ANSWER то TWO LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THE LATE RIGHT HONOURABLE GEORGE CANNING BY THE REV. HENRY PHILPOTTS, D. D. RECTOR OF STANHOPE, ON THE SUBJECT OF THE Roman Catholic Claims. SUBMITTED TO THE SERIOUS ATTENTION OF PERSONS WHO CONSCIENTIOUSLY RESIST THOSE CLAIMS, BY A CLERGYMAN OF THE CHURCH OF LONDON: PRINTED FOR JAMES RIDGWAY, 169. PICCADILLY; AND BELL & BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH. 1828. "The part a Member of the Commonwealth shall take in political ❝contentions, the vote he shall give, the support he shall afford, or "the opposition he shall make to any system of public measures, is as “much a question of personal duty, as much concerns the conscience "of the individual who deliberates, as the determination of any doubt "which relates to the conduct of private life." PALEY'S Preface to Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. TO THE REV. DR PHILPOTTS. SIR, As the period approaches, when we may expect attempts to renew the sensation produced by your letters to the late Mr Canning, I avail myself of the present moment to address you on the subject of them, and to appeal to the religious feelings of the public in behalf of my Roman Catholic brethren. I have examined the matters contained in those letters with very minute attention, and the examination has convinced, me, that, although written with much ingenuity and address, and with no inconsiderable display of learned research, they are utterly undeserving of the reputation and influence which they have acquired. The weakness of their pretensions may be easily exposed, by a brief analysis of some of their most formidable statements; and the cause of the Roman Catholics may be assisted by the suggestion of some considerations founded on a religious view of the subject. For these purposes I venture to take up my pen. How far a minister of peace is righteously employed in raking together the polemical rubbish of former ages of bigotry and ignorance, at the risk of rekindling the flame of religious discord, and with a view to deprive five or six millions of his Christian brethren of their natural |