The Sun.
London, England, 1823-09-09 00:00:00

beral leveller* of Churches and Tithes are so fond of exhibit-
ing, as the testimonies of their illumination. When we hear
one of the Pasquins of faction railing at Protestanism, and
upbraiding its members, with a disregard to every thing
like principle, and a regard for nothing but " the loaves and
fishes of office," our disdain is inexpressible at such offscour.
ings of Ignorance and stupidity. The Protestant Church
flourishes only in the broad effulgent lights of truth, reason, and
freedom—an illiterate Clergy is incompatible with a Church
founded upon the eternal truths of Scripture, which can never
be protected against the pollutions of human fraud, but by a
body of learned theologians and polemical scholars—the unre-
mitting sentinels, the heroical militants, to assert truth, and
maintain the gospel purity. Humble the Church by specious
spoliations—pension off her Clergy upon gratuated stipends—
let the candidates for her ministry bung with them the calcu-
lations of interest which lure men into other departments under
the State—and much time will not elapse before clouds and ob-
actuations will begin to gather over the face of truth, and igno-
rance anti servility to creep into those pulpits, where, for three
hundred years, learning and reason have maintained a free and
noble and rightful possession. If the Protestant Religion is
to be sacrificed in Ireland, Mr. Cobbett's advice is whole.
some and suited to the design. Destroy the Church is the
grand remedy ; the first step to this is, to degrade it—to
render its duties below the rank of a Gentleman, of a man of
education and independent mind—and then the work of change
will proceed rapidly. Soon there will cease to be a body of
men in its service capable of tracing the sacred historians and
poets through the Egyptain, Arabian, Syriac, Chaldean, Sama-
ritan, Persian, Greek, and Roman antiquity—of analysing
their languages, examining their manners, investigating their
dispositions, the prevalent modes of thinking of their contem-
poraries—capable of travelling upon safe ground through the
regions of antiquity, and shedding a clear and steady light up-
on the most important records of the human race. The Libe-
ralist will sneer, and ask, when do the Protestant Clergy
employ themselves in those illustrious avocations ? The
work has been done already—and thousands of names,
though unknown to the little flashy freethinker of the day,
are immortalized by their works in this way; but there is in
the body of the Clergy, always, a sacred band of faithful and
able scholars, ready to turn out upon the slightest approach of
an enemy, anti to preserve those truths unshadowed, which their
faithful and vigorous and heroic predecessors have victoriously
redeemed from darkness, by letting in upon them the celestial
light of the Gospel—" that all may see and believe." There
are men now in the service of our Holy Church, who are
proper guardians for the conservation of those treasures,
which the English, German, and Dutch philologists of the Re-
formation have rescued from the neglected libraries of the old
Monasteries of the East as well as of the West—have drawn, by
indefatigable labour, from the mouldy records over which the
indolent and unlearned and unconscious Monk dosed out his
formal ritual life. Every Protestant knows—and all Protestant
institutions, which have at heart their vital characteristic prin.
eiple, act more or less upon the knowledge—that the natural
foe of his creed 'is, ignorance—its most ordinary champions,
learning and knowledge of the most enlarged kind ; it is for
this reason that the English Universities have members of their
body specifically employed to traverse and investigate Asia,
Palestine, the vicinity of Thebes, and Ethiopa—that several
Protestant Societies have members continually engaged in
searching for documents in all quarters, which might be of
accessorial evidence to truth. The whole plan and method of
the study of Protestant theology differs from Roman' Catholic
theology—there is scarcely any thing common as to their
systems but the name; but this is enough to mislead many.—
The Protestant theology depends, as its foundations, upon a
system of inquiry anti examination, and the freedom of the
human understanding; the knowledge of sacred antiquity is
necessary to it, also of Church history—and its simplified and
pure doctrine is supported by philosophy in its inquiry into
the laws of nature, morality, and the relation of man to his
Creator. History, classical literature, and philosophy, are
necessary, however light they may be valued by Mr. Cobbett,
to the Protestant theologian. The Roman Catholic theology
rests on the authority of the decisions of the Church, and
these being inflexible, the student is prohibited the free use of
his reason. It still retains the jargon of the schools, and
the clouds of the tenth century even yet impart to it a share
of their darkness. It Is learned with some mental slavery
—and, when learned, the best thing which the Student can
do is, to endeavour to forget it. In this comparison be-
tween the two systems of theology, perhaps, our readers
may be able to discover some of the advantages of the
Reforthation, though imperceptible to Mr. Cobbett—who is
enamoured of the Monks which he only sees in history, and
sometimes in tales and poems—and who, happily for him, are
no longer the historians of the times—since the Reformation—
nor the compilers of the fables, maledictions, and superstitions,
which constitute so large a share of the annals of England,
while history issued from the Convents.
• 'rids subject is one of inestimable importance at the present
day—it has been, providentially, let us hope, forced upon the
public mind. We found it circulating in its publicity, and in.
Our'sense-of duty, we could riot let it pass. iVo have no in- ,
terested motive on earth in what we only suggest, as belonging
to the subject. We can gain no favour—and it is more than
probable that we must incur some enmity. The Clergy have
a deep share of interest in this question, which has been started
by Mr. Cobbett—but the Laity, in our minds, have one to the
full as great.