it would not be worth saving. It rests upon the general opinion entertained by a free and reflecting people, that the doctrines of that Church are true, her pretensions moderate, and her exhortations useful. It is accepted by a people who have, from good taste, an abhorrence of sacerdotal mummery; and, from good sense, a dread of sacerdotal ambition. Those feelings, so generally diffused, and so clearly pronounced on all occasions, are our real bulwarks against the Catholic religion; and the real cause which makes it so safe for the best friends of the Church to diminish (by abolishing the Test Laws) so very fertile a source of hatred to the State.

In the 15th page of his Lordship's Charge, there is an argument of a very curious nature.

Let us suppose' (says the Bishop of Lincoln), that there had been no Test-laws, no disabling Statutes, in the year 1745, when an attempt was made to overthrow the Protestant Government, and to place a Popish Sovereign upon the thrown of these kingdoms: and let us suppose, that the leading men in the Houses of Parliament, that the Ministers of State, and the Commanders of our Armies, had then been Papists. Will any one contend, that that formidable Rebellion, supported as it was by a foreign Enemy, would have been resisted with the same zeal, and suppressed with the same fa cility, as when all the measures were planned and executed by sin. cere Protestants?" p. 15.

And so his Lordship means to infer, that it would be foolish to abolish the laws against the Catholics now, because it would have been foolish to have abolished them at some other period; -that a measure must be bad, because there was formerly a combination of circumstances, when it would have been bad. His Lordship might, with almost equal propriety, debate what ought to be done if Julius Cæsar were about to make a descent upon our coasts; or lament the impropriety of emancipating the Catholics, because the Spanish Armada was putting to sea. The fact is, that Julius Cæsar is dead-the Spanish Armada was defeated in the reign of Queen Elizabeth-for half a century there has been no disputed succession-the situation of the world is changed-and, because it is changed, we can do now, what we could not do then. And nothing can be more lamentable than to see this respectable Prelate wasting his resources in putting imaginary and inapplicable cases, and reasoning upon their solution, as if it had any thing to do with present affairs. These remarks entirely put an end to the common mode of arguing a Gulielmo. What did King William do?—what would King William say? &c. King William was in a very different situation from that in which we are placed. The whole world was in a very different situation. The great and glorious Au

thors of the Revolution (as they are commonly denominated) acquired their greatness and their glory, not by a superstitious reverence for inapplicable precedents, but by taking hold of present circumstances to lay a deep foundation for Liberty; and then using old names for new things, they left the Bishop of Lincoln, and other good men, to suppose that they had been thinking all the time about ancestors.

Another species of false reasoning, which pervades the Bishop of Lincoln's Charge, is this. He states what the interests of men are, and then takes it for granted that they will cagerly and actively pursue them; laying totally out of the question the probability or improbability of their effecting their object, and the influence which this balance of chances must produce upon their actions. For instance, it is the interest of the Catholics that our Church should be subservient to theirs. Therefore, says his Lordship, the Catholics will enter into a conspiracy against the English Church. But, is it not also the decided interest of his Lordship's butler that he should be Bishop, and the Bishop his butler? That the crozier and the corkscrew should change hands,-and the washer of the bottles which they had emptied become the diocesan of learned divines? What has prevented this change, so beneficial to the upper domestic, but the extreme improbability of success, if the attempt were made; an improbability so great, that, we will venture to say, the very notion of it has scarcely once entered into the understanding of the good man. Why then is the Reverend Prelate, who lives on so safely and contentedly with John, so dreadfully alarmed at the Catholics? And why does he so completely forget, in their instance alone, that men do not merely strive to obtain a thing because it is good, but always mingle with the excellence of the object a consideration of the chance of gaining it?

The Bishop of Lincoln (p. 19) states it as an argument against concession to the Catholics, that we have enjoyed internal peace and entire freedom from all religious animosities and feuds since the Revolution.' The fact, however, is not more certain than conclusive against his view of the question. For, since that period, the worship of the Church of England has been abolished in Scotland-the Corporation and Test Acts repealed in Ireland-and the whole of this King's reign has been one series of concessions to the Catholics. Relaxation then (and we wish this had been remembered at the Charge) of penal laws, on subjects of religious opinion, is perfectly compatible with internal peace, and exemption from religious animosity. But the Bishop is always fond of linking in generals, and cautiously avoids coming to any specific instance of the dangers which he fears.

It is declared in one of the 39 Articles, that the King is Head of our Church, without being subject to any Foreign Power; and it is expressly said that the Bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction within these realms. On the contrary, Papists assert, that the Pope is Supreme Head of the whole Christian Church, and that Allegiance is due to him from every Individual Member, in all spiritual matters. This direct opposition to one of the fundamental Principles of the Ecclesiastical part of our Constitution, is alone sufficient to justify the exclusion of Papists from all situations of Authority. They acknowledge indeed that obedience in civil matters is due to the King. But cases must arise, in which civil and religious Duties will clash; and he knows but little of the influence of the Popish Religion over the minds of its Votaries, who doubts which of these Duties would be sacrificed to the other. Moreover, the most subtle casuistry cannot always discriminate between temporal and spiritual things; and in truth, the concerns of this life not unfrequently partake of both characters. p. 21, 22.

We deny entirely that any case can occur, where the exposition of a doctrine purely speculative, or the arrangement of a mere point of Church discipline, can interfere with civil duties. The Roman Catholics are Irish and English citizens at this moment; but no such case has occurred. There is no instance in which obedience to the civil magistrate has been prevented, by an acknowledgment of the spiritual supremacy of the Pope. The Catholics have given (in an oath which we suspect the Bishop never to have read) the most solemn pledge, that their submission to their spiritual ruler should never interfere with their civil obedience. The hypothesis of the Bishop of Lincoln is, that it must very often do so. The fact is, that it has never done so.

His Lordship is extremely angry with the Catholics, for refusing to the Crown a veto upon the appointment of their Bishops. He forgets, that in those countries of Europe where the Crown interferes with the appointment of Bishops, the reigning monarch is a Catholic,-which makes all the difference. We sincerely wish that the Catholics would concede this point; but we cannot be astonished at their reluctance to admit the interference of a Protestant Prince with their Bishops. What would his Lordship say to the interference of any Catholic power with the appointment of the English sees?

Next comes the stale and thousand times refuted charge against the Catholics, that they think the Pope has the power of dethroning heretical Kings; and that it is the duty of every Catholic, to use every possible means to root out and destroy heretics, &c. To all of which may be returned this one conclusive answer, that the Catholics are ready to deny these doctrines upon ath. And as the whole controversy is, whether the Catholics.

shall, by means of oaths, be excluded from certain offices in the State; those who contend that the continuation of these excluding oaths are essential to the public safety, must admit, that oaths are binding upon Catholics, and a security to the State that what they swear to is true.

It is right to keep these things in view-and to omit no opportunity of exposing and counteracting that spirit of intole rant zeal, or intolerable time-serving, which has so long disgraced and endangered this country. But the truth is, that we look upon this cause as already gained;-and while we warmly congratulate the nation on the mighty step it has recently made towards increased power and entire security, it is impossible to avoid saying a word upon the humiliating and disgusting, but at the same time most edifying spectacle, which has lately been exhibited by the Anticatholic addressers. That so great a number of persons should have been found with such a proclivity to servitude (for honest bigotry had but little to do with the matter), as to rush forward with clamours in favour of intolerance, upon a mere surmise that this would be accounted as acceptable service by the present possessors of patronage and power, affords a more humiliating and discouraging picture of the present spirit of the country, than any thing else that has occurred in our remembrance. The edifying part of the spectacle, is the contempt with which their officious devotions have been received by those whose favour they were intended to purchase,-and the universal scorn and derision with which they were regarded by independent men of all parties and persuasions. The catastrophe, we think, teaches two lessons;-one to the time-servers themselves, not to obtrude their servility on the Government, till they have reasonable ground to think it is wanted;-and the other to the nation at large, not to imagine that a base and interested clamour in favour of what is supposed to be agreeable to Government, however loudly and extensively sounded, affords any indication at all, either of the general sense of the country, or even of what is actually contemplated by those in the administration of its affairs. The real sense of the country has been proved, on this occasion, to be directly against those who preSumptuously held themselves out as its organs ;-and even the Ministers have made a respectable figure, compared with those who assumed the character of their champions.

ART. V. Objections to the Project of Creating a Vice-Chancellor of England. London. Cadell. 1813.

Observations occasioned by a Pamphlet, entitled, Objections to the Project of Creating a Vice-Chancellor of England." London. Hatchard. 1813.

A Letter to a Noble Lord, from the Author of Objections to the Project of Creating a Vice-Chancellor of England.' London. Cadell. 1813.

W HEN any alteration of the established law has been proposed by Sir Samuel Romilly (whom, were we ever to name without expressing our veneration for his spotless integrity and enlightened principles, we should do a violence to our warmest feelings *), the uniform course of his antagonists has been, to set up a cry of innovation;' to demand, if each part of our constitution must be made the subject of dangerous experiments; and to represent every charge as disrespectful to the wisdom of our ancestors, and pregnant with risk to their posterity. The alterations in the criminal code which he has attempted (and, in consequence of this clamour, vainly attempted), are extremely limited, as we have already had occasion to show; nor could any thing short of actual experience have persuaded us, that they who create capital felonies by the score, could consider the whole judicial system as threatened with subversion, when it was proposed to make the stealing of five shillings in a dwelling only a clergyable offence. But we have lived to see yet stranger things: For the same persons who raised all those clamours,-those especially who could not sleep for dreaming of revolutions, when it was suggested that proprietors of freehold estates should not be allowed to defraud their simple contract creditors;--those who had but one answer to fling at every proposal of legislative improvement, and held that one to be quite sufficient;-those who considered the merits of every plan as disposed of, the moment it was admitted to be a novelty;-those same persons have absolutely brought forward a scheme, in the first instance full of

*This most distinguished person was recently excluded from Parliament during a short period, to the astonishment of all who resided at any distance from the bustle and intrigues of party. He has since been returned, though not for a popular place; and if any thing could reconcile reformers to the system of Borough patronage, it would, by that truly noble and patriotic use of it which places such men as Sir A. Pigott, and Sir S. Romilly, in the House of Com

mons.