tate, exercising any controul over the interests, or administering any portion of the resources, of this great Protestant Empire-see a conscientious member of an intolerant Church legislating for the Evangelical Clergy of England; or a Popish Judge charging a Jury of the country (themselves indifferently of one or the other Creed) in any case affecting the Protestant ascendancy, ecclesiastical or civil. Look outward, to our foreign dependencies, and see the Church Missionary Society and its Ministers subjected to the controul of a Roman Catholic Governor, and though I know it has been said, that Roman Catholics, although eligible, will not be elected, consider, I pray you, whether, though this may not happen under the present Ministry, it must not happen under any change of Counsels. Reflect, Sir, I entreat you, on these contradictions, inconsistencies, and absurdities, with any portion of that sound English common sense which Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE, says, is," after all, the best sense, or it never would have been so common;" and then, how will these anomalies appear? Look a little farther, Sir, and ask yourself-for the Religious part of the Nation is now asking you-how far those Professors of Religion, who feel no more for the fate of our National Religion than some of its Members are now doing, have any right to anticipate the Divine blessing on their (however well intended) at best equivocal, but perhaps unhallowed, labours, and whether they ought not rather to look for the expression of the Divine displeasure upon that senselessness, and apathy, that spurious charity, and misplaced candour, which can shew no better warrant for its movements, and appears only indicative of a forgetfulness of the vast and innumerable blessings, both spiritual and civil, derived to us from the exertions of such reasoners, as HOOKER, SHERLOCK, and JEWEL, or such politicians, as Lord SOMERS, BLACKSTONE, and Serjeant MAYNARD. The ignorance of mercy on the part of rebellious Israel, was the signal for Divine visitation; and surely, if indifference and insensibility, under the full blaze of Religious light and liberty, and a long-continued course of Spiritual privileges, be likely to forfeit the possession of such blessings, the arguments and votes of certain characters, upon the vital and all-important question of introducing the Roman Catholics to Legislative and Executive Power among ourselves, are eminently likely to produce such results as may convince us of the true nature of our National mercies, by the painful dispensation of their loss" Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly-therefore now behold the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the River, strong and many, even the King of Assyria and all his glory." It will be obvious, that this view of the subject can be understood only by such Senators and Statesmen, as profess to be governed by higher principles than those of mere human policy or expediency, but it is to such an one that I am now addressing myself. I propose in my next to address a few words to those among our Clerical friends who profess, and truly profess, to adhere most nearly in their preaching and practice to the original platform of our National Church, as exhibited in her Articles, Homilies, and Liturgy, and who are yet, most unaccountably, found with yourself on the side of the Romish Church, upon: the Roman Catholic Claims. I am, dear Sir, Your most obedient and faithful Servant, AMICUS PROTESTANS. DEAR SIR, LETTER X. IT is no secret that many of the Evangelical Clergy, with whom you are connected, think, with yourself, that the Catholic Claims may be safely conceded. There has been in this case an action and re-action, of which it is idle to disguise that you are the focus and centre, and for which, as it may operate usefully or adversely to the Church of Christ, and to this Protestant Nation, you will either have deserved well of your country, or the reverse. So long as it was doubtful (as for a long time it was) whether YOU were favourable, or adverse, to the Claims-so long, a vast number of excellent persons who are more or less influenced by your name, and follow in your train, as strongly affected by the purity of your Religious and Moral Character, and the disinterested integrity of your political career, felt it only due to you and to themselves to avoid coming to any positive conclusion either for or against the Claims. While this state of things continued, there was a mixture of good and evil, which left it doubtful on which side the balance preponderated. If the Church and cause of Rome gained nothing from the Evangelical Clergy of the Church of England, the whole injury accruing to our own Church, was the benumbing and paralyzing influence produced by the indecision and silence of so important a part of her body, on a question of this peculiar character. When, however, your sentiments were no longer doubtful, the Clergy, with whom you are more particularly associated, no longer displayed their former diffidence in approaching this question, or the same delicacy in forming a conclusion upon it. Thus much for the action of evil. Its re-action is of this nature:-Finding as you now do, many Clergymen on the side of the Claims, of whose value in the Church of CHRIST you have no more doubt, than they have of your value in the State, you take renewed courage from their altered tone, although springing more or less from your own example; and you are thus only the more confirmed in what I cannot but esteem, (with all the respect I unfeignedly bear you) an error of no ordinary magnitude. I now address myself to those excellent Men, with whom, if my premises be correct, you are thus proceeding in the mutual reciprocation of compliment, and error. I begin by observing, that though unworthy to sit at their feet, I am yet a humble learner in the same school;-that I know and honour their pious and laborious exertions for their Divine Master;that I desire to live and die in the profession and practice of the truths they promulgate; and, am content, to bear any reproach or shame which may attend the confession I now make, of my having identical views and hopes with themselves, F on the great Scriptural, and Protestant, topics of our common salvation. It is chiefly, however, in reference to those lifegiving doctrines, and to my firm conviction that, if the Claims should be conceded, these invaluable, but mistaken, men will not long be permitted to pursue their present course without obstruction of some sort or other, that I am grieved at their late indecision, and their present inconsistency. To such dear and valued friends, I would say, 66 more in sorrow than in anger,”—be assured, that however truth may tolerate falsehood, it is not in the nature of things that falsehood should tolerate truth. You may (as our Protestant Church will) continue to tolerate Idolatry and Error, however they may increase and abound, under the countenance and credit about to be extended to the Romish Church, but "lay not this flattering unction to your souls," that the Members of that Church, when THEY acquire (as sooner or later they must, under the intended concessions) the power of molesting and persecuting Protestants, will abstain from exercising that power, and will then begin, for the first time, to tolerate the pure and reformed faith. To imagine this, will be to shut your eyes upon all the evidence which the history of our own and every other nation presents, and voluntarily to resist the accumulated experience of every age of the Christian Church ever since it had an origin. I venture, then, as a real friend, and in the most friendly spirit, to say to you as JEHU said to King JEHOSOPHAT, "Should'st thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord?" Does it never occur to you, that in the same degree that you are helping the worldly politicians of an Antichristian Church to temporal authority, you may be inflicting such spiritual injury on the true Church, as all your preaching and practice may never repair? There is a holy and becoming fear of injuring the Church of CHRIST, which ought to be more upon your minds than it appears to be, and should dictate a greater caution on the subject of the Claims of the Romanists in your social conferences, and in those periodical publications over which you have controul. I apprehend the language of a Queen on another occasion, would be somewhat more in harmony with your professions"How can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people?" I shall pursue this address in my next, and am, AMICUS PROTESTANS. DEAR SIR, LETTER XI. I now continue my address to the Evangelical Clergy-I put it to you, who are building your whole Religion on the Divine Word, and on the Articles and Homilies of the Church of England, whether the appeal which you are daily making to those divine records and scriptural formularies, in defence of the truths you teach, can at all consist with, or justify, your present opinion, that any portion of political power or influence, can be safely conceded to men, whose Church has never yet recalled, and whose Head does still enforce, the most unscriptural decrees against the general diffusion of the Bible; and I ask you, whether you conscientiously believe, that a Priesthood, which is solemnly bound by its Ordination vows to prefer the idolatrous and ungodly decrees of the Council of Trent to the Articles and Homilies of our Reformed Church, and which Priesthood is no less called upon to act in the persecuting spirit of the Anathemas of that Council against all who profess another faith-whether I say such a Priesthood can find its Laity in the seats of legislation, of judicature, of authority, and of influence, without straining every nerve to oust you of what they must esteem your usurped benefices, your unjustly acquired revenues, and your ill-merited popularity. But the resumption of political power by the adherents of an unscriptural Church, is not the whole of our danger. I will even for the sake of the argument suppose they never can attain such power: I would, however, ask-Is influence nothing? Is opinion nothing? Is that candid generalization to go for nothing, which |