The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-05-11 00:00:00

from he. work to which. we refer.

We cannot do 1),-.4 ter

than lay the whole of these I:.assages before our readers.
fur the purpose of showing thy consummate duplicity of
the Popish leaders. The following are the extracts, as
contained in Mr. Macdonnell's letter : •
Sir.—As the Earl of Shrevnbury hasappointed next Tuesday
for the consideration of the Roman Catholic.oath, 1 beg leave
to invite his Lordship's recurreuce to the sentiments embodied
in his book published in the year 1828, entitled Reasons fur not
taking the Test. I shall confine my reference to his "prelimi-

nary observations," and furnish the extracts unaccompanied by
a single line of note or comment thereupon. The noble author
observes as follows:—" The Protestant is-now the established
church. Let her rest satisfied with this advantage. It gives her
all the splendour and power and influence of worldly state, with
the largest ecclesiastical revenues in Christendom to support
them; thus insuring her as complete an ascendancy over every
other religion as can with justice be desired."—(Page 47.)
. . . " Clemency and moderation will attach a large and
zealous body to her interests. We should support her, not as a
church possessing purity of doctrine, but as a teacher of good
morals, and as a member of the great edifice of the constitu-
tion." (Page 49.) . . . . " I trust to show, that far from
there being any reasonable ground of danger to the establish
ment from reinstating the catholics in their civil rights, it would
be equally our interest and our inclination to uphold the honours
and temporalities of the church of England."—( Page 86.) . .
" It is equally improbable that we should unite with the dis-
senters fur the purpose of despoiling the establishment." . . .
" The Bishop of Peterborough cannot surely be serious, that as
tong as the establishment retains her temporalities with the influ-
ence necessarily attached to them, together with the Universi„
ties, and her paramount political privileges, that she can ever
fall from that immense ascendancy which she now enjoys over
every other religion -of the state."—(Page 86 and 87.) . .
" Wilat.object can Catholics have in uniting with the Dissenters
to despoil the establishment ?—(Page 87.) " When the passions
are calmed, and the interests of every class are amalgamated i
by equal laws and equal rights, the present lamentable dis-
cord will cease, religious harmony will be restored throughout
the land, and Christians of every denomination will be linked
together by the bonds of charity and goodwill alone." . . -
" rite Chuicli of England might then enjoy her revenue and her
privileges in peace and comfort, without the hatred or envy of her
neighbours." . . " The Dissenters have invariably departed in-
finitely further from the
-parent church than the members of the
establishment. What, therefore,. should we gain by uniting
with them to despoil that establishment ? They, united, being
infinitely the stronger party, would, in case of success, take
every thing fin. themselves. I speak not of Ireland; any spolia-
tion of the Established Church there must proceed either from
a convulsion in the country or front 'the power qf the Protestant
landholders." . . . " The redress of the most grievous clerical
exactions, and a moderate competency from the Government to
the Catholic clergy, operating with the late amendments in the
tithing system, and equal laws and equal rights, would so far
mystify the people as to remove every idea from their minds of
despoiling the establishment."—(Page 88, 89.) . . . " The great
security of the Protestant establishment would consist in the
alliance which it should be her inclination to form with her Ca-
tholic brethreu."—(Page 90) " Is it not, therefore, na-
tural that we should support the establishment, should we see it in-
vaded by Calvinists and Levellers :c"'
—(Page 91.) . . . " Ca-
tholics most assuredly have nothing to anticipate from the
downfall of the church." . . .." Apt established church has
ever formed a part of the.constitution of the country. She is
the promoter of learning, the preserver of the splendid memo-
rials of the piety of our ancestors; she is now become the en-
courager of the arts." . . . " The property of the church in the
hands of laymen, or in possession of sectaries, neither would
nor could be half so advantageous to the country as it is now.
I have already said why we have no wish to see it in our own.
The sacrifice of the church establishment is, therefore, a sacrifice
which we neither desire as Christians nor as melt of the state."
—(Pages 91, 92, 93.) . . . " While in all I deliver only
the sentiments of au individual, at the same time I believe that
I speak those of the body to which I bslong ; at any rate, I am
sure that what I have said I have said in the sincerity of my
heart."

Can any thing be plainer or more explicit than the
preceding language ? But will our readers credit us
when we say that, at the very time that this language
was held forth to induce the Protestants to concede the
measure of Catholic emancipation, the Earl of Shrews-
bury and his associates must have been aware that the
Pope had actually disapproved of the oath proposed as a
test fur the admission of Papists into both houses of Par-
liament? Can it be believed that the Pope had virtually
exonerated the Catholics from the obligation ache oath ?
Such was the fact, however difficult of belief.
Flom the year 1815 to the year 1829, when the Eman-
cipation Bill passed, the oath to IN Ilia we refer was again
and again put forward as having been sanctioned by the
Pope. -BUt so far from having sanctioned the obliga-
tions of that. oath, we find that in the forms proposed by
.the Pope there was not one word said respecting the in-
violability of the Established Church. The Bishop of
Exeter, in reference to this part of the subject, remarked--
" As the noble earl had evinced such anxiety that everything
should be brought forward, be was astonished that the noble earl
had not called the attention of the house to an important docu-
ment, which had been approved of by the Pope, and had been
sent by his full authority as containing the sentiments of the
Pope, respecting. the, oath which he would permit the Roman
Catholics to take. The noble earl had not been informed by
those individuals who had supplied him with information on
other points respecting a letter of Cardinal Litta, which con-
toinedan intimation to Dr. Poynter of the opinion of the Pope.
The following letter, it was to be observed, had been addressed
by Cardinal Litta to Dr. Poynter, the Bishop Apostolic of the
London district;—

Genoa, April 26, 1815.

Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord :—Your lordship
has lately informed me of your speedy. return to England,
earnestly entreating me, at the same time, to pot you in posses-
sion of has Refineries ideas respecting the conditions to obtain
from the government the wished for bill of emancipation. His
.Holiness has.been pleased to communicate to me his sentiments
with regard to the only terms which' after ,rejecting all those
that have hitherto been proposed, his dear:Catholic children of
Great Britian may admit with a safe conscience, should the bill
of their emancipation, as has long been expected, have passed.
The subjects which cometo be taken into consideration, namely,
those which the said government, for the tranquillity and secu-
rity of themselves and the state, so far as the Catholic subjects
concerned, appear anxious to settle on a firm footing, are, first,
the oath of allegiance. In the event of emancipation; so as to
be favourable to the Catholics in general, his Holiness will per-
mit them to adopt for their oath any of the three forms follow-
ing, &c.

" Iu no one of the three was there a single word respecting
the Protestant Establishment, or Protestant succession to the
throne. One of the forms has the following:—" I will defend
the succession of the crown in the family of his Majesty."
With this letter there were given three forms of oaths of allegi-
ance which the Roman Catholics were permitted to adopt.
There was not one of the three forms, which the Ro-
man Catholics were permitted to take as a security to
the Church and. State of England, in which there was
one single word of the Protestant Establishment, or of
the Protestant succession to the throne. Throughout
these forms there was a studied abstinence from even al-
luding to the Protestant, succession to the throne. No
security whatever was offered for preserving the tempo-
-ralities of the Church, nor would the Roman Catholics
be permitted to enter into any such obligation. •
Is it not, therefore, plain:that the whole procedUre of
the Popish faction was a delibetate and an enormous
fraud upon the Protestants of England ? It is of no use
to plead in reply that the oath actually taken by the Po-
pish members of the legislattire imposes such an obliga-
tion upon their consciences as that whiCh is implied in
the very terms of the oath. Fnr what is said in refe-
rence to such oaths ? The Rotuish casuists declare that
an unlawful oath neverbinds--art oath taken against the
righta,or real utility of the Church. Such an oath, ac-
cording to the Pope, must be an unlawful oath, and can-
not bind. 'This is certainly an awful doctrine; but it is
one which is distinctly maintained by the•Popish Church.
Witness the language of Dr. WHale, as quoted by the
Bishop of Exeter :

" who wiloprofessor 4 dogmatical theology
was asked as to the power of the Church dispensing with
oaths :

Dr; WEI ale, p. 283, being asked respecting a proposition in
Rattly, Exisset iu Ecclesia poteutas dispeusandi in Votis et
'.lurarnentis'—a proposition proved, first, from Matt. xviii.,
Whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall also be loosed in
heaven,' admits this in the sense in which it is laid down by the
author, but he says there are limits to this power. When I
say that the Church has the power of dispenaing from oaths I
understand that the Church is then the interpreter in some urea-
sure of the Divine will.' If there was an oath or a vow which
was iMpossible in its performance, or which would clash with
other duties of a more imperative naive, as they may be some-
times conflicting duties, then the Church is only expressing the
will df the 4ltnighty himself in releasing a person Irian the in-
convenient obligation of an oath or vow, which would trench
upon a .superior obligation. In casuistry the shades „between
right and wrong may be sometimes so very indistinct as not to
Ire seen' by an ordinary eye; then the Church, being the inter-
preter of the Divine law, mily.deeides What seems best in the
partkular case. The Churchas the judge of what is expedient
or not in a doubtful case, and like every other tribunal way be
deceived in any particular case.
We find it laid down in p. 145 of that Class Book Bailly, 2d
vol. or, • Moral Theology,') that the follor.ving are jilt causes of
dispensation, viz. : First, the honour of God; second, the utility
of the Church ; third, the common gOOO of the republic; fourth,
the common good of the society. Who is to. be judge of chat the
Utility of the Church may require ?--The superiors of the Churcli.'
—Moral Theology, 140.
;11 ortlyrto explain more fully,our doctrine of 4ipensation o