Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 355, May 1845Various
Philosophy
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 355, May 1845
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
But we Protestants, in paying to Maynooth, supposing that we made
ourselves parties to the payment by consenting to the bill, feel that we
should be wilfully abetting the propagation of error. It is true that the
Papist finds himself in the same necessity of contributing to what he
regards as heresy by contributing to the support of the Protestant
Establishment. But if a Protestant resorts to a country, or acquiesces in
a country where Popery is established, he does not complain that he falls
under the relation of a tributary to a system which did not seek _him_,
but which _he_ sought.
There are other casuistical points, arising out of these practical
relations to systems of religious belief, which are often unskilfully
mingled with cases like this of Maynooth; but they cannot disguise the
broad distinction between the principle in that question and the principle
in the question of Catholic emancipation. There the object was purely
negative, viz. to liberate a body of men from certain incapacities.
Successive penal laws had stripped the Papist of particular immunities and
liberties. These were restored by emancipation. A defect was made good.
But no _positive_ powers were created by that measure. Now, on the other
hand, when a large revenue is granted, (as by the pending Maynooth grant,)
this is in effect to furnish artillery for covering advances upon hostile
ground. This gives positive powers to Popery for propagating its errors.
That Sir Robert Peel should hold such a mode of collusion with falsehood
to be lawful--would be astonishing, were it not that he manifestly
confounds the case of promoting, a law by votes, or any mode of active
support, which is a true and substantial assent, with the case of paying
under a demand of the law. Now this is no assent at all, any more than the
surrendering your person passively to the arrest of a police-officer is an
assent to the justice of the accusation, or to the reasonableness of the
law under which you will be tried. To pay on the demand of the law is no
assent at all, but an abridged process of yielding to the physical
coercion of the law. You are aware of the steps through which the
compulsory action of the law will travel, and it cannot make any
difference as to the principle of your submission, that, for the sake of
saving time, you yield to the first step, instead of waiting for the last.
It is, therefore, no duty of a Protestant, in any circumstances, to abet
Popery by any mode of support, but only seems to be so by confounding
cases essentially different.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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