You maintain the affirmative ;-I maintain the negative. I hope I have not mistaken Your opinions. What I have said leads to the inquiry, whether the acknowledgment of the Pope's spiritual supremacy is inconsistent with true allegiance? This must depend upon the nature of the spiritual supremacy which Catholics ascribe to him. It consists in the right of the church, and of the Pope as its head, to preach and teach those doctrines, which Catholics hold to have been preached and taught by Christ; and to punish the refractory members of the church, by spiritual censures, and ultimately by excommunication. Is this inconsistent with a subject's duty of allegiance? It does not deny the temporal sovereignty of the monarch, or his right to enforce it by any mode of temporal power. These, both you and I equally recognise in the sovereign. Has the monarch any power, merely spiritual? Neither You nor I believe that he has. Then, in what did the allegiance of a Catholic, and the allegiance of a Protestant really differ, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth? Does not every Protestant communion assert the spiritual independence of her church? Does this claim trench on their allegiance? 4.-Popes, it may be said, have carried their pretensions to an iniquitous length: they have pretended to discharge subjects from their allegiance; and some subjects have been swayed by them to a dereliction of their duty. Of this, You produce unquestionable instances; You also cite many writers who have advocated these pretensions. I answer,-1st, That it has, at all times, and by every portion of Roman Catholics, been allowed, that the Pope's title to these rights is no article of the faith of the Roman Catholics :-2dly, that the claim of the Popes to them, has been repeatedly called into question, and contested with them in all cisalpine and many transalpine territories :-and 3dly, that all Protestant churches have advanced the same pretensions, and have incalculably oftener, carried them into execution. What millions of subjects in France, Spain, Germany, and the Low Countries, have not Protestants, in support of these pretensions, drawn from their allegiance? How many Catholic thrones have they prostrated? 5-Then, talk not to me of its following from a subject's being a Catholic, that his allegiance to a Protestant king cannot be depended upon, unless You admit, that it also follows, from a subject's being a Protestant, that his allegiance to a Catholic king is equally insecure. Wait, I say, in each case, till a criminal act shall be done by the dissident, before You fix guilt upon an individual: Wait, I say, till numerous criminal acts shall be done by these dissidents, before You fix guilt upon the body. In the time of the Commonwealth, when episcopalian Protestantism was proscribed, -did it follow, that every episcopalian Protestant was a traitor to "the powers that were?" Was it moral or just, that his absenting himself from the religious service of the state, should be considered, standing singly, a deed of treason, and punished as treason? What should we now say of the French government, if it required all its Protestant subjects to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of the Pope, and attend the church service of their parishes, under penalties similar to those prescribed by the laws of Elizabeth? I should consider it detestable: - So to consider it, is perfectly congruous with my principles. ! Consider the enormous length, to which, if You justify Elizabeth's persecuting laws, Your proposition must go. It follows inevitably, that there never has been, and that there does not, at this time, exist a case, in which, if a sovereign and a proportion of his subjects are of different religions, the sovereign is not justified in enacting legislative provisions, which make any exercise of their religion, however otherwise harmless and indifferent, felony or treason to the state, and punishable accordingly. : Beyond this, religious tyranny cannot go to its whole length the statutes of Elizabeth and, if You justify them, Your justification of them proceeds. Thus, the conclusions which You draw against the Roman Catholics, from their refusal of the oath of supremacy, and in favour of Elizabeth's penal code against them, fall altogether to the ground. H Your Eulogy of the Moderation of the Laws passed in the first year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 1. You premise your observations (p. 188) on the sanguinary and penal code of Elizabeth, by affirming that " its laws were all passed in con"sequence of the danger of the state, of some "hostile proceeding on the part of foreign powers, " or some discovery of treason on the part of her " own subjects." These lines contain, speaking generally, all the substance of your present chapter, and thus call for particular attention. 1.-With respect to the hostile proceedings of foreign powers towards Elizabeth, You are entirely silent on the hostile proceedings of Elizabeth towards them; -to the rebellions which she fomented in France, the Netherlands, Holland and Scotland; to her plunders and piracies in the West Indies, South America, and on our own sea; to the capture of the Spanish treasure galleon, when wrecked on our coast. Much of this took place in the time of professed peace, and was therefore a breach of inter-national law. MIRZ 2. These hostile proceedings of foreigners, supposing them such as You describe them, prove nothing against the Catholic subjects of Queen Elizabeth, unless you prove that these co-operated in them, You have not produced, and I defy you to produce, a single instance of this co 1 operation, which fixes guilt upon the Catholic body. 3,-As to the dicovery of treason among her own subjects:- If you mean, in this place by treason, those acts which were treasonable by the antient laws and constitution of the country, I affirm, most positively, that nothing of the kind has been or can be proved against the Catholic subjects of Elizabeth, which inculpates the general body, or even what may be called a proportion of them. I will add, that if all the treasons charged upon them were true, the number of Catholics whom they would affect is so small, that effrontery itself would not dare to charge them upon the whole body. 5. The great question between us is, Did justice and morality render it lawful for Eliza beth to make the creed and liturgy of the smallest religious denomination of her subjects the creed and liturgy of the state; to spoliate the antient clergy of their possessions, and transfer them to the new establishment'; to legislate that the nonconformists to it should be delinquents in the various gradations of misdemeanour, felony, and treason, and punishable in the various gradations of fine, confiscation, imprisonment and death?: This leads to the following and very important consideration:-Did not candour, and even perspicuity require, that whenever You brought the charge of treason against the Catholic body, or Catholic |