The Sun.
London, England, 1818-01-23 00:00:00

rOR THE SUN.

Ara EDIToR,4.—It has always been a gratification
to me to peruse your Constitutional Paper, arid
more particularly so when I. see you boldly avow"-
ing those sentiments of undaunted attachment to
the excellent principles of our Country's Religious
Establishment, the Protestant Faith, which do you
honour, as a true British Subject; and in which
every Briton must participate, if he rightly fear
his God, honour his King, love his Country, and
would see her still a land of honourable freedom,
and of glorious independence.
I am led to hope that tie authentic statements
in ta►e valuable communications of your Corres-
pontlents,LANPANNC, WICK LIFFE,TERRE"FiLIUS,
and others, may have the effect of convincing very
considerable numbers of the impious and untenable
assumptions of Popery, and of the palpable errors,
the fallacy, superstition, intolerant spirit of per-
secution, and bigoted cruelty, which mark the
principles and the tenets held by the Roman Ca-
tholic Church ; and the consequent ineligibility
of her members to fill any, at least high, political
stations in a Protestant State.

One should suppose it obvious to all who reflect
a moment on the subject, that any mortal who
should assume attributes applicable to the Deity
only, must be guilty of the most arrogant impiety
and presumption—yet many of these arc claimed
and allowed of the Pope ; tOr instance, it is an
assumption of Divine Power to claim, as of him-
self, to forgive sins, remit offences, and do other
innumerable acts which are compatible with the
power of Omnipotence alone to compass; but even
this not "'without money and without price," but
by means of the grossest: species of bribery
and corruption. Hs whose birth was an-
nounced to - mankiad with the salutation of
peace and good will to men, has said, " how
hardly shall a rich man enter into the king-
dom of Heaven ;" not because his riches, taken
distinctively, render him ineligible, but because
their tendency, is to warp the human heart from
its only true dependance upon its Maker, to lead
it to the self-sufficient exclamation, " I am rich,
and increased with goods, and have need of no-
thing," and to trust to the ever vanishing pleasures
which wealth may procure in this world. We be-.
lieve, concordantly to those sacred writings
which the Romish Church prohibits to be pro-
mulgated by distribution among her members,
that " we cannot be redeemed with corruptible
things, as airier and gold, but with the precious
blood of Christ, as or a lamb without blemish
and without spot." In this instance, then, how
totally opposite to the pure faith of the Protes-
tant is the corrupt practice of the Romish Church.
According to the latter, it would, on the other
baud be, '' how easily shall a rich mail enter into
the kingdom of Heaven " by the purchase of re-
mittances, dispensations, and the like, from the
mortal, but infallible Pope I.
What can be a more untenable assumption than
the infallibility claimed by the Head of the Church
of Rome ? It would be occupying, needlessly,
space in your valuable columns to produce the
Often-adduced instances of it. Again, what doc-
trine can he more untenable and more evidently
absurd than that man's inherent righteousness is
the • meritorious cause of his justification, and
that good works, "ad vitani, eternam conse-.
quendam verepromereri," instead of that " whole-
some doctrine" so " full of comfort " to
the. true Christian, that "we are accounted
righteous by God, only for the merits of our
Lord and Saviour, Jesns. Christ, by Faith."

.The intolerant and persecuting spirit of the
Romanists has been manifested in every age ; we
need only turn to the pages of authenticated His-
tory, and we see deeds recorded of superstitious
barbarity from which the soul recoils with horror
even at the recital.

I hare heard it advanced by some of my fellow
-Protestant subjects (on whose solid intelligence
respecting these matters no very material reliance
Might be placed), that the Catholics of the pre-
sent day differ front those of former ages ; that
they do not cute' tain the same bigoted enmity
towards the Protesrant world as heretofore ; that
the barbarity and superstition of those darker
;Ages. have given place to• dispositions and in-
clinations more temperate, pacific, benignant,
that they are more mild and enlightened, and not
of the relentless principles towards us as hereto-
fore ! What ! the members of the Catholic
Church in anywise altered !—The true mem-
bers of the infallible Church less tenacious of
their doctrines or more amicably inclined towards
heretics (such Protestants are avowed .to he) than
formerly !---impossible ; or they must relinquish
their title to the infallibility of their Church.—
No ! their principles and sentiments always were,
they are, trey always will, remain the same.—
Has it not within a very short period been, so
avowed ? Is this not their pride ? Undoubtedly,

and it is essential to their faith to hold all Pro-
testants to be Heretics,—and they are bound by
the tenets of that faith, to the best of their power,
to exterminate all Heretics, and destroy all He-
retical Establishments.." Let all secular powers,
whatsoever be the nature and, rank of their re-
spective offices, be admUnished, persuaded, and if
necessary compelled, by Ecclesiastical censures,
that, as they desire to be reputed and esteemed
faithful, they publicly take an oath, that they
will, to the utmost of their power, endeavour to
exterminate all such as shall be denounced Here-
tics by the Church," Ste. is an extract front the
3d chap. of the Fourth Council of Lateran, most
apposite to the foregoing assertion. More-
over, their Bishops, at their consecration,
take an oath, " Heretics, Schismatics, and
Rebels to our Holy Father and his Successors,
I shall resist and persecute to my power,".&c.
(Burnet's Hist. of the Reformation, vol. I.
p. 123). It is needless in this place to point out
particular instances from amongst the innumerable
that must be remembered by all who have even
slightly perused the records of fornier times. The
'object they seek in these persecutions, and their
nature, Tillotson points out, when he in his first
Sermon, vol. 3. shews the doctrines of Popery to
" be the extirpation of heretics, the lawfulness of
deposing Eings, and subverting Government by
all the cruel and wicked ways that can be thought
of."—" Let us beware (says be) of that church
which countenanceth this unchristian sprit,"—
which teacheth " that all who differ from theta
in matters of faith are to be extirpated by fire
and sword, which was decreed in the 3J and 4th
Lateran Council, where all are strictly charged to
endeavour this to the utmost of their power."—
So also Bishop Sherlock, in his sth Pastoral Let-
ter on the danger and mischiefs of Popery,
(printed for Owen, Warwick-lane, 1751) tens
us, that " the House of Peers represented to the
Queen (Anne) that it was obsoletely necessary
for the safety of her Aajesty's royal person
and Government, that a more watchful eye should
be had over the Romish Priests arid Papists," &c.
(p., 6.) " Because the Church of England has
purged herself from these idolatries of supersti-
tions, we are become Heretics in the account of
the Church of Rome ; as such, the sentence of
excommunication is yearly denounced against us
by the Pope, and our destruction is declared to be
a meritorious work." (p. 11.) He then proceeds
in proof of this, and afterwards observes, " we
are all abundantly convinced, that whatever
strength they have, will, upon a fair opportunity,
be employed against us," &c.
It would seem necessary but to call to mind
the bloody rebellion in our sister country, in the
year 1798, in full confirmation of the Bishop's
previous assertion—the enormous barbarities,
the bloody and tormenting massacres there com-
mitted, must he yet fresh in the recollection of
many. Well might Newton, Bishop of Bristol,
say, " the heathen Emperor of Rome may have
slain his thousands of innocent Christians, but
the Christian Bishop of Rome bath slain his ten
thousands. There is scarce any country that
bath not at one time or other been made the stage
of these bloody tragedies ; scarce any age that
bath not .at one place or other seen them acted."

Now what can create so incessant a desire in
the breasts of the Roman Catholics to be admit-
ted to fill offices in our State I Surely, a Catholic
cannot in his heart hold in esteem honours con-
ferred upon him by an heretical Government—they
cannot be congenial to his feelings ; one should
suppose him too proud to accept them. But
though lucrative motives alone might be sufficient
to silence such feelings, it cannot for a moment be
supposed that a Catholic is ambitious to be ap-
pointed to stations of trust or importance in a
Protestant Dominion, forn the sake of promoting its
welfare and prosperity-4 his alone is sufficient to
cause a suspicion that some secret design lurks
beneath the specious, but equivocal assurances
of good faith we have of late received from
the members of the Rotnish Church in these King-
doms.—" n'est-ce pas enfin une trainee de poudre,
a laquelle on pent mettre un jour le feu ?" It is not
scrupled to avow that they consider the Protes-
tatz•t Establishment as an usurpation. Dr. Troy,
the Rornish Archbishop of Ireland, has avowed it
in the following words :—" Henty the Vlllth of
England was the first Christian Prince that assumed
Ecclesiastical Supremacy, and commanded an en-
slaved Parliament to enact it as a Law of the State.
The Catholics consider it as an usurpation."

It is clear also that the admission of Papists to
share in our Protestant Government cannot con-
duce to the general welfare of the Catholics in the
British dominions : the lower classes would in no
degree be benefited, but influence and power
would only accumulate on those who are not in
need of it for any good purpose, and whoie num-
bers would bear but a very small proportion to
the bulk of the Catholic body Let us here pause

a moment, and consider then what may be the
secret spring of this ambition, and what may,"
its ultimate end should it, unhappily for our freei
and glorious country, succeed in the attainment
of its primary object. The sound Lawyer, Sir
Wm. Blackstone, speaking of that master-Pie,.cga
. of Papal policy, the
_endeavour to grasp at tu"
lands and inheritance of the kingdom, by the in,:
troduction of " the Monks of the Benedictin;
and other rules, men of sour and austere religion'
is
says, that they attempted " fascinating the
of the people by pretences to extraordinary son%
tity, while all their aim was to aggrandize did
power, and extend the influence' of their gre"
superior, the Pope." Again, the same writers
in his 4th volume—" Every encouragement °f
the Papal power is a diminution of the authoritY
'of the Crown." " And it (sayi the before-411°);
tinned Bishop Newton) we should connive e`
the growth of Popery, and suffer, their numberg
,
to increase, &c. who can be our security that till
like bloody tragedies (alluding to those scenes °E
bigoted persecution and cruelty about the middle
of the seventeenth century) may not, and will nee
be acted again ?" That power, therefore, 131
ever been considered dangerous to be trwtel
in the hands of the Papists—and that power it
they are aspiring to, is evident ; And it is 110
an unwarrantable or an uncharitable presull3P.
tion (with the • pages of history, filled as did'
are with the recital of former conseqtieeces:
of their possessing it, before our eyes) td)
d'
in the attainment of this first object, they tr
vance one very important step towards a 6e‘...
sign, no less than the_ subvetsion of our Coo_-'
stitutional Establishment. They must seek it"-,
tj
it is an imperative duty to which they are urged
(as before remarked) by the tenets of their Isitiosia
On what they rest their hopes of success I go
ignorant, nor how they expect to surmount 111'
should seem to be (so long as faithfully preserve`
inviolate) an effectual bar to their claiins-."
Coronation Oath, which contains all express CO;
tract between the Prince and the People, by id
former to maintain and preserve the Prote6"l4
Religion, as established at die Reformation ;
consctjunitly he is bound, by necessary
lion, " to resist all concessions and privileges
1
any class of his subjects, which would impair °(
4
weaken that Establisisment ; though perhaps
would not he at first attended, or immeditto
lg
followed, by its total subversion,
It should be here remarked, that for many
ej
the roierences to the passages I have above rivaite,
irlysef of, I ant iodehted to an ingenious and 5%c
cacic publication, which I sincerely wish was
the present period in circulation—it might .gre3tif
,'
assist in refreshing in the minds of all
crs to our Country the remembrance of the °be
surd, inimical, .and erroneous (doctrines Of
Church of Rome, and the utter impossibility,c
their admission to places of trust or power 1.1"-4
our Government, consistently with its .safety. 14'
publication alluded to, is entitled " The C4°;
oizatiOn of Thomas W—, Esq." %Ow has latel.,"
erected at East L--, Dorset, a notiastere
&c. The stanzas by Sternhold and Hopkl°l'
and the notes by Addison, Archbishop
son, Hume, Rennell, &c.
are
It is true, that the circumstances which g
rise to these Stanzas were local; and oceolle,
more than 17 years ago, but the monastry
drilled in existence till within a few iontAls'ihe
myself visited:aVery part of it, as well
magnificent castle, 'within whose Contains
stands, it was then possessed by the same fani7
ll
as heretofore, The latter has a splendid cbsPe
and boasts of numerous holy relics carefully
ranged and preserved on either side the altar'
7 Monks, I have heard, departed for France
the course of the last year.

ALBERT.