1829.] The Coronation Oath, and the Cabinet. 339 
The purpose of all those debates and declarations was to settle the 
fact without any further controversy, that England must be in all the 
branches of its government Protestant ; that finding popery to have been 
pernicious, as was declared even in the reign of Charles, by the statute ; 
(30, c. 2.); to have involved the councils of the king in doctrines of 
tyranny ; and to have entangled the king in foreign connexions ruinous to 
his honour, the independence of his throne, and the safety of his people ; 
the legislature, speaking the voice of the nation, resolved, that (in the 
language of the late King George,) the door should be shut against the 
incursion of a religion which, wherever it worked its way, made mis- 
chief, which lived on intrigue, which had no bounds to its intrigue, 
which hated with a mortal hatred the religion, the constitution, and the 
power of England, and which, swearing allegiance to the pope, laboured 
to reduce every country under the dominion of the papacy, with all 
its plunders, political depravity, popular ignorance, and sanguinary per- 
secutions. 
The declaration of the Prince of Orange when he embarked, stated, 
“That it is certain that the public peace and happiness of any kingdom 
cannot be preserved where the laws, liberties, and customs are openly 
transgressed, and more especially where the alteration of religion is 
endeavoured, and that a religion which is contrary to law is endeavoured 
to be introduced ; upon which, those who are most immediately con- 
cerned in it, are indispensably bound to endeavour to preserve and main- 
tain the established laws, liberties, .and customs, and, above all, the 
ReEwieion AND WorsurP oF Gop.” 
The “ Nottingham paper,” bearing the signatures of a great number 
of the nobility and gentry, states, “that the exclusion of popery, and 
the support of Protestantism, constitute the object of their resisting 
James and offering to join William. Not being willing to deliver their 
posterity over to such a condition of popery and slavery as their oppres- 
sions inevitably threatened, they will, to the utmost of their power, 
oppose the same, by joining with the Prince of Orange for the recovery 
of their almost ruined laws, liberties, and religion. And herein they 
hope all good Protestant subjects will not be bugbeared with the op- 
probrious term of rebels, by which the court would frighten them to 
become perfect slaves to their tyrannical insolences and usurpations. 
«“ For they assure themselves, that no rational or unbiassed person 
could judge it rebellion to defend their laws and religion, which all © 
English Princes have sworn at their Coronation, which Oath, how well 
it has been observed of late, they desire a free Parliament might have 
the consideration of.”—(Cobbett’s Parl. Hist. v. 17.) 
In the celebrated discussion between the Lords and Commons on the 
word “abdicated,” Mr. Somers pronounced, that James, by breaking 
the original contract between the king and the people, had renounced 
being a king according to law, such a king as he swore to be at his 
coronation. 
The Declaration of Rights, in February 12, after stating the crimes 
by which James was dispossessed of the throne, declares, as the sub- 
stance of the whole, that he did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the 
Protestant Religion, and the laws and liberties of this kingdom. The 
letters summoning the New Parliament, desire that the Lords Temporal 
and Spiritual, being Protestant, and the representatives of the counties, 
&e., shall meet at Westminster, in order to such an establishment as 
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