Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

tween the advocates of truth and the disciples of error? And if this Laodicean spirit-neither hot nor cold-is to last, where will it end? If popery be paid and pampered in our colonies, how long will she be independent at home? Already in Ireland is there a popish system of education, a popish college, a fund for building popish chapels, and a provision for the appointment of popish chaplains to the jails and poor-houses of the kingdom. Already in England are there plans abroad for introducing similar God-dishonouring enactments. We are threatened with a Board of Education, sanctioned by the Central Society of Education, of which Mr. Wyse and Dr. Wiseman (the noted papists) are active members. We escaped very narrowly during last session from a law authorizing the payment of popish chaplains in English prisons, and if these things be conceded, how long will it be ere England follows the example of her colonies, and holds out equal favour to protestantism and to popery? We implore our readers to think of this vitally interesting subject-we beg them to be deceived and duped no longer. Popery is breaking in upon the land, and has already laid her iron grasp on the colonies, the legislature, the cabinet, and the throne! One step more may place her in a position from which no human power will suffice to dislodge her. One intrigue more may give her priesthood the supremacy their crafty ambition desires. Where then will be the glory of our native land-where then will be our hope of that Divine protection which hitherto has borne us up, and placed us at the summit of national fame? Of what value will be our colonies in war time if popish traitors rule them? What value will be our once faithful army, if Jesuits be allowed to instruct and educate the soldiery? Above all, where will be Britain's civil freedom or religious liberty, if popery, the enemy of truth and of human happiness, be aided in its march to increased political power? Oh! that our voice were potent enough to startle the whole slumbering population of our beloved country with these simple yet thrilling questions! But alas! it cannot be. We fear that Almighty God is punishing the land and visiting the people with a strong delusion, so that they believe a lie. And truly the punishment is well deserved. God is no longer honoured by us as a nation, and He therefore is no longer our guide and guardian in peril and affliction. We have bowed to the idol of man's morbid imagination, and worshipped the light of reason. We have chosen to apostatize, we have preferred expediency to principle, and now what is our position as a nation?-distracted, disregarded, and friendless-compared with the place we once held among the nations of the earth-when for instance the interdict of the English government as in Cromwell's time could stay the hand of papal tyranny when uplifted to crush the very Piedmontese who in these "liberal and enlightened" days are persecuted

with impunity by the same cruel and remorseless oppressors. Alas! we are fallen, and having begun to decline, our downward course is yearly accelerated by fresh acts of infatuation and folly. Yet those who are "faithful found among the faithless," must not on this account despair. Genuine protestants have still a duty to perform are still bound to resist popish aggressions, and to warn their fellow beings of the prospects before them; nor can we doubt that God will abundantly bless every man whom he honors as an instrument in the righteous and holy cause. Once more then we call on our readers to rally in defence of the constitution their forefathers perished to secure, and of the religion which some of God's noblest martyrs died to maintain. We call on them to aid in the cause for which a Ridley and a Latimer were not afraid to fall, for which indeed "Hampden perished in the field and Sidney on the scaffold." We call on them by these recollections, by their interest in the present well being of the country, by their hopes for its future safety, to stand forth undauntedly and firmly to take part in the struggle against the despotism which in all ages of christianity's history has enthralled the minds and poisoned the souls and impeded the happiness of the deluded human race.

POPERY REPRESENTED BY POPISH WRITERS.

NO. I.

UNDER this head we purpose placing before our readers an occasional assortment of quotations from popish writers who have unconsciously unveiled the horrors of their superstitious, idolatrous, and persecuting system; and as our extracts shall be plain and not to be misunderstood, all necessity for lengthened comments will be obviated. We only beg our readers to remember that we shall quote from works still regarded as authorities by the papists, notwithstanding all their ridiculous assertions about popery being changed.

"We excommunicate and anathematize on the part of the Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, also by the authority of the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, and by our own, all Hussites, Wickliffites, Lutherans, Zuinglians, Calvinists, Huguenots, Anabaptists, Trinitarians, and apostates from the christian faith, and all and singular other heretics, under whatsoever name they may be included, and of whatsoever sect they be, and those who believe them, receive them from these, and generally all defenders of them. And all persons knowingly reading, retaining, or printing their books containing heresy, or treating of religion without our authority, and that of the apostolical chair, or in any mode defending them, for any cause, publicly or privately, under any pretence or colour whatsoever: also all schismatics and those who pertinaciously withdraw themselves or recede from our obedience and that of the Roman pontiff for the time being."-Extract from the bull of Pope Urban VIII., called Bulla Cana Domini.

"The bishop is bound, even in places where the office of the Holy Inquisition is in force, to take sedulous care that he should purge the diocese entrusted to him from heretics, and if he shall find any, he ought to visit him with canonical punishments."-Dens, vol. viii., p. 82.

In the same work we also find the following question and

answer.

"Are heretics justly punished with death?

"St. Thomas answers-22 quest. 11 art. 3. in corp., Yes, because forgers of money or other disturbers of the State are justly punished with death, therefore also heretics, who are forgers of the faith, and as experience testifies, grievously disturb the State.'

This is confirmed, because God in the Old Testament ordered the false prophets to be slain; and in Deut. chap. xvii. v. 12, it is decreed, that if any one will act proudly, and will not obey the commands of the priest, let him be put to death."-Dens, vol. ii. pp. 88, 89.

Our readers have doubtless heard of the persecuting notes attached to the editions of the Bible printed under the authority and direction of the popish bishops in Ireland; for the present we shall conclude with subjoining four specimens of them, and commending them to the attentive consideration of our friends and readers.

Matt. xiii. 29, 30. (Lest, while.) "The good must tolerate the evil, when it is so strong that it cannot be redressed without danger and disturbance of the whole church, and commit the matter to God's judgment in the latter day; otherwise, where ill men, be they heretics or other malefactors, may be punished or suppressed without disturbance and hazard of the good, they may and ought, by public authority, either spiritual or temporal, to be chastised or executed."

Luke ix. 55. (He rebuked them.) "Not justice, nor all rigorous punishment of sinners, is here forbidden, nor Elias's act reprehended, nor the church or christian princes blamed for putting heretics to death; but that none of these should be done for desire of our particular revenge, or without discretion, and regard of their amendment, and example to others. Therefore St. Peter used his power upon Ananias and Sapphira, when he struck them both down to death for defrauding the church."

Luke xiv. 23. (Compel them.) "The vehement persuasion that God useth, both externally by force of his word and miracles, and internally by his grace, to bring us unto him, is called compelling; not that he forceth any to come to him against their own wills, but that he can alter and mollify a hard heart, and make him willing that before would not. St. Augustine also referreth this compelling to the penal laws which catholic princes do justly use against heretics and schismatics; proving that they who are by their former professions in baptism subject to the catholic church, and are departed from the same after sects, may and ought to be compelled into the unity and society of the universal church again."

Acts xxv. 11. (I appeal unto Cæsar.) "If St. Paul, both to save himself from whipping and from death sought by the Jews, doubted not to claim succour from the Roman laws, and to appeal to Cæsar the prince of the Romans, not yet christened, how much more may we call for aid of christian princes and their laws, for the punishment of heretics, and for the church's defence against them ?"

PROFESSIONS AND PROMISES OF THE PAPISTS BEFORE THE EMANCIPATION ACT.-No. III.

In continuing our quotations from the expressions of the papists when they were endeavouring to persuade the people that popish emancipation might be conceded without danger to the church and constitution, we have only to remark, that a glance at another part of this number of our Magazine, in which we speak of popery in the colonies, will show how very different is the rule that papists mete out to others, to that which they claim for themselves. In England, in spite of all their professions, we find them advocating the voluntary principle, and attacking the endowments of the church; in the colonies their only aim is to grasp as much as possible of the public money. And yet when they were asking for emancipation they all united in declaring their contentment with the portion of the established church. For instance, in 1824 there was a committee of the House of Commons appointed to consider the subject of emancipation. Dr. Collins, then parish priest, and after a popish bishop, was examined. What was his evidence? "Do you think with respect to the existing protestant church establishment, that that would not remain a cause of complaint and grievance?"—" Not at all; the church establishment is a temporal establishment, as connected with the constitution of the country; they have no jealousy on that score."

"Do you think when the disabilities were removed that the Roman-catholics as a body would acquiesce in the present settlement of church property?"-" I am satisfied they would."

On the same occasion Mr. Dunn, the secretary of the Romancatholics in Queen's County, and as a member of the catholic board, was examined and replied as follows:

"Have you in the conversations at meetings of catholics, or in communications with catholics, ever heard any speculation advanced in the change in the protestant church being desirable to the catholics of Ireland?""Never; nor do I believe the catholics either wish or desire it. As a Roman-catholic, and communicating with the respectable portion of them, we have always deeply regretted that our emancipation has been mixed up with ecclesiastical matters; we have always considered it most unfortunate that the questions have not been separated; our earnest wish would be for every possible guard and barrier and fence and protection to the established church, and that all her rites and immunities should be preserved."

In the following year, 1825, the notorious Dr. Doyle, popish bishop of Carlow, who was afterwards, in 1831, the prime mover of the agitation against tithes and the protestant clergy, was

examined in the House of Lords. What was the language of that prelate on that occasion. We beg our readers to mark its contrast with his subsequent conduct:

"Do you conceive that there exists a desire on the part of the catholic church generally, or of many individuals in it, to possess themselves of any part of the revenues of the church of England?" -"I have not discovered in others, nor have I ever entertained myself, any disposition whatever to be put into possession of any portion at all of the revenues and property belonging to the established church. I will add, that if any portion of that property were offered to me, I would not accept of it."

We will conclude our extracts for this month with the following quotation from the declaration published by the British Romancatholic bishops this year, in 1826:

"British catholics are charged with entertaining a pretended right to the property of the established church in England.

"We consider such a charge to be totally without foundation. We declare that we entertain no pretension to such a claim. We regard all the revenues and temporalities of the church establishment, as the property of those on whom they are settled by the laws of the land. We disclaim any right, title, or pretension with regard to the same."

[blocks in formation]

THE SPIDER, as Mr. McNeile lately remarked, is "a born Inquisitor:" to devise a subtle snare, to execute his plan, to entrap, to torture and destroy are the ends for which he is sent into the world; and if his web like the delicately textured nests of some birds, were only to be found by careful search in the bosom of the woods where man's step rarely penetrates, we might marvel at such a creation. But the consequences of man's sin, affecting the nature and destroying the happiness of the inferior orders of animated life fill a book, the pages of which are always open before him. He may turn away, rejecting a lesson so humbling; but in so doing he loses more than he escapes, for this volume, when interpreted by the written word, is likewise richly profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous.. ness. The harmless bird may pursue its architectural designs among the unexplored forests of distant lands; the beaver construct his subterraneous habitation, and the bee arrange her delicate cells in studied concealment from human eye: but it is when

« ElőzőTovább »