorn and half famished on the ruins 
 of Carthage, formerly the rival of Rome. The sight of such 
 a change disarmed the officer who was sent to behead him, 
 when the other cried out, go and tell the governor that you 
 have seen Marius hungry on the ruins of Carthage. Tra- 
 vellers pay a certain respect to the ruins of old temples and 
 other buildings stripped of their former decorations ; and it 
 would be matter of surprise, if in the very blaze of tolera- 
 tion, the legislature of Ireland would pay such little regard 
 to the descendants of the people, who in former times open- 
 ed their houses and seminaries for the reception of all the 
 natives of hurope, who flocked to them for improvement, 
 and erected magnificent structures in honour of the Deity, 
 as to force them to pray in the open air. The dissolution 
 of morals amongst the lower orders, deprived of a place of 
 worship, and the scandal of Europe would be the con- 
 sequence of such a rigorous law. The Irish senate foresaw 
 it, and to their honour rejected the clause. 
 
 The Catholics of Ireland should be very thankful to ths 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 289 
 
 Lord Bishop of Cloyne for endeavouring' to procure them, 
 the confidence of their rulers. And the Dissenters and Ca- 
 tholics of Ireland are no less thankful to you, Counsellor 
 Trant, for your kind assistance in becoming his auxiliary, 
 and painting both as internal confederated enemies against the 
 constitution.* You, doubtless, glory in a revolution which 
 has spread the broad basis of your civil and religious liberty ; 
 you should not have forgotten the heroes of Enniskilleo, nor 
 the defenders of Derry, against the forces of James the 
 Second, to whom the latter had sworn allegiance, and whose 
 son-in-law the former had placed on the throne. For a gen- 
 tleman who is so well versed in history as you are, should 
 know that the combined efforts of the Dissenters and Catholics 
 could have turned the scale at that critical period, and put a 
 speedy end to the contests. Both parties were well rewarded 
 for their exertions in support of the cause which to each 
 seemed best : the daughter riveted the chains of the Dis- 
 senters, who had procured her the throne, by the exaltation 
 of her brother-in-law, and gave the coup de grace to the Ca- 
 tholics, for having fought in her father's cause, before they 
 could have any notion that she would sway the sceptre which 
 dropped from his feeble and unnerved hands. Since that 
 memorable sera, so undeservedly degrading to both, the Dis- 
 senters and Catholics of Ireland have behaved with equal 
 loyalty to each succeeding monarch. 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Cloyne and you have paid them a 
 very handsome compliment— the Bishop excludes them from 
 national confidence, on account of their readiness to pull 
 down and set up : and you proclaim them internal confede- 
 rated enemies against the constitution. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Barber has shaved the Lord Bishop of 
 Cloyne with a keen and polished razor ; and he is very capa- 
 ble of trimming your pamphlet. May I ask you a few 
 questions ? Can you assign a reason for calling Theophilus a 
 well-meaning writer f Is it for calling your flesh and blood a 
 pack of hounds? You are the son of respectable Roman Ca- 
 tholic parents : you need not blush at it, for the reasons al- 
 ready alleged. Is it in your father's loyal and hospitable 
 
 * Sec Ccuinsellov Trant"'? Pamphlet 
 
290 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 family, you have discovered any plot against the state ? Is 
 it amongst the respectable Dissenters and Catholics of the 
 county of Cork ? You have travelled over the most refined 
 nations in Europe, and conversed with the Roman nobility, 
 not far from the tombs of Scipio and Emilius. In Catholic 
 countries have you discovered any treacherous correspon- 
 dence between the Catholics of Ireland and the Princes of 
 the houses of Bourbon and Sardinia, whom your well-mean- 
 ing Theopkdns points out as their deliverers ? You go over 
 the same ground with the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, and talk, 
 of Papists disarming Protestants. Did not this happen in the 
 night time ? Are you so clear-sighted as to discover a man's 
 religion in the dark, when you are slumbering on your pil- 
 low ? I doubt not but that some Protestants gave up their arms 
 with as much reluctance as Counsellor Trant would reach 
 forth his hand to receive the Commission of a Judge, when 
 the Quarter Sessions are to be established in Munster, or 
 the patent of a Vicar General. For numbers of them would 
 not be much concerned if proctors, tithe- canters, and tithes, 
 were at a great distance beyond Purgatory ; which contributed 
 so much to the establishment of those church revenues, 
 which give the Lord Bishop of Cloyne and the Counsellor 
 an occasion of rough-handling the Catholics and Dissenters 
 of Ireland. The Lord Bishop of Cloyne preaches against 
 what he dtemsthe superstition ; but likes to live well by the 
 institution to which it gave rise. 
 
 In the same strain with the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, you 
 speak of notices threatening to burn a new church, and to 
 change an old church into a mass-house. 
 
 Is Counsellor Trant in earnest ? Does he really believe that 
 a Catholic ever posted up that notice ? Is the new church 
 burnt ? Is the old church sprinkled with holy water ? If 
 he gave himself the trouble to read my addresses to the 
 Whiteboys, with the same attention with which Doctor 
 Woodward read thern, in order to brand me with sedition; 
 he must know the manner in which I ridiculed the idea. 
 Where would they have found a chaplain to give them mass 
 in that church ? Or does Counsellor Trant believe that 
 night strollers who would not hear mass from their own pas- 
 tors, would die martyrs for prayers near the Bishop of 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 291 
 
 Cloyne's communion table ? Apage Nugce ! This I re- 
 marked before, and I here repeat it. But will Mr. O'Leary 
 deny that such a notice was posted up ? By no means. He 
 has read the memoirs of artful knaves, and knows that there 
 are still living, and will be found to the end of time ingenious 
 Hoyles, who can lay down rules for playing a game of political 
 whist. A Cardinal, whose life was a disgrace to the purple, 
 got information that Pope Innocent the Eleventh, intended to 
 expel him the Sacred College in consequence of complaints 
 daily preferred against him to his eminence ; the crafty 
 courtier wrote to the Pope an anonymous letter against 
 himself, informing his Holiness that the Cardinal was so 
 profligate, that a Roman lady was to be found with him the 
 following night, in such an apartment of his palace, and re- 
 questing his Holiness to procure personal information ; the 
 Pope, who was a man of the most rigid morals, came 
 with his guards in the dead of night to the Cardinal's pa- 
 lace, and forced his way into the apartment, where to his 
 surprise, he found the holy man with his arms expanded 
 before a crucifix, and on his bare knees upon a flag instead 
 of carpet. The stratagem succeeded, and from that night 
 forward he never would listen to any complaints against 
 the Cardinal. Rather the Lord Bishop of Cloyne and 
 Counsellor Trant, must produce the person who post- 
 ed up the notice threatening to burn a new church, or 
 leave me at liberty to attribute the notice to a much si- 
 milar stratagem. They should have inquired whether 
 tithe-jobbers did not contrive to set fire to their own 
 corn, in order to prevent any alteration in the system of 
 tithes, and to draw the vengeance of the laws upon deluded 
 peasants, who were already but too obnoxious. Many 
 evidences should be produced to support Counsellor Trant's 
 charge ; and if he produced ten thousand, not one of them, 
 but upon examination, would be discovered a false 
 witness. 
 
 That Doctor Woodward, the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, 
 come from Westminster School to enjoy an Irish Bishopric, 
 should insult the natives of Ireland, both Dissenters and Ca- 
 tholics, by excluding them from confidence, I am not sur- 
 prised. Every allowance must be made for the prejudices 
 
292 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 of early education. Perhaps at the age of twenty, he ima- 
 gined that the Irish walked upon all fours, as an English 
 Judge at the age of forty, a few years ago, wrote to his 
 agent, to know whether there was a slated house in Dublin, 
 to hire for his accommodation on his arrival. His Lord- 
 ship is further by his profession and consecration hostile to 
 all doctrines except his own, and interested in tithes, which 
 in Ireland bring him in a greater income than he could ex- 
 pect in England. But that Counsellor Trant, a native of the 
 land, a man of the world, whose mind should be enlarged 
 by a more extensive intercourse with people of every descrip- 
 tion, and a gentleman of independent fortune, should stand 
 forth as a pamphlet writer, in support of the charges of the 
 well-meaning, scurrilous and slanderous Theophilus, must 
 be to his acquaintances a matter of surprise. There is not, 
 however, a fortune-teller in the county of Cork, but could 
 guess at the reason ; and the reason must be very pressing, 
 when Counsellor Trant commits himself with almost the 
 bulk of the natives of Ireland, by calling them internal 
 confederated enemies against the constitution of this king- 
 dom. 
 
 It is to be expected that in the second edition, and all fu- 
 ture editions of his pamphlet, he will mark down in large le- 
 gible characters the above assertion amongst the errata; 
 otherwise he must sanctify himself among the beneficed clergy, 
 for no Dissenting or Catholic gentleman can with any warmth 
 of affection keep company with their accuser. 
 
 The senate of the nation is now assembled. The Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne and Counsellor Trant are in Dublin; and 
 I am here to meet them. I call on them both in the face 
 of the kingdom, to bring forth their charges against the Ca- 
 tholic body. I call on them to contradict what I have re- 
 lated. I call on them to prove Popish confederacy against 
 church or state. I cite them before the senate of the nation. 
 — They are silent, they decline the summons. Let the reader 
 infer the consequence. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 293 
 
 SECTION THE THIRD; 
 
 Containing a Refutation of the Lord Bishop of Cloyne'' s Argu- 
 ments, drawn from the Legate's Letter and the Catholic 
 Bishop's Consecration Oath. 
 
 In the persecutions against the primitive Christians, 
 their enemies used to dress them in the skins of sheep and 
 other animals, and after having forced on their bodies their 
 livery of contempt, used to cry out Christians ad bestias ; to 
 the wild beasts with the Christians. The enemies of the Ca- 
 tholics of this kingdom have been so industrious of late, in 
 dressing them in a strange drapery, and attributing to them 
 sedition, hostility to the state, and doctrines inconsistent with the 
 security of the throne, as to excite a general clamour Catho* 
 lici ad funem ; to the halter with the Catholics. To refute 
 every charge would make up a volume. My defence is 
 already swelled to a tolerable size ; and after a full vindica- 
 tion of the Catholic body, and of my own conduct, I think 
 it needless to take up my reader's time with any farther 
 tedious discussions. 
 
 However, as the Lord Bishop of Cloyne has favoured the 
 
 f)ublic with a translation of Ghilini's letter, and the Catho- 
 ic Bishop's consecration oath, 1 must trespass further on 
 the patience of my readers. The Catholic body must be 
 grossly misrepresented if the public are to believe that the 
 opinionr of Casuists make a part of their creed. Were I to 
 sum up all the erroneous opinions of the Divines who pro- 
 fessed themselves members of the church of England, and 
 the opinions of several other Protestant Divines; did 1 col- 
 lect them all into a volume with this title, the Creed of the 
 Right Reverend Doctor Woodward, the Lord Bishop of 
 Cloyne, how would he gaze with astonishment, and exclaim 
 against my want of sincerity and candour ! In the very sup- 
 position then, that Burke and Ghiliui were really of the 
 opinion which the Lord Bishop of Cloyne attributes to 
 
294 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 them, how far does it affect the Catholics of Ireland, or the 
 Catholics all over the world ? When the Elector of Saxony 
 proposed a case of conscience to Luther and Melancthon 
 to know whether in the absence of his wife or during her 
 pregnancy he would make use of another ? Those Casuists 
 answered in the affirmative. A case of conscience much 
 similar was proposed to Bishop Burnet. After labouring 
 much, and torturing texts of Scripture, the humane Divine 
 decided that polygamy was lawful. Would it not be ridicu- 
 lous in me to force into the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's con- 
 science, such decisions as articles of creed ? Nay, some 
 Protestant Divines went further. Doctor Dopping, Bishop 
 of Meath, preached publicly in Christ church, Dublin, 
 that violation of faith with Catholics was lawful, in justifica- 
 tion of the breach of the articles of Limerick. To several 
 Christian Divines then can be applied, what Cicero said of 
 the philosophers of his time, that there was no absurdity so 
 glaring, but had some philosopher to support it. If then the 
 Lord Bishop of Cloyne intends to swell the Catholic 
 creed, with the opinions of Catholic Schoolmen, I shall re- 
 pay him tenfold, by sending to him a collection of absurdi- 
 ties and strange doctrines advanced by Protestant authors. 
 Every man of sense will acknowledge this a sufficient answer 
 to his Lordship's remark on Ghilini's letter. And what is 
 Ghilini's opinion to countervail the doctrine sworn to by the 
 Prelates and Catholics of Ireland, both clergy and laity ? 
 Or does the Lord Bishop of Cloyne intend to hold us up to 
 our King and Country, as unprincipled perjurers ? This is 
 severe usage to men, labouring under so many disqualifica- 
 tions, because they refuse to take an oath against the con- 
 viction of their consciences. Let the most profligate 
 amongst us swear against our whole creed, he is believed, 
 and becomes an adoptive child of the state. When we 
 swear against imputed doctrines without fee or reward, it is 
 hard indeed if we deserve no credit. But without being an 
 apologist for Ghilini, much less for Burke, has the Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne fairly stated the case, and the principles 
 on which the titular Archbishop of Rhodes rejected the 
 oath, which in reality he did not, nor could understand as 
 well as the Catholics of Ireland ? Did he say, or could he 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 295 
 
 have the absurd effrontery to say that Catholics could not in 
 conscience swear allegiance to a Protestant King, when in 
 the purest ages of the Christian Religion, the primitive 
 Christians swore allegiance to the Heathen Caesars ? When 
 the rigid Tertullian, a stranger to fear or flattery, who 
 would expire in the tortures of the rack for his belief, has 
 left us an abridgment of the prayer offered up by Christian 
 subjects for their Pagan rulers. ' We pray, says this great 
 ' man, We pray for the Emperors, and that God may grant 
 
 * them a long life and a quiet reign : that their family may 
 
 * be safe, and their forces valiant : their senate wise, their 
 ' people orderly and virtuous : that they may rule in peace, 
 'and enjoy all the blessings they can desire either as 
 'men or princes. Et omnia quae tendunt ad Caesar's 
 ' votum. 1 * 
 
 Upon what ground does Ghilini reject the oath? from 
 ignorance. It is evident from his letter that he did not 
 know the nature of it. His very words prove it to demon- 
 stration. I shall give them in the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's 
 own translation. 
 
 Extract from Ghilini' 's letter. 
 
 ' Besides, whether he be inviolably bound as the new form 
 " prescribes, to be always true and faithful to his Majesty, 
 ' which is afterwards explained to affirm upon oath according 
 ' to the sense intended by the laics of Ireland, is to me a very 
 ' dubious point. 1 [Remark here, Irish reader, how Ghilini 
 doubts.] ' For since the laws of England and Ireland re- 
 
 * cognise the King as head of the Church, and the foun- 
 
 * tain of its spiritual authority, he who takes such an oath 
 
 * and promises to be faithful to his Majesty, according to 
 1 the prescription of the laws of Ireland, might also recog- 
 1 nize the King as head of the Church, and the fountain of 
 
 * its spiritual authority. Should it happen that such expres- 
 
 * sions either were or could be so understood, your most 
 'illustrious Lordships and each of the Catholics themselves, 
 ' ought to take notice that this is a most manifest error, 
 'and directly contrary to the principles of the Catholic 
 
 * Tertullian's Apolojy, 
 
296 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 1 religion, which acknowledges only one head and fountain 
 'of all spiritual authority, namely, the Roman Pontiff.' 
 
 From these very words the reader may know that the 
 Nuncio did not know the nature of the oath. He confounds 
 civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and imagines that the Irish 
 legislature proposed an oath of allegiance to the Catholics, 
 binding them to acknowledge the King as Pope, head of the 
 universal Church, and the fountain of all spiritual authority ; 
 w l ereas they only swore that no foreign Prince, Prelate, or 
 Potentate, hath or ought to have any civil jurisdiction within 
 these realms. Hence the doubts and ignorance of an Italian 
 casuist, are trumpeted over three kingdoms, as articles of 
 Catholic belief, and wavtd as so many signals for perse- 
 cution. 
 
 Nor does the Lord Bishop of Cloyne discriminate the 
 clauses of the oath from each other ; nor explain the dis- 
 tinctions of which Ghilini's letter is susceptible, with that 
 accuracy to which he should have, attended if he expected 
 an answer. 
 
 In the same period of the oath, there are two clauses, the 
 one ' disclaiming violation of faith with heretics, as an arti- 
 ' cle of Catholic belief:' the other 'disclaiming the depo- 
 1 sition of Kings, in consequence of Papal excommunications.' 
 The Legate gives his opinion, that the condemnation of the 
 latter as abominable is absolutely intolerable, because, ac- 
 cording to him, this doctrine (Hanc Doctrinam) has been 
 defended and contended for by most Catholic nations, and the 
 Holy See has frequently followed it in practice. 
 
 It is to be remarked, that he speaks in the singular num- 
 ber, (doctrinam hanc,) and alludes to the indirect deposing 
 power, supported by some ultramontane Canonists, whom 
 the Legate in consequence of his prejudices in favour of the 
 court of Home, enlarges into most Catholic nations. For 
 violation of faith with heretics was never defended nor con- 
 tended for by Catholic nations, much less by the Apostolic 
 Ste. But it has been detested and exclaimed against, as a 
 black slander, invented by indelicate controvertists, in order 
 to misrepresent the Catholic doctrine, and to bring an odium 
 on the Apostolic See. This the Lord Bishop of Cloyne 
 should know. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACES. 297 
 
 If he had no authority but that of Doctor Hayes, who 
 proved it a slander five or six years ago in Scotland ; or of 
 Mr. O'Leary, who exclaimed against it as a slander about 
 the same time in Ireland, and who proclaims it a slander 
 still ; the Lord Bishop of Cloyne might plead the pliant 
 policy of men, who, under the terror of prosecution, wtre 
 obliged to soften their doctrine. But when he reads Natalis 
 Alexander, a Dominican friar, in his dissertations on Ec- 
 clesiastical History ; Arnaldus, in his apology, and so many 
 Catholic divines writing in Catholic countries, against vio- 
 lation of faith with heretics, and making it out downright 
 slander; the Lord Bishop of Cloyne might have spared 
 himself the trouble of translating Ghilini's letter: that Le- 
 gate then must allude to the indirect deposing power ex- 
 ploded all over the world, though supported by some Ita- 
 lian Canonists, and unsuccessfully attempted by some Popes, 
 not in consequence of any divine right, but in consequence 
 of a temporal claim, founded either on compacts or a long 
 prescription pleaded, against monarchs, wnose predeces- 
 sors had rendered their kingdoms tributary to the Holy 
 See. 
 
 If the Protestant Bishop of Cloyne, who is so ardent for 
 the security of his tithes, (the occasion of so many distur- 
 bances in this kingdom,) had the same title to Peter's-pence, 
 and been as powerful as the Roman Pontiffs were at the be- 
 ginning of the reformation, he would have been as clamorous 
 as Pope Paul the Fourth, and Sixtus Quintus, who considered 
 England as a fief of the Holy See.* For the generality of 
 church-men, however divided as to creeds, agree very well 
 in one point, viz. not to part with what they have. Hence they 
 are called Mortmain in law form, perhaps from the gripe of 
 a dead man's hand. The best manner of living on £ood 
 terms with them, is to give them all, and take nothing from 
 them: but such is not the present humour of Catholic Mo- 
 narchs, who, without any breach of the Catholic doctrine, 
 and in defiance of the thunders of the Vatican, lay siege to 
 the Pope's cities, if he gives them any provocation. Jn vain 
 would he fulminate his excommunications on the score of 
 
 * This was the answer of Poue Paul the Fourth, to Queen Elizabeth's) Ambassadors. 
 
298 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 temporalities. They are considered as a ftdmcn brutem. 
 The Lord Bishop of Cloyne then either misunderstands 
 Ghilini's letter, or tortures it as he tortured Mr. O'Leary's 
 writings. I would stake my life this very instant, that if the 
 Lord Bishop of Cloyne wrote to the Nuncio, and asked him 
 if he meant in his letter that violation of faith with heretics, 
 was a doctrine defended, contended for by most Catholic 
 nations, and frequently followed in practice by the Holy 
 See ; I would stake my life that the Nuncio would write to 
 the Lord Bishop of Cloyne a very obliging letter, in which 
 he would disclaim any such meaning, equally with the doc- 
 trine. The Nuncio mentions in his letter, doctrinam, doc- 
 trine. The Lord Bishop of Cloyne changes doctrine into 
 doctrines, the plural number, in the following manner, page 
 twenty-two of his pamphlet. 
 
 1 The Legate treats the clauses in the proposed oath, 
 6 containing a declaration of abhorrence and detestation of 
 4 the doctrines, that faith is not to be kept with heretics ; and 
 4 that princes deprived by the Pope may be deposed, as ab- 
 4 solutely intolerable, because those doctrines are defended 
 ' and contended for by most Catholic nations.' Had the 
 Legate expressed himself in the same identical words with 
 the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, there would be no need of any 
 comment. We would condemn the Legate's ignorance, and 
 the horror of his doctrine in a more pointed manner. But 
 here it is a Roman courtier, who is so zealous for the honour 
 of his ultramontane Canonists, who supported the discarded 
 deposing power, and takes offence that their doctrine 
 should be called abominable ; and for this reason says, that 
 such a stricture is intolerable. The Lord Bishop of Cloyne, 
 from brotherly love, increases the ecclesiastical funds, by ad- 
 ding to the Archbishop of Rhodes's doctrine of the indirect 
 deposing power, violation of faith with heretics, of which the 
 other certainly could not think. Thus one Prelate shews an 
 extraordinary generosity in bestowing on his Confrere more 
 than he would accept of Nothing more then can be 
 inferred from this letter, than that the Titular Arch- 
 bishop of Rhodes doubts the validity of an oath, of 
 the nature of which he expresses his ignorance, in imagin- 
 ing that the Catholics of Ireland intended to make a Pope 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 299 
 
 of their Sovereign. In his very ignorance he nevertheless 
 shews the abhorrence in which he holds a false oath. 
 Whereas in the alternative of perjury or suffering, he re- 
 commends to the Catholics to suffer for ever under the 
 penal laws, sooner than to take an oath which he deems 
 erroneous. The same can be said of Burke, who calls it 
 horrible impiety, to say that a Catholic who had sworn 
 allegiance to George the Third, should abjure the same 
 King if he became a Catholic. Under the change of re- 
 ligion, he considers the oath taken to a Protestant King 
 still binding, when he alters his creed. Of what advan- 
 tage then Ghilini's letter can be to the Lord Bishop of 
 Cloyne's cause, after the bustle it has occasioned, let the 
 reader determine. This case of conscience proposed to 
 an Italian, by a doating Prelate who filled up a volume 
 with minutias and trifling occurrences, concerns the Ca- 
 tholics of Ireland as much as the question which Rabelais 
 proposed to the logicians ; whether a chimcera bouncing in 
 a vacuum, could eat up the premises of a syllogism? 
 Numquid chimcera in vacuo, bombinans possit comedere, 
 primas intentiones ? 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Cloyne cries out with an air of 
 triumph, ' who is the voucher to be set in opposition to the 
 
 * Legate of the Pope V And I raise my voice in my turn. 
 4 Who is the Pope's Legate ? A man who did not know the 
 
 * nature of the subject of his letter, to be set in opposition to 
 
 * the Catholic clergy of Ireland ? Or who is the Pope him- 
 
 * self, to be set in opposition to all ages acknowledging the 
 ' right that Temporal Princes have to the allegiance of their 
 
 * subjects ; whether those Princes were Trojans or Constan- 
 1 tines? Or who is the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, to be 
 
 * fabricating creeds for his neighbours ?' Are not Catholic 
 Prelates better and more competent vouchers of the Catholic 
 doctrine, than a person reared out of their communion? He 
 may alarm the ignorant with a letter which the Catholic 
 Prelates condemned in the year 1775. If he attacks the 
 Catholics on a fair ground, why does not he explain their 
 genuine principles ? Or does he intend to sport with com- 
 mon sense, in erecting the decision of every doating Casuist, 
 into an article pf Catholic belief? If he does, I shall 
 
300 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 meet him on his own ground and swell his treed to an enor- 
 mous bulk, by adding to it the reveries and extravagant 
 opinions of those writers who attacked the church of Rome, 
 and at the same time struck into those devious paths, in 
 which the Lord Bishop of Cloyne must acknowledge that 
 scripture was not their guide ; or if he acknowledges it, he 
 must renounce his creed. 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Cloyne has favoured the public with 
 the Catholic Bishops' consecration oath : and from what mo- 
 tive ? To insinuate to the public, that the oath of allegiance 
 they have taken to their Sovereign is not to be relied on, and 
 consequently that they and their flocks are not to be trusted. 
 I should imagine that common justice should have induced 
 him, not to throw out such an injurious intimation, and that 
 the Catholic Prelates are the most competent judges of the 
 sense and meaning of an oath which they take at their con- 
 secration. 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Cloyne has translated the entire oath 
 at the close, and given the most obnoxious clauses of it in the 
 twenty-third page of his pamphlet. Let us now examine the 
 most obnoxious clauses of this oath. For as to visiting the 
 thresholds of the Apostles every three years ; I believe the 
 Lord Bishop of Cloyne would not quarrel with his fellow 
 Prelates whom his pamphlet is calculated to transport out of 
 the kingdom. 
 
 I. * They promise to be faithful and obedient to Saint 
 
 * Peter the Apostle, and to the Holy Roman Church, and 
 'to their Lord the Pope, and his successors canonicaily 
 c entering.' 
 
 II. ' The Roman Papacy and the royalties of Saint Peter, 
 ' to assist the Pope and his successors, to retain and defend 
 'against every man.' 
 
 III. * The rights, honours, privileges and authority of the 
 
 * Holy Roman Church, and of their Lord the Pope, and his 
 ' successors aforesaid, to be careful to preserve, defend, en- 
 
 * large, and promote.' 
 
 IV. ' Heretics, schismatics, and rebels, against their said 
 
 * Lord, and his successors aforesaid, they will, to the ut- 
 ' most of their power, prosecute and oppose.' 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. $0! 
 
 V. * Not to be concerned in any thing prejudicial to the 
 * Pope or Roman Church ; but as far as they are able to pre- 
 1 vent the 6ame.' * 
 
 Such are the obnoxious clauses of the Bishops* consecra- 
 tion oath, in the midst of which is inserted in express words, 
 a saving clause which speaks the dignity of Catholic Bishops, 
 and reconciles their allegiance to their respective Sovereigns 
 with the canonical obedience due to their head pastor. Salvo 
 meo ordine— Saving my order. This clause does away every 
 difficulty, and leaves the sceptre in the Prince's hands, whilst 
 it leaves the censer in the hands of the Pontiff. 
 
 The oath then is but an oath of canonical obedience due 
 from an inferior to a superior, in every church that acknow- 
 ledges a Hierarchy. But an oath of allegiance is due to 
 Temporal Princes alone ; and doubtless the Bishops in the 
 Pope's states can take both one and the other, for in those- 
 states they have no other Sovereign. 
 
 When then they bind themselves to preserve, defend, en- 
 large and promote the rights, honours, privileges and autho- 
 rity of the Roman Church and its Pontiff! Catholic Bi- 
 shops mean their just rights, their just honours, their just pri- 
 vilege s, and their just authority, which do not nor can extend 
 to the overthrow of states, nor to the usurpation of the just 
 and lawful rights, honours, privileges, and authority of 
 others. 
 
 For an oath is not a tie of iniquity : an unjust oath taken 
 to God himself is not binding ; and an oath taken to one 
 person to the prejudice of another is null and void. Hence 
 the religious warrior in the Scripture, who in consequence of 
 his oath offered up his daughter, offered to God a sacrilegious 
 sacrifice'. Herod, who bound himself by oath to give the 
 young woman who danced in his presence, whatever she re- 
 quired, was guilty of murder in giving her the Prophet's 
 head ; and the Bishops would be guilty of robbery, treachery, 
 and profanation, if they bound themselves by their consecra- 
 tion to dethrone their Sovereigns, plunder individuals, and 
 disturb the peace and order of civil society, to defend, en- 
 large, and promote the royalties of Saint Peter, which are 
 merely confined to a Spiritual Supremacy, and extend to no 
 superiority in temporals. Let the form of words be what it 
 
302 MfSCELLANCOUS TRACTS. 
 
 may, the Bishops never take that oath in any sense injurious 
 to Sovereigns, nor to civil society. The Sovereign Pontiff 
 knows they do not: before they are consecrated, they must 
 swear allegiance to their respective Sovereigns, who 
 are as jealous of their privileges as any Protestant Mo- 
 narchs. 
 
 Oaths and laws are liable to interpretation; and one gene- 
 ral rule prevails, that a greater stress is to be laid on the sense 
 than on the words. The Bishops are not only the most com- 
 petent judges of their own meanings, but moreover secure 
 their own dignity, and the rights of their respective Sove- 
 reigns, by an express clause ; Salvo meo online, saving my 
 order, as a Bishop who receives his jurisdiction and the right 
 of determining oh doctrinal matters by his consecration, and 
 not as a vassal or vicegerent of the Pope. Salvo meo ordine, 
 Saving my order, as a subject bound to give Caesar his due, 
 and to pay allegiance to the reigning powers in whose states 
 I reside. Salvo meo ordine, Saving my order, as a Minister 
 of the Gospel, who is to preach the word, and who takes 
 his oath in no other sense, than to prosecute by arguments, 
 and impugn by persuasion, reason and good example, those 
 who are of a different persuasion, and are willing to be con- 
 vinced. Any other prosecution or persecution, let the term 
 be what it may, is inconsistent with humanity, much more 
 with the order of a Christian Prelate, who takes not, who 
 cannot take the oath in any other sense. He cannot take the 
 sword out of the hands of the civil magistrates, nor injure any 
 description of men who are under the protection of the 
 state. 
 
 Does die Lord Bishop of Cloyne mean to hold up the Ca- 
 tholic Prelates all over the world, as a set of perjurers ? Are 
 the Catholic Bishops in Germany, some of whom are Sove- 
 reign Princes, with numbers of religious descriptions in their 
 states, are they perjurers ? 
 
 This cavil at the Catholic Bishops' consecration oath, is but 
 a dispute about words. They themselves know best in what 
 sense they take it ; and no Catholic Prelate on earth takes it 
 in the sense which the Lord Bishop of Cloyne intimates to 
 the public. 
 
 When the Proctors of the Court of Arches are sworn into 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 303 
 
 office, they bind themselves by oath, without any 4 Salvo or 
 4 reserving clause, never to impugn, diminish, or abridge the 
 4 rights, liberties, or privileges of* the church of Canterbury 
 4 in manner whatever.' Quoquo Modo. 
 
 JVunquam ad impugnationem, diminutionem, vel Itesionem 
 juris, libcrtatis, vel privilegit Cantuuriensis, KccUsicb postulabo ; 
 nee jus libertatem, vel privilegeiimi ejusdem Ecclesice quoQuo 
 modo, impiignabo, &c. (vide statuto de arcabus, Stratford.) 
 — Yet Oughton in his ordo judiciorum, De causis testamen- 
 trus ; Titulus, 224, acknowledges that in certain cases they 
 can decline the jurisdiction of the Court of Prerogative, 
 though it is incumbent on them in such cases to proceed with, 
 the greatest and most delicate sincerity, in order not to incur 
 the guilt of perjury, ' JYotandum tamen est quod expedit pro- 
 4 curatori negaati jurisdicfionem curiae, prerogatives, bona et op- 
 4 timajide alias commit tit perjurium.'' 
 
 It is well known, that the prerogative courts claim juris- 
 diction in many cases in which the courts of Common law 
 deny them jurisdiction ; yet it would be absurd to sav that 
 the Proctors of those prerogative courts are enemies to the 
 laws of the realm, or perjure themselves in consequence of 
 their oath, as it is absurd to imagine that Catholic Bishops 
 are by their profession hostile to the rights and privileges 
 of their respective Sovereigns, or perjure themselves by 
 taking an oath of Canonical obedience. In the Prelate's 
 oath, there is an express saving clause. — In the Proctor's 
 oath there is no reserve, but such as justice and reason im- 
 ply: all oaths must be reasonable and just. And in the in- 
 terpretation of them, the intention of the swearers and of 
 those to whom they are taken, and the sense in which both 
 parties understand them, are to be strictly attended to. 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Cloyne then might with propriety 
 have spared himself the trouble of alarming the public with 
 the consecration oath of Catholic Prelates; especially as his 
 own consecration oath is not favourable if literally taken for 
 want of the dignified saving clause inserted in the oath of 
 Catholic Bishops. 
 
 R R 
 
304 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 COPY OF THE LORD BISHOP OF CLOYNE'S CONSECRATION 
 
 OATH. 
 
 (TAKEN FROM THE ENGLISH CARDINAL.) 
 
 The Archbishop's Interrogatory to the Bishop-Elect. 
 
 4 Are you ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and 
 4 drive away all erroneous and all strange doctrines, contrary 
 4 to God's word, and both privately and openly to call upon 
 4 and encourage others to the same ? 
 
 Answer. 4 I am ready, the Lord being my helper.' 
 
 The reader may judge whether the above oath be not 
 tantamount to prosecute and impugn Heretics and Schisma- 
 tics. Nay, they go further ; for the Catholic Prelate uses 
 the dignified language of Salvo meo online, and does not 
 bind himself to call upon and encourage others privately 
 and openly to the same. What an alarming comment would 
 not malevolent writers make on the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's 
 consecration oath in those Protestant and Catholic States, 
 where free toleration is granted, if they were as active in ex- 
 cluding the members of the church of England from na- 
 tional confidence, as the Lord Bishop of Cloyne has been in 
 excluding Irish Dissenters and Catholics; or Counsellor 
 Dominick Trant, who calls them internal confederated enemies 
 against the conMitution. 
 
 ^ How these words privately encouraging others, would be 
 tortured to the prejudice of the two Bishops, who were con- 
 secrated the other day in Lambeth Palace, in order to in- 
 struct their flocks in America, where unfettered conscience 
 enjoys that innate freedom of which tests and penalties have 
 deprived unhappy persecuted mortals ! 
 
 The affinity of one oath with the other was so glaring, 
 that it drew equal vengeance on the Bishops of the church 
 of England, as well as on the Catholics, during those un- 
 happy scenes which distracted England in the reign of 
 Charles the First. Papists and Malignants were equally ob- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 305 
 
 noxious to people who perceived such a thin partition be- 
 tween both, and similarity of ceremonies, mitres, confirma- 
 tion, consecrations and oaths, scarce discernible. 
 
 What is the meaning of the words, to ' banish and drive 
 ' away all erroneous and strange doctrines, and encourage 
 ' others privately and openly to the same ?' The Lord Bi- 
 shop of Cloyne, who must believe that Bishops are jure 
 divino, must believe the doctrine of the Dissenters strange V 
 and erroneous. The Lord Bishop of Cloyne, who believes 
 that two sacraments are necessary to salvation, must believe 
 the doctrine of the Quakers strange and erroneous. The 
 Lord Bishop of Cloyne, who believes the Catholics to be 
 Idolaters, violators of faith with Heretics, must believe their 
 doctrine enormously and horridly strange and erroneous. What 
 is then the consequence ? That the Lord Bishop of Cloyne 
 is bound to banish and drive away the Dissenters, Catholics, 
 Quakers: in a word, all Adam's children who do not pro- 
 fess his creed. His pamphlet shews it : his Lordship hints 
 to a dispensing power in the Church of Rome, I most ear- 
 nestly recommend a dispensation with any oath, which de- 
 prives mortals of the rights to which they are entitled by 
 nature, and which they have not forfeited by their personal 
 crimes. He should then have left the consecration oath of 
 Catholic Prelates, who in every age, have been an ornament 
 to human nature by their philanthropy, their learning, and 
 the purity of their lives; he should have left it where he 
 found it, in an old Pontifical, on the shelf of a College Li- 
 brary, and foreseen that his own oath would be sought for 
 in his ordinal, when he would examine into the oaths of 
 others ; if both are to be taken in the literal sense, they 
 are very well matched, and should discover in each other's 
 face a striking similiarity of features, such as ought to be 
 between an elder and younger sister, to use the words of 
 the ingenious Mr. Barber. 
 
 This affinity, however, has been very troublesome to the 
 unhappy Catholics of England and Ireland, ever since the 
 reign of Queen Elizabeth, to this very day. In Holland and 
 Switzerland, Protestants and Catholics live together in the 
 greatest harmony : in some parts of Germany, Calvinists, 
 Lutherans, and Catholics, say their prayers in the same 
 
306 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 church, each in their turn. And doubtless a passenger or* 
 earth may succeed another in a house of worship, to offer up 
 a few prayers, as one traveller succeeds another at an Inn, 
 and sits down at the same table on which another traveller 
 had taken his repast an hour before. In Upper Alsatia, 
 Protestants and Catholics study in the same University ; and 
 in Paris, the youth of all nations and religions may study 
 the sciences, and attend what lectures they think fit, in 
 the Universities and other Seminaries of learning, where 
 quick parts and a comprehensive genius are attended to. 
 But where students' religion is no matter of concern to a 
 professor, who explain to his hearers either the Justinian 
 code, or Hippocrates's aphorisms, or Quintilian's institu- 
 tions, what reason to assign for disputes about religion in 
 this kingdom, I am at a loss ? ' Is the Pope more formidable 
 « here than in Holland, Switzerland, and other places more 
 6 contiguous to Italy?' Is it on account of the difference 
 of belief? The Catholic creed is the same all over the 
 world : an Irish peasant believes neither more or less than 
 a Fenelon or Bissuet. Is it on account of the Pope's all- 
 dispensing power ? Is his Omnipotence more prevalent 
 here than ejsewhere ? Because the Catholic Clergy of 
 Ireland dq not choose to change their creed, does the Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne imagine they are so ignorant as to con- 
 found a Legate's letter, or a Pope's decree with the doc- 
 trine of the Catholic Church ? History informs them that 
 a Pope was excommunicated after his death, on a suspicion 
 of having favoured the doctrine of theMonothelites; that Pope 
 John the Twenty-second, was obliged to retract the doc- 
 trine which he preached at Avignon, where he asserted that 
 the souls of the Saints were not to enjoy the beatific vision, 
 or the clear sight of God before the last judgment; and 
 that Popes were deposed by a Council, to put an end to 
 disorder and schism : the Pope's infallibility then can be no 
 part of their creed : they acknowledge him as the head pas- 
 tor of their religion : but the pasturage on which he is to 
 feed the flock, is not at his choice. The boundaries are pre- 
 scribed, and under the controul of unalterable faith, and the 
 Universal Canons of the church, he would not dare to re- 
 move the land-marks : if he attempted to publish the Charter 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 307 
 
 School Catechism, which (I am informed) was composed by, 
 or compiled under the direction of the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, 
 the Catholic body would depose him, and elect another in 
 his room. Is it from dread of the Pope's deposing power, 
 and the implicit obedience due to his mandates ? Who can 
 name a prince deposed by the Pope, in virtue of his spiritual 
 authority ? Can the prince be named who parted tamelv 
 with his crown, and opened his gates when St. Peter sounded 
 the trumpet and ordered him to surrender ? If in a memo- 
 rable dispute between a Pope and an Emperor, about investi- 
 tutes, the latter was worsted, it was a contest in which com- 
 pacts and agreements were pleaded on both sides, and sup- 
 ported by powerful parties ; but in this very contest have not 
 Catholic subjects fought against the Pope in defence of their 
 Sovereign? Have not the Catholic Barons and Clergy of 
 England, with Archbishop Langton at their head, obtained 
 the great charter of English liberty, in defiance of the threats, 
 menaces, and excommunications of Pope Innocent the Third ? 
 Is it for any degeneracy peculiar to the Roman Catholic re- 
 ligion, which makes contemptible cowards of its votaries? 
 The gallant Richard Cceur de lion, was the admiration of 
 Europe and Asia ; where James the First, whom the Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne admires for his wise saying no Bishop, no 
 King, used to shut his eyes whenever he drew the sword to 
 perform the ceremony of dubbing a Knight : is it for want of 
 valour and heroism ? The heroes of Agincourt and Cressi, 
 who said their beads on the evening of those memorable bat- 
 tles, which will immortalize them in the annals of the world, 
 were as brave as Marlborough, who was obliged to make a 
 declaration of war against the Virgin Mary, before he could 
 draw his sword in Flanders. Is it on account of the alloy of 
 slavery, peculiarly blended with their profession ? 
 
 When Attila flew over Italy like a vulture, a few Catho- 
 lics, unable to resist by land, took shelter in the sea ; and like 
 the Halcyon that builds his nest on the calm surface of the 
 water, in that very element they laid the foundation of a Re- 
 public, equally famous for preserving its liberties against the 
 Popes of Rome, and the Turkish Emperors of Constanti- 
 nople. Without any breach of faith, or rupture of Catholic 
 communion, the keys of Saint Peter painted on the Pontiff's 
 
308 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 Tiara, and the crescent raised on the top of the Saracen's 
 turban, are equally obnoxious to Catholic republicans, if 
 either nodded at any attempt against their liberties. Where 
 then can the Lord Bishop of Cloyne find the truth of his as- 
 sertion, that despotic States have found in the Papal autho- 
 rity a congenial system of arbitrary dominion ? Has not the 
 Temple of Liberty (from whose very corners he endeavours 
 to exclude the natives of these realms,) been erected by Ca- 
 tholic hands, long before Langton could foresee that a Bishop 
 would misrepresent his creed ? Have not Catholic States op- 
 posed this Papal authority so congenial, according to the Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne, with the system of arbitrary dominion. 
 Are not Protestant Monarchs as despotic as Catholic Kings ? 
 Does not the small Republic of Ragusa change its governor 
 every month, lest a longer continuance in office would ena- 
 ble him to become the petty sovereign of a small territory ? 
 Where is this congeniality of Papal authority with arbitrary 
 dominion, so interwoven with the frame of a Catholic creed 
 as to make them inseparable ? Or can a Bishop be so much 
 a stranger to human nature, as to be ignorant of one of its 
 most undeniable principles ? One man resembles another, 
 and every one chooses to be free. 
 
 SECTION THE FOURTH. 
 
 Containing Cursory Remarks on the Lord Bishop of Cloyne 's 
 
 Pamphlet, 
 
 Had I not seen the Reverend Mr, Barber's pamphlet, 
 and got information that strictures on the Lord Bishop of 
 Cloyne's publication are sent to the press, by a gentleman of 
 more distinguished abilities than I can pretend to, I would 
 examine his Lordship's possessions in every section of his 
 work. Others have exempted me from the task. And my 
 principal design was to enter into a full vindication of the 
 Catholic body, and of myself, whom his Lordship's work is 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 309 
 
 calculated to render peculiarly obnoxious to the reigning 
 powers. 
 
 After having committed himself with the Dissenters and 
 Catholics, he makes a peculiar attack on the regular clergy 
 by an innuendo, that agitating friars and Romish missionaries 
 may be sent here to sow sedition. I challenged his Lordship in 
 the public papers, and in the course of my defence, to pro- 
 duce one : he cannot : he hints that Theophilus may have 
 some information of such. Let Theophilus appear, and he 
 shall be branded as a lying witness. I am extremely sorry 
 that his Lordship should mention such a slanderer in his 
 pamphlet; as for my part, my ian.dlord, Mr. Augustus War- 
 ren, a Member of Parliament, and a gentleman, who, at the 
 very beginning of the disorders, took an active and honour- 
 able part in suppressing them, is now in town; he would not 
 honour me with his friendship, nor give me free access to his 
 house and library, whenever I chose to retire from the bustle 
 of cities, if he discovered in me a seditious tenant. The 
 regular clergy of this kingdom are a part of the Catholie 
 body, whom they instruct and edify under the directions of 
 the Catholic Prelates. 
 
 Does the Lord Bishop of Cloyne intend to raise a perse- 
 cution against them, and thus, through their sides, to wound 
 the Catholics at large, with whom they are so closely con- 
 nected by the ties of blood, and the mutual interchange of 
 good offices ? They have not those fine gardens and rich 
 monasteries which could excite the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's 
 jealousy; and which the Emperor of Germany would sell to 
 increase his treasury, as he has curtailed the revenues of 
 such Bishops as are not foreign princes. The stricter their 
 vow, the less cumbersome they are to society, as they are lite- 
 rally content with what Saint Paul was satisfied, food and rai- 
 ment; many of them have left good fortunes to their younger 
 brothers: all have renounced their share of the inheritance; 
 and such of them as had but a small dividend to share, 
 made a generous sacrifice, when they renounced all earthly 
 prospects. Should the contempt of the vanities of the 
 world, and a disinterested heart, be deemed objects of cen- 
 sure in ecclesiastics, they should not be held in such a view 
 by a Bishop, who finds them recommended in the Scrip- 
 
310 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 tures. Neither will they ever be deemed such by the laity, 
 who will esteem the clergy the more in proportion as they 
 practise what they preach. 1 write here of the regular 
 clergy of Ireland, who run the same career with the rest of 
 the Catholic clergy of the kingdom, and whose common 
 ancestors fell prostrate in the promiscuous ruin, occasioned 
 by confiscations and forfeitures. If a revival of claims, so 
 often mentioned in the senate, and bandied about in flying 
 pamphlets, can tend to render them obnoxious, there is no 
 doubt, but that they should be objects of jealousy with the 
 rest of the Catholics, should those claims be ever asserted. 
 For the Catholic clergy, both secular and regular, are de- 
 scended from the same stock with the Catholic laity, and 
 from ancestors who in their days were neither hewers of 
 wood nor drawers of water. But those claims 1 have done 
 away by scripture, canon and civil law, and reason, in my 
 address to the common people, when the combined fleets 
 were on our coasts, and a revival most likely to ensue. For, 
 at that time, the unprotected Catholic had nothing to lose, 
 and on each Catholic clergyman's head hung the naked 
 sword of proscription. 1 had some time before confirmed 
 the throne in his Majesty's family, against the claims of Stu- 
 arts, Bourbons, and the House of Sardinia. This I have 
 done in my Loyalty asserted, as far as a writer possessed of 
 abilities, which have nothing to recommend them but the 
 sincerity of the author, could confirm the throne of a prince, 
 whose Catholic subjects are compared to a pack of hounds, 
 impatient to run down the Royal Game. 
 
 The only reward I expect for my labour, is not to be in- 
 sulted by any oblique insinuation, that I am sent here to sow 
 sedition. The Lord Bishop of Cloyne softens the innuendo 
 in these words, / do not say that Mr. O'Leary is sent here to 
 sow sedition ; but, &c. If he did not say it, why mention my 
 name as a dessert, after having regaled his reader with so 
 many courses ? Sent here ! I imagined that St. Paul recom- 
 mends hospitality to Bishops, and that a Prelate would be 
 more generous than to envy an Irishman the liberty of breath- 
 ing his native air. If Swift were alive,he would not be very 
 thankful to the Lord Bishop of Cloyne ; but Swift would be 
 at liberty to indulge his thoughts in their full latitude ; I 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 311 
 
 must be cautious, under the heaviest provocation. The Lord 
 knows that it is hard for me ! I was not sent here ! I came 
 here, after having been forced in my early days into foreign 
 countries, for a small portion of education, which was re- 
 fused me in the land of my fathers, because I would not 
 couple Tully's Orations with a Charter- School Catechism. 
 
 I was not sent here to sow sedition : I returned here, not 
 as a fellon from transportation, but as an honourable exile, 
 who returns to his native land, after having preferred a vo- 
 luntary banishment, to ignorance and the abjuration of the 
 creed of his fathers. 
 
 I appeal to Richard Longfield, Esq. Member of Parlia- 
 ment, whether, at the very beginning of the disturbances in 
 the diocese of Cloyne, I have not given the sincerest proof 
 of the most unfeigned determination to co-operate in the 
 restortion of peace and tranquillity. That gentleman soon 
 suppressed the tumults in his own district: because the 
 humanity of the landlord gave an additional weight of 
 respect and love to the authority of the magistrate. 1 
 say it not from flattery, to which I am an utter stranger : 
 had all the gentlemen of consequence in the county of 
 Cork, exerted themselves as Mr. Richard Longfield and 
 Mr. Augustus Warren have done; had they, in imita- 
 tion of the above-mentioned gentlemen, rendered their au- 
 thority as amiable from benevolence to their tenants, as 
 it was formidable from the powers invested in them by 
 the laws, the disturbances would not have outlived the 
 space of six weeks. Wherever the landlords were ac- 
 tive and generous, and advised the people, either no 
 disorders appeared, or were soon suppressed ; and had the 
 Lord Bishop of Cloyne been as active in visiting his dio- 
 cese, and publishing pastoral letters, as he was intent upon 
 collecting materials for a pamphlet, to surprise the public on 
 the eve of the meeting of Parliament, he would have contri- 
 buted to the prevention or suppression of the tumults in con- 
 currence with Mr. O'Leary. 
 
 But the Lord Bishop of Cloyne was secure in the protection 
 of the state. The peace of society was left to the other 
 guardians : the people were wretched, miserable, and mad : 
 
 s s 
 
;i!2 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 several gentlemen were not much concerned for the injuries 
 offered to the clergy of either religion ; policy, which often 
 expects benefits from popular commotions so destructive to 
 the simple, might have induced others to remain silent and 
 inactive in the prospect of providing for their adherents, 
 under the extension of a general police bill ; a bill which 
 was then expected in consequence of popular tumults, 
 which adepts in political wisdom, were more active in 
 magnifying than preventing. It was reported in the eity 
 of Cork, that a certain Reverend Gentleman in the diocese 
 of Cloyne* used to go in the night-time with armed men to 
 sound a horn near a cluster of cabins, in order to make 
 prisoners of such as would appear to gratify their curiosity ; 
 an expedient well becoming a minister of the Gospel ! Bu| 
 with some persons every expedient is justifiable, when 
 Popish plots are to be contrived to give it a sanction : 
 but every idea of such plots is done away, by the very re- 
 solves of the Gentlemen and Freeholders of the county of 
 Cork : resolves wherein they censure the inactivity and in- 
 exertions of many magistrates and gentlemen of property, on 
 the breaking out of the disturbances, and on the continuance 
 of them. f 
 
 It would have been no difficult matter to have smothered 
 them in their birth, as I remarked in my narrative. Firm- 
 ness and humanity would have prevented the disorder. I 
 recommended it in the beginning. For were I a man in 
 power, I never would take for my guides, Rehoboam coun- 
 sellors ; My father whipped you with rods, I will whip you 
 with scorpions. I recommended it in presence of the present 
 Earl of Carhampton, then Lord Lutterell. It was happy for 
 the ill-fated Catholics that such a nobleman of his character, 
 for honour and impartiality, was on the distracted spot. It 
 was happy for them that the Representatives in Parliament for 
 the County and City, and other members who reside in the 
 South of Ireland, are acquainted with local circumstances, 
 and well known for honour, justice and humanity. Other- 
 
 * Perhapsthe Author of the Letter found on the road from Cork to Clonaghkilty, aiad- 
 addressed to Doctor O'Leary, by William O'Driscoll. 
 
 t County of Cork meeting, 7th December;, 1786. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 313 
 
 wise Government would have been imposed on, and the 
 Catholics of Ireland would be in a worse state in the year 
 eighty-seven, than they had been in the year forty-five. 
 
 The county of Cork meeting agreed to a resolution, 
 which may serve as a rule well adapted to the times of 
 commotions arising from distress. Resolved, that as we are 
 determined to punish all violators of the public peace, so we 
 are equally desirous to aid in redressing any persons who 
 shall appear to us to be really aggrieved. Both wisdom 
 and humanity penned that resolution. Had it been entered 
 into, and carried into execution in the month of September 
 or October eighty-five, instead of the seventh of December, 
 in the year eighty-six, the county would have been quieted 
 a long time before. Do not strike until you listen, was a 
 maxim with an Athenian General. It is better to listen in 
 time, than to strike when the mischief is done : it was my 
 maxim from the beginning. The Lord Bishop of Cloyne 
 would have acted in a manner more consistent with his 
 character, in enforcing that maxim than in publishing a 
 pamphlet, every page of which can be controverted by the 
 Dissenters and Catholics of Ireland. Nay, his favourite 
 plan about tithes and commutations is found defective by the 
 most sensible writers of his own communion. From the 
 beginning to the last line of his pamphlet, he cannot sup- 
 port an argument without forcing the Catholics into his 
 subjects. In the forty-seventh page, he describes the re- 
 
 ig 
 1 an exemption from the public taxes, and the civil jurisdic- 
 
 * tion of their own country; and avowing a subjection to a 
 
 * foreign pft\ver, were and are a natural object of jealousy 
 1 and apprehension.' Mr. Standish, the Hearth-money col- 
 lector in Cork, can refute the assertion ; if I had his receipts 
 in Dublin, I would place them in my appendix, with those 
 of my landlord's and my tailor's bill ; for the money 1 get 
 circulates amongst the public. 
 
314 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Cloyne, in a catechism, ^printed 
 under his direction, (as 1 am told,) impresses the tender 
 and uncautious minds of foundlings with a notion that viola- 
 tion of faith with and extirpation of heretics, indulgences for 
 committing sins in the ensuing course of a man's life, and 
 license for guilt, are articles of the Catholic faith. The 
 compiler of such a catechism may misrepresent the regular 
 clergy with every freedom. He must then certainly mean 
 the regular clergy in foreign countries, of whose state he 
 is as incompetent a judge as I am of the regulations of 
 Westminster School, which I have never seen. 
 
 The regular clergy have no interest distinct from the ge- 
 neral weal. They are as much interested in the preserva- 
 tion of the state, from which they have got their lands and 
 monasteries, as the Lord Bishop of Cloyne is interested in 
 the preservation of Ireland, where he has very good livings. 
 He would have, 1 suppose, the regular clergy of the church 
 of Rome to shoulder a firelock, sound horns, and shoot 
 Whiteboys. In every age since their institution, they have 
 been engaged in a more glorious warfare, civilizing barbar- 
 ous nations, diffusing the light of the gospel into remote re- 
 gions, whither the Alexanders and Caesars had never car- 
 ried their arms, contributing extensively to the culture of 
 the sciences, and swelling the deep and majestic rivers of 
 European literature, with their tribute of the knowledge of 
 the histories, laws, customs and manners of the most remote 
 and distant nations. I do not talk here of the Jesuits alone, 
 who in the very centre of barbarism, amongst cannibals, 
 feeding on each other's flesh, realize the sublime ideas of a 
 Plato, a Sir Thomas More, or a Fenelon. Those great 
 men only dreamt of those political institutions under which 
 
 * In that Catechism there is not one word of the commandments of God, nor ex- 
 planation of any moral duty. The honour of the nation cries aloud to. the right 
 honourable and honourable the Trustees of the Protestant Schools, to order some un- 
 prejudiced person to compose another Catechism : for besides the horrid and un- 
 christian doctrines falsely imputed to the Catholics, in that Christian doctrine there 
 are two historical untruths.— First, that a hundred thousand Protestants were massacred 
 in Ireland. — Secondly, that Protestants are not tolerated in Cathojic States. If thqt 
 Catechism were seen in foreign countries, what an opinion would be formed of our 
 enrly education ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 315 
 
 man could live happy, without the canker of envy or the 
 stings of poverty. A branch of the regular clergy of the 
 church of Rome raised the fabric, which procured them 
 the compliments of Montesquieu, and the admiration of the 
 world. Civilized and christian Paraguay, from a nation of 
 Cannibals, became the only spot on earth where vice and 
 want were equally unknown. 
 
 To this very day the Catholic religion is maintained in 
 Turkey land, Abyssinia, and the remotest Pegtons, by the 
 labours of men whom their vows and a generous contempt 
 of the pleasures of this world naturalize to every nation and 
 climate. Their method is quite different from that pre- 
 scribed by the Lord Bishop of Cioyne for the propagation 
 of the Gospel ; a method which exposes religion to the deri- 
 sion of infidels, and renders the proposer vulnerable to 
 every arrow which can be taken from the quivers of the 
 learned. His Lordship informs us gravely that his religion 
 will extend in proportion to agriculture. Bravo ! this is lite- 
 rally planting the Gospel, and making it the religion of the 
 land, in every sense of the word : Saint Paul says that god- 
 liness is great gain. The Lord Bishop writes as if gain were 
 great, godliness: he sanctifies the soil before he sanctifies 
 the soul; pity that crows and pigeons have not the use of 
 speech as they had in iEsop's time ! His clergy would have 
 a great number of fellow-labourers in the Lord's vineyard. 
 The feathered tribe would cry out to the peasant, my good 
 man, sow the corn, and I will be with you next year to reclaim 
 you from the errors of Popery. 
 
 The next method his Lordship proposes is an effort on 
 the part of Government to bring the Irish language into dis- 
 use, in order to save his clergy the trouble of learning it. 
 This method is an insult to the natives, and cannot come 
 w.'th any propriety from a prelate, who (if I be well in- 
 formed) is indebted for his promotion to the descendant of 
 Irish princes, in whose hospitable halls the tuneful lyre was 
 strung up to Irish melody, so varied and harmonious that 
 the lying Giraldus Cambrensis was forced to speak of it with 
 rapture and ecstasy. But now, at the awful summons of an 
 E.iglish prelate, the Irish harp must be suspended on the 
 branch of some weeping willow, as the Israelites hung up 
 
316 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 their musical instruments on the mulberry-trees that grew 
 on the banks of the rivers of Babylon. How can we 
 sing (used they to say) the canticles of the Lord in a 
 strange land? And the Irishman can say, How can I 
 speak the language of my fathers in the land of my 
 nativity ? His language must be abolished at the recom- 
 mendation of the Right Reverend Doctor Woodward ; this 
 language, the study of which the learned Leibnitz and 
 Lhuid so warmly recommended to the curious inquirers into 
 the monuments of antiquity; this language, studied by a 
 learned stranger,* who has reconciled Mars with Minerva, 
 in uniting the sword with the pen, military skill with literary 
 powers, and by his learned labours has rescued from obscu- 
 rity the history of a misrepresented nation, formerly the 
 Athens of western Europe : thus Caesar studied astronomy 
 in the camp, whilst the priests of Apollo snored in the tem- 
 ple. A military gentleman studies the Irish language, to 
 increase the store of the literary public. The prelate, 
 whose function it is to sanctify the souls of the natives, re- 
 commends the growth of their grain for the food of the cler- 
 gyman's body, and the abolition of their language for the 
 good of their souls. 
 
 Thus the Irish peasant must work double tides to sail for 
 heaven. He must grow corn for an English pastor's body, 
 and study this English parson's language for the good of his 
 own soul, lest a pair of brogues would be too uncourtly a 
 dress to appear in the antichamber of heaven. Badinage 
 apart. Such a recommendation for the abolition of lan- 
 guages should rather come from a leader of Goths and 
 Vandals, whose glory it was to destroy monuments of lite- 
 rature, than from the Bishop of a large diocese, in a philoso- 
 phical age, when curiosity is on the wing, and the mind 
 active in the pursuit of knowledge. The Lord Bishop's 
 method then of propagating his gospel is the most 
 extraordinary that 1 ever read of; to sow corn and ex- 
 tend agriculture for the conveniency of the clergyman, 
 and to oblige the peasant, after the toils of the day, 
 to learn the clergyman's language, in order to know 
 the way to heaven, which the clergyman would not 
 
 * Colonel Vallancey. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 317 
 
 take the pains of telling him in Irish. A true repetition of 
 Erasmus's echo, Quid est sact.dotiam ? Echo. Otinm. 
 
 I have read of a Saracen emperor, who, from hatred to lite- 
 rature, burnt the AkxanJrian library ; but I never read of a 
 Christian prelate Intent upon the conversion of people by 
 whom he was fed, who, instead of learning their language, 
 recommended its disuse, unHi I read the pamphlet oi the. 
 Lord Bishop of Cloyne. The present Bishop of Llandaff 
 could not speak a word of Welch when he came to Wales. 
 Instead of recommending to the English government to abo- 
 lish the Welch language, he made the knowledge of it his pe- 
 culiar study. But it is the unhappy and singular fate of the 
 Catholics of Ireland to see their names held up as barbarous, 
 their creed misrepresented, and the language of their ancestors 
 threatened with entire disuse, for the gratification of a foreign 
 prelate, who proposes, as the means of their sanctification, 
 commodious houses and cultivated spots for the ease and con- 
 venience of persons whom his Lordship dispenses with the 
 trouble of even learning the language of the people who sup- 
 port them. 
 
 This was not the manner in which the regular clergy of 
 the church of Rome planted religion in all the nations on 
 esrth where they preached the gospel. Neither was it the 
 DfK hod which those who separated from the church of Eng- 
 lar r!', adopted to establish their own doctrine, and formed 
 . separate communions. They learned the language of the 
 people, and brought them over to their way of thinking, be- 
 fore they insisted upon commodious houses and glebe 
 lands. Hence they became ministers of the world ; whereas, 
 according to the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's plan, making re- 
 ligion and agriculture keep pace with each other, he gives 
 his readers to understand that the minister of religion is 
 more the minister of the soil than of the soul: and that 
 the old adage, which is become so current to the dis- 
 grace of the priesthood, is verified, no penny no pater- 
 noster. 
 
 But leaving the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's method of pro- 
 pagating his doctrine by tithes, glebe-houses, and the anni- 
 hilation of languages, exposed to the shafts of christian cri- 
 ticism ; let us return to his charge against the regular 
 clergy. 
 
318 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 His Lordship says, that they claim an exemption from 
 public taxes, and from the civil jurisdiction of their own 
 country, and avow a subjection to a foreign power.* 
 
 I am surprised that his Lordship would advance such 
 charges in my neighbourhood. He cannot mean the regular 
 clergy of Ireland. As to the regular clergy in Catholic 
 countries ; they enjoy no exemption but what the state 
 grants, as the Bishop of Cloyne enjoys no exemption but 
 what the state grants to himself. Does he pretend to pre- 
 scribe laws to Catholic states ; or to controul their power 
 to grant what exemptions they think fit to the children, not 
 only of noblemen and gentlemen, but to the children of 
 princes ? For the annals of religion and the history of re- 
 ligious orders can inform him, that from the days of Saint 
 Basil to this very day, the regular clergy can mark numbers 
 of such a description in their calendar. The regular clergy 
 then plead no exemption but what he pleads himself; the 
 exemption granted by the state wherein they live. He should 
 not envy in others what he himself enjoys ; for I suppose it 
 is from the state he enjoys the privilege of pleading the scan- 
 dalum magnatum, when Richard Woodward, now my Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne, gives such a provocation to Arthur 
 O'Leary, as to become the eulogist and apologist of a Theo- 
 philus, who calls him a Friar with a barbarous sirname, 
 and to recommend the disuse of the language of his ances- 
 tors. 
 
 The regular clergy, whether here or elsewhere, avow no 
 subjection to a foreign power : they live as corporate societies, 
 under their peculiar institutions confirmed by church and 
 state ; the boundaries are kept distinct : they give God what 
 belongs to God, and to Caesar his due : whilst they live as a 
 corporated society, they will plead their charter. Thence, 
 the Pope himself, cannot in an arbitrary manner, either elect 
 or depose their superiors, or interfere in their religious polity : 
 he may annul their charter, but whilst they live as cor- 
 porate societies, they will maintain their institutions which 
 contain nothing obnoxious either to church or state: other- 
 wise neither would give them a sanction. When they make 
 their vows, it is not to become vassals to the Pope. It is to 
 
 * 1'asre 4S. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 310 
 
 gratify their own devotion under regulations, which at a 
 competent age they have twelve months probation either to 
 adopt or reject. 
 
 They avow no subjection to a foreign power ; and I call 
 upon the Lord Bishop of Cloyne to prove his assertion. 
 They are subjects of the state, swear allegiance to their 
 Prince, and are as faithful as any other subjects. Trapolo, 
 a regular, defended the privileges of his country, against 
 Pope Paul the Fifth, and immortalized his name. Ximenes, 
 a regular, raised the power of the Spanish monarchy, and 
 paved the way for the splendid, conquests of Charles the 
 Fifth. Father Joseph de la Tremblay, after quitting the bar, 
 and becoming a regular, was forced from his cloister to di- 
 rect the councils of Lewis XIII. He planned those measures 
 in the execution of which Richlieu appeared as the ostensible 
 agent, and which by humbling the House of Austria, and 
 lopping off the heavy branches which made the tree of the 
 French monarchy bend too much, gave it that erect posture 
 and firmness, which ever since have been proof against so 
 many storms. In Ireland, during the unhappy commotions 
 which distracted this kingdom in the reign of Charles the 
 First, who could have exerted himself with more constancy 
 than Father Peter Walsh, mentioned with honour in the con- 
 tinuation of Sir James Ware ? Did not he oppose 
 Rimuccini, the Pope's Legate, who afterwards excommu- 
 nicated him at Brussels ? Under his excommunication he 
 remained unshaken in his loyalty. Or what is there in a re- 
 gular clergyman's frame so hostile to his country, as to in- 
 duce the Lord Bishop of Cloyne to hold him forth as avowing 
 a subjection to a foreign power ? Is not a man's oath to be 
 believed ? And when the regular clergy swear allegiance to 
 their King, is not their oath to be relied on ? But the Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne has favoured us with a very nice distinc- 
 tion. He acknowledges that in the ordinary transactions 
 of life between man and man, the oath of a Catholic 
 may be relied on ; but when his church is in danger, then 
 he may slacken the reins and bear down the wounds of 
 sincerity. 
 
 Where has the Lord Bishop of Cloyne discovered this 
 distinction? Where have the Catiiolics taught that the 
 
 X T 
 
320 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 work of Heaven is to be promoted by the agency of Hell ? 
 Is the Christian religion to be promoted by fraud, profana- 
 tion, and perjury? Does he really believe that the Catholics 
 are ignorant of that maxim of Saint Paul, evil is not to be 
 done that good may arise from it ? Non sunt facienda mala 
 uteveniant bona. Or does he forget that the scandalous dis- 
 tinction between the oath of a Catholic, in the ordinary 
 transactions of life, and the oath in which his religion is 
 concerned, has been condemned by the Catholic Church, 
 ages before it could be foreseen that a Bishop or any other 
 mortal would charge her with such a doctrine ? This very 
 distinction was the doctrine of Priscillian, who taught his 
 disciples that perjury on the score of religion was lawful : he 
 was condemned by the council of Toledo, and burnt alive. 
 Speaking of the Catholics he says, that men are better than 
 their tenets. It may be so : in Sparta it was a tenet that 
 every deformed child should be exposed and abandoned to 
 his fates. Parental affection in some might have eluded such 
 a rigorous law, and thus proved that they were better than 
 their tenets. It was a tenet amongst the inhabitants of the 
 Isle of Cyprus, that married women should prostitute them- 
 selves once a year in the Temple of Venus. I doubt not 
 but conjugal affection and female modesty, operated with 
 some to such a degree as to induce them to detest the 
 tenet ; but I do not believe that there is this day on earth, 
 any sect of Christians half so good as their tenets. They 
 may differ in speculative points, but the principles of mo- 
 rality are the same. However, the Lord Bishop of Cloyne 
 is best acquainted with his own tenets, and if they be as 
 charitable as himself, his neighbours should entertain a 
 good opinion of his rule of faith. However, if the horrors 
 of violation of faith with heretics, &c. be articles of or- 
 thodoxy, certainly not only some Catholics, but all Catho- 
 lics, are better than their tenets; and without any dispa- 
 ragement to his rank or dignity, he will find thousands 
 amongst them as honest, upright, and honourable as himself, 
 not only from innate principles, but from the very tenor 
 of their creed. 
 
 He alarms the Dissenters with the apprehensions, that if 
 they do not assist him in keeping the tithes, the Catholic 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 321 
 
 clergy will have them with the assistance of a foreign power. 
 Mr. Barber ingeniously answers, that it is equal to him who 
 has the tithes, whether it be Peter, Martin, or John, when 
 thev are of no benefit to him either with regard to soul or 
 body. If his Lordship be afraid that the Catholic clergy will 
 deprive him of all the tithes, with the assistance of a foreign 
 power : I can assure, him that he has nothing to apprehend : 
 not from foreign powers, who will never invade Ireland in 
 order to procure the tithes for the Catholic clergy : this in- 
 deed, would be a war of proctors and tithe- canters. Fur- 
 ther, I can assure his Lordship, that foreign powers are more 
 inclined to reduce the revenues of their own national clergy, 
 than to make war for the Catholic clergy of Ireland. But do 
 not the Catholic clergy believe that tithes are jure divino ? 
 By no means : whoever reads Father Paul, and Father Simon, 
 upon benefices, will soon discover that tithes are not due to 
 the Christian priesthood by Gospel law. These two were 
 Catholic authors. Bishop Barlow and Selden, amongst the 
 Protestants proved the same. I would not mention a word 
 about them, had I not been forced into the field with the Bi- 
 shop's foreign powers, and Theophilus's jure divino ; and 
 shall say of them but very little : they were not known in the 
 western church, until about the seventh or eighth century. 
 The clergy had influence at that time to prevail on the French 
 kings to give a sanction to the sixth commandment of the 
 church ; Thou shalt pay tithes to the clergy : this was a law of 
 discipline, liable to change with the times, and of no force 
 but from the sanction of the secular power, for a moral and 
 natural right founded on the words, the labourer is worthy of 
 his hire; is all that a clergyman can plead. In the Greek 
 church tithes are not known to this very day, and in the Afri- 
 can church, Saint Augustine would not permit his own 
 church to be endowed, foreseeing the bad effects of the riches 
 of the clergy. However, in the west, the pious laity, with the 
 sanction of the power of the state, endowed each church under 
 the strict obligations that three dividends should be made ; one 
 for the support of the clergyman ; the second, for the repara- 
 tion of the church; and the third, for the relief of the poor. Such 
 was the original institution ; some alterations must have been 
 
322 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 since made in the manner of carrying into execution the 
 founder's intentions ; for the part that was originally destined 
 for the relief of the poor, now goes to the proctor. And as 
 to reparation of churches, had the Whiteboys burnt the new 
 church, if the old church had not been left to them for a 
 chapel, or hath both churches fallen to the ground, I am 
 humbly of opinion that his Lordship of Cloyne would sooner 
 apply for a parliamentary grant, than be at the expense of 
 contributing the third part of his tithes towards the repair of 
 the fabric. Many and refined have been the improvements 
 on this simple institution of ecclesiastical revenues. 
 
 One would be disposed to believe that there was a certain 
 magic in the number ten. The tenth lamb, the tenth pig, 
 the tenth chicken, the tenth sheaf, every thing was decima- 
 ted : every tenth animal that did not grow to the size of a 
 calf, was consecrated to the clergy, except the tenth orphan. 
 Peas, beans, all kinds of garden stuff, were surveyed in the 
 name of God and the Church ; and the clergy were com- 
 pared to the locusts of the revelations, devouring all kinds 
 of herbs that came in their way, except such as were noxious. 
 As theological disputes divided them in the interim, their 
 divisions divided unluckily the flocks, and what was more, 
 divided the affections of the people- Under various changes 
 of creeds, the lucrative system remained unaltered. Pope 
 Alexander the Third was the first who issued excommuni- 
 cations for the recovery of tithes, and decreed that the labours 
 of the industrious bee should contribute to the support of 
 the Lord's anointed. He ordained that every tenth bee-hive 
 should be sequestered for the use of the church. The clergy 
 of the established religion in England and Ireland, who 
 borrowed their pomp, their splendour and hierarchy from 
 the church of Rome, declared from their pulpits, that the 
 Pope was Antichrist. Yet in reforming the religion of 
 Rome, they improved upon Pope Alexander's system, by- 
 insisting upon the tithes of agistment ;* and thus raised the 
 claim from a bee to a bullock. If Pope Alexander thundered 
 out his excommunications on the score of tithes, they fired 
 
 * This barbarous word, so familiar to our Irish Canonists, is derived from an old 
 French word, signifying to drive a beast into a field. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 323 
 
 blunderbusses in defence of those remnants of Popery ; and 
 dead bodies were seen laid prostrate in fields, in consequence 
 of contests for consecrated goods, which in former ages the 
 pious laity had destined for the support of the living. What- 
 ever the clergy possess by law, is certainly their right, and 
 should be secured to them ; but when people argue, they 
 should be careful not to advance paradoxes; and that the 
 right to tithes is anterior to the title of any layman to his 
 land, is a paradox indeed. The land was inhabited by the 
 laity before St. Patrick preached the Gospel. W hat he 
 and his successors got was a free gift of the donors ; and 
 no man in his senses will deny that the supreme powers of 
 the state have a right to alter any system, for the peace and 
 good of the community : 1 shall discuss no further the sub- 
 ject of tithes, as it has been already and will be hereafter 
 discussed by abler pens: if I summed up in a few lines their 
 rise and progress, it is to shew the futility of the charge that 
 the Catholic clergy are intent upon recovering the tithes of 
 this kingdom, with the assistance of foreign powers, as if 
 they were due jure divino. Could such an idle thought oc- 
 cur to any man who did not intend to sport with common 
 sense ? Will any man of sense believe that the formidable 
 forces of France and Spain would be poured, at vast ex- 
 penses, into this kingdom, in order to reinstate a few Ca- 
 tholic clergymen in the tithes of potatos, oats, hay, &c. I 
 am ashamed to make further comments. The Catholic 
 clergy resuming tithes with the assistance of foreign powers ! 
 Lay-improprietors threatened with the loss of the abbey- 
 lands which would revert to the regular clergy ! When the 
 Reformation was but in its infancy, and no religion in Eng- 
 land at the time, but veered at the breath of each succeed- 
 ing Monarch, what became of the abbey-lands ? In the 
 short space that intervened between the dissolution of ab- 
 beys and the reign of Queen Mary, there was not sufficient 
 time to found the title of prescription, which by the civil 
 law requires a space of thirty years for immovables. When 
 that Queen ascended the throne several of the abbots and 
 priors whose monasteries had been dissolved were living. 
 Were not all the abbey-lands confirmed to the lay-possessors 
 by Cardinal Pole, with full authority from the Pope. And 
 
324 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 now, under a Protestant Sovereign, after a lapse of more 
 than two centuries, a prelate raises the alarm against per- 
 sons who thought as little of depriving him of his tithes, or 
 the lay gentlemen of their impropriations, as the inoffensive 
 citizen thought of depriving of his life a suspicious prince, 
 who, in his uneasy slumbers, dreamed that he cut his throat, 
 and put the innocent man to death. 
 
 I am in no manner concerned in tithes, but I appeal to 
 to his Lordship whether, at different times, they have not 
 been the occasion of popular commotions ? Whether, at dif- 
 ferent times, the cottager who plants the potato, and the 
 farmer who commits the grain to the -earth, does not re- 
 alize the fable of the man who sowed the dragon's teeth, which 
 afterwards vegetated into armed men ? Whether an honour- 
 able support, free from litigations and wrangles with pa- 
 rishioners of every description, would not comport more 
 with the dignity of the clerical profession? And whether 
 this be not the opinion and wish of the most sensible cler- 
 gymen of the established religion ? If I am asked the 
 reason why I should interfere in tithes ? I answer, that the 
 radical cause of the distemper being not removed, it may 
 break out at some future period ; and that when the bram- 
 ble shoots from the sod which will cover me, the wrangles 
 of oppressed peasants may be construed into a Popish con- 
 federacy. 
 
 His Lordship endeavours to refute the Bishop of Llan- 
 daff's arguments by the disparity of circumstances, as the 
 number of the Dissenters of both communions is greater 
 in Ireland. I take the liberty of asking him one ques- 
 tion — is it because there is less to do, that the salary of 
 the labourer must be increased at the expense of the cot- 
 tager ? Does he really believe that an honest Dissenter 
 will be saved ? Does he believe that an honest Catholic 
 will be saved ? If he does, why this zeal for conversion 
 which alarms the nation ? It is equal to any state whether 
 the hand that steers the plough crosses the forehead or 
 not, provided the man be honest and industrious. He com- 
 plains of the zeal of the Catholic Laity to make converts, 
 and the supineness of the Protestant gentlemen in not con- 
 verting Catholics. Will he have a Protestant landlord 
 turn missionary, and invade the episcopal functions ? If his 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS- 32j 
 
 Lordship be so zealous for the salvation of the people, 
 why not learn their language ? The Catholic missionaries 
 who penetrated into the vast empire of China, learned the 
 Chinese, though there are eight hundred letters in the 
 alphabet, and each letter stands for a word. They con- 
 verted millions of the people, translated the writings of 
 their philosophers, and brought Europe acquainted with 
 thp laws, customs and morals of that singular country. 
 His Lordship is not under the necessity of travelling far 
 to learn the language ; it is at his door : and an English 
 pastor may as well learn the Irish as Colonel Vallancey, 
 an English officer. His Lordship will excuse this free- 
 dom — it is as a writer who called me forth that I address 
 him throughout : my respect for a Bishop's character is a 
 restraint which I would shake off, if a person of an inferior 
 rank called on Government to bring into disuse the lan- 
 guage of a country. It is what conquerors themselves sel- 
 dom have done. The polished Frenchman has never at- 
 tempted to abolish the low dialect of the Breton ; the grave 
 Spaniard leaves the Biscayen to the use of his speech ; and 
 the English have not abolished the Welsh or Erse : the 
 Irish must have the badge of scorn. As to conversions 
 made by the Catholic laity, I do not find it an easy mat- 
 ter : fasts, confession of sins, the belief of mysteries which 
 surpass and seem to contradict the very senses, penal 
 laws and legal disqualifications, are no great inducements to 
 conversion. Suppose that a Protestant, struck with the 
 same arguments which made some German princes, Chil- 
 lingworth and Dryden, to embrace the Catholic faith ; sup- 
 pose a Protestant of any sect became a Catholic, the Lord 
 Bishop of Cloyne, upon the very principles of the Reformation, 
 which allows freedom of thought and the right of private 
 judgment, could not in equity censure him. Every one 
 is free to embrace the religion that seems best to him. 
 It is the privilege of nature ; and a convert to the Catholic 
 religion is sufficiently punished by a conformity that deprives, 
 him almost of every privilege. Many a learned man has 
 quitted the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's communion. The 
 famous Whiston wrote to the Archbishop of York and Can- 
 terbury, assigning the reasons of his separation from the 
 
326 ailSCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 church of England. And not long ago Lindsay resigned 
 his benefice, in order to offer up his prayers to one God in 
 one person, and expunged the name of Christ from the 
 collect. The Lord Bishop of Cloyne would make a more 
 glorious conquest in reclaiming Doctor Priestly and Lind- 
 say, than if he converted a hundred Irish peasants. 1 see no 
 reason for alarming: the nation with the danger of the church. 
 Little did the world imagine a few centuries ago that a sin- 
 gle German friar would have shaken the pontifical throne, 
 and brought about the most astonishing revolution that the 
 world ever beheld. Ever since that memorable aera the 
 Protestant religion, from a small beginning, is rapidly in- 
 creasing. When there were Catholic kings on the throne, 
 it gained ground. It is then very much out of season now 
 to alarm three kingdoms with the news that at this mo- 
 ment the church of Ireland is in imminent danger of sub- 
 version. 
 
 The Lord Bishop of Cloyne believes two Sacraments ne- 
 cessary to salvation. If he could gain over to the established 
 church all the inhabitants of Ireland who believe that nei- 
 ther is necessary to salvation, it would be a great acquisition 
 to the established religion. His Lordship adverts to the 
 total indifference of many foreverykind of religion. Could 
 he but kindle the flames of piety and fervor in the breasts 
 of such people, it would be of infinite advantage. And if he 
 could keep within the pale of the established church, such 
 as are willing to form modes of worship for themselves, or 
 reclaim such as have quitted it within those many years 
 without becoming Catholics, he would leave no room to 
 complain of the majority of Dissenters. What a field is 
 open here for pastoral zeal ! It is a Herculean task indeed, 
 and worthy of a prelate of distinguished abilities. But 
 want of Baptism, Deism, separation from the established 
 church, and altar against altar, cannot draw forth the pen of 
 the Lord Bishop of Cloyne. The stability of tithes and the 
 downfal of Popery are his only themes. The wag on the 
 stage received many a plaudit, who, on being asked his reli- 
 gion, answered that he loved a pot of porter, and hated po- 
 pery. Let a Theophilus abuse Catholics and revile Mr. 
 
 O'Leary; he is called an able writer in the beginning, and 
 
Miscellaneous traces* 327 
 
 excused on the score of his apprehensions for the safety of 
 religion at the end of a pamphlet* Cargoes of abstracts 
 against popery are daily imported from England ; luckily 
 they arrive out of season ; for the nation knows the purport 
 of them. If violation of faith with heretics be the reason of 
 the Lord Bishop of Cloyne's attack, the Catholics disclaim, 
 it on oath. And whoever does not believe the oath of aa 
 honest man, deserves no answer. There is address and in- 
 genuity in laying so often a stress upon the word heretics* 
 When mentioned by the Lord Bishop of Cloyne, it conveys 
 an idea that the Catholics alone consider those who ares 
 reared out of their church as heretics. His Lordship will, 
 I hope, have the generosity to divide the imputation with* 
 Mr. O'Leary. Does the church of England acknowledge 
 that there are no heretics ? Have not her bishops pro- 
 nounced them as such after a canonical trial ? Has not the 
 civil magistrate, nursed in her bosom, doomed them to the 
 fagot ? The inquisition could do no more : for the eccle- 
 siastical judge barely confines himself to a declaration that 
 such doctrine is heretical. The magistrate, armed with the 
 power of the law, pronounces sentence, and sees it carried 
 into execution. 
 
 Doctor Godolphin, a Protestant canonist, in his Abridge- 
 ment of the Ecclesiastical Laws of England, after Sir Ed- 
 ward Coke, calls heresy a leprosy of the soul ,** and gives a 
 description of no less than one hundred and thirty- seven he- 
 resies. If he was now living he could add to the catalogue 
 many new doctrines, which the Lord Bishop of Cloyne 
 would declare strange and erroneous by his consecration oath. 
 Human victims were seen marching to the stake with fagots 
 on their backs to purge in the flames the pollution of heresy, 
 under a Protestant Elizabeth and a Protestant James, as 
 under a half Catholic Henry and a Catholic Mary. And. 
 those strange and erroneous doctrines which the Lord Bishop 
 of Cloyne promises by his consecration oath to banish and 
 drive away, banished 3nd drove away effectually Dissenters 
 
 Godolpbin RppertoriMtn Canonicuro. 
 U U 
 
328 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 and Catholics into the wilds of America, in the reign of that 
 James, whom the Lord Bishop of Cloyne applauds for his 
 wise saying, No Bishop no King. Those strange and erro- 
 neous doctrines, banished and drove away the Catholic Lord 
 Baltimore, into Maryland, for bowing at the name of Jesus ; 
 and that great Penn, who deserved half the world, for teach- 
 ing Sovereigns how to govern the other. They banished 
 and drove away Penn into Pennsylvania, for not bowing at 
 all ; for having rejected the ceremony of the hat, and wear- 
 ing a few flit juttons on a plain uaornamented coat. Those 
 two great tnen, persecuted for their strange erroneous doc- 
 trines, and still diametrically opposite in religious principles, 
 planted their colonies where they granted free toleration to 
 all mortals ; and where is man now restored to the indelible 
 charter, which the free-born mind is entitled to plead. They 
 resembled the two brave soldiers, who were always quarrel- 
 ling by the instigation of their comrades, without knowing 
 why. A general rout came on, in the flight they both fell 
 into a deep pit. Said one, if I kill you, what shall I benefit 
 by your death? Your putrified body will stifle me. The other 
 retorted in the same tone ; they saw the common danger, 
 and agreed ; one leaped on the shoulders of the other, and 
 reached the verge of the pit, out of which he helped 
 his fellow sufferer. They both retired in peace, and 
 lived ever after in amity. Lord Baltimore and Penn did the 
 same. 
 
 The recollection of such melancholy scenes induces me to 
 applaud my Lord Bishop of Cloyne, for declaring in his in- 
 troduction, that it is not his object to enter into the defence 
 of ecclesiastical establishments in general. It would be a 
 heavy task indeed, since the beginning of ecclesiastical esta- 
 blishments until of late, sovereigns seduced by the counsels of 
 the clergy, became the executioners of their subjects. The 
 ministers of a religion, one of whose principal laws is a law 
 of eternal love, became the apologists of calamities, that swept 
 fn>m the face of the earth, or oppressed to this very day, 
 God's noblest images, upright, virtuous, and dauntless men. 
 Like the warrior in the Scriptures, they stept into the sane- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 329 
 
 wary to grasp the barbarian's sword wrapt up in the ephod. 
 The code of temporal laws, teeming with sanctions against 
 robbers and murderers, was sweiied to the surprise and de- 
 struction of mankind, with additional decrees against he- 
 retics and papists. The inoffensive citizen, who from an 
 apprehension of offending the deity, by acting against his 
 conscience, was confined in the same dungeon, or doomed 
 to the fagot or axe with the parricide, who iaid aside every 
 restraint of moral obligation. The scriptures were adduced 
 in justification of the sanguinary confusion. Out of every 
 contested verse there issued a iury armed with a qiubbie 
 and a poniard, who inspired mankind at once with folly and 
 cruelty, and Europe became one wild altar, on which every 
 religious sect offered up human victims to its creed. b\:> a 
 are the effects of ecclesiastical establishments in a long suc- 
 cession of ages. The effects ascribed to them by the right 
 reverend author, as infusing morality as a collateral aid to 
 the check of the law. would have been produced in a more 
 heavenly manner, by religion uncontrouied by the terror of 
 penal sanctions; and its rays never bhone brighter than 
 when its ministers had no other sword to enforce it, but the 
 two edged sword of the peaceful doctrine of its Author. It 
 is not then to the lenity of ecclesiastical establishment, that 
 men are indebted for the freedom they enjoy, but to the 
 lenity of the state ; and to the exalted souls and enlarged 
 minds of the illustrious senators, who have cast off the sable 
 weeds of priestly bigotry, to put on the bright and radient 
 livery of enlightened reason, which religion enlarges into an 
 extensive asylum, instead of contracting into a narrow and 
 favourite spot, which it is penal (but for a few) to look at. 
 The gloom which the Lord Bishop of C'oyne's pamphlet 
 has spread on every countenance, and the mutual distrust 
 and jealousy which have succeeded the strictest sincerity? 
 and amity since the publication of his performance, are no 
 mighty recommendations of ecclesiastical establishments: 
 The blood of fifty millions of men. cut off by the sword of 
 persecution, since the state unsheathed it in defence of ec- 
 clesiastical establishments : The oppression, banishment and 
 imprisonment of many more ! The blood of the Jain cries 
 under the altar, to the powers of the earth,- — Leave your 
 
330 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 subjects free. — Let the priests pray ; but do not draw the 
 sword in defence of their prayers ; for they will never pray 
 alike. 
 
 I should never have mentioned tithes, lest any of the esta- 
 blished clergy should imagine I envied them what in former 
 times belonged to the Catholic clergy, and which the laws 
 now secure to the clergy of the established church; but 
 when I saw in a pamphlet, of which the Lord Bishop of 
 Cloyne becomes the eulogist, a heavy and infamous charge, 
 that the Catholic clergy consider tithes due to themselves 
 jure divino, and encourage the laity to plunder the Pretes- 
 tant ministers for their own benefit, I gave a short account 
 of their origin. In my addresses to the Whiteboys, the 
 reader can see in what manner 1 enforced the payment of 
 them. The Lord Bishop of Cloyne was unthankful to me ; 
 in return, I paid my complements to tithes and ecclesiastical 
 establishments. I consider both as oppressive in Ireland, 
 and elsewhere. If I do not speak with all that softness of 
 churchmen, with which I certainly would have spoken upon 
 another occasion ; it is not certainly from any disrespect for 
 the ecclesiastical profession. Severity regards such as have 
 at different times abused their sacred characters from want 
 of charity, or from want of disinterestedness, or both. The 
 worthy are not to be confounded with the unworthy, no 
 more than the chaff should be confounded with the pure 
 and wholesome grain. 
 
 I wish the Lord Bishop of Cloyne had called me forth in 
 more favourable circumstances, and in a general cause ; but 
 he calls me forth under the heaviest provocations, after hav-? 
 ing declared himself the apologist of a Theophilus, who ex- 
 haust the glossary of Billingsgate in a personal abuse : — • 
 4 Whoever reads his Lordship's pamphlet, must consider the 
 4 Catholic prelates as perjurers; the laity as enemies to the 
 4 constitution, from a view to the revenues of the church, 
 4 with the assistance of foreign power : and Mr. O'Leary, 
 4 seditious with a train of agitating Friars and Romish mis- 
 4 sionaries.' If there be a plurality of worlds, I must have 
 been born in the planet of Saturn, if I did not feel a certain 
 warmth after such a provocation, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 331 
 
 It cannot be expected that I will lose the little time I have 
 to spare from my own important functions, in answering 
 anonymous writers, or even authors who may prefix their 
 names to pamphlets. The only person that I shall take the 
 trouble of answering, is the Lord Bishop of Cloyne. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Reverend JWr. O^Learyh Address to the Common People 
 
 of Ireland, particularly to such of them 
 
 as are called Whiteboys. 
 
 Brethren and Countrymen, 
 
 I addressed you before in the time of open war, when the 
 enemies of your King and Country were within view of our 
 coasts. Your prudent and peaceable conduct, at that criti- 
 cal time, answered the expectations of your instructors, 
 and procured you the countenance and approbation of your 
 rulers ; the defenceless cottager was protected by the ho- 
 nesty of his neighbour; order and tranquillity reigned all 
 over the land : each member of the community was secure 
 in his respective rights and property : and whilst the plains 
 of America were d)ed with blood, and England was con- 
 vulsed by the insurrections of the lower classes, who were 
 either cut off by the army, or atoned on the gallows for the 
 violation of the laws, you felt the happy effects of a quiet 
 and orderly conduct. 
 
 Nature and religion, my brethren, recommend this peace- 
 able and orderly conduct to man: to a peaceable and orderly 
 conduct, nature annexes our happiness, and religion enjoins 
 it as a duty. We are born with inclinations for order and 
 peace, and we have the happiness to live under the wise laws 
 of a Gospel, whose counsels and precepts, whose threats 
 and promises, inspire the union of the hearts, and to do to 
 others as we would wish to be done by. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. ' 333 
 
 Whence then those disturbances which oflate have been 
 occasioned by some of you in the diocese of Cloyne, and 
 which now beg-in to reach to the diocese of Cork? You will 
 tell me, that your grievances are the cause : I doubt it not my 
 brethren ; but still, under our grievances are we to forget that 
 we are Christians ? Under our grievances, are we to forget 
 that the Providence of God has made an unequal distribution 
 of the goods of this life, reserving a perfect equality for the 
 next? Under our grievances, are we to forget that when our 
 distresses are not the effects of our crimes, or imprudence, 
 resignation to the will of heaven becomes an indispensable 
 duty ? Are we to forget that the way of the Cross is the road 
 to the Crown ; and that although religion does not condemn 
 these distinctions of rank, fortunes, and authority established 
 by Providence, for the subordination of subjects, and the 
 tranquillity of States, yet there are more promises made in the 
 Scriptures, in favour of those who suffer, than in favour of 
 those who live in ease and opulence. And although the gates 
 of salvation are open to the rich who make good use of their 
 wealth, as they are to the poor who suffer with patience, yet 
 the Scripture declares that they are narrower for the former 
 than for the latter. In this life there must be grievances 
 which no human wisdom can redress : the inconveniences 
 arising from them are counterbalanced by the expectation of 
 a better, promised by the Divine Author of our religion, who 
 has set us the example of patience and suffering. The soldier, 
 led on by his General, encounters death with intrepidity in 
 hopes of victory, which soon after vanishes as smoke. And 
 shall a Christian, called to an immortal crown, refuse to fol- 
 low his king, who rears up the banners of the cross, and cries 
 out, Take up your cross and follow me in the paths of eternal 
 life? To a worldling plunged in the luxuries of life, such an 
 address will appear insipid ; but on you who are not lost to 
 the feelings of religion, it will have a different effect. Per. 
 haps when he comes to that part of it in which mention is 
 made of crosses and sufferings, he will lay it aside, and say, 
 Mr. O'Leary should write to those people in another style, 
 and threaten them with curses, excommunications, halters, 
 and gibbets. No, my brethren, curses and excommunications 
 lose their effect, when lavished with too much profusion : 
 
334 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 truth must not be made odious by the harsh manner in which 
 it is conveyed: the nature of man is such, that he is 
 gained upon by example and sweetness, more than by 
 rudeness and severity : he is apt to hate the hand that is raised 
 up to strike him, though it be for his correction; but 
 he loves the hand that is stretched out to cure him. Sweet- 
 ness, tenderness, and charity should form the principle cha- 
 racter of a clergyman, and become the predominant spirit of 
 his functions — they were not lions, but lambs, which our Sa- 
 viour sent to preach his Gospeh it is to their patience, their 
 mildness, their prayers and sufferings, that we are indebted for 
 the conversion of the world, and the propagation of our Mi- 
 nistry. And I should be very sorry that you vvould derive 
 no benefit from my instructions but a string of curses, which 
 perhaps you would get by heart from no other view than to 
 vent them upon your children in a fit of anger or resentment. 
 As to halters and gibbets, the best way to restrain the hand, 
 is to change the heart, which, when regulated by the 
 Gospel law, will sacrifice the hand sooner than give of- 
 fence. 
 
 However, my brethren, it is not in the nature of man to 
 suffer under grievances which he can lawfully remove ; it is 
 When the remedy fails, or cannot be lawfully had, that patience 
 becomes our only and most salutary resource, and I appeal to 
 such of you as have been guilty of any outrages, whether the 
 steps you have taken to redress your grievances be either 
 conformable to the laws of God or nature, or whether they 
 can ever answer any other purpose than that of drawing on 
 ourselves the vengeance of the law. Is it an effectual mode 
 of redressing our grievances to crop the ears of your neigh- 
 bour's horse, or to destroy a rick of corn, the only resource 
 of a poor industrious farmer who has no other means to 
 pay his rent, and who, thrust into prison by a merciless land- 
 lord, will be for entire years, perhaps for life, viewing on the 
 walls of a gloomy prison, the cruel marks of your barbarity ? 
 Whence arose the savage custom of houghing the most harm- 
 less and useful of animals, the horse, the cow ? We read of 
 nations not enlightened by the Christian religion, yet figure 
 to themselves a supreme Being, the fountain of tenderness 
 and mercy. These people think it a sin to deprive any crea- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS, 335 
 
 ture of that life which the Supreme Being has given it, and 
 consequently never eat fish or flesh. To guard against the 
 love of pleasure, and to check the desires which may arise 
 from the sight of any object, some of them pluck out their 
 eyes, alleging that if they have shut two doors against their 
 passions, they have opened a thousand doors to wisdom by 
 
 Qualifying themselves for the undistracted contemplation of 
 [eavenly things. The Gospel does not require such se- 
 verity from you. But I appeal to yourselves if these Pagans 
 will not rise up in judgment against the Christians who are 
 guilty of acts of cruelty ? What, my brethren, have you 
 forgotten the commandments of God, who takes your neigh- 
 bour's ox and horse under his protection ? For when he 
 forbids us to covet them, he commands us not to injure them. 
 You will tell me that if you have cropped two or three 
 horses and burnt some ricks of corn, the injury has been 
 done only to Parish Proctors, those ieeches whom you con- 
 sider as your greatest oppressors, who every season do you 
 infinitely more harm : but this is a weak plea in the eyes of 
 God, who commands us to love our enemies, and to do good 
 to those who do us harm : who, after securing man's life and 
 reputation by the fifth commandment, that, says, thou shall not 
 kill; and his honour and domestic tranquillity, by the sixth, 
 which says, thou shah not commit adultery, becomes himself the 
 watchful guardian of his temporal substance ; by the seventh, 
 which says, thou shalt not steal,, and stifles in the heart every 
 desire of fraud and injustice by the ninth. The command- 
 ment being general extends to all : hence he screens the poor 
 from the oppression of the rich : forbids the poor under 
 pretence of poverty to waste or plunder the property of 
 the rich, and establishes the general and permanent peace 
 of society on the love of our enemies, and that maxim of the 
 law of nature, not to do to others what we would not wish to 
 be done to us ; much less will the quality of a Proctor ex- 
 cuse you in the eyes of the law, which punishes the crime 
 without any regard to the quality of the injuries or in- 
 jured. 
 
 I am happy to find that these disturbances have ceased af- 
 ter a very short duration, and though mightily magnified at 
 a distance, have been confined but to a few parishes in the 
 
 x x 
 
33(3 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 dioceses of Cloyne and Cork, and that but few mis- 
 , guided per>ons have been concerned in them. Bur 1 am 
 so icy jou have adopted a new plan, which however 
 ■ moderate, and though certainly founded on your pover- 
 ty on one hand, and the oppressive manner of collect- 
 ing; the tithes on the other, is very improper, and may 
 prove of the most fatal consequence to yourselves. The 
 following caution, which however it may involve your- 
 selves m trouble, if carried into execution, yet will con- 
 vince the kingdom, that the few breaches of the peace 
 ,\vhich happened in this county, have not originated in a 
 spirit of rebellion, as has been insiduously and scanda- 
 lously insinuated. The following caulion, 1 say, has 
 been, within these few days, affixed to the gates of parish 
 Churches and Chapels: 
 
 Copy — 'You are hereby cautioned not to pay Minis- 
 ' ters' Tithes, only in the following manner, viz. porta- 
 i tos, 4s. per acre, wheat and barley, \s. 6d. per acre, 
 'oats and meadows, l.v. per acre — Roman Catholic 
 * Cle»gy to receive for marriages, 5s. for baptism, Is. Qd. 
 ' for anointing and visitation of the sick, Vs. for mass,, Is. 
 ' for confession, Qd. : you are hereby warned not to pay 
 'Clerk money,* nor any other dues concerning mar- 
 'riages; be all sure not to go to any expenses at your 
 ' confessing turns, but let them partake of your own fare/ 
 It is needless lo remind you of what the Dublin Shop- 
 keeper has already informed you of, that posting up no- 
 tices is a misdemeanor punishable b> law, and that your 
 imprudence may hurry you unwarily into several branch-* 
 es of the clauses of the W hiteboy Act, that decree death 
 against offences, which to you may not. seem of such 
 importance. You may in like manner be led into the 
 snare by imagining that this act is not now in force ; it 
 is in full force until the month of June, in the year seven- 
 teen hundred and eighty-seven. Many and severe are 
 the clauses of that act; and though an English writer 
 says that they are betier calculated for the meridian of 
 Barbary, than for a Christian country, t yet the severer 
 they are, the more you should be on your guard : con- 
 sider the danger to which you are exposed from the lo- 
 
 * Those Clerks are such as attend on Priests. 
 ■f See Young's Tour in Ireland. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 337 
 
 gic and eloquence of Crown Lawyers, the perjury of 
 witnesses, or the prejudices of juries. ! am informed 
 that the one who is to swear against some of you who 
 are now in gaol, is one of the greatest villains in the 
 kingdom, and escaped the gallows some years ago. 
 
 But to return to the caution. Fray, my brethren, 
 what right have you to curtail, of your own authority, 
 the income of the Protestant Clergy? I shall not go 
 over the same ground trodden already by the Dublin 
 Shopkeeper, on this subject : he proves, that if the tithes 
 became the property of the laity, they would raise their 
 rents in proportion : or is it because that, from the ear- 
 liest ages of the world, those who believed in the hue 
 God, have consecrated to him a part ol the fruits of ' he 
 earth, you will think it an heavier burthen to pay <he 
 same thing, because ii was in conformity to ihe law of 
 God, that the laws of Christian slates have appointed 
 it? You know that she rules of justice extend to all 
 without exception, and that, to use the familiar phrase, 
 every one should have his own, whether he be Fro 
 ant or Catholic, lurk or Christian. It is more your in- 
 terest than you imagine that the Protestant Clergy of 
 this country should be maintained in their rights: for 
 many ages you have been defenceless, destitute of any; 
 protection against the power of your land. our 
 
 clergy liable to transportation or death. The mild and 
 tolerating spirit of the clergy of the established religion 
 has been the only substitute for all other resources. 
 They trained up from their early days the Protestant 
 Nobility and Gentry in the principles of morality and 
 virtue. If they preached against purgatory* they en- 
 forced charity : if they denied the real presence, they 
 took special care to inform their flock, that whoever 
 does injustice to any one, either in his property <>r re- 
 putation, is unworthy to approach the Communion. 
 If they denied that the Pope is head of the church, 
 they taught their congregation that no man is lo be in- 
 jured on account of his religion, and that Christianity 
 knows no enemy. As by nature we are prone to \ 
 of every kind, and that the earliest impressions are ue 
 strongest, had it not been for those principles wii- h 
 they instilled into the minds of their hearers, long be- 
 
338 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 fore now jour landed proprietors in this country would 
 have treated you as Turks, who think it no scruple to 
 violate the beds of the Jews, and warn the husbands 
 that if they come into their houses whilst they are doing 
 them this injustice, they will cut off their heads. 
 
 Is it then to gentlemen of this description, the chil- 
 dren of the first families in the kingdom, the instructors 
 of the most powerful part of the community, the most 
 moral and edifying amongst them, the most charitable 
 and humane, that a handful of poor men are to prescribe 
 laws, tending to diminish the support of their offspring, 
 destined to (ill one day the most important offices in the 
 State? What ! a Rev. Arcdeacon Corker, a Rev. Arch- 
 deacon Tisdall, a Rev. Mr. Chetwood, a Rev. Mr. 
 Weekes, a Rev. Mr. Meade, a Rev. Mr. Kenny, who 
 spent his time and fortune amongst you, relieving your 
 wants, and changing part of his house into an apothe- 
 cary's shop to supply you with medicines, which your- 
 selves could not purchase, mustfrom an apprehension of 
 violence quit his house, at the threshold of which ap- 
 peared so many Lazarus's with their sores not licked by 
 his dogs, but fomented or bathed with his own hands ; 
 not desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from his 
 table, but replenished to satiate with his own fare ! Ma- 
 ny more of these Gentlemen could I mention, and I ask 
 yourselves whether you would benefit the more by hav- 
 ing their property curtailed ? Still 1 know that you are 
 oppressed and impoverished more than any set of the 
 lower classes of people on earth. And by that notice 
 you have posted up, it appears that it is far from your 
 thoughts to overturn what is established by law, but 
 lighten the bnrthen. It is not in the tithes themselves 
 that the oppression lies, but in the manner of raising 
 their value, and collecting them. The established cler- 
 gy themselves, whose dignity and functions do not per- 
 mit them to take on themselves the disagreeable office, 
 and who, on the other hand, if they took your notes, 
 which perhaps you would be unwilling or unable to 
 pay when they would become due, would feel too 
 much in being obliged to sue a set of poor people in a 
 Court of Justice. The established Clergy themselves, 
 I say, are perplexed : they are not inclined to oppress 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACT3. 339 
 
 you on one hand, and none can expect that they will 
 part with their rights on the other. And as for your 
 parts, you cannot be judges in your own cause. The 
 supreme power of the state alone is competent to de- 
 termine the mode of redress, which is too intricate a 
 matter for me to determine. It is doubtless the interest 
 of your landlords not to have a wretched and beggarly 
 tenantry. It is in like manner their interest to support 
 amongst their tenants a due subordination to their re- 
 spective Pastors. For the generality of mankind, can 
 have no other rule, but their instruction, whereby to re- 
 gulate their moral conduct. The impressions of religion, 
 and the dread of an invisible Judge, the conscious wit- 
 ness of our actions, are stronger than the terror of human 
 laws, which are often eluded by privacy and several 
 other ways; and when once we shake off the authority of 
 religion, when opportunity offers, we are ready to shake 
 off the authority of our masters. Present a memorial of 
 whatever grievances you suffer to your respective land- 
 lords, who, I should hope, will transmit it to their friends 
 in Parliament: if Parliament cannot strike out a plan, 
 you have no remedy whatever but that patience, which I 
 before recommended to you, and which softens the afflic- 
 tions of sufferers. In a word, without the interposition of 
 the supreme power of the state, you must either bear with 
 patience the grievances of which you complain, or suffer 
 an ignominious death, or seek for a better situation in re- 
 mote countries, where there is more encouragement, and 
 where thousands of your Protestant fellow- subjects, less 
 oppressed than you are, have taken shelter. 
 
 As to the regulations you have made with regard to 
 the dues of your own clergy, it is a standing maxim 
 with all States where there are several religions, and but 
 one established by law, not to grant any legal redress for 
 non-payment of dues but to the clergy of the established 
 religion, such as the clergy of the church of England 
 here and in England, the Lutheran clergy in Sweden, 
 and the Presbyterian clergy in Holland, Geneva, and 
 elsewhere. Free toleration of religion, and the volun- 
 tary contributions of those of their own profession, are 
 the only resources of the clergy who are not of the re- 
 ligion of the state : I consider it your duty, nay your 
 
340 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 interest, to support them in a decent manner according 
 to your abilities; and this support should appear to you 
 the jess burthensome, as there is no compulsion, which in 
 general makes the receiver disagreeable to those who give 
 when compelled, and deprive the giver of the merit, of 
 what he contributes, when he contributes more from 
 compulsion than from duty and charity. On this head 
 then, we can literally apply to the words of St. Paul, m 
 his second Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. 9. Every man 
 according us he purposetk in his heart, so Let him give; not 
 grudgingly, or oj necessity : for God lovetha cheerful giver. 
 Christ himself, who in every page of the Scriptures 
 preached up the renunciation of ourselves, still declares 
 that the iaboureris worthy of his hire. And St. Paul, the 
 patron of disinterestedness and mortification, declares, 
 thai those who serve the altar, should live by it, and that 
 such as feed the flock, are entitled to a share of the milk. 
 It is your own interest that jour Pastors be maintained 
 with decency; that in a country where Gentlemen of a 
 different religion esteem the Catholic Clergy more for 
 their outward appearance and conduct, than for their 
 profession, your Pastors should appear with decency ; 
 and that in country parishes where even in the dead of 
 the nigh t, they are obliged to go seven or eigh t miles, and 
 perhapsmore, to relieve a dying person, they should have 
 a horse, in order to be able to give you every assistance 
 with the utmost expedition in these pressing moments, 
 when (if ever) delays are the most dangerous. 
 
 Nor, my brethren, should you disregard my remarks 
 on this subject, because 1 am a Clergyman: you know 
 that for the space of fifteen years since my arrival in this 
 country, weddings and baptisms are quite out of my 
 line, yet I never ceased to exhort and instruct you to 
 the utmost of my abilities. 
 
 My brethren, I earnestly entreat you to follow the 
 advice of those who wish you well, who have your in- 
 terest at heart, who foresee the danger that threatens 
 you, and of which you are not sufficiently aware: you 
 will find the advantage of p; ace ,md tranquillity ; none 
 can w ish it with more sincerity, than your affectionate 
 servant, A. O'LEARY. 
 
 Cork, Feb. 18, 1786. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 34 1 
 
 Rev. Mr. O'Learifs Second Address to the Common People 
 of Ireland, particularly to such of them as 
 are called H'luteboi/s. 
 
 BRETHREN AND COUNTRYMEN, 
 
 Far be it from me to oppose (were it in my power) 
 the redress of your grievances ; but, \ repeat it, by your 
 manner 0f redressing them, the remedy is worse than the 
 disorder. I would rather pay my tithes, let them be ever 
 so oppressive, than put my neck in the halter by dis- 
 turbing the peace of society, and violating the laws of 
 the realm, let them be ever so severe. No rulers on 
 earth will permit any order of men to overturn estab- 
 lished laws, by private authority. They will listen to 
 the grievances of the subject, but they will reserve to 
 themselves the mode of redress. They can neve make the 
 people happy but by keeping- them subject to authority, 
 and by making this subjection as easy and reconcileable 
 to them as the exigencies of the state will permit. The 
 multitude is too tickle and inconstant for governing it- 
 self. St cannot be happy without subordination toorder 
 and authority ; if it once strikes out of the path of obe- 
 dience to the laws, there is an end of Government. Trou- 
 bles, dissensions, civil wars, and impunity for the most 
 atrocious crimes, must be the result. And in this state 
 of convulsion, the man who complained of grievances be- 
 fore, under the ruling powers, will feel heavier griev- 
 ances from his neighbour, who, unrestrained by law, will 
 become his murderer or oppressor. If we were prisoners 
 of war in an enemy's country, we are bound by the laws 
 of God and nations to behave in a peaceable manner, 
 much more so when we form members of the same socie- 
 ty, governed by the same Sovereign and the same laws, 
 
 But what surprises me most with regard to the notice 
 you have posted up, whereby you caution each Parish- 
 ioner not to give but so much for Tithes, and so much 
 to the Roman Catholic Clergy, is, that you bind your- 
 selves by oath to abide by this regulation. Had you en- 
 
342 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 tered into a resolution not to pay but four shillings tithes 
 for every acre of potatos, &c. a court of justice would 
 determine whether you were right or wrong. And in 
 case you were cast at law, as in all appearance you would 
 be, the payment of the tithes, and the costs of the suit, 
 would be the onlydisadvantage you would labour under. 
 But here, by one oath, you fall into a double snare : You 
 perplex and entangle your consciences on one hand, and 
 on the other you put yourselves in the power of the law. 
 Upon a former occasion I explained to you the nature 
 of oaths, and the horror of perjury. And although you 
 have not perjured yourselves in swearing to your own 
 resolutions, as it was not to a lie you swore, yet permit 
 me to tell you, that your oath was rash, and so far a pro- 
 fanation of the most sacred name of God. It is with the 
 greatest reluctance a man should swear at all, even in a 
 just cause, and from conviction. "We read in some Jewish 
 authors, that the awful name of the Divinity was uttered 
 but once a year by the High Priest, at the solemn Bene- 
 diction, after purifying himself, and washing his hands 
 in the blood of the victim that was offered up, before he 
 entered the sanctuary. The veneration also of the Hea- 
 thens for their false Gods, was such, that in the begin- 
 ing no oaths were customary, from a reverence to the 
 Deity. Princes ratified the most solemn treaties by join- 
 ing hands: and in the ages of heroism, the warrior 
 thought himself sufficiently engaged to his General by 
 looking at the military standard erected upon an emi- 
 nence, with the image of the tutelary God painted on 
 the banners. Such was the veneration of all nations for 
 the awful name of the Deity, and the sanctity of that 
 maxim of holy writ, that we are not to trifle with holy 
 things. Compare your conduct with that of the primi- 
 tive inhabitants of the world, you who should be struck 
 with a greater awe as having a more perfect knowledge 
 of the true God, and yet make it a part of your Sunday's 
 devotion to hand the book to each other in order to swear 
 to what must be destructive to yourselves, and injurious 
 to the rights of others — you will swear to the Lord your 
 God, says the Scripture, in truth, in judgment, and in 
 righteousness, or justice. It is not sufficient for the lawful- 
 ness of an oath, that whatever we swear to be true. It 
 
\ 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS'. 343 
 
 requires moreover that the oath be attended with judg- 
 ment, that is to say, that the object of it be not rash ; 
 there must be necessity and prudence. There must be 
 also justice, otherwise the name of God is profaned, and 
 the oath is not binding. When Herod swore that he 
 would give his daughter whatever she would ask him, 
 he was guilty of murder in giving her the head of John 
 the Baptist, and of profanation in calling on God as the 
 witness and sanction of his cruelty. You swear that you, 
 will pay but four shillings for an acre of potatos, &c. 
 
 When St. Augustine lays down as a maxim that the 
 laws of every state regulate the property of the subject, 
 and that whatever we possess must be in consequence of 
 the determination of the law ; when St. Paul commands 
 us to pay honour to whom honour, and tribute to whom 
 tribute is due, can the most learned Casuist determine 
 that you are bound to pay no more than the precise sum 
 of four shillings for an acre? Your oath then is the same 
 thing as if you swore in the following manner: I swear 
 by this book that I will do such a thing, whether it be right 
 or wrong. Is such an oath just ? In lille manner let me sup- 
 pose that after this oath, you may be sued at law for the 
 tithes, and for non-payment be cast into prison, or have 
 your little property distrained. What will be the con- 
 sequence ? You must either break your oath, or remain 
 in prison, or have your poor families ruined. Thus your 
 oath is the same as if it were as follows : / swear by this 
 book, that I will either break this oath, or rot in prison, or 
 ruin my family . Is there judgment, is there prudence in 
 this ? Add to this, that such persons as tender such oaths 
 are in the power of the law, and will be treated with the 
 utmost rigour. And on this occasion, I conjure the Gen- 
 tlemen of this country who may read this letter, and be 
 next Assizes on your Jury, to distinguish the wanton 
 compellersof such oaths, and the persons who take or 
 administer them from fear or compulsion. I say, take 
 or administer them ; for, take and administer in the 
 sense I allude to, are synonimous in the eyes of hu- 
 manity and justice, when the motive, I mean for fear of 
 grievous outrage to their persons or property, compels 
 them to take the oath, or administer to others. And 
 
 Y Y 
 
314 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 when I make this request, you see, my brethren, how 
 much I have your interest at heart, and with what sin- 
 cerity I wish to prevent the effusion of your blood. 
 
 The same motives induced a Protestant Gentleman, 
 an acquaintance of mine, to address six letters to you, 
 in a style adapted to your understanding, under the sig- 
 nature of a Dublin Shopkeeper. He had no motive what- 
 ever but your welfare, as his property is not in the 
 county. His humanity and benevolence alone induced 
 him to point out the danger to which you were exposed, 
 the imaginary and groundless prospects you figured to 
 yourselves, and which you will soon see vanish as smoke : 
 the various delusions to which the unthinking multi- 
 tude are liable to fall victims, and the caution you 
 should take against those misfortunes in which aeon- 
 duct similar 1o yours has involved so many others, 
 Several of whom were really innocent. To deprive his 
 letters of the effect ihey should have on you, you were 
 made to believe that they were written by some Clergy- 
 man, interested in 'jthe preservation of tithes, or if a 
 Roman Catholic, in the collection of his dues. I declare 
 upon my conscience, that they were written by a Pro- 
 testant Layman, and that I myself did not know the 
 author, until after the publication of the first letter- 
 They deserve your attention the more as they come 
 from such a disinterested hand, and as I am equally 
 unconcerned in these matters, Only as far as they re- 
 gard your own safety, and the peace of the public. 
 
 I hope that this Address will deserve your attention, 
 as it gives the sanction of religion to the maxims of pru- 
 dence, laid down in that Gentleman's writings. 1 am 
 confident that many of you have been misled by your 
 ignorance of the laws, and that as these disturbances 
 originated in the dues of the clergy, you did not forsee 
 the consequences to yourselves. That Gentleman's let- 
 ters deserve your most serious attention, as he explains 
 all the laws which hang over you. On the other hand, 
 it is a standing maxim, that it is better to prevent 
 crimes than to punish them. It would be an act of 
 humanity in the Associations, compost d of Noblemen 
 and Gentlemen, for the suppression of tumults in the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 345 
 
 county of Cork, to get numbers of that Gentleman's 
 letters dispersed gratis through the country. It is the 
 opinion of a great and humane writer,* that every 
 Member of Society should know when he is criminal, 
 and when innocent. This cannot be done without a 
 knowledge of the laws which affect the lives and liber- 
 ties of the subjects. This knowledge is never suffici- 
 ently communicated in this kingdom to the multitude 
 at large, few of whom can purchase the ordinary vehi- 
 cles of information, the Acts ; and even Newspapers, are 
 prohibited from even inserting abstracts under the 
 penalty of a prosecution from the King's Printer. In 
 foreign countries when new laws, affecting the lives of 
 the people, are enacted, they are posted up on the gates 
 of the Churches in all the Parishes, and their non-pro- 
 mulgation is pleaded in justification of the fact. This 
 before-mentioned conduct corresponds with Beccaria's 
 wishes, who says, that every citizen should have the 
 code of laws which affect his life ; and that the conduct 
 of Censors and Magistrates who punish the ignorant, 
 is a kind of tyranny which surrounds the confines of 
 political liberty. If the laws are made for the people, 
 they should know them, and laws which affect the 
 lives of the multitude, should not be confined to the 
 Lawyer's library. 1 am confident that not one out of 
 ten thousand of the country people, knows one clause 
 of the Whiteboy Act. This is the time to make it as 
 public as possible in a county hitherto the most peace- 
 able in the kingdom. But to return from this digres- 
 sion to you, my brethren, if you have any room to 
 claim of the extortions of any of your Clergy, why have 
 you not made application to your Bishops previous to 
 those tumultuary meetings? Would Lord Dunboyne, 
 as distinguished for his tenderness, his charity, the 
 sweetness and amiableness of his manners, as he is by 
 his high birth and exalted station; or would the pious 
 and edifying Doctor M'Kenna permit the oppression 
 of the poor under pretence of religion ? They, who 
 are more inclined to relieve your wants than to add 
 
 * Beccaria. 
 
346 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 to them ? There is some exaggeration in your written 
 notice, insinuating that your Pastors require more than 
 you can afford, and that some of them are more atten- 
 tive to your substance than your souls. Sure, my bre- 
 thren, a Roman Catholic Clergyman, who in times of 
 prosecution would be bound not to abandon you, but to 
 share your sufferings, and undergo every hardship for 
 the sake of your salvation; bound to appear as the pub- 
 lic deputy of the people, at the foot of the altar, erected 
 to a God, who died naked on the cross, and to wean your 
 affections from the perishable goods and fleeting plea- 
 sures of this short and distracted life, to fix them on 
 Heavenly goods ; sure, no Roman Catholic Clergyman 
 would make a traffic of the Sacraments, in extorting 
 from an unhappy object, who has but fourpence a day 
 to support a wife and a number of children, with a hand- 
 ful of vegetables and a draught of water. We are rather 
 bound to sell the sacred vases of the temple, if we had 
 any to dispose of, sooner than slay the victim, already 
 fleeced by oppressive rack-rents. It cannot be conceived 
 that a Roman Catholic Clergyman, who pays the least 
 regard to the dignity and decency of his character, 
 would sit down in a barn or cabin , at the expense of the 
 labouring man, and by intemperance, efface intheeven* 
 ing those impressions of piety which he imparted to him 
 in the morning. No, there is no such thing. But there 
 is the mistake you have committed in the oath already 
 mentioned. You have bound by the oath the opulent 
 farmer, who is able and willing to give to your Pastors 
 wherewithal to support them, and to afford yourselves 
 some assistance in your wants. You have bound him 
 in like manner not to give any more than a crown, &c. 
 and this is an injustice under the solemnity of an oath. 
 For, whatever a poor man may do with a trifle scarce 
 competent to support himself, he has no right to controul 
 the pockets of, or to prescribe laws to the rich. If there 
 had been scandalous extortions of the kind, you should 
 have preferred complaints to the Bishops, and these 
 venerable Prelates would have ordered their Clergy to 
 cry out from their Altars, v>ith!the Prophet Jonas, if it be 
 %n my account that this storm is raised throw me overboard. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. &17 
 
 The oppression of the poor, and the love of sordid gain, 
 are inconsistent with the character of personswhose min- 
 istry is the condemnation of avarice, the contempt of 
 riches, and the recommendation of charity. They are 
 not disposed to bruise the reed already broken, nor to 
 change the tender and inviting voice of fathers and pas- 
 tors into the harsh language of griping tax-gatherers. Has 
 not Mr. O'Kelly, have not others declared from the al- 
 tars, that they require no more from you than what you 
 are willing to give ? Let not then the sacred ministry be 
 a pretext for the public disturbances, which in the end 
 must prove destructive to yourselves. Let your griev- 
 ances be redressed by the wisdom and humanity of your 
 superiors in Church and State. Let public tranquil- 
 lity be restored, and let yourselves enjoy the fruits and 
 sweets of a peaceable conduct and innocent conscience, 
 which alone can recommend you to, and procure you the 
 protection of God and your rulers. No person can wish 
 you every happiness more than your affectionate servant, 
 
 A. O'LEARY. 
 
 Cork, Feb. 21, 1786. 
 
 Rev. Mr. O'Leary's Third Address to the Whiteboys, par- 
 ticularly those of the County of Cork. 
 
 Countrymen, 
 
 To such of you as still persist in setting the laws of 
 your country at defiance, in opposition to the dictates 
 of prudence, which suggests to man not to hazard rashly 
 his life, nor the interest of his family, but rather to bear 
 patiently with a slighter inconvenience to avoid a 
 greater; to such of you as still pursue aline of conduct 
 (misconduct I should have said) so destructive to your- 
 selves, and subversive of peace and good order, I ad- 
 dress myself at this critical juncture. For I shall not con- 
 found those who first engaged in your cause, either from 
 error or licentiousness, and are now reclaimed to their 
 duty, with those who still march on in a road which, from 
 sad experience, they will find to end in a precipice. At 
 
348 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 the first breaking out of these unhappy disturbances, you 
 got every caution which religion, reason, and humanity 
 could prompt men of compassion and feelings to give a 
 multitude easily misled, and, according to the common 
 course of human affairs, incapable of drawing the deli- 
 cate line to which common sense points out, and of which 
 it says, thus far you shall go and no farther. The dangers 
 to which you were exposed from a disorderly conduct, 
 the imaginary and groundless prospects you figured to 
 yourselves, and which you now behold vanishing as 
 smoke, the various delusions to which the unthinking 
 multitude are liable to fall victims, the precaution you 
 should take against the misfortune in which a conduct 
 similar to yours had involved so many before. Every 
 thing, in short, was explained to you. The maxims of hu- 
 man prudence were strengthened, and enforced by the 
 great principles of religion : and we had every room to 
 expect, that in case religion had lost its influence over 
 you as christians, at least your own preservation, as men, 
 founded upon the first principles of nature, would in- 
 duce you to expose your bodies to the rod of justice, or 
 to the executioner's hand. W hen you imagined your- 
 selves secure in your numbers, an anticipated list was 
 made out of so many Whiteboys whipped, so many shot 
 by the army, so many \Y hiteboys' widows and orphans 
 reduced to beggary, from the misconduct of thejr former 
 husbands and fathers. There was no inspiration requi- 
 site, in order to foretel such future events: foresight and 
 sense uttered a prophesy which you see now fulfilled, and 
 theaccomplishment whereof you can readon the mangled 
 backs of the companions of your former excursions. If 
 you are wise then, return peaceably and without delay to 
 your occupation and duty, and do not swell the cata- 
 logue of suffering offenders : it is the advice of one who 
 has your welfare at heart ; who, whilst he reprobates 
 your disorders, pities your weakness, and who, in ac- 
 knowledging the justice of the punishment inflicted for 
 the crime, commiserates the man in the criminal. 
 
 But what will my pity avail, if you do not pity your- 
 selves? How, or by what arguments to reclaim you, I am 
 at a loss. I shall howeverpay this last tribute to humani- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 349 
 
 ty, and follow the advice of the Apostle who commands 
 Ministers of the Gospel to rebuke, reprove, exhort the sin- 
 ner. To be instant in season, and out of season. If my en- 
 deavours should chance to be out of season with regard to 
 the obstinate, yet they may be in season with regard to 
 those whom 1 would fain preserve from the contagion of 
 your pernicious example. I reclaimed some of your 
 associates before, who now feel the comfort of having 
 returned to the path of peace and good order. Happy 
 for you, though late, if you copied after them. To at- 
 tempt to reclaim you by the power and influence of re- 
 ligion would, I am afraid, be an useless task. You have 
 thrown off its restraint. And however orderly a well 
 bred Deist who does not feel distress, but laughs at re- 
 ligion, may conduct himself through life until the scene 
 of delusion is closed, and death introduces him to the 
 Judge, who says, Woe to you who laugh, &c. When the 
 common people in any state throw off the restraint of 
 religion, or become fanatics, they may like lions un- 
 chained, who, if not opposed by force or stratagem, will 
 devour their defenceless prey. Of this we have unhap- 
 py proofs in the disturbances which have disgraced this 
 province. When you minded your religion, grace and 
 order reigned over the land. The w 7 eary cottager, after 
 his labour and rural meal, slept secure, and acquired 
 fresh strength for the toils of the ensuing day ; and if the 
 neighbour was injured in his property by stealth and 
 fraud, the dread of profaning the Sacraments was at- 
 tended with restitution, and the purpose of amendment. 
 But when, to the astonishment and scandal of the pub- 
 lic, religion became a sport ; when the houses of worship 
 were profaned by the tumultuary meetings, beginning 
 their devotions with the solemnity of combination oaths, 
 without inquiring whether they were lawful or sacrile- 
 gious; when the flocks became deaf to the instructions 
 of the pastors, dictating instead of obeying, and did with 
 their own hands, what the most infamous Priest-catchers 
 refrained from doing in times of persecution, I mean the 
 nailing up of Chapels, and excluding from the house of 
 God such as intended to offer up their prayers on that 
 day appointed by all denominations of Christians for 
 
350 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 the worship of the Supreme Being, and held so sacred, 
 that on that day the very administration of civil justice 
 is suspended ; when without any intention to exchange 
 the creed for another, but rather get rid of both, nor 
 any intention to reform the morals, but rather to obtain 
 impunity for licentiousness, you flocked to the Pro- 
 testant churches, as the temples in former times were 
 resorted to by those malefactors who intended to make 
 of the house of God a rampart againt the pursuit of 
 violated justice ; when this irreligious farce was at- 
 tended with the notes of the flute, and the blasts of the 
 bagpipe playing from one house of worship into an- 
 other, a set of men combined against the clergy of both, 
 threatening with destruction the respectable Catholics 
 who refused to attend the procession of disorder in 
 tumult. 
 
 In short, when religion lost its hold of people accus- 
 tomed to revere and respect it, then the most peaceable 
 county of the kingdom became a scene of anarchy, 
 disorder, and confusion, and spread the contagion far 
 and wide ; a brutal and indiscriminate vengeance was 
 wreaked upon man and beast : and the excesses of the 
 mad rabble who acknowledged Lord George Gordon for 
 their President in the year eighty, have been in some 
 measure copied by the followers of Captain Right in the 
 year eighty-six ; the former burnt houses, and commit- 
 ted singing birds to the flames ; the latter cropped 
 horses, and burnt ricks of corn. — foolish Galalians? 
 says St. Paul, what hath bewitched you? 
 
 If you complained of grievances, was redress to be 
 obtained by profanation, and inhuman and barbarous 
 steps, which tend to defeat the very end you propose to 
 yourselves, and to make you rather objects of detesta- 
 tion than pity ? When you complained of the conduct 
 of some of your own clergymen, as overbearing and 
 rigorous ; to remove every plea for disorder and dis- 
 content, your prelates assembled, and after declaring 
 that a small stipend, the reasonableness of which they 
 left to the decision of the public, was requisite for the 
 support of your pastors; they enjoined them at the 
 same time not to enforce a rigorous exaction of their 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 351 
 
 dues, but to shew, upon all occasions, that spirit of mildness, 
 lenity, and disinterestedness, so becoming their sacred cha- 
 racter. What more could they have done ? You, on the 
 other hand, not only bound yourselves by oath to withhold 
 your usual support, but controul the opulent and well-dis- 
 posed, who were willing and able to make up for what 
 yourselves were unwilling and unable to give. Thus, under 
 pretence of redressing grievances, you became the oppres- 
 sors of your spiritual guides, and as to your causes of com- 
 plaint from proctors and tithe-farmers, instead of waiting for 
 that relief which the humanity and wisdom of the Parliament 
 may in time and place suggest, you have arrogated to your- 
 selves a power bordering upon life and death, by burying 
 them up to their chins in graves, lined with briars and other 
 materials of torture, leaving their life or destruction to 
 the bare chance of being found or not found, by some pas- 
 senger. Great God ! could you be so divested of feeling as 
 to inflict such a punishment, or so devoid of common sense 
 as to imagine that such a conduct was the best method of 
 deserving the attention and compassion of your rulers ? The 
 public considered these horrid barbarities as the effects of a 
 temporary madness, which cool reason and the severity of 
 the law would effectually cure. But what must not be their 
 indignation and astonishment, if, after the steps which Go- 
 vernment has taken, they see you not only relapse into your 
 former frenzy, but work yourselves up to the highest pitch 
 of madness ! 
 
 After reforming the clergy, you now proceed to reform 
 the state. By your new regulations, no labouring man is to 
 go to another parish to save the harvest. This certainly 
 shews your humanity and wisdom, on the eve of the severe 
 winter, where every hand should be employed to secure the 
 bounties of nature — and this I call a regulation of beggary 
 and imprisonment. For the landlord will have his rent or 
 your bodies, and if you refuse to work you must beg ; and 
 the public will give no alms to persons who become idlers 
 from wilful obstinacy. 
 
 You write threatening letters to the Civil Magistrate, or- 
 dering him, under the severest penalties, to interfere no 
 more in your proceedings, and are come to resolves about the 
 
 7. z 
 
352 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 hearth-money, which you intend to regulate by your owe 
 standard ; and this regulation about magistrates and 
 hearth-money, as more immediately affecting Majesty, is a 
 regulation bordering upon treason or rebellion, and appro 
 priating to yourselves a part of the revenues of the crown. 
 To crown the work, you posted up a notice, or you wrote 
 a menacing letter to a most respectable Protestant clergy- 
 man, ordering him not to meddle with an old church in his 
 parish, the materials of which are requisite to defray the 
 expenses incurred by building a new one, but to leave it to 
 you for a chapel. And this regulation, to me, is a regula- 
 tion of surprise and astonishment. What a surprising tran- 
 sition from profanation to devotion, from one extreme to 
 another ! Some time before you nailed up the chapels, and 
 would not permit your clergy to officiate therein. Now 
 your own chapels will not suffice without having the church : 
 not long since you carried the chapel to church ; now you 
 will have the church come back to the chapel. This is a 
 strange fit of devotion in a set of men who, not long ago, 
 in derision of priesthood, gave but an Irish crown to the 
 pastor, at a wedding, and collected eighteen shillings for the 
 piper : but pray, if you obtain the church, who will be your 
 chaplain ? For 1 am sure no Roman Catholic clergyman 
 will be so mad as to obtrude into a church, of the established 
 religion, under the banners of sedition. You must then 
 ordain a chaplain yourselves ; and every person who at- 
 tempts a reformation in the church and state, without an 
 ordinary mission, commonly pleads a mission from Heaven. 
 Captain Right may assume the power of ordination, as the 
 German cobbler, who attempted the reformation of religion, 
 pretended to impart the gift of prophecy to his disciples, by 
 making them drink a pot of beer, and giving them on the 
 head a stroke of a poker. 
 
 However, as this extraordinary message, purporting to 
 give up a Protestant church to be changed into a chapel, is 
 become the general subject of conversation, it is incumbent 
 on me to make my remarks on it. I have read so many 
 anecdotes of plots and roguish schemes, of which simpletons 
 were the tools, and knaves the contrivers, that I am very 
 ©autious. It is supposed that when you meet in your lurking 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 353 
 
 holes, you all agree in the same measure, and that every de- 
 liberation is the act of the whole corps, otherwise you woukl 
 soon disperse. If then this message be really an act of your 
 meeting, some artful incendiary, capable of working upon 
 your intellects, stupified by watching and intoxication, has 
 crept in among you, either to cause some confusion in the 
 state, from motives best known (if not to himself) certainly to 
 his employer, or from an expectation of obtaining a rewaid 
 for swearing away your lives at the next assizes. For there 
 is not the least shadow of probability, that a set oi night- 
 strollers, cropping cattle and burning corn, after nailing up 
 chapels and humbling their clergy, would expose themselves 
 to martyrdom in forcing a Protestant clergyman to give up 
 a church, to indulge a devotion. Moreover, you know that 
 when a new place of worship is to be erected, the Parish 
 Priest is always consulted ; for where there is no Mass, 
 there is an end of the chapel. You know full well that no 
 Priest would attend you in such a fit of frantic devotion, if 
 you did not force him to ride bare-backed, Proctor-like, on 
 Captain Right's grey horse, with the furze saddle under 
 him, and the horn sounding before him. Give up then every 
 thought of changing the church into a chapel, for you will 
 never get any Priest to attend you there, without you drive 
 him before you mounted, as 1 mentioned; and I am sure that 
 the most ambitious of the clergy would not ride the Pope's 
 mule in such an equipage. The message then, if it comes 
 from you, is of a piece with the rest of your proceedings, as 
 far as they are barely confined to nonsense; and if the 
 churches and chapels were the anti-chambers of Heaven, 
 they could never procure admittance into its inner apart- 
 ments, whilst you lead a loose and licentious life, destroying 
 your neighbour's property, and disturbing the peace of so- 
 ciety. However, if you want to see the inside of that 
 church, you shall be gratified on the following condition : — 
 Appoint what Sunday you think fit, and that at soonest, 
 and I shall go and meet you there, not to say mass, but to 
 give you an exhortation, or a sermon, which ever you like. 
 Colonel Mannix, or any of the neighbouring Magistrates will, 
 I am confident, not refuse to attend ; after the exhortalion 
 of which you certainly stand in need, the Magistrate will 
 
354 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 explain the law to you, listen to jour complaints, and if you 
 make a solemn promise, which you can without any remorse, 
 confirm with an oath, to return peaceably to your duty, and 
 to disturb no longer the community, he will transmit your 
 complaints to your Representatives in Parliament. A simi- 
 lar affair happened already, and has been attended with 
 success, for the people, on listening to reason, returned to 
 the path of moderation and good conduct : all this is to be 
 done with the consent of the gentleman to whom the old 
 church belongs, for you know that it is not civil to force into 
 another man's house. The pastor of that church is a sted- 
 fast Protestant, and I am a stedfast Roman Catholic, 
 believing seven sacraments, and every article that has been 
 explained to you in your early days in your catechism. Yet 
 we are both united in the same cause of charity and benevo- 
 lence with several other gentlemen of different persuasions, 
 as Members of the Committee for the Relief of Insolvent 
 Debtors. 
 
 Our controversies turn upon the ways and means of 
 keeping order and cleanliness in the gaols, of procuring 
 the captive debtors a weekly allowance, of compounding 
 with their creditors, and restoring them to their poor families. 
 The very Magistrates who you threaten are subscribers 
 to this institution : on the list of the relieved captives 
 are numbers of your own namesakes and relations. This 
 digression 1 make in order to remind you of your ingra- 
 titude and delusion in meddling with the clergy of the 
 established religion, many of whom deserve so well of 
 the poor ; but that gentleman in particular, the martyr of 
 charity, who bestows on them the portion of time and 
 substance which he can spare from his functions and 
 family. The proposal of meeting 1 make from my heart ; 
 the subject of my sermon shall be the obligations which na- 
 ture and religion impose on man to live peaceably and ho- 
 nestly, both as a Christian and a member of civil society, and 
 my text shall be these words of St. Paul, / exhort therefore that 
 prayer and supplication be made for kings, and for all that are in 
 authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all God- 
 liness and honesty. 1 Tim. c. 2. May you conform your lives 
 to the text ! Amen. But to return to the notice, or message ; 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 355 
 
 It is most likely that some one who would not much scru- 
 ple to tell a lie at the expense of your lives, has written the 
 letter in your name, or posted up the notice, to make you 
 more odious than you are, (though you are odious enough 
 already,) and to hasten the vengeance of the laws which 
 await you, by quickening the fears of the public. Every 
 robbery and plunder will be laid to your charge, several se- 
 ditious letters will be written in your names, and divine jus- 
 tice will permit that even the malice of others will hasten 
 to your ruin. And however I hate your proceedings, I really 
 pity your madness in putting it in their power; and the more 
 so, as, according to St. Augustine, no wretch is more to be 
 pitied than the wretch who does not pity himself. One 
 should think, that more than a twelvemonth's apprenticeship 
 to licentiousness, besides the losses you have sustained, 
 would have tired you in the road of iniquity; and little did 
 we expect to hear any more of cropping horses and burning 
 corn, much less depriving the cottager of the; use of his 
 spade amidst the invitations of a copious harvest. Little 
 did we expect to hear of attempts to deprive the landlords 
 of their rent, to encroach upon the authority of Parliament, 
 and to invade the risfhts of the Crown, bv arrosratino: to 
 yourselves the power ot regulating the taxes of the state, 
 after two assizes, and the lenity, impartiality and wisdom 
 which Government has shewn upon the occasion; for what 
 greater proofs of them could Government have given, than 
 when the energy of the laws was to be supported by the 
 military power, it appointed a General who unites humanity 
 with valour, who condescended to appear in your complaints, 
 prevailed on several gentlemen concerned in tithes to re- 
 duce to the most reasonable standard ; copied after that illus- 
 trious Roman, who, when the common people had thrown 
 off the yoke of subordination, kept the sword in the sheath, 
 and held out the olive branch, preferring in the first stajre of 
 the political distemper, lenient to violent remedies : a Ge- 
 neral, in fine, who, on hearing well-grounded complaints, 
 would forget the warrior in the advocate of the distressed, 
 if the complainers ceased to be licentious. 
 
 In the delicate circumstances which affected your lives, 
 Government appointed a judge, endowed with extensive 
 
356 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 knowledge, penetration, and wisdom, which qualify him so 
 eminently tor holding the scale in which the lives, the for- 
 tune, and the honour of men are to be weighed; with inte- 
 grity, proof against the attacks of power and interest, with 
 humanity and moderation, which without loosening the veil 
 wherewith justice is painted hoodwinked, can raise its bor- 
 der to cast a glance of pity on the unfortunate : such were 
 the two illustrious personages in whose handb Government 
 lodged the sword of military power and justice, to sup- 
 press the disorders to which you have given rise. I mean 
 Lord Luttrell and Lord Chief Baron Yelverton. Wisdom and 
 impartiality made a choice which humanity applauded ; but 
 a longer continuance of your madness and folly must baffle 
 their united eflbns, to your own inevitable destruction. 
 
 The honour of the country, the preservation of public 
 order, the protection of the defenceless cottager, and the 
 prevention of further disorders, will compel Generals to 
 taark the progress of their march with your blood, and 
 judges to stretch the laws to their utmost. Equally cruel 
 to yourselves and unmerciful to others, if you have any 
 grievances to complain of, you block up every road to re- 
 dress, by the very steps whereby you intend to obtain it. 
 
 In a large country, and I may almost say a province, with- 
 out arts or manufactures, where, in some places, in a range 
 of fifty or sixty miles, scarce a wheel or reel can be met 
 with for want of flax or wool to employ the house-wife, 
 and where the very treasures of the ocean are become use- 
 less for want of the means to improve the advantages of 
 nature: in a place so circumstanced, where the poor cotta- 
 ger must with five-pence a day support himself, a wife, and 
 live or six children, more or less, and contribute his share to 
 the support of the State, you attempt to deprive poor in- 
 dustrious men of the liberty of earning the means of sub- 
 sistance. Some of you can remember the great frost, and 
 such of you as were not born at the time must know, from 
 the tradition of your fathers, that Heaven visited the land 
 with a famine, whose ravages amongst the common people 
 were such, that for want of food, the living had scarce 
 strength enough to bury the dead. Now Heaven is kind in 
 granting you an extraordinary continuance of fair weather,, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 357 
 
 and a plentiful harvest, and the favours of Heaven you re- 
 ject. Instead of practising the lesson which nature itself 
 gives you in the example of the ant, the bee, and several 
 classes of irrational beings, an example which Solomon re- 
 commends to your imitation in the following words : Go to 
 the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise ; which 
 having no guide, overseer, or rider, provideth her ?neet in the 
 summer, and gathereih her food in the harvest. Instead of im- 
 proving the fair weather to the best advantage in new thatch- 
 ing your cabins, in minding your business, and laying in a 
 stock for the support of yourselves and families against the 
 ensuing winter, you exhaust your health in those nightly ex- 
 cursions, the fruits of which must be the loss of life or liberty, 
 or criminal weariness which disables you from working the 
 following day. Under the pretence of redressing griev- 
 ances, you confine the labourer who has no work at home, 
 who at stated times goes to earn his wages in other parishes, 
 and whose assistance is requisite for saving the harvest 
 You confine him to his cottage, where he has nothing to be- 
 hold but a wife and children perishing with hunger, and hm 
 spade and shovel decaying with rust, because by the regula- 
 tions of the Rightboys, he dares not to handle them in the 
 parishes where he could get employment. Thus you op- 
 press the poor; you distress the farmer, who at certain 
 times wants an extraordinary number of hands; you will 
 fill the gaols with insolvent debtors; and you begin to sow 
 the seeds of scarcity and famine, which yourselves must in- 
 evitably feel, as well as the innocent, which suffer but too 
 often for the guilt of others. IC this be your mode of re- 
 dressing grievances, the remedy is worse than the disease ; 
 and if no other crime could be laid to your charge but this 
 regulation only, this alone would expose you to the detes- 
 tation of every honest man. 
 
 I appeal to yourselves, whether the unhappy persons who 
 lost their lives by attempting a rescue, and thus impeding 
 the course of justice, would not have done better to mind 
 their business, than to cut off by a sudden death, and leave 
 their widows and orphans without support ? To yourselves 
 1 appeal, whether such of your associates as have already 
 undergone the just punishment of the law, or such as are 
 
358 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 now confined in order to take their trial at the next assizes* 
 and who, besides their personal disgrace and danger, must 
 feci for their families, destitute of their support, and dis- 
 tressing themselves to support them in their confinement ? 
 I appeal to yourselves, whether these persons would not 
 have done better to mind their labour, and partake in 
 common with their little families of the fruits of their ho- 
 nest industry, than to be, as they now are, the unpUieel 
 objects of wretchedness, labouring under present ano-uish, 
 and haunted with the terror of future punishment, repre- 
 senting to themselves the sword of justice hanging over their 
 heads, and uncertain of their future destiny. Would you 
 really wish to be in their situation ? Answer me. — I am 
 sure you would not. If then you intend to avoid their fate, 
 avoid their example, and learn a little wisdom from the folly 
 of others, or rather avoid the punishment by avoiding the 
 guilt. 
 
 Do you really believe, my brethren, (1 call you brethren, 
 because 1 begin to soften from pity for the misfortunes you 
 have already brought on others, and which you will inevi- 
 tably bring on yourselves, for methinks I already hear the 
 cries of your widows, or forlorn mothers, calling to me for 
 alms to help them to buy your coffins.) do you really be- 
 lieve that an obstinate perseverance in disorder, a repetition 
 of conflagrations and outrages, and a gradual rise from one 
 abuse to another, are the best means of disposing your 
 rulers to lenity, and to a consideration of the causes of your 
 complaints ? No, they only tend to give a keener edge to 
 the sword of justice. You should rather dread, lest con- 
 stant provocations on your part, and every effort to re- 
 claim you to your duty, rendered fruitless by an obstinate 
 resistance, may induce the legislature to make what is 
 called a misdemeanor, capital felony, and that the same of- 
 fences which in your associates have been punished with 
 whipping or imprisonment only, may doom yourselves to 
 the halter. What if you were declared public enemies 
 to the State, and shot without further ceremony where- 
 ever you would be met with after nightfall ? This is what 
 you have to fear, and nothing to hope while you remain 
 turbulent. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 359 
 
 No rulers on earth will permit any order of men to over- 
 turn established laws, whilst they have power to maintain 
 their authority. Much less will the rulers of this kingdom 
 change one tittle of the laws, on occasion of any violence 
 committed by a set of men who could be mowed down as so 
 many withered weeds, by one single regiment. They will 
 listen to the complaints of the subject when preferred to them 
 in a decent, humble, and becoming manner, and through a 
 proper channel. But they will reserve to themselves the* 
 mode of redress, as well as the time for granting or refusing 
 it. The multitude is too fickle and inconstant for governing 
 itself. If it once strikes out of the path of subordination, tu- 
 mults, dissensions, and the most atrocious crimes must be 
 the result ; and in this state of convulsion, the man who com- 
 plained of grievances before, under the ruling powers, wilL 
 feel heavier grievances from his neighbour, who, unrestrained 
 by law, will become his murderer or oppressor. Your con- 
 duct justifies my remark ; the man who earned his four-pence 
 or five-pence a day, slept secure under the protection of the 
 law, and in the neighbourhood of the magistrate. Now, 
 by the Whiteboy rules, he must starve in his cottage for 
 want of liberty to earn his bread in a distant parish, or ride- 
 the grey horse on a furze saddle, or to be buried to his chin in. 
 a torturing grave. How to conclude this letter I am at a loss : 
 if you have any regard for your lives, for your wives, for 
 your children, for your fathers, or for your mothers, I con- 
 jure you in the name of God, to desist without any further 
 delay. Lord Luttrell, who, to his eternal honour, has in- 
 quired into your complaints, is in possession of whatever is to 
 be laid before the State of the nation, whose decision you, 
 should wait for, with that submission becoming subjects, and 
 that prudence which should hinder you as men from running 
 to your final destruction. Your cause could not be in worse 
 hands than your own : therefore throw yourselves on the mercy 
 of your rulers, and do not force them to forget, in the multi- 
 tude of your offences, whatever may be the cause of your com- 
 plaints. This plain, simple, and candid advice is now your 
 last resource : if you reject it, you are undone ; for you will 
 not only have the laws and the army let loose on you, but 
 all the nobility and gentry ; all the wise, peaceable, and Vir- 
 tuous subjects, will consider you as public enemies, whose 
 
 3 A 
 
300 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 destruction is requisite for their own preservation. And as 
 you are ignorant of the danger which threatens you, I request 
 in your behalf, as a favour of the Printers throughout the 
 kingdom, to copy this letter into their respective papers, and 
 of the friends of humanity to make it as public as possible, 
 by dispersing it amongst you. That it have on you the de- 
 sired effect, is the wish of 
 
 Your's, &c. 
 
 Cork, Nov. 19, 1786. 
 
 A. O'LEARY. 
 
 REV. ARTHUR CTLEARY'S ADDRESS 
 
 To the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the Parliament of 
 Great Britain : to which is added, an account of Sir Henry 
 Mildmaifs BUI relative to Nuns. 
 
 Ma: Lords, 
 
 When I have the honour to address the most august 
 Assembly on earth, and under the impression which injured 
 honour must feel from an unmerited and horrid accusation 
 that implies whatever can disgrace the human heart, and 
 changes a Christian clergyman into an infernal being, even 
 before he is stripped of the spoils of mortality, I cannot be 
 ignorant of the delicacy of my situation, lest conscious, but 
 defenceless rectitude should tempt me, even in the most agi- 
 tated frame of mind, to make use of any unguarded word, 
 which, though inadvertently, may give the slightest offence. 
 
 But in bringing the complaints of injured honour into the 
 sanctuary of honour itself, I claim your Lordship's indul- 
 gence if I presume to introduce myself under the designation 
 which points out my person and character, to such members 
 of your illustrious body as I have not the honour of being- 
 known to. 
 
 I am a Catholic clergyman, a native of Ireland, well known 
 in that kingdom for having inculcated loyalty to my Sove- 
 reign, and subordination to the iaws, in the most critical 
 limes, by my writings, my sermons, and example. For the 
 truth of this assertion I could refer to the speeches delivered 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 361 
 
 in the Irish House of Commons on a former occasion, and 
 to the kingdom at large. Nor was my loyalty the effect of 
 imperious necessity, or time-serving policy ; for in France, 
 where, in consequence of barbarous and Gothic laws, 1 was 
 forced in my early days to seek for a small portion of that 
 education which I had been refused in the land of my fathers, 
 where the youth of Europe had been instructed gratis, in the 
 time of Ireland's splendour. In France, where the Catholics 
 of Ireland had seminaries and convents, with full admission 
 to all the degrees and honours of her Universities, I resisted 
 every solicitation to enlist any of the subjects of these king- 
 doms in the French king's service, though I had then every 
 opportunity, being appointed to superintend prisons and 
 hospitals, during the wars of fifty-seven, &c. until about 
 the arrival of the then Duke of Bedford in Paris. It was 
 my interest to recommend myself to the favour of the 
 people in power, and consequently, more my interest to 
 become a courtier than a moralist, bail it Paul calls God 
 to witness when he asserts the truth, I can do the same 
 when I assert that conscience was the rule of my conduct; 
 and, whatever the uninformed may think of my creed, I 
 would not perjure myself for all the Crowns and Sceptres 
 on earth. 
 
 Thus far I thought it incumbent on me to say something 
 of myself, in order to shew that not a single feature in my 
 character corresponds with the picture, of the exhibition 
 whereof, I have such room to complain. I have taken the 
 oath of allegiance to his Majesty with the rest of the Catho- 
 lic clergy of Ireland ; as then we are amenable to Govern- 
 ment, and fulfil our part of the covenant, we think ourselves 
 entitled to the protection of the laws both as to our persons 
 and honour. Our persons have been hitherto secure from 
 insult; how long they may be so is uncertain, if the public 
 can believe that we answer the description given of us in a 
 short publication to which the editor has prefixed the name 
 of a very considerable person, who is presumed to know the 
 state of Ireland, or who ought to know it better. For if our 
 lineaments bear even the slightest resemblance to the portrait 
 he is said to have drawn, we ought to be swept from society as 
 serpents horrid to sight, and pests deadly to human nature. 
 
:>G2 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 And as to honour, if what this publication sets forth, be 
 true, we have by far less claim to it than the Cartouches, or 
 Bagshots : for, the publication, after enlarging upon the 
 civilization and other happy effects of the Union of Ireland 
 with Great Britain, reckons, amongst others, the following 
 remarkable one : • It will entice the Clergy to more con- 
 ' stant residence, by which means the pernicious influence 
 
 * of the vagrant Catholic Friest, who goes about selling ab- 
 
 * solution for felonies, and all sorts of crimes, even murder 
 
 * itself, would be lessened, and in a great measure done 
 4 away.' 
 
 Horrid and barbarous accusation ! which describes the 
 Catholic Priests of Ireland as the most detestable of the hu- 
 man race, venders of sacrilege, profanation, murder, and 
 felony ; and their flocks as so many licensed criminals and 
 patentees of guilt, in purchasing their absolutions for the 
 perpetration of the most horrid deeds. The vagrant Catho- 
 lic Priests selling absolutions for felonies, all sorts of crimes, 
 even murder. 
 
 I am as great a friend to the Union, and have reconciled, I 
 believe, as many to it, as the person to whom the publication 
 is attributed, i am a friend to it from, as I imagined, a well- 
 founded expectation, that it will close the tumultuary scenes 
 which have distracted my ill-fated country for ages ; and 
 make the natives, of every religious description, happy : a 
 people united, not in a league against Great Britain, but uni- 
 ted with her and amongst themselves in interest, prosperity, 
 and power ; by a free and equal participation of all benefits 
 and advantages arising in the state, and by the removal of 
 those jealousies which ever subsist between kingdoms or 
 states, standing in the same relation to each other as England 
 has stood hitherto with respect to Ireland-— the one subor- 
 dinate to the other, and governed by viceroys, and both but 
 half united. Divisions, jealousies, and their concomitant 
 evils, must be the natural consequence. Such was the 
 state of Norway, with regard to Denmark, until united. 
 Such was the state of Portugal with regard to Spain, and of 
 Flandera with regard to Austria, until separated. And 
 such would be the state of Ireland with regard to England, 
 until wedded together in the bands of a close and intimate 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 383 
 
 union ; or divorced from each other by a solemn irrevocable 
 deed of separation. For the calamities of Ireland are not 
 originally and radically owing to difference in religious opi- 
 nions. The kingdoms and states above mentioned professed 
 the same creed. There is nothing unsociable in the charac- 
 ter of Irishmen, any more than in the character of Germans; 
 amongst whom, in some places, Lutherans, Calvinists, and 
 Catholics, perform their respective worship, on Sundays, in 
 the same church. Amidst such a multiplicity of penal laws, 
 some of which persecuted the dead body to the grave, in 
 forbidding, under certain penalties, to bury any Catholic in 
 the ruins of an old abbey, though built ages before bv his 
 ancestors ; no Catholic could icarce have breathed outside 
 the bars of a jail, had it not been for the liberality of our 
 Protestant neighbours, who were too generous to enforce 
 them. All the liberal-minded Protestants in Ireland are 
 for the emancipation of the Catholics to this very day. And 
 such as are under any bias now, would soon give up their 
 prejudices, or rather, would never have indulged any, if the 
 law had made no distinction. 
 
 Long before the magic sound of Protestant and Papist, 
 like the Trojan trumpet, had given the signal to marshal 
 them, as hostile armies against each other, on account of 
 their creeds — an insiduous and destructive policy was at a 
 loss how to divide the natives of Ireland, after they had 
 sheathed the sword, and coalesced into one extensive and 
 friendly family. It had not then the plea of difference of 
 religion, for their religion was the same : nor the plea of 
 interest, for it is the interest of the inhabitants of the same 
 land to live in peace and harmony. At last it compassed, 
 by playing on the passions, what it could not have effected 
 by either religion or interest. 
 
 The Irish nobility and gentry of the Milesian race wore 
 long beards, in which they gloried; the Government of 
 that time got an act of parliament passed, called the Glib 
 Act, whereby every Irish nobleman, of English or Norman 
 extraction, was to forfeit the privileges of his orio-jnal coun- 
 try if he did not shave the upper lip. Thus the warlike fools 
 renewed the bloody contest, tor the splitting of a hair, with 
 as much fury as the two famous factions, in the rei<r n of 
 
364 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 Justinian, quarrelled on account of the colour of their 
 clothes ; or, as the sectaries of Ali and Omar fight, to this 
 very day, about the orthodox cut that should be given 1o a 
 Mahometan's beard. And 1 consider such of the Protes- 
 tant and Catholics of Ireland full as great fanatics and fools 
 as the former, if their creed be the cause of their quarrel; 
 not that I am such a latitudinarian as to believe all religions 
 alike. But true religion, instead of inspiring hatred and 
 rancour, commands us to love and pity those who are in 
 error. 
 
 The fleecy beard, and the glib or smooth lip, were both 
 forgotten a few years after the Reformation, in the appella- 
 tion of Protestant and Papist ; and thus the same sanguinary 
 system has been continued, with few interruptions, for too 
 long a time, to the destruction of a kingdom, which, from its 
 happy situation, the commodiousness of its harbours, the 
 temperature of its climate, the fertility of its soil, the manly 
 and generous dispositions of its inhabitants, would realize 
 whatever poets have feigned concerning Fortunate Islands, 
 and Hesperian Gardens. To do away the jealousy which 
 may hereafter operate to the same destructive effect, by 
 playing off the natives against each other, to their mutual 
 provocation and obstruction to the happiness and prosperity 
 of their common country, was the chief motive which influ- 
 enced my mind in recommending the Union, as the only 
 effectual preventive. 
 
 As to the happy effect of the Union, by making the resi- 
 dence of the clergy a check on the pernicious influence of 
 the vagrant Catholic priest, who sells his absolution for all 
 sorts of crimes ; it is as fancifully imagined, as it is delicately 
 expressed. The parson hereby assumes the office of an ex- 
 ciseman to seize the contraband absolutions of the priest, 
 who becomes a smuggler — a well conceived plan for increas- 
 ing the revenues of Ireland, and refining the manners of her 
 inhabitants! The Protestant and Catholic clergy of Ireland 
 have lived together, for years, in the habits of freedom and 
 friendship ; when, by the laws of the country, the latter were 
 doomed to transportation for performingtheir religious func- 
 tions, the clergy of the established church, never turned in- 
 formers, nor applied to Members of Parliament, for the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 365 
 
 purpose of swelling with new laws, the enormous penal 
 code, on account of literary disputes. Jt is not from each 
 other they have any thing to fear; but both have every thing 
 to dread from the disciples of the New Philosophy, which 
 has made a rapid progress amongst their respective flocks ; 
 at the root of this system, and not against any branch of the 
 Christian religion, which professes obedience to the laws, 
 the axe of power should be laid : and nothing cherishes 
 the growth of infidelity more than publications which tend 
 to expose the pastors to the derision and contempt of those 
 who were accustomed, and whose duty it was, to respect 
 them. 
 
 It is needless to have recourse to France, where the 
 pmests 1 cassock began to be considered by the higher or- 
 ders as an antiquated dress; and the lower classes, who 
 afterwards burnt the castle, and shed the blood of these 
 nobles, learned disrespect for their teachers from their 
 example. Ireland has of late afforded but too melancholy an 
 instance of the truth of this remark. The habit of respect 
 and submission to their clergy, was in such a manner an 
 earnest pledge of the obedience of the common people to 
 the state, that amidst so many wars and rebellions, since the 
 Revolution, until the destruction of monarchy in France, 
 Ireland was not one single hour tainted with the spirit of 
 rebellion. Lord Chesterfield, on his return from his Vice- 
 royship, informed George II. that he had met in Ireland but 
 two dangerous Papists of whom his Majesty should be 
 aware — two ladies of the names of Devereux, who had 
 danced at the Castle on the King's birth night. All the 
 Viceroys of Ireland, from Lord Chesterfield to Earl Cam- 
 den, could have made much a similar answer, if interrogated 
 concerning what is called the danger of Popery. 
 
 If a number of the common people, in some countries, 
 were seduced from the peaceable line of conduct, which 
 they had hitherto pursued, the chief cause will, as it ought 
 to be ascribed to their disobedience to their pastors ; in 
 consequence of the industrious propagation of Tom Paine's 
 pernicious principles, and the artifices of people of power 
 and consequence, of a religion, if any they had, different from 
 the Catholic persuasion. Other collateral causes can be 
 
366 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 assigned which it is the province of the impartial historian 
 to detail, when he lays open the hidden springs of public 
 transactions. But means were used to weaken the confi- 
 dence of the people in their pastors, by representing them 
 as so many impostors, leagued with Government for their 
 oppression.* 
 
 In the American war, when the combined fleets of 
 France and Spain were riding triumphant in the British 
 Channel, almost all the English forces engaged beyond 
 the Atlantic, and Ireland destitute of any regular defence, 
 except a few dismounted dragoons, the loyal and peace- 
 able conduct of the common people, attentive to the in- 
 structions of their pastors, could be equalled only by the 
 union and exertions of the higher orders for the protection 
 of the kingdom. 
 
 Many instances could 1 adduce, in which the peaceful 
 voice of the priest was more effectual to quell riots and dis- 
 turbances, than the thunder of the cannon could have been. 
 In proportion as this influence is weakened in a kingdom 
 situated as Ireland is, the spirit of insubordination and infi- 
 delity will strengthen. Remove the restraints of religion, 
 from men of strong passions, irritable dispositions, and des- 
 perate courage — let the influence of their priests be de- 
 stroyed, they will become infidels. The kingdom will be then 
 chiefly divided between the infidels of the South, who will 
 have no religion, and the Dissenters of the North, whose 
 religion breathes freedom and independence on hierarchial 
 Government. 
 
 The maxim laid down by Doctor Law, a Protestant Bi- 
 shop, equally eminent for learning and liberality, is by far 
 more consistent with Christianity and sound policy. ' By far 
 * the greatest part of my diocesans,' said this illustrious pre- 
 late, ' are of the Roman Catholic persuasion. I cannot make 
 
 * This is so true, that the United Irishmen universally execrate the Catholic Clergy, 
 ns concurring- both to disunite and prevent any accession of strength, by their sermons 
 and pastoral instructions: and impute partly the frustration of their plans, to these 
 very priests, so cruelly libelled by others, from whom more candour and justice might 
 be expected. The clergy of both religions must stand or fall together. In all ap- 
 pearance, had the rebellion succeeded, there would be none but Cousitulional Priests 
 and Ministers, as immoral as their Republican flocks. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 867 
 
 c good Protestants of them, I wish to make good Catholics 
 
 * of them; and with this intention 1 put into their hands the 
 
 * Works of Doctor Gother, an eminent Catholic divine.' 
 
 If Doctor Law's maxim be followed — if, instead of having 
 the people eternally harassed on the score of religion, every 
 one rests in peace under his own vine and tig-tree, a Catho- 
 lic priest, respected by his flock, will be a safer guard to a 
 Protestant clergyman, than a regiment of the best disciplined 
 soldiers. 
 
 4 Let us uncatholicise France,' said Mirabeau, ' otherwise 
 4 we can never establish a Republican Government.' It is 
 then much safer for the state to continue the Catholic cate- 
 chism in the hands of the common people, who are accus- 
 tomed to it, than to expose them to the danger of having 
 Tom Paine's Age of Reason substituted in its room. And 
 his Majesty will bo more secure on his throne, when a Ca- 
 tholic clergyman recommends him and the Royal Family to 
 God, from the altar, than when a fifth monarchy man, after 
 reading in his Bible, thou shall bind their kings in chains, and 
 their nobles in fetters of iron, acknowledges no king but King 
 Jesus ; or, when Regicides inscribe on the muzzles of their 
 guns, Lord, thou wilt open my lips, and my mouth shall sing 
 forth thy praise. The History of England affords but too 
 many melancholy proofs of it. 
 
 As to the blessing's of civilization which are to be extended 
 to Ireland by the Union, any insinuation, that the Irish stand 
 in need of it more than their neighbours, must hurt their 
 oride. 
 
 I suppose he means the lower orders of the people of Ire- 
 land. All philosophical and unprejudiced travellers, who 
 have observed with attention their customs and manners, 
 acknowledge that they surpass the lower orders of any 
 other country, in generosity, wit, vivacity, manliness and ac- 
 tivity. It is not at St. Giles, or Wapping, where their man- 
 ners and morals are vitiated by the contagion of example, 
 that the character of the lower orders of the Irish is to be 
 known. It is in the inland and mountainous parts of Ire- 
 land, where bare-footed boys study the classics ; and where 
 the civility of the common people to strangers, and to each 
 other, distinguishes them as much from Dutch boors, and 
 
 3b 
 
ob\i MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS, 
 
 th 6 rustics of other countries, as education distinguishes a 
 
 well-bred man from a clown. It is not civilization, but bread 
 
 and employment they stand in need of: and if it be true, 
 
 that language and music were the first civilizers that soften- 
 er o . . 
 
 ed the savage manners of unpolished man ; it seems, from 
 the inharmonious stile of the author of a publication, which 
 identifies, by a grammatical apposition, a Catholic priest and 
 a vagrant — that he has not such a stock of civilization to 
 
 o .... ... 
 
 spare, as to be enabled to divide it with others without im- 
 poverishing himself, Though his rank in life entitles him 
 to range in those circles, one of whose first rules is that oi 
 good breeding, if the name which the editor has prefixed to 
 the publication be not fictitious. 
 
 The Catholic clergy of Ireland, my Lords, are not va- 
 grants : they claim their descent from the most ancient and 
 noble families in that kingdom ; and, though pride of birth 
 attaches no consequence either to their persons or profession, 
 in the eyes of the patrons of liberty and equality, yet it must 
 have weight with your Lordships. For in Monarchies, 
 where, according to Montesquieu, there must be gradation s 
 of ranks, and nobles, like your Lordships, whose titles and 
 privileges are descendable to their posterity, a certain re- 
 gard must be paid to lineage and pedigree ; and if the day 
 should ever happen (which heaven avert) when the gentle- 
 man should be confounded with the clown, and the priest 
 with the vagrant, away with the coronet and the armorial 
 bearings. My name is Equality, said the late Duke of Or- 
 leans : the unhappy man prophesied ! His head fell, with 
 equal honour, from the edge of the guillotine into the same 
 basket with the head of the sans-culotte. If then the au- 
 thor of the worse than illiberal publication, alluded to in 
 this address, be that man of consequence, whose name the 
 editor has prefixed to it, he forgets himself, and the regard 
 due to dignity of rank, and the rules of common decency, 
 when he treats gentlemen of family, and of a liberal educa- 
 tion, such as the Catholic clergy of Ireland, with millions of 
 times less ceremony than it would be in his power to treat 
 a pilfering crew of strolling gipsies. The vagrant Catholic 
 priest selling his absolutions for all sorts of crimes, felonies f 
 
 &,'C. ${C. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 369 
 
 The ancestors, my Lords, of the Catholic clergy of Ire- 
 land, had the religion which the Christian worid professed, 
 and the estates and castles of their fathers, ages before Tu- 
 dors or Stuarts had ascended the British throne. From the 
 contemporary historians of their own and of other nations, 
 and ancient monuments, daily rescued from ruins and wa- 
 tery wastes, their character must be drawn : not from 
 Hume, and similar historians, as unfaithful in their narratives 
 with regard to Ireland, as tbey are infidels with regard to 
 Revelation. 
 
 Amidst the various changes that happened in Europe, 
 the descendants of those Catholics preserved their religion, 
 which persecution contributed to rivet deeper into their 
 minds; as, the more the wind attempted to strip the tra- 
 veller of his cloak, the closer he held it. But their estates 
 and castles they lost, rather than renounce their duty to 
 God, and their allegiance to their kings; one of whom had 
 the base ingratitude to confirm to Cromwell's soldiers, 
 tinged with his royal father's blood, the lands of the nobility 
 and gentry who had fought his father's battles and his 
 own.* 
 
 In addition to our losses under the usurpation of Crom- 
 well, and subsequent ones at the Revolution, our most 
 invaluable privileges were swept away at a political game 
 of hazard, played by Whigs and Tories, under the last of 
 the Stuarts, without the slightest provocation on our part 
 For the laws framed in Queen Anne's reign against the Ca- 
 tholics of Ireland, are of so horrid a complexion, that it was 
 never the intention of those who devised them to have them 
 enacted: their very cruelty was the only motive for invent- 
 ing; them. 
 
 Queen Anne, whose father had been a mendicant, sup- 
 ported by the generosity of a foreign king, was suspected of 
 wishing that her brother, a Catholic prince, should succeed 
 her. The party, to whom her Ministers were obnoxious, 
 intended to draw on them the odium of purposing to place 
 the Pretender on the throne. With this view, they framed 
 a code of laws, authorising the neighbour to plunder the 
 neighbour, the brother to supplant the brother, and the pro- 
 
 * The wills and deeds of uumbers of these forfeitures are deposited io the British 
 Museum. 
 
370 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 fiigafc son to strip the father of his estate and to make him 
 tenant for life, only by taking an oath of abjuration ; with a 
 variety of other penal clauses equally cruel and unjust. The 
 very severity of laws, clashing with those of God and na- 
 ture, gave them every room to believe that they would be 
 opposed by the court party, from principles of humanity 
 and justice. And thus they flattered themselves with the 
 success of an expedient, calculated to expose their opponents 
 to the hatred entertained at the time against those who 
 were deemed the friends of the Pope and the Pretender. 
 
 The shrewd courtiers, aware of the design of their anta- 
 gonists, and, either willing to sacrifice justice and humanity 
 to their personal interest, or flattering themselves that the 
 laws would be but of short duration, in the event of the suc- 
 cess of their plan, unexpectedly gave into the measure, to 
 remove the suspicion of their design. It was too late for 
 the other party to recede ; and thus, in the time of profound 
 peace, in violation of a solemn compact, sanctioned by the 
 Jaws of nations, the Catholics of Ireland, like balls in a ten- 
 nis-court, struck with the rackets of both parties, were 
 thrown over the walls of the constitution of their country, 
 against the original intention of the state gamesters. 
 
 If rulers and statesmen, long since resolved into their 
 original dust, have handed down to us restraints and dis- 
 qualifications as a legal inheritance, it is their fault and our 
 misfortune, but not a reason which authorises those to 
 whom the destinies have been more propitious, to aggravate 
 our calamities, by loading us with gross slander, and worse 
 than degrading epithets, venders of murders, and purchasers 
 of felonies ! Neither is this an age for the triumph of over- 
 bearing contempt towards the descendants of the victims of 
 the revolutions of former times, when Europe is threatened 
 with a more extraordinary revolution than that which has 
 reduced the Catholics of Ireland to their present situation. 
 
 Solomon said, in his time, nothing new under the Sun. About 
 a century and a half ago, England's King was brought to 
 the scaffold ; her princes and nobles, and other loyalists, 
 emigrants in France and other countries, where they were 
 hospitably received, as the emigrants of those countries are 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 371 
 
 now in their turn generously received in England, and in deri- 
 sion of the peerage, draymen were placed by an usurper, 
 in that very house where your Lordships shine with such 
 lustre. 
 
 Little it was expected, about a century ago, when a prince 
 of the House of Orange was seated on the British Throne, 
 after having placed a guard over James the Second, his father- 
 in-law, in the palace of Hampton Court, that his successor 
 in the Stadtholdership of Holland, dethroned by his rebel- 
 lious subjects, would be under the necessity of taking up 
 his residence in the very same palace where a King of Eng- 
 land hold been a kind of prisoner before : an awful instance 
 of the vicissitudes of human affairs ; which should inspire 
 princes themselves with humanity and compassion for the 
 oppressed — when they not only know that they are doomed 
 to die as other mortals, but moreover exposed, from the 
 inconstancy of fortune, to survive their power. Go, said Ma- 
 rius, once the master of Rome, and conqueror of the Cim- 
 bri, go and tell the Governor of Africa, that you have seen 
 Marius perishing with hunger on the ruins of Carthage, 
 alluding to the instability of human grandeur, in the down- 
 fal of such a powerful state, and the change of his own 
 fortune. 
 
 When we see kingdoms and empires fall, as it were, upon 
 one another — when we see kings and queens, a few years 
 back the idols of their subjects, eclipsing in splendour the 
 pomp and magnificence of Oriental grandeur — when we see 
 them bleeding on scaffolds, and their bodies deprived of those 
 funeral rites which decency owes to humanity, we are con- 
 vinced that uneertainty, inconstancy, and agitation, are the 
 proper portions of all sublunary affairs ; and the greatest 
 abuse of power is to triumph and insult over oppressed inno- 
 cence. 
 
 The Catholic clergy of Ireland should not then be singled 
 out as objects of defamation and invective, for having fallen 
 victims to those reverses of fortune to which crowned heads, 
 princes and nobles are exposed. In their poverty they have 
 birth and honour, which neither revolutions nor penal laws 
 can affect : no immoral man is ever allowed to officiate at 
 their altars : when their prelates, who are ever watchful over 
 
372 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 the inferior clergy, discover any who depart from the line of 
 duty required by the sanction of their profession, they sus- 
 pend or excommunicate them, and thus cut them oft' from 
 the communion of the Catholic church. 
 
 The same laws that encouraged the son to disobey and strip 
 the Catholic father of his property, encouraged the refrac- 
 tory clergyman to set the injunctions and admonitions of his 
 bishops at defiance, by taking the oath of abjuration : for, as 
 an encouragement to outward conformity, the laws of Ire- 
 land allow forty pounds a year to every priest who reads his 
 recantation, whether he be a moral man or not. 
 
 In a word, nothing whatever is required to become an 
 elect of the state, but the outward utterance of the oath of 
 abjuration, whether it is believed by the person who takes it, 
 or whether it belies his heart. All the punishments and 
 legal disqualifications are reserved for the retainers of con- 
 scious integrity, who sacrifice all worldly interests rather 
 than swear against the dictates of their conscience, and thus 
 do not choose to perjure themselves, and impose on their 
 neighbours. In the very supposition that they err, (which is 
 the supposition of others, not theirs,) they err in their ho- 
 nesty ; for no road can be right to the man who walks in it 
 against conviction. And this circumstance alone is more 
 than an ample refutation of the impious and hell-invented 
 charge of a Catholic priest selling absolutions for all sorts of 
 crimes, felonies, and murders : for if there were priests who 
 had such commodities for sale, and Catholics to purchase them, 
 long before now the Catholic noblemen would have been 
 seated in the House of Peers with your Lordships in legisla- 
 ting for the lands. Every obstacle would be soon removed ; 
 one single oath would be the ptnacea which would cure all 
 disorders: we see ourselves excluded from all the dignities 
 and places of emolument in the state. In consequence of this 
 exclusion we see ourselves abused by the very dregs and lees 
 of the peasantry of our country ; such as Doctor Duigninane, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 373 
 
 Hie son of a peasant who had read his recantation to be 
 schoolmaster to poor children in a charity school, now 
 ranking with the senators in the land, and realizing in our 
 days what Solomon complained of as one of the evils inci- 
 dent to human nature — Another evil I have seen under the 
 sun, I have seen servants or beggars on houses, and princes 
 walking on the earth, or on foot, Ecclcsiast.es 10. Not that 
 I won id reproach any man with the meanness of his birth, 
 when I would see Apollo crown modest merit. But when a 
 vulgar man, under the shield of penal laws, is continually 
 insulting, in the grossest manner, the majority of an entire 
 kingdom, as if they were a group of African slaves on a 
 West India plantation, under the lash of a brutal driver — 
 when, on the other hand, we are told in the most public 
 manner, that we have dispensations and absolutions for the 
 commission of all sorts of crimes, I feel such a conflict within 
 myself, that I am obliged to summon up all my religion, 
 lest I should yield to the temptation of hating a man I am 
 bound to forgive. I am at a loss which to admire most of 
 the two, either the power of conscience over the heart 
 of man, or the unaccountable stupidity, the perverse and 
 wilful blindness of any person who claims the slightest pre- 
 tention to reason or good sense, and yet seriously thinks 
 that unprincipled men, licenced by their religious princi- 
 ples, and authorized by their clergy to commit all sorts of 
 crimes, could hesitate one instant to have recourse to so 
 slight a remedy as an oath to remove every grievance, and 
 silence every obloquy. 
 
 The feelings of honour, the pride of rank, the allurements 
 of fortune and dignities, every impulse of the human heart, 
 and all the motives that influence man as a member of 
 society, call aloud on us to remove the disgraceful restraints 
 that expose us to such humiliations and obloquy. And 
 yet, with the remedy in our hands, the churches open, 
 and this pretended stock of absolutions, which, according to 
 the report of slander, would sanctify all sorts of crimes, we 
 keep at a distance from the temple of fame, power, and 
 splendour. 
 
 When the Pagans accused the primitive Christians of 
 
374 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 eating children at their religious assemblies, and rising after 
 supper to conclude all in the confusion of incest, Tertullien 
 addressed his apology to the Roman senate, and calls upon 
 them to prove the truth of the fact. He appeals afterwards 
 to the feelings of humanity, common to Pagans and Chris- 
 tians, whether such crimes could be the religion of any so- 
 ciety of mortals. O, said he, wliat immortal glory would a 
 pro-consul gain, could he pull out a Christian by the ears, 
 that had eat up an hundred children. But we despair of any 
 such glorious discovery. 
 
 I call aloud upon the Viceroys of Ireland, their Secretaries, 
 and the Judges of the land, to name or to recollect one single 
 instance in which a crime, murder or felony has been com- 
 mitted, in consequence of a priestly absolution. Where was 
 the gallows erected, on the branches of which the absolved 
 murderer and die absolving priest were suspended together — 
 the one the perpetrator, the other the instigator of the crime ? 
 Or where is that nation on earth, even in times of Paganism, 
 where the religion of the people authorized the commission 
 W all sorts of crimes ? 
 
 The Romans, who worshipped an adulterous Jupiter, yet 
 punished adultery by the Julian law. The Senator who had 
 offered incense to Bacchus, could not abide his wife when he 
 discovered that her breath was too fragrant with the flavour 
 of wine. The impure Venus was a goddess worshipped by 
 the matrons of ancient Rome, yet Lucretia was chaste. The 
 civil magistrate punished on earth the crimes that were wor- 
 shipped in heaven. There exists then in the heart of man a 
 law which points out to him, according to the Apostle, his 
 moral duty — an innate principle of justice and goodness, by 
 which, even in spite of the false maxims of his worship, the 
 unregenerate Pagan condemned the immoral actions of him- 
 self and others. 
 
 The Catholics of Ireland, natives of a nation of heroes 
 and an island of saints, are they to form the most singular 
 of all exceptions to the maxims of nature, by not only 
 sanctifying crimes, but by also making them a saleable 
 commodity ? 
 
 We who spend our time in enforcing the maxims of the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACES. 375 
 
 Gospel, one of whose principal laws is a law of eternal love : 
 who teach our flocks to relieve the distressed, without dis- 
 tinction of sects or countries, to return good for evil — to dis- 
 cover a brother in the face of an enemy — to embrace afflic- 
 tion—to smile under calamity — to pluck out the eye that 
 gives offence— to cut off the hand that scandalizes — to re- 
 nounce all the honours, riches, and pleasures of the world, 
 when they cannot be attained but at the risk of the soul, and 
 to consider death in grace as a passage to a glorious and 
 blissful eternity. 
 
 Are we such monsters as to be slaves to tenets so abhor- 
 rent to human nature ? 
 
 I imagined, my Lords, that the solemn oaths and decla- 
 rations of the Catholics of those kingdoms, and their renun- 
 ciation of these privileges and rights, to which they would be 
 otherwise entitled, rather than swear against their consciences, 
 had sufficiently refuted accusations, at which nature recoils 
 and shrinks with horror : but to our astonishment and sur- 
 prise, our creed is not learned from ourselves. More credit 
 is given to a fanatical geographer called Guthrie, than to our 
 oaths, or the writings of our doctors. In this theological 
 sum, our divinity is chiefly studied, and Guthrie informs 
 his readers, that he has extracted from a book called : 
 Rome, -the Great Custom- House of sin, translated into Eng- 
 lish 150 years ago, the fees of the Pope's Chancery for abso- 
 lutions. He might have said, instead of translated into 
 English, composed in English originally. I never read such 
 a book in the canon law, nor such fees amongst the rules of 
 the Pope's Chancery ; however, he classes the fees in the 
 following order.* 
 
 For him who stole consecrated things in a holy place, ten 
 shillings and six -pence. 
 
 For him who lays with a woman in a church, nine shillings. 
 For him that killeth father, mother, wife or sister, ten 
 shillings. 
 
 For him that layeth with his mother, sister, or grand- 
 mother, seven shillings and six-pence. 
 
 * Guthrie's Geographical Grammar, sixteenth edition, corrected and cib.igei. 
 London, printed 1796. 
 
 3c 
 
376 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 This is the cheapest bargain a pious customer could ex- 
 pect, and I think there is good profit in dealing with the 
 Pope, as a great number of other sins are not taxed at all, 
 such as sleeping with a neighbour's wile, stealing a fat ox, 
 &c. These are only as a few grains thrown into the scale, 
 when a person buys some pounds of sugar in a grocer's shop. 
 They are but peccadillos or trifles. It appears, however, 
 that the Pope's are but bad financiers in not increasing the 
 custom-house duties in the space of about 150 years, whereas 
 every article costs now treble what it cost then ; but espe- 
 cially, as things rise in value, according to the rarity, the 
 Pope's custom rates were ill regulated in not charging six- 
 pence or a shilling more for the grandmother than for the 
 sister or grand-daughter, as most certainly an old Hebe, the 
 grandmother of the graces, is a greater rarity than a young 
 woman or grand-daughter. In vain should we attempt to 
 disclaim this ludricous and impious creed. The public are 
 so iccustomed to slander and misrepresentation, that few 
 will believe us. 
 
 The rules of the Roman Chancery, Regulce Cancellaricc, 
 regard benefices, the temporalities of vacant bishoprics, and 
 other ecclesiastical matters, partly spiritual, partly temporal, 
 according to concordatums or stipulations between the 
 Apostolical See, and Catholic Princes. The incests and 
 sacrileges above mentioned, instead of being compounded 
 for money, would be punished with death on the rack or 
 wheel, after making the amende honorable, with a lighted 
 taper held by the criminal, on his knees before the door of 
 the church where the sacrilege had been committed. Sixtus 
 Quintus condemned to the gallies, for the space of five years, 
 a nobleman for raising the veil of a lady whom he met in the 
 street, and giving her a kiss. And in vain did a polygamist 
 plead that he was unfortunate in each of his wives, and for that 
 reason changed them in expectation of finding one that would 
 please him. 
 
 As it is so hard to please you in this world, replied the 
 stern Pontiff", there are more women in the other world, you 
 must go there to find one to your liking — ordered him to be 
 tried and executed. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 37/ 
 
 Thus, if Rome be the great custom-house of sins, a Lon- 
 don printer's office is the great custom-house of false creeds 
 and fictitious absolutions, for real absolutions can never be 
 granted but upon sincere repentance, which requires three 
 indispensable conditions : a sincere sorrow for past sins, a 
 firm resolution to guard against future lapses, and every 
 atonement in our power to the injured Deity and the in- 
 jured neighbour. Without these conditions absolutions are 
 no more than the mutterings of sorcerers, or words of incan- 
 tion pronounced over a dead body, without ever impart- 
 ing to it the genial heat of animation and vitality. The 
 ministers of religion can do no more than God has an- 
 nexed to their commissions; and the Scriptures declare, 
 that God will never forgive the sinner without sorrow 
 and repentance, which implies a purpose of amendment for 
 life. 
 
 Sacramental confession then, and priestly absolution, in- 
 stead of being an encouragement to sin, are in the Catholic 
 religion the greatest restraints on the passions, The worst 
 and most immoral Catholics are those who neglect them, 
 because they prefer their passions to their duty. And if it 
 be asked, why have recourse to those religious rites, whereas 
 people may sin afterwards ? 
 
 The reason is : because man in this life is not impeach- 
 able, on account of the changeableness and inconstancy of 
 his will. All he can do is to form the strongest resolutions, 
 to lay hold on the means, which in his belief, God has ap- 
 pointed for his sanctification, and to recommend himself to 
 infinite mercy. Hence the caution given by the Apostle, 
 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed 
 lest he fall. 
 
 God has promised to receive the sinner whenever he 
 would return, without limiting the number of times. Yet 
 to sin in expectation of forgiveness, would be the most un- 
 justifiable presumption. Mercy is not to be abused, nor is 
 Divine Justice to be provoked by new prevarications and 
 new crimes. For there are times when the measure is filled 
 up, and fatal limits, beyond which paternal goodness does 
 not extend. 
 
373 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 Were priestly abolution, which is founded on the power 
 granted by Christ to remit sins to the penitent sinner, a 
 license for guilt, it would be unjust to charge it on the Ca- 
 tholics alone — Lutherans, Greeks!, Armenians, ah branches 
 of the Christian religion, except Calvinists, and the modern 
 sectaries sprung from that stock, acknowledge this power. 
 The Church of England, in her liturgy, recommends, ac- 
 knowledges it, and lays down the form of absolution in the 
 very same words used by the Roman Catholic Church. The 
 Jaws of the state sanction the inviolable secresy which is ob- 
 served, when the sinner, loaded with guilt, lays open his 
 hidden sores to his spiritual physician ; whereas the laws do 
 not allow that what is toid in confession should be adduced 
 in evidence on a trial ; and by a statute passed in the reign 
 of James I. the minister is degraded for ever, if he reveals 
 the confession of his penitent. But the ill-fated Catholic is 
 the expiatory victim on whose head all the iniquities of the 
 nation are laid ; and what is harmless in others, is criminal 
 in him.* 
 
 It is painful in me, my Lords, thus to intrude on your 
 time. It is the more painful, as after so many proofs of the 
 loyalty, the piety, the zeal, and exertions of the Catholic 
 prelates and pastors of Ireland, in the critical circumstances, 
 when there was no room for dissimulation, or a trimming, 
 fluctuating conduct, threats should be held out for the abo- 
 lition of their priesthood, as the nursery of crimes, felonies, 
 and murders. 
 
 In addition to these threats, by a man of consequence, on 
 the eve of a union which they imagined was to close the 
 penal code with the sevenfold seal of eternal silence ; and at 
 the very threshold of the Temple of Concord, they and their 
 flocks are justly alarmed to see the pages of the mysterious 
 
 * I do not write in this address hs a controvertisr, or polemical divine; I only ex- 
 pound the Catholic belief, so often and so grossly misrepresented, and whose ministers 
 are exposed to obloquy on account of pretended absolution. 
 
 The primitive fathers, in addressing their apologies to a pagan -senate, explained 
 their belief, to vindicate it from misrepresentation. I have every confidence that a Chris* 
 nan senate will not be less indulgent to a Christian Clergyman. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 379 
 
 book, in which, like that mentioned by the Prophet, are 
 written so many lamentations and woes, unfolded by a mem- 
 ber of the British House of Commons, for the purpose of 
 knowing whether there be any more penal clauses wanting, 
 in order to make up the deficiency, by enacting a new law 
 which hereafter may afflict their children and relatives. I 
 mean, my Lords, Sir Henry Mildmay's bill, relative to what 
 is called Monastic Institutions. 
 
 From a coincidence of circumstances it seems to appear, 
 that the idea has been suggested to that gentleman, in con- 
 sequence of a very uninteresting dispute betweeu two very 
 learned, and in all other respects very amiable ecclesiastics, 
 Doctor Sturges, a prebendary of Winchester, and Doctor 
 Milner, a Catholic historian, and member of the Society of 
 Antiquarians, about Bishop Hoadley's writings. 
 
 Mr. Milner has published a very learned and curious 
 history of Winchester, under the successive dynasties of 
 British, Saxon, and English kings, from the earliest records 
 of time, down to our days. As an antiquarian, he describes 
 the monuments of worthies buried in the Cathedral ; as a 
 historian, he draws their characters. It is too voluminous 
 to read by any but a few rich, who can purchase it. It is 
 out of the reach of the generality of the English nation, who 
 would be more pleased with Fielding's Torn Jones, or Jo- 
 nathan Wild : though it for ever ranks Mr. Milner in the 
 first class of the literar v characters of the age, and should 
 rather procure, him the thanks of the inhabitants of Win- 
 chester, for having rescued the history of their city from the 
 mist and rubbish of antiquity, and given such elegant en- 
 gravings of their monuments, than the animadversions of 
 some of its ecclesiastical dignitaries. 
 
 Unfortunately for some English ladies, who, in their early 
 days, had made vows of celibacy in France and Flanders, 
 and had taken refuge in their native land, from the poniards 
 guillotines of French assassins, the antiquarian, after describ- 
 ing the monuments of several illustrious men in succession, 
 came to that of Bishop Hoadley. This prelate, to the ex- 
 ception of his moral character, which was spotless, might 
 have been called the Perigord or Gregoire of his time, with 
 
330 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 regard to his theological principles in ecclesiastical matters, 
 submitting religion to the civil magistrates. &c. A repre- 
 sentation was drawn up against him, and his writings, by 
 the lower House of Convocation in 1717, as tending: to sub- 
 vert all government and discipline in the church of Christ, 
 and to reduce it to a state of anarchy, and confusion : and 
 as making void those powers with which he himself was 
 vested, and which he was bound to exercise in conferring: 
 order?, inflicting censures, &c. 
 
 The ministry of the day, with whom Bishop Hoadley was 
 a favourite, dissolved the Convocation, prevented the re- 
 presentation from being carried to the Bishops in the higher 
 house, and thus dispersed the clouds that were thickening 
 over Bishop Hoadley's head. 
 
 In describing his menumeati as an antiquarian, it was na- 
 tural for Mr. Milner to draw the prelate's character as a 
 historian ; and to represent him in attitude analogous to his 
 principles, with the Bible in one hand, and Magna Charta 
 in the other; the mitre and the cap of liberty in contact; 
 the crozier and the pike set in saltire, or crossing each other. 
 Mr. Milner complaining that one of the pillars of the ca- 
 thedral of Winchester, was cut too great a depth to make 
 place for Bishop Hoadley's monument, adds, thus Bishop 
 Hoadley, both living and dead, undermined the church of 
 which he had been a prelate.* 
 
 Doctor Sturges, as he himself acknowledges, had been 
 under particular obligations to Bishop Hoadley, and in all 
 appearance had imbibed, if not all, at least the best of his 
 opinions. Gratitude and friendship, two of the human vir- 
 tues the most congenial to our feelings as men, but often hur- 
 rying us into excesses which we cannot canonize as Chris- 
 tians, warmed Dr. Sturges' breast in such a manner, that 
 he imparted a congenial heat to the embers of the dead, and 
 reproduced on the stage a character, who, notwithstanding 
 the change of scenes, will ever and invariably play the same 
 part, which to confuse and perplex, to have friends and 
 foes, and to leave the following problem to solve : Whether 
 
 * Milaer's Survey of Winchester. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACT*. 381 
 
 he was really and in his heart, a professor of the thirty-nine 
 articles, one of which determines with the Catholic church, 
 the institution of Bishops, jure divino f Or whether he was 
 one of those accommodating sages, who, like the philosopher 
 of old, laid down as a rule, that a wise man should have two 
 religions, one for himself, and another for the country and 
 time in which he lives ? The solution of this problem, I 
 leave to Doctor Sturges and Mr. Milner. 
 
 It is a problem, the solution whereof concerns no more the 
 present generation than the religion of Grotius, on which the 
 famous Bossuet has written a dissertation. 
 
 Few persons read Hoadley, whose style is so incoherent 
 and unentertaining, that Pope, in allusion to the length of his 
 periods, said Hoadley walks a mile. To it can be applied 
 the remark of a Roman Kmperor on the style of Seneca : 
 * arena sine calse, sand without cement.' Doctor Sturges, 
 however, took offence at the character Mr. Milner had drawn 
 of his favourite bishop, and instead of confining himself in 
 point to the dispute, adopted the most effectual method of 
 rallying round his standard a host of confederates, by 
 making a general cause of it and publishing a work under the 
 title of Reflections on Popery ; a theme so often enlarged on 
 pro and con by the most eminent men the world has ever 
 produced, that it is impossible to say any thing new on the 
 subject. 
 
 Mr. Milner, as an historian, depicted the eminent men of 
 religious orders, who had reflected lustre on the church of 
 Winchester, in the same colours that any impartial Protestant 
 historian would have done, as several of them have. He 
 does the same justice to such of the Protestant Bishops of 
 Winchester, as deserved to have their birth, education, 
 learning, and virtues celebrated. 
 
 Doctor Sturges, inattentive to the labours and learning of 
 the members of religious orders, who have preserved the 
 literary monuments of ancient times from the ravages of 
 Goths and Vandals — followed the sun in its course in con- 
 verting barbarous nations— carried the light of the Gospel 
 into those distant climes unknown to the conquerors of the 
 ancient and new world — brought Europe acquainted with the 
 natural productions, the laws, the manners, customs, religions, 
 
382 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 and geography of the remotest regions, and enriched the re* 
 public of letters with the treasures of literature both ancient 
 and modern. He overlooks the benefits they have conferred 
 on the world, in their fasts and celibacy, which he attacks 
 with as much vehemence and zeal as Salvian attacks the vices 
 and disorders of his time, 
 
 The prayers, mortification, penance of monastic institu- 
 tions, all must yield with Doctor Sturges to the irresistible 
 impulse of nature. The impulse of nature — the source of 
 all our disorders and miseries, which all legislators on earth 
 made it their constant study to restrain by Jaws and punish- 
 ments. What made an adulterer of David ? The impulse 
 of nature. An incestuous of Amnon ? The impulse of na- 
 ture. A rebel of Absolem ? The impulse of nature.- ■ 
 
 A murderer of Cain? The impulse of nature. What 
 
 gives employment to the canonists and civilians of Doctors 
 Commons, in arguing the cases of divorce ? The impulse 
 
 of nature. What peoples London with so many votaries 
 
 of the Cyprian Goddess ? The impulse of nature. What 
 
 is it that brought the impure spirit into the body of that man, 
 concerning whom our Saviour said, there is a kind of devil 
 which cannot be cast out, but by prayer and fasting ? The 
 impulse of nature. His zeal against celibacy, and mortifica- 
 tion, hurries him into such extremes that he blames Mr. 
 Milner for being so lavish in his encomiums on the Pro- 
 testant Bishops of Winchester, the most distinguished for 
 their virtues, though Mr. Milner quotes their monumental 
 inscriptions, recorded by Protestant authors, such as Bishop 
 Andrews, who lived in a state of celibacy. Ccelcbs hinc, 
 migravit ad aurlolam celestem, and Bishop Morley, amongst 
 whose many virtues is reckoned the austerity of his life, 
 eating but once in twenty-four hours, and rising every 
 morning in the coldest weather and without a fire, at five 
 o'clock. 
 
 He is never more eloquent, than when he declaims against 
 fast and celibacy. In support of his arguments against celi- 
 bacy, he quotes Lucretius, an Epicurinn poet and philosopher, 
 who invokes Venus, the Goddess of lust ; and Walter de 
 Mapes, an unchaste boa vivant, who wrote doggerel verses 
 in latin in the twelfth century. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 383 
 
 Mcum est pioposituui in taberna mori. 
 Viuum sit appositum morientus ori.* 
 
 They are certainly the best authorities he could quote 
 against virginal chastity, and the mortification of the senses. 
 For he could not quote Saint Paul or the fathers against 
 either one or the other. If Saint Jerome were living, he 
 would write an epistle to Doctor Sturges with the same 
 warmth, with which he wrote to Vigilanlius. 
 
 The Doctor has reserved Bishop Hoadley's apology for an 
 appendix, in which he makes use of words, which, from Mr. 
 Milner or me, would render us obnoxious to the Bishops of 
 both persuasions. 
 
 They are the following :—As an Ecclesiastic, he (Bishop 
 Hoadley) ivithstood the high pretensions of great part of the 
 Clergy— pretensions unauthorised by reason, maintained by a 
 violent party spirit, and often employed in the most tumultuary 
 and factious purposes to which the cry of the church was made 
 subservient. This cry, which he does not seem to approve 
 in the hierarchy, soon became the cry of some of the preben- 
 daries of Winchester, and from them the cry of the public 
 papers. 
 
 On Mr. Milner' s reply, in which there is a dissertation on 
 Bishop Hoadley's principles and writings, letters were writ- 
 ten, and deputations sent to some Members of Parliament. 
 Sir Henry Mildmay brings in a Bill for the suppression of 
 Monastic Institutions, the very words of Doctor Sturges. 
 One would imagine that there was a kind of confederacy 
 amongst some of the editors of the public papers to ring the 
 alarm. Not a single paragraph could I have seen in any of 
 them in contradiction to exaggerated falsehoods. Two 
 thousand of the common people, chiefly servant maids, were 
 converted by the French Clergy in one part of London, in the 
 space of two years ; that is to say, more than all the Catholic 
 Clergy of England have converted since the reign of 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 The French clergy, mostly half starved and half naked 
 poor people, in spite of the generosity of government, on 
 account of the smallness of their allowance, and the dearth 
 of provisions, are ill qualified for making converts. They 
 sleep five or six, or by trios, in poor places that cannot 
 
 * Others are of opinioD, that de Mapes is not the anther. 
 
381 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 afford to have servant maids : they do not know English- 
 servant maids do not know French. These poor priests 
 make their own beds, and cook their own soup and vege- 
 tables. I have preached in the chapels in London near twelve 
 years, and I have not reconciled one single servant maid to 
 the Catholic Church. More of them are debauched in 
 London in one month, than will be converted in ten thou- 
 sand years. It were much better they were converted than 
 cast on die town : and little v/ould the state suffer if a Lon- 
 don cinder-woman embraced the religion of so many em- 
 presses and queens. 
 
 Popery is increasing in the diocese of Chester, said another, 
 where forty thousand three hundred and thirty-three persons 
 never go to any religious worship. But Popery increases 
 under the influence of fifty thousand Priests, all men of 
 talents. That is to say, more Priests than all the Bishops of 
 Europe have ordained in twenty years. Such are the methods 
 used to prepare the way for the operation of a bill which has 
 for its object a restraint on the freedom of the will of a Ca- 
 tholic woman, who perhaps if she lived b the world would 
 bring scandal on her family. 
 
 There cannot, my Lords, be any monastic institutions in 
 England under the existing laws, if there were as many 
 women who would live in celibacy as there are bad women 
 in London. For a monastic institution requires a monastery 
 endowed, and the sanction of the laws of the state to render 
 the vows of the religious irrevocable ; as in Catholic coun- 
 tries, where, if a priest marries, or a religious deserts his 
 cioister, he is punished by the civil magistrate, or sent back 
 to his superior to be punished as an apostate. Hence, when 
 the monastic institutions were dissolved in England, the vow 
 of celibacy still remained. And Henry the Eighth, who sent 
 the Lady Abbess's gold cross to the mint, would have doomed 
 her body to the fagot or halter, had he perceived the bridal 
 ring on her finger. 
 
 The Legislature of ninety-one made this distinction in the 
 toleration- granted to the Catholics: it removed the penalties 
 which attached to those who would enter into any ecclesi- 
 astical community of the church of Rome, but not to extend 
 to monastic institutions ; that is to say, not to endow mo- 
 nasteries, or incorporate their rules, such as they are in 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. &S5 
 
 Catholic countries, with the laws of the state, where they 
 are never to marry, nor return to the world : whereas here 
 they are at liberty to renounce their vows when they think 
 fit, and sue for their share of their family inheritance, not 
 being here as elsewhere, dead in law. What are then the 
 few English nuns now in England, or the few Irish nuns in 
 Ireland, for no ladies of any other country devote themselves 
 there to a religious life ? What are they in the eyes of the 
 law ? What are they in the eyes of any man who pays the 
 slightest attention to the subject ? A few Catholic females, 
 vjho, from devotion, form a resolution to die old maids, and, 
 when tired of celibacy, can marry in spite of Pope or Bishop, 
 as there are some clergymen in this kingdom and in Ireland, 
 who, after officiating at Catholic altars, have taken wives to 
 themselves, and exchanged sacerdotal cincture for the cestus 
 of Venus. 
 
 If these ladies were ladies of pleasure seducing youth ; the 
 gentlemen of Winchester would not give themselves the 
 slightest concern about them. They are of the greatest use 
 to the Catholic nobility and gentry, who send their daughters 
 to be educated by them, on account of the strictness of their 
 morals, their seclusion from the dissipations of the world, 
 which affords them the more time to superintend the instruc- 
 tion of their scholars, and the facility of observing the spiri- 
 tual exercises peculiar to the Catholic religion, such as fasts, 
 abstinence, confessions, communications, &c. which could 
 not be observed at other boarding schools ; and which, 
 though they may appear ridiculous to others, are held sacred 
 by us. In Galway, in Ireland, there are ladies of this descrip- 
 tion, since the conversion of the kingdom to Christianity in 
 the fourth century. The parliament, however rigorous 
 in angry times, never molested them, on account of their 
 utility, by their instructions, besides the policy of spending 
 their money in the country. For if there were not ladies of 
 this description in the country, the Catholics would send their 
 daughters to be educated abroad. 
 
 But the nuns of this country pervert the children of Pro- 
 testants, and the French Clergy make converts. 
 
 Every inquiry has been made, and the challenge given to 
 prove the allegation. The inquiry proved fruitless, and the 
 challenge reiused. Upon inquiry it was found, that a 
 Scotch lady and gentleman, going to some distant part, 
 
386 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 left their child in the care of these religious women, until 
 their return. They could not have left her in better hands ; 
 for some of these ladies make a vow to attend the sick, 
 without distinction between Turk and Christian. Parents 
 have a right to leave their children where they think fit. 
 They take no Protestant boarders or scholars. They had 
 at their school two young misses, whose father was a Catho- 
 lic, and the mother a Protestant. A father has a natural 
 right over his children. For this reason we never baptize 
 the children of Quakers or Jews, without the consent of 
 their fathers. If they were dying, beyond hope of recovery, 
 we would not scruple to baptize, for death emancipates them. 
 The father, whose name was Counsellor Sheridan, died last 
 year : the mother took the children from Winchester, and 
 sent them to a Protestant boarding-school. It was also found 
 upon inquiry, that an Irish regiment, in which there are a 
 great many Catholic soldiers, was quartered at Winchester. 
 By an act of the Irish Legislature, the Catholics of Ireland 
 can enter into the army, and make an open profession of 
 their faith, and perform their religious worship. A brave 
 man, who exposes his life for his king and country, is en- 
 titled to the privilege of saying his prayers. The Abbot of 
 Saint Galles, a Dominican Friar, and Sovereign Prince, 
 has Caivinist regiments, and Calvinist chaplains in his 
 service ; and as there are such numbers of Irish Catholics in 
 his Majesty's armies, but especially in the navy, an edifying 
 Catholic chaplain would contribute greatly to prevent 
 amongst them the contagion of immorality and Jacobinism. 
 For when they do not practise their own religion, they will 
 practise no other. Upon those principles, a very worthy 
 French clergyman, who has acquired some smattering of 
 English, instilled into the minds of those Catholic soldiers 
 the principles ofloyalty, morality, and good order. And such, 
 my Lords, is the ground of all this clamour about Nuns, 
 Conversions, and Popery. 
 
 As to conversions — one Catholic lady, of an edifying life 
 and amiable manners in the world, would make more con- 
 verts than ten thousand cloisters. And of all religions on 
 earth the Catholic religion is the least calculated for making 
 converts in these kingdoms, on account of the severity of its 
 rules. It is not such an easy matter to prevail on a volup- 
 tuary to fast and pray ; or a libertine to renounce his crimi- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 387 
 
 nal pleasures ; or a usurer, and others accustomed to accu- 
 mulate a fortune by unlawful means, to make restitution of 
 ill-acquired gain ; or a married man, who has an unfaithful 
 wife, to live as chaste as a vestal in a cloister, until he buries 
 or takes her back to his bosom. These and other sacrifices 
 must be made, after being instructed in every essential point 
 of the Catholic doctrine. All the sins which the new con- 
 vert can recollect must be told in the tribunal of penance, 
 where the concealment of one would be a sacrilege. 
 
 Let the sectaries who daily spring up preach this doctrine 
 — their meeting-houses will be deserted. It is an easy mat- 
 ter to work on the imagination, and to pass from one belief 
 to another, when a person has no fixed standard or rule : but 
 to change the heart, to triumph over the passions, to hate 
 whatever we loved before, to love what we hated, is not a 
 change so easily wrought. Let not then the Church of Eng- 
 land, or the Prebendaries of Winchester, be alarmed with 
 the number of conversions made by nuns, or Catholic mis- 
 sionaries — we have more than enough to do, in keeping our 
 own flocks attentive to their duty. And, unfortunately, with 
 regard to several of them, we can say with the prophet, in 
 vain have I laboured. Tom Paine has made more converts 
 in the three kingdoms in three years, than the Catholic cler- 
 gy will make in twenty thousand. 
 
 It would be happy for the kingdom if we could convert 
 all the Infidels and fanatics that separate every day from the 
 established religion, and who, if an opportunity offered, would 
 bury it with the state in its ruins, as in Cromwell's time. In 
 one place of worship Christ is expunged out of their creed. 
 In another, the Father and Holy Ghost are denied, and Christ 
 is all — the Father and Holy Ghost are but his attributes. 
 The Catholic priest, who believes more of the Thirty-nine 
 Articles, than all the sectaries in England, is doomed by 
 law to death, if he makes of a Quaker a child of the covenant 
 by baptism ; or prevails on an infidel to pray to Christ who 
 died for him. If the Tiber overflows its banks, if the Nile 
 sinks below its usual level, if the plague destroys, if famine 
 devours, said Tertullian, the cry is, to the lions with the 
 Christians.* — The Catholic is the only obnoxious being. 
 
 Ireland, my Lords, this instant resembles a sea agitated 
 
 * Chiistianos ad leoneni. 
 
388 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS, 
 
 after a violent storm. The most distant idea of the slightest 
 penalty on the score of conscience, must alarm the Catholics 
 of that kingdom ; and give an opportunity to others to repre- 
 sent to them, that the British Parliament closing with a new 
 penal law, is but the scene of a tragedy in which one act 
 leads to another more distressing ; that is to say, that this is 
 but a preliminary to some other law more oppressive, when 
 the Imperial Parliament meets, and themselves are friendless 
 on a distant shore ; whereas, if in the Irish Parliament there 
 were members hostile to their interests, there were others who 
 pleaded their cause ; and thus, instead of an enlargement of 
 privileges they will have nothing to expect but an extension 
 of penalties ; such will be the language of the enemies to the 
 Union. 
 
 1 know not, my Lords, whether this paper will fall into 
 your hands before the Bill is disposed of. If it be already 
 passed into a law, I disclaim any intention whatever to cen- 
 sure the proceedings of the Legislature of the land, but shall, 
 as in duty bound, submit to its decisions. But if it be pend- 
 ing before the house, self-defence will, I hope, justify me in 
 deprecating what I think obnoxious, and will answer, in my 
 opinion, no end but that of creating distrust and despon- 
 dency. 
 
 In an age of profligacy, when so many wise and virtuous 
 Members of the Legislature, intended to introduce a new law 
 for the security of the marriage bed ; when divorces, in- 
 stead of constant affection, are the frequent fruits of matri- 
 mony : amidst so many seminaries of lewdness, and cities be- 
 come, on account of vice and corruption, so many criminal 
 Ninivites, which would require a Jonas to induce them 
 to repent in sackcloth and ashes; streets infested with lewd 
 females from the age of eleven to the period at which the 
 effects of a crime that carries with it its own punishment, 
 and the enormous number of which wretches, a magistrate 
 who has written a book on the Police of London, computes 
 at fifty thousand annually ! Amidst such scenes of vice, is 
 the chastity of a few Catholic women an object of so alarm- 
 ing a nature, as to deserve the attention of the first Senate 
 on earth, especially as it is in their power to renounce 
 their state of celibacy when they choose ? Perhaps not two 
 hundred of them would bind themselves to a single life, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 398 
 
 in the space of fifty years. If their number were multiplied 
 to ten times, or to a thousand times more, what are they 
 when compared to the great number of the immoral and 
 unchaste all over England ? About twenty or thirty atoms 
 floating on the surface of an immense ocean. Rati nantes in- 
 gurgite vasto. 
 
 Were it the custom amongst Quakers, Anabaptists, Mo- 
 ravians, or any other sect or description of people, to have 
 women of a solitary cast or disposition of mind amongst 
 them, who from fanaticism or inclination, would choose to 
 lead a retired life, and superintend the education of the 
 females of their sects, Sir Henry Mildmay would rather 
 admire than molest them. Why then harass, perplex, ex- 
 pose to the insults of domiciliary visits, persons of the Ca- 
 tholic persuasion ? Why, amongst such a variety of sects, 
 single the Catholics out as the objects of persecution? 
 There are now no Catholic Pretenders to the Throne ; when 
 there were, not one of the Catholics of Ireland joined them, 
 although they raised the standard twice in Scotland, to 
 assert their claim to the British Empire. The Pope, from 
 a temporal Prince, is reduced to his primitive state of a 
 pious and edifying Bishop, when he was powerfully armed 
 with Peter's keys in one hand, and Paul's sword in the 
 other ; when in consequence of temporal claims, such as 
 Peter's-pence, &c. the gifts of former Kings, the exercise 
 and authority which seemed to encroach upon the civil 
 power ; the Catholics of these kingdoms adhered to their 
 allegiance, and repaired to the banners of their Sovereign. 
 All former pretexts for persecution being done away, what 
 cause is there for persecuting us now ? It must be this 
 pretended creed which fanaticism or prejudice has fathered, 
 and which our hearts and actions disclaim. Priests selling 
 absolutions for all sorts of crimes, and millions of Catholics 
 deprived of their civil rights on the score of conscience 
 buying them. For where there is no purchase, there is no 
 sale. 
 
 Are we not Adam's children ? Have not the Catholics 
 the same sensations of pain and pleasure as other men? 
 Their vices and virtues do not they run in the same channel 
 with those of their Protestant neighbours ? Are they not 
 animated with the same desire of glory — allured by the 
 
390 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 
 
 blandishments of pleasure — courted by the charms of 
 riches — as earnestly inclined to the enjoyment of ease 
 and opulence ? If perjury be their creed, if their clergy 
 be endued with the magic power of sanctifying crimes, and 
 wafting their flocks to heaven on the wings of unrepented 
 guilt, why do not they glide down the stream of legal 
 liberty, instead of stemming the torrent of oppression ? Why 
 do not they qualify themselves for sitting in the Senate, 
 and giving laws to the land, in concert with their country, 
 men, instead of being the continual objects of penal 
 statutes. 
 
 It is that they are diametrically the reverse of what they 
 are represented. Their religion forbids them to sport with 
 the awful name of the Divinity. They do not choose to 
 impose on their neighbours or themselves by perjury. 
 Were it otherwise — were their consciences of a more duc- 
 tile texture, in three weeks or a month's time they would 
 all read their recantations, and be on a level with the rest of 
 their fellow subjects. Yet the archives of national justice 
 can prove, that the Catholics of Ireland, reduced to the neces- 
 sity of discovering against themselves, preferred the loss 
 of their estates to the guilt of perjury, when a false oath 
 could have secured them in their property. Notwith- 
 standing this imputed creed, they prefer the smarting af- 
 flictions of the body to the stinging remorses of the soul : 
 and when worldly prosperities stand in competition with 
 conscience, they rather choose to be its martyrs than exe- 
 cutioners. 
 
 I have the honour to be, &c. 
 
 ARTHUR O'LEARY. 
 
 JVo. 46, Half-moon Street, Piccadilly. 
 June 30, 1800. 
 
Princeton Ttieologic 
 
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