not binding, without incurring the sin of lying, or perjury, by violating them. The fourth Lateran council, or any of its decrees, are so far from being repealed, altered, or changed, by any subsequent council, held to be a general one, by the Romanists, that it is confirmed, with all its decrees, by all the subsequent councils esteemed general by Romanists; to wit, by that of Basil, Constance, and Trent.

As Romish manuals have been some time, of late, resorted to as argument, in a great assembly, and in this History of the Penal Laws, it may not be amiss to resort here to a short extract from a Romish Catechism, published and dispersed throughout the province of Munster, by Doctor Butler, who was titular Archbishop of Cashel, and the immediate predecessor of the present titular Archbishop, whose letter to Lord Kenmare, dated in 1786, is inserted in the Appendix to the History of the Penal Laws. This extract relates only to two points of Romish belief, extremely hostile to all Protestant governments, and their Protestant subjects; to wit, Papal supremacy, and exclusive salvation.

First, as to Papal supremacy, Lesson 12.

Question. Has the Roman Catholic church the marks of the true church?

Answer. It has, and it alone..

Q. How is the Roman Catholic church one? A. In all its members being obliged to believe the same truths, to have the same sacraments, and sacrifice, and to be under the same visible head on earth.

Q. Who is the visible head of the church?
A. The Pope.

Q. Who is the Pope?

A. He is Christ's vicar on earth, the supreme visible head of the church.

Q. Why do we call the church Roman?
A. From Rome, where its visible head resides.

LESSON XI.

Q. How do you call the true church?

A. The Roman Catholic church.

Q. Is there any other true church besides the Roman Catholic church?

A. No.

Q. Why are all obliged to be of the true church?

A. Because no one can be saved out of it.

The mischief of the doctrine of the Pope's supremacy to a Protestant government, and that, too, a popular one, has been sufficiently proved. The dismal effects of the Romish doctrine of exclusive salvation, has been often experienced in various massacres, cruelties, and devastations, which will be repeated, from time to time, as

long as such an unchristian, uncharitable, desolating doctrine, shall have any entertainment in the human breast.

The History concludes with seven paragraphs, containing doctrines stated to be deducible from the arguments used in its prior pages. The position in the sixth paragraph, and the note to which it refers, have been satisfactorily refuted. The bare recital of the remaining paragraphs is nearly sufficient to insure their condemnation, as utterly unfounded, by any person who has perused the preceding pages, but a few observations are necessary to expose their futility.

The first paragraph is as follows. "The Catholics have to complain of three distinct breaches of faith by the government of England. 1st, In the violation of the treaty of Limerick. 2dly, In the recal of Lord Fitzwilliam. 3dly, In the treatment which they have received since the Union." As to the first, the violation of the capitulation of Limerick, it is unfounded. As to the second, the charge rests on the statements of the two banished traitors, M'Nevin and Emmet; it is as unfounded as the first. Lord Fitzwilliam, it is generally supposed, and reported, resigned his situation, on account of some difference of opinion between him and some of his Majesty's then ministers. As to the third, it is difficult to guess the meaning of the History, when it states,

that the treatment which the Romanists have received, since the Union, is a breach of faith of the government of England. If it be meant that they have obtained no new privileges since the Union, and that they were promised such, on the condition of their supporting the Union, it is utterly false that any such promise was ever made to them by any ministers. The papers delivered to their leaders by Lord Cornwallis, does not warrant the existence of such a promise; Mr. Pitt openly declared in Parliament, after the Union, that neither he, nor any of his colleagues in office, to his knowledge or belief, had entered into any engagement, or any condition, with the Irish Romanists, previous to the Union. Such engagement would have been absurd, because the Romanists had no means of promoting it, and they could not have obstructed it, save by open rebellion, which their impotence alone, both now and before the Union, when compared with the strength of the Protestants of the empire, prevents, and prevented them from commencing: and, lastly, the Irish Romanists have produced no proof, whatsoever, of such promise, nor would such promise, if made by the minister, or any set of ministers, have bound the King and his Parliament to perform it: and if such promise were made, the Irish Romanists absolved the promiser from any obligation of performing it,

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for, instead of supporting, they opposed the Union, as much as they could, by publishing the most decisive resolutions against it.

The second inference in the History is this:"They, the Irish Romanists, have to complain of having endured a greater share of insult and oppression than it ever was the lot of any other people, in any other country, to be exposed to." This paragraph is entirely unfounded. The Romanists of Ireland, during the existence of the Popery code, was exposed to no insult nor oppression whatsoever, unless laws, rendered absolutely necessary, for the preservation of the Constitution, in church and state, against a sect, which, in principles of religion, and in their conformable practices, were irreconcileable enemies to it, can be construed into insult and oppression. These laws precluded Irish Romanists from the acquisition of landed property, without taking away any part of that which they were in the legal enjoyment of before their enaction; because the possession of landed property confers political power, which they had always made a dangerous use of against the Protestant Constitution. It had also precluded them from the acquisition of certain places and employments, the enjoyment of which would invest the possessors with a considerable degree of political power and influence, which it was the direct interest of the state to