As we are very sensible of Your Majesties Great Zeal to Establish the Roman Catholick Religion in this Your Kingdom of Ireland, and own our selves extremely thankful and beholding to Your Majesty for Your Gracious Declaration to us upon that Subject; So pursuant to Your Majesties Directions and Encouragement, we herein most humbly offer the means that to us seem most efficacious for the due Accomplishing thereof.
Reflections.
Here is a fair acknowledgment of a Design to establish the Roman-Catholick Religion in Ireland, which they expresly say, King James had declared to them, and had previous thereto given them Directions and Incouragement about it. One would think, The Titular Archbishop of Dublin, and the rest of the Gang, needed few Directions to go about so meritorious a Work as the Establishment of the Catholick Religion: But it seems King James his Zeal has outgone even theirs in this point. He has not only given them Directions about it, but incourag’d them in it. And we know the word Incouragement, is a very entensive one; as including not only promises to assist, but means and power to bring about. And we have no reason to doubt, but King James, though he thought not himself oblig’d to keep his word so often given to English Hereticks; yet He would not fail to merit Heaven, by keeping firm with those People He imagin’d had power to lock Heaven against him in case of a failure. And here by the by, I think it but just, His Confessor should absolve him from the obligation of his Promise to the Titular Archbishop of Dublin, and the rest of them, since the entire Ruine of his Affairs in Ireland, has put him out of capacity to keep his word to them.
Memorial.
Imprimis, The usual and right Method for to compass any End or Design, is first of all to remove the Chief Obstacles that offer thereunto; Wherefore, inasmuch as the Penal Laws, particularly the Statute of Uniformity, and other like, were originally devised and enacted to abolish the Roman-Catholick Religion, and will continue to be the main hindrance of its advancement; We humbly conceive that to re-establish the same Roman-Catholick Religion in this Kingdom, as Your Majesty graciously intends, it is in all Conscience and Justice an Act of indispensible necessity to repeat those aforesaid Penal Laws so thoroughly repugnant to the Honour and true Worship of God, and to the Salvation of Souls.
Reflections.
What a Barrier the Penal Laws are against Popery here, the Papists themselves do witness; And what an Eye-sore they are to them, they fairly enough insinuate by their earnestness with King James, in this Paragraph, to have them Repeal’d. Here it is we have reason to admire and praise the wise and happy Conduct of the Church of England in the late Reign, who would not be impos’d upon to take off these Laws, which the Papists as well as they, knew to be a firm barrier against Popery, and a sure fence for securing the Protestant Religion; Whatever other glosses were put upon them by some of that time. This does sufficiently free that Church from the imputation of wilfulness and moroseness thrown upon them by their Enemies upon the account of their Refusal in this matter: since the Papists themselves acknowledge in the above-mentioned Paragraph, That these Laws were originally enacted to abolish the Roman-Catholick Religion, and to be the main hinderance of its advancement. And indeed they must have been very blind, that did not see through the Designs of the late Reign, in their Intriegues of repealing these Laws: And it were a great Reflection upon the Wisdom of the Dissenters, to think they had any other thoughts of the Court-Designs at that time, or that they could be brought to imagine, there was any real kindness meant towards them, either in the Toleration granted them, or in the Insinuations made them to take off the Penal Laws. For there was no Party of men more odious to the Papists, than the Dissenters, notwithstanding of all the Caresses made them, merely to juggle them into their own Ruine, and the Ruine of the Church of England.
Memorial.
IIdly, whereas Almighty God of his Divine Providence has placed Bishops in his Church, bought and redeemed by the Price of his most Precious Blood, for to rule and govern the same, and for to enlighten the People into the true and only way of Salvation, as is apparent in Holy Writ; It followeth by an unavoidable consequence, that it is not only conducive, but also absolutely requisite for the establishment of this Roman-Catholick Church in its due lustre and decorum in this Kingdom; That the Prelates and other Clergy thereof, be restored to their Livings, Churches, and full exercise of their Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, without which it is not to be expected that they can prevail to repress the Vices most swaying in this Age, and make the Christians improve themselves with more serious application in the observance of God’s Law, and in the wholsome practice of Piety and Virtue: For we find by Experience, that the People now-a-days, generally speaking, will not much heed or regard the Exhortations or Threatnings of their Ghostly Directors, when they see them reduced to so low an ebb of Indigence, as to depend of themselves for their spiritual Power and Authority.