Essay and speech on Jewish disabilitiesMacaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
Religion
Essay and speech on Jewish disabilities
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
Jews -- Great Britain
It was in this way that our ancestors reasoned, and that some people in
our time still reason, about the Catholics. A Papist believes himself
bound to obey the pope. The pope has issued a bull deposing Queen
Elizabeth. Therefore every Papist will treat her grace as an usurper.
Therefore every Papist is a traitor. Therefore every Papist ought to
be hanged, drawn, and quartered. To this logic we owe some of the most
hateful laws that ever disgraced our history. Surely the answer lies on
the surface. The Church of Rome may have commanded these men to treat
the queen as an usurper. But she has commanded them to do many other
things which they have never done. She enjoins her priests to observe
strict purity. You are always taunting them with their licentiousness.
She commands all her followers to fast often, to be charitable to the
poor, to take no interest for money, to fight no duels, to see no
plays. Do they obey these injunctions? If it be the fact that very few
of them strictly observe her precepts, when her precepts are opposed
to their passions and interests, may not loyalty, may not humanity,
may not the love of ease, may not the fear of death, be sufficient
to prevent them from executing those wicked orders which the Church
of Rome has issued against the sovereign of England? When we know
that many of these people do not care enough for their religion to go
without beef on a Friday for it, why should we think that they will run
the risk of being racked and hanged for it?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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