The Sun.
London, England, 1846-05-16 00:00:00

Commissioners to prepare a Bill to be laid on the table of Par-
liament. He (the Lord Chancellor) thought that the Right
Rev. Prelate entirely misapprehended the principle of that
Commission, as far as regarded the preparation of a Bill for
the consideration of her Majesty's Ministers.—(Hear, bear.)
The Commissioners prepared a report which was laid upon
their Lordships' table by their direction, and upon that report
the present Bill had been drawn up and submitted to their
Lordships. Her Majesty's Ministers had exercised their judg-
ment and consideration upon it, and they had thought it right
to adopt it ;n extenso, and to lay ft on the table of their Lord-
ships' House. He (the Lord Chancellor) was responsible for
the advice he had given on this subject—he did unhappily say
that as far as related to the particular clauses of this Bill it
was a wise measure, and he thought that it would be sanc-
tioned and adopted by Parliament. That was the course he
had thought proper to pursue with respect to this Bill. But
then his Right Rev. Friend said there was something behind,
and that he had wrapped himself in dignified obscurity. His
Right Rev. Friend had said he had been about to take away
some other of the defences of the British Constitution. Now
he (the Lord Chancellor) had over and over again said that until
this Bill passed he would never touch the subjeet of oaths
(Hear, hear.) He had not wrapped himself in any obscurity
on that subject—t Hear, hear, and laughter)—he had
thought it far better, in the first instance, if pos-
sible, that their Lordships should consider this Bill
upon its merits, in order that it might be passed by the Le-
gislature ; and he could not consider how any alteration in
the Bill e ith regard to the oaths would at all affect the pass-
ing of this measure, or render it the less advisable that it
should pass their Lordships' House. Bnt what would their
Lordships think of the charge of obscurity made by the Right
Hon. Prelate, when he (the Lord Chancellor himself) had
told him, he believed. no longer back than the last time
they assembled there, that he had no intention to propose any
alteration with regard to oaths? He had told him that he
did not intend to alter the oath of supremacy, nor the oath of
allegiance ; and the only point on which any doubt would re-
main would be the orh of abjuration. That oath would be
perfectly harris'ess, because of itself it would be altogether
superfluous. Was there any obscurity in that ? ( Hear.)
Could anything be more distinct than the statement which he
had made to the Right Rev. Prelate on that subject? And
now having proceeded thus far, he must say that no person
more admired the eloquent and feeling manner in which his
Right Rev. Friend always addressed himself upon subjects of
this nature. He agreed mainly in the opinion which the
Right Rev. Prelate maintained in respect to Popish usurpa-
tion, and the insolent authority which the Pope had exer-
cised towards other countries.—( Hear. ) He had so expressed
himself in very strong terms upon a former night—so strongly
indeed as to call down upon himself the indignation of a Noble
Lord that sat on the opposition side of the House. He thought
that he had not expressed himself in stronger terms than the
occasion warranted, when he subscribed entirely to the opinion
laid down by his Right Rev. Friend. He could not hope or
expect to rival his eloquence, otherwise, had he thought of
doing so, he would have followed in the same train of observa-
tion used by the Right Rev, Prelate. But he considered that
that eloquence had been entirely misapplied considering the
question before the House.—(Hear, hear.) He (the Lord
Chancellor) had acceded to the second reading of this Bill,
which proposed to repeal thirty Acts or parts of Acts ; and
when he took the liberty of proposing the Bill to their Lord-
ships, he stated cases of such a. nature that it was impossible
for any man of common understanding, and common feeling,
for a moment to entertain the wish that those Bills, or at least
the greater part of them, should not be repealed. It was un-
necessary for him to call their Lord-hips' attention again to
those cases, but he would take the liberty of again mentionirg
two. If any person professing the Roman Catholic religion in
Ireland, maintained the spiritual or the ecclesiastical authority
of the Pope, he was liable to the forfeiture of his property,
and for the third offence was considered guilty of high treason.
Why, their Lordships had already altered the oath for the pur-
pose of giving the Roman Catholics relief on that head. The
Right Rev. Prelate had manifested great ignorance on this
subject, for despite his arguments the Irish Act was still in
force. This Bill on their Lordships table repealed the Irish
Act of Parliament, and it also repealed the refuse of the Eng-
lish laws.—(Hear, hear.) He would only give their Lord
ships one instance to show how necessary it was, that after
they had consented to the second reading of this Bill they
should go into Committee, notwithstanding the opposition
made by the eloquent and Right Rev. Prelate. If any person
in Ireland maintained that the head of the see of Rome bad
any jurisdiction in this country he was, by the Irish Act, sub-
jected to the pains of a preemunire—as he before said, to im-
prisonment for life, forfeiture of his property, and
put out of the protection of the law.— (Hear. hear.)
He gave those as two samples of the thirty Acts which this
Bill sought to repeal. Having consented to the second reading
of this Bill, whatever opinions their Lordships might hold as
to the clauses 'with respect to supremacy, or the clauses with
respect to the jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome, whatever their
opinions might be, and although they might agree in every
ward spoken by the Right Rev. Prelate, was it possible to en-
force the laws at present on the statute-book ?—(Hear, hear.)
And he did not see what need there was for so much eloquence
on the part of the Right Rev. Prelate for the purpose of show-
ing the power of the Pope, or the innocent assumption of au-
thority on the part of the Pope, for the purpose of inducing
their Lordships 6 forget the question before them—that nar-
row, contracted, and limited question to which he had called
their attention. Ile thought he had said enough to induce
their Lordship;—unanintously, he believed—( Hear, bear)—for
perhaps the Right Rev. Prelate himself would become a con-
vert—( Hear, hear, and laughter)—to consent to this Bill going
into Committee.—( Cheers.)
The Bishop of ST. DAVID'S was anxious to take this op-
portunity of expressing his opinion to their Lordship., because
he did not believe that this measure had been met on the part
of the Right Reverend Prelates in their Lordships' House in
the manner that he as one of them could have desired. —( Hear,
hear.) He must say that he believed an impression had gone
forth to the country that this measure, taken as a whole, had
drawn forth indications of repugnance, aversion, distrust, and
alarm—that nothing, at all events, in the shape of sympathy
for the measure had been manifested. It was a measure of
sue. a nature, that he thought it ought to be received, more
particularly on the part of their Lordships' House, in a very
different manner. He thought that it was one which ought to
have drawn forth expressions of satisfaction—( Hear, hear),—
and mutual congratulatior.s—( Hear, hear)—and thank--
fulness to the Government who had proposed it.—
( Hear, hear.) And his reason for saying so
was because, although this measure professed to be for the re-
lief of persons labouring under certain penalties in consequence
of the religious opinions he held, it was not more a measure of
relief to thm than to the Church of England—( Hear, hear)
—not of relief from unjust and vexatious disabilities, but from
their having proposed those penalties, to their black discredit
and shame. He did in his heart believe that if the Right Rev.
Prelate, who was sitting at the table (the Bishop of Exeter)
had himself come forward to propose such a measure as this,
he (the Bishop of St. David's) was perfectly satisfied that he
would have acted in a manner not at all inconsistent with his
station as a Prelate of the English Church.—( Hear, hear. )
This, he said, looking at the enactments which this measure
was intended to repeal ; and although such express approba-
tion as he would have wished had not been called forth by the
proposal of this measure, yet he believed that no one
would venture to say that the repeal of those enactments
was not in some decree desirable. Now he (the Bishop of
St. David's) was quite willing to admit that there was a
very great differerence between the general miss of those
enactments which were proposed to be repealed by this Bill,
and those two particular enactments in reference to which
the Right Rev. Prelate had proposed a question to the Judges.
The difference he took to be this ; as to the great mass of
those enactments, he was prepared to say that they were
positively unjust and iniquitous in their own nature—( Hear,
hear) —and that they never ought to have been a part of the
law of the land—(Hear, hear)—that there never cc old have
been any circumstances that could justify such enactments_
( Hear, hear)—that they were cruel and wanton violations of
the blierty of the subject and the rights of conscience.—( Hear,
hear.) He did not say that there might not have been un-
happy circumstances in the times in which those enactments
were passed that might have afforded some legitimate grounds
of excuse; but he contended that they ought never to have
been tolerated in any days, however disturbed they might have
been ; but with regard to those two particular enactments that
had been referred to, he contended that they stood
on a very different ground. He admitted that there might
have been reasons to justify severe measures against
the introduction of Papal bulls. He believed that if the
Government of that day, when this Act was passed, felt that
such measures were necessary for its security and safety, it
had a right to pass such measures—(Hear, hear)—and he was
prepared to make a much larger concession, and to say that
there w mild be nothing inconsistent with the principles of the
constitution, if the Government of this day thought proper to
exercise a similar control over the importation of those Papal
bulls, they might pass a similar measure against them.—( Hear,
hear.) But when he had made that concession he had gone
as far as he could ; he could not sympathise or agree in the
slightest measure with the views that had been taken by his
Right Rev. Friend at the table (the Bishop of Exeter) on
this important subject.- He (the Bishop of Exeter) looked
at those penal clauses as the bulwarks of the constitution. He
(the Bishop of St. David's) looked upon them in no such
light. He very much questioned whether, at the time that
they were enacted, they were as necessary, as useful, and as
expedient as his Right Rev. Friend supposed them to have
been. He believed that if they had never been enacted, we
should still at this hour have been enjoying all our liberties ex-
actly to the same extent as we did at the present moment ; but
however that might be, those circumstances had passed away,
and the necessity for those enactments existed no longer—
(Hear, hear)—and he said so on these ground,. Might
he be permitted to ask of what effect or force a Papal bull
was in this country ?—( Hear, hear.) It was merely a piece
of lead attached to the document on which it was written ;
and of what import was it to them whether the lead was at-
tached to the document by a silken or a hempen string? Or,
to drop all those idle suppositions, what difference did it make
to their Lordships, or to the people of this country, as to what
even the mind or the intention of the Pope was, who published
those documents. 'Now, then, he was coming to a point on
whilh he supposed he had the misfortune of disagreeing with
his Right Rev. Friend, for he (the Bishop of Exeter) seemed
to think and indeed it had been assumed in argument, not only
by him, but by many others, and it was a very prevalent idea,
that we were to estimate the injury to be sustained from these
thatath
thereor
couldNo w
ohteb(et
ah (the Bishop
more
h
Papal bulls by the opiziens that the Pope entertained of his own
power
rnadneddassertionD avi )
than that—( Hear, hear)—and it appeared *o him that all the
examples which the hight Rev. Prelate had brought forward
unfoundedop of St
in support of his position to induce their Lurdehips to believe
that the Pope possessed as much power as he did in some of
the darkest ages of ecclesiastical history—it appeared to him
that all those examples had most lamentably fallen short of
the mark. He had been surprised by some of the references
which the Right Rev. Prelate had made as to some transac-
tions of modern history, with a view to prove his proposition.
He believed that he had referred to such cases more than
once. He recollected one, and he believed that that reference
was to some transactions that took place at the commencement
of the reign of Napoleon, and the authority which Pope Pius
VII. exercised to change the whole constitution of the Gallican
Church, and to transfer the allegiance of the French people
from the legitimate dynasty. He was quite astonished that
such a fact as that should
be recalled to their Lordships'
memory for any such purpose, for he declared to their L rd
ships, that if there was any moiern historical fact to prove strictly than another the low state of degradation to
which
the re
Papal power had fallen in modern times—(Hear, hear)he
should refer to those particular times. Why, was there any-
thing in history more palpable or more notorious than theex-
treme reluctance, the terror, he might say the horror, with
which that poor old man, of whom he would speak with the
greatest veneration, Pope Pius VII , consented to the impe-
rious demands of Napoleon, to go to France to perform the
ceremony desired ?—or was there any Roman Catholic who did
conceive that the authority of the Pope had never been
more degraded than when he was forced to quit his own capital
and go to Paris, to attend at that ceremony, and place the crown
upon the modern Charlemagne? And with regard to the in-
stance that the Right Rev. Prelate had adduced that night, as to
the allocation of the Pope with reference to Spanish affairs. He
(the Bishop of• St. David's) should like to know what effect
that allocation had produced upon Spain ; or, to take another
the effect of the most
that could be stated to show . ex-
traordinaryinstance .
• of the Papal authority. He wished to
assertions
know in what case those assertions had produced any effect in
they had turned
they had related, or where
the country to which
lie would ask their Lord-
p
s:de the purposes of the people.
VW from the point for the
shis _
on if he should digress a e
purpose or ae_hax in what the force or efficacy of these Papal
bulls consisted • <<did not consist in the parchment, or lead,
or oak) or hemp, nor u-i-;t, in his opinion, at all oasis t iu the