Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

them, it matters not who attacks their enemies, they are always a distinct party, looking with almost equal dislike upon all others. The Catholic Association eternally speaks of liberty; it is composed of demagogues of the first order, and yet it never can take up a single Whig or radical object that does not relate to its own particular benefit, while its first care is, to uphold ecclesiastical tyranny, and to restrain its poorer followers from the exercise of the greater portion of their political rights.

All this is perfectly natural. It would be just as wise to expect the Independents of Demerara to be Tories, when their governing brethren in England are Whigs, as to expect the Catholics of Ireland to be friendly to liberty, when the Catholics of Spain, Italy, &c. are the decided champions of despotism. The political creed must ever go hand in hand with the religious one, inseparably connected with it as it is.

The Catholics call themselves the friends of the constitution; but this is a small matter, when we remember that the Radicals assumed the same name. The principles of the former, say what they will, bring them into direct conflict with the constitution. The Pope, but a moment since, publicly prohibited the general circulation of the Bible. When the clergy prohibit their flocks from reading almost everything that the press circulates, and from entering a Protestant place of worship, can they be the friends of that constitution which establishes the freedom of the press, and religious liberty? When the Catholics pronounce the Protestant religion to be a false one-claim the whole of the possessions of our Church as a right-and demand a portion of them immediately-can they be the friends of that constitution, which makes the Protestant religion the religion of the state, and which gives to this religion the whole of the ecclesiastical wealth and dignities of the nation? If they had power to do it, will any man say that they would not destroy the liberty of the press, and religious freedom, and appropriate to themselves the whole that our Church possesses? The man who would say this would likewise say, that, because he hated beef, he loved oxen. A man must be the enemy of the constitution, who is the enemy of what it has established, and of what it

produces. The demand of the Catholics for a portion of the possessions of the Church, is as direct an attack upon the Constitution, as the demand of the Radicals for universal suffrage and annual Parliaments. They may, no doubt, act conscientiously, but nevertheless their conduct and objects lead to political revolution.

Our Protestant sects were born after the establishment of religious and civil liberty; to these they mainly owed their birth, and they framed their respective creeds on the principle of maintaining both. Their existence would be endangered by the loss of either. They never lost anything by the Established Church, and they do not profess to desire anything that it possesses save its congregations. If they ask for political equality, they ask nothing else; and it is not very probable that, weak as they singly are, they would be able to obtain anything else if they received it. They are in the main more or less friendly to the general products of the constitution. But the Catholics were trampled in the dust by civil and religious liberty, and they can only hope to rise again by the injury of both. They possessed all that our Church now possesses, and they are most anxious to regain it. Political equality is but a small portion of what they now openly seek, and it is evident that they wish for this to enable them to obtain their other objects. They are the enemies, from both conscience and party inte rest, of many of the best fruits of the Constitution.

The foreign brethren of our Protestant sects are all zealously ranged on the side of civil and religious liberty; the foreign brethren of the Catholics, including their Head, are all zealously ranged on the side of religious tyranny, and nearly all on the side of civil despotism.

Our Protestant sects are influenced by no foreign head, and they can change their creed at their own pleasure; but the Catholics have a foreign leader, to whose principles they must conform. Catholicism must of necessity be always in sentiment, as far as practicable, the same in England and Ireland as on the Continent. It is idle. to say, that the Pope has no other than spiritual authority in these realms. He who is the religious Head of a large, portion of the people, must always possess prodigious political influence.

in the nation, particularly if his followers have an equality of political power. Does the King derive no political power from his being the Head of the Church? Do the regular clergy draw no political power from their office? Do not the heads of the Methodists, the Calvinists, &c. possess what is tantamount to great political power? The Government, at this moment, seeks to put the Bible into the hands of the Irish Catholics; the Pope forbids it; and which will the Catholics obey? The Government permits them to read what they please, and to enter any place of worship whatever; the Pope prohibits it, under heavy penalties. The Government is endeavouring to establish in Ireland a system of general education, and the Čatholics are in consequence travelling to Rome for instructions. If the Pope cannot sue in our civil courts, he can yet inflict, at his pleasure, tremendous punishments. One part of his late letter was fiercely levelled against our Constitution, and some of our best possessions. If this do not vitally affect our political interests, nothing whatever can affect them. A Catholic may declare, that the Pope shall not influence him in politics-a zealous Churchman may declare, that his clergy shall not influence his political opinions-a Methodist may declare, that he will not be guided in political matters by his preachers-and who will believe any of them? Let the minister say, that the political matter is likewise a religious one, and then whom will his flock follow in politics? Party feelings, and party interests, will always be sufficient to carry the Catholics, as they would any other body, after their Head, without compulsion. The Pope has most admirable means for taking our Catholics along with him in political matters. The heads of their clergy are in a great degree his creatures; the inferior clergy can be deprived of bread at pleasure by, and therefore they are in a great degree the creatures of, these heads; and the laity, as every one knows, are little better than the slaves of the general clergy.

If the Continental governments should use the Pope and the Catholic clergy generally, as their chief instruments in accomplishing any political projects, would our Catholics be inaccessible to their influence?

The Protestant sects are almost altogether confined to the lower and the

middling classes; they have few followers among the rich commoners, and none among the nobility. They have very few men among them who would accept a seat in Parliament, and they can scarcely return one member for each body. But the Catholics pervade every class; they have powerful nobles, and rich and ambitious country gentlemen. Men anxious to get into Parliament abound among them; and if they returned members in proportion to their numbers, they would return little short of two hundred. Their Parliamentary influence would not be confined to Ireland,—it would speedily become great in this country.

Putting the Catholics out of sight, our sects and other bodies are each contemptible when weighed against the rest. We doubt if the most numerous of the sects reaches half a million, and if the whole exceed two millions, in number. Do the zealous Churchmen-those who would contend as warmly for the Church, as the Catholic for his place of worshipamount in the three kingdoms to four millions, reckoning the Established Churches of England and Scotland as one? Do the thick-and-thin Whigs exceed a million of families? Do the thick-and-thin Tories exceed two millions of families? A large portion of our population frequents both church and chapel, without having any de cided preference for, or being controled by, either; and a large portion, we regret to say, seldom sees a place of worship. A vast portion of us professes to be independent between the Whigs and the Tories, and a vast portion knows nothing of either.

The Catholics amount to six or seven millions-to one-third of our whole population. Putting the neutrals out of sight, they nearly equal the aggregate of the whole of our other sects and parties.

The most powerful of our Protestant and political bodies are almost wholly without discipline. The Church does not know its lay-members, and it has practically no control over them. A large portion of both Whigs and Tories are free from bonds and restrictions, and act altogether from choice.

The discipline of the Catholics is of the most comprehensive and perfect description. They are indissolubly knit together by party-spirit; and they are as effectually under the command of their heads, as pains and penalties, and

every variety of means resorted to for controlling mankind, can place them. On this point, the whole of our bodies, religious and political, fall far below them.

Some of our Protestant sects go with the Whigs, and others with the Tories. This is much the same in effect, as though each body was pretty fairly divided between the two parties. But the Catholics would form a tremendous distinct political party. The former make it a matter of sin to join in political broils that are merely of a party nature; but the latter, clergy as well as laity, have always been notorious for the love of political intrigue, and the thirst of political power. Our Protestant sects are comparatively enlightened, and they are actuated by no dangerous share of party-spirit; but the vast mass of the Catholics are men barbarous, fiery, incapable of calculation, the slaves of demagogues, and infuriated with party-spirit, political as well as religious. The great body of the former could hardly be drawn into very dangerous conduct by their leaders; but the great body of the latter could be led to anything. The sects, in any struggle for aggrandisement, could receive but little assistance from abroad; but the Catholics, in their contests for supremacy, would be assisted to the utmost by nearly the whole Continent-by the governments as well as the people.

The Established Church, as a political body, is effectually under the control of the general government; but the Catholic Church, as a political body, is in effect controlled by nothing within these realms.

If the Catholics be not now very numerous in England, the removal of the disabilities would speedily render them so. They have at present no very strong inducements for fixing themselves among us, and still we think their numbers must be very much on the increase from the continual influx of Irish labourers. But the case would be wholly different were they admitted to an equality of political privileges. They would then have every possible inducement for strengthening themselves as a party in England, and they would possess ample means for doing it. The English Catholics are, many of them, rich, they would have great patronage and influence, and they would have the population of Ireland

to draw adherents from. A large number of public trusts would be at once filled with Catholics, who would plant their brethren as thickly around them as possible. The wealthy Catholics of Ireland would be irresistibly tempted to fix themselves where they could combat the most advantageously and profit the most, and nothing could prevent the body from becoming exceedingly numerous and powerful in England. Do not the Whigs constantly strain every nerve to render their body as numerous as possible? Do they not regularly expel every tenant and servant who will not vote as they wish, and fill the vacancies with persons of their own persuasion? Do not the Tories do the same? Are not the Methodists, the Calvinists, &c. eternally endeavouring to add to their numbers? And is there any man so besotted as to suppose that all this would not be done by the Catholics?

From what we have said, we believe that if the disabilities were removed, the following would be some of the consequences.

The Catholics would form a mighty distinct political party. They would never act with the Whigs, much less with the Radicals, except for objects of their own. With this exception, their weight, whenever it should go with our existing parties, would go with the Tories. Whiggism is abhorrent to the Catholic religion, and we do not know anything that the Catho lics would be more hostile to than a Whig ministry-a ministry made up of puff of civil and religious liberty, and abuse of the tyranny of a priesthood. The accession of the Catholics to political power would be the exclusion from office of the Whigs for ever.

While this would be the case, the Catholics, in everything relating to the humbling of the Established Church, and the abolition of the checks on the Dissenters-in the chief things that militated against Catholic omnipotence-would be zealously supported by the Whigs and Radicals, and would be thus rendered irresistible.

The Catholics would hold but few opinions in common with the Tories. They would, with the latter, fight against Whiggism, Radicalism, and Liberalism-they would set their faces against deism and democracy; but beyond this the two parties would travel little together. That which is the

grad dead ill parties, would be the grand soject of the Catholics party aggrandbement and unpremacy. They was to what the members of the Leviated Church and both Wisp and Tories would most acredly as in their armances labour most as idromaly to make their Church the natonai one, and themselves the

rong party.

The Catholics would immediately obtain a large portion of office. The members of Parlament whom they would elect, would displace an equal number of Whigs, Tories, or Inde pendents, and they would be at once one of the most powerful of the parties that compose the House of Commons. If they voted with the Opposition, they would overturn the Ministry; they would not support the latter except on the usual terms, and to these terms the Minivers would, no doubt, gladly accede. Thus, while our Protestant sects can scarcely get a single member into the House, or obtain a fragment of office, the Catholics in the first moment would obtain a large share in the legislature, the executive, the magistracy, and almost every description of public trusts. They would become a leading portion of the general government. We should, of course, have a Ministry disunited, torn, by intestine feuds, or none.

All the arts that parties employ for their own benefit would be, of course, resorted to by the Catholics. They could not profit by the liberty of the press; it would be almost certain to do them great injury, and this would combine with their general principles in making them its enemies. While the press is the best friend of the Protestant religion, it is the worst enemy of the Catholic one. The Whigs canted for an age of their affection for the press, and then two years ago, when they found they were suffering from it, they made upon it the most scandalous attacks. The reformers in Scotland never laid down their arms until they stripped the Catholics of every thing-the reformers in England acted in the same manner; if the members of our Church were in the circumstances of the Catholics, they would leave nothing undone to gain the Royal Family and the heads of parties to their religion, and to obtain the possessions of the Church-and is there anything in the history or principles of the Ca

thcss to lead us to suppose that they would act diferently?" Assuredly not. They would strain every nerve to make a convert of the King, and to obtain the whole, or a part, of the property of the Church they would do this, not more to benefit their religion, than to strengthen themselves as a party. Their Church would be their grand bond of union, and their main weapon of war, and they would protect the system of their clergy to the utmost: they would consequently make war constantly upon particular liberties. In proportion as the people might be ignorant and superstitious, in the same proportion they would be enabled to retain their followers and to gain more.

The whole weight of the Catholics would be thrown into the scale on the side of arbitrary measures; and, of course, the whole that the people have gained in late reigns upon the executive, would be immediately lost. A party would be established in every department of the government, that would eternally labour to undermine our civil and religious liberty.

The war which now rages between Protestant and Catholic in Ireland, would immediately commence in England. This war would not, like that between our Church and the Dissenters, relate chiefly to religious doctrines, but it would be as much a political war as that between the Whigs and Tories, and it would combine the extremes of religious and political fanaticism. Many millions would fiercely combat on each side, and the consequences would be most calamitous. Foreign governments would zealously support the Catholics, and they would obtain the most powerful means of interfering in our domestic affairs, and of weakening and distressing us.

If the Catholics obtained the ascendency, and were disposed to grant what they now everywhere refuse-in the republics of South America, as well as the monarchies of Europe-toleration, nothing could secure their power and preserve the public peace but the placing of the Protestants under the most galling restrictions and disabilities.

Putting the principles of the Catholics wholly out of sight, they are far too numerous as a party for the public weal. If they possessed an equality of power, they would be, to the government and the nation at large, unma

nageable, and in a great degree uncontrollable as a party. A small increase to their numbers would enable them to preponderate over the rest of the community, to virtually destroy our freedom, and to place us under the tyranny of a faction. If the Unitarians, or the Calvinists, or the Methodists, or the Whigs, &c. &c. amounted to six millions, and pervaded every class of the community, what would become of the Church-what would be the operation of the Constitutionwhere would be the efficient Opposition-where would be the freedom to the King and nation with regard to the choice of a ministry-and where would be our general liberties? In the difficult circumstances in which we are placed, the only wise policy for us to pursue is, to continue the disabilities, and to labour to break up the population of Ireland into a multitude of weak, manageable, religious and political parties, like that of England. The seeds of such parties already exist in Ireland; let them be encouraged. Strengthen the weak and weaken the strong; swell out the small parties and reduce the large one. When the Catholics are reduced to two or three millions--to the level of our other leading parties-and are as much enlightened as the people of England and Scotland, then remove the disabilities, and let them take their chance in the general struggle.

That there are many excellent wellmeaning people among the Catholics we willingly admit, but we cannot take our opinion of the party from their words and conduct. The moderate Whigs do not guide the Whigs as a body-the moderate Tories do not guide the Tories as a body-the moderate Calvinists do not guide the Calvinists as a body, and the moderate Catholics do not guide the Catholics as a body. In divinations, touching the future conduct of the Catholics, we must look at the character of their leaders, and the vast mass of their followers. In party strife, the moderate members of a party are always without influence over the rest, and they are constantly dragged along after the violent ones. A party always prefers its own good to that of the nation. The Whigs, for some years previously to the last one, to promote their party interests, pursued conduct that was

directly calculated to plunge the state into ruin.

In all that we have said, we have been silent touching the past-we have been silent touching matters purely religious-we have spoken only of that which Now Is, and of things which are either altogether or principally POLITICAL IN THEIR NATURE. We have merely assumed that the Catholics are conscientious men with regard to their peculiar creed, and that, as a party, they would act as all our other parties have invariably acted, and still act. Our reasoning may be erroneous, but bitter names bestowed on ourselves will scarcely be sufficient to overthrow it.

Our readers must understand that we have spoken favourably of our Protestant sects, strictly in reference to our whole system. The Opposition is most valuable, but it is only so because we have a Ministry; and the destruction of the Church would, in our judgment, be the annihilation of very many of the benefits which flow from the Dissenters.

The Established Church, for learning both religious and political, for scriptural purity of doctrine, for just and sober opinions, and for mildness of discipline, stands infinitely above all the chapels; and it is almost our only national agent for keeping down religious faction, and preventing religious doctrines and authority from assuming an improper and dangerous character. The Dissenters, in both doctrine and discipline, are almost wholly beyond the control of the law, and their preachers are generally men of little education, of little learning, of no political information, of no knowledge of the world; enthusiasts, and anxious to push their creed and authority to the utmost point. The regular Clergy are themselves under the control of the state, in what they teach and establish, and they indirectly control the sects, in what these teach and establish. The regular Clergy are almost our sole religious teachers who can use the press with any effect; they keep public opinion in a just direction with regard to religious matters; they prevent fanaticism from being mischievous, and they tie up the hands of the dissenting preachers from dangerous conduct. They have had the chief hand in reforining Methodism

« AnteriorContinuar »