Preface

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J^mi^*^^
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LIBRAEY
* OP THE
Theological Seminary,
PRINCETON, N. J.
' BKHrW) Mfil8. 04 S) 1821 ,
, O'Leary, Arthur, 1729-1802 Miscellaneous tracts
A DONATION
Heceived
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V
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS,
■f/) BY THE j . )
CONTAINING
1. A Defence of the Divinity of Christ and the Immortality of the Soul: in an- swer to the Author of a work, lately pub- lished in Cork, entitled, " Thoughts on Nature and Religion." Revised and cor- rected.
2. Loyalty Asserted : or, a Vindication of the Oath of Allegiance ; with an im- partial Enquiry into the Pope's Temporal Power, and the present Claims of the Stuarts to the English Throne : proving that both are equally groundless.
3. An Address to the Common People
of Ireland, on occasion of an apprehended Invasion by the French and Spaniards, in July, 1779, when the united fleets of Bourbons appeared in the Channel.
4. Remarks on a Letter written by Mr. Wesley, and a Defence of the Protestant Aseociations.
5. Rejoinder to Mr. Wesley's Reply to the above remarks.
6 Essay on Toleration: tending to prove that a man's speculative opinion ought not to deprive him of the Rights of Civil Society.
— s»£«s»—
IN WHICH ARE INTRODUCED,
THE REV. JOHN WESLEY'S LETTER,
AND THE
DEFENCE OF THE PROTESTANT ASSOCIATIONS.
THE AUTHOR'S LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF CLOYNE,
&c. &c. &c.
— «©a
NEW-YORK:
PRINTED BY SAMUEL WALKER,
FOR D. SULLIVAN, 148, CHERRY-STREET.
1821.
TO THE
DIGNITARIES AND BRETHREN
OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS ORDER OF
• #
Rev. Fathers, and illustrious Brethren,
THE purport of the work which 1 have the honour to dedicate to your order, is to cement the bands of society ; to secure the safety of our country, by union and mutual confidence ; to render the subject's allegiance firm, and at the same time reasonable, by establishing it on its proper grounds; to dispel the mists of long reigning prejudice; after disarming infidelity, which strikes at the foundation of religion, and the dignity of our nature, to induce the Chris- tians of every denomination to lay aside the destructive weapons which frenzy has so often put into their hands ; and, under their peculiar modes of worship, to inspire them with that benevolence and charity enforced by the first principles of the Law of Nature, and confirmed by the sacred oracles which they all revere.
In my fugitive pieces, to which the circumstances of the times have given rise, you discovered the sincerity of my
* A society of nobles and gentlemen, composed of the greatest orators and writers m Ireland; who, unsolicited, have done the author the honour of adopting him as on« of their members.
IV THE DEDICATION.
designs, in attempting to diffuse to the community at large, the influence of benignity. My feeble efforts have attracted your attention, and procuied me the honour of your esteem. With regard to the rights of society, and protection due to the man who does not forfeit them by his misconduct, the learned, the virtuous, the liberal-minded of all denominations, make no distinction; but, with every respect due to religion, leave fanaticism, the noxious vermin that nestles in its wool, to prey upon the ulcerated heads of the bigots. Hence, neither my character of a Catholic Clergyman, which, in these kingdoms, the prepossession of ignorance has rendered so odious, nor the discountenance of the laws, which doom me to transportation, with the common malefactor, nor the disagreeable circumstances of a profession still exposed to the wanton lash of every religious persecutor, were deemed a sufficient plea for exclusion from a society composed of so many great and shining men.
Robertson's religion has proved no obstacle to his admis- sion among the Spanish academicians. You, my brethren, have set the brilliant example of philanthropy in this king- dom ; and soared far above the sphere of contracted minds. Happy for the world had the gentle voice of Nature been always listened to, and his religion forgotten in the man !
The calamities, of which a contrary conduct has been productive, are slightly glanced at in my treatise on tolera- tion. In the two neighbouring kingdoms, the scenes which have been exhibited last year, are melancholy proofs, that a tolerating spirit, the fair offspring of candour and benevo- lence, confers happiness on individuals, and gives nations a bloom and vigour which intolerance blasts and enervates.
THE DEDICATION.
In consequence of the happy change in the dispositions of the people, Ireland has seen her peaceful natives employed in the useful labours of life ; her citizens, confident in each other, improving trade and commerce, under a variety of difficulties; her judges respected on their tribunals; and the pleasing scenes of harmony and union spread through every province. Such the result of benevolence ! Such the fruits of toleration ! Such was our situation, when in Great Britain nothing could be seen but the course of public justice suspended, and martial law proclaimed ; the law and the legislature trampled in their awful sanctuary ; the torn canonicals of bishops, the lacerated robes of temporal peers, the streets ensanguined with the streaming blood of deluded victims; sumptuous edifices changed into blazing piles ; the conflagration of Rome renewed by the torch of religious frenzy; the houses of inoffensive citizens chalked out for destruction; a city given up to plunder; assassins and malefactors let loose from their chains, and invited, by the hollow voice of fanaticism, to share the spoils; a king on the verge of destruction ; a kingdom on the eve of being plunged into the calamities of civil war; the sword taking the place of the robe, and dictating to the violaters of the law; and the stern hand of justice succeeding, in its turn, to the sword, and sweeping from the face of the earth, the gleanings of military execution. Such the poisonous fruits of misguided zeal, and religious intolerance ! The seeds of such disasters have been sown in distant times, when barbarity, or the competition of princes, con- tending for the throne, contributed to divide the people; and, from a mistaken policy, sovereigns themselves, in op- position to the maxims of legislation and wisdom, thought it more eligible to become heads of the half, than the fathers of all their subjects.
?1 THE DEDICATION.
Such measures weakened their arms abroad, and will ever prove destructive at home. In every plain the English generals met with their fellow subjects, disputing the laurel, under the banners of kings who gave them encouragement.
The Catholic and Protestant powers on the Continent, hj adopting a different plan, and uniting their subjects of every denomination in the ties of one common interest, strengthened their respective states against the encroach- ments of each other, and prevented their dominions from being changed a second time, into extensive fields of battle, covered with bodies, fallen by the sword of religious mad- ness ; or desolate wastes similar to those from whence re- straints and distress have banished the human species : the present Emperor's mother restored her Christian subjects of every denomination, to the freedom and rights of citizens. The son has opened his calm bosom to the Jew, and is become the father of the man who blasphemes the Saviour whom his Sovereign adores. Ireland ! Ireland, where the Protestant gentleman gives alms to the pilgrim without enquiring into his religion, and where the Catholic peasant presses his distressed fellow creature to take share of a handful of vegetables, scarce sufficient to support his own wretched existence: Ireland, whose generous sons have more compassion and feelings for the stranger, than their neighbours for the brothers of their blood — Ireland, where some strokes given by a peer of the realm, to a poor inoffensive priest in the last stage of a decay, which in a few days rescued him from the miseries of this life, " the " law's delay, and the proud man's contumely." — Ireland, where this scene raised such indignation in the generous breast of every Protestant, that a lawyer,* who to the
* Counsellor Cuna».
THE DEDICATION. VII
powers of the orator joins the courage of the hero, without fee or reward, pleaded for obscurity against eminence, for weakness against power, and, after asserting the* rights of humanity at the bar, went to encounter death in the field for a helpless client, in the last struggles of the agony. Ireland, so famous for the generous sentiments of her in- habitants, is the devoted spot, where out of a million and half of subjects, not one can become a coal measurer, a common soldier, an excise-man, nor have more than two apprentices at a time ! Their dissenting brethren, so humane in their private characters, and the professors of whose religion are so tolerant in Holland and Switzerland, consider their Catholic neighbours as so many slaves ready to cut their throats, at the first signal given by their royal masters, without whose concurrence the chain could never have been fastened to their bodies. The kings of England, on the other hand, whose treasury would be better supplied by opulent subjects than by a million of naked and famished objects, are obliged, at an enormous expense, to hira foreign mercenaries of every religion, with their respective chaplains, whilst their dauntless subject, are forced to throw themselves into the arms of those sovereigns who pay them for fighting, and permit them to pray as they think fit.
Thus government is distressed on one hand, and the king- dom is deprived of its strength and internal resources on the other. The Catholics, between their fellow subjects and the throne, are like the forlorn hope between two armies. They are doomed to civil destruction between both.
Europe will soon bear a different aspect: and the ex- amples set by those princes, who, for the aggrandizement
V1H THE DEDICATION.
of their states, are doing away all religious distinctions, arc so many warnings to copy after them. The Gauls, the Romans, the Carthaginians, thought themselves once in- Tincihle. Their divisions precipitated their downfal. No oracle has as yet declared that foreign candidates for glory and conquest will be deterred from attempting to become our masters. The power to resist becomes greater in pro- portion to the number of the subjects ; in proportion to the stake they have to defend, their attachment to their country, their attachment to each other. A small state, rich, populous, and well united, is preferable to a large but divided kingdom. Let religious distinctions, then, be laid aside. It is equal to the Israelite, released from bondage, whether his temple be built by Solomon or Cyrus ; provided he has liberty to pray unmolested, and to sleep under his vine and fig-tree. Diseases, sickness, death, which mows down the young and old, emigrations, the waste of war, countries, now unknown, which will be here- after discovered, colonies that ever and always depopulate the parent state, rising empires, and princes inviting strangers to settle in their dominions, will leave land enough in Ireland, to the end of time, for ten times the number of its inhabitants.
The world is in a continual change. New monarchs sway the sceptre. New ministers direct their councils. New characters are daily mounting the stage of life, to be- come the object of applause, derision, or censure of man- kind. Every new generation is a new world, raised on the ruins of the former, aiming at their present advantages, with- out any retrospect to past transactions, in which they are no ways concerned. We frequently change our bodies. Reason on its travels from age to age, acquires a new mode of thinking.
X THE DEDICATION. IX
In a word, every thing is liable to change ; and it is high time to chancre from division to union.
Let not religion, the sacred name of religion, which even in the face of an enemy discovers a brother, be any longer a wall of separation to keep us asunder : though it has been often perverted to the worst of purposes, yet it is easy to reconcile it with every social blessing.
In the course of this work, I intend to make it a citizen of the world, instead of confining it to one kingdom or province. I am not an able, neither am I a partial advo- cate. I plead for the Protestant in France, and for the Jew in Lisbon, as well as for the Catholic in Ireland. In future ages should fanaticism attempt to re-establish her destructive empire, and crying out with the frantic queen, exoriare oliquis ex ossibus nostris, summon the furies to spring from her embers, which I attempt to disperse and deprive of their noxious heat, let this votive offering, hung up in the temple of the order of the Monks of St. Patrick, announce to posterity, that in 1781, the liberal-minded of all deno- minations in Ireland, were reconciled, maugre the odious distinctions which the laws uphold, and that those very laws, enacted before we were born, but not the dis- positions of the people, are the only sources of our mis- fortunes.
Whatever tends to promote the public good, is a tribute due from an adopted brother, to great and illustrious characters, whose refined feelings can only be equalled by the culture of their minds: who have transplanted to the Irish nursery the flowers of Rome and Athens: who, in their writings and speeches, have displayed to Europe
B
4
X THE DEDICATION.
the scene of eloquence, diversified with the fire of De- mosthenes and the majesty of Tully, and wrested their thunderbolts from those orators, in order to assert what they deemed the rights of mankind, and to crush the false divinities that should attempt to erect their altars on their ruins.
I have the honour to be,
Rev. Fathers, and
Illustrious Brethren,
Your affectionate Brother,
ARTHUR O'LEARY.
Bubliu, July 15, 17*1.
DEFENCE
OF THE
aHt^ssrsVY
OR, REMARKS ON A WORK, ENTITLED
THOUGHTS ON NJTURE AND RELIGION.
LETTER I.
to the author.* Sir,
YOUR long expected performance has at length made its -appearance. If the work tended to promote the happiness of society; to animate our hopes; tp subdue our passions ; to instruct man in the happy science of purifying the polluted re- cesses of a vitiated heart; to confirm him in his exalted notion of the dignity of his nature, and thereby to inspire him with sentiments averse to whatever may debase the excellence of his origin ; the public would be indebted to you ; your name would be recorded amongst the assertors of morality and re- ligion ; and I myself, though bred up in a different persuasion from yours, would be the first to offer my incense at the shrine of merit. But the tendency of your performance is to deny the divinity of Christ, and the immortality of the soul. In denying the first, you sap the foundations of religion; you cut off, at one blow, the merit of our faith, the comfort of our hope, and the motives of our charity. In denying the im- mortality of the soul, you degrade human nature, and con- found man with the vile and perishable insect. In denying both, you overturn the whole system of religion, whether na- tural or revealed : and in denying religion, you deprive the
* A Scotch physician, who styles himself Michael Servetus.
2 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
poor of the only comfort which supports them under their distresses and afflictions; you wrest from the hands of the powerful and rich, the only bridle to their injustices and pas- sions ; and pluck from the hearts of the guilty, the greatest check to their crimes ; I mean, this remorse of conscience, which can never be the result of a handful of organized mat- ter; this interior monitor which makes us blush, in the morn- ing, at the disorders of the foregoing night ! which erects in the breast of the tyrant, a tribunal superior to his power, and whose importunate voice upbraids a Cain, in the wilderness, with the murder of his brother; and a Nero, in his palace, with that of his mother. Such are the consequences naturally resulting from the principles laid down in your writings.
It is no intention of mine to fasten the odium of wilful in- fidelity on any person, who professes his belief in the Scrip- tures : though I am equally concerned and surprised that a gentleman, whose understanding has been enlightened by the Christian revelation, and enlarged by all the aids of human learning, should broach tenets, which equally militate against the first principles of reason, and the oracles of the Divinity; and which, if true, would be of so service to mankind. Who- ever is so unhappy as to work himself into a conviction, that his soul is no more than a subtile vapour, which in death is to be breathed out into the air, to mix confusedly with its kindred element, and there to perish, would still do well to conceal his horrid belief with more secrecy than the Druids concealed their mysteries. In doing otherwise, he only brings disgrace on himself: for the notion of religion is so deeply impressed on our minds, that the bold champions who would fain destroy it, are considered by the generality of mankind, as public pests, spreading disorder and mortality wherever they appear; and in our feelings we discover the delusions of a cheating philosophy, which can never intro- duce a religion more pure than that of the Christians, nor confer a more glorious privilege on man, than that of an immortal soul. In a word, if it be a crime to have no re- ligion, it is a folly to boast of the want of it.
Whence, then, this eagerness to propagate systems, the tendency whereof is to slacken the reins that curb the irregularity of our appetites, and restrain the impetuosity of passion ? In our dogmatizing philosophers, it must proceed
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 3
from the corruption of the heart, averse to restraint ; or the vanity of the mind, which glories in striking from the common path, and not thinking with the multitude.
Your unspotted character justifies you from any imputa- tion of a design to infect others with the poison of a licentious doctrine. But vanity is one of those foreign ingredients, blended by the loss of original justice, into our nature. It prefers glorious vices to obscure virtues. It animates the hero to extend his conquests, at the expense of justice; and stimulates the philosopher to erect the banners of error on the ruins of truth You seem to acknowledge it, in your en- quiries into the causes of error: 'It was vanity in philosophers * which caused so many different sects and systems.' I believe it, and Montaigne was of the same opinion. Immersed in an ocean of disorders, glorying in appearance, in an utter ex- tinction of remorse, and conversant with the doctrine taught in Epicurus's garden, he acknowledges, that 4 vanity induces 4 free-thinkers to affect more impiety than they are really ca- pable of.' Lucretius, in like manner, whose arguments against the immortality of the soul are the same with yours, corroborates your opinion, relative to the bias vanity gives those soaring and philosophical geniuses, who strike from the trodden path. When in glowing numbers he enforced his fond opinion of careless goods and material souls, as favour- able to the calrn^ repose which the voluptuous bard, who makes his invocation to Venus, would fain enjoy without re- morse here, or punishment hereafter, he was well aware that his doctrine clashed with the general sense of mankind. But the philosophical poet consoles himself, with the flattering expectation of gratifying his vanity :
" 'Tis sweet to crop fresh flowers, and get a crown, " For new and rare iuveutions of my own."*
In a word, some men of learning plume themselves upon the singularity of their opinions: and, however they may dis- claim vanity, as the spring of their literary performances, yet it is one of those ingredients which gives a zest to their com- position. And if singularity and novelty of invention, be stimulatives to self-love, few authors of the age are more
* Creech's Lucretius.
4 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
bound to guard against this dangerous and agreeable poison, than the author of the 4 Thoughts on Nature and Reli-
gion?
To range those singularities under their proper heads, is almost impossible : and modesty does not permit to tran- scribe from your book several passages of your allegori- cal commentary, on the second chapter of Genesis. ' The coat of skins,' then, 4 with which God covered the man and woman after their fall,' as well as 4 the fruit so pleas- ing to the eye, which the woman tasted,' 1 leave the doc- tor in full possession of. He is a married man, and skilled in the anatomy of all parts of the body.
After giving his readers the important information, that Adam was displeased with his wife, for inducing him to a faux pas, which 1 believe no married man, except Adam, (if we believe the doctor.) ever scrupled ; he allegorizes some of the rest of the chapter, in the following manner: 4 God 4 planted a garden eastward in Eden,' says the inspired writer, * and there he put the man whom he had formed.' 4 What is called a garden,' says the doctor, ' I take to be 4 the human mind. By the river which watered the garden, 4 and afterwards divided into four branches, is meant inno- 4 cence, divided into the four cardinal virtues.' Here he loses breath: for to allegorize all would be too tedious; and doubtless the public have room to regret the doctor's omission in not continuing the allegory to the end of the chapter.
He professes his belief in the Scriptures ; but has the good luck to elude every difficulty that falls in his way, by the assistance of metaphors ; and thinks himself the more authorized to take this freedom with Moses, as he dis- covers a mistake in the Bible. ' I will strike Egypt, saith 4 the Lord, from die tower of Syene to the borders of 4 Ethiopia.'* 4 Instead of Ethiopia,' says the doctor, 4 it 4 should be Arabia : for Syene was situated on the borders 4 of Ethiopia.'
Pray, doctor, does a mistake in geography, on the part of the translators of the Bible, invalidate the Mosaical account of man's innocence, together with his felicity in Paradise ;
* Ezechiel.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. if
the malice of the tempting spirit, and his appearance under the form of a serpent ; the fall of Adam and Eve, fatal to all their posterity; the first man justly punished in his children, and mankind cursed by God; the first promise of redemp- tion, and the future victory of man over the Devil, who had undone them? Has not the memory of those great events, and the fatal transition from original justice to the corruption of sin, been preserved in the golden and iron ages of the poets, their Hesperian gardens watched by dragons, and in the enchantments and worship of idolatrous nations, in whose incantations and superstitions, the serpent always bore, as it bears still, a principal part ? Allegorize Moses as much as you please; he relates that God promised, that 'the woman's ' offspring would crush the serpent's head.' This very pro- mise of a Redeemer, and man's victory through his grace, are foretold in the oracles of the Gentiles. Even Tacitus, though a mortal enemy to the Jews and Christians, acknowledges that it was a constant tradition among the Oriental nations, that from the Jews would spring a conqueror, who would subdue the world. A translator's mistake, as to the name of a town or tower, is no plea for scepticism ; especially as there are and have been, several towns of the same name, in dif- ferent places; which might have been the case with Sycne ; and cities which, in a long succession of time, have changed their names, or borne different names at the same time: as is the case with Constantinople, which the Turks call Stam- boul, and others Byzantium.
But let us suppose that the tower of Syene was situated on the same line, in an opposite direction, with the frontiers of Ethiopia : is there any impropriety in saying, ' I will strike 'Egypt from the tower of Syene to the borders of Ethiopia?' Solinus relates, that there was a tower, called Syene, in lower Egypt. Ethiopia borders Egypt on the south. In striking Egypt, then from the tower of Syene to the borders of Ethi- opia, it is struck from north to south: that is, from one ex- tremity to the other. The doctor, then, has lost his time in correcting the prophet Ezechiel's map, and substituting Ara- bia for Ethiopia. Yet this passage of Ezechiel is his chief plea for allegorizing Genesis: with what success let the reader judge.
A warm fancy, in a paroxysm of zeal, may indulge its
b MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
boundless excursions in the path of allegory, when obscure passages and mystical expressions open a field for interpreta- tions and allusions. Mead, Whiston, Wesley, and the doctor himself, may discover the Pope in the beast with ten horns ; and Rome in the great city built on seven hills. The Jewish rabbins, after obtaining permission from the prince of Orange to build a synagogue, applied to their benefactor this famous passage of Isaiah : ' On that day seven women will take hold 'of one man,' alluding to the Seven United Provinces that had elected him stadtholder: and I myself, if I were in hu- mour, could, in a long-winded discourse, enlarge upon the seven sacraments, or the three theological and four cardinal virtues; and compare them to the seven golden candlesticks mentioned in the revelations of St. John. But in an historical narration, giving an account of the origin of the world : of a garden planted with trees, watered with four rivers ; with their names ; the countries through which they flow ; the precious stones, mines, and minerals, to be found in those countries, &c. : the introduction of an allegory is the sub- version of reason.
Even where allegories can be used with any propriety, our masters in rhetoric lay down as a rule, that, 'in the chain of 4 metaphors continued through the discourse, aptness, resem- 4 blance, and justness of allusion, must be strictly observed.' What justness of allusion is therebetween the human mind^ and a garden planted eastward in Eden, where God put the man he had created? As much as there is in saying, God made mail, and placed him eastward in his mind. What analogy is there between the four rivers and the four cardinal virtues ? Between fortitude and Pison, or the Ganges, with the effimi- nate natives that inhabit its banks ? Between prudence and the Euphrates ? Justice and Gihon or the JW/e, with its crocodiles ? Temperance and Hiddekel or the Tygris, which, as Moses re- lates, and as geography informs us, goeth towards the east of Assyria, a country famous in former days for the intemperance of its inhabitants ? The four cardinal virtues being set afloat on the four rivers, and the doctor's imagination having spent the fire of his allegory, we are at a loss what virtue to de- scribe by the onyx-stone mentioned by Moses in the fol- lowing words : ' The name of the first river is Pison ; that is 4 it which compasseth the land of Havilah, where there is«
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 7
* is gold : and the gold of that land is good : and there h
* bdellium and the onyx-stone.' By gold, doubtless, he mur.t mean charity or patience. But of the onyx-stone there are four kinds ; and we would be obliged to our dog-matizins; philosophers for describing their four correspondent virtues.
Let them inform us, in like manner, whether the bdellium mentioned by Moses, be one of the theological or a branch of the cardinal virtues. For though in dispensatories, the bdel- lium be allowed to be a good nostrum, of an emollient and discutient quality; yet the learned, whether commentators of Scripture,or natural philosophers, are no more agreed about the true nature of bdellium, than they are about the manner how it is produced: and it is much doubted whether the bdel- lium of the ancients be the same with the modern kind.
Thus, in the disputes about a drop of gum resin, the na- ture and production whereof perplex the most learned, wo discover the weakness of human reason. We cannot dissect a fly; and we would fain comprehend the ways of Providence. We would fain sound the unfathomable ocean of the Chris- tian religion, and arraign its mysteries at the tribunal of a glimmering; reason : when the smali atom that swims on the surface, baffles our severest scrutiny.
I have the honour to be, &c.
ARTHUR O'LEARY.
S MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
LETTER II.
Sir,
TO our modern philosophers, who set up the proud idols of their own fancies in opposition to the oracles of the divi- nity, and, endeavouring to discover absurdities in the Christian religion, fall into greater, we can, without dis- claiming our title to good manners, apply what St. Ptmi ap- plied to the philosophers of his time : ' they became vain in ' their imaginations : professing themselves to be wise,, they * became fools.' In order to sap the foundations of revealed religion, and to make man the sport of chance, who neither lost any privilege by Adam's fall, nor gained any thing by Christ's redemption, they endeavour to obtrude Moses on the public as an allegorical writer. Examine his character, and acknowledge their follv.
Besides his divine mission, in what historian, does truth shine more conspicuous ? He relates his personal defects, as well as the extraordinary powers with which the Lord in- vested him ; deduces a long chain of patriarchs from the first man down to his days ; traces a genealogy, in which every chief is distinguished by his peculiar character. In quitting Egypt, the nursery of fiction, did it comport with the dig- nity of the legislator and commander of a chosen people, to write romances ? In the space of five hundred years, from Noah's death to Moses' time, could the fall of man and his expulsion from Paradise be forgotten ? And, as he had enemies, would not they have charged him with imposture ? Or was he the only person amongst the Jews, who was in- structed by his father ? In a word, it was out of his power to deceive the Jews ; much less was it his inclination or interest. All, then, is coherent in Moses : and to his genuine narra- tive we are indebted for the knowledge of ourselves ; for, without the aid of revelation, man would ever be an inex- plicable mystery.
In believing my descent from a father created in a state of perfection, from whence he fell ; a father on whose obedi- ence or disobedience my happiness or misery depended ; I
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 9
can account for the corruption of my nature, and all the train of evils which have descended to Adam's children. Without this clue to direct me, 1 must be for ever entangled in a labyrinth of perplexities. Let philosophy glory in le- velling man with the brute, and say that there was never any difference in his state ; that he was always the same, destined to gratify his appetites, and to die ; — I am really persuaded that I must renounce common sense, if I believe that man is now the same that he was in coming from his Maker's hands. The opposition between our passions and reason is too pal- pable, to believe that we were created in such an excess of contradictions. Reason dictates to be temperate, just, and equitable ; to deal with others as I would fain be dealt by ; not to infringe the order of society ; to pity and relieve the afflicted : my passions, those tyrants so cruel, prompt me to raise myself on the ruin of others ; to tread in the flowery paths of criminal pleasures ; and to sacrifice my enemy to my resentment. If God, then, be the author of reason, — and that it is granted to man to regulate and curb his inclina- tions,— misery and corruption were not our primitive state.
Philosophers, in a strain of irony, may deride our Bible and Catechism, and laugh at our folly for believing that an apple could entail such miseries on mortals : but let them seriously consider the multitude and greatness of the evils that oppress us ; and how full of vanity, of illusions, of suf- ferings, are the first years of our lives; when we are grown up, how are we seduced by error, weakened by pain, inflamed
by lust, cast down by sorrow, elated with pride : and ask
themselves, whether the cause of those dreadful evils be the injustice of God or the original sin of man ?
The evidence of those miseries forced the pagan philoso- phers to say, that we were born only to suffer the punish- ments we had deserved for crimes committed in a life before this. They, doubtless, were deceived as to the origin and cause of our miseries : but still some glimmering of reason did not permit them to consider those calamities as the na- tural state of man. But religion reforms the error, and points out, that this heavy yoke, which the sons of Adam are forced to bear, from the time their bodies are taken from their mothers' womb, to the day that they are to return to the womb of their common mother, the earth, would not
10 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
have been laid upon them, if they had not deserved it, by the guih they contract from their origin.
Hut religion, as far as it includes mysteries, you think yourself at liberty to discard; because you * cannot conceive ' how God could require of man, a belief of any thing which ' he has not endowed him with powers to conceive.'* Hence you rtje ct the mystery of the Trinity, as an invention of the clergy, borrowed from the poetical fable of the three brothers, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto ; the Divinity of Christ, as an imposition of the clergy : and the immortality of the soul, as tile invention of scholastic subtlety.
You think the religion of nature a sufficient guide ; and prefer Socrates and Cato to the clergy of the Christian reli- gion,— the great Cato whom you applaud for his bon mot, when he said, that he was surprised how two priests could meet v:'fhout bursting out into a Jit of laughter. Do not confide too much, my dear Sir, in reason and this boasted law of nature, which formed an Aristides, a Socrates, a Cato, whom you applaud/or laughing at priests. Whatever tricks or juggles might have been played in the recesses of the Capitol, where tlie Sibylline oracles were deposited, to answer the purposes ci' state, — to animate the people to war, from an expectation oi success, under the protection of Jupiter or Apollo, — and to support the pride and policy of Roman grandeur ; — the priests of the Christian religion do not conceal their belief. Cato inight laugh in seeing his colleague, for reasons best known to themselves : and doubtless, the priest, who came to the Roman lady, with a message from Apollo, informing her that the god intended to honour her that night with his company, by sleeping with her in his temple, laughed heartily in seeing the young gentleman who bribed him to the cheat, aiid the more so, as on the day following the lady gave the public to understand, that however great Apollo might have been, in his quality of God, honoured with altars and temples, he had nothing extraordinary in his quality of companion. Giito's priests then might have laughed in seeing one another; the mysteries and rites of their Gods, as debauched and Cor- fu pt as themselves, afforded scenes of impure mirth : and the Christian clergy are obliged to the Doctor for putting them c
* Thoughts on Nature and Re! igioB, pag e 127.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 11
whom they worship, on a level with the heathen priests and their Jupiter, who ravished Ganymedes, Neptune and his sea nymphs, and Pluto, who carried off' Proserpina.
In spite of the preference, given by the Doctor to Cato and Socrates, over the Christian clergy, and the sufficiency of the law of nature to regulate the conduct of man, we can assure him, that under the direction of a Christian mother, who never studied philosophy \ a child imbibes sublimer no- tions of divinity, and purer ideas of virtue, than Plato ever taught in the academy, or Aristotle in the Lyceum. Whfct were those boasted sages whom our modern Free-thinkers so often introduce on the stage, as paragons of wisdom, in or- der to play the dazzling glass in the eyes of the unwary, by- making reason their only oracle, and painting religion as priest-craft ? Some doubted of their own existence, and con- sequently of the existence of a God. Some figured to them- selves an indolent God, who never concerned himself in the affairs of mortals, equally indifferent about vice or virtue ; who, to use the words of Lucretius, ' ne'er smiles at good, ' ne'er frowns at wicked deeds.' Some considered the Su- preme Being as the slave of destiny. Others as incorporate with the universe, and a part of a world which is the work of his hand.
What extravagant notions concerning the nature of the soul ! In one school it was an assemblage of atoms ; in ano- ther it was subtile air ; in a third school it was a something which, after its separation from one body, entered into another, roaming from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven, without any permanent abode ; alternately swaying the sceptre of authority in the hands of the monarch, and animating the body of a beast of burden. Their great re- medy against the terrors of death, consisted in a false but flattering way of reasoning. ' Either the soul dies with the 4 body, or survives it. If it dies with the body it cannot suf- ' fer. If it survives it, it will be happy.' Not reflecting that the horrors of sin, and infinite justice, may appoint an in- termediate state, wherein man is eternally miserable. Hence all the reins were slackened, and the most abominable crimes honoured with priests, altars, and temples. Public worship became a public prostitution. Incest, impurity, drunkenness, hatred^ pride* were deified under the fictitious names of Ju-
12 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
piter, Juno, Venus, Mars, &c. and criminal Gods were wor- shipped with crimes.
It was not the mountain inhabited by the rude and unci- vilized, which alone was polluted with the smoak of profane incense : the nations most renowned for learning and re- finement,— Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians, — in the midst of their cities, saw sumptuous edifices consecrated to the passions which the Gospel condemns. By their mistakes and errors it is easy to perceive the weakness of reason, and the necessity of repealed religion.
Your philosophers whom our modern free-thinkers are ever extolling, with a view to degrade, the Christian religion and its ministers, never escaped the general contagion. — Your Cato, besides suicide, was guilty of levities of a softer nature than the steel with which he killed himself. Your Socrates, whom you would fain obtrude on the ignorant, as a martyr to truth and the original religion of nature, acknow- ledges in his defence, that he worshipped the Gods of his city, and was seen on public festivals sacrificing at their altars. His wrestling naked with his pupil, Alcibiades, was an atti- tude ill suited to the character of a man, entitled to a place in the calendar of saints. What shall I say of the Cynics, who laid aside all the natural restraints of shame and modesty? Of Chrysippus, the advocate of intermarriages between fa- thers and daughters ? Of the Persian Magi, who married their mothers ? Of Seneca, playing the moralist in public, debauching his sovereign's wife in private, and preferring his pretended wise man to God himself? What shall I say of the divine Plato, who annihilates the institution of connubial ties ? Who by introducing a community of women, and refusing the husband any exclusive property in the marriage bed, would fain introduce a horrid confusion amongst men ; confound all paternal rights, which nature itself respected, and people his republic with inhabitants, uncertain of their origin, without tenderness, affection, or humanity; whereas in such a state it would have been impossible for the son to know his fatner.
Such is the boasted reason you take for your guide, and lo. the great luminaries it has produced! Aset of proud men, bewildered in a labyrinth of the most monstrous errors. If our modern philosophers are more refined than those ancient
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 13
sages, it is to the Christian religion, which they would fain overthrow, to the writings of its doctors, whom they deride, and to the first principles of a Christian education, which they cannot entirely forget, that they are indebted for their superiority.
Before revealed religion dispelled the mist, reason was overspread with error, in the breasts of the greatest men. It is no more than a bare capacity to be instructed ; an en- gine veering at every breath ; equally disposed to minister to vice as well as to virtue, according to the variety and customs of different climates. It did not hinder the Egyptian from worshipping leeks and onions, nor the i\.thenian, Socrates, from offering a cock to Esculapius.
But is man to be debarred the use of his reason, or has he any thing to dread for not believing mysteries he cannot comprehend? Make full use of your reason, not with a design to fall into scepticism, but with a sincere desire to come at the knowledge of the truth. Reason is never better em- ployed than in discovering the will of its author : and when once we discover that it is his will we should believe, reason itself suggests that it is our duty to submit; otherwise we are guilty of rebellion against the first of sovereigns : and to deny his power to punish the disobedience of his creatures, is more than you have attempted.
This important enquiry should be attended with a pure heart and fervent prayer. However a philosopher may laugh at the hint, as Cato would laugh if he met a priest. It was after a fervent prayer Solomon received his wisdom : after a fervent prayer, Cornelius the Centurion, obtained the privi- lege of becoming the first convert from amongst the Gentiles. Even the heathen, Democritus, who figured so much amongst the literati of his time, constantly prayed the Gods to send him good images. Religion would not seem so absurd, the number of free-thinkers would not be so great, if we made it our business to purify the heart, and earnestly to beg of the Divinity to enlighten our understanding. For the pas- sions of the heart, and too much confidence in ourselves, pave the way for the errors of the mind. Solomon became dissolute and voluptuous before he fell into idolatry. We ever and always lose our innocence before we laugh at cur catechism.
14 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS,
But a philosopher requires argument, and leaves prayer to the vulgar. Reason is too precious a gilt to be offered at the shrine of religion : yet from St. Paul, to whom the Roman governor said that too much learning had turned his head, down to John Locke, the great historian of the human un- derstanding, the greatest men the wond ever produced, have believed mysteries beyond their comprehension. They all knew that God cannot lie, nor deceive mortals, but that man is liable to error. If then my reason discovers, that the mo- tives of credibility are sufficient to induce me to believe, that God has proposed such and such a doctrine; the same reason immediately whispers, believe your God, for he can do more, than you can comprehend.
In denying mysteries, because we cannot comprehend them, we may as well deny our existence. For our very existence is a mystery we can never comprehend. How many valves and springs, how many veins and arteries, what an assemblage of bones,muscles, canals, juices, nerves, fluids, tubes, vessels, are requisite to make tnat frail being called man? Great par- tizans of nature and reason (words often used to vt il your ig- norance), take a handful of dust and shape it in the figure of a man, bore the veins and arteries, lay the sinews and ten- dons, fit the joints and blow into its nostrils your philosophi- cal breath, make it move, walk, speak, concert plans, form schemes; make it susceptible of love, fear, joy, hope, de- sire, &c. then we will recognize ycur comprehensive know- ledge of the imperceptible progress, and divine mechanism of the human frame. For the formation of each of us is as wonderful as the formation of the first. Your very bodies of which you are so fond, are mysteries in which your reason is lost ; and you would fain have a religion which proposes no- thing but what your reason comprehends. Thousands of vears elapsed before Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood. Thousands will elapse before the delicate texture of the human frame is knowrn.
Disengage yourselves, if you can, from the impenetrable folds and darkness of our own frames. Take a survey of all the objects that surround you ; you plunge into an abyss overspread with darkness and obscurity. Explain to us how one and the same water paints and dyes the different flowers into various colours, the pink, the lilly, the tulip, the rose ;
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 15
vtT how from an inodorous earth they draw their sweet per- fumes ! The cell of the bee, which that little insect makes according to the nicest rules of geometry, without studying the mathematics, and in the construction whereof the curious have observed all the advantages which geometers derive from Newton's doctrine of fluxions, the minima and maxima, and the extraordinary contrivance, whereby a less quantity of surface is sufficient to contain a given quantity of honey, which saves that creature much wax and labour. The cell of the bee, the granary of the ant, the heart, lungs, liver, &c. of the mite, baffle your learned researches.
From the immense bodies swimming in the azure fluid above, to the blade of grass which springs under your feet, every thing h a mystery to man.
If you range in the boundless region of the abstract sciences, what a fathomless ocean of truths which you must acknow- ledge, without comprehending ! Lines eternally drawing near to each other, without ever meeting ! Motion for ever slacken- ing, without ever coming to a point of rest ! The infinite di- visibility of matter, whereby a small grain of wheat incloses in itself as many parts (though lesser in proportion) as the whole world ! The smallest part of the same grain containing ano- ther world, and the least part of that part, as small, with re- spect to the grain, as the grain is, with respect to the entire frame of the universe, and so on, to infinity !
If, then, the vigour of our wit must yield to an atom of matter, is it not an abuse of reason, to refuse our assent to truths propounded by an all- wise and omnipotent Being, only because they are above our conception ?
If nature be, then, a mysterious Book, closed up with a seven-fold seal, is it not presumption and blindness in man not to submit to unerring wisdom ? Revealed religion once secluded, a faint light and lame kind of liberty would be our boasted privilege. Wounded man could never find, in his reason, sufficient light to discover the truths of eternal life ; nor in his liberty ^ sufficient strength to follow their dictates. Like the bleeding traveller, on the road of Jericho, he stands in need of the assistance of some foreign and healing hand.
* It is none of his fault,' says St. Austin, who had himself been a proud and voluptuous Philosopher, ' if he cannot make * use of his broken limbs : but he is guilty, if he despises the
16 miscellaneous tracts.
* physician who proffers to cure him : and he is humbly to ' acknowledge his weakness, to obtain help. This assistance 1 is ministered, not by the law of nature, but by the tree of
* life, who says of himself: I am the vine : you are the
* branches : without me you cannot do any thing/
The two fatal springs of our evils, are — the error of the mind, and the infirmity of the will. In him we find the re- medy : the light of revelation to dispel our darkness, and his enlivening grace to purify the heart. You are ready to ac- knowledge him as the divine and inexhaustible fountain of both, if once some passages, which, in your opinion, militate against his Divinity, could be reconciled. An attempt sUall be made in my next letter.
I have the honour to be, &c.
ARTHUR O'LEARY.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
17
LETTER III.
Sir,
AN incarnate God, whose bleeding wounds have paid our ransom, is one of those mysteries that stuns and disconcerts human reason, liable to stray through the winding paths of roving error, if the clew of faith do not direct our steps and minister its assistance. He appeared on earth to cancel our crimes ; to nail to the cross the schedule of our condem- nation ; to lacerate and tear the woeful hand- writing that gave us over to rebel angels ; to snatch sinful man from the hands of divine justice ; and to unlock the awful gates of the eternal sanctuary, whither no mortal has access, but through the blood of the spotless Pontiff. He appeared, in fine, to raise, through his merits, all those who fell by Adam's guilt ; to form a faithful and holy people, a faithful people, * by capti- f vating their understanding to the yoke of faith,' and a holy people, whose conversation, according to St. Paul, ought to be in heaven ; and who are to follow no longer the dictates of the flesh.
Our ignorance of his nature would expose us to the fatal alternative — either of becoming idolaters in worshipping a man, which is the case of all Christians, if your opinion be well grounded, or of refusing God the homage that is due to him, which is your case, if you mistake and err. If Christ be not God, the Christians are in the same case with theido- latrous Tartars, who worship a living man : and if he be God above all, and blessed for ever, you may as well believe the Alcoran, as believe the Scriptures ; and invoke Mahomet, as invoke the son of Mary. He declares, ' that life eternal ' consists in the knowledge of Himself, and of the Father who * sent him.' In such an important article, it is too hazardous to plead ignorance, in hopes of impunity : for the Scripture says, that * there is a way which man thinks to be the right ' one ; and the end thereof are the ways of death.' The Di- vinity of Christ, evidenced by the accomplishment of so many oracles, and supported by the concurrent testimonies of all nations and ages, since his appearance on earth, has so many
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apologists, that the doctor can easily meet with some of them in every library, and, I doubt not, in his own ; and that it were presumption in me to attempt going over the same ground ; especially, after what Abadie and Houteville have said on this important subject. Moreover, Sir, you acknow- ledge the authenticity of the Scriptures ; and found your doubts, either on the obscurity of some passages, or the mis- application of some prophecies, or the numberless texts, re- lating to Christ's humanity. In this walk, I take the liberty of attending you, step by step; and shall avoid, as much as possible, any long digression ; lest we may stray too far from the path.
OBSCURITY.
You affirm, that the first chapter of St. John, in which the Divinity of Christ is asserted, * In the beginning was the 1 Word ; and the Word was with God ; and the Word was ' God ;' is intricate and obscure. It is quite the reverse ; and Christ's Divinity cannot be read in more legible characters. You understand by the Word, ' the Man Jesus, whom God ' raised up in time, and to whom God imparted extraordinary
* gifts.' In understanding by the Word, the Man Jesus, you are in similar circumstances with king Agrippa, who said: ' Paul, Paul, you have made me almost a Christian.' You Mould be entirely a Christian, if you added to ' the Man Jesus, whom God raised up in time,' the God Jesus, who was be- gotten from eternity : according to the saying of the Psalmist,
* before the morning star I have begotten thee :' words which Christ applies to himself. Or you understand by the fore- going words, ' In the beginning was the word,' &c. truth and righteousness, co-eternal tvith the Divinity. Permit me to tell you, that you explain one obscurity by another ; and that, notwithstanding all your shifts, either the Evangelist did not know what he was saying, or you must absolutely allow an eternal and pre-existent principle, united to human nature,
* in the fulness of time.'
To prove what I advanced, I shall adopt your interpre- tation, and place truth in the room of word. * In the begin-
* ning was the truth ; and the truth was with God : and God
* was the truth.* Remark, here, that God and the truth ate identified :— God was the truth. In the same chapter, it is
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 19
said : ' the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.* In adopting your interpretation, it will be : ' the truth was made
* flesh and dwelt among us,' viz. the same truth of which he said before, that it was God himself; and then the entire sense will be, God, the truth, was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us. Upon the whole, you are to acknowledge an eternal, pre-existent principle, assuming human nature ; or to reject this chapter as suppositious, which no Arian or So- cinian ever did.
You accuse the English translators of some design, in transposing these words, ' k*1 ©eo? w b Aoy©^
* the Word,' which they have Englished, 'and the Word
* was God,' as if they intended to promote the Christian cause by an artful transposition.
I see no advantage you can derive from so severe and in- jurious an intimation. Whether we say, ' God was the 'Word,' or 'the Word was God,' the sense is the same: for, in all languages, it is the nature of the copulative verb (is) to identify the predicate and the subject, if it be not fol- lowed by some exclusive particle or negative word. Peter was or is that man : transpose the words, and such will be the result of the transposition : that man was or is Peter. The sense is the same in both cases : and the same may be said, and is true, whether we say, ' God was the Word,' or ' the ' Word was God.'
This chapter is as clear as the first chapter of St. Paul's epistle to the Colossians, wherein he sets forth and extols the qualities of our divine Redeemer, ' by whom were made all 'things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible; ' whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers : ' all things were created by him and in him : and he is before ' all : and all things subsist in him.'*
If all things, that are, were made by him, he himself was not made : and his divine power is signified, when it is said, ' all things subsist,' or are preserved by him.
Further : critics lay down a general rule, whereby to elu- cidate the sense and meaning of authors, viz. to know the time in which they lived ; the circumstances in which they wrote ; and the adversaries with whom they were engaged. The application of the rule evinces the literality of the first
9 Verse IS, 17.
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chapter of St. John, which puzzled and perplexed the Arians and Socinians, and exhausted the metaphysics of the subtle Crellius. St. John wrote his gospel at the request of the Asiatic bishops, in opposition to the false doctrine of Ebion and Cerinthus, who denied the divinity of the Son of God. Motives, circumstances, the nature of the question, the doc- trine of his adversaries, all concur to prove that he is to be understood in a literal sense : a sense so free from any mys- terious obscurity, that the Platonic philosophers, according to St. Austin, discovered, in this chapter, the Divinity of the Son of God. ' But they were too proud,' says this father,
* to acknowledge the lowness of his humanity.'
SECOND OBSCURITT.
To invalidate our ^belief of Christ's conception in a virgin's womb, you oppose St. Matthew, who says, 'that
* Jacob was father to Joseph, the husband of Mary,' to St. Luke, who says, ' that Heli was Joseph's father.' But this seeming contradiction vanishes, if we pay attention to the manner in which the Jews sometimes traced their genealogy. In Deuteronomy,* the law declares, * that if one brother dies
* without children, the surviving brother shall marry his re- c lict, in order to raise up issue for the deceased,' which issue was to bear his name. Hence, a twofold genealogy amongst the Jews ; the one legal, the other natural. Jacob and Heli ivere brothers. Heli died without issue. Jacob married his relict, and begot Joseph, the husband of Mary. Thus, when St. Luke calls Heli ■ Joseph's father,' he means, his father, according to the law : and when St. Matthew calls Jacob c Joseph's father,' he means, his father, according to nature : and by this means, the Evangelists are easily reconciled. Other solutions are given to this difficulty, and you are at 3'our option to give the preference to which you choose. The Jewish records, and their family registers have been burnt with the archives of their temple. We live at too great a distance to settle the genealogies of their families. The Evangelists, besides the gift of inspiration, had every in- formation, as they were nearer the times. In certain coun- tries, there are some traces of this ancient custom of giving the denomination of father or uncle to a person who is not
* Cliap. xxv.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 21
cither the one or the other, but by a fiction of law. Hence, in * the province of Britany, in France, by their municipal law, u relation, in a remoter degree, inherits as an uncle ; and has the title of ' Oncle a la mode de Bretagne,' an uncle, accord- ing to the custom of Britany.
If, of two historians, in writing the life of one of their no- bles, one said, that he was nephew to one, and the other, that he was nephew to another, could we impeach either with ig- norance, when both could be reconciled by examining into the customs of the country in which they wrote ? And, if the rule stands good with regard to authors of credit and repute, how much more so, with regard to inspired writers ?
Let us now examine your difficulty relative to this famous prophecy of Isaiah,* applied to Jesus Christ by St. Matthew,f
* a virgin shall conceive, and bring forth a Son : and they
* shall call his name Immanuel : that is to sav, God is with 'us.'
You assert, that, ' St. Matthew did not well understand the ' Prophet's meaning :' and, ' that this prophecy concerns one 4 Maher-shalal-hashbas, born of a prophetess, and given as a
* sign to Ahaz, king of Judah.' An easy way to elude a text of Scripture ! Mistakes and ignorance attributed to inspired writers !
We are to state the fact that gave occasion to this prophecy, before we attempt to unfold its mysterious sense, and to shew how the coincidence of circumstances makes it applicable to Jesus Christ, and to him alone.
The kings of Israel and Syria laid siege to Jerusalem, with a design to cut off the house of David, and place a stranger on the throne. Ahaz, who could not be ignorant of Jacob's prophecy, who had foretold, ' that the sceptre should not de- part from the house of Judah, until Shiloh, or the Messiah, *was come'| apprehended, not only the reduction of the city, but moreover the total excision of the Jewish polity, which was to happen when the sceptre was to depart from the house of David: as it afterwards came to pass, about the time of the birth of Christ, when the Jews were obliged to receive such kings as the Romans chose to appoint.
To dispel the fears of the desponding king, the Prophet gives him two signs, confirming, first, that the sceptre should
- Chan. vii. vrvse 14. -f Chsp. i. % Genesis, vhan. xxix.
'22 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
not depart from the house of David, until a child is born of a virgin, in a miraculous manner, who would be God himself, Immanuel: and, as there was not such a miraculous child in his kingdom, he might rest secure that the sceptre should not depart so soon from the royal line. Thus, his alarms, concerning the house of David, are quieted, in hearing the prophecy foretelling a miraculous birth, which was to happen at a distant period. There still remained another doubt, viz. whether the confederate kings would take Jerusalem, be- sieged by such powerful forces "? And this the prophet re- moved, by telling him, that his own child* should not be of age to discern good from evil, before the two kings would be cut off.
Between Immanuel and Maher-shalal-hashbas there is not the least connexion. The first signifies, in Hebrew, God with us : the second signifies, hasten to take the spoils : make haste to take the prey. ' The one is conceived by a virgin, the other is the fruit of connubial ties: and the Prophet expressly de- clares it.f Upon this occasion, we do not read, 'hat he mar- ried a second wife : neither was polygamy familiar to austere persons of the prophetic profession : and the third verse, of the seventh chapter, absolutely precludes a state of virginity, whereas the Prophet is commanded to go with his son to meet the kins;: and this son must be older than Maher-shalal- hashbas.
The prophecy, then, relates to two different persons, Im- manuel and Maher-shalal-hashbas ; two different objects, the excision of the royal line of David, and the reduction of Je- rusalem ; two different events and signs ; the raising of the siege, and the defeat of the two confederate kings, which was to be accomplished speedily, before the prophet's child could cry to his father and mother : and the other, I mean the total extinction of the Jewish regal authority, when the sceptre was to be wrested from David's descendants, and lodged in the hands of the Essenian kings, under the protection of the Romans, about the time of Immanuei's birth, * who is God * above all, and blessed for ever.'
Should any doubt still remain, concerning this famous prophecy, faith is the firm anchor that ought to fix the doubts of a fluctuating mind : and humility should be so far preva-
* Mentioned, chap. viii. yer. 4. f In chap. Tiii. ver. 3.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 23
lent, as to induce us to prefer the opinion of an inspired writer before our own. We must renounce the Scriptures, or acknowledge that an Evangelist is a more competent judge of a prophet's meaning than we can pretend to be.
After wading through those difficulties, I shall not swell my page with all the passages quoted in your book, to prove Christ's humanity : I allow them all. But what are we to do with all the texts that prove his divinity ? ' The Alpha and ' Omega.' 'The beginning and end.' 'My Father and I 'are one.' ' The first and the last.' 'A God manifested in 'flesh; a God mortified in flesh.' 'God was the Word.* Supreme worship due to God alone. ' Let all the angels of ' God adore him.' Eternal generation. ' This day I have ' begotten thee.' The express appellation of a God, and his sovereign dominion. ' Unto the Son he saith, thy throne, ' O God, is for ever and ever,' &c. &c. &c.
To elude the texts that assert his divinity, you take refuge in a vain distinction of two characters in which Christ ap- peared ; the one private, the other public: a man, in his private character ; an ambassador or messenger of God, in his public ministry, by shewing his credentials, and assuming the title of God, in quality of an ambassador. I appeal to the judgment of the public, if this be not sporting with words, and perverting the use of language.
In the most solemn negociations between monarchs, do their ambassadors or envoys arrogate to themselves the title of kings ? And in the most authentic ratifications of treaties, do not they sign in their masters' names ? Has any of them the presumption to pass for the son of his master? When Christ said to his disciples, ' as my living Father has sent me, 1 so I send you.' When St. Paul said, ' we are Christ's am- ' bassadors,' did either he or any of the Apostles say, ' I am ' Christ; Christ and I are one. Whatever Christ does, I do 4 in like manner. I am before Abraham. I am before all ' things V
When, by way of allusion, the title of God is given to any mortal in the Scriptures, the limitations and restrictions, under which it is given, evidently preclude an indisputable claim to such an awful title. It is a gift bestowed with a par- simonious hand. 'I have made thee the God of Pharaoh*' says the Almighty to Moses. This word, Pharaoh, limits
z
24 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
and circumscribes the power of the deified mortal, and evinces a precarious title. ' I have said ye are Gods,' but the addi- tion of the following words, 'ye shall die,' clears up the pro- phet's meaning. Besides, this appellation is given by some others : no person assumes it himself. Christ declares, that he is the Son of God, the same with his Father. In his per- son, all the lineaments of the Divinity are united. Pro- phecies and oracles, predicting ' that God himself will come ' to save us,' are applied to him. He declares himself to be the same : and St. Paul affirms, that he thought it no usurpa- tion to be equal to the Most High.
In vain, then, it is alleged, that Christ and his Apostles applied these oracles and passages to the Son of God, in a figurative manner, or, to use the term of the schools, in an accommodate sense.
Lucifer himself, who attempted ' to raise his throne above ' the clouds, and make himself like unto the Most High,' could not have used a more impious and blasphemous figure, than to usurp the name and attributes of the sovereign Being; to require the same homage, adoration, and love, that are due to the Divinity. ' He that loves father and mother ' more than me, is not worthy to be my disciple.' ' Whoever ' loves his soul more than me, is not worthy to be my dis- ' ciple.' Did mortal before ever use such words ?
All other figures and allegories are explained in some part of Scripture, or wrapped up in mysterious clouds, to be dis- pelled by the brightness of eternal day, after exercising our belief: but with regard to the Divinity of Christ, if it be a figure, it is a metaphor continued through a long chain of prophecies and oracles, without the least explication to unfold its mysterious sense, repeated almost in every page of the New Testament, and sealed with the blood of Christ,, his Apostles, and Martyrs. When he appeared on earth to convert the Jews and Gentiles, and destroy idolatry, which blindfolded mankind, could he have taken more opposite steps to his mission, than to raise, the dead, and change the course of nature, in proof of a doctrine insinuating his Di- vinity, if he had no real claim to the title ? At a time when the credulous multitude were apt to enrol extraordinary men in the number of their Gods; when they worshipped the Garth that nourished them ; the air that refreshed them ; the
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 25
sun that enlightened them ; the moon that directed their steps in the obscurity of night ; the fire that warmed them ; the heroes that cleared the woods and forests of lions and serpents that annoyed them ; the conquerors who delivered them from their enemies ; the wise and generous princes who rendered their subjects happy, and the memory of their reign immortal. At a time when altars were erected at Athens, to the Unknown God ; when the priests of Salamis raised the sacrifice knife, to offer victims in honour of Paul, whom they took for Mercury, on account of his eloquence, and the no- velty of his doctrine ; and in honour of Barnabas, whom they revered as Jupiter, on account of his venerable aspect : and when the sortileges of Simon, the magician, procured him the honour of a temple at Rome, and the appellation of the great God. At such a critical period, when gratitude deified be- nefactors, and extraordinary powers laid the foundations of temples, and swelled the catalogue of false Gods ; it was a dangerous and ill-timed doctrine, to preach that he was equal to God ; that he was the Son of God ; that eternal life con- sisted in the knowledge of himself and of his Father ; to com- mand his followers to lay down their lives, sooner than deny him, &c. and to confirm this doctrine by silencing the winds that subsided at his nod; by calming the stormy seas ; chang- ing the nature of the elements ; restoring sight to the blind ; the use of their limbs to the lame ; forcing Death to surrender his spoils ; and all nature to acknowledge his power and em- pire. Shall a Paul and Barnabas tear their garments in being- taken for something more than mortal men ; and shall Jesus Christ, if he be not God, in a calm, deliberate manner, rob the Creator of all things, of his glory and the worship due to him, in affirming that himself and the God of heaven are one ; in applauding the faith of the apostle who said that he was the Son of the living God : and in not checking the disciple who, after thrusting his hand into his side, exclaimed, ' my Lord, and my God ! '
It is not only in the time of his liberty, when he visits the cities of Israel, healing their sick, raising their dead, feeding multitudes with a few loaves, and refusing the temporal so- vereignty which the people offered him, that he attributes to himself the prerogatives of the divinity. It is in chains, in the the course of his trial, and on the cross : conjured by the high
26 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
priest to tell whether he is Christ the son of God, he answers in the affirmative ; and, in proof of his assertion, says that they shall see him on the right hand of God. ' Do you hear 'the blasphemy V cries out the other. Had he used any men* tal reservations on this occasion, by saying one thing and meaning another; by expressing outwardly, 'lam the son ' of God,' and restraining in his mind the sense of the words, to the quality of a messenger; he would not have answered according to the Pontiff's meaning, who knew but too well the difference between a messenger, such as any prophet may be, and a son, who must be of the same nature with his father. What a precedent for perjurers ! And what blasphemy in St. Paul, who affirms, 'that he thought it no usurpation to make * himself equal to God !'
Common sense often supplies the room of metaphysical demonstrations. And common sense will inform you, that Jesus Christ is either the greatest impostor that ever ap- peared, or that he is literally what he declared himself to be, God and Man, for whom the martyrs suffered, whom the Christians adore, and to whom all knees are to bend one day. If he is an impostor, in vain has the blood of impure vic- tims been drained ; in vain have the altars of false deities been overturned; in vain have their idols been crushed, and their temples destroyed ; a new idol has been set up in their room, and the worship due to the sovereign Being has been trans- ferred to an impostor. If this be the case, God, then, must have deceived mortals, in investing an impostor, during his life, and his disciples, after his death, with such extraordinary powers. And the miracles wrought in confirmation of their doctrine, and which could never be wrought but by his ex- press and immediate power, must have been wrought with an express design to mislead his creatures into delusion and er- ror. Reconcile this, if you can, to his goodness, wisdom, and providence ; and behold the absurdities to which incre- dulity leads.
If you intend to reconcile those texts, that attribute to the same person, an eternal generation and birth in time ; tran- scendant glory and profound humility ; the power and majesty of a God, with the sufferings and death of a man : admit in the same person the divine and human nature. Then, all seeming contradiction vanish, His infirmities and sufferings
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 27
are applicable to him, as Man ; whilst his glorious characters and titles are to be attributed to his Godhead, disguised un- der a human veil. Thus, in Jesus Christ we find the God that created us, whereas he is the same with his father : the redeemer who purchased us, by paying our ransom : the spotless Pontiff, through whom we find access to the throne of mercy. His cross is folly to the Jew, and a scandal to the Gentile : but to the Christian it is the power and wisdom of God. For if he was not man, he could not suffer ; and if he were not God, his sufferings would not avail us. He be- comes man, to suffer for our sake : and, as God he gives his suffe rings an infinite price.
I remain, &c.
ARTHUR O'LEARY.
28 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
LETTER IV.
Sir,
IN the preceding letters, we have touched upon the weakness of" reason, and the necessity of revealed religion ; the obscurity in which mortals were involved, and the incon- gruity of denying religious mysteries, when the book of na- ture, open to our eyes, is scarce legible ; our fall in Adam, and our restoration in Christ.
It is now time to examine your opinion concerning the soul of man: an opinion which you deliver in the seventy- second page of your work, in these words : ' Hence, I con- ' elude that the soul dies with the body. It is an opinion ' conformable to reason, observation, and to the doctrine * taught by Jesus Christ and his apostles.' Whatever argu- ments you might have drawn from observation, you should have passed over the authority of Christ and his apostles ; an authority never adduced before in support of a doctrine which in every page they condemn. Or, at least, you should have first a bible of your own, and forced it on the world, as handed to you by the angel Gabriel.
Man must certainly be liable to error, when, in the blaze of revelation, and after the progress philosophy has made in the world, he still cries out, with the disciple Epicurus :
' We know not yet how our soul's proi'uc'd, ' Whether by body born, or else iufns'd • ' Whether in death, breath'd out into the air, 4 She doth coufus'dly mix and perish there, ' Or through vast shades and horrid silence g-o, ' To visit brimstone caves and pools below.'*
Your observation must be quite different from the obser- vations of the greatest men the faculty of physic ever pro- duced : men who were, and are still, as great ornaments to the literary world, as they are useful to mankind.
We observe, sir, within ourselves, a principle that is obeyed as a sovereign ; that now finds fault with what it be- fore approved ; that covets with passion what it despises after
* Creech's Lucretius, Book 1.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 20
enjoying; and now rejoices and then mourns; that reasons and judges. I consult my reason ; and it informs me, that this principle, so noble, and, at the same time, so liable to such conflicting agitations, cannot be a particle of matter, round or square, red or blue ; a volatized vapour dissolvable into air; a contexture of atoms interwoven or separated by a sportive brain.
My reason informs me, that a being, capable to take in hands the government of a vast empire; to form projects, the suc- cess whereof depends on an infinity of different springs, whose motions and accords must be studied and combined, is some- thing mere than a little subtilized mud.
I observe matter with all its mutations and refinements ; and I perceive nothing but extension, divisibility, figure, and motion.
My reason tells me, that the combinations of the different particles of matter, let their velocity be ever so great, can never reveal the sacred mysteries of faith ; the holy rules of equity ; the ideas of piety, order, and justice.
Moreover, reason informs us, that matter is indifferent to motion or rest, to this or that situation. When moved in any direction, the smallest particle of any body or mass of matter, must yield to the motion of the whole. On the other hand, in our temptations and struggles, amidst the solicita- tions of sense, and the cravings of appetite, we can say with St. Paul, that we feel an interior conflict and two opposite laws in ourselves : * the law of the body warring against the ' law of the mind, and attempting to captivate us to the law ' of sin.' Under the inconvenience of such struggles and conflicts, a part of ourselves still remains the directing prin- ciple, always asserting its rights, and constantly supporting its native title to dominion.
Reconcile, if you can, to the laws of mechanism, to the cohesion of atoms, and to the motions of particles of matter, the infinite capacity of the soul, its strong desires after im- mortality, its power to infer conclusions from principles, in mathematical demonstrations, and logical arguments; its arbitrary and voluntary determinations, this shifting and changing, those strange and sudden returns, reflections, and transitions in thought, which, by experience, we find it in ©ur power to make.
30 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
We all agree, that matter touches in contact, and that whatever moves, is put in motion by another. We know, on the other hand, that, in reasoning, argumentations, de- monstrations, &c. wherein we infer one thing from another, and another thing from that inference, and a third from thence, and so on, there is an infinity of different modes of thought. If those different modes of thought be no more than the different states of the solid, figured, divisible parts of matter, with respect to velocity and direction, it is neces- sary that they should have been put into these different states, by the impulse of some foreign power.
If this mover, which is the cause of motion, be matter, it must be moved or acted on itself: for otherwise it could not produce a change of motion in other contiguous parts of matter. There must still be a mover prior to the former, and another prior to that, and so on to infinity, in every act of reason and argumentation. But a progression to infinity is discarded by all philosophers, both ancient and modern.
To spin out the subject in metaphysical arguments, were loss of time. Suffice it to say, that we would contradict our reason, and belie our hearts, in supposing that the troubles, agitations, and importunate remorses we feel after the com- mission of some horrid crime, the secret reproaches of a guilty conscience, which made the Athenian parricide cry out, twenty years after having murdered his father, that the crows upbraided him with his death : we would, 1 say, only belie our hearts, in supposing such interior punishments, which tread in the heels of guilt, to be no more than an assemblage of little atoms, with hooked or rough surfaces. In supposing that patience and resignation in our afflictions, from an expectation of immortality and the spiritual joys of future bliss, the distant reward of our trials, are the result of smooth atoms gliding through the brain; or that the horrors, which haunt the guilty, proceed from the same cause which produces a pain in the head, back, or stomach.
Further, under the dispensation of a just and powerful God, crimes must be punished, and virtue rewarded. What notion can we form of a God, who makes no distinction be- tween the wretch who strangles his father, in order to take possession of his estate, and the just man who is disposed to
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 39
of all things has ord .dried their acting in concert, during our short pilgrimage here on earth.
Ignorance in children, and stupidity in old people, arise from the insertion of an active and spiritual substance in matter not fitly disposed, and yet ordained to be its organ and instrument. The brain is too moist in children', and too dry in old people ; consequently, unapt either for the re- ception or retention of the images transmitted from exterior objects; which images or representations are the materials for the soul to work on. The pencil cannot delineate well, if the canvas be unfit. Letters cannot be formed with nice and delicate strokes, if the pen be bad. It is neither the painter's nor writer's fault, if their skill does not shine in their respective performances, the defect originates in the unaptness of the materials : it is the same case with the soul. This spiritual and immortal substance, seated in the head, as a pilot at the helm, who, besides his innate skill, wants the assistance of the sails and rudder, to steer the un- wieldy vessel, or as a monarch in his palace, who has none but sickly and disordered subjects to command, the soul, I say, stands in need of the organs of the body, as so many ministers of sensation, towards the exertions of its faculties.
If I am confined to a chamber that has but one window, I cannot see through more than one. If there be more, I can see through all. The visual faculty, in both cases, is the same ; and the difference consists in the removal of the obstacles. Thus, on the loss of an eye or limb, the soul is neither blind or lame ; it is still the same, though its instrumentality be partly destroyed. But if the brain, whose inexplicable folds and spacious palaces are tlie repositories of the various images coming in through their respective avenues from exterior objects, be disordered and obstructed by drunkenness, apoplexy, &c. the passages be- come impracticable; the canvas becomes wrinkled and uneven, the glowing colours cannot spread, the size and attitude of the figures are confounded, and all the requisites of reason- ing are wanting. Let the drunken man sleep, and the sick man recover, 'hen the obstacles are removed, and reason will inform you, that the soul is still the same.
If the soul, then, under the inconveniences of the foregoing
40 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
circumstances of drunkenness, fever, &c. still retains a faculty or power of perceiving, reasoning, and judging, to be exerted when these obstacles are removed; how much more capable will it not be of those spiritual functions, after its separation from the mass of clay, when disentangled from its fetters, with its enlargement from the body, ' it will return to the God who ' gave it!'
But you inform us, that * God can do any thing that does ' not imply a contradiction :' and that, ' by an infinite power, * he can add thought to matter.'
But, Sir, must not a man be very sanguine in the cause of scepticism, and eager to work himself into incredulity, when he has recourse to infinite power, sooner than admit a spiritual soul? If God can add thought to matter, why deny, in a peremptory manner, the possibility of uniting spirit to body ? Locke acknowledges the possibility of adding thought to matter, to the great comfort of our modern free-thinkers ; but still he acknowledges his soul to be spiritual and im- mortal.
No unhappy comfort can then arise to those whose greatest joy would consist in being a lump of animated earth, from Locke's opinion : for God can do several things which he will never perform . He never will animate a stone, or tree ; and cover them with flesh, susceptible of passions, and willing to gratify them ; give them the organs of speech, and thtis introduce on the stage of life, a set of dogmatizing philosophers, who will glory in being the brothers of plants and mushrooms : as Bisas, the philosopher, said of the Athenians, who gloried in being originally sprung from the earth.
Sound logic does not allow to argue from possibility to fact ; and, though every respect is due to Locke's authority, yet his possibility of thinking matter , and others of his hypo- theses, are objected to, by the learned. Nor has he any room to complain, if the world does not pay him the same implicit obedience which the disciples ot Pythagoras paid their master, for several great mathematicians and metaphysicians consider, as very possible, systems which Locke rejects, as contradictions.
We cannot account for the operations of the soul, upon the principles of mechanism. We kuow that the motions of
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 41
parts, and the artful manner of combining them, can produce nothing but an artful structure, and various modes of motion. Hence, all machines, however artfully their parts are put to- gether, and however complicated their structure, though we conceive innumerable different motions variously combined, and running into one another, with an endless variety, yet never produce any thing but figure and motion. Much less can we account for our mental operations, from the proper- ties of matter. Lucretius and his followers may employ their plastic powers in forming a soul composed of particles of air, firt, vapour, and a fourth something which that poet does not describe.
They will acknowledge, that none of those elementary par- ticles, separate from the rest, can think ; but that, from their mixture and collision, thought results ; which they attempt to prove by the example of the tree and the earth, neidier of which produces fruit in a separate state. But it is obvious, that the tree contains in itself the seed of the fruit, which the earth stirs and developes; and, to give justness to the comparison, by the same rule, either the fire or air should contain in itself the origin of thought, which is an absurdity.
If you admit, that God can superadd thought to matter, this thought, then, must be a quality superior to matter, and, consequently, distinct from it. Then the contradiction is palpable, for it will follow, that it is matter and not matter at the same time.
As to the brutes, become of late the subjects of philosophi- cal panegyric, that raises them to an equality with man, we like them for the service or diversion they afford us ; but, less virtuous than our philosophers, we have not humility to wish to be on a level with them. Pity our pride and ignorance, great oracles, who revile the Christians and extol the cun- ning of the fox, the imitative powers of the ape, the archi- tecture of the beaver, and the provident foresight of the ant.
Since you believe them of the same nature with your- selves, why do you not arraign the cruelty of the magis- trates, under whose eyes so many murders are daily com- mitted on your brethren ? For if man and the brute be of
4fc MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
the same nature, why should beasts be killed with impunity, whilst the assassin is doomed to the gibbet? The question may seem childish; yet your refined philosophy is humbly requested to give a solid answer. Your Catechism can illus- trate the subject.
THE
FREE-THINKER'S CATECHISM ;
Faithfully collected from some of the most celebrated Free- thinkers of this Age.
Question. Who made man ?
Answer. Nothing.
Q. How did he come into the world?
A. He sprung out of the earth, spontaneously, as « mushroom.*
Q. The souls of men and brutes, are they of the same nature ?
A. Yes.f
Q. What difference, then, is there between man and the brute ?
A. Man is a more multiplied animal, with hands and flexi- ble fingers, The paws and feet of other animals are covered, at the extremities, with a horny substance; or terminate in claws or talons.J
Q. Our superiority over the brute creation, in arts, sci- ences, modesty, civilization, is, then, owing to our hands; and fingers, not to any innate principle of reason ?
A. Doubtless.
Q. But the apes, whose paws are much like ours, why have not they made the same progress ?
* Voltaire on the population of America.
+ Servetus of Cork^
J Helvetius, livie de l'Esprit, p. 233.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACT*. 43
A. Apes live on fruits: and being, like children, in perpe- tual motion, th* y are not susceptible of that ennui, or of wearisomeness, to which we are liable.*
Q. Is there any virtue in worshipping God, in loving our father, in serving our country, or in relieving the distressed ?
A. No.
Q. In what light, then, are we to consider virtue ?
A. Cry out with Brutus : 4 O vertu tu ne'es qu'un vain nom!1 4 O virtue, thou art but an empty sound !'t
Lo, the refined system introduced by those great oracles of human wisdom. If the cannibals, who eat their ao-ed parents, ever learn to read, they will find their justification in your Catechism.
Our philosophers are the great panegyrists of the instinct of animals, whilst they degrade the reason of man. The cause is obvious ; in pointing out the brutes as rivals quali- fied to contend for superiority with us, they can ar ease and satisfaction. i All dies with the brutes : all dies 4 with man. Let us then live as they do; for our end will 4 be the same.' But still this way of reasoning, how flatter- ing soever to sensuality, cannot remove the perplexing doubt; for if the brute's soul be of the same nature with that of man, then there is no certainty that the soul of the brute dies. For, laying aside religion, which has decided the question, 'fear not those who can kill the body, but are 4 not able to kill the soul,' there is no demonstration that the soul of man dies, but every thing demonstrates the re- verse. To argue, then, with any colour of reason, from the brute to the man, y0u must have a thorough conviction of two things: first, that the soul of the brute is of the same nature with the soul of man; secondly, that the soul of man dies. Neither can be demonstrated, and consequently the assistance which our two-footed philosophers expect from this league and confederacy, into which they would fain enter with apes and four-footed animals, for the destruction of our souls, is no more than a broken reed.
* HelveJius, livre de l'Esprit, p. 3- f Ibid. p. 397,
44 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
But you will ask me, i in what this instinct of the brutes,
* and the nature of their souls consists?' 1 answer, candidly, that I know not. Some philosophers are of opinion, that the brutes are meie machines, moved by some exterior agent. Others allow them an inherent principle of life and industry. To the opinion of the latter I accede ; and believe, that what we call instinct, is a certain sagacity and inclination given them by the Creator for their preservation and our use. — But you, who know the nature of your own soul, which you affirm to be of the same nature with that of apes and foxes, can resolve the question.
ButTon, the French academician, acknowledges, that, in the anatomy or dissection of apes, he could not discover any difference between their organs and those of the human species ; yet the same BufFon, in spite of the similiarity of organs, admits, that the distance between man and the ape is infinite, on account of thought, reason, and consciousness, which proceed from a spiritual principle : and the Royal Psalmist recommends to us, not to ' resemble the horse and
* the mule, that have no understanding.' Our ignorance of the nature of their instinct, souls, &c. does not imply an ignorance of the nature of our own. If, through the veil of a mortal body, we can know and love our Maker, why should we cease to know him, when the mask falls, and the veil is removed ? If we admit no annihilation in nature, and that matter, in spite of its changes, never perishes, why should we refuse the soul the same privilege ? If brutes could reason, judge, abstract, divide, compare the rules of order, justice, good and evil, as rational beings do, they would not answer the end of nature ; and what has been made for the use of man, would become his destruction.
By dint of blows and other means, we can train up a horse to point out the hour on a dial; a bear to dance; a monkey to supply the place of a postillion; and a dog to move a minute. Several instances of the sagacity of animals are adduced by Plutarch and others. But, whatever variety of turns and motions they may ac- quire by such a culture, it is not to a principle of reason, but to the address of their tutors, we are to attribute it: for, however quick their hearing, how sagaci-
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 45
«us soever their Instinct, it would be vain to attempt instruct- ing them in the beauty of order, the rules of justice, the rights of society, the origin of the world, the love of their Maker, the terrors of the last judgment, the pains of hell, or the ineffable joys of a future state. Whoever doubts me, let him try the experiment.
It is not so with the savage or child. They are capable of instruction in all those points, and susceptible of the im- pressions arising from the notions of moral o-0od or moral evil.
Hence, neither from the sagacity of brutes, nor the expe- rience of mankind, nor the observations of philosophers can arguments be adduced in support of a doctrine tending; to overthrow the spirituality and immortality of the soul. And, when you attribute the doctrine of the soul's immortality to the subtilty of schoolmen, and when Helvetius fixes its first introduction in Nero's time, when the Gospel was preached at Rome,* we cannot arraign either you or him for igno- rance, as both are well read; but we charge you with wilful imposition, which is worse.
Scattered sparks of the soul's immortality are to be found in the Old Testament. Resurrection, judgment, the rewards and punishments of a future life, are mentioned by the in- spired writers, long before the introduction of the Gospel, or Hesiod's theogony. Pythagoras taught the metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, long before Seneca taught Nero to declaim. Even ancient errors shew how ancient was the belief of the soul's immortality; and demonstrate, that it is to be ranked amongst the first traditions of mankind. Did not almost all men sacrifice to the manes, that is, to the souls of the dead? From one extremity of the world to the other, people of different humours, countries, worship and interest, agree in this important article of immortality. It is no col- lusion; for a general association of mankind could never be formed : nor a prejudice of education, for manners, customs, and education, are different in different nations. This notion of immortality is common to all : remote isles, and foreign nations figured to themselves shades and climes, through which the roving spirit was to travel, after its separation from fhe body. Hence the custom of killing wives and of-
* Helvetius, Uvre de l'Espn't,
46 MISCELLANEOUS fRACTS,
ficers, at the death of their kings; lest the royal ghost should travel without attendants. This several nations practised, and the Indians, distinguished by pagan authors, amongst the assertors of the immortality of the soul, were also the first that introduced those horrid murders upon earth, which they practise to this very day. Nature, then, taught the soul's immortality, without a monitor ; or rather, the Almighty has stamped its notion on our ex- istence; and savage people, in forgetting God, could not forget themselves.
There are still some religious, as well as philoso- phical paradoxes in your writings, besides the capital errors already mentioned, I have not leisure to examine them all.
You say, that, * from the continual waste of mould, 4 washed away by the rain, the animal world will become ex- 1 tinct, for want of food.' This, I suppose, is advanced with a design to invalidate the oracles which foretel the world's dissolution by fire. A prodigious quantity of the liquid element is wasted in watering fields, woods, &c. Doctor Halley is of opinion, that the Mediterranean loses in vapour, five thousand, five hundred, and eighty millions of tons, in a day ; and receives but one thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-seven, from rivers: so that it would soon be drained, unless a great quantity returned in dew and rain upon it.
It seems, then, to me, that the animal world will be extinct for want of drink : but a greater prophet than either of us, foretold the world's dissolution by fervent heat.
You argue against the Chinese antiquities, from the waste of mould: by the same rule, you can argue against Moses' account of the creation. But, to argue against the an- tiquities of any nation, from the waste of mould, is nothing better than the waste of time. The European missionaries convinced the Chinese of their error, by reckoning the eclipses of the sun, in a conference with their learned men, when the emperor of Tartary became master of China. It was the surest method, and that by which Callisthenes baffled the pretended antiquity of the Babylonians, when Alexander took their city.
If Moses be an allegorical writer, it is hard, ' from the
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 47
* waste of mould,' to determine when the Alps emerged from the chaos.
You are of opinion, that, before the deluge, l none but
* giants inhabited the earth.' Before the deluge the world had its Davids and Goliahs, its Fionnmacools and Ushions. — Moses talks of giants, as rarities : ' in them days, there 4 were giants on the earth.' A rarity is an exception to the general rule, and supposes a more extensive class of beings.
The longevity of the antediluvians can be ascribed to two causes : the one supernatural, in order to perpetuate re- ligion, and give the aged patriarchs time to instil it into the minds of their spreading generations: the other natural, viz. their sobriety, the simplicity of their diet, the salubrity of the air, not corrupted by the noxious vapours which rose from the earth, after the flood, the fertility of the soil, &c. You know the state of the world, before the deluge so well, that you fix 4 the age of puberty at the age of sixty-five.' I believe that procreation began, before the deluge, as early as at present. Or else, they must have been monstrous babes that were at the breast, and fed with spoon-meat, at the age of twenty. By the rules of analogy, we may judge of their nubile state, by the tall Prussian, and low Lap- lander. The size is disproportionate : but the age for mar- rying is the same in both.
You deny any confusion of tongues at the dispersion ; because what has been translated language, signifies lip, in Hebrew. Sometimes it does, but the addition of speech signifies something more. * And the whole earth was of one
* language, and of one speech.'* And what is here trans- lated speech, signifies words, in the original Hebrew.
You deny that there were any propitiatory sacrifices. There are sin-offerings, notwithstanding, mentioned in the Scriptures, 4 for the bodies of those beasts, whose blood for 4 sin is brought into the sanctuary, by the high priest, are
* burnt without the camp. In proof of your opinion, you 4 mention, Pythagoras's hecatomb for being able to prove
* the properties of a right-angled triangle; Jephtah,s offer* 4 ing up his daughter; Baal's priests cutting themseives
* with knives,' to propitiate their god; and, to crown all,
* Genesis, chap, ii, H
48 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
you assert, that the God of Israel changed sides, when the king of Moab sacrificed his son on the walls of his
But, Sir, were not sacrifices instituted by the Almighty God? Why should his holy rites and ceremonies be set on a level with heathen profanations, Baal's priests, and Pytha- goras's idols ? A sacrifice is the oblation of a sensible thing, by a lawful minister, in honour of the divinity, in acknow- ledgment of his supreme power over life and death. Not only human victims were interdicted by the law, but even several animals; such as asses, hares, &c. Hence, Jephtah's sacrifice, if he killed his daughter, was a cruel murder; he was no fit priest; his daughter was no fit victim; and God cannot be honoured by a breach of his own law. . I say, ' if he killed his daughter,' because, in the original Hebrew, it may as well signify, ' devoted to the Lord ? meaning that he devoted her to perpetual chastity: as several modern critics explain it, and as it seems to be the case. For, inspired as he was, it is not to be presumed that he was guilty of such a fatal mistake: and St. Paul reckons him amongst the worthies who, by faith, obtained the promised reward.
How, then, could the God of Israel ' change sides,' by relishing the profane vapours of idolatrous blood, smoaking, not in his honour, but in honour of the idols of the Moabites ? The text you quote, ; and there was great indignation 4 against Israel,' proves no more, than that the confederate kings were angry with themselves for having forced the unhappy father to plunge, as it were, the dagger in his own bowels, in the person of his son.
When, to deny propitiatory sacrifices, you say, that 4 God cannot be bribed or flattered,' I agree with you: but, you would not controul his power, nor contest his authority, to impose laws and obligations on his creatures ; to annex to the observance and infraction of those laws, rewards and punishments ; to require their submission by visible symbols : in the victim stretched and bound on the altar, to remind them of the chains of sin, and of their state under their Creators hand, who, each instant, can deprive them of their lives; in the sable sinoak rolling from the blazing holocaust,
* 2 Kings, chap. iii.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 49
to moke thern perceive a raj of hope, directing their eves to a distant victim, the effusion of whose blood was lo quench, one day, more active flames, and to change this scene of carnage and misery, into means of expiation; not indeed by the virtue and efficacy of the sacrifices in themselves, but in- asmuch as they typified the immolation of 4 the Lamb that ' is slain from the foundations of the world,' in the observance of whose law, and in the love and knowledge of whose person, consists eternal life. Age, a variety of accidents, and the uncertainty of death, press our return to a merciful Redeemer. It is too late to dispute with Jesus Christ his divinity, or with the soul its immortality, when the spirit is arraigned at the awful tribunal of the Judge of the living le dead.
I have the honour to be,
Your affectionate servant,
ARTHUR O'LEARY.
and the
LOYALTY ASSERTED,
OR THE
NEW TEST OATH VINDICATED,
And proved by the Principles of the Canon and Civil Laws, and
the Authority of the most eminent Writers. ..With an
'Enquiry into the Pope's deposing Power,
and the groundless Claims of the
Stuarts, fyc. fyc. fyc.
IN A LETTER TO A PROTESTANT GENTLEMAN.
— ^©^>-
' Duo sunt, Iinperator Aug-uste, auctoritas sacra ' Pontificnin, et regalis potestas.'
Gelasius, in eplst. ad Anastasiuot.
Sir,
Notwithstanding newspaper declamations, and the very heavy charges brought against popery, you are candid enough to tell me, that ' you do not look on my profession 4 correspondence.' You are not mistaken in your conjec- tures. However we may differ in belief, you hare nothing to apprehend; as speculative tenets do not interfere with the duties of civil life, and that my practical doctrine tends more to improve, than corrupt the heart.
We have been school-fellows, and well united. We have met in foreign kingdoms, and the remembrance of an early acquaintance has cemented our friendship anew. We are restored once more to our native isle, floating in an ocean of politics, and exhibiting as great a variety of religions, opinions, and sentiments, as you have seen curiosities at the fair of St. Ovid's in Paris.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 51
What party shall we side ? What plan shall we pursue ? If we treat as enemies all those whose persuasion is diffe- rent from ours, the number of our friends will be but small. Let us then be retainers to Dean Swift's doctrine. Let the Christians agree in the points allowed on all sides, as much as they differ with regard to private opinions, and dissen- tions shall be soon at an end. They all agree, that the first of their laws, is a law of eternal love, expanding into sen- timents of benevolence, and teaching its votaries to return affection for hatred, and good for evil : that it is a divine legacy bequeathed by their common Redeemer to his fol- lowers ; and that Christians, cemented together by the blood of a God, should never be divided.
This is a point of doctrine liable to no controversy. Oh ! could it be enforced on the mind, factions would soon expire, and charity ascend the throne, holding broils, dissentions, slanders, calumnies at her feet, as so many captives in chains.
' Toleration in a Popish priest !' if by toleration is meant indifference as to religion, God forbid ! In this sense it implies an error; and though it makes a great figure in the disputes among divines, yet in two words we can ascertain its degrees and measures. Let us never tolerate error in ourselves : let us pity it in our neigh' bours. ' Detest the error,' says St. Augustine, ' but love the * man.' For in the conflict of different opinions that will divide the world to the end of time, Christian charity still asserts her prerogatives. Her oily balsam heals the ranking ulcer caused by a religious inflammation, and attenuates the black and viscous humours, which so often degenerate into an evangelical spleen.
But, if by toleration we mean impunity, safety, and pro- tection granted by the state, to every sect that does not maintain doctrines inconsistent with the public peace, the rights of sovereigns, and the safety of our neighbour, to such a toleration I give my patronacy ; and expect that the following proofs of the articles of the test, will evince the justness of entitling the Roman Catholics to the lenity of government, and the confidence of their fellow-subjects.
52 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
THE
OATH OF ALLEGIANCE.
ART. I.
* I, A. B. do take Almighty God to witness, that I will be 4 faithful and bear true allegiance to our most gracious So- ' vereign Lord, King George the Third, and him will de-
* fend to the utmost of my power, against all conspiracies
* and attempts whatever, that shall be made against his ' person, crown and dignity.'
Although I should never swear any allegiance in form, yet there is an original and natural allegiance from subject to king ; a debt that forbids all conspiracies and treasonable practices ' against his person, crown, and dignity.' At my birth I was under his protection ; and in a tender infancy, when I could not protect myself, I was shielded by his name. His tribunals are still open to secure my life and liberty; and as there is an implied contract between king and sub- ject, my oath does not change the nature of my obligations. It only strengthens the civil band by the tie of religion, and superadds to treason the guilt of perjury in the transgressors. This obligation is corroborated by the positive injunctions of the Scripture, enforcing obedience to the prince whose image is stamped on his coin, and grounded on the laws of the nation, which, from the earliest periods, have transferred the subject's allegiance to the king, for the time being, and declared it high treason in a subject to attempt any thing even against an usurper, while he is in full possession of the sovereignty. This the laws have wisely ordained, in order to prevent anarchy and confusion ; because the common peo- ple cannot judge of the king's title. But here I thrust my sickle into the civilian's field; though in the end, oaths of allegiance should be determined by the laws and maxims of the realm, as well as by principles of divinity.* Further, let
* Vide Blackstone's Commentaries, book I. chap. 10. Cooke, 3 Inst. 7. Kel. rep. 15.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 53
it be remarked, that the foundation of this decision has been laid in Catholic times ; and that in applying it to the actual circumstances, 1 do not mean to distinguish between right and fact in our most gracious Sovereign. I only argue a minpri ad majus, to shew the guilt of attempting any thing against a lawful Sovereign, whereas it is high treason to con- spire against an usurper.
The famous distinction between ircx dejuref and i rex de facto? how interesting soever in the times of the contending families of York and Lancaster, James II. and William III. is now of as much importance as this great question, so warmly debated among our grave moralists : ' Who is hap- ' pier, a king awake, or a cobler asleep, who dreams that he ; is a king ?' I do not choose to disturb the rest of sleeping monarchs, and whoever has a relish for dreams, lias my con- sent, though I like more solid food.
ART. II.
* AND I do faithfully promise to maintain, support, and de- 4 fend, to the utmost of my power, the succession of the 4 throne, in his Majesty's family, against anv person or i persons whatsoever.'
Any thing that does not clash with the laws of God, what- ever is conducive to the public good, and has for its imme- diate object, the peace of society, and aioidance of bloodshed, civil wars, and public calamities, can be safely sworn to, and the object of a lawful oath; but such is the nature of the second article of the test, which, according to the wise laws of a nation wherein the crown is hereditary in the wearer, equally guards against revolutions so frequent in despotic states, and elective kingdoms. In the first, the prince names his successor; and, as others may think themselves injured by such a partial preference, the throne is as totter- ing as the succession is arbitrary. Witness the history of the oriental nations.
In elective kingdoms, corruption, violence, and bribery precede the coronation : bloodshed and misery are the con- sequeuces. Poland is no more, because there have been many candidates, but no heir to the throne. Her liberum
54 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
veto, or charter of unbounded liberty to oppose the king, has aided Prussia and Austria in riveting her chains. Here we know our king from his cradle. The object of our ho- mage depends not on the caprice of a father, nor on the am- bition of the nobles. It is determined by the law. As our king never dies, we are exposed to no revolutions by the choice of a successor. ' The order of succession is, in mo- narchies, founded on the welfare of the state : it is not ' fixed for the reigning family ; but because it is the interest ' of the state, that it should have a reigning family.,'*
ART. III.
* HEREBY utterly abjuring any allegiance or obedience
' unto the person taking upon himself the style and title 'of Prince of Wales in the life-time of his father, and * who, since his death, is said to have assumed the style 'and title of King of Great Britain and Ireland, by the 'name of Charies the Third, and to any othtr person ' claiming or pretending a right to the crown of these ' realms.'
The proofs of this article may be seen in the explanation of the first. ' It is impossible to serve two masters.' Alle- giance is due to the reigning sovereign, and from the earliest times, to him alone. In whose name is justice administered ? 'In the name of George the Third.' In whose name are we protected from the midnight robber ? ' In the name of
* George the Third,' &c &c.
Now, Sir, I must entreat your patience. You know, that in all parliamentary debates on the oppressive operation of the penal laws, the Stuarts are the greatest obstacle in the Catholic way to a legal indulgence. They are considered by some of the illustrious . members, as the polar star by which we expect to steer one day into a haven of safety and deliverance ; whilst we ourselves look on them as planets of a malific influence.
" Aut Sinus ardor, "Ille sitiin inorbosque ferens mortalibus aegris, "Nascitur, et laevo contristat liimine ccelum."
VlRCIL.
* Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, vol. II. p. 192.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 55
To state the case, and disabuse gentlemen, amiable and humane, in all other respects, but, unluckily for our interest, too suspicious of a foreign attachment, which we absolutely disclaim, let us view the Stuarts in three respects : first, with regard to the obligations they have conferred on us : second, with regard to what we expect from them : third, with regard to their claims to the crown of England, in quality of descen- dants of its ancient and rightful kings. If there be no incen- tive to gratitude on our part, no right to our allegiance on theirs, the bonds of attachment are dissolved, and the great panegyrists of our love for the Stuart line, reduced to the alternative of adopting the unreasonable whim of the poet:
* Amo te, Zabede, sed nescio dicere quare.' ' I love you, Charles, but I know not why.'
or persuading themselves, that love is kindled by the flames of tyranny and oppression. The first is absurd, the second unnatural.
First, as to our obligations to this inauspicious family: history can inform you, that James the First signalized his generosity in our favour, by giving, under the finesse of laws, six counties in Ulster to Scotch planters. Hume attempts to justify his countrymen by the following shift: 'he gave them arts and manufactures in exchange.' The cruel Ahab was more generous ; he offered real money for Naboth's vineyard. Grateful souls ! bless your benefactor; he improved your minds at the expense of your bodies ; and, like your preachers in Lent, famished your flesh to fatten your spirit.
Charles the First ran the same course with his father. No end of seizures, inquisitions, and regal plunder. Shamed at last into desistance by the Irish parliament, an artful stratagem is devised, equally calculated to answer the ends of rapacity, and exculpate the monarch. You have read in Suetonius, how Tiberius eluded the law that prohibited virgins to be put to death. A young lady is arraigned and condemned: the emperor permits the. hangman to violate her, and throws the blame on her executioner. Remove the scene of action from Rome to Ireland, and in a dissimilar plot, the characters are much the same. The Earl of Strafford is named vicegerent, and takes the blame upon himself:
56 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
the king thanks him for his seasonable advice ; and Ire- land sees Tiberius and Sejanus revived in the persons of Charles and his favourite. In these two reigns, pursuits were not extended to goods and chattels alone. The sword of tyranny reached to conscience itself. Spiritual supremacy and religious uniformity, were inforced with such rigour, that according to Borlase, some of the clergy used to hang themselves. A sarcastic remark ! the falsity whereof, was more owing to their constancy, than to the lenity , of the Stuarts. Charles the Second, who, according to Lord Lyttleton, could have become as despotic a prince as any in Europe, sets up a sham court of claims, to save the appearance of justice. He confirms Cromwel's grants to the adventurers, who followed the banners of this regicide, tinc- tured with the blood of the royal martyr, obliges his enemies by the sacrifice of his defenders, consents to the special ex- ception of Irish Catholics from the general act of indemnity, refuses the least assistance to Lord Rochfort, who sold his estate to support him during his exile, and give his sanction to a ridiculous law, declaring it high treason to call the king a Papist. Of ail the transgressors of this law, he himself was the most signal, whereas he was confessed and anointed by a Benedictine monk : and the magistrates must have been very remiss that did not hang him for contravening such an important decree, prohibiting to suspect for religion, a king who practised none.
' Nee lex requior ulla est,
' Quam necis artifices arte perire sua.'
Ovid.
However, the Irish Catholics can never sufficiently thank him, for not punishing with halter, gibbet, and exenteration, a requiescat in pace.
To this long train of Stuart hostilities, James the Second is the only exception. As Dissenters and Roman Catholics were equally disqualified, he removed ail penal restraints. — Religion influenced him, doubtless. But did not his favours and indulgence extend to Scotch dissenters, as well as to Irish Catholics ? Did not the good of the state, strengthened by the affections and power of its subjects, ever and always weakened by their tepidity and indigence, require then, as it does now, a relaxation of oppressive laws ? And was it
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 57
not the king's interest, to endeavour to render all his subjects prosperous and happy ? Did he but proceed on a legal plan with the consent of his parliament, without arrogating to him- self a dispensing power, which the nation vests in the aggre- gate body of king, lords, and commons ? But can the conduct of James the Second stand the test ? Or must not an Irishman be blind in not perceiving the partiality of this cherished twig of the Stuart stem ?
Ambition, or love for their fellow subjects^ induces kings to exchange the gaieties of a palace for the fatigues of the field, and to fly into the arms of death, from the bosom of sensuality and voluptuousness. But more especially in those critical junctures, when the crown is at stake, and the majesty of the monarch, on the point of sinking into the subject, the springs of nature play with an extraordinary elasticity ; the radiancy of the throne, glistening in the monarch's eyes, ab- sorbs and eclipses the perception of danger : pride supplies the place of valour, and despair metamorphoses the coward into the hero.
In the vicinity of an army of thirty thousand men, master of the strong holds and garrisons of his realms, at the first report of the Prince of Orange's arrival in England, James the Second, with the apathy of a Stoic, or the timidity of an old woman, throws the royal seals into the Thames, disap- pears, leaves three kingdoms in the utmost anarchy and con- fusion, the reins of government without a hand to manage them, and his subjects uncertain to whom they are to trans- fer their allegiance.
Instances of the kind are scarce to be met with in the chronicles of kings; a hand that would not un sheath a sword in defence of three realms is better calculated for a muff than a sceptre. Queen Elizabeth, almost in sight of an army of fifty thousand Spaniards, reviews her troops, rides through the ranks, animates, incites, encourages her men : ' Behold, your queen ! Victorious, I shall reward 1 you ; defeated, I will die with you.' But Buchanan's contrast of James the First to Queen Elizabeth, is ap- plicable to James the Second.
Rex fuii Elizabeth, nunc vero reg-ina Jacobus, Error naturas par in utroque fuit.
58 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
In English:
" Nature was mistaken in those two extraordinary productions : Elizabeth was aa man: James a woman,"
Recalled by Tyrconnel from France to Ireland, our Alexander lays siege to Londonderry, from whence he is repelled by a Protestant minister, at the head of a hand- ful of men half famished. This was a glorious contest between a king and a priest : the sword and the gown. Cedant anna toga.
The banks of the Boyne are quite as inauspicious to his laurels. Here, contrary to the advice of his officers, he compels them to encounter a formidable army of fifty thousand veterans, commanded by the ablest generals of that age. Remark his orders and depositions. With a select party of his army he places himself on Dunmore hill, out of cannon reach ; and gives a strict charge to Sarsfield, (Lord Lucan) not to fire at his son, who was come sword in hand to deprive him of his crown. A boding omen of future victory ! In battle, let a general ride up and down to animate his troops, never fire into his quarters ; you will gain the field. Seeing the Irish, though dispirited by his partial commands, and unanimated by his example, repel the enemy, and keep the battle in suspense, he cries out, * spare my English sub- jects, spare my English subjects.' Lo, the most beloved king of the Stuart race ! Pious, and tender- hearted, he would not have scrupled to re-possess himself of the throne at the expence of Irish blood, but the purchase would have been too dear, when acquired with the loss of English subjects.
It was the dutv of the Irish to fiVht for their kinar. But when they perceived that he preferred his son-in-law's life to their security, and his own interest, in my humble opinion, they were acquitted of their allegiance. It was his own choice. His daughter, queen Mary, during her husband's absence, ordered all Papists and reputed Papists, to depart ten miles from London. Her reign would have swelled the code of penal laws, and expanded the ten miles into a wider circuit, had not king William controuled the spirit of op- pression, so co- unnatural to the Stuarts. Exposed to the power of Lewis the Fourteenth, ready to back the claims of
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 59
an abdicated king', stilt grasping at the remains of expiring royalty. William the Third never deprived the Catholics of their property. He even allowed the most part of the Catho- lic gentry the use of such arms as were necessary for their defence and diversion : a sword and a gun. Their total de- struction was completed by the last sovereign of the Stuart line.
Queen Anne, by reducing the leases to thirty-one years, and introducing the bills of discovery, threw the nation into a convulsion, from whence it can never recover, until more lenient hands slacken the stiff chain of penal restraints. — Under the happiest of constitutions, s?u has made Ottoman slaves, and impressed one cf her kingdoms with the traces of Turkish misery.
' Under this sort of government,' says Montesquieu, speaking of the Ottoman empire, ' nothing is repaired or im-
* proved. Houses are built only for the necessity of habi-
* tations ; every thing is drawn from, but. nothing restored to 1 the earth : the ground lies untilied, and the whole country ' becomes a desart.' Whoever travels over the most part of Ireland, can see the description realized. One of her laws, whereby it is decreed, ' that where the son and heir ' of a Papist, shall become a Protestant, his father shall be ' tenant for life,' is the horror of Christendom, and an in- delible stain on her memory — ' Laws written in characters
* of blood,' says an illustrious member, in his speech on the Popery bills. This law effectually dissolves the ties of nature, reverses filial duty, and subjects a tender and aged father to the empire of a profligate son, who, for the sake of pleasure and dissolution, would subscribe the Alcoran in Constantinople, as soon as he would the thirty-nine arti- cles in Dublin, and say with the Count of Bonneval, 'in
* turning Turk I have only exchanged my hat for a tur- 4 ban.' It is true, that her victorious generals have graced the annals of the queen ; but in the eyes of a Christian, her inclemency and ductility shall for ever disgrace the history of the Stuarts.
Hitherto we have a retrospective view of our obligations to those our royal benefactors : let us now look forward to the agreeable scene, and enchanting prospect of riches and bless- ings, we expect from their restoration.
60 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
In reality, Sir, a dear bought experience has broken this charm that bewitched our ancestors in favour of the Stuarts. Whilst they were our kings, we exerted ourselves to support them on the throne, more from principle than faction ; and had other monarchs swayed the sceptre, we would have done the same. In a word, we fell with our kings, and the very offspring of those kings have chained us closer to the ground. Now the tide of those fatal commotions has subsided. This tumult that distracted the nation in the Stuart's reign is allayed. Are we to quit the reality in pursuit of a shadow ? What would we have gained, had the Pretender been crowned at Westminster? An aggravation of our yoke, and new calamities ? The penal laws, relaxed in their execution by the clemency of government, would have been revived with new vigour. The edge of persecution, blunted by the very humanity of our fellow-subjects, would have been new tem- pered and sharpened.
You will answer, perhaps, that such usage could not be expected from a Catholic Prince. Folly ! pardon the expres- sion. You know that the throne is the most dazzling object of human ambition. Though a great distance from its steps, and the impossibility of obtaining it renders the most part of mortals insensible to its charms, yet in regard to those who are entitled to it by their birth, it is a magnet that attracts their hearts, the great idol, to vvhich they would sacrifice their very blood, and the water of Lethe, erasing by its oblivious qualities all impressions of friendship, gratitude, and even religion. Of this, history, both sacred and pro- fane, afford several instances. Athalia murdered the princes of the royal house of Judah. Tullia drove her chariot over her father's body, and dyed its wheels in his blood, from an eagerness to be saluted queen. In the time of the crusades, a Catholic prince was found in the number of the slain, with the marks of the circumcision on his body. He expected the kingdom of Jerusalem from Saladin ; and this fervent Christian, who a few years before would have spilt his blood in defence of Christ's sepulchre, sold Christ him- self, for the dominion of a city in which he had been crucified.
I do not mean, Sir, that any of our regal candidates would turn Turks for the sake of a crown. But certain I
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 61
am, that the transition is easy from Popery to Protestant- ism, and from Protestantism to Popery, when a diadem is the reward of conversion. In my humble opinion, Charles the Third would have removed Pope and Popery out of his way to the throne. To clear himself from the suspicion of a Popish cancer, the oppression of Papists would have been the best detersive. A Catholicon very familiar to the Smarts !
Perhaps I pass a rash judgment on this cherished twig of the Stuart stock: if so, I retract. But all we expect from him is the liberty to fast and pray ; this we enjoy without his mediation, and it would be madness to forfeit. Incapable and unwilling to hurt the public, willing and incapable to serve it; equally destitute of property and arms to defend it, our duty is confined to passive loyalty, inforced by religion. Let interest and the liberty of purchasing step in as an active principle, you will not find one Catholic in the kingdom but wiil be as sanguine as yourselves in the defence of his substance, and the common cause, against Pope or Pretender. We daily see two brothers fight with the ani- mosity of open enemies, for a legacy or a spot of ground. — We read of Popes, who in defence of their territories, have entered into leagues with Protestant princes against Catholic powers. Property then is so interwoven with self-preserva- tion, that few or none will run the hazard of losing it in compliment to another, were he even a saint; and of all mortals the Stuarts are the least entitled to the sacrifice of our acknowledgment.
Yet, as the frowardness of superiors does not avert their authority, and as the descendants of bad princes may have a rightful claim, one point more remains to be discussed, viz. Whether we can in conscience renounce, all allegiance unto the grandson of James the Second, whose abdication of the throne has been the effect of fear and compulsion ? Has not the son a right to the estate of which his father has been de- prived by force ? And in opposing this right do I not com- mit a flagrant injustice ?
Tnis important question is to be solved by the fundamen- tal laws of the realm, general principles, grounded on im- partial reason, and the ordinary dispensation of Provi-
\
62 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
dence, directing the revolutions and vicissitudes of human affairs.
From the earliest times, the laws have decreed, that although the crown be hereditary, yet the right of accession is not indefeasible. The English have defeated, and altered the succession as early as the time of Edward the Confessor, who was chosen king during the life of the lawful heir. The history of England affords several instances of the kind, a long time before the accession of the .Stuarts to the throne. The law both in present and past times, is, and has been, ' that the crown is hereditary in the wearer: that 4 the king and both houses of parliament can defeat this 4 hereditary right, and by particular limitations exclude the 4 immediate heir, and vest the inheritance in any one else.' Thus not only the Pretender, but even the present Prince of Wales can be excluded from the throne, with the consent of the king, lords, and commons.
Grotius, a learned and sanguine stickler for indefeasible right, though he cannot agree that the son of a dethroned king can be lawfully excluded, yet is forced to acknowledge, that the same son, if not born whilst his father was in posses- sion,can be deprived of his right to the throne with the consent of the people, because such a prince, says he, has no acquired right. ' Illud interest inter natos et nascituros, quod nas- 4 cituris nondum quaesitum sit jus, atque adeo iis auferri 4 possit popuii voluntate.' Grot, de jure belli, lib. 2. c. 7. 28. This decides for ever the fate of Charles the Third, who was born a long time after his grandfather's expulsion. It is moreover grounded on the clearest principles of reason.
In effect, does reason allow that subjects should be dis- tracted, between kings in actual possession of the throne, and the grandsons and great grandsons of kings who had formerly enjoyed it? Bound by the law of God to pay tribute to, and obey the king, whose image is stamped on his coin : Cujus est hcec imago ? Bound by the dictates of conscience to assert the claims of his rival: to pull down their king with one hand, to support him on the throne with the other. Carrying within themselves two opposite laws, which mixing and encountering like certain chemical liquors,
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 03
raise a fermentation that cannot be allayed to the end of time.
Let us suppose that Charles Stuart had a right to the throne ; his posterity (if ever he chance to have any) to the last generation will claim the same. Let us suppose the Hanoverian line in possession to the end of time. Lo, a curious sight ! The frame of government turning on two hinges, without being supported by either; two mathe- matical lines always approaching, without ever touching, and all future generations balanced and suspended between both, without knowing which of the two to incline to. Good sense, the law of nature, or the general good of mankind, to which the claims and interest of one man should be subordinate, do they admit such rigorous enquiry?
Celebrated objection of civilians, canonists, and divines : — 4 Time is no active principle. Every thing is done in
* time, but nothing by it; and a long prescription, without a
* lawful title, is no lenitive to the alarmed conscience of 4 the possessor, nor bar to the claims of the dispossessed.' The civil law has decided so. L. 3. 11. 3. ff. de acq. vel amit. poss. 4 Non capit longa possessione qui scit alienum ' esse.' And the canon law, Cap. possessor de reg. juris in 6. * Possessor mala? fidei ullo tempore non pra3scribit.'
Answered : If a long prescription, without an original title, cannot secure the consciences of kings and subjects, God help the world ! For great kingdoms, if traced back to their origin, are great robberies. 4 Sine justitia magna 4 regna sunt magna lacrocinia.'* By this rule, the Stuarts had no right to the throne of England : for their original title was defective, as derived from William the Conqueror, an usurper, or from the ancient Saxons, who plundered and dispossessed the Britons. How can we calm the consciences of the Dutch, Portuguese, &c. formerly the subjects of Spain ? I believe the most scrupulous amongst them are unconcerned for the rights of their former masters.
However, I acknowledge that time alone, without some concurrent cause, cannot legalize a prescription. But in regard to kings and the allegiance due from their subjects, a great number of reasons supply the deficiency of the original
* St. Augustine- K
64 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
title requisite to commence a prescription, viz. the consent of the greatest and wisest part of a nation, the acquiescence of the whole community — the peace of the public, disturbed by- factions and civil wars, ever and always attendant on changes in government — the general good of mankind ; in- consistent with the revival of old claims — in fine, the dis- pensation of a just God, who visited on Saul's posterity, their father's cruel treatment of the Gibeonites; and who posi- tively declares, that * he wrests the sceptre from one family, ' to lodge it in the hands of another, in punishment of former ' crimes.' Transfert sceptrum de regno et degente, adpopuhim alterum. — ' When the political law has obliged a family to ' renounce the succession,' says the president Montesquieu, ' it is absurd to insist on the restitutions drawn from the 1 civil law. It is ridiculous to pretend to decide the rights of ' kingdoms, of nations, and of the whole globe, by the same 1 maxims on which we should determine the right of a gutter 4 between individuals.'*
Further, king James the Second's quitting England, with- out even appointing a regent, and his subsequent behaviour at the Boyne, is an abdication of the throne, or else there never has been a resignation of royalty. Fear! He was intrepid enough before his son-in-law became his competitor; and though prince William wanted neither courage nor wisdom, yet his prowess was not so famed in the history of the times, as to strike terror into a tolerable general, much less into the heart of a king, whom an exalted rank, the love of his subjects, and paternal authority, should have animated with courage and resolution. Old captain O'Regan was not afraid when he desired king William's officers i to 4 change generals, and fight the battle over again.'f
In times of invasion, thrones cannot be secured without bloodshed. If the fear of a ball cannot dispense subjects with fighting for their prince, the prince is bound to share the danger, or at least to remain in some part of the kingdom to watch and direct their operations. If the safety of the people be the supreme law, solus populi suprema esto, and that kings are appointed guardians of the property and lives of their subjects, who in the beginning could have instituted a
* Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, Vol. II. page 193. f Hist, of EDg. in a series of letters, &c.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 65
republican as well as a regal government, the king who pre- fers his personal safety to that of his subjects, flies into a foreign country, and abandons them a prey to the first occu- pant, forfeits all right to their allegiance. The law forbids the use of two weights and two measures, and there is no jus- tice without equality.
To the Irish, then, king William with propriety might have applied Curio's speech to Domitius's soldiers : 4 But 4 did you desert Domitius, or Domitius his soldiers ? Were ' you not ready to endure the last extremities, whilst he 4 privately endeavoured to escape ? And how can the oath 4 any longer oblige you, when he to whom you swore, 4 having thrown aside all marks of consular dignity, became 4 a private person, and a captive to another?'*
Several generations have decayed and succeeded since James the Second has abdicated the throne. Time expunges the impressions of the nearest and dearest connections. We cheerfully converse in walking over the graves of friends, (or whom we formerly cried. Had then our attachment to the Stuarts been formed of links of steel, it could not endure to the present generation.
But after having expatiated so long on the claims of a family, commencing in our misfortune, and concluding in our ruin, let us attribute to a superior cause the revolutions of kingdoms, and in the very sport of human passions trace the footsteps of divine Providence. 4 That long concatena- 4 tion of particular causes, which make and unmake em- 4 pires, depends upon the secret orders of divine Providence,' says the bishop of Meaux. 4 God from the highest Heavens 4 holds the reigns 0f a]l the kingdoms of the earth : he hath 4 all hearts in his hands : sometimes he gives a loose to 4 them; and thereby moveth all mankind. He it is who 4 prepares effects in their remotest causes, and he it is who 4 strikes those great strokes, the counter-stroke whereof is 4 of such extensive consequence. Let us talk no more of 4 chance, or of fortune. What is chance in regard to our 4 uncertain counsels, is a concerted design in a higher coun- 4 sel. Thereby is verified the saying of the apostle, that ' God is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings,
* Csesar de Bell. Cir. 1 2. c. 13-
66 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
4 and Lord of lords, who causes all revolutions by an immu- ' table counsel ; who gives and takes away power, who 4 transfers it from one man to another, from one house to 4 another, from one people to another, to shew, that they all 4 have it only borrowed, and that it is he alone in whom it * naturally resides ?'* Let us then talk no more of the Stuarts, but bid them an eternal farewell.
ART. IV.
4 And I do swear that I do reject and detest as unchristian 4 and impious to believe, that it is lawful to murder or 4 destroy any person or persons whatsoever : for or under 4 pretence of their being heretics, and also that unchris- 4 tian and impious principle, that no faith is to be kept 4 with heretics.'
Any attempt to prove this article would be an idle task, whereas we are sure never to convince, when we attempt to prove things too clear. In a word to buy a piece of cloth, and instead of paying to murder the draper, 4 for or under 4 pretence of his being a heretic,' is a doctrine unknown to the most relaxed of our casuists We appeal to the gen- tlemen of different persuasions, to whom restitutions are daily made, through the hands of the Catholic clergy, and to such of them as have been stopt on the high road, whe- ther the robber has enquired into their religion? Murder is against the fifth commandment: injustice and fraud against the seventh. To suppose then that it is a principle of Ro- man Catholics to murder or cheat ' any person or persons 4 whatsoever, for or under the pretence of their being here- tics,' is to suppose them ignorant of the commandments of God.
Since the time of the emperor Theodosius, laws have been enacted concerning heresy. Lawyers and divines of both com- munions have been divided in their opinions: Geneva and Lon- don, Calvinist magistrates, and Protestant kings, have concur- red with the Spanish inquisitors in blazing the fagot, and fore- stalling the rigour of eternal justice. The writ De Hceretico Comburendo (of committing heretics to the flames) was in force down to the reign of Charles the Second, and hasmetwitk
f Bossnett's Histoire Universelle, Vol. 2. p. 403.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 67
a learned apologist in Calvin. By the statute and common laws of England, some punishments are still in force against heretics ; but how far these and severer punishments inflicted by the civil and imperial laws, are impious and michristian, kings, not subjects, are interested to determine.
In every Christian country, the Christian religion is a part of the national laws; on the other hand, heresy, in its loosest latitude comprehends errors subversive not only of revealed religion, but moreover of morality, and justice ; such as the error of the Priscillianists, authorizing false oaths ; and the errors of those who give loose to private and public vices, by denying all rewards and punishments beyond the grave. Should then the supreme magistrate, to whom the right of the sword is reserved, determine the degree of punishment, and instead of imprisonment, banishment, &c. make it capital, let his conscience condemn or acquit him. Every subject should still 'reject and detest, as unchristian and impious to
* believe, that it is lawful to murder or destroy any person ' or persons whatsoever, for or under the pretence of their 'being heretics.' We are never to arrogate to ourselves the power of life and death, which God has entrusted to the legislators, and to them alone.
To Catholic and Protestant magistrates let us, however, venture to propose the advice of St. Bernard: 'Haeretici %'capiantur non armis, sed argumentis f* ' Let heretics be 'convinced not with blows, but arguments ;' and the opinion of St. Augustine, in his letter to Count. Marcellin : ' No doc- ' trine should strike a deeper horror in the human heart, ' than that which teacheth that it is lawful to kill any person
* or persons under pretence of heresy, and under the mask of 'religion, spread the dismal seeds of the greatest evils in the
* Christian world, — murders, dissentions, wars.' In fine, the opinion of a learned Protestant Bishop : 'Among all the he- ' heresies this age has spawned, there is not one more con- i trary to the whole design of religion, and more destructive i of mankind, than is that bloody opinion of delending reli- t gion by arms, and of forcible resistance upon the colour of t religion. 'f
* Bernard, in Cant. Serin. 62.
f Bishop of Saium, Preface to the Vindication of tlie Churcu and State of Scotland.
68 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
However upon closer inspection into those persecutions which have changed Europe into a scene of Gothic barbarity, we shall find a combination of various causes, amongst which religion was a pretext, passion and policy the main springs.
Examine all your former wars, (commonly stiled wars of
* religion)' says the most famous writer of the age, ' you will 1 see the first sparks of them kindled in the dark recesses of
* the court, or in the ambitious breasts of the grandees. —
* Matters were first embroiled and entangled by the intrigues 1 and debates of the cabinet ; and afterwards the leading men
* raised the people in the name of God.'
In effect, Sir, under the empire of grace, our passions retain a fatal liberty, and even uniformity of belief does not always preclude factious divisions. Whigs and Tories, Guelphes and Gibelines,* may repeat the same creed, and be still divided. The Sicilians and French went to the same churches to sing the hallelujahs upon an Easter Sun- day, when soon after the air began to resound with the groans of bleeding victims, and the harmonious sounds of chiming bells. Had the sufferers been of a different per- suasion from that of their aggressors, religion would appear as the chief character in the tragedy, when represented by some of our English historians, especially Sir John Temple, who spreads the wild theatre of imaginary massacres, abuses the public faith, and blends the mendacity of heathen Greece into the history of Christians. ' Et quidquid, Grcecia
* mendax peccat in historia.' 'f
To clear religion from those bloody imputations, let us contrast the present with the past times ; the Huguenots, for- merly victims to the policy of Catharine de Medicis, live now in peace and opulence, and enjoy their rich estates in Poitou, Lower Normandy, &c. The order of military merit is in- stituted to reward the valour of their officers : and in France no man's religion is a bar to his promotion in the career of military honours, whereas nothing is more common than to see the French legions commanded by Protestant Generals. Here in Ireland, the Catholics, formerly driven by thousands into woods and caverns, and their clergy hunted like wild
* Two formidable factions iu Italy- t Juvenal, Sat. 10.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 69
beasts, live unmolested, though debarred of the privilege of becoming soldiers or mayor's Serjeants. The respective religions of the two kingdoms are now what they were then: whence proceeds this happy transition from persecution to lenity? Not from the Christian religion, whose spirit never changes, but from the different characters of its professors.
The French Huguenots are now under Lewis XVI. They have been formerly under the sway of a Medicis. Formerly under the Stuarts, we are now governed by the Brunswics. Our magistrates are Protestants, but quite dif- ferent from those who, instead of redressing grievances, used to foment the rebellion, with a view of enriching themselves by the spoils of oppression. In line, Sir, let us divest our- selves of passion : religion will never arm our hand with the poniard.
ART. V.
' I further declare, that it is no article of my faith, and that ' 1 do renounce, reject, and abjure the opinion, that princes
* excommunicated by the Pope and council, or by any au-
* thority of the see of Rome, or by any authority whatso-
* ever, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or
* by any person whatsoever : and I do promise, that I will
* not hold, maintain, or abet any such opinion, or any other
* opinion, contrary to what is expressed in this decla-
* ration.'
This article of the test requires a peculiar discussion : as the Pope's deposing power has caused such confusion in Eu- rope, during the great struggles between the priesthood and empire, and is often an engine employed in parliament, to defeat the good intentions of the members, who, from prin- ciples of humanity and zeal for the prosperity of the king- dom, endeavour to remove the heavy yoke of penal restraints. The question is — Whether the deposing power be an article of the Catholic faith ? For my heart startles and my hand recoils at the words, ■ murdered by their subjects.' As if the principles of any sect of Christians authorized a gloomy ruffian to plunge the dagger in the royal breast. To deter- mine the question, let us enquire, first, into the doctrine of
70 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
the Church concerning the deposing power : secondly, into its origin.
Resistance to princes has been an early charge against the Church : and from her infancy down to this day, her pastors and doctors have repelled the calumny. An imputed doc- trine then, yet still disclaimed, can never be an article of her faith.
It is true that the concessions of princes to the Apostolic see — an excessive veneration for the first Pastor of the Church — flattery in some — rash zeal in others — have raised up Bellarmin and some other champions for the deposing power, beyond the Alps. But the deviations of some indi- viduals should be considered as spots in the sun, or the mis- conduct of a citizen whose fault should not be charged upon a large community.
The apologists of the deposing power (now grown obsolete) are few : and their doctrine must either stand or fall with the evidence or inevidence of their arguments, unsupported by authority, and contradicted by the practice and doctrine of all ages and nations.
In the Apostles time, the Jews began to revolt, and sow the seeds of that rebellion which assembled the Roman eagles round their walls, and involved their nation in final destruc- tion: their great pretence was — the seeming impropriety of the subjection of God's chosen people to a heathen domi- nion : and, as the first converts sprung from the Jews, the Heathens confounded together Jews and Christians, and charged them alike with the doctrine of resistance to subor- dination and government. The great St. Paul vindicates the Christians, and lays down for a general rule, * that every
* soul must be subject to higher powers ; that there is no
* power but from God, and, that those who resist receive damnation unto themselves.'* Should any one reply, that, ' the church has more power over Christian kings, as
* by baptism they become her children,' it can be easily an- swered, that dominion and temporal power are founded in free-will and the laws of nations, but not conferred nor taken away by a spiritual regeneration : and Bellarmin himself is forced to acknowledge, that ' the Gospel deprives no man of
* Romans, xiii.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 7l
* his right and dominion, but gets him a new right to an
* eternal kingdom.'*
The apostolical constitutions, whether genuine or spurious, are certainly of an ancient date, and give us great insight into the discipline of the primitive times. They command 4 to fear the king as God's institution and ordinance. 'f ' The 4 Christians worship God only,' says St. Justin Martyr, 4 they are subject to the emperors in all things else. 'J ' By 4 whose command men are born,' says St. Irenaeus, ' by his
* commands also are kings ordained, as suits the circum- 4 stances of those over whom they are set : some for the 4 amendment and benefit of their subjects ; and some for 4 fear and punishment; for reproof and contempt as the 4 people shall have deserved; the just judgment of God 4 reaching equally to all.' Tertullian, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Gregory Nyssen, Optatus Milevitanus, in fine, ail the fathers declare, 4 that kings have none above 4 them, but God alone, who made them kings ; that God 4 bestows the heavenly felicity on the godly only, but the 4 kingdoms of the earth on both godly and ungodly: and 4 that to him alone, the cruel Marius and the gracious 4 Caesar, Augustus, the best of princes, Nero, one of 4 the worst, Constantino the Christian, and Julian, the 4 apostate, are equally indebted for their authority and 4 power.'
If from the fathers you continue the long chain of vene- rable antiquity through tho successive reigns of the Roman pontiffs, you will find the deposing power assumed by few; the pre-eminence of kin^s. and their dependence on God alone, asserted by the mildest and most learned, and those by far the greatest number.
St. Gregory the Great not only disclaims any temporal power over kings, but even acknowledges himself their subject. The Emperor insists on the publication of a law. The Pope writes to him : ' 1 being subject to your command, 4 have caused the law to be sent into several parts, and be- 4 cause the law agrees not with God omnipotent, 1 have by 4 letter informed my serene lord. Wherefore I have in both
* BeHariniri; de Rom. Pontif. lib. v. c. 3. t Lib. VII. % Apolog-. 2. L
72 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
' done what 1 ought, obeyed the Emperor, and not con- 4 cealed what I thought for God.' Eleutherius, Anastasius 2, Galasius, Symmachus, Gregory 2, Leo 4, Nicholas 3, Adrian 1, Nicholas 2, John 8, and Celestin 3, call the king ' God's vicar on earth :' forbid the priest to s usurp the regal dignity ;' and confine the power of the ' Church ' to the dispensation of divine, that of the prince ' to the administration of temporal things.'
If you consult cardinals, who have heightened the glory ofthair purple by their learning and piety, you will meet with numerous and steady assertors of regal independence. 4 I pre-suppose what is known even to the vulgar,' says Car- dinal Cusanus, ' that the- imperial celsitude is independent of ' the sacerdotal power, having an immediate dependence ' on God.* Between the kingdom and priesthood, the 4 proper offices of each are distinct, that the king may make 4 use of the arms of the world, and the priest be girt with 4 the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God,' says Cardinal Damianus.t In answer to some objections drawn from the conduct of a Pope, regular and exemplary in other respects, but too ready to interfere in temporal concerns, this great man replies : ' I say what I think, that neither Peter obtained the ' apostolical principality, because he * denied Christ, nor David deserved the oracle of prophecy, ' because he defiled another man's bed.' As much as to sav, that this Pope committed a fault, which he afterwards cancelled by repentance.
If vou stiil fear that the long-famed British throne should be overturned by syllogisms, or that the jars of schoolmen may silence the English cannon, (for you have nothing more to apprehend from the Pope) I can march to your aid a for- midable army of scholastic divines, armed cop-a-pee in sup- port of regal pre-eminence. — Navar, Durandus, Joan, Paris, Almain, Gerson, Victoria, Thorn. Wald. Anton, de Roselli, iEsridius, Rom. Ambros. Catharinus, &c. &c. some of whom qualify the deposing power with the epithets of horrible and seditious : and others style it downright ma.dness.% Add to the
* Cihs. 1. 3. Cone. c. 5. t Damianus, Lib. iv. Epist. 9.
X Ambros. Cathar. in 13. Rom. Rowlli. de pot. pap.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 73
foregoing authorities, the Council of Constance in the year
1415. The declaration of the provincial congregation of the
Jesuits at Ghent, in the year 1681, and that of :he clergy of
France in 1682; who declare that * kings and princes by
' God's ordinance are not subject in temporals to a! y eccle-
' siastical power, and that they cannot be deposed directly
4 nor indireetly, by the authority of the keys of the Church,
4 neither can their subjects be freed from fealty and obedi-
' ence, nor absolved from their oath of allegiance.' ' Reges
' ergo et principes in temporalibusnulli ecclesiastical potestati
4 Dei ordinatione subjici, neque authoritate clavium ecclesias
4 directe vei indirecte deponi, aut illorum subditos eximi a
' fide atque obedicntia, ac pneslito fidelitatis sacramento soivi
' posse: eamque sententiam, ut verbo Dei, patrum traditioni,
* et sanctorum exempiis consomam, omnino retinemdam-'*
Exen in the canon law it is declared, that 4 kings ackiK w-
4 ledge no superior in temporals :' and, that 4 appeals con-
4 cerning temporals should not be brought to the Pope's tri-
4 bunal.'f
In fine, the deposing power was so unknown in primitive times, that Bellarmin, who has ransacked the works of the fathers, and enriched himself with their spoils, in defending the doctrine of the Church, cculd cite none but St. Bernard in support of the novel doctrine of deposition : and yet this father, who mentions two swords in the Church, onlymems that in the Church are Christian princes invested with the right of the sword : For, in writing to Pope Eugenitis, the saint uses these remarkable words : ' Earthly kingdoms have 4 their judges,, princes and kings. Why do you thrust your 4 sickle into another man's harvest ? St. Peter could not give 4 what he had not : did he give dominion ? It is the saying 4 of the Lord in the gospel, the kings of the Gentiles have 4 dominion over them, but you not so. It is plain dominion 4 is forbid to apostles. Go now and dare usurp either domi- 4 nion with the apostleship, or with the apostleship dominion. 4 You are plainly forbid the one. If you will have both, you 4 will lose both: you will be of the number of those of whom
* Declaiatio Cleri Oallicani, anno 1662; f Cap. si duobiis. Extra de appcl.
74 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
4 God complains, they have been princes, and I knew them 4 not.'*
Bcllarmin's misapplication of St. Bernard's text, was not the only mistake his antagonists have censured. His wild conjecture, that 'the Christians would have deposed N ro 4 and Julian the Apostate, and the like, had they had the 4 power to do so,' raised the indignation of the Catholic uni- vertities. ' Quod si Christiani ohm non deposuerint Nero- 4 nem, et Juiianum Apostatem, et similes, id fuit quia defue- 4 raot vires temporales Christianis.'f The decision was considered by the Catholic divines, as more becoming the seaiiet robe of the stern Brutus, who beheaded his children for siding with their king, than the purple of the Christian Cardinal. It was revised by the university of Paris; corrected bv the hangman with a blazing fagot; and contradicted by the unexceptionable testimony of Tertullian and St. Augus- tine. ! Should we want numbers or forces, if we had a 4 a mind to be open enemies ?' says Tertullian. 4 Are the ' Moors, the Marcomans, and Parthians, and whatever na- 4 tions of one place, and confined to their own limits, more 4 than those of the whole world ? We are but men of yes- 4 terday ; and yet have filled all the places you have — your 4 cities, islands, and castles, boroughs, councils, and camp 4 itself, your tribes, courts, the senate and the market. We have left you only the temples. For what war are we not fit and ready, (even though we were inferior in number) 4 who endure death so willingly, if in this discipline it 4 were as lawful to kill as to be killed ?'| ' They could 4 at their pleasure have deposed Julian,' says St. Augustine, 4 but would not because they were subject for necessity, 4 not only to avoid anger, but for conscience and love, and 4 because oui Lord so commanded.'^) In effect, Sir, laying aside the truth of history, had Peter and Paul been as will- ing to depose kings, for the glory of God, and the pro- pagation of religion, as some of our modern zealots of all communions, how could Nero have withstood those Apos- tles, whose word alone was to Ananias and Saphira a
* St. Bernard, Lib. 2. de Consid.
f Bellarmin, de Rom. Pontiff, Lib. y. c. 7.
X Tert. Apol. c. 37, § In Psal. 124.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 75
messenger of death, struck the magicians blind, and raised the dead to life ?
I say, of all communions : for in every communion there are men of deposing principles, which their religion dis- claims. ' Iiiacos intra muros peccatur et extra.' Dole- man, Buchanan, Milton, Sam. Johnson, Hobbes, Hoadiy, Locke, and several other advocates of republican princi- ples, and sticklers for popular rights, are more dangerous than Bellarmin, who disowns the deposing power, except in the case of a prince forcing his subjects to change their re- ligion : * Si tnim tales principes non conentur fideles a fide
* avertere, non existimo posse eos privari suo dominio '* A salvo winch, I hope, will remove all umbrage and suspi- cion from the mindt of our governors : as they do not reckon persecution in th they did, resistance is not a principle of the Catholic reli- gion.
But I am clearly of opinion, that had Mr. Locke, the wisest and most moderate of those English writers, been an officer in Julian's army, he would have reasoned the sol- diers into open rebellion. He that compares subjects, who would brook the violence and oppression of their supreme ruler, to fools, ' who take care to avoid what mischiefs mi.y
* be done them by pole-cats or foxes, but are content, nay 1 think it safety to be devoured by lions/f and illustrates his doctrine with the following example: ' he that hath autho- ' rity to seize my person in the street, may be opposed as a ' thief and a robber, if he endeavours to break into my house
* to execute a writ, notwithstanding that I know he has such ' a warrant, and such a legal authority as will empower him 1 to arrest me abroad. And why this should not hold in the
* highest, as well as in the most inferior magistrate, I would ' gladly be informed.5 J.
Here you see a philosophical freedom breaking the shackles of restraint and ceremony, and under the pretence of redress- ing imaginary grievances, introducing real mischief and a state of nature, wherein the most factious and daring adven- turers would take the lead. ' For this devolution of power
* Bellarmin, de Ram. Pontif. 1. v. c. 7. f Locke on Government, page 253,
J Ibid- page 313.
70 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
to the people at large, includes in it a dissolution of the whole form of government established by that people,' says udge Blackstone, * reduces all the members to their origi- nal state of equality, and by annihilating the sovereign power, repeals all positive laws whatsoever before enacted. No human laws will therefore suppose a case, which at once must destroy all law.'* ' Woe to all the princes upon earth,' says a Protestant archbishop, * if this doctrine (of resistance) be true and becometh popular ; if the multitude believe this, the prince not armed with the scales of the Le- viathan, can never be safe from the spears and barbed irons, which ambition, presumed interest, and malice will sharpen, and passionate violence will throw against him. If the beast we speak of but knows its own strength, it will never be managed.'f
* But the same equality of justice and freedom that obliged me to lay open this,' says the Bishop of Sarum, c ties me to tax all those who pretend a great heat against Home, and value themselves on their abhorring all the doctrines and practices of that church, and yet have carried along with them one of their most pestiferous opinions, % pretending re- formation when they would bring all under confusion ; and vouching the case and work of God, when they were de- stroying the authority he had set up, and opposing those impowered by him ; and the more piety and devotion such daring pretenders put on, it still brings the greater stain and imputation on religion, as if it gave a patronacy to those practices it so plainly condemns.' $ The borders of the Thames and Tweed afford then advocates for the deposing power, as Weil as the banks of the Tiber and Po.
On the banks of the Tiber a bigotted divine vests in the Pope an indirect power over wicked kings. On the banks of the Thames an enthusiastic Englishman vests in the sub- ject a direct power over his sovereign. Religion points out an intermediate course, without giving a patronacy to reveries,
* Blaf ketone's Comm. b. 1. p. 162.
f Creed of Mr. Hobbes, examined by the archbishop of Canterbury.
% The Bishap'sheat against Rome often mistakes or disguises their r«al opinioua.
^ Sermon of Subjection.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 77
and mankind shall always find their account, better in mediums, than in extremes. The doctrine of the Italian has fattened the German soil with dead bodies, and in- duced a Pope*. to attempt placing his flesh and blood ort the throne of the Caesars. The doctrine of the English- man has placed dray-men and coolers in the seats of Bri- tish peers ; and by an extraordinary vicissitude in bringing a king to the block in England, raised a tailor to the throne in Germany.f
Such are the fruits of those two systems, equally perni- cious to the safety of kings, and the peace of society. Their respective authors, in striking from the plain road of the Christian doctrine, ■ Let every soul be subject to ' higher powers,' into the airy paths of speculation, have busied themselves in pursuit of a plan the most alarming to mankind. Kings were beheaded, and others deposed, before some of those authors had published their works, it is true : but are they the more justifiable id publishing a doctrine which may tincture the scaffold a second time ? The difference between them is, that the Englishman, in terse and popular language, engages the imagination: adorns his subjects by a long chain of deduction : makes truth bend to arguments, reality to appearance ; and is read by all. In this great arsenal, every common reader can find arms to reduce his king to reason ; the ship- wright and carpenter are enabled by the rules of political- logic, to trim the vessel of state, and steer it through the unbounded ocean of constitutional liberty. But the ultra- montane divine bristling with barbarous Latin, is not read by one in three millions. Powdered with dust, and stretched on the shelf of a college library, he sleeps as sound as Endimion in his cave, and more is the pity : for his doc- trine of the deposing power is founded on as solid proofs as the history of that Spaniard who made a voyage to the moon : and displayed in a style not inferior to that of Valentine and Orson. Of his style and arguments I send you the following- sample :
' Probatur per simiiitudinem ad artem frcenifactoriam% et
* Alexander VI.
f John of Leyden, a taylor, made king- «f Munster.
£ New-coined Laiin, much of the same cUte v>1th the Ueppsinj power.
73 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
' equestrcm. Ut enim duae ille artes sunt inter se diverse, ' quia distincta habent objecta, et subjecta, et actiones ; et 1 tamen quia finis unius ordinatue ad finem alterius, ideo una, 'alteri prasst, et leges ei praescribk: ita videntur potestas
* ecclesiastica et politico, diatmctse potestates esse ; et tamen
* una altcri subordinate, quoniam finis unius ad finem alte-
* rius natura sua refertur.' * That the Pope has an indirect 1 power in temporals is proved by the example of the art of
* making bridles, and the art of riding : for as these two arts ' are different, because they have different objects, and sub- jects, and actions : and notwithstanding, because the end of
* one is appointed for the end of the other, therefore one pre- ' sides over the other, and prescribes laws to it: in like man- cner the ecclesiastical and political powers seem tobe distinct
* powers, and the one nevertheless subordinate to the other,
* because the end of the one is by its own nature referred to 'the end of the other.'
There, bir, is learned gibberish, saddling the Pope on the backs of kings, by Aristotle's metaphysics, the object, subject, action, and relation, and end of bridle-making.
Another advocate for the deposing power disapproves the simile : 'because, says he, very gravely, ' if the art of riding ' were taken away, bridles would be useless : but the political
* power can subsist without the ecclesiastical.' * Si enim non ' sit ars equestris, supervacanea est ars fraenomm faciendo- ' rum.'* An attempt to rectify the lameness of the com- parison, by one quite as lame. If I had not the authority of a cardinal to apologize for an absurdity, I should not men- tion it, for fear of being censured : but I expect, that, with his eminence's passport, it will be received by the public— He compares the Pope to a shepherd, and the king to mis. ' Pastori est potestas triplex : una circa lupos, altera circa ' arietes, tertia circa oves : unde debet arietem furiosum de-
* pellere.'f
You have in these two similies as solid arguments in favour of the deposing power, as Albertus Phigius and Bellarmin have ever advanced in support of their hypothesis : and to them arid their authors, I grant the same passport the satirist granted Hannibal iri crossing the Alps.
' I, deuiens, et sssvas curre per Alpes, ' Ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fias ' j
* Bellarmin, lib. v. de Rom. Pontif. t Bellarmin, ibidem. J Juvenal, sat. xl
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
79
You are to expect some Scripture, in like manner: for there never has been an error, how monstrous soever, but Scripture was quoted to give it some colour. Arians, Eutychians, Nestorians have wrested the sacred writings to a wrong sense. The advocates for the deposing power have done the same. The)r quote St. Paul, who blames the Corinthians for pleading before heathen ma- gistrates. This proves that you and I could depose a king, because he would advise our neighbour to avoid troublesome and scandalous law-suits, and leave the de- cision to the arbitration of two honest neighbours. 4 Je- 4 hoiada, the high priest, ordered queen Athalia to be 4 slain.* Ergo, the Pope has an indirect power over bad 4 kino's.'
This proves a direct power, not only to depose, but to murder them: a power which neither Bellarmin nor any Catholic divine has ever vouched. Second : Athalia, who had murdered all the princes of the royal house of Judah, except Joash, was no longer queen, when the sentence was executed on her: for the young prince was crowned in the temple, and recognized by his subjects. His minority could not have deprived him of the right of the sword : and Jehoiada acted as minister of state, not in his pontifical character. This evinces Bellarmin's blunder in confound- ing together the queen and subject, the pontiff and coun- sellor. Third : during the six years she swayed the sceptre, none of her subjects revolted against her, much less did the pious pontiff absolve them from their allegiance, though she re-established Baal's worship, and maintained his priests in the temple of the true God. A circumstance which Bellarmin should have attended to, had he a mind to read his condemnation. Solomon deposed Abiathar, the high priest : will Bellarmin grant me the liberty to infer from this fact, that kings can depose Popes ?
Such are the ridiculous shifts to which the patrons of a bad cause are inevitably reduced ! Wild and unnatural similies, or facts that prove too much, and can be justly retorted on themselves. Am I accountable for their folly? Or must an
* Fourth Book of Kings. M
80 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
Irish Catholic starve, because an Italian wrote nonsense in bad Latin, two hundred years ago ?
Had he not slackened the reins of an enthusiastic imagination, and let it loose to its random flights, he could have spared himself the trouble of soaring to heaven, in pursuit of this offspring of human ambition, or the zeal of earthly kings. For that the deposing power originated either in privileges granted by pious zeal, or covenants entered into and sealed by ambition, history leaves no room to doubt, and religion forbids to believe other- wise.
Let us begin at home. Inas, king of the West Saxons, renders his kingdom tributary to the Holy See. This con- cession paves the way to future claims. Henry the Second solicits and obtains a bull from Pope Adrian, in order to invade Ireland. The Pope grants it : but, in blessing this new dish that is to be served on the English monarch's table, he carves his own portion. And why not? The one had as good a right to it as the other.
It is inserted in the bull, that ' the annual pension of one ' penny from every house, should be saved to St. Peter.' If the holy father and his dear and illustrious son, as he styles him, had afterwards quarrelled about the spoils, the re- ligion of the subject should not be concerned in the dispute. King John, in his contestations with Philip Augustus of Francs, appeals to the Pope, and renders him the arbiter of rights that should be decided by the sword. The French monarch lays in his exceptions to the; Pope's tribunal, as incompetent in such a case. The Englishman chooses a master. Lo, the gradual progression of the Pope's temporal power in Great Britain. It takes its first rise from the piety, — acquires additional degrees of strength by ambition, — and is confirmed by the weakness of Eng- lish monarchs. Hence queen Elizabeth's excommuni- cation, and the absolution of her subjects from their alle- giance by Pope Sixtus, were more owing to Peter's pence than to Peter's keys. The noise of the thunder of the Vatican did not reach Sweden or Denmark, becausa the effluvia of their mines, and the filings of their gold were never carried by royal stipulations into the regions of the Italian atmosphere, to kindle into flames and cause an explo-
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 81
sion. But queen Elizabeth could not have pleaded a hun- dred years prescription against the court of Rome. ' Pope ' Paul IV. was surprised at her boldness, in assuming the 4 crown, a fief of the Holy See, without his consent.'* Re- mark in the word (fief) a temporal claim, but no divine title.
If from Great Britain we pass into Germany, we can trace the rise and progress of the deposing power, in the grants of crowned heads, in pacts and stipulations, and in mutual fa- vours and offices of friendship.
In the eighth century, when the citizens of Rome were harassed by the Lombards, and slighted by the Greeks, their lawful masters, Charlemagne marches to their assist- ance, defeats the Lombards, is crowned by Pope Leo III. and saluted Emperor by the senate and people of Rome. Nicephorus, who afterwards usurped the throne of Constan- tinople, sends Ambassadors to the new Emperor, and con- sents to the dismembering of an empire sinking under its own weight, and exposed to the first soldier of fortune who had the address to form a faction, and courage to plunge the dagger into the breast of the tyrant who filled the throne. What Leo III. has done, proves no right (if it proves any) but that of the law of nature, which authorizes a man, beset by his enemies, to call for assistance to the first who is willing to lend it, and in the effusions of gratitude to thank his deliverer. Bellarmin then has lost his labour in in writing a book, to prove that the Pope has transferred the Empire from the Greeks to the Germans, the better to give some colour to the ' baseless fabric' of the deposing power ; for Leo III. did not deprive the Eastern princes of a foot of ground.
The Empress Irene, afterwards dethroned by Nicephorus, retained her dominions after the coronation of Charles, who acquired nothing by the title of Emperor, but a sounding compliment, All subsequent accessions were either by right of conquest, the tacit or express consent of the Greeks, or the choice of the Senate and Roman people, who pre- ferred a powerful and useful stranger, to a weak and use- less master.
The compliment, however, laid the foundation of a power
* Burnet;
82
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
strengthened by the Emperor's will, sent to Rome for the Pope's approbation, and raised to the highest altitude, by Charles the Bald's purchasing the Imperial Crown, for a sum of money, from Pope John the VIII. Hence federal tram actii ns, promises confirmed by oath, pacts and stipula- tion between Popes and Emperors, who used to swear on St Peters lomb, and subscribe the conditions imposed on them. In the great struggles between the two powers, the Pn\j£9. grounded their claims on customs and oaths, as may bo seen in several passages of the canon law. 4 Adstringere 4 vinculo juramenti,' says Pope Clement V. ' prout tarn nos 4 observations antiquae temporibusnovissimisrenovata?, quam 4 forma juramenti hnjusmodi sacris inserta canonibus niani- 4 1« stant.'* Jus divinum, divine right, or a plenitude of apos- ttfUc power, was out of the question.
In effect, Sir, before the tenth century, there have been as bad Kings, and good Popes as ever since. The cause of religion was equally interesting, and religion itself more vio- lently persecuted. The Roman Pontiffs had the same spi- ritual anthprity, the promotion of piety and faith equally at h in and in the great number some were influenced by dif- ferent passions and views. For in this mortal life, we all retain some impressions of the frailty of our religion.
STet neither piety, nor ambition, the propagation of faith, nor t :he reformation of morals, ever induced them to attempt the deposing of kings, or arrogating to themselves a power disclaimed bv the Saviour of the world, convicted of false- hood by his apostles, and unheard of in the church for the sppce of ten ages. Why have some of the succeeding pon- ti s deviated from the primitive path? I say some, because it would be unjust to charge them all alike. They are dis- iinx individuals succeeding one another in the same throne, and one is as much to be blamed for the faults of his prede- cessor, as George III. is accountable for the licentiousness of Cnarles If.
Why have some of them deviated from the primitive path? It is that they had prescription and privilege to plead, oaths and treaties to support their claims. In the conduct of kings, choosing them for arbiters of their quarrels, covers
* €lemeritin. Roman. Principi de jurej.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 83
to their usurpations, and liege lords of their territories, they found a specious pretext to punish the infraction of treaties, and the breach of prerogative. A repetition of the same acts introduced custom, custom obtained the power of law, the law bound the parties concerned, and the violation of the law has* been attended with penalties. Hence the deposition of an emperor was more owing to the code and pandects of Jus- tinian, than to the Gospel of Christ. The Popes who stretched their prerogative beyond the bounds of modera- tion, were blamed by the Catholics themselves, whose reli- gion was in no wise concerned in the quarrels of their supe- riors ; and the few enthusiastic flatterers, who have attempted to lodge Paul's sivord and Peter's keys in the same hand, and to make an universal monarch of the vicar of a crucified God, who acknowledged the power of a Heathen magistrate, have injured religion, and betrayed either their madness or ig- norance. They have confounded fact with right, the unal- terable dogmas of fate with the flux and changeable customs of men, and built a Chalcedon, though they had a Byzantium before their eyes.
They should have considered, that the church pleads an- tiquity, and that her criterion of truth, and test of sound doc- trine, is that golden rule of Vincentius Lerinensis : ' Quod * semjv^r, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus.' ' What has { been H 'd ever, and every where, and by all, ever.' The deposing \. :>wer was never heard of, for the space of one thousand and eighty-seven years, from St. Peter to Gre- gory VII : a great chasm this ! And the chain of tradition must be very short, when you take off a thousand and eighty- seven links.
The Apostles and their successors preached the Christian doctrine in all its rigour. They taught kings to cherish the cross in their hearts, before it was displayed in their banners, and to prefer a heavenly before an earthly throne. Had they thought (and who could know better ?) that the power to de- pose them, and to absolve their subjects from their allegiance, were conducive to the glory of God and the honour of reli- gion, they never would have concealed it, much less would they have commanded to obey them.
Every where and by all. The deposing power, though
84 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
grounded, as I remarked before, on temporal claims, has been opposed by the Catholics from its birth. In Germany, by open force and bloody wars : in Ireland, whose kings and prelates paid no attention to the famous bull of Pope Adrian ; in England, by a solemn declaration, 16 Rich. II. Even under Elizabeth, a Protestant queen, the English Catholics joined their sovereign, and paid a greater regard to the com- mand of St. Paul, obey the prince, than to the dispensation of Sixtus Quintus, or the expectation cf being relieved by a Catholic king : which made the Spanish admiral say, ' that
* if he had landed, he would have made no distinction be- 1 tween a Catholic and a Protestant, save what distinction the
* point of his sword would have made between their flesh.' I believe it ; for a conqueror's sword is an undistinguishing weapon, were even a crucifix tied to the hilt of it.. la inva- ding England, it is the enemy of Spain, not the enemy of the mass, the Spaniards would attack ; where they here this in* stant, they would not deprive a Protestant of his estate, be- cause it belonged three hundred years ago to some old Mi- lesian, whose posterity is now at the plough ; it would not be their interest, the laws of conscience and conquest for- bid it, and the rivals of England will always find their in- terest in the poverty and defenceless situation of her sub- jects.
In fine, the Pope's temporal power has been baffled by the Venetians in their contests with Paul V. And in France, whoever would argue in its favour would be confuted with a halter, or galley chain.
According to the canen law, a hundred years prescription in temporals can be pleaded against the Church of Rome. — ' Contra ecclesiam Romanam valet prasscriptio centum anno-
* rum.' A hundred years and more have elapsed, since no Pope has attempted to dispose of kingdoms, or absolve sub- jects from their allegiance, though armies have been poured into the Pope's territories, and his cities taken by Catholic princes. Out of his own states, his temporal prerogative is confined to a palfrey he receives from the king of Naples every year, as a customary homage. The two late Popes have absolutely disclaimed any temporal power over kings. Thus, things have returned back into the former channel of
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 85
primitive simplicity : God has his own, and Ceesar his due .* and the two powers which men had confounded, and blended into one Delphian sword, equally adapted to the ministry of the altar and profane uses, arc again divided.
In tracing thus the temporal power, we have chosen a me- dium between the enthusiasm of some Italians, and the pre- judices of their antagonists. The picture drawn by those different painters, is all light or shadow. In resolving it into the grants of kings and civil contracts, prescription and a colourable title, as its first principles, we prefer the middle tints : and in measuring the portrait by this rule, we give it its due dimensions.
But in binding the pontiff's hands, and denying him any power directly or indirectly in temporals, I solemnly declare that I do not mean to derogate in the least from his spiritual supremacy. A vindication of my character calls for this de- claration: as two divines of my communion have censured the following passages of the seventh letter to Michael Ser- vetus.
In mentioning the belief of Rome and Geneva, concern- ing the immortality of the soul, &c. I have made use of the expressions, * their rule of faith is different : but these •'fundamentals of religion are entirely expunged from your * ritual.' Here I was charged with admitting the famous distinction between fundamentals and non- fundamentals: but the truth of this charge I absolutely deny.
1 Let the word, Church, be understood of the collective 1 body of Christians,' &c. Here again I was represented as a Latitudinarian. But with submission to my censors, they mistook my meaning. To alledge the authority of the Church of Rome, against a writer who denies it, is to commit a gross fault against the rules of logic. It is a petitio principd, or begging the question. If ever they argue in this manner, when the dispute turns on articles believed by Christians of all denominations, I believe they would glorify God more by prayer and silence : for a bad argument is an injury to truth.
To some, this apology may seem unnecessary, but not so to me, whose character has been injured by the imputation of a double doctrine : I who am bound not to scandalize
80 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS
a weak brother, and who, were I even the first pastor of the Church, should be as docile to her voice, as the least of her children.
ART, VI.
'And, I do solemnly, in the presence of God, and of his 'only Son Jesus Christ our Redeemer, profess, testify, ' and declare, that I do make this declaration, and every ' part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the ' words of this oath, without any evasion, equivocation, ' or mental reservation, whatever ; and without any dis- ' pensation already granted by the Pope, or any autho- ' rity of the See of Rome, or any person whatever ; and ' without thinking I am or can be acquitted before God ' or man, or absolved of this declaration, or any part ' thereof, although the Pope or any other person or per- ' sons, or any authority whatsoever, shall dispense with, ' or annul the same, or declare that it was null and void ' from the beeinninar. '
This last paragraph excludes amphibologies, evasions, equivocations, and mental reservations eversive of natural candour and Christian sincerity, — branded by the pastors of the Church with the odious qualifications of ' rash, scan- 'dalous, pernicious, erroneous, opening the way to lies, 'frauds, perjury, and contrary to Scripture,' as may be seen in the catalogue of relaxed propositions condemned by Pope Innocent XL and the clergy of France,* and detested by the very heathens :
' Ille uiihi in visus pariter eiun faucibus Orci,
' Gujus mens aliud cond.it qiium ling-ua profatur.'
Upon these principles, the Catholics have taken the oath : and on these principles, it can be safely taken. It proposes nothing to their abhorrence and detestation, but what they really abhor and detest : it requires no promise but what is just and lawful.
But as the oath is complicate, and perplexed with a variety of phrases- — as it minces even a syllable — and that the letter
* Proposilio 27, inter Gondeuniatas ab Iunoc. XI.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 87
seems to clash with the spirit — it is not surprising if many objections have been started against it.
Objections from the Hibernian Journal.
First : ' In swearing to support the succession of the 4 crown in his Majesty's family, I bind myself to that which 4 there is a possibility a loyal subject to the constitution 4 might not have in his power to perform.'
Answer. You are not bound to impossibilities, neither does the oath require it, whereas it expresses, ' to the 4 utmost of my power.'
Second : ' I am bound to take the oath in the plain and
* ordinary sense of the words; consequently, though untrained
* to arms, and unskilled in military discipline, I must run 4 to the field of battle, in case of invasion or rebellion: 'otherwise I do not exert myself to the utmost of my power.'
Answer: You serve your king to 4 the utmost of your
* power,' by remaining at home. You would only cause dis- order : and an army in disorder flies to the slaughter-house, not to victory: 'Won ad victoriam, sed ad lanienam.'* The magistrate supports the king, 4 to the utmost of his power,' in maintaining the public peace : the surgeon in dressing the soldier's wounds : the clergyman, in preaching loyalty and subordination, regularity and good morals, fraternal love and mutual benevolence. The king requires no more : and, as you write a great deal under the signature of 4 An old 4 Derryman,' all his majesty expects from one of your age 4 is to light the fire, and to be hospitable, when his soldiers 4 are quartered on you.'
Third : 4 In swearing that I cannot be absolved of this alle- 4 giance, by any authority whatsoever, I deny the supremacy 4 of the lords and commons.'
Answer. Your objection is grounded on error. The supreme power of the state is vested in the parliament, com- posed of king, lords, and commons.!
Fourth: k What happened once may happen again. If 4 the king attempts to overturn the constitution, 1 must help 4 him, if I pay any regard to my oath, and thus betray my 4 country : or perjure myself, if I refuse assistance.'
* Vejetius de re Militari, f Blackstoue's Comment. B, 1. Ch. 2, p. 147g
If
88 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
Answer. Lest ' what hath happened once, may happen again,' say with the royal prophet, ' Domine salvum fac re- gem,' ' God save the king.' However, to aliay your anxieties, remember that subjectsdo not swear to kings, as robbers or pirates swear to their leaders. You are not bound to help a king in his attempts against the laws of God and na- ture, when you have clear evidence that his attempts tend to the subversion of both; neither doth the test require, whereas, * true allegiance,' is expressly mentioned. But in a doubt you are bound to obey, because in a doubt concerning the rectitude of their intentions, or the jus- tice of their cause, presumption is in favour of your supe- riors.
What a kingdom! if all the inhabitants were astronomers, metaphysicians, and casuists, who would neither obey nor promise to be loyal to their sovereigns, until they would have read in the stars the fate of the constitution, and ex- plored the remote regions of metaphysics, in search of the essential and demonstrative relations of unalterable truth to Magna Charta; Gulliver's floating island would be the fittest kingdom for such aerial inhabitants.
Further: If the remote and possible danger of the con- stitution's overthrow, or the subversion of the fundamental laws of any realm, were a sufficient objection against oaths of allegiance, either all the distinguished subjects of the world are perjured, or no king is entitled to their allegiance. For in swearing to their respective sovereigns, I do not be- lieve that British peers, French nobles, or Spanish grandees, with all the delicacy of honour, Catholic or Protestant, bishops, with all their divinity, use the following form of words : ' I will bear allegiance to your majesty, if you ' behave as an honest man, and do not overturn the consti- 4 tution.'
Before the royal head is encircled with the diadem, the monarch obtests the awful name of the Divinity, and swears that he will govern his subjects in 'justice and mercy.' They acknowledge their sovereign, and swear to be loyal. His future conduct, and the inconstancy of his will, are left to him who holds in his hands the hearts of kings, who, by the laws of England, 'can do no wrong.' The legislative power retains a right, and has the means of examining in what
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 8i)
manner the laws are executed or infringed, by bringing the king's counsellors to a strict account. ' But whatever may 4 be the issue of this examination,' says Montesquieu, ' the 4 kind's person is sacred, the moment lie is arraigned or ' tried, there is an end of liberty.'* The constitution then is equally in danger of being overturned by a refusal of alle- giance, 4 applicable not only to the regal office of the king, ' but to the natural person and blood royal. '|
Objections from the Hibernian Jllagazine.
First : 4 No man can safely swear to a thing of which he ' is not certain. Now the test obliges the Catholics to de- 4 cide by oath, that they have positive and clear reasons not 4 to believe that any foreign prince ought to have any civil 4 pre-eminence within this realm. Now, what individual 4 can pretend to so deep an insight into the much debated 4 rights of princes, as to determine with certainty on so dif- 4 ficult and so abstruse a question ; especially as the words 4 ought and right, extend to any kind of right, whether na- 4 tural, i. e. by right of blood, or acquired ?'
Answer. The test obliges the Catholics to no such thing. All it requires is a negative belief, or a suspence of belief, concerning the rights of foreign princes, (and I do declare that I do not believe.) The paragraph is worded in a negative stile. But in a negative oath, igno- rance of another man's right exculpates the person who swears, from perjury. A familiar example will set ths matter in a clear light. Paul is in possession of a farm from time immemorial ; this possession, and several other strong reasons incline me to believe, that he is the only rightful and lawful owner. Peter revives a dormant claim, which in my opinion is but a shadow. A magistrate interrogates me in this manner : Do you believe that Peter ought to have a right to PauPs farm? I answer, I do declare, that I do not believe it. In the name of goodness, whatever Peter's title may be, do 1 perjure myself in swearing to what is reallv my opinion?
* Spirit of Laws. vol. 1. p. 181.
■\ Blackstonc's Cumneot. vol. 1. p. 371.
90 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
The word right is not mentioned in the oath, and in case it were, the objector's distinction, betwixt natural and ac- quired would give him no advantage ; for with regard to civil pre-eminence and jurisdiction over free states, there is no right when the laws of nations are against it.
In France, the Salique law excludes females from inherit- ing the throne. Has the king's eldest daughter any right to it? In Portugal, where the crown is hereditary, the law disqualifies every stranger who lays claim to the throne by right of blood. Have foreign princes, though related to the royal family, any right to civil pre-eminence within that realm ?
Second : ' The words, ought to have, seem to have a re- ' trospect to the revolution, whereby James II. was 4 deprived of the throne, because he was a Roman Ca-
* tholic-: for some members have affirmed, that no one ' could take this oath, but on revolution principles. If this 'be so, I swear what is equivalent to this — The being a Roman 4 Catholic is a just and reasonable disqualification for not enjoy- 4 ing hereditary right. What Protestant in his senses
* would not think me perjured when I swear in this manner.'
Answer. Every Protestant, if such were the meaning of the oath ; but neither the sense nor the letter of the oath is susceptible of such a forced construction. The framers of the test have blended together an oath of allegiance, and the old declaration against Popery, compiled by James I. In this declaration, the words ran thus : ' And I do declare, 1 that I do not believe that the Pope of Rome, &c. hath or 4 ousrht to have* any authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, 4 within this realm.' By this declaratien translated into English, and still to be seen in the statutes, the Roman Catholics were obliged to renounce the Pope's spiritual su- premacy, otherwise they had nothing to expect but halters and gibbets from our beloved Stuarts. The Senators of 1775, more humane than the royal pedant of 1603, have expunged in favour of distressed subjects, the words ecclesiastical and spiritual, and substituted temporal and civil in their place. Thus have they enabled the Catholics, to testify their loyalty
* Habet rel debet habere.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 91
without swearing against their conscience. The words
* ought to have,' have then no retrospect to James II. who de- prived himself of the throne, by quitting the realm, after having abdicated the constitution, by arrogating to himself a dispensing power.
Third : ' Marriage is founded on a civil contract, though
* of divine institution, and a sacrament in the belief of Catho-
* lies. In denying the Pope's civil power directly or indi- 1 rectly ivitkin this realm, so far at least I deny the church's
* authority over a sacrament.'
Answer. A flat sophism ! The Pope has no civil power direct or indirect in this realm, over any sacrament, but a spi- ritual power ratione Sacramentiy precisely as a sacrament, and so far it is a spiritual thing. In virtue of my ordina- tion, I have power to consecrate bread and wine ; have I any civil power over the baker's shop, or the vintner's cel- lar?
Fourth : * I swear that I do not think that I can be ab- ' solved of this declaration, or any part thereof, although any
* authority whatsoever shall dispense with or annul the same.
* Now, 'authority whatsoever' is of universal import. It in- ' eludes the supreme authority of the state, the authority of ' God himself. Can a Catholic or Protestant swear that ' neither God, nor the state can absolve him of any part of this ' declaration, whereas God can deprive a tyrannical king of ' his throne, and the supreme authority of the state can ab- ' solve a subject from his allegiance, and permit him to retire ' to whatever place he chooses, as a master can manumit a ' slave.'
Answer. By ' authority whatsoever,' is not meant the au- thority of God, nor the supreme authority of the state, but % the authority of Rome, or foreign authority.
Fifth. ' The oath is to be taken in the plain and ordinary \ ' sense of words. Authority whatsoever, in the plain and or- ' dinary sense of the words includes the authority of God ' and the state.'
Answer. The plain and ordinary sense of any word, is the sense annexed to it, by the common consent and custom of mankind, according to their respective idioms and lan- guages : but in any legal act, mankind never extends the words 'authority whatsoever,' to the authority of God, who
92 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTa.
is above the controul of human laws, nor to the supreme au- thority of the state, which is never presumed to bintfitsown hands, whereas it is an invariable maxim in human laws, that the same power which enacts them, can repeal and dispense with them. l Per quascunque causes res nascitur, per eas-
* dem solvitur.'
Sixth : ' The oath forbids mental reservations on pain of ' perjury. Now mental reservation is a proposition, which 1 taken according to the natural import of the terms, is ' false ; such is this proposition, I declare that no authority 1 whatsoever can dispense with any part of this oath ; ac- 1 cording to the natural import of the terms, it is false, be-
* cause God and the state can dispense with a part of it : but ' if qualified by something concealed in the mind (v. g. ex- t cept God or the state) it becomes true. In that vt ry pro-
* position, there is a mental reservation, the great refuge of ' religious hypocrites, who accommodate their consciences
* with their interests.'
Answer. The definition is just, but proves nothing. For reservations were introduced in order to deceive the person to whom we swear. But the magistrates, in whose presence we take the oath, know that by authority whatsoever, is not meant the authority of God, nor that of the state.
Seventh : ' The last paragraph of the test, tends to con- ' tradict an established doctrine of the Catholic Church,
* which is, that in the Church there is vested a power of ex-
* amining into the nature of oaths, (which are acts of reli- ' gion) and of determining whether they be, or be not law- ' ful.'
Answer. The test does not deprive the Church of the power of examining into the lawfulness of oaths. The last paragraph is entirely levelled against the dispensing power : the right of examination is quite out of the question. Without thinking that I can be acquitted of this declaration, &c.
Eighth. * A fundamental article of the Catholic faith, is
* the infallibility of the Church. This article is reversed by 1 these words, without thinking that I am or can be acquitted 1 of any part of this declaration, although the Pope or any au- ' thority whatsoever, shall declare that it ivas null and void 'from the beginning. In fine, in taking the oath, a Catholic
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 93
* must reason in this manner. It is an article of my faith, 'that the church is infallible; the pillar of truth, says St.
* Paul, which the powers of hell can never overthrow, accord- ing to the promise of Christ. Now should the church de- ' clare, that this oath is null and void from the beginning, I 'bind mvself by oath not to believe her. Is this consistent ' with the principles of a Catholic ? To believe that the
* church is an infallible guide, and to bind himself by a so- 'lemnoath not to believe her, although she should define 'contrary to his opinion !'
Answer. A Catholic should sooner expire on the wheel, thin take an oath implying an abjuraiion of any point of his religion. We have not here a permanent city, and in suffering with uprightness and integrity for conscience' sake, we expect a better. We know that life is short, that the Christian is condemned to the cross, and that the pampered tyrant as well as the oppressed slave, must appear naked at the awful tribunal of Jesus Christ.
We are not to court the favours of government at the ex- pense of conscience ; neither does the oath impose such a rigorous condition.
The words, ' without thinking that I am or can be acquit* 1 ted of this declaration, although the Pope, or any authority ' whatsoever, shall declare that it was null and void from the ' beginning,' these words, I say, mean no more than that you are convinced of tke truth of what you swear; and that, in case of a dispensation you think yourself still bound to keep your oath. For the words, 'acquitted, absolved,' re- gard the dispensing power. Now that the doctrines mentioned in the declaration, are not our real principles, has been sufficiently proved; and reason, as well as religion, informs us, that a dispensation granted against the law of God, or good morals, ' cannot acquit or absolve us before God and ' man.' ' It is not a faithful dispensation,' says St. Bernard, 'but a cruel dissipation.' ' Non fidelis dispensatio, sed 'crudelis dissipatio.'*
Ninth : ' Let us suppose that the church shall declare the 1 oath nidi and void from the beginning, you bind yourself ' by oath not to believe her ; and thus renounce your religion 1 under cover of loyalty.'
* De Dispensatione et Pracepto,
94 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
Answer. I do not bind myself by oath not to believe the church in her doctrinal decision ; I only swear that ' I do not 1 think myself acquitted or absolved' of my obligations, by a dispensation granted by the Pope, &c. The last paragraph, as I remarked before, is entirely levelled against the dispens- ing povver.
Our legislators know, that the infallibility of the church is a tenet of Roman Catholics. By the very preamble of the act, they enable us to give public assurances of our allegiance, without prejudice to our real principles. In swearing that ' I do not think myself acquitted of this
* declaration, although the Pope, or any authority what- 1 soever, shall declare that it was null and void from the be- ' ginning,' I do not mean to deny the infallibility of the church, nor the authority of God, nor even the supreme au- thority of the state ; and the magistrate, in whose presence I swear, knows that it is not my intention. As there is no de- sign on one part, nor deception on the other, I neither re- nounce my faith, nor perjure myself, although the severity of the letter seems to import one, or the other, or both. Oaths and laws are liable to interpretations : and one general rule prevails over the world, viz. ' That a greater stress is to be Maid on the sense, than on the words.' 'It is not to be ' doubted,' says the emperor Justinian, ' but that he acts con-
* trary to the law, who, confining himself to the letter, acts ' contrary to the spirit, and intent of it: and whoever, to excuse 1 himself, endeavours fraudulently to elude the true sense of a
* law, by rigorous attachment to the words of it, shall not 'escape its penalties by such prevarication.' ' Non dubium ' est in lege committere eum, qui verba legis amplexus, con- ' tra legis nititur voluntatem : nee pcenas insertas legibus ' evitabit, qui se contra juris sententiam sasva praerogativa ' verborum fraudulenter excusat.'
' Whoever swears, must do it according to the intention ' of him to whom he swears, let the mode and form of the 4 expressions be what they will,' says St. Isidorus. ' Qua-
* cumque arte verborum quisque juret, Deus tamen, qui con- 4 scientiae testis est, ita hoc accipit, sicut ille, cui juratur, in- ' telligit.'* Far from renouncing the infallibility of the
» Isidoins apud Gratianum. 22. 9. 5. c. 9.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACT.S. 95
church, which is neither the purport of the oath, nor the design of a Catholic who takes it, 1 am convinced that the unerring spirit that guides her, will never permit her to define as an article of faith, any proposition rejected in the test, or sanctify any doctrine against the institution of Christ.
Faith is founded on revelation ; and the church can never make a new article of faith. She can only declare what has been revealed, to prevent the chaff of human opinions from mixing with the pure grain of the Evangelical doc- trine.
Supposing that faith is founded on revelation, and that, as the bishop of Meaux remarks, after Christ there is no new revelation, for in him is the plenitude — the Catholics rest secure that it is out of the church's power, to declare that their oath is null and void ; as it is out of her power to de- clare that fraud, murder, and perjury are lawful. This shall appear by analyzing the oath.
First : ' Has God revealed that I am not to bear true alle- 4 giance to George III. or to renounce any allegiance to the 4 Pretender ? If he has revealed it, Pope Clement XIII. 4 died an heretic? he banished an Irish superior for compli- 4 menting the Pretender with the title of King of Great Bri- 4 tain.''
Second : 4 Has God revealed, that I can lawfully and 4 piously murder my fellow-creature, and break a just pro- 4 mise, or refuse paying what I owe him, because he is of a 4 different religion ?'
Third : 4 Has God revealed that I am to believe that Popes 4 and foreign princes ought to have any civil authority within 4 this realm ?'
Fourth : 4 Has God revealed, that kings can be deposed 4 and murdered by their subjects, because they are excom- * municated by the Pope and council ?'
There is the whole substance of the oath : and as God has not revealed any of those assertions, but commanded the reverse, the church can never declare them as articles of faith. Did St. Paul mean to renounce the authority of Hea- ven, when he said, 4 should an angel from Heaven preach 4 another doctrine, do not believe him ?' Does a Catholic renounce the authority of the church, in not thinking that
o
96 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
she can allow perjury? But if such he the case, you will ask nie, ' why some people have written against this oath ?' or, why 4 the small number of Catholics have not united « with the great number who have taken it ?'
I can assure you, Sir, that the Catholics who have not taken the oath, look on the deposing power as a dream; the murder of heretics as an impious slander, calculated in times of turbulence; to murder the character of the innocent, and only adapted to those distant aeras, when 'Papists attempted 4 to blow up a river, with gun-powder, in order to drown a 4 city.'* in line, they are ready to swear allegiance to George the Third, and renounce any allegiance to the Stuarts.
tt ihe chief exception to the oath is — the manner in >vhich it is worded. It must be taken in ' the plain and or- 4 dihary sense of the words.' 4 This cannot be reconciled 4 v •!/. any authority whatsoever.' A Catholic abjures upon oaiii a doctrine he never believed. Abjuration implies the belief of a previous error. 4 Foreign princes ought not to 4 have,' &'c. How can subjects know? or what is it to them? 4 Without any dispensation already granted.' You suppose then that we have a dispensation to perjure ourselves; con- sequently it is nugatory to swear, when you are enabled not to believe us. It is too dangerous to sport with the awful name of the Divinity : and if a free-thinker reverenced the Supreme Being, his conscience would be screwed in taking an oath which minces a syllable, and requires a long com- mentary. Further : Every invader, every usurper, would avail himself of a similar oath. In Ireland, he would find it framed to his hand, and makes us swear 4 that George the 4 Third ought to have no authority within this realm,' though the lawful king would be at the same time asserting his right in England. The alternative would be; death or perjury.
Such are the exceptions of the few who have not taken the oath. : exceptions not to be disregarded by those, with whom they may have any weight. For an oath is dreadful in itself: arid we can never act against the dictates of an erroneous conscience, till our scruples are removed, 'Quod non est ex fide, peccatum est.'
* Walker, p. 349. Hutue, Hist, of England, Vol. I. '
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 97
Here below ' we see in a glass darkly,' says St. Paul. Pro- vidence has thrown a sable veil over the human intellect.— The scripture itself this law of spirit and life, proposed as a rule to the learned and ignorant, is become the Subject of disputes and controversies. All legal acts are liable to ip- conveniencies. It is impossible for the legislators who devise them, to read in the minds of otiier men, the doubts which may arise concerning the sense and force of some expres- sions. Hence, new acts to explain and amend former laws.
Should the wisdom of the legislative powers deign to re.- duce the oath to a few plain words, whereby we should swear allegiance to his Majesty ; renounce any to the Stuarts ; swear never to maintain nor abet any doctrine Inconsist nt with the rights of sovereigns, the security of our fellow-sub- jects, nor ever to accept of any dispensation to the con- trary— all the ends of government would be fully answered, and the few scrupulous Catholics, who cavil about wc res, would join the great numbers who have proceeded upon more enlarged and liberal principles.
Should our neighbours doubt the delicacy of our con- sciences, when we swear, we have no argument to convince them, but the following :
We groan under the yoke of mysery and oppression, throughout the long and trying periods of six successive reigns. We suffer for crimes we have never committed. The punishment, which according to all laws should finish with the delinquent, is entailed on the innocent posterity to the fourth and fifth generation, by a rigorous severity, simi- lar to that of those Tuscan princes, who used to fasten living men to dead bodies. The laws, which in other countries are the resource and protection of the errant pilgrim, are here the mortal enemies of the settled natives. These abortives of the Stuart race reign uncontrouled a long time after the death of their inauspicious progenitors. On every part they spread penal bitterness, with an unwearied hand; deal out transportation to the clergy; poverty and distress to the laity. They continually hang as so many swords, over our heads. The lenity of the magistrates, with the humanity of our Protestant neighbours, are the only clouds that intercept the scorching influence of those blazing comets, kindled in times of turbulence and confusion. Were it a principle ot
98 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
our religion to pay no regard to the dictates of conscience— - were our pastors and clergy such as they are described, ' people who dispense with every law of God and man, who
* sanctify rebellion and murder, and even change the very 8 nature and essential differences of vice and virtue ;'* were we people of this kind, the penal restraints would be soon removed. One verbal recantation of Popery, backed with a false oath, would dissolve our chains. In three weeks you would see all the Catholics at Church, and their clergy along with them. Licensed guilt would soon kick in wantonness, where starving innocence shivers without a covering. A re- medy neglected from motives of conscience, is a proof of the patient's integrity. Our sufferings and perseverance plead aloud in favour of our abhorrence and detestation of perjury : and though our Protestant neighbours may laugh at the seeming errors of our minds, yet they will do justice to the integrity of our hearts.
Now, as in the primitive ages of the Church,, it is our prin- ciple and duty to pray for our kings, 4 that God would be
* pleased to grant them a long life and a quiet reign ; that 4 their family may be safe, and their forces valiant ; their 4 senate lawful, their people orderly and virtuous ; that they ■ may rule in peace, and have all the blessings they can de-*
* sire, either as men or princes.'f
I have the honour to remain,
Sir, your most humble,
And obedient Servant,
ARTHUR O'LEARY.
* Leland, b. 5. ch. 3. f Tertull. Apolog.
AN
ADDRESS
TO
OF THE
ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION,
CONCERNING THE APPREHENDED FRENCH INVASION.
Brethren, Countrymen, and Fellow Citizens,
Religion has always considered war as one of the scourges of Heaven, and the source of numberless scourges and crimes. Men may arm their hands in defence of life and property ; but their hearts shudder at the thoughts of a field of battle, which can scarce afford graves to the armies that dispute it, covered with the mangled bodies and scattered limbs of thousands of Christians, who never saw nor pro- voked each other before ; and whose only fault was obedience to their princes ! which obedience cannot be imputed to the soldier as a crime. The peaceful cottage deserted at the sight of an approaching enemy ! Famine and distress closing the scene, and filling up the measure of calamities ! Such are the misfortunes inseparable from war — misfortunes which induced the great St. Paul to exhort the Christians in the following manner: 'I exhort, therefore, that, first of all,
* supplications, prayers, intercessions be made for all men,
* for kings, and all that are in authority : that we may lead a 1 quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty,'* And such should be the constant prayer of a Christian.
But what, my brethren, if the enemy's sword glittered in our streets, and that to the licentiousness of a foreign foe we added domestic dissensions ! If the sound of the enemy's
* 1 Tiuiotliy, Chap II.
100 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
trumpet would be drowned in the cries and shrieks of the injured neighbour, whom we ourselves would be the first to oppress ! Would not war itself lose its terrors, when com- pared to such outrages? And the calamities we would bring: on ourselves, would not they surpass those which would pour in upon us from foreign nations ? Such, nevertheless, are the fears that haunt us. Both Pro- testants and Catholics declare, that in case of an inva- sion, the common people are the greatest cause of their alarms ; not from dread of your superior power ; but from the sad necessity they would be under, of punishing these whom they are willing to protect, and the general con- fusion that would disturb the peace and tranquillity of the rich, and draw down inevitable destruction on the poor. For in such an unfortunate juncture, every Catholic pos- sessed of a feather bed, and commodious habitation, would join his Protestant neighbour in their mutual defence. The aggregate body of diem would not be a match for regular forces, yet they would be an overmatch for you. They would unite in one common cause ; you would be divided amongst yourselves, exposed to each other's encroachments, and overpowered by all parties.
Such, my brethren, would be your situation, should you be unhappy enough to strike from the path of a peaceable and Christian conduct. Forbid it Heaven, that it should be ever your case ! I conceive better hopes of you. Your un- shaken loyalty under the most trying circumstances ; the calm and quietness that reigned in your peaceful huts, scattered up and down the extensive counties of Cork and Kerry, where the Catholics are poor and numerous, whilst other parts of the kingdom were infested with Uoughers, White Boys, Hearts of Oak and Steel, and alarmed at the continual sight of judges, chains and gibbets ; the quiet and peaceable manner in which you behaved on a late occasion, when you imagined the enemy at your doors ; all these cir- cumstances are pledges of your loyalty and good conduct, and happy omens of your steady perseverance in the same line.
Your bishops and clergy have enforced the doctrine of peace, subordination, and loyalty, 'from the sacred altars, where the least lye would be a sacrilege, and crime of the
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 101
first magnitude. The Catholic gentlemen have set forth the example to you. Both have bound themselves to king and government, by the most sacred ties. They have souls to be saved, and would be sorry to lose them by wilful perjury : they who would be on a level with their Protestant neigh- bours, if they took but the qualification oath against the con- viction of their consciences.
But the doctrine and example of the learned, prudent, and better sort of your profession, should be the only rule of your conduct ; for in ail countries, the generality of the common people are ill qualified to judge or determine for themselves. They are easily governed by the senses ; hurried by their passions ; and misled by a wild and extravagant fancy that intrudes itself into the province of Reason.
Far be it from me to suspect you for any design to avail yourselves of the calamities of your nation, or to commit, in time of war, a robbery which you would detest in time of peace. Is the crime less heinous, because it is committed against a neighbour, who is doubly miserable from the ter- rors of a foreigH foe, and the outrageous assaults of a treacherous fellow subject ?
When the soldiers asked St. John the Baptist, what they should do ? He desired them, ' to do violence to no man ;
* not to accuse any one falsely ; and to be content with their
* wages.'* Hence all divines are agreed, that the empire of justice is so extensive, that war itself must acknowledge its authority. Kings, in declaring war, make a solemn appeal to the tribunal of heaven, for the justice of their cause. The soldier cannot, in conscience, plunder or oppress the mer- chant or husbandman in his enemy's country : he must strictly abide by the orders of his commander. If justice, then, in certain circumstances, must sheath the enemy's sword, how much more forcibly must it not restrain the citizen's hand from invading what he cannot enjoy without guilt here, and punishment hereafter ? A punishment the more to be dreaded, as perhaps diere would be no time for restitution and repentance ! Indispensable obligations, to which every rob- ber is liable, and without which he has no mercy to expect* But if a robbery committed on a private man, deserve death
* St. Luke, Chap. riii.
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and damnation, what must not be the guilt of those who would flock to the enemy's standard, to the total overthrow and de- struction of an entire kingdom ? It would be vain to plead the hardships you suffer; the prospect of being reinstated in the lands of which your ancestors have been deprived in times of general confusion ; a more free and unlimited exer- cise of your religion ; in fine, the last argument of a despe- rate man, ' if they come, 1 have nothing to lose.' Those rea- sons I have not heard from yourselves : I have read them with surprise in speeches and essays against the repeal of the penal laws ; and I hope in God, that your conduct shall for ever contradict, them.
When an enemy lands in a country, every person has something to lose. The labourer who refreshes his weary limbs with balmy sleep, and for whose soft slumbers the gouty rich man would exchange his bed of down, would lose his rest from continual fears and apprehensions. When pub- lic works would be discontinued, and tradesmen dismissed by their employers, carpenters, masons, slaters, Sec. would lose their hire. It would not be with a view to feed an hungry Irishman, that a number of French dragoons would make excursions from their camp : it would be with a de- sign to carry off his calf or pig, and to kill himself if he re- sisted. Whatever distinction the laws of this unhappy king- dom may make between Protestant and Papist, a conqueror's sword makes none. War levels and confounds all religions, where their professors are subjects of a monarch whose king- dom is invaded.
When the French joined the Americans, it was not from love for the Presbyterian religion. If they landed here, it would not be wTith a design to promote the Catholic cause. — When Oliver Cromwell beheaded Charles the First, brother- in-law to the King of France, and issued a bloody decree, whereby all the English Catholics were commanded to quit the kingdom in the space of two months, the French, far from resenting the injury offered to the blood-royal and to the Catholic religion, sided Cromwell against Spain; and ordered the Duchess of Saxony to promote and protect her Protestant subjects, whilst the English Catholics were smart-
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 103
ing under the scourge of persecution, and threatened with total extermination.*
Thus all religions are alike to a political people, whose" only aim is interest and conquest. Hence, in France, Pro- testants of all denominations are promoted in the army. — Protestant generals command her forces : the order 6f Mili- tary Merit is instituted for Protestant officers. It is equal to them whether a soldier prays or curses — whether he handles a bead or a prayer-book ; provided he can manage a sword and gun. And if thirty thousand men, under the denomi- nation of French troops, landed in Ireland, fifteen thousand Protestants, from France, Germany, Switzerland, Sec. would make up half the number.
Neither are you to confide in their promises of protection. The history of their own nation informs us, that a French king banished his mother at the request of the English. The most part of yourselves can remember, that in the war of seventeen hundred and forty-five, they prevailed on tile Pre- tender to invade Scotland. This adventurer, after suffering more hardships than any romantic hero we read of, no sooner returned from this chimerical expedition to Paris, than, at the solicitation of the English ambassador, he was forced to leave the kingdom of France. He died, about two months since, without issue; and, by his death has rid the kingdom of all fears arising from the pretensions of a family that commenced our destruction, and completed our ruin. — Of this I think fit to inform you, as, in all likelihood, if the French landed here, some might give out that he might be in their camp, in order to deceive you by an imposture that would end in your destruction. For all those who would join the French, would be strung up after the war, and give occasion of charging the whole body of the Roman Catholics with the treachery of some of its rotten members. Or what protection could you expect from people who would sacrifice the ties of kindred and friendship for the good of their state ?
Expect then nothing from the French on the score of reli-^ £ion, but remain peaceably in your cottages. Mind your
* Leti's Life of Cromwal!. P
104 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
business as usual, and be free from all groundless apprehen- sions. Work for those who employ you ; for it is against the laws. of war to molest or hurt any, but such as oppose the enemy, sword in hand : and the world must allow that the French are not strangers to the laws of war, or the rules of military discipline. The soldier himself, in the rage of slaughter, feels the impulse of humanity. He is bound to spare the supplicant who cries out for quarter, and to protect the town or pity that surrenders for want of power to resist. Secure your lives, which run the risk of being- lost by the sword in fighting for the foe, or by the rope if you chanced to escape the danger of the fieid : but above all, save your s )\rs, wuich would be lost with >ut resource : for among the crimes that exclude from the kingdom of heaven, St. Paul reckons sedition : and what greater sedition thar* to rise up against your king and country, and to defile your hands with the blood of your fellow-subjects,?
Should the king and parliament adopt the policy of France, that rewards the soldier's, value, and leaves his religion to God — should they enter on the liberal plan of the Protestant Powers of the continent, who level the fences, and make no distinction between religious parties — should the Catholic gentry, descended in a long line from warlike chieftains, and animated with the same courage and magnanimity that crowned with laurels their relations and namesakes on the banks of the Rhine, the walls of Cremona, in the fields of Germany, and the plains of Fontenoy, where hands disqua- lified from using a gun in defence of their native country, have conquered cities and provinces for foreign kings — should the Catholic gentry, I say, be empowered by parliament to join their Protestant neighbours, and press to the standard of their country, at the head of a spirited and active race of men, preserved by labour from the weakness of indolence, inured by habit to the rigours of manly exercise, and, like the Spartan youth, already half disciplined from the very na- ture of their sports and diversions — then join the banners of your country ; fight in support of the common cause. If you die, you die with honour and a pure conscience: the death of a plunderer and rebel is infamy and reprobation.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 105
I repeat it ; you have nothing to expect from the French. Ireland they will never keep ; or if they keep it, is it a rea- son that you should forfeit soul and conscience by plunder, treachery, and rebellion ? St. Paul lays it down for a rule, that 'the damnation of those is just, who do evil thai gcod 'may come.'* What must not be die damnation of those who do evil for the sake of mischief? And Christ declares, that * it availeth a man nothing, if he gain the whole world *and lose his souL'
But by the coming of the French, your gain would Fall short of your expectations, if any amongst you would be
mad enough to entertain any expectations of the kind
When the French take a Roman Catholic Captain, do they ever return him back to his ship or restore him his liberty, in compliment to his religion ? Are we to expect more from them by land, than by sea ? If then in compliment to the Catholic religion, they would not return a fishing bout to our distressed families, who would imagine they would give us all the estates in the kingdom ? Or is it be- cause these estates belonged in remote times to our an- cestors, that we couid in conscience dispossess the present owners, were it even in our power? The remains of old castles, formerly the seats of hospitality ; and the ter- ritories which still bear our names; may remind us of our origin, and inspire us with spirited sentiments, to which the lower class of people in other countries are entire strangers, and which a wise government could improve to the advantage of the state. Yet these memorials of ancient grandeur and family importance, entitle us to no other pretensions than that of scorning to do any thing base, vile, or treacherous.
We must imitate that descendant of the Sidonian kings, who, from extreme poverty, worked in a garden : being asked by Alexander the Great, ' How he supported po- 'verty?' 'Better,' replied he, 'than I could support gran.. 'deur. My hands supply my wants: and I want nothing, 1 when I desire nothing.' Pity, my brethren, that this man was not a Christian ! Or pity, that the Christians do not resemble this Heathen ! The most flourishing empires have
* Romans, chap, iii-
108 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
fallen with time : the world is in a continual change : and tin Reman Catholics must share the same fate with the rest oi mankind.
There is> no reviving old claims in this or any other coun- t'rj . Or perhaps, if we revived them, they could not stand the test of severe justice. Our ancestors have they ever encroached on their neighbours? On their first h ding in this kingdom, have not they taken these estates from the Carthaginians, Firblogs, and others who were settled here before them? If then the Protestants, who are now in possession, gave them up, to whom would they gn e them ? If they have no right to them, because they belonged to our ancestors — our ancestors had no right tc them, because they belonged to others. If a French general sounded a trumpet, and desired us to take our lands, would there not be a thousand pretenders to very estate? Would not every one be eager for the best spot ? And would not this spot fall to the share of the strongest, who would kill or overpower the weakest? I am ashamed, my brethren, at your reading such trifles in this paper* I should never have mentioned them, had not I read such a nonsensical charge in the writings of some paltry scribblers, who, in order to keep our Protestant neighbours in perpetual dread of inoffensive fellow- subjects, do not blush at- an insult olftred to common sense, and to the rights of mankind,
•• 04 where property is once settled, secured by the laws of any realm, and confirmed by a long possession, there is no disturbing the proprietor. It is the general consent of nations, and the universal voice of mankind. By the Roman laws, thirft years possession secures the possessor in the enjoyment of his property. Even in Scripture we read, that, when a king of the Ammonites bad challenged some lands which the Israelites had t Len from his ancestors, Jephtah, the ruler of God's people, amongst other reasons, pleads a long pos- session : * While Israel dwelt in Heshbon, why therefore did 'ye not recover tnem within that time?'* Thus from the first establishment of civil society, a long possession annihilates ail claims. And by the same principles, every Protestant gen- tleman in Ireland has as good a right to his estate, as any
* Judges, cliap. ij.
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 107
Milesian had before him. For this I appeal to your con- sciences : as you are to appear before God, if you cut corn in the field of a Protestant, or stole his hay, would not your confessor compel you to restitution ? What right then should you have to the land where you would scruple to take the growth of it ? Far then from giving you estates, the French could not, by the laws of war and the principles of conquest, universally agreed on by civilized nations, take a foot of ground from any person in the kingdom, for their own use ; much less for yours. If the nation should be unable to make head against them, and that the chief men of the kingdom, and the representatives of the people, should prefer preser- vation to death, (as doubtless they will, if they have not superior forces to oppose them) — they neither will nor can require any more than the allegiance of the inhabitants, the same rates, taxes, and government support, that were granted to the king of England. The natives will be secured in the free exercise of their religion, the full enjoy- ment of their property, their laws and privileges. This is always done : the reverse would be an open violation of the laws of nations, which are binding on the very conquerors; and which, according to the present system, they strictly observe.
Thus, the common people are never interested in the change of government. They may change their masters : but they will not change their burden. The rich will Jbe still rich. The poor will be poor. In France, they have poor of all trades and professions : it will be the same here. But you will tell me, ' that at least you will have the free exercise of your religion.' Pray, my brethren, do not your Protestant neighbours grant you the free exercise of your religion ? Would they not esteem you more, in proportion as you would live up to its maxims ? Even the worthy, learned, and charitable Dr. Mann, the Protestant Bishop, at the head of an assembly of his clergy, recommended benevolence and moderation towards the Roman Catho- lics. The same doctrine has been preached not long ago from the Protestant pulpit. Thus, it is the glory of our days, to see the unhappy spirit of persecution dying away, and christian charity succeeding the intemperate zeal and
103 MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS.
unchristian superstition which, for many years, had dis- graced religion, and dishonoured humanity.
Bells, steeples, and churches richly ornamented, contri- tribute to the outward pomp and solemnity of worship : but an upright > heart and pure conscience are the temples in which the Divinity delights. We would fain worship God our own way. Doubtless. But are we to worship him against his will ? In lighting up the sacred fire, are we to burn the house of God ? Saul, king of Israel, intended to worship God, in offering up a sacrifice. The Lord rejected him, because he offered it up against the law. His intention was good ; but the action criminal. Thus, the Lord would reject you, if, under pretence of a more free worship, you flocked to the standard of an enemy ; rose up in rebel- lion against lawful authority; plundered your neighbour; and imbrued your hands in the blood of your fellow- subjects.
Let none then say, ' We will have a Catholic King.' — Subjects are little concerned in the religion of governors. Thousands of Catholics lose their souls in France and Italy, after leading a loose and dissolute life : thousands of them work their salvation in the Protestant States of Holland and Germany. It is then equal to man, what religion his neighbour or king be of, provided his own conscience be pure, and his life upright.
The Prussian, Dutch, and Hanoverian Catholics live un- der Protestant governments, and join their sovereigns against Catholic Powers. Their religion is the same with yours. And this religion enforces obedience to the king and magistrates under whom we live. Christ commanded tribute to be paid to an heathen prince, and acknowledged the tem- poral power of an heathen magistrate, who pronounced sen- tence of death against him.
Nero, sovereign of the world, rips open his mother's womb, and begins the first bloody persecution against the Christians ; seventeen thousand of whom were slaughtered in one month; and their bodies, daubed over with pitch and tar, hung up to give light to the city. St. Paul, dreading that such horrid usage would force them to overturn the state, and join the enemies of the empire, writes to them in
MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS. 109
the following manner: 'Let every man be subject to the 6 higher powers; and they that resist receive unto themselves 4 damnation.'* A strong conviction then that, in obeying our rulers, we obey God, (who leaves no virtue unrewarded, as he leaves no vice unpunished) sweetens the thoughts of subjection; and under the hardest master, obedience is no longer a hardship to the true Christian.
So great was the impression made by this doctrine on the minds of the primitive Christians — so great was their love for public order, that, although they filled the whole empire and all the armies, they never once flew out into any disorder. Under all the cruelties that the rage of perse- cutors could invent ; amidst so many seditions and civil wars; amidst so many conspiracies against the persons of emperors, not a seditious Christian could be found.
We have the same motives to animate our conduct; the same incentive to piety, godliness, and honesty : the same expectations that raise us above all earthly things, and put us beyond the reach of mortality. ' For, here on earth,' says St. Paul, ' we have not a lasting city, but expect a 4 better.' — Let not public calamities, bloody wars, the scourges of heaven, and the judgments of God, be incentives to vice, plunder, rebellion, and murder; but rather the oc- casions of the reformation of our morals, and spurs to re- pentance. Let religion, which by patience has triumphed over the Cassars, and displayed the cross in the banners of kings, without sowing disorders in their realms, support itself without the accursed aid of insurrection and crimes. Far from expecting to enrich ourselves at the expence of justice, and under the fatal shelter of clouds of confusion and troubles, let us seriously reflect, that death will soon level the poor and rich in the dust of the grave: that we are all to appear naked before the awful tribunal of Jesus Christ, to account for our actions; and that it is by millions of times more preferable to partake of the happiness of Lazarus, who was conveyed to Abraham's bosom, after a life of holiness and poverty, than to be rich and wicked, and to share the fate of that happy man who, dressed in purple, and after a life of ease and opulence, was refused a
* Rom, Cbap. xiii.
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drop of water to allay his burning thirst. In expectation that you will comply with the instructions of your bishop and clergy, not only from dread of the laws, but moreover from the love and fear of God.
I remain, my dear brethren,
Your affectionate servant,
ARTHUR O'LEARY.
Cork, August 14, 1779.
THE
REV. JOHN WESLEY'S LETTER,
Containing the civil principles of Roman Catholics ; also, a De- fence of the Protestant Association.
to the printer. Sir,
Some time ago, a pamphlet was sent me, entitled, 'An s Appeal from the Protestant Association to the people of
* Great Britain.' A day or two since, a kind of answer to this was put into my hand, which pronounces, ' its style con- 1 temptible, its reasoning futile, and its object malicious.' — On the contrary, I think the style of it is clear, easy, and natural ; the reasoning, in general, strong and conclusive ; the object, or design, kind and benevolent : and, in pursu- ance of the same kind and benevolent design, I shall endea- vour to confirm the substance of that tract, by a few plain arguments.
With persecution I have nothing to do. I persecute no man for his religious principles. Let there be * as boundless
* a freedom in religion,' as any man can conceive : but this does not touch the point. I will set religion, true or false, utterly out of the question : suppose the Bible if you please, to be a fable, and the Koran to be the word of God. I con- sider not, whether the Romish religion be true or false, I build nothing on one or the other supposition : therefore away with all your common-place declarations about intole- rance and persecution for religion ! Suppose every word of Pope Pius's creed to be true — suppose the Council of Trent to have been infallible — yet, I insist upon it, that no govern- ment, not Roman Catholic, ought to tolerate men of the Ro- man Catholic persuasion.
I prove this by a plain argument : let him answer it that can : —
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That no Roman Catholic does or can give security for his allegiance or peaceable behaviour, I prove thus : it is a Ro- man Catholic maxim, established, not by private men, but by a public Council, that, * no faith is to be kept with here- ' tics.' This has been openly avowed by the Council of Con- stance, but it never was openly disclaimed. Whether pri- vate persons avow or disavow it, it is a fixed maxim of the church of Rome : but as long as it is so, nothing can be more plain, than that the members of that church can give no rea- sonable security to any government of their allegiance or peaceable behaviour; therefore, they ought not to be tolera- ted by any government, Protestant, Mahometan, or Pagan. You may say, ' nay, but you will take an oath of aliegi- cance.' True, five hundred oaths; but the maxim, 'no ' faith is to be kept with heretics,' sweeps them ail away, as a spider's web ; so that still, no governors, that are not Ro- man Catholics, can have any security of their allegiance.
Again, those who acknowledge the spiritual power of the Pope, can give no security of their allegiance to any govern- ment ; but all Roman Catholics acknowledge this ; therefore they can give no security for their allegiance.
The power of granting pardons for all sins past, present, and to come, is, and has been, for many centuries, one branch of his spiritual power: but those who acknowledge him to have this spiritual power, can give no security for their alle- giance ; since they believe the Pope can pardon rebellions, high treasons, and all other sins whatsoever.
'i he power of dispensing with any promise, oath, or vow, is another branch of the spiritual power of the Pope ; and all who acknowledge his spiritual power, must acknowledge this ; but whoever acknowledges the dispensing power of the Pope, can give no security of his allegiance to any govern- ment.
Oaths and promises are none : they are light as air ; a dis- pensation makes them all null and void.
Nay, not only the Pope, but even a priest, has power to pardon sins ! this is an essential doctrine of the church of Rome. But they that acknowledge this, cannot possibly give any security for their allegiance to any government. Oaths are no security at all ; for the priest can pardon both perjury and high treason.
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Setting, then, religion aside, it is plain, that upon princi- ples of reason, no government ought to tolerate men, who cannot give any security to that government for their alle- giance and peaceable behaviour ; but this no Romanist can do, not only while he holds, that ' no faith is to be kept with ' heretics,' but so long as he acknowledges either priestly absolution, or the spiritual power of the Pope.
'But the late act,' you say, 'does not either tolerate or ' encourage Roman Catholics.' I appeal to matter of fact. Do not the Romanists themselves understand it as a tolera- tion ? You know they do. And does it not already, let alone what it may do by-and-by, encourage them to preach openly, to build chapels, at Bath and elsewhere, to raise se- minaries, and to make numerous converts, day by day, to their intolerant, persecuting principles ? 1 can point out if need be, several of the persons : and they are increasing daily.
But * nothing dangerous to English liberty is to be ap- ' prehended from them.' I am not certain of that. Some time since a Romish priest came to one 1 knew, and after talking with her largely, broke out, 'You are no heretic! 'You have the experience of a real Christian!' 'And 1 would you,5 she asked, ' burn me alive V He said, ' God ' forbid ! Unless it were for the good of the church.'
Now, what security could she have for her life, if it had depended on that man ? The good of the church would have burst all the ties of truth, justice and mercy ; especially, when seconded by the absolution of a priest, or, if need were, a papal pardon.
If any one please to answer this, and to set his name, I shall, probably reply : but the productions of anonymous writers I do not promise to take any notice of.
I am, Sir,
Your humble Servant,
JOHN WESLEY.
City Road, Jan. 12, 1780.
A DEFENCE OF THE
PROTESTANT ASSOCIATION,
BY JOHN WESLEY.
Various pieces, under different signatures, having ap- peared in the public prints, casting unjust reflections on the Protestant Association, and tending to quiet the minds of the Protestants at the present alarming crisis, by insinuating that there is no danger arising from the toleration of Popery, and that such associations are necessary ; 1 think it a piece of justice, which I owe to my countrymen, to give them a plain and true account of the views of this assembly, and lay before them the reasons which induced them to form this asso- ciation, and determined them to continue.
Whether the gentlemen who have favoured the public with their remarks on this occasion, are really Protestants, or Pro- testant Dissenters, as they style themselves ; or whether they are Papists in disguise, who assume the name of Protestants, that they may be able to undermine the Protestant cause with the greater success, is neither easy nor necessary to deter- mine ; but it is easy to see that they are either totally igno- rant of the subject on which they write, or else they wilfully disguise it.
The pieces I refer to, are written with different degrees of temper. One gentleman in particular, appears to be very angry, and loads the association, and their friends, with the most illiberal and unmanly abuse. If this gentleman had clearly stated the cause of his resentment, he might have been answered ; but as he appears to be angry at he knows not what, he can only be pitied. Others have written with more candour and moderation, and would have been worthy of regard, had they not been deficient in point of argument. If these are sincerely desirous of being informed, they are requested to attend to the following particulars :
However unconcerned the present generation may be, and
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unapprehensive of danger from the great growth of Popery, how calmly soever they may behold the erection of Popish chapels, hear of Popish schools being opened, and see Popish books publicly advertised, they are to be informed that our ancestors, whose wisdom and firmness have trans- mitted to us those religious and civil liberties, which we now enjoy, had very different conceptions of this matter ; and had they acted with that coldness, indifference, and stupi- dity, which seems to have seized the present age, we had now been sunk into the most abject state of misery and sla- very, under an arbitrary prince and Popish government.
It was the opinion of our brave, wise, circumspect, and cautious ancestors, that an open toleration of the Popish re- ligion, is inconsistent with the safety of a free people, and a Protestant government. It was thought by them, that every convert to Popery, was by principle an enemy to the consti- tution of this country; and as it was supposed that the Roman Catholic religion promoted rebellion against the state, there was a very severe law made to prevent the propagation of it. Such was the state of things in the reign of the great Eliza- beth : and Popery having, notwithstanding such restriction, gained ground in the reign of James II. though the encou- ragement it then received from the state, was not equal to what it has now obtained, the nation was alarmed ; and the noble and resolute stand which the Protestants then made against the advances of Popery, produced the Revolution.
In the reign of William the Third, the state was thought to be in danger from the encroachments of Rome ; to pre- vent which, the act of Parliament was made, which is now, in the most material parts, repealed, and several Protestants being of opinion, that this repeal will, in its consequences, act as an open toleration of the Popish religion, they are filled with the most painful apprehensions : they think, that liberty, which they value more than their lives, and which they would piously transmit to their children, to be in dan- ger: they are full of the most alarming fears, that chains are forging at the anvil of Rome for the rising generation : thev fear, that the Papists are undermining our happy constitu- tion ; they see the purple power of Rome advancing, by hasty strides, to overspread this once happy nation : they shudder at the thought of darkness and ignorance, misery
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and slavery, spreading their sable wings over this highly favoured isle : their souls are pained for their rights and liberties as men, and their hearts tremble for the ark of God.
Inspired with such sentiments, and under the influence of such reasonable and well-grounded fears, they think it a duty which they owe to themselves, their posterity, their religion, and their God, to unite as one man, and take every possible, loyal and constitutional measure, to stop the pro- gress of that soul-deceiving and all-enslaving superstition which threatens to overspread this land. It is to be hoped, that an attempt, so just and reasonable, will be crowned with success; but should it fail through the supineness or groundless prejudices of those who ought to stand first in this cause, the members of this Association will enjoy the satisfaction of a self-approving mind, conscious of having done its duty; while those who meanly desert the Protes- tant cause, and tamely suffer the encroachments of Rome, may see their error when it is too late, and be filled with bitterness and remorse at a conducts© mean and despicable, and so unworthy their profession.
Whatever such persons may think of themselves and their conduct, and however they may dress themselves up in the splendid robes of candour and moderation, they are to be informed that their conduct is highly criminal, and may be attended with the most deplorable consequences; as, by their neglecting to appear on this great occasion, they give our rulers reason to conclude, that it is the sense of the nation that Popery should be tolerated.
It is sincerely to be lamented that Protestants in general are not more apprehensive of the danger. Have they forgot the reign of the bloody queen Mary ? Have they forgot the fires in Smithfield, and can they behold the place without emotion where their fathers died? Will it ever be believed in future times, that persons of eminent and distinguished rank among the Protestants, and persons of high and exalted religious characters, refused to petition against Popery ; and let it overspread our nation without opposition? Will it be believed that Englishmen were so far degenerated from the noble spirit of their ancestors, as tamely to bow the neck to the yoke of Rome ? 4 Tell not in Gath, publish it not in
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* the streets of Askelon ; lest the daughters of the Philistines 4 rejoice; lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.'
It is not to be wondered at that the Papists, either openly or in disguise, take every method to prevent the just and reasonable|view of the Protestant Association, and therefore represent them as factious, seditious, and enemies to tolera- tion. These charges, and every other which the malice of our enemies, or the groundless fears and prejudices of our mistaken friends shall hereafter exhibit, will be separately and distinctly considered in the course of these letters ; and such an account given of the views of the Protestant Asso- ciation, and the Tine of conduct which they have pursued, and intend to pursue, in order to accomplish the great end for which they associate, as will, I hope, obviate every objection, remove every scruple, and excite the Protestants to join hand in hand, and unite as one man, in that cause, in which their present and future welfare is so nearly concerned, by
JOHN WESLEY.
REM AUKS ON THE FOREGOING
LETTER AND DEFENCE,
Addressed to the Conductors of the Free Press.
Gentlemen,
I know that it is loss of time, and a loss to the public; impatient for a paper in which they have first discovered the outlines of their country's rights, and from whence they daily expect new illustrations, on the most important sub- jects— to take up The Freeman's Journal with idle contro- versy. Were controversy the subject, I should be the last • to enter the list.
In your paper, which has already made its way to the Continent, on account of the late exertions of the Irish, and which should contain nothing unworthy of the nervous elo- quence and liberal principles of jour numerous and learned correspondents, Mr. Wesley, in a syllogistical method, and the jargon of the schools, has arraigned the Catholics all over the world, with their kings and subjects, their prelates and doctors, as liars, perjurers, patentees of guilt and per- jury ; authorized by their priests to violate the sacred rules of order and justice, and unworthy of being tolerated even by Turks and Pagans* Such a charge carries with it its own confutation, but are there not prejudiced people still in the world ? The nine skins of parchment, filled with the names of petitioners against the English Catholics, owe the variety of their signatures to pulpit declamations and inflam- matory pamphlets, teeming with Mr. Wesley's false asser- tions. And, to the disgrace of the peerage, in this variety of signatures, is not the lord's hand-writing stretched near the scratch of the cobler's awl ? For the parchment would be profaned, if the man who does not know how to write, made the sign of the cross.
I am a member of that communion which Mr. Wesley aspersed in so cruel a manner. I disclaimed upon oath, in
* See Mr. Wesley's letter, page 112.
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the presence of Judge Henn, the creed which Mr. Wesley- attributes to me. I have been the first to unravel the intri- cacies of that very oath of allegiance, proposed to the Roman Catholics ; as it is worded in a manner which, at first sight, seems abstruse. And, far from believing it lawful to ' violate * faith with heretics,' I solemnly swear without equivocation, or the danger of perjury, that in a Catholic country, where I was chaplain of war, I thought it a crime to engage the king of England's soldiers or sailors into the service of a Catholic monarch, against their Protestant sovereign. I resisted the solicitations, and ran the risk of incurring the dis- pleasure of a minister of state, and losing my pension : and my conduct was approved by all the divines in a monastery to which I then belonged ; who all unanimously declared, that, in conscience, I could not have behaved otherwise.
Mr. Wesley may consider me as a fictitious character ; but, should he follow his precursor, (I mean his letter, wafted to us over the British channel), and, on his mission from Dublin to Bandon, make Cork his way — Doctor Berkely, parish -minister, near Middleton — Captains Stanner, French, and others, who were prisoners of war, in the same place, and at the same time — can fully satisfy him as to the reality of my existence, in the line already described ; and that in the beard which I then wore, and which like that of Sir Thomas More, never committed any treason, I never concealed either poison or dagger to destroy my Protestant neighbour ; though it was long enough to set all Scotland in
ablaze, and to deprive Lord G G of his
senses.
Should any of the Scotch missionaries attend Mr. Wesley into this kingdom, and bring with them any of the stumps of the fagots with which Henry the Eighth, his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, and the learned James the First, ro?.sted the heretics of their times, in Smithfield — or some of the fagots with which the Scotch Saints, of whose proceedings Mr. Wesley is become the apologist, have burnt the houses of their inoffensive Catholic neighbours ; we will convert them to their proper use. In Ireland, the revolution of the great Platonic year is almost completed. Things are re-instated in their primitive order. And the fagot, which, without any
R
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mission from Christ, preached the Gospel by orders of Catholic and Protestant' kings, is confined to the kitchen. Thus, what formerly roasted the man at the stake, now helps to leed him ; and nothing but the severity of winter, and the coidness of the climate in Scotland, could justify Mr. Wesley in urging the rabble to light it. This is a bad time to introduce it amongst us, when we begin to be formidable to our foes, and united amongst ourselves. And to the glory of Ireland, be it said, we never con- demned but murderers and perpetrators of unnatural crimes to the fagot.
By a statute of Henry the Sixth, every Englishman of the Pale* was bound to shave his upper lip, or clip his whiskers, in order to distinguish himself from an Irishman. By this mark of distinction, it seems that what Campion calls in his old English, glib, and what we call the beard, as well as the com- plexion and size of both people, were much the same. In mjr opinion, it had tended more to their mutual interest, and the glory of that monarch's reign, not to go to the nicety of splitting a hair, but encourage the growth of their fleeces, and inspire them with such mutual love for each other, as to in- duce them to kiss one another's beards ; as brothers salute each other* at Constantinople, after a few days absence. I am likewise of opinion, that Mr. Wesley, who prefaces his letter with ' the interest of the Protestant religion,' would re- fleet more honour on his ministry, in promoting the happiness of the people, by preaching love and union, than in widening the breach, and increasing their calamities by division. The English and Irish were, at that time, of the same religion ; but, divided in their affections, were miserable. — Though divided in speculative opinions, if united in senti- ment, we would be happy. The English settlers breathed the vital air in England, before they inhaled the soft breezes of our temperate climate. The present generation can say, 'our fathers and grandfathers have been born, bred, and 'buried here. We are Irishmen, as the descendants of 'the Normans, who have been born in England, are ' Englishmen.'
* Seethe statutes of that king'; and lament the effects of divisions fomented ht sovereigns.
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Thus, bom in an island in which the ancients might have placed their Hesperian gardens and golden apples, the tem- perature of the climate, and quality of the soil inimical to poisonous insects, have cleansed our veins from the sour and acid blood of the Scythians and Saxons. We begin to open our eyes and to learn wisdom from the experience of ages.— We are lender-hearted : we are good-natured : we have feel- fogs. We shed tears on the urns of the dead; deplore the loss of hecatombs of victims slaughtered on the gloomy altars of religious bigotry ; cry in seeing the ruins of cities over which fanaticism has displayed the funeral torch ; and sin- cerely pity the blind zeal of our Scotch and English neigh- bours, whose constant character is to pity none, for erecting the banners of persecution, at a time when the inquisition is abolished in Spain and Milan, and the Protestant gentry are caressed at Home, and live unmolested in the luxuriant plains of France and Italy.
The statute of Henry the Sixth is now grown obsolete.-— The razor of calamity has shaved our lower and upper lips, and given us smooth faces. Our land is uncultivated ; our country a desart ; our natives are forced into the service of foreign kings, storming towns, and in the very heat of slaugh- ter, tempering Irish courage with Irish mercy.* All our misfortunes flow from long- reigning intolerance, and the storms which, gathering first in the Scotch and English at- mosphere, never failed to burst over our heads.
We are too wise to quarrel about religion. The Roman Catholics sing their spalms in Latin, with a few inflections of the voice. Our Protestant neighbours sing the same psalms in English, on a larger scale of musical notes. We never quarrel with our honest and worthy neighbours, the Quakers, for not singing at all ; nor shall we ever quarrel with Mr. Wesley for raising his voice to heaven, and warbling forth his canticles on whatever tune he pleases ; whether it be the tune of guardian angels or langolee. We like social harmony; and, in civil music, hate discordance. Thus, when we go
* Count Dillon and the Irish brigade could not be prevailed on by D'Estaing- to put the English »:irrison to the sword. ' We will not kill our countrymen,' said they ; ' would it not be wiser to let these gallant men go to mass, and serve their ow t king-?
122 MISCELI#NE0US TRACTS.
to the shambles, we never enquire into the butcher's reli- gion ; but into the quality of his meat. We care not whe- ther the ox was fed in the Pope's territories, or on the moun- tains of Scotland, provided the joint be good ; for, though there be many heresies in old books, we discover neither he- resy nor superstition in beef and claret. We divide them cheerfully with one another ; and, though of different reli- gions, we sit over the bowl with as much cordiality as if we were at a love -feast.
The Protestant associations of Scotland and England may pity us ; but we feel more comfort than if we were scorching one another with fire and fagot. Instead of singing * peace * to men of good will on earth,* does Mr. Wesley intend to sound the fury of Alecto's horn, or the war-shell of the Mex- icans ? The Irish, who have no resource but in their union, does he mean to arm them against each other ? One massa- cre, to which the fanaticism of the Scotch and English regi- cides give rise, is more than enough : Mr. Wesley should not sow the seeds of a second. When he felt the first-fruits and illapses of the spirit — when his zeal, too extensive to be confined within the majestic temples of the church of Eng- land, or the edifying meeting-houses of the other Christians^ prompted him to travel most parts of Europe and America, and to establish a religion and houses of worship of his own, what opposition has he not met with from the civil magis- trates ! with what insults from the rabble ! broken benches, dead cats, and pools of water bear witness. Was he then the trumpeter of persecution ? Was his pulpit changed into Hu- dibras's * drum ecclesiastic ?' Did he abet banishment and proscription on the score of conscience ? Now that his ta- bernacle is established in peace, after the clouds having borne testimony to his mission,* he complains in his second letter, wherein he promises to continue the fire which he has already kindled in England, that people of exalted ranks in church and state, have refused entering into a mean confederacy against the laws of nature, and the rights of mankind. In his first letter, he disclaims persecution on the score of religion ;
* See an abridgment of Wesley's journal, wherein he says, that in preaching' one day at Kinsale, a cloud pitched over him.
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and, in the same breath, strikes out a creed of hisown for the Roman Catholics ; and says, that ' they should not be 4 tolerated even amongst the Turks.' Thus, the satyr in the fable breathes hot and cold in the same blast ; and a Iamb of peace is turned inquisitor ! ' But is not that creed men- mentioned 4 by Mr. Wesley, the creed of the Roman Ca- tholics?' By right it should be theirs: as it is so often bestowed on them, and that, according to the civil law, a free gift becomes the property of the person to whom it is bestowed, if there be no legal disqualification en either side. But the misfortune is, that the Catholics and the framers of the fictitious creed, so often refuted, and still forced on them, resemble the Frenchman and the blunderer in the comedv : one forces into the other's mouth a food which he cannot relish, and against which his stomach revolts.
Mr. Wesley places in the front of his lines, the general Council of Constance ; places the Pope in the centre : and brings up the re re of his squadrons with a confabulation between a priest and a woman; whilst his letters are skir- mishing on the wings. Let us march from the rere to the front: for religious warriors seldom observe order.
A priest then said to a woman whom Mr. Wesley knows, ' I see you are no heretic: you have the experience of a • real Christian.' 4 And would you burn me ?' said she, 4 God forbid,' replied the priest, ' except for the good of 4 the church.' Now this priest must be descended from some of those who attempted to blow up a river with gun- powder, in order to drown a city.* Or he must have taken her for a witch ; whereas, by his own confession, ' she was no heretic' A gentleman whom / know, declared to me, upon his honour, that he heard Mr. Wesley repeat, in a sermon preached by him in the city of Cork, the following words : 4 A little bird cried out in Hebrew — O Eternity ! 4 Eternity ! who can tell the length of Eternity ?' I am then of opinion, that a little Hebrew bird gave Mr. Wesley the important information about the priest and the woman. One story is as interesting as the other : and both are equally- alarming to the Protestant interest. Hitherto it is a drawn battle between us : from the rere, then, let us advance to
* Among other plots attributed to the Roman Catholics in the reign of Charles the First, this extraordinary one was thrown upon them. See Hume.
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the van, an J try if the general Council of Constance, which Mr. Wesley places at the head of his legions, be impenetrable to the sword of truth.
After reading the ecclesiastical history concerning that council, and Doctor Hay's answer to Archibald Drummond, I have gone through the drudgery of examining it all over in St. Patrick's library, when Mr. Wesley's letters made their appearance. The result of my researches is, a con- viction, that there is no such doctrine as * violation of faith
* with heretics,' authorized by that Council. Pope Martin