Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851

by Various

But the organs of Popery abroad have not submitted to circumstances so demurely, and they let out the Popish objects with all the easy insolence of the foreigner. Thus Count le Maistre, in a work translated and published in London, says, "What shall we say of Protestantism, and of those who defend it, when it will no longer exist? Let them rather aid us in making it disappear. In order to re-establish a religion and a morality in Europe, in order to give to truth the strength which it requires for the conquest it meditates, it is an indispensable preliminary to efface from the European dictionary that fatal word, Protestantism." L'Univers, the journal of Popery in France, has no hesitation in pronouncing the Protestant faith in England to be totally undone, and that Popery is only taking its time to make the operation complete.

The Popish organ here has been equally plain-spoken, and pronounced, in the most dashing style, the triumph of Rome, and the return of all Protestants under its yoke, on pain of damnation! Who but must be indignant at this language! But who can henceforth be deceived?

Mr Warren, in reverting to the character and pretensions of the Papacy, lays it down as a fundamental proposition, that "the Pope's avowed spiritual power is pregnant with disavowed political power." He, tells us further, "that we have to tolerate a rival, who condescends to equality only as an advance to ascendency." He then gives the memorable Florentine canon of 1439, which the Romish lawyers regard as containing "the true doctrine of their church," and for the consequences deducible from which all Papists are answerable. These are its words:—

"Moreover, we define that the Holy Apostolic See, and the Roman Pontiff, have a primacy over the whole world!—and that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of St Peter, the chief of the apostles, and true Vicar of Christ!—and that he is 'head of the whole church,' and the father and teacher of all Christians!—and to him, in St Peter, was delegated by our Lord Jesus Christ full power to feed, rule, and govern the universal church, as also is contained in the Acts of General Councils, and in the holy canons!" In this daring proclamation of power, we have the assumption of an authority obviously incompatible with the peace of any nation under heaven, and equally incompatible with the common liberties of mankind—for there can be no liberty where the arbitrary will of a stranger is the fountain of the law, and most especially contradictory to that Scripture which declares that Christ's kingdom is not a kingdom after the fashion of this world. When the question was contemptuously put by Pilate to our Lord himself, "Art thou a king?" the answer was, that he was not a king in the sense of the Roman; that, if he were such, "his servants would fight"—in other words, that he would have the troops and attendance of an earthly king, that he would have resisted and made war. "But now is my kingdom not of this world."

But what is the Papacy, with its princes and pageantries, its armies and intrigues, its cabinets and alliances? In what does all this complicated and systematic mixture in the affairs of the world differ from the kingdoms of this world? except perhaps in its deeper intrigue, in its more perpetual artifice, in its more insatiable craving for power, and in its more habitual gratification of every daring and dangerous passion of man.

And it has felt the consequences. Of all the kingdoms of this world, since the fall of Rome, the Popedom has been the most marked by calamity. There has been no nation whose sovereign has been so often flung from his throne; whose throne has been so often contested with bloody dissension, whose sovereign has been so often a prisoner in foreign lands, whose capital has been so often sacked, whose provinces have been so often in foreign possession, whose population is so miserable, and whose vassalage has been so palpable, so humiliating, and so wretched.

But need we look to the past, when we see the Papacy at this hour? Need we dig up ancient fields of battle, to see how often its armies have been buried; or dive into its dungeons, to see how many centuries of fetters are recorded there against its presumption? Need we break up its tombs to see its shattered crosiers and tarnished tiaras, when we see the living figure that sits in mock majesty in the Vatican, with a French garrison in the Castle of St Angelo?

But the Papist demands religious liberty. The words, in Papist lips, are jargon. He has never had it in any country on earth. Has he it in Rome? Can the man have the absurdity to call himself a freeman, when the priest may tear the Bible out of his hand; when, without a license, he cannot look into the Book of Life?—when, with or without a license, he cannot exercise his own understanding upon its sacred truths, but must refuse even to think, except as the priest commands?—when, for daring to have an opinion on the most essential of all things—his own salvation—he is branded as a heretic; and when, for uttering that opinion, he is cast into the dungeon?—when the priest, with the Index Expurgatorius in his hand, may walk into his house, and strip it of every book displeasing to the caprices, insolence, and ignorance of a coterie of monks in the Vatican?

If the legitimate and noble boast of the Englishman is, that his house is his castle, what is the house of the Italian Papist, but his dungeon? If the Irish or the English Papist demands "Religious Liberty," let him demand it of his master the Pope. If the Papist desires it, let him break the Popish fetter, and emancipate himself. Till then, we must look upon his claim as lawlessness instead of liberty, and hypocrisy instead of religion.

But, before the Papist requires more than toleration, must he not show that at least he tolerates? If, in the Popish kingdoms of the Continent, fear or policy has produced some degree of Protestant toleration, what is the condition of Protestantism in the capital of Popery; and, in its most important point, freedom of worship? To this day, no English Protestant is suffered to worship within the walls of Rome.