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-Edition of Tyndale's Testament. By J. P. DAB-

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THE

CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

No. LXXXII.

THIRD SERIES- No. XIII.

SEPTEMBER, 1837.

ART. I.

REACTION IN FAVOR OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS. A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY IN CAMBRIDGE, AT THE DUDLEIAN LECTURE, MAY 10, 1837. BY JAMES WALKER.

THE subject of this lecture is thus stated by its founder, Judge Dudley: "For the detecting and convicting and exposing the idolatry of the Romish Church, their tyranny, usurpations, damnable heresies, fatal errors, abominable superstitions, and other crying wickednesses in their high places; and, finally, that the church of Rome is that mystical Babylon, that Man of Sin, that apostate church spoken of in the New Testament." These are hard names to call our fellowcreatures by, and not the most likely, one would suppose, to win them over to our way of thinking. And besides, it would not be easy, before an audience like this, to convict the church of Rome of "idolatry," or of " damnable heresies," or "fatal errors," or of being the "mystical Babylon," and "Man of Sin," mentioned by the sacred writers. The most that I should think of undertaking, under any circumstances, would be to expose its "tyranny, usurpations," and "abominable superstitions;" and in doing this, I should feel that candor,

nay, that common justice required me to concede that Protestants had not seen fit to allow the mother church to monopolize these vices.

VOL. XXIII. -3D s. VOL. V. NO. I.

1

But with such a subject, and within the limits of a single discourse, what can be done? I have thought it would be best to turn aside, as far as may be, from the old controversy, and to look with a single eye at the reaction which is supposed by some to be now going on in favor of the Roman Catholics, and which is creating, in many parts of this country, so much real or affected alarm. What foundation is there for this alarm? And how is the alleged danger, so far as it really exists, to be met?

There is one preliminary observation, however, which I would first press on your notice. The history of the panics on this subject are such as to put every thoughtful and just man on his guard against them. It is a singular fact, that from the very beginning the controversy between the Catholics and Protestants has been conducted, in almost every instance, on' political grounds. Taking up the history of Protestantism from the League of Smalkalde, in 1531, we cannot shut our eyes on the fact that the German princes, who were parties to that treaty, were much more influenced in their subsequent movements by political, than by theological or religious considerations. And the same remark holds true with still less qualification in regard to the Huguenot wars in France, and the war between the Netherlanders and Philip of Spain. And if we extend our view across the British Channel, and study the course of events in England, under Henry the Eighth, who does not see that, so far as human agency was concerned, we appear to owe it mainly to the brutal lusts of that monarch, and the rapacity of his courtiers, that the Anglican church, like the Gallican, does not recognise to this hour the supremacy of the pope. I do not mean to imply, that there were not individuals on both sides, who entered fully and sincerely into the merits of the question considered as a radical schism in the church, and who would have had every thing turn on the religious aspects of the struggle. But this spirit can hardly be said to have predominated in either party; much less among the powerful chiefs, many of whom, though they found themselves, they hardly knew how, fighting under hostile banners bearing religious names, fought nevertheless for personal or family aggrandizement, for party ends, for victory, for the spoils, or for life.

One circumstance, however, characterizing the early struggles between the Catholics and the Protestsnts, deserves par

ticular notice in this place. They were desperate struggles. With each party it was often a question of life or death. And hence perhaps the best justification of the early panics, and the only palliation of the early atrocities, to which the controversy led; as in the case of the St. Bartholomew massacre, and the persecutions of Queen Mary, on the Catholic side, and the barbarous and sanguinary proceedings under Elizabeth, on the Protestant side. It was a matter of politics even then; but it was also, or at least it was deemed a matter of political necessity at any rate, it was matter of honest and well grounded apprehensions on the part of the leading agitators, as well as of the rest. This is more than can be said generally of the conduct of either party in later times. Take, for example, on one side, the conduct of Louis the Fourteenth in revoking the edict of Nantes in 1685, under no pressure of immediate danger; and, on the other, the conduct of the English Protestants, as far back as the times of Charles the First, in charging upon the Catholics, with a view to inflame the public mind, pretended and absurd plots, one of which was to issue in the blowing up of the river Thames. Who does not now perceive, that these were political manœuvres, based, for the most part, on fabrications or exaggerations got up and industriously propagated to answer the party purposes of the day by acting on the ignorance and prejudices of the people; and this, too, through the agency or connivance of men who knew better, and who could not, like their fathers, avail themselves, to any considerable extent, even of the tyrant's plea of political necessity.

History teaches few lessons more instructive or more impressive than that which is to be gathered from the conduct of the English nation, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, under the Anti-Catholic panic excited by what are now universally understood to be the perjuries of the infamous Oates and his associates, instigated, as many suppose, or at least abetted, by Shaftesbury and other disappointed politicians, who sought to turn the whole movement to their own account. I cannot dwell on the number or the character of the victims in this dreadful scene of mingled delusion and wickedness. Suffice it to say, in the words of Mr. Fox; "Prosecutors, whether attorneys-general and solicitors-general, or managers of impeachment, acted with the fury, which, in such circumstances, might be expected. Juries partook naturally of the

national ferment; and judges, whose duty it was to guard them against such impressions, were scandalously active in confirming them in their prejudices and inflaming their_passions." North, in his Examen, is still more explicit: "Lord Chief Justice Scroggs took in with the tide, and ranted for the plot, hewing down popery as Scanderbeg hewed down the Turks. The attorney-general used to say in the trials for murder, 'If the man be a papist, then he is guilty, because it is the interest of papists to murder us all.'" And, I may add, the king, who is supposed to have disbelieved the whole of the pretended plot from the beginning, and whose personal predilections for the Catholic religion are now so well understood, never once dared to interpose his glorious prerogative of mercy. Sir Walter Scott, in commenting on this disgraceful incident in English history, observes, that from the time of the execution of Lord Stafford, who was among the last that were sacrificed, "the popish plot, like a serpent which has wasted its poison, though its wreathes entangled many, and its terrors held their sway over more, did little effectual mischief." Even he allows, however, that, "when long lifeless and extinguished, the chimera, far in the suceeeding reigns, continued, like the dragon slain by the Red-Cross knight, to be the object of popular fear, and the theme of credulous terrorists.

'Some feared and fled; some feared and well it fained.
One that would wiser seem than all the rest,

Warned him not touch for yet, perhaps, remained
Some ling'ring life within his hollow breast,

Or in his womb might lurk some hidden nest
Of many dragonettes, his fruitful seed;

Another said, that in his eyes did rest

Yet sparkling fire, and bade thereof take heed;
Another said, he saw him move his eyes indeed.'"*

One word more in this connexion. The part, which the English dissenters played in the Anti-Catholic mania at this time, is full of warning to the smaller and weaker Protestant denominations of all times. To such a degree did they allow their dread and jealousy of a popish succession to be

* See Butler's Historical Memoirs of English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics. Vol. III. pp. 61, 113.

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