Flies raving back into his living grave, And there for ever dwells, a savage and a slave O Goddess! Mistress! Cybele! dread name! Drive others mad not me : Drive others into impulse wild and fierce insanity! 时 Facit impetum: illa demens fugit in nemora fera: Ibi semper omne vitæ spatium famula fuit. Dea, magna dea, Cybelle, Dindymi dea, domina, Procul a mea tuus sit furor omnis, hera, domo: Alios age incitatos, alios age rabidos. ART. XX.-On the Catholic Claims: STRONG and powerful as are the bands which rally round longestablished corruptions, as members of a free and well-informed community we enjoy sometimes the pleasure of witnessing their final overthrow. To contemplate the slow but effectual progress of some great truth in practical politics to general admission, is at once gratifying and curious. The abolition of the disgraceful slave trade may be termed the most recent instance of this species of dignified and rational triumph.-Parliamentary Reform, and the regulation of our Money System, seem about to press on the general attention, and the important cause of Catholic Emancipation has advanced to a stage from which to retrograde is impossible. Predominant but most pernicious interests oppose the genial current of improvement in all these points: it becomes therefore the duty of those who are seriously and conscientiously convinced of the necessity of attending to them with honesty and ardour, to disseminate their convictions. Influenced by this consideration, the following remarks on the Catholic Church and Controversy are with diffidence submitted for publication in the REFLECTOR. Whatever opinion may be formed of their strength and pertinency, there is a pleasure in being satisfied, that the cause of civil and religious liberty cannot be materially injured by the occasional deficiency of its advocates. There 1 There is much reason to think that the study of politics as a science would be materially assisted by an able dissertation on those cri tical periods in society, when a dissolution of ancient relations requires a considerable modification of that opinion and practice, the correctness and utility of which, in their past operation, have been decidedly manifest. A nice perception of the approach of this inevitable reaction in human affairs is a leading endowment in a statesman, and a disposition to prepare for and break the force of the recoil, the soundest he can evince. Few display the se cond who possess the first; and the reason is evident. There are deep-rooted interests in all states which startle at innovation of every kind, nor can the popular or general sentiment be reasonably expected to anticipate remote conclusion. Thus, unless some great and commanding genius arise, a few trite and obvious deductions from the successful past form the current politics of the great majority of every community, whose very natural fault it is, to infer too implicitly from facts unconnected with the circumstance or contingency which give them soul, operation, and merit. But that opinion may be judicious, that principle may be sound, which have neither the support of long existing establishment on the one side, nor the voice of the people on the other, will not be denied by those who are most conversant in the progress of human affairs. The interested are seldom induced even to listen, and argument being unfavourable to repose, there is a numerous body who would rather sail quietly and indolently into the gulph which has swallowed up surrounding nations, than undergo the fatigue of attention. Appeal to these would be nugatory: there are, however, among the opposers to the Catholics, many at once honest, rational, and disinterested; to such these observations are more immediately addressed. Their aim is to lead them into an examination of certain notions, taken up rather on trust than from conviction, or at best produced more by a forcible impression from striking facts in our history, than from any accurate deduction from the long train of circumstance which caused them to form so melancholy a part of it. I. It must be allowed, there is something in the plan of that spiritual dominion, which has preserved the identity of the Roman Church for so many ages, peculiarly unfavourable to a controversy with adversaries who abound more in zeal than in candour. The priestly policy of centuries of ignorance and barbarity may reasonably be expected to afford considerable scope for critical severity, and unfortunately for the Catholic, his domineering creed allows of no appeal from the prelate regularly appointed, or the council duly convened, whatever may have been the cha racter of the times and the actors. Such is the misfortune of an ambitious pedigree, to maintain an uninterrupted succession from the the Apostles and the Holy Ghost, that the spiritual enactments of every intervening knave and fool are consecrated to reverence and regard. The theory of the Romanist makes his church an ab. straction from its administrators, the seal of divine authority ras tifying equally the ordinances of the good and the bad, the artful and the ignorant, at all times and under all circumstances. Churchmen may be vile, but the Church cannot err; the attribute is miraculous, and the miracle is asserted. Now this system of spiritual pretension, so artfully and powerfully constructed for the prevention of schism, is more assailable from without than any other once clear of the circle and the spell is at an end; and avarice, treachery, ambition, and cruelty, benevolence, paternity, and Christian zeal,-are detected and acknowledged ac cording to the philosophy of humanity and fact. The Catholic, if he dared, might answer, that it is practically so with himself, and that the ecclesiastical enaction and ordination most disho nourable to the character of his religion, are now known only by the quotations of its enemies. This fact may satisfy the states man, (whose object, like that of a pilot in the icy seas, should be rather to clear the condensed error of ages by avoidance, than run any needless risk from concussion), but will never silence the interested controversialist, who can urge his shackled opponent to a maintenance of the infallibility, inspiration, and spiritual endowment of the most weak or the most vicious of mankind. Thus the votary of Rome, of the present day, is conquered rather by the letter of his tenet than the spirit of his practice.— That he is, however, logically in a dilemma, can hardly be denied by himself, and still less by his friends, while his enemies feel with satisfaction that the best way of fighting men is with shadows, provided those shadows are of their own creation. But whatever opinions may be formed of the principles of the church government of Rome, as applicable to established Chris. tianity, the rapidity of its early progress was materially owing to the early adoption of that levitical order of priesthood, which has so especially distinguished the Jew and the Christian from the rest of mankind. Every religion has been steadily maintained, which has sanctified a portion of its votaries for its guard and guidance. The people stiled the Chosen of God, by dedicating a tribe to his service, laid an effectual foundation for that tenacity of faith and observance, which has been so strikingly exhibited by their scattered posterity; and had the doctrine of Moses promised a spiritual futurity instead of temporal greatness, and inculcated the merits of conversion, it is not unlikely the loose Paganism of the Roman Empire, and the grosser idolatry of the East, might have been assailed long before the promulgation of the gospel or the flight of Mahomet. The mission of the Hebrew lawgiver was, however, * however, infinitely more limited, and the reward held out for Jewish faith and observance having been mere earthly grandeur and dominion, the effect of his theocratic institution was consistently enough confined to the seed of Abraham. An indifference to proselytism, indeed, grew out of the doctrine, since, eager as men are often found to increase the inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, they are infinitely less liberal of their mundane advantages. The beneficent spirit of Christianity proffered its blessings to the whole human race; yet, notwithstanding this enlarge ment of theatre and strong distinction in tenet, its priesthood having been formed on the Jewish model, a great similarity may be traced in the priestly career of either dispensation. If we look back into the Scriptures, we find many Athanasiuses and Beckets chronicled in Israel; and even as to the locality of inspiration and heavenly communication, the Jerusalem of one age was the Rome of another. The same spiritual imperium in imperio, the same independence of civil rule, the same claim to a paramount jurisdiction as interpreters of the divine will, have been maintained by the high priest both of Jew and Gentile. Kingdoms have been laid under interdict, allegiance transferred, monarchs deposed, and the links of society dissolved, by the one as well as the other. The analogy might be traced even to minute resemblance, † were it necessary, such is the effect of marked institution on man; but the world begins to entertain tolerably clear N *This cannot be denied: for whether a regular chain of ordination commenced with the Apostles, as seems to be averred by the Episcopalians of all churches, or whether the first spiritual rulers of the Christians were merely the most zealous and respectable members of their community, as is asserted by the Independents, the quick and political transformation of the simple dispensers of regulation into an established and indelible priesthood, was the result of Jewish institution, Jewish opinion, and Jewish practice. "The first fifteen bishops of the parent church of Jerusalem," says Gibbon, 66 were all consecrated Jews, and the congregations over which they presided united the law of Moses with the doctrine of Christ."-A special dedication to the service of the Lord, could not but be the consequence of such an initiation. The Gentile convert quickly got rid of the weight of the Mosaic ceremonies, but a spiritual order was as essential to the inconceivable mysteries of the new religion, as to the burthensome detail of the old. The extraordinary resemblance of certain parts of the Jewish and Christian history in the effect of the influence and interference of the priest and the prophet, is exceedingly striking. See the conduct of Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, &c. The later prophets of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, in their occasional missious, fierce intolerance, retirement to desart places, and mode of typifying their predictions, forcibly remind us of the earlier Christian marks. Temporary inspiration and miraculous powers seemed in either cases the reward of austerity, mortification, and self-denial the most uncongenial to humanity. clear ideas of the uniform tendency of a predominant priesthood, although to shew that similar consequences have resulted from resembling institutions in very different modes and constitutions of society, cannot but add force and accuracy to the general principles deducible from such varied experience. Adopting the foregoing conclusions as the basis of certainly not a very flattering apology for the church of Rome, it follows that the monstrous assumptions and intolerance of its rulers are to be considered, in a very eminent degree, the natural growth of human ambition under circumstances favourable to its develope ment, and which, after a long career, has yielded to opposing circumstances in its turn. The early prelates of the Christians would have been startled at a vision descriptive of the future arrogance and domination of their successors; yet as each of them was anxious to extend, and, generally speaking, did extend, the earthly authority of the priestly office, very extraordinary consequences were even then within human anticipation. Individuals áre occasionally led out of an interested career by the suggestions of reason and conscience, or by yielding to accidental impression; bodies of men are not liable to this variation, the bias of the majority being always too strong for the exception. When, therefore, the enthusiastic zeal and pervading tenet of the Christian had created an interest worthy of government, the effect of the momentous distinction of priest and layman quickly began to appear; the loss of all directive operation in spiritual matters on the part of the laity was, in fact, the immediate consequence. The choice of the pastor, or president, had rested with the communicants at large while the congregations remained separate, but as soon as the diffusion of the creed of salvation rendered a more intimate correspondence necessary, and assemblies of their heads expedient, then it was discovered, that as the latter were the most competent judges of ecclesiastical qualification, it was decidedly for the interest of the faith, the appropriation of the holy functions should remain exclusively with them. They were right(under Heaven) the early formation of a theocracy which led the opinion and directed the practice of myriads, was one of the main causes of its extraordinary diffusion. The necessity of courting the suffrage of multitudes would shortly have constituted as many creeds as congregations. Deprived of that formidable unity of view, combination of means, and lordly dominion over conscience, would the Pagan have been so irresistably overcome? Would * In the fond imagination of many, the primitive Christians were mild and tolerant: alas! there is little proof of this in any stage of their progress. Regard the various sects into which they were divided while equally unseconded |