ar objections against this extraordinary measure
are of a different quality. They are briefly such as follow:

1. The _iniquity_ of it against God. It is certainly a deed highly
provoking and dishonoring to the God of heaven. For (1), it is a giving
that public protection and countenance to a _lie_, i.e. to idolatry and
false worship (and to anti-christian idolatry, the worst of all other),
which is only due to the truth of God. It is a devoting and giving our
national power to the preservation of the life of the Romish beast,
after the deadly wound given it by the Reformation. And therefore (2), a
most wretched prostitution of the ordinance of civil power, sacred by
its divine institution, to be _a terror_ and restraint _to evil doers,
and a praise to them that do well_, Rom. xiii,--to the quite contrary
purposes. What right have open idolaters and blasphemers to be protected
and supported by any ordinance of God in the public acts of their
idolatry? And how awful is it to think (3), that it is a setting
ourselves openly to fight against God, in a national engagement to
support and defend what God has declared and testified to us in his
word, he will have destroyed; and wherein he expressly forbids giving
the least countenance to idolatry. And shall we thus harden ourselves
against God and prosper? (4), As this last instance of our profane
national policy is a still more open discovery of our incorrigibleness
in our apostasy, so it is also the most striking of all the former of
that Erastianism and spiritual supremacy exercised by the civil powers
in these lands over the church and kingdom of Christ. Herein we have an
open and avowed justification of that anti-scriptural right and power
claimed by them to settle and establish whatever mode of religion they
please, or is most agreeable to the inclinations of the people, or which
best answers their worldly political purposes, although it should be the
religion of Satan in place of that of Christ. This has been the great
leading principle all along since the Revolution, but never more openly
discovered than in this instance. Upon all which it may appear how
sinful and provoking to the divine Majesty this act must be.

2. The _folly and shamefulness_ of it as to ourselves. How disgraceful
and dishonorable is this public act in favor of Popery, even to the
nation itself, and its representatives, who me the authors of it. How
palpably inconsistent is it with our national cha