The Sun.
London, England, 1850-11-22 00:00:00

THE POPISH AGGRESSION.
COMMON COUNCIL.

A special general court of Common Council was held
yesterday in the Council Chamber, Guildhall, for the
purpose of addressing her Majesty en the subject of the
recent Popish aggre,•sion. The Right Hon. the Lord
Mayor presided.
Mr. JOHN WOOD in a lengthened address proposed a
resolution to the following effect:—" That an humble,
dutiful, and loyal address he presented to her Majesty
on the subject of the recent proceedings of the Bishop
of Rome, and expressive of the continued loyal attach-
ment of the Corporation of the city of London to her
person, authority, and Government."
Mr. BLAKE seconded the motion.

Mr. CARR, a Roman Catholic member of the Court,
took exception to some parts of the address, and defended
the policy of the Pope, though he was not, he said, pre-
pared to justify, nor did he think his Holiness desired,
to exercise any political power in this country.
Mr. Alderman LAWRANCE would not deny to any
man the right of worshipping his Maker after the
fashion which his conscience dictated, but this move
on the part of Rome would not increase but retard
that liberty, and he was therefore opposed to it. He de-
nounced in no measured terms the Puseyite proceedings
of Oxford, and pronounced an opinion that the Bishop
of London and the Bishop of Exeter were as much to
blame for this Romish aggression as Dr. Wiseman. He
protested against the creation and recognition of Roman
Catholic bishops, because such a step would be
productive of great political evil. A bishop
without a territory or church might seem an
anomaly, but only let the Pope succeed in getting his
bishop introduced into this land, and those requisites for
sustaining his power and dignity would soon be ob-
tained. The noblemen, with ignoble minds, who had
become proselytes, and had gone over to Rome, were
blamable to the highest degree, and while he did not
object to the creation of Romish bishops inlreland,which
was purely a Catholic country, he must be understood
as entertaining an uncompromising opposition to their
appearing in England.
Mr. STACEY hoped the address would be passed by
a unanimous vote.
Mr. DARIN was inclined to think that the Pope had
been urged on by a " vaulting ambition that o'erleaps it-
self and falls on the other side," and when he learnt the
storm of indignation which this aggressive policy had
raised in Englansi, he would see the expediency of re-
tracing his steps, if he acted the part of a wiseman.
Mr. TAYLOR pointed to Sardinia as affording an illus-
tration of the tyranny and war-to-the-knife spirit which
always actuated the policy of the Romish Church. Only
let Romanism gain the ascendancy in this country, and
there would be an end of civil and religious liberty.
Mr. Eaniorr thought that a limit ought to be put upon
the toleration extended to Papistic principles. The tole-
ration which the Roman Catholics enjoyed should be
confined within its present limits, for whenever and
wherever Roman Catholicism had succeeded in establish-
ing
_bishoprics there immorality and misery abounded.
Mr. JONES agreed with those who bad preceded him
that much of the aggression which the Pope wished to
be guilty of was attributable to the proceedings of a
small portion of the Established Church, but the dissen-
sions which existed in the Church should form the
subject of discussion on another day. They had enough
to do nova in. confining themselves to the threatened in-
vasion from Rome, and in opposing that movement and
supportingthise address, he begged to state that his
motive fur doing so was a strong belief that the Roman
Catholic Church was incapable of toleration.
Mr. BENNOCH deprecated the idea of treat-
ing the Archbishop of Westminster with contempt,
for his manifesto displayed a masterly pen and
consummate ability, and his influence was to be
dreaded rather than despised. For his part, he rejoiced
that this movement had taken place, since it would
serve the purpose of establishing Protestantism upon a
firmer basis than it already enjoyed. He was a Pro-
testant Dissenter, and belonged to a country which had
spent 2WOOO of its best lives in supporting episcopacy.
He was, therefore, diametrically opposed to the prin-
ciples of Roman Catholicism; but though he was
strongly inclined to denounce the aggression of
the Pope, he could not conceal from hicisslf
the fact that it had in a great measure been encouraged
by the abuses which existed in the Established Church,
and one of its Universities. In raisints their voices
against the impudent proceedings of the Pope, let them
also protest against the dissension which existed in the
Church, and insist upon the abuses to which he had
referred being at once rooted out.
Mr. LOCK said the true source of the evil was Catho-
lic emancipation, and the only remedy for the grievance
was the withdrawal of the concessions which had been
made to the Catholics. _

Mr. D. W. WIRE trusted the Court would not sym-
pathise with the feelings of the last speaker. Why
should they return to the days of persecution because
the Pope of Rome had been guilty of an attempted
aggression? But while he protested against that
step he was equally averse to the spread
of Romish influence in this country. Civil and
religious liberty he would never forsake, but this move-
ment of Rome would destroy that freedom, and it was
his duty to resist it. Dr. Wiseman had contrasted this
creation of bishops by his Church with the parcelling
the country out into districts by the Wesleyans, but the
analogy there attempted to be drawn could not be sus-
tained, for while the Wesleyans recognised no fo-
reign power in matters spiritual or temporal, Ro-
man Catholics, who were sincere in their pro-
fession, were forced to owe a divided allegiance.
The tendency of Roman Catholicism was to debase the
mind and enslave the soul, and Heaven forbid that it
should ever again obtain the ascendant in this country.
Still he did not blame Dr. Wiseman, the Pope, or the
Government, for this aggression, but the unfaithful sons
of the Church of England, and though some of them had
disavowed their former principles, he was strongly in•
dined to think that it was not for the sake of Pro-
testantism, but was rather to be traced to a fear that
their loaves and fishes were in danger.
Mr. CARR, as a Roman Catholic, disclaimed owning
any allegiance to the Pope either spiritual or temporal.
,Mr. Alderman SIDNEY spoke a few words on behalf
of the simplicity of Protestantism_and; in favour of the
address.

The resolution was then put and carried with only one
dissentient, after which a committee was appointed to
draw up the address, and the court adjourned.

PAPAL SUPREMACY.
TO THE EDITOR OF TEE SUN.

SlR,—While the advocates of Papal supremacy over
the Christian Church in every part of the globe rest
their claim upon a sapposed greet of spiritual supremacy
made by our Redeemer to St. Peter, as related by St.
Matthew in the 18th and 19th verses of his 16th chapter,
it becomes us, as Protestants, who deny that spiritual
supremacy, to examine into the grounds upon which
that claim is supp,sed to rest, and the extent to which
the power conferred by our Saviour was designed, or was
understood at the time, to go.
It cannot fail to be remarked as singular that, among
the four Evangelists who have recorded the events of
our Saviour's ministry, Matthew alone has deemed this
address to St. Peter worthy of being preserved for the
information of posterity, although the circumstance
which gave birth to it has been carefully chronicled by
three out of the four—viz., Matthew, cb. xvi., v. 13, 14,
15, 16, 17; Mark, ch. viii., v. 27, 28, 29, and Luke,
ch. ix., v. 18, 19, 20; but, of these three, Matthew alone
records that portion which refers personally to St. Peter.
Contrasted with this omission on the part of the two last,
is the remarkable fidelity with which they have reeorded
in nearly the same terms the rebuke given by our Saviour
to St. Peter, but a few verses farther on, namely, in the
23d of the same chapter of Matthew, and the 33d of
Mark; Luke and John alone omitting it.
Hence it is clear that little importance was attached to
the circumstance by those who were present; that they
regarded the power so conferred as purely personal; and
that it gave no spiritual supremacy over his colleagues
to the individual upon whom it was bestowed. Although,
even admitting that evidence of such supremacy could
be found in the New Testament, it remains to be proved
that the grant of supremacy was extended, beyond St.
Peter, to those who might be able to prove themselves
by an unbroken chain of historic evidence the legitimate
and apostolic successors of St. Peter's piety and power.
Now, where is the historic evidence to be found of
Pater having at any time been Bishop of Rome, and as
4ueli assuming any authority, approaching in the least to
that claimed by the Pepes, over the Christian churches
of his day? Not certainly in the Acts of Apostles,
where we find St. Peter playing comparatively but a
secondary part; Paul and Barnabas. not Peter, being by
far the most prominent actors in all the transactions of
the period. Indeed, I are not aware that we possess any
trustworthy evidence of Peter having ever visited Rome,
although, as he was a great traveller among the Gentiles,
it is far from improbable that he might have done so.
An occasional visit to Rome, however, and the circum-
stance of his preaching the Gospel there, even could it
be satisfactorily proved, did not confer upon him the
Bishopric of that See, which we might more naturally
conceive to have belonged to St. Paul, who not only
visited, but resided and preached in Rome for two whole
pars.
But that the words pronounced by our Saviour, as re-
corded by St. Matthew, whom I quote in the orignal Greek,
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From which it would appear that our Saviour's
ex-
pression, " Kai T CCLITII Ty^ pa otKoBo,u-rimo
/1.00 7111/ 6<kkriffiav,"
applies not to theindividual,
but to the faith which prompted the reply by that indivi-
dual, to the question put by Christ in the 15th
,vGrse,
where he says, " Tt'va [Lc 'YE.I-e
P. ter promptly and unhesitatingly answered,
Xrto-rs L U 1703 TOZ OECYZ TOZ (7)OVTOS '--" Thou art
Christ, the son of the living God."—This is the
rock upon which he declare"d he would build his
Church, so that the gates of Hell should not prevail
against it, and by means of which Peter should possess,
so long as /e retained it, the keys of Heaven, and the
power to bind and louse.
The power must have been granted both conditionally
and individually—conditionally, that he should retain the
faith implied in his reply; for it is absurd to suppose
that the Almighty would suffer him to retain it in the
event of his falling off from that faith—and individually,
since it cannot be supposed that it was intended to &-
scent( to sucA>sscrs of every shade of belief, among whom
our Saviour himself forewarned his disciples that apos-
facies and heresies would arise. Indeed it must require
even more than the sophistry of the Vatican, the craft
o( a Loyola, or the casuistry of Westminster Hall, to per-
suade any, but those of the weakest and most credulous
understanding, that the mighty and superhuman power