By disarming our Enemies, the utmost we can hope, is, to render them impotent. The Diminution of _their_ Power adds nothing to our _own_. Repentance is never so permanent or sincere, as when preceded by Pardon; and Favour is, as the polar Attraction, to Inclination. Is there a Man whose Love and Gratitude you desire to engage? Common Sense will direct you to do him a Benefit. Would you bind him to your Service with Hoops of Steel? You must make it his Interest, as well as his Duty, to befriend you. It is, by no means, my Intention to arraign either the Wisdom or good Policy of our Forefathers. But all Men are, in some Degree, fallible, as well in the congregate, as in the individual; and the Shrewd may err as much, by over-reaching their Aim, as the Ignorant, by falling short, or deviating from it. But, had a hundred _Pitts_, and a hundred _Cecils_, composed the Senate of our Ancestors, at the Time that those _Penal Laws_ were enacted; had those Laws been ever so wise and so just, so wholesome and necessary, and well suited to the Season; is that a Reason that they should _continue so_ to the End of Time? In a World where nothing is permanent; where Modes, Manners, Principles, and Practice are at a Flux; where Life is uncertain, and all it contains changeable; Nature and Reason will conform to Situation and Circumstance; and where _Causes_ have ceased, in any Degree, the _Consequences_ ought to cease in the same Proportion. It is not now with _Rome_ as it was in the Days when Princes held her Steed, and Emperors her Stirrup. The Kings of the Earth have, pretty clearly, resumed her Usurpations and Acquisitions of temporal Dominion. It is not now, as it was when she cried Peace! and it became Peace; or when the Breath of her Mandate kindled the Nations to Battle. Even his _Holiness_ is, now, but a poor limited Prince, pent up within his little _Italian_ Demesne. If some few still acknowledge to hold of his Authority, it is a Homage of Words, and not of Facts; they will not acknowledge to hold of his Power. He is restored to the quiet and unenvied Possession of all the Lordship and Interest he can acquire in Heaven. But the Sceptre, even of his spiritual Dominion upon Earth, is, of late, as I take it, most wonderfully shortened. Matters are much altered with the ecclesiastical World, even since I wrote the Letters that have roused your Spleen. Whether it be through a Decline of the _Romish_ Religion, in particular; or, possibly, through a Decline of all Religion, in general; the pontifical and episcopal Dictatorship and Authority are wofully fallen, from the Chair of Infallibility, where they had been seated by Opinion. The Sons of the most bigotted Ancestors do now perceive, that Piety and Immorality are not rightly consistent. And even the vulgar and ignorant, among the _Roman_ Laity, would grumble at departing from an Inch of their Property, though the Priest should advise, and the Pope, himself, should enjoin it.