limited to preaching and teaching. You say it;

your Church has never said so.

lose sight, as I always find you

But do not, Sir,

disposed to do,

of the subject in reference to which we are examining, what I call the active intolerance of your Church; that acknowledged duty of preaching and teaching among us, which I leave you to name as you please. We are considering the persecuting spirit of your Church, not in the abstract, but in relation to the object for which you invariably contend in your works - the aptititude of Roman Catholics to sit as legislators in a Protestant Parliament. You grant in your answer to my question, that the Pope may command the assistance of the faithful in checking the progress of heresy, by preaching and teaching;" that Roman Catholics acknowledge, that he can issue such commands, in virtue of the divine authority which they believe to reside in him. Why, then, are they bound to obey those commands to check heresy, but because heresy is considered by themselves and their Church an evil; an evil which should be opposed by every method allowed by the Gospel? You observe,

that I am taking all your suppositions for granted.

Now, Sir, I pray tell me, me, will the admission of Roman Catholics to the places from which they are excluded, operate favourably or unfavourably to Protestantism? If favourably, why do not you fulfil your duty of opposing the progress of heresy, by continuing your absence from both Houses? Surely you will not pretend to say, that the Gospel forbids that method of counteracting a deadly error. I will leave the other member of my dilemma to you. You will certainly not take it in the affirmative; but if you do not grant, that the presence of Roman Catholics in Parliament will be adverse to the Protestant religion, there is but one means of escape left you. Will you say, that the presence of Roman Catholics in Parliament will tend neither way; that their votes will not have the weight of a feather on either of the scales where the fate of the two contending Churches is weighed? Do, Sir, say so to the Protestants of Great Britain and Ireland: show them the ad'vantage of possessing such impassive legislators: enlarge on the fresh spirit that will be infused

into their Parliament, by a crowd of members endowed with a glorious indifference for one essential part of the constitution of England -her Protestant Church.

I hope I am approaching the end of a task, which I am executing with no small fatigue. But as I intend to leave none of your answers untouched, I must take those that still remain, without much attention to the flow and smoothness of transition. I entreat this indulgence with the greater confidence, as the topics of your notes on my book are desultory. Indeed, I well know, that your only chance lies in the perpetual shifting of the question.

VIII.

Whether instinctively, as nature operates in all cases of self-defence, or by a particular habit of mind acquired in your long practice of defending a bad cause; I have found you constantly flying off from the true question to the most irrelevant arguments. It is thus that you touch

again on the deposing power of the Pope; his claims to temporal sovereignty over other kingdoms-the Inquisition, and your personal detestation of that tribunal.-I have never contended, that the generality of your Roman Catholics, at this time of day, defend any of these points. If they did, the practical question in this country would be, not whether they should be admitted to seats in Parliament, but by what restrictions they should be kept from injuring and conspiring against the state. To what purpose To what purpose then (unless it be to divert the mind of the public from the true question) is what you say about, "all Austrian, German, Hungarian, Bohemian, and French Roman Catholics, unimproved under Protestant government," clinging in a modified manner to the Pope, and not one of those states having allowed the establishment of the Inquisition within it?-Does that prove that Roman Catholics are conscientiously friendly to Protestant establishments, and therefore safe legislators where the constitution is essentially Protestant? But, Sir, you might content yourself with dexterously avoiding what, if constantly kept in view,

must defeat your purpose, without proceeding to attribute to me what, if you had read my book with attention and candour, you would know not to be the fact. "Can we, therefore (such are your words), be said with justice to cling to the Pope, in the manner in which this expression is constantly used by Mr. Blanco White?"-Now, Sir, I call upon you to make good this charge. Where have I said that you cling to the Pope as a temporal sovereign, or as an authority which can depose Princes, or even, speaking of you in general, as supporters of the Inquisition *. Have I not said, but a few pages before that which you were examining, "I have hitherto ex

* That some English Roman Catholics clung to the Pope a few years since, in the way last mentioned, I asserted in my "Poor Man's Preservative against Popery," on the authority of a most respectable Roman Catholic Priest, whose words I will here repeat. "During my residence in London, I heard some Roman Catholics say, that the Inquisition was useful in Spain for the preservation of the Catholic Faith; and that it would have been well for France if it had had a similar establishment." Llorente's History of the Spanish Inquisition, Paris, 1818, vol. i, page xxvii.