Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 427, May, 1851Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 427, May, 1851
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Religious development is going on beyond the Popedom. The assumption
of a kind of religion, or more properly a cant of religion, is the
homage vice pays to virtue. The subverters of all social order are
propagandists of a new religion. What are St Simonites? Even Red
Republicans associate themselves to a kind of creed; and perhaps many
take up one, purposely that they may demand a civil and religious
liberty. We do not subscribe to the doctrine that "full and complete
liberty" is to be given to every society that proclaims itself of a
civil polity, or of a religious agreement. The principles of creeds
should be ascertained, before full scope be given to them--and the
principles of civil communities, before a state is justified in arming
them with power. There are societies that can, and societies that
cannot, live together peaceably, with equal power. There is a strong
conviction in the public mind, (and certainly justified,) that if
Popery can once reach an equality in visible power with the Church of
England, or even with Protestant Dissenters, a system of persecution
would commence.
The present aggression is of a two-fold character. It is against the
Church, which it ignores; and the sovereignty of England, which it both
insults and defies. It sets up bishop against bishop--altar against
altar. It takes up a position of authority, and impudently declares
that it neither can nor will recede one step. Hear the "Bishop of
Birmingham" so styled, Dr Ullathorne. He thus writes to Lord John
Russell:--"There is one point for your Lordship to consider--the
hierarchy is established; therefore it cannot be abolished. How will
you deal with the fact? Is it to force a large body of her Majesty's
subjects to put the principle of the Divine law in opposition to
such an enactment?" Here is obstinate defiance; but there is more.
He proclaims that the Pope's brief is a "_Divine law_." Is not this
the Pope's supremacy over the supremacy of England's sovereign? And
if England's sovereignty maintains its own, what kind of warfare are
we to have from Rome? Of course, the first step will be an Irish
rebellion, or the attempt to raise one. Then is our Queen to be
excommunicated--the old game played--the interdict, the absolving from
allegiance, and the curse? Is the Pope, the foolish man, who has been
driven from his Popedom, and just kept in it again by French bayonets,
in his disappointment to enact the spite of a witch turned out of
doors, and look back and spit, and take a revengeful pleasure in seeing
the Canidian venom take effect? And of a truth it may be said Lord John
Russell, Earl Grey, and some others of the Government, grow somewhat
pallid from the poison; it has at any rate reached them. Lord John
Russell thought it absurd to deny titles, which he now brings in a bill
to interdict; Earl Grey would have the Roman Catholic Bishops sit in
the House of Peers--and has given strange encouragement to them in the
Colonies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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