JAMES THE SECOND.

71

■were entitled to an equivalent, and went so far as to suggestseveral equivalents. During some weeks the word equivalent, ■then lately imported from France, was in the mouths of all thecoffee-house orators; but at length a few pages of keen logicand polished sarcasm written by Halifax put an end to theseidle projects. One of Penn’s schemes was that a law shouldbe passed dividing the patronage of the crown into three equalparts; and that to one only of those parts members of theChurch of Home should be admitted. Even under such anarrangement the members of the Church of Rome would haveobtained near twenty times their fair portion of official ap-pointments; and yet there is no reason to believe that even tosuch an arrangement the King would have consented. But,had he consented, what guarantee could he give that he wouldadhere to his bargain? The dilemma propounded by Halifaxwas unanswerable. If laws are binding on you, observe thelaw which now exists. If laws are not binding on you, it isidle to offer us a law as a security. *

It is clear, therefore, that the point at issue was notwhether secular offices should be thrown open to all sects in-differently. While James was King it was inevitable that thereshould be exclusion; and the only question was who should beexcluded, Papists or Protestants, the few or the many, ahundred thousand Englishmen or five millions.

Such are the weighty arguments by which the conduct ofthe Prince of Orange towards the English Roman Catholicsmay be reconciled with the principles of religious liberty.These arguments, it will be observed, have no reference toany part of the Roman Catholic theology. It will also be ob-served that they ceased to have any force when the crown hadbeen settled on a race of Protestant sovereigns, and when thepower of the House of Commons in the state had become sodecidedly preponderant that no sovereign, whatever mighthave been his opinions or his inclinations, could have imitatedthe example of James. The nation, however, after its ter-rors, its struggles, its narrow escape, was in a suspicious andvindictive mood. Means of defence therefore which necessity* Johnstone, Jan. 13 . 1088 ; Halifax’s Analomy of an Equivalent.

CHAP.

VII.

1687.