The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-15 00:00:00

evils on this &abject which it were sought to be suppressed
by legislation, but what was the result? The Catholics
were found to be a dangerous political party, but by legis-
lation it was found they were made more dangerous, and le-
gislation against them was abandoned. Had anything occur-
red since then to induce a retrograde policy? Though it
might be true that the character of the Remisli Church was
inflexib'e—that its principles in the abstract were immut-
able—though it might be true if it gained political ascen-
dancy, another Marian persecution might follow—he did not
say it would, but would assume it—he could not be blind to
the fact that the relation between that Church and the po-
litical powers of Europe had been altered, and that they must
now look to the matter as statesmen, divested as much
as possible of the prejudices of the past. Let them look at
the actual state of things and say whether they had not to
deal with the Roman Catholic Church more as a religious
than as apolitical opponent.—( Hear, hear.) Its religion was
embraced by 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 of our fellow-subjects,
who could not be induced to abandon it. The nation of a
divided allegiance was exploded. The same arguments
were now used which Blackstone, in his Commentaries,
referred to, when he stated that the mark of high treason
was set on Popish priests on a civil and not on a religious
account, " f.:r every Popish priest of course renounces his
allegiance to his temporal sovereign on taking orders, that
being inconsistent with his new engagement of canonical
obedience to the Pope. And the same may be said of an
obstinate defence of his authority here in a formal reconcilia-
tion to the See of Rome, which -he statute construed to be
a withdrawing from one's natural allegiance." They had,
however, decided that their legislation should not be based
on such a principle. Roman Catholics denied a divided alle-
giance, for they said they gave the Pope nothing which the
Crown claimed.—(Hear,' hear.) Having given them political
rights, was it consistent to invade that prior and more
sacred right—religious freedom ?—(Hear, bear.) Then he
would ask the question, whether there was any ground in
the argument, that that which had been done was a matter
fit for legislation, as a violation of the public law of Europe.
—(Hear, hear.) The Right Hon. Baronet the Secretary of
State for the Home Department considered that if anything
was demonstrable it was that, namely, that a violation of the
public law of Europe had taken place. Now he would ask,
what was that which was called the public law of Europe?
A total misconception existed upon that point. What was
called the public law of Europe, was in fact a generalisation
of the usages, practices, and customs of the different coun-
tries in Europe; and if they looked into those they would
find that nearly the whole of them were taken from coun-
tries in which the Roman Catholic religion was the established
religion of the State.—("Hear" from the Irish Members.)"The
case of an established religion was entirely different from
one which was purely on a voluntary principle. There
were the cases of Prussia and the etherlands, where the
establishment was on a small scale, and where certain ar-
rangements under a concordat were carried out. Under the
• system here prevailing :he re-ognition of the prelates-of the
Church was granted, and even the clergy paid, so :hat it was
not at all extraordinary that a condition should be attached

•o these privileges that no new institutions should be intro-
duced without the concurrence of the Crown.— ( Hear, hear.)
In Lenmark they did not tolerate the Roman Catholic reli-
gi nat all. And with respect to Russ a, that was not a
happy country to draw a parallel from, for it was there pu-
nishable by banishment and confiscation of golds for a man
to go from one religion to another.—( Hear, hear.) Ws
were not likely t'. learn much in the way of religious tolera-
tion from Russia.—(Hear, hear.) It was quite a fallacy to
suppose that this country should deal with these bish ps and
sees in a manner different from that in which they dealt with
other ecclesiastical questions.—(Hear, hear ) With respect
to the spee hof the Noble Lord in introducing that mea •
aura, he thoueht it must have struck everybody that, able
as that speech undeniably was, the last part of the speech
was an answer to the beginning.—t Hear, hear.) The
Noble Lord had refereed to what was done in various other
countries, and also to what happened here in the time of
William the Conqueror and Edward I. But di 1 the Noble
Lord adopt the policy of either of those two princes ? No
such thing. ( Hear.) Did head-,pt the policy of the foreign
stat a referred to? He d=d not. Some of these regulations
ware to the effect that every newspaper issued for the regu-
lation of the Roman Catholic Church should have the s•al
of the sovereign, or some official attached to it in order to
give it orce and effect of the kingdom. Did the Noble Lord
propose to do anything of that "ort? He did not; for the
untry would 'auction no such plan, the Protestant
fee ing of the nation would vote against such ' measure
Then what had the Nob e Lori been 4oivg on that oecasio
There w a no mid le course for thein. They should take
upon them' elves the responsibility of giving those privileges
and advantages to the Roman Catholics, and allow them
to make their own arrangements for their own eccies astical
matters or prept..st against the voluntary system and the
priocivle of religious liberty; and, instead of facilitating their
,anagemeot, prohibit their practice altogether.—(Hear.)
Su-h a course as the 1 tter would not certainly be in accoed•
ance with the principle of civil and religioui liberty. - (Hear.)
In =elgium he was informed thy could mat,* as many
bishops as th y pleased.—(Hear.) The only iimit was that
the peo 1, would say, under certain circumstances, " If you
mak , more bishops than we want we won't kee? them."
~elgium, then, was an exc ption. Then there were our
Anglo. Saxon brethren on the other side of the Atlantic;
did they interfere, he would ask, with the appointment of
bishops ? They did no such thing; they permitted such ap
pointments to be made whenever deeo•ed necessary. Even
in the free states of South America, where after the revolu-
tion the concordat with Rome had been broken, the Pope
had since made many ecclesiastical appointments, which
had never been questioned.— (Hear.) The next argument
to which he would refer was the assertion that this act of
the Pope's was an insult to the Qleen's supremacy, and an
invasion of territorial power —that it was, in fact, an as
gumption of political power, and not a mere ecclesiastical
arrangement. Now, he confessed he was not an advocate
for the manner in which the act complained of had been done;
it seemed to him to have been arrogant and presumptuous.
--(Hear, hear.) But be did not think that would be a
good reason for their legislating upon the subject.—(Hear.)
If her Majesty was really insulted, there was not one
amongst them that would think that scarcely anything which
_ .

could be done would be sufficient to vindicate such an out-
rage.—(Hear.) Never in the history of this country was
there one wh filled the throne of these realms with more
dignity, or whose virtues in private life. were more estimable
and worthy of imitation than our present gracious Sovereign.
- ( Hear, hear.) If he could view that act as an insult to the
Queen, there was no extent of legislation to which he would
not be prepared to go- (Hear) although, perhaps, that
would not quite justify him. But he thought it was the best
course to pursue in public as well as in private life - namely,,
not to resent as an insult that which we were not sure was
intended as such.—(Hear, hear.) For his part he did not
believe that any insult was malt in the present instance.
He thought that, whether justifiable or not, that act was not
done as an insult.—(Hear, hear.) Neither did he think it
was a territorial invasion. He could not feel that it w s
fur any other object Ulm to organise a diocesan episcopancy,
for the ecclesiastical regulation and management of certain
localities. These were net words of political meaning. That
was a language which existed in the Church many centuries
ago, before anybody had ever heard of politics at all.
(Hear, hear.) W hen one heard of the Bishops of Smyrna
and of Antioch, one did not think that they chimed any ter-
ritorial authority in these places.— (Hear, heir.) What was
proposed to be done by that Bill? To take away that
diocesan episcopacy, and leeislate, in fact, against a name
more than anything else. The Hon. and Learned Member
here referred to the circumstances of officers of the Viceregal
Court in Irel end forgetting the clauses of the Emancipation
Act, and calling the Roman Catholic bishops in the lists of
the Castle by their ecclesiastical titles. But by what they
proposed in the present Bill, if a free Episcopal Church
was to be formed in England to-morrow, it w,,uld
be prohibited as well as a Roman Catholic one. (Hear.)
With respect to the operation of the measure in Scotland,
he considered it would be equally mischievous as to eccle-
siastical titles. He could not Think, therefore, that this was
an assumption of territorial dignity, or a usurpation of the
temporal p Aver of the Croe n.—; Heir.) He thought when
the absurdity of the distinction between bese new bishops
and the vicars aoostolic came t be known, it woul f cause a
good deal of wonder. It was said, indeed, by some that the
establishment of the vicars apostolic was an excellent arrange-
ment; and that nobody had objected to them. The fact
was, they were nearly identical. Yet the Hon. Baronet, the
Member for Marylebone, would not tolerate one when he
would the other. It was well known that no arraugem nt of
the Roman Catholic Church in this country was made with
the consent of the Crown. The vicars apostolic had been
thus appointed : In the time of Gregory XV. a certain per-
son, named William Bishop of Chalcedon. had been made a
vicar apostolic in this country. The Hon. and Learned
Member referred to the bull by which this appointment had
been made, and which was as follows: —" Qui auctoritate et
jurisdiction" Yicarii episcopi generalis fulciatur, quoque per-
s nes otnnes, tam ecclesiasticas quer" laicas, intra Ang iam
degen'es, secundum canones et ecclesiaticas consuetudines
regal et gubernet." In the time of enedict XII., in 1688,
another appointment of a like kind bad been made, and it
had been done in the same way as the present mat er had
been done. In his recent letter the Pontiff had d'clared that
England had already been divided into four districts; each
of which h d had a vicar apostolic at its head; and
that this had so lasted till the time of Gregory XV I. These
districts were the London, the Western, the Midland, and
the Northern. In the time ofJames 11., and some time be ore
his abdication, the bishops of the Church of England had
made an appeal to him on the subject of these four vicars
apostolic It was as follows :—" If you would please, by
your It yal proclamation, to inhibit the four Romish bishops
who style themselves vicars anostolical. and by a forei n
authority, not derived from your Crown, ride circuit in the
land, and have presumed to tantonise this your kingdom
into four provinces, and to divide it among themselves
(having printed m ins of it accordingly), exercising therein
a jurisdiction, of which the respective bishops have been
long poesest,
and which by the laws of England belong un-
questionably to them." What was the ditierence, he would
ask, between those and the lately appointed persons? No
difference whatsoever, except that some were called vicars
apostolic, and the others were called bishops; in one case
the local ty over which they presided was called a district—
in
the other a diocese.—(Hear, hear.) There was no
difference except in name. The thing was for some time
now in operation, and he thought sufficiently long to show
them that it was after all but an ecclesiastical arrangement;
and while it remained so the Hon. Member for Marylebone
thought it the best arrangement in the world.— (Hear,
hear. and laughter.) The Noble Lord at the heal of
the Government had referred to the manner in which political
matters had been introduced into the discussions of the
synod which had been held in Ireland. vo sooner had they
assembled than they had begun to meddle with politics.
Now, it should be remembered that the principle of civil as
well as of religious liberty belonged to an ecclesiastic as well
as to any other individual—(Hear)—and one could not pre-
vent, if freedom was permitted to a voluntary Church, the
pastor of that Church from deliberating on and taking notice
of those public questions which touched the boundaries of re-
ligion on the one hand, and concerned the State on the other.
--(Hear, bear.) Whatever they did they had no right in a
free country to prevent any class of men from meeting and
expressing an opinion upon what concerned them.— ( Hear,
hear.) The Hun. Baronet the Member for Oxford (Sir R.
li, Inglis) had designated the Irish Colleges as " Godless."
Now, if his opinion was true the other parties bad a right to
express a similar opinion upon the same subject, and if not
true they had as good a right to change it and be mistaken
as the lion. Baronet.—( Hear, hear.) With respect to the
landlord principle he found the synod giving exhortations to
the people to obey the laws under all circumstances, and not
to be led astray by. evil instigators, no matter what
might be. In this free country no
party their
couldsufferings
be
blamed for addressing his poorer fellow-
subjects in the language of advice, and if some sympathy for
their condition should be manifested it could not be consi-
dered strange or unnatural. The State was so much in-
debtsd to that religion, which had for one of its maxims,
" Fear God, honour the King," that they should give some
latitude to those who taught that religion, even if it was
liable sometimes to degenerate into excess.—( Hear.) lie
bad no fears for the Church of England from the efforts of
Rome ; on the contrary, the openness of these efforts made
them less dangerous. All that the Pope had done was to
change four vicars apostolic into eight bishops, and he did
not see what effect that could have against the Crown or the
Parliament of this kingdom. There might be circurnstence.s
under which they might be calla upon 0 legislate, but he
did not think the present was one of them.—(Hear, hear. )
Tits prsent Zll was not effective; it did not touch the evil
it wag intended to meet.-(Hear, hear.) How it could be