The aspect of the Church is scarcely less alarming. The “Oxford Tracts” are said to represent the sentiments of a considerable number of our devout clergy and laity. Of these very remarkable productions, enforcing the practices of a superstitious devotion, and denouncing, with a papistical jealousy of free enquiry, every manly exercise of the human mind, when religion is the subject of investigation, it is sufficient to say that they have been read with grief and astonishment by many of the most sound divines of the Anglican Church, and hailed by papists with a sneer of triumph. For the principles of the Protestant faith, they are by far
“Too ceremonious and traditional.”
And, if the spirit of servile superstition which some of these tracts breathe,—if the gloomy intolerance they sanction,—can be shown to harmonize with the doctrines and usages of our Church, dissent needs no better vindication. Happily these noxious principles are the growth of another soil; but they who embrace them are not far from the worst dogmas of Popery. They are already in the vestibule—a few more steps will carry them to the altar of that desecrated temple. It has been suggested, and the suggestion is not at variance with Christian courtesy and candour, that these Tracts have originated in a Jesuitical conspiracy to pollute the stream of orthodox truth at the fountain head. Looking only at the internal evidence, the suspicion is fully justified. At any rate, they prepare the way in a manner most satisfactory to the Papists, for a close alliance with the apostate church, whose spirit and whose errors they so nearly resemble. They are indefensible as the productions of Protestant divines.
Perhaps you will pronounce this opinion arrogant and harsh, considering who are the writers. But in a case such as the present the public have a right to judge the work itself, independently of the writers, of whose individual characters few readers can be supposed to know any thing. I judge as one of the public,—I look at the “Tracts” apart from their authors, and my conviction is, that no personal worth, no amiable qualities, no piety, no erudition can vindicate the estimable authors of these “Tracts” from having done, with whatever purity of intention, great injury to the Protestant cause. Here is Popery, indirectly at least, promoted by the professors of a university, whose name has hitherto been regarded as the symbol of pure orthodoxy. The times are fearful when the whisper goes forth, even among the most devoted friends of the church—“Popery at Oxford!” From another section of churchmen, scarcely less danger is to be apprehended: they are smoothing the way for popish ascendancy. I mean those whose ultra-liberalism embraces every interest but that of their own communion—whose latitudinarian candour regards with complacency every erroneous form of doctrine or worship, as if, all that we tolerate we were bound in duty to approve,—who look with special favour on every deviation from the sound orthodoxy of the church,—who hail every irregularity as a commendable exercise of freedom,—and who reserve their censures and their frowns for those who conscientiously adhere to “the good old way.” By this anomalous order of churchmen—the growth of modern days—all the assailants of the sacred cause are held in honour for their presumed freedom from prejudice,—all its defenders are condemned as mercenaries or bigots. Of this description of persons, it may be presumed, many are prepared to sit down, quite at ease, under the mild sovereignty of the papacy. Their special predilection for that persecuted race of patriots and Christians, who are agitating for an Italian despot and the Holy Inquisition, is only preparatory to their own sworn allegiance to Rome, the moment that haughty power obtains dominion and can command submission. They are waiting for the flood-tide. To say the least, the men whose liberalism can rejoice in Popery, can have no motives for becoming martyrs to Protestant truth and liberty.
And now let us look at THE COUNTRY AT LARGE. Judging from the tone of our popular literature, and from the spirit of the public press, which can only subsist by responding to the sentiments of the day, I cannot but think that infidelity and profligacy abound to an alarming extent among the reading classes. The Protestant church, it is plain, can have no hold on the disciples of Voltaire, of Hume, of Gibbon, of Paine, of Byron. She will never compromise her pure morality. In the bosom of the Mother of Harlots they may revel with impunity: confession, and absolution, and extreme unction, will reconcile them to her ascendancy. Among the paradoxes of the human mind, none is more common than the junction of profane scepticism with credulous superstition,—the impious reviler of the Bible making his last peace with heaven by taking his viaticum from a popish priest. Popery is the religion for all men who would indulge the hope of heaven, after doing their utmost to convert the present world into a hell of impiety and crime. Already they are in political alliance with the man of sin.
But there are others of less discreditable character than these, from whom the Protestant cause derives no aid in this day of trial. I mean that large class of easy, worthy, unsuspecting persons who have imbibed unguardedly the sentiments of modern liberalism, without its malignity, and in ignorance of its designs. They see Popery only in the mild and subdued form which it puts on while restrained by the usages and the laws of a Protestant community. They find nothing in their popish neighbours but what is humane and social, and, perhaps, intelligent, honourable, and devout; and, reasoning from what they see and hear themselves, they give credit to the idle tale that Popery is REGENERATED,—that the lion is become a lamb, and the serpent a dove,—and that, under the future reign of the Papacy, no longer perfidious, intolerant, sanguinary, no materials will be supplied for another “Book of Martyrs”—let it therefore take its unmolested course!
Add to these, many persons of aristocratic rank and fortune, whose principles are wavering, and who, on supposition that the Church of England must fall a prey to the motley gang of modern revolutionists, are prepared rather to side with Popery, which is essentially aristocratical and monarchical, than with Protestant dissent, which is plebeian, levelling and democratical. They know that the pretended liberalism of Popery means nothing more than that “she stoops to conquer;” and they will prefer her custody of their titles and estates, to that of a national convention of chartists or roundheads.
And now, my dear Sir, if this is not a mistaken view of things, we are led to an appalling conclusion. If the popish faction, ever vigilant while others sleep, should succeed, by a coup d’état, in grasping the power of the Executive government, they have so stealthily and successfully prepared for the event, that a large mass of the professedly Protestant community would hail their accession to power; other important bodies would be so far neutralized as to offer no resistance; while the portion of our church and nation who remain “faithful among the faithless” will have to maintain a conflict for truth and righteousness, under circumstances of fearful inequality. I need not suggest what the power of the state can do, when wielded by men of unscrupulous principles, and devoted to their cause with the zeal of a morbid superstition.
I do not say that this catastrophe is inevitable; but it is not impossible. The mine is prepared although it may not be sprung: but if the match should be applied, the explosion will be far more tremendous, and the desolation more complete, than even the “Gunpowder Treason” would have caused, if Providence had not detected that most foul conspiracy. The authors of that crime would have fallen, at once, victims to popular indignation; but the conspirators of the present day will have secured themselves from instant destruction by previously tampering with the public mind, and corrupting its principles. They have already carried Popish objects by Protestant agents; and when the real combat is at length to be fought, pro aris et focis, the dupes of their insidious policy will find themselves unarmed or in confusion on the field of battle.
We may smile at popish miracles—the chapel at Loretto—the blood of St. Januarius—the healing art of the Abbé Paris—and all the low trumpery by which the pretended vicar of Jesus Christ stoops to deceive and destroy: but here is a master-stroke of policy, all but really miraculous, displaying not less of satanic skill than malice, and at sight of which the stoutest of British hearts may for a moment quail. The events of these times will supply our posterity with the most humiliating page in the history of their country—Great Britain, invincible in arms, disorganized and convulsed by the infernal arts of the Jesuits!