zeal cooled, than
government sowed tares by enlarging the privileges of Catholics with
regard to civil property. The deplorable fact now is, that Popery,
basking in the sunshine of legislative power, advanced to the legal
possession of new privileges, and shielded by a formal toleration in the
neighboring kingdoms, may be considered as enjoying the actual
protection of government in Scotland. In Ireland, privileges of a still
more exalted nature are bestowed upon Popery, while the Catholic is so
far enfranchised, that, in conjunction with the Protestant, he may give
his voice for members to serve in the legislature of the country. What
greatly adds to the evil is, the lamentable alteration of public
opinion, so lately displayed against the measures of government in
former indulgences bestowed upon the Catholic interest; but which has
now changed into an entire approbation thereof, both by the great body
of the people and the minority in the two houses of Parliament; and the
only complaint against government on that score is, that, stopping short
of meeting just claims of Catholics, they have not ingrafted them into
all the privileges of British subjects, and for ever done away the
odious distinction between Protestant and Catholic, as to privilege.

When we open our eyes to the measures of the present day, we behold
still more abominations. The government so far from remembering whence
they are fallen, repenting and doing their first works, have started
again in the cause of Antichrist, by leaguing themselves in a military
expedition with a group of Popish despots on the continent, who have
long given their power to the beast; of this expedition one object
evidently appears to be the re-establishment and support of Popery in
France, where under the administration of the omnipotent, and avenging
holy providence of God, in the pouring out of the vials of his wrath
upon the beast, that false religion has received a sore and bleeding
wound, and where the people, long crushed under the tyranny of a
despotic throne, and usurpation of an imposing priesthood, have risen to
extricate themselves from the accumulated oppression, and by their
astonishing efforts have shaken off the Papal yoke, by renouncing their
accustomed allegiance to the head of the Antichristian states at Rome,
have withdrawn their wonted supplies from his treasures, and completely
overthrown the temporal power of his religion in their own country,
which had f