of a church which they solemnly forswear, and forswear with very hard words and many evil epithets, and that as often as they qualify themselves for the power which is to give this very patronage, or to give anything else that they desire,—­yet they cannot insure themselves that a man like the late Lord Chesterfield will not succeed to them.  This man, while he was duping the credulity of Papists with fine words in private, and commending their good behavior during a rebellion in Great Britain, (as it well deserved to be commended and rewarded,) was capable of urging penal laws against them in a speech from the throne, and of stimulating with provocatives the wearied and half-exhausted bigotry of the then Parliament of Ireland.  They set to work, but they were at a loss what to do; for they had already almost gone through every contrivance which could waste the vigor of their country:  but, after much struggle, they produced a child of their old age, the shocking and unnatural act about marriages, which tended to finish the scheme for making the people not only two distinct parties forever, but keeping them as two distinct species in the same land.  Mr. Gardiner’s humanity was shocked at it, as one of the worst parts of that truly barbarous system, if one could well settle the preference, where almost all the parts were outrages on the rights of humanity and the laws of Nature.

Suppose an atheist, playing the part of a bigot, should be in power again in that country, do you believe that he would faithfully and religiously administer the trust of appointing pastors to a church which, wanting every other support, stands in tenfold need of ministers who will be dear to the people committed to their charge, and who will exercise a really paternal authority amongst them?  But if the superior power was always in a disposition to dispense conscientiously, and like an upright trustee and guardian of these rights which he holds for those with whom he is at variance, has he the capacity and means of doing it?  How can the Lord-Lieutenant form the least judgment of their merits, so as to discern which of the Popish priests is fit to be made a bishop?  It cannot be:  the idea is ridiculous.  He will hand them over to lords-lieutenant of counties, justices of the peace, and other persons, who, for the purpose of vexing and turning to derision this miserable people, will pick out the worst and most obnoxious they can find amongst the clergy to set over the rest.  Whoever is complained against by his brother will be considered as persecuted; whoever is censured by his superior will be looked upon as oppressed; whoever is careless in his opinions and loose in his morals will be called a liberal man, and will be supposed to have incurred hatred because he was not a bigot.  Informers, tale-bearers, perverse and obstinate men, flatterers, who turn their back upon their flock and court the Protestant gentlemen of the country, will be the objects of preferment.  And then I run no