which he ardently hopes will be for ever buried in oblivion; but to point out the neceffity of adopting radical remedies to prevent their recurrence, which have been neglected by former governments. In fpeaking of the Roman catholick religion, the writer hopes he will not be mifinterpreted, when he declares, that, as far as it is agrecable to the Gof-, pel, he most highly refpects it; but the fuperinduced doctrines, as the Pope's infallibility and fupremacy, his difpenfing power, exclufive falvation, and other points, he knows, and the reader will perceive, are fubverfive of fociety; and its pliability, fo much boasted of by doctors Troy and Huffey, muft alarm every loyal subject, when they afferted in their paftoral letters, that it was equally fuited to a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy, at a time that France was endeavouring to democratize every ftate in Europe. After this explanation, I fhall proceed to sketch the ftate of Ireland, on the arrival of the English, in the year 1169. The country was divided among clans or fepts, profeffing fubjection to a higher power; but, at the fame time, exercifing every independent right. Their numbers then, according to fir William Petty, did not exceed three hundred thoufand fouls, difperfed over more than twelve millions of acres. The country, as defcribed by Giraldus Cambrenfis, in the twelfth century, an eye-witnefs of it, was overrun with forests, or cankered with bogs, and in all the arts of civil life, the inhabitants were little fuperior to the Indians of North America. Their Brehon laws were calculated to make them favage, and to keep them fo; as they rendered the enjoyment of life and property infecure. Their kings or princes did not fucceed each other by hereditary defcent, or any fixed principles of fucceffion, but by force and arms. It was a peculiar favour from heaven to fend a civilized people among them, nor did the wifer part seem infenfible to it; for Matt. Paris tells us, that, at a council at Lifmore, they gratefully -received received the laws of England (gratanter receptæ) and swore to obey them, (juratoria cautione præftita) which included their allegiance to the crown of England. As foon as Henry II. returned, they rejected the laws, violated their allegiance, and ran into rebellion: which excluded them from the benefit of them. A few fepts, who adhered to their oaths, were confidered as English fubjects, and were protected by law. Attached to their barbarous manner of living, and indulged by their own municipal laws in licentiousness of every kind, they found the wholesome restraint of English regimen, fo irksome and galling, that, by perpetual infurrections, they endeavoured to fhake it off; and in the reign of Henry III. 1230, they collected fuch a force, that they flattered their party with the hope of being able totally to expel the English (omne genus Anglorum ab Hiberniæ finibus exturbare,) fays Matt. Paris. This has been the declared purpose of the native Irish for above fix hundred years. What alone they were unable to accomplish, they endeavoured to ef fect by calling in the aid of the pope, and the king of Spain, as we fhall fee in the fequel. The kings of England tried various means to civilize the Irish; but they were fo blinded by difaffection, and attached to their own barbarous customs, as to oppose every measure for that purpose. The ftatute of Kilkenny, 1367, is a decifive proof of this, for by it the Brehon law was abolifhed; and again by the tenth Henry VII. and laftly by a judgment of the court of King's Bench, the fifth of James I. Speaking a different language, and obedient to different laws, it is not to be wondered at that the English and Irish did not cordially unite, and coalefce into one people. Nothing was attempted which could materially conduce to effect this; for the operations of government were confined for centuries to pitiful expedients. The introduction of the reformed religion, by increasing the antipathy of the native Irish to the English, English, was a new fource of calamities; for, as the Irish ecclefiafticks, to whom the ignorant and bigoted people were blindly devoted, received their education in foreign feminaries, particularly in those of France and Spain, they returned to their native country, bound folemnly to the pope, in an unlimit ed fubmiffion, without any bond of allegiance to the king, and full fraught with thofe abfurd and peftilent doctrines, which the moderate of their own communion, at least, profeffed to abominate; of the univer fal dominion of the pope, as well fpiritual as temporal; of his authority to excommunicate and depofe princes; to abfolve fubjects from their oaths of allegiance, and to dispense with every law of God and man; to fanctify rebellion and murder, and even to change the very nature and effential difference of vice and virtue. With fuch impious tenets, fabricated by their schools and councils, they filled their fuperfti tious votaries, contrary, fays Walsh the Irish francif can, to the letter, the fenfe, and design of the Gospel, the writings of the apoftles, and commentaries of their fucceffors, to the belief of the Chriftian church for ten ages, and to the cleareft dictates of nature. I hope the reader will excufe the digreffion which I fhall now make, to fhew him the origin of the Papal power, which became, in procefs of time, from very flender beginnings, formidable to fovereign princes, and fatal to the peace of Europe; as he will be able to discover in it, the real fource of the various rebellions which have difgraced and defolated the kingdom of Ireland; fo that I may say with the Roman poet, Hoc fonte derivata clades, In patriam populumque fluxit, Long after the death of the apoftles, the popes continued to be elected by the people and the clergy, and, when elected, they were confecrated by fome other prelates, which, as Eufebius tells us, hap pened He was bishop of Nicomedia, and died in the fourth century. pened in the cafe of St. Fabian, bishop of Rome, in the year 236. But the bishop, after being elected, could not be confecrated, or confirmed in the See, without the confent of the emperor, which was as effential to the ratification of it, as that of our king to the election of a bishop, by a dean and chapter. For this reafon, when pope Gregory I. was elected, about the year 600, he, not wifhing to fill the pontifical chair, wrote to the emperor Mauritius, not to confent to his election; but he refused, and ratified it. The emperors thus continued to watch the elections and the conduct of the popes with a vigilant and jealous eye, till the year 896, when Charles the bald refigned to the pope all power and authority over the Roman See; and, on the extinction of the race of Charlemagne, Adrian III. made a decree, that in future the popes fhould be elected without the emperor's confent. Previous to this period, the emperors maintained and exercised fupreme power in ecclefiaftical affairs :* they appointed judges for religious caufes, prefided at councils, and often in ecclefiaftical courts; they depofed bishops that were lapfed into herefy, and determined difputes and fchifms in the church. It is remarkable, that, till this æra, the councils. were denominated from the emperors, and not from the popes; because their canons and ordinances were invalid, till confirmed by the former. Eufebius tells us therefore, that Conftantine the great was called the general bishop, from his univerfal fupremacy over all prelates. He alfo tells us, in his life of this emperor, (lib. 3. cap. 18.) that the fathers of the council of Nice obtained the confirmation of their decrees from Conftantine the great; and the fathers of the council of Conftantinople from Theodofius the great, in the year 381, as we are told by Socrates in his Ecclefiaftical History. Sphanheim's Ecclefiaftical History, p. 1103. The The emperors forefaw how neceffary it was, that the civil and ecclefiaftical powers fhould be united in the fupreme executive magiftrate, to promote and fecure the peace and profperity of the state; and the difcord, the ftrife, the bloodshed, and the various calamities which their feparation afterwards occafioned, in every kingdom of Europe, proved the forefight, the prudence, and the policy of the imperial fovereigns; and yet the Irish innovators, whofe ignorance can be equalled by nothing but their difaffection and audacity, have treated the union of the fpiritual and temporal power as abfurd and ridiculous. So little idea had the Roman pontiff of fupremacy in the fifth century, that, when there was a rivalship between him and the patriarch of Conftantinople for precedence, it was refolved by the twenty-eighth canon of the council of Chalcedon,* 451, that the fame rights and honours which had been conferred on the bishop of Rome, were due to the bishop of Conftantinople, on account of the equal dignity and luftre of the two cities, in which they exercifed their authority. On the close of the fix century, Gregory I. was poffeffed of immenfe territories, and was in fuch eftimation for his piety that he stands high as a faint in the Roman calendar; and yet he had fo little idea of being fupreme head of the church, that when the bishop of Conftantinople affumed that title, he declared in a letter to the emperor Mauritius, "that it was a blafphemous title, and that none of the Roman pontiffs had ever affumed fo fingular a one.”† And in a letter to the fame patriarch, he fays, "what wilt thou fay to Chrift, the head of the univerfal church, in the day of judgment, who thus endea voureft to fubject his members to thyfelf, by this title of univerfal? Who, I afk thee, doft thou imitate in this, but the devil?" And in a letter to the cm‡ prefs Conftantia, he fays, his pride, in affuming this This was a general council. + Gregory's Epiftles, lib. 4. Ind. 13: P. 137. title, |