had not only promoted
to the utmost of his power the claims of Roman Catholics to all civil
rights, but had deemed it not merely just, but desirable, that that
Church should impart religious instruction to the 'numerous Irish
immigrants in London and elsewhere, who, without such help, would have
been left in heathen ignorance.' He believed that this might have been
accomplished without any such innovation as that which the Papacy now
contemplated. He laid stress on the assumption of power made in all the
documents on the subject which had come from Rome, and he protested
against such pretensions as inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy,
with the rights of the bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual
independence of the nation. He confessed that his alarm was not equal to
his indignation, since Englishmen would never again allow any foreign
prince or potentate to impose a yoke on their minds and consciences. He
hinted at legislative action on the subject, and then proceeded to take
up his parable against the Tractarians in the following unmistakeable
terms: 'There is a danger, however, which alarms me much more than the
aggression of a foreign sovereign. Clergymen of our Church who have
subscribed the Thirty-nine Articles and have acknowledged in explicit
terms the Queen's supremacy, have been the most forward in leading their
flocks, step by step, to the verge of the precipice. The honour paid to
saints, the claim of infallibility for the Church, the superstitious use
of the sign of the Cross, the muttering of the Liturgy so as to disguise
the language in which it was written, the recommendation of auricular
confession, and the administration of penance and absolution--all these
things are pointed out by clergymen as worthy of adoption, and are now
openly reprehended by the Bishop of London in his Charge to the clergy
of his diocese. What, then, is the danger to be apprehended from a
foreign prince of no power, compared to the danger within the gates from
the unworthy sons of the Church of England herself? I have but little
hope that the propounders and framers of these innovations will desist
from their insidious course; but I rely with confidence on the people of
England, and I will not bate a jot of heart or life so long as the
glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation shall be
held in reverence by the great mass of a nation, which look with
contempt on the mummeries of superstition, and with