situation, and he had no wish to depreciate the dangers to
which she was exposed; but instead of being increased by the measure
before the house, they would be diminished by it. On the other hand,
the Archbishop of Armagh argued, that the Irish church had everything to
fear from Catholic emancipation. If the house, indeed, could subdue the
intolerant spirit of the church of Rome, disarm the priests of their
influence over the people, and withdraw the people from their allegiance
to the see of Rome, making them citizens of their own country, and
letting them take their stand among other dissenters, all might be well.
But would any man, he asked, say that they could make the church of Rome
tolerant, or persuade the priesthood of that church to hold an inferior
rank to a clergy, the validity of whose orders they denied, and whose
church they reviled as adulterous? Could any one suppose that the Roman
Catholic priests would quit their hold upon the consciences, wills,
and the passions of men, when their spiritual despotism was the most
powerful engine for their own aggrandisement? The Roman Catholic
priesthood must ever stand alone. It had set the indelible mark of
separation on its own forehead, by its unnatural, though politic,
restrictions, by its claim to exclusive pre-eminence, and by its
dangerous and unconstitutional connexion with a foreign state.
Ascendancy, he contended, would be placed within the reach of the Roman
Catholics by this bill; and could any one believe that they would not
attempt to seize upon that ascendancy when it was well known that the
promotion of the interests of their church was with them a point of
principle and of honour, which they considered as far superior to
the claims of country or kindred. The confederacy of the priesthood,
actuated by a hatred of whatever was Protestant, would leave no
means untried to exalt their church at the expense of the Protestant
establishment, and especially when they found that those who ought to
support that establishment were divided into parties. Such must be their
objects and their wishes; and the bill would furnish them with both. The
bishops of London and Durham expressed the same sentiments regarding
the inevitable danger to the Protestant establishments, which must
necessarily spring from what was neither less nor more than a deliberate
arming of the Catholics with the power required to effect objects
which the Catholics themselves bad the caution care