Nor yet should I have pretended to recall the syncretic system of legislation and jurisprudence to your Majesty's attention, nor develope a plan of union and universal coalition, had not the noisy orators of sects and parties so generally destroyed each other's credit, by mutual recrimination, exposure, and abuse.

This theory of catholicity or syncretism, which enables monarchs to look with an eye of equal patronage on all their subjects, is no new-fangled scheme of innovating empirics, but the aboriginal and patriarchal law of ecclesiastical and civil policy. This doctrine of syncretism and of peace has been eloquently pleaded by the fathers of the Christian Church, who were most sedulous in extending the harmonies of divine religion over the discords of party prejudice. It was supported by a long succession of divines and statesmen, who have been regarded as the most enlightened writers on political philosophy.

The religious and political maxims of these syncretists and pacificators, formed the guiding light of Europe during the seventeenth century a period of gigantic energy and vehement agitation. A restatement and revival of the same theory of concord and harmony has become a matter of intense importance, as regards your Majesty's interests, and those of the British empire, in the present critical position of public affairs.

When the grand system of catholicity is once adopted by a monarch, it confirms and establishes him, beyond all other principles, in that sovereign authority which is equally super-eminent over the Church and the State. It enables him to extend an equal patronage to the catholic and universal church of his kingdom. This catholic and universal church comprises the spirits of all just men, whether Jews, Papists, Protestants, Conformists or Nonconformists of all religious denominations. In the same way, the universal state comprehends all political orders, Tories, Whigs, Radicals, and the multitudinous parties, or rather factions, that wage interminable hostilities.

It is natural that the people of Great Britain, your loyal and devoted subjects, should regard your Majesty with intense interest and affection, not unmingled with anxiety. They have, of late years, been enduring a sort of moral and intellectual civil war; and the august constitution itself has reeled beneath the tempests of insensate dispute. The principles of national aggrandisement, the reverence for the old and the thirst for the new, have been clashing in incessant collision. The main strength of the people has been exhausted and overwhelmed by the conflicting interests of corrupt factions. They have been struggling through a long and stormy night of religious and civil dissension-of jarring polemics and discordant policies; and they regard their youthful Queen as the rising star of day, before whose benignant and universal radiance the clouds of darkness and tempest dissolve and melt away.

How would the majestic spirits of Grotius, and his biographers, Burigni and Butler, exult, if they beheld the noble cause of sacred union and peace, for which they spent their memorable lives, thus dawning upon men :-

"How calm, how beautiful comes on

The stilly hour when storms are gone,

When warring winds have died away,
And clouds, beneath the sunny ray,

Melt off, and leave the land and sea
Sleeping in bright tranquillity."

So carefully instructed in sacred and general literature, your Majesty is perfectly aware that there exist two great systems of government, and only two: one the syncretic and harmonic, the other the divisional and discordant. From these two result all the more technical distinctions of political constitutions.

Religion and universal history speak in favour of the first, the mediatorial and harmonic. It has been the special praise of all the saints, the sages and philosophers, who have caught a glimpse of the holy jurisprudence of heaven, and who have risen from the cloudy atmosphere of partialities, passions, and prejudices, into the upper firmament of divine and universal philanthropy.

The second kind of government, namely, the divisional and discordant, has been the idol and the curse of little and vicious minds-of intellects that could embrace nothing greater than the insignificancies of sects and parties, and of passions that were panting for the destruction of fellow-creatures, and fellow-subjects, and fellow-citizens.

That the syncretic style of government, the all-embracive and reconciling system of politics, is the only one recognised by Scripture, is clear to every man's conscience. "Revelation," says a noble writer, "by its doctrine of an universal Father, sweeps away all the barriers of sect, party, rank, and nation, in which men have laboured to shut up their love. I meet in Christ only discoveries of a vast, bold, and illimitable character, fitted and designed to give energy and expansion to the soul. "When we look on the history of kings and emperors, and all the great chiefs of the earth, the only test we have of their real greatness and magnanimity is this fine Christian criterion of catholicity, which rises superior to all sects and parties, and embraces all their developements in its ample and far-sweeping circumference. These are the true sovereigns of the earth: they share in the royalty of Christ, whose highest end was that he might act with a new and celestial energy in the human mind: they have a greatness which will be more and more felt. The time is coming, its signs are visible, when this long mistaken attribute of greatness, will be seen to belong eminently, if not exclusively, to those who, by their characters, deeds, sufferings, and writings, leave imperishable and ennobling traces of themselves on the human mind."

And is not this the great Christian test by which we have always measured the relative greatness or littleness of the kings and queens of Britain? Have we not always considered them great in proportion as they rose superior to sects and parties, and embraced and reconciled their conflicting and clashing interests? And have we not always measured the littleness of our monarchs by the proportion in which they became bound up to some favourite and cherished party, thereby sacrificing the interests of the rest?

Let your Majesty consider whether this statement is not confirmed by the relative esteem, or censure, in which all your predecessors are held by the glorious people you govern. What makes us so fond of Elizabeth but this, that on the whole she rose superior to Papists and Pro

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testants, to sects and parties, and, with a magnanimity almost unrivalled in woman, chose her ministers with reference to their merits, and promoted worth and talent wherever she found them.

It is with the deep conviction that this Catholic and universal policy is the only one worthy of your Majesty's patronage and cultivation, that I make these remarks in favour of syncretism among church and state parties; and, that our arguments may not appear without authority, we will quote the names of those eminent worthies who, in their lives and writings, have confirmed the syncretic law.

Among the Roman Catholic syncretists who have been desirous of correcting the doctrine and discipline of the Romish Church, so as to make it harmonise with the Protestant Establishments, we find Erasmus, Vives, Mirandola, Cassander, Vicelius, Bossuet, Fenelon, Du Pin, Cane, Ganganelli, Geddes, Haywarden, Sir Thomas More, Huet, Burigni, Montesquieu, Berresford, Murray, and Charles Butler.

Among the Protestant writers who have recommended syncretism among Papists, Protestant Churchmen and Dissenters, and the different parties of politicians, we cite Grotius, Casaubon, Junius, Leibnitz, Wake, Parreus, Duræus, Amyraut, Dallæus, Puffendorf, Calixtus, Bacon, Selden, Locke, Huntingdon, Baxter, Burnet, Doddridge, Watts, Wesley, Burleigh, Whichcote, Burke, Addison, Mason, Nightingale, Tancred, O. Croly, Bates, and Noel, and the authors mentioned in Evans's "Golden Centenary."

Such are the men who have stood manfully in defence of political union, in opposition to political disunion and party-spirit. They have evinced, beyond all contradiction, that political union has formed the very nucleus of Great Britain's strength-that, in proportion as political union has prevailed, in that proportion has she been prosperous; and that every degree of party-spirit has gone to abate her energies, and to impoverish her resources.

Bright and youthful Queen, whose mind is now opening in its first clearness and amplitude, nor yet overclouded and contracted by the impious quarrels of parties, O seek the sublimer sovereignty of religion, and the larger empire of universal syncretism, patronage, and coalition. Thus become the delight of mankind, and the glory of thy people. In this thy true greatness lies, thy true honor and happiness. In that lofty and matchless empire, where thou alone dost reign, be like the moon when she traverses the eternal azure, and looks down from her glorious serenity on the earth beneath.

Such be thy sublime monarchy, O dawning star of Britain! Impersonate that great Spirit of Unity who is above all, and in whom all consist. Outsoar all parties, and embrace them all. Be the Catholic of the Catholics, and the Protestant of the Protestants, and the Conservative of the Conservatives, and the Whig of the Whigs. Let all look up to thee as their common glory and consolation; let none rise above thee in catholicity, or extend beyond thee in philanthropy; but follow that supreme law whose seat is the bosom of God, and whose voice the harmony of the universe.

That the Queen of Great Britain is, in truth, a most Catholic Majesty, and may become the most Catholic of the Catholics, is evident from a brief review of the history of dignities.

The dignity of patriarch, pontiff, or supreme hierarch, seems always to have been considered the first and highest of all human authorities; such pontiffs were Moses and the Judges of Israel: the next order was that of pontifical, sacerdotal, or sacred emperors and kings, such as David and Solomon, combining both the sacred and secular functions, and subordinating beneath them all orders of priests and lay officials.

It has been identically the same with Italy and the states of Europe. From the earliest times, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Pontiff Hierarch, or Pope of Rome, were considered first in abstract dignity. Saving this immemorial title in the ranks of foreign precedency, legitimate emperors and kings were absolute in their several kingdoms, permitting no foreign interference, and standing above all archbishops, bishops, and priests of all religious orders. The propriety of this political organisation was gladly recognised by all their loyal subjects.

This religious pre-eminence of kings has been enforced by the most venerable defenders of the divine right, both Papist and Protestant as well as those that have adopted more popular views. The office of king, has ever been held a sacerdotal and sacred office of supreme dignity, as Hooker has proved at large. Thus the fear of God is coupled by divine authority with the reverence of kingship. Thus Plutarch tells us, that the Persians honoured the king as the image of God, that preserveth all things. St. Basil calls the king a living image of God, and Plato extols the regial dignity as a divine good among men. Such is the glorious prerogative of kings, who combine the sacred and secular characters, and stand above all priests and laics whatever.

Such (saving the patriarchal or pontifical dignity) is actually the light in which the august emperors and kings of Russia, Austria, Prussia and France, are regarded by their subjects. And what hinders your Majesty from assuming this sacred pre-eminence of a Catholic and superepiscopal Sovereign, both ecclesiastical and civil? The defender of the universal faith of Christian parties, as well as the civil rights of your mixed population.

Believe me, that saving the title of the Pontiff abroad, which must still stand where it does in the rolls of European precedency, Roman Catholics have ever reverenced the super-episcopal monarchs of Great Britain as absolute in the British empire. The Roman Catholics of this country would reverence the authority of our kings, as supreme defenders of the faith of Christians of all persuasions, and the interests of subjects of all parties.

We have shown that the monarchs of Great Britain, once simply Catholic, are still Catholic and universal in a larger sense: the constitution of Great Britain is as essentially a universal and mixed constitution. It is a mixed constitution composed of Jews, Papists and Protestants. The Papists composing nearly one third of the population, and the Protestants nearly two-thirds. The constitution of Great Britain is a mixed constitution, by the very same rule as Austria, Prussia, Holland and Switzerland. They are none of them purely Papal constitutions; they are none of them purely Protestant constitutions; but they are all mixed constitutions, in which general union, toleration, and coalition are the order of the day, and Papists and Protestants are equally

patronised by the state, equally paid by the state according to their deserts, and treated with the same liberality.

We conceive no political error more gross, monstrous or mischievous, and more utterly unfounded in fact, than the vulgar opinion, that Great Britain is a purely Protestant constitution. Every constitution is an aggregate consisting of component parts; a constitution therefore must necessarily be mixed where its component parts are so. This error has sometimes betrayed our monarchs into limited partial invidious and ungenerous lines of policy, and has divided the good brotherhood and freemasonry of our countrymen in general, by most atrocious hostilities, jealousies, and calumnies, beyond all calculation.

If your Majesty should be disposed to assume this sacred eminence of Catholic sovereignty; if that Majesty raising an ecclesiastical Lord High Chancellor above all clergy, whether Papal or Protestant, chose to patronise the Papal and Protestant bishops and priests assembled in convocations according to their loyalty and merit; if that Majesty should advance those healing measures which have been already adopted in Belgium and America, whereby all religious parties are patronised and paid by the state according to the sacred services-would not this, beyond any other line of policy, consolidate and harmonise the empire?

The more our kings have assumed of a Catholic and universal patronage of religion, the more they have promoted religious toleration and general coalition, the more has the authority of the pontiff abroad merged in the beneficence of the monarch at home. Witness the solemn oaths and declarations, showing with what religious reverence they are inclined to venerate and defend our legitimate monarchs; their blood has attested their sincerity in our armies and our fleets. With what warm hearts have they sought to aggrandise the renown and happiness of their own heaven-appointed native and natural sovereigns, let the sacrifice of their fortunes and their interests speak for them. How painful for loyalists like these to find themselves overlooked and neglected by monarchs who have lavished their patronage on time-servers of other parties!

They

Queen of thy people's hopes, be thou at least a catholic syncretist, if none of thy subjects have moral genius or courage enough to rise to the same policy. Imitate the example of the heroic apostle of dawning Christianity, that heaven-inspired syncretist, who to the Jews became a Jew and to the Greeks a Greek. The crown of Britain is essentially catholic and all-inclusive-it is at once Papal and Protestant. destroy its catholicity altogether who assert that it is either Papal or Protestant in a disjunctive and segregate sense. In proportion as we become either Papists or Protestants, in a partial manner, we become sectarian,-for Papist and Protestant, like Tory and Whig, are mere party names.

Rise, then, in the name of the Deity, who placed you on the throne of the mightiest empire on earth-in the name of the Universal Spirit, who has adorned you with graces which have inspired unbounded loyalty-rise to a somewhat sublimer policy than that adopted by the jealous partisans who swarm around thy palaces.

Emulate, therefore, the example of those gallant emperors, those highminded and renowned queens, who choose their chancellors and their