Imatges de pàgina
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tion, is more a controversy of words
than things. That they are subject to
some restraints, the Bishop will admit:
the important question is, whether or
not these restraints are necessary? For
his Lordship will of course allow, that
every restraint upon human liberty is
an evil in itself; and can only be jus-
tified by the superior good which it
can be shown to produce. My Lord's
fears upon the subject of Catholic
emancipation are conveyed in the fol-
lowing paragraph:

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"It is sometimes said, that Papists, being excluded from power, are consequently persecuted; as if exclusion from power and religious persecution were convertible terms. But surely this is to confound things totally distinct in their nature. Persecution inflicts positive punishment upon persons who hold certain religious tenets, and endeavours to accomplish the renunciation and extinction of those tenets by forcible means: exclusion from power is entirely negative in its operation it only declares that those who hold certain opinions shall not fill certain situations; but it acknowledges men to be perfectly free to hold those opinions. Persecution compels men to adopt a prescribed faith, or to suffer the loss of liberty, property, or even life: exclusion from power prescribes no faith; it allows men to think and believe as they please, without molest-cause of Protestantism? A similar observaation or interference. Persecution requires men to worship God in one and in no other way exclusion from power neither commands nor forbids any mode of Divine worship-it leaves the business of religion where it ought to be left, to every man's judgment and conscience. Persecution proceeds from a bigoted and sanguinary spirit of Intolerance; exclusion from power

"It is a principle of our constitution that the King should have advisers in the discharge of every part of his royal functions; and is it to be imagined, that Papists would advise measures in support of the

tion may be applied to the two Houses of
Parliament: would Popish peers, or Popish
members of the House of Commons, enact
laws for the security of the Protestant
government? Would they not rather re-
peal the whole Protestant code, and make
Popery again the established religion of
the country?" — (p. 14.)

is founded in the natural and rational

And these are the apprehensions which the clergy of the diocese have prayed my Lord to make public.

principle of self-protection and self-preservation, equally applicable to nations and to individuals. History informs us of the mischievous and fatal effects of the one, and proves the expediency and necessity of the other."-(pp. 16, 17.)

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Kind Providence never sends an evil without a remedy:-and arithmetic is the natural cure for the passion of fear. If a coward can be made to count his enemies, his terrors may be reasoned with, and he may think of ways and means of counteraction. Now, might it not have been expedient that the Reverend Prelate, before he had alarmed his Country Clergy with the idea of so large a measure as the repeal of Protestantism, should have counted up the probable number of Catholics who would be seated in both Houses of Parliament ? Does he believe that there would be ten Catholic Peers, and

We will venture to say, there is no one sentence in this extract which does not contain either a contradiction, or a mis-statement. For how can that law acknowledge men to be perfectly free to hold an opinion, which excludes from desirable situations all who do hold that opinion? How can that law be said neither to molest nor interfere, which meets a man in every branch of industry and occupation, to institute an inquisition into his religious opinions? And how is the busi-thirty Catholic Commoners? ness of religion left to every man's judgment and conscience, where so powerful a bonus is given to one set of religious opinions, and such a mark of infamy and degradation fixed upon all other modes of belief? But this is comparatively a very idle part of the question. Whether the present condition of the Catholics is or is not to be denominated a perfect state of tolera

But,

admit double that number (and more,
Dr. Duigenan himself would not ask,)

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will the Bishop of Lincoln seriously assert, that he thinks the whole Protestant code in danger of repeal from such an admixture of Catholic legis lators as this? Does he forget, amid the innumerable answers which may be made to such sort of apprehensions, what a picture he is drawing of the

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weakness and versatility of Protestant | then treating of them as if they deprinciples?—that a handful of Catho- served the active and present attention

lies, in the bosom of a Protestant legis- of serious men. But if no measure is lature, are to overpower the ancient to be carried into execution, and if no jealousies, the fixed opinions, the in- provision is safe in which the minute veterate habits of twelve millions of inspection of an ingenious man cannot people?—that the King is to apostatise, find the possibility of danger, then all the Clergy to be silent, and the Parlia-human action is impeded, and no ment be taken by surprise?—that the human institution is safe or comnation are to go to bed over night, and mendable. The King has the power to see the Pope walking arm in arm of pardoning, and so every species with Lord Castlereagh the next morn- of guilt may remain unpunished: he ing? — One would really suppose, from has a negative upon legislative acts, the Bishop's fears, that the civil defences and so no law may pass. None but of mankind were, like their military Presbyterians may be returned to the bulwarks, transferred, by superior skill House of Commons-aud so the Church and courage, in a few hours, from the of England may be voted down. The vanquished to the victor-that the Scottish and Irish members may join destruction of a church was like the together in both Houses, and dissolve blowing up of a mine-deans, preben- both Unions. If probability is put out daries, churchwardens, and overseers, of sight and if, in the enumeration all up in the air in an instant. Does of dangers, it is sufficient to state any his Lordship really imagine, when the which, by remote contingency, may mere dread of the Catholics becoming happen, then is it time that we should legislators has induced him to charge begin to provide against all the host his clergy, and his agonised clergy to of perils which we have just enumeextort from their prelate the publication rated, and which are many of them as of the Charge, that the full and mature likely to happen, as those which the danger will produce less alarm, than Reverend Prelate has stated in his the distant suspicion of it has done in Charge. His Lordship forgets that the present instance?-that the Pro- the Catholics are not asking for election, testant writers, whose pens are now but for eligibility· not to be admitted up to the feather in ink, will, at any into the Cabinet, but not to be excluded furure period, yield up their Church, from it. A century may elapse before without passion, pamphlet, or pug- any Catholic actually becomes a memnacity? We do not blame the Bishop ber of the Cabinet; and no event can of Lincoln for being afraid; but we be more utterly destitute of probability, blame him for not rendering his fears than that they should gain an ascenintelligible and tangible-for not cir- dency there, and direct that ascendency curuscribing and particularising them against the Protestant interest. If the by some individual case-for not Bishop really wishes to know upon dowing us how it is possible that the what our security is founded; it is Catholics (granting their intentions to upon the prodigious and decided superibe as bad as possible) should ever be ority of the Protestant interest in the able to ruin the Church of England. British nation, and in the United ParHis Lordship appears to be in a fog; liament. No Protestant King would and, as daylight breaks in upon him, select such a Cabinet, or countenance be will be rather disposed to disown such measures; no man would be mad his panic. The noise he hears is not enough to attempt them; the English roaring-but braying; the teeth and Parliament and the English people the mane are all imaginary; there is would not endure it for a moment. No nothing but ears. It is not a lion that man indeed, but under the sanctity of stops the way, but an ass. the mitre, would have ventured such an extravagant opinion.—Woe to him, if he had been only a Dean. But, in spite of his venerable office, we must

One method his Lordship takes, in bandling this question, is, by pointing out dangers that are barely possible, and

express our decided belief, that his Lordship (by no means averse to a good bargain) would not pay down five pounds, to receive fifty millions for his posterity, whenever the majority of the Cabinet should be (Catholic emancipation carried) members of the Catholic religion. And yet, upon such terrors as these, which, when put singly to him, his better sense would laugh at, he has thought fit to excite his clergy to petition, and done all in his power to increase the mass of hatred against the Catholics.

It is true enough, as his Lordship remarks, that events do not depend upon laws alone, but upon the wishes and intentions of those who administer these laws. But then his Lordship totally puts out of sight two considerations the improbability of Catholics ever reaching the highest offices of the state and those fixed Protestant opinions of the country, which would render any attack upon the Established Church so hopeless, and therefore so improbable. Admit a supposition (to us perfectly ludicrous, but still necessary to the Bishop's argument) that the Cabinet Council consisted entirely of Catholics, we should even then have no more fear of their making the English people Catholics, than we should have of a Cabinet of Butchers making the Hindoos eat beef. The Bishop has not stated the true and great security for any course of human actions. It is not the word of the law, nor the spirit of the Government, but the general way of thinking among the people, especially when that way of thinking is ancient, exercised upon high interests, and connected with striking passages in history. The Protestant Church does not rest upon the little narrow foundations where the Bishop of Lincoln supposes it to be placed: if it did, it would not be worth saving. It rests upon the general opinion entertained by a free and reflecting people, that the doctrines of the Church are true, her pretensions moderate, and her exhortations useful. It is accepted by a people who have, from good taste, an abhorrence of sacerdotal mummery; and from good

sense, a dread of sacerdotal ambition. Those feelings, so generally diffused, and so clearly pronounced on all occasions, are our real bulwarks against the Catholic religion; and the real cause which makes it so safe for the best friends of the Church to diminish (by abolishing the Test Laws) so very fertile a source of hatred to the State. In the 15th page of his Lordship's Charge, there is an argument of a very curious nature.

"Let us suppose," says the Bishop of Lincoln, "that there had been no Test Laws, no disabling statutes, in the year 1745, when an attempt was made to overplace a Popish sovereign upon the throne of these kingdoms; and let us suppose that the leading men in the Houses of Parliament, that the ministers of state, and the commanders of our armies, had then been Papists. Will any one contend, that that formidable rebellion, supported as it was by a foreign enemy, would have been rewith the same facility, as when all the measures were planned and executed by sincere Protestants?"-(p. 15.)

throw the Protestant Government, and to

sisted with the same zeal, and suppressed

And so his Lordship means to infer that it would be foolish to abolish the laws against the Catholics now, because it would have been foolish to have abolished them at some other period;

that a measure must be bad, because there was formerly a combination of circumstances, when it would have been bad. His Lordship might, with almost equal propriety, debate what ought to be done if Julius Cæsar were about to make a descent upon our coasts; or lament the impropriety of emancipating the Catholics, because the Spanish Armada was putting to sea. The fact is, that Julius Cæsar is dead -the Spanish Armada was defeated in the reign of Queen Elizabeth-for half a century there has been no disputed succession-the situation of the world is changed-and, because it is changed, we can do now what we could not do then. And nothing can be more lamentable than to see this respectable Prelate wasting his resources in putting imaginary and inapplicable cases, and reasoning upon their solution, as if it had any thing to do with present affairs.

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These remarks entirely put an end to mingle with the excellence of the obthe common mode of arguing à Gulielmo.ject a consideration of the chance of What did King William do?-what gaining it?

Would King William say? &c. King The Bishop of Lincoln (p. 19.) states William was in a very different situa- it as an argument against concession tion from that in which we are placed. to the Catholics, that we have enjoyed The whole world was in a very differ-"internal peace and entire freedom ent situation. The great and glorious from all religious animosities and feuds Authors of the Revolution (as they are since the Revolution." The fact, howcommonly denominated) acquired their ever, is not more certain than conclusive greatness and their glory, not by a against his view of the question. For, superstitious reverence for inapplicable since that period, the worship of the precedents, but by taking hold of pre Church of England has been abolished sent circumstances to lay a deep foun- in Scotland-the Corporation and dation for Liberty; and then using old Test Acts repealed in Ireland-and Lames for new things, they left the the whole of this King's reign has been Bishop of Lincoln, and other good men, one series of concessions to the Cathoto suppose that they had been thinking lics. Relaxation then (and we wish all the time about ancestors. this had been remembered at the Charge) of penal laws, on subjects of religious opinion, is perfectly compatible with internal peace, and exemption from religious animosity. But the Bishop is always fond of lurking in generals, and cautiously avoids coming to any specific instance of the dangers which he fears.

Another species of false reasoning, which pervades the Bishop of Lincoln's Charge, is this: He states what the interests of men are, and then takes it for granted that they will eagerly and actively pursue them; laying totally out of the question the probability or improbability of their effecting their object, and the influence which this balance of chances must produce upon their actions. For instance, it is the interest of the Catholics that our Church should be subservient to theirs. There. fore, says his Lordship, the Catholics will enter into a conspiracy against the English Church. But, is it not also the decided interest of his Lordship's butler that he should be Bishop, and the Bishop, his butler? That the crozier and the corkscrew should change hands, and the washer of the bottles which they had emptied become the diocesan of learned divines? What has prevented this change, so beneficial to the upper domestic, but the extreme improbability of success, if the attempt were made; an improbability so great, that we will venture to say, the very Action of it has scarcely once entered into the understanding of the good man. Why then is the reverend Prelate, who lives on so safely and contentedly with Jahn, so dreadfully alarmed at the Catholics? And why does he so completely forget, in their instance alone, that men do not merely strive to obtain a thing because it is good, but always

"It is declared in one of the 39 Articles, that the King is head of our Church, without being subject to any foreign power; and it is expressly said that the Bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction within these realms. On the contrary, Papists assert that the Pope is supreme head of the whole Christian Church, and that allegiance is due to him from every individual member, in all spiritual matters. This direct opposition to one of the fundamental principles of the ecclesiastical part of our constitution, is alone sufficient to justify the exclusion of Papists from all situations of authority. They acknow ledge, indeed, that obedience in civil mat. ters is due to the King. But cases must arise, in which civil and religious duties will clash; and he knows but little of the influence of the Popish religion over the minds of its votaries, who doubts which of these duties would be sacrificed to the other. Moreover, the most subtle casuistry cannot always discriminate between temporal and spiritual things; and in truth the concerns of this life not unfrequently partake of both characters.”—(pp. 21, 22.)

We deny entirely that any case can occur, where the exposition of a doctrine purely speculative, or the arrangement of a mere point of Church discipline,

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can interfere with civil duties. The serving, which has so long disgraced Roman Catholics are Irish and English and endangered this country. But the citizens at this moment; but no such truth is, that we look upon this cause case has occurred. There is no instance as already gained ;-and while we in which obedience to the civil magis- warmly congratulate the nation on the trate has been prevented, by an acknow- mighty step it has recently made toledgment of the spiritual supremacy of wards increased power and entire secuthe Pope. The Catholics have given rity, it is impossible to avoid saying a (in an oath which we suspect the Bishop word upon the humiliating and disgustnever to have read) the most solemn ing, but at the same time most edifying pledge, that their submission to their spectacle, which has lately been exspiritual ruler should never interfere hibited by the Anticatholic addressers. with their civil obedience. The hypo- That so great a number of persons thesis of the Bishop of Lincoln is, that should have been found with such a proit must very often do so. The fact is, clivity to servitude (for honest bigotry that it has never done so. had but little to do with the matter), as to rush forward with clamours in favour of intolerance, upon a mere surmise that this would be accounted as acceptable service by the present possessors of patronage and power, affords a more humiliating and discouraging picture of the present spirit of the country, than any thing else that has occurred in our remembrance. The edifying part of the spectacle is the contempt with which their officious devotions have been received by those whose favour they were intended to purchase,

His Lordship is extremely angry with the Catholics, for refusing to the Crown a veto upon the appointment of their Bishops. He forgets that in those countries of Europe where the Crown interferes with the appointment of Bishops, the reigning monarch is a Catholic,-which makes all the difference. We sincerely wish that the Catholics would concede this point; but we cannot be astonished at their reluctance to admit the interference of a Protestant Prince with their Bishops. What would his Lordship say to the interference of any Catholic power with the appointment of the English sees?

Next comes the stale and thousand times refuted charge against the Catholics, that they think the Pope has the power of dethroning heretical Kings; and that it is the duty of every Catholic to use every possible means to root out and destroy heretics, &c. To all of which may be returned this one conclusive answer, that the Catholics are ready to deny these doctrines upon oath. And as the whole controversy is, whether the Catholics shall, by means of oaths, be excluded from certain offices in the State: - those who contend that the continuation of these excluding oaths are essential to the public safety, must admit, that oaths are binding upon Catholics, and a security to the State that what they swear to is true.

It is right to keep these things in view and to omit no opportunity of exposing and counteracting that spirit of intolerant zeal or intolerable time

and the universal scorn and derision with which they were regarded by independent men of all parties and persuasions. The catastrophe, we think, teaches two lessons; one to the timeservers themselves, not to obtrude their servility on the Government, till they have reasonable ground to think it is wanted; and the other to the nation at large, not to imagine that a base and interested clamour in favour of what is supposed to be agreeable to Government, however loudly and extensively sounded, affords any indication at all, either of the general sense of the country, or even of what is actually contemplated by those in the administration of its affairs. The real sense of the country has been proved on this occasion, to be directly against those who presumptuously held themselves out as its organs; and even the Ministers have made a respectable figure, compared with those who assumed the character of their champions.

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