catholicks are incapable of employments, we are punished for our diffent, that is, for our confcience, which wholly turns upon political confiderations.

The catholicks are willing to acknowledge the king's fupremacy, whenever their brethren, the diffenters, fhall please to fhew them an example.

Further, the catholicks, whenever their religion fhall come to be the national established faith, are willing to undergo the fame teft offered by the author already quoted. His words are thefe: To end this debate, by putting it upon a foot, which, I hope, will appear, to every impartial perfon, a fair and equitable one: we catholicks propose, with fubmiffion to the proper judges, that effectual fecurity be taken against perfecution, by obliging all, who are admitted into places of power and truft, whatever their religious profeffion be, in the most folemn manner, to disclaim perfecuting principles. It is hoped the publick will take notice of these words; Whatever their religious profeffion be; which plainly include the catholicks; and for which we return thanks to our diffenting brethren.

P

And whereas it is objected by those of the eftablifhed church, that, if the fchifmaticks and fanaticks were once put into a capacity of poffeffing civil and military employments, they would never be at cafe, till they had raised their own way of worship into the national religion through all his majefty's dominions, equal with the true orthodox Scottish kirk; which, when they had once brought

to

to pass, they would no more allow liberty of confcience to epifcopal diffenters, than they did in the time of the great English rebellion, and in the fucceeding fanatic anarchy, till the king was restored. There is another very learned fchifmatical [a] pamphleteer, who, in answer to a malignant libel called, The prefbyterian plea of merit, &c. clearly wipes off this afperfion, by affuring all epifcopal proteftants of the prefent church, upon his own word, and to his own knowledge, that our brethren, the diffenters, will never offer at fuch an attempt. In like manner the catholicks, when legally required, will openly declare, upon their words and honours, that, as foon as their negative difcouragements and their perfecution fhall be removed by repealing the facramental teft, they will leave it entirely to the merits of the cause, whether the kingdom fhall think fit to make their faith the establifhed religion or not.

And again, whereas our presbyterian brethren, in many of their pamphlets, take much offence, that the great rebellion in England, the murder of the king, with the entire change of religion and government, are perpetually objected against them both in and out of feafon, by our common enemy the prefent conformifts; we do declare, in the defence of our faid brethren, that the reproach aforefaid is an old worn-out thread bare cant, which they always

[a] Vindication of the proteftant diffenters.

difdained

difdained to anfwer: and I very well remember, that having once told a certain conformift, how much I wondered to hear him and his tribe dwelling perpetually on fo beaten a subject; he was pleased to divert the discourse with a foolish story, which I cannot forbear telling to his difgrace. He faid, there was a clergyman in Yorkshire, who, for fifteen years together, preached every Sunday against drunkenness: whereat the parishioners being much offended, complained to the archbishop; who having fent for the clergyman, and severely reprimanded him, the minifter had no better an answer, than by confeffing the fact; adding, that all the parish were drunkards; that he defired to reclaim them from one vice, before he would begin upon another; and fince they still continued to be as great drunkards as before, he refolved to go on, except his grace would pleafe to forbid him.

We are very fenfible how heavy an accusation fieth upon the catholicks of Ireland; that fome years before king Charles the fecond was restored, when theirs and the king's forces were entirely reduced, and the kingdom declared, by the rump, to be fettled; after all his majefty's generals were forced to fly to France, or other countries, the heads of the faid catholicks, who remained here in an enflaved condition, joined to send an invitation to the duke of Lorrain; engaging, upon his appearing here with his forces, to deliver up the whole ifland to his power, and declare him their fovereign; which,

after

-after the Restoration, was proved against them by dean Boyle, fince primate, who produced the very original inftrument at the board. The catholicks freely acknowledge the fact to be true; and, at the fame time, appeal to all the world,

whether a wifer, a better, a more honourable, or a more justifiable project could have been thought of. They were then reduced to flavery and beggary by the English rebels, many thousands of them murdered, the reft deprived of their eftates, and driven to live on a small pittance in the wilds of Connaught; at a time when either the rump, or Cromwell, abfolutely governed the three kingdoms. And the question will turn upon this, whether the catholicks, deprived of all their poffeffions, governed with a rod of iron, and in utter defpair of ever seeing the monarchy restored, for the prefervation of which they had fuffered fo much, were to be blamed for calling in a foreign prince of their own religion, who had a confiderable army to fupport them, rather than fubmit to fo infamous an ufurper as Cromwell, or such a bloody and ignominious conventicle is the rump. And I have often heard not only our friends the diffenters, but even our common enemy the conformifts, who are converfant in the hiftory of those times, freely confefs, that, confidering the miferable fituation the Irish were then in, they could not have thought of a braver or more virtuous attempt; by which they might have been inftruments of reftoring the lawful monarch,

at

at least to the recovery of England and Scotland from those betrayers and fellers, and murderers of his royal father.

To conclude; whereas the last quoted author complains very heavily and frequently of a BRAND that lies upon them, it is a great miftake: for the first original BRAND hath been long taken off; only we confess the scar will probably remain, and be vifible for ever to thofe, who know the principles by which they acted, and until thofe principles fhall be openly renounced; elfe it muft continue to all generations, like the mark fet upon Cain, which, fome authors fay, defcended to all his pofterity; or like the Roman nose and Austrian lip; or like the long bag of flesh hanging down from the gills of the people in Piedmont. But, as for any brands fixed on fchifmaticks for feveral years paft, they have been all made with cold iron; Jike thieves who, by the BENEFIT OF THE CLERGY, are condemned to be only burned in the hand; but escape the pain and the mark by being in fee with the JAYLOR. Which advantage the fchifmatical teachers will never want, who, as we are affured, and of which there is a very fresh inflance, have the fouls and bodies, and purses of their people a hundred times more at their mercy, than the catholick pricfts could ever pretend to.

!

Therefore, upon the whole, the catholicks do humbly petition (without the leaft infinuation of threatening) that, upon this favourable juncture,