[Footnote 2: Sir Phelim O'Neill (1604?-1683) one of the most picturesque characters of Irish history. For his share in the rebellion of 1641 he was expelled from the Irish House of Commons. The rebellion was an attempt to assist Charles as against the Parliament, and O'Neill forged a commission, purporting to come from the King, authorizing the Irish to rise in his favour. The Scottish settlers in Ulster, on whom O'Neill relied for aid disappointed him, and he thereupon set to work to reduce all their towns. The famous siege of Drogheda was one of the many incidents of his campaign. He joined forces with his kinsman, Owen Roe O'Neill, but a jealous difference on his part urged Sir Phelim to support Ormonde, in 1640, in that general's endeavours for a peace. Sir Phelim, however, was not included in the benefit of the Articles of Kilkenny, and a price was placed on his head. He was betrayed by Philip Roe McHugh O'Neill, brought to Dublin, and executed as a traitor. [T.S.]
Those insurrections wherewith the Catholics are charged from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the great English rebellion, were occasioned by many oppressions they lay under. They had no intention to introduce a new religion, but to enjoy the liberty of preserving the old; the very same which their ancestors professed from the time that Christianity was first introduced into this island, which was by Catholics; but whether mingled with corruptions, as some pretend, doth not belong to the question. They had no design to change the government; they never attempted to fight against, to imprison, to betray, to sell, to bring to a trial, or to murder their King. The schismatics acted by a spirit directly contrary; they united in a Solemn League and Covenant, to alter the whole system of spiritual government, established in all Christian nations, and of apostolic institution; concluding the tragedy with the murder of the King in cold blood, and upon mature deliberation; at the same time changing the monarchy into a commonwealth.
The Catholics of Ireland, in the great rebellion, lost their estates for fighting in defence of their King. The schismatics, who cut off the father's head, forced the son to fly for his life, and overturned the whole ancient frame of government, religious and civil; obtained grants of those very estates which the Catholics lost in defence of the ancient constitution, many of which estates are at this day possessed by the posterity of those schismatics: And thus, they gained by their rebellion what the Catholics lost by their loyalty.[3]
[Footnote 3: This paragraph is omitted in edition of 1743, but it is printed in that of 1755. [T.S.]
We allow the Catholics to be brethren of the Dissenters; some people, indeed, (which we cannot allow) would have them to be our children, because we both dissent from the Church established, and both agree in abolishing this persecuting Sacramental Test; by which negative discouragement we are both rendered incapable of civil and military employments. However, we cannot but wonder at the bold familiarity of these schismatics, in calling the members of the National Church their brethren and fellow Protestants. It is true, that all these sects (except the Catholics) are brethren to each other in faction, ignorance, iniquity, perverseness, pride, and (if we except the Quakers) in rebellion. But, how the churchmen can be styled their fellow Protestants, we cannot comprehend. Because, when the whole Babel of sectaries joined against the Church, the King, and the nobility for twenty years, in a match at football; where the proverb expressly tells us, that all are fellows; while the three kingdoms were tossed to and fro, the churches, and cities, and royal palaces shattered to pieces by their balls, their buffets, and their kicks; the victors would allow no more fellows at football: But murdered, sequestered, plundered, deprived, banished to the plantations, or enslaved all their opposers who had lost the game.
It is said the world is governed by opinion; and politicians assure us, that all power is founded thereupon. Wherefore, as all human creatures are fond to distraction of their own opinions; and so much the more, as those opinions are absurd, ridiculous, or of little moment; it must follow, that they are equally fond of power. But no opinions are maintained with so much obstinacy as those in religion, especially by such zealots who never bore the least regard to religion, conscience, honour, justice, truth, mercy, or common morality, farther than in outward appearance; under the mask of hypocrisy, to promote their diabolical designs. And therefore Bishop Burnet, one of their oracles, tells us honestly, that the saints of those fanatic times, pronounced themselves above morality; which they reckoned among "beggarly elements"; but the meaning of those two last words thus applied, we confess to be above our understanding.
Among those kingdoms and states which first embraced the Reformation, England appears to have received it in the most regular way; where it was introduced in a peaceable manner, by the supreme power of a King,[4] and the three estates in Parliament; to which, as the highest legislative authority, all subjects are bound passively to submit. Neither was there much blood shed on so great a change of religion. But a considerable number of lords, and other persons of quality through the kingdom still continued in their old faith, and were, notwithstanding their difference in religion, employed in offices civil as well as military, more or less in every reign, until the Test Act in the time of King Charles II. However, from the time of the Reformation, the number of Catholics gradually and considerably lessened. So that in the reign of King Charles I. England became, in a great degree, a Protestant Kingdom, without taking the sectaries into the number; the legality whereof, with respect to human laws, the Catholics never disputed: But the Puritans, and other schismatics, without the least pretence to any such authority, by an open rebellion, destroyed that legal Reformation, as we observed before, murdered their King, and changed the monarchy into a republic. It is therefore not to be wondered at, if the Catholics, in such a Babel of religions, chose to adhere to their own faith left to them by their ancestors, rather than seek for a better among a rabble of hypocritical, rebellious, deluding knaves, or deluded enthusiasts.
[Footnote 4: Henry VIII [H.]
We repeat once more, that if a national religion be changed by the supreme legislative power, we cannot dispute the human legality of such a change. But we humbly conceive, that if any considerable party of men which differs from an establishment, either old or new, can deserve liberty of conscience, it ought to consist of those who for want of conviction, or of a right understanding the merits of each cause, conceive themselves bound in conscience to adhere to the religion of their ancestors; because they are of all others least likely to be authors of innovations, either in Church or State.
On t'other side; If the reformation of religion be founded upon rebellion against the King, without whose consent, by the nature of our constitution, no law can pass. If this reformation be introduced by only one of the three estates, I mean the Commons, and not by one half even of those Commons; and this by the assistance of a rebellious army: Again, if this reformation were carried on by the exclusion of nobles both lay and spiritual (who constitute the two other parts of the three estates) by the murder of their King, and by abolishing the whole system of government; the Catholics cannot see why the successors of those schismatics, who are universally accused by all parties except themselves, and a few infamous abettors, for still retaining the same principles in religion and government, under which their predecessors acted; should pretend to a better share of civil or military trust, profit and power than the Catholics, who during all that period of twenty years, were continually persecuted with utmost severity, merely on account of their loyalty and constant adherence to kingly power.