Page:William Petty - Economic Writings (1899) vol 1.djvu/298

200 much as by the Conversation of Protestants, they become asham'd of their ridiculous Practices, which are not de fide. As for the Richer and better-educated sort of them, they are such Catholicks as are in other places. The Poor, in adhering to their Religion, which is rather a Custom than a Dogma amongst them, They seem rather to obey their Grandees, old Landlords, and the Heads of their Septes and Clans, than God. For when these were under Clouds, transported into Spain, and transplanted into Connaught, and disabled to serve them as formerly, about the year 1656, when the Adventurers and Soldiers appeared to be their Landlords and Patrons, they were observed to have been forward enough to relax the stiffness of their pertinacity to the Pope, and his Impositions. Lastly, Among the better sort of them, many think less of the Pope's Power in Temporals, as they call it, than formerly; and begin to say, that the Supremacy, even in Spirituals, lies rather in the Church diffusive, and in qualified General-Councils, than in the Pope alone, or than in the Pope and his Cardinals, or other Juncto.

The Religion of the Protestants in Ireland, is the same with the Church of Eng-|97|land in Doctrine, only they differ in Discipline thus, viz.

The Legal Protestants hold the Power of the Church to be in the King, and that Bishops and Arch-Bishops, with their Clerks, are the best way of adjusting that Power under him. The Presbyterians would have the same thing done, and perhaps more, by Classes of Presbyters National and Provincial. The Independents would have all Christian Congregations independent from each other. The Anabaptists are Independent in Discipline, and differ from all those aforementioned in the Baptism of Infants, and in the inward and spiritual Signification of that Ordinance. The Quakers salute not by uncovering the Head, speak to one another in the second Person, and singular Number; as for Magistracy and Arms, they seem to hold with the Anabaptists of Germany and Holland; they pretend to a possibility of perfection, like the Papists; as for other