Those insurrections wherewith the Catholics are charged from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the great English rebellion, were occasioned by many oppressions they lay under.  They had no intention to introduce a new religion, but to enjoy the liberty of preserving the old; the very same which their ancestors professed from the time that Christianity was first introduced into this island, which was by Catholics; but whether mingled with corruptions, as some pretend, doth not belong to the question.  They had no design to change the government; they never attempted to fight against, to imprison, to betray, to sell, to bring to a trial, or to murder their King.  The schismatics acted by a spirit directly contrary; they united in a Solemn League and Covenant, to alter the whole system of spiritual government, established in all Christian nations, and of apostolic institution; concluding the tragedy with the murder of the King in cold blood, and upon mature deliberation; at the same time changing the monarchy into a commonwealth.

The Catholics of Ireland, in the great rebellion, lost their estates for fighting in defence of their King.  The schismatics, who cut off the father’s head, forced the son to fly for his life, and overturned the whole ancient frame of government, religious and civil; obtained grants of those very estates which the Catholics lost in defence of the ancient constitution, many of which estates are at this day possessed by the posterity of those schismatics:  And thus, they gained by their rebellion what the Catholics lost by their loyalty.[3]

[Footnote 3:  This paragraph is omitted in edition of 1743, but it is printed in that of 1755. [T.S.]]

We allow the Catholics to be brethren of the Dissenters; some people, indeed, (which we cannot allow) would have them to be our children, because we both dissent from the Church established, and both agree in abolishing this persecuting Sacramental Test; by which negative discouragement we are both rendered incapable of civil and military employments.  However, we cannot but wonder at the bold familiarity of these schismatics, in calling the members of the National Church their brethren and fellow Protestants.  It is true, that all these sects (except the Catholics) are brethren to each other in faction, ignorance, iniquity, perverseness, pride, and (if we except the Quakers) in rebellion.  But, how the churchmen can be styled their fellow Protestants, we cannot comprehend.  Because, when the whole Babel of sectaries joined against the Church, the King, and the nobility for twenty years, in a match at football; where the proverb expressly tells us, that all are fellows; while the three kingdoms were tossed to and fro, the churches, and cities, and royal palaces shattered to pieces by their balls, their buffets, and their kicks; the victors would allow no more fellows at football:  But murdered, sequestered, plundered, deprived, banished to the plantations, or enslaved all their opposers who had lost the game.