The Sun.
London, England, 1819-06-11 00:00:00

OS",
t:),mr•
'
•

[PRICE SEVENPENC P.

Charles 11,
,which required the taking of certain
oaths previous to the admission of iudivideals into
offices, or to seats in Parliament. •He ',egged
their Lordships' attention to the state of the times
• in which those Aets stele passed. The Suvereign
then upon the Throne was suspected of being a
Roman Catholic ; the Qeeeu was avowedly one,
and the Suacessor to the Crown, the then Duke
of York, had recently embraced rte Paps! reli-
gion. The Royal Exchequer had recently been
shut, and the peital laws with respect to Non• con.
fortni,os were suspended, in open d. fiaoce of po-
sitive Acts of Parliament. A crimp was formed at
the time Blackheath, under the Duke of Sellout-
berg, and the maj ,city of the officers of the army
under him were Roman Catholics, and a war
was declared against the only Protestant State
then in Europe, namely, Holland. Under such
extraordinary and eventful (.0 cumstances, the
Test Acts were passed. The Parliament had
sesisembled amidst all the agitation produced by
the Popish plot, and the conduct of &aloe, Oates; -
and such others, and the mysterious murder. of
Sir EdsnondsbUrg Godfrey. coder such cum-
stakes the voice of truth or 'reason could but
little avail ; every Roman Catholic was regarded •
either-as a conspirator or an incendiary 5 and tin-
der such a state of things the obnoxious acts
were passed. Their Lordships must be perfectly
well aware how widely different were the present
times and circumstances from such a state of
thiogs, and how little could apply the grand ob.
jectioit urged against the Catholics, namely, the
tear of foreign political connection,' to such a mea-
sure as that before the House. They should
consider the solemn and repeated (federations
made by the Catholics against all those principles
under which they were supposed to be hostile to
the present form_ of Government or Constitution
in this country. Their willingness to give any
security which could be devised, in the shape .of
oaths, saving, to themselves merely the exercise
of their own religion, should be considered, In
the proposed measure spiritual considerations
merely were involved ; it was entirely separate
from temporal concerns. The doctrines it refer-
red to were merely spiritual, and could not be a
ground for their exclusion from civil office ; and
he wont(' ask upon what principle they could re-
fuse the present measure, when there remained as
a security the Oath of Supremacy, which went to
renounce not only the temporal but the spiritual
power of the Pope ? lie hoped lie should nut be
called upon to contend that it was not proper to
continue the religious tests without a strong poe-
litical necessity being shown. It was by no
means necessary to resile as well as to exclude
the Catholics tied other Dissenters from the be-
nefi's of the Constitution. Ile must deprecate
not only the tenor, but the language or those oat his,
which he feared were too often taken withont
adequate attention to what they contained. Were
the doctrines of certain other religiqus persuasions
to be examined, they would, perhaps, be found
fully as objectionable as those of the Cacho.
lics. Ott their differences, only one Being, All-
wise and All•powerful, could decide. The Lies
therans had their Consubstantiation as well as the
Catholics their Transubstantiation, and we should
learn to judge more charitably with respect to the
feelings or doctrines of other denominetions of
Christians. The Noble Earl relerred to the
doctrines laid down by, Archbishop Wake, Bishops
Warburton and Headley, Sir William Temoles
and other eminent Theological Writers, in support
of what he advanced. He adverted to the circuit).
stance of the Bill, which went neatly, if not fully,
as far as the present, in its effect ; that for the
admission of Catholic Officers into the army,
which received the approbation of their Lordships
even without debate or inquiry, when introduced
by Noble Lords opposite ; and they now saw the
intended fate of a similar measure when it came
front the hands of different persons ; though he
was led to hope, from that measure, that the spirit
of opposition upon such-grounds was done away.
He then alluded to certain resolutions entered into
at a recent Meeting, held for thepurpose of giving
opposition to the present Bill, some of which were
drawn up in such a style as would induce him to
suppose the Noble and Learned Lord on the
Woolsack was concerned in their formation. To
the first of these, namely, that the British Con-
stitution should be preserved essentially and funda-
mentally Protestant, no mao could more zealously
subscribe than himself. The Bill in question went
not at all to affect the Protestant Constitution of
the realm. In Rome itself, lie observed, the Pro-
testant religion was now freely tolerated. Its
every Christian country, he contended, unlawful
oaths were held not to he binding, and it. was a
calumny to ascribe that dogma to the Catholics
exclusively; as fully was it unfounded to assert
they hold that no faith staeuld be kept with Heir-
tics. Much stress was laid upon a part of the
Pope's condect while in the power of the late
Emperor of France, namely, what was said re-
specting his distinction between active and passive
allegisuce; by the latter that Prelate merely meant
to authorise his subjects to afford a temporary
allegiance to a Powet which they could not resist.
All that part of his conduct evidently' proceeded
from constraint. The Catholics, he must say,
were found to be as fully observant of oaths as any
other description of Christians ; they were willing
to take the important Oath of Supremacy ; and
in justice they should be put upon an equal foot.
ing with other descriptions of Dissenters. The
remaining Tests would be abundantly sufficient
for all political considerations ; and by an ac-
quiescence in the present measure the Catholic
would be relieved front innch opprobrium, and the
Protestant Dissenter front those unjust fetters,
which still pressed upon them, with respect to
tests purely religious. They should rot stop
where they were, but still go on ire die beneficial

..,e-J-mrl7-v--------41
/ ~,,7, -,...---1 -V,'
--i - '.--700-7 .Ari
.71 :7 •Ice-!--st-\
~ , „,
—,..AT4,1,-
f';o. ' ,Ni..1..r, • .4)
OF, itiail.
v o ~41,...