"the bed of death, and for the indignities which may be offered to my remains. Hundreds of "Saints, such as the great S. Ignatius Patriarch " of Constantinople, have lived many years, and "died under a sentence of unjust excommu"nication, (as did our own S. Columbanus;) "and the African Council of two hundred and "seventeen Bishops, one of whom was S. Au"gustin, has declared, in its synodical Epistle "to Pope Celestine I. who sent S. Patrick to "Ireland, that it is not in the Pope's power to 'deprive of Communion any Man, whose cause "has not been Canonically judged.- Let those "who have deprived us of our emoluments, "character, promotions, &c. reflect, that their censures will never absolve them from the "duty of restitution,-" non demittetur pecca"tum, donec restituatur ablatum." Causa Vales. p. 13. 41. 187. 192. XVI. The Oath of Allegiance worse than nugatory, until Ultramontain ideas of Spiritual power are restrained. 1. From those evidences, and I could adduce many more, it is abundantly clear that, since the Jurisdiction, under cover of which all this warfare was carried on, against our Gentry and Nobility, was styled the Spiritual Jurisdiction of the Episcopal order, and the Spiritual Primacy of the Holy See, until some more rational and Christian ideas of those Spiritual Jurisdictions are entertained by our exclusive Doctors, and Synods, it is quite nugatory to allege, that the Oath of Allegiance, which disclaims all power, except Spiritual, affords sufficient security, either to the personal or to the National Independence or character of our Gentry or Clergy, or to the tranquility of the State. The word Spiritual must be defined; and its limits must be ascertained by Law; for it is plain, from what has been already said, and from what I am going to say, that, if abandoned to the waywardness of capricious interpretation, it is liable to the most glaring abuse. 2. I have already adverted to the power of taxation, which is claimed and practiced under cover of this Spiritual Jurisdiction. Now I always thought, that a people who are taxed without the consent of their Representatives, are enslaved. I do not mean to say that our people are taxed too highly: that is another question; perhaps they are not. Yet I think that our Cesses are not proportioned as they ought, to the means of the different classes of our poor; and that the poor, being thus taxed by our Bishops, without any communication with our Gentry or Clergy, and without any legal form of proceeding, are, under cover of Spiritual Jurisdiction, enslaved! The 3. I agree that Taxation is not Tyranny when it is not arbitrary. A parish Vestry may lay a cess on the inhabitants, and enforce the payment:I agree also, that there is no necessary connexion between taxation and individual or numerical consent. Those who return Members to Parliament are comparatively few. great majority have no vote, and ought to have none, because "Stultorum infinitus est numerus, and of those who can vote, few have any personal knowledge of him to whom they entrust the power of the purse. Men must be content to leave those matters to the learned, as they leave prescriptions to Physicians and drugs to Apothecaries. The Supreme power of every Community has a right of requiring from all its subjects, such contributions as are necessary to public safety or public prosperity. 4. But still that power, which touches the purse, must be legally elected; it must be, in some shape or other, the Representative power the people; and are our Bishops Canonically elected? and if they are not, whence their power of deciding in what proportion payments shall be required? to what uses applied? or to whose discretion entrusted?-This discretionary power of a few self-nominating Individuals, might have done very well, during the greater part of the last century, whilst our population was comparatively small, our people less refractory, and our Bishops and Priests exposed to persecution.--But, on our present extended scale of millions, it can scarcely be tolerated. It demands the wisdom of a profound statesman, and the hearty co-operation of all the wise and virtuous of our communion, to devise a remedy for the evils to which it gives rise. The decency also of pub lic worship, the stability of public order, and, above all, the necessity of popular instruction, all conspire most urgently, in demanding a new domestic arrangement, on principles of Legal and universal consent. It is impossible that such a system as now prevails, can have the effect of spreading so widely the care of general interest, and the participation of public counsels, as to prevent either the negligence or the corruption of individuals, from operating with much injury to the interests of sincere piety amongst the lower order, and sincere attachment amongst the great. I may acknowledge, and I do acknowledge with no small share of regret, that so meritorious a class as the second order of our Clergy, who bear the burden of the day, are not sufficiently paid. But I contend, that the people may be too highly, and too unequally cessed, though the Clergy are not sufficiently provided for, and that this enormous disproportion of labour and payment, can be remedied only by the wisdom of the Legislature, and the equality and the equity of the Laws. 5. In every Society there must beyond all |