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dence of the ancient British Church. will remind us of the sacrifices and sufferings of our Reformers, and the labours of the Legislature, to establish the REFORMATION; and therefore will demonstrate the magnitude of the danger we should incur in dispensing with the excluding statutes which restrain Papists from the exercise of political power.

The evils of Popery, from which we were liberated by the REFORMATION, appear to be wholly overlooked by the advocates of the Popish Claims. It has been well observed, that if the REFORMATION was worth establishing, it is worth maintaining *." It is worth maintaining, as a protection against the evils of former periods, and a security for the blessings, which we now enjoy; blessings, of which, we are persuaded, no other constitution is capable, but that which unites, in the highest rational degree, the rights of civil and religious liberty.

The present Protestant Constitution in Church and State established in the Sixteenth Century, was confirmed and perfected in the Seventeenth. The noble fabrick of the British Constitution is the result of those

*Bishop of Durham's Sermons and Charges, p. 437.

successive efforts for the recovery and maintenance of our religious and civil rights.

The REFORMATION of our Church, while it retained the primitive and apostolical form of Church government, restored to us the full and unrestrained use of the Scriptures, relieved us from many unscriptural doctrines and usages, delivered us from the horrors of the Inquisition*, gave us liberty of conscience and freedom of enquiry, and liberated us from the tyranny of a foreign jurisdiction, which not only usurped a supreme controul over our national Church, but, through its spiritual influence, often exercised an insolent domination over the civil rights of the King,

To our separation from the Church of Rome, we owe the inestimable privileges of our Protestant Establishment, which our ancestors guarded by penalties, restrictions, and disabilities, with an anxious solicitude to exclude from power the adherents of the Pope and of his Church. The penal statutes have been long abolished; and no other restrictions and disabilities are retained, but

* Though there never was any permanent establishment in this country, called the In,uisition, its arbitrary power, with all its sanguinary consequences, was in full exercise in Mary's bloody reign,

what are necessary to the security of the Protestant Establishment. These barriers we are now called upon to throw up, by that very Church against which they were specially provided: and this is demanded without any attempt to shew that the Church of Rome has renounced, by any general council, or by any competent act of the Church, the right of jurisdiction over the Papists of this country, or any of those doctrines and usages, which were the causes of our separation.

The danger of removing the disabilities of Papists did not cease with the life of the Pretender. These disabilities are not directed against an individual family, or individual person, but against all families and persons who hold the same disqualifying principles, and are subjects of the same foreign jurisdiction.

The repeal of these disabilities is not simply a measure of danger, but of destruction; immediate destruction to the present Constitution. For if Papists should become admissible to Parliament, and to the great offices of government, and to the Throne, (the removal of all disabilities, of course, admits of no restriction,) we should no longer have a Protestant Establishment. To abrogate the excluding statutes for the sake

of those, who are subject to the Pope's jurisdiction, is to acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope..

The removal of the disabilities, would not, indeed, put the Papists in immediate possession of the Throne, or the great offices of government, but it would give them the capacity of possessing them; and if such possession be subversive of our Constitution, can it be consistent with political' prudence, or with justice to the great body of the Protestant community, to grant such capacity by the removal of the restraining disabilities?

The great argument for granting the Popish Claims seems to be the increase of the political strength of the empire. That increase itself is too problematical to justify the hazard of any great change in the Constitution. But what if the grant of these Claims should end in a great defalcation of our political strength? What if it should end in the Popish ascendancy in Ireland, the extinction of Irish Protestantism, and the total separation of the two countries? The subject is of too great magnitude to dwell upon; but the apprehension is not too improbable to be suggested.

Before the great sacrifice be made, which is demanded, it is but reasonable to consider, what great change has Popery undergone, which can justify this extraordinary transition from our ancient dread and aversion to unlimited confidence and favour. Are there any symptoms of conciliation and concession in the opinions and conduct of the Popish Church, which should induce us to think, that her doctrines and usages are more scriptural, and her principles more friendly to Protestantism, than they were at the time of the REFORMATION? We know that Popery has undergone no change whatever. Her doctrines of supremacy and infallibility are insuperable obstacles to all change. If, then, Papists be admitted to the highest offices of government, and to the throne; and yet Popery continue, in all its disqualifying principles, what it was three centuries ago; to what purpose was our much honoured, much boasted, and blessed REFORMATION? What senseless enthusiasts must our Reformers have been in devoting themselves to the cruel sufferings, and painful deaths, which they endured? Nay, of what enormous injustice was the Legislature guilty, in depriving of the honours and emoluments of the Church the adherents of the Pope? But if none of these things be so; if the