country.

ever they prevailed, were fure to overturn both the civil and the ecclefiaftical establishments of the The Anabaptifts, in their native pro vinces of Germany and Holand, had been guilty of more frantic exceffes, and horrors, than those which Jacobinical fury has produced at the prefent day,(1) the principles of which they ftill maintain in fome degree. The Quakers, at their first rife, were no lefs frantic and turbulent than the latter,(2) if they were not fo fanguinary and violent, and they ftill perfift in refusing to join their fellow-fubjects in many

duties

[(1) Their pretended king of Sion, at Munfter, John Bockhold, a tailor by trade, ran ftark naked through the streets, married eleven wives at the fame time; and befides the aforefaid city, where he exercifed his tyranny and cruelty, pretended that God had made him a prefent of Amfterdam and certain other cities, which he accordingly fent his difciples to take poffeffion of. For the rebellions, murders, immoralities, and other extravagancies committed by the Anabaptifts in Germany, fee Sleidan, Comment. 1. x. &c. For thofe perpetrated by them in the Low Countries, fee Ger. Brand. Hift. Ref. Belg. &c. Mofheim, Maclaine, &c. The latter fhews that the Menonites or modern Anabaptifts have rather disguised than renounced fome of the worst principles of their predeceffors. With refpect to our English Baptifts, he afferts that they have nearly degenerated into a fyftem of latitudinarianism. See Mofheim's Ecc. Hift. by Maclaine, vol. iv. c. 3.]

[2) It was the common practice of George Fox to go into the churches or fleeple houfes, as he called them, and to infult the preachers in their pulpits, calling them deceivers and bidding them to come down. See Fox's Journal, by his difciple the famous William Penn. It is well known that Nailor, one of his first apoftles, entered into Bristol on horfeback with his partifans crying round him Hoxanna to the fon of David, in imitation of our Saviour's entry into Jerufalem. The aforefaid Penn tells us that Wm. Simpfon was moved of the Lord to go naked in markets, courts, &c. at feveral times for three years, as a fign to them" and that." Richard Huntingdon was moved of the Lord to go into Carlifle fteeple house to fhew that the furplice was coming in," namely, at the time when Prefbyterianifm was the established religion." P. 329, &c.]

duties effential to the common welfare, particularly in bearing arms against its declared enemies. Yet the hatred and perfecutions against these several sects, were at all times comparatively moderate, and at length gradually fubfided; whilft thofe which were raised against the ancient religion of the country, the religion to which it was indebted for its conftitution, for its Chriftianity, for its very civilization, and from which the established church differs less than from any of the fects mentioned above,(1) went on, as we have remarked, with increasing force during the whole dynasty of the houfe of Stuart. It is not neceffary to affign all the means by which this effect, fo fatal to Catholics, was produced; it will be fufficient for my present purpose to mention some of them, namely, intrigues and jealoufies in the cabinet and the fenate, and mifrepresentation and calumny from the pulpit and the prefs.

James I. was not only the fon of the Catholic heroine, Mary, as you, Sir, remind me, (2) and of a Catholic father, king Henry Darnley, but he was alfo himself baptized in the Catholic church,(3) and retained during his whole life the strongest bias towards its faith and difcipline, (4) as his puritanical

enemies

[(1) See Barclay's Apology for the Quakers, where amongst other things he fays, "Proteftants differ from Papists but in form and certain ceremonies, having with them apoftatized from the life and power of the primitive church. They have only the form of godlinefs, they are deniers, yea enemies of the pow er of it." P. 298, 4th ed.]

(2) P. 80. (3) Dodd's Ch. Hift. vol. ii, p. 346.

(4) See an account of James's remarkable conference with the French envoy, the archbishop of Embrun. Echard's Hist. of Eng. p. 406.

enemies did not fail to object to him. He had correfponded from Scotland with the Roman Pontiff, (1) as alfo with feveral English Catholics, clergymen as well as laymen. One of these was the priest Watson, mentioned in my Hiftory, (2) who was a warm partifan of his intereft against that of Spain, and to whom, amongst others, he made strong promifes of fhewing indulgence fowards the Catholics of England, whenever he should mount the throne of this country.(3) He declared in open parliament, that he confidered the church of Rome as "the mother church, though defiled with fome corrup tions ;"(4) and in his theological writings he went fo far as to admit the Pope to be the patriarch of the Weft,(5) which implied that he acknowledged fome degree at least. of ecclefiaftical fupremacy belonging to him. Such were the genuine fentiments

and

(1) See his letter to Pope Clement VIII, Sept. 24, 1559, Rushworth's Collect. vol. i.

(2) Vol. i, p. 391, &c.

(3) The fecretary of State, Cecil, repeatedly affured the Catholics that the king would fulfil his promises of granting them liberty of confcience. He gave affurances of the fame nature to the Spanish ambaffador. Politician's Catech. Dr. Patinfon, &c. The fubfequent event fhews that his intention in thus raifing their hopes, was to provoke their indignation when they should find themselves difappointed.] (4) Stow, Echard. [Dr. Benj. Carrier. This laft mentioned author had been a favourite chaplain of James I, but becoming a Catholic and retiring abroad, he wrote a letter called A Miffive, now in print, to his Majefty, in which he reminds. the king of his admitting "the Church of Rome to be the mother church, and the Pope to be the chief bifhop or primate of all the western churches." He alfo fays, that "to his knowledge the king's difpofition was for peace and reconciliation with Rome at the beginning." Pp. 11, 12.]

(5) Perron's Anfwer.

and inclinations of this king, particularly when he first fucceeded to the English crown. But, on the

other hand, we are to remark, that a strong spirit of Puritanism, the most oppofite of all others to that of the ancient church, was at this period fermenting throughout the nation. The inflexible severity of Elizabeth had kept it within bounds; but under the weak government of James, it fwelled to fuch a pitch as soon after to fweep away both the church and the throne. Add to this that there was ftill a Cecil at the head of the royal counfels; not indeed the infidious William lord Burghley, the contriver of Babington's plot and of Mary's murder, for he was now no more, but his fon Robert, lately created earl of Salisbury, the true inheritor of his father's treachery and cruelty. He had betrayed his late miftrefs, Elizabeth, in the decline of her age and vigour, to her hated rival, James; and now, in return, he required that James fhould facrifice his mother's and his own genuine friends to his hereditary deteftation of them.

Cecil began his ministry, under the prefent reign, by playing off that most abfurd and incoherent farce, called Sir Walter Raleigh's plot, (1) by means of which he put out of the way one man who was peculiarly obnoxious to him, on account of his being privy to the king's promifes in favour of Catholics, the aforefaid priest Watfon. He endeavoured to get rid of other perfons of higher rank, who were equally odious to him, on different accounts, but James's

(1) See vol. i, p. 390, &c.

James's confcience interfered and faved them, when they were at the very point of being executed on the Castle-green of Winchefter, in the extraordinary manner that I have elsewhere related. (1) This artful minifter was not long without finding the means of wreaking his vengeance upon the whole Catholic body, and (which was his principal object) of diffolving the ties by which the king was united with them. This he accomplished by means of the famous Gunpowder Plot, of which he was either the original author, or at least the main conductor, as his father had been of that by which this king's mother was brought to the fcaffold. You tell me, Sir, that "the Catholic writers have called in question the reality of this atrocious defign," particularly "P Philips, in his Life of Cardinal Pole." (2) I have not however met, in the course of my reading, with any Catholic writer that denies the fact, and as to Philips, I cannot find that he fo much as mentions it. Let us examine this matter at once, with hiftorical impartiality and with Chriftian candour: not as is usually done by prejudiced or ignorant writers, who follow one another like a flock of fheep without reflection, or like declamatory preachers on the 5th of November, whofe object is to inflame their hearers with hatred against the Catholics: af ter which I fhall leave you to pronounce how far the latter were deferving of the aggravated penal laws at that time enacted against them, and how far they continue to merit the abhorrence of their fellow fubjects,

(1) See vol. i. p. 395

(2) P. 81.