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"^aaAiNaivvi^' ^10SANCEI£A> .avaaiii^ "^^Aavaani^ "^udnvsoi^ 3 %aaAiNn-3WV^ [UNIVERr/A vvlOSANCFl/^r... xAU!BRARY/?>r out enterirg into a controverfy, how far the Pope interfered in tlie eleclion, or confirma- tion of Bifhops, in the weflern Patriarchate twelve hundred years ago, of which interference however many Oriking inftances m.ight be alledged,+ certain it is, that the church at prefent acknowledges fuch a right in the Pope, i and confiders it as one of her llrongeft bulwarks agalnit numberlefs abufes. But * *' Non nimquam populus vulgique judicium Sc *' in facerdotibus.. comprobandis, unufquifque. moribus ^' fuis favet, ut non tani bouum quam fui fimilem qu^rat *' pr^pofitum." + A well knov/n inftance of this kind is the confe- cration of St. Peter Chryfologus to the Archbifhopric of Ravenna in 430, then the feat of Imperial Government, by Sixtus III. This Saint happening to accompany the Biihop ele6l who went to Rome for confirmation, was appointed by the Pope in his place without any further eleftion, and received at Ravenna accordingly. J Trid. Self. 24. cap, i. &c. r '5 ] But after all, Sir, there is no queftion in our circumftances about the filling up of epifcopal Sees, or the appointment of ordinary Bifhops : becaufe we are in extraordinary circumflances. We are no national church, we are only a handful of Ca- tholics, faved from the whelming deluge of herefy, by the immediate interpofition of the apoftolical See, as three times before the inhabitants of this iflaud had been refcued from the fame, or a fimildr calamity, by timely affiftance from the fame quar- ter."* We have loft our hierarchy, and (hould have equally been deprived of the mlniftry,but for the bounty no lefs than the paftoral follicitude of the fucceflbrs of St. Peter. We, the clergy of this kingdom,^are not a ftationary clergy, but are to a man of us, miffionaries, ordained in foreign countries, under the title, as it is called, of the raiffion, after having been educated, at leaft the greater part of us, at the expence of his Holinefs. I repeat, it again. Sir, the queftion is not, in our circumftances, about appointing ordinary Paftors to vacant Bifiioprics, but only about fettling a due fubordination amongft the immediate delegates of the holy See, which has three * The Britons were firfl converted by Fugatius and Damianus, fent hither by St. Eleutherius, and afterv/ards were reclaimed from Pelagianifm by St. Germanus, font hither according to Profper, by Pope Celeftin. I need not mention that when our Pagan anceftors, the Saxons, had over run the Ifland and extirpated Chriftianity, they were converted by St. Auguftine, St. Birinus and other iniffionaries from Roms, r »6 ] three feveral times fince the reformation varied the form of our ecclefiaflical government, as circumftances feemed to require. You may be difpleafed with this plain flatementof facls, you may join with our word enemies in calling us emiffaries, though we truft we have given as good proofs, of our attachment to our king and country, as any clafs of Englifhmen have done whatever; yet this wiJI not alter the real (late of things, which is as I have defcribed it to be, and which muft be fo, while our numbers are fo contemptible, while we are fo far under legal pro- fcription, that even, in that plan of favors we have lately been taught to look up to, the m^oft trifling ecclefiaflical eftablifhment on our part Jis cautioufly guarded againft; and while our poverty or our want of zeal is fuch, that there is not the m.oft diflant hope of our ever being able to replace the bounty of his Hollnefs, fhould we force him to withdraw it. You may fpurn at this main refource of religion amongft us, if you pleafe, but are you ready, Sir, have you friends ready to provide a foundation equivalent to that which we have for two hundred vears enjoyed? I can fafely anfwer in the negative. Take care. Sir, that your boafted zeal to reform rehgion does not operate, as has frequently been the cafe, to the utter extinflion of religion. We are not then in the condition of an ellablifhed church, nor have we the means of being fo; but we are in that of a miflion in a fchifmatlcal country.* Now as thofe miffions, which have diffufed the light of Chriftlanity over the weftern world, have almoll all of them proceeded from that See, which proves itfelf C 17 3 itfelf to be apqjlolical by perpetuating the funQloti of the Apoflles^, fo fuch mifTions, wherever they exift at the prefent day, whether in Holland or in Africa, whether in China or in Canada, are all under the peculiar government and patronage of the fu- preme Paftor; and fo fuch miffions ever have been, as will appear from confulting the Hiftory of the Apoftles of the North, and that of our own Apoftles in particular. You tell us, Sir, that titular Bifhops, without fixed Sees, are an innovation of the twelfth century. In your hypothefis thofe fpoken of in the councils of Antioch and Ancyra above, were mere titular Bifhops. Certainly thofe were fo whom Petilian the Donatift mentions by way of reproach to the Catholics in the Collation of Cathage; being or- dained for Sees, where they had no people belong- ing to them. But what is more to the prefent purpofe, I maintain that however new the name may be, the thing itfelf is as ancient as the pra8;ice is of ordaining Bifhops for the converfion of infidels. For of what See, give me leave to afk, was St. Auguftine Bifhop, when he was ordained by Ethe-* rius of Aries, in confequence of the orders of St» Gregory ? or St. BirinuSjOrdained in the fame man- ner by Ailerius of Genoa, in virtue of a commiffion C from * St, Innoc. fays,Ep. ad Dec. Eug. *' It is manifeft that '* neither in Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Sicily, nor the *' neighbouring If] ands, has anyone eftabiiilied churches, " except thofe whom St. Peter, or his fuccefibrs, have •< ordained for this purpofe." C '8 ] from Pope Honorius? or St. Paulinus, when he wafi fent into the North with Queen Ethelburga by Jufliis ? The fame queftlon may be afked in regard to St Boniface and Willibrord, the former the apoftle of Germany, the latter of the low Countries . Trom whom did they in faft derive their iTiiflion,for preach* ing the Gofpel, * their jurlfdiftion, and their power of adminiftering the facraments? who fettled their rights, claims and difFerencest? Our Bifhops then, whether for diftinftion fake they receive their title* from Comana or C^efarea, or whatever other place, are precifely in the fituation the above mentioned illuftrious Saints and Apoftles were, previoufly to their founding eftabhfhed churches, and converting a due proportion of the people; and though deflitute of ordinary faculties, they have the fame kind of extraordinary jurifdi^Hon, that St. Auguftine and St. Birinus had of old, the fame that the miffionary Bifhops have at this day in every other infidel or heretical conntry. Having * ^omodo pradkalnnt nip mittantuu Rom. X. I5. + See in particular the anfv/er of St. Gregory to the 9th Queilion of St. Auguftine, Bede, lib. 2. c. 27. ** Qua* *' liter debemus cum Galliarum & Britanniarum Epif- " copis agere ?" Refpondet Gregorius. " In Galliarum '* Spifcopos nullam tibi audoritatem tribuimus, quia '' ah antiquis predecefforum meorum temporibus Pal« " lium Arelatenfis Epifcopiis aiccepit, quern nos privare ** auftoritate percepta minime debemus — Britanniarum " autem Epifcopos omnes tuse fraternitati committimuc " ut indodi doceantur, infirmi perfualione roborentur^ ** perverlt aufloritate corrigantur." L '9 1 Having pointed out the fuppofed abufes, in the difciplineofthe Church, on the fubje£l of nominat- ing Bifhops, you proceed to reform its ritual, by re- quiring the Confecration oath to be fupprefifed, which you infidioufly call an oath of allegiance, and reprefent as contrary to the duty we owe to our So- vereign. Were this fo, it is ftrange that the illuftri- ous Gallican Prelates, who met together, ab( ut a century ago, in the defpotic reign of Louis XIV. for theexprefs purpofe of afcertaining the fpiritual rights of the Pope and the temporal rights of the Sove- reign, fhould have forgotten the important tranfafiion that took place at the time of their becoming BI- (hops, and fhould not have taken meafures accord- ingly , It is ftill more extraordinary, that, if the Bi- (hops were confidered by the Pope as his vafTals, he fhould permit them to take oaths of allegiance to o- ther Sovereigns; as they have done, and that with the Pope's exprefs approbation, at the time the fuc- ceflbrsof St. Peter were in the very zenith of their power; and that his Holinefs fhould never once, in his molt prefTing exigencies, have called for the powerful afTiltance of fo many of his fworn fubjetls, as you defcribe the Bifhops to be, throughout Chri- flendom; Thefaftis, Sir, you have, by malicious glolTes and forced conflruclions, put a meaning up- on the odth, foreign to the i^nio. of Catholics in ge* neral, and to that of the Apoflolic See in paiticular, in whofe favor it is taken*. Thus you have put arms * See Archbifhop Butler's JnJlificatiox,ScQ. p. 1 7. wher« he refers to his own correfpondence with the congrega- C 3 tioii arms into the hand of our enemies, and have fur* nifhed Government with the moft oftenfible argu^ gument that has yet appeared for denying us further indulgeoce. The firft and chief queflion that prefents itfelf is, what kind of obedience the Bifhop Eleft is called upon to fvvear to the Head of the Church at his con- fecration. This will determine, whether it militates with our duty to our Sovereign, and whether it is, in the tf/uai acceptation of the word, an oath of alle* giance. I anfwer, it is the fame kind of obedience that Bifhops in paft ages fwore to their Metropo- litans, and the fame kind of obedience, that in the {landard of orthodoxy, Pius the fourth's profeffion of faith, the members of the true Church in general are required to fwear to the fucceffor of St. Peter*. In fhort the circumftances themfelves determine, on this and all fimilar occafions, the nature of the fubjeftion contained in fuch engagements. If I fwear obedience to a Civil Superior, all the world underllands that I bind myfelf in civil concerns. If it is to a Spiritual Superior, no one will doubt but that my oath relates merely to the affairs of my foul. As to your arguments, that the prefent cpnfecratioa path implies temporal allegiance, becaufe there was once txon at Rome, for their fenfe of the oath. — ^Without knowing my antagonift, I take it for granted, this argu* ment, drawn from the meaning of the propoimdcrsof the path, mull have infuperable force. * I promife true obedience to rhe Biihop of Ron^ fucceifor of St. Peter, &c. Pr, of Pius IF. C ^^ 1 once an oath to that cffe^l, and becaiife after promi- fing obedience to my Spiritual Superior, in a fubfe- quent paragraph I promife not to be guilty of perfo- nal violence againll him; I own they are beyond my comprehenfion. The third article only excludes a breach of confi- dence repugnant to the feelings of all mankind, and not admitted even in Courts of Public Juftice , I prefume it may be legally fworn to, fince the law even prefcribes a fimilar engagement on the part of feA^ants and apprentices, when they are articled to their m afters. Nothing but the jaundiced eye of prejudice can. fee any thing obje£lionable in the fixth and eighth articles which you next bring forward. I can fafely fweaj?, that I will defend my friend, and fupport and promote his interefl, or that I will obey the com- mands of my officer or other Civil Superior, without implying thatlam ready to go on the high-way for that purpofe- or to commit any other unjuft or immoral aHion. You fay there is no limitation or condition annexed to the obedience here promifed: neither is there any falvo in the allegiance I have fwornto his jMajefly, either in favor of the BritifhConftitution,or even of the indifpenfible laws of God. The fa£l is; it would be an infult, at the time I am paying ho- mage to my Superior, to fuppofe him capable of ftepping out of his proper line, and requiring any " thing from me that is unjuft or illegal. If there is no crime in performing the Service ex- prefTed in the nth article, there can be no crime in a Bifhop's [ =« ] a Bifiiop's binding himfelf to perform it. The Ser- vice however of itfelf, in thefe and fimilar circum- ftances, is evidently to be performed only as far as it is exacted. The only remaining pafTage you have fingled out of this feditious oath, as you reprefent it, is the bat- tered text of H(zrcticos perjequar & impugnabo. But, Sir, if you have not fludied Divinity, I pre fume you have learned Latin, and ought therefore to know that of all the different meanings the woxAper- Jcqui bears, not one of thera correfponds with our Englifli word to pcrfautc. If you are not much in. the habit of reading clafiical authors, confult your Ainfzuortk; it is confefTedly the befl di61ionary of ihe kind we have. Had (he text run, pcrftquar ftrro ^ z|^?2y^.'y / y^ '^^A^r ^ ^ -y^ ^ /"^^^^//^^ , '?1^-^ /v->^ THE SUESTAJfCE A SERMON PREACHED AT THE BLESSING OF TUE CATHOLIC CHAPEL of St. CHAD, IN THE ^otun of IBimitt^^m, On Sunday^ December 17, 1809. BY THE RIGHT REV, DR. MILKER, BISHOP OF CASTABALA IN CILICIA, V. A. F. S. A. &C. BIRMINGHAM ; PRINTED AND SOLD BY C. WILKS, NEW STREET. ALSO SOLD BY KEATING AND CO. DUKE STREET, GROSVENOR SQUARE ; J. BOOKER, NEW BOND STREET; AND G. WILKIE AND J. ROBINSON, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON ; T. SIMI'-SON, AVOLVERIIAMPTON ; H. FITZPATRICK. CAPEL STREET, DUBLIN, &C. &C. The Substance of a Sermon, ^c, I have heard thy prat/er, and I have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. — My eyes shall he open and my ears shall he atteniive to the prayer of him who shall pray in this place. 2 Chron. c. vii. V, 12. 15. Such, dear brethren, was the revelation which the Ahnighty was pleased to make to the king and prophet Solomon, in answer to his prayer, at the dedication of the temple of Jerusalem. In this the Almighty approves of the payment of religious worship to him in general, and of the payment of social w^orship, and of a revealed form of worship in parti- cular. Speaking, as I now do, in the hearing of a promiscuous multitude of persons, several of whom, in all probability, do not profess to B practice or entertain any srpecies of religion whatsoever, I think it necessary, in the first place, briefly to establish the three points here intimat- ed ; namely, the obligation of paying a distinct worship to our Creator, the duty of paying this at stated times and places, and the duty of paying it according to the forms and ordinances which God himself has supernaturally prescribed to us. And, whereas, it is certain tliat a large proportion of this audience, whilst they profess to believe both in natural and revealed religion, are nevertheless unfortunately divided into an endless variety of discordant communions ; I trust, in the second place, that I shall be able to point out a plain and easy rule by which these divisions may be effectually healed, and the truth of revelation upon each point of controversy be clearly discovered, by every well meaning individual poss^^ssed of common sense. In imparting this benefit to the diffe- rent christian societies in question, I shall perform an act of justice to one of them in particular, the most injured and calumniated of them all ; I mean that for Vvhose religious worship this chapel is now opened and blessed. And, lastly, as no creed or form of religion whatsoever can, of itself, render us acceptable to Almighty God, and secure our future hap- piness, I owe it to my catholic brethren, in a special manner, to remind them of the condi- tions which are requisite for the purposes in question. The plan of my discourse, dear brethren, is indeed very extensive ; but I have not been able, for the reasons which I have intimated, to contract it. May he, the un- created Truth, whose word I now profess to deliver, purify my lips with a burning coal from his altar, as he did those of his prophet Isaiah,* that I may announce the same vv^ithout any alloy of self-love or other human passion : and may he open your ears to hear this divine word to your present spiritual benefit and your future eternal happiness ! 1. If you can for a few minutes, irrehgious worlding, turn your mind from trifling con- cerns of little moment to yourself to one of the utmost consequence, and which immediately relates to your own welfare, let me exhort you to question yourself in some such manner as the following: ''How came I here ? The world had existed some thousands of years, and I had no being in it. Who drew me out of the abyss of nothing and bestowed upon me this excellent body, this capacious mind ? I am deeply conscious that I could not give a being to myself; and when I enquire of the objects * Isaiahj c. vi. t. 6. 8 which surround me on the earth, and of the vast bodies which roll over my head in the heavens, each of them exclaim to me, in the language of St. Augustine : It was not I that made thee : zve are all equally the zvorkmanship of an eternal, omnipotent, and infinitely benevolent being,'* What heart, impressed Vvith these truths, can avoid paying a constant and explicit homage, in acts of humihty, thanksgiving, and love, to this its benelicent Creator, its God ? And yet there always have been, and there are now, in greater numbers than heretofore, men who ridicule the expression of these noble sen- timents, that is to say, the exercise even of natural religion, as superstition and a degra- dation of our nature ; whereas, in real truth, it is our intercourse Vvith the Deity, that is to say, religion which ennobles our nature and constitutes its final cause of existence. With- out religion, how little superior is man to the beasts of the field ! They eat, and drink, and play, and propagate their species to do the same after them : and for what more than this does man exist, if he does not serve his God and provide for a happiness hereafter, which he finds is not to be enjoyed here on earth. The truth however is, that (after all the vain boasting of irreligious sophists, amidst their convivial mirth and their profligate associates,) when reduced to solitude and surrounded with the gloom of midnight, but most of all, when stretched upon a bed of sickness, with the king of terrors, death, staring them in the face, their heart is found to belie the blasphemy of their tongue, and they tremble for the consequences, in a future state, of the unprofitable and use- less life they have led. Admitting, however, the obligations of wor- shipping my Creator, these men will sometimes say: '' vvhat necessity is there of my being shut up in a particular building, or of my joining with other people in the performance of it ? Is not the whole universe the temple of the Deity ? And is not the homage of a sincere heart more acceptable to him, that any exterior rites or forms whatsoever ?" It is true the im- mensity of God fills the heavejis and the earthy as he himself declares.^' It is true, he requires to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, as our Divine Saviour expressly tells us.*f Neverthe- less in the very passages of scripture here quoted, and in many others, (one of which I liave chosen for my text) the Almighty is pleased to sanction and appoint social and public worship to be offered up to him in certain places appropriated to this purpose. * Jeremiah, c. xxiii. y. 24. + Johri; c, vi. v. 23. 10 Accordingly I find the Holy Patriarchs, from the beginning of the world, worshipping God in an exterior and public manner, and dedi- cating certain places and things to the honour of his Divine Majesty. I afterwards find the great legislator of God's people constructing an ark and a tabernacle of the most costly materials for the public exercise of their reli^ gion, according to express revelations made to him concerning these matters. And lastly, I behold the inspired Solomon, exhausting his royal treasures in building and orna-^ menting a house, which the Almighty deigns ta choose as a house of sacrifice for himself, and dedicating it with the utmost pomp and solem- i^ity of religion. Tlie fact is, he who knoweih what is in rrian^ foresaw that, unless we are reminded, at stated times, of the duty which we owe to him, and unless we are excited by the example of our fellow creatures, by the poffij) and solemnity of the worship itself, and by other exterior means, we sliould either to- tally neglect this worship, or we should com- ply with it in the most tepid and unworchj manner. I must add, that the disciples of Christ have not been ]>ehind hand with the ancient people of God in the solemnity and s.plendour of tlieir religious worship, or mag- ^ John, c. ii. r. 25. 11 iiificence of the cliurches which they built for the performance of it. Our cathohc ancestors, in particular, filled this land with the richest and most beautiful edifices for the service of religion, a small part of which are still to be seen. On these and their appurtenances they lavished their wealth, being content with comparative homely habitations, furniture, and fare for their own use. Nor was it only a social and an orderly, but it was also a revealed form of worship and religion wiiich the Almighty required of his people. We know that the worship to which the temple^ blessed by God, was appropriated, consisted in sacrifice and other acts of religion, minutely described, and especially appointed by his inspired servant Moses. The truth is that, after the Patriarchal age, m.ankind had every where fallen into such blindness and depravity, that the very doctrines and practices of their religion itself teemed with the grossest impiety and wickedness of various kinds. Hence there was a necessity of a special revelation to bring men back to the first elements of truth, mora- lity, and real religion. What absurd, impious, and indecent tales make up the mythology, not only of the barbarous pagans of ancient and modern tira^s, but also of the polished iO pagans of Egypt, Greece, and Rome ! What de- testable acts of impurity injustice, intemperance, even murder formed part of their religious rites ! Let it suffice to state , that the original inhabitants of this island, as we learn from unquestionable authority,* were in the habit of sacrificing whole hecatombs of their unoffending fellow creatures, whom they inclosed in wicker fences and consumed altogether ; and that our immediate ancestors the Saxons were so savage and so brutal that they could form no higher idea of supreme bliss in a future state, than that of drinking inebriating liquor out of the skulls of their slaughtered enemies. Such were our ancestors ; such should we have been but for the blessed light of the gospel, which, through the mercy of God, was communicated to this Island, by the Holy Pope, Gregory the Great, at the end of the sixth century, by means of his envoys St. Augustine, and his companions. These beneficent missionaries from Rome converted, and at the same time civilized our barbarous forefathers. They with- drew them from their savage rites, and in- structed them in the sublime and beneficent religion of Jesus Christ ; and they taught them the useful and ornamental arts of life : thus contributing to their comfort in this world, as well as to their happiness in the world to come. * Caesar. De Bell. Gal. 13 2. Thus far the controversy has been with the enemies of revelation ; but when I come to address the advocates of it, I mean chris- tians at large, what a melanclioly scene presents itself to my view in the endless variety of dis- cordant sects ijito which they are divided, and the contradictory systems of religion which a great proportion of them hold ! And yet it would be blasphemy to assert that the divine founder of Christianity has left it destitute of a rule and a guide to conduct his followers into truth and unity. The cause then of these unhapp}'- divisions among christians is that they either take up with a religious system without any rule or reason at all ; or else they adopt an erroneous rule, which leads them still further from the truth than if they had no rule at all. Many choose their religion as they choose their clothes, from mere fancy. Still more adhere to the religion of their family, because it is that of their family; which motive, if it were a reasonable one, ouglit to have de- termined our pagan ancestors to persevere in the horrid rites of Thor and Woden still. It is an evident fact, however, that far the greater part of professing christians folio v/ tliat system, which best agrees with their worldly interest and reputation, being comparatively indifferent about their eternal interest. Amono^ christians C ^ 14 who profess to be guided by religious motives, alone in this all-important concern of religion, I find that one or other of the three following rules has been adopted ; a special private reve- lation ; the bible as interpreted by each man for himself; and the word of God, whether written or unwritten, as delivered and ex- plained by the Church of God. It is incumbent upon me, conformably with the plan I have laid down, to sliew Vvhich of these rules are defective and erroneous, and which of them is exclusively safe and true. In affording this assistance to the several classes of chris- tians now^ before me, I shall render an act of justice to the most injured and calumniated description of them, that to which I myself] have the happiness of belonging, that for whose religious worship this building has just been consecrated. I trust I shall be able to prove that catholics, so far from being those blind and bigoted partisans which they are generally supposed to be, follow the only rational rule of faith that ever was proposed, and the only one that can heal the divisions of the christian world. But before I enter upon this important, investigation, I think it necessary to make two observations. The first is, that there can only | be one true religion. God forbid, my christian '■ brethreii of different communions, that I should 15 Lidge or condemn any individual amongst you, •ither as to the present state of his soul, or its uture lot. God alone is the searcher of hearts, le may see in many of those whom he leaves 11 speculative error that earnest desire of know- ng his truths, and that firm resolution of em- )racing them, in spite of all worldly motives o the contrary, which will certainly atone for dl such errors at his equitable tribunal. Ne- f^ertheless, I again assert that there can only )e one true system of christian revelation unong the many w^hich are found in this age md country. Christ, the eternal truth, could lot say the yea and the nay upon the same mbject : he could not contradict himself in the vay that many of the communions in question :ontradict each other. There is no quality of his ilisciples which he insists upon more frequently ■:)r more energetically than upon their unity ; md he expressly assures us that he shall collect :he whole flock which belongs to him in one heepjold under one shepherd.^ I am well aware, ny dear brethren, that to hold this language > not tlie method to gain public applause, or 3 establish a character amongst the oracles of ■ublic opinion for superior lights, liberality, 'nd I know not what. But in the situation hich I now holdit is evidently my duty to ♦ John, c. X. V, 16. 16 consult your interest rather than your preju- dices, and to hold that language to you which you will approve of when we shall again meet together before the tribunal of the Great Judge, rather than that which you may be disposed to applaud at the present day. The second preliminary remark which I am desirous of making is, that if, after all, we cannot agree in faith and religion, we are, by the confession of all parties, bound to unite in the affection and services of christian charity. Upon the indispensable obligation of this favourite virtue of our common master, there is happily no question at all. In fact, my dear brother or sister, whoever you are, should it appear that you have fallen into dangerous errors in the all-important affair of religion, does not com- mon humanity no less than christian charity, point you out as a proper object of my com- passion and charity, rather than of my hatred And, if I should appear in your eyes to have sunk into raak idolatry, am not I evidently ar| object of still greater compassion to you ? At the first breaking out of those unhappy dissentions in religion which have convulsed the christian w^orld during almost three cen- turies, a considerable portion of the reformers, so calleKl, appealed to the first of the above- 17 mentioned rules, that of a special revelation, and professed to be immediately guided by the Spirit of God in their religious opinions and conduct. The same rule has been followed by diiferent denominations of protestants down to the present day. Now it is the truth and rea- sonableness of this r'tile which I have to enquire into at present. A rapid glance at the doctrine and conduct of the principal sects which have adopted this rule will, I am confident, my dear brethren, settle this point to your entire conviction, provided you only agree with me in the following received axiom ; namely. That cannot be the rule of truth zvhich is found to conduct to error. The first pretenders to the rule of private revelation, since the period in question, were the original anabaptists of Germany and the low countries. In the year 1525 an immense multitude of them with Munzer at their head, *' declared war against all laws, government, and magis- trates, under the pretext that Christ w^as now to take the reins of civil and ecclesiastical government into his own hands and to rule alone over all nations.''* The consequence of this enthusiastic principle, as might be imagined, was that myriads of them and their opposers * Mosheim'B Eccles. Hist, by Maclaine, vol. 4. p. 447. 18 fell by mutual slaughter. One of them how- ever, who had escaped slaughter, John, a tailor, of Ley den, got possession of the city of Munster, in which he professed to establish a nezv Jerusalem, and caused himself to be crowned king of Sion.* He then declared that God had made him a present, in a vision, of Amsterdam and two other cities ; and he sent some of his apostles to take possession of them.-f- He proceeded to marry eleven wives at the same time,t and caused the other young women of Munster to be violated. § All this was done in consequence of a supposed reve- lation. The first anabaptists in general taught that all the riches of the earth belonged to the jighteous, and of course to themselves.^ One erf them, Harman, ran about exclaiming, * repent, repent ; kill the priests \ Hill the ma^ gistrates, &c.''|l Mathison professed to be Henoc. David George, who set up a new sect, claimed to be the Messiah, and rejected the present bible. I am far from attributing these, and a thousand other excesses and impieties of the same nature, to those who are called anabaptists at thq present da}^ : I know they abhor them. I am barely shewing from indis- •*IIi-t. Abrcg.de la Reform, des Pays lias, par Ger. Brandt, tom.l. L. 2. — ■T Ibid. — X Mosheim's Lccles. llhU vol. 4. p. t5'2, — i^ Ger Brandt.-—^ llbM.— 'Vlbid. 19 putable facts of history, what folly and wick- edness the pretence of taking private revelation as the rule of faith and morals is capable of hurrying men into. Henry Nicholas, who liad been the friend of David George, and v/ho himself became the founder of a new religion, called, the family of love^ which had a prodi- gious run in England as w^ell as in Holland, professed to be a deified man and greater than Jesus Christ.* He neither spoke nor acted but by the supposed movement of the Spirit of God. In such hke blasphemies he was emulated by our enthusiastic countrymen, Hacket, Thacker, Copping, and several others, who suffered death for the same. For it is a certain fact, though little known, that our first protestant princes and prelates w^ere in tlie constant habit of putting to death, merely for, their religious opinions and practises, not only catholics, but also protestants whose religion materially differed from their own. One of the last of these protestant sufferers was Edward Wightman, a native of Burton-on- Trent, who was burnt to death for socinianism, during the reign of James I. in the neighbour- ing city of Lichfield, through the means of Neile, its then bishop.f In the reign of Charles L * Gcr. Brandt. Liv. IS — + Neal's Uist. of Purit. vol. 2. p. 92. CoHver's Eccle*. Iliit. &c. ' . 20 the society of friends arose, who proposed to be guided in all their religious opinions and actions by a special movement of the Holy Spirit. The peaceable and orderly behaviour of this society is at the present day proverbial: but it cannot be denied that many of them, at their first appearance, were guilty of great extravagancies, and this precisely from an idea that they were inspired to commit them. George Fox himself and his first disciples were in the habit of insulting the clergy in their pulpits, the magistrates on their benches^ and even princes on their thrones.* Some of his follov/ers, of each sex, disregarding com- mon modesty, appeared naked in the most public places.-f Others were guilty of acts of violence ; among whom one ran to the parli- ament exclaiming that he was inspired to kill every man that sat there.]; Others, again, were guilty of the most horrid impieties and blasphemies. § Far be it from me to impute these follies and crimes to the society itself, even at the time when it happened. I know there may be foolish and wicked members of every communion : but my charge is that the ^ * W. Penn's folio Life of G. Fox, p. 66. 225. &c.— f A female went, in the state of nature, into Whitehall chapel, when Cromwell was there. >feal's Hist. vol. 4. p. 154. " W. Simpson was moved of tiie Lord to go several times, for three years, naked into market-courts, &c." Penn, p. 239. — i Ma«ifthvol. 5. p. 470. Neal. Peon.— § Mosheim, vol. 5. p. 470. Kcal. 21 follies and impieties under consideration grew )ut of the leading maxim of the society and :ould not be restrained consistently with the naxim. The only remedy that George Fox :ould devise to correct them was to turn them nto ridicule by terming the authors of them witers.^ But does any one candid person ]uestion whether James Naylor, for example, ^vho personated our Saviour and encouraged lis followers to hail him thn'ce holy, and as :he only begotte?i Son of God, was not as Jeeply persuaded of his being under the direc- :ion of God's Spirit as his master George Fox himself was on any occasion whatsoever? Muggleton, the founder of a sect whicli bore lis name, was persuaded by this same sup- posed special spirit y that he and his companion, [ohn Reeves, were the two witnesses men- :ioned in the revelations, Henoch and Elisha, md that he himself was appointed chief udge to pronounce a sentence of dan-uiation ;)n men which God himself could not remit/j- Deluded by tlie same imaginary spirit, ount Zinzendorf taught his followers, the Moravians, amongst other tenets which will not )ear repeating, that they are not bound by he laws of morality, and that what Vvould be * Pcnn, - f Ncal, vul. J. p. 4. D 22 a sin in other persons, is no sin^them.* Th iirst founder of the religionists, who now cove the face of the land, together with the enthu siastic principle of a sudden illapse or inspira tion of God's spirit,by which the predestinate, receive faith and an assurance of their jus* 'fi cation, imbibed also from the moravia?isf large portion of their antinomian doctrinei which implies a freedom from the obiigatioi of all laws whether human or divine. Mii ..I Wesley's eminent disciple and destined suci cessor bitterly laments that very maiiy of ^^* follow^ers ; " whilst they spoke in the rr confident manner of their interest in Chrisi complete salvation, were found living in thi greatest immoralities ;"l of which fact h< furnishes the most striking proofs. He com-f plains that '' there are few of their celebrated pulpits, where more has not been said for sir^ than against it ;"§ and he reproaches th preachers v/ith " making their hearers beiiisv( that, though adultery and murder are damniiu sins in poor blind Turks and Pagans, they an| only spots in God's Children/'f In conse-j quence of all this Mr. Wesley, who wa.' * Moshcim, vol. 6. p. ?3. The raoravians called their system, the liberty^ and the poor sinner ship. Many of them sold their prayer books and left ol, reading nnd praying to follow the lamb. Nelson's Journal.— + Whitehead'' Life of Wesley, vol. 2. p. 68.—+ Fletcher's, of Madeley, Checks to Autino roianisra, vol.2, p. 22.— ^ Ibid, p. gl5.-— I Ibid, p. 217, 23 limself a moral man, made an attempt, though II ineffectual one, to reform his system, con- essing that he and his followers '' had before 3aned too much to Calvinism and too much to ntinomianism/' He at the same time distinctly iforms us what doctrines he understands to be ntinomian. They are these. 1. " That Christ las abolished the moral law^: 2. Ttiat there- ote christians are not obliged to observe it : !. That one branch of christian hberty, is liberty rom obeying the commands of God : 4. That : IS bondage to do a thing because it is com- manded, or to forbear it because it is forbidden : '•. That a christian is not obliged to use the finances of God, or to do good works : 6. phat a preacher ought not to exhort to good vorks/'* Such is the doctrine into which the loral and well-meaning John Wesley was 3d by adopting the enthusiastic principle of he iAoravians. Such is the doctrine of the enumerable hordes of antinomian methodists t the present day, and such '' within a hair's readth,'' by his own confession, was Wesley's ystem, even after he had reformed it.f Beguiled by the same phantom of a special 2velation,Sv>^eedenborg has more recently » See minutes of Wesley's conference with his preachers. WUitehead-s ife ot Wesley, vol. 2. p. 21^. vU.~+ Ibid. 24 devised a most wiiimsical mode of religion, for the exercise of which, I understand, an elegant temple is opened in this your town on the pre- sent day. This fanatic imagined that the Almighty appeared to him, not on Mount Horeb nor on Mount Sina, but in a different place, and revealed to him that the scriptures had neve^ yet been understood by any mortal man, but that he, Sweedenborg, was elected to explain them to mankind, and that he was qualified to converse with angels and departed spirits. The most ])rominent part, however of his religion consists in the establishment oj a nezv Jerusalem here upon ea-th, a projea which, as I mentioned, had before been at- tempted by John of Leyden at Munster ; and it s>^^ms, if I understand the matter right, tha we were, some fourteen years ago, transferrec into this new Jerusalem or Paradise, withou being conscious of it. Finally a supposed prophetess, or rather * divine female personage, has lately arisen ii our own neighbourhood, and has formed ail immense society of followers, who are nov spread over the different parts of the island Johanna is deeply persuaded that she hold frequent communication, not only with th( Deity, from whom she delivers voluminoii 26 oracles in prose and rhyme, but also with Satan, whom she is bent upon killing, havmg already drawn blood from him. It seems, according to her revelations, that she is the woman foretold in Genesis who was to crush the serpent's head : She is also the woman described in the Revelations as cloathed with the sun and crowned with twelve stars, which are the clergymen of the establishment whom she has gained over to be her apostles : She is moreover the evening star, as Christ is the morning star : In short she has received power to issue passports, under her hand and seal, to places in the kingdom of heaven, as she is in the daily practice of doing ! But, enough of these extravagancies ; for surely, my dear brethren, enough of them have been adduced to convince you that the doctrine of a private spirit or revelation, from which they have all proceeded, cannot be the true rule of christian revelation. No, Jesus Christ never intended that principle to be the guide of his followers from which so much folly, contradiction, im- piety, and wickedness has flowed. To address myself now to those christians who adopt the second of the above-mentioned rules of faith, namely, to those who profess to be guided in matters of religion by the 26 written word of God, the bible alone, as interpreted by each person for himself ; which class comprehends the members of the church of England, the lutherans, calvinists, and many other denominations of dissenters; far be it from me, my christian brethren of these com.munions, to say a word in derogation of the bible. I know that it was written by the prophets, apostles, and evangelists : But I will add that 3^ou do not know this : I mean you assume the fact without having the necessary grounds for your opinion. Again I know that these writers, who, however holy, were still men, and subject to human infirmities and passions, wrote their books under the immediate inspi- ration of God's spirit ; but you have no suf- ficient reason for asserting this. Lastly I know that the books themselves have not, in the lapse of ages, suffered any material altera- tion ; but you cannot consistently assert this. Do you ask me my grounds for these positions ? I answer 3^ou, I have the testimony of the universal church, who alone is competent to vouch for the facts in question, namely for the authenticity, the inspiration and the integrity of the several books of scripture ; which testi- mony you reject as false and spurious. For observe, dear brethren, that the same uniform tradition of the great catholic church which 27 tells you that the four gospels were written by the evangelists, whose name they bear, under the influence of inspiration, and that they have not been corrupted since they vvere written, tells you, with equal positiveness and unanimity, that there is a living, speaking tribunal in this church for interpreting them ; in other words, that she herself has authority to decide in all doubtful matters on the sense of the ■ divine oracles. Protestants at their first revolt from the catholic church equivalently told her : *' We believe you, that these books which you deliver to us are the inspired word of God ; but we disbelieve you, when you tell us that you have authority to explain them to us. We admit that you have not corrupted the scrip- tures themselves ; but we maintain that you have corrupted the doctrines contained in them/' — Just as if a lying witness were to be believed at all ! Just as if it w^ere not more easy for her to corrupt the former than the latter! In fact, the scriptures w^ere, for a long time, in the hands of comparatively a fev/ persons, and those chiefly priests and monks. These also had the care of transcribing fresh, copies of them, and without their care the bible never would have reached our time : whereas the leading doctrines of religion were in the constant possession of millions upon millions 28 of people of all nations and all descriptions. If then these millions had, down to any period yoLi may assign, believed, for example, that Christ is not truly present in the sacrament, how difficult a matter must it have been for the mjDSt artful impostors to make this innu- merable heterogeneous multitude adopt the opposite doctrine ! But, to return to the precise point in question ; in case Jesus Christ had intended that the great bulk of his followers should learn their relioion from the written scriptures, would he not, during his mortal life, have set about writing them ? Or, at -least, would not his first injunction to the apostles have been to write them ? Again, w^ould not he have provided that the generality of mankind, in all ages and nations should be able to read them and undertstand them, and this in the original languages ? We find, indeed, repeated injunctions of our Saviour to his apostles to preach the gospel, with the promise that he would be with them, in the discharge of this ministr}^ to the end of the W'orld.^' But we find no orders about their vvriting it. Accordingly, they did preach it in ever}^ country; and they ordained others to preach it after them ; and many flourishing churches v/ere established and long continued * Matt, c, xxviii. v. CO. 29 amongst nations who were generally destitute of the use of letters.* On the other hand only a certain number of the ajiostles wrote at all, and those, for the most part, wrote on certain particular occasions. In short, the canon of the new testament was not absolutely settled throughout the church till about four hundred years after Christ, during all which years, some of the books that are now received as canonical, were deemed apochryphal by great numbers of good christians, -j^ and certain books, which are now universally rejected, were received by some of them as canonical. t A great part of our mistaken brethren argue just as if they had received the modern bible, in the English language, fi'om the hand of God himself, in the same manner as Moses received the tables of the law on the top of Mount Sina. Finally I will ask you, my brethren, whether you ever heard of a state or legislator, and whether you think such a one ever existed, that, having composed a rule or code of lavvs, left every subject at liberty to explain it ac- cording to his own private opinion ? You that are magistrates or who have studied the law, * S. Iren. adv. Hanr. L. Hi. c. 4. — t For example. Hie Kevelatioiis, the Jilpistle to the Heb. &r.— j Th^ Pastor of Jierwicj, ^c. K 30 teli me what would be the consequence if our statutes, or a single act of parliament, upon the most simple subject and drawn up with the utmost precision, were left to the public at large as a rule of conduct for them to act upon, without reference to any judge or tri- bunal whatever ? You will tell me that ^' it would be better to have no law at all, than law thus constructed, Vv'hich would inevitably be the source of endless disputes and confusion/' And can we fancy that Jesus Christ has left his holy word without the necessary safeguard of an authorized interpreter? Or his holy church without a living tribunal to keep peace in it ? No, my brethren, the eternal wisdom has not been so improvident. On the contrary, that same universal tradition which has handed dovvii to us the scriptures themselves, as like- wise som.e of tlie clearest passages in these very scriptures^'" testify that there is such a living interpreter, such a speaking tribunal, namely, the concurring voice of the chief pastors of the church throughout the whole of her extent. This living authority it is which has condemned -all heresies from the council of Jerusalem-|^ held against the Nazareans, dov^n to that of Trent wliicli censured Martin Luther. * 2. Pet. c. i. V. 20. l-])hc3. c. iv. v. I'i. 1 John, c. iv. v. 6. &c.— t Acts, c. XV. 31 This it is which has preserved the ancient church in unity and truth during 1800 years; while all later communions, by abandoning it, have split into endless divisions, and have died or are dying away. This is that holy and strau^ht high way of which the prophet Isaiah declares that /00/5 shall not err therein."^ In a word this is that short, easy, and safe rule which I promised to point out to you at the beginning of my discourse ; the only one which is accommodated to the capacity of mankind in general, and the only one which can settle the doubts of the most learned. In following this rule you will not have to turn over and study tb^ pages of the bible from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelations in order to find out the truth upon every controverted point that has ever been agitated amongst christians ; you will not have to study them in the original Greek and Hebrew ; you will not have to collate apparent contradictory pas- sages, &c. the only question you will have to ask is : " How does the church of Christ explain such and such passages of scripture ? What does she believe and teach on these several controverted points ?'' Now this is as safe a rule as it is a short and easy one ; * Laiah, c. xxxv. t, 8. 32 because it is self-evident that the true church cannot teach false doctrine. But it may be urged by some persons of the communions in question : "If we must listen to a church, we will listen to our own, being persuaded that ours is the true church/' To this I answer ; " You cannot adopt this rule, without abandoning the one by which you have hitherto been guided, whether this be your own private spirit or your own private interpretation of the bible. No : you cannot lay a fresh foundation for your religion, with- out subverting that on which it has hitherto rested. It was precisely by rejecting all living church-authority and by appealing to a dead letter, (which ingenious men, when they are pressed, can turn to any sense they please,) that your founders Luther, and Calvin, and Cranmer, and Knox, and the rest of the first reformers, of the sixteenth century, founded their respective religions. All these adopted this same rule, though it led most of them to contradictory conclusions.'' — However, my brethren, as this precise question taken apart ; Which is the true church of Christy is perhaps still more simple and easy to be solved than the other which I have been treating of, con- cerning the true rule of faith, at the same time 33 that it conducts to the self-same conclusion, I am willing to enter into a brief discussion of the subject. I have said that it is an easy- matter to discover the true church of Christ amongst the many sects pretending to this glorious title ; and my reason for saying this is, that the church in question bears certain exterior characters or marks, peculiar to her- self, which cannot fail of striking the senses of every sincere inquirer, unlearned as well as learned, and because, however w^e are divided upon other points, we all happily agree as to the marks in question of the true church. What sort of church then is it, my brethren of a different communion, that you declare your belief in, when you repeat the profession of faith which we have received by tradition from the apostles, and which is therefore called the apostles creed ? You say : *' I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH.'^ Again how do you describe this church more at large in the creed appointed by the great council of Nice, in the year 315, and adopted into her liturgy by your church ?* You say : " I BEUEVE IN ONE CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLICAL CHURCH/' So say you, so say I, in our solemn addresses to the * Service for the Lord's Supper. Book of Common Prater. 34 Alraiglity. The only questions tlien for our investigation are which, among the contending communions has the best title to be termed the One Church, the Holy Church, the Catholic Church, and Apostolical Church ? And these questions, I maintain, may be easily solved to a moral certainty by every upright and diligent inquirer. For first, with respect to the mark of unity in belief, every such inquirer will discover, tliat no such thing exists or can exist among those who claim tlie freedom of interpreting the scriptures according to their own particular ©pinions. He will find, not only the different sects who follow this rule, opposed to one another, but he will also find the members of the same communion divided amongst tliem- selves (in spite of all articles and tests to keep them united) upon points of the most essential consequence ; so far as not even to be agreed with respect to the very object of their adoration and the Deity whom they wor- ship. Yes, my brethren, it stands upon record, and the publications of your most eminent divines continually announce it to you that you are not, at the present day, agreed whether Jesus Christ is God, coequal with the Eternal Father ? Or whether he is a mere creature 35 produced by him in time ? The consequence of this is that m the seif-same exterior com- munion, or rather in the different modem communions (for the observation holds good with respect to most of them) this part)^ accuses that of idolatry for worshipping Jesus with divine honour, and that party accuses this of impiety for denying such honour to him ! And can the mark of unity be discerned in churches composed like these ? — Turning now his eyes to that mother church wlio claims and exercises the authority of deciding upon controversies, the religious inquirer will dis-- cover one and the same belief in matters of faith and morality, amongst all its countless millions, from Italy to Ireland, and from China to Canada. It is true disputes may sometimes arise amongst them ; but these are quickly suppressed by the above-mentioned authorit}'. In short, submission or separation scon finishes every contest amongst them. The same obser- vation holds good with respect to church government and the liturgy. In tlie modem communions we witness constant and endless disputes about the existence of ecclesiasticai authority? Whether it is human or divine? Where this authority is lodged ? Whether the sacraments do or do not confer grace, and are or are not necessarv for salvation ? In short. 36 M^e hear an incessant cry for a revision of the articles and the liturgy. — Not so in the un- changeable mother church; all is peace and harmony with her on these essential points. An exact and well-poised subordination of her several orders is universally submitted to and acknowledged to have been constituted by Christ and his apostles. The same essential liturgy of seven life-giving sacraments and of one all-powerful sacrifice is devoutly performed wirhout a murmur or a question in the four quarters of the globe. And can there, my dear brethren, be a doubt which of the con- tending communions is the ONE CHURCH ? — It is to guard this unity of doctrine and liturgy with the greatest possible care that the catholic church continues to make use of the learned unvarying languages in her public worship. Not that she wishes to conceal any l)art of her service from the common people : on the contrar}^ she requires her pastors to explain it to them, and she furnishes the people with versions of it ; but unity of faith and worship being essential to her constitution, she fears that if she committed the essential forms of her sacraments and sacrifice to the number- less and still changing languages and dialects of the different nations whom she comprises, important changes might take place in these 37 matters, and her unity might thus be micler- mined. It is natural for a new and a mere national church to adopt its national language : And for a similar reason the great latin church retains the latin language, as the greek cliurch retains the greek language. After all, my brethren, it is not the church which has imposed an unknown language on the people ; hut it is the people who have forgotten that language which they formerly understood. Again, the latin being learnt by men of education in every country, so far from being an unknown lan- guage, is precisely the language which is most generally known. To go on now to the second mark of the true church, as it is acknowledged by you, my dear brethren, as well as by me, namely, SANCTITY ; when you say : '' I believe in THE HOLY Catholic Church/' Will it, do you think, require any long investigation, on the part of the sincere inquirer, to be satisfied on this head ? Will he not very soon discover which, among the different communions, exacts of its members, and particular!}^ of its clergy, more frequent prayer, reading of the scriptures and other good books, self-exami- nation, the confession of sins, the receiving of the holy sacrament, ahr.s deeds, abstinence, F 38 fasting, and such other works of piety ? Not that sanctity itself consists in any or in all of these exterior works ; but we must offer violence to the whole context of both testa- ments, and we must renounce the example of all the holy personages recorded in each of those volumns of scripture to deny that these are at least the means, the marks, and the fruits of sanctity. With respect to the two last-mentioned works, abstinence and fasting on several appointed days, they are no less strictly enjoined in the common prayer book,* than they are in the ritual of the ancient com- munion. But wdiere is there an individual christian, not belonging to the latter, who even professes to observe them ? Again, w^e must acknowledge, if we are sincere and candid, that Christ did not deceive " the young man who had kept the comma7idme7tts from his youth/' when he told him : '' If thou wilt be perfect, go sell all thou hast and give to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven I'^-f nor his disciples, in general, when he said to them : ** There are eunuchs (or continent per- sons) who have made themselves such for the kingdom of heavens sake. J Yet the state of * See " A table of vigils, fasts and days of abstinence to be observed in the year," at the beginning of the Common Prayer Book.— t Matt. c. xix. T. 21.— + Matt. c. xix. v. 12. 33 life which embraces these evangelical counsels is known to be universally derided by the modern communions and is followed only in the ancient church. Lastly, to omit other proofs, I ask to which of the contending com- munions did those eminent saints, whose sanc- tity is recognized in the modern* as well as in the ancient calendars and whose names are inscribed on places of worship, belong? Is there any question or doubt concerning the faith of a Pope Gregory the Great, whose festival occurs in the calendar of the common prayer book on the 12th of March, or of his disciple St. Augustine,-t by \vhose united efforts our Saxon ancestors were converted to Christianity ? Or of that of his successor in the see of Canterbury, St. Dunstan ?X Or of that of St. Benedict, the patriarch of the Monks ?§ Or of that of St. Chad, the peculiar patron of this diocese, and also of this new chapel r^ Or of that of Venerable Bede, whose numerous writings bear so clear a testimony to the religion which he professed ?|| Who now can call in question the claim of a church, who has been the mother of all the saints in the calendar, to be called THE HOLY CHURCH ? * See the Calendar ;it the beginning of the Common Prayer Book. — + May 20.^-; May 19.-'- March ^21.- 5 March ^i.— H May t2T. 40 The third mark of the true church is so con- spicuous, so glaring, that it is almost incom- prehensible that any christian, believing in his creed, should, for a moment, hesitate to point her out. If I ask you: '' What church youprofess, in the Apostles creed, to believe in?'' You answer me : " The Holy CATHOLIC Church/' If I proceed to ask you: *' Pray, are you a catholic ?'' You reply : " No : I am a protestant/' And, if I further interrogate you : '' Is there any place in this town where llie catholics meet to perform divine worship?*' You wilj not fail to point out this chapel, or else that other catholic chapel on the adjoining hill. Who can hear this without exclaiming in admiration: " How is it possible that you can believe in the catholic church, v/ithout being yourself a catholic ? And even whilst you acknowledge there are persons of a different comm.union fi'om yourself who are catholics ?'* It is to be observed that all the numberless sects which have existed since the beginning of the church, 180Q years ago, have been desirous of attributing to themselves this glo- rious epithet of catl^olic; and that no communion, except the one wliich has a right to the title, has ever been able to acquire it. This was the remark of the great doctor of the church St. Augustine 1400 years ago. In this time 41 the church was afflicted with numerous and pow- erful heresies and schisms, now extinct, each one of which was desirous of being termed cathohc. But, says this holy doctor : '' Let any stranger go into a town and enquire, where the caiholic,s meet to perform their worship, they will be sure to be directed by these very sectaries, not to their own churches, but invariably to that of the real catholics/' — After all, my dear bre- thren, I do not so much insist on the name itself of catholic as I do on the thing signified by that name, CATHOLIC, a word derived from the greek, means UNIVERSAL. Hence, for me to say : ** I am a catholic christian," is to say : '' I do not belong to the church of any particular country or of any particular man or society of men, or of any particular period. I am not of the church of England, nor of the church of Scotland, nor of the church of Ge- neva. I am not a Lutheran, nor a Calvinist, nor a Whitfieldite ; nor am I of any new-invented sect whatsoever. But I am a member of the great universal church of all nations, that which was instituted by Christ and built by him on a rock, and w^hich, according to his promises, shall remain for ever. In short I adhere to the ancient, original, main stock of the christian rehgion, from which as many branches as have been cut off, in the course 42 of 1800 years, have, in a short time, witliered and died away/' — Now, my brethren, which is this great and principal church of christian nations, these nations unequivocally declare ; and which is this ancient church, the original main stock of Christianity, the very stones from the walls of your cathedrals and most other churches cry out,^ Nor is the fourth mark of Christ's true church less visible, that of APOSTOLICITY. We can tell the time when, and the place where, and the cause zvhy, the other societies of chris- tians received their being ; but no one can tell these particulars with respect to the catholic church, since the time when our Saviour said to St. Peter on the coast of Ccesarea Philippi : '' Thou art Peter (or a rock) and upon this rock I will build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it/'-f This church can actually trace the regular succession of her chief pastors, through a list of above two hun- dred and fifty names, from the present edifying Pontifti Pope Pius VII, up to this prince of the apostles, St. Peter, and can thereby prove her orders and her commission for preaching the gospel and administering the sacraments to be truly divine ; while all other communions * Jiabacucj c. ii. v. II.— + Matt. c. xvt, v. l8= 43 must confine tlieir succession to a very late period ; or must vainly attempt to engraft themselves again on that ancient stock from which they unhappily separated themselves. What now can be opposed to these clear, convincing arguments in favour of the catholic rule of faith and of the catholic church herself? Nothing, my brethren, but misrepresentation and calumny ; misrepresentation a thousand times cleared up, calumny a thousand times confuted. What we catholics chiefly complain of is, that, whereas we permit all other reli- gious societies to explain their own systems, and we argue with them on their own acknow- ledged grounds, we, in our turn, are not per- mitted, to state and explain our religion; but our sworn adversaries fabricate a system of faith and morals for us, and, by dint of sophistry and clamour, endeavour to persuade the world and, if they could, to persuade us ourselves that we actually believe in it. To convince yourselves what tenets and maxims we really hold, consult our creeds and pro- fessions of faith, or our catechisms, or the celebrated exposition of the catholic doctrine by the great Bossuet. Or, what, perhaps, may aiFord you more satisfaction than any of thesL- methods ; take some artless child between the 44 ages of twelve and fifteen, any one whom you understand to have been well instructed In the catholic doctrine and morality : Ask him, for example : " Whether the crucifix which you see here exalted upon this altar is placed there to be pra)^ed to or adored ?'' He will answer you : ^' God forbid that we should be idolaters : we have pictures and images for their proper use, namely, to remind us of the persons and things which they represent, and to be of use to us in repelling distracting thoughts of the world ; but we have been always taught that these representations have neither life nor sense to hear or help iis.*"^ Should you further ask him, " Whether he does not at least pray to saints and thereby give to creatures the honour which belongs to God r'' He will answer you with a distinction : ''It is true indeed we sometimes, as our devotion leads us, pray to the saints in heaven to pray to God for us, just in the same manner as we pray our fellow christians here on earth to pray for us. But we ask nothing from the saints but zvhat they and we must obtain from the bomity of God zt'ho alone is the giver of all good gifts /'"[ Should you go on to interrogate the child on the different charges of immorality which the * Catholic Catechism.— f Ibid. 45 malice of our enemies harf" invented against us, as the malice of the Pagans did against tlie ancient christians ;* he will answer you, in substance, as follows: " So, far from be- lieving that I may perjure myself in any case or for any purpose whatsoever, I have been taught that I must not tell the smallest lie to -save my hfe or to save the whole v/orld. So far from believing that I can procure an indul- gence or leave to commit future sin, I am convinced that no past sin can be remitted, in any case whatever, without a sincere and sovereign sorrow, a hearty resolution -to avoid it and all the occasions which have led to the commission of it, and without making every possible reparation to my neighbour if I have injured him.i" I have never learnt that it is the duty of cathohcs to persecute those of a different religion, when they have it in their powder to do so. Protestants may have been persecuted by cathohcs on political grounds, as my fore-fathers were persecuted to death for more than a century by the protestants of this country ; but the catholic religion itself teaches me to love all my fellow crea- tures, without distinction, and to do good to them all, to the best of my power/' — Thus, * SeeTacUus, TcrtuUian, &c.~+ See Catholic Catechism. Cr 46 my dear brethren, will all the other calumnies, misrepresentations, and cavils against the mother church, to which you are indebted for your Christianity and civilization, in short, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostohcal Church, dissolve into air, when w^e have an opportunity of laying hold of them and handhng them. 3. In the first part of my discourse I ad- dressed myself chiefly to deists and other irreligious sophists, and in the second part of it to my fellov/ christians of the different new- invented systems. It now remains for me, in this concluding portion of it, to say a few Avords particularly adapted to the catholic part of my audience. — Infinite thanks then, my dear fellow members in Jesus Christ, are due from you to the pure mercy of God which has preserved you in the safe tranquillity of his holy ark, the catholic church, whilst you see, with 3^our own eyes, those christians who have abandoned it tossed to and fro aiid carried about by every wind of doctrijie.^ The best proof of your security from error in the bosom of this church is that, whereas you know w ell that persons of other communions are in the frequent habit of seeking to enter into it, at the awful conscience-speaking article of death * Fphcs. c. iv. V. 14, 47 and of sending for your pastors for this pur- pose, there is no instance known, there is nqne upon record, of a well instructed catholic seeking to die in any religion but his own ! Infinite thanks, again, are due from you to the pure mercy of God for tlie numerous and inestim.able practical helps for working out your salvation w^hich this church affords you, in the communion of saints ; in the seven sacraments, those living fountains of grace, so admirably adapted by infinite wisdom to your several necessities and stations of life ; and finally, in the adorable sacrifice of the new law, so infinitely superior to the types of it in the old law ; whicli sacrifice, you know, constitutes the most essential part of your public worship. But, my fellow catholics, to come to the point which I announced in the division of my sermon ; will any of these ad- vantages or all of them together avail you, of themselves to please God or to save 3'our souls ? May you argue wath the pharisees ; " We are the children of Abraham and there- fore we shall inherit the promises of Abraham?" No, my brethren ; for Christ answers them and you : '' If you are the children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham/'-f In other, more explicit w^ords, he tells you : '' If you will ♦ John, c. viii. v. 39, 48 enter into life keep the commandments ;''* not one or two commandments, but all and every one of them. There is no place, in the region of infinite purity and infinite happiness, for pride, or avarice, or lust, or anger, or intemperance, or envy, or sloth. Should you be found guilty of any one of these vices, or of a single act of them, unrepented of, at the all-important moment of your entering into eternity (as judging from their lives, we may safely say, too many catholics will be found) the religious advan- tages which God has conferred upon you will be the cause of your heavier condemnation. '' It will be more tolerable to Tyre and Sidon'' than to you '' at that day/*f In a word, the exterior of religion, however necessary, will not avail you without the interior vital part of it which is comprised in truly "loving God with ail your heart, with all your soul, w^ith all your mind, and with all your strength, and your neighbour as 3^oursclves ;'' and, as the beloved disciple assures us, this " love must not consist in \^ ords only, but in deed and in effect." However, as these moral precepts will form the ordinary matter of the discourses w^hich your pious pastor will weekly deliver to you in this sacred place, and as I have already taken up a great deal of the time of my audi- * Matt. c. xix. V, IT.— + Matt. c. xi. v. 22, 49 ence in general, I will now conclude witli once more beseeching the Almighty to bestow hiS blessing upon this place and upon us here assembled in it . O Lord God Almighty] who, though " hea- ven avxl the heaven of hcavejis cannot contain thy ira mensit)/-, yet vouchsafest to choose this place to Thyself as a house of sacrifice,'' gra- ciously bestow thy blessing upon it and upon all lis who are here assembled. " Let thy eyes be open and let thy ears be attentive to the sacrifices and prayers that are and shall be oflered up to thee in this thy house." Shower down tliy blessings, both temporal and spiritual, according to thy boundless mer- cy, not only upon us, but also up'on our gracious Sovereign, and our fellow subjects in general, and upon all mankind ; that v>^e mav serve thee faithfully here on earth, and come to the sight and possession of thee liereafter in thy heavenly kingdom ; through the merits of thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. — The blessing of Almighty God, F'ather, Son, zud Holy Ghost descend upon you and d\veli [or ever with you. Amen. EHIiATA. P. 16, L 29, for ni^/i read ra/tk\ r. 20, I. uh, fur Mash ra^d Maclaine. JUST FUEJLISHJElJ), BY DR. MILNER, And sold Itf C, Wilks, New Street, Birmingliam ; Keating and Co, Duke Street, Grosvenor Square ; and J. Booker, New Bond Street, London ; T. Simpson, Walverliampton, §c. ^c. £. s, d. Letters to a Prebendary in Answer io Reflections on Popery by the Rev. Dr. Stiirges, Chancellor of Winchester, &c. second edition 10 6 An Inquiry into certain Vulgar Errors concerning the Catholic Inhabitants and Antiquities of Ireland, third edition, with plates and Answers to the Objections made to the first edition „ Q 10 6 Hisforical and Critical Inquiry into the Existence and Character of St. George 1 (3 Sermon on -tlie happy Recovery of his Majesty 1 History and Antiquities of Winchester, with additi- onal copper plates and a Review of the Publica- .tians occasioned by the first edition, 2 vols. 4to. second edition 3 3 >--.. -Ditto Ditto, fine paper 5 5 Bi) the Rev. E. Peachy Birmingliam, Scrriions for every Sunday and Festival in ih^ Ye-ir, chieiiy taken from the Sermons of M. Massillon, 3 vols 15 •"■ernion preached on the Fast Day, February 17, 1808, in iiirmingham 1 The folloicing Works are by the late Ven. and R. R. Dr. Challofiery V. A. The Catholic Christian insiructed in the. Sacraments, Sacrifice, Ceremonies and Observances of the Catholic Church 4 Grounds of the old lU'Iiiilou 4 PASTORAL LETTER OF JOHN, BISHOP OF CASTABALA, V. A. ADDRESSED TO ALL THE CATHOLIC- CLERGY OF THE MIDLAND DISTRICT. »:ili!lll||!{Ss]|jj||||)IIII< LONDON: PRINTED BY KEATING, BROWN AND KEATING, • P.niNTEllsTO THE R. R.THE VICARS APOSTOLIC, ^ ^ 38, DXJKE-STREET, GROSVSNOR-SQUARE? 1 808. • -f^: i" I I ■1 , 111 TO ALL THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF THE MIDLAND DISTRICT. Uev, and Beloved Brethren in Jesus Christ, WHEN I addressed to you my last letter, dated June 1, in the present year, exhorting you to join with your respective congregations in offering up fervent prayers to the throne of mercy for our Holy Fa- ther, P. Pius VIL in his state of suffering and danger, and warning you against pestilential and schismatical errors concerning his conduct and authority, I was well aware of the grounds there were for such an admoni- tion. I did not, however, then expect that these errors would so soon and so audaciously stalk abroad in all their native deformity, and under the avowed names of their chief abettors, as proves to be the case, by the publication of two different letters addressed to me, the one entitled : Defense du Clerge Frarifois resident d Londres, et dans le reste de VAngleterre, contre Clncul" pation de Mgr, J. Milner, Evtque de Castabala, Fie, Jpos, 8^0, and signed P. L. Blanchard, Cure de S. Hj/ppolite, S^c, ^7^/i June, 1808 ; the other entitled, Lettrc de ilf. Gaschet, Curt de J^ignolles, a Mgr. J, A Milner, Eveque, S^c, signed Gaschef, S^c. SOtk Juin, 1808. — I do not here speak of certain late anonymous publications of the same nature. You clearly see, be- loved brethren, that my Pastoral has not created the fatal mischief which I deplore, but that it has forced it to assume its proper shape, (to the salutary dread, I trust, of many who before were too familiar with it); that it has not formed the dangerous abcess, which I have been alarmed about, but that it has laid it open, to the improved health, as I hope by God*s grace, of our Catholic body. For some years past, as I heretofore intimated, I have lamented the scandal, and too probable loss of souls, occasioned by the errors in question ; but as they regarded all the other districts, as well as the one com- mitted to my care, I waited in hopes of being able to expose them to my colleagues, assembled in a canoni- cal synod, (that approved remedy for all ecclesiastical maladies,) in order that we might adopt some measures in common for repressing them. - In the mean time, the numerous personal attacks which have been made upon me and my writings, by partizans of these errors, have not provoked me to break silence concerning them. Seeing, however, that there was no prospect of such a synod being soon held, in consequence of the infirm health of my colleagues, and other obstacles, and the subject on the other hand actually presenting itself to me in my last pastoral, I thought it my duty to admo- nish my flock, dispersed throughout fifteen counties, in the manner that I have done. At the present time, observing the increased boldness of the abettors of schism in propagating it, and in thwarting me in the discharge of my duty, so far as to dissuade a large pro- portion of you from publishing my late pastoral(l), and (i) Defense, &:c. par Mr. Blanchard, p. 5, ). i^r- so far as even to term me publicly a Concordatist(\), after having endeavoured to prove that the clergy of this description are obstinate heretics{2), I consider it as a duty which I owe to my station in the Catholic Church, to the dignity and authority of our Holy Father, now suffering for conscience sake, and to your spiritual wel* fare, and that of your flocks, to address these further admonitions and instructions to you, on the subject of. these pernicious errors. — I think it proper, dear Bre- thren, in the first place, to lay before you ^l/cw of the passages containing these errors, which 1 have extract- ed from certain former as well as late publications that have been dispersed amongst us : for if I undertook to present you with all the passages of this nature which have been so published and dispersed, I should have to send you a huge folio volume, 1 shall take no notice whatsoever of the writings of Abbe de Chateaugiron, who is now dead, nor of those of Abbe Osoir, whom 1 suppose to have been long silent, nor of the Journals of Mr. Peltier, because he is a layman, an-d therefore presumed to be unacquainted with questions of theo- logy, but I shall confine myself to the publications of the two above mentioned authors, who have within these five weeks written and printed letters against my last pastoral, together with one or two other works whose authors are unknown to me, '^ L'Heresie vient d*obtenir en France un triomphe complet, et Pie VII. en est la premiere et la principale cause "-^Premiere Suite a la Controverse Pacijique, par Vauteur de la Controv. Pacif, A. D. 1805, p.4£l.(3) (i) Defense, &c. par Mr. Blanchard, p. 29. (2) Eiat.PoUt. par Mr. Blanchard, pp. 4i2,4«3' (3) N. B. The Abbe Blanchard avows himself to be the author of. the Controverse Pacijique in his late D&fensef p. 2. A 2 ** LesEv^ques de France etcenx de PEglise entiere, ont ignore si Pie VII. avoit, ou s'ii n'avoit pas cette connoissance qui I'eut rendu heretique formel. lis ont pu, du moins, douter, et etre a eel egard dans I'incer- titude." Ihid. p. 42I. ^^ Je dirai de plus que ]es fideles et les pretres Ca- tholiques, etrangers a ia France, doiveni une veritable et sincere deference aux Reclamations Canonignes de nos Eveques. Cette deference consiste arecevoir avec respect les grandes veriies qui y sont exposees, a de- plorer avec nous les malheurs de I'Eglise, loin d'ap- Nplaudir aux mesures desastreuses de Pie VII." Ibid, p.SlO. *' Nous etablirons que le concordat est la premiere chaine de I'Eglise Concordataire, et le premier instru- ment de la ruine de TEglise Cathohque." — UEtat Po- litique et Religieux de la France y Sfc. par VAuttur de la Controverse Pacifique, A, D. I8O6, p. 23» '' Si Pie VII. lui meme avoit trahi la foi, par I'union avec des heretiques notoires, par la profession et Ten- seignement public de Theresie, &c. ceux (les eveques) de France pourroient n'etre pas unis a lui, avoir droit a nos hommages, et etre unis a Pierre." Ibid- p»211}- *' Alors, et a ces conditions, se fit la reunion ; et cet amalgame on I'appelle Eglise Catholique. II est vrai que, par la reunion, les Constitutionels perdirent leur nom, et, de Clerge Constitutionel, ils devinrent, avec leurs associes, et furent nommes le Glerge Concorda- - taire; mais il est egallement incontestable etqu'ils con- serverent leurs principes, et qu'ils les firent adopter au Clerge Catholique, reuni a eux- Les Constitutionels formoient, lorsquele Clerge Catholique s'est reuni a eux, un corps d'heretiques opinatres." Ibid. pp. 412, 413. '^ Une Eglise aussi corapletenient asservie ne peut ^tre I'Eglise de Jesus-Ciirist, dont la liberie est insepa- rable. Cette verite frappe les esprits. Nous Tavons entendue exposer, dans la chaire evangfelique, avec autant de solidite que d'eloquence." Ibid, p. 433. *' Plusieurs lettres, arriv6es depuis peu de diverses provinces de France, attestent unaninaement que, dans plusieurs cantons, les pretres fideles se separent de la communion de I'Eglise Concordataire, et torment ce que les partisans du concordat nomme La Petite Eglise^ — Cette separation, inspir^e par I'attachement aux de- cisions de i'Eglise Catholique^ &c." Ibid, p. 434. ^' Les PasteurS Concordataires, esclaves voluntaires, etdevoues aux persecuteurs ineines, doivent etre evites par les fideles, jaloux d'operer leur salut, et ils n'ont pas regu de Jesus-Christ les pouvoirs essentiellement Ii-» bres dans leur principe et dans leur exercise." Ibid. p. 433. *' Nos Eveques n'ont pas beslte a defendre leurs droits. — Que deviendroit I'Eglise Gallicane si les de» sastres causes par la fuiblesse de Pie VII. n'etoient pas repares par leur ferraeie ? Que deviendroieni les autrea Eglises, si des mesures aussi funestes passoient en foi, faute de reclamation ? Que deviendroient meme les promesses faites a. I'Eglise, oii en seroient les insepara- bles eiiets, si les droits sacres, si I'Episcopat, cette in- stitution divine, eioient saerifies sans aucune opposi- tion ?" Ibid' p. 101. Un des sujets de leurs justes plaintes, c'est que Pie VII. par sa foiblesse, ait introduit leschisme meme et I'heresie dans le sein de I'Eglise.'* Ibid, p. 193. " I shall here quote a few lines from an anonymous work, of the same date and tendency with the last mentioned, called Dissertation sur V Article \Sydu Con- cordat, as I have to take notice hereafter of some part of its statements. — -^^ II s'etablit en France une Eglise nouvelle sur les mines de I'ancienne, et qui devieut. 8 sous des rapports essentiels^ differente de TEglisede Jesus* Christ.'^ P. 2. " Pie VII. auroit fait une cession immense, univer- selleet sans example, uniquement pour I'etablisseraent du libra exercise du culte exterieur, en vertu d'un con- cordat qui porte un coup mortel a la religion, dans ce qu'elle a d'essentiel." Ibid, p. 20. Another work without the author's name, and with- out any date, but which appears from circumstances to have been published within these few weeks, contains the following schismatical proposal and advice to the Catholic public : — '' 11 faut eclairer les pasteurs, tant sur les erreurs, que sur les dangers du concordat, pour eclairer par eux le peuple meme.- — Mais il nous parait impossible de Faltaquer avec succes, tant qu'on en respecte Tauteur. — Attaquer la transaction, et menager celui d'oii elle emane, ce sont deux choses contradic- toires dans les ternies. Tant que vous aurez ces me- nagements, on vous objecteia, sans cesse, I'aulorite, et Yospreuves les plus decisives viendront echouer contra ceite borne que vous aurez laissee devant vous. II est necessaire de choisir : si nous condamnons le Concor- dat, comrae destructif de PEglise, conime contraire a la justice et aux droits les plus sacres, il en faut condamner Tauteur et le denoncer a TEglise Catholique^ Sec.'' Observations sur la Lettre de Vhiqidsiteur, 4"c. p. 17. I proceed now to extract a few passages from the tv/o letters which have just been published against my pastoral. — *' A Dieu ne plaise, Mgr. que jVntreprenne ici Tapologie des seuls Eveques legitimes de Francs." (Meaning the French Bishops who have not given up their sees.) Defense du Clergt, <5fc. par VAbbc BUrn^ chard, (dated) JuinQ.7, 1808, p. 5. " Decider que Pie VII. a sauve le dogme et la dis- cipline universellede TEglise, est une petition des prin-* cipes." Ibid. p. 21. " Pie VII. par la formation de I'Eglise Coneorda- taire, a, en effet, revoque les Brefs de son predecesseur et ad mis les principes fondamentaux de la Constitution Civile du Clerge/' p. 23. *' Comment Pie VII. a-t-il form^ ce fantome d'E- glise ? II I'a forme sur les bases memes que Pie VI. avoit condamnees comme impies, hereliques et schis- matiques/' p. 24. *^ Pfouvez qu*il (Pie VII.) n'a pas sacrifie les saintes regies et i'Eglise raeme," p. 31. — *' Est ce qu'il inourroit sans avoir manifeste son repentir?" Ibid* The other writer who, by name and under his own name, has attacked my Pastoral, I'Abbe Gaschet, though he expresses himself in much plainer and grosser terms than I'Abbe Blanchard, does little more than follow up the principles which the latter has, for so long a time, and so indefatigably, been employed in propagating. — This writer begins his letter with ex- pressing the concern which my Pastoral has given him: after which he proceeds as follows: " Ce que j'y trouve de bien frappant, c'est que vous ordonnez des prierres pour la delivrance de ce trop coupable Pontife, sans parler de celles que la charite prescrit pour sa conversion; c'est que vousle preseniez a la piete des fideies pour le premier et digne pasteur de TEglise, tandis qu'il en est le pkis redouiable perse- cuteur; c'est que vous le comblez d'eloges, quoiqu'il ne merite que des anathemes, Slc." Lett re dc M, Gaschet, cure de Fignolles, 4'c. ^ Mgr, J. Milner, JE- veque de Cast aba la, Fie. Jpos. dated Londres, 30th Juin, ] 808, pp. 3, 4. " Depuis quatre ans quejesuis en Angleterre, je n'y ai pas exerce le ministere de la predication, ni fait im- primer aucun ecrit. Mais je vous declare que, dans routes les occasions qui se sont souvent presentees, je me suishautement prononce contre la defection dePjeVii. 10 jusqu'a protester, comme je le protesfe ici, que dans Tordie leligieux, il m'est aussi Stranger que lejuif, le payen et le publicaia. Je vous declare aussi que si j*cusse parle du haut de la chaire de verite, ou publie d'ailleurs quelque ouvrage theologiques, je n'aurais pas manque d'y developper nies sentiments sur le scandale afFreux que ce faux Pape ne cesse de donner depuis long temps a tout Tunivers." Ibid, p. 4. ** Pie VII. ce pretenduPape/* p. 8. ^' II blaspheme le saint nom de Dieu/' p. 12. *' Bien loin d'avoir ete trompe par les constitutionels. Pie VII. les a lui-m^me volontairement confirmes dans leur damnable egarement, et, apies cette abominable connivence, il a voulu tromper toute TEglise sur leur pretendu retour a I'unite Cathoiique," pp. £9, SO. " Tous les autres eccksiastiques concordataires etant notoirement unis de communion, et ne faisant qu'un seul et meme corps de clerge avec les dits constitutio- nels, toule la nouvelle Eglise de France est done schis- matique. Or, comme il est de principe, qu'il n*y a ni pou voir de jurisdiction ecclesiastique, ni remission des pecheschez les heretiques et les schismatiques, le peu- ple Francais ne pent done presque plus, et peut-etre aucunement, recourir a un pretre qui puisse valideraent lui administrer le sacreracnt de penitence," p. 38.— *' Par la meme raison, uni de communion avec le Bouveau clerge Francais, et avec Napoleon Bonaparte, fipostat consomme et impenitent. Pie VII. (j'en suis j)leinement convaincu) est done schismatique, fanteur d'heresie et d'apostasie. II est done dechu de rhon** neur du sacerdoce, de toutes les prerogatives attachee* au Souverain Pontificat, de toute jurisdiction ecclesias- tique, et de tout droit a I'obeisance des fideles. C'est iin malbeur : mais e'en seroit un autre de le flatter, de ^e pas aller a son secours, et de le iaisser perir dans Tabyme affreux, ou ii s'est jete,'^ p. 39. 11 " Loin de nous ces menagements d'un faux respect envers le plus dangereux agent des maux sur lesquels nous gemissons," p. 43. *' A Dieu ne plaise qu'en rejettant la communion de Pie VH. je veuille insulter au malheur de sa captivite 1" p. 48. Do not your ears, dear Brethren^ tingle with horror at hearing such impious as well as schismatical lan- guage from French Priests ? And would you not have supposed that I was repeating to you the infuriate in- vectives of Martin Luther against Leo X. had I not previously acquainted you with the names of those who •utter it ? Yet these men were once highly respectable before angels as well as men, in quality of Confessors of the Faith, But, giving way to a blind presumption, and a false unrelenting zeal, like the unhappy Lucifer of Cagliari in the fourth century, who himself had suffered exile for the faith, they have tarnished all their laurels, and are become a subject of scandal to the Catholic Church which they once adorned. Though no remarks of mine upon the passages above quoted can, I am sure, add to the horror which the bare repetition of them has excited in you, yet for the sake of throwing a greater light upon the subject, I think it proper to make the two following observations concerning tiiem.-*— Li the first place, if what these men tell you is true, then all the glorious qualities and distinguishing marks of the true Church of Christ have disappeared, and the Church herself has failed toge- ther with them : — She is no longer. The mountain Ijlaced upon the top of mountains, to which all nations' of the earth flow, Dan. xi. 35. — She is no more. The one sheepfold of the one Shepherd, John x. l6. — She has ceased to be. The Highway of holiness in which fools cannot err^ Isaiah xxxv. ^S, — The inheritance of the B 12 Geniiles to the uttermost parts of the earth, Psalm xi. 8. — The foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets^ Christ himself being the corner stone, Ephesians, ii.20. —On the contrary she is now — A kingdom divided against itself and that party in it which retains the true and saving faith and communion is so obscure, that it could not be found out by the most diligent en- quirer, and so few in numbers, that il might be shut up in the smallest sectary meeting house. — In the mean time, the successor of St. Peter, lawfully chosen and universally acknowledged, with the whole Roman Church, and the whole collection of Prelates of the Universal Church, dispersed throughout the four quar- ters of the globe, being all of them as visibly in union with him, as they have been with any of his prede- cessors, and who even refuse to communicate with all Christians, not communicating with him, is a schis- matic, heretic, and apostate, with whom we are bound to have no more communication, in religious concerns, than with a Jew, or a Pagan I — Such is the language of men calling themselves Catholic Priests JSolite an- nunciare in Geth, neque annuncietis in compitis Asca- lonis : ne forte Icetcntur filice Philisthiim, ne exultent fiii(E incircumcisorum ! 2 Reg. i. 2o. In the next place, if Pius VII. is, by any means, become a ^' false Pope," a *' schismatic/' &c. (for I wish to spare your ears the repetition of the other im- pieties uttered against him,) then we Vicars Apostolical, and all the other Prelates throughout the Universal Church, who have received their institution and spiri- tual powers from him, are false Pastors; then you yourselves are intruders into the sacred ministry, de- stitute of mission and authority, and of course not a sacred rite of any kind has been lawfully administered, nor a single act of spiritual jurisdiction validly exercised by you, at least, during the last seven years ! 13 But It is not thus, beloved Brethren, you have learned the Catholic doctrine; nor is it thus you teach it to your respective flocks. You are deeply convinced, and are ready, each one of you, to demonstrate that the true Church is always VISIBLE, is always ONE, is always HOLY, is always CATHOLIC, and always APOSTOLICAL. — Again, without entering into any theological subiilities whatsoever, you always believe and teach, that the Pope being in communion with the great body of the chief Pastors of the Church, never can become a heretic or a schismatic ; and that, pronouncing on the faith, discipHne, and morality of the Church, with their express or tacit approbation, he never can err.-— In a word, you have learnt from St. Augustme : — " Sicut Anathema erit qui aununciaverit Christum neque passum esse, neque resurrexisse : sic erit anathema quisquis aununciaverit ecclesiam prseter communionera omnium gentium." Epist.Q}, ad Viiu cent* Regat, You have been taught by St. Ambrose, to imitate his brother Satyrus, in judging concerning the orthodoxy of any unknown Christian: — *^ Percuncta- tus est utrumnam cum Episcopis Catholicis, hoc est, cum Ecclesia Roman^ conveniret." Orat. in Obit Sa^ tyr. Finally, you have been instructed by St. Jerom, in every doubt concerning the true communion of the Catholic Church, to consult him who is the standard- bearer and centre of it. — " Ego nullum primum nisi Christum sequens Beatitudini tua;, id est. Cathedrae Petri comniunione consocior. Super illam petrara aedi- ficatam Ecclesiam scio. Non novi Vitalem, Meletium respuo, ignoro Paulinura. Quicunque tecum non col- ligit spargit. Hoc est, qui Christi non est Antichristi est," Epist. 57, ad Damas. Pap, By way of eluding this grand Catholic argument to which the Fathers and the Doctors of the Church have always had recourse in their disputes with heretics and B 2 u schismatics, (I mean the consent of the great body of her Prelates with her chief Pastor at their head) the writer who has been most industrious in propagating schism amongst us, the Abbe Blanchard, professes to be supported in this cause by all the lawful Bishops and clergy of France ; by the Apostolical Vicar, and many of the native clergy of the district in which he resides ; by his Holiness, the identical Pope Pius VJI. and finally, by myself, his present opponent. On the question of authority, namely, on which side this au- thority lies, he has an undoubted right, upon Catholic grounds, to be heard. Let us suppose then, that those illustrious Prelates and Confessors of the Faith, the French Bishops 'now in exile, are the onli/ Iazi:ful Bishops of France, and that their more numerous episcopal brethren who have returned to their own country, and the other Bishops of France, who, together with them, have been ap- pointed by the Pope to feed that vast flock, which otherwise must long since have perished for want of spi- ritual food, are not Bishops, yet how many in number are the first-mentioned Bishops, in England and every where else ? — Not more, I apprehend, than from twenty to thirty. And can so small a number of Pre- lates represent the faith and support the communion of the Universal Church, in opposition to the Pope, with as many hundreds of Catholic Bishops, throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and North Ame- rica ? For it is proper, dear brethren, to inform you that, amongst all his sufferings, Pius VII, has, within these few months, enjoyed the consolation of forming five new Episcopal sees in North America, and of ap« pointing Bishops to them, under their edifying Metro- politan, the Bishop of Baltimore. The grand question, however, is, how far the Abbe Blanchard and his sssociates are really supported by the exiled Bishops ':! 16 I am confident they do not support him in any thing that is schismatical, or that leads to schism. They do not support him and his other associates ia those scandalous propositions and proposals which I have quoted above. It is true, they think the Pope has been mistaken in a matter of fact, and has exceed- ed the just limits of his power in their regard ; and though 1 myself am convinced of the coutrary, and am satisfied that I have proved this in my work, called An Elucidation of the Conduct of P. Fius VII. yet^ as his Holiness leaves them in pos>ession of their opinion, and as they profess the strictest union with him, and the most profound veneration for him, it is not for me to censure them, much less ongiit I to confound theni with the above-mentioned otiicious and dangerous scribblers. In fact, so far from proclaiming Pius VII. a heretic or a schismatic, or the author of heresy or schism; so far from breaking communion with him, or pretending that the fate of the wliole Catholic Church, and the fulfilment of Christ's promises to it depended upon the publication of the two books which have ap- peared under their names, these Prelates^ throughout the whole of these very works, hold directly the con- trary language. In the first of these they write as fol- lows : — " La resistence douloureuse, a la quelle nous nous trouvons forces, ne troublera pas la paix du sane- tuaire, n'aiterera pas i'union entre le pere et les en fans: ii sgait que nos coeurs sont ^ lui; il scait qu'il possede I'afFection de nos ames. 11 veut ie bien de nos egiises; nous le voulons aussi ; nous sommesbien loin de nous separer du chef commun." Memoire des Eveq. Pranc. A. D. 1802. In their second work called, CV iionica ^' Reverendissimce Expostuiationes, A. D. l803, they address his Holiness with equal respect and affec- tion, begging his blessing, and proclaiming with St. Au- gustine, " Prsecidendae unitatis nulla potest esse justu 16 causa." — It is natural to suppose that the Abbe Blan- chard and his partisans should wish to make common cause with the French bishops and clergy in general: but I have reason to believe they will not make com- mon cause with him. My venerable friend, the late Bishop of Leon, frequently testified to me his decided disapprobation of the Abbe's characteristical doctrines, and I am assured, from good authority, that several other French bishops have testified the same sentiment. With respect to the French clergy of the second order, I have difierent letters from some of the most distin- guished among them, protesting against the Mock De- fense which that writer has set up for them. But inde- pendently of this argument, I could never bring myself to think that any great number of that clergy which has made such heroical sacrifices to the Unity of the Church, will now consent to forfeit the merit of those sacrifices, by contributing to divide and disturb it. Nor can I persuade myself that the greater part of those victims of honour and loyalty, the emigrant no- bility and gentry of France, will agree to forfeit the glo- rious and consoling title of Catholic, from any party motive or human respect whatever. In fact, what other consolation have they, under their heavy losses and sufferings, than those which their holy religion affords them ! As to the support which Abbe Blanchard pretends to derive from the alledged total silence with respect to his errors, of the bishop in whose district he lives (1), and from the sermons of some of the English clergy of that district ; I answer that, I have sufficient grounds to believe, that the Prelate in question considers it " an insult to be barely supposed to approve of Abbe Blanchard's doctrine, concerning the Pope and the (i) D&'fense, pp.4, 5. 17 Concordat/* and that he refers to evidence of his having *^ opposed it."— With respect to his insinua- tions against some of the English clergy, as if they had held the same language in their pulpits, concerning the character and conduct of Pius VII. which he has held (1), I can only say, that I do not believe him, and I should expect, from their quick sensibility to the least suspicion of this nature, that they would call him to aa account for these insinuations. Thus much is certain, that there is neither truth nor probability in this intima- tion, that, in my late Pastoral Lett tr, I charged some of them (2) with those schismaticai doctrines, which he elsewhere very justly supposes (3) I meant principally to charge him with. — I can declare, moreover^ that several other prelates, as well Irish as English, with whom I have corresponded on the subject of Messrs. Blan- chard's and Gaschet's publications, unanimously agree in expressing their utter detestation of them, A me- tropolitan, of Ireland, has written thus to me within these few days: — *^ Blanchard's and Gaschet's publi- cations are too openly schismaticai to do much mis- chief. Nevertheless, it may be adviseable to warn your flock, and particularly the French part, against them. They have not been mentioned here. You may rely on the support of the Irish prelates in the cause of or- thodoxy." Another distinguished Prelate, of the same nation, writes to me as follows : — " I should not be surprised if they (Blanchard and Gaschet) publicly apostatized. I remember, when I was in London, to have heard that Blanchard, in preaching, declaimed against his Holiness. I told , as Dr. D. was absent, that the Abbe ought to be suspended, to which he seemed to agree, &c."— But what need is there of the testimony of individual prelates to shew that the doc- (0 Defense, p. 3. (2) Ibid. p. 4- (3) Ibid. p. 3. 1^ trine of these writers is schismatical, when the visible communion of all the Bishops of the Catholic Church, with Pius VII. incoot'overtibly demonstrates it ? The pretensions of Abbe BJanchard to my approba- tion of his schismatical system, (for if he does not speak of this system he says nothing) and still more to that qf Pius VII. is too ridiculous to need confuting. This writer seems to mistake his dreams for realities. Thus much is certain, that there is no reality in the stories which he tells of my correspondence with the Bishop of St. Pol, of my interview with the Archbishop 'of Aix, or of my conversation with himself (1). True it is that I employ several French Priests in my district, much to my own comfort, and to the benefit of my flock; but, 1 trust they are men of a different theological syMem from Abbe B. It is also true that, a few months ago, I ofhciated publicly in the chapel of my revered friend, who is also the friend of human nature; but the consolation which I experienced on that occasion arose from considering myself as then officiating in the temple of orthodoxy, as well as of charity and piety. In settiilg themselves up, however, against the Pope and the great body of the Pastors, as these private Priests do, they profess a great willingness to enter into the merits of the cause with him and all his supporters, and they undertake to shew, that his Holiness, with all the Bishops who are in communion with him are ac- tually involvedvin schism. But this method of appeal- ing from the living speaking authority of the Church to their own false positions and pitiful sophisms which Luther and all other heretics and schismatics neces- sarily have had recourse to, has been uniformly pro- tested against by her illustrious Fathers and Doctors. Nevertheless, though I also protest against it, and de- (i) Defense, p. 2. 19 ciare that I will not enter into a controversy with the above-mentioned writer, or any of his partisans, on the subject of the doctrine which I deliver to my flock, unless there should be an appearance of his being ac- tually supported against me by a competent ecclesias- tical authority ; yet, dear Brethren, for your fuller infor- mation, and for the better guarding you and your flocks against error, I will> in as few words as possible. Jay before you the principal grounds on which these mis- guided men proceed, and the instability of the grounds. They say that Pius VII. has sanctioned the Civil Constitution of the French Clergy, which was con- demned by his predecessor, Pius VI. and that he has knowingly and willingly admitted the former constitu- tional and schismatical Bishops, still professing their schism, and without any retraction, into his commu- nion and that of the other Prelates^ Priests, and faith- ful who communicate with him. — THOU GREAT JUDGE OF THE LIVING AND THE DEAD ( if Pius VII. insl;ead of being thy Vicar on earthy and the spiritual father of these men, were some obscure individual, how much would they not have to answer for at thy awful tribunal for their malicious and gross calumnies against him ! — It is a notorious fact, then, that at the very beginning of his CONVENTION with the French Government, Pius VII. stipulates, that '' a new circumscription of the dioceses of France shall be made by the HOLY SEE." Concord. Art. 2. Is not this, both in the spirit and the terms of the Article, abrogating, instead of sanctioning the schis- matical Constitution of the former French Government, which pretended to create new dioceses by its own in- competent power ? Again, by the 3d and 4th Articles of this same Concordat, it is expressly provided, that the Constitutional Bishops (no less than the others) who had hitherto invalidly attempted to exercise juris- C 20 diction by virtue of the schismatlcal Civil Const itutiojt, should renounce such pretensions, and, in case any of them were named to Bishoprics, that they should re- ceive their jurisdiction from THE HOLY SEE. All this is more fully declared by Pius VH. in his Bull, Ecchsia Christi, 8vo. Kal. Sep. 1801. By another Bull, beginning Qui Christ i Doynini Tires, 3 Kal. Decern. 1801, this Pontiff, by the divine authority of his see, actually circumscribes and creates the new Bishoprics as they exist at present. Finally, by a third Bull, Quoniam, favente Deo, dated 29th Nov. 1801, he strictly enjoins his legate in France, Card. Caprara, to whom he delegates his power of conferring ecclesi- astical institution in that country, *' to make a diligent examination, and institute a process of information with respect to the integritij of faith and submission to the decisions of the Holy See (of course to those made by Pius VII.) of the several candidates, before he raised any of them to the episcopal dignity." His Holiness had previously exhorted these Bishops to do this by his letter to the Archbishop of Corinth, dated Aug. 15, 1808. Accordingly, it is a notorious fact, that the comparatively small number of the former Constitu- tional Bishops (being only ten out of forty of them) who were appointed to Bishoprics, in the new system, did solemnly retract their errors, profess their repent- ance for their former schism, submit to a penance and absolution for it, and promise strict adherence to all the Constitutions of Pius VI. My friend. Abbe Dan- cel, formerly Professor of Philosophy at Paris and Old Hall Green, has declared by his letter, dated Paris, April 27, 1802, that he had seen the original instru- ments of these transactions with respect to seven out of these ten Bishops, in the hands of the Cardinal legate. Let us suppose then, that two or three of the number may, by some artifice or other, have eluded the condi- tioDS prescribed them, which, however, 1 am convinced was not the case; and let us suppose that one or two others of them, from a point of false honour, should have denied their act of retractation, and should have again publicly taught schismalical doctrine, would all this be a new case in ecclesiastical history? Or would Pius VII. be more accountable for it than former Pon- tiffs were for the hypocrisy and tergiversations of the Arians, the Pelagians, and the Jansenists ! How anxi- ous his Holiness was to prevent the appearance of his sanctioning or consenting to the Constitutional s^^stem, condemned by his predecessor and by himself, was plain from his conduct at Paris in 1804, as he himself states it in his Allocutio : *' Nostra precipuum in mo- dura," says he *' intererat de sincero paucorum episco- porum in Catholicam unitatem reditu cognocere, qui antequam canonicam a nobis institutionem obtinerenf, congruo suae reconciliationistestimonio opus habuerant, illam tamen consecuti, ita se gesserant, ut nos de ger- manis eorum sensibus valde solicitos redderent. Hanc vero solicitudinem paucos post dies iidem sustulerunt. Verbis enim et scriptis, quae nobiscum attulimus, Apos- tolicae Sedis judiciis circa Ecclesiastica Galliae negocia firmiter atque ex animo se adherere et subjicere decla- rarunt." — And yet there are men of such unblushing foreheads and seared consciences, as to assert, and to embark their everlasting doom on tbe truth of their assertions : " that Pius VH. has built a phantom of a Church on the basis which Pius VI. had condemned as impious, heretical, and schismatical (1);" and that '' he has confirmed the Constitutional clergy in their damnable errors (2)." But, say these calumniators of their father : Pius VI 1. has at least sanctioned the laws, called Loix Or- (i) Defense de M. Blancliard, p. 24. (2) Lettre de M. Gaschet, p. 29. C 2 •■22 ganiques, which his warmest advocates allow to be con- trary to the laws of the Church and of God in different instances. — I utterly deny the charge, and defy the calumniators to produce the shadow of an argura:^nt in support of it. It is true, that in stipulating for the public exercise of the Catholic religion which was before prohibited, the Pope agreed, that the Police might make such regulations as were '' necessary for the preservation of the public peace," Concord. Art. 1. But will any sensible and honest man say, that he thereby bound himself to sanction divorces, and a va- riety of other practices which have no relation what- ever with the public worship? So far from sanctioning these, his Holiness gives us-sufficiently to understand in his AUocutio, that his great concern in his journey to Paris, was to remove these restrictions on the liberty of the Church, making use, however, for this purpose of prudence as well as zeal, for fear, as he tells us, of augmenting the disorder which he was labouring to cure. — It will be seen in the last State Paper of the Holy See which has reached this country, that the very first motive of his Holiness for recalling his legate from Paris, was the '^ obstinate refusal of the French Government to make the reparation which had been desired of several religious novelties," Answer of Card, GabrieUi to M. Champagny, April 12, 1808. Finally, I have very good reason to believe, that the impious persecution which Pius VH. is now suffering does not arise only from his refusal to wage an unjust war with this country, but also from his refusal to consent to two diiferept proposals for reducing the Church to abject servitude, the one during his life-time, the other after bis death; as likewise to sanction these very Loix Or- i^aniquts. As the Pope has not sanctioned these laws, so neither do the conscientious part of the clergy Oi faithful in France conform to them. They act pie- cisely as we British Catholics do, who are still subject to many laws, respecting marriage, and a variety of other points, contrary to our religion. They accept with gratitude of such indulgence as certain laws allow them, and they risk the penalties of such other laws as ihey cannot conscientiously comply with. The last grand argument of the enemies of Pius VII. against him, is drawn from his declaration in the Con- cordat, that *' for the sake of peace, and for the happy restoration of the Catholic religion, neither he nor his successors will molest the possessors of alienated church property ; and that therefore the latter may continue tp retain the same;" just as if similar concessions and alienations had not been made by former Pontiffs and Prelates, on much weaker grounds in every age of the Church ! Or as if the French Bishops and clergy now amongst us had not themselves surrendered and alienat- ed their titles and church-plate ! Or as if the exchange cf a mere unproductive title for a real and permanent provision were not evidently for the advantage of the Church ! But these men mix politics with religion, which working upon their passions, are the real cause of all the present mischief: Accordingly one of them, ad« dressing me in the character of a French preacher, in- dignantly exclaims: — '' Ave not we then at liberty to raise our voices against the Usurper of the throne of our lawful King, &c. r"— I answer : far be it from me to dictate to him or to any one else in matters. of civil aliegiance, either the sentiments themselves, or even tiie decorum of language with which he ought to ex- press them from the gospel chair. God forbid that I should attempt to weaken his loyal attachment to the Sovereign whom he conscientiously obeys. It is well known that 1 shed as warm and as disinterested tear:. ever the sacred ashes of the martyred Louis XVI. 24 (for a real martyr be was) and over those of his poor injured consort, and of his saintlike sister, as he can ]iave shed, and that 1 have done as much as he to em- balm their sacred memory. I will here add, that in professing my dutiful allegiance to my own Sovereign, I entertain the most sincere and profound veneration for his Majesty Louis XVIII. his Royal Brother and family, who (I exult to publish it for the credit of our Holy Religion) by their edifying pieiy and morality, and their amiable manners, shed a lustre round them, which the most brilliant crown in the universe could not, in my eyes, confer upon them. Still, if Pius VII. had actually dethroned this Sovereign, as former Pon- tiffs have dethroned other Sovereigns, the writer would net be justified in applying to him the schismatical language which he has done. He might, as a subject, take part in a war against the Pope; but he could not, as a Catholic, break off communion with the head of the Church. To be brief, I am reproached by one of these writers, in the words which Tertullian addressed to the heretics of his time, with having " employed my axe in the forest of another person ;" that is, with censuring indi- viduals who do not belong to my distriet. 7'he' truth is, I have censured no individual o^ any district : I have barely condemned errors which have been pj.iblished ihroughout all the districts, and which I felt it my duty to proscribe from my own. The faith and unity of the Catholic Church being a common concern, to attack it in any one member is to attack it in the whole bodj'. This is what Pius VI. teaches, after an ancient prede- cessor of his, where he 333^5 : — Universalis Ecclesia quacunque novitate pulsatur." S. Ccelest. Pap. ad Bpisc. Gall. See Declar. ^ductorem Fidti. — After all, it appears that it is a matter of no consequence to these men in what district or diocese they reside^ since? the^y 25 claim an unlimited commission of *' saving the people from a general seduction," caused by the misconduct of the Pope, of " preventing religion from perishing in these climates ( I )/' and in quahty of " Priests of the Lord, and sentinels of the camp of Israel, of banishing sleep, and arming themselves with courage, and taking proper precautions in the same degree as the impious one (the Pope) exerts himself for the ruin of religion, &c. (2)." In conformity with this persuasion of the ex- traordinary Or unlimited commission under which they act, they reject all the ordinary jurisdiction of the Church, and appeal, before any process, from all eccle- siastical tribunals inferior to that of the Universal Church, on the pretext that the Pope is a party in the cause, and that they (these obscure individuals) are at issue with him ! This extravagant presumption is ano- ther trait in which these men resemble Luther, and shews what lengths of error and schism they have al- ready gone to. But I will give you the words them- selves of this scandalous appeal: " J'ignore, Mon- seigneur, quel sera le resultat de cette lettre-ci pour, ou contre moi. Mais je declare que si quelque tribunal ecclesiastique, inferieur a celui qui a seul le droit de deposer Pie VII. venoit a proceder contre ma personne par le voie des censures de I'Eglise : a cause de la pub- licite de ma conduite a Tegard de ce Pontife, j'inter- jette, des a present, apel au tribunal meme ou il doit etrejuge; parceque je le prends a partie et que pour cette raison, ma cause suit la sienne (3)." In conclusion, then, dear Brethren, I think it my duty to warn you against receiving, or any way coun- tenancing the doctrines contained or intimated in the several above-quoted extracts from publications in the (i) Defense, pp. 6, 7. '(2) Lettre de M. Gaschet, p. 42. '(3) Lettre de M. Gaschet, pp. 50, 51. . 26 French language, as being respectively false, scandal- ous, injurious to the lawful successor of St. Peter in the See of Rome, as insinuating and tending to schism, and as being actually schismatical. And I caution you not to permit any person who rejects the Communion of Pope Pius VII. or who obstinately persists in asserting that he has fallen into heresy or schism, or that he has led any part of the Church into it; and the Abbe P. L. Blanchard, and the Abbe M. Gaschet, by name, (should they come into any of the nfteen counties com- posing the Midland District) to administer or receive any sacrament, or to exercise any spiritual function whatever in your respective chapels. — You will also be pleased to continue the Collect, Secret, and Post-com- munion, which were appointed to be said for his Holi- ness in''m}'*last letter to you, until you receive the Re- gulations for next Lent, or are otherwise duly in- structed. ^ Such is the information. Rev. and dear Brethren, which I have thought it my dut}^ on the present occa- sion, to address to you, leaving it to your prudence how far or in what manner it may be proper to communi- cate it to your flocks, without being read publicly in your chapels. — The Grace and Peace of Jesus Christ he with you alL Amen. ^ J. MILNER, Bishop of Castabala, Vic, Jpos. Printed by Keating, Brown, and Keating, 38, Duke-Street, Grosveaor-Square. THE SEQUEL TO A PASTORAL LETTER, BY THE Rl Rev. JOHN, Bishop of Castabala, S^x. F. A. CENSURING CERTAIN LATE PUBLICATIONS IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. iLontiait: PRINTED BY KEATING, BROWN AND KEATING, Printers to the Rt. Rev. the Vicars Apostolic, No. 38, Duke-street, Grosvcnor-square, I8O9., ® TO ALL THE CATHOLIC CLERGY OF THE MIDLAND DISTRICT. HIIIIIIIIIII^IIIIIIIIIIIIK Kevebend and dear Brethren, H .AVING, in my Pastoral Letter of last August 10th, warned you against certain pernicious and sckismatical errors, which, after lurking for some years in the hitherto pure and orthodox flock of this island, have lately stalked forth with the audacity and confidence of the noontide demon, I think it my duty to inform you of the progress which these have since made, and of the measures which have been taken to repress them. I address this information to you, my respected brethren and coadjutors in the work of God, being convinced that an acquaintance with the actual state of religion, particularly in this country, is neces- sary for the discharge of your duty to your flocks ; and 1 leave to your prudence how far, and in what man- ner, it may be proper to communicate it respectively to them ; being well aware^ that whilst it is requisite to A some of them, to others, particularly in remote coun- try places, it would be entirely useless (1). You will recollect that, upon the information which reached us at the latter end of last May, concerning the sufferings and apprehended danger of our Holy Father, Pius VIl, I addressed a short letter to you, directing you to offer up public prayers for him ; la- menting, at the same time, that his character and con- duct had been grossly misrepresented, and that '' the '' most pernicious and schismatical doctrines had been '' pertinaciously and repeatedly published against the '* Head of the Catholic Cliurch, by persons professing *' themselves to be members of it," Conscious of his deep guiltiness in this respect, and obstinately persist- ing in it, the noted Abbe Blanchard published a pamphlet in defense of those doctrines (2), heaping up error upon error, and scandal upon scandal. A few days afterwards an Abbe Gaschet published a se- cond pamphlet of the same spirit and tendency as the former, but openly professing those schismatical tenets which Abbe Blanchard had, to a certain degree, wrap- ped up in artificial phrases (3). , These daring attacks upon tiie doctrine and unity of our holy Church, no (i) This regulation, of the propriety of which a Bishop may surely be allowed to judge for his own flock, has drawn forth the unbounded cen. sure and abuse of the pretended advocates of Bishops mentioned below. They reprefent me as concealing from the public at large those instructions, of which I gave three different editions in less than so many months. One of these writers addresses me on this subject as follows : " Ah ! fourbe <' Sterling! c'est done ainsi qu'en secret vous semez le poison!" Epitrc aux Chretiens, Sec. (2) This is improperly and injurioufiy entitled, '• Defenfe du Clerge " Franfois refidant a Londres, et dans le Refte de I'Angleterre, contre Tin- *' culpation de Monfeign. J. Milner," dated June 27. — The French Clergy of the Middle Diftrift, and moll of the refpeftable French Clergy in the other Diftrids, have difavowed and condemned it, (3) This is entitled, «' Lettre de M, Gafche; k Mgr. Milner, dated June less than upon the doctrine and character of its su-* preme Pastor, drew forth my above mentioned Pas- toral of August lOth(l), and that of the Rt. Rev. Bishop Douglass, the immediate superior of those unfortunate Prench clergymen, dated August 24th, both of which Pastorals censure the doctrine of these writers (2), and the latter of which suspends them ab ordine et bene^ Jicio. So far, however, from submitting to that episcopal authority of which he had professed himself the cham- pion, in opposition to the Pope, Abbe Blanchard im- mediately drew up and printed a more formal and scandalous piece of insubordination and resistance to ecclesiastical jurisdiction than any other which he had yet published, as may be gathered from its very title page. In this he daringly defies the censure of his Bishop, even as to exterior appearance ; schismatically appeals from his jurisdiction to that of the emigrant French Bishops, and to the Bishops of the universal Church, and scandalously disclaims the authority of his Bishop to grant him spiritual faculties (3). I shall have occasion to quote some passages from this work, to prove that the author closely and earnestlj' follows up the plan which he here lays down. The pamphlet concludes with a paper entitled, *' Approbation de '^ rOuvrage condamne par Mgr. Douglass," signed by seven French emigrant Priests of different degrees and (i) The firft edition of this was given at Wolverhampton, the fecond in Dublin, and the third in London, by MelTrs. Keating, Brown, and Co, (2) See the feveral propofitions extradled from them in my Paftoral of Auguft 10. (3) " Reponfe a une Lettre fignee J. Douglass, portant Cenfure P. I.4 «^ Blanchard, &c. Cette reponfe etablit la nullite de la cenfure meme dans ** le for extftrieur ; en conticnt cependant I'appel aux Eveques de France, ** ainfi qu'aux autres Eveques de I'Eglife Catholique, et decline la jurif« *' didlion de Mgr. Douglass par rapport aux pouvoirs ccclefiaftiques.'* A2 occupations, whose names will occur belo?/. As these Priests were all of them resident in the London dis- trict, it was impossible that its Vicar Apostolic should pass over their combined aci of resistance to him, in the discharge of his duty, any more than that of Abbe Blanchard himself, in whose defence it was made. Accordingly, by a fresh circular letter, dated Sept, 13, he interdicted them from receiving spiritual facul^? ties, or from having those renewed which they had hitherto enjoyed; at the same time warning Abbe Blanchard and his followers of the excommunication, Jatcz sententic£f which, by the general rules of the Eng- lish mission, attaches to the attempt of administering any sacrament (seelnso mortis periculo), without the approbation of the Vicar Apostolic in whose district the attempt is made. About this time, likewise, the French periodical writers and poets of the metropolis, took upon them- selves to interfere with the English Catholic Bishops in their pastoral instructions and duties, and to give them lectures upon the same. However, as the former disclaim all acquaintance with the professional study connected with these subjects, it would be inconsistent in me to take notice of them(l). But as a writer of the latter description, who unites all the venom of a libeller, with all the perversity of a schismatical the- ologue, professes to give the faith of the Catholic Church (2), in contradiction to its established Pastors, within the very sphere of their jurisdiction ; and as he has taken uncommon pains, and put himself, or his partizans, to no small expence in circulating his iilegal^, (i) SceMonf, Peltier's Ambigu for the Months of Auguft and Septembet laft, (2) *' Epitre eux Chretiens dc toutes les Communions ea Grande Si^ '* tagne et cq Irland,'* as well as erroneous libel, I shall make certain referen- ces to it in the sequel. These skirmishes aiFom lei-» sure to the indefatigable Blanchard (indefatigable, alas! in ruining his own soul and the souls of many others), for the grand attack upon me, of which he had some time before given notice (1). Accordingly about the end of October, a fresh letter of his, consisting of 244 close printed pages, was addressed to me from the press(2), in which I am denounced to the nbn-demis- sionary Bishops of France, and to the Prelates of Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, as guilty of oppressing innocence in his person (3), notwithstanding he more than once boasts that it is not in my power to injure him (4). The professed object of this voluminous pub- licjition being to defend all and every one of those his erroneous and pernicious positions and insinuations, which I have censured in my pastoral letter of August 10th ; it could not be otherwise than that he should plunge deeper, and fix himself faster, in the slough of heterodoxy and schism than was the case before. No doubt he calls upon me at every step, as he does also upon Bishop Douglass, to prove that he is guilty of heterodoxy ; but our business, in treating with him, is not to prove, but to attest the doctrine of the Catholic Church ; not to coitfutt his errors, but to condemn them, I shall elsewhere produce sufficient reasons for not entering into argument, even upon mere literary points, if I had not other more powerful adversaries to oppose, with a writer of his character (5). (i) Reponfc, p. i8. (2) " Abus fans Example de I'Autorite Ecclefiaftique, &c.'* {3) Though the Bifhops of Spain and Portugal are here mentioned, it ap- pears by a paffage of the Author, which I fhall afterwards recite, that this denunciation of me is principally addrefled to the Catholic Prelates of Ire* land. {4) Abus, pp. 159, 153. (5) See the Poftfcript to this tetter. Anxious to procure the direct and open support of some person of rank and authority against the censure of the Vicars Apostolic^ this dekided man boasted he bad found one in the Count PfafF, a foreign priest, who had formerly been a canon of Liege, and since that a recruiting officer in the service of government, one who has not been known to perform any sacerdotal functions or duty whatsoever since he has resided in this country. In fact, the Count took up his defence, if not very judiciously, at least very warmly. On the first of last December I was served with an instrument, consisting of eleven foho pages of close manuscript, written in the style of ancient chivalry (1), and signed and sealed by this Count with the most pompous formality. The most material points of this instrument are the following: that thismililnry theologian '^adheres *' to the spirit and principles of the Sieur Blanchard in " his controversial writings; that he holds every *' doctrine contrary to them to be heterodox, and *' pronounces anathema against it ; that he has *' discovered such contrary doctrine in my Letter of *' August 10th (intimating hkewise the same charge *^ against Bishop Douglass) ; and that, therefore, *' if I should not within the space of forty days, abjure *^ this doctrine, and withdraw my censure from *^ the writings of Blanchard, he^ this ^' general censor (i) The following is the introduction of both the letters in queflion. «« Nous, Franfois Simon, Comte de PfafF, et des deux Pfaffenhoff en «' Suabie et en Franconie,- Libre et immediat du Sainte Empire Romain, »« Chevalier d'Honeur de I'Ordre Hofpitalier, Religieux et Militairc «' de Saint Jean de Jerufalem ; Souverain de Make, Grand Chanoinc, «» Trefoncier Capitulaire, Non-Dimiffionaire, et Grand Theologal de Trcs «* Noble Chapitre et Tres Illuflrc Sglife Cathedral ; Souveraine de Liege, «« Prieur Commendataire de Saint Robert d'Auihye, Dodleur en •« Droit Canon et Civil de la Faculte dc Paris, Doftcur en Theologie dc *« la Faculte de Nancy, et Dofteur en Philofophie et en Theologie de «« rArchi-College de le Sapience Romaine; Chef et Premiere de toyte* les " Ecoles Urbis et Orbis Chriitianij &c, &c, &c.'* " of heresy throughout the whole world/' as he declares *' himself to be (1), will denounce me as a formal *' heretic to all tribunals, secular and ecclesiastical, in " order to my being punished as such ;" at the same time informing me that he ^' has lodged a copy of this ^' instrument with his Majesty's minister/' — Happen- ing to be in London about the time prescribed by the Count for my retraction, I was served by his attorney with a second instrument of the same formal nature, and of much the same purport with the former. The chief difference is that, as ministry did not think proper to take up his charges against my loyalty and civil principles, he now ^^ cites me to appear, within the space of three *' times forty days, at the feet of his Holiness in Rome, *' there to hear myself condemned and anathema- " tized ;" — — namely, for vindicating his insulted character, and defending his just authority (^)! I am sensible, my Reverend Brethren, that this detail, considered in itself, is too trivial and even ridiculous to be mentioned on so serious an occasion as the present, were it not expedient to acquaint you with the wretched (t) This univerfal jurifdlction of the Count in virtue of his Doftorfhipin €anon law, is juft as well grounded as that immunity which he claimed upon a famous trial in the Court of Common Pleas was found to be in con» *' fequenceof his being a Doctor of Civil law attached to the German " Legation." (2) The followmg was the upfliot of this curious bufmefs. My attorney having accidentally remarked to the attorney of Count PfafF, that both he and his employer had incurred the penalty of a Prccmunire^ by fervinga citation to Rome wiih the form^ of Englifh law (a circumftance that is unqueftionably true, though moft affuredly it was thefurtheft from my thoughts ever to take advantage of it) they became prodigioufly alarmed, and the Count fent me a fort of written apology, figned by himself, in which, amongft other things, he declares as follows : " I can only fay, that I confidercd it (the *« citation to Rome) as a fcholaftic difpute, and declare formally, that I «' had no defign whatfoever to uphold the Pope's jurifdiftion in England; «« much lefs to break any pofitive law, of which I was entirely ignorant, «< &c." So much for the orthodoxy, morality, and confiflency gf this Ccnfor of Bifliops, and boafted champioa of Abbe Blanchard i 8 sliifts which the partizans of heterodoxy and schism are reduced to, in order to support their cause. In fact, I have received letters from some of their friends, who reside in the extremity of the Northern District, reproaching me with not paying due respect to this pretended ''^ Superior, (Pfaff) invested," as he is said to be, '' with extraordinary powers to take cognizance of '^ heresy and schism throughout the whole Church/* I have received anonymous letters from the same description of persons, and the same tendency, out of Ireland, and other remote places; more, however, to the injury of my purse than of my peace of mind. §1- Having presented you, my Brethren, with this statement of facts, I proceed to make some remarks, 1st, upon the heterodoxy, 2dly, upon the schismatical attempt, and 3dly, upon the illegal conduct of the unhappy persons in question. — In the first place, you are to understand that the Abbe Gaschet has not re- tracted any of those scandalous and schismatical pro- positions which I cited in my letter of August 10, nor taken any measures to get relieved from that censure of suspension which has been inflicted upon him by his Bishop, in consequence of them. — Of course he con- tinues to proclaim by his book (1) to all the Catholics of England, who understand French, that his Holiness, " the Pope, instead of being the first and worthy *' Pastor of the Church, is its most terrible persecutor; —that, " instead of meriting praise he deserves ana- " themas(2) ;" — and that this Pope, '^ is as much a '' stranger to him, in religious concerns, as a Jew, or a " Pagan, or a publican is (3);" — that '^ he is a false (t) Lettre de Monf. Gafchet, Cure de Vignolles, a Mgr. Milaer,' (3) P. 3. (3) P. 4. ** Pope, and a pretended Pope, who blasphemes the " name of God (1) ;'' — that "he has forfeited the " honour of the priesthood, with all the prerogatives '' of the Holy See, and all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, to- " gether with every claim to the obedience of the " faithful (2) ;— finally, that he, this Abbe Gaschet, " renounces the communion of Pius VII. (3)". Refer- ring to this pubHfeation, the anonymous theologian, who so emphatically condemns the doctrine of the English Catholic Bishops (4), and so confidently un- dertakes to ** teach the people of London, and of the " whole world, the true tenets of the Catholic " Church (5),*' decides that " Abbe Gaschet was in " the wrong to call Pius VII. a pretendtd and a fake " Pope, because the latter was canonically elected, " and, however public and scandalous a prevaricator, " has not been condemned or judged ; but that, saving '^ to the Church her rightof judging of his (the Pope's), " actual, public prevarication against faith, against '' morals, against discipline and social order. Abbe *' Gaschet might certainly declare himself separated " from his communion (6)". With respect to Abbe Blanchard, though he does not, either in his book against Bishop Douglass, or in that against me, once mention his chiet'disciple and co-opera- tor in the work of Satan, Abbe Gaschet, yethe continues to propagate the principles from which, as I remarked to you in my former letter, Gaschet's monstrous and revolting positions flow ; that is to say, he obstinately perseveres in defending and publishing all and every one of those heterodox and pernicious errors and insinua- tions which have been censured by his own Bishop, and by me, to say nothing of an incredible number (0 Pp« 4i 8> «• (a) P. 39' (3) P. 48. {^] Epitre aux Chretiens, &c. p, 5. (5) P. 8. (6) Pp. 15, i6. B 10 of others equally censurable, which are accumulated in his late as well as in his former voluminous publications. The chief difference between these writers, as I pointed out to JO u before, is, that Blanchard is more guarded in his expressions than Gaschet, and sometimes out of compliment to others^ artificially covers the poison of .schism which the other presents you to be swallowed in its native state. Blanchard the|^ continues to main- tain that^' Pius Vil. has introduced schism and heresy *' itself into the bosom of the Church (1) ;" that '' Pius VIL has formed a phantom of a Church, upon '* the very foundations which Pius VI. had condemned /' as impious, heretical, and schismatical (2)."— He continues to insinuate that " Pius VII. has betrayed '^ the faith by uniting with notorious heretics, and by '' publicly professing and teaching heresy (3) ;" and that it is a doubtful matter, " whether Pius Vll, *^ can be excused from the guilt of formal heresy on '^ the ground of his ignorance(4)." To these and his other scandalous doctrines and insinuations on this sub* ject originally broached in his former works, he adds in his latter publication, that '' Pius VII. violated the *' immutable decisions of the Catholic Church (5);" " that *^ Pius VII. has destroyed to its very founda- tions the constitution of the Church (6) j' and thai he *^ has broken the Unity (7) so much in- " sisted upon by the Holy Fathers." In consequence of all this, Blanchard argues strongly in the same place, that the Pope is an undoubted schismatic (8), and elsewhere, that he is a heretic as well as a schismatic, (i) Abus fans Example, p. jog. (2) Ibid.'p.'ii;. (3) Ibid. p. 91. It was upon thefe itifmuations thzt my cenfure in my former Paftoral fell (for I profefs to cenfure infinuations as well as propo- fitions) and not upon the conclujien which Blanchard draws from the fup- pofition of their being true, (4) Ibid. p. 81. (5) Ibid, p; 14, (6) Rcponfea Mgr. Douglafs, p. 32. (7) Ibid. p. 44. (8) Ibid. 1.1 The writer, nevertheless, expresses a particular desire, out of compliment, it seems, to other persons, that his antagonists may be reduced to the necessity of calling him so, rather than that he himself should be obliged to apply to the Pope these odious epithets (I). The wri- ter continues to protest against " shewing any respect or *' keeping any terms with the author of the Concor- *' dat (2) j" — and to proclaim ^' the obligation of con- *' demning him, and of denouncing him to the Catho- *^ lie Church (3)/' It is true, the author elsewhere endeavours to throw a veil over the latter passage, which may possibly be one of those that is inconvenient, or has given offence even to his friends : but then the veil which he makes use of is so transparent, that he had better have none at all. He says : '' I barely as- *' serted that it is necessary to denounce the Pope to *' the Catholic Church, without specifying whether it *^ was as a heretic or a schismatic, or barely as a viola- " tor of sacred rules (4). Vain subterfuge ! The acty for which you say " the Pope is to be denounced *' to the Church," is one which you declare, on the self-same occasion, to be '^ destructive of the (t) Reponfe, &c. p. 9. As a fpecimen of Abbe Blanchard's artifice in half covering his peftiferous doftrine, I -will cite the paflage here referred to at length : " Vous dites que la confequence neceffaire qui en refulte, c'eft «' que Pie VII. eft heretique et fchifmatique lui-meme. Je ne prononce •' rien fur ce point, Je raifonne feulement d'apres vous, Monfeigneur, et *' je, dis ; dans ce cas ; j'ai pofe le principe, et vous, vous en avez tire I9 «• confequence. Or ce confequence, quelque rigoreufe qu'elle foit, ne doit " point faire abandonner le principe du quel vous la tirez, qui eft un fait «' certain. Le raifon en eft qu'un Pape peut devenir heretique et fchifin^- «« tique." (2) Abus, p. no. (3) Ibid. p. m, U) Abus, pp. 134, 135, B S • 12 '^ Church (1) :" and wlil you pretend that an act of this description can be construed into a mere transgression of rules, and that it does not at least amount to the guilt of schism and heresy? But we have abundant proofs in the several passages referred to above, and in various other passages, of your holding and teaching that his Holiness Pope Pius VII. is both a schismatic and a heretic! — In what, then, 1 ask, is Gaschet more heterodox and schismatical than Blanchard ? You will recollect, my brethren, that! pointed out, in my former letter on this subject, the ruinous conse- quences that would result from the schismatical system of these innovators, 1 shewed that in this system the Church must have lost her prerogative of perpetual vi- sibility, and all those resplendent characteristics ascrib- ed to her by the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the Creeds : characteristics which distinguish her from the innumerable sects with which she is surrounded ; nay, that she must have absolutely failed ; in as much as the Catholic Prelates of the four quarters of the world are as notoriously and visibly in communion with and obe- dience to Pius VII. as they were so with respect to his predecessor Pius VI. (2) I proved, moreover, that in the case supposed, we the Catholic Bishops and Priests of these islands, and of the other parts of the Church, have been dispensing for these years past a ministry of death instead of life to our respective flocks ; inasmuch as we have no spiritual powers but what we have derived from this Chief Pastor (S). To all these frightful (i) •« II eft neccffaire de choifir: fi nou8 condamnons le Concordat conme «• deJlru£Iifdel*Eglife, ct comme contraire a la juftice et aux droits les plu« •' facre, il faut condamncr I'auteur et le dcnoncer a I'Eglife Catholique," Ibid. p. lit* (s) Paftoral Letter of Aug. xo, p. Jt. (3) Ibid. p. xa. IS consequences the mouth-piece of schism gives no an- swers at all, or such as are calculated to heighten rather than allay the fears of true Catholics. With re- spect to the most alarming of these consequences, he says, that, " In case the Pope is a heretic and a " schismatic, the Universal Church is not in commu- " nion with him ; and in case she is in communioa " with him, then he is not an heretic and aschisma- " tic(l).'* But what, I ask this daring innovator^ becomes of the visibility of the Catholic Church ac- cording to your statement, when the anxious seeker, when even the welUinstructed Catholic is suppDsed to be unable to discern whether the Standard-bearer of the Church is in her ranks, or in those of her' enemies ? or, in other words, whether it is a duty to take part with the Pope, or to stand in opposition to him ? But, Sir, though you make some pretension of leaving your readers in doubt whether his Holiness is or is not a schismatic and heretic, you give us plainly to under- stand, in this passage, that you yourself consider him as such, and you spare no pains to draw us over to your opmion. In answer to one of my charges, relating to your insinuating that the Pope is a heretic and schis. malic, you answer : '^ do not insinuate this conse- '' quence; but, in case it flows from the principles laid *' down by the bishops of France, which I deveiope, I " will not sacrifice the foundation of religion in cora- " pliment to the Pope : '^ o^\y, As the Pope may be- *' come a heretic and schismatic, the fear of making *' him one must not induce me to abandon my princi- " pies, especially when these consist of notorious facts " and acknowledged maxims ; 3dly, It is not I, but *' your Lordship, (-addressing himself to me) who " draws this consequence; a consequence which I (i) Abus, p. 13$, 14 " neither adopt nor condemn (1)."-— ^It is plain, then, that Abbe Blanchard considers the Pope as a heretic : now, as it is a fact too notorious to be called in ques- tion, that the great Church of the four quarters of the world communicates with Pius VII. what, according to the principles which Blanchard so much dwells upon (2), becomes of her characteristical m&rks, par- ticularly of her holiness and her apostolicity ? It is evident that he confines these, together with the Church herself, to a certain proportion of the French Emigrants in London, and to that Petite Eglise of France which is the subject of his praises (3), as a church' of the same denomination was heretofore of the Jansenists (4). Again, what becomes, in his system, of all our spiritual faculties^ and of those of the Pope himself 'i He tells us here in so many words, that he has no answer to give us on these heads. The truth is, he signifies, on this and several other occasions, in al- niostas plain terms as Gaschet himself does, that Pius VII. by the act of his pretended union with heretics, has lost all the prerogatives of his exalted station, and all ecclesiastical jurisdiction whatsoever (5) ! Such, my brethren, is the absurd, as well as impi- ous doctrine which seven other foreign priests in Lou-^ (1) Abus, p. 135. (2) Ibid. p. 132, &C« (3) Ibid. p. 96. (4) In conformity with his fyflem, Blanchard continues to teach, as I before reproached him, that the very exiftence of the Church, and the truth of Chrift's promifes to her, depended upon the conduft of a few Emigrant Jrcnch Bifhops, in protefting againft that of the Pope, He fays : " The «' Biftiops of France protefted againfl the innovation (attempted by the «« Pope), and their proteftations have faved the infallible decifion of the •' Catholic Church." Ibid. p. 132. (5) De cette expofe il refulte, que je n'ai a repondre a ce que vous *' ajoutez fur la pertc de vos pouvoirs et de ceux de votre clerge, fi Pi« VIJ. n'a plus lui-meme de pouvoirs ecckfiafticjues," Ibid. p. 135. IS don, of different descriptions and occupations, no less than Blanchard and Gaschet, by a public instrument, adopted as salutary and orthodox, and which Count PfafFand the anonymous theologian equally declare thei«* adherence to. Not content with propagating thig a.jongst his own countrymen, the Sieur Blanchard has long been indefatigably employed, and that not without some success, in transfusing it into our English flocks, Por it is to be observed, that he translates all his schis- matical pamphlets into English ; that he requests his Prench readers to give notice of such translations to their English acquaintance ; and that he distributes them about with a profusion which disregards expense. At the present time he is soliciting the English public to aid him with their half guineas each, for the pur- pose of enabling him to do more extensive mischief in this country. Happily, however, the British Bi* shops have taken the alarm, and are at present exert- ing themselves to i:epel these exotic wolves from their folds. You are well acquainted with the exertions which the Vicar Apostolic of the London District, as well as myself in the Middle District, have made for this purpose : but as many of you may not have seen the late Pastoral Letter of the worthy Prelate who go- verns the Western District, I am happy in laying be- fore you the following extract from it. " Admiring, as " you undoubtedly must, the many eminent virtues *' which shine in the character of Pius VIL (for who ** can read the documents which appear in this year's " Directory and not admire his magnanimous conslan- ** cy, invincible fortitude, exemplary meekness. See.) " you will hear with indignation that attempts have '' been made to asperse his sacred character, and hold *' him up to the contempt oi this nation, in whose *' cause, as his enemies state, he has suffered the loss of " his temporal dominions. It is my duty to add, that 16 " the publications in the French language, in which *' these attempts are made, have been justly censured *' and condemned as scandalous, derogatory to the " respect due to Pope Pius VH. the true and lawful *' successor of St. Peter, injurious to his character and " authority, leading to schism, and one of them as " formally schismatical. Barely to state to you, my " beloved brethren, that such scandals exist, and that *' their authors refuse submission to the judgment of ** their lawful ecclesiastical superiors, is, I say with *' assured confidence in the steadiness of your faith, ** sufficient to prevent these doctrines and their abettors " from meeting with any encouragement from you. If '* they tvill not hear the Church, let them be to you as " heathens and publicans.'' Matt, xviii. 17. B.P.Thesp. Feb. 7, 1809. — In a letter of a former date, ad- dressed to myself, the same Prelate says: *' I am anxi- " ous to express my utter abhorrence of those alarming *' schismatical doctrines of Blanchard and Co. and my " cordial approbation of the censures which you and " Bishop Douglass have passed on them." And in another letter of a subsequent date he adds : " 1 should '^ have greatly blamed myself, if I had not entered my " protest against the extravagant pretensions of Blan- " chard and Co." The confidence with which this schismatical innova- tor looks up to the strictly orthodox and exemplary Prelatesof Ireland is truly astonishing, and marks his character (1). After the formal and earnest appeal (i) *• Les Eveques d'Irlande vous promettent leur fupport. J'oferais le *» dire, le Metropolitam qui vous fait cette promeffe, n'y avoit pas affcz «• reflechi, &c. Non, Mgr. je ne crains point que lej Eveque* d'lr- ♦• lande s'uniffent a voscenfures contre moi* Je le crains ft peu que je leuf «« ferai tcnir cette reponfe ; et que je declare ici que je prendrai leur filencc •* pour une approbation." Abus fans Example, &c. par I'Abbc Pierre Louis Blanchard, pp. 53, 54. " Quant a cette Lettre Paftoralc et aux ** cenfures qu'ellc contioent, j'ea appelle formeilcmeat aux Ev^que* d* 17 which he has made to them, and his solemn declara- tion that he shall, for the reasons which he assigns, consider their silence as a proof of their approbation of his doctrine, it is easy to judge what their conduct and their decision will be, from the following extracts of letters which some of them have already written to me on this subject. A zealous and learned Metropolitan, writing in the name, as it appears, of another Metro- politan then in his company, as well as in his own, says : " If Blanchard should denounce you to the Irish " Prelates, we shall certainly declare him and his pro- *' positions schismatical." J. T. T. Jan. 21. The same M. R. Prelate writes to me thus in a second letter, dated Feb. 7 : " Should Blanchard address his schis- '^ matical appeal to the Irish Prelates particularly, lam " confident they will feel it a duty to express their ab- *' horrence and condemnation of his schismatical prin- '' ciples, and declare their communion with his Holi- " ness Pius VII. As to myself, I want words to ex- *' press my execration of his attempt to destroy the vi- •* France, a ceux d'lrlande, d'Efpagne, et de Portugal, auxquels j'ai des •' moyens d'envoyer immediatement cet ecrit, et les autres pieces, ainfi. *' qu'a tous les Eveques Catholiques. Vous le voyez, Mgr. que je ne •' crains pas Je fupport dont vous vous flattez des Eveques d'lrlande en votre *« faveun Autre chofe eft de vous avoir promis ce fupport general dans la *' caufe de I'orthodoxie, et avant tout examen de cette caufe particuliere, et *' autre chofe d'avoir a prononcer devant fa confcience, en prefence de la " verite. ■ Je declare en outre que je prendrai le filence des Eveques *' que je viens de mentionner expreflement pour une approbation en ma •« faveur: approbation qui conftatera I'orthodoxie dema doctrine et la nullite •* de vos cenfures. Ce filence fera veritablement une approbation ; i9. Parce «' que les Eveques etant depofitaires, gardiens et defenfeurs de la doftrine *' Catholiqufe, he peuventiiianquer de me condamner fi je I'attaqueau point *' que vous m'en accufez, 2?. Parce que je les conjure, par cet ecrit, de *« prononcer fur une accusation aufli capitale, de reconnoitre ma foi, fi elle " eft orthodoxe, ou de la condamner, fij'ai eu le malheur de m'egarer ; et ♦' que leur filence ne fera que me confirmer, moi et tant d'autres, dans *' I'erreur, fij'ai enfigne I'erreur, 3?, 4', &c,'* Abus, pp» 233, 234^ 18 •' sibility of the Church, by reviving the condemned *' Jansenistical Petite Eglise. I am happy to assure you '*■ that it is spoken of by the few here who have heard " of it with reprobation/* Another highly esteem- ed Prelate writes to me thus : " Your Blanchard is " daringly impious. I have not seen his late produc- '*" tions, but the extracts of his writings in your Pasto- " ral stamp him deeply as ahold sophister of schism." J. P. Feb. 7- A third Bishop of that country, uni- versally revered and beloved, writes to me as follows : '^ 1 see with great concern, that Blanchard and his *^ schismatical associates still persist obstinately in their '^ cause. Unhappy men! &c. lam astonished at the *^ connivance of the French Bishops at their doctrine. '' I had an opportunity of expressing my surprise to the *' Bishop of U . . . . a few weeks ago, &c." F. M. Jan-jS. The same illustrious Prelate writes thus to me in another letter, dated Feb. 10: " Blanchard, I perceive, " continues his erroneous and schismatical publications, ^' and the French Bishops remain silent. I mentioned "'to Dr (a Metropolitan of Ireland) that I " thought it the duty of the Prelates of this kingdom to " unite with you in censuring them : but, it seems, " these works have not reached here yet." In fact, it cannot be disguised that the Catholics both of Ireland and England look up with particular attention to the conduct of the Right Rev. French Bishops now resi- dent in this country (1); not so much because several n>ost>^candalous and pernicious errors in religion have been of late repeatedly and pertinaciously published by someof their countrymen directly under their eyes, as (i) It was to me a fubjefl of inexpreflible confolation, to learn from un« qucIUonable authority that my friend the late Bifliop of Leon repeatedly and enrphatically declared in his laft ficknefs, what he had more than once ex- preffed to me when he was in health ; •« Bear witnefs," he faid to different perfons who waited upon him, «« that Blanchard's doftrine is not my doc- ♦' trine.'* 39 because they have been repeatedly and uniformly pub- Jished as being the avowed doctrine of those most respectable Prelates, as being published hy their autho* rity, and even at their expense, as appears by the pas- sages cited below (1). MI. You observe, my Rev. Brethren, that the alledged ground-work of these foreign writers, in all their inde- cent, scandalous, and schismatical declamation against our truly editying and holy Pontiff, is, that " he has " violated the canons and constitution of the Church, *' particularly in what regards the divine right and ju- ^^ risdiction of other Prelates :" though it is demon- strated that he has barely made use of that supreme ju- risdiction inherent in his See, and that had been called for by the French Bishops (2) themselves, of providing against extraordinary evils by extraordinary means, for the salvation of many millions of souls. But, passing over this consideration for the present, what now is the conduct of these writers themselves ? — of these vindi- cators of the canons ? — these champions of episcopacy ? Emigrants from their own country, they are re- (t) " Ecrivassier officieux, &c.! Mais je vous ai dit, dans le Defenfc, ** que j'avois ete engage dans cette honorable carriere par mes fuperieurs *' legitimes. Je vous ai dit ce qu'ils ont fait pour ma perlbnne et pour mes <* ouvrages, etqu'elle a ete I'unanimite de leur approbation, &cc." Abus, p. 10. •' J'ai prouvai que ma dodlrine n'etoit autre que celle des Eveques *' de France, &:c." Ibid. p. 22. " La cenlure que vous avez portee *« centre moil a pour unique fondement un ecnt (La Defenfc, &c,) *' approuve en termes formels par tous les Eveques de France refidant a •' Londres." Reponfe a Mgr. Douglafs, p. i6 " Mes fuperieurs " ecclefiaftiques ont paye tous ces ouvrages." Ibid. p. 20. " Si, *' par impoflible, ces ouvrages contenoient I'erreur, les Eveques de France *' cn^feroient complices." Ibid. (2} Letire des Eveques Deputes, C3 ?0 ceived into this with abundant hospitality and kindness by the nation in general, from motives of humanity and policy, but with superabundant kindness and respect by the British Catholics, from motives of fraternal cha- rity and religion. We considered them all indiscrimi- nately as confessors of the faith, until Abbe Blanchard told us that he himself was always the same man as to both belief and conduct, that he has proved himself to be of late (1). In a word, we the Vicars Apostolic and the Catholic Clergy of England (among whom I hope to be forgiven if I say few were more earnest or more liberal than the parish priest of Winchester), exerted our utmost Endeavours to render their situation as com- fortable and respectable as we possibly could, both in civil life and in the order of religion ; and it is barely justice to say that the vast majority of these French Clergymen, by their superabundant gratitude, by their submission to authoritj^, by the purity of their morals, and the fervour of their piety, proved themselves to be worthy of all the services that we have rendered or could render them. But to return to the point in question ; what has been the behaviour of the indivi- duals to whom I allude ? — these vindicators of the canons, as 1 said, — these champions of Episcopacy l-^ After submitting for a time to the Catholic Vicars Apostolic, Bishops possessing both ordinary and extra- ordinary ecclesiastical powers, they no sooner find cer- tain heterodox and pernicious doctrines, which they had taken npon themselves to publish in our districts, condemned by us their lawful superiors, than, like Martin Luther in the same circumstances, they rise up in rebellion against us, insult our persons, asperse our characters, contradict our decisions, defy our cen- sures, and undertake to teach the Catholic flocks in our place, claiming a jurisdiction independent of us, setting (i) AbuSfc 21 up a new and unauthorized foreign hierarchy within our jurisdiction; and, in short, undertaking to reform and revolutionize the whole Catholic system of doctrine and ecclesiastical government of this island ? Thus they become doubly schismatics, by casting off submis- sion to the Vicar of Christ, the Head of his Church (1), and by opposing the lawful government of their own immediate Prelates ! (2) The anonymous theologian in- timates, in various forms of speech, that I have no ju* risdiction in the counties which form my district, and that Bishop Douglass and myself are bound to preach the gospel in heathen countries, and leave him to in- struct our flocks in England (3). Count Pfaif, of the two PfaiFenhoffens, in a formal instrument which he has laid before his Majesty's ministers and other per- sons, claims an authority by virtue of his Doctor's ring, of " admonishing, reprehending, and reprimand- '^ ing all sorts of Christians throughout the whole " world ;" and, in consequence thereof, requires Bishop Douglass and myself to repent of, abjure, and repair our (alledged) errors, and lo " revoke the censure *' passed upon Abbe Blanchard(4)." AbbeGaschet, in the passages which I hs^ve quoted to you at large in my former letter, proclaims himself and his comrades in this country, in virtue of their ordination, *^ the senti-^ '' nels of the camp of Israel, in whom silence and in- " action with respect to the enemy (his Holiness the ^' Pope) would be a fatal scandal, &c. protesting, (i) " Schifmatici funt qui renuunt fubjici Sumrao Pontifici." S. Th. Sum* 2. 2dae Art. 39. (2) " li funt fchifmatici qui effe poffe in uno loco aut multos paftores, aut «« iriultos greges." S. Cypv. De Unit. Ecc. " Unde fcire debcs *' fi quis cum Episcopo non fit cum ecclefia non effe, etiamfi obiepant c\ *< latenterapudquofdam fe communicare credant," 'S, Cypr. Ep. 59. (3) Epitre aux Chret» {4) M, S. penes me. 22 '* at the same time, against the authority of all tribu- *^ nals inferior to that of the Universal Church, and *' requiring that even this tribunal shall judge the *^ cause of the Pope before his (1).'' But as Abbe Blanchard is the great master of specula- tive error, so he is also the great champion of practical schism. His Bishop having thought it his duty to ex- amine and condemn some of his errors, and (after ex- periencing his obstinacy in maintaining and publishing them) to suspend him ab officio et beneficio, he imme- diately flew out into open resistance, reviHng his supe- rior, and telling him that he is not bound by the cen- sure, even as to his exterior behaviour (2) ; because, forsooth, he himself judges that there was not a just cause for inflicting it ! (3). In support of this insubor- dination and turbulence, he publishes the opinion of a friend of his, a Paris doctor, whose name we are left to guess at, but who, equally with himself, is subject to Bishop Douglas (4). Previously to this, I myself, after censuring his and Gaschet's publications, had *' cautioned the Clergy of the Middle District not to *' admit their authors or adherents to administer or re- *' ceive the sacraments, or exercise any spiritual func- '^ tion in it (5)." In issuing these directions, I had strictly followed the ordinances of ray predecessors, and the general rules of the English Mission (6). In (i) Lettrea Mgr. Milner, pp.' 42, 50, 51 i (2) Reponfe a Mgr. Douglafs, pp. i, 16, (3) Ibid. (4) Ibid, p. 55* (5) Paftoral, Auguft loth, p. 26. (6) •' Unufquisque Sacerdos in Diflriflum noftrum adveniens, fi ^uam '* ordinis fin fundionem peragere optaverit nos prius vel aliquem e Vicariis •* nostris perfonaliter conveniat, &c," Joannes Thefp. Ep. (St.Honor.) Vic, Ap. Med. Dift. A. D. 1753. " Fidelibus quibufcunque, fub inter- «* minatione divini judicii prscipimus ne hujufmodi homines, qui non in~ M Irant per oftium inovik oviaro, fed afcendunt aliunde, ad facrum in fuis 23 defiance of this prohibition, and also of the sentence of excommunication, lat(R sententicd, attached to such attempts, which sentence had just before been repub- lished for the information of him and his adherents(l), he tells me and the public that the prohibition *' is null " and void of all obligation, both as to conscience and *' before men, so as to leave him at full liberty to cele- " brate the holy mysteries, and to exercise every other ''^ecclesiastical function in the said district, without " incurring any irregularity (2)." He adds; ''I shall " regulate my conduct by these principles (3)." The sentence of his own Bishop producing an immediate direct effect, by preventing him from administering any sacrament ; and an immediate indireet effect, ia preventing him from worthily receiving any, whilst ia a state of actual rebellion against his ecclesiastical superiors, he sets up a claim (with the above-men- tioned sentence of actual excommunication staring him in the face,) to independent faculties. " 1 have at " this very moment,'^ he says, though suspended, " canonical powers and a confessor at hand (4)." It is true he here confines his pretended jurisdiction to the laity and Clergy of Normandy, and professes (though. a priest of Lissieux) to derive his powers from the poor Bishop of Avranches, whom he worried in his last sickness into an opinion that he had transported into England the whole jurisdiction of the aforesaid pro- vince. But the folly, as well as the fatal consequen- ces of such a pretension, is seen in the quotation from <* domibus vel facellis peragendum admittant vel facramentum aliquod ab *' iis Petant." Benjamin Pruffenfis (Petre) V. A. Loud. Dift, Ric, Dcbr. (Challoner) A.D. 1753. Ric. Deb. V, A, 1759, (1) See Bifhop Douglals's Letter, Sept, 23. (2) Abus, p. 153. (3) Ibid. p. 155. (4) Reponfe, pi 19. £4 the immortal Benedict XIV. which I give below (1);; whence also it will appear that the coadjutor of Bishop Douglass had good grounds for repeating to Blanchard, the territory y the territory ; though Blanchard him- self had not canonical learning enough to comprehend the matter (a). In a subsequent note, however, this daring intruder confines himself and bis friends to no limits of jurisdiction at all, but tries to introduce amongst us a general ecclesiastical anarchy, as to this essential matter, where he teaches that '* no French- '^ man whatsoever is obliged to have recourse to Mgr. *' Douglas to hear the confessions of Frenchmen (3).'* But not content with this invasion of our jurisdiction, in foro interno, this unaccredited revolutionizer pro- ceeds to still greater excesses against us mforo externa, truly " setting up altar against altar;" the undoubted, mark of schism (4); b}^ claiming, on behalf of iabout a dozen emigrant Bishops from the different provinces of France, who, however respectable in themselves^ have not an atom of jurisdiction in this country, nor any sort of hierarchy, nor canonical union among themselves, an equal authority with that of the Vicars (i) ** Miflionariis, in pagis et apud ruricolas commorantlbus non liceafe *♦ facramenta, nee etiam pcenitentiae extra praefcriptos limites, adminiftrare ; *' cum ad confeffiones extra confinia exclpiendas neccITaria omnino fit Vica- «' rii Apoftolici licentia, cui ilia fubjicitur provincia. Etenim apud nos, •' etiam confeffarius ab Epifcopo pro faecularibus adprobatus in fua Dicecefi, *' extra DicEcefim earn facultatem exercere nequit fine alterius Epifcopi ad- «* probatione, in cujus ditlone pccnitenti^ facramentum adminiftratur, «' etiamfi poenitens lubfit Epifcopo, qui ilium ad confeffiones excipiendas *' adprobavit. Idque conftat ex Bulla superna, Clem. X. quae efl 6 torn. 6 «« Bullarii Rom. a.4. Solus enira Parochus a Moralis Theologias Scriptoribus «• eximitur ; qui, ft forte extra Dioeceftm verfetur, fui Parochiani confeflio- «' nes poteft audire, quamvis ab Epifcopo loci, ubi fui Parochiani fe pras- »« bet confeflarium, adprobationem ad confefliones non obtinuerit." Regu- l3B Obferv. in Ang. Mifs. p, 36. (2) Reponfe, p. 19. (3) Ibid. (4) S. Optat. Apostolic, or rather one superior to ours in deciding upon ecclesiastical causes vvitliin the immediate spbere of our respective jurisdictions. In refusing submis- sion to his own Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Douglass, Abbe Blanchard thus addresses him: '^'^ 1 have here " my natural judges (as if the canon law recognized '' natural judges)y the Bishops of France, to whom, I ^* declare to yon, I formally appeal from your sen- *' tence, as well as to the other Bishops of the Catholic *' Church (1).'* *' I protest again, my Lord, against *^ this unjust act of your authority with regard to me, '' I appeal again to the Bishops of France, and to the *' other Bishops of the Catholic Church. And I once *' more repeat to you my protestation, that I will not '^ confine myself to my own defence, but I will de- *' nounce you and Mgr. John Milner, to the Bishops *' of France and to the other Bishops (2)." Thus, in virtue of the new code of canons devised by Blanchard and Company, Bishop Douglass and myself are to hold up our hands within the sphere of our own jurisdic- tion, at the tribunal of about a dozen foreign pre- lates, demissionaries and non-demissionarics, who have accidentally met together in this island from the widely distant provinces of FVance ! And lest any one should mistake Blanchard's meaning in these passages, as if he here appealed to the French Prelates as part of the Universal Church, he thus emphatically expresses him- self with respect to them : " It is evidently false that I *' have appealed to the Universal Church without any *' intermediate tribunal (3), since I have appealed to " the Bishops amongst whom I live, and whom 1 have (i) Reponfe, p. i8. (2) Ibid. p. 49, (3) Abte Blanchard faw clearly, by the reference in my Paftoral, that I charged this individual ztl of prclumption on his comrade Gafchst, and not upon him ; but with his ufual difingenuity, he takes the charge upon him- li-if, in order to contradift it, D 26 called my natural judges {\).'* Here then Abbe Blanchard and I for once agree ; he teaches, and of late years always has taught, that the French emigrant Bishops in this country hold a regular canonical tri- bunal, and have a right to revise and araend the pub- he doctrinal and judiciary decisions of us English Catholic Prelates ! The whole tenor of his language, particularly in his printed letter to his Bishop, on being censured by him, argues a conviction of this para- mount authority of the refugee Prelates over Bishop Douglass, in his own district. *' The first idea,'' he says, " which presented itself to my mind, in reading *' your letter, was, to conceive how any one dared to *' advise and solicit you to condemn a book like the ^' Defense, the substance and doctrine of which you *' know was approved of hy the Bishops of France '^ (2)" *' It is inconceivable that you have attempted to censure ^' a writing formally approved of hy all the Bishops of '' France resident in London. This proves your bold- *' 9iess, and will prove their weakness, if they do not " take up my defense (3)." *' It is to you, my Lord, " the scandal is to be imputed, if there is any, who, *' under the eyes of the Bishops of France, dare to cen- " sure their defenders {4)." For a writer who is con- stantly boasting of his being employed and paid by the French Bishops, to hold such public language, and set up such pretensions on their behalf in this country, is to injure and insult them still more than ns, the Vicars Apostolic; it is to hold them up as uncanonical and schismatical usurpers of ecclesiaslicaljurisdiction, (des intrus). Surely they will disavow tins language, and these pretensions in the face of the Vicars Aposto- lic and of the Catholic Church! (i) Abus, p. 232. (2) Reponfe, p. 4. (3) Ibid. pp. n, 16, (4J Ibid. p. 20. n To make short of the matter, this mecklling foreign- er, professing ail along the most ardent zeal for the maintenance of the canons and discipline of the Church, without an atom of real or ailedged authority, takes upon himself to condemn and revolutionize the whole system of the ecclesiastical constitution and doc- trine of the Englisti Cathoiic Church. He is never wearied with inveighing against the government of Vicars Apostolic, who he says *' persecute him for his '' unshaken attachment to the decisions of the Catholic *^ Church, and who have sacrificed her immutable '^ decrees to their ultramontanism(l)." This, on dif- ferent occasions, he describes, experienced politician ! as forming the obstacle to our emancipation (2) I He strongly insists upon our adopting the tour articles of the French Assembly of 1682(3), and presses the French clergy in my district to requirt me to add my name to those of the minority of Frenc'j Prelates, who have protested against the necessary measure which they had invited his predecessor to take, and by which three parts in four of the Church have been saved (5). He makes a boast of thwartini;- nie in the discharg;e of my pastoral duties (4), and uses his utmost efforts to (i) Rcponfe, p. 18. • (2) Abus, p. 14. (3) P. 238. (4) Thatmofl eloquent and luminous letter of the thirtj^ French Bifliops, who were deputed to the National Afleniuly at the beginning of the revolu- tion, addreflcd to the Pope, ought to be infcribed upon a pillar of adamant, for the inftru6tion and edification of the prefent and future ages. Tne fol- lowing is part of it: " Let but the doctrine of the Church be confirmed: ** letbuther jurifdiftion, in the inftitutlon of Prelates, be maintained : let *' us but receive lawful fucceffors by a canonical milTion ; and behold, Holy *' Father, we lay the voluntary refignation of our liifhoprics at your feet, *• that no obttacle may prevent your taking the meafuies, which in your *' wifdom you fliall judge mofl expedient for reftoring tranquillity to the <• churches of France," May 3, 1791. "To this palTage of the thirty deputy Prelates, fome of whom are now in England, I wifh to add one from the Pallorsl of Monf. Adeline, Bifhop of Boulogne, which Paftoral was adopted by the Archbifliop of Paris ; «' Hi ow ever dtfirous wc may be to X) 3 S8 induce the exeiDplary French priests, who are my as- sistants in the salvation of souls, to abandon this divine \vork_, in order to mortify me(l). He repeatedly calls upon the English Catholics, and the public in general, to support him in his heterodoxy and resistance to his own immediate Bishop (-2). But when should 1 finish, if I v*'ere to enumerate ail his scandalous excesses of this nature ! I III. It might have been expected, reverend Brethren, that these busy foreign Priests would here have stopped ; that is to say, would have contined their charges against the English Catholic Bishops to ecclesiastical matters, and not have attempted to draw others from subjects which they are so little acquainted with as the British laws and constitution, and the principles of civil so- ciety, as they are explained in this country. But the resentment and presumption of these men has led them even to this length. In the first place, then, it appears that they have, conformably io the formal notice which they gave (3), laid charges of this nature against Bi- shop Douglass and myself, and particularly against me, before his Majesty's ministers ; but as these illustrious personages had an opportunity of seeing, in our printed pastoral letters, upon what grounds these were brought <* ferve you (our dioce'ans) until death, yet if that authority by which Bi- J* {hops are fent ,the Pope's) pronounces that circumftances require us to «« transfer the care of your fouls into other hands, we are ready to acqui- «* efce in the decifion." Pp. 36, 37. (1) Abus, p. 241. (2) Reponfe, p. 50. It has been feen above (p. 6) that Blanchard ^Tiaintains that our Englifh Priefts and Laity "owe a true and fmcere de- *« feicnce to the Proteftations of the French Bifhops" againft his Holinefs, Prem. Suite, p. 510. (3) Piril Monitory of Ct. Pfaff. 29 (grounds which, if tenable, would equally cricninate the supreme executive power of this country), and as there is reason to believe that they judge rather more favourably of our political principles than the^- do of those of our accusers, the latter have completely failed in this their first and favourite plan. They then cited me, as I informed you, *' to the feet of his Holiness at '^ Rome, allowing me thrice forty days to perform ray *' journey thither (1) ;" and they cited me, you are to observe, with the forms of English law, and by an offi- cer of the English courts, to answer to the Pope upon an accusation *' of teaching a pernicious doctrine ia /' the Social Ordtr and in Politics {2)'' With equal ignorance or contempt of the lav^s of this country. Abbe B-lanchard gives notice to Bishop Douglass : '' I *' repeat my declaration that I will denounce you in *' forniy as well as Bishop Milner, to the Bishops of ** France : and these are the heads of my accusations: *< \^. o^ s^ the foundations of social order *' overturned by the blind obedience to the Pope which '^ you enjoin (3)." Now the fact is, that we Vicars Apostolic do not enjoin, but disclaim all obedience to the Pope in matters of social order, civil society, and po- litics in general, as distinct from Cliristian morality, and we refuse to plead upon all such indictments at the tribunal of his Holiness, or of the French Bisliops, and at every other tribunal except the legal tribunals of our country. Thus it appears that the Uitramonta- nism with which we were so often charged, is on the side of our enemies, and not on our side. In conclu- sion, finding that they and their lawyers had actually incurred the penalties of ',\ Prczmunire, they tried to make a hasty retreat, by renouncing the Pope's juris- (i) Second Monitory. (2) Ibid. (3) Reponse, p. 49.- 30 diction in general; that is to say, in merely spiritual as well as in civil affairs (i) ! The only way then left for these men to attack us on the score of our civil and social principles, is the old beaten one of the press ; but as their publications prove to be gross and groundless hbels, and of course breaches of the peace and infractions of the law, they and their booksellers and printers will find themselves in a still worse situation, from this mode of attack, than from either of the former unsuccessful modes, should not we shew them that mercy which they have proved themselves unwilling to shew us. — — In the first in- stance Blanchard charges me with " seditious princi^ " pies, which expose me to violate my oath of alle- '^ giance (2)." But, in a second instance, he directly accuses me of having actiial/j/ violated it (3). He afterwards repeats the accusation, and aggravates iiis ]ibel by stating false and calumnious grounds for bring- ing it; namely, he accuses me of maintaining, and of obliging the Catholics to maintain, that the Pope has a right to dispose of crowns(4); which, in fact, is contrary to my oath and to my constant doctrine. Pro- ceeding in his career of insult, defamation, and libel- ling, he does not stick at charging me with having '' bound myself to approve of the Head of the Church, " should he separate the boundaries between just *' and unjust, between vice and virtue, and to oblige *' the people to approve of him, should he approve of *' the vice at which human nature shudders (^o)."" This foreigner is little aware oF the nevei' failing indig- nation of English juries at the slightest imputations of this nature, and of the heavy damages they are accus-* (j) Ct. Pfaff's Letter tome, Jan. 31, 1809. (2) Abus, p. 122. (3) Ibid. p. 182. {^^ Ibid. p. 215. (5} Ibid. p. ?i6. 31 tomed to give to the parties aggrieved by them. In a word, with as httle fuundation for this as for the other charges; that is to say, without the shadow of a foundation at all, he accuses me of *' teaching the *' people that they may, whenever they please^ throw off " their obedience to the lawful sovereign; that they are *^ the supreme judges when there are sufficient reasons ** for breaking the most sacred engagements of *^' pointing out to a lawless multitude revolt itself, as the '' exercise of their right, without the fear of any crime, " orof tlie most horrible attempts, &c. (I)." Now as 1 should be deeply guilty, and doubly guilty from the station which I hold, were I even to insinuate to the English Catholics such lessons as these ; so the ground- less itaputatiou of my having taught them is a most grievous injury to me, and breach of the King's peace. Nor is that military priest, who is the principal champion of Blanchard and his associates, at all behind with the latter in the atrocity of his libel. I speak, indeed, of his manuscript monitories addressed to me j but these having been communicated to ministers and other persons, are sufficiently public to come under the denomination of libels. Count Ffali'then accuses me of *' violating whatever is most sacred and indissoluble in '^ an oath ;" of teaching that '^ the most sacred '' duties and rights are toys and bugbears," of '^ sharpening the daggers of fanatical parricides, '^ &c. (2)." Finally, the anonymous theologian, who advocates the cause of the " good Abbe Blanchard" in prose and in verse, charges me with '* anti-christian *^ as well as anti-social — — abominable revolutionary '* doctrine, tending to alienate subjects from their '^ fidelity which they owe to their sovereigns, to shake ** the foundations of empires, to produce Ravaillacs, '' Sec- -with joining Bishop Douglass in persuading (i) Abut. p. rio6, (a) Monitory. 5t " the Catliolics to make relics of parricidal French *' swords and Irish daggers :" finally, with " preaching up the religious merit of assassinating " the Royal inhabitant of Windsor (1)." Such are the overt acts of high treason, as well as ihe other detesta- ble doctrines and crimes which these men publicly im- pute to the Vicars Apostolic of England. Now as ministers and other distinguished characters, have as- certained that there is not a shadow of a pretence for these charges, it follows that the authors of them are guilty of highly criminal breaches of the laws and of the King's peace. And who, after all, are these men that thus defame, and even threaten (2) his Ma- jesty's peaceable subjects ? who thus daringly violate the peace and laws of the realm ? Far be it from me to wound the feelings of tbeir numerous countrymen, whose merit, as Citizens and as subjects, is far above my praise ; but persons of this description will not be offended with me for answering these ques- tions by saying of the above-mentioned individuals: that they are foreign emigrant priests, who have ex- perienced the abundant kindness of the nation, and the (i) As a fpecimen of the libels in queftion I will here cite the laft paflage referred to : <' L'Anglais, que dans fa foi quelque Mulner decide « Et qui fuit en aveugle un alcendant fatal, <« Ofera, dans Windfor, devffiiir Regicide ; «« Et croira plalre au ciel par cet acte infernal ! *' Ah ! malheureux Donglafs ! ah ! Mulner execrable ! <« Fourbcs ! qui blafphemcz jufque dans le faint lieu, &g.'* Epttreaux Chretiens de toutes les communions en Gr. Bretagne et Ireland. The printer, Spilibury, of Snow-hill, gave up the name of the publifhcr of this horrible libel, but affefted not to know the name of the author, who, however, is pretty generally known to be a bad prieft. The law would foon have made the latter name public, had there been an intention of enforcing its rigours, (a) After a long and inflamed declamation on politics, Blanchard threatens tne, in dark terms, with " kcoming the vidim oj the fcandul," Abus, pp. 177,178. 35 superabundant kindness of the Catholic Bishops and Clergy; who have long subsisted on our contributions, and who now subsist on our taxes (1) ; yet so as to hold but a precarious existence amongst us, in conse- quence of an Act of Parliament expressly provided for preserving the public peace against foreigners (2). Is it for persons of this description, and in this situation, to violate the laws of this hospitable land, as well as the reputation of their particular friends and benefactors in the manner these men do ? I have been strongly solicited by persons of exemplary piety and charity, to seek for that redress against these libellers, which the law holds out to me and the otiier injured parties (3): but I have adhered to my original resolution of contenting myself with getting th( m re- primanded by that office which has an -ibsohue and summary authority over them. A promise to this effect has been made to me, and I make no doubt, from the knowledge 1 have of the honour and zeal for the preservation of the laws and the public peace of the very respectable gentlemen who are at the head of this office, that the reprimand has actually taken place. It remains, my Reverend and Beloved Brethren of the Middle District in general, that 1 should dnectyou to persevere in offering up those public prayers which were before appomted for the vprotection and welfare of our Holy Father, Pius VII. and that I should ac- (i) It isunderftood that Blanchard has an allowance from Government, In quality of a writer, beyond that of the French clergy in general. Now it is well worthy the consideration of minifters whether the public money ought to be paid for fuch violations of the public peace as he is in the habit of committing, (2) The Alien Aft. {3) In one of thefe libels, a certain French clergyman, who Is an honour to his profeflion and country, is defcribed as a pick-pocket, " qui prend «* les poches d'autrui pour lesfiennes ;" and a medical man is rcprefented as " dealing in noxioui ^rugs." The former is elfewhere termed " fourbc ♦« et felon," 34. quaint you from recent intelligence of unquestionable authority, that his Holiness continues to support him- self under the severe losses and sufferings which he endures for justice' sake, with a fortitude, equani- mity, and piety, that edify all around him, and fre- quently melt them into tears. It is my duty likewise to caution you against admitting to the performance of any ecclesiastical function in your respective chapels, or the reception of any sacrament the persons who have publicly declared themselves to maintain the censured doctrines of Abbe Blanchard, or who profess to break communion with the Pope, or to hold him for a heretic or schismatic, or for the author of heresy or schism, no less than the Abbe himself, and his colleague Abbe Gaschet. The persons who have openly professed the doctrine of Blanchard (alas ! there are too many secret abettors of it) are Count Pfaff, of the two Pfaffenhoflens, P. N. St. Martin (late) Vic. Gen. &.c. Exup. h. H. Scelles de St. Sever, &c. F. Courte, Doct. en Thcol. &c. J. de Trevaux, 2cc. J. Irieix de Gravier, Marc Guillevic, and L'Abbe Vinson. And you, my Rev. and Beloved Brethren of the French nation in particu- lar, who are labouring in the Middle District, do not let yourselves be imposed upon, I beseech you, bi/ these hireliitgSy who do not enter into the sheepfold by the door of it, but who climb into it another way. Their aim, you clearly see, is to withdraw you from that one Shepherd of the one shtepfold, to whom, you Avell know, Christ has committed the care of all his sheep as well as all his lambs. These hirelings would fain persuade you that your divinely commissioned Shep- herd has sold you to the infernal wolves i whereas they pre the men who are come to kill and to destroy. To speak without figure, these men, addressing you as they do, not only without authority, but in o])en de- iiance of ^11 authority, advise you to break off com- 55 m union with the acknowledged Head of the Ca- tholic Church, namely, that Head with whom all its members throughout the world do, in fact, and visibly before your eyes, communicate. In vain do they pretend to adhere to the See of Rome as a centre of union while they abjure the Roman Pontiff, as a schismatic and heretic. For where is the single Cardinal, Prelate> or member of the Apostolic See, who at the present moment stands in opposition to Pius VII ! No, my Brethren, these men have not even the shadow of a centre of union, or visible Catho- lic Church to look up to : their schismatical conduct stands confessed ! They tell you that your edifying Pontiff has sanctioned that Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which his predecessor has condemned as schismatical, and for opposing which you have glori- ously suffered persecution and exile (1). — ^-Shameless revilers of their father! He would sooner die, and we must sooner die than acknowledge the competency of any human authoritynpon earth to give spiritual juris- diction over a sinsfle member of the Catholic Church. The fact is, Pius VH. has not sanctioned, but he has abrogated the above-mentioned work of schism. He has made a new circumscription of episcopal Sees, different as to number and as to limits from the Civit Constitu- tion : he has made this by virtue of that supreme^ spiritual authority belonging to his See, which his pre- decessors have exercised, and which your Bish«>ps in- voked. He has forced all and every one of the intrude ing Bishops to descend from their usurped seats, and (i) I grant the trial to which the French exiles are called is fevere; but, after all, it is God who calls them to it. Let them be as loyal as they will ; but let them not ceaie to be Catholics. Some of their Bifhops have refigned their fees' from zeal for the Catholic religion, who, at the fame ;irT)e. have preferred poverty and exile to affluence in their own country, :Tcm an attachment to their native Sovereign. E2 3S he himself has given due canonical institution to those prelates alone who have submitted to receive it at his hands. This very suoniission was a solemn retractation, but not the only retractation of some eight or ten con- stitutional clergy who have been instituted to bishop- rics. Should then some two or three unworthy Bishops amongst them have held schismatical language since that time without being excommunicated for it, such a circumstance no more argues that the Pope approves of schism, than the forbearance of us the Vicars Apostolic, in not cutting off these scandalous writers proves that we consent to their heterodoxy and schismatical doctrines and proceedings. In conclusion, my Brethren, let lis leave the Almighty to save his Church in his own way. He always does this ; but commonly in the manner that is least expected. Let us hear and be obe- dient to the Church, as Christ commands us ; and he will not fail in the promises which he has made to her. Grace ht with you alL Amen, ^ JOHN MILNER, Bishop of Castab. V. A. Wolverhampton, March, 7, IBOf)* 3/ POSTSCRIPT. Having some of Abbe Blancbard's publications now before me, and observing his repeated boasts of having refuted different works of mine, to which circumstance he attributes the censures which f have pronounced upon his errors, I once for all take a short notice of him as a writer. He is, then, one of the most disingenuous, as well as one of the most presumptuous ad- versaries 1 have ever had to deal with. It has been seen that a Ca- tholic Bishop of Ireland calls him " a bold sophister of schism.'* Not content with catching at errors of the press (i), taking to him- self charges which he sees to have been brought against others (2), purposely mistating the objects of my censures and the tendency of my arguments, quoting my text wrong (3), &c. he is in the habit of asserting known and deliberate falsehoods (4) ; and I find that others, and those very respectable persons, charge him with this habit no less than I do.— -As this wiriter most frequently boasts of hav- ing refuted my account of St. Gregory's new circumscription of Episcopal Sees in this island (5), I will briefly relate this matter. It is demonstrated then, upon the authority of our original chroniclers and historians, British as well as Saxon, that the Chris- tian Church of this island was originally divided into three archbishop- rics and 25 bishoprics (6) ; — that the two archbishops of England,' properly so called, Thadioc and Theonas, remained here till the year 586, eleven years only before the arrival of St. Augustine and (1) Titles foT tithes, Abus, p. 150. The error is correfted with the penia the copies upon fale in London. ^ (2) Ibid^, p. 232, &c. (3) Ibid. p. i88, v/hcrt for tra7ifu&ions he puti tranjlations, (4) Abus, pp.50, 51. The writer charges me with acknowledging a va- riety of points which he well knows I always proteft againfl, and with blaming him for ftudying divinity, p. 12, But there needs no other proof of his deliberate falfehoods than his bold alTertion, which he repeats above a dozen times in his two late bocks, thatBifhop Douglass, who has fuf- pended him on account of bis doftrines, adually approves of them* (5) See the author's Elucidation of the Conduft of his Holinefs Pius VII. with refpea to tlic Ecclcfiallical Affairs of France. Meffrs. Keating, Brown, and Co. (6) Galfrid Monumet. Gul. V/eftmon. Chronicon. Jornal. Lib. Abing- don. Raynulph. Polychrort, Thomas Rudborne and his authorities, &c. ; and collaterally, Ncnnius, Bede, Girald. Camb. Hen. Hunt, RaduU- Diceto, &c. 38 liis companions, at which time they retired (with some of their suffragans, as v%^c may well suppose) into Wales, without, however, forfeiting their claims to their respective sees (i) j — that neither Pope Gregor> the Great in his commission to St. Augustine, nor the Saint himself in the execution of it, paid any attention to the an- cient limits of the British dioceses, but made such new circumscrip- tions as they found to be most for the benefit of religion in the new order of things i namely, in the case of restoring religion in this country (2); — that so far from respecting the claims of the British bishops, whether emigrants from England, or resident in their own Welsh sees, St. Gregory subjected them all, together with the Pict- ish, Scotch, and Irish bishops, to the number, in all probability, of many more than ahundred, to thejurisdictionof his legate St. Augus- tine(3), — which paramount legatine power is proved to have descend- ed to St. Augustine's successors in the newly erected metropolitan see of Canterbury (4). Here are acts of pontifical power exercised by St. Gregory, whom Abbe Blanchard so much commends for his moderation; of the self same nature and by far more extensive in their operation, than those of his present Holiness. In what manner now does this writer confute my account ? He says, that it has no authority in history. But this only shews that he is utterly unacquainted with our ancient historians (5). Indeed, it appears that the only authors whom he has consulted for information upon this point of our ancient ecclesiastical history, are the superficial and irreligious Hum.e and Millot and the incorrect and bigotted God- win (5). ^He denies that the historians (meaning no doubt (1) Galfrld. Mat. Weft. &c. (2) Bede, Gul. Malms. &c, (3) Interrogatio Auguflini. Qua]iter debemus cum Galliarum et Brltati- •• niarum ° Epifcopis agere ? Relpondit Gregorias. In Galliarum Epif- *' copos nullam tibi auftoritatem tribuimus. Britanniarum vero omnes *« Epifcopos tuae fraternitate committimus, ut indofti doceantur, infirmi ** perfuafione roberentur, perverfi auftoritatecorrigantur." Bed, Hift. ]. 1, c. 27. " Tua fraternitas omnes Britannia: Sacerdotes habeat, D. N. J, <« Chriflo auftore fubjeftos." Ibid, c. 29. N. B. The number of bi- fliops in Ireland at that time Is incredible. (4) Bed. 1. II. 6. 4, &c. (5) He fays he cannot get a fight of the Flores Hiftoriarum. — No w^on- der, when hemiftook it for a child's book. N. B. It was in his Contro- verfe Pacifique that the writer began his attack upon me concerning this point ; but he has fince renewed it in ail his iate publications, (6) Controv, Pacif. 39 Hume and Millot) have given us the names of any British episcopal seesoT of any bishops who filled them. But if lie had barely seen thk^Acts of the Great Council of Aries, he would there have seen the names of three British bishops subscribed to them, with the names of their respective sees (i) : and were he acquainted with our ancient authors, or even our martyrologists, he would have met with copious records of this nature. He denies that St. Augustine was invested by St. Gregory with any otiier extraordinary power, except that of erecting 24 bishoprics (he should have added, and two archbishoprics).— —^ — Well, but this is the very matter in debate. For if St. Gregory could authorize St. Augustine to make a com- plete renovation of the sees and prelates throughout England, what should hinder Puis VII. from making the same renovation through- out France } Now tiiat St Augustine, and the other legates of the Holy Set-, paid no regard to ihe limits of the ancient sees, or to any other rule but the necessities of religion, all history testifies. St, Augustine made an archbishopric ot Canterbury, and subjected Lon- don, which had formerly been the metropohtical see, to it. St. J^elix fixed his see for the East part of England at the place, which from him was called Flixton, neglecting the Colonia Lundintnsium, Tvhere Adelphius had presided. St. Biiinus, who came over with a special commission from Pope Honorius, united all the ancient sees of the Western and Midland provinces, from Portsmouth to the Land's E rid in one line, and from thence to the Humber in another, at Dorchester, near Oxford (2). But independently of all this, no proposition can be more false, than that St Gregory gave no extra- ordinary powers to St. Augustine, except as to the erection of sees ; since he gave him, as we liave seen above, a general authority over the several bishops of both the British islands ; an authority which his successors occasionally made use of. In further proof of his ig- norance, this w riter says that the British bishops were Quartodeci- jnans, who observed the Pasch at the same time with the jewsj but, that they were still in the Church by the integrity of their faith, and because no ecclesiastical censure had separated them from it. Now the fiict is, that the British bishops were not Q.uartodecimans, ^s was proved at large by St. Wilfreid, in the synod of Strene- shal (3) ; and on the other hand, the Quartodecimans were formal heretics, after the decision against them in the Council of Nice, an4 (1) Labbe Concil, torn, ^f (2) Bede, Gul. Malm, &c< {3) Bed, L, iv. €,25. 40 have always been reckoned such by the ancieat fathers (i) and by modern divines. Iwish now to ask. what Abbe Blanchard has proved relative to this case of St. Gregory, which he has so often triumphantly appealed to, except his total ignorance of English Ec- clesiastical History, and the parity of conduct in similar circum- stances between St. Gregory the Great and Pius VII ? As I have the pen in my hand, I will take notice of one or two other points on which this writer is accustomed to insult me.— -He repeatedly accuses me o'i fahifi/ing the Council of Trent (2). The case is ; I quoted a passage from this Council (3) barely to shew that the Church acknowledges in the Popes that right of uniting Bi- shoprics, which they have always practised when they judged it to be expedient; but i did not think it necessary to add a long preceding passage, which points out the steps to be previously taken by pro- vincial Councils which are desirous of such unions being effected. The omission of this irrelevant text Blanchard and his followers repeatedly call a falsification of a General Council. How far it was from the intention of the Fathers to prescribe indispensable rules to the Pope in this matter, appears from a preceding chapter, where it is decreed, that certain unions of benefices irregularly made, shall be set aside, "unless the Holy See shall decree otherwise (4)," In fact, Julius III. who presided in different sessions of this very Coun- cil, never thought it necessary to obtain the consent of the several Bishops whose jurisdiction had been invaded by the schismatical lay appointments of the'sees of Oxford, Peterborough, Glocester, Bris- tol, and Chester, by Henry Vlli. when he canonically erected those sees, any more than his predecessors and successors did on many other occasions. To crown his Vv'ork of calumny and abuse, this writer charges me \y\i\\ forging a whole text for Chancellor Gerson(5). Forgery of authorities, particularly in matters of religion, is as odious a crime in the literary world, as the forgery of signatures is in the commer- cial world Certain it is, that after this accusation, either I must pass- for a person unworthy of credit and of associating with gentle- jfien, if I am proved to be guilty of this crime, or else Abbe Blanchard for having falsely imputed it to me, .Now it will be . (1) SuEplphan. Theodoret, St. Aug. * {2) Abus, p. 50. (3) Sefs. 04, cap. 13. (4) Sefs. 7, c, 6. (i) Abus, p. 49, &c 41 found, by referring to my book (i), that I profess to quote this passage from the celebrated work of the late Pope Pius VI. De Nunciaturis, who is remarkably precise in his manner of citing it (2). All then that is necessary for deciding upon the alternative here men. tioned, is to compare my quotation with the book from which it is taken. To enable persons who may not be possessed of the book to do this, I have placed my copy of it in the hands of Messrs. Keating and Co. who will shew it to those who may wish to see it. N. B. Since the present SEQUEL was sent to the press, I liave perused a fresh work of Abbe Blanchard, which is just come out of it (3), and which, if I had seen it some days sooner, would have enabled me to abridge several paragraphs of which the Sequel con- sists. In this new work the Abbe clearly and unreservedly charges the present Pope with being a sc/iismatic (4). He likewise strains all his rhetoric to persuade the French Bishops that it is their right and their duty to denounce hinl to the Universal Church (5), and he pledges the divine promises for the success of such a denunciation (6). '. He argues, however, and this is the main drift of his book, that the Pope, by communicating with schismatics and heretics, and we, of course, by communicating with him, have lost all kind of spi- ritual power and jurisdiction. -This proposal of cutting the Gor- than knot, instead of untying it, is clearly the writer's shortest me- thod, if it were a safe^ one, for ridding himself of the suspension in which he is now bound up. (a) Slucidation, p. 33. (2) The late Pope refers to the paflage thus: *« De Statu Zcclefiae, Con- fid. III. edit. Dupin, Antwerpiae, 1706. See SS. D. N. Pii P. VI. Re- fponfio ad Metropolit. Super Nunciaturis, p. 25S, at the fhop of Meflrs. Keating, Brown, and Keating, No. 38, Duke-ftreet, Grofvenor-fquare. (3) " Queftion Importante, &c." (4) " On nous a dii; vous accufez le Pape lui-meme d'avoir inftitue le *« fchifme en France, et d'y participer.^ Je n'ai jamais nie la realite de *' cette accufation ; mais j'ai prouve, par dcs principes evidentes, etpardes ** faits inconteflables, qu'elle n'ell que trop fondee." Ibid. p. 64. (5) " Ce corps de I'cdifice qui foutient le louviain Pontife niemc, ce font *' lesEveques; de la, pour les Prelats, ledtoitet /^ (/aozr de reclamer centre ♦' les atteintes que le Pape porUioit, loit a la foi, foit a la difcipliue et a I9 *' morale," Ibid. p. 69. (6) " Mais on craint que les preventions de I'Ultramontanifme ne mettent, *< en ce moment, un obftacle au fucces d'une reclamation addrellee a I'Eglifc ** Univerfelle. Vaines terreurs que le feule conhderation des promelics ** divines doit diffi per," Ibid. pp. 69, 70. Keating, Brown and Co, Printers to the Rt. Rev. the Vicars Apoiloiic, 38, Dukc-Streetj Grofvenor-Square, ERRATA. P. 5, li z»for aiford read afforded. lo, 8. for there read then. THE SUPPLEMENT TO A PASTORAL LETTER OF THE Rt. Rev. JOHN, Bishop of Castahala, ^c. V, A. CENSURING CERTAIN LATE PUBLICATIONS IN THE . FRENCH LANGUAGE. -=^\\ controversies, which he has established in her. This tribunal is tlie clear au- dible voice of her Supreme Head, and her other chief pastors. By this living authority all disputes among Catholics have ever been settled : whilst Sectaries al- ways appeal to a dead letter, wlielher of scripture or. of ecclesiastical decisions, as interpreted by themselves, and hence their controversies are interminable, and their existence is of a short date. You have witnessed in all my writings on this as well as on other subjects, that I have strictly adhered to this Catholic rule, and that I liave never ceased from urging that the great body of the Catholic Prelates are evidently, by the very testi-^ mony of our senses, in communiun with his Holiness Pope Pius VII. and that therefore he cannot have swerved from the faith or unity of the Church, in the important affairs which he has transacted. My adver- saries on the other hand (that is to say certain foreign priests, destitute of all authority to teach, yet who take upon themselves publicly to contradict and correct the public instructions of their bisliops) have very natu- rally fallen into the sectarian method. They call upon me at every turn to argue the points at issue with them ; that is to say, to multiply books of dialect without end or profit, whereas the whole question is : What does the living Catholic Church believe and teach ? Upon this poin^t it belongs to ray station to speak to my flock au- thoritatively, and as a judge, though by no means irre- formably, except as far as I speak in unison with the other bishops of the Catholic Churchy and especially with her Head Pastor. In fact, these constitute that living speaking tribunal to which I am ever referring you. The innovators cease not from exclaiming : '^ Pope Pius VI. has pronounced upon the points in 9 " debate, and his decisions have been received by the *' whole Catholic Church." Nothing, dear 'bre- thren, is more certain, and, I believe, few English Catholics have laboured more earnestly, by their voices and their pens, to support the decrees of that holy Pontiff and Martyr, than I have done. But it is to be remembered, that the Briefs of Pius FI. are now as much a dead letter as the epistles of his predecessor St. Peter are. They both equally require the living voice and authority of the chief pastors to pronounce upon their meaning with respect to all controversies that may grow out of them. To be brief: it was impossible for my adversaries absolutely to admit that the voice of the Church was against them; accordingly that daring man, who is the mouth-piece of his misguided party, loudly proclaimed that the great body of Catholic Bishops were of his opinion, and taught his doctrine. He admitted indeed that his own Bishop, and other Catholic Bishops of this country, were against him, and he reproached them with " persecuting him for his " unshaken attachment to the decisions of the Catholic *' Church, which decisions," he said, " they had sa- *' crificed to tlieir ultramontanism, 8cc.(l)" But as to the other Catholic Bishops, particularly the few re- maining French Emigrant Bishops, and the numerous Irish Catholic Bishops, who, in fact, form, at the present day, one of the most free, firm, and illustrious branches of the Catholic Hierarchy throughout the world, he proclaimed that all these were on his side of the question ; and accordingly, he formally appealed to them, and actually sent his books to them for their examination. This appeal he has made to the Irish Prelates in each of his three last publications against me, and has urged it with a confidence truly incompre- (j) Reponse de P. L. Blanchard, p. i8. Abus fans Examp. p. St. B 10 hensible. In the first of these he admonishes the Irish Bishops that " it is their duty to condemn him if he has '' attacked Catholic doctrine;" and he adds: *' I con- '^ jure them to pronounce upon this capital accusation; *' to recognize my fiiith^ if it be orthodox ; or to con- *' demn it, if I had the misfortune to go astray ; in as '^ much as their silence will confirm me, and many ^^ others with me, in an error, in case I have taught '' error (j)." '* You see," he had just before said to me, '' I am not afraid of the support you promise your- *^ self fram the Bishops of Ireland. It is one thing to ^^ give you a general promise of support in the cause of *' orthodoxy, and before inquiry, and another thing to ^^ pronounce lipon cons,cience, in the presence of *^ truth, after a serious examination, and to nlake an '' authentic episcopal decision (2)." —In a subsequent publication he says : *' 1 have invoked an episcopal ^* judgment, an act of authority, in having recourse to the Bishops of Ireland. — The troubles of Spain and " Portugal will render it a work of more time and diffi- culty for the Bishops of those unhappy countries to give their decision. But we will repose with tran« quillity on that of the Bishops of France and Ire- *' land, content to have thus shewn our confidence in *^ those prelates, our uprightness, and our sincerity in f^ all that you (meaning myself) have obliged us to ^' write. I fear nothing, because I desire to be brought " back to the truth, if I have wandered from it in en- *' deavouringtd defend it (3)." All this is exceedingly good and edifying : God grant that Mr. Blanchard nuiy have the grace to keep his solemn promises !—I have (i) Abus, p. 234. (2) Ibid, p. 233. (3) Reponfea une Nouvelle Dr. Monf. I'SvequedeCaflabala in Pcltier'c AmblgUj April 1©, 1809, p. 17. 11 only lo observe, with all tbat respect which is due to the dignity, virtues, and the merits of the few remaining Emigrant French Bishops, that being deprived of their sees by those circumstances which obliged his Holiness to make a new division of the dioceses of France, they have no longer any flocks to govern : they are bishops and doctors, but not pastors : of course, they have no jurisdiction: now it is jurisdiction, and not the episco^ pal character, which confers a right of pronouncing authoritatively in the councils of the Church. Thus the decision which this Ex-Cure invokes is confined to the ^irelates of Ireland. In his Final Declaration, ad- dressed to me at the beginning of this month, Mr, Blanchard tells me, that '^ my confidence of support *^* from the Irish Bishops is an insult to them(l)." He adds : '^ I have appealed by name to the Bishops of '' Ireland, and I announce to the public that I have ^- certain information of their having received my *' Defense, my Answer, and my Abuse, The extracts '^ of letters from two or three of them, which Mr. Mil- " ner produces, have not terrified me : on the contrary, " their language encourages me(2)." He then endeavours to excite a jealousy in these ordinary bishops against vicars apostolic, and insinuates what he had before ex- pressed more clearly and energetically, that if they ac- knowledge in his Holiness the power which he has exer- cised in France, he may possibly make use of it against them and their sees(3). He, moreover, tries to cajole those prelates who might, in his opinion, have committed themselves in their letters to me, to observe what Jie calls an ajyprobatory silence, namely, to give no deci- (i) Declar. Fin. p. 112. (2) Ibid. p. 139. {$) Ibid. pp. 141, J50. Abus, pp, 113, 834^ 1<2 sion at all, In order to give bim a pretence for publish- ing that they have decided in his favour ; and he has engaged otlier personages, of greater consequence than himself, to second tliese manoeuvres. But litlle does he and little do they know the i'relaies of Ireland, if they fancy there is one amongst ihera who would not forfeit bis life along with his bishopric to save a single soul, and much more so to restore the saving religion of Christ throughout the greater part of Europe. I shall not here quote any of my late letters, though 1 have several to my purpose^ from the Catholic Arch' bishop of Dublin, or from those other Prelates who have already spoken to the qiiCstion in my SEQUEL. I shall then immediately turn to my letters from the Catholic Primate and other Metropolitans of Ireland upon this subject, after which I shall proceed to their synod ical acts. Extract of a Letter from the Catholic Archbishop of Ar- magh and Primate of Ireland to the Bishop of Castabala, *' Since your last letters came to hand, sets of Blan- *' chard's schismalical pamphlets, for me and my " suffragan Prelates, were forwarded hither by a Cap- *^ tain Malassez. The writer, and his associates in *' schism and spiritual rebellion, greatly mistake the '^ character of the Irish Catholic Prelates, if they sup- *' pose there is a single individual among them who ** will not feel highly indignant on reading such impi- *' ous productions, calculated not only to destroy en- *' tirely the authority of Christ's Vicegerent on earth, ** but also to throw the Church into a state of complete ^' anarchy and confusion. I am certain there is not a *' Catholic Prelate in Ireland who will not wish with 13 " me to have it proclaimed to the work^, as in fact the " whole of our conduct does proclaim, that we are in *' communion with his Holiness Pope Pius VII. and *' with all those who are in communion with him. *' We also wish to have it known to mankind, that we " venerate his sacred person and respect his virtues, ^^ particularly his prudence, his apostolical zeal, his ** fortitude and magnanimity in bearing persecution '' for righteousness' sake. I can with equal truth say, " from the thorough knowledge 1 have of their ortho- '' doxy and attachment to Catholic Unity, that there " is not an individual of our prelacy who does not *"' condemn and reprobate, as I do, the schismatical ^ conduct and writings of Abbe Blanchard and his as- '' sociates ; and it is to us matter of great surprise, *' that of the numerous French Emigrant Bishops still '' residing in England, whom we respect and honour *' as confessors of the faith, not one, th^ we know of, *' has come forward to censure and condemn, or even ^' to disapprove of the heterodox theories and disorgan- " izing maxims broached and propagated by their " countrymen. '' ^ Pv. R.' '* Drogheda, May 10, 1S09.' Extract of a Letter to the B. of C. from the Catholic Archbishop of Cashel. '' Little did I think Mr. Blanchard and Co. would '' go the lengths they have done. And after I had *' read the Sequel, I could not but feel surprised and ^' concerned at the silence of the French Prelates in " England in so important and alarming a crisis. But *' it is not possible that such learned and venerable per- 14. sonages, who have so generously made the greatest sacrifices to religion, can remain any longer in such mysterious silence ; especially as Mr. Blanchard has had the effrontery to declare that he will consider the " Irish Catholic Prelates as adhering to his schisma- *' tical doctrines, should they pass them by unnoticed. *' You are no doubt satisfied that no Irish Catholic •' Bishop is with Mr. Blanchard and his followers, but *' that^ to a man, we are all against him and them, '' and that we cannot but feel highly gratified and ^' obliged that you have taken up the pen so timely and " successfully against these adversaries of our holy '^ religion. '' ^ T. B/' " Thurles, April 29, 1809." Extract of a Letter to the B. of C. from the Catholie Archbishop of Tuam. *' The Sequel I have read with pleasure; I find in '' it the same ecclesiastical spirit, the same adlierence *' to sound principles which we witnessed in you before " you were promoted to the episcopal dignity. What " a time has Blanchard chosen to afflict the Head of " the Church! I trust in God that I shall not fail " attending at Maynooth the 24th, and I am sure " those schismatical men will have no room hence- *^ forward to quote the authority of the Irish *' Bishops. Tuam, May 6, 1809." 15 On the 6th of June a Synod of the Catholic Prelates of the Archbishopric of Dublhi was held at Tullow, in which, says the venerable Metropolitan who gives me an account of it, in his letter dated June IS, '' We all " signed a declaration of our communion with Pius *' VII. and damnatory of several propositions extracted " from the J bus sans Example (1). We confined *' our consideration to the Abus, as in that publication " Blanchard appealed to the Irish Prelates, and did " not notice Gaschet or others, although implicitly *' condemned by us, inasmuch as they advocate his ^* fundamental principles. "^.J.T.T," Dtclaratlon of the Romait Catholic Prelates of Ireland^ concerning certain Opinions lately published in England, •h " Whereas We the underwritten Archbishops and '' Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland, " have been called upon to declare our judgment con- ^* cerning certain opinions lately published in England, '• and there condemned by our Right Rev. Brothers, the '* Bishops of Centuriae and Castabala, Vicars Apostoli- *' cal ; from which condemnation a pretended appeal has '' been conveyed to us, in a book entitled, Abus sans " Example de FJutorite Ecclhiasiiqiie, pourfetrir et " opprimer t Innocence , ^c. S:c» By Pierre Louis " Blanchard, styling himself Cure de St. Hyppolite, ** Diocht de Lisieux, Normandie, A Londres, d& (t) The terms of the cenfure are not here given, becaufe they will be fccn Uelow, in the following Declaration of the Archbilhops and Bifhops. 16 ^' VimprimerU de R. Juigne, ^7, Margaret-street, *' Cavendish-square, Se vend chez M. De la Roche, " 5, King street, Portman-square ; et chez VAuteur, ''81, High-street, Mary-le-bone, l808, " And whereas the said Pierre Louis Blanchard has '* signified in his said book, that he will consider our '^ silence as an approbation of the opinions therein as* *' serted, and already mentioned to have been con- *' demned : " For these reasons, We have thought it expedient^ '^ without entertaining the said pretended appeal, " which we declare to be irregular, nugatory, and in- *' valid, to take into consideration the reasons al- " ledged by the said pretended appellant ; and having " examined the propositions hereafter set down, as well ♦' separately taken, as compared with the context of " the above-mentioned work of the said Pierre Louis ^* Blanchard, We have unanimously agreed to the fol- *' lowing resolutions : '^ First, We profess and teach that Pius VIL tji^ ** now Bishop of Rome, is the true and supreme Pastor " of the Catholic Church, that We adhere to him as ** the undoubted successor of Peter, and that he is " fully and justly in possession of all spiritual powers, " which, by reason of the Primacy divinely established ** in the Church of Christ, of right belong to the " Chief Bishop of Christians, and to the Teacher of «' all Christians. *' Secondly, We declare, that adhering, as We " have done from the beginning, to the dogma- *' tical decisions of Pius VL of holy remembrance, '' concerning the so called Civil Constitution of '* the Clergy of France, and judging, after those de- ** cisions, that the said Constitution was impious in " iis suggestions, heretical in its pretensions, schis- 17 " matical in several of its provisions, and on the whole *' to be rejected ; We judge at the same time that our '' holy Father PiusVII. has not meant to approve, and " by no colour or inference has he approved of the er- ** rors, heresies, or impious principles contained in the " said Civil Constitution of the Clergi/, or of any of '' them : but that, especially in his measure for the re- " storatfon of Catholic Unity, and the peaceful exercise '^ of true religion in France, he has adhered to that which '* was dogmatical in the said decisions of his predecessor, ^' and that he has only yielded what the dreadful exi- '' gencies of the times demanded from a true Shepherd " of the Christian Flock, in commiseration of suchdai/s " as had never appeared from the beginning of the '* world, and if they had not been shortened on '* account of the elect, all flesh would not have been " saved, '' Thirdly, We declare, that in the Pontifical Acts " already mentioned of Pius VIL he has validly, and " agreeably to the Spirit of the Sacred Canons, exerted *' the powers belonging to the Apostolical See 5 that *' he has effectually restored the Catholic Christians of '* France to the visible body of the Church, and that '' he has thereby imparted to them a true Communion '* with the Universal Church, that being restored to " God through Christ, they may have remission of ** their sins in the Holy Spirit : And we accept, ap- " prove, and concur with the said Acts of Pius VIL " as good, rightful, authentic, and necessary, inspired " by charity, and done in the faith of his predecessor, " As we are willing and prompt to make this decla« " ration in testimony of the One Catholic Church, and " in the defence of its visible Head, Pius VH. for *' whose deliverance, as formerly for that of Peter, the *' prayer of the Church is unceasingly offered up to ** Godt so it is with unfeigned grief we find our- C 18 ** selves compelled to reprehend the works or assertions *^ of a man, who appears to have belonged to that glo- *' rious Church of France, which in these last days has '' crowned its Faith by Confession, and its Confession *' by Martyrdom ; in the sufferings of which We sor- ^' rowed, and for the deliverance of which We prayed : *' but being reduced to the necessity of either acting ^' with pastoral authority and animadversion, or sur- ^^ rendering the sacred trust confided to us. We follow '' the example of him who has said : Jf thy right ei/e '' scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it forth from ** thee ; and again, unless a man hate his very soul, he '* cannot be my disciple. ** Wherefore, having seen the following propositions ** asserted by the said Pierre Louis Blanchard, and "^ having examined them, we declare them respec- " tively FALSE, calumnious, and scandalous, *' inasmuch as they regard the acts of Pius VIL " in his Restoration and Settlement of the Churches " of France, and manifestly tending to schism, most '^ dangerous at this time to the peace and unity of the *' Catholic Church, exciting and inviting to schism, '^ not alone schismatical, but dogmatizing schism, ^' usurping ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and subversive ^' of Church authority. /' The propositions are these following : Page 38, *' L'Eglise du Concordat n'est pas Ca- '* tholique. Page 60, " L'Heresie vient d'obtenir en France un '^ triomphe complet, et Pie VII, en est la premiere ct *^ la principale cause. P. 95. " Une Eglise aussi completement asservie '^ ne peut-etre I'Eglise de Jesus-Christ. P. 99. '^ Les Eveques Concordataires doivent etre '^ evites par les fideles jaloux d operer leur salut. Ibid. ^* lis n'ont pas re§u^de Jesus-Christ lespouvoirs 19 *' essentiellement libres dans leur principe et dans leur *' exercice. P. 109. '^ Un des sujets de leur justes plaintes (des ** Eveques de France), c'est que Pie VII. par sa " foiblesse, ait introduit le schisme meme et Theresie ** dans le sein de I'Eglise. P. 134. " Quant a ce Pape (Pius VII.) Je dis seule- " ment qu'il faut le denoncer a I'Eglise Catbolique, '* encore sans specifier si c*est comme heretique et '^ schismatique, ou uniquement pour avoir vioie les " regies saintes. P. 137. '* Pie VII. seroit heretique et schismatique " par I'abandon et meme par le mepris d'une decision *' solemnelle de TEglise : '^ This proposition separately taken is equivocal ; but " it is to be considered along with the three following: P. 62. '^ Nous avons done dans la decision de '' Pie VI. contre la Constitution civile du Clerge, " celle de I'Eglise universelle meme. P. 117. " Pie VII. par la formation de I'Eglise Con- " cordataire a, en efFet, revoque les brefs de son pre- *' decesseur, et admis les principes fondaraentaux de " la Constitution civile du Clerge, Ibid. *' Comment Pie VII. a-t-il forme ce fantome " d'Eglise ? II la forme sur les bases m8mes que Pie VI, '* avoit condamnees comme impies, heretiques et " schismatiques. " These Propositions we reject and condemn, whh- *' out approving or intending to approve many other " propositions maintained by the said P. L. Blanchard ^* as connected with the foregoing, and without enter- *^ taining, as We have already declared, the said pre- " tended appeal, or approving of it in form or sub- '^ stance. -1 C2 \ ^ J^ J 20 ^^ In testimony of all which We, the aforesaid '' Archbishops and Bishops have signed our names to ^^ this our Solemn Declaration and Decision. " <' Dublin, 3d July, I809." ^< Richard O'Reilly, D. D. J. T. Troy, D. D. Bnbliru Armagh, Daniel Delany, D. D. Kil- Thomas Bray, D. D. CashelL dart and Leighlin. Francis Moylan, D.D. Cork James Lanigan, D.D. Ossory. P. J. Flunket, D. D. Mdfa^/?. P. JPre/^c;^, D. D. Elphin. John Cruise, D. D. Ardagh, T. Costello, D. D. Clonfert, John Power, D. D. Water- John Flynn, D. D. Elect, ford and Lismore. Aciionry. Flor, Mac Carthy, D. D. Patrick Ryan, D. D Ger^ Antinoe, Coad. Cork, manicia, Coad, Ferns, F» Dillon, D. D. Tuam, Daniel Murray, D. D, J. Caulfield, D. D. Ferns, - Coad, Elect, Dublin:' **\ hereby certify tiiat the underwritten Prelates, not ^' present at the assembly of their brethren on the 3d of '' July, have approved the foregoing solemn Declara- '' tion and Decision ; and authorised me by their re- ** spective letters, to affix their signatures thereto." '' J, T. TROY, D. D. Dublin:' '^August 21, I8O9." *' Wm, Coppinger, D. D. C. Sughrue, D. D. Kerry, Cloyneand Ross, James Murphy, D.D. Clog" P, MacMullen, D, D. her. Dozvn and Connor. J. O'Shaughnessy, D. D, £. Derry,D, D. Dromore, Kilalloe. Chas. O'Donnell, D. D. P' MacLoughUn, D. D. Derry, Raphoe. N, J, Archdeacon, D. D. jP. Reilly, D. D. Kilmore, Kilmacduagh and KiU Val. Bodkin, D. D. Ward, fenora, Galway:' Dorainick Belkw, P. D» ( 21 ) Thus, you see, my beloved Brethren, that the schismatical system of this turbulent anarchist, who had refused submission to the decisions of his own Bishop, supported by that of all the Bishops in this country, has been distinctly, emphatically, and unanimously condemned by the whole Catholic hierarchy of Ireland, to which he had three times solemnly appealed. Kever did Providence afford a more timely succour to his Church, or at least to our portion of it, than in this act of the vigilance, charity, and zeal of those exemplary prelates. But what part will the unhappy leader of schism now act ? He is deeply pledged, as you have seen above, to stand by the decision of the French emi- grant Bishops and of the Catholic Bishops of Ireland. The former, who are few (1), unconnected, and destitute of every degree of spiritual jfrisdiction, are totally silent as to the appeal of the Sieur Blanchard. Indeed they are not known to have opened their lips at all in public, since the 6th of April, 1803, when, addressing Pius VIL in the words of St. Jerom, they exclaimed: *' Qui- *' cumque tecum non colligit spargit (2):" words more edifying, more apposite, more replete with salutary doctrine, never were uttered ! On the other hand, the Irish Bishops, who are numerous, and who form a complete and efficient hierarchy, have spoken clearly and unanimously, and their decision contirms the judgment of their brethren, the Catholic Pre- (i) There are, at present thirteen^ emigrant Trench Bifliops in England from the different provinces of France, befides one other who refigned his fees at the requifition of the Pope, and another who has not been con- fecrated. Independently of thefe, there may be fix or eight other demiflion- ary and non-demiflionary French Bifliops ftill alive in the different countries of the continent, (2) *« Whofoever doth not gather with thee fcattcreth abroad,**— Canonicac et Rev, Expost. • 3, ( 2i2 ) Jates of this country (1). Will Abbe Blanchard now stdnd to bis engagements, and submit? 1 earnestly pray to God that he may do so, for the safety of his own soul, and of many others] Or will he say (in those two pages of a French journal with which he threatens me) (2], that the whole Catholic Church of Ireland, as well as that of England, is concordatist^ schismatical, and heretical, *' by communicating with '* Pius VII. and the Churches with which he commu- ** nicates,'' and that he himself is supported by the express declarations of a number of prelates ? And who think you are those prelates whom Abbe Blanchard presses into his service ? — They are Bishop Douglass, (3), myself (4), the Irish Bishops (5), and Pope Pius VII. (6). ■But to have done with dialectical quibbles, and to refer to the maxim wiih which I began : will any sincere Catholic, whether French or English, now lay liis hand upon his heart, and say, in the presence of the God who is to judge him, that he does not know whether the prelates of the Catholic Church are on the side of his Holiness Pope Pius VII. or on that of the Sieur Blanchard I To the serious and conscientious con- sideration of all such sincere Catholics, whether French or English, I wish to recommend the letter which ajustly celebrated Bishop of Ireland addressed to an emigrant metropolitan of France, on behalf of himself and his brethren, in answer to that metropolitan's call upon the Irish prelates to sign the Memorial and Protest which he and the other emigrant Bishops had drawn (i) From the Letters of difFerent Catholic Bifliops of the different provinces of North America, lately received, it appears that the churches of that ex» tenfive country have taken a juft alarm at the idea of being infefted with Blanchardifm, and that they likewife have taken due precautions againft it» (a) Declar. p. 155. (3) Ibid pp. 36, 60^ (4) P. 65. (5) P. 14»' (6) P. ii5. ( 23 ) up, and were about to transmit to bis Holiness. It is impossible to treat the subject with more luminous pre- cision, or more winning eloquence and charity than is here done. I have before me a copy of the letter ia the hand writing of the Irish prelate. Copy of a Letter from an Irish Catholic Bishop to the late jlrchbishop of > *' My Lord, "I had the honour of receiving last Month your '' Grace's obliging letter with the packet forwarded to me *' by Messrs. Keating and Brown, for which my warmest '' thanks are due, and are now offered to your Grace. I " immediately communicated* the Memorial to our Pre- *' lates, and waited to have their sentiments thereon, ia '' order to answer your Grace's letter. — ^They consider, « very justly, the production as very learned, replete with " ecclesiastical knowledge, and containing the strongest " proofs of the divine right of Bishops to govern indivi- *' dually the particular portion of the Church committed *' lo their care, and collectively (in a general Council) the " whole Church of Christ. — It proves also theindissolubi- *' lity in ordinary r«.se.sof the bond by which a Bishop is " connected with his Church : but they are of opinion, *^ that it does not prove the mcompetency of the Chief " Bishop to act in an extraordinary case towards a Na« '^ tional Church, as his present Holiness has lately done ** with respect to the Church of France. — They think, '' that had he not, under existing circumstances, acted as '' he has done, that once most flourishing portion of the •' Church would have been left for ever a prey to schism " and infidelity (as England has unfortunately been) by "the establishment of some schismatical or heretical ( 24 ) *^ sect as the national religion of the country.— They " consider the separation of so many most venerable *' Bishops and Confessors of the faith from flocks *' so dear to them, and by whom they were so much " loved and revered, as an evil of great magnitude: but " can it be compared with the loss of true religion to a '' whole nation ? — Bishops may be replaced, but for the " true faith no succedaneum can he found. — Tbey la- " ment exceedingly the dire necessity that forced his " Holiness to adopt so extraordinary a measure, and '^sincerely sympathize with your Grace and your " venerable Confreres, on the affliction you must feel "on the occasion. —They trust, however, in God's *' infinite goodness, that he will protect so valuable a " portion of his Church, under the special protection *' of the Queen of Heaven, watered, as it has been of *' late, by the blood of so many martyrs, and dignified *' by the most heroic and exemplary, conduct of such ''multitudes of holy confessors and virgins, so as to *' restore it to its former splendour, and to dispel the '* dark cloud, which, alas ! covers it in the present " unhappy times. — This is and shall be the constant ** subject of our most fervent prayers, & c. •'•fN. N." I have nothing more to add at present, my Dear and Reverend Brethren, except the prayer of the Apostle, that The Peace of God may he with you. Amen. i^* J. M. Castabalensis, V. A. Wolverhampton, July 22, I8O9. 25 NOTES. lllllllllilll^lllilllllllK B^ lEING actually in the press, for the purpose of communicating to my flock the important and deci- sive documents seen above, I have thought it worth while to add a few notes on the latest productions against me of those wretched rivals in the career of heterodoxy and schism, Messrs. Blanchard and Gas- chet, which otherwise I probably should have passed by unnoticed. The former of them gives notice, that there will soon be a contest, in his party, who of them is my chief adversary (1). The fact is, the contest is already begun (2); but with such unequal pretensions, that there is not the shadow of a doubt but the unfortunate schismatics of the day will rank with the Donatists and Luciferians, under the title of Blanchardists* Both these writers are for ever boasting of their respective victories in the theological warfare. If we believe them, they beat down and ''pulverize" their opponents, whe- ther they are private writers, such as VAmis de la Feritt and the author of the Dialogue^ or Bishops in- structing their flocks, or Popes issuing briefs to the Church. But it is fit they should know that such vapouring and trumpeting passes here in England for a symptom of defeat, not of victory. (i) Declaration Finale de Mons. Blaachard, p. 32. (2) Lettres Apologetique deM. Gaschet, See Lettres 4, 5, 6, In a work which I published in ISO'B, called ^i/i Elucidation of the late Briefs of Pope Pius VII. S^c, I shewed that the conduct of his Holiness, in new mo* deliing the Church of France, was not absolutely with^ out a parallel in church history, as St. Gregory the Great, on the happy event of the restoration of religion in this island, by the conversion of our Saxon ancestors, had done the same thing; namely, he gave authority to his legate, St. Augustine, to erect new bishoprics throughout the heptarchy, without paying the least respect to the circumscription of bishoprics which had been established at the conversion of the Britons four centuries before, and which had subsisted down to his times. 1 proved the existence of such a British hierarchy from the testimony of several of our original writers, and even from the acts of the Council of Aries, where the names and the sees of those British Bishops are recorded. — In what manner now does Mr. Blan^ chard pulverize my arguments? Why he says that Godwin, a modern writer of inferior credit, has started doubts concerning this British hierarchy. — It is true, that Godwin, out of hatred to the CathoJic religion, makes some weak eftbrts to discredit the universally attested fact of the light of Christianity having first been spread throughout this island by missionaries from Pope Eleutherius in the second century ; but with respect to the point at issue, the existence of British Bishops and British Sees at the time when St. Gregory gave St. Augustine a commission to erect bishoprics and appoint Bishops throughout the land, namely, at the end of the sixth century, so far from Godwin denying this, he bears express testimony to it (no less than the original authors do), in the following passage, among several others ; *' At the coming in " of the Saxons the succession of Archbishops was still *' continued in London; but secretly, even until ^7 "^ the time that St. Gregory sent Augustine hither. *' I find only one of their names, Theonas, who being " first Bishop of Gloucester, forsook it, and took the '' charge of London. The year 086, he, with Thadio- '^ cus, Bishop of York, taking their clergy with them, " got them into Wales and Cornwall to the rest of their" '^ countrymen, whom the Saxons had driven thi- '' ther(l)." " Well," says Mr. B. " but it is possi- *' ble that these bishops may have died in the interval '^ between 5S6 and 597. Again, it is not proved that '' St. Gregory was acquainted with the existence of " British Bishops in this island u^hen he sent St. Au- " gustine hither (2)." To answer this writer's pur- pose, however, as he well knows, it is necessary to suppose, not only that the British Archbishops of Lon- don and York, but that all the other British Bishops, with all their clergy, had died in the course of eleven years ! As to St. Gregory's supposed ignorance of the actual existence of a prior hierarchy in this island, so far from this being the case, he had actually instructed St. Augustine how to treat with the bishops composing it. The fact is> he thought it necessary, in the exist- ing circumstances, to new model them as well as their sees, by subjecting them all to the jurisdiction of this his legate (3). 1 have so often referred to the clear testimo- nies of all this in the Epistles of St. Gregory, the Ec- (1) See Godwin's Catalogue of Blfliops, 4to, p. 182, andhis Commen- tarius de Pr^fultibus, folio, p. 170. (2) Declarat. p, 10. {3) " Britanniarum omnes epifcopos tuas fraternitati committimus ut in- *' dofti doceantur, infirml perfuafionc roberentur, pcf verfi auftoritate corri- •' ganlur." Bed. Eccl. Hill: L. i. c. 27. " Tua fraternitas non " folum cos epifcopos quos ordinaverit, neque eos tantum qui Eboraci per *' Epifcopum fuerint ordinali, fed etiam omnes Britannias facerdotes ha- " beat, Deo D. N. J, Chrillo auaore, fubjeaos." Ibid. c. 29. D2 218 clesiastical History of Venerable Bede, Sec. that it would be tiresome to repeat them here. In fact, Mr. B. does not aitempt to oppose any thing else to them, ex- cept gratuitous and absurd suppositions,, and ridiculous vaunting that his victory over me is more complete than ever ! Another of his pretended triumphs regards the Coun- cil ofTrent, which he accuses me of having falsified ; and he gives us to understand, that by means of this accusation he has succeeded in making many English as well as French people entertain a very bad opinion ofme(l). The question is, whether a certain process of inquiry and examination which the council appoints to be made by those provincial bishops who are desir- ous of having certain poor bishoprics united together, regards only the bishops, or is binding also on the Pope himself, in such sort that no union of bishoprics made by him is to be repuled valid, unless this process has taken place ? It is unnecessary to mention which opi- nion he maintains and which I maintain ; but it is ne- cessary to observe that, in consequence ut' my not swelling my page with a long quotation which no way regarded the point in question, he accuses me of hav- iuQ fahj/ied a General Council. I wish the learned to peruse the whole 13th canon of session xxiv. as well as the whole 6th canon of session vii. and to judge from the context. In the mean time, I once more assert that it is demonstratively clear, from the clauses of the former canon which I actually quoted, that even in the particular case there treated of, namely, zvhen the question is about uniting sees together on account of their poverti/, the Pope is not bound by the process in ques- tion, or by the opinion, vote, or petition of the provincial bishops; in as much as the whole business is after all (i) Dedar. p« !;• 29 left to bis prudence. He is to judge whether it is ppil- dent to make the proposed union or not : '^ Quibus ** (instrumenlis) instructus summus Pontifex, EX <' PRUDENTIA SUA, PPtOUT EXPEDIRE JU- *' DICAVERIT, aut tenues invicem uniat, aut aliqu^ " accesione ex fructibus augeat." ^In confirmation of this doctrine, I shewed that Julius III. who presided in different sessions of the Council of Trent, neither by himself nor by his legate Cardinal Pole, instituted any such process, or once consulted the parties interested, when he gave a canonical existence to the five English bishoprics which had been schismatically dismembered from the sees of Lincoln, Ely, Salisbury, 8cc. by Henry VIII. Here the Abbe finds himself completely gra- velled, and is reduced to say that these erections were made at the request of Parliament, and that the bishops interested had votes in it. But is an EngHsh Parha- ment then that provincial Council of Bishops which the Fathers of the Council of Trent speak of? And did this very Parliament call before it the parties interested in the changes, such as the abbots and monks of Glou- cester, Chester, Peterborough, &c. whose monasteries had been dissolved, and whose property had been alienated in order to create those sees ? Again, when four years after the thirteen new sees in the Low Coun- tries were circumscribed by the succeeding Pope, Paul IV. history testifies that this was done, not only without the consent, but also in direct opposition to the remonstrances of the Archbishop of Rheims, the Kin"- of France, the abbots of several monasteries, and of many other parties deeply interested in the changes (1). Nevertheless, the evident interest of the Church, the (i) See the Continuator of Fleary, Bcrcaftel's Hift. EccU and De Brant'l Hift, de* Pays Ba$ ad an« 1559. 50 prerogative of the Pope of acting eX certa scientid iri this particular business, and the support of Philip II. bore down all opposition, and the new creations were admitted to be valid on all hands. It being then so de- monstratively plain, from the context of the canon and the actual discipline of the Church, that the process mentioned in can. xiii. sess. 24. does not regard the pope, it would have been superfluous and foolish in me to have quoted it in the passage alluded to. Still my adversary does not blush to proclaim me a corrupter of the General Councils. In the same work I had cited an authority of Gerson, from the celebrated work of Pius VL De Nuncia^ fwns(l). — In return, this advocate of bishops charged me in express terms and repeatedly with hawing forged it (2). I then sent the work itself which I had quoted to London, to be deposited in the shop of my printer, ■where A. B. saw it and verified the quotation. Still he refuses to retract the foul charge of forgery : and upon \^hat pretext does he refuse it? — He says, *' Perhaps " Pius VI. did not write his own book : perhaps some <' Ultramontain induced him to insert this spurious «' passage : perhaps tind perhnps{3).'' In short, he gives you to understand that you may adopt any perhaps you please, provided only you will agree with him in call- ing me a forger, and Pius VI. (yes, the identical Pius Vi. no less than Pius VII.) '^ a pretender" to rights -.which do not belong to him, and a usurper on the rights of Catholic Bishops (4). 1 have hitherto disdained to take notice of two other pretended falsifications with which this calumniator has charged me. 1 barely said that *' Pius VI. had exercised his right in the (i) Elucld. p. 33. (3) Declar. p. 19, note. (a) Abus, p, 49, &c. (4} Ibid, 31 '' erection of the new see of Moulins (1) :" meaning thereby that the okl French government, which had contested so many rights of the Holy See, had not con* tested this. — Now what turn does B. give to this simple expression? — He exclaims that^I am a falsifier, be- cause I did not give the whole history of the creation, which no way regarded my subject. Again^ 1 said that, by the Concordat it is expressly provided that the constitutional bishops, who had heretofore pre- tended to exercise a jurisdiction which they did not possess, should renounce such pretensions, and, in case any of them were named to bishoprics, that they should receive their jurisdiction from the Pope (2). Now the plain fact is, that such provisions are actually made in the Concordat; in as much as it is there pro^ yided that all the dioceses of France shall be circum- scribed afresh hi/ the Pope, which annihilates those formed by the National Assembly ; and that all the bishops shall take out their jurisdictign from him, which is to abandon that jurisdiction which they had hitherto claimed in opposition to him. But, because 1 did not give the very words of the instrument, which I never professed to do, but satisfied myself with giving the sense of it, this shameless man calls me a falsifier of the Concordat (3). The fact is, the grand resource of this restless scribbler is dialectical quibbling, an art in .which I have neither leisure nor inclination to contend with him. By means of this he undertakes to prove that I " have denounced Pius VH. as a prevaricator " and violator of the holy canons, and even as a here- " tic and a schismatic (4) !" And observe, he asserts this after having solemnly declared that '' his expres- (i) Elucid. p. 33, (3) Abus,'p. 47. (2} faUoral, p. sp. (4) Declar. pp. 6^) ^% 32 '' slons are to be taken in their strict literal sense, and ^' pledged himself that he would measure them in such " manner as he is to give an account of them to God his *' judge(l)."^ On the strength of this quibbling he goes yet further, and. actually offers to shew that the identical Pope Pius VII. has approved of one of his books, which he describes as a demonstration that this same '* Pius VII. has destroyed the constitution of the *' Church to its very foundation (2)!" This dialectical feat can only be equalled by the practical trick which a military divine, who '^ condemns every doctrine con- '* trary to that of theSieur Blanchard as pernicious and *' heterodox, 8cc. (3)" played upon me last winter, "when he summoned me by the forms of English law *' to the feet of his Holiness at Rome, in order to see *' myself condemned (4):" and for what, think you ? — why, for maintaining against him and Blanchard, that the said Pius VII. is not a schismatic nor an heretic, but our good and holy Father, the Centre of Catholic Unity, and the restorer of the Church of France. With the same quibbling disingenuity, the artful Blanchard still endeavours to infix a firm persuasion in our Catholic flocks, that the Pope is a schismatic and a heretic, at the same time that he professes to abstain from saying this in express terms. Like most former innovators and disturbers of the Church, he dogmatizes error, and, at the same time, endeavours to elude the censures due to it. As an instance of this, I will here quote his last declaration on the subject. *^ It is ** on the schism and heresy of Pius VII. that the zeal ** of the Bishop of Castabala is most violent ; and .this (ij Declar. p* 6. (a) Ibid. pp. 114, "5- (3) Ail of Citation of Count PfafF, &c. peaa ««. U)Ibid* 33 " zeal is directed exclusively against me. To speak " the truth, he is transported with passion. I must " then once more state the question. — I have proved '^ from sure facts and in(hsputable principles, that the " Church of the Concordat is schismatical and hereti- " cal. But as to the question, whether Pius VII. the " author of this Church, is enveloped in HIS schism *^ and in HIS heresy ? I have left the decision or pro- " clamation of this to the bishops. It is a homage '^ which I owe to the episcopal dignitj'. Thus being '^ content with laying down the principles, and expos- '^ ing a capital truth in the strongest light possible, *' without drawing the last consequence, 1 have not '' said : Fias VII. is a heretic and a schismatic : and I " have refused to say on the other iiand : Pius VII. is *' not a heretic and a schismatic {])," Thus impu- dently stalks throu.^h our tblds this murderous wolf, covered with a transparent veil instead of a substantial sheep's skin, and vainly fancying that he can thereby elude the detection and vengeance of the shepherds. — Let now the frank and undisguised schismatic Gaschet save me the trouble of tearing off this flimsy covering from ihe shoulders of the artfu! and insidious schismatic Blanchard. Flis account of the matter is truly interest- ing. **' Mr. Blanchard,'' says Gaschet, ** would have *' rendered an important service to religion and to po^ Utics, if he would have aiiirmed that in public con- cerning the Pope's schism and heresy which he maintains in private company. But ibis gentleman says that he waits for a more favourable time to lay down the position as a thesis, and that he has rea- son to hope the bishops will be the first to draw this conclusion from their own reclamations. I have the greater reason to be acquainted with the real scuti- (i) Dedarat, pp. 61, 6at E n 34 *'' m^nts of Mr. Blancbard, because two years ago he '^ advised me to denounce Pius VII. to all the bishops '^ of the universe as a schkmatic, and the fautor of he- " resy andapostacy, and to declare that I would take *' their silence as a proof of their assent to my denuu- *' cialion (1)." The grand pretext for setting up the present unfor- tunate schism, is that tlie Pope, as these partisans of it pretend, has sanctioned and adopted the old schism of the constitutional clergy. But his Holiness ceases not to protest against the calumny ; and no facts can be lucre incontestable or notorious in the face of the whole Churchy than that Pius Vlf. has abrogated these pretended sees, uhich had been circumscribed by a mere lay power ; that he has created other sees, diffcrenc from those other, by his own spiritual autho- rity ; and that he has required the constitutional bi- shops to renounce their pretended jurisdiction, and to take out their ecclesiastical commissions (I mean the very ^evf who have since been named to bishoprics) from him, the depositary of spiritual power. That all this has actually been done, independantly of other proofs, appears from the diiJeient p^spers on which our adversaries ground their objections against the Pope, Here, then, was the .grand act of retracting and abrogating the schism ; and this alone might have sufficed for the desired purpose, if the Pope had deemed it so. On the other hand, without this, the most humiliating forms of subn)ission would have sig- nified nothing. The authentic acts of this grand and important event, namely, the Concordat itself^ the several Briefs which have been published toge- ther with it, and those by which the different bishops of the newly regenerated church of France have been appointed to their sees, are master of public record : to (i) Lettres Apoleg. de M. Gaichst^ pp. 217, aiSr 35 say nothing of the private retractations, penances, and absolutions which passed between Cardinal Caprara and the ten bishops in question. What now have our mis* guided adversaries, Blanchard and Co. to plead for iheir defection from the centre of unity, and for their sh'pping into the places of the former schismatics ? They tell us tfiat they have met with some private letters of Raymond, Lacomb, and Lacos, three of the prelates ia question, to a Mr. Binos, and I know not whom else, ia wliich they deny that they signed a certain particular form of retractation proposed to them by the Cardinal. But do they deny that they renounced the schismatical cunsiitution r — >so : they acknowledge that they did renounce it(i). —Do they deny that they received 'their canonical institution from the See of Rome i* — No, they expressly avow in these said letters that they did so receive it. The whole that can be collected from tliis trash of private, nonsensical, and unauthenti- cated correspondence, is that the proud stomachs of Lacomb and Raymond, like that of Mr. B. tnrned at the crude word re!ractatio?i. It remains now to be seen whether he, like them, will swallow it when pro- perly diesscd. However, as rumours of the insincerity of these few bishops were afloat, and had reached the ears of the Pope, he tells us that he " had particularly " at heart," in his journey to Paris four years ago, 'Mo " ascertain their sincere return to Catholic Unity, who/* he adds," before they received their canonical institutions *' at our liands, ought to have given adequate testimo- '' nies of their reconciliation.- These anxieties," continues his Holiness, " ceased after a few days ; for, (i) What the real motives of thefc lv»'o or three individuals might have been, regarded their ov\/n conlcience and not the Church. *' Ecclefia non *' judicatde internis." (2) These are to be met with in Canonic. Expoil. £2 S6 ^' either by word of mouth, or by letter, they ear- *^ nestly declared that they cordially adhered and " sincerely submitted to the decrees of the Holy See '* with respect to the ecclesiastical affairs of France(lJ." If our adversaries were true to their avowed principles, nothing would be so gratifying to them, as to hear from the lips of his Holiness a distinct and public avowal, that a return to Catholic Unity zcas necessary, on the part of the Constitutional Clergy, before they could re- ceive any spiritual powers at his hands ; and that the parties suspected had declared that they cordially ad- liered atid sincerely submitted to the decrees of the Holy See with respect to the ecclesiastical affairs of France : observe, not to one or another decree,- but to all the decrees ; that is to say, to the decrees of Pius VL and the former decrees of Pius VH. as well as to the Concordat. But these men do not wish for motives of reconciliation, but pretexts for quarrelling with the Head of Christianity. Accordingly, the very idea of this public and decisive declaration of the Pope makes them more extrava2:ant and turbulent than ever. Blanchard exclaims tliat it is a crime in me to deny that Pius VH, has violated the decisions of Pius VI. (G); and that blunt unqualifying schismatic, Gascliet, calls the Allocutio of Pius VH. ** a lying, *' cheating piece of business (3)." O that these unhap- py men, instead of prescribing to the Head of the Church how he is to act for its general welfare, would make their own peace with her, and consult their own everlasting safety ! With respect to the second grand complaint against - the Pope, that of his having deprived a considerable (i) See the Pope's Allocutio. (a) Declar. p. 114. (3) Lettre Apol. p. 114. c>7 Dumber of the highly respectable and meritorious French Bishops of iheir Sees, by making a new eccle- siastical circumscription of France, I shall never cease to remind those who make the complaint, that these and all the other Bishops, with their clergy in genera), had been absent from their flocks eight or nine years when this event took place ; that there was no prospect then, no more than there is now, after an interval of seven years more, that these Prelates could return home to perform the duties of Bishops ; that the Catholic Religion was upon the point of expiring (by this time would have been utterly extinct) in France from the joint operation of schism and infidelity, had not the Pope adopted the measures for introducing the orthodox:^ clergy which he did adopt; that in consequence of these 100,000 orthodox and good priests, consisting of those who returned to France, and those who have since been ordained there, are now labouring and saving millions upon millions of souls, which otherwise would have been for ever lost; that our own country presents a second instance, namely, one since the con- version of the Saxons, of a pretty general change in the circumscription of bishoprics, with a still more gene- ral exchange of Bishops and Abbots made by a Pope's Legate. I speak of what took place at that grand revo- lution, the Norman Conquest; that the French Bishops had repeatedly and generously proclaimed that the keep- ing or not keeping of their situations depended " not only on the wants, but also on the prejudices of ** their people;" and accordingly they had invited and pressed the Pope to pronounce, whether it was not for the good of religion that they should quit their Sees(l); (i) See the Expofition of the Bifhops, and the Letter of the Deputies to the Pope, 38 , - that when the time arrived at which this measure be- came not only expedient, but absolutely necessary for the salvation of Calhoheity throughout Europe, his Holiness did most respectfully invite the Prelates to make good their promises ; that a considerable majority of them actually complied with the invitation,, and gave up their Sees ; and that the remainder of them^ though they twice renionstrated with his Holiness, yet, at the same time, they professed '' the greatest respect " for the chair of Peter, and love for the worthy Pon- " tiff who fills it," as also '*' submission, in the order '' of episcopacy, to the Pastor of Pastors, and unani- '* mous and inviolable union with the other Catholic " Bishops, and with the visible Head of the Catholic " Church,'* — *^ glorying, at the same time, in the oath '* of obedience which they made to him at their •* respective consecrations (1)." When, upwards uf tv^elve months ago, I thought it my duty to point out and oppose those permcious end scJnsmatical errors, with respect to the authority and conduct of the Head of the Church, which had long prevailed and were rapidly gaining ground in the Catho- lic Church of this country, I was thought to have taken an alarm, without a sufficient cause, by many persons who now stand aghast at the discoveries, in this respect, which have been made. And when, in the course of last March, I stated that those unfortunate men, who were schismatically affected towards bis Holiness, were, equally so towards the Prelates who are at the head of the Catholic religion in England, I fancy I did not gain more credit with several of the individuals in question. Unhappily for us and themselves^ Blanchard (i) Memoire des Evcq. p» 2, 3, 5. 39 and Gaschet, In their lust books, prove my judgment to have been as well founded in this as in the former in- stance. -[ shall, then, briefly observe, that on every Qccasion, Blaochard (whom Gaschet rivals in this as well as in other respects) vilified the regimen of the Ca- tholic Prelates of England (1), pronouncing it to be *' the fruit of intrigue (2) ;" that he insults their per- sons (3), and defies their censures, even to their united sentence of excommunication f4) ; that he calls us, in this our own conntry, '^foreign Bishops, who turn '^ against him the concessions of his own superiors {5) '" and he affirms that the French Prelates, who, by the course of events, have lost all jurisdiction in France, '' have an equal and even a superior jurisdiction to *^ tliat of the V, V. A. here in England (6);" and that we are *' bound to hold up our hands at their bar (7)-" This said Ex-Cure continues to insist, in the strongest terms, on revolutionizing our English theology no less than our Church Government, by obliging us to adopt the four French articles(8), though there is not a single Prelate in England or Ireland who isnot firmly resolved to the contrary. We are very far from finding fault with the partisans of the articles ; still we think we see in these articles the germ of all the present mischief; and, to be brief, we are determined neither to have B. for our iheologal, nor to subscribe to the articles. ■ Proceeding in his revolutionary projects, B. presents us (i) Declar. p. 8o, p. 109, p. 141, &c. In the paffage laft refered to B, fays, that •' the whole of the prefent controverfy resolves itfelf into a^ attack of the V. V.A. on ordinarieg, (2) Ibid. p. 48. (3) Ibid. p. 48, p. 131, &c. (4) P,i37,— — If what this turbulent pricfl: fays of himfelf be true, he ftands excommunicated by the general rules of the miflioo, and is irregutar, (5) Ibid. p. 101. (6) P. 109, (7) P, no, (8) Ibid, pp: 46, 47, 48,' 40 with a new system of canon la w, framed, he says, hy a (well-known) friend of his, and adopted, 1 fear, by very many friends of his, a system the most scliismati^al, the most revolutionary, and the most anarchical that ever was broached or devised since the foundation of the Church. — According to this new system, jurisdic- tion no longer regaids territory but kindred {I), and hence, according to these disorganizers, the emigrant French Bishops, whom he repeatedly and heavily com- plains of for having ever taken out faculties from us, the Apostolical Vicars (2), have brought with them full and entire jurisdiction of every kind which the Church can bestow into this country, and have retained it during the seventeen years they have become domi- ciliated here, and will retain it as long as there is an individual in England, or any where else, v;h(^ fic^t drew the breath of life in any of the provinces of Prance (3). In opposition to St. Cyprian and the received canon law, they represent it as a gross error to suppose there cannot be two Catholic Bishops, with equal power, in the same diocese : on the contrary, they give us to understand that there are thirteen such Bishops at the present time in London, namely. Bishop Douglass (4), and twelve non dimissionary French Bishops. They maintain that the latter Bishops form a corporation or hierarchy here in England, and transmit their jurisdiction, in the article of death, from one to another (5). I must observe, however, that (i) Declar. p. 83, p. 99, &:c; Thefe new canonists here pronounce in direct oppof tion to their favourite authority the Conferen; d'Angers. Thefe deliver it as an axiom : " Lex afficit territorium." Cenfure, p. 71.' *« Extra territorium jus dicenti non parcatur impune." Cap» ut ^miinarurii de Conftit. in Sext. (2)P.94, &ci (4)P.'93» (3) P- 8?; &c. (5) P. 09.. 41 these new canonists have not the merit of this particular discovery : for I heard long ago in London, that, the longest liver among the Emigrant Prelates, would be Bishop of all France. Finally, they solemnly affirm^ '^ that the Church of France exists in this strange " land, England, having transplanted hither her ** faith and ancient principles from their native soil^ ^^ being persecuted by those who ought to protect her^ «( — being furnished with all the divine powers neces- *' sary for salvation, possessing life, and the means of ** communicating life to her children, without the ne- *' cessity of having recourse to those who ask so high a *' price for it." — ''Here," says Blanchard, ''finishes the '* analysis (1)," namely, that of the new French code of canon law. — 1 now repeat my anxious wishj which is at present echoed back to me by the illustrious Catholic hierarchy of Ireland, that the respectable French Prelates may at length openly disavow a system of Church Government so monstrous, revo- lutionary, and schisraatical as that which is here set up on their behalf, by a man who still professes to have them for his " partisans ("a)," and to be " paid by "them for the books which he publishes(a}." I trust that after having protested with so much strength and justice against the intruders into their Sees, ihey will not leave it in the power of any one to reproach them with being intruders into the districts of the English Apostolical Vicars. It is to be expected, if this turbulent stranger behaves himself with so much violence to the Prelates of this country in general, he is not likely to be over civil to the individual amongst them who has detected and re-* pressed his dangerous excesses* I would, however, willingly compound for his abuse, if he would but {i) Declar. J>pi ioo> loi. (a) P. ii6. (3) 1>, 44. F 4g spare me his calumnies. It is then utterly false that I have ever declared, insinuated, or held that every Appeal a Proprio Ejnscopo is schismatical. a ca- lumny which he repeats again and again, and descants upon through whole pages (1). On the contrary, I have ever taught that, by the laws of the Church, an appeal lies open from»his Bishop to every injured in- dividual : but then this appeal must be made to a com-- petent tribunal. If then I have charged Blanchard's Appeal from the suspension which he richly merited from his own Bishop with being schismatical, it was in consequence of its being made to a tribunal of his own erection, that of the Emigrant Bishops, who now, by the course of events, have jurisdiction in no part of the Church, and who never had an atom of jurisdiction in England : a tribunal at which this man teaches we British Prelates are bound to hold up our hands, and plead as to the exercise of our powers within the proper sphere of them (2). It is equally false that I hold as a principle, that " the Pope is to be obeyed with a blind '' submission, and under the guilt of schism, let him " command what he will (3)." This calumny is the never-failing subject of his invectives against me, and from it, as might be expected, he has drawn the most frightful consequences: whereas, so far from abetting this principle, I have solemnly abjured it, and my oath is recorded in his Majesty's courts. All then that I have said on this subject is, that the Pope has acted within the sphere of his power, and, like a good and vigilant Pas- tor of the whole flock, in bringing back the numerous Church of France into the fold of Christ ; and in proof that the Pope has not exceeded his power in this act, I "(i) Dcclar. pp» 149, 102, 103, 104) 105. (2) Ibid* p«lxo# (3} Ibid. p. 149* 43 have appealed, not to the Pope himself, but to the conduct and declarations of the Catholic Bishops throughout the world, a most illustrious part of whom attest in this very publication, that his Holiness has not exceeded his just power. The writer is never wearied with hallooing the cry of TJltramontain against me and my fellow Prelates: justas the sanguinary revolutionists excited mobs against him and his fellow sufferers with the cry of Aristocrat ; but, being resolved not to enter into any scholastic questions, I have never defended our holy religion, nor the Pope himself, upon any other principles than upon those which are common to divines on both sides of the Alps. — Again, it is a vile ca- lumny that ''I invest the Pope with the power of mak- " ing Catholic Pastors of men, publicly professing schis- ^* matical doctrine, without aretractation(l) ;" and, by the same rule, I believe that the Pope himself is not authorized to give Mr. Blanchard the common faculties of a Catholic Priest without a retractation. Though most certainly I should not take upon myself, butshoukl leave it to his Holiness to determine the form, the mode, andevery other circumstance regardingthe retractation. — With respect to our or6?/«rtry powers, the existence of which this turbulent Ex-Cure strongly denies (2), re* quiring that our faculties should be subjected to his examination (3), I shall barely say : they shall certainly be exhibited to any person who has a right, or a suffici- ent reason to call for them. It is well known that I have ever publicly professed, and to the best of my powers have proved by my actions, the high respect and regard which I entertain for those champions of Catholicity, and ornaments of their age and country, the French Clergy, men who have sacri- (i) Declarat. p. 149, (2) Ibid. p. 147, (3) ibid, pp. 8i, 8a* f 2 44 ficed rank, property, country, and, in so great a propor- tion, life itself, in defence of the faith and unity of our Holy Religion. But then my veneration has not been less for the thousands of pious priests (very many of them well known tome) who returned to their country with the viaticum of our treasury^ and the benediction of the Bishop of Leon, in order to save souls (confessors of the faith whom Blanchard calls heretics and apostates) than for hundreds who have staid behind, from motives, ^vhich I am satisfied, are perfectly honourable. Being thus affected I have always lamented that a few in- dividuals, some of whose names we occasionally meet with in the newspapers, should, by their conduct, in- jure the character and interest of their meritorious brethren. It is a question, however, whether any of these, or all of them together, have done so much mis* chief, in this respect, particularly in the minds of pious and benevolent Catholics throughout the United King* dom, as the turbulent and schismatical Abbe Blanchard has done. In the same dispositions I have made a strong apology to the French Clergy at large (1), for accusing the last mentioned and his associates of ingratitude in re- paying our services, our sacrifices, our contributions, and our taxes with libels, and denunciations; and still more with revolutionary doctrines and attempts against the peace and orthodoxy of our Church. To this he answers^ that I am the aggressor, and he begs of me to leave him in peace(2). Without entering into the question of fact, I willingly agree to the request, provided he and his as- sociates will leave the Catholic Churches of these islands in peace, by ceasing to dissepainate hctero-? doxy, schism, and libels amongst thecp. <») ^e^ue], p. 20. (a) P. i%s* 45 With re&peet to the last mentioned article, this fo^ reigner appears to be still as iininstructed as ever : for he maintains that he is justified in proclaiming to the world, without the shadow of a foundation,, that I have "broken my oath of allegiance (1) ;" which is as much as to say, that I am guilty of high treason. He defends this libel, and braves prosecution, by alledging that he has made a salvo for my heart at the expense of my head, in saying that I ha'd " broken ray oath ** against my will (2)." But would such a plea avail me in a court of justice? Would any court bear to hear me in my situation plead thus ? " It is true, my *' Lord Judge, I have violated my allegiance, but I *' did not know what I was saying and doing I" In the next place he aggravates his libel, by putting into my mouth, between inverted commas, what he calls ^* a pompous eulogium on Buonaparte (3) :" whereas no such eulogium, either in form or in substance, is to be met with in any part of my writings. True it is, in one of my works, which was twice quoted without the least censure in parliament, I excused the Pope for entering into a treaty with the ruler of France at a time when he was acknov/ledged as such by every power in Europe, and when the royal family of Bourbon had not any where a file of soldiers to assert their claim. I did not, however, impose my political opinions upon him or upon any one else. He may even continue to insult and calumniate the Father of the Faithful as much as he pleases in the order of politics, safe from my cen- sure, provided he does not attack him in his essential spiritual rights, and provided he desists from his at- tempts to withdraw us from the Pope's communion. (l) Abu«. p. 1 82 J Dechr. pp. x«7, 134. (a) l^id. ^3) P, 128, 45 But, continues this quibbling calumniator, to give up the rights of our royal family was an immoral act of the Pope, and you, the Bishop of Castabala, by defend- ing that action, have sanctioned immorality in genera]. Of course you have sanctioned crimes against nature, and every other crime (1 ). Such is the ground-work of this man*s libels, and on this he bids defiance to the verdict of a British jury. Without attempting to un- ravel his quibbles, I shall satisfy myself with asking him : Pray, has not his Majesty George III. likewise entered into a solemn treaty of peace with Napoleaa Buonaparte, and received his ambassador, without making the least provision for the family of St. Louis ? And have not his Majesty's ministers declared in open Parliament, that " no form of government which *' may prevail in France ought to be an obstacle to the " making of peace with it ; provided such peace be '^ safe and honourable to this country.'* Have, then, our King and Parliament sanctioned sins against na- ture ? — It is easy to see how, in another instance, he invalidates his Majesty's right to the throne of Eng- land ! — Why will this busy stranger be dabbling in po- litical and constitutional questions, far out of his depth, and to the serious injury of his own royal cause ; boast- ing, as he foolishly does at the same time, that he is under the protection of the same laws that Englishmen are (2) ? Whereas the experience of his own intimate friends ought to have taught him, that neither the act of 1778 nor that of 1791 reach his person, and that the right of Habeas Corpus, and that of trial by jury, are a dead letter in his regard by virtue of the Alien Act and the Alien Office. The mention of this leads me, by way pf conclusion, to state certain transactions which this man has horribly disfigured. (i) Abas. p. fli6i Declar. pp. U0| i3t. (2) P«i25« 47 HrfrlDg received legal notice, last winter, from Blanchard's chief hero, Count Pfaff, that I was de- nounced to his Majesty's minister of '' violating my *' oath, and sharpening the daggers of fanatical parri- '' cides, &c." I went at once to the Treasuiy, and had the honour of holding a conference, by appointment, with one of the Lords of it, an intimate friend of the Minister. I then exhibited to that honourable personage the dif- ferent libels of the above-mentioned description which had been published against me, and offered myself to be taken into custody, if I were deemed guilty of the crimes contained in them. This personage was pleas- ed, in return, to bear honourable testimony to my cha- racter, and to declare what I pledge myself every law- yer of character in the kingdom who will look at the publications will also declare, that Blanchard and his associate libellers lie at my mercy, and that I may punish them most severely if I will. But prevention and not punishment being my object, I weiat next to the Alien Office, and again exhibited the pamphlets and papers. The libellous nature of them was there acknowledged, as well as my moderation, in declaring, as I then did, that I did not wish the least inconveni- ency to the guilty persons, but only that they should be admonished not to break the peace of the country by publishing libels, and particularly such detestable libels as those which 1 held in my hand, against his Majesty's sworn subjects. Upon this, a promise of reprimandi.^g Blanchard and his champion was given to me, both by word of mouth and in writing. In conclusion : I shall satisfy myself with giving a brief account of the most remarkable things in Gaschet's last production, without making the least comment upon them. He continues to appeal to the tribunal of the Universal Church against the Pope and his Bishop, p. 5.— —He asserts that the French Emigrant Bishops 48 have jurisdiction over all natives of France throughout the world, p. 6.— — He informs me that I am weli known, and a great favourite at the court of St. Cloud, by means of the Abbe Barruel, p. 129.— "He demands of me, by what right I publish Pastoral Letters and other writings here in England, p. 147, claiming for himself the right of enlightening the people, p. 149. He affirms it to be blasphemy to pronounce the name of the Pope in the Canon of the Mass, p. 173 ; denying that the Pope is in the Church, or in commu- nion with it, p. 179- He says he cannot help it, if we bishops and priests of England, &c. have invalid faculties in consequence of our deriving them from Pius VH. and that he should have a scruple of consci- ence to hold my situation, p. 190.— — He bitterly re- proaches me with testifying my veneration for a schis* matical Pontiff, and with calHng him, Gaschet, in comparison with that Pontiff, an obscure individual, p. 195. He is equally indignant that I should be a bishop, whereas he says I am so dull and ignorant that he would not accept of me for his vicar in his ci-devant parish of Vignolles, p. 196. He persists in rejecting the communion of Pius VII. and declaring the latter to be a false Pope, who has lost all authority and dignity in the Church, p. 202. Taking his leave of me, he writes to some anony- mous friend, chiefly about his disputes with his rival schismatic Blanchard. The information he gives to the public on this subject is really curious. He complains sadly of the constant efforts of Blanchard to hinder his writing and printing of his pamphlets. " But," says he, ** I have dared to write and to print, for which " "he, B. will never forgive rae. The more perfect the «' work the less he will forgive me. But you know " the man. Surrounded as he is with his flatterers, ** whom he knows how to manage, he decries me iq 49 " them, and he employs them to run me down.—-*-' it Whj^ does iiot he attack me openly ? — —It would " then be seen to whom the mauvaise tetc belongs. I " will not shun the contest/' p. 208. He charges Blanchard with writing his own panegyric, and getting it inserted in the newspapers, p. 10^. He seems to admit that the Dialogue entre Pierre et Thomas has refuted B. but he says, *'It is not so easy a matter to " refute me." He vindicates his declaration that '' the Pope is to him like a heathen or a publican," p. 210. He afterwards exposes the weak and f(}olish attempts of Blanchard to throw a veil over his doctrine upon this point, shewing that their systems are exactly the same, pp.214, 217> 218. Some of the passages here referred to I have cited above. Speaking of that outrageous libel, Epitre aux Chretiens en .Grand Bretagne et en Ireland, which accuses me of exciting the Catholics to assassinate the Royal Inhabitant of Windsor, and which contains some severe reflections upon himself, together with the most pompous praises of the writer Blanchard (who, in return, has praised that recommendation to the pillory) he insinuates that B, himself wrote part of the notes in it, p. 217. 1 must not forget thatGaschet gives notice, at the head of his book, that he is preparing another publication of a po- litical nature against me 49 N. B. To the names of the Clergy holding faculties in the northern part of the Midland District, who have signed the Declaration set down at the head of p. 7» add the following names: James Hawley, Jos. HowsE, Wm. Roberts, P. De la Rue, Jean Bapt. QuESNEL, Jacques Noeman, P. F. Char- don, Paul Royer, M. J. Le Veaux, J. Le Maistre, G. Bricknel, S, Corbishly. Keating, Brown, and Co. Prii^ers, 38, Dukc-Street, Grosvenor-S^uare, London, AFPENBIX TO THE Supplement of a Pastoral Letter by the Rt, Rex>* J0HN5 Bishop of Castabala, &c. &c. HE following Letter from the Bishop of Quebec, in Canada, was received too late to be inserted among the other episcopal documents relative to the modern sciiism, piibhshed in the Bishop of Castabahi's SUP- PLEMENT. It seems highly proper, however, that it should be laid before the public; first, in order to vindicate the reputation of two moat orthodox and exemplary Prelates in a distant portion of the Church, which has suffered more or less injury, for this year and a half past, from the foul, complicated fabrication which the Letter devolopes, A second reason for pub- lishing it is, to shew the unfortunate partisans of schism (thanks be to God their number is much diminished since the appearance of these documents) what credit is due to those confident statements and asseverations of their leader, on which the schism in a great measure rests. They have already witnessed this man's bold appeals to the support of the Chief Pastor in various other instances, and in every one of them, €xcepi in that made to the Refugee Bishops, who, for obvious reasons, are entirely silent, they have seen these appeals rejecled with indignation. They have heard liis particular appeals tothe Bishopsof Ireland(i), whose episcopal judgment: and autlwrity he invoked to re- cognize hisfaitkj or to condemn Ids error, promising, at the same time, to repose on their decision, in conjunction with that of the Refugee Bishops(whowere not expected to speak at ail). The decision has been pronounced ; they have heard this same man publicly denying that he ever made any particular appeal to the irish Pre- lates (2), -*- they even see his name affixed to a book, both in French and English, which professes in the title f 1) Sec Abus. p. S33, Ambigu, April 10, 1809, p. 7. («) Oppofition, p. ai. A page, to prove an opposition hctzceen tht doctrine of the collective Hierarchi/ of Irebind, conbisling of thirty Prelates, and the true p?inciples of the Catholic Church! Such bad f'aitli and such arrogance can only be equalled by the folly of the arch-schismatic, in pretending to build up a Catholic Church without a Pope, and without Bishops. — All this, I say, the persons in question have witnessed ; still, it is conceived, that nothing is so likely to convince them of the unworthy arts which have been made use of by this wretched fallen priest to seduce them, as tlie sight of his letter to the Bishop f>f Quebec, wliich has just been received fiom Canada (1). Another reason for the present publication is, that it affords an opportunity of caulionliig Catholics against giving implicit credit to vague reports from unaccredit- ed, if not suspicious individuals, concerning his Holi- ness, or the affairs of the Catholic Church, vvhetlier these are circulated in discourse, or in the news-papers, or other publications, it is well known that imports of t-.is nature have been propagated by persons of rank and power with great eagerness, and probably at a con- (i) The original letter itfelf may be feen, if called for by perfons of refpc£la-^ bility, at the Printinjj Office of Keating, Brown & Co. N'o.38, Duke-Strect, Grosvenor-Squaie, as likcwife the identical copy of a Letter addrelfedto the prefent Bifhop of Quebec, by the Abbe Blarichard, dated March 24, S805, which accompanied the former to Canada, and which is mentioned in it. In this latter the writer has been guilty of as complicated and barefaced a fabrication, in regard to the Bifbop of Caftabala, as he has been guilty of in his pamphlet, cdled Vrp'nsr, againll the Bifhop of Quebec. After mtimating, v;hat he muff have known from the bookfellers to be falfe, that Dr. Milner had fupprefTed his work called ^in Eiiaklatinnt he proceeds to give the con- tents of a pretended letter from the lafl mentioned to the Bifnop of Leon, afTcrting that Dr. M. had in this oivned himself 10 have been in an enor^ and ■was Mi-yy for havrii:i xi-ritLcn /us asr,^, confelling that he bad been engaged /s tL/-./<' it by the Archhish'ip. of Aix, ivho, it is assort ed, tvnt doivn to Winchester for th's ve/y/i'qposi>, &c. The truth is, no fuch letter was ever written, nor is there a word of truth in any one of the fatts flated to be contained in it. There are other falfehoods and milreprcfentations in Abbe Blauchard's Letter to the Bifhop of Quebec, too numerous to be here mentioned. One faft, however, recorded in it appears to be true, namely, that the writer, as far back as March 1805, had taken his mcafures for engaging his country- men in a fchifm, and that fchifm the identical one, which he condemns in thejullly cenfured C't-il Cnrntituti'-.n of Hie Clrrgu. No doubt this projeft was defeated by the firmnefs of the French Bifhops, His words are thefc ; «« Commel'on compte principalement fur la morte des Evcques legitimes^ «' je vais prouver, dans un Memoire, que dans ces circonftances le droit dc «' nommer appartient au Roi, qI aux L'^tciues cdui d'iniiitusr caanonhiuemnnrf <♦ mdejiefidummt du Vajie.'* siderable expense, to serve their political purposes, which reports have tiirned out to be untrue: and there is great reason to aporehend that otiier such accounts will in a short time be published, with increased con- fidence, Ibr the saine purposes, and by the same de- scription of persons, to the manifest danger, if not in- jury, oC our Holy Religion. We have lately seen a spurious Pontifical Brief printed in all the news-papers, the credit of which has been traced to a high source. i\t present another Brief is before the public, which tho* we liave reason to believe from accounts received imme** diately from Rome, is, upon the whole, authentic, yet, considering the inaccuracy with which it is printed, and the mode of its circulation, we cannot at pre- sent voucii lor in every particular. Taking, how- ever, this Brief as it stands, what do we gather from it, except that his Holiness, so far from consent- ing to those acts and laws of the persecutors, which have served our modern schismatics as a pretence for breaking communion with him, lias uniformly opposed them by every means wliich to his wisdom seemed ^'^.'t efficacious, and that he now braves poverty, and prisons, and death, in the same cause. God forbid that we should identify, as these deluded men constantly do, the cha- racter and conduct of Pius VTl. with the character and conduct of Portalls, and Fouche, and Napoleon. Our truly great PonliiiMias restored the Church of France, whicli he still supports, and has saved the Christianity of Europe ; but neither he nor the Church which he has restored, is accountable for or subscribes to tlie laws or ;icts against religion and morality, wjiich still oppress it, any more than we Catholics of England do to many existing laws of the same description(l). Should a more severe storm gather rouad tins Church, we have no doubt tliat it will display its former lieroism, and imitate the bright example of its holy regenerator., JOHN, Bishop of Castabala, V. A. Wolverhampton, Nov. 29, 1809. (>) For example thc_^many Divorce^^Statutcs. A2 Translation of a Letter from the Bishop of Quebec to the Bishop of Castabaia, My Lord, In a letter, addressed to you under the date of June 7, 1808, called ^ Defenst of the French Clergy residing in London, signed Peter Louis Blanchard, an assertion occurs at page 9, as injurious to the memory of my predecessor as it is remote from the truth. The writer speaks of '* The approbation of the venerable Bishop of Canada, who," lie says, '^ has written to a '' friend of mine that the works composed for the pur- *' pose of refuting Mr. Blanchard, do not refute him: *' that he finds my book an excellent one, and con- " formable to the doctrine of the church ; that, as to *' the other pamphlets, he has never seen uorse writings *' nor worse authors. Your Elucidation, m}' Lord, was '' not one of the number, because, in the same letter, ** he requested that 1 would procure it for hnn. Not " being able to find it at the Booksellers, and being *' unwilling to pait with my copy, 1 drew up a regular '* analysis of it fur him, which perhaps 1 shall have " occasion to print. Death prevented his answering my *' letter, and giving his opinion of my composition." To this 1 answer, 1st, that my predecessor, who died at the beginning of 1806, had no correspondence in England ; 2dly, that he never read the Controversy Facifque of Abbe Blanchard, a work much cried down liere by the few Ecclesiastics who had undertaken to read itj and who had not patience to get to the end of it: Sdly, that it was not my predecessor but myself, "being at that time Bishop ofCanaihe and his coadju- tor, who wjoie to one of my friends in London, desiring him to procure for me some copies of an excellent -work which your Lordship had published, under the title of, Jn Elucidation of the late Briefs, 8)C. which work had been sent to me from Newfoundland in 1804, and which all the clergy here were desirous of reading, hi consequence of the advantageous account of it given by those who had seen the only copy of it which i had been able to procure : 4ihly, that my wish to circulate this work and my eagerness to procure copies of it, does pot argue any great relish io lae for the Controversy Pacifiqut : 5thly, that my correspondent having, some- how or other, addressed himself to Abbe Blanchaid to procure the copies of your Elucidation, which I wished for, this person took occasion to write to me (1) a long letter, dated March 24, 1806, wliich I have never yet answered : so much disgusted was I with the self-suf!^* cient air of this priest in censuring the Sovereign Pontiff, and with his pedantry in criticising writers much supe-? rior to himself. My correspondent wrote to me, April 5, of the same year: "^ 1 send you a new work of Mr. Blanchard *^ called Premiere Suite a la Controverse Pacifique* *' Mr. Blanchard requests me to send you several co- *' pies^of it, but Mr. having written to me that '' the Controverse Pacijiqut was not relished in your ** country, I refused to send them." Your Lordship will now be enabled to form a just idea of the hardihood of Abbe Blanchard in boasting of the success of his Controverse Pacifique in Canada. It is an act of justice which I owe to the clergy of my diocese to declare, thai they are sincerely attached to the Holy Apostolic See, and that whoever pretends to attack the successor of St. Peier, will be far iVom sue- ceeding in this part of the world, but on the contrary, will meet with as many adversaries as he meets with yeaders, It is an easy task to heap up authorities, by way of shewing what was the discipline of the first ages of the Church. But have those Canons, which we revere ps much as Abbe Blanchard, provided for every case that might happen in later times ? No : they were framed for the existing circumstances. New circum- stances, of course, require new measures ;. and no Catholic can, without rashness, blame the Sovereign pontiff for adopting them, I understand that the writings of Abbe Blanchard have been censured by the Bishop of Centuria, and by your Lordship, and 1 hope they will meet with the same ireatmenl from every Bishop who is jealous of the {i) N. B. It is addressed to the Bishop of Canathc, Coadjutor of Church's unity, and that this' miserable writer will ftiU into the contempt and oblivion which he deaerves. I am, with much respect. Your Lordship's most humble and obedient servant, ^ J. O. Catholic Bishop of Quebec. Quebec, August IS, I809. To the Bishop of Castabala, Fie* Apost, N. B. Just as the press was closing I met with a printed letter ad- dressed to me by an AbbeTayer, or some such name, from which 1 understand, what I was prepared to hear, that a certain set of his countrymen, in London, are very angry with me, for the part I have taken in the proscription of a Schism which has too long subsisted amongst them. The wiiter disclaims, indeed, beinpj *' the apolo- j;ist or pane^)'rist ofBiancliard," but, in ihe true spirit of that rest- less anarchist, he rises up, without the pretence of mission or charac- ter of any sort, to censure the official instructions of the constituted ecclesiastical authorities of Ireland and England, speakingin universal and perfect concord ou tne subjects in question. But instead, however, of looking into my late Supplement^ containing the proof of this concord, fairly in the face, lie garbles certain passages from their context, which he first disfigures and then holds up to public odium. He professes to be in communion with Pius VII : but plainly signi- fies that he is in communion also with those who invariably represent this Pontiff as a schismatic and a heretic^ charging me, at the same time, with the greatest uncharitableness and scandal in warning my tlock against these men, and in pointing them out as •* murderous wolves," Instead, however, of submitting to his lectures, 1 shall attend to those of the great Doctor of charity in modern times, who says: " It is charity to cry out against the wolf, when he is among the sheep ; yea, wherever he is." Introd. Dcv< Life, F. iii. c. 29.— He objects to me in many words, that I am unacquainted with the ecclesiastical situation of France, and the means of preserving its religion. But I prefer being guided in these matters by the heavenly coramissionedpastorof the whole flock,rather than by a few unknown Refugees. He'inveighs bitterly against me for incidentally saying j **that?the EmigrantBishops have no jurisdiction in France, since the late acts of the Pope with respect to that country ; which is no more than saying, with the Prelates of Ireland, that ** those acts are good and rightful ;" and he justifies the former in not disavowing the pretence of their possessing jurisdiction in our English Dislrids, which has been pertinaciously set up, and, to all appearance, acted upon by a writer who on every occasion loudly proclaimsthat his schismatical productions are approved of and paid for by them 1 This needs no imswer. He adds, that the French Bishops who resigned their Sees, at the call of the Pope, had a majority of only five voices over thoje who did not resifrn; and that thede five had once determined to hold out. Still it is plain that the former had a majority, and it will be always true to say, that the Church of France has act?d in concert with all the other Churches of Catholicism in receiving the ordinan- ces of the Holy Pius Vll. On the subject of this determination of the five Prelates I have to observe, that if any credit is due to the late Bishop of Leon, in his last conversation with me, every French Pre- late in England, when called upon by the Pope, was, in his ovfa mind, ready to do what he himself louldly proclaimed his disposition, namely, to sacrifice life and diocese, and all for the good of the Catholic religion:" but added he, *• when we came together, we changed our opinion 1" I shall say nothing on the subject which the writer next enlarges upon, the Gallican Articles, in addition to what 1 have already stated, namely, that *' I am far from finding fault with those who hold them." Nevertheless, 1 know that my Episcopal Brethren, as well as myself, will never suffer that a few Refugees, so many ways indebted to us, and who have no right to teach at all, should disturb our flocks with these exotic questions. In thejast place, my new adversary proceeds to carp at the very judi- cious, respectful and edifying letter of a certain Irish Bishop to a late French Metropolitan, for no other reason, probably, than that I quoted and praised it : but why has he turned his eyes from the other important letters of the Irish Prelates, and especially from the solemn, energetic unanimous Declaration of the whole Irish Hie« rarchy, consisting of no less than thirty Prelates, by which his own covert errors, no less than the glaring schismatical doctrines of Blanchard, are- virtually censured > He knows that it was to publish these decisive and immortal documents I printed my SUPPLE- ^lENT. *• There is an end now of the cause : God grant there may be an *' end of the error."- 1 pointed out, as it was my duty to do, a lurking schism, of ihe most fatal kind, in our English flock. Instant- ly t!ie monster started up, in all its deformity, daring me to the combat, and shielding itself with bold falsehoods, and dialectical quibbles. On my part I appealed at once, to the decisive authority of the Catholic Church ; which Church, from every part of Eng- land, Ireland, and North America, in short from every country to which my voice could reach, has loudly and unanimously proclaimed Ly the organ of her chief Pastors, her support of my official doctrine in defence of our Supreme Head. The Church then has spoken, and woe to those who will not hear her ! ^ <,vv '- ^-^ ' >^ W^ < Keating, Brown and Co. Printers, 38, Duke-Str. Grosvenor-Scjuare, Londoti. DR. MILNER'S APPEAL TO THE CATHOLICS OF IRELAND. Without examinaiion or hnouiledge of the truth, you have condemned. i ' ■ Return again to judgmerit. Daniel xiii. 48, 49. DUBLIN: PRINTED BY H, TITZPATRICK, 4, CAPEL-STREET* 1«G9. DR. MILNER^S A P P E A IL^ 8sc. 8sc. MY CATHOLIC BRETHREN, Overpowered as I am, by the number and the diversity of my literary foes, rather than their force, it seems to me that I can disarm, if I cannot drive off, one of the most formida- ble bodies of them, if you will permit an in- dividual, who has, for a considerable time past, devoted himself to your interest and service, now to appeal to your characteristical justice and generosity, and indulge him with a cool and deliberate hearing |, fur it is notorious, that I am unremittingly attacked in the front by the Musgraves, the Duigcnans and their Orange bands,* whose unbounded indignation I have B drawn • See Sir Richard Musgrave^s Remarks on my Tour, and Abraham Plymley's Answer to his Brother Peter, Le Mes- surier*s Bampton Lectures, and the different numbers of the Anti-jacobin or No- Popery Review. — This monthly pub- lication drawn upon myself, chiefly by fighting your battles. It is equally manifest that / am, on one hand, assailed and harrassed without ceas- ing, by a confederate band of Irish Catholic writers, who shew me no more respect or mercy, either as a fellow Catholic, or as a prelate of their church, than the Oiaugemen themselvTs do : and you will now, at least, learn_,that I am annoyed on the other hand, with weekly pamph- lets, essays, and satyrs, b}^ a desperate Gallic sect, w^ho threaten, as well as insult me, be- cause I will not acknowledge them to be Ca- tholics, whilst they proclaim our venerable Pon- tiff, the exemplary Pius VII. and the great universal Church, in communion with him, to be involved in schism and heresy ! I say, you will necessarily learn this now, because the champion of this sect, Abb^ Blanchard, has recently appealed from my judgment, and that of his own bishop, to your prelates, in a book of 244 pages, * declaring at the same time, that he shall take their silence for an approbation of his doctrine. Behind me are , but as they lication is the common vebicle of the anonymoiis calumnies' and iivvectives of Dr. D. and Sir R. M. ajainst Popery, and it* defenders. See, in particular, the number which has just appeared for December last, in which the Orange writer makes common cause v,'ith my Cathoiic foes in Ireland. * The author has very properly entitled his last production Ahus sans Example. they keep out of sight, I will not drag them into it. Yes, my Cathohc brethren of Ireland, for tliese six months and more — during which I have been chiefly taken up, ^s you will soon see, with prosecuting my former undertaking, of illustrating your history aijid antiquities, of vin- dicating your apostle and ancient saints, of de- iponstrating the purity and truth of your reli- gion, and of beating down the different adver- saries who have risen up against it, of celebrat- ing your national character, and more particu- larly, of defending your clergy and hierarchy, w^ith all their divine rights and jurisdictions, to the best of my power, and at the risk of losing what is most valuable to me in this world — a confederate host of your Catholic writers have been employed in executing their threat, njade in August last, of depriving me of my popu- larity , that is to say, of your affection and esteem. In the prosecution of this most uncha-. rltable undertaking, they ha\e kepc no bounds in tlie malice of tlicir insinuations, or in the grossness of their misiepresentations and calum- nies. Do you fancy this an exaggerated com- plaint? Look at the hand-bUls posted upon your walls, or dispersed through the post-oi!ice, over the two islands ; in which I am cliaricetl with being '* an agent in selling your venerable -" hierarchy to the highest bidder." Happily for my B my credit, but unhappily for that of our holy religion, two other prelates were associated with nic in the charge ; one of whom, probably the immediate head pastor of the calumniators, for his zealous and successful exertions in de- fence of this religion, has long been the com- mon shooting mark of all its declared enemies; while the other, by his charity, piety and sweet- ness, has the rare merit of having disarmed those enemies, in every country in which he is known. To say one word now of myself: so, it seems, I am posted throughout England and Ireland, as the salesman of your hierarchy ! — Take up, fellow C atholics, that book, * which probably first taught my accusers to appreciate the dignity and the value of that hierarchy, to judge me on this charge, by the contents of it. Turn in particular to that passage, page 29, in which I deprecate, xN'ith all the energy I am master of, the pensioning of the Catholic clerg}*, and be assured that I shall repeat the same sen- timent in the new edition of my work. If you have any doubt concerning the meaning and ten- dency of that passage, consult ilje comnienta- nes of your enemies upon it, namely, the *' Re- marks of Sir R. Musgrave" upon my Tour, and ** the Report of Lord B shire's Speech" in a certain illustrious assembly, on the 27th of last May, * Letters from Ireland, &c. I\fay, . But I am wandering from my subject, which at present is not to argue, but to rdate. Examine then the files of the Dublin Evening Herald, from July to December, in- clusively; you will see me therein charged with *' a blasphemous attempt against the existence ** of the hierarchy ;" * with " sacrificing the *• principles, tenets, and discipline of the Ca- ** tholic Church ;" f with being *' an agent ** sent to Ireland, by Mr. Perceval, to accom- **• plish the work in which Lord Redesdale ** failed, that of subverting the Popish super- ** stition, and of grinding down the faith and *' morals of Catholic Ireland, more than all the ** efforts of Luther and Calvin could do ;" J with being ^' disposed to barter away the inalienable ** spiritual rights of the Church for my own *' temporal advantage ;" § with being '' a wolf ** in sheep's clothing," the hypocritical priest described by Boileau, and ^* Judas Lcariot, agent ** to the party that sought to arrest Jesuv ** Christ." 11 In consequence of this accu»nu- lated guilt, formal notice is given to me and to the British empire, that ** I have been tried and " found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged in *' eifigy by the parliament of Pimlico, (in ** Dublin,) under the prosecution of Mr. Attoi- *' ney General, Sarsfield, and Mr. Solicitor Ge- •** neral, Laicus, for conspiring, at the instiga- " tioii • Evening Herald, July 20, f Sept. 2. % Sept. 12 § Ibid. \\ Sept. 23. 8 **' tion of the devil, under the form of thirty ** pieces of silver, to adopt resolutions subver- ** sive of the faith I was sworn to protect."* I have more recently been compared, in a copi- ous parallel, with " the proud Pharisee'' of the gospel, t It has been roundly asserted before the public, that, ^^ as much as in me lies, I ** encourage persecution against the Christian ** Church;" J that I am ''so far maddened " by disappointment, as to be instrumental in ** quickening the mahce of the avowed enemies, *' or affiected friends of the Irish bishops," and that '' the Irish prelates and Catholics in general *' are (possibly) doomed to a new persecution, *' unnaturally roused into action, by that un-' '* grateful accusing spirit which dictates all my ^' furious letters on the question." § I ask you now, my Catholic brethren, whe- ther the picture which I drew of your confe- derate Irish writers is overcharged ? and, in your opinion, whether Sir R. Musgrave himself is capable of writing with i\\o\q rancour and coarseness against the author, who has exposed the falsehoods and fabrications in his darling Memoirs of the Rebellions, than these good Catholics do write against a prelate of tiieir own communion ? I sincerely hope, for the consistency of what I have pubhshed and am pubhshingjOf your moral and religious charac- ter, * Evening Herald, Sept. 2S. f Nov. 13. t Dec. 2. § Nov, 30. 9 ter, that tlie number of these writers is not great, though tliey describe themselves as con- stituting a parliament. For my part, I never found any thing like this rancorous disposition amongst those who are considered as the refuse of your nation; I mean the poor sailors and soldiers, who were brought from Portsmouth and Gosport to my parish town of Winchester, for trial, on some indictment or other, to the number of many hundreds, during the twenty- four years I resided there. On the contrary, I founds such an innate goodness of hearty and respect for the ministers of religion, and especi- ally that exuberance of gratitude for the ser- vices^dJS which it was my duty to render them in life and at their deaths, as to endear their national character to me, at a time when 1 little expected to become acquainted with the more religious and moral orders of their countiymen. Alas ! till of late, I thought the mental poison of your country had been confined to the breasts of Orangemen ! These writers, of the Herald, boast of having covered me '* with shame and confusion, by put- '^ ting me down in argument; a circumstance," they are pleased to say, *' which I had pre- *^ viously been a stranger to."* If this be true, let them have the fall merit of their victory : for thus much is certain, that the question at issue * Evening Herald, Nor. 13. 10 issue was to me a professional subject, and the very subject on which I have pubhshed three different works ;* while my antagonists pro- fessed to be utterly unacquainted with the great Catliolic theok)gians and canonists, whom we^ bishops and priests are obliged to study, "w*^ to draw all their information from that single source from which Luther and Calvin drew their information. f I must add, what you my brethren will naturally suppose, that in conse- quence of their writing numerous hasty and desultory essays, on subjects which they had never studied, they fell into grosser errors and Tiiore numerous contradictions, than any one of those several adversaries has done, whoni. they admit I have had the advantao:e over, durinor the twenty-five years of my literary polemics. However, tliey fancy they have '' put me down *' in argument," and it is not my intention to disturb them in the enjoyment of their triumph; only I will mention to you^what they themselves avow, m0sma^ that long ago I signified my resolution, not to have any controversy with them at all, under the diss-uise of feio^ned si":- natures; and in this resolution I was fortified by the advice of the CathoHc prelates, who never spoke of these anonymous Herald writers, but in • The Letter to a Layman, the Divine Right of Episco- pacy and Ecclesiastical Democracy detected. t Evening Herald, Sept. 23. 11 in the severest terms of censure and displeasure. The writers, however, ask by what rule of Locke I can shew, that a knowledge of the dis- putant is of any consequence as to the force of his argument ? Undoubtedly there is no rule either in Locke or in Aristotle of this nature ; but there is a rule of common sense, which tells every gentleman and scholar not to commit himself, either by word of mouth or in VvTiting, if he can properly avoid it, with any person, unless he has some sort of pledge that the person will observe due decorum of language, that he will adhere to the fundamental prin- ciples on which the controversy rests, and that he will abide by the consequences of a refuta- tion, so far at least as to acknowledge his error, or to be silent on the subject. Now, it is evi- dent that I am bound by all these laws, while I give my name to the public, as I invariably do, whether in periodical papers or in other publications : but what hold have I, and what hold has the public, upon A, B. and LdicuSy and Sctrsfield, and Detector^ for their obser- vance of any of them ? For example, is it to be supposed, that any of these writers would have the confidence to address me, in such lan- guage as that set down above^ under his own 7iame^ supposing at the same time this name to belong to a gentleman ? And would any con- trovertist, whom I could tie down to the laws c of 12 of the Catholic Church, and who is amenable to the reproof of its pastors^ vauntingly scoff at the authority of Cabassutius, Thomassi- nus, and Bellarmine,''^ on a question concern- ing the canons and disci phne of the CathoUc Church^ and that he would appeal from them, to his own interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles, and to some unknowui clergyman's interpretation of a Greek word, which the writers do not know even how to spell Pf Well, and supposing now^, that, after having been so often '' put down in argument" by these pro- found canonists and linguists, I should, by mere chance, gain a victory in my turn, what shall I be the better «# it, or my enemies the worse ? Ldicus, perhaps, will transform hinlself into A, B, and Sarsfidd into Detector, and in these new characters they will open batteries upoa me upon fresh grounds : in the mean time Mr. C and Mr. D. which I suppose to be the real names of my opponents, will walk the streets with unblushing countenances, and will insult^ as usual, that of Dr. Mihier 1 But my anony- Bious calumniators have two other reasons for Iveeping in the dark; they say that by '* avow- ing tlieir names they would expose themselves to the dagger of the vile Orangeman, or to the slanderous tongue of the more vile pensioned and pension-hunting Catholic. "J Both these reasons * Evening Herald, Sept. 23. Nov. 13. f Sept. 23. |. Nov. 13. «, reasons I submit to the consideration of the public ; first, whether the writers are not quite a match for the pension hunters in the Une in which they affect to dread them ? And secondly, whether it is not at least probable that the names of these writers, when they come to be known, will not be found more obnoxious to Orange- men than that of Dr. Milner; which name, however, the owner of it never conceals either in Ireland or in England ? There is a case^ my fellow Catholics, in which I might be induced to affix a false signature to my publication ; namely, in case (by way of an essay, or for any other reason) I were to write upon a subject, which I knew nothing at all about. But in no case whatsoever could I re- concile it to my ideas of justice, to lay an accusa- tion, or, what is worse, to insinuate one against any man, whether prelate or peasant, whether Cathohc or Orangeman, without giving my name, as a pledge that I would stand the issue of a trial with him before the public, or even before a court of justice. Never could I recon- cile it to the feelings of my heart.to hide myself in a corner, and thence to shoot poisoned shafts at the man,whom I think, or who actually may be, my enemy. No; if for any good purpose I must fight with him, it shall be on equal terms ; he shall have the advantage of his sword as well c S as u as of his shield. Irishmen ! do not your hearts beat in unison with mine ? I shall cr nclude this long digression, with expressing my surprise and my concern, at the conduct of my adversaries. I am surprised, tliat, in extolhng the resolutions of their upright and editying prelates, in their Synod on the 15th of Septentber last, they should take no notice ot] and should even trample upon, the third and fourth articles of them . Hbv have they ever once appeared sensible of the severe censure which was then passed by that venerable body upon their licentious pens ? Have they paid the least respect to the four and twenty crosiers that were then projected in my defence ? No ; for the bitterest, the most libellous calumnies of these Heraldists^are those wiiich were published within a week or ten days from the breaking up of the Synod. I shall here insert the resolutions in question, the original of which is in my possession. '^ At a meeting of the Roman Catholic arch- '^ bishops and bishops of Ireland, held in Dub- ^^ lin, September 15th, 1808, resolved unani- ■* mously, that the satisfactory explanation of •' the Right Rev. Dr. JMilner's conduct in a late '' arduous transaction, as received this day, '* through a specially dc]»uted friend, most '* amply proves to us, hoiv grossly he Jias been '* misj'epresentcdin certain newspiiper publications. '^ We 15 '* We are fully convinced of tlie unblemished " rectitude of his principles, of the purity of '' his intentions, and of his disinterested zeal ia ** the Catholic cause : and we hereby entreat "' him to accept of our warmest thanks, for his ^' powerful and unwearied exertions in promot- *' ing it — Resolved unanimously, that the Right '* Rev. Dr. Milner be requested to act as agent ^' to the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland at '^ the seat of government, agreeable to such '* instructions as lie may occasionally receive " from the Archbishops, in concurrence with '^ their Sufiragans." The concern which I feel arises from a zeal for the reputation and interest of our common Church; one of the essential and mostly con- spicuous marks of which you well know, my Catholic brethren, is HOLYNESS. Thisholyness implies the strictest observance of the Ten Commandments, and, above all, the practice of the favourite virtue of our Divine Master, charity. Without this, as you have oftentimes heard, your foil It, *^ though strong enough to move mountains J would avail you nothing.'* 1 Cor. xiii. 2. Now, I appeal to your cool consideration, what ideas our mistaken fellow- christians of other communions must form of the sanctity of that Church, in which such men as Lord Fingall and Lord Southwell are con- stantly 16 stantly held up by Catholic writers, as nomi- nally irreligious; half Catholics, the disgrace of their Church, &c. They who have made, and who constantly do make, such sacrifices to it ; they who are universally revered for their moral and religious virtues by the public at large, as well as by myself, who have known them from their childhood ; whilst the men who put themselves forward in the face of the public, as the genuine, strict, conscientious Catholics , and who, to use their own swaddling language, " have been saved by their religion," ^ are chiefly distinguished by the uncharitable- ness of their language, as appears by the spe- cimen I have given of it, and by their conti- nued, open violation of the commandment^ Thou shalt Jiot hear false witness against thy neighbouy^ ! What scandal must not you, my brethren, take at the conduct of these men, who, as strict, conscientious Catholics, of course, you know are in the habit of frequenting the holy sacraments, whilst you are constant wit- nesses to their detraction and calumnies against their own prelates, as wxll as against others, and never hear of the least attempt, on their part, " to make their injured neighbour satisfac- '' tion, and to restore his good name as soon '* as possible." Catholic Catech, p. 32. It * Evenin;: Herald, Nov. 30. 17 It is pleasant enough to hear these anonyixious writers retorting the charge of injustice and uncharitableness upon me, because when they began to call me to an account, and to a number of impertinent questions, (threatening me first with the loss of my popularity, and then with gibbets and fire to enforce their requisition,) I took the liberty of enquiring their real names y in order to judge from their characters, of their motives, and their authority in questioning me; adding that '^ Sarsfield and Laicus may be ** good Catholics, or mere nominal Catholics, a *^ disgrace, by their principles and conduct, to *' the religion they profess ; or that they may *' even be wolves in sheep's clothing, who come *' only to kill and destroy, for any thing I " can know of them; and that the disclosure ** of their real names would probably settle my *' opinion upon these points, and enable me to ** decide how far they are deserving of my ** respect and regard." This is the passage, which some man, woman, or child, who falsely assumes the name of the Great Sarsfield, Lord Lucan, maintains is contrary to justice and charity.* But, tell me, my brethren, I beseech you, what injustice or uncharitableness can be deduced from it, except that, in my opinion, some bad CathoUc or some Orangeman is as capable * Evening Herald, Nov. 13. 18 capable of writing in the newspapers, under the signature of Sarsfield, or Laicus, as a good Catholic is? Heavens defend me from insinuating, that your immortal countryman, the real Sarsfxld, (for as to Laicus^ I suppose the millions whom I have the honour to address are all Laid,) who nobly faced in the field ^' the hero of Giencoe, and the pacificator of ** Limerick," was *' a diss^race to his religion. " or a wolf in sheep's cioathing." If any thing were wanting to the completion of the jest, it is, that this mock Sarsfield complains I have ** attacked a character which I cannot pos- ** sibly know,"* and which, he adds in the same paper, he ** keeps concealed, for fear of " the dagger of the Orangeman, and the slan- *' derous tongue of the pensioned Catholic.'* To attack a fabricated name ; to injure a repu- tation which is a profound secret; to ruin a character which does not exist, --by what name, I pray 3'ou, my brethren, do you call this in your country ? I am far from wishing to lay additional re- straints upon the press; but again, and again, my Catholic brethren, I beseech you, to dis- courage, by all the means in your power, anonymous publications upon matters relating to your religion, I have much higher motives for •Evening Herald, Nor. IS. 19 for this advice, than those which 1 have aheady suggested; and, take notice, they are such as all and every one of your excellent pielates and pastors will decidedly sanction. For under their correction, I, though a doctor and a prelate of your Church, always speak to you, my brethren of Ireland, upon these subjects. The case is this; there is a living authority, a speaking tribunal in the Catholic Ch^irch ; the singular, the happy prerogative, the immorta- lizing principle of which is, that we all and every one of her children, are subject to it. By pub- lishing our real names with our religious essays, we profess ourselves, or, at any rate^ we be- come, amenable to this tribunal. But if bad Catholics, under the pretence of being good ones, if the heterodox, under the pretence of being orthodox, by means of feigned names, and specious declamation, are permitted to lecture you, how can your real pastors and prelates arraign them ? What security have you, that they will not impose false doctrines upon you, for the genuine doctrines of the Church ; as I maintain the above mentioned anonymous writers have done in scores of instances ? I give you my word, niy Catholic brethren, that when I sat down to write this letter, I had no intention of running into this exposure of the anonymous writers in tlje Evening Herald ; B my 20 my busiacss not being to refute their calum- nies, but to eradicate some groundless preju- dices against myself; which I fear have been instilled uito the breasts of several of the most u})iight and edifying persons among you. However, as these prejudices have probably originated in the still repeated and unrefuted calumnies in question, (in confirmation of the JVlachiavelian maxim, calumniare fort iter, ^t. (throw on dirt enough, some of it will stick) this digression may be of service to me, in the cause which I have undertaken ; at the same time that it will be useful to you for the different purposes which I have pointed out. The prejudices which I mean to combat are nearly allied to the following assertions of my adversaries, in their latest publications : '' Dr. *' Milner at the last hearing of the Catholic *' petition, engaged that the King should hold ** a veto upon the election of our bishops. *' jF/e did grant a veto. Before the passing of *' the resolutions, we were advised by Dr. '* Milner to leave the settling of the dispute *' to oux woxXhy prelates. The bishops did exa- *' mine the question, and unanimously decided *' against Dr, Milner s plan.'** *' He is enthu- "' siastically attached to it."! His recent letter * Evening lieraul, Dec. 2. j The present state, by Inimicus Veto, Esquire ! This writer 21 *' in the Morning Chronicle, has filled the ** nation with astonishment, and excited loud '* and o-eneral censure on this wanton and un- '* politic renewal of hostilities."* In opposition to these assertions, I undertake to prove; first, that neither the plan, which the great bulk of you so strongly object to, for allowing of a certain interference of the Crown in the nomi- nation of your bishops, nor any other plan for making the least change whatsoever in your ecclesiastical discipline, is my plan : secondly, that I never did grant to the Crown the pozver of a veto in this business, nor engage that your bishops should grant it: thirdly, that, as well since , as before, the passing of the resolutions, I liave uniformly advised the Catholics to leave this matter to their worthy prelates; knowing perfectly well^that it is for them, and them EXCLUSIVELY, to dccidc upon the expediency of the measure, as it is mine to obey their instructions. I disclaim an attachment to any measure which the prelates of any part of the Catholic Church may deem inconsistent with its safety or its welfare ; and I maintain my late letter was not intended by me, nor indeed generally calculated, to occasion hostilities of D 2 any writer proves himself by his language to be a gentleman, no less than Mr. Trotte^, Mr. Clinch, and one or two othf rs of my opponents : yet 1 never, before now, heard of an Esquire of ihat name in anj" pari of Ireland. * EveninjT HeraM, Dec, 5. 22 any kind, but rather to promote the inestimable blessing of peace. Should I, my Catholic bre- thren, obtain that success which I promise myself in establishing these three points, I foresee that I shall have nothing to fear from the utmost malice of my inveterate foes on your side of the water, and that I shall have no future occasion to renew this disagreeable topic, in either island, barring such explanations as jnay become inevitably necessary, in consequence of the expected debates in Pailiament. Of one thing remain perfectly assured; that, as I have received no instructions whatsoever from your prelates, or from any one of them, relative to the bushiess in question, so I should decline receiving any, if sent to me. In any other con- cern I should be Jiappy to serve them; but of this^I trusr. I have washed my hands for ever. To proceed now with some degree of order in establishing the two first points of my de- fence; namely, those which regard my conduct previously to the meeting of the bishops : I positively deny, that I formed the plan, or conspired with any other being or beings, to iniroduce any sort of interference, on the part of the Crown, in the nomination of your bishops^ or in any other of y jur ecclesiastical concerns whatsoever. It is notorious to the public, both Protestant and Catholic, that I am not less a professed advocate for your hierarchy, and thp 23 the mode by which it is perpetuated, as being primitive, and calculated for the peace and welfare both of Church and State, * t^.an I am a foe to every the least encroachment of the civil power, or of the people, upon that indepen- dent spiritual jurisdiction which Christ has left to his Church, and which is the very vital spirit of its never failing existence. For more than twenty years, my bietliren, have I been engaged with the enemies, and chiefly the domestic enemies of this jurisdiction, who in various modes have attempted to infringe it, that is to say, either by recommending the oath of supremacy or the direct Royal nomiratwn . God knows, my brethren, you will know at the great day of manifestation, what I have suffiered, for my constancy in defending the independency of your Irish Catholic hierarchy and jurisdiction, no less than that of our little English Catholic flock. , This^being,to a certain dco^ree, a matter^^iJiA-^nown to the heads of your hierarchy, and having first attracted, on my behalf, the honour of their notice and friend- ship, what likelihood is there that I should, all on a sudden, in the month of May last, wlien the ink was hardly dry in that pen^with which I had been defending the divine rights and free- dom * See Appendix, No, 5, to Sir J. Hippesley's Additional Observations. 24 dom of that hierarchy and jurisdiction, against their most inveterate and powerful enemy, Dr. Duigenan, * renounce the leading principles of my conduct and conscience, by devising a plan, or conspiring with other persons in devising a plan, against your hierarchy and jurisdiction ? Again, my brethren, though conscientiously attached to the King and Country, to which we have sworn allegiance, as I have maintained you also are ; I have always measured my alle- giance and your own, not by the news in the Gazette, but by our duty anc} our oath; I have always vouched to this King and Country^ for the purity and firmness of yoqr civil and social principles, and more particularly for those of your exemplary prelates; and have shewn, that our Catholic ancestors, and the bishoj)S and clergy in particular, have evinced a principle of conscience, in opposition to apparent interest, beyond every other description of christians, even the divine right n^en. In short, I have always maintained, by the tongue and by the pen, wiiat I am fully convinced of, that there is no need of any change at all in the existing discipline, by way of securing or ascertaining the fidelity of your prelates and clergy. Nay, I Will go so far as to say that, in my opinion, the most considerable personages, who have called f Ste Supplement to the second edition of Addit. Observ. called for a change on this ground, do not think it necessary. They only sought to throw out a tub to the whale of vulgar Protestant prejudice; just as when they tacked new for- mularies of allegiance, but exactly the same in substance, to the different acts of parliament, which they have, from time to time, passed in our favour. I had then no political motive for desiring a change in your discipline ; and as to the personal motives of avarice and ambition, which the Herald writers have alternately attri- buted to me, I disdain to answer them when I am writing to you. But, though / liave never devised oi desired a change in your Church government, others^ in great numbers, have ; I mean other Catho- lics; for as to Protestants, they, of course, must always wish it to be changed, and even destroyed. Instead, however, of enumerating the works written by Catholics, or mentioning the respectable personages among them , wh(» have negociated in favour of this change, so far as to recommend the vesting of an absQliitc and unco72trouled pozver in the Crown over all our prelacies in both kingdoms, I sliall satisfy myself with citing the declaration, upon this head, of the celebrated and well informed writer, whose publications have been more read, and have produced a greater effect than those of any other of onr advocates whomsoever ; I meaa 26 in can Peter Plymley, so called. This is then, what he pubhshed in his Ninth Letter, a little before the late debates on the Catholic Petition : " To my certain knowledge the Catholics have *^ long since expressed to his Majesty's ministers ** their perfect readiness te vest in his Majesty, " either with the consent of the Pope, or '* without it, if it cannot be obtained, the *' nomination of the Catholic prelacy."' There was then a powerful conspiracy of still growing strength,to which several of our Catholics were accessary, for enslaving the Catholic Church of both islands, or rather for extinguishing what I have called its vital principle : but so far was I from being a party to it, that I pre- pared myself to oppose it, whenever it might break forth, with all my might, as I am well known to have opposed other attempts of the game tendency. Some of your prelates, particularly two venera- ble metropolitans, will testify, that I consulted with them long ago upon the best means of averting the dreaded miscliief, and that 1 went lip to London^the last time I was there, for the express purpose of making such efforts, as it might l^e in my pov/er to make, against it. That noble Lord also, whose zeal in your cause made him a sort of courier between London and Dublin, in the worst weather of last spring, will testify, that in every one of the visits with which 2^7 which he honoured me in travelling between those capitals, I never failed to warn him, in the most emphatic language, against consenting to the projected change. You will certainly ooncliide^that I had taken such means as seemed to me, at the time, sufficient for ascertaining the sentiments of the Irish prelates on this momentous concern. To be brief, I did under- stand that these sentiments perfectly agreed with my own ; namely, that we could not, to save our lives, yield the direct patronage of our hierarchy, or the right of appointing Ca- tholic bishops, to an A- Catholic state or sove- reign ; but that it would not be contrary to the faith or essential discipline of our religion, to yield that sort of negative interfe rence , which has been so often explained, provided it were otheranse expedient, for the welfare of the Catholic religion or of the Catholics themselves. Of this latter point I never took upon myself to judge, but I understood that your prelates, whose exclusive right it was to judge of it, were disposed to grant it out of a regard to you, their flock ; namely, as the price of your civil rights, and the condition of your emancipation. For you are sensible that we, the ministers of the Cathohc religion, and the religion itself, are to 4erive no benefit from the emancipation : come when it may, it is understood that we are to remain after it, just as we are before it. With E respect 28 respect to yourselves, the Catholics of Ireland, I was not honoured with any commission from you, and I never took upon myself to judge of your pohtical interests or your national feelings : there were other persons every way better qualified, and those duly authorized to attend to them, and who at the same time were privy to, and witnesses of, every step that I su])sequently took. In a word, it never once entered into my imagination (here I confess my egregious error) that you, or any part of you, would conceive an alteration in the process of recom- mending candidates for episcopal institutions, to undermine ** the only undestroyed monu- ** ment of your national grandeur," any more than the different changes which have taken place in this respect since the year l682 have done. So far from this, I really believed that you wished every concession, consistent with the principles of our common religion, to be made by your clergy, in order to obtain a com- plete redress of your existing grievances, and to annihilate for ever those odious distinctions which still make you, the population of the country, an inferior cast in it. I had seen Maynootli accepted with gratitude ; I had wit- nessed your patient acquiescence in those dis- graceful formularies of allegiance, unexampled in the history of civilized states, which I have mentioned above* For I judge of your feelings, mv 29 niy brethren, by my own ; and I solemnly declare, that I never felt myself so humbled in all my life, as when, in the public court at Win- chester, I was forced to swear that • ' I did not ** think myself bound by my adherence to the *' Catholic Church (that Church which my '^' Protestant fellow- subjects call HOLY when- ■' ever they repeat their creed) to rebel, to ■ * commit murder, and every other sin ; and, ** lastly, to perjure myself T Oh ! with what enthusiastic ardour and galling sarcasm ^have I not heard my respected acquaintance, and your immortal advocate, the great Fox, dwell upon the absurdity of calling upon men to swear, tliat they think themselves obliged to keep an oath ! But, to return to my defence : the very first morning after my arrival in London, and in consequence, I am persuaded, of my earnest cautionsTjnentioned above) to a noble and wor- thy personage, I was summoned to attend cer- tain illuHrious parliamentary friends, when this question was put to me, as nearly as I can recol- lect : *' What sort of power ^ the Catholic *' bishops of Leland ^i&ima disposed to yield to *^ the Crown, in order to bring about the emanr " cipation ?" The question, you observe, was, as the business itself was, not about my own dispositions or concessions, but about those of the Irish bishops. How now, I pray you, was E 2 I to 50 I to act in these circumstances? Methinks every honest man amongst you would say, ^* Satisfy our friends to the best of your know- *^ ledge and belief; but take care not to add a '* word beyond that." Well, my brethren, I did exactly this; I answered, *' that I had no *^ instructions from the prelates to speak to this ^' point, (in fact I had partly ventured to hope '* that reference would be made to them upon *' the business,) and that there was not time to " obtain any answer from Ireland previously to *^ the day (namely, the ensuing Wednesday) fixed ** upon for the debate." I added, that I was *' convinced the prelates neither would nor could ^^ yield any positi*ce poxver to the Crown in the "'^ business; nevertheless that I had good reason ^' to believe (as in fact I had good reason, and *' as some of the most distinguished prelates -' have, since the assembly, publicly declared *' I had) that they were willing, upon the con- *^ ditions, and in the circumstances mentioned, ** to concede a certain negative pow€7\''' namely, that which has been so often explained. But, ag'ain and again, I emphatically repeated, that I could give 7io pledge on their part. I must here observe that, though I conceived it possi- i>le_, the dispositions of the bishops might b0 mentioned in parliament; I had not the least idea that it would come forward in the shape pf a distinct proposal. J mustal^o remark, that tjic 31 the word Veto never occuired in any one com- munication which I held with our parHainentary friends, or previously with the bisho])s. In fact, it does not correspond with the idea which I entertained of the negative inteifereiice. The word was affixed to it, in Ireland, by those who were enemies to the interference in general. It was so well understood by the personages alluded to, that I gave 7io pledge whatever on the part of the prelates, and, in short, that I did nothing more than declare my opinion conr cerning their disposition, that I was pressed to do what I was otherwise resolved upon doing, namely, to lose no time in consulting them upon the paint. Accordingly, on the very day of my first conference with those personages, namely, on Saturday, May 21, I wrote to each of the four Catholic metropohtans, giving them an account of what had passed, and assuring them in particular, that ** I had entered into - no pledge on their part, but that they were ** at Uberty to throw me, like another Jonas. - into the sea, in case they were not willing to ■'- sanction the measure." Had I received, in due course, an answer to this effect from any one of them, or from any other prelate, (for I wrote to other prelates,) most undoubtedly I should have communicated the circumstance to our friends in parliament, and, I make no doubt, a proper explanation would have taken place in that 52 that assembly. But no such letter did I receive during the whole time of my continuance in London, which was till about the middle of June ; nor indeed any other letter, which did not lead me to suppose that the measure would be sanctioned. It is true, that after I had quit- ted the capital, for Hampshire and Dorsetshire, that is to say, when it was too late for me to state the circumstance to members of the legis- lature, I received letters from three prelates, :»tating objections against the royal interference in tato. But not one of these *' finds the least '' fault with my conduct," whatever the anony- mous Herald writers, who pretend to know the contents of my letters better than I do myself, Ijave asserted to the contrary.* I will not pub- lish the confidential communications of my friends in the newspapers, as these writers very decently call upon me to do,t but they shall at all times be forthcoming to the prelates them^ selves. You will naturally suppose, that if I was in such haste to communicate to my constituents the contents of private conferences regarding tbem, I should not be more slow in disavowing those false and detestable newspaper reports of the parliamentary debates, which represented mCj as authorizing a proposal for making an A^Catholic * Evening Herald, Nov. 13, f Ibid, 33 A'CathoUc king to become virtually the head of tht Irish Catholic Church. No, my brethren; if I WGYt capable of making or consenting to such a proposal, or even conceding to the Crown any 7^eal efficient poxver ot jurisdiction, little or great, direct or indirect, open or secret, you may de- pend upon it, I would act a more consistent part; I would make better terms for myself ; in a word, I would take the oath provided for the purpose, I mean the oath of the King's spiritual supremacy. The fact is, the very morning on which this lying and scandalous report of the debates appeared, which was no other than that on which they terminated in the House of Commons May 26, amidst the reli- gious duties of the festival * I drew up, and caused to be printed, a formal disavowal of the scandalous imputation, and of certain other errors connected with it. It was my earnest wish to insert this in the newspapers, which had I done, I should still have retained your good opinion : but in this instance I sacrificed your tavonr, to what was considered by persons acting in your name, and by some of the greatest orna- ments of the Catholic body, as your interest. In brief, I contented myself, with circulating this printed disavowal among the prelates and a very few other friends, after it had been shewn * Ascension Dav, 34 to your joai:liamentary advocates,- no one of whom coiKlescended to authorize my circulation of it with greater kindness, than the Right. Hon. George Ponsonby. It may be objected to me that, in the interval betwTen the debates in parhament and the assem- bly of the bishops, I was active and industrious in defending and promoting the plan in ques- tion. I grant, my brethren, that, considering it as a measure which virtually had already ob- tained the sanction of your metropolitans and senior bishops, and having sufficient grounds for supposing that it would obtain the sanction of the assembled prelacy, I took some pains to explain certain circumstances to some of them, M^hich they had not otherwise means of becoming acquainted with, and of obviating objections which to me seemed ill founded ; still adhering to that axiom which I published in the news- papers, and from which I have not, for one moment, swerved by act, by word, or by thought, that to the Catholic prelates of Ire- land, and to them alone, belonged the final decision upon this momentous business. Never- theless my principal business, during the time in question, was to enforce, by every means in my power, and with all sorts of persons, and every where, the necessity of those checks or restraints upon the regal interference, (an interference that, as I have said, I considered as already virtually S5 virtually granted,) which, I was satisfied, your prelates would, upon mature reflection, find in- dispensibly necessary for the independency of your Church ; though I was not aware they had heretofore sufhciently prescribed them, and with- out which, be assured, I would not have been agent in the business to save my life. Here then, my brethren, is my sole crime, if I was guilty of any; namely, that having reason to believe your prelates were disposed to grant a negative interference to the Crown, I devised the most effectual limitations of which it was susceptible, for preventing your hierarchy from being en- slaved or injured by it. This is the only act and deed, throughout the whole business, which, properly speaking, belongs to Dr. Milner. Having now been counsel in my own cause, let me also be cryer in it. — How say you, my Jury : GUILTY or NOT GUILTY ?— Take notice, I do not call for your verdict upon the impeachment of Mr. Attorney General Sarstield, and Mr. Solicitor General Laicus, before the ParHament of Pimlico, namely, that ^' Dr. ]\Iil- •' ner, not having the fear of God before *' his eyes, but being moved by the instigation *^ of the devil, under the form of thirty pieces '* of silver, has conspired to adopt certain re- *^ solutions — subversive of the faith, he was *' sworn to protect." No, my brethren, I do not ask for your decision upon this charge, as I F am 36 am already perfectly sure upon whose head, your verdict of GUILTY, in this case, would fall. But I call upon you to pronounce upon the two first counts or charges in the former indictment against me, relative to my conduct^ previously to the meeting of the bishops. First — Have I devised, or conspired xvitk other persons to de- rise a %'efOj or other plan, for admitting «sf the royal interference hi the election of your bishops? Second Iv, have I eiranted, or enoaired that the bishops should grant any veto, or other inter- ference of the Crown in this business ? — I am sure what your verdict is on both these points ; and therefore, I now proceed to ask you further, whether, upon the whole of the case, I appear to have acted any other part than that of a faith- ful agent to your prelates, anxious to learn and express their sentiments and transact their busi- ness, with the ultimate view of serving you, but still more anxious to preserve from subjection, and every otlicr danger, one of the most vene- rable and important portions of that Catholic Church, of which I myself am a prelate ? I sliall now be asked, why I did not publish tlie explanation six months ago, when I was called upon to do so, in the newspapers, and thereby *' save myseh^ and the nation an immen- ** sity of trouble and anxiety?"^ I answer, that I published sufficient reasons at the time, but • that * Evenintr Herald, Nov. 13. 37 lliat I had a still more powerful motive, in my own breast, for not obeying the requisition then made to me. I was satisfied by private letters, as well as by those published in the Herald, * tliat the wrIters,v/ho are now emplo^-ed in exe- cutino^ their denunciation a^fainst me, were then desirous of sparing f my character to the utmost of their power, and of turning their vengeance on the prelates; particularly upon one of them, whose virtues I revere and love, and who, at all times, labours under more than his full share of obloquy and |)ersccution. In these circum- stances, iwy brethren, I judged, as I always shall judge in similar circumstances, that it was better the ^lock should think ill of, and be in- censed against a strano;er,than against their own pastors ; and however anxious I may be in tak- ing this leave of you. to regain your esteem and affection, I give you my honest word, I would not publish this iVppeal to you on any account, if I did not think that, in the existing circum- stances, 1 can do so, without any risk of occa- sioning the slightest jealously between you and your native prelates. I come now to the third head of accusation against me, that which regards my conduct since the decision of the bishops. It is this charge, as I understand, from private letters, which chiefly indisposes the generality of you, F 2 even * Evening Herald, Aug. 5. Sept. 2, f Sept. 2. 38 even the pious and editying part of you, even my warm friends, as well as my bitter foes against me. This part of my indictment stands as follows: ** that Dr. IMihier is enthusiastically ^' attached to the plan of the veto, against which ** the bishops have unanimously decided ; and *' that he has written a letter in the Morning ** Chronicle, which has filled the nation with *^ astonishment, and excited loud and general *' censure on his wanton and impolitic renewal '^ of hostilities."'— I can refute this accusation, my brethren, in three words : but, for your more complete satisfaction, I will previously enter into some explanation regarding it. It is clear to me, by all my letters from Ire- land, that my friends there, fancy all the public reside in Dublin. In the agitation occasioned by their detestation of this veto, so called, they foriret that in mv situation I have various rela- tions with the English, no less than I have with the Irish : they seem insensible that there is an imperial parliament about to meet in this island, which is sure to agitate the question of the veto, though I were to observe the most profound silence concerning it; and that without expla- nation from some quarter or other, the honour and character of those personages, to whose interests I cannot be indifierent, I mean the Catholic bishops, are liable to {)e grievously mis- represented, to the great detriaient of religion it- self 59 self. I must add that there are certain distinguish- ed members of this parHament,to whom we are all infinitely indebted, and who therefore have a right to demand justice at ^lur hand. — To speak of these first : it is well known that these parlia- mentary friends, who have not only exerted their unrivallec^l)ut have also sacrificed their high situations and ample emoluments twice over in our cause, and who, if they have not suc- ceeded in it, have at least prepared the way for success, and who have actually restored our good name, at the expense of their own popu- larity; it is well known, I say, that they had, for a long time previously to the appearance of my letter, in the Morning Chronicle, been tra- duced by their political adversaries, in the minis- terial papers, as a set of impostors, who had deceived parliament and the public, by pretend- ing to have held conferences with me, relative to the disposition of your bishops, while no such thing had taken place. In proof of this allegation, they cited my words publishefl in the Evening Herald of July 29 ; ^* that I would '^^ooner lose my life than be instrumental in a *^1 5amouc king's obtaining any power or influ- *' ence over any part of the Catholic Church." Now, my brethren, it was very easy to shew that this declaration no way militated against the existence of those conferences ; in as much as the negative interference, as I have always explained 40 explained it, did not go to confer any such power or influence on his Majesty. This being so, I appeal to your hearts, whether I ought to have refused that easy reparation, in my power, to the character of friends, who have done so much to raise yours ? It is notorious, that the English public, whose ideas, of course, were not more accurate than those of ministerial writers, were astounded and indignant at the whole of the business in ques- tion, and were led to believe and report the most extravagant and injurious stories concern- ing all the Catholics, who had been mentioned or alluded to in it. You will easily believe this, when I inform you that many of our most dig- nified and best informed Catholics, as well as very many Protestants, have, to my certain knowledge, maintained and published, that I '* requested Lord F. to introduce me to certain ** great men, whom I persuaded to propose the *^ plan in question, on the part of the bishops, *^ and that then I went over to Ireland to in- " duce these bishops to reject it.'* Again, it is certain that a great number of our most pious English Catholics, and even those of my own ilock, were scandalized at my conduct, suppos- ing me to have acknowledged a branch of the royal ecclesiastical supremacy ; whilst other well disposed Protestants were offended at my alleged punctiliousness in insisting upon the above men- tioned .f-'^^ 41 tioncd checks or restraints upon the negative power, at the same time that they admitted, we had a right to provide for the security of our Church. Now, my friends, it appeared to me that all these ohjections might he answered, and all this mischief be removed by one plain and candid explanation of the whole matter in the newspapers ; nor have I found reason, since the pubhcation of it, to alter my opinion, in these respects, at least as far as England is con- cerned. Lastly, I know for certain, from dif- ferent quarters, that the motives by which the bishops were actuated in forming the resolutions, were grossly misapprehended by persons of con- sequence. The bishops were even suspected of having been tampered with by ministers ; in the same manner as your Herald writers have charg- ed me with that baseness. Violent threats of censure, at the meeting of parliament, if not something worse, were thrown out against them, and I was particularly cautioned liot to unite my cause with theirs. In a word, ^i worst of consequences to our holy religion were seri- ously apprehended by me. Now it appeared to me, my brethren, that if I could not wholly disperse this storm, I might at least mitigate its violence, and prevent some of its bad conse- quences, by shewing that the prelates had acted upon good and laudable motives in forming their resolutions; being the same motive5j;in substance, to to the best of my memory, which I had heard them, and one venerable metropolitan, in parti- cular, allege as the grounds of their decision. One of the Plerald writers terms these leasons ** unanswerable,''^' while another accuses me of a *' breach of confidence'] m denying at the same time their authenticity, and calling them inadequate, or impertinent, or false or mali- cious, "f I will not enter into a controversy with this writer, about the authenticity or the superior propriety and strength of the motives which we respectively assign; but this I will do ; if any three of the bishops will disavow^ the motives, or any of them, which I, in the sincerity of my zeal for them and for our common religion, God knows, attributed to them, I will publish my retraction in the newspapers, or in any other way that may be prescribed. To be brief, the letter which has been so complained of by m many upright and pious Catholics, in Ireland, has been more applauded, as I can easily prove, by the same description of Catholics in England, than any other publica- tion of mine which has appeared for a long time past. It has also given great satlsfactiou to many impartial, independent Protestants, and I trust has been productive, in a great measure, of the good effects which I had in view •Evening Herald, Dec. .5. f Evening Herald, Dec. 2. 43 view in writing it. It is not considered in England, as "a perseverance in, and a still pressing of a measure" which the bishops have rejected, but quite the contrary. In proof of this^^I may refer to the Monthly Review (no contemptible authority, like the Anti-jacobin Reviezv) for November last, pubhshed soon after my letter in the Morning Chronicle appeared. I have not the number before me, but the sense of the passage I allude to I believe is this ; that ** since " Dr. Milner and his episcopal friends in Ireland ** do not approve of the Veto, the Reviewers *' hope Parliament will not insist upon it as ** a condition of the emancipation." Having made these observations, I now come to the short, the satisfactory refutation of the charge on which you ground your present anir mosity against me ; and I thus declare before the world, that, as I never was attached to, and never should have thought of, the plan of the Crown obtaining a negative interference, called by you a veto, in the nomination of your bishops, had I not been persuaded, upon suffi- cient grounds, that it had been previously ap- proved of by your bishops ; so, from the moment of its being rejected and condemned by them, at their late meeting, I have never said, done, or imagined any thing by way of reviving or encouraging it, in any shape or degree whatso- ever. If this does not satisfy you, and you G require 44 require nie to give my vote upon a question on which I never yet have voted, and on which I have lio claim to vote ; I declare, that, since those venerable personages, who are the proper and authorized judges of the matter, find his ^lajesty's interference in any shape, or in any degree whatever, in the choice of your bishops, to be inexpedient, /, Dr. Milner, also do declare it to he inexpedient. fiut, take notice, my Catholic brethren, that in making this declaration, I have, I hope in God, been swayed hs motives of conscience only ; not by the desire of disengaging myself from that hornet's nest in the Evening Herald, which lias been annoying me for these six months past ; nolr^l)}^ the desire of regaining^ what is certainly very dear to me, but which is an inadequate motive of action for a minister of him, who was the outcast of men, and the reproach of the people^ to be guided by; I mean your favour and confidence. Hence I would not on this, or any other account, advance one step beyond the truth. In declaring the plan, as checked and limited by me, to be still inexpedient, I will not allow it to be '^ contrary *' to the doctrine of the Koman Catholic *^ Church, or to any practice or usage essen- *^ tially and iadispensibly connected with the '■' Ronmn Catholic religion." Much less will I give into the many extravagant, scandalous and erroneous propositions of the anonymous wiiters 45 in the newspapers, who take upon themselves to contradict your venerable, learned, and intel- ligent Primate, and to correct the resolution of the whole prelacy itself. I am struck with horror at the language of one of these writers, who, professing to imitate the Emperor Constantine > in covering the scandaHzing bi- shop with his own cloak, nevertheless de- scribes the metropolitans and other senior bishops, the glory and defence of pure faith and virtue in Ireland, as having for a long time *' their slumbers broken by the torturing *' visions of an affrighted conscience, and as '' weeping for the lost blessings of innocent " repose."* I will not permit my pious corres- pondents to institute a comparison between them and the great Fenelon, revoking a real and dan- gerous error, which had been condemned by the Church. Nor shall any Vv^iter, under his own name, who is certified to me as being a gentleman and a canonist, tell me without refutation, that I have countenanced a plan which is contrary to the faith, or to the essential discipline of the Catholic Church. Should such a controversy take j)lace, it will then be seen whether I have yet ^^ ransacked history and *' the canon law for those nuniberless forci- *'ble precedents,*'! and arguments, which they G 2 arc ^ Inimicus Velo, p. Hi-, f Evening Herald, Dec. 5- 46 are capable of furnishing for the purpose in question; and whether I cannot answer the several objections which certain friends of mine, persons of distinguished genius and learning, have adduced against it. But I do not so muc4i as hint at the nature of these materials at present, lest I should again be accused of ^' furnishing arguments," in favour of a plan which, however lazvful in itself, I have con- demned as inexpedient. One remark only I shall add, by way of shewing that the persons who describe the plan, as being *' a dereliction of the Catholic faith, an apostacy," &c. do, in fact, pretend to correct, and do virtually con- tradict the resolution of the assembled prelates; namely, that the latter have contented them- selves with pronouncing the measure inexpedient. Would they employ this word in censuring a measure which they judged to be in itself irreligious or immoral? Would they solemnly declare, that it is ine.vpedient to abolish ike Seven SacramentSj or the Ten Commandments ? Upon another point also I must feel myself obliged to protest against the extravagance of these writers, and indeed against the errors of many persons of all the three following descrip- tions : the statesmen, the Catholic minority, w^ho are impatient to recover their civil rights, and the Catholic majority, who consider the hierarchy as a monument of their national grandeur. 47 grandeur. All tliese argue that, because the}^ are, one way or other, interested in the state of the hierarchy, therefore they have an undoubted natural right to be consulted about it.* Why, my brethren, there is not a poor peasant amongst you, who is not as much interested in the deci- sion of every article of Catholic faith and disci- pline, as are the bishops and the Pope himself; because his soul is as dear to him as their souls are to them ; but it does not thence follow that he has an equal right to deliberate and to vote upon these matters with them, w4io are the judges of faith and legislators of discipline, either in synod or out of it : and I will under- take to demonstrate, if necessary, that all the numberless changes of discipline, which have taken place in different ages and countries, (including those which have taken place in your own country) have been made by the bishops or the Pope, without ever once consult- ing the people. No doubt, these pastors pay a proper degree of attention, on all such occasions, to the wishes as well as to the welfare of their flocks; but this is a very different thing from acknowledging them to have a natural in- defeasible right to judge^ and pronounce on such matters. How absurd then, as well as erroneous, is the language of a late writer, who describes •Evening Herald, Sept. 12, Dec. 2, &c. 48 describes your four metropolitans and six other prelates as ''guilty of robbery and sacrilege!" who talks of " the birthright of our baptism, '' and the prerogatives of our faith" in the jargon of whiggism ! and who asserts, that the "Pope " would more easily be deposed for attempting *' to compel, than would the Catholics of Ireland " be condemned for resisting the penal inno- '' vation !"* This is a language, my brethren, which, as every divine knows, nearly borders upon schism. But, instead of stopping to con- fute it, I will place before your eyes the lumi- nous and energetical address of the great Bos- suet, relative to the pretended natural rights of Christians in the Church of God. "Thus speaks " the Catholic Church to her christian children. *' You are a people, a state, and a society: but *' Jesus Christ, who is your king, holds nothing ^^ from you : his authority is of a higher 07'igin ; ^' you have no better natural right, as to the ** appointment of his ministers, than you have " to appoint Christ himself to be your king."! The remaining observations which I have here to make shall be contracted within as few words as possible. It is then a shameful falsehood, and an outrage upon the Holy See, as well as upon me, to publish, that " the head '' of the Church, whom I had consulted, about " the * EveniniT Herald, Dec. 2. f Variat. B. xy. 49 *' the interference of the Crown, had declared *' to me, in the words of Benedict XIV. that '* were he to attempt to give effect to su^h a " power, he should deserve the execration cf " the christian world.''* The original letter, from which this passage is said to he taken, now lies before nie, and I do positively assure you that it distinctly refers to a positive power of nominaUo?2 in the Crozvn ; xvhereas a negative interference is spoken of in very different terms. It is an equally glaring falsehood, that *^ in ** all my speeches and essays it has escajied me, " that if the Pope, from certain knowledge, ^' were to judge a candidate unlit, he must even ** keep his faculties at home, &c/' in consequence of which supposed blunder on my part, the writer proceeds to insult me in his usual style. Ask any of your prelates, my brethren, for a sight of my first printed paper, dated May £6; you will there see that the rights of the Holy See were not forgotten by me, nor passed ovTr in my connnunications with members of parliament. But when tlie phantom called Detector is itself r/e/ec/er/ in issuiug lying oracles, Mr. A. or Mr. B. will walk the streets with the same confidence as usual. My n^eaning, in using the Q^\i\\et?> factions ^wA seditious in my letter to the English public, has been enlarged by the *£vening Herald, Dec. 2. Nov. 30. ■ 50 the hame writer within the compass of a few lineSj to ^' the wliole Cathohc population of the country," and has been contracted to " one distinguished gentleman."* The shortest way with these terms, under such circumstances, is to retract them, without further explanation, as I now publicly do. With respect / to the gentleman alluded to, the most I have heard of him from my friends in Dublin is, that the Catholics of Ireland are indebted to him for the constitutional privilege, which has chiefly contributed to raise them to their present na- tional consequence. ^* Palmam qui meruit ferat ." I do not envy him his fair praise : praise ought to be no object to me. Were I to interfere again in the aftairs of Ireland, and were I possessed of any influence among you, my brethren, all my efforts would be directed to the uniting of all the talents, yes, ALL THE TALENTS of Ireland as well as England, in the common cause. The only persons among you , against whom I w^ould declare war, are those who try to divide you, and to animate one class against another. But God in his mercy prevent that I should ever oppose, as I am accused, or despise or neglect the poor, of all others ; the poor, to whom I have been a willing slave all my life ! — The same method of re tract- Evening Herald, Dec. 5. 51 ing , is the best and most congenial to my feelings , with respect to the unfortunate epir thet of wrong'headedy which has been inces- santly hurled back at my_head, for several months past, both in print and in manuscript. Now I solemnly declare, that neither in my meaning nor in the context of my paper, does the term apply to any other clergymen, except the very limited number, perhaps three or four, who were the subject of my correspon- dence with the parish priest. However, as the word has been so much enlarged beyond my meaning and its own, I revoke it, and beg the Catholic Clergy of Ireland to accept of this public apology for my having made use of it. At the same time, however, I have one request to make them, that if they know of any writer or other person who has travelled farther, put himself to more expense, or taken greater pains to vindicate and raise their character for natural and acquired talents, as well as for virtue and piety, than the author of the letters from Ireland, some one of them will have the goodness to transmit to me the name of that person. I cannot bring myself to make any apology to my honoured friends, your prelates, because I am perfectly sure there is neither a substantive nor an adjective, nor any other part of speech, in all my writings, that can even be tortured into a meaning disrespectful to them, or to any H one 52 one of them. One of the Herald writers, iafter caricaturing, in the most indecent manner, the persons of three or four of your most dignified and amiable prelates, tries to press me into his service on account of my looks ! He says that, on. some occasion or other, I '' surveyed the ** prelates with a sarcastic leer, shewing that I ** knew them well."*' Others, who, again and again, have denied the competency of the bishops to decide upon the late question,! and have threatened to abandon them.'}: and the Popetoo,§ if it were settled contrary to their wishes; who have talked of suspending the prelates, like Mo- hammed's tomb, in the air,|| and have taunt- ingly advised them to *' recant their religion, ** rather than improve upon apostacy, Hke ** bishop Judas ;"^ finally, who have tried to spirit up the second order of the clergy to take the important business, then pending, out of the hands of the prelates into their own : '* E.rper- ^* ges'cmini aiiqiiando et capescite rempitbli' '* cam;''** these Herald writers, I say, now reproach me with '^ addressing the Irish pre- '* lates" (namely, when I was addressing the English public) '' like a bullying dictator, pro- ** phecying,what I am determined to do myself, " namely, to overwlrelm them with public cen- ^' sure in the course of two months"f f from the date * Evening Herald, Sept. 23, t Aug. .5, Dec. 2, &c. + Sept. 26. § Dec. 2. Ij Sept, . 23. f Sept. 2S. ♦* .Cent 1. 53 date of my letter. Such, my fellow- Christians, is the charitahle construction which these hoasted good Catholics (oh ! the malice of the bitterest Orangeman is charity compared with theirs) put upon the intimation I gave of my apprehension of the prelates being severely treated in parlia- ment ; in consequence of which I openly, before the meeting of parliament, made common cause with them, in opposition to my own interest and the advice of all my friends, by publishing, in the English newspapers, certain arguments on their behalf, which these very writers, on the self-same occasion, allow to be ** unanswerable."^ I have said, that I cannot bring myself to apologize to your bishops, because my heart revolts at the very idea of ever having offended them. But I will bring the matter to as short and decisive an issue as if I were to apologize. Ill case then you, my brethren, in reading over any book or paper which I have published, or may hereafter publish, should, from your own judgment, and without the comments of any anonymous writer, find one sentence, or one innuendo, which you conscientiously believe to be injurious to^ authority, or disrespectful to the character of your prelates ; do not, indeed, burn or hang me in effigy, according to the sentence of these writers, f because this would be a breach of the peace; nor vent your indignation *' in H il *' thff * I'vening Herald. Dec. 5. f S#pt. '2$. 54 '* tlic most violent imprecations and maledic- " tions" on my head, and " on the heads of *' some of your bishops and the whole body of " the clergy," as these men scandalously assert you did not long ago,* because this would be a sin against God, which would render your faith of no avail to your salvation : but burn all my books which you can lay your hands upon ; never read any of my publications in future, and rank mv name with the Duioenans and the Mus- graves. In a w^ord, to prevent the mischiefs €omj)lained of, in future insist upon these mens* publishing their names, in order that they and I may hereafter, and to the end of our hves, con- tend together, not by words, but by our conduct, in acoHtempt of money,an(l all worldly advantages; in respect and obedience to all ecclesiastical supe- riors; and in uniformly supporting the spiritual rights and freedom of the Catholic Church against all encroachments, whether regal or democratical. One more word, and I have done. These writers boast of having ** put mc ** down in argument,'' at the same time that they allow I have '' put down all my former an- '* tagonists f*f insist upon it then, for your cre- dit, and that of our religion, that they keep these antagonists down, now they are down; as my studies must necessarily take a different course from that which they have for some time held. If * Evening Herald, Nor. 15. f Nov. is. 53 If these writers, who are so much my superiors in genius and literature, do but exert half the spirit and industry against your worst enemies, which they have long been exerting against your honest, zealous, and disinterested advocate, the Musgraves will no more blast your character with forgeries, nor the Ledwiches rob you of your apostle and ancient faith. I ara^and ever shall remain, your faithful and affectionate friend and fellow Catholic, JOHN MILNER, D. D. Wolverhampton, Jan, 9, 1809. P. S. Just as I have concluded this Appeal, I have received two different works from Dublin, published within these few days, by clergymen of the established Church, in which I am se- verely handled, as well as the Church to which I have the happiness to belong. Of the author of one of them, * I know no more than that, according to what he tells us of himself, in his title page and at the beginning of his book, he is ** such a one as Paul the agedy' that is to say, such a one as St. Paul the apostle. Of course the Catholics of Ireland will know him, by his hungei^ing, thirsting^ nakedness^ stripes^ &c. in * An Address to thft Clergy of the United Church in Ire- land on the present Crisis, 1809. Watson. 56 &c. in short, by his apostohcal labours and sanc- tity in general; and they will have felt the effects of all this, in the innumerable multitude he must have reclaim.ed from their antichristlan apostacy : for his principal aim is to prove that such is the ancient religion of Ireiand, and that I am '' amongst his most acrimoniously acive ** enemies," in supporling^iis apostacy, and r\\t ** soul of the league formed to rob the esta- '* blished clergy of their property, to vilify the ** character of their priesthood, and to assert *' a superiority in the clergy of another deno- ** mi nation over them in every qualification and *^ endowment that can render ministers of the " gospel worthy of their sacred function, and ** useful to God's people," p. 5, 6. — The other work, which is interesting for its very title, * is written by my former very entertaining oppo- nent, Dr. Ryan, and is well worth being re- garded by those Catholics, who can afford to buy it. It is ahnost all levelled at me, as the capital enemy of that conciliatory plan, which he so strongly recommends to the Catholics, What he proposes is to make peace with the Catholics, and to allow of their superstition, immorality, and even their idolatry, provided they • Strictures on Dr. Milner's Tour, and on Mr. Clinch's Enquiry, with a New Plan for obtaining Emancipation, Jcc. a Conciliatory Tract, by Edward Ryan, D. B. I&03. Watson, 57 they will only give up their doctrine concerning heresy and tlie Popes spiritual supremac];, and unite xvith him, who is a Milesian like tliem- selves, against me, a foreigner, and a vicar of that usurper, who deprived htm of his inheri- tance 700 years ago. In addition to this gene- ral motive, he is extremely angry with me for not taking notice of his Ansiver to fFard's Errata. On this head, I hope to make my peace with him, as soon as the work, which is now almost printed off in London, shall reach Dublin. But the most interesting parts of his book, in my regard, are those in which he maintains, that I zvas the person ivho prevented the bishops from consenting to the negative; that I went to Ireland for that express purpose, &c. &c. — He Wrote this, with my letter to the parish priest, and that to the Morning Chro- nicle, lying before him. Now I would appeal even to the writers of the Herald, whether it is not extremely hard, that I should be accused, and formally condemned,upon opposite and con- tradictory charges, as I am in other instances, no less than in this ? However, these men, who have *^ put me down in argument," will set all these matters to rights, when they come to '* put *' dj3wn" the Ryans and the Elringtons, &c. as well as to keep down the Muso^raves and the -I o Ledwiches ; which task is known to be now transferred into their hands. I finish 58 I finish with one remark, which I hope will be seriously weighed, and not forgotten. How- ever disastrous the late dispute concerning the admission of the negative interference of the Crown may have been in many respects, it has been infinitely less so, than a dispute about admitting its positive interjerence would have been. Now that the latter would have taken place, but for the existence of the former, clearly follows from certain circumstances stated above. F2KIS* POSTSCRIFTc HAVING, contrary to my expectations^ learned that the press is still open, I take the opportunity of acknowledging the receipt of three new pamphlets, which, in addition to the two above-mentioned, have issued from the Dublin presses, against me, in the course of the present month; one of these is called ** Reflec- *' tions on the appointment of Dr. Milner, as *' agent, &c. by the Rev. Dr. Elrington," and con- sists chiefly of the foulest misrepresentation of the Catholic hierarchy and clergy of Ireland, since the reign of Elizabeth. As such, I leave it in the hands of those of my Catholic brethren of that country, who are so much better qualified by their talents, information and zeal, to avenge the cause of their country, religion and saintedl predecessors, than I am. I can do this with the greater satisfaction, as one respectable person- age, who is eminently quaUtied in all the above- mentioned ])oints, has just thrown down the gauntlet in this very cause to all our adversa- ries ; * and as it will be found, when my Second I Tour • FiDE^Ts on the Royal Yeto» p. 13. 60 Tour through Ireland, with the annexed Letters, appears, novsr nearly printed off, that I have found an occasion of giving a sufficient reproof to Dr. Elrington for his personal misrepresen- tation of my conduct and v/ritings. On one point alone I will here meet his present state- ments; namely, by denying that there is any contradiction between the countenance (for such alone is the proper term) which I gave to a plan for admitting a certain negative interference of the crown in the election of Catholic bishops, and the declaration which I published of my readiness '^ to shed my blood, rather than consent '^ to an A-Cathoiic king's obtaining any power " or influence in this business." The fact is, that in discussing this plan, which is neither of my invention nor of my choice, I proposed (the only proposal which came from me) such restrictions as, in my judgment, w^ould have excluded all such real and efficient power or influence. The two otlier pamphlets against me are, I am assured, written by real and highly res})ect« able Catholic friends of m*ine, being both of them on the subject of the Veto, so called. Their authors proceed on the following mistaken notion : first, that I, Dr. Milner, made a pro- posal, or authorized our parliamentary friends to make a proposal, of the said v9to : secondly, that in laying before the prelates, previous to their meetinof, 61 meeting, a certain memorial, called '^ A Letter '' to a Parish Priest," (which, I declare upon my honour, was printed for no other purpose than that each prelate might have a copy of it) the arguments that had heen adduced in favour of the plan, I endeavoured to oblige them to adopt it: thirdly, that in publishing, since that meeting, in the English Morning Chronicle, an explanation and vindication of my own con- duct, and that of my friends, particularly of the bishops, with respect to past transactions, I warmly advocated the condemned plan, and en- deavoured to revive it. As matters stand, I see very plainly that I must not venture to question the justice of a single statement, the conclusiveness of a single argument, or the propriety of a single mea- sure, or even expression, which has been made use of against me, by any writer whomsoever, in opposition to this said veto; as I find by experience, that every thing of this sort, whe- ther written for the press, or in private cor- respondence, is misrepresented, garbled or mis- quoted in the strangest and most uncharita- ble w^y possible. Hence there seems no other resource left for me, nor means of satisfying the Irish public, both Catholic and Protestant, than, after giving to them what bas been for so many months in the ])ress, on the affairs of Ireland, to observe a total silence with respect to them in 6% ill future. This measure, I should hope, would at least satisfy the zvritei's on both sides of the controversy ; namely, Sarsfield, and Laicus, and Detector, andlnimicus Veto, and Fidelis^and the Parish Priest, no less than Sir Richard Musgrave, the Aged Clergyman, and the Doctors Duigcnan, llyan, Elrington and Ledwich. Jan, 28, ]S09, LETTERS FROM THE «^ REVEREND DOCTOR MIILNER^ {yVhich appeared in The Statesman) RESPECTING THE QUESTION INTRODUCED INTO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS BY THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE PONSONBY, LATE HIGH CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND, RELATIVE TO GRANTING TO HIS MAJESTY, BY THE IRISH CATHOLIC CHURCH, OF A VETO, OR NEGATIVE, ON THE CHOICE OF THE IRISH CATHOLIC PRELATES: Together with AN APPENDIX, CO VTA I XING A TRANSLATION FROM THE LATIN, AM ADDRESS OF THE IRISH CATHOLIC SYNOD TO THE CATHOLIC PRELATES AND DIGNITARIES OF THE WHOLE WORLD, PROTESTING AGAINST THE VIOLENCE OFFERED BY THE FRENCH EMPEROR TO THE PERSON AND RIGHTS OF POPE PIUS VII. LONDON: Printed and Published by George M'Ardell, 87, Fleet-Street; And told by Kkativg and Co. 38, Duke-Straet, Grosvenor-Sqtnre: J. Ridsway, P cca- dilJy; and b> the Piincipal Booksellers iu the Uuitt-.; Kia^doni. 1810. [Price Tko SMUings and Sixpence.} PREFACE. BY THE EDITOR. jT H E following Letters werejirst ptiblished in Ti/e Statesman^ from which they were copied into al- most every Irish Newspaper^ and into several of the English Provincial Newspapers, They have ^ there- fore^ had a very extensive circulation. There are^ however^ a vast multitude of persons interested in the subject of these Letters^ great tiumbers of whom have expressed a wish to possess them in the more conveni- ent form of a Pamphlet, and they are nozo offered to the Public in the present Publication^ incompliance with that wish. They have certainly excited a very great degree of sensation^ both here and in Ireland j and with much reason, for the topics of these Letters are important in themselves, and are connected with very elevated and respected public characters. It is not the Editor^ s intention to argue the question here, in any brief form, which Dr, JMilner has so com- pletely met with a full and powerful argument. But he would ill do justice to his feelings, if he did not say^ that the plain result of these Letters is — that Dr. MiLNER has proved, that his whole conduct in the affair of the Veto, or His Majesty's Negative on the IV appointment of the Catholic Bishops in Irelarid, ^V becoming of that high dignitij Dr. 3Iilner holds in the Catholic Churchy and zoorthi/ of his great and honourable reputation. Dr. Milner has proved, that Mr, Ponsonby, in pledging in the House of Commons, the Irish Catholic Prelat'^s to an acquies- cence in the Veto, did act without authority/ from Dr. Milker, and that both Mr. Ponsonby and his partisans, Nezcspaper zcriters and others, have grosslj/ misrepresented Dr. Milker's conduct. The fulitor does not impute vnicortJij/ motives to Mr. PoKSO?/BY, but his statements, first and last, have produced a gross misrepresentation of Dr. Milner'^s conduct in the affair of the Yeto, and that learned Prelate did tcell to himself, and the zchole countr?/ of England and Ireland, to develope the zchole affair in the full and complete mcuiner he has done in these Letters. He has proved himself to be an honest man, and after the imputations cast upon him bij Mr. Ponsonby, it became the dignity of his rank in the Catholic Church to do so. As to the proceedings of a Junta in Staniiope-street, relative to Dr. Mil- ker, the reader of these Letters z^: ill find his expla- nation of them highly interesting. In a zi'ord, Dr. Milker has completely laid all his enemies at his feet ; and the Editor, hnozcing his public and private worth, rejoices to see him triumph over tliem all. In the Appendix to this Publicat'ton, the reader zcill find a most important Document, zihich zi^ill be the more interesting to him as it has never before been published. The Paper alluded to is a Translation from the Latin, of an Address from a full Synod of the Irish Catholic Bishops, to all the Catholic Pre- lates, and other Dignitaries of the Romish Churchy in every part of the world. The stihstance and ob- ject of this valuable document is — a protest against #/ie base, cruel, tTencherons^ and impious conduct of the French Emperor towards Pope Pius VII, It is a production of great eloquence, religious zeal, and firmness of character. Of itself, it is sufficient to anszcer, and for ever repel, the wicked calumnies set on foot by persons who knew tJfem to be false^ ao'ainst the Irish Catholic Prelates and Church. It shews that those upright and pious Prelates, and that Church, so far from being seduced or terrified by the French Emperor i)ito diny departure from their duties y are among the first to feel indignation and resent the wrongs committed by the perfidious tyrant. And it is a fair consequence to say, that if the French Em- peror should at any time attempt to seduce the Irish Catholic Church from its duty to the civil rule of the Sovereis:n of these realms, his propositions zcould be met with disdain and repulsion. The r.eal of the Irish Catholic Church, for the preservation of the purity of its own faith, rites, and church govern- ment and discipline, is a pledge, and no insignificant one, for its due love and regard for all its other duties. Azcay then, and for ever away, with all the prejudices^ industriously spread amongst us, against the loyalty of the Irish Catholic Prelates and Church ; and away also with the foolish dread of the influence of the French Emperor over their minds! These preju' di^es a^e so unfounded, that they might well be treated as ridiculous, zcere it not known that, silly as they are, they have been used to keep the Irisli Catholics out of their civil rights, ai the hazard of Dis/iiE.'^TnEntNG VI and DESTROYING the empire of these Realms. But henceforth^ let the term disloyal he transferred from the Irish Catholic Prelates^ Clergy and Churchy to their enemies ! Let it he known^ that their enemies are the enemies of their Sovereign, and are but too fatally employed in undermining the legitimate au* thority and rights of himself and of his whols House ! London, July 13, 1810. DK. MIJLNEH'S LETTERS. 7V THE EDITOR OF THE STATESMAN, SiRj XN consequence of a paragraph which lately -*- appeared in your Paper^ I feel myself called upon once again^ and that in a more public manner^ to clear up the misunderstanding which took place between a certain Right Honourable Gentleman and myself two years ago^, relative to the appointment of Irish Catholic Bishops. To be as brief, then^ as possible — I never au- thorized any person to make a proposal on that or on any other subject in Parliament; nor was I ever led to suppose that such a proposal would be made, till I heard it in the House of Com- mons on Wednesday night. May 25, 1808.— Having waited, by invitation, on the personage B in question *, four days before the Debate on the Catholic Question came on^ and being asked, in quality of Agent to the Catholic Bishops of Ireland, what concessions they would make to the Crown, in future nominations to their vacant Sees, I answered, '^^That they never could grant to an uncatholic government a positive power in this religious concern ; but that I had no doubt of their yielding to it such kind of negative in- terference, as would satisfy it with respect to the loyalty of future candidates. I added, how- ever, and repeated with emphasis, that I had no instructions on the subject, and therefore could give no pledge on the part of my Constituents." — This latter clause was so clearly understood, that I was requested to write to the leading Irish Bi- shops on the subject, without loss of time, as I did by that night's (Saturday's) post. In this conversation, which, to the best of my recollec- tion, did not last a quarter of an hour, nothing was said about any prior negociation with the Irish Prelates concerning this matter, nor about any other ground on which I might have formed my opinion, nor about a list of three Candidates being presented at a time ; nor did the word Veto once occur, I wrote nothing, unless, perhaps, ray address ; and if, soon after the conversa- tion, I sent a hasty note, of which I took no copy, from my bookseller's shop to the Gentle- ■^ The Right Honourable George Ponsonby/ man in question, it was barely by way of inform- ine: him of a circumstance which I was afraid I had forgotten ; — not of furnishing a project for him to propose in Parliament or to act upon. Let now any Parliamentary Report of the debate on the Catholic Question, in May, 1808, be looked into, and the language in which the pro- posal in question was made, as grounded on my supposed authority, be weighed, in order to as- certain which party, Mr. Ponsonby or myself, has a right to complain on the present occasion. It seems, indeed, to be admitted at this day, (contrary to the tenor of those reports) that I did not take upon myself to vouch for the con- sent of the Irish Bishops. If not, how could I authorize a proposal on their part, and even pre- sume to dictate the terms of it ? To argue in this manner, from a loose unpremeditated conversa- tion or a hasty confidential note, when I was not informed of the use that was to be made of either, is unjust, as well as ungenerous. Finally, I never expressed my approbation of the manner in which this proposal was made in the House of Commons, nor was I present when Lord FiNGAL is said to have approved of it. In confirmation of this statement I have to add, that the very morning after the Debate, namely. May 26, I printed a Protest against the use which had been made of ray name irn the preceding evening, with respect to the proposal B^ in question^ copies of which are sfill in exist- ence. This was shewn by me a day or two af- terwards to our Parliamentary friends^ who ac- knowledged they were not surprised at my alarm^ acknowledging that I had not authorized them to advance what they had advanced^ and consenting that I should circulate my Protest amongst my Clerical Brethren. A few months after this^ when a writer in a Ministerial Paper had accused these Gentlemen of imposing upon Parliament and the Public^ in pretending to have held communications with me^ which had not taken place, I felt it my duty, in another news- paper, to refute the calumny. I did not, how- ever, acknowledge that I had authorised the proposal^ but I stated the particulars mentioned above, and then asserted, that '' thus far our advocates were warranted in what they had ad- vanced ; which was as much as to say, that communications had taken place between us, and that I had expressed a. persuasion thsit the Irish Prelates would consent to a limited nega- live. The circumstance which misled this Mi- nisterial writer, and has since misled many other persons, in consequence of their not understand- ing the nature of that limited power, which I represented as likely to be conceded, was the declaration which I have never ceased to make in piint, and by word of mouth, since the first mention of this subject ; namely, that '' I would *^ rather lose my life than be in^rumental in '^ giving power and influence to an uncatholic •^ Government over the Catholic Church.*' The fact is^ the project^ as I had conceived and ex- plained it, gave no such power or influence ; but barely enabled it, through the controiiling power of the Catholic Bishops, to prevent the appointment of a disloyal Candidate, in the ab- surd supposition of such an one being proposed. In the end I found, that, as the Irish would admit of no Veto whatsoever, so our political friends would not agree to those restrictions upo» it which I knew to be essentially necessary*. * It appears, from the Doctor's Pamphlet, that when he advocated the cause of a restricted Veto, (thinking that his Constituents, the Irish Catholic Bishops, were friendly to the measure) he strongly maintained the necessity of its ex- ercise being confined to a very few times , as otherwise the negative power, or rejecting candidates, would become equivalent to a positive power of appointing them ; as also, that it should never be exercised at all except upon the avowed ground of disloyalty or sedition^ Avith respect to the excluded party. Now, it is well understood, that in a private conference of the leading Peers in opposition, which took place in their own House, some time in the year 1808, it was unanimously resolved, that the negative power to b{' effectual must be unrestrained as to the actual exercise of it, and that the offer of a different kind of Veto was a mockery. On the other hand, it a{)pears from the Appen- dix to Sir John Hippisley's Speech, lately published by himself, p. viii. that neither he nor '' the Noble Lord^'^ who has the chief directions of the proposed arrangements, will consent that the Crown shall be required to assign any cause at all for rejecting Catholic Bishops elect. — The rea- son of this is obvious. The real object of the Veto is not to secure the loyalty of the Catholic Pastors, which is ac- knowledged to be exemplary : but to give *' sccm^ify and Nothing then remained for me^ as an honest consistent Catholic^ than to adhere to mj pledge of suffering every extremity rather than give my consent or countenance to it any longer. One of these friends is reported to have lately said that I have almost done as much mischief as Dr, DuiGENAN. As this Honourable Gentleman maintains my religion to be idolatrous*^ no won- der he should consider the undermining of it in a different light from what I do. This event to mC;, who have sacrificed every worldly consi- deration to my religion^ is the greatest of all mischiefs^ which mischief is aggravated in my eyes by its being done under a pretence of serv- ing It. Instead of occupying their minds with the conduct of a person of so little importance as myselfj I wish these great Statesmen would at- tend to the unanswerable arguments which I have lately addressed to them in my Elucidation of the Veto, wherein I have demonstrated that saUsJacflon^^ (as it is now avowed) to the clergy of another communion, to whom, in fact, the real exercise of the Veto would in each instance be transferred. — Hence T)\\ Milnyr's consent two years ago to the Veto being conditional, and his coriditions being rejected in toto, he was bound as a man of honour and conscience to abandon and even to oppose it. * By tlie Act of 30 of Car. TI. c. 1. every Member of Parli;tnient, previously to taking his seat, is required to swear that the principal service of Roman Catholics, the Mass, ii? fjlotoh o'fs, ■ the present political state of affairs is bj no means \vithout example^ as they suppose* ; that the Catholics haying, by their oaths and in their conduct, devoted their property, their civil rights, their persons, their lives, their writings, their sermons, and their prayers to the service ©f their King and Country, nothing more injus- tice or common sense can be required at their hands ; that there is full as much reason for in- terfering in the religious concerns of all other Dissenters from the established Church and of the Jews as in those of the Catholics ; that the ground on which this is attempted would have excluded the Apostles of Jesus Christ from preaching and baptizing in this island ; and, finally, that to pretend to pacify Ireland hj al- tering its ancient faith, which is now of 1400 years standing ; or, what is more irritating, for Noble and Honourable Personages, who swear that this religion is idolatrous, to tell the Irish, * During the wars which our victorious Edward III. and the Black Prince carried on against the French kings, the successive popes were Frenchmen and resided in France; yet no bad consequence ensued to our politics or our arms. It is to be observed, that the Catholic Bishops of Ireland have, in a Latin printed Letter, addressed to all the Car- dinals, Bishops, &c. throughout the world, declared that they will not take notice of any act of abdication which may issue from the Pope, during his present captivity, on the just presumption, that it has been extorted ; and that, whenever he dies, they will not acknowledge any successor to him, without full proof of his frce^ orderly, and cano- nical election. 8 as tliey do at the preseat day^ ^' we know your religion better than you know it yourselves^'* is more absurd^ and likely to be more fatal, than clipping the w hiskers and flattening the turbans of our Mahomedan soldiers in India, which at- tempt, the other day, deluged our fortresses there with a torrent of British blood, and shook our Empire to its very centre. I am, &c. Wolverhampton, May 29, 1810. JOHN MILNER. LETTER 11. to the editor of the statesman. Sir, Since I wrote to you yesterday, I find that the bolt with which I have been long threatened has been shot. The Right Honourable Mr. Pon- soNBY has published the Note which I sent to him, after the conversation he honoured me with on Saturday, May 21, 1808. I presume it is accurate, because I was so far from considering it in the light in which he is pleased to represent it, that I did not so much as take a copy of it. Whatever I may think of the publication itself of a private confidential note, I am not, upon the whole, sorry that it has taken place, because now that I see the note, I am satisfied it will justify me in the minds of liberal and sensible men from the obloquy \vhicli, during so long t^ time, has been heaped upon me. First, then, I appeal to men of sense %Yhether this note appears^, upon the face of it, to be a de- liberate, digested project for a new arrangement of ecclesiastical discipline, such as a person even of rnj mean abilities was likely to have drawn up, had he entertained a suspicion that it was to be made the ground-work of a solemn proposal in the Senate of the Nation ? Does it not rather appear, from the nature of its con- tents, to be a loose confidential memorandum, calculated only to meet the eye of a friend, and to be understood in conjunction with the con- versation which preceded it ? Secondly, does it appear, from this note, that the writer of it was sensible that the opinion which he expressed with relation to the Catholic Bishops -of Ireland was to be made the basis of a legislative arrange- ment ? Does the writer pledge himself for their consent ? Does he intimate that he commissioned any person to use such language as this: '* The Catholics have determined to make their '' superior Clergy subjectto the Crown." — ''The '' Bishops have agreed,'' &c. ?^ So fiir from * The wrlfer quotes from Faulder's Report of :al, Mr. Grattail, the Iloncurable Robert 11 Cliflford, and other respectable personages;, who urged the writer to suppress it. There is another highly respectable Gentle- man, who has performed a principal part in the debate now going on*^ well acquainted with the circumstance in question^ and who has often testified, and I am sure is ready to testify agaiir, that, first and last, I declared against an unli- mited negative in point of number, because this would be equivalent to a positive nomination. I grant, the words ''^ direct negative,'' contained in the note, are liable to be misunderstood by an ordinary reader ; but I contend they were not misunderstood between the writer and the Honourable Gentleman. The whole question then was about the loyalty of the candidate ; hence it was understood that the Crown was not to object upon any ground but ascertained dis- loyalty; and though the Crown v/ould, of course, ultimately decide upon this matter, yet the party accused was to have a right of vindi- cating himself from malicious whispers and ca- lumnies. This also is sufHciently explained in the printed Protest, one copy of which the Right Honourable Gentleman received from me on the said 27th of May, and another in the course of, our correspondence in the October of the same year, 1808. It may be added, that upon pre- * Sir John Ilippisley. Bart, M. P. c^ 12 senting the Protest to the Noble Lord, who so emincPitlv displayed his eloquence^ wisdom, and liberality in Parliament on that same day. May 27*, he objected., as he had done ever since, to Ministers being obliged to assign the motive of their rejecting a candidate for Catholic episco- pacy. The writer, however, has ever remained convinced of the indispensible necessity of the two checlis, or safeguards above mentioned; namely, a limitation of the negative as to num- ber, and as to the ground of its exercise. Hence, when he found that neither of these checks would be received by his political friends^ he felt it his duty to break off all further negocia- tions with them on the subject. But, to come to the main point at issue : does Ihe note convey any such idea as is contained in ^hc following passage : '' Dr. Milner has in- *' formed me that such is their (the Irish Bi- "' shops) determination; he believes that if the '' prayer of their petition be granted, they will '' not have any objection to make the King vir- '' tiiallij the head of their church?'' Does any person, who knows the least of me or of my writ- ings, believe that I was capable of holding out such an idea ? If he does not believe this, but barely supposes that I knew so little of the mat- ter I was treating of .as to have made a conces- * Lord Grenville, IS sion which went this length, without heing con- scious of it, I ask him was it fair, was it just to take this advantage of my simplicity ? Such, however, was the plea of the Right Honourable Gentleman, when I waited upon him to expos- tulate on the alarming proposition which he had made in my name, carrying, at the same time, the printed protest in my hand. What he said wa& to this effect, and I believe in these very words : '' I am not surprised at the alarm you have '' taken. I do not pretend that you authorized '' me to say what I did say ; hut I was at liberty '"^ to argue from the premises as I thought pro- *' per. With respect to this paper ( the Protest ) '' it is very fair, and I have no objection to your " circulating it." In fact, it was this proposition of the Gentleman ( which he was earnestly re- quested by his Parliamentary Friend, alluded to above, to explain aw ay ) which naturally pro- duced so great a combustion in Ireland, and ended in burning the writer in effigy. All this he might have escaped, and have retained the favour he there enjoyed, had he then told the Irish w^hat he is constrained to tell the English now. The only motive which prevented his doing this was a respect for his friends, and chiefly for the Right Honourable Gentleman„ This brilliant orator may be cheered both by hi? political friends and his enemies : it is easily con- ceived that my refufal to become again a party 14 to their proposed arrangements, which I know to be fatal to my religion, should, at present, make both parties willing to sacrifice so insigni- ficant a being as myself; still I look up with confidence to the deliberate judgment and can- dour of my fellow-subjects at large in both our islands. This Gentleman is reported to make a merit of not publishing my private letters, writ- ten at my leisure, after having published my hasty private note. If there is any thing in them that makes for his purpose, he has my full con= sent to their production : in the mean time I shall not, without a similar license from him, produce the letters with which he has honoured me. I am, &c. Wolverhampton, May 30, 1810. JOHN MILNER. LETTER IIL to tue editor of the statesman. Sir, You are very good not to give me up, nor to be ashamedof my correspondence, as you signify you are not, in your paper of the 1st instant, notwithstanding a vote of censure on my " opi- nions, conduct, and writings,'* which you sup- pose was passed upon me by '' the Catholic 15 Nobility and Gentry of England, in Stanhope- street/' on the 29th ult. I trust. Sir, that you will have still less cause to be ashamed of me after having perused the present letter. Be assured then. Sir, that no meeting, which in fact was, or v/hich professed to be *^f the Catho- lic Nobility and Gentry of England/' or the representatives of that body, took place at the above-mentioned time and place, and that the lawyer or lawyers who collected 32 individuals for the purpose which will be seen below, and who, w ithout any instructions from those indi- viduals, or from the major part of them (indeed 12 of the number were averse from the measure in toto)y are not themselves Deputies, or Secre- taries, or agents of any accredited body amongst the English Catholics whatever. On the other hand, you will readily conceive, that the man must be a very insignificant being against whom his baffled and indignant enemies could not col- lect 20 or SO signatures. The pretence which was made use of to alarm these individuals, was Mr. Ponsonby's speech against the writer in the course of the late de- bate in the House of Commons. Now it is to be observed, that neither Mr. Ponsonby nor any one else ever pretended that I took upon myself to answer for the company in Stanhope-street, nor for the English Catholics in general, as these lawyers are in the habit of doing; nor did I take 16 upon myself to treat of any matter relating to them. The whole question two years ago was, as it is stilly strictly an Irish question. The communication between me and the above-named Gentleman purely regarded my constituents, the Catholic Bishops of Ireland ; these venerable personages, being assembled in Synod at DuMin, within four months after the transaction, namely, on the 14th of September, 1808, I myself being on the spot, made due inquiries into it, when they unanimously voted that '' Dr. Milner ^'^ had given a satisfactory explanation of his *' conduct in quality of their x\gent, and that he " be requested to continue to act in that capa- '' ciiyr In the name, then, of common sense and com- mon decorum, what occasion was there for this Junta of Lay Englishmen to vote that they were not implicated in, nor responsible for, my opi- nions, conduct, or writings. As to the speech of Mr. PoNsoNBY, which was made use of as a bug- bear to alarm this Junta (after having raised much such a hubbub in the House of Commons as Dr. Duigenan's shameful falsehood did in the same place heretofore, on the supposition that I had maintained it to be matter of conve- viency whether oaths ought to be kept or not), perhaps these persons nxiy form a different no- tion of the matter, and wish they had not been so precipitate in passing a vote of censure on nie. It one of their Bishop S;, unheard, unrepresented, had they seen my letters of the ^9th and 30th lilt, which have appeared in your paper. At any rate I hereby defy them^ and the Right Ho- nourable Gentleman himself, to meet me^ (un- der their respective names ) on either of the two foUov^ing points; — Ist^ Did I authorize Mr. Pons ON BY to make any proposal at all to the House of Commons on the part of the Catholic Bishops — or was I even informed that he had an intention of making any proposal ? But this ground^ on which the Right Honourable Gen- tleman has hitherto stood^ is now abandoned by him and his friends; with what justice^ then^ either to the writer or to Parliament, could he signify that I had so authorized him ?— « 2d, Whatever words I made use of, was I traitor enough to my religion to lead him to expect that ^^ the Catholic Bishops, in the event of the ^' Petition being granted, would have no objec- '^ tion to make the King virtually the head of '" their Church ?"* Why, Sir, not even this is *^' pretended : what Mr. Ponsonby says in his revised speech, concerning the King's becoming virtually the Head of the Catholic Church, is— ••^ so / think he must become. "f This is to say, Mr. Ponsonby draws a conclusion from my supposed premises, and then asserts that I hav^ '•^ Faulder's Reports^ p. 134. -t Ibid. 18 assented to his conclusion ! ! ! Many persons will apply harsher terms to this conduct; it is sufficient for me to say^ that it is directly con- trary to all the established rules of argumenta- tion. In giving a brief history of the rise of this censure of the company at Stanhope-street^ I shall be under the necessity of pointing out se- veral particulars which the}-, as English Catho- lics^ had real occasion^ both in justice and in common policy^ to disavow^ though they had nothing to do with my agency for my brethren in Ireland. The Catholics of that island having yery justly conceived a suspicion that something was in agitation^ on this side of the water^ by way of reviving the Veto, which they universally so much execrated^ and that those English Ca- tholics who were convened to hold a meeting at the St. Alban's Tavern^, on the 1st of February last^ were to be made tools of for this purpose, resolved to take measures for warding off the dreaded blow. The Bishops agreed to meet in Synod on the 7th of that month, and the Laity to hold a General Assembly much about the same time ; when the lawyer or lawyers above alluded toj professing to write in the name of ^' the Ca- tholics of Great Britain,''' gave both these bo- dies separately such positive, strong, and re- peated assurances that nothing of the sort was in contemplation, and that the English Catholics, 19 in particular, '' would adopt no measures, but *' such as might be considered as auxiliary to the '' more powerful exertions of the Irish Catho- ^^ lies, and that they would regulate their con- *■' duct by that of their Irish brethren/' that the Synod and General Assembly were both countermanded. The letter from which I quote was dated January 26, at which time the writers of them had in their possession a Resolution which had been dictated for the English meet- ing of February Ist, to sign, and which in fact, after a slight change had been made in it, to dis- guise its most offensive part, they did then sign. On this occasion the present writer having, both in quality of Representative of the Irish Catho- lic Prelates, and as a Bishop of the Catholic Church, requested that he and his English bre- thren might be allowed to consult with their brethren across St. George's Channel, and wait the issue of the Synod, which he expected to take place on the 7th of the month, the Chairman proclaimed, with the entire approbation, as it appeared, of the writers of the above-mentioned letters, '' That they, the English, had nothing '' to do with the Irish, except to pray for them." Now, Sir, here was a something of the utmost importance for the company at Stanhope-street to disavow ; and I understand that one person did move something to this effect, namely, they ought to have disavowed either the letter of the P 2 m persons who professed to act as Secretaries to the English Catholics^ or the declaration of the Chairman. In fact^ both the one and the other has caused the greatest discontent and murmurs amongst the Irish^ upon whose consequence and determinations all our hopes evidently rest, Thej published every where that they were be- trayedj and that the English Catholics had broken faith with them. The General Assembly and the Synod were both resumed. In the for- mer it was resolved to instruct their Seeeetary^ Mr. Hay^ then in London^ not to make common eause^ nor to hold any communication with the English Catholics. In the Synod the Resolu- tion^ of the English Catholics^ which forms the substance of the second English Petition to Par- liament^ was rejected, inasmuch as the Prelates clearly saw that it was a cover for the Veto, and the writer of this was honoured with the Vote of Thanks inserted below*, which he conceives to be of more weight in his favour, upon an avowed theological question^, than the censure * At a Meeting of the Catholic Prelates, in Synod assera» 1)led, at Dublin, February 26, 1810, — " Resolved unani- -' moiisly, That the Thanks of this Meeting be and are <^' hereby given to the Right Rev. Dr. Milner, &c, for the " faithful discharge of his duty, as Agent to the Roman ^' Catholic Bishops of this part of the United Kingdom; '' and more particularly for his apostolical firmness in dis- '' scnting from and opposing a vague and indefinite Declar- •' ation, or Resolution, pledging Catholics to an eventual ^' acquiescence in engagements possibly prejudicial to the '' integrity and safety of our church discipline.'^ of a hundred times more numerous assembly of laymen than that which met at Stanhope-street, and which met in a 'private parlour , for the ex- press purpose of excluding other Catholics, who were not invited into it. It is plain the principal lawyer in question was of some such opinion, for he exerted the utmost extent of his invective and characteristical sneers in order to oblige the Catholic Bishops to disavow their synodical act in favour of the writer^ and even his commission of being their agent. This man, still professing himself a Catholic, told a Synod of 25 Bishops, speaking in the name of Christ, that their so- lemn act was '' an aukward attempt of malice, '' 2l libel, and a scandal/' I need not inform you that these good men were not to be bullied into an immoral act by such measures as these, though attempted in the name '^ of the Catho- '' lies of England." — Here, Sir, in my opinion, was a something for the company in Stanhope- street, as Gentlemen and as Catholics, to have disavowed, had not their wits been quite scared by the thunder of Mr. Ponsonby's eloquence. Having failed in this attempt, and understanding that I was in possession of copies of their letters to the Catholic Bishops, and of the latter to them, they, next assailed me to induce me not to publish them. (Why afraid to see their own q^cirtMetters, or that the Catholics, in whose name they were ivriitcn, should see them ? ) They 22 fawned upon me; thcj indirectly threatened me with the lavv^ with shutting their doors upon me; and finally with what^ to a fighting-man^ would have been a challenge to a duel. It is true I have not yet made use of my right in this parti- cular^ out of mercy to them and some respecta- ble friends of theirs ; but I have refused to give ihem that assurance which they demand^, namely, that I will not print the correspondence. No- thing now remained for these disappointed men^ except to labour in their peculiar province, that of bullying and bribing printers and publishers to prevent their serving me, particularly in pub- lishing the Vote of Thanks, v/hich clearly belies those glosses and parallels they have published in several newspapers to induce a belief that the Irish Catholic Bishops have sanctioned the En- glish Resolution of February 1, instead of re- jecting it as they have done. But this measure having likewise failed, by the publication of my Elucidation of the Veto, they have derived some consolation from Mr. Ponsonrv's speech, a spurious copy of which they have taken care to circulate all over the kingdom, and they have taken advantage of the momentary illusion it has occasioned to get the company whom they con- trived to assemble at Stanhope-street, to vote as they had done. This vote. Sir, professes to censure my jpoliti- cal opinions and writings, but isj m fact, a cea- 23 sure upon my theological opinions and writings. It is well known, that I have ever professed to leave the direction of our political matters to our laity, in as positive a manner as I have claimed the direction and management of matters apper- taining to the faith and discipline of the Catholic Church to its Bishops and Clergy. It is equally well known, that the cause of oftence which I and the Irish bishops have given to some of our laymen, as w ell as to our political friends, and which caused the latter to apply to the laity^ in- stead of the clergy, for effecting their intended alteration of our ecclesiastical discipline, is my public refusal, in my own name, and in that of the Hierarchy of Ireland, to pledge myself to this measure. Now, Sir, this matter, upon Catholic principles, belongs exclusively to the Hierarchy, in which I am known to hold, however unwor- thily, an important situation. I will say no more, than that the vote of the Stanhope-street laymen, which was virtually a censure upon me and upon the whole Irish Hierarchy, for acting in our own province, and our own concerns, is, upon Catholic principles, highly blameable. Wolverliampton, June 4, JOHN MILNER, 24 LETTER IF, to the editor of the statesman. Sir, I have been waiting near a fortnight for aa answer to my last letter, inserted in your Pape>: of the 6th instant, concerning the disclaimer of sny political conduct and writings on the part of certain persons who met in Stanhope-street on the 29th of last May ; but nothing of this sort have I seen, except a private apology from some individuals who formed part of that company. It is, then, admitted, that the persons in question had just as much right to interfere with my agency on the part of ray brethren, the Catholic Bishops of Ireland, as I have to interfere with the politics of China; and it is demonstrated that Mr. Ponsoney had no authority from me to make any proposal whatsoever to Parliament ; and that, in saying what he did think proper to say to it, he stated his own conclusions instead of my opinions. This being avowedly the case, I think it unnecessary to fill the columns of your useful Paper with a refutation of at least a dozen downright, falsehoods, and of double that num- ber of gross misrepresentations, contained in the report of that Gentleman's speech, which my adversaries have inserted in their hired newspa- 25 pers of the 28th ult. and circulated throughout the Empire. Stilly as it is a fact that some per- sons of my communion, however imposed upon by falsehoods^, and circumvented by the artifices of my declared enemies, did, on the day follow- ing the one last mentioned, disclaim my writings and conduct ; and as the printing of this in the newspapers is calculated to impress the public with an idea that I have been a very treacherous advocate of their causCj and that I have been concerned in some foul political intrigues, I feel it a duty owing to my situation to give some ac- count to the Public of my writings and conduct, as contrasted with those of my capital adver- sary, by whom the Resolutionists have been guided. I must begin with observmg, that it is neither a new nor a very humiliating circumstance for me to be calumniated and decried in the Senate of the Nation, and even in my own little body. Two years ago I stood at the bar of the House of Peers, whilst one of the Ministry accused me of having- in print ^'^ called the King an Orange- '' man, and the Sovereign of a very small part of '' his Irish subjects."* So the matter appeared, till the Nobleman who is nearest allied to the great Fox, in genius as well as in blood, con- vinced this Minister that he did not understand * Letters from Ireland, third Edition, p. 249. E 26 the English language. Three years Ijefore that period I sat in the gallery of the House of Com- mons, whilst a Member^ who is Learned, be- cause he is a lawyer, and Right Honourable, be- cause his Majesty has made him so, maintained that I had taught it to be '^ a mere matter of ^' conveniency whether oaths are to be observed ■"^ or not."* Mr. Pitt was astonished, Mr, Perceval was scandalized, and the whole House, during twenty-four hours, thought me a very wicked casuist, till my friend Dr. Lawrence produced the book, from which the Irish Doc- tor had garbled half a sentence, when the tables were completely turned upon him, and I expe- rienced the prediction of the Poet — Solventar risu tabulie : tu missus abibis. Some twenty years ago I was in so much dis- grace with a great part of those of my commu- nion in London, that they nick-named me Lord George Gordon, and would not speak to me iu the streets for that very conduct for which they are now obliged to me, namely, for being instru- mental in preserving for them their family name, and their unchangeable creed. In a word, Sir^ I have not the smallest doubt that the very indi- viduals who have lately disavowed my writings and conductnotonly will hereafter, but that they * Case of Conscience solved. 27 actually do now, in their hearts^ approve oj them. In fact^ some of those who have been the most active in ce^isuring me, have already con- fessed this to me. It does not appear that the company in Stan- hope-street thought proper to censure my writ- ings on History, Antiquities, or Theology, but only my political writings. Now the only works of mine which can any way fall und,er this deno- mination are the following: 1st, Letters to a Prebendaiy, which have undergone two editions in England, two in Ireland, and one at New York, in America. The object of these Letters is to vindicate the English Catholics from those foul aspersions, and particularly those of plots and disloyalty, which have been the chief source of the prejudices of their fellow-subjects against them ; and it has been generally admitted, that the Letters have answered their intended pur- pose. True it is, my domestic adversary, upon their appearance, entered into an intrigue with my more honourable public enemy, and encou- raged him in various ways to enter the lists again with me : still I fancy he would not dare to tell the Catholics openly that I had injured their cause by the work in question. — Another work of the same description is my Letters from Ire- land. This was intended to render, as far as was in my power, the same service to Irish, as e2 28 the former is supposed to have rendered to En- glish Catholics. It has gone through three editions at home^ and one in America. — A third political work of mine^ which has been twice edited^ is The Case of Conscience solved. This has been repeatedly panegyrized in Parliament, and even in the last debate*^ as an unansweraMe refutation of the alleged scruple concerning the Coronation Oath, and is said to ha\e produced a considerable eflfect in the quarter where it is most wanted. — A fourth work of the same political nature is my Letter to a Member of Parliament y in Answer to the several Objections against the Emancipation. This was quoted by Mr. Fox, in his speech on the latter subject in 1805, and, what was almost an equal honour lo it, was fouted by Dr. Duigenan. Finally, I wrote part of the Appendix, as appears by my name, to Sir John Hippisley's celebrated Substance of a Speech, &c. and when this was attacked by Dr. Duigenan in the NO-POPERY^I mean the ANTI- JACOBIN REVIEW, with a whole volley of Canon Law, I shielded the work^ and retorted the weapons on the assailant in A Second Appendix to Substance, &c. Now, Sir, I ask the individuals of the Stanhope-street company, for which of these political works, or for which single passage in any one of them, I Ideserve to be disavowed by them, and mi/ * Sec Sir John Hippislej's Speech, p. 53, 29 xvritings condemned in the gross ?* The works were written for their service — not my own ; for I was well aware that^ let the Eniancipatioa come when it may^, it will be no boon to Catholic Churchmen. They were written without the most distant prospect of gain ; for, though some persons must have got money by them, as ap- pears by the sale of them, and their going through different editions, I myself am hundreds of pounds out of pocket by them. Finally, they have produced an important effect, as is plain from the constant and violent attacks made upon me, in consequence of them, by the Duigenans, the MusGRAVEs, the Ledwiches, the Ryans, the Churtons, the Le Messurieres, and, ia short, by every individual writer and declaimer against the Emancipation. Well, Sir, I forgive my deluded bretliren of Stanhope-street : they were artfully inveigled to the meeting, without knowing why or wherefore they were called together ( as some of them ha^e owned to me) by my baffled, indignant foe; and they were scared out of their wits, as I observed * It is difficult to form an idea of more dishonourable conduct than that of Dr. Milner's adversaries in his regard. They judge and condemn him in a private pieked company, ' and in his absence ; they then publish their sentence in the Newspapers, without mentioning his accusers, his judges, or the speciiic charges against hini ; nor can any challenges, on his part, induce the authors or partakers in this public, defamation, to meet him in the face of the public. In the piean time, it appears that they are indebted to his modera- tion for not publishing their papers or eve« their names. 30 before^ by the echo of the Bruftum fulmen of Mr. Ponsonby's eloquence. In the spirit of forgiveness^ I abstain from calling upon them to publish their names ; but I am sure the Pub- lic will not think I ask for too much when / call upon the Resolutionists, as Gentlemen and as men, to insist upon my capital enemy's quitting Ills lurking incognito, and attempting, in the face of day, to justify the hasty vote into which, by himself and his agents, he has hetrayed them. He is a writer by profession^ and a lawjer^ and he has heretofore received a large sum of money from them and the other Catholics in quality of their Agent : let them then require of him in a publication, under his own name, to prove that my political writings deserve to he censured, and Ms to be paid for. I shall here just mention a few of this wTiter's political writings^ by way of contrasting them with my ov^n^ leaving for a future Letter the vindication of my political conduct. These are the Draft of a crippled Bill for the Belief of English Catholics, including an insidious hetero- dox Oath, and schlsmatical Appellation, both of whichj upon a full investigation of his argu- ments and mine^ were rejected by Parliament. This was drawn up in concert with a legal mem- ber^ who^ when he rose to the highest station of his profession in Ireland^, proved himself to be, what I alwavs declared him to be. one of ilw SI bitterest enemies whom the Catholics ever had. Notwithstanding this manifestation, the Catholic Agent continued to keep up the closest political connexion^ and is supposed to keep up the same to the present day, with this personage. — In the next place, my adversary wrote one folio Red Book, and the greater part of three large quarto Blue Books, so called, of which I will say no more, out of regard to respectable persons whose names he got affixed to them in much the same manner as he has procured the Stanhope-street Resolution, than that these w orks have, by the confession of every individual of the Catholic body, caused more dissension, vexation, and real misery throughout it, than all the books of con- troversy and invective which have been written against it from Fox's Book of Martyrs down to Le Messuriep.'s present Address in answer to my Discourse. I forget the title of another work of this Writer, addressed to the Irish Ca- tholics, but it is known by the name of the Gi^eat Now. This was corrected in the hand-writing of the then No-Popery Minister, Mr. Adding- TON, at the same time that the author w as pay- ing his court to the Ex-ministers who had just resigned their places from an attachment to the Catholic cause. He has published another let- ter to the Irish, the title of which I equally for- get, in which this man, the most dangerous enemy of the Hierarchy of his Church in modern time? 32 — indeed, much more so than his friend Lord R himself, the man who is and has been long labouring to extort any kind of Veto that can be obtained, affects to be greatly alarmed at that strictly limited, that iron-bound Veto^ which I, for a time, advocated, till I found that the Irish would have no Veto at all, and that nothing short of an absolute subjection and prostration of our Church would satisfy the religious jea- lousy of our political friends. I have professed to speak only of the political writings of my opponent; for you are to know. Sir, that his favourite study is Theology, though this he declares he w^ri'es upon, only by way of relaxation from his graver studies of the Law. I shall, therefore, say no more of him on this head, than that all real Catholics, who witness the latitudinarianism which he is constantly la- bouring to introduce amongst them, bitterly la- ment that he has not stuck to the following en- gagement of his, contained in a letter written several years ago, and now in print : — '' My '* theological career is finished : henceforward ' I shall retire to say the Church Office, and '' read books of devotion for the remainder of *' my life/* — I am, &c. WolverharoptOD. June 16« J. MILNER. 33 LETTER r, - -' to the editor of the statesman. Sir, I cannot disguise the satisfaction I derive from the proofs under my ejes that my three first Letters to you have already been reprinted in all the principal newspapers of Ireland. This cir- cumstance is a pledge to me that my Irish bre- thren now thoroughly understand the history of that Veto which has been deservedly the object of so much jealousy to them; and I am confi- dent that when this and my last letter shall, by the same means, have reached them, they w41l equally well understand the origin and policy of that vote of censure which, by this time, they have learnt was passed upon me by certain indi- viduals who, without knowing why or where- fore, were collected for the purpose in Stan- hope-street. In short. Sir, I am perfectly satis- fied with the result of the business; but I greatly doubt whether my enemies, in and out of Parliament, are so ; and I strongly suspect that they heartily wish they had not called upon me, in the newspapers, to disclose the above-men- tioned history, and to contrast my political writings and conduct with theirs in the face of the Public of both islands. F 34 In mj last tetter of the 15th instant^ I vindi- cated my political zvritmgSj and I appealed to public opinion whether these or the writings of my avowed adversary v/ere respectively deserv- ing of praise or of censure from a company of Catholics. I now proceed to give an account of what this adversary would call my political conduct^ in doing which I shall be under the ne- cessity of entering into a more particular com- parison of my behaviour with his ; because^ in fact^ my political conduct has chiefly consisted in refusing to participate in his political con- duct : ill other words^ my policy has been^ in all matters relating to religion, to have no policy at all, or^ to adopt an old and excellent English proverb^ I have ever been convinced that HO- NESTY IS THE BEST POLICY. I shall confine the comparison to the two most import- ant occasions when there has been a collision of conduct between us ; namely^, when the Bill for the Relief of English Catholics was in agitation^, twenty years ago^ and to the late occurrences relative to the Petition for the Emancipation of Irish Catholics. On the former occasion, this leader of Catho- lic politics insisted on the necessity of our fight- ing under false colours, by exchanging the name of CATHOLICS, or ROMAN CATHO- LICS, for that of PROTESTING CATHO- Lie DISSENTERS. The necessity and pro- 35 priety of this piece of policy he defends^ at great length, in the first of those Blue Books which I mentioned in my last letter. Accordingly he drew up his Bill,, and got it presented to Par- liament with a clause in it which required, that every person desirous of obtaining the proffered relief, should go into some of his Majesty's Courts of Record, and should there subscribe as follows : I A. B. do lierehy declare myself to de a Protesting Catholic Dissenter. Those Catho- lics whose consciences would not permit them to do this, were to be considered as PAPISTS, who maintained all the detestable doctrines ever imputed to such persons ; and it was understood that a separate Act of penalties and pains ( short, however, of hanging, drawing, and quartering) was to be passed and enforced against them. Accordingly Mr. Mitford, the Member whd was chosen to introduce the above-mentioned Bill, was instructed to represent the Protesting Catholic Dissenters as models of loyalty and all other virtues, and the Catholic Papists as dis- loyal and immoral wretches who, in some in- stances, '*^had starved the former to death/' On the other hand I, whose duty it was to oppose this crooked and irreligious policy, in quality of Agent to the then Catholic Bishops, declared strongly against it ; and I demonstrated in a hand-bill, called ''A State of Facts/' which I got distributed amongst the Members as thev f2 36 entered into the House of Commons^ to debate the matter;, that the manoeuvre in question was not only schismatical^ according to our creed^ but that it was also impolitic with respect to the final success of the Bill, It appeared that the Lord Chief Baron^ then Attorney-General, and Mr. Pitt, amongst other Members, were of this opinion ; accordingly, this trifarious chimera — this incongruous assemblage of Peter, Jack, and Martin was at once kicked out of the House, and the wall of separation between Ca- tholic and Catholic was, in a moment, levelled with the ground. But, besides the imposition of a misnomer, this Ministre de Culte, this '' Lay Vicar-General in Spirituals," as he was term.ed in print by the late Right Rev. Dr. Ma- THEw Gibson, this orthodox Catholic, who pro- fesses to have received '' new floods of light through cracks and flaws,'' had prepared for us a new creed, which was purposely made ambi- guous, to bear one sense in the meaning of Ca- tholics, and another in that of Protestants. This he inserted in the oath of allegiance, contained in the Bill, and he falsely maintained, in the above-mentioned Blue Books, that Ministry insisted upon our adopting it, even to its minutest terms. Instead of consulting the Catholic Pre- lates concerning it, who, in fact, twice over condemned it, as unlawful to be taken, he as- sembled certain private Divines at a tavern, and 37 tliere^ after dinner^ proposed it to be sanctionnd with their several signatures. Here agaisi it became my duty, on the part of the Bishops, and of the body at large, who looked up to their decision in a matter of this nature, to withstand this crooked and dangerous policy. In a word I demonstrated to Parliament, in the above- mentioned paper and in other publications, that we could pledge our loyalty and moral princi- ples as explicitly, in clear and unambiguous terms, as we could in the double-faced symbol with which our agent endeavoured to choak us. This plain dealing gained us friends in Parlia- ment, who are still alive to attest the fact, and it was finally concluded that the Episcopal party should have the oath which they then offered^ or that the Bill should not pass at all. It is a duty to me here to mention that Lord Gren- viLLE, Lord MoiRA, and Bishop Horseley were our best and most useful friends on this occasion. Now, Sir, if these facts cannot be denied by my Catholic brethren who assembled in Stan- hope-street, as you may be assured they will not publicly deny them, the world will judge whe- ther my plain and honest policy, which was the instrument in preserving to them their family name and genuine creed, or my adversary's crooked and dark policy, which aimed at the ^8 destruction of them both;, was deservmg of theii public censure. It maj well be supposed that, after these sig- nal defeats, our politician would not be very ambitious to stand forward, under his own name, in the transaction of our business ; still he con- trives, by his agents and other indirect means, to direct or influence almost every thing that takes place amongst us. He drew up the last Petition of the English Catholics, in which the tortuosity of his politics led him to affront our Irish bre- thren, and to affirm downright falsehoods ; for he confines, with the most studied caution, the religious grievances, therein complained of, to the English Catholics, and then proceeds to claim the merit of the military services performed by the Irish Catholics, and the consequence arising from their number. It is well known that I had a formal remonstrance on this and the other errors of the Petition in my pocket when a meet- ing w^as held for the purpose of getting it pre- sented to Parliament : reflecting, however, that this was a mere matter of politics, in which re- ligion was not concerned, I came to a resolution of suppressing it. — I now^ proceed to matter of a mixed nature, and of greater importance, as be- ing connected with the Veto. The Irish Catholics having, in the month of January last, shewn a spirit that was little expected by most others, though foretold by 39 me*, in rejecting the patronage of their great and powerful advocate. Lord Grenville, in conse- quence of his requiring the concession of this VetOj, and of other undefined ecclesiastical ar- rangements, as the indispensible condition of his services to them, it was thought good policy that the English Catholics should make an offer of yielding it, but in an ambiguous form of words, which should not directly express it, in the ex- pectation that their Irish brethren would follow the example. Accordingly a Resolution which Lord Grey, in presenting it to the House of Peers, plainly declared to be a pledge for all that Lord Grenville had insisted upon in his Letter to Earl Fingal, was delivered to our po- litician's Secretary, for the purpose of being signed by those English Catholics who were to meet on the first of February. At this very time, as I have before stated, he was writing letters, in the name of the English Catholics, to assure both the Laity and the Bishops of Ire- land, that no measures would be adopted by the former, but in coiicurrence "joitli, and in siilwrdl- nation to, such as might be adopted by the lat~ * Dr, Mllner admonished Lord Grenville's friends, in the Political Register of January 13, that if they persisted in urging the Veto^ the Catliolics of Ireland would consider it as a choice of evils bctucen them and the No-Popery faction. Within a week after this, Lord Grenville pub- lished his Letter to Lord Fingal, and in the course of ano- ther week, the General Con.mittee of Dublin ordered their Petition to be presented, but not through Lord Grenviilr'. 40 fer. Yet, this notwithstanding^ the Resolution was voted and signed hy almost all the persons Tjvho were present at the Meeting, few of whom, however, knew of the promises to the contrary which had heen so explicitly made in their name. On this, and on other accounts, I shall abstain from those censures which the Irish have passed upon this political conduct, and shall satisfy myself with defending my own, which again con- sisted in nothing more than in the positive re- fusal I gave, both at a grand political dinner, on the last day of January, and at the meeting itself, on the first of February, to be a party to it. In addition to my feelings of duty and reli- gion, I saw and urged the impolicy of the mea- sure. I maintained that it was for the advantage of the English Catholics to act in unison with their Irish brethren, as upon their national con- sequence all our hopes rested, and I positively refused to renounce that honourable commission which my brethren, on the other side of the wa- ter, had conferred upon me ; ridiculing, at the same time, the idea of our gulling the Irish into an opinion that the Veto was not contained in the proposed Resolution, and of our acting the part of a few tame decoy ducks, in order to lead an immense flock of wild Irish ducks into a snare prepared for both parties. Well, Sir, the Re-^ solution passed, and an account of the whole proceedings yvz^, the same day, transmitted to Ireland^ not by me; but by deputies from that country, who had been present at the Meeting, when^ upon the return of the post, in the course of eight days, it was ascertained that the politi- cal manoeuvre had completely failed, and nothing but complaints and execrations against the En- glish Catholics were heard throughout that island. It is not. Sir, by way of shewing that 1 formed a better judgment of the matter than my opponents, that I detail this transaction, but by way of vindicating myself from the imputation of dark and crooked polic}', and of shewing that, on this occasion also, the sum total of my poli- tical conduct consisted in refusing to become a party to a political scheme which I disap- proved of. I have before informed you. Sir, of the as- semblies which were held both by the Laity and the Bishops of Ireland, in conseauence of this measure, and of the Vote of Thanks which the latter passed in my favour, and of the disrespect- ful and irreligious letters which our arch poli- tician dictated, in the name of the English Ca- tholics, by way of bullying the Prelates into a dishonourable and immoral act, that of denying they had ever thanked me, or had commissiojied me to act in their name. I have also given yoii to understand, that copies of these shameful let- ters and extracts from other letters were trans- mitted to me from Ireland, as well as of the dig- 4^ nified answers which were returned to them^ and that^ in consequence of this^ my adversary was reduced to employ all his engines to hinder me from publishing these official, but unautlio- rized letters^ and to hinder different presses from printing the articles which I might send them, and especially the Vote of Thanks. Such, then, was the result of my chief adversary's crooked policy ! I had but to send his own letters to an independent press, when I could find one, to bring him into utter disgrace with the Catholic Body, and also with our political friends ! What now was my political conduct? I did not wish to hurt his feelings, and still less those of our common friends, further than was abso- lutely necessary in the discharge of my duty. The correspondence, therefore, has hitherto re- mained suppressed. The debates on the Irish Petition were now at hand ; when understanding that my opponents, with other lay English Catholics, were making arrangements, in concert with Protestant States-' men, relating to the discipline of the Catholic Church of Ireland, (a subject which neither party was qualified, by due knowledge, to dis- euss, or by due authority to decide upon, ) I thought it my duty to make more publicly known the doctrine and late determinations of the Irish Catholic Prelacy on this matter, adding such further information concerning it, as, from my 4S studies and my situation^ I was enabled to give* This I performed in a threefold Address to the Public, the Catholics, and the political friends of Catholics, called An Elucidation of the Veto, Whatever else my adversaries may say of this work, they will not deny that it is a fair, open, candid exposition of the subject it treats of, and very remote from that character of dishonest policy which they have endeavoured to affix to my conduct : in fact, it has been repeatedly commended in Parliament for possessing the above-mentioned qualities. It proves, amongst other things, against Lord Grenville, that, as the State does not acknowledge the existence of Catholic Bishops, nor the validity of any one act of their jurisdiction, it cannot, in justice, or common sense, have any thing more to say about the appointment of such persons, than about the election of Mab, Queen of the Fairies; that the pretence concerning the possibility/ of our Bi- shops becoming disloyal, while it is acknow- ledged that they are de facta loyal, would justify the imprisonment of every subject in the realm ; that the King does at present possess an efficient Veto, and the only Veto which he can or ought to possess in this spiritual matter, inasmuch as the new Bishops are always chosen by his sworn and faithful subjects, the actual officiating Bi- shops, who are pledged to choose none but mea of approved loyalty and peaceable conduct, and g2 44f who must be the best judges of the conduct and dispositions of their clergy ; finally, that these Bishops and the other conscientious Catholics are determined to yield their lives rather than bend their necks to the yoke which is prepared for them.* On the other hand, the Elucidation de- monstratesj against Mr. Grattan, that the Ca- tholics in general^ including their Bishops, hav- ing, by their oaths and their general conduct, devoted their property, their persons, their swords, their pens, and their prayers, to the cause of their country, it is no concern of the latter if they were actually to realize his suppo- sition by devoting their souls to Lucifer hini- self. The book proves that the ground w^hich he (Mr. Grattan) has taken, would have ex- cluded the Apostles from preaching the Gospel, and baptizing the inhabitants of this Island in the first century. In vain, however, have I used every means in my power to induce our states- men to establish a foundation for their claim to interfere in the internal concerns of our Religion. Many of them have taken great notice of me, but none of them has ventured to look my argu- ments in the face. The chief points which have * ^^ We may not be justly reproached for our solicitude '' in i^iiarding those sacred things (the integrity and safety *' of the Catholic religion, &c.), for wliich we are hound to *' watch and bear testimony with our lives, if lequired." — Resolutions of the Irish Catholic Bishops in Synod assem- bled, March 24, and the four follo'.ving days, 1810. 45 been urged against me are the following : firsts that I am not qualified to decide on the opinions, or eventual conduct of persons of my body. True, I cannot answer for the conduct of individuals, because they are at liberty to choose, or to invent a religion of their own ; but it so happens, that I am authorized to pro- nounce, and that judicially , what is the doctrine and discipline of the Catholic Church, and it is a fact, that I speak in perfect unison with the whole Catholic Hierarchy of Ireland upon this subject. — To this objection Mr. Ponsonby adds, that he has never communicated to me the in- tentions of Opposition, with respect to the ar- rangements of our discipline, when he and his friends shall z,€^i into power, and that I am the last man in the world to whom he should think of communicating them — I do most sincerely thank him for the compliment. It proves that he does not think me likely to become a traitor to my cause ; nor to become, a second time, a dupe in it. With respect to the fact of my al- \Q^e\\. ignorance, it is verj possible that I may not know of all the changes which he intends to attempt, when he happens to get into the chair of power* ; and I can easily understand the po- * It appears from Sir John Ilippisley's Speech, p. 27. and it is otherwise known that one of the projected ar- rangfrnen's is an Olhce of Inquisition, for examining every kind of foreign correspondence of the Catholic Clergy. — The basis of the Mhole arrangement is the absolute and entire sub-^ j Ligation of the Critholic to the controul of a rival Church. 46 licy of his not disclosing them prematurely ; but I think I have sufficient reason to saj^ that besides an efficient controul over the election of our Bishops by the Home Secretary of State, it is intended that an equal power shall be exercised by the Justices of Peace (Orangemen, or not Orangeman) in the appointment of our officiat- ing Priests, and that both orders shall be effectu- ally separated from their connexions with the people, and rendered dependant on the Trea- sury for their daily bread*. There are, how^- ever, two projected measures of these Statesmen, which I highly approve of, and which they well know they could carry into effect, if they thought proper to propose them in Parliament, independently of the higher claims, namely, an alteration in the Article 0/ War, by means of which the 200,000 brave Catholicsf , who are fighting the battles of their country, by sea and land, would enjoy the same religious liberty which other subjects enjoy, and an injunction obliging the Catholic Clergy to keep proper re- gisters of the baptisms, marriages, and funerals, * It is conceived, however, that the nerve of the pro, jected arrangement has been cut asunder by the following Resolution of the Prelates in their Synod, held as above ; — " Resolved, That we neither seek nor desire any other " earthlif cojisideration for our spiritual ministry to our re- " spective flocks, save what they may, from a sense of re- *' ligion and duty, voluntarily afford us." + See Sir John Hippisley's Substance of Additional Ob- servations, 47 performed by them, in the same manner that the established Clergy are obliged to do it. To such wise and patriotic measures no objection will be made on any side, that I know of; whereas, for half-instructed Catholic Laymen to negociate with Protestant Statemen, to regulate the exer- cise of the Sacrament of Orders, and the trans- mission of spiritual jurisdiction, is a policy as ridiculous as it is invalid. It can lead to nothing but disappointment and vexation on both sides, and, if followed up, must end in schism in one party, and the extremity of active persecution in the other*. It is honest, wise, and friendly in me, who am an authorised judge of the matter, and deeply concerned in it, and who speak in the name of others, who are also judgesf, and more inlmediately concerned, to protest as earnestly and as loudly as I can against the measure ;];. * It was this lay interference with the spiritual jurisdic- tion of the Church J on the part of the French National Assembly, at the beginning of their Revolution, which, being opposed by all the conscientious Clergy of France, ended in the murder of 4000, and the banishment of 40,000 of them. f In the year 1808, some of those lay Catholics of En. gland, who are now negociaHng with the heads of Opposi- tion about Vetos and oiher ecclesiastical arrangements, professed themL;elves willing to make an open surrender of these points; when they were answered, that they had no power in the business^ and that it did not regard them, + " Resolved, That it apperfains to the order, charge, *' and spiritual authority of Bishops of the Catholic Church *' to propose, entertain, and judge, Tcithoiii any lay inter. *' vention^ on points of Christian faith and general disci- <« pline."-— /^i£/. 4S Having now, I trusty vindicated myself from the reported attack upon me by Mr. Ponsonby, and from the published censure on my writings and conduct^ extorted by my professed enemies from the company in Stanhope-street^ I shall here^ Sir, close my correspondence with you for the present, unless those enemies should have the manliness to defend their work of darkness in their own names, through the channel of one or other of those public presses which they so ofteri employ for less honourable purposes J, and which they pay with money I have helped to raise. I cannot, however, conclude without thanking you, Mr. Editor, on the part of many thou- sands of Catholics, ( whose genuine sense of what is going forward in our body there may exi^t a * The writer alludes to anonymous defamatory para- graphs, mutilated and altered deeds, and false or misrepre- sented Reports of Parliamentary speeches. For example, by garbling a few words out of the 16th Resolution of the Irish Prelates, they are represented, in the presses alluded to, as approving of that English Resolution, which they ex- pressly rejected. — Again, an Irish Peer, who is supposed to be angry with the Irish Catholic Bishops, because they would not promote a Clergyman, who goes by the name of the Buck Friesf, to the vacant See of Tuam, is said to ha^e inveighed, on the 6th instant, against them, and against me by name ; all which invective is printed at length in these newspapers; after which the Duke of Norfolk is introduced as rising up, and saying : " I fear there is too much truth " in what the Noble Earl has declared :" whereas his Grace did, in fact, make that very explicit and generous defence of me, which appears in The Statesman of the 12th inst. And yet, if any one were to tell the contrivers of that base imposition on the Public, that they are not honourable meny tlj3y would be very angry. 49 necessity of bringing before the Public and the Legislature) as well as on my own^ for publish- ing this Vindication^ and without expressing my ardent wish^ that every calumniated and op- pressed subject may experience the substantial benefit of the Freedom of the Press^ by finding a liberal and an independent print like The Statesman. Wolverhampton, June 20. J. MILNER. POSTSCRIPT. As my implacable enemies continue to trum- pet through England and Ireland '^ that most important document of Dr. Milner's disgrace/' as they term a sophisticated report of Mr. Pon- sonby's late speech^ which they have published in their hired newspapers of May 28, I beg leave to remind them^ that in the beginning of this very report, they introduce the Right Ho- nourable Gentleman as acknowledging that — '' it is perfectly incorrect to state^ that the accre- dited Agent of the Catholic Bishops of Ireland had authorized me (Mr. P.) to make any pro- posal in their name/* This is a most important concession ; for it will appear, on turning to the debates of May, 180S, that a proposal was made n 50 071 the ( alleged ) autliority of the Catholics^ and that / was the 'person mentioned who had autho- rized the proposal. Mr. York's question to the above-named Gentleman was this : ^' I wish to know what he (Mr. P.) meant when he said that the Catholics of Ireland WISH HIM TO SAY that his Majesty should have a negative oil the appointment of Bishops in Ireland f It is^ then, as clear as the noon-day lights from the Gentleman's speech in the present year, that my name was improperly mentioned two years be- fore as, the authority for the alleged WISH of the Catholics that the proposal in question should 'be made in Parliament. I again repeat, that I had not the most distant suspicion that a pro- posal of any kind was to be made, on the part of the Catholics, or of any of them; and that, if I had entertained such a suspicion, the injunction of the Gentleman requiring me to write to Ire- land for instructions on the subject, would have entirely removed it. Again the Right Honour- able Gentleman is introduced, saying, '' Lord FiNGAL told me (when he carried up the Peti- tion to London in 1808, before Dr. Milner's name was mentioned) that in 1799 the Catholic Bishops had made a proposal to the Irish Go- vernment, and that thejj now entertained the ^ame opinion iheij then entertained. I asked Lord FixGAL if I had permission to state such a 51 proposal at the present time ? He said^ cer- tainli//' If this be true, I ask with what justice was the whole responsibility of the proposal thrown by the Gentleman upon my shoulders — suppos- ing I had known that it was to be made, and supposing I had even authorized its being made, neither of which is true ? It would answer no other purpose than to afford an unnecessary tri-^ umph over my adversaries, to expose the false- hood and inconsistency of the many circum- stances and conversations with which the report in question is swelled out — such, for example, as that 'Lord Fingal promised that I v/ould write to Mr. P. out of Warwickshire ; that I was in London before the 3d of May ; that when I waited upon that gentleman, (May 27, the day after the Debate closed ) I said '' it v/ould be necessary for me to publish something to jus- tify myself," &c. I shall barely remark, with respect to the last-mentioned circumstance, that the something in question I actually held in m}' hand, being a printed protest against different parts of that Gentleman's speech, as it was re- ported in all the newspapers, and that I pro- tested, in particular, against "'^the Catholic Bi- shops being concluded,^' by the opinion which I had expressed, and against the expectation which he had held out, that the Bishops would, in any circumstances, send up to Government tho h2 52 names of trios upon trios of candidates, or even consent to its choosing one name out of a single trio of their own proposing. I also confined the expectation of a negative upon single names to A REASONABLE NUMBER OF TIMES, and I clearly stated that it was to be exercised exclusively on civil grounds^ that is to say, barely to ascertain the loyaltij of the future Bi- shop. — Whoever attends to the limitations of feuch kind of Veto, will clearly see that it gives neither power nor influence to cm uncaiholic Go- vernment, over any part of the Catholic Church; and that, of course, there was no inconsistency in my declaring that '' I would rather yield my life, than yield such a power," at the very time that I was holding up an expectation that this Veto would be granted by the Bishops. Again, whoever attends to this Protest will clearly see that, however it may comport with the charac- ter of lawyers, it does not comport with that of Gentlemen, to take advantage of the loose terms of the hasty confidential note, or memorandum (relating to a great variety of heterogeneous matters), which I sent to Mr. Po^soNBY, after the conversation I held with him, inasmuch as that the note appears, upon the face of it, to have been a sequel to that conversation, and was to be taken, as to its sense, conjointly with it. The proof of this is, that Mr. P DID, UPON THE FIRST PERUSAL OF THE PRO- 53 TEST, CONTAINING ALL THE ABOVE- MENTIONED PARTICULARS, MOST CHEERFULLY CONSENT TO MY CIR- CULATING IT ; saying, as I have mentioned before concerning it : '' This is very fair on your part, I have no objection to your circu- lating it," In proof of this consent, I may mention, that it was well known, at the time, to Mr. G rat- tan. Lord FiiNGAL, the Honourable R. Clif- ford, and many other respectable personages, who used every argument in their power to in- duce me entirely to suppress it, for fear it should find its way into the newspapers, and thereby destroy the impression which the Right Ho- nourable Gentleman's eloquence had produced; and yet a little reflection, in my opinion, must have convinced them all that the Catholic Bi- shops never would, under any circumstances whatsoever, consent to make the King virtiially the Head of the Catholic Church, which opinion the Gentleman was reported to have held out, and which he actually did hold out. This Gen- tleman is said to have complained heavily of my ingratitude i*i representing him and his political friends as not being favourable to the religion of Catholics, at the same time that I allow them to be most generous and powerful advocates for their civil rights. All that I shall say upon 54 this subject is^ that if I were to hold the con- trary language^ and to represent them as favour- able to Popery itself, I have good reason to think he would be much more angry with me. J. MILNER 55 TO THE EDITOR OF THE STATESMAN, SIR, Shrewsbury, June 10. I have read lately in your Paper some excel- lent letters from Doctor Milner^ the Catholic Bishop^ whose writings for many years past, in various branches of polite Learning, as well as in Controversy/ have afforded me much instruc- tion. I happened to be personally present at the Debate in the House of Lords on the night of Wednesday last, the 6th inst. upon Lord Do- noughmore's Motion in favour of the Catholic Bill, and heard with satisfaction the noble and generous vindication of Doctor Milner, pro- nounced by his Grace the Duke of Norfolk. As the Globe, and other Papers of Thursday last, have reported Lord Clancarty's animad- versions upon Dr. Milner's writings, but have omitted to notice this passage of the Duke of Norfolk's forcible and impressive Speech, I trust you will> in justice, insert it in your Pa- per, as a tribute unquestionably due to this va- luable Divine. — -The following are the very words of the passage I allude to, and I can vouch for their accuracy. His Grace said — ^* A Noble Earl (Clancarty) has thought proper ^T^HE English Address of the Irish Catholic Bishops, in Synod assembled on the 26th of last February, to their Flocks, respecting the VETO, and the several matters connected with the VETO, having been published in different ways, the Editor conceives it will prove grati- fying to his Readers to furnish them with a Translation of the Latin Address of the same Bishops to all the Catholic Prelates throughout the World, relative to the violence ex- ercised on Pope Pius VII. which Address was also voted and subscribed by them, in their Synod held on the said 26th of February. To the Most Eminent and Reverend Lords^ the Bishop^ Priest^ and Deacon Cardinals of the Holif Roman Church; To the Most Illustrious and Reverend Patriarchs^ Archbishops^ Bishops, and Apostolical Vi^ CARS throughout the World, The Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland send greeting : — That in a new and unexpected calamity we should devise new precautions, and that, in adopting these, we should call for your religious zeal and assistance, the cruel circum- stances of the times, or at least, the motive of Christian charily by which we are actuated, will, doubtless, justify I 58 us in your opinion. For now is the time that judgment should begin from the House of God, 1 Pet. iv. 17. Let us therefore listen to the voice of our Lord and our God, speaking of the latter times of his people : When you shall see the abomination of desolation standing in the Holif Place, — then let those who are in Judea flee to the moun. tains. — But pray that your flight may not be in the winter or on the Sabbath day, — If therefore they shall say to you : Behold, he is in the desart; go ye not out : Behold, he is in the closets; believe it not, Mat. xxiv. 15, 16, 20, 25, 26. In these words, Christ intimates to his disciples that they are to withdraw i'or a tiuie (not indeed from their faith, nor from their hope of everlasring salvation), but from the earthly habitation of the true believers, and from the Holy- Temple itself, till the judgments of God are fulfilled; that we are to pray lest the laws or religion of different coun- tries should throw obstacles in the vray of this flight; and lest, our good master and pastor being withdrawn from our sight, we should take occasion to usurp his authority, sur- rounded as we are on every side with fallacious deceptions and impious artifices. This admonition of our divine teacher extends to these our times ; for we have still a tem- ple which the impious cannot violate, into which our High Priest, JESUS, the author of our Priesthood, has entered once for all in his own blood of the everlasting Covenant ; and we have had earthly abodes resembling and allied with those of the blessed ; we have yet holy Laws extending to the whole kingdom of Christ, of which this is the most com- prehensive and the most excellent: that we should all be ONE in Faith, in the Sacraments, and in Charity. '^' To '• manifest this UNITY," says the holy Martyr, St. Cy- prian, in. his book on the Unity of the Church, '^ Christ '• has, by his divine authority, established one chair, and " appointed one source of unity, in such manner that he " who withdraws himself from the chair of Peter, upon •^ which ihe Church is founded^ is no longer within the 6^ ^* Church ; and that he who does not hold to the unity of ^« the Church, has no faith." This UNITY, for the pre, s^rvation'of which, our blessed Lord, before he ascended ta his Heavenly Father, besought him with the piety of a Son, and with the Majesty of the Only-begotten Son, is not to be broken asunder by the impiety of men, or the violence of war, or the mandates of Sovereigns ; since the Son of God himself has assured us that it shall not be subject to the vicissitudes of this world, where he says to us : My peace I leave you ; my peace I give you. Not such as the 'iicorld gives do I give to you^ John xiv. 27. Hence those men who are bent upon oppressing this main source of our unity in Christ, so as to prevent its appearance at all, or its appearance without bearing, at the same time, the foul marks of fraud and deception, are not so much bent upon the abolition of a human law, as upon the destruction of the main work of JESUS CHRIST himself here upon earth, and of the principal hope of Christians in his divine pro- mises. That this has been attempted of late, it is impossible, venerable Brethren, that you should be ignorant. You have seen the upright, innocent, and holy Pontiff, Pius VII, disgracefully and cruelly seized upon, dragged from his ter- ritories, and buried in a dungeon. Hence arises the neces- sity either of our submitting to a ferocious and insolent military power for the most necessary and sacred intercourse of our holy Religion, or of our resisting this force in the best manner we can. — Could such behaviour be excused in any Christian, as io turn a venerable old man out of his ha- bitation, and drive him from his country, to oppress an unoffending Bishop of God's Church, to strip the Mother- Church oT Christianity of the whole of her patrimony, to overv/helm a most virtuous personage with detestable calum. nies, (crimes which we cannot think of without horror) then some sort of excuse might also be admitted for the impious perjury committed in the seizure of our Saviour Christ, for 60 the indjgoity o^ spitting upon him in his captivity, and for tht^injustke of robbing him of his clothes wlien he was cru- cified. — These injuries, howeverj do not atiect th^ holy Pontiff alone ; they affect us all ; whilst an unauthorized individual arrogates to himself that power which Christ left for the general benefit of his whole Church and of all man- kind, and requires us either to seem to abandon Catholic unity, or to yield obedience to the enemies of the British Empire, whom, nevertheless, we arc bound by the com- mand of Christ, by the sanctify of our Oath of Allegiance, and by a natural love of our country to oppose, not only by our counsels and exhortations, but also with our per- sons, even to the shedding of our blood, and the loss of our lives, should this be requisite ; which primary duties of Christian citizens we call upon you— we call upon God himself to witness we will most religiously perform. Therefore, having consulted together on these several matters in this our General Assembly, held in the City of Dublin, we have entered into such Resolutions as will ma- nifest our inviolable attachment to the unity of the Churchy and our veneration for the dignity of our Pontiff, Pius VII. and at the same time will prove a preventive against the above-mentioned apprehended evils. The following, then, are the points which we have discussed, decided, and re- solved upon for a perpetual remembrance : ^* Whereas the Most Holy and Glorious Pope, Pius VII. has, by a despotic mandate and a military force, without any fault on his part, been dragged away from his subjects, and confined in a foreign prison ; and whereas there may be danger of his sinking under the horror and sufferings of his situation, and being forced to abdicate his high office in the Church, and to ^ign some instrument, purporting that he has made such abdication freely and by his own choice: " Therefore Me, the said Archbishops and Bishops, hav- ing a thorough knowledge of the case in question, do, with an unanimous consent, rej'.ct, abjure, detest, annul and 61 make void; as to every effect of the Canon Law, all Bulib', whether true or false, Rescripts of every kind, Letters, in the form of Briefs, even those which may profess to be written by the free choice and with the certain knowledge of the writer, which shall or may signify the concession, resignation, or abdication of the Popedom on the part of PIUS VII. until he, the said Pope, shall be delivered from the captivity which he now endures, and restored to the free possession of his office and jurisdiction, and until this his freedom shall be made evident to us by unquestionable proofs, and not by mere acts, purporting to be acts of abdi- cation, nor by any approbations or confirmations whatever which may be annexed to the same. "^' And should his said Holiness, Pope Pius VII. being yet a prisoner, though under much less restraint than he is under at present, resign, or appear to have resigned, his high office, we declare such resignation, past, present, or to come, absolutely null, and we will continue to date the years of his Pontificate alone, without taking notice of any such pretended abdication. '- But if the said PontiiF, Pius VII. should depart this life during his present captivity, wc consider the Holy Apostolical See as being vacant, till it shall be fully and ca- nonically notified to the Churches of Ireland that a succes- sor to him has been lawfully, holily, and freely chosen. Such are our decisions and declarations, in the name of our Lord JESUS CHRIST, and in the unity of lii^ spirit, and in the faith of the Catholic Church." You clearly see that these ofir Resolutions are by no means intended to subvert the highest dignity in the Church, namely, the prerogative of the Holy See; but that, on the contrary, they are calculated to defend its never-failing authority from violence and indignity, and to prevent that bond of unity which Christ has left in his Church from be- ing abused by a fraudulent tyranny for the destruction of nur faith, and of the public peace, to the great dishonour 62 of the Apostolical See. V/c therefore commend this oor decision to your fraternal charity, and we beseech yt)u, for the love of Christ, aad of his body (the Church) that if, for prudential reasons, you should uot imitate our exam- ple, yon will, at least, assist us with your prayers. — Fare ye well in the Lord, most Eminent Lords and Venerable Brethren, Resolved in the General Assembly of the Bishops of Ireland, held in Dublin, February 26, 1310, in the tenth year of the Pontificate of our Holy Father^ Pope Pius VIL FINIS. Loudon r—Printed by G, M'Ardell, S7, Fleet>5treef, AN ELUCIDATION OF THE VETO, IN A THREEFOLD ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC, THE CATHOLICS, AND THE DVOCJTES of CATHOLICS in PARLIAMENT By the Rev, J. MILNER, B. D. F. S. A. &c. Qnf^quc ipse miserrbnu vide '^^ I^t ijuorum purs mald also by Books a, and by Fau uder, Bond-street; Sherwood, Nbelt and Jones, Patcrnostcr-Row ; Ridcway, Piccadilly; Bubd, Pall-mallj Simpson, Wolverh2»mpton ; Wii.ki, Birmingham ; Todd, York i SharrocK; Prcsion; and by Fxxzf atrick, Dublin. 1810, AN ELUCIDATION, &c. X HERE surely never was a subject of public discussion so much contused and so variously mis- understood as what is called THE VETO. But what wonder, when sorhe of the different parties more immedi- ately concerned in it, puiposely adopt obscure and ambi- guous language in treating with each other and the public about it. This may be right in a political point of view, though I myself think otherwise, but I am sure it must be wrong in a religious one ; and, as it is my duty to con- sider the subject in this light, I mean to speak out plainly and fully concerning it to the Public, to the Catholics, and to the parliamentary Friends of Catholics ; and to point out to them their respective mistakes, as far as the knowledge which I have load opportunities of acquiring concerning this matter, enables me to do so. I know jhat in doing this I shall give offence to several individuals for whom I feel great respect and regard, and that these per- sons will not fail to raise a violent outcry about the alledged evils resulting from the measure : but these evils, were they real, and were they ten times greater than they \\^illbe repre- sented, are trifling compared with the effect of those de^ ceptions which it is my duty to expose. The expected discussion in Parliament on Mr. Grattan*s motion, which B 6 isnowfixedfor the 15tli of the present month of May, will unavoidably withdraw a corner of the veil that envelopes this subject; but unless the veil be totally removed, I foresee that the discussion itself will create fresh errors,^ and the matter will become more complicate and confused than ever. Many of the public then suppose that the Veto, of which they have heard so much, consists in a direct power of His Majesty to nominate or present Bishops to their offices, in the same manner that he does Protestant Bishops, and they think it very natural that he should enjoy this power. But these persons are not sensible of the nature and import of a nomination or presentation to a bishoprick according to the theology and canon law of Catholics. This then, in the Catholic system, is a pub- lic testimony (which the person who presents, makes in the name of the Catholic flock to the Church, in the persons of the ordaining Prelates) of the general merit, and particularly of the orthodoxi/ of the candidate pre- sented. Now would it not be a palpable absurdity for a person, who, like His Majesty, strongly protests against the supposed heterodoxy and even the idolatry of Catholics in general, to vouch for the orthodoxy of their very teachers 1 Again, the very act of representing a catholic congregation, and the presenting a clergyman to be or- dained a Catholic Bishop, is an overt act of religious communion with Catholics. It is needless to ask whether His Majesty wishes or his subjects in general wish that he should appear in this light. In the second place ; it has been generally believed by the public that the writer of this, in quality of Agent to the Catholic Bishops of Ireland, procured, or at least au- thorized a proposal to be made, in the House of Commons on the 25th of May 1808, for Testing His Majesty, eithe with a positive power of nominating Catholic Bishops inr this kingdom, or, at least, with such a negative power a$ would amount to " a real and effectual nomination of *' them"(l). — —The truth, however, is that the writer 7iever took upon himself to proaire or to authorize any pro- posal at all to he made in either House of Parliament, The fact is, he was sent for up to London, by a nobleman charged with the custody of the Catholic Petition, five or six days before the date above-mentioned, and introduced by him to a certain leading member of the House of Com- mons, when the question was put to him, in quality of agent to the Catholic Bishops, zvhat power they would yield to the crozcn in future appointments to their 'vacant sees? His answer was, and this he repeated different times, that he had no instructions from them as to this mat- ter, and therefore could give no pledge on their behalf concerning it : that he well knew they could not yield to a Protestant Sovereign a positive power in a concern of this nature, but that he was i\A\y persuaded they were disposed to yield a negative power ; that is to say, such a power as was sufficient to prevent disloyal or seditious candidates from being consecrated : for there was not then the least question about giving security to the Protestant Establish' ment, but barely about providing agaitist treason and sedi* tion. The conversation was very short and vague. The writer considered himself as hdixeXy giving information tea friendly advocate, in the same manner as he had done to Mr. Fox and other members of parliament, when the former petition in 1805 was in agitation ; and he had not the most distant idea of forming any project to be offered to (i) See the Report of the Debates published by certain Catholics, ;ardsol(l by Faulder, p. 114, It is full of grammatical inaccuracies, and frequently varies very much from the speeches actually delivered > Still as many of these were revised by the speakers themselves, they are to be considered in th« present form as containing their deliberate sentiments. B2 8 Parliament. The same was the meaning of a short note which the writer scribbled over in a bookseller's shop, and sent to the personage in question as he was returning home from the interview : concerning which note much misrepresentation has taken place. It was intended to ex- plain a condition which the writer was fearful he had not sufficiently expressed in the conversation, of which con- versation he considered it as a supplement, to be under- stood in conjunction with zvhat had passed in it. In proof of the truth of this statement, it is proper to mention that the writer printed a paper on the very 26th of May 1808, within a few hours after the newspaper reports of the debate on the preceding evening were published, in which he strongly protests against certain statements in those reports relative to the conversation in question, gives the same account in substance as is given now, and main- tains in particular, that he did not enter into an engage- mentf but barely gave an opinion as to what the Bishops would consent to, without the least engagement. This paper (copies of which are still in the writer's possession) was shewn to different members of parliament, and par- ticularly to the member in question, who consented to his circulating it in Ireland. When afterwards these per- sonages were accused in the Morning Post of a foul im- position on the public, in pretending to have held com- munications with Catholics which had never taken place, the writer thought it his duty to step forward in the Morning Chronicle, in order to clear them from the as- persion, and to testify that they had conversed with the agent of the Irish Bishops, and that they had reason to suppose, as far as his opinion went, that these Prelates would concede to his Majesty's government a certain re- stricted negative power. To finish this history : the Catholic Bishops met in Dublin on the 14th of September 1808, when they unanimously pronounced it to be " inexpedient to introduce any alteration in the " canonical mode hitherto gbserved in the nomination of Q " the Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland;** to which decision their agent^ who was then in Dublin, sincerely submitted. Discovering afterwards, and clearly ascer- taining that a restricted negative, confined in its exercise to a certain number of times, and to the sole purposes of civil allegiance, would not satisfy our political friends, but that they v/ere bent upon acquiring a real efficient controul over the choice of our Bishops, and^ by that means over the discipline, if not the faith of our Church, he grew convinced that it was his duty to oppose the new arrangements altogether, by whatever name they might be called, and to stand by that engagement which he had publicly made, and printed in the newspapers at the very time when he advocated the restricted negative ; namely, '* rather to give his blood, than to give to an uncatholic '^ Sovereign either power or influence in any part of the *' Catholic Church." The fact is, the Veto, as he had imagined it, in case its conditions were strictly adhered to, would not have given either power or influence to the crown, but barely the means (which at first he conceived was all that was wished for) of excluding real traitors and disturbers of the public peace from a seat amongst our Prelates. If this statement be true, and the writer defies a refutation of it, where is that inconsistency of his con- duct with which he has been so often reproached.? Nay, how could he, as a consistent Catholic and an honest man, have acted a different part from that which he has acted ? Amongst those who have been most forward in urging these reproaches, is the author of a pamphlet called Co- lumbanus ad HibenioSy not St. Columba of Jona, nor St. Columban of Luxieu, but a person well known for his antipathy to a British Virgin of the seventh century, called St. VVinefrid, and for his petulance towards the present writer; as also from his making use of the press in the tow^n of Buckingham. This modern Columba calls the writer a PoIi/pus, a stick, a stone j a clod of earth, Jirc 10 and water, &c. (l) by way of charging him with inconsist- ency, in having heretofore defended one kind of Veto, and in now objecting to quite a different sort of it. But surely he can understand, that if I were to approach a bush thinking to take a gentle dove (2), and found in- ^ead of it a fierce serpent (3), there would be no incon- sistency in my now running to, and then running from, the same object. It is possible that Columba (4) may be ac- quainted with some of the circumstances which contri- buted to open the writer's eyes as to the real nature of the proposed arrangements. If so, though I shall not men- (i) Columban, pp. 54, 55. (:) Colamba. (3) Coluber. (4) This writer insinuates, that 1 have made a " Saint Cobbet," jnerely because I gave a friendly and very useful piece of advice to some of his friends, through the Political Journal, bein^; the best written, and the most generally read of all our periodical fiapers. Within three weeks after 1 had published my predictions, namely, wiihin three weeks after the 13th of January, they were sadly verified, lie insinuates also that I have made a saint of Mr. Finerty. He may "be a saint for any thing I know of him, even by character ; but cer* tainly 1 have not canonized him, — His principal charge, however, against me is, that I thanked Lord Grenville and Messrs. Grattan and Ponsouby for their speeches, and yet that I have declared " I <• would rather die than attribute power to a Protestant king over our *' Church." Bat certainly a client may thank his zealous and power- ful advocate, without approving of every thing which he may have advanced in a speech of three or four hours continuance. I am sure Lord G. never fancied that I approved, for example, of his lamenta- tions over the supposed " errors of my faith." It is true, that as his Lordship thought proper, of his own accord, to mention the Veto in the House of Lords, I thanked him for steering clear of the fatal mistake which had been made on that head in another place, Columba has good reason to know that, when 1 waited on that Nobleman, and the two Right Hon. Gentlemen, I carried with me the above-mentioned printed protest against those mistakes.— Finally, Columba accuses me of wickedness and heresy, in saying that it would be martyrdom for a Catholic to shed his blood, rather than yield the dominion over his Church to an uncatholic King.—* My answer is, that it belongs to my office, not to his, to judge ia these matters, and that I repeat the assertion. 11 tion them, he may, if he pleases, publish thera. The professed object of his book is, to recommend " to the " island of saints those salutari/ restraints of legal respon- " sibility, avowedly consistent with its faith, which sober *^ anti-fanatical statesmen endeavour, in 'pity to the Irish '^ people, to interpose^ as an segis of defence, between their *' liberties and the usurpations of that uncontvouled May- *' nooth Imperiiim in Imperio, which is insidiously styled *^ the Independant Hierarchy of the Irish Church." In other words^ he advises his countrymen, to abjure the spiritual jurisdiction of their present canonical Catholic Prelates, and to acknowledge that of Protestant States- men. In furtherance of this scheme, he represents these Prelates, w'hom every body but himself speaks well of, in the most odious colours of selfishness, malice, pride, &c. What a comfort must it be for Columba to think that he is not likely to be disgraced by keeping such bad com- pany, or even to be troubled with their commissions, unless he should undergo another metamorphosis, in the shape of a retractation ! The truth is, his book is a medley of eccle- siastical democracy, schism, and heresy. It will do little harm in Ireland, because it wdll be little read there ; in the mean time it does some good: — it shews the man, and exposes the projected system of arrangements. But the public has been told, that the Irish Catholic Prelates themselves have acceded to the Veto (and a paper relating to this business has been printed, first in the Catholic Report of the Debates, and afterwards in other publications) : I shall say nothing of the means by which that paper was obtained, nor of the mf ccchsiustical Govern- " ?nent h (2) Lastly, the public are continually told by different statesmen and their echo's, that the interference ot" Government in the appointment of Catholic Bishops is the grand specific for securing the peace of Ireland. Hea- vens ! what falst4iood and folly is not the public doomed to swallow in this enlightened age as it is pleased ttant writers as a class of Ciiristians distinct ffom common Catholics, ■ 17 iion as well as of rank, said to me wlieii I was last in Lon- don. " I observe," says be, " that you Catholics am '* constantly talking, in a very general way, of the sup- " port of your friends in parliament. But do not iraa- " gine that, if we are tlie friends of your emancipation, " v»c are also the friends of your religion/' I answered, thai for my part I never entertained that error. Another of our best and kindest friends in parliament, addressing the other day a very respectable personage, a friend of mine, whose sentiments he happened greatly to mistake, said to him: "Let us alone with what we are about: /^ in five years there W'ill not be left a Catliolic Peer in the " kingdom." In fact, have not all these friends sworn, as the condition of their admission into parliament, that our worship is idolatry? And it would be a libel upon, them to say that they do not wish to convert idolaters. In their very pleadings for us they profess this wish ; and many of them are the most forward, for example, in dis- tributing liibles amongst our poor people, not that they expect these people will hammer the 39 articles any more than Quakerism out of it, hut it is well understood that when once we turn our back upon the living, speaking tribunal of the Church, and take the letter of the revealed law into our own hands, to interpret it, each for himself, we cease to be Catholics. 1 may here mention, (in the fond hope of causing effeGtual inc|uiry to be made into the political iis well as religiuiis mischief,) that upon the large esiatcs of certain great landed proprietors in heland, no Catholic, however good a tenant he may have proved himself, is allowed to retain his farm upon the expiration of his lease ; but Protestant tenants are universally sought i\)rwith as much zeal as another member of Parliament, the lit. Hon. Chanc^^llor of the Irish Exchequer, advertised some some years ago, for ci Pioteataut blacksmith. I men- tion these circumstances with the utmost respect for our Parliamentary advocates, and with a full conviction that they do rjot wish to t^e considered as favouring ou^ 18 reliLj;ion, merely to shew that those who are Catliolics, not by halveS;(l) nor by a mere hereditary connexion, but "who are entirely and conscientiously so, must not put their religion in commission with persons, however ho- nourable, who protest against it, but must look to them- selves, or rather to their pastors for its security. I now proceed to the main point to be proved, namely, that the mrangements to zohich our political friends have- declared themselves wimovcahl if fixed are iucompatihle zciih the safety and integrity of the Catholic religion. Nothing:, most assuredly but a deep convicUon of this truth could have induced the writer, after sacrificing no small degree (i) A learned Catholic gentleman who cultivates various studits, but who writes theology, as he says in the motto to his last work, by way of relaxation from his graver siudies, is for ever importuning Catholics with a project which he has conceived of uniting Cliristians of all denominations, Catholics, Protestants, Joannians, Jumpers, Jerusalemites, &:c. in one religion. Speaking of this his undei taking, he calls it ** an Herculean labour, but not impracticable;" and adds; *' It is evident that, at one time more than another, the pub* ** lie mind may be disposed to peaceful councils, and to feel the ** advantage of mutual co7j cessions: perhaps vctiit hora ct nmic est.'* He continues, ** a flood of light seems to break in and to point out ** to all who invoke the name o( Christ, the expediency of a general •' coalition in de-fence of their common Christianity." See Revolu- tions ot iheGerman Kmpire, by Charles Butler, E>q. pp. 154, 155. In his work, which has just appeared, the Life of Fenelon, he ex« presses himself in much the same language. See notes at the end. And in this he is pleased to draw up a new Creed, consisting of eleven Articles, for the common use, as he explains,. ot Catholics, Churchnien, Dissenters, Socinians, &c. Treating on a particular occasion with this hopeful disciple of the latitudinarian Dr. Geddes, (See his edition of Dr. G — 's Version of the P.^alms, pub. lished in opposition to the censure of the V. V. A. on Dr. Geddcs's Translation, in their printed Pastoral of 1793) he avowed that the Protestants had gone into Socinianism. Within less than five mi- nutes afterwards he launched tbrth into his favourite topic,the religious union of Catholics with Protestants. ** How now Sir," said I» *' after going over to the thirty-nine Articles, are we to follow them '* ako into Socinianism f" 1'he orator tor once was dun)founded. 19 of popularity in Ireland, by adv-bcating the negative power, as he first understood it, to forfeit the favour and patronac^e of so many illustrious personages in his own country by opposing it now that he has distuictly viewed it. To prove the assertion here made, I have to shew, first, that a real and efhcient power of nominating the head pas-» tors of our religion, whether by a positive power, or by a negative power equivalent to a positive one, namely, by at discretionary Veto, independantly of all other arguments, must bring about such a dregradation of tlie episcopacjj^, and thereby of the other clergy, in their character, theit conduct, and their doctrine, as would soon provt3 the iuiiiihilalioii of Catholicity amongst us : Secondly, that the attempt lo deprive the successor of St. Peter in the See of Rome, of whatever country he may chance to be a native, of his right to give investiture to our bishops, is an attempt to drive the Catholics into a downright schism, and of course to destroy their character of Catholics : And, thirdly, that our parliamentary friends do absolutely insist upon one, if not both of these things. Ln fact, what description of clergymen would the Privy Counsellor Dr.Duigenan, were he promoted to be Minister, or indeed any other Protestant Minister who had an efii- cient power in this respect, chooss for filling up our vacant Sees ? Would they be our Challoners, or our Walmsleys, men who, by their pastoral labours and writings, had incurred the censure of false zeal and bigotr}'.(l) Do not you think thc^ would rather be the Kir\van*s, the (i) Mr. Burke in his letter to a Peer of Ireland, speaking of Castle Patronage says, *' Never were the Members of one religious Sect fit *' to appoint Pastors to another. Those who have no regard for their " welfare, reputation, or internal quiet, will not appoint such as are •' proper. Ihe sport of the Seraglio, with the miserable dignities " of the Greek Church and the factions of the Haram, lo which ** they make them subservient, are nearly equal to all the othe^ *' oppressions together exercised by -Musselmen over the unhappy /* mernbt-rsof the Oriental C!iurch, U is a great deal to suppose 20 Geddes's, and the Doran's, men who would either saci'l^ iice the principles of our religion or disgrace it by their immorality ? To satisfy yourselves on this point look at the ailed eed motive for the interference of State Ministers in the selection of our Bishops : it is to ensure the safety of the religious as well as the civil estahVishment of the country. Now we can readily conceive how such a Bishop as the learned gentleman's friend, Dr. Geddes, (who in his moded ^Jpologi/, w^ritten in o])position to the Letters against Dr. Sturges^ gives up the Catholic doctrine upon every point of controversy, and calls for one more general council to revise the decisions of all past general councils), we can conceive, 1 say, how he may serve other religions, by betraying his own, but we cannot imderstaiid how a Challoner, the imihov oi^ Groiirfd'^ of the Old lic/i- gioti, could contribute to this. The truth, however, is, the King's Minister himself would very seldom have a choice in this matter. The fact speaks for itself r upon the demise of each Catholic Prelate, tw enty noblemen or gentlemen would hurry up to the Castle of Dublin, each one soliciting or rather requiring that his deyiendant priest should be appointed to the vacant see. This might be indifferently effected whether the Lord Lituitenant possess- ed a positive power or an efficient negative one, as, in the latter case, he would only have to apply his Veto to every other name except that of the person recommended, whose influence at elections would be the stipulated price of such patronage. It would be a useless waste of paper and tinie to shew that Catholic Bishops thus chosen, are as likely to contribute to the establishment of other churches, by disgracing their own, as if they had been selected pre- cisely for their heterodoxy. •* that the present Castle would fiominate Bishops for the R. Church. ** of Ipeland with a religloas regard for iis welfare. Perhaps they " cannot, perhaps they dare not do it." Burke's Wo rics, vol. vi. p. 29c— or that Letter, p^ge 23, published apart by jKeating, Lon- don 1785, price 6d. 21 Tliere is still less occasion to take up time in demon strating, that to interdict the necessary recourse of Bi- shops elect to the Head of the Church, for that spiritual jurisdiction which precisely confers upon them, the office of Bishops in their respective dioceses, is to insist upon their ceasing to be Catholics, since this power is declared in the last General Council to be inherent in the Bishop of Rome ()). It remains for me to shew that our political friends do absolutely require, as the price of their parliamentary ser- vices, one, if not both of these unlawful and fatal conces* sions. Lord Grenville, in his well known printed letter to Lord Fingal, dated J an. 29, (written, as he says, "in * Trid. Sess. vi. c. i. Sess. xxlv. c. i. ** B. Romanus Pontlfex, " quam solicitudinem universa ecclesice ex muneris sid officio debet *' ut lectissimoa tantum sibi cardinaies asciscat ; et ^57205 maxime et ** idoneos Pa'dores singulis ecclesits prcrjiciat,'' Legitima consecrff- ** tio nulla fit in Ecclesia Catholica Universa, nisi ex Apostolicse *' Sedismandato " Pius VI. Episc, Galli8£, April 13, 1792. See the Address of the R. Catholic Prelates below, Append, n. 8. A friend of the learned gentleman in Lreland, and feilcw-labourer with priest Col umba, pleads earnestly for ewancZ/ja^/??^ the Catholic Church of Ireland, by yieldrng?^ controuling power over it to persons who protest and swear agaimt it as being superstitious and idolatrous.-— — He denies that the Pope ever exercised any legatine authority in Ireland before the twelfth century, and thereby proves himself ignorant of history. He asserts tliat the Pope's interference in the nomination of bishops is confined to '*afbrni of recognition," and thereby shews ,him<;(!!f to be ignorant of his religion; and he describes the statute of Framunire and Proviso?^St passed in the reign of Edward III. as an ** utlfr exclusion of the Pope from all matters of ecclesiastical *■ discipline," and tiiereby betrays his deficiency in point of legal knowledge. It appears fiom the existing registers of Canterbjry, for example, tlmi every .•\iclibishop of that See, from Simon Islip, who governed it when those statutes were enacted, down to Cranmerin- clusively, iu the reiga of Henry VIIK was instituted and confirmed by I'upal Bidls, See a Lcttt^r to the R. Catholics of Dublin by Thomas Moore, Esq. ^^ concurrence with the sentiments of other distinguished " advocates of the Catholic cause,") says, " Much must be " done for mutual conciliation, much for common safety- — " When this matter was last brouG;ht under the consider- " ation of Parliament, I had occasion to dwell with pccu- " liar earnestness on this necessity : amongst other " measures, I pointed out the proposal of vesting in the ^^ Crown an effectual negative on the appointment of your " Bishops. To the forms of these securities I attach " comparatively little importance. I look only to their " substantial purposes, the safety of our establishmotls. " Tiiat these objects may be reconciled, so far, at " least, a? regards the appointment of your Bishops, is *^ known wiih 'undeniable certainty." On the (22d cf February, when Lord Grey, the other great advocate of Catholics in the House of Lords, presented to that house the I_Petition of the Eng'ish Catholics, with the rider clapped upon i£ by the meeting at the St. Alban's Tavern, called the Second Petition, being m substance what i* termed the fifth Resolution, he is reported, in the Morn- ing Chronicle, to hftve decidedly declared that " to every " reason, to every sentiment, and to every word of that " letter (Lord Grenville's to Lord Pingal) he entirely sub- " scribed." On the Syth of the same month ]\Ir. Grattau presented the Irish Petition to the Commons, when he is reported to have termed the canonical institution of Catho- lic Bishops, which he had heretofore defended : *^ The in- " vestiture of a foreign power with the unquahfled and ar- '^ bitrary right of nomination to a portion of our magistra- " cy :" and he gave notice of a motion to be made by him, now fixed for the loth May inst. the second part of which implies, that *' there shall be no foreign nomination of " Catholic Bishops in these islands."— — Instead of quot- ing more passages from parliamentary speeches, to shew the extent of our political friends demands upon us, I shall present the Catholics with the outlines of tiie pro- ©5 • po^ed arrangements, as Coiumba, v»lio addresses us from the press at Buckingham, represents them. Not that Coiiunba's own ideas are of the least importance ; but he is a very Hkely person co be acquainted with those of other persons v\iio really are of importance in this precise business. Tiie Bisliops, then, being found intractable, he recommends that the Catholic bodv at iarcre should take the government and disci})Iine of the Church into their own hands, and reform the aljedged abuses. (And yet, I wdl be bound for it, he would not advise the people of the United Kingdom to atiempt, by their own power, to correct ihe acknowledged abuses of the civil go- vernment.) The nature of this reform is clearly seen in the following propositions : *^ The election of the Clergy, " vrith the a])probationof tlieo-(?>i^/y, and the confirmation " of the civil pOiCer, is ihe only prudent, the only Catholic " plan, that, in the present circumstances, can be adopted *' bi/ ihe Irish people. Neidier the election of Bishops '' by the Pope, nor their confirmation by him, after elec- " tion, nor their nomination to any vacant see, nor the ^' Pope's consent, nor even knowledge of the appointment, " is a necessary requisite to establish the validity of any ** of these acts," (1) I shall conclude this article with giv- ing the sentiments of one of the w^armest advocates for Calholiq Emancipation, and most celebrated for the ex- tent of his liberahty. The Ilev. Sydney Smith, preach- (i) Col uml;>a threatens, us with another jumble of history and canon law by way of proving these points, and of shewing, in par- ticular, that the Pope had no authority in ^hese matters, till sonie- how or other, without any expostulation or any cause, the Irish Bishops surrendered their independency to Cardinal Papario in 1151 !' Just as if St. Patrick, St. Lazrean, Gilbert of Limerick, and St Malachy, were not legates of the Pope, by the confession of Usher himse'f! See the author's Letters from Ireland, third edu tion, zi'ith plates. Letter XVJ. Keating and Co. Butev^nifthe Pope should not have had the power in question heretofore, the Council of Trent acknowledges it in him now, D3 u ing the other day at Malton, before the Archbishop of York, thus declared : " The Catholics should be compelled, *' after all civil privileges have been granted them, to " transmit their episcopal lists to the crown, and if they " continued any one upon them, to whom pointed objecti- " oils were made, a power should be lodged somewhere or *^ other to send that inan out of the country T Here is emancipation with a witness ! — What : because the Ca- tholics choose some good English or Irish priest to be their Bishop, for his religious zeal, and the Protestant justice of the peace pointedly objects to him on this very account, he is to be transported, without judge or jury, by the alien office, I presume ! But the Veto, we have all been strongly assured, is abandoned, not only by the Catholics, but also by our par- liamentary friends ; and we are told that the fifth Reso- lution, which was substituted for it on the 1st of Februar};, and which forms the substance of the above-mentioned Rider or Second Petition, so far from being a pledge on the part of Catholics of their consenting to any Royal Negative, is a " mere compliment," and barely indicates a spirit of conciliation, &c. Such, I know, were the ideas of men equally strict in their orthodoxy with myself, and greatly my superiors in every valuable attainment, except informa- tion on this subject, and political experienqe : and such, I believe, was the opinion of most of the hundred indivi- dual Catholics who were /.'ir?7ec/ to the St. Alban's Tavern. But what have those noble friends of ours. Lord Grenviile and Lord Grey, one of whoni wrote the Filth Resolution in pencil marks, and the other covered those marks Vvith ink, what have they said of the matter since the 1st of February? Lprd Grenviile, on" presenting the Water- ford Petition to the Lords on the 8th of March, evidently fidyerting to these reports, as likewise to the Resolutions of the Episcopal Synod on the 26th of February, and of the General Committee on the !2d of March, said, (if we may credit the Statesman Newspaper,) that " He wished " to take the present opportunity of restating his opinions *^ on this important subject. Indeed it could not be neces- " sary to restate them to their Lordships. He had some " time back adopted the raost 'public mode of declaring " and discussing them, and he had now only to say that " whatever circumsUinces had since intervened had not alter- " ed Ids opinions, but It ad strengthened them. Much less had " he since made any attempt to change their character or " complexion, with a view to square them to any new doc* " trine, or suit them to anij neiv purpose. In these senti- " menis he should steadily persevere, See." We clearly see that the deceptions which I complain of are as inju- rious to the i^eliiigs of our political friends, as they are to the safety of the Catholic Re igion. The Petition of the English Catholics, together with the above-mentioned Kider or Second Petition, was presented in the House of Lords by Earl Grey on the 22d of February, at which time his Lordship (according to the British Press) thus described the disposition of the English Catholics ; *^ While the English Catholics pray for relief, they are *' willing to accept it accompanied with such provisions, ^^ not contrary to their feelings, as you may think nectssary " to the security of your own establishment, and that an *' arrangement on this basis xcill be thanhfully accepted by *■ them. The declaration of what I have stated is con^ *' tained in the Second Petition*' Does this language sound hke an abandonment of the Veto, either on the part of the Catholics or on that of their parliamentary friends r Or rather, are not the former considered by the latter as solemnly pledged to the legislature not only to submit to it, in whatever shape it may be proposed, but also to the several other arrangements, which I have reason to know are in the contemplation of our friends, and which are not less subversive of our religion, than the unre* strained Veto itself would be, provided only they are cofh si^tent with th believe never read them), and they were proved in the end to contain the grossest and mosi fata! falsehoods. Mr. Pitt, for example, de- dared, after reading part of one of them, which the writer placed under his eyes, <* that he hnd been deceived in the great outlines of " the Catholic Bill." Tiie present writer, then agent to theEnglish Catholic Bishops, was denounced by the Gentleman, in a publica- tion, circulated amongst most of the Members of Parliament, to be the only Catholic who objected to the coyidemned oath. See the Third Blue Book, Appenrl. Vll. And to favour this deception on the legislature, a truncated edition of the Protestation, in which the writer's name is left out, as may still be seen, was printed in a splendid form, and circulated wiih that publication! Lastly, the Gentleman w ho deposited in the Museum a spurious copy of the Protestation, different in several particular* from the printed copy, which copy he himself had certified to be conformable to the ^8 The Catholics have generally been made to believe^ that the difficulty concerning the Veto is the only obsta- cle which stands in the way between them and civil eman- cipation. Here again is an egregious mistake, as ihey understand the business. I shall soon shew that the ob- stacle is precisely the same which it ever has been since the days of Elizabeth. But first I must observe, that the proposal of submitting to religious bondage in ex- change for civil liberty, sounds very strange from the mouth of a sincere Catholic. Come, says the modern Catholic, to his faithful, disinterested Pastor : Do, my good father, only let me tie you, neck and heels, and place vou at the disposal of a Protestant Government, and then I shall stand a chance of getting to be made a parlia- ment man ! To this the Pastor may answer, with the strictest truth : we, the Catholic Clergy, have done what- ever lay in our power to obtain for you your emancipation (God grant you may make a good use of it), an object in which we have no other concern than as it afiects your feelings: we have canvassed for you, we have spent our money, as well as our time, in your service. We have written numerous books and essays to confute the objec- tions, and remove the existing prejudices against your civil claims ; and though, when you formed your present board, in the nature of a controversial club, you made it a rule that no clergyman should belong to it, we think it not quite clear that some of the clergy might not know as much about their religion, and might not be able to write as well as some of you. After all we would, in tenderness to you, submit to the proposed fetters, which an atozced jealousy has forged for us, to gratify you, if the regard we are bound to have for your eternal welfare, as v»cll as our original, together with a long interpolation, the existence of which no one even suspected, till the writer had occasion to ntiake it pub- lic. It is to be observed, that most of the Catholic signatures pre^ sented to Parliament were made on the faith of the printed copies, not from an inspeclion of the original* ^9 own, Would permit us to do so. — This last reflection leads me back to the assertion I just now made ; namely, that the obstacle to your emancipation is exactly the same which it ever has been, viz. a deeply founded, but most unreasonable prejudice against your rehgioh ; the religion of past ages, that to which your jealous masters are in- debted for their constitution, for their Cliristianity, and for their very civilization. I grant, then, that the propo- sals made in Parliament by our political friends, on the 25th of May, 1808, produced a very great effect upon his Majesty's minister, and, of course, upon the majority of the House of Commons. But what did your political friends propose ? and what was the minister's answer to rhe proposal ? On both these points the Report published by certain Catholics, and printed by Faulder, is grossly ty's progenitors, who at the time when they were made were not only Pagans, but Pagan Deities, 1 mean Wooden and Frciga, have no occasion to enter into new arrangements in order to obtain their civil freedom ; they E have only to take the oath made and provided in th(j Act of Supremacy, and they will emancipate themselves, with- out giving any trouhle to tlieir friends whatsoever; but those other Gatholics who are determined to continue steadfast in the faith of their forefathers, if they wish to get free from legal restraints, must be content to make use of the means for this purpose which they made use of: they must demonstrate, that which is, m fact, matter of demonstration, that the objections of their opponents arise from misinformation, and tliat the religion of the Alfreds an4^ the Edwards is not only compatible withy but is the purest source of civil duty and social virtue. To make an end of my arguments with Catholics: they have been led to believe, by false and fraudulent v.v- ticles foisted into the newspapers, thattheCatliolic l^i^hops of Ireland, in their late Synod held from tlieCCd to tlie 2Gth of Februar}^, agreed with and approved of the Fifth Resolution of certain English Cathohcs, respecting new and undefined arrangements for the security of the esta- blished Church. To support this fraud, a passage from the l6th Article of their Address, expressive of nothing more than what every good Catholic must avow, namely, that " no spirit of conciliation has been ever wanting, on *' their part, and that they seek for nothing beyond the '* mere integrity and safety of the R. Catholic religion, in " its faith, communion, essential discipline, subordination *' and moral code ;" this passage, I sa}-, has been garbled out of its context, and placed in parallel with the fifth Resolution of the Tavern Meeting, as expressing the same meaning, whereas the Prelates in fact reject the fifth Reso- lution. It is my duty, in justice to the Irish Catholic Prelates, to protest against and refute the misrepresenta- tion, in doing which 1 should be glad to lay before tlie English Catholics a lengthened correspondence which has been carried on between certain persons on this side of the water, in their name, and certain Catholic Bishops of Ireland. But a regard for those who have shewn little re- 31 gard for me, induces me, in a great measure, to suppress it. ^^ That personage then who now is no where seen or heard in the English Catholic hody, but every where felt, who winds his way, directly or indirectly, into all their councils and consistories at home and abroad, and who, more or less, influences all their proceedings, has long been at- tempting to acquire the same power in Ireland. With this view, the winter before last, he printed a pamphlet in Dublin which he also put into the newspapers. In this he aOected a great detestation of the Veto, and censured the writer for the part which he had acted concerning it. Since that time he has caused numerous letters to be written to the Secretary of the Irish Committee, and one in parti- cular, dated Jan. 26, 1810, in the name of the Board of the Catholics of Great Britain, " repeating the " different assurances which had already been made that " the wish ef the English Catholics is and always will be *' to adopt no measure^ but what may be considered as " a^ixiliary to the more effectual exertions of the Cathohcs " of Ireland. The same letter gives notice of the in- tended Meeting of the English Catholics on the 1st of February, assigning as a reason for deferring the meeting, that " the deputies with the several petitions from Ireland " might then be expected in London, as the English '' Catholics were particularly anxious to obtain the most " correct information, in order to regulate their conduct *' hij that of the CrdhoUcs of Ireland, as in England the '' Catholics are not the People." This letter had the intended effect of causing the Bishops to lay aside their determination of holding a Synod, and the Committee theirs of holding a General Meeting, under the idea that some arrangements, in the nature of a Veto, were to be brought forward at the St. Al ban's Tavern. The writer will say nothing further concerning this meeting, than that it was lield on the appointed day, and that notnnig \yjis said, or permitted to be said in it, respecting tliQ 32 Irish. Catholics, and that, in short, the fifth Resohition was signed by most of the company under an idea that the Irish would be led by this example to do the same. In the course of eight days, that is to say, in as short a time as the Mail Coach could convey letters to and from Dublin, it was ascertained that this idle project had com- pletely failed. Nothing was heard, amongst both the clergy and laity of Ireland, but complaints of deception and bad faith, practised upon them. To be brief; the Bishops resumed their determination of meeting in Synod; ihe Committee theirs of holding an Assembly. The Synod was accordingly held at Dublin between the 22d and 26th days of February inclusively, when after " invoking the *' name of Christ, and placing God before their eyes," the assembled Prelates unanimously voted those resolu- tions, s) instructive and so edifying, which will form one of the brightest pages in the history of tlie 19th cen- -tury(l), respecting the whole matter now under consider- ation. In their l6'th Resolution the Prelates, adverting to the 5th ResoLition of the St. Alban's Tavern, which had been sent and recommended to them to be approved of and adopted, very wisely determined as follows : ^^ With respect " to arrangements regarding our Church, and said to be in- *' tended for accompanying a proposal of the Emancipation " of Irish R. Catholics, prudence and a regard for our " duty forbid us to pronounce a judgment, as those ru- *' moured arrangements have never been ascertained to us '^ through any channel." They then ^- avow a spirit of -" conciliation, in the terms set down above,'* accompa- nied with a declaration of their readiness to ^^ bear testi- *^ mony with their lives if necessary," not only to " the *' faith ^nd essential discipline," but also to " the subor- ^^ dination and moral code of the Catholic religion ;" after which they pass on to a J 7th Resolution, approving of tliie por^duct of their agent, the writer of this, and thanking {i) See Appendix, 33 him ill the most honourable terms for opposing what they call " a vague indefinite declaration pledging Catholics *^ to an eventual acquiescence in arrangements possibly "prejudicial to the integrity and safety of our Church " discipline ;" in other words, for opposing the fifth Reso- lution. We may well conceive the mortification of the learned gentleman at the sight of this last resolution of a whole Catholic Hierarchy, which resolution the writer look care to transmit to a respectable friend and agent of the gentleman's on the 14th of March, It is known to have been dul}" received and considered as genuine, since copies of it were distributed as genuine to some of his friends. JNevertheless the learned gentleman affected to consider it as spurious, in order to have an opportunity of inveighing against it as *^ a libel and a slander," and of ri- diculing it as an " awkward attempt of malice." This was done in letters addressed to an Irish Catholic MetropoUtan ' and another Bishop, w4iich for the very disrespectful and sarcastic style of them, could only have been written by the author of the Blue Books. The professed object of these letters was to frighten the Ijish Prelates into a dis- avowal of their Vote of Thanks, and even of the writer's agency. The letter to the Metropolitan, dated March 17, was written in the name of the Catholic Board, the chief members of which, it is proved from dates and other circumstances, could have known nothing of the business, and it concludes with a threat that, till the vote is dis- avowed, the agent of the Irish Prelates would not be con-» suited on the concerns of the Catholics of England. To this blustering letter the metropolitan in question an- swered, INIarch 26th, that *' Dr. M. had been ap-^ *' pointed agent of the Irish Prelacy, and was consider^ *' ed as such ^t their General Meeting when they voteci ^^ him their Thanks in the terms transcribed. He had no " specific instructions from them concerning the Veto, or ^* any other business : nevertheless th^y deemed hin^ fully '^ authorized to appear as their agent at the General Meet- ** ing of the English Catholics on the 1st of February, and " conceived that he had acted in that capacity by objecting " to and opposing the Fifth Resolution of the assembly, *[ which appeared to them and to the Irish Catholics in " general, to imply a pledge to sanction future arrange- '' ments for the maintenance of the Protestant Religion, " which might eventually prove inconsistent vviih the " integrity and safety of the Catholic faith and discipline." Thus baffled in all his attempts, nothing remained for the learned gentleman but to publish in certain newspapers a garbled passage from the concluding part of the i'relates Resolutions, in order to mislead Catholics into a belief that they approved of the Fifth Resolution, directly contrary to their acts and to their meaning, and at the same time to la}^ an embargo on the presses of those newspapers in order to prevent the writer's undeceiving Catholics, by printing the whole text. This he lias experienced to be actually the case. It is to hold up a mirror to my Catholic brethren for future precautions that I have thus unwillingly touched upon the past errors of their agent, not from resentment against him, which, thank God, I do not {eel. The management of our political concerns naturally belongs to' the leading pe-rsons among our laity : but then it is in- cumbent upon them to take effectual care that these shall never, in future, be disgraced by crooked policy and de- ception of any kind, since these can lead to nothing else but misunderstandings, w'ith our political friends, re- proaches, dissensions, disappointment, heterodoxy and sin The direction of our ecclesiastical affairs belongs by an indefeasible divine right, to those " Bishops, wham *' the Holy Ghost hath placed to rule the Church of God *' zvhich he hath purchased with his ozcn blood.'\\) Conform- ably with this sacred oracle, the Hierarchy of Ireland iu (i) Acts XX. 28. Catholic Version. ^ S5 tlieir late Synod, have resolved, " that it appertains to the *' order, charge, and spiritual authority of Bishops in the " Catholic Church, and is inseparable from their mission " to propose, entertain, and judge without any lay in- ** tervention, on points of christian faith and general ^* discipline.'Xl) This is acknowledged by all real Ca tholics : but then, my brethren, if you do not practice a deception on your souls, which you would blush to prac- tice in consulting with your physicians and lawyers on the concerns of your health and fortune, you will give your Prelates proper time (2) and documents to consult with their clergy and with one another on all such matters, and you will shudder at the idea of deceiving them, or in- fluencing their acts or opinions in any respect whatsoever. I III. In addressing myself to our advocates in the senate o[ the nation, particularly to those amongst them whose names I shall have occasion to mention, I cannot fail of expressing my veneration for their distinguished talents, patriotism, and private virtues ; and, at the same time, my gratitude for their repeated generous exertions in the service of Catholi(?s, and their civilities to myself. No- thing but that quick sensibility which a Christian and a Pastor must feel, when the religion ia which all his hopes in this world and the next centre, appears to be ia danger of a mortal wound, could induce me to oppose myself to their plans; plans which have been taken up by them, I am persuaded; with the purest views of serving their couu- (i) Appendix. (2) The General Committee of Dublin suspe\ided the'.r Meeting during several days, in order to afford the Bishops leisure to consiik about th-* Fifih Ueselution, as a religious coiicern. S6 try. They are, however, much too generous " to reproacli " us for our solicitude in guarding those sacred things, for " which we are bound to bear testimony with om *^Hves(l)." — . — As two different plans of arrangement for our church discipline have been proposed, one by Lord Grenville for attributing to the crown a right of inter- ference in the election of our Bishops, the other by Mr. Grattan for barely depriving the Pope of his right in this business, I shall discuss them separately. In the first place, I wish to ask the friends of Lord Grenville, upon what ground of justice or reason they fancy the crown has a right to interfere in the appointment of our Bishops. Sneaking to them as Protestants, I say you do not acknowledge the existence of Catholic Bishops, nei- ther in any of your public acts, nor even, by courtesy, in the intercourse of private life. In fact, what is a Bishop r A Bishop with you is a clergyman, enjoying by royal favour and hokling from the state an ample revenue, a noble palace, a seat and voice in the great council of the na^oit- Over all these things I grant that you, as legisla- tors lva,ve a right of controul. But what is a Cailiolic Bishop ? Ke is a clergyman who exclusively administers two sacraments, Confirmation and Holy Orders, neither of which you acknowledge to be sacraments ; who gives Cathohcs leave to eat meat on days of abstinence, which you are persuaded they may lawfully do without hi> leave ; who authorizes other clergymen to forgive the sin,- of the trulv contrite, which you maintain he has no power to do. Now if these are all ideal things, mere phantoms of the imagination, what have you to do with them, to in- terfere in the direction of them, any more than you have to interfere with the election of the queen of the fairies, or %viih the hierarchies of the sylphs and gnomes ? You will perhaps say,— We are nov/ disposed to acknowledge your Bishoprics, vnd even to endow them. The pro-^ (i) Address of the Prelates. See Appwidix. S7 posal of endowment you see the Catholic Bishops have very wisely declined, because it is plain this is offered for no other purpose, than to get an effectual hold on the sees themselves. But supposing the offer had been accepted of, in what manner would you acknowledge Catholic Bi- shops ? Would you allow his Grace, Dr. Stuart, and my venerable friend Dr. O'R — -y, to be both Archbishops of Armagh ? I am persuaded your liberality does not go that length. Perhaps, then, you would allow the latter to be Metropolitan of Drogheda, or of some other town or village in th*e North of Ireland. But it is necessary you should be informed, that upon Catholic principles it is not in Dr. O'R 's power, aided by all the Catholic Prelacy of Ireland, to make the least change in the nature, extent, or title of his spiritual claims. But let Catholic Bishops be whatever they may, you will urge, it is certain that they possess great power and influence in Ireland, and we shall never think that island safe till we have destroyed these, or brought them under our controui. Power they have none, because that must come from you : influence they have, because that consists in the opinion of the people : and never were there men better deserving of public esteem than they. If you think it just and necessary to destroy or shackle all influence, why then attack that of the Kirk of Scotland and of the English Dissenters ; an influence which, in the middle of the 17th century, was not very usefully employed. But as no influence is so poweiful in this world as that arising from wealth and rank, make an arrangement for the exclusion of all disafliected or profli-. gate heirs from succeeding to the riches and rank of their fathers, and for enabling the crown to bestow these on the most deserving persons of their respective families. You want to shackle the influence of our clergy, which if you but touch you destroy. Yet this is, and has been proved to be, your best security for the allegiajice and peace of F SB your Irish subjects. The exertions of the Catholic Bishops and Clergy in this cause, have sometimes been cairied to an excess. In the unhappy rebellion of 1798, an episcopal friend of mine prevailed upon a large body of his people, who were drawn up in array, to throw down their arms and submit to government; when instantly a perfidious savage, of no mean name, in the service of government, dashed in amongst them with a troop of horse, and cut them down right and left. I wish to give no offence ; but pray, w^hat description of clergy used their influence to ^uell the riots of 17 80, or to stop the cxterminatiou of Catholics in Armagh in 1795, which latter violence, unre^ pressed by government, was the signal of all the mischief that afterwards h^ippened !- Let me here say a word out of my fro^er province. You complain that there is yet in the kingdom a certain influence, which however small, is independent of the crown,, and you complain, that there are still men who will not take the public mor ney as the price of their independence. I thought that you supporters of the revolution and admirers of a nicely poised constitution did not wish that all the influence in the country whatsoever should centre in the- crown ; and I understand that some years ago you. voted that the iiiflii^ enceof the crozv?L has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. But as I intiniated, I know nothing about these things : all tliat 1 knp,vv is, that f"r,om tlie increase pf our taxes, which are five times as great a^ they then were, the influence of the crown must be five times as great as it was when Mr, Burk^ cajried this mernorable resulut.ion. You admit,, aft^ir all, that our *' present Bisliops arc " loyal:" but you say : " some men are not unreasonably " alaxmed at the possibilitj/ ot iheiv becoming olher.wise(l)..'^ In ansvyer to this pretence, permit me to say, that just princes bind those subjects whom they know to be guilty ; tyrannical princes those whom they suspect, to be guilty ; ^ut no tyrant whom I have yet heard of, has chained those (i) Letter to i\e Ear! ot" Fingal. subjects whom he acknowledges to be innocent, merely because " there is a possibility of thdr becoming other- " wise." Far be it from me to claim the quality of im- peccabiliiy in favour of those exemplary subjects, the Catholic Bishops of Ireland ; but why they should be more subject to fail in theirduty of loyalty than other descriptions of subjects 1 cannot conceive. We have heretofore had our Cranmers,Ridleys,Poynets,(l) Atterburys, Hugh Peters's, and our Long Parliament. Of late years, all Europe has re^ sounded with complaints against the treason of noblemen^ generals, and princes, whilst generous and firm loyalty has shone forth amongst no description of men more conspicu- ously than amongst the Catholic Bishops and Clergy. In- deed, no other clerical blood has been shed in this cause but theirs. Why should you, then, suppose that the Irish Catholic Bishops, of all your subjects, are to become traitors ? If, indeed, you melt down their rigid virtue, and change them from laborious and self-denying Pastors into supple and interested courtiers, I will not answer for their loyalty in any such time of danger as that ap- peared to be when the loyalty of my friend Dr. M -n was so conspicuous (Q), nor indeed for any longer time than it may be their interest \o be loyal : but as things afe, their independency, the source of their civil and Christian virtues, is, as far as their influence extends, the best security for the loyalty of their island. You allow the present Bishops to be loyal^ and you also know that they have entered into a solemn pledge to elect "none but " men of irreproachable lovalty and peaceable conduct for " vacant sees." If, then, the loyalty of future Bishops is, as you profes,^:, the object you have in view, evidently the best thing you can do, is to leave them unmolested in po^ession of their right of determining the e'eciions, be- (0 See Letters to a Prebendlary. (3) When Hoche'sfieet appeared off Bantry Bay. 40 cause they must know the character and dispositions of their clergy infinitely better than you can know them. A remarkable circumstance, and quite apposite to my present argument, is this : there has been but one Catho- lic Bishop since the relaxation of the penal laws thirty years ago, whose loyalty has been so much as called in question, and this was the only Bishop appointed through ministerial influence, namely, through that of the late Duke of Portland, contrary to the opinion of most of the other Catholic Bishops. Thus much, you add, " is known with undeniable cer- " tainty, that the proposed arrangements, as far at least as " regards the appointment of Bishops, may be reconciled " with the strictest adherence to the faith and discipline " of Catholics, from their acquiescence in similar arrange- ** ments under other governments (1)." Let the au- thentic documents of such arrangements between a compe- tent ecclesiastical Catholic power and a sovereign or state of another communion be produced, if any such exist : I know they cannot be produced.— No doubt such eccle- siastical power will always wish, and contrive as much as possible, that CathoHc Bishops shall be faithful to and enjoy the confidence of the state under which they live, though this should be an uncatholic one, especiall v \s here they enjoy wealth and power, as in Silesia and Russian Poland ; but it never can enter into any concordatum or other engagement with an uncatholic government for admitting its controuling power over spiritual jurisdiction. When Frederic of Prussia became master of Silesia, heap- plied to Pope Benedict XIV. for a concordatum of this nature, who answered him, that " the history of ages " did not furnish an instance of the nature, and that his *^ name would become infamous were he to ai^ree to the " proposal." Supposing, however, that these and other such fetters had been imposed upon our Prelacy in despo- (i) Letter to the Earl of Fingal. 41 tic countries, whether CathoHc or Protestant, is this a rea- son why English and Irish Catholics, who have a right ta the privileges of MAGNA CHARTi\, where these have not been taken from them, should wear them ? Now the first article of Magna Charta says, " the election of Bi- *' shops shall be free." This is a sufficient answer on the subject of other vexatious and unnecessary restraints on the Catholic Clergy, which I have reason to beHeve are in the contemplation of our political friends, under the pre- text that such restrictions existed heretofore in France and Austria. God forbid that I should ever subscribe to the irreligious placards, for example, of an Emperor Jo- seph II. This also is a sufficient answer to the instances of irreligious tyranny cited by Columba. Supposing, for example, a profligate Theodora tears a holy Pope Silve- rius from his see, and places her favourite Vigiiius in his place, whom the Church, after the martyrdom of the for- mer, submits to, by an ex post facto agreement, is this a proof that Empresses may make Popes at their plea* sure. As well may we say that the army has a right to choose the sovereign of England, because an army raised Oliver Cromwell to the supreme power, whom the nation quietly submitted to till his death (1). (i) The supposition contained in the Letter to the Earl of Flngal, thai the proposed arrangements are reconcileable with the strictest adherence to Catholic tenets and discipline, is grounded, not only on the presumed practice of other countries, but also on the supposed acknowledgment of the Irish Caiholic Bishops, and of the present writer, to both which points the latter has spoken. It is grounded, likewise on the declarations of certain other Catholics, probably ill. instructed, and not very devout lay Catholics. I mention this, ia order to correct an important error, into which the Noble Writer of that Letter and the Rt. Hon. Mr. Grattan have both fallen in conse. quence of such information, in their ever-memorable speeches ia Parliament on the Catholic Question two years ago. Heavens de- fend me from being considered as approving of such doctrine, merely in consequence of my offering general thanks to the eloquent speaks 42 ^Till the ^7tli of Fe^bruary, I entertained hopes that the peace and tranquillity of Ireland, and of the Catholic body in these islands, might still be maintained. My hopes, under God, rested on the capacious mind, the com- manding eloquence, and above all, on the benevolent heart of Mr. Grattan. But when I discovered from the newspaper reports; that this our long-tried friend had, in a great degree, retracted what he had so often asserted in answer to the pretended state danger from our essential union with our Spiritual Head,- and that he had thereby afforded a decided triumph to his political antagonists ; when I learnt that, to support his new tenets, he had been induced to invent invidious names in the way of alarming Parliament and the Public against Catholic Bishops, I own I began to des^pair of the continuance of those bles- sings. Mr. Grattan knows well the power which names have over weak minds in the highest as well as the lowest orders of mankind, and he has not to learn how many lives ha^e been immolated to that wicked cry of Arh^ tocrat. To proceed now to argument : Mr. Grattan i§ said to ers ! Lord Grenville said : " In all matters of civil government, ** even of that mixed nature'm which ecclesiastical and civil jurisdic- ** tion are combined, they (the Catholics) submit themselves, without ** reserve, to the supreme authority of the King in this Parliament.** Debates on Cath. Quest. i8o8, p. i3c." Mr. Grattan said mi:ch the same thing, and instanced the case of matrimony, p. i8, to which Lord G. is supposed to have also referred, -Vv'hat : when a mar« lied couple being tired of each other, and having committed crimes, by connivance, in asort of open way, procure an act of parliament, authorizing them to enter into fresh matrimonial engao:ements, does the Catholic Church hold such marriages to be conscientious ?— — No : she anathematizes them, Trid. Sess« xxiv. can. 7. Still our legislature has no reason to reproach us. We shew due civil respect to these legal spouses, and we hold that their offspring ought to in- herit j but we do not admit the former to our sacraments, nor do we Uy the hands of ordination on the latter. 43 have called the Caiholic Bishops, ^' a portion of our magistracy" and to have represented " a foreign power ■ ' as being possessed oi an arbitrary power to bestow the " ujvestiture of this magistracy (1)." Let me ask the friends of that Right Hon. Gentkman, how it comes that he never made this discovery before, neither during the years of his advocating the Catholic cause in the Irish Parliament, nor in the years 1805 and 1808, when he so splendidly advocated it in the United Parliament ? On the latter occasion alluded to, he said yery truly " the Catho- /- lies themselves, (meaning the Prelates and the Clergy) " nominate the Bishop ; the Pope only gives him a spiri- " tual capacity (2)." Supposing I were to call you, be- cause you happen to be a magistrate, " a portion of our " episcopacy," in the hearing of a Catholic mob in the comity of Kerry, and then w^ere to appeal to them, whe*. iher or no it is right that Lord Redesdale, or any other Protestant Chancellor, should possess an uncontrouled and arbitrary power of making and unmaking a Catholic Bishop ? If your hitherto unheard-of description of Catholic Bishops is a just one, then your present projeiit is at once defeated (3). You are substituting sedition and rebellion for treason ; inasii^uch as the law and constitu- lion require, not only that no foreign power shall consti- tute magistrates within this realm, but also that his Ma- jesty alone, w ith the help of his ministers, should consti- tute them. According to the argument here stated, the crown ought directly to appoint the Pastors of all other religionists whomsoever, since all of them ai-e evidently (i) Morn. Chron. (2) Debates, p. 18. (3) This term, however absurd, has already been adopted by one ofour theologicallawyers, not for the purpose of exalting, bat of de- pressing the Catholic Prelacy. See printed Letter of Thomas Moorej Esq. 44 just as much magistrates as Catholic Bishops and Priests are. I must add, that several of these denominations, no less than Catholics, profess to be governed by Bishops ; as for example, the Wesleyan Methodists, the Lutherans, and the Moravians ; and that some of these Bishops reside and exercise their jurisdiction in foreign countries, under the dominion or controul of your public enemies. Thft Lutherans, some of whom in this kingdom stand high in- deed, have their Bishop in the dominions of Jerome Bonaparte. The Moravians, who possess establishments at Fairfield, near Manchester, at Dunkenfield, and in ma- ny other parts of England, have numerous Bishops who are directly appointed by certain Metropolitans resident at Hernhuth in Moravia, now under the controul of Na- poleon. No doubt you will include all these in your Bill. The Jews dispersed throughout the world are not only of one and the same religion, but also of one and the same blood. To say nothing of their priesthood, tliey hold themselves in daily expectation of a Messiah, who is to subjugate us all; and they have been so much caressed and honoured by Napoleon, that they have deliberated whether or no they ought not to acknowledge him in this capacity. I trust you will make a law that no Messiah shall be acknowledged but one who is born and resides in England. Next, what will you do at Malta, in Sicily, in Portugal, and in such other Catholic countries as the fortune of war may put into your power i* Will you add to their present discontents on the score of your reli- gious intolerance, 1 allude now particularly to Sicily (1), by insisting that they shall break that spiritual tie which connects them with the Head and Members of the Catholic Church, and thus render your cause absolutely desperate ? (i) The writer has aulhentic documents in his possession respect- ing the religious intolerance of our Commaaders in that island. 45 You say ^' the Pope is, or will be a French subject (I)," The actual Pope is a prisoner, after having lost the finest principality in Europe, because, from a motive of justice, ' he would not do that which all your allies,, to whom you have paid so many millions of money, have done in suc- cession ; because he would not declare against England, That the next Pope will be a Frenchman it is idle to con- jecture : very possibly precautions have been taken to pre- vent it: but supposing this should be the case, would it be a new case ? The Bishop of Rome, whether Frenchman or Englishman, or Italian, or German, has, in all past ages, given investiture to the Metropolitans at least of the Latin Church, and during many centuries to all 'Catholic Bi- shops without exception. In the mean time Europe has been divided in its politics and its interests, and the bloody^ trade of war has gone on without interruption in one part or another of it ; yet never has this objection of our worthy friend occurred to any one of the contend- ing princes ; nor did indeed they find the least occasion for making it. To mention one or two instances instead of a thousand : Adrian VI. was the friend and tutor of Charles V. but did Francis I. who at the time of Adrian's promotion to the Popedom was at War with this Em- peror, object to Adrian's dispensing Spiritual faculties to the Bishops of France? Again, during the wars which OUT victorious Edward Hi- carried on against two '- successive Kings of France, the contemporai'y Popes were not only natives of that country, but kept their residence at Avignon : but did he, or anyof his prede-* ^ . cessors or successors down to Henry Vlll. refuse their ^ Bishops permission to receive the necessary investitur^/ of their spiritual powers from these Popes on any such account ? or, did any of them experience the lea'^ . prJictical inconvenience from neglecting to do so ? (i) Mr. G— 's Speech, Morn. Chron. G 46 " WTiatisthls cause of jealousy/* exclaimed Mr.G rattan, on the evening of May 25/1808, '^ In what does it consist? "Why in this — the Pope!— And what is the Pope? . " Why the Catholics have proved to you that the Pope is *' nothing more than a name — -^a spiritual power."(l) — — In May 1 805, this gentleman termed the Pope : " a sort *' of President, a chair in whose name the business of the *' Catholic Church is conducted ; for whom no Catholic " would fight, and against whom the Irish Catholic would '^ fight, if he came into this country at the head of an in- *' vading army: they have said so/'(2) Yes, they have sworn it, and the English Catholics exemplified this duty ^ at the period of the Spanish Armada.(3) You say you "believe we respect the obligation of an oath ; look then at our oaths (to which, one after another, you have obliged us to swear ; not that the last contained an atom more of allegiance than the first, but every fresh oath, like your present arrangements, was a fresh tub thrown out to the monster of vulgar prejudice), look, I say, to our oaths, in these you will find that we have devoted, (calling upon the eternal God to witness the solemn engagements,) our pro- peril/, our civil rights, and our persojis to our King and country.(4) We support you with our taxes, our volun- - tary contributions, our personal services, our lives, our writings, our preachuig and our prayers : What now is left for the Pope, (if CartAlnal Fesch, or even Napolean himself were Pope,) except a certain bond of union in faith and spiritual faculties, which, in vour eyes, are a phantom — a mere nothing — but which lo ns appears in- (i) Debates, p. i4. (2) See Stockdale's Report, p. 245, It is to be observed that Mr* G— , in the passage which follows, admits the Pope to be then a cap- tive in the hands of Napolean, and excuses the act of coronation on this ground. (3) See Letters to a Prebendary, 4th edition, Letter viU (4) 31 and 33 Geo. Ill, 47 dispensably necessary, in order to keep up that communion which we believeourselvestohold with allCatholics through- out theworld? We shall equally supportyou,as vveare bound by our oath to do, if the Pope himelf were to invade you un- der any pretence whatsoever. If all this will not satisfy you, then, I say, you are more jealous than Pilate himself. Our Saviour had called himself a king, which alarmed Pilate; but as soon as he declared that his Idngdom zi;as not of this ft?or/c?; (his power being precisely that spiritual power which the Catholic Church now claims), Pilate was satisfied, and he told the Jews that he could find no cause of death in the divine eaptive(l ). I will suppose you had lived in this country at the time of Christ, at which period, if I mis- take not, our good British King Cunobelinus, whom Shakespear calls Cymbaline, governed it with indepen- dent power, and that Christ had been pleased to send his apostle, Jude, as some writers say he did, or one of his other disciples to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments in Britain, would you have rejected the blessed messenger of salvation under a pretence that Christ was a foreigner, a subject of the Roman empire, which was then planning the subjugation of your native country? I think you would not have been so irreligiously bigotted : no, you would have said, what good Catholics in England and Ireland now say : My Saviour has assured me that /«.? kingdom is not of this world. He himself has commanded me to give to Ccesar what belongs to Ca:sai\ and to God what belongs to GodQl). I can then serve my king and country with my property and my life, and yet believe in that faith and continue a sheep of that one-fold which Christ has gathered together under one shepherd {^) In case you should remain still immoveable, you have Clothing more to do than to renew Henry's and Elizabeth's sanguinary acts of supremacy. Hitherto, in the diiferent 4et> you Irdve passed for the relief of English and Irish (i) John xviii. 361. — (2) Matt. xxii. :ji.— (3) John x. i<. (J a Catholics, during, Ills present Majesty's reign, you have been satisfied with obliging us to abjure all ^^ temporal or '' civil jurisdiction, power, superiority or pre-eminence, " directly or indirectly, "within this realm,*Xl) leaving us to retain our belief in a certain spiritual and ecclesiastica,l jurisdiction in the Pope and General Councils, which be- jicf you. deemed reconcilable with civil allegiance. But now you require us, in certain circumstances, to abjure the latter also. It is much better then to renew and en- force those old and tried acts, in opposition to which so many hundreds of loyal Catholic subjects lost their lives^ as mnny thousands ,of the same description are willing to lose their lives now, than to attempt any half measures either of legislation or of ecclesiastical politics. Catholicity is not a religion of late date, nor of con- fined extent. It is the religion of your apostles, tbe misr sionaries who converted and civilized you> "of the framers of your constitution, and of the founders of your fathilies, good and loyal men, I trust; and however assaulted and oppressed in every quarter, at the present day it is §till the religion, one and the same, of the great body of Christians throughout the world. The pretext, then of benefiting any one portion of it by dividing it from its head or from its other members is preposterous in the extreme. It i& robbing them of the kernel and giving them the shell. Be assured that it is for those pastors exclusively to judge of its faith and discipline with whom Christ has deposited his divine authority agreeably to the decision of the late Dublin Synod. All the claims of others, whether Catho- Jicsor not Catholics, to judge and still more to act in these matters, however high, powerful or numerous they may be, aie vain and schismatical. They may as well pretend to pluck a beam from the sun as to touch a fibre of ecclesias-* tical jurisdiction. It was such an attempt of the French National Assembly to make by its own incompetent lay (i) 31. 33 Geo. III. 49 power certain changes in catholic discipline, (which, after all, were feasible, and which have in a great meaisure since been made, namely, by a due spiritual power) that was gloriously resisted by the orthodox clergy of France at the expense of their fortunes, their country, and their lives. Similar attempts, though in a less violent degree, made for the avowed purpose of conciliation, tarnished the re- putation of the great Constantine and the great Justinian, and encreased the dissensions they were intended to heal. Such also was the fate of the Emperor Zeno's 'He- noticon, of the Ecthesis of .Heiaclius, and of the Typus of Constans. 1 shall conclude with the answer of a great man to certain insidiouo piopoaala for altering the religious society over which he presided Sint ut sunt, mt 7ion sint* POSTSCRIPT. Extract of a Letter from an Irish' Catholic Bishop to an official Letter from a Ca^olic ifi I}7igland» Dear Sir, "'_ .... ' ■^.f'^-^'tls ^^ " At our last Synod, before we caine tq a :final decisloii " on the subject of our meeling/'a variety of documents '^ were laid before us. Your letter to Dr. , Lord " Grenville's letter to Lord Fingal, and the Fifth Resolu- " tion, were particularly considered, and after the most " mature consideration, the Prelates were unanimous in " the opinion that the fifth Resolution, penned by Lords ** Grenville and Grey in such vague and general terms, " suitable to present circumstances, would in any future " arrangement be construed by them favourable to their " effective Veto, which they deem necessary for the secu- " rity of the existing establishments, and the sine qua non ^* of C Emancipation. This unaninious opinion appears 60 ^ to be well founded and confirmed by the declaration '' made by one of the Lords who penned that resolution. '* However unexceptionable therefore the abstract *^ proposition may be, coupled with a recollection of past ^' occurrences and the present temper of our rulers, it ap- *' peared liable to unanswerable objections : nor can our *' Prelates, under this conviction deem themselves charge- '^ able with having entirehj lost all recollection of their *^ jurisdiction and digniit/f in applauding the conduct of ^' Dr. Milner and applying to it the epithet o^ Apostolical, " for having refused to concur in such a measure, per- " suaded that nothing could engage him to stand up alone *' against the upuiiou of the great and vi^spectable body *' who signed it, but the fullest conviction that it would *^ eventually tend, as they also thought, to the prejudice " of our holy religion. I wish there were sufhcient ** grounds to suppose the question of the Veto to be put to '* rest for ever. It is not laying aside the zoord Feto, but ** abandoning the object meant by it that can tranquillize ^^ the public mind. The R. Catholics of Ireland are, " however, determined to drag for ever their degrading ** chains, nay, to subject themselves to tire threatened re- " vival of the penal laws, rather than give men, irreconcil- " ably hostile to their religion, any influence or controul in " the affairs of their church.— May God, in his mercy, inspire *' our rulers with wisdom to direct the temporal concerns *' of the state at this most alarming and critical juncture, <^ and to leave their R. Catholic subjects the regulation " of their own spiritual concerns." 25th April, 1810. A pamphlet called Thoughts on the VETO, by Her- Yey M. Morres, Esq. has lately appeared in Dublin. Oa the first perusal of it the writer really conceived it to be the work of some pupil of Dr. Ledwich, or some other half-learned Protestant dabbler in Chuicli history; so strong are the writers assertions, so weak are his proofs, so gross are his falsehoods, so disingenuous his misrepresenta- tions, and above all, so acrimonious is his spirit against the chief Pastor and the other Pastors, as likewise against the ordinances and institutions of the Catholic Church. On reading the book a second time, the writer found to his asto- nishment, that the author of it professes to be himself a Crt- tholic. — It is too plain then, that there are in Ireland, no less than in England, men who are of the catholic party y without being of the catholic religion , latitudinarian Catholics, tlie dead weight and calamity of their Church. It is a great question whether several of those lay theologians and ca- nonists, on both sides of the water, who shew themselves most forward in dictating new codes of ecclesiastical dis- cipline to their Pastors, ever learnt the catholic catechism : if they have learnt it, so much the worse for them ; as ia this case it will be impossible to excuse them from the guilt of downright schism. «« APPENDIX At a Meeiing of the R. CATHOLIC PRELATES, assembled in Dublin on the 24;th inst, the following Resolutions were unanimousli/ adopted : 1. Resolved, X HAT it is the undoubted and exclu- sive right of Roman Catholic Bishops to discuss all mat- ters appertaining to the doctrines and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church. S. Resolved, That we do hereby confirm and de- clare our unaltered adherence to the Resolutions unani- mously entered into at our last General Meeting, on the 14th September, 1808. 3. Resolved, That we are convinced that the Oath of Allegiance framed and proposed by the Legislature it- self, and taken by us, is not only adequate security for our loyalty, but that we know of no stronger pledge that we can possibly give. 4. Resolved, That having disclaimed upon oath all right in the Pope, or any Foreign Potentate, to inter- fere in the Temporal Concerns of the Kingdom, an adherence to the practice observed in the appointment of Irish Roman Catholic Prelates cannot tend to produce an undue or mischievous exercise of any foreign influence whatsoever. 53 5* Res-olved, That we neither seek nor desire any other earthly consideration for our Spiritual Ministry to our respective Piocks, save what they may^ from a sense of religion and duty, voluntarily afford us. 6. Rrsolved, That an Address, explanatory of these our sentiments, be prepared, and directed to the Roman Catholic Clergy and Laity of Ireland, and conveying such further instructions as existing circumstances may seem to require. -«£5>^^©- The Address to the Clergy a}?d Laity of the Roman Catholic Chmxhes in Ireland, 8^c. ^c. Rev trend Brothers, beloved Children, Peace be to you I I NASMUCIT as we were called upon, by an alarm of danger to religion, to speak our common sentiment at a former time, and accordingly (lid, on the 14th day of September, 1808, enter into and publisli certain Re-OLUTions, then judged necessary : and whereas the danger we then hoped to avert, and the agitation vvliich we laboured to quiet, have been renewed, and })rinciples, disallowed by the Roman Catholic Church, are assiduously disseminated amongst the faith- ful, for an avowed purpose of innovauon : moreover, wherea?, amongst other vain things, it is pretended that the doctrines of their Clergy, that is to say, tije avowed doctrines of the R. C. Churches in Ireland, form the li o^^ chief obstacle id the immediate attainment, by Llsli Ca- iholic people^ ofalltiie advantages of the constitiuion ; (an argument by which, iF even trne, our forefaiheis would not have been tempted to waver ; for they knew that their P'aith, if true, was also immortal, and that their perseverance in that Faith, enlivent^d by Charity, would conduct them to a fj-lorious and everlastinci: inhe- litance :) And, whereas it is most necessary to admonish our fiocks, lest tliat Providence, which has carried on- ward their paternal Faith, through meritorious constanc}-, to the verge of freedom, henceforth abandon us, in the last moment of temptation, in punishment of yielding to unbelief and contradiction, now that we are relieved, by the mercy of law, from positive sutieiing; Invoking the name of Christ, and having only God" before our eyes, we hr.ve discussed and considered seve- ral points of R. Catholic llcligion and Doctrine, com- prised in these following Resohiiions : 1.^ Resolved, Tliat it appertains to the order, charge, and spiritual authority of Bishops in tlie Cathohc Churcli, and is inseparable from their mission, to propose, enter- tain, and judge, without any hiy intervention, on points of Christian Faith and of general disciphne, whereby the Universal Church is connected into one mind and one body, as the body of Christ. Q, Resolved, That we do hereby cop>firm and de- clare our unaltered adherence to the Resolutions una- nimously entered into at our last General Meeting, on the 34th of September, 1 808 '^. * Resolved, That it is the decided opinion of the Roman Catholic Pre- lates of Ireland, here assembled, that it is inexpedient to introduce any altera- tion in the canonical mode hitherto observed in the nomination of Irish Ro- man Catholic Bishops ; which mode by long experience has proved to be un- cxcepaonable, wise, and salutary. Resolved, That the Roman Catholic Prelates pledge themselves to adheie to the rule by which they have been hitherto uniformly gaided ; namely, to recommend to his Holiness only such persons as candidates for vacant Bishopiii;* as are of unimpeachable loyalty and peaceable conduct. 55 3. Resolved, That the Oath of Allegiance, which, under the provisions of an Irish act of parliament, enact- ed in that behalf, is tendered to and is taken by his Ma- jesty's Irish Roman Catholic subjects, was agreed to and approved by all the R. C. Bishops in Ireland, after long and conscientious discussion and consultation had with several Cathohc Universities and individual authorities throughout Europe ; and that said oath contains such am- ple declaration of civil faith and attachment, such total and explicit abjuration of all foreign pretensions, whether spiritual or temporal, to intermeddle in the civil estab- lishmenta'or laws of this part of his Majesty's domini- ons, and such autlientic protestation of our doctrines in the only matter then affording ground for slander or jealousy, as that said oath furnishes a security, such as we believe is not demanded by any other state from na- tive subjects, and beyond which no pledge can be eifec- tua], short of the overthrow of our consciences, or such other perpetual and public degradation of our communion, as will tend to disquiet the government, notwithstanding an ostensible emancipation, by tiie sense of indignity on the one hand, and by the continuance of suspicion on the other. 4. Resolved, That said Oath, and the promises, declarations, abjurations, and protestations therein con- tained, are notoriously to the Roman Catholic Church at large become apart of the Roman Catliolic Religion, as taught by us, the Bishops^ and received and maintained by the Roman Calliolic Churches in Ireland ; and, as such, are approved and sanctioned by tlie other Romaa Catholic Churches. So lliat it appears to us utterly im- possible that any way is left to any foreign authority, whereby the allegiance of Irish Catholics can be assailed^ unless by that, which God avert, by open invasion; in which extreme supposition, as we will persevere by God's grace to do our duty, so we have certain hope, that every H2 56 true son of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland will eagerly prove how well his religion can stand with the most heroic allegiance. 5. Resolved, That the Roman Catholic Cluirch teaches, that of the Christian polity, a most essential part is the principle and tendency of an unceasing communica- tion in divine things amongst all the faithl'ul ; of which even the temporary suspension is a misfortune to man- kind, but the perpetual abrogation by human law must be considered by us as manifest oppression of conscience. 6. Resolved, That this immoveable doctrine nei- ther contradicts the duty, nor impedes the zeal ol^'the most faithful and generous attachment to Kings and to lawful authorities, but, on the contrnry, exalts this duly to a di- tine station ; because our Religion, of which that commu- nion is the bond, teaches iidclily above temptation, un- exampled obedience to laws, and that, in all human duties, we must surpass, for conscience sake, the measure of them, who serve merely for reward, or through fear. 7. Resolved, That the Primacy of the Roman Ca- tholic Church is known, of fact, to have devolved on liis Holiness Pius \ll. now, as we luive reason to believe, a secluded prisoner, in the liands of the public enemy ; but that such his imprisonment is not a deposition, nor dots it amount to a deposition ; because no Bishop m;iy rightfully be put down from his rank, unless by voluntary resignation, or canonical judgment ; and ihe rank of tiie Bishop of Rome being sole and single, imports, in the term, its inherent aurhority, which is not sulvject to any portion of the Roman Catholic iriierarehy, liowever ie- spectable, or to anv lay Catholic amiiority, however exlensively, or even universally predominant. 8. Resolved, Tiiat in his ^aid Holiness, h.is ca[)ti- vity notwithstanding, the right still ;ibides of giviiig coin- niunion and confirmation to Bishops ol" the Roman Ca- th.olic Church ; whereby Bishops, so confirmed, are re-* 57 eognlzed by one another, and by the Churcli at large ; atui ibat such condition is become a landmark of ihe Catholic disciphne and ecclesiastical peace throughout all the churches. 9. Resolved, That the spirit of fellow- suffering, with the afilicted Ciinrch of Christ, and of abhorrence of the misdeed, by vvhicli the salutary function of the Papal See has been intercepted, through open violence against the meekest of men ; as well as tlie sentiment of duty, fraternity, and reverence towards our guiltless Brother and Spiritual Chief, forbid us to take up as spoils, any part of the right of the Apostolic See, so invaded, violated, and trodden down, for a time, by sacrilege. 10. Resolved, That by an act of the same day with these presents, and encyclical to the R. C. Churches, we have judged, concluded, and declared, that, during the public captivity of his said Holiness, and until his free- dom shall have been unequivocally manifested by some act, not merely of approbation or cession, we refuse, send back and reprobate ; and, moreover, for ourselves we annul and cancel as to any effect, all briefs, or pre- tended briefs, bulls, or pretended bulls, rescripts, even as of his proper motion, and certain knowledge, bearing title as from his said Holiness, and purporting to be de- claratory of his free, or of any resignation of the papal oiiice; aiid that, during the said captivity of Pius VII. we will account the years of his Pontificate, and of no other. 11. Resolved, Tliatif it should please God, that his said Holiness should die, as now, a prisoner, we will coniinue to account the Holy See vacant, until full in- ibrmaiion and canonical proof shall be had by us of the free, canonical and due election of his Successor. 12. Resolved, That before the date of an Irish act of Parliameot; giving the last relief to his Majesty's Ro- 5S man Catholic Subjects, and from that to this present time, tlie recommendation of us Bisho[)si, when concurring, had been progressively advancing in weight and autliority with the Holy See; and, as we believe, principally t'roai the following cause: that we were known to be at once attached to our lawful Government, and attached to the Roman Catholic Faith ; neither sacrificing our religion to worldly hopes, nor making this freedom of conscience a cloak for malice ; but inculcating religious and social duties, in the name of oife God, tiie Founder of both. 13. Resolved, That by the course latterly adhered to, two benefits were obtained, and were in progress to become a part of our Ecclesiastical system ; the one, that the choice of persons to fill the office of Bishops, effectively originated from, and was circumscribed by us, so far at least as to make it inaccessible to any foreign temporal influence, or corrupt recommendation. The other advantage was this : that it held out our Hie- rarchy to the world at large as purely selected ; and thus obtained a distinction, which ultimately redounded to the honour of the tolerating spirit of his present Majesty's Government. 14. Resolved, That any change, at present, in our ecclesiastical appointments, expressly innovating upon our Religious Discipline, on the ground of its being peril- ous to the state, because Roman Catholic, and this with- out a single instance of danger incurred, must at once de- grade our Church in the estimation of Europe ; as disho- notiring its most prevailing Christian Belief, by ourimplied acquiescence in a charge of its inadequacy to maintain the most perfect social faith ; and must prejudice at home the interests of the public cause, by disabling our authority, which is, and has been, and will ever be exerted in that cause. 15. Resolved^ That the idea of making the Elec- 59 tions of Bishops entirely national, by confining said elec- tion to Chapters alone^ or to Chapters and Metropolitans, is superseded by the matters and considerations of the three last Resolutions; is, moreover, not within our competence ; and though it had been free of the guilt of Schism, would, in the present circumstances of the Irish Catholics, subject our Religion to the most serious and unseemly disadvantages; and in our judgment, would most probably lapse into tlie sole and positive appoint* ment of the Crown. 16. Resolved, That as to arrangements regarding our Church, and said to be intended for accompanying a proposal of tlie Emancipation of Irish Roman Catholics, prudejice, and a regard for our duty forbid us to pro- nounce a judgment ; whereas those rumoured arrange- ments have not been ascertained by us through any channel. However, we declare, that no spirit of con- ciliation has been ever wanting on our part ; that we seek for nothing beyond the meie integrity and safety of the Roman Catholic Religion, in its Christian Faith and Communion, and in iis essential discipline, subordination, and moral code : nor may we be justly reproached for our solicitude in guarding those sacred things, for which we are bound to watch, and bear testimony with our lives, li' required. Which Resolutions we have also approved, and make known to you, that you may liold firm .the an- chor of Faith, and the hope of God, and the true Doc- trines of the Gospel ; to which adhering you will prosper. Once more. Reverend Brothers and Beloved Children, Peace be with vou ! Amen. Richard O'Reilly, J, T. Troy, Thomas Bray, Francis May Ian. Peter MacLoughlin, F. Joseph F/uiikef, Edmund Derry. m James Caitljield, Daniel Belany, Edmund French* William Coppinge7\ James Lanigan. John Young. John Cruise, Patrick Macmullen» Charles O^ Donne I. Charles Sughrue. James Murphj/. John Fozi'erj James O'Shaughnessy, Francis C, O'Reilly. Florence McCarthy, Patrick Ryan, Daniel Murray, Oliver O'Kelly, V, C, Tuam. In Addition lo the 16 Resolutions contained inllieir Address to the Catholics oflreland, the PRELATES, in S^nod assembled, on the said !26i!i of Feb. passed the following 17tli Resolution respecting their Agent in England, which they transmitted to him, in order to its being published there, in such manner as he should deem expedient. R,ESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, That the Thanks of this Meeting be, and are hereby given, to the Right Rev. Dr. Milner, Bishop of Castabala, for the faithful Discharge of his Duty, as Agent to the R. Catholic Bishops of tb.is part of the United Kingdom, and more particularly for his late Apostolical Firmness, in dissenting from and op- posing a vague, indefinite D.^claration or Resolution, pledging R. Catholics to an eventual acquiescence in arrangements, possibly prejudicial to the integrity and safety of our Church Discipline.' Signed by Order, P. RYAN, Bishop of Germanicia, Secretary. At a Meeting of the GENERAL COMMITTEE of the CATHOLICS of IRELAND, held at D'Arcy's, in Earl-Sirect, Dublin, on the 2d of March, unani- 61 tnousiy and respectably attended by the diffeieiVt Members iVom all parts of Ireland, The Lord FFRENCH in the Chair. The Most Rev, Doctor Murray read to the Committee, a written" communication from the Catholic Prelates of Ireland. It was nnanimously resolved, That the Thanks of the Committee are due, and are hereby given, to the Most Rev. and Right Rev. the Catholic Prelates of Ireland, for the communication now made to u^, through the Most Rev. Doctor Murray, and the Rev. Doctor Hamil. That the Thanks of the Meeting are due, and are hereby given, to the Most Rev. Doctor Murray, and the Rev. Doctor Hamil, for making tliat communication. That, as Irishmen and Catholics, we never can con* sent to any dominion or controul whatsoever, over the appointment of our Prelates, on the part of the Crown or of the servants of the Crown. That the Thanks of the Committee are hereby given to Daniel O'Connell, Esq. for the faithful discharge of tJie duty of Secretary. ITRENCH, Chairman. THOMAS FITZGERALD, Esq. in the Chair. It was unanimously resolved, Tliat the Thanks of this Meeting are due, and are hereby given, to Lord FFrench, for his proper and dignified conduct in the Chair. THOMAS FITZGERALD. AtaMeetingof the GENERAL COMMITTEE of the CATHOLICS of IRELAND, held at D^Arcy's Hotel, Dublin, on the 24ih of April, I81O, THO.AIAS WISE, Esq. ki the Chiiir. Resolved, That we feel it a duty we owe to ourselves' and to our country, solemnly to declare, that the Catholic I LaiLy of Ireland never have, directly or indirectly, au- thorized any persons to offer, through our friends in Par- liament, or otherwise, the conceding to the Crown, any interference whatsoever with respect to the appointment of CathoHc Prelates in Ireland. EDWARD HAY, Secretary. Keating, Brown and Keating, Printers, No. 38, Dukc-str£et, Grosvenoi-squarc, London. IMSTR UCTI ONS ADDRESSED TO THE CATHOLICS OF THE Midland Counties of England^ ON THE STATE AND DANGERS OF THEIR RELIGION. By the Rev. Dr.MiLNER, BX.— V. A. iSpeciosum nomen est pads et pulcra est opinio unitatis; sed quit ambigat earn solam esse pacem Ecclesice, que est Christi? S. Hilar, contra Auxent. WOLVERHAMPTON : PHIKTED AND SOLD BY THOMAS SIMPSON; SoW also by Wood, and Wilkes, Birmingham ;...by Keating Browne, * C«, Dwke- Street, Grosvenor-Square; Booker, and Faulder, Bond- Street; Sherwood, Nelly, and Jones, Paternoster-Row : Ridgewaf, rifcadilly j Budd, Pall.Mall,...and Fit»ii?ituck, and Coyne, Dublin. 1811 ADVERTISEMENT. Ji HOUGH the instructions of Catholic Prelates to their flocks are generally printed, yet it is not usual to publish them. Bui there is good reason for publishing these instructions, because the public, and especially the legislature, are interested in a great part of their contents. Another equally cogent reason for pub-' iishing them regards the writer. On the 29th of last May, about thirty persons of his communion, some of them very respect" able, were artfully drawn together, and induced to disclaim, his ** political conduct, writings, and opinions,^^ which disclaimer^ on the following day, was published in all the News-papers. It is incumbent then on the writer, in justice to his situation and cha^ racier, to shew the public tchat the Politics are which he has been and is pursuing* They are all contained in the present pamphlet^ and they will be found to consist in nothing else but a steady, plaiU" dealing, and selfdenyingadherence to the religion which he professes, and of which he is a guardian. No man living can shew that he has or tver had any other p^litict* Pastoral Instructions^ &^c. My Dear Brethren, THE first duty of the Chief Pastors of the Church, that from which they derive their title, is to wateh over the mystical city of which they are appointed sentinels. For thus says the Almighty by his prophet Isaiah . " Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, J have ap- pointed watchmen ; all the day and all the night they shall not hold their peace. O you that are mindful of the Lord, hold not your peace.'*(l) In conformity with this appointment, the Almighty warns his Pastors by another Prophet, in the follewing awful terms: ** Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say to them. When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man, one of the meanest^ and make him a watchman over them, and he seeth the sword coming, and he soundeth not the trumpet, and the people look not to themselves, and the sword Com- eth, and cutteth off a soul from amongst them ; he indeed is taken away in his iniquity, but I will require his blopd at the hand of the watchman. — So thou, O son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the hous« of Israel."(2) If then, '^ standing upon the watch-tower of the Lord by day, and upon my ward by night, the burden of Duma call to me out of Seir,'* in the words of the former prophet; '* Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? "(3) I answer in the words of holy Joel : ^' Hear ye old men, and give ear all ye inhabitants of the earth; hath this ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers ?"( 4) (1) Isa. lxii.6. — («) Ezek. xxxiii. 2, 3, 6, 7.— (3) Isa. xxi. 8^ 1.1, (4) Joel i. 2. A % 1 see commotion and desolation in almost every kinir* dom and state in the universe: — I see the inhabitants of the earth swept away, by mutual slaughter, in thousands and milHons: — I see Kings and Princes weltering in their blood, or pining in dungeons or exile :— -I see the unoffending Chief of God's people stripped of his sacred patrimony, and destitute of food and raiment :— I see the Holy City, consecrated by the monuments of religion, and the relics of 400,000 martyrs, trampled upon by the impious: — I see half a million of pious solitaries, of both sexes, whose employment it was to edify and to pray for mankind, dragged from their peaceful abodes, and turned adrift on a wicked and pitiless world: — I see an equal number of sacred altars, on which the atoning blood of the Lamb of God here- tofore flowed, overturned or polluted : — I see the niir- geries of God's ministers, and those amongst others which were destined to supply your spiritual wants, overwhelmed and annihilated: 1 see the successors of the Apostles, the head Pastors of the Church, di- minished in their numbers, oppressed and thwarted in their authority and functions: — I see the stones of the sanctuary, the chief depositaries of ecclesiastical juris- diction, torn from the seat of Peter, and scattered over different regions : — I see a temporary interruption in the essential communication between the head and members of the Universal Church. — In short, I see injustice, cruelty, and barbarity triumphant, on one hand, and avarice, ambition, dissipation, and irre- ligion generally prevalent on the other ; so that looking back on the state of our Holy Church during the eighteen centuries of her existence since the time of her Divine founder, I do not find that she was ever in a state of so much complicated distress as she is in at present. With all these calamities, and the necessary consc- (Juences of them before my eyes, can I avoid crying out, like the prophet Isaiah, in contemplating the l)uideii of Jerusalem : '' Depart from me; I will weep bitterly; labour not to comfort me lor the desolation of the diiughter of my people.*'( 1 ) Having taken this view of the state of the Catholic Church iu general, when I direct my sight to the Gon- dii ion of the particular portions of it, situated m these iilands, I observe that, while we are exempt from many of the evils which oppress our brethren upon I lie continent, we are exposed to others peculiar to Murselvcs, which are so much the more dangerous, as liiey are less apprehended, in consequence of their be- ing disguised under the appearance of a friendly reliefs 1 shall explain these to you in considerable detail, after I have fulfilled, with the help of God, to the best of my power, another duty ; that of shewing you how you are to view, and what conclusions you are to draw fwm the above-mentioned general calamities of the Church and of our fellow creatures. For Pastors are appointed, not only to watch over their flocks, but alio to guide them in every situation and circumstance. To speak first of the temporal calamities which have fallen heavy, beyond all example, on the Christian world, and more particularly on the Catholic parts of it, France, Flanders, Poland, Austria, the several States of Germany, Austria, all the Principalities and States of Italy and the Alps, Spain and Portugal, with their respective dependencies, what are all these but evident tokens and effects of God's wrath against those whom he has most favoured with his lights and graces? The Bible is full of God's threats, and of his execution of those threats, against his chosen people, for their irreligion and immorality; and we observe, that the general instrument he has made use of in the execution of these threats has been some utterly abandoned and infidel nation. Thus says the Lord: *' Woe to the Assyrian, he is the rod and staff of my anger; and my (l) Isa. xxii. 4. inJignation is in their hands. I will send him to a deceitful nation ; 1 will give him a charge against the people of my wrath." ( 1 ) — '' The Lord will lift up a signal to the nations afar off; he will whistle to them fiom the ends of the earth, and behold they shall come with speed quickly ^*{^) In like manner, when an Alaric, an Attila, a Tottila, when the Danes, the Saracens, and the Tartars, in their turns, carried fire and sword through the dif^'erent portions of Christianity, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church never failed to to proclaim them the scourges of God, which v^^ere not to br withdrawn but by piety and penance. If any one pretends to account for the calamities in question by natural causes, and doubts whether the Lord " has ielped the counsel of the impIous/X^) let bins say, whether, in the course of these events, the wisdom of experienced statesmen has not, for the most part, been baffied by the rashness of the ignorant ? Whether the wealth and credit of regular governments have not been weighed down by the poverty of insolvent anar- chies ? And whether the tried bravery of disciplined troops has not yielded to the tumult of raw and half- armed rabbles? Nay, have not the very seasons and elements helped the counsels of the impious in the most striking manner? If then the anger of God has been so heavy upon our brethren in other countries, upon what do we ground our confidence of security from it? Are we more religious than they? Are we more innocent? It is as vain and unreasonable to compare our lives with those of others, as it is to vent our indignation against the scourge which is held over us, without looking up to the hand that holds it. The case is, we are the members of a Church which is characteris- tically HOLY : we ought to be " the salt of the earth, and the light of the world *'(4) In shorty w^e ought (l) Ua. x.5,6.— (2) Isa.v, 26,— (3) Job x. 3.— (4) Matt. v. 13, U, to be '^ the hedge set up to stand in the gap in favoui' of the land, thai the Lord may not destroy it."( 1 ) Insttead of this, have not we^ in the same proportion, as the penal laws have been relaxed in our favour, re- laxed ill the performance of our religious and moral duties, so as to draw down the di\ine indignation, there is reason to fear, upon our fellow subjects, rather than to avert it from them? But the complicated and unexampled evils which wc are witnesses to at the present day, are calculated to suggest other even more alarming apprehensions to thouglitful and religious minds, than those which I have mentioned. — We are all, my dear brethren, con- vinced that, as the world had a beginning, so it is to liave an end; and we are constantly admonished by our Divine Master, as well as by his Apostles, to watch and to hold ourselves in constant expectation ©f, and readiness for this all important event, and to be attentive to the signs which he has been pleased to give us of its near approach. Some of these seem to. have been already manifested before our eyes, and others to be upon the point of disclosing themselves. -- We have heard of '* wars and rumours of w^ars, nation rising up against nation, and kingdom against king- dom, "(2) in a manner unaccountable, and beyond the experience of past ages; and in proportion as na- tions have been subdued, instead of laying aside their arms, we see them arrayed for further conquests and greater slaughter; as if to swell the immense army of Antichrist, which, in the sixth age of the Church, that into which we seem to have now entered,(3) will be (1) Ezek. xxii. 30. (2) Matt. xxiv. 6,7- (3) St. Augustine says, that the Book of the Revelations contains the whole history of the Church from the first till the second coming of Christ. The same is the general doctrine of the Fathers and of the most able modern ex})Ositors; amongst whom is to be reckoned the late most learned and [)ious Bishop Walmes- Ity, in his' History of the Church of Christ. Thclast mentioned, 8 '* loosed, like the four winds, to ravage tbe whole Church with a general penecution, and to kill the third part of men " (1) We have seen a great proportion of the Kings and Princes of the earth plunged into dungeons^ or seeking oh.' cure retreats, like the dent and rocks of mountains, to hide themselves from greater calamities. We have seen the fourth great empire dissolved, and its very name suppressed; which event St. Paul, according to the best interpreters, assigned as a mark of the near approach of the Man of Sin Y^^^ We have seen '^^the Holy Citv given up to he trampled upon by the Gentiles ;(3) and we have even seen ^' the abomination of desolation, or open idolatry, standing in the Holy Place.'*(4) We have seen *nhesun (offaith) darkened,(5) and the moon (the scriptural emblem of the Church) (6) as red as blood (froni the dt solalion and persecution she endures) and the stars /^figurative of the chief Pastors) (7) falling from heaven, ''(8) by the apostacy of some, and the extinction of many more following Chetardie and other interpreters, shews that the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven vials, mentioned in the prophetic book, regard the same times and events. A\ e have wit- nessed, in the first age of the Churcli, the victories of Christ's re- ligion, and the persecutions of it; in the second age, the attacks of Arianism and other heresies ; in the third, the destruction- of the western empire by the Goths and other barbarians ; in the fourth^ the desolation of the eastern by Mahomet ; in the fifth, the revo- lution caused by Luther and his followers. We are now, there- fore, in the sixth age, the age of encreaned warfare and desolation, the •ge of the extinction of the Roman er.ipire, (the present Emperor's title being now confined to Austria) the age of infidelity and apos- tacy, of Elias and Henoc's appearance, of the conversion of the Jews, of Antichrist's coming and persecution. In the seventh age, the mystery of God shall be finished in tlie second coming of Jesus Christ. (1) Rev. ix. 15. — (2) Lucifer, the general interpretation of the following passage by the Fathsrs : Only that he (the Roman Emperor) who now holdcih do hoid, till he be taken out of the way; and then that rrlched one (Antichrist) shall he revealed, 2 Thess. ii. 7.~(3) Rev. xi. ^2.— (4) Matt. xxiv. 15.— (^) Malach. iv. 2.— (6) Cant. vi. 9»— {/) Kev. i. i6.— (8) Matt.Xiiv. 29. Rev. vi. 13. 9 of them. — We have seen such an extensive revolt from the Church (\J of the converted nations, that we can readily understand how Christ, at his second coming, " will hardly find faith upon the eiuih.'XV On the other hand, we see that the Jews, after having laia under the curse of God and man for eighteen centuries, are now rising to notice and favour, and collecting themselves together^ in order, us we may well suppose, to acknowledge, in the first pLice, a false Mess'iah/SJ and then, upon the preaching', of their still surviving prophet Elias, the true one f4j — These sy mptoms^ my dear br<*thren, are certainly snfficient to alarm us for the near approach of that terrible day^ which we ought always to have before our eyes, and therefore^ to induce us to prepare for fresh calamities^ and for a dreadful persecution > rather than for temporal benefits and distinctions. From what has been said, you will learn not to be scandalized at w^hat has befallen the See of Peter, *' the head Church whence all ecclesiastical unity is denyed/'(bj which now, a second time within these few years, is become the theatre of schism, irreligion, and persecution. This was the case with the same Church during the three first centuries, those of its Apostolical fervour. Jerusalem also, the theatre of our blessed Lord's mortal actions and passion, has, for a great many centuries, groaned under the oppres- sion of infidels. In a word, we may with our late martyred Pontiff, when he and his City were seized upon by the unbelievers, say to them: " The monu- ments of our Holy religion are indeed in your hands, but the religion itself you cannot touch." Much less are you to be scandalized at the captivity and sufferings of our present edifying Pontifi", Pius VII, A very great number of his predecessors in the Apostolic See (1) 2Thei.ii. 3.-~(2) Lukexvili. 8.— (3) John v. 43.— (4) Malach, iv. 5, C>.— [o)St. Cypv. L. 1. Ep. 3. 1 have suffered captivity and death itself in the same sa- cred cause^ without any defection in the Holy See. St. Peter himself was crucified by Nero ; and even *^ our great Higli Pri-*st who is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God/YU permitted the wickedness of men to triumph in appearance over him, and to nail liimtoanignominiouscross. It is our glory, my brethren, to have a Pontiff who knows how to suffer the greatest calamities for the sake of Justice and religion ^2^ Very different, however, my dear brethren, ought to heour sentiments and feelings at considering these events, as they affect religion and humanity. In this view, we ouglit to shed bitter tears of grief for the boundless outrages committed against the Majesty of Heaven, by base mortals; for the numberless profanations of a divine religion, brought from thence by an Incarnate God, on the part of perfidious wretches who themselves had been initiated into it; for the multiplied miseries of our fellow, creatures here upon earth, and for the ever- lasting woes which await so many millions of them, not- withstanding all that Jesus Christ has done and suffered for them, in a future state of existence. It is our duty to bewail these evils; and not only to bewail them, but also to pray fervently and constantly, that God would be pleased to mitigate and to *' shorten them;'Y3y and not only to pray against them, but also to exert our- selves and stem the course of thern, as far as it may be in our power so to do. Of one thing, for our consola- tion, we may rest assured that, " The gates of hell will never prevail against the Church.'Y'^^— " The rain mav fall, and the floods may come, and the wind^ may blow, and beat upon that house ; but it shall not fall, for it is founded upon a Tock if bj even the " rock of Peler/Y6^ It shall not only stand, but it (1) Heb. iv. 14.— -(2) See Appendix A.— (3) Matt. xxiv. 22.— (4) Matt, xvi 18.— (5) Matt. vii. 25— (6) " Tu es PETRUS, et iuperbancPETRAMsediliccabc ecciebiamraeam." Matt. xvi. 18, 11 •hall stand unchanged ; its Divine founder continuing for ever with it,(l) and his Holy Spirit teaching it all truth/YS) PART II. In pursuance of my duty, as a sentinel of the Mystical City, I proceed to direct your view, my dear brethren, to the fatal, though covert mischief, which now threatens you and the other Catholics of these islands, in addition to your share in the common calamities of the Church at the present awful period. I slightly warned you of your danger, in a work which I pub- lished some months ago, entitled — AN ELUCIDA- TION OF THE VETO: which, I thank God, has produced a considerable effect in several quarters; still I find it necessary, in consequence of the prepos. session of some Catholics and the ignorance of others, to expose this danger in a stronger light than I have done, and more emphatically to caution you against it. The summary of what I have to prove may be re- duced to the following assertions : 1st. That a settled plan is formed by statesmen, the most eminent for their rank, abilities, and public virtue, and especially for their zeal to effect Catholic emancipation, which is promoted by the general dis- position of the Legislature, and of many Catholics, to introduce changes into our Church-discipline, incom- patible with its safety and integrity: 2dly, That, what is called THE FIFTH RESO- LUTION, which was transmitted to certain Catholics who met at the St. Alban's Tavern, on the first of last February, and voted by the greater part of them, and which was afterwards presented, in the form of a second Petition to the House of Peers, by Lord Grey, and to the House of Commons, by the late Mr Windham, was and is calculated to express a disposition in the Catholics who signed it, to acquiesce in these changes; iU Matt xxiW'u 20.— (2) John xvi, U* 12 Sdly. That, nevertheless, neither the English Catho- lic body at large, nor the majority of the aforesaid subscribers at the St. Alban's Tavern, and that^ least of all, the three Apostolic Vicars with their two Co- adjutors, are pledged, nothwithstanding their signing the 5th Resolution, to an acquiescence in the plan.— I am sensibly grieved that many ©f the arguments, which I am bound to bring forward, will give displea- sure to several respectable characters of both commu- nions:(l) but when those personages, (who are in the habit of paying me compliments on other subjects and of doing justice to the uprightness of my intentions with respect to this) when they, 1 say, retlect, that if I know any thing, I must know my own religion, and that, in the situation which I hold, it is a duty [ owe to God, my flock, and to myself, to protect it from danger to the best of my power, I hope they will moderate their resentment against me, and attend to my arguments. I am aware also, that the present exposure will sweep down some long-laboured cobweb fabrications of certain insfcnious frienWs of muie, which are contrived to present one face to Ca- tholics, another to Protestants ; to appear one tiling in England, another in Ireland; to shew one hue to the clergy, another to the laity. But such fabrications 1 consider as unworthy the sacred cause of religion, and i shall feel no more regret in destroying these in- struments of deception, than I did in destroying others of the same sort twenty years ago. 1 have observsd, for many years past, an eager de- sire in several distinguished Protestants to introduce a sort of REFORMATION into the Catholic C^hurch; and that this has been met by a corresponding dispo- sition on the part of several eminent Catholics,(i2) I (l) See Appendix, B. — (2) One of these, a prime manager and- director of Catholic atfairs, never ceases calling- for a re-uuioa of *be R. Catholics with the Established Church : he even pronounces 13 need bring no stronger proof of this tlian the coun- tenance? and protection which was afforded by the personaoes in question, on both sides, to the infidel Geddes's '* Modest Apology for Catholics/' of which work genuine Catholics will form a true idea, when I tell them that, after discussing various points of con- troversy^ and giving up the orthodox cause on most of iheni, he concludes t)y calling for one more General Council, to revise the decrees of all past General Councils. We have also been assured of late, by persons, the best informed, that a thorough Reforma- tion of our Church-diseiphne and goverment made part of Mr. Pitt's prc^ject of the Union, ten years ago.(l) Still I am of o})inion, that there was no fixed plan amongst our Parliamentary friends for this purpose, till within these two or three years past; when the im- pos.'^ibility of overcoming certain obstacles in the way of their patriotic views for the welfare of the Empire, without sacrificing to the religious jealousy which had raised it, being ascertained, it was resolved upon that this sacrifice should be made at our expense, and the guarantee treaty was concluded, without letting those persons into the secret, who alone were competent to pronounce on the possibility of its being executed. Veiiit hora et nunc est, and quotfs Bossuet and Du Pin to shew tiiti practicability of tins re-union. But he takes care to conctal from Protestants that this |flan never was proposed to them by these Catholic writers upon any other fooringthan that they should admit the authority of the Catholic Church, the P-jpe's supre- macy, tile seven sacraments, the sacritice of the Mass, the invo- cation of saints, ^c. in a word, we would give our hves to unite in religion with our countrymen, on the plan of Bossuet. — See Revolutions, &c. and Life of Fen« Ion f)y C. l>utlcr, Esq. — (1) Lord Ciienville and Lord Castlerea^h are said to have declared thit publicly. Ko ]>arish schoolboy was more grossly ignorant of the Catholic leligion than this Right Hon. Gentleman ouce was, wiio thus uixIertoolTto leiorm it. It appears that h*^' -eally believed Papists to profess perjury, king-killing, ^c. 1 observed in the Commicree of the Commons on the Catholic Bill, that when he attempted to reniove one of oar objections to a certain o*th, he crca^vd two other*. o 14 We can now form a much better idea of the plail than we could do formerly, in consequence of the publication of Lord Grenville*s celebrated " Letter to the Earl of Fingal/' which an Honourable Secretary of State (1) has properly termed *' the Political Creed of all who act with him." I sincerely applaud his Lordship's candour, in thus openly declaring to us the price we are expected to pay for civil Emancipa- tion. Such frankness accords with my ideas of trans- acting business regarding large descriptions of people. The same generous quality of soul will, I am sure, allow us to weigh the terms of hii Lordship's propo- sition, in order to comprehend the full extent of it. I need not observe that the other party in the Legisla- ture insist upon still harder terms with us, in case they can bring their minds to consent to emancipation at all, than our political friends do. What now says the letter ? Lord Grenville, having premised that his ** decision has been taken in concur- •* rence with some of the most distinguished advocates *' of the Catholic cause/' declares that " It would be a " vain hope of accomplishing such purposes (Mr* Pitt's) *^ solely by the repeal of the few remaining disqualifi- ■^ cations. — With the just and salutary extention of '^ of civil rights to your (the Catholic) body must be •« combined other extensive and complicated arrange^ *' ments'' What Catholic heart does not sink at the idea of his religion( that religion which we have suite red near upon three centuries of active persecution to preserve entire) undergoing extensive and complin cated arrangements at the hands of legislators, who, however liberal and benevolent, know so little of it as to swear that it is idolatrous ?(^)'' —All due provision •' must be made for the invioalable maintenance of the « Religious and civil establishments of this United \\) Mr. Rider (2) 30 Car. II. cap. 1. The qualifying oath of Members of P. 15 " Kingdom." — Alas ! is not this religious establish- ment already defended by a protestant Sovereign, by an immense army and navy, and by the laws ? Is it not paid by the state, and recruited from the Catholic po- pulation by the Charter ichools and other similar insti- tutions ? Does a single Sesiion of Parliament pass away without fresh pecuniary grants or other aid to the clergy ? What further means for its invioiable main* tenance, I ask, can be taken in any Parliamentary arrangement of our religion, except to vest an efficient controul over the appointment of our Bishops and officiating Priests, nominally in the Crown, but ef- fectually in the established clergy? — To what purposes this controul would beapplied has been explained above. Among these means, his Lordship continues, — " I " pointed out the proposal of vesting in the crown ati ** effectual Negative on the appointment of your ** Bishops. — To the forms of these securities, or to the *' particular detail of the proposed arrangements, I *' attach comparatively little importance. 1 look only •• to the substantial purposes, the safety of our esta- hlishmentSy he.** — To these substantial purposes, now that we know what they are to be, we also principally look ; and since at present we clearly comprehend that it-ig not the ostensible ceremony of a fr^ sh pledge of our alle- giance, (upon which basis we did once treat with our friends) that they want in requiring a controul over the appointment of our Pastors, but the strengthening of their own Church by the weakening of ours, it is our duty to protest, that, as no instance of a similar claim on this pretext, ever was set up since the foundation of Chris- tianity, so pur assenting to it never can be justifie4 upon any principle of our common morality. No; we must give our lives sooner than our concurrence or assent to it — These sentiments contained in Lord Grenville's Letter, dated Jan. 27, his Lordship '^ re- " established'' when he presented the Waterford Peti- 10 tion to the House of Peeis^ on the 9th of IVIarch, on which occasion he is report.erl to have declared that: '' The circumstances which haJ in r*ened, since i)is *' publication of them in his letter^ so far from ahering '^ those opinions, had conarmrd mm m Uiem '* The cirmmstances in question, probably are the instructions sent by t])e Cathohc Committee of Ireland to their ageU in England, within a week or trn days after the appearance of the Letter, to get iheir Petition pre- sented to the Peers, but not through Lord Grenville, the Irish Prelates confirmation of their decision not to admit of any change in their existiiig Church-dicipline, and then* rejection of the Declaration made at the St. Alban*s Tavern, together vvitn the Resolution of the above-mentioned Committee '' never to admit of *' any controul whatever over the appointment of their " Prelates, on the part of the Crown, The second great advocate of the Catholic claims in the House of Peers, and the representative of the English Catholics there, is Earl Grey. This Noble Lord in the late Debate upon that subject, is stated in the News- paper, which is immediately under his [jatronage,f 1^ to have " acknowledged that he had been consulted on *^ Lord Grenville's Letter^ and that he had no hesita- " tion in saying that there was not a wo id, there was *' not a sentimeiit, there was not a principle, contained *' in it, which had not his full and unquahfied concur- *^ rence. In advocating the rights of the Catholics he (1) Morning Chronicle, June 7. — N. B. 1 cannot forbear noticing one curiou* passage in the Report of this speech. His Lordship is made to say that, *« He knew and felt the unrea::ouable con- *' duct of some Catholics upon the present point, and that he •• could not conceal fro-n himself that they were instigated by *' the artitices of those wlio were decided enemies to their cause." To this charg"., as far as I and my brother Prelates are supposed to be implicated in it, I answer, that I hope pro;jer means may be taken to detect a ad expo*e the folly and ingratitude here suppned : — The real truth is, Amicus Grenvil/e, Amicus Gret/f Amicus ilir)pisley ; sed mugis Arnica Rell^io CathQlica, J7 *' and his friends had never denied the propriety of " s?ich modifications as mis^ht he deemed necessary to ** the safety of the Established Beligion : this modifi* ^' cation had been looked upon as the best which gave *' to the Crown a negative power to contronl the ap- *' pointment of the Romrm Catholic Bishops."— His Lordship had delivered the snme sentiments, and nearly in the same words, vvhen he presented the Ca* tholic Petition and the Petition of the Meeting at the St. Alban^s Tavern ; but his speech on that occasion has been shamefully mutilated and corrupted bj certain editors, as will hereafter be shewn. To proceed to the declarations of other Peers,— « Lord Erskine is r^^ported to have avowed that his '' Creed was Lord Gienville*s L.etter.** Lord Holland promised that " if the House would go into a Com- •^ mittee, he would assent to the safeguards (for the *^ established Church ) which the most scrupulous might *' propose." Lord Clancarty is said to have maintain- ed, in a long declamatory speech, that ^* it is enough *' for Catholics to retain their speculative tenets, and '' that it is absolutely necessary, for the security of *' the Established Church, that they shohld submit the *' zvhole of the disciptine of theii^ own Church, whether '^ originating from General Councils, from the Pope, ** or the Irish Bishops, to the controul of his Majesty's '^ responsible ministers; so that no part of this disci- *' pline could be executed without the consent of the •« executive Magistrate." — 1 bis his Lordship cal!s en- franchizing our Church, and he tells us that it is con- formable to sound Catholic doctrine. If then the Committee had taken place, the nearest relative in mind as well as body to the liberal Fox would have been bound to go this whole length ! Let it suffice to say, that Lord Kenyon (in his printed speech) Lord Liverpool, the Lord Chancellor, and all the other speakers on their suie of tlie House, appeared t«r 18 be nearly as scrupulous^ that is to say, as hard in their proposed dealinjrs with Catholics as Lord Claiu carty. Only Lord Donoughmore, and one or two other Peers, seemed disposed to relieve the Catholics, as they aciiially are, that is to say, on the same just and liberal fernes as Parliament heretofore relieved them in 1778, 1791, and 1793. The rest required conditions inconsistent with the safety and even the integrity of our religion, T he same was the case in the House of Commons, With the exception of Mr. Hutchinson, Lord Do- noughmore's brother, the Marquis of Tavistock, Ge- neral Mathcw, and one or two others, all the speakers insisted upon new-modeling our Church government and discipline. The generous, the soaring Gratlan, though unwilling to press The VeiOy insists upon ex- cluding the Pope's power in the appointment of our Bishops, because the present Pope is a prisoner to the French Emperor, and because he foretells that the next Pope will be his creature: hence he insists upon what he calls Domestic Ekctioiu.- And why, may I ask, is the Pope a prisoner, but because he will not he unjust to this country, and because he is resolved and has taken means tiiat his successor shall be as inde- pendant a Head of the Church as he himself is. I blush for my countrymen, when the most renowned amongst them for his liberality, can propose to add fresh and more galling chainson tlie illustrious Pius VII. in such circumstances ! Besides this, Mr. Gratian knows well that the very case which he dwells upon occurred during all the foreign wars of our victorious Edward HL and this without the least detriment to him or hi3 kingdom. He knows also, that upon his principle there could not have been a common Pa- triarch of Christianity at all, during the greater part of its existence, as it lias been incessantly afflicted with iritestine wars, and as the successive Popes were sur« to be natives of one or other of the contending kind* doms. Then again, how absurd, as far as concerns the state, is the clamour for domestic appointments; since it is an actual fact that, among the 30 Catliolic Prelates of Ireland, the four Apostolic Vicars, and two Coadjutors of England, and the two Vicars Apos- tolic and two Coadjutors of Scotland, there is not 2i single individual who is not a native of those respective countries, not an individual who is not a sworn and an unimp^^achable good subject of his Majesty, and who has not been substantially chosen and appointed by his Majesty's sworn and unimpeachable subjects ! Heretofore our Parliamentary friends gave a fair re- presentation of this matter. In the debate of 1805, Mr. Ponsonby said very truly, '^ The Catholics choose ** their own Bishops, the Pope only gives them their *" spiritual capacity/' Our Honourable and learned Friend, Sir John Hip- pisley^ in seconding the motion of Mr. Grattan, does so, upon a different principle from his. He insists upon the absolute necessity of a Royal Vetof, unre- strained in its exercise,, as to the number of tirties, and as to its motive. He himself was willing to admit of restrictions, but it seems that a Noble Lovd of great abilities and weight in the present business, convinced him that restrictions were inadmissible. Sir John pub lishes, together with his speech, the sketcli of a Bill for the arrangement in question, which, as^he is now our leader in the House of Commons, we may soon expect to hear is introduced there. HeisforextendingtheVeto to the appointment of Catholic Deans, and means to sub- ject even private Priests to the licence of the neigh- bouring magistrates, who very frequently are the Parish Ministers. Still further to enthrall us, he pro- -eposes that all correspondence or intercourse between the Catholics and their spiritual head shall be submitted to the examination of certain officers of a new kiud of 20 Inquisition or Star Chamber, for their amendment, ifsr^ rious, or for their amusement, if trifling. ( I ) Such is th( Catholic Emancipation which our best friends are ar- ranging for us ! Such the reward of the unparallelcu exertions of the Irish Prelates, twelve years ago, in the cause of civil allegiance and social Order ! Such the expedient for satisfying the Catholics of Ireland ! In Vain does Sir John heap together all the oppressive and irreligious acts of Jansenistical and Deistical Princes and Ministers of Catholic countries (one of whom, the Emperor Joseph II. lost his best provinces in consequence of them ) by way of convincing us that these arrangements are coniistent with Catholic tenets and discipline ; We know, a!id Catholic Ireland knows the contrary. I am well acquainted with the benevolence and uprightness of the Honoural)le asid learned Baronet's heart. He means us a benefit; as all his co-operators likeuise do; and he has laboured more, and sacrificed more to serve us, as he understamLs the business, than any, other man living has done. Ca- tholic or Protestent : But, after all, we must judge for ourselvea in the present case; and we clearly see that Emancipation is now held out to us upon no oth^r condition than that upon which we could, at all times (1) See Appendix, D. — The learned Baronet knows more of our tenets, discipline, and oeconomy than any other Protestunt ; and yet his plan would be found essentially defective with respect to his own objects, if carried into execution. We learn from the printed speech, that besides the alterations mentioned above, the- Hon. Member wiihes to turn the English Vicars Apostolic into Ordinary Bishops; while Lord Redesdale, as he complains, is desirous of turning the Catholic Ordinaries of Ireland into Vicar* Apostolic. One intended operation of the Veto, we know, i» to exclude all Regular Clergy from the Episcopacy; another we may confidently affirm, is to subject the exercise of ecclesiastical censures to the civil power. In every instance which occurs at the present day, of Catholic Bishops (for tliey have restrained the power to themselves) exercising that power, which every other Religious Society, and even every club, exercises, that of ex- cludmg refractory members, large damages are given against them, i'^inally there, is qucetion of altering the Catholic Dioceses* 21 lave emancipated ourselves, a real sacrifice of our .Reli<:^ion ! ^o Hut to proceed to the opinion of othet* t(?gislators : Lord Cjistlereagli contends siroiigly for an effectual ijinisterial cimtroul ovev the appointment of our Pre- ates, and the iiifeixoiirse of the Catholics with the Apostolic See.— If this was his Lordship's meaning, . >vi)en he negociafed with ten of the Irish Prelates^ in J 7 99, he certainly did not act fairly by them.— Lord Jocilyn carmot concede the claims of the Catholics, ijiilcss they come forwai^d ma body to invest his Ma- jesty with the Veto —What a strange idea does this i^oble Lord entertain of the constitution of the Ca- ti»«>lic Church 1 — Mr. Shaw insists on the necess^ity of ''mutual concessions ** — Lshould like to ask this and other members who hold the same language :-^" Sup- •' posijig we abjure the Pope's Supremacy, will yon ** abjure your objections againstTransubstantiation V — " O, No,*' 1 hear them say; ** but we will allow you *' to sit in Parliament, and to command regiments.*'— 'lothisi reply: pardon me, my Lords and Gentle- men, ail excrianges ought to be made between things ' Ejasdon generis. Tiie proposal of bartering spiritual for temporal things is absurd and impious. — Mr. Can- ning says that '* no security short of the Veto ought to be accepted of — Mr Percival seems to adhere to his ori- ginal conception of Mr. Ponsonby's proposal, ( that con- ception which produced so strong a sensation, for the moment, in Parliament) namely, that it is necessary for Catholics " to change their religion, by admitting the •* virtual Supremacy of the King over it, before their ^' claims can be granted "(0 ' Mr. Saunders Dundas *' concurs with Lord Grenville ihat the Veto is an im- *• portant object, but not th^ onltj imporlanf object; *' as it is only one of the many iroportant objections to <* be removed before any thing permanent can b^ (i) See Appendix, £. 22 " granted to the Catholics,** and he adds that **many ** Catholics wish for a change in these respects, no less " than hiinselrV* Such, my dear brethren, was the lano:u?2:e and ieraper of our legislators in both Houses of Parliament, respf^cting changes in our religion, at the end of last ?vlay and the beginning of June. Such also, were the avowed plans of our advocates and friends there; from both of which we may gather the extreme danger that our rehgion is now in, or will be in w^hen the expected Emancipation is about to take place. For you see, Jst^ that Protestant Peers and Gentlemen (who know so little of our Religion, as to swear that its v/orship is Idolalroiis) require to legislate on its interior spiri- tual oecouomy and discipline, which they would be incompetent to do, if even they understood the matter; 2dly, that they require the Catholic body to accept of the proposed changes at their hands; tlic Cditholic body, which can no more decide or act in this matter than the whole people of England can in making an act of Parliament ; Sdly, that the proposed arrangements are in themselves incompatible with the safety and integrity of our Church-discipline; 4thly, that they are to b? made (or the express and avowed purpose of giving additional security to the Established Church, by shackling our own ; an object which it is unlawful for us ill any degree whatever to assent to, and much more to concur in. We do not carry that principal so far as Protestants have done, in many respects :(1) on the contrary we indirectly, though most powerfully secure thi« churchj by paying our taxes and contiibutions, and by sending 20(),(j00 fighting men to defend the King and Constitution, which support it, and we Ca- tholic Clergy, in particular, assist in securing it, by ex- horting these men to do their duty as soldiers and lailors, though the Pope himself were to come with (1) See Appendix, F. 23 an invading army in order to destroy if; Init aslo Iciuliiig; a single hand for the particular pnrpose of supporting it ourselves, this it. is not lavriul for U8 to. tlo; for if we thought otherwise, we should be inex- cuseable in refusing to become members of it. It might seem invidious in me to point out the par- ticular means by which tiie arrano^ements in questioa are calcufated to shackle and weaken our Church, in OT'ler to secure and .strengthen anotherCJ'.'irch: IchoobS therefore to describe tlieni in the words of a late writer, a professed advocate for t hem, u ho, however lo(Jse his principles mav be as a Catholic,(l) is a gentleman of veracity and intelligence, and to mv knowledge, much considered and consulted bv the per- sonages he alludes to. What he professes to prove is the necessity of a Ministerial contronl over the appoint- ment o( Catliohc Bishops, from the arguments which he has collected in Ijis *' communications with persons *' of elevated rank and of great niitural endowments,**, and what he says is this: ^' J will sUite the grounds, as *' J have collected t!}em, on whicis this re(j:iisition ha^ " proceeded, which in consequence of hite pr(x:reding> *' in Ireland, is now strenuously maintained, and not *' likely ever to be relinquished.— 1 hey ^ the distin- '^ guished personages) have frequently argued with " me in support ot this impression, from lire tenacity *' manifested by so many, as they contend, ot our ** clergy in a pertinacious adherence to waiters of a ** viost trljiing importance ;'' — {[Almost the whole of our Ritual passes for matter of the *' most trifling import* ** ance'* with Protestants. Hence we are to suppose that the first oj)eration of the Veto will be to make the Episcopal candidate sign its condemnation, previously to his appointment] — '' from their indisposiiion to ** adopt any measures calculated to conciliate the idea^ " of Protestants" [I cannot guess at the meaning of ^1) " Two Memoirs on the CutlioHc Question. By John Joseph ** Dillon, Ebcp March ol, 1810." Sec Aj>[!endix, U. 24 his requisition, unless that the canHidatc should re- nounce the si§n of the cross, abstinence, and cehbacy] — " from thf^ anxiety of certain distingnished eiclesi- " astics to revive, on all occasions, the sj)irit of con- -' troversy, and th<^ir fondness of recurring to former "ages;" [aye, there's the rub; now it so happens, that in every remarkable controversy between Cat ho- hcs and Protestants, vvliich has taken plnre in England or in Ireland during the last thirty years, the latter have been the aggressors, the former the defendants; still we are convinced that the Veto will have the effect of preventing both distinguished and undistinguished Ca- tholic clergymen from publishing upon religious con- troversy, or even upon ecclesiastical antiquities, when it is established by law] — " The prejudices of Protes- '* tants to the Catholic Doctrine of Confession, and '* the mistaken ideas of the influence which they con- *' ceive, through that practice, to be obtained by the •* clergy over the minds of the iaity/' [Yes, it is na- tural to expect that the controul in question will pro- duce a long list of political reserved caiicsj and lay a ministerial embargo on absolutions : for it is obvious, ti^ese may more immediately relate to the civil power than Episcopal consecrations do] — " the Ijigh notions " which are maintained by the Bishops of Episcopal " power over the inferior clergy, and the predilection •' of the Irish Catholic Prelacy, as also of the Vicars •' Apostolic at various periods, in favour of extravagant *^ opinions respecting Papal authority '* [So then, it seems, the whole of our ecclesiastical con^titutio^ is wrong, and one object of the Veto is to reiorni its too Monarchical and aristocratical form,( 1 ) by a due mix- ture of Presbyterian democracy!] — *' All these consi- *' derations raise in these (their distinguished person- (l) The Assembly of French Prelates, held in 1728, declare as toUowK: " The Church, according' to our Doctors, is ft spiritual ** aaoaarchy mixed with ariitocracy," 25 " ao'e«) miiif^s objortions not; easily to be removed, and •* combine to render the difficulty of acceding to Ca- '* tholic Emancipation insuperable, without adequate '* security against an abnf?e ofintluenceiu the CathoHc •' Prelacy over their flocks ** Here then, my brethren, you have from the lips of an intelligent, well-inFormed man, who speak -« in the hearing of the distino^uished personagf^s he alludes to, a clear, explicit account, and one that bears with it its intrinsic evidence, of the nature, meaning, aod objects of that Royal controul over the appomtment of your Pastors, which is described as the hinge on which your civil Emancipation turns. You clearly see that it is not an additional security for the loyalty of our Prelates which is required (in fact, it is abso- lutely impossible to hiud them faster bv any moral of religious chains, in thi? respect, than they are bound already) but a right of interfering in, and actuaUy controu ling whatever is most important, sacred, and confidential in our religion, on the part of Piotestant Ministers. After suttering above two centuries of active persecution for your religion, will yon, in these calamitous days, purchase a tew civil distinctions for yourselves at the price of her degradation, thraldom, and final ruin? And do you expect from me^ yoWr sentinel, to shut either my eyes or my mouth at the approach of such evils? Some persons will here say : — But we are assured from high authority that no religious changes will be required at our hands, except such as are consistent with our tenets and discipline: and I perceive tliat many of you fancy that, previously to the introductioU of any Bill into Parliament coticerning the arran^^^ ments in question, the Catholic Bishopsvvill bt call(^ together and consulted by the legislative Committees, as to their bearing upon our tenets and disciphne. Hence they think that I am too hai>ty in soundi^S: a)r? 26 alarm against ihem. — Mistaken, fond notion I — "The *' legislature/' as Lord Erskine expressly told us, speaking to this very point, in the late debate, " does " not treat with subjects ;'' nor was there^ on that occasion, the most distant hint thrown out by the members of either Houie, as to any sort of weight or consequence attached to the judgment of Cathohc Bishops more than to that of other individuals. — How often have I heard this or similar language from our very best friends in the legislature: — ** We are competent to " make laws witliout your consent: — -We will enact '*" wliat is fair, as we are persuaded the unrestricted *' Veto is, vvliich, if you will not consent to, you '^ must take the consequenct s!'* To these threats I have answered: " I grant >ou are possessed of a **' stroj^g ^^enpon; but we are possessed of one stili ** stronger:— ?e^ have karnt from our ancestors to '^* snijer for our Htligion.*' — In this disposiilon of emaiici paling Ciitholics by persecuting them, our le- gislators arc confiiUied by too many loose anti-clerical members of our own communion. Give ear to the 'langu'^£:e which one of these, the same who has been cited a}>ove, addresses to ibem. Speaking of the plan of a Bill foi arranging the mode of exercising the Veto, the merit of devising which lie claims for himself, he h'jLys: — ** I am convinced that it is only by a Legisla^ ** live Enact men t that the settlement on which the *' parlies may agree can be effectually cstablished.**(l) The writer then undertakes to prove that neither the Catholic Prelates, nor the Pope, ought to be consulted in the business, and concludes as follows : — " Under •* these circumstances, I cannot avoid thinking that *^ the only sure course of proceeding, and one which ** will tend to prevent any controversy, and any con- ** fusion of principle, would be a Legislative Enactment, ^' such as I have suggested." The plain sense of this (1) J. J, Dillon's two Momoirt.— Appendix, p. 31. 27 wode'^n Catholic's advice to his Parh'amentary friends is this :— " Here is my plan for arrangeing the appoint- **^ ment of our Bishops. Pass it into a law at once; " and do not consult the Catholics, either clergy or " laity, about it. This is the only way to prevent " their disputing, and the only way to establish the *' principle of your supreme controul over their Church "discipline!" No, my brethren, should political events take that turn which they are likely to take, a Bill for your Civil Emancipation, but for the spiritual bondage of your Religion, will be carried through the two Houses : there will be no consultation either of Prelates or of the body at large, on the part of the Parliamentary Committees ; but the same layman who introduced the condemned theological oath, of 1791, to the legislature, will again, by himself or his agents, answer for our tenets, our discipline, our Bishops and Clergy, and our laity. In the mean time, Columba- nus and a host of other time-serving theologucs,(l) will contend that all has been done conformably to ari- cient discipline and the existing Canon law. The consequences of this must be persecution, schism, and the loss of very many souls, on this side of St. George's Channel, and the increase, in an hundred fold, of every evil which our Statesmen profess to remedy oh the other side of it. 2. 1 have abundantly proved my first proposition, namely, that *' there is a settled plan, formed by emi- nent Statesmen, and promoted by the general disposi- tion of the legislature, and the efforts of some Catholics, to introduce changes into our Church-discipline, in- compatible with its safety and integrity.'* I now pro- ceed to prove my second assertion : " That what is ''called the 5th Resolution was intended by its *' framers, and is calculated to express a dispositioa •* in the Catholics who signed it, to acquiesce in these (1) See Appendix, H. 28 ^ changes/* — ^The material part of the Resolution in question stands thus: " Resolved, that the Enuhsh ** Roman Catholics are firmly persuaded that adequate *' provision for the maintenance of the Civil and HelL *' gious estabiishments of this kingdom may be made " consistently with the strictest adherence on their part, •^ to the tenets and discipline of the Roman Catholic *' Religion, and that any arrangement founded on this *• basis of mutual satisfaction and security, and ex- «* tending to them the full enjoyment of the Civil con- *' stitution of their country, will meet with their ** grateful concurrence,'' This Resolution, it is to be observed, was drawn up by Lord Grenville, in conjunction with Lord Grey, and is copied, almost word for word, from a passage in the celebrated Letter of the former to Lord Fin gal. From these and other circumstances, which need not be stated, it is plain that the nature of the pledge con- tained in the Resolution is to be sought for in the letter. Once then again, what says this Letter? That '* with •' civil rights must be combined extensive and compli- *• cated arrangements — for the inviolable maintenance *' of the Religious and Civil establishments of this ** United Kingdom — that among these measures was '* one for vesting in the Crown an EFFECTUAL " negative on the appointment of Bi^hops, and that •* this object may be reconciled with the strictest ** adherence on our part to our religious tenets." — What his Lordship means by an effectual negative is plain from its avowed object, the security of the Esta- blished Church, from his dwelling on the substantial purposes of it, and from Sir John Hippisley's note ou his own printed Sketch of a Bill,(l) namely, an un- restricted negative. In further proof that the Reso- lution alludes to an acquiescence in the proposed ne- gative on the appointment of Bishops, I may add, {l] Sec Appendix to Sir Joha'« Speech, »ec©ad Edition, p. 9* 29 titat this object was expressly mentioned in the first dr;ii"t of it, as it stood down to one or tv/o dayi before the Meeting at the St Alban's Tavern, when a certain Gentleman who wa^ deeply pledg*ed to the Irish Ca- thohcs that no snch matter should be brought forward at it, obtained the rehictant consent of onr Noble friends that it should not be expressly mentioned. It was from a deep persuasion that an acquiescence in this and other innovations, if required by the legislature, was implied in the 5th Resolution, thfc^t the venerable Irish Hierarchy, assembled in synods declared, ou the 26th of last February, after five days deliberation, *^ in the " name of Christ, and v/ith God alone before their " eyes" that it was right in their agent to oppose what they call " a vague, indefinite Declaration or ** Resolution, pledging Roman Catholics to an even- *' tual acquiescence in arrangements, possibly prejudicial '* to the integrity and safety of our Church-dicipline.** — Now, my Brethren, you are to observe, that though the Irish Catholic Bishops have no jurisdiction in this country ; yet, pronouncing as they here do, upon a docfrinal matter ; namely, upon a form of words, which, if sound and safe for a Catholic to subscribe in one countrv, is equally so in another, they are an autijority, and the highest authority we can now look up to, for forming our opinions upon the subject in ques- tion, particularly in the silence of the Vicars Apostolic. And, observe, it ev- r has been the practice of the Ca- tholic Churches, when any new proposition, relating to the common Religion, has been broached, to consult the opinion of other Catholic Churches concerning it. I have other objections to the 5th Resolution, which it is of consequence liere to state. 1 object to the coinyetcncij ot the persons mentioned in it, namely. The EnLlislt Boman Catholics^ consisting of all the jnen^ women, and^ciiiidren of our body, to pronounce 30 -^bat is or may be consistent with the tenets and dis- cipline of the Catholic religion. The Irish laity were so well instructed on this head, that, when this same Resolution was transmitted to them, for their appro- bation, they adjourned their meeting for several days, to allow leisure for their Bishops to decide upon it. -- Again, I cannot reconcile it to my conscieuce to express the most distant approbation of provisions to be made by legislators of another religion, for the tsecurity of that religion, without being able to form an exact judgment as to what these provisions will be. The last time, the legislature pronounced upon this subject was, in An Actjor prt serving the Protestant Religion, hy better securing the Church of England^ 10 Anne, cap. 2. By this act, it was prohibited to frequent other places of worship than those of the Esta- blished Church, and it was required that persons should receive tbe Sacrament. — It would also be of conse- quence to me to know which religion was intended to be secured, whether, for example, the Old Reforma- tion of Cranmer, consisting of the 39 Articles, the Creeds, including that of St. Athanasius, &c. or that pew " Silent Reformatio n^'* which the Divinity Pro- fessor of Cambridge,(l ) and almost all modern Di- vines, represent as having supplanted the other, and which openly disregards the former essentials. Another capital objection to the Resolution is, that no good and well instructed Catholic can concur to the maintenance of what he is bound to consider as an act of schism; much less can he concur in shackling and weakening his own Church for this particular pur- pose Nor is it a single Religious Establishment, but the whole collection of Religious Establish- ments in this United Kingdom, which Catholics are (l) See the Divinity Lectures of Professor Hey, vol. ii. p. 48. et pasuim; also the Sermons of Dr. Sturges, Dft Baulguy, Bishop Hoadley, BishopClayton, &c. 31 called upon in this Resolution to concur in maintain- ing. Amongst these is that of the Protestant Charter Schools in Ireland, instituted and supported, at an immense expense of the nation, to buy up the children of poor Catholics, iti order to educate them in the most violent prejudices against, and hatred of the religion in which they were baptized, and of the professors of it ;(] ) I would submit to the decision even of any respectahle governor of these schools, whether it is consistent or conscientious in a Catholic to concur towards their maintenance. These objections are not at all removed by the clause in the Resolution, purporting that the provi- sions in question for these estiiblishments are to be made ^' consistently with the strictest adherence* on our " part to the tenets and discipline of the R. Catholic *^ Religion ;" because, as I have said before, the same legislators who will judge what is necessary for the se- curity of the Protestant Establishments, will, in point of fact, likewise decide ivliat is consistent with Catfu)lic discipline. Lord Grenvillc, whilst he professes, in his letter, to consult our reasonable prejudices, reserves to himself the right of judging what prejudices of ours are and are not reasonal)le. The same Noble Lord, while he promises that the arrangements shall be " con- *^ sistent with our tenets and discipline,'* at the same time assumes that the grand subject of debate, the e/flc- tual Veto, is one of iliis nature, I say the same witb respect to " the basis of mutual security/' on winch many Catholics are led to expect tlic arraMgemcnl,s will be founded. The truth is. Parliament alone will authoritatively decide what is a suHTicicnt security on both sides; and those members of it, on wliose exer- tions there was the most reason to rely for justice bein.g done to us, have already declared openly for the un- limitted Veto; they have e\en testified in my hearing, ^ (1) See the Charter School Catecbism. 32 that they shonkl consider our Religiou a$ sufficiently safe, if the whole umeshicted Veto were ininiediately put into the hands oi Mr Pcrcival himself! — But was there ever before such an instance of inconsistency as to profess a respect for Catholic discipline, and at the same time to violate the very foundation of it; by sum- moning a promiscuous multitude at a Tavern, to pronounce upon, and topromise their concurrence in an alteration of that discipline, without taking the least notice of the Prelates, who alone are competent to juds-e and to act with relation to it ! More than enough has been said, to shew that the 5th Resolution was intended, and is calculated to pledge the subscribing Catholics to an acquiescence in the different arrangements alluded to in Lord Gren- ville's letter, and to the ejfecl ual confront m particular; but, in further proof of this assertion, let rne refer yoa to the terms in which it was introduced into the House of Peers, on the 22d of last Ft bruary, by one of its Noble framers, w ho is, at the same time, the representative of the English Catholics there. 1 shall give them as they are published in The British press .\e:vspaper, which print is well known to be directed bv the English Catholic agents in all matfers relating to the Catholic body or religion. The Morning Chronicle agrees in suljstance with it. Having described the merits and sufferings (f the English Catholics in the loftiest terms of animated eloquence, Eail Grey proceeds, " And, my Lords, I *' have, in making this statement, the satisfaction of «' being authorized to add, that while they pray for ** relief, they (the English Catliolics) are tcilliiig to *' accept it^ accomni)i6lev'3 Speech, \k 15. —12) Ibid. 41 with each other, but also with the venerable Hierarchy of Catholic Ireland- But, unfortunately for the cause of Religion, my efforts for this purpose proved in- effectual, and it is a fact that, of the three Vicars Apostolic, who signed the second Petition, no two Bigned on the same occasion. One of these Vicars, and one of the coadjutors, have declared in print, that the precise motive which determined them to sign it at the St. Alban's Tavern, without waiting for an Epis- copal Meeting, as they had resolved to do, was, be- cause a respectable personage there present " told one *' of them that I had declared, in his presence, in public •* company, on the last day of Jar.uary, that I would not •^ act in this business, as Vicar Apostolic of the Mid - " land Dictrict, and that I should only act as agent of *' Ireland.'' — Some people will think it was natural to have asked me, who was then actually in the room, though not witiiin he.<. ng of the conversation ; whe- ther or no I had made this declaration, and whether I persisted in it? But, be that matter as it may; since it is ascertained that this report of the respectable per- son was the determining cause of the two Prelates signing without waiting for an Episcopal Meeting, I solemnlv protest, that / 7iever did make any suck declaration^ either as to the terms or the sense of it ; and J maintain, that the whole of my language and conduct, on the last of J;uiusiry, as well ns on the first of February, proved that 1 was acting the part of an English Vicar Apostolic, no less than that of an Agent to my brethren in Ireland. Thus it is demonstrated, that one Vicar Apostolic and one Coadjutor Bishop were deceived, or******* intotlie subscription. Another of my English Brethren, whose health did not permit him to attend the meeting, ot February 1st, signed his name the next day, npon the it-pieseniation and after the example of the Prelates above alluded to. Thus his cause stands precisely upon the same ground m with theirs. But still our respective numbers were, for several days, equally balanced, inasmuch as the Northern Vicar Apostolic, with his Coadjutor, con- tinued to write to me by every post, in condemnation of the Resolution, and in approbation of my conduct in opposing it: when, behold, fresh falsehoods, of the most extraordinary kind, were transmitted to those gentlemen, to bring them up to London, on the part of men, whose main object was to get Bishops to sign the instrument of their own thraldom. Being arrived there, the precise falsehood which operated to this «flect, as the former afterwards told me, was a posi- tive assurance, on the part of respectable personages, that the Lords Grenville and Grey had explained the Resolution in the opposite sense to that which they have ever publicly professed, by their pens and by their tongues. The five English Prelates then were^ each of them, deceived in this important transaction by down- right specific falsehoods, (a misfortune to which the most sensible men are liable) and it is a certain fact, which falls within my own knowledge, that more persons than one have boasted of this their irreligious over-reaching. To come now to something more positive and con- clusive on this head : it is a fact, that since the nega- tive interference was first mentioned in Parliament, in May, 1808, I have never ceased to receive let- ters from one or other of my brethren, complaining of the share which I had in that business, though this consisted in nothing more than in giving my opi- nion upon a question proposed to me, and in devising effectual checks for confining that negative (if it should take place) to mere civil purposes. For, God knows, there never was an instant of my life, since I came to the use of reason, in w^hich I would not have lost my life rather than be concerned in giving either power or influence over any part of the Catholic Church to any 43 Un-catholic person or persons whomsoever. It will be seen below, that the ten Irish Prelates are also reproached to this day, by my English brethren, with having assented to a similar project in 1799; not- withstandir^g tney expressly stipulated for their ''just *' influence*' or controuling power in the business ; and though they are known to have assented to the plan un- der a conviction that their religion by means of it was to be eflfectually protected and established in their country. — But to wave this whole matter: let it pasi that the Irish Prelates and myseh have been less watch- ful over the discipline and independence of the Catholic Church than some other Prelates, provided I can shew that we all of us noiv concur in defending them from the open attacks and secret treachery to which they are exposed I am happy to be able to say, that it is actually in my power to shew this, at the present alarming crisis of our Religion. Jt will ap- pear evident by the following extracts, from Official Letters lately written by the English to the Iriih Prelates, in explanation of their meaning, in signing the oth Resolution. I have to observe, that it had been made known to the former, that all English letters on this subject would be transmitted to me, and I have myself signified to some of the writers my intention of making use of these extracts, to which measure they have not objected. The first of these letters is without a date, but bear* the London post-mark of August 9. In this the five English Prelates say: '^ We have had *' nothing to do with The Feto, but to CONDEMN '' AND REJECT IT. Indeed for Vicars Apostolic. ** as such, to stipulate for a Veto, or to olfer to the '' Crown any interference, positive or negative, in ** the appointment, would be as nbsnrd hs it would *' be ineffectual. We lament that the Irish Prtlates, ^' or their Agent, have had any concern in the Veto. " And we think it particularly unjust, that the odiunv 44 •' of it should now be thrown from thenr who were " concerned in it, upon us who GROUNDED OUR " RESOLUTION ON THE REJECTION OF IF. ** We cannot too much lament that, by the 4th and •' 5th indefinite Resolutions often Irish PRELATES, " Ministers should have been taught, that it is not *' contrary to the integrity and safety of our Church- " disciphne, that a Protestant Government should " have a negative in the appointment of Catholic ** Bishops/* In another common letter^ dated August 29» the same Prelates say : " If it be true that Lords *' Grenville and Grey had any arrangement in contem- *' plation, relative to a Veto, or to any measures *' inconsistent with the integrity and safety of the R. *' Catholic Religion, we declare, that we consider such *' arrangements as toreign to the obvious and natural ** meaning of the Resolution which we have signed ; *^ that no such arrangements were proposed to us, or •* understood by us ; consequently that we are not in ** any respect pledged by them ; on the contrary, that, *' by the very terms of our Resolution, we are free to ^^ reject them, and SHOULD ABSOLUTELY RE- "JECT THEM, IF PROPOSED TO US."— This is enough, and more than enough, for the im- portant purposes which I have in view. Whatever the Noble Lords, named above^ may say to these ex- tracts, they give me entire satisfaction, and I have reason to believe they will equally siitisiV the Catholic Prelates and Clergy of Ireland Read over these important extracts again, and observe particularly that the English Catholic Bishops assure tliase of Ireland, that they have already *' rejected and condemned the '* Veto,** speaking absolutely and indiscriminately of every kind of Veto, and even reproaching my con- stituents and me with having been concerned in that strictly limited species of it whicli I have cxpLiincd before. Take notice, also, that ihey even *^ ground 45 *• tlieir resolution (the 5th Resolution) on the rejec- •' tion of it." — However difficult it may be to com- prefjcnd the fact, yet the terms speak strongly the .veanhig of the Prelates in signing the Resolution. — 'i'hey add that, " ij the Lords Grenville and Grey (who " are known to have drawn up the Resolution ) had " any arrangement in contemplation^ relative to the " Veto, they (the English Prelates) would absolutely ^* reject them, if proposed to them/' — It was my earnest and frequently expressed wish, that some such declaration should have been made public, by the party concerned, nine or ten months ago. However, Ihaiiks be to God, it still comes in time, and I am truly happy in having it in my power now to publish it: trustuig in the Divine goodness that it will be attended with the i'ollowing effects. In the first place, the Catholics of these islands, who have been astonished and afflicted at the notorious fact of a dissention having taken place between three English Vicars Apostolic and their two Coadjutors, on one side, and about thirty Irish Prelates, with one English Vicar Apostolic, on the other, relative to a solemn Resolution, subscribed and presented to the two Houbes of Parliament, by the former, and rejected, as highly dangerous to their religion, by the latter these Catholios, I say, will be consoled beyond mea- fcure, at learning from the present publication, that an explanation between the parties has taken place, and that, one and all, they are resolved and pledged to each other, not to consent to any arrangements re- specting a Veto, or other controul over the appoint- ment of their future colleagues, upon which mea-sure all the other projected changes are known to depend. Thus every real ground of dissention amongst all these Prelates is happily removed. In the next place, this intelligence being wafted, as it soon will be, to the Continentii and Islands of tlic Old 4(5 atid New Worlds, wiU'be a subject of joy and edifica- tion to our Catholic brethren throughout the whole Church. We may indul2:e the hope that it vYill even reach the ears of our good and edifying Father, in his sequestered confinement, and that it will prove a second cordial to his afflicted mind, after the plentiful exhileration he has derived from "- The Address of the " Irish Prelates to their flocks/' and from their '' Evan- *« ^elical Letter to all the Bishops in the World," both dated February 26, in the present year. Yes, his \enerable eyes will overflow with tears of joy when he finds that no worldly allurements have been able to induce us, for the moment, separated as we now are^ J^'torn from his supporting arm, to betray the indepen- dence of Christ's free spouse to one great political power, no more than the severity of persecution has been able to make him betray it to the other. Lastly, though our Parliamentary friends, for want of taking due counsel, will find themselves grievously mistaken in their calculations, and though they may perhaps begin to moderate their resentment against me and my brethren in Ireland, by allowing that we Lave acted a consistent part; yet they will be glad that they have discovered their mistake before they commit themselves further with Parliament and the public. In fact, they will conclude from this unani- mous pledge of the Catholic Prelates of both Islands not to admit of any Un-catholic controul over the internal ceconomy and concerns of their religion, that the thousands of Catholics in England, including the great majority of their Nobility and Gentry, no less than the millions of Catholics in Ireland, will freely foreo-o every temporal advantage, and suffer every extremity of suffering rather than yield to it. I know there are amongst us, as may be naturally supposed, some persons who are ready to run all risks of their religion and of their souls, in order to obtain a few 47 temporal distinctions and advantages, but these are persons of the Cathoiic party rather than of the Calho^ lie UeHgion-. and I hope and believe they are not more numerous than mi<>ht be enclosed in the I'avern room where wc met on the 1st of February. On the other haiid, it would be a libel on those il- lustrious Statesmen to say that they will abandon a grand State measure, upon which they have, a thou- sand times over, proclaimed the salvation of the British Empire, and that of the Established Church along with it, absolutely to depend, because Catholics iivill not abandon their ancient discipline; that disci- pline under which they have proved themselves faithful, that, under which they have been proclaimed loyal from the throne; that, under which they have three times over, in the present reign, received the most im- portant Parliamentar}' favours. Nor can they, upon reflection, be angry with us because we cannot consent to a proposal which, at no time or place, was ever made by one set of religionists to another, namely, to weaken themselves in order to strengthen their rivals. No; such conduct can never be supposed of men of their character; it would have the appearance of pri- vate passion rather than of public virtue. They will therefore carry the emancipation into elfect in the only method which can answer its intended purposes; that is to say, by leaving the Catholics their religion (the religion of the Alfreds, the Edwards, and the Baions of Magna Charta) as we ourselves understand it, and are invincibly attached to it. With respect to the persons from whose jealousy all the pre«ent difficulties proceed (as all ihe uproar about the Coronation Oath heretofore proceeded) these groat Statesmen will de- monstrate to them where their real danger, and where their best security lie. They will convince them that it is more for the safety of the Established Church, to •ave four millions a year, and to have an additional 48 150,000 men, fis^hting for the King and Constilnfion^ than to enjoy the most absokite contronl over thirty Catholic Bishops ; that goose-quills are not so aiarmiiig as French cannons, and that a whole dozen of adverse controvertists are less to be dreaded bv them than a single Napoleon. Tlie only inconvenience that is likely to arise from the present publication is, that it will destroy some long-laboured double-faced deceptions of certain in- genious gentlemen, whom, for want of another name, I call the Catholic Agents, just as '' The Plain " Statemetit of Facts" brushed down their cobweb de- vices, of the same structure, in 1791. But as ihesb gentlemen, 1 really believe, are by no mfa»is so anxious about the substance of the desired Act, at about the honour of carrying some one Act, in favour of the Catholic body, througb Parliament, and as Mr. Director himself has assured the Irish Catholics, in his Letter to the Dublin Eveui ng Herald, since printed as a pamphlet, that '* if the Emancipation can /• be carried with the Veto, it can be carried without ^' it ;'* I hope they will have no objection to begin their work over again ; and this on the immovenble basis o( truth and f lain dealing; in which case I shall be readv to assist the cause, as I have heretofore done; though I am well convinced that, in no shape, it pro- mises any benefit to Catholic Churchmen. The main coLiclusion to be drawn from the whole of what has been advanced is, that there is but one rational, consistent, and conscientious line of conduct for us to follow, in the present business, being the same that is marked out to us by our great Master, where he tells us: " Give to Caesar the things which " belong to Caesar, and to God the things which be- " long to God."(0 — ^^5» mybrethren, give to your King ani country your taxes, your contributions, (1) See Appendii, M. 4& your prayers, your ciTil and military services, anrJ, if necessary, vour very lives : but give your ?ouls to God, and keep your religion for yourselves. If States- men pretend to interfere with the latter, tell them that it is evident they know nothing about it, and therefore are unfit to reform it, in as much as they swear that it is idolatrous. — If they mention the cases of Siles'a and Russian Poland, tell them that the Bishopricks in those countries are rich temporal baronies; hut that our Bishopricks, consisting in nothing else but the exercise of spiriiual functions and a spiritual jurisdic- tion, the very existence of whicli they do not acknow^ ledge, but consider as merely imaginary, it is both absurd and unlawful for them to pretend to interfere with them. If they mention the see of Quebec, tell them that tl)ere has not been a single vacancy in that Bishoprick since Cana la became subject to the Eiiglisli Crovrn. U the y tell you that the })resent Pope is, or that his successor may be, the tool of the common enemv ; tell them tijat the glorious Pius Yl\, has de- scended from a throne to a dungeon, bec^ause he him- self will be free, and because \w. is resolved that his jruccessor also shad he freem the discbaige of their sa- cred functions; make them sensible also, that, if the Pope were to become the enemy of this country, he could do it no injury, in as much as tlje (ailudic Clergy, as well as laity, are boinid to resist, and would actually resist, to the utmost of their power, all open force, and would denounce all secret iVaud against the peace and wellare of the country. — W they say, that the Pope mit^ht >end foreign Bishops to Ire- land, tell them that the native Caiholic Prelates wouWl be the first to oppose any attempt of that nature; and that they tliemselvcs liavetiireadv in their bands effectual means of prevciitin^- this, m tl)e Alien Act and the Alien OfTire.- — If they urge that the State lias a right tjo iulerfere in th« constitution and oecouomy of your 50 religion ; tell them you trust it will extend its regulation equally to other religions, differing* from the establish- ment; for example,to the tiaakers,who refuse thcirmilita- ryand civil services lo the Stale, to the Moravians, who deny they are subject to any law, humaiT or divine, and who are governed by numerous Bishops in this country, appointed by other Bishops at Hurnuth, novf subject to an Enemy ; to the Jews, who are connected in biood as well as religion with other Jews, that have acknowledged the chief enemy for their Mtssiah; but above ah, to the society of Freemasons, cansisting of a ^reat proportion of our Gentry and Nobility, and connected by solemn oaths and rites with foreign Freemas<»ns, who are proved to have been the chief instruments in unhinging, of late, the political and moral world. — If they talk to you about a Royal Veto; tell them that the Kirrg already enjoys the benefit of one, in as much as the Catholic Bishops, who must know their own Clergy better than all the Ministers and Magistrates put together, are bound in duty, and by a solemn pledge, twice of late repe^d and pub- lished by them, to prmote no clergymen to the episcopal station, but persons of well-known loyalty and peaceable conduct: that these Bishops are his Majesty's sworn subjects, that they have again, the other day, ( 1 ) spontaneously pledged their souls to God, and their Characters to the whole Christian world, rather to lose their lives than violate their allegiance; and finally, which is most to the purpose, that they have proved their loyalty in the hour of trial. ^hese are arguments which are not to be answered b^ suppositions and surmises, or by rhetoiical flights and figures. — In case, however, these Statesmen persist in the inconsistent claim of interfering in the creation of an order of men, the very existence of whom they do (jlj^^ee the Latin Encyclical Letter of the Irish CattioUc P/eIate»^ addressed to all the Bit-hops in the world. 51 not acknowledge^ a!id of functions which they believe to be mere phantoms of the brain^ you may safely challenge them to shew they can do this upon any other ground than such as would have excluded Jesus Christ and his Apostles from preaching the gospel, or sendini^ a Canonical Epistle to our forefathers, wh^n Cunobeli- nus was King of Britain, and Tiberius was Emperor of the Continent; you may justly reproach them with being more jealous than the tyrant Pontius Pilate, who> as soon as he understood our Saviour's kingdom not to be of this world, declared him innocent; and you may very truly protest, what is proved at large in this pamphlet, that, however glossed and disavowed, reli- gious intolerance is the real principle of the present requisitions. Nothing, my brethren, remains for us all, in this case, but to prepare ourselves to suffer persecution, like our ancestors: — ** Blessed are you wlien they sUM *' revile yon, and persecute you, and speak all that is *' evil against you untruly for my sake. Be glad and ** rejoice, for very g eat is your reward in heaven. '*( 1) — *' The i>race of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with you " all. Amen.'* J. M.— E. C. V. A. M. D. Wolverhampton^ Dec, 10, 1810. (1) Matthew V. 11, 12. POSTSCRIPT. ** A N Address to the Catholics of Ireland," fioni IJL the pen of a Catholu Priest, has just been published in Dublin, the object of which \% to disunity 52 bis countrjmen, in all matters of religious discipline, from the Apostolic centre of Unity, and from each other, by inducing the metropoHtans to form, each one his own, system of discipline; in the course of which >\ork he advances the most heterodox and schismatical opinions. If this writer really believed that his native Prelates were possessed of such extensive jurisdiction as he pretends, he would certainly submit to their nnanimous Resolutions, of February 26th ; but these be turns to ridicule ! In short, he is one of those un- bappy Catholics of the day, who, as St. Cyprian says: *' Intra septa Ecclesia? contra Ecclesiam puy of his Apostolical Chair. In a word, the Pope has freely and deliberately forfeited a noble principality and descended into a dungeon rather tiian do an unjust thing and betray the in- dependence of the Church : a glorious example to us Catiiolics, at this eventfid period ! [B.] i have been accused of uncharitable resentment and personality in the course of the present controversy. If the searcher ot hearts sees me guilty of this unchristian conduct, it is unquestionably my duty to implore his forgiveness and to warn others not to follow my example. But I must here ex- plain my opinion on this head, i am bound to avoid injuring the character and feelings of every fellow creature, whether friend or enemv, as far as I can, and is consistent with my duty. But, if I cannot perform this duty, in warning my flock, for example, of a danger which is approaching them, without making known or annoving the persons who are the means of creating that danger ; it is obvious that I owe more to mv dock than I do to those individuals. On the same principle of charity, and not out of any personal resentment, I have, on various occasions alluded to one or more mdividuals, as the cause of the various and fatal dissentions among the English Catholics ; because these have been notoriously guilty, and because I wish to persuade myself that every one else is in- nocent — J have also been accused, behind mv back, of be- traying confidential secrets ; but no one will venture to ac- cuse me of this to my face ; much less will those persons who have abused my confidence do so. It is true f am in possession of various papers which have been transmitted to m?,, through difl:erent hands, as public records, or have been coiiiaiunicated to me, as official documents, on the general concerns of the English and Irish Cathohcs. These I claim a right to make use of, for the beneht of religion, as I think best. Bat the fact a2 V IV is, I have barely glanced at tu'o or three of them, on as many occasions, without making t'iC -writers known ; at the very time when these writers have left no stone unturned to disgrace me, under my own name and title, in the Newspapers, and to shut the doors of every respectable Catholic against me. [C] As Lord Grenville alludes, in his celebrated Letter, to the communications with which he honoured me at the time of the Catholic Debate in 1808, it is proper that I should pay attention hereto what his Lordship savs on this subject, which is as follows: *' It (the suggestion concerning an eitcctual negative, &c.) was now again brougiit forward with the concurrence of the two individuals , from whose opinions those generally prevalent among your body might best be inferred : of i/ie agent of the very persons to whose office it related, *' and of your Lordship, kc. What 1 said on the suuiect in the House of Lords, was spoken in the hearing of both, *' while the impression was 3'et recent on your minds, and I *' received from both the most gratifying acknowledgments of ^' yom- satisfaction in all that 1 had stated." There is not that man living of whose honour I entertain a higher sense than I do of Lord Grenville's; but he, like other men, is liable to be misinformed and mistaken. His Lordship was misled b}- public rumour to believe that I had authorized or assented to the proposal of a Ro3'al Veto in the House of Commons; I was no otherwise concerned in it than by answering a question con- cerning the presumed disposition of the Irish Prelates in this matter, without an idea, on my part, that a proposal would be made in the House concerning it. His Lordship knows that, when I waited upon him on the morning of the 27th of May, a few hours before he was to open the Catholic Question in the House of Lords, I did not presume, notwithstanding his great condescension to me, to suggest a hint on this or any other matter relating to it; which alone must form a strong presumption in the mind of his Lordship, that I had not sug- gested the proposal which had been made in the other House. So far from this, I carried in my hand and presented to his Lordship a Protest against what had there been said ; which Protest declares, amongst other things, that I had given a ono^e opinio?!, not a pledge, on the abovementioned point, and expresses that, in case the Negative were consented to by my constituents, the Irish Prelates, it would still be necessary it should be linnted, both as to number of times and as to the ground of its exercise. The only observation which his Lord- ship made on this paper (without the smallest intimation that he himself should say a word on the subject) was that he '^ could not answer for his Majesty's Ministers being tied down '' to assign their viotive for rejecting a Catholic candidate for ^' Episcor)acy." It is true that on a subsequent occasion I thanked his Lordship, in a general way, for that masterpiece of eloquence, wisdom and humanity, which he has delivered in favour of the Cathohcs ; but 1 am sure Lord Grenville's wisdom and candour would not tie me down to the admission of every particular position or argument wduch he, a zealous Protestant, laid down on a Catholic Question, in a speech w^hich toolc up several hours in the delivery. Among other things, I recollect his Lordship saying that, " the Religion of ** the Catholics is superstitious and that he earnestly desired *' our conversion." No body, I am sure, will suppose that my t'nanks extended to these expressions. [D.] As the learned Baronet, among other speakers and writers, does me the honour to quote my *' Letter to a Parish ^^ Priest" at great length, in his very interesting speech, which has already gone through two editions, and to draw several arguments from it in favour of his proposed Veto, I must here solemnly protest against the unfair use made of my arguments: in as much as the Veto, which I, for a time, defended, was as ditierent from the Veto now required, as a civil object can be from a religious one. My Veto was limited, in its exercise, to three refusals ; Sir John's is to be totlcs quoties the Minister pleases ; which is precisely the same tiling as if he were to have the positive appointment. My Veto was only to be exercised upon avowed and defeyisiblc cvVz/grounds ; whereas the Minister, on the Baronet's plan, is not obliged to assign any cause at all for his rejecting a candidate; hence we are sure that the latter would generally be rejected precisely for the qualities which had induced us to recommend him. \n short, my object and that of my brethren in 1199 was to aflord an additional, though quite unnecessar}', pledge oi civil alleginnce (by way of a tub to the whale of vulgar prejudice) whereas the professed object of our political friends, a? we now discover, is to shackle our Church, in order to strengthen a rival Churci). After all, that unfortunate private (thougii printed) Letter of mine, Avas a 7?icre Piece of Mooting, intended for the consideration of the Irish Bishops, at their approaching assembly, and with-held, as far as lay in my power, from the inspection of others, llappily the Bishops were not influenced by it, but unani- Vi monsly voted against any change of their discipline whatever, and I, as it was my duty to do, submitted to their decision. S'.^o!] after my return to Eiigland, in the fall of the year ISOS, 1 discovered, to my great surprise, that what our triends really required of us was to secure their Religious not their Ca?'/ establishment ; and I blessed God who had directed the Prelates of Ireland to decide as they had done. It is thus seen that I acknowledge my error, in the face of the public of both islands, which, though innocent in me, might have led to fatal consequence, but for the discernment and firmness of the thirty Prelates of Ireland. On the same principle I hereby pul)licly retract and condemn my aforesaid '' Letter to a Parish Priest," and all my other letters and writings, whether printed or manuscript, on the subject of the Veto, which 1 wrote whilst I was under the aforesaid delusion ; that is to say, from the latter part of iMay till about the conclusion of November, 1808. [E.J From the printed Reports of Mr. Perceval's last speech on the Catholic question, it should seem that he could spare leisure from the arduous affairs of the Empire to read over my pamphlets and flying leaves concerning the Veto, and I am now of opinion that either this Right Honourable Gentleman, or some person under his eye, wrote the '* Six Letters" con- cerning me in The Morning Post, now published as a pamphlet. The facts are these. Sometime in the summer of 1808, a letter or paragra})h appeared in the Ministerial prints quoting a declaration which I have repeatedly published, that " 1 would '* rather lose my life, than be instrumental in giving power '' or even iniluence to an Uncatliolic government over any " part of the Catholic Church." Hence Mr, Perceval's friends, after paying mc a great many compliments a'oont respectability, veracity, WER c:t ^^ £A-RTH U'HICH HAS A RIGHT TO GONTROUL MY OPINIO!??^ ** OR THE PUBLIC ATIO?: OF THEMy WITH RESPECT TO THL *' DISCIPLINE OF THE CATHCLIG CHURCH OR THE CO^SDUCT **' OJ ITS MINlSTEIiS, CaNNECTZ]>\VITH MUNICIPAL LAV/ Al?l> ** TEMPORAL GovERKMENT."-— la tliis pr.fcdica!iient, that is to say eorinecteti with and evG-Tpi\)scnhed by rhe municipal Fav/ and temporal government was, tiJl •oi' late vear^iy ¥he discipline of the Catholic Cliurch >-espe€;tiD2 theheanng-oilM^ss and fre- quenting tlieSrVCvramsntsiR-'diis cc^sntrv.a'nd s'ill mt*i*e recently in France ; and m the oan^ predicament v.'iii ouf whole disci- pline soon be, it' a Noble Eari^ mentioned above, €aiTe>;ecii-£e his project. To l>e brief, without rttracting^ Joiin Joseph Dillon is no Catholic, nc^ will a«y clergyraun v/ho kRa-A'S- hviBj and knows his-duty, treat hisii' as a Catli^ix?, Amonjr the subjects of grief M'hidi ths puyicatic« ir* questiosi aliords, there are some bf an opposite nature. Speak- irtg of the unrestricted Veto^ Johii Jaseph gravely telis u^j that '* we should have a suPicisnt secu-rity against any im- *^ proper use of it in the choice of Cathelie Bishops^ in the- ** responsibility of Ministers ;" Append. |>. j^xviii^ and shat h argues *' a morbid disposition of mind" to suppose that Dr, Duigenaa, for example (who, in quality of Ecclesiastical Pi;ivy Counsellor andOiTicial of Ireland, will enjoy there what- ever pawer the Crowa may obtain in this concern) would ccntiftue to exerci^ie it till he met with a subject ivc for his purposes 1 But the most diverting passage iir thp Vvl>ole book^ is the title which he gives to iiis new-devised Act of Parliamenc for changing the uncha>igeable religion of his piciis Irivii fore- fathers.^ He calls it, " Jn Act to QUIET THE MIND^^ '* of his Majesty's subjects in Irdand professing 'ths JiJ-uuji '' Caihdic EeUgipnr : I cannot dismis> this writer witlwut taking aotiee of wha\ 1 .e ha& lately publishedj both ia his Memoii^ and in his first Letter to E. Jerningham, Es(^. pn the clause in the CathoUc^ Petition relttivp to an alteration of the Marriage Act. TIk: adoption of tai-i clause he ?.?cribes to,. *' An ambitious, in- *^ trigiiin'g ChurcbiTAan, graspioi^ at power in every form; **• b'jroirrg with a lust of contro^il over every family ; bigotted ^* in 'ati atttichment to ceatl^ries of darkness, which obscured " the brilliaiicj of Chri^tiamty, ^c." He then proceeds to give'athealogivaf h-i^S^ixt upon the Sacrament of Matrimony, ill I'hich be shews h:;r.sdf just ai^ well ipforuied as lie lias- proved "himself to be on the subject of spiritual jsrisdictioTi ; lifter which lie declares, that *' if lie stand aloiie he ^vill u?c ^^ every exertion in his power to avert any alteration of the ^* law upon thistjub}ect ;" in as much as, iE the case siippGsed, he would *-^ hold his honours anrf estates solely at the caprice =** of our clergyj' I slmll take no further notice of all th'is Abuse ap-d mis-st8;tement than barely to suggest, that Mr. JDillon must first prove himself to be a menVo^f of the Catholi^^ Chur-ch, and to be acknowledged as .such by her Pastors, isefore he can have a pretence for intermeddling in the business. I therefore now proceed to ^iv:e a true btateaierit of the snatter. The Catholic faith asserts that Matrimony is one of the seven Sacraments of the New Law, conferring a spiritual grace, which the faithful who enter into this state are bound to receive^ Now the subject viatttr or basis of the Sacrament is. the valid contract between the parties. This, like any other contract, may be conjlrnied, but cannot be inade -vi-er again. Thus if I promise my neighbour to gi-ve him a sum of money for some service which he is to render to me, and I repeat my promise twenty times over, the real -contract takes place on the first occasion ; on the other occasions I barely ratify my promise. On this principle it is necessary that Cath©kcs, who .are desirous of receiving the Miicrimonial grace,, should onakc their contract^ in the circumstartces which are otherwise ne- cessary for this purpose; in other words, it is necessary that they should be married, in the fet infitance, by the Catholic Priest; and tha,t the latter has no Sa/jramental benediction to confer on those who have jii^eviausly entered lEto a vaKd marriage-contract, as those persons have dene who have been actually married in the Parish Church. Thus argued and decided Bishop Stoner, Bishop ChaUoner, Bishop Hoi'nyold, Bishop Walton^ Bishop James Tdbot, and all the eminerit Catholic Pivines v/ho flourished at the time whentiie Marriage Act was passed in 1754, as appeacs by piles of their letters ia .«ny possession. So the late Hope Pius VI, also decided v.itii respect to the isarriages under the French Republic, as* is seen in the Letter to the Bishopof Liican., published in The Collectanea, Mc. So likesvise His Holiness Pius VIL has lately decided, a> appears by the letters of Cardinal Gabrielli to the Bishops of La Marca," June 11,1 SOS, written in consequence of the pub- lication of the Napoleon Code concerning divorces, ^^c. fee f^omspondenza Autcniica* Conformably to thii d-xtridej .b2 Xll the Ven, Bishop Challoner published a Pastoral letter on the subject in 1759, and the four Vicars Apostolic s^uiodically assembled in May, 1803, declared it to be a rule of the Enghsh Mission that the contractinjy parties are to be married, in the Jirst instance^ by the Catholic Priest, a copy of which, amongst other regulations, is given to every one of our officiating Catholic Clergymen, on entering upon his office. Still, great and lamentable evils some times arise from the ob-, servance of this necessary discipline, in consequence of the jVIarriage Act, passed in 1754, which invalidates, as to their civil effects, all marriages performed in England (with the ex- ception of those of Jews and Quakers) before any but the esta- blished clergy. The Catholics, at the time, as I have proofs before me, exerted all their interest with the Ministers, Mr. Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle, to get the exemption granted to Jews and Quakers extended to them : Init to no effect, in as much as the law, at that time, did not acknowledge the existence of a Catholic Clergy. Different attempts have been made since, for pbtaining the desired relief, especially in the year 1791, which have failed through the negligence or insincerity of some of our own body ; for there are very good grounds to believe that the heads of the law and of the Established Church, would promote, instead of discouraging a legal remedy for the crying immorality and injustice which very frequently happen in the existing circumstances. The fact is, that men, after solemnly marrying with women in places of worship and before Clergymen, both licenced by law, often abandon their wives and children, and openly marry with ether women ; while Uie parishes will not even relieve the former, because their marriages were not performed accord- ing to the statute. This evil results, not barely from the nature of our discipline, but also from the habits and dispositions of Irish Catholics, who constitute far the greater part of the Ca- tholic population of England. These observing that Catho- lics were married exclusively andlegallv by priests, in their own country, often times positively refuse even to renew their contracts, after being iiiarried by the Priest, before the parish Ministers. The remedy for these evils is obvious : the law now acknowledges the existence of Catholic Clergymen, and we are willing and desirous to concur towards the object of the Marriage Act, by givmg all legal publicity to Catholic INIarriages, without the least injury or degradation to the Esta- blished Cbnrch. We are willing thut tliC banns, here in Eng- land, shall be bidden in the parish Church, or a licence for their omission be sued for in the legal courts. We are satis- fied that the contract be enregistered in the parish books, and that the same fees be paid &s if the parish minister had per- formed the ceremony. This being the real state of the case, I ask how that wicked Churchman, alluded to above (who, to his other crimes, adds that of being fond of ecclesiastical antiquities) could encrease his power ; or how the honours and estates of John Joseph Dillon would be subject to his caprice, in consequence of a modification of the Marriage Act in favour of Catholics ? That Churchman, at present, I have reason to believe, exerts all his influence to induce Catholics to perform their real or first contract, to which the sacramental grace is annexed, as the above mentioned Bishops and Popes have prescribed. On the other hand, the gentleman of honours and estates, when he finds a partner equal to him, will, of course, be validly as Avell as legally married by the parish Minister alone. But, says John Joseph Dillon, " The greater number of " our missionaries have been educated and have lived in a " system of such seclusion from the aflairb of the world, that '^ i^w will be found to possess, what is so necessary for the *' study of the canon law, a juridicial mind. The nature " of my own pursuits, added to the interest 1 have taken in *' the Catholic question, has led me particularly to the con- ** sideration of this point : and 1 have no hesitation in dc- *< daring a conviction, that, if the wishes of some of our clergy *' were gratified, they would be themselves totally at a loss how *' to proceed." The meaning of tijis and of a great deal more insulting language against the Catholic Clergy is, that they are incapable of understanding the doctrine and laws of their own church concerning the Sacrament of Matrimony. Where will tlie arrogance of our little barrister end r Oh 1 that the good Irish Priest, Father Dillon, of Little Moorfields Chapel, whom I so much revered, were now alive, to repress the insolence of this, his little degenerate nephew [ We have seen above, sufficient })ro()fs of his utter ignorance of canon law. On the other hand, there is not an officiating missipnary in England who is not required by his actual duty to know as much of the canon law about matrimony, as if the Marriage Act had never existed, and a gr^iat deal more than falls to tlio ^hareofthis mere luiglish lawyer. XIV [HJ To the schlsmatical lectures of Golumbanus, adopted by J. J. Dillon, and to the mis-statements of Charles Baiter, Esq. Revol. Germ. Emp, and of the author of the '* Letter to Sir John Lawson, Bart.'* and of some other writers, concerning an- cient and modern discipline, with respect tothe appointment of Bishops, I might oppose canons of Councils, and testimonies of Fathers and Doctorsofthe Church in difierentages,totheamount of a huge folio ; but i shall content myself with giving one ca^ non of a General Council and a few testimonies of the most emi- nent Canonists of modern times^ speaking of the church dis- cipline in this regard, both as it was and 'as it now is. The 8th General Council, held at C. P. in 889, can, 22, decrees as follows : ^« This Holy and Universal Council, in confor- *' mity with former Councils, defines and orders that the ap- <* pointment and confirmation of Bishops shall be made by *' the Episcopal College, and that no Prince or Grandee shaJl ^' interfere in the election or appointment of any Bishop." These word^ of a General Council are too plain to need any comment, and clearly prove, that whatever interference either Kings or People have had in the appointment of Bishops at any time, has been by a mere concession of the Church, which acts and speaks by her Head Pastors, and not as a mat- ter of right. Listen now to the subhme Bossuet : *' Thus ^'speaks the Catholic Church to her children: you are a *' people, a state, a society ; but Jesus Christ, who is your *' King, holds nothing from you ; his authority is of a higher ** authority. You have no greater right to say who shall be " his Ministers than you have toappoint him to be your Sove- *'•■ reign. Thus your Pastors, who are his Minrsters, de^ " rive their title from the same high source that Christ himself *' does, and it is essential that they .should be placed over you ^' by an order of his appointment." Bossuet Variat. B.xv. The learned Archbishop of Paris, De Marca, affirms that, " The ancient church followed the example of the Apostles, *' which required that Bishops should be appointed by the *' same persons by whom they were consecrated, and that the *' clergy and peo]>le had no other privilege than that of testi- ^' mony and consent." Speaking of the election of St. Ma- thias, he quotes St. John Chrysostom, who exclaims : '* What " then might not Peter alone have elected an Apostle ? Cer- *' tainly he might ; but he refrained from doing it, that he ^^ might not seem partial." ' De Concord. Sacerd and Imper. xr L. 1,8, 2. The celebrated chnrch historian, Fleurv, says: .** Th.e right of establishing' her Pastors and Ministers is an es- ** sential branch of the Church's junsdiction, nhich she en- *' joyed under the Pagan Emperors, and Vvhich no human pow- *' er could deprive her of, thoug-h some times she was hindered *^ in the exercise of it by force and violence.'* Inst. Droit. .Feci. L. i. c. 1. DescvibiniT the discipline of the primitive Church, he says: " The election of Bishops was nvdde by the *• neighbouring Bishops. The Metropolitan ?.nd his provin- *^ cial Bishops assembled at the vacant See, 4Rvhen the Clergy, '^ the IMonks, the Magistrates, and the People, were consulkd^ *• but the Bishops dccidcdy Disc. Sur. les 6 Prem. Siecl. n. 4. The profound Thomassin demonstrates from St. Cy- prirm and other Fathers, that *' Bishops of old were chosen by ** the xcill of the Prelates and the testimony of the people." Disciplin. Eccles. Tom. ii. L. 2. The oracle of Canonists, Cabassutius says, speaking of the actual discipline : '' He *' who is chosen or nominated Bishop, cannot exercise any ** spiritual jurisdiction, till he is confirmed by the Holy *' See. But, as soon as he is instituted and tontirmed by the '* Pope, though he is not yet consecrated, he can perfonn '' any thing relating to jurisdiction, but not what relates to the -** episcopal order" (such as the sacraments of Confirmation^ *' Orders, &c.) Theor, et Praxis Jur. Can. L. iv. c. 7. Van Espen treats the whole subject with his usual perspicuity. He says: ^' The Church (in ancient times) consented to hear •* the Clergy, and People in the choice of the Bishop, that the *' merits and de-nrK?rits of the candidate might be revealed, ^* and to prevent discontent and murmuring; but the Metro- " pohtan and Provii>eial Prelates had the principal part in the ''^ election, and it was by them, tliat the J>ishop was, properly *^ speaking, elected and appointed.'* Jus. Canon Univ. Vol. i. P. 1 . Tit. 13. *' At present," he says, *' the confirmation of '* all Bishops belongs to the Ronn-an Pontiff, in conformity with *' tlte decrees of the Council of Trent. (See Sess. xxiv. cap. *^ 1. Sess. vi. cap. 1). As formerly the person elected by the *' clergy and people or nominated by the Prince, was not con- '' sidered as the Bishop till he was confirmed by the Metropo- •Mitan ; so by the present common ecclesiastical law, those " who are chosen by the chapters or nominated by the Sove- " reigns cannot interfere in the administration of their dio- ** ceses before trie decree of their confiiination is expedited. *^ It is therefore by means of confirmation, or of the Pope's XVI *^ institution, that a true Pastor and Bishop is constituted, as *^ all canonists teach bij common consent^'^ Ibid. Act 7. I shall close tliese extracts Avith one from the BrieF of the late Pope Pius VI. dated April 13, 1791, and addressed to the Church of France, in which he decides that the Bishops, lately consecrated there hy the mere authority of the State and of certain Metropolitans or other Bishops, without his institution, were destitute of all jurisdiction, and that their consecration was sacrilegious. Jie says : " The right of institution belong* " to the Holy See alone, according to the canons of the Coun- *' cil of Trent; and therefore, if any Bishop or Metropolitan *^ arrogate to himself tliis right, we shall be obliged, in virtue '* of our Apostolic ministry, to declare schismatics, both the '^ Bishop who confirms and the person so confirmed." See these and other authorities to the stune eftect in the author's work, called '^ I'he Divine Right of Episcopacy," Keating and Co. The above testimonies are equally clear and decisive as to all and every point which has been agitated of late years in this and in the sister island, relative to the appointment of Catholic Bishops. I have barely to add, that the right of testimony and postulation, exercised, in primitive times, by the whole flock, and then confined, first to the Clergy, and afterwards to the Cathedral Clergy, has in hitter ages (to prevent the tumults, perjury, and intrigues which too often followed the former discipline) been conferred on n}ost of the dilferent Catholic Princes, in virtue of treaties, called Con^ cordats, which the Church at several times has entered into ■with them. Hence it is essentially necessary that the Prince, bearing testimony to the Church in favour of the orthodoxy y- zeal^ &c. of the Catholic candidate, should hi))} self be a Ca^ tholic. In vain does Columbanus produce instances of Arian and other Heretical Princes insisting on a right of confirming Biibops and even Popes ; for, 1st, Fleury Mill tell him that these were '' acts of force and violence," which the Church never ratified, but always held in abhorrence. 2d, It is to- be observed that these Arian and other Heterodox Sovereigns- never attempted to interfere in Catholic elections for the avowed purpose of securing' their own Uncatholic Churches, but barely to assert their claim to the altwn dominium over the* Episcopal domains, and to replenish their exchequers. Pagi says of Theodoric's ratification of the election of Felix IV. *' Certa pecuni:e fcumma pro confirmatione impetnita." Lastly, XVll it appeal's from history, that these Princes did not properly interfere iu the elections tliemselves, but barely insistea on a right of approving of them. N. B. As the decrees of theCouncil of Trent, regarding dis- cipline, are twice referred to in the above extracts, anJ as they were frequently mentioned in the last Catholic debate, I think it right to add what the learned Church Historian, Dodd, says on this subject, with respect to tiiis country, and what an eminent Catliohc Bishop of Ireland has written to me with- in these few days concerning it in his own. The former says : *' The Council of Trent was never received with solemnity ia *^ England ; but it is believe I that no Catholic will presumii ** to reject it either as to doctrinal matters, or tiiose regarchng *' discipline ;" that is to say where the discipline is prac- ticable. The latter writes: '^ the decrees of Trent, regarding *' discipline, are all received in Ireland, excepting that regard- *' ing clandestine Marriages, which has not been published in ^"^ the province of Dublin, tne dioces'^ of Meat:), and the War- ** dianship of Galway.'' The necessity of I'apal institution was universally acknowledged many centuries before the Council of Trent, and is connected with faith. [I.] Among other unaccountable stories which have been circulated ai}:ainst the writer on the present occasion, one is, that on the 3 1st of January, he removed the conscientious difficulties of a certain respectable Catholic, with respect to the oth resolution, and caused him to subscribe his name to if As this story has been widely spread through Ireland and Eng- land, and that upon alledged high authority, and as some sort of attestations have been procured for the pretended fact, 1 may, and I ought to tell the whole truth concerning it. On the aforesaid 3 1st of January, having then arrived in town but the night before, I was invited by a highly respectable party to what I supposed to be a mere friendly dinner : but this din- ner was hardly over, when a certain friend of mine, whom I had seen in the morning in his study, without his saying a word to me upon the important business, got up and read aloud the 5th resolution, after which, amidst plates and glasses, without further deliberation, I was called up to declare whether I would sign it or not. Thinking that political arguments were be^t adapted to a lay company and a tavern, I endeavoured to convince my friends how imprudent it would be to separate our cause, by the line of conduct proposed, from tl:at of the Irish Cathohcs, and of the particular obligation I myself was c xvm under to act in concert with the Irish Prelates, whose agent I hud the honour to be. I was th._-n called upon to "say, t\-hetlier ^' in other circumstances, and as a mere Knghsli *' Vicar Apostolic, I had any objection to the resolution r" iMy answer was, that *« 1 hoped to give a common answer, m " conjunction with mv Kngiish bret ren, to that question." In fact, I had seen two of them the same morning, and had entered into an agreement with them to act in concert at that momentous crisis. A third question was then put to me, *' whether I woidd promise not to use any arguments to in- <' fluence the decision of my said English brethren ?'* i instan- taneously replied, that " I would make no such promise ; and *' thatl would make use of whatever arguments my conscience " should suggest." Upon t!iis the respectable i^erson in ques- tion briefly asked me, *< May I sign the resolution ?" My an- swer was, as nearly as I can recollect, *' You may sign it if **you please." I sliould probably liave given the same an- swer, if, after being teazed to sign away my little property, imy one of the company had asked me, '*' May I sign it *' away r" adverting to the futility of suc!i a signature and not to the morality of it. I understood from the iirst hearing of the resolution, that its object was to alter our Church disci- pline, by giving up the rights of Bishops, and i remember well telling several of mv friends, that 1 did not regard some scores or even some hundreds of lav signatures, provided the Bishops ^vere true to themselves. With respect to the con- science of the respectable personage, I had nothing to do with it, either as an Irish agent or an English prelate ; nor did he appear to me either on the 3 1st of January or the ist of February to be guided by my opinion. In case, however, he should say otiierwise, it is not too late to retract his signatm'e, and he may lay as much blame on me for what is past as he pleases. [K.] To confine mvself to tlie frauds contained 'in the small collection, endorsed " Roman Catholic Petitions;" be- sides those mentioned above, the second Petition and the INIeetingattheSt. Albaifs Tavern, February 1, are both falsely entitled, *« of the English Roman Catholics." The nnwary reader is likewise led to suppose that it was then and there signed by five English Catholic Bishops; whereas three oitly were present, and of these one refused to sign. Again, the 16th R'.'solution of the Irish Prelates is there quoted, as it has been also in The Fras and The Globe, in support of the XIX 5th Resolution, u-hereas the Prelates in their 1 7th Resolution directly censure it, as being ** vague, indcjinite, and ^spledi^ing *' Catholics to an eventual anjwcscence in arrangements, *' possible/ prejudicial to the integrity and safety cif our Church- ** discipline.''' In order to make tins nth ilesoiution pass with the public ^ox ?i fabrication, which the editors at first boldly- asserted, they entitle the preceding one thus : " Sixteenth and *' concluding Resolution of the Irish Prelates, &;c." Now the Irish Prelates have, again and agum, assured them, under their own hands, that the nth Resolution isgeiuiine, and th^t it was printed and published in Diiblin belore it was printed in England. I wish I could impress religious motives upon the minds of these gentlemen, with hopes of success to induce them, in acting, and even in printing, in a business r garding Religion, to pay more regard to candour and truth. In lieu, then, of such motives, I beg them to be attentive to t!i^t bastard kind of virtue, called honour. Thus much I am sure of, that, if this pamphlet should fall into the hands of the Knight of Kerry, he will declare, that the individuals I allude to are totally excluded from every share in tlic lofty panegyric which he pronounced the other day (after poor Mr. Windham) on the virtues and honour of English Catholics. [L.] Even John Joseph Dillon, Esq. writing to the Secre- tary of the Board in question in the most friendly terms, savs: *' With many others, I acknowledge no autliority in what is *' called the Board of English Catholics to act beyond the *' purposes for which they were originally constituted." Second Letter to E. J. Esq. p. 1. [M.] To prevent a recurrence of those disscntions, which, at different times, have been attended with sucli injurious con- sequences to the body of English Catholics, nothing is so im- portant as the observance of this lesson of our Divine Saviour, by keeping things civil and sacred apart, and leaving e ich to the management of the competent authority. It is with a view to this object alone, and from a thorough knowledge that nothing short of a public statement of some past occurrences can promote its success, that I enter upon the present disagree- able subject. — In an irreligious age and countrv, there never fails to be a great Q.utcry against the ambition and usurpations of Churchm,en ; but it is not in the power of any man to sub- itantiate a single charge of this nature against the English Vicars Apostolic, since their coming into notice upon the first relaxation of the penal laws, about thirty years ago. But C2 XX how stands the account on the other side ? Upon the first appearance of a further relaxation, a certain gentleman, who, from ^'lat time down to the present, has always acted in quality of Director of the English Catholic body, published a paper, now before me, dated April 10, 17S7, in whirh he took upon himself to pronounce, that *' the present Ecclesiastical Govern- *^ ment by Vicars Apostohc is contrary to the primitive prac- '^ tice of iiie Church ;" whxh is false, where the question is concerning a mere A'postolical Mission to a few dispersed Cadnhcs, a- is the case \Vith us. He therefore declares it to be *^ inamibenf on Catholics to use their endeavours to procure ** t;,e nomination of Bishops in Ordinary ;" namely, to be chosen by popular elections. He a Ids, ^' the advantage of '* having Pastors thus chosen by the "flock they are to teach *' and direct, would be, that they would be competent, in ** conjiuKiion xeithit, to regulate excvy 'part of our national *^ Chiixh -disciplined The Bish.'^ps were alarmed, as they well might he, at this Presbyterian plan of ('hurch Reformation and Church Government, and they took measures to defeat it. Yerv soon, liowever, it appeared that tlie Director would ad nit of no Ecclesiastical partnership at all, in regulating, not only our Church-discipline, but also our faitii He irew up a ne.v Professicn of the latter, contained m an oath, since con- demned by the Church ; and he determined also, that we should assume a new and schismatical appellation, that of Prottsting Catholic Dissenters, instead of our own unchange- able name of Catholics. The plan, tin s formt.d, was publisiicd in the newspajjers, and delivered to the present Lord Rcdes- daie, to be restnted to Parliament and parsed into a law, "without once consulting the Vicars Apostolic, who saw it, for the first time, in Woodfail's Register. It is true, the learned 'Gentleman undertook to explain the new Creed and appellation to each of the m, in a MS. folio, called The Red Book, as' he afterwards did to the Body at laroe^ in three yjrinted quartos, called Jlie f^lue Books; but his language to the Bishops and t'^ Cierg ,' ill general was so dictatorial, that tlie late learned and zeal us Prelate, Dr. Matthew Gibson, found himself obliged to cc»mplain, in a printed paper, now befgre me, that *^ the " English Catholic Church '>''as subject to another I,ay Spintnal " Vicar, another Thomas Cromwell." It is true, also, that he consulted crtain Catholic Clergymen ; but this was done, in the usual v'ay, amoi.g plates and glasses, after a dinner provided for the purpose, at the Portland Coffee House. Then XXI and there it was that the Gentleman first produced his mixed composition of heterodoxy and scSsibin to any of the riercjy, whom lie actually called upon, at the very table v.'iere they were dining, to sign their names to h 1 I pass over an in- credible number of ot'ier flagrant violations of the Di'vine Bights of the Catholic Prelacy, and o^ the essential Constitution of our Church, from the same quarter; which violations were the undeniable cause of those unhappy divisions in our little body that took place twenty years ago, and which were scarcely healed, when tlie same cause produced t'le same effects, very recently. I say nothing of the slights put upon the Bishops and Clergy, because I profess "to speak only of the violation of their acknozvledged rights. A fresh Petitioii was wanted ; ac- cordingly the learned Director, in virtue of his prescriptive claim, "drew o'je up, namely, the last Petition of the Enghsh Catholics, But, though this contained two different and im- portj^mt points regardmg the dovtrine and liscipline of the Catholic Church," he did not deign to consult the Vicars Apostolic upon either of them. 'Fhe consequence was, that they were both improperly expressed, and one of them so erroneously, that if I had not succeeded, through another Gentleman, in getting it altered, after the instrument had been engrossed, I must have opcnlv protested against it. The same was the case vrith respect to \vhat is ca'led the Second Petition, containing the 5th Resolution, which Resoiution relates to proposed arrangements of our Church-discipline, particularly in what regards the Episcopal order. Even this Resolution w^as concerted and settled among certain Protestant Statesmeu and Catholic lawyers, or other laymen, and was brought for- ward to bc^ signed at a public Meeting of Catholics, lu order to be immediately signed and presented to the Houses of Par- liament, without tha'Catholic Bishops being consulted, or even informed about it. It is true, the English Prelates were called upon to sign ii^ for the purpose of blazoning our names in capital letters at the head of the subscribers, in order to make Parliament believe that we were tUe foremost to thrust our neclcs into the yoke of spiritual thraldom ; but as to any Episcopal discussion and decision on tijib most weighty subject of Religion and the Prelacy, so far from being allowed tlie ieisure and other means necessary for doing this properly, great industry was employed to prevent our meeting and deliberat- ing together at all/ I have mentioiipd the circumstances of xxu my being called upon at dinner, in a lay company, and upon a single reading of the Resolution, the night before it was to be generally signed, to give my sanction to it-, I have likewise mentioned the circumstances under which the three other Vicars Apostolic were separately induced to sign it, without any common Episcopal consultation. I could mention other circumstances to the same purpose, but I shall content myself with naming one. At the meeting of February 1 , it was not thought necessary to furnish a person in my office with so much as a copy of the Resolution, though I was then so pressingly called upon to sign it, and though I saw copies of it in the hands of most of the respectable lay Catholics there present; and it is a fact, that I was destitute of a copy of it till a long time afterwards, when it was printed, I am not, my brethren, here complaining of injuries or affronts offered to this poor person of mine, which is so soon to be humbled in the grave, and at the tribunal of Christ ; but I am vindicating the Divine Bights of that office in Christ's Church which I unworthily fill ; I am insisting upon the observance of those immutable laws, acknowledgexl h\ all Catholics, which he has laid down, for preserving the faith, discipline, and internal peace of his Church. Were 1 to betray tliese rijrhts oi mv office, or com- promise them, or connive at their infringement, in consider- ation of the advantage I might derive from so doing, 1 should be a traitor to Christ, to the Church at large, and to you, my flock, in particular. It will not be long before you will be called upon to ap- point your Catholic Committee, or Representative Agents, since you have none at present ; or at least to sign fresh pe- titions to Parliament. Concerning such persons and such measures I sa\- not a word : they are temporal concerns. But, il you have seen sufficient reason in this work, and more par- ticularly in the present note, as 1 am surethat99 in every lOO of you who read it will have seen, to support your Bishops in their inalienable authority to judge of and decide upon all matters re- lating to the tenets and discipline ofyourreligion," withoutany ky intervention whatever;" then, at whatever time you are so called upon, my advice to you is this : Draw up and sign another instrument, purporting that " Whereas you have, in *' such a month and year, signed such an instrument, &c. ** your will is, not that any lay Catholic or Catholics should *• treat with ^lembers of Piirliament or other persons concern- *^ ing any changes to be made in our Church diiciphne, or '* conccrnins^ any other matter regarding our religious tenets *' or di:;cipline, on his or their own judirment, or on that of <* other persons unautliorised to pronounce on sucli matters ; *' and that you expressly protest i) now arrived XXIV " for establishing a national Churcij-discipline, indepeiidant " of t^ie Do minatio in Cleros (that of Bishops) on general will, <* affording satist^ction to the Civil Power, to the Nobility *' and Gentry, and to the Clergy." Pie again and again in- forms the Irish, that: "Fortunately, there are EngHsh States- *' men — who will endeavour to liold an ^gis of law between *« the abuses of spiritual power, and the liberties of the Irish ** people:" and he calls upon " The British Rulers to observe, *' tiiat the Irish cannot be converted to j^rotestanism — the " Catholic system must be in.proved, and rendered more " analogous to our Constitution." Finally, he threatens his native Bishops, whom he foully calumniates and insults in every page, that since '^ they hold their Sy nodical Resolu- " tions" (in which they have rejected the Veto, and claimed to themselves the exclusive right of treating and deciding upon the faith and discipline of the Catholic Ciiurch) *' as too sacred *' to be revoked, they must feel the necessity of yielding to the ** law ;^'' at the same time denouncing woe upon woe against them, and all other superiors, if they dare to censure him. Such is the emancipation, and such are the arrangements, which Dr. O'Connor, writing from Stowe, leads us ail to expect a short time hence. riNis. T. Simpson, PrinUr^ Walijerham^toti LETTERS TO A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRELATE OP IRELAND, In Refutation of Counsellor Charles Butler'' s Letter to an Irish Catholic Gentleman ; TO WHICH IS ADDED A POSTSCRIPT, CONTAINING A REVIEW OF THE REV. DOCTOR O'CONNOR'S WORKS, ENTITLED Coliimhaniis ad Hibernos on the Liberty of the IRISH CHURCH. By THE Rt. Rev. J. MILNER, D. D. F. S. A. C.A.R. & V. A. OF THE MIDLAND DISTRICT IN ENGLAND. Cum carpuntur vitia et inde scandalum oriatur ipse sibi scandal! causa est, qui facit quod argui debet, non iile qui arguit : Melius est ut scandalum oriatur, quam ut Veritas relinquatur. St. BERNARD. DUBLIN : PRINTED BY R. COYNE, 165, CAPEL-STREET. SOLD BY JOHN REYNOLDS, KILKENNY, JAMES HEALY, CORK, RICHARD FAKRELL, WATERFORD, AND KEATING BROWN AND KEATING, BOOKER, FOWLDER^ BUDD AND RIDGEWAY, LONDON. IS 11. ADVERTISEMENT. To those who have read the numerous and able perform- ances of Doctor Milner, and who will, of course, be the pur- chasers of the work now submitted to the public, a few word? are due by the publisher in vindication of his own character, and in justice to his feelings. He would be much wanting, in- deed, in his respect to the great fame of the learned author of the present work, did he not shelter him from the malignity of criticism or the slander of envy, when the errors of the press (or the numerous causes inseparable from a publication from a manuscript which could not enjoy the constant aad watchful attention of the writer) shall be found to provoke them. In this instance he must acknowledge inaccuracies consequent upon an anxiety to give as speedily as possible- the most valuable and interesting work perhaps ever offered to the Catholics of Ireland. It would be an idle display of devotion to the wide and uni- veisal celebrity of Doctor Milner, were the publisher to en- deavour to add to his fame by the feebleness of his panegyric or raise his literary reputation by the partiality of private re- gard. This would be impossible — but he felt it his duty to state that the faults of the present work ?nusi be the faults of the publisher, and its numerous excellencies ihose of the learned and distinguished author. All Doctor Milner's woiks to be had at R. Coyness, Gai>ei' street. TWO LETTERS, &c. LETTER I. My Dear Friend and Rt. Rev. Brother in Christ, In that incessant warfare which the spirits of darkness wage against the spiritual kingdom, promised from the beginning, and founded by Jesus Christ, you must have observed how the attacks upon it have varied, at different periods, as to their character and immediate object. Du- ring the first period, it was pagan persecution which threatened to drown the Church in her own blood : during the second, il was heretical sophistry which tried to alter the immutable char- ter of her existence : during the third, it was barbaric violence which attempted to sweep her B off from the face of the earth : during the suc- ceeding millenium of her comparative peace, it was human passion, chiefly avarice or ambition, which sought to undermine her constitution : at the beginning of the 16th century, it was heresy again, under the specious name of Reformation, which essayed to vitiate her pure and unchange- able tenets : and now, in this unhappy sixth age in which our lot is cast, the age of irreligion and professed infidelity, it is not the doctrine, but the discipline and jurisdiction of the Church which her enemies aim at overthrowing. They are con- tent to let her live, so that she may be the slave of their worldly policy. We know from Revela- tion what the character of the seventh and last war against this spiritual kingdom will be, name- ly an Antichristian persecution far more terrible than, that of Nero or Dioclesian, but at the same time far more happy and glorious iri its issue : for then the enemies that shall encompass the camp of the saints and the beloved city being devoured by fire coming from God out of Jieave.n, and the devil who seduced them being cast into the pool of fire ami brimstone— the kingdom of this world ah all beCQme our Lord's and his Christ^s, and h^ shall reign fr ever, Rev. XX. 8, 9. XI. 15. But to consider the attacks made during our ©wn time upon the spiritual rights and jurisdic- tion of the Church even in Catholic states, name- 3 \y in France, Spain, Naples, Tuscany, Austria and the Netherlands, how wanton as well as cruel have they not been 1 We have seen priests dri- ven at the point of the bayonet to administer the holy sacraments to Jansenistic heretics ; orthodox bishops banished from their sees for teaching the avowed doctrine of the Church ; missionaries hunted like wild beasts, for converting and civi- lizing barbarians ; the several religious monas- teries and orders of the Church successively crushed from envy at the edification which they gave; the education of the Church's ministers wTested from the hands of the Bishops into those of innovating Statesmen ; the confidential com- munication between the liead and members of the Church uselessly as well as impiously violated ; in short, eyery part of our ecclesiastical discipline and spiritual authority invaded and outraged in one shape or another : and because such acts of tyranny have been committed by infidel or irre- h'gious princes or ministers in despotic Catholic states, it is now contended that we Catholic Bi- shops and Clergy in this free kingdom are to con- cur towards the same oppression of ourselves. Again ; we have beheld a lay assembly, with the loud applauseof numerous hirelings, attempt- ing to create new bishoprics and parishes, and to transfer the power of constituting true Pastors from Christ's Vicar to promiscuous assemblies. Finally, we now behold our venerable and be- B ^ 4, loved father. Pope Pius VII. stripped of his prin- cipahty and almost of the necessaries of life, and languishing in confinement because he will not concur in establishing a wicked influence with respect to the choice of his successor and in the vain as well as wicked attempt of exciting your countrymen to rebellion. Oh, let Irish Catho- lics be sensible and never forget that Pius VII. is the martyr of his general zeal for the Catholic Church and of their particular welfare.* The same has been the character of the seve- ral attempts on the doctrine and discipline of the little Catholic flock in this island which have been made during the last quarter of a century, that is to say, since a certam learned gentleman (whose late similar attempt on your great Catho- lic flock is the principal subject of the present Letters) became Secretary to the English Catho- lic Committee and, in that capacity, the mana- ger, the director and the autocrat of all our po- litical, and I may almost add of our religious • See Correspondonza Autentica, between the courts of Paris and Rome, printed at Cagliari and veprinted at Palermo, from which it appears that the precise grounds of the perse- cution which the Pope is now enduring,- are his refusal to give an unduei influence to France in his choice of Cardinals, and his refusal to declare war against England, the object of which pretended war, as appears by the Pope's answer, was the foolish expectation of its being followed by disturbances in Ireland. concerns.* These attempts are all marked with, and rise out of the prevailing disregard of the • This gentleman has complained that I am animated with an uncharitable resentment against him : but the reverse of this is the case. His father was one of the most worthy and benerolent men, and one of the most pipus and edif^'ing CV tholics whom 1 have ever had the happiness to know. Hi$ uncle, the great Alban, was the most learned scholar of his age and the glory of the ecclesiastical body to which I have the honour to belong. He himself is a man of very exten- sive natural talents, of indefatigable industry, of tried expe- rience, moral, charitable to the poer, and frequently religious and even ascetical. He is at the head of his profession, as a conveyancer, and cultivates many other studies with success, €xcept theology, which indeed he professes to apply to only by way of relaxation from his graver studies. This is a misfor- tune ; because to act upon a smattering of any one of the learned professions, is of worse consequence than to be total- ly ignorant of it. To be brief, I have no antipathy against the learned gentleman, but a great respect for him. But when I continually find him, during a whole quarter of a cen- tury, undermining the religion of which 1 am a pastor and a guardian, by the books which he publishes himself and en- courages others to publish, and still more fatally by his secret negociations in England, in Ireland and at Rome, with clergy and laity, with Protestants and Dissenters, with ministers of all parties and all subdivisions of parties, from Lord North down to Mr. Perceval ; when I hear him lecturing his bishops, dictating new creeds, and modifying the ancient discipliiu', on his own theological judgment and assumed authority, i feel that it is my duty to oppose him in every way that stenu most eftectual for this purpose. Oh ! when will the day come which I confidently hope will come, when, instead of protest- ing in the name of God, against the authority of bishops in pronouncing on theological instruments, he will revoke and condtmn tliose Blue Books in which such protests ar« to bt. all-necessary spiritual jurisdiction and authority of the Church which, by Christ*s appointment, are exclusively lodged in the hands of her pas- tors 1 A brief chronological account of them from the abovementioned period down to the pre- sent time, will not only prove this assertion, but will also throw a blaze of light on many of the subjects of the present pamphlet wliich the author has studiously enveloped in darkness. It was in 17^*^6, if I remember right, that the late English Catholic Committee was formed, and that Mr. Charles Butler became the Secretary or rather the President of it. The first public in- strum.ent that I am acquainted with in its name is dated April 10, 1787. In this the lay theolo- gian instructs the Catholics of England that their *' present ecclesiastical government by Vicars " Apostolical is contrary to the primitive prac- *^ tice of the Church :'* whereas it is. notorious that our first Bishops, Fugatius and Dami- anus, as well as your Apostles, Palladius and Patrick and almost all the primitive missionary Bishops v/ere» at the beginning mere \^icars Apostolic ! He then pronounces that English ordinaries being once '^ chosen by their flock " would be competent, IN CONJUNCTION found ! What a blessed day will that be for the peace of Catholics and the health of hi^ own soul I *^ WITH IT, to regulate every part of our na- ** tional church-discipline." I need not point out to you, my Dear Brother, what a complica- tion of ecclesiastical democracy and schism is expressed or included in this outset of this Gen- tleman's '' theological career" as he himself terms it. Towards the close of the following year the famous Act of Protestation was ushered into the world by him, under the auspices of two noble Lords, one of them a Protestant, the other a Catholic. He tells us that '' it was framed *^ after long consideration, and attentive perusal " of our best apologists, and conferring with *' ministers and the leading men of all parties."* But he equivalently admits that no bishops or other divines w^ere so much as consulted in the framing of it. In fact it appeared to us, at first sight, to be a deed of unexampled theological inacciiracy, though, in the end we found it to be one of studied cunbiguity also. However, as we did not suspect this we pointed out the inaccu- racies in question, and shewed that we might deny the charges imputed to us by our enemies, in terms perfectly correct and quite as energeti- cal as those proposed to us. In return we were assured by the gentleman and his friends, that Protestant statesmen would not admit of the slightest change in the terms of the instrument, • 1st Blue Book, p. 1. and that, therefore, we must sign it, as it stood, or submit to all the imputations which it denied, that these personages did not see the inaccura- cies which we complained of, and that therefore we might conscientiously subscribe to it, in the sense in which they understood it, inasmuch as (for so we were positively assured) it was 7tot to be i^educed to the form of an oath. By these ar- guments, and especially by that last mentioned, the Catholics in general, bishops and clergy no less than the laity, were induced to sign their names to the instrument. No sooner, however, was this effected than the Secretary forgetting all these explanations and assurances, set himself about drawing up a new exposition of our tenets to be sworn to by all Catholics, on the model, ?is he professed, of this very Protestation ; though, in fact, he aggravated most of the inaccuracies contained in it and added new ones to them. But what deserves principally to be remarked is that our theological conveyancer took upon him- self to draw up this creed, to be imposed by law on the Catholics of England, and even to alter their glorious and distinguishing family name, on the strength of his own private judgment and anthority, without consulting the Church at all, m the persons of her head pastors. It is true he called together /i few private clergymen of Lon- don to a tavern, and there, amidst dishes and g-asses prrvducxl his novel symbol to be approved 9 of by them : but even this device failed. Never- theless, confident in himself, he printed his fa- vourite oath and new title in the Newspapers, and he actually delivered it to Mr. M it ford (now Lord Redesdale, whom of all other members of Parliament, he selected to be our patron) for the purpose of its being sanctioned by the legisla- ture. As to the Vicars Apostolic, the only no- tice he took of them and of their complaints at these proceedings, was to send each of them a copy of the famous Red Book, which he wrote for their instruction unon these matters, beinsra iSlS. folio, bound in red leather and signed — Charles Buder, Lincoln's Inn, Sept. 1, 1789. In this elaborate dissertation our conveyancer teaches the Bishops that it is perfectly right and consist- ent with Catholic tenets for Catholics to go into a court of justice and swear that they are Protest- ing Dissenters, because they are accustomed to protest against the calumnies charged upon them, and because they dissent from the Church of England, and that it is very prudent in them to do so inasmuch as *' the prominent feature" and chief merit of liis Bill for then- relief consisted in this proposed deception of the legislature and the public. He teaches them, secondly, that all and every one of their objections against his new oath, whether relating to the jurisdiction of the Church, the authority of the Pope, the dispensa- C 10 tion of oaths, the forgiveness of sins, &c. are perfectly groundless and proceed from their igno- rance of the matter. It is sufficient here to ob- serve that whatever force there is in the whole dissertation rests <:)n the Secretary's own confident assertions and his skill in juridical logic. It was not, however, to be expected that Vi- cars Apostolic, who knew what was due to their station and what they themselves owed to God and his Church, especially that such men as Dr. Walmesley of the Western district and Dr. jMat- thew Gibson of the Northern, should surrender their crosiers into the hands of a London cham- ber-counsellor, and sacrifice their own weighty arguments against innovations to his chicanery and assurances. They accordingly held a synod on the subject in company with thejr coadjutors and other divines at Hammersmith, (where I also had the honour of being present,) oa the 19th of October, in which the new oath and appellation were unanimous Ij/ condemned. On the pubhca- tion of their Encyclical Letter, in consequence of this synod, dated October 21, though it bare- ly states that '' the Vicars Apostolical had con- *' demned a new form of oath, published in '' WoodfalFs Register, June 26, 1789, and iu- *' tended for Catholics, and that the faithful «' ought not to take any new oath or sign any *' new declaration in doctrinal npatters, or swb- 11 ^^ scribe any new instrument wherein the interests ^' of religion are concerned without the previous '' approbation of their respective Bishop," the Secretary became quite outrageous and resoh^ed upon appeahng from the Vicars ApostoUc to the English CathoHcs at large. This he performed in the course of a month from the kist date, by printing the foho Red Book in a quarto size, the copies of which he distributed amongst the Ca- thoHcs exchisively. These copies being stitched up in paper of a dark blue colour and having no title to them, were called by us the Blue Books, and by your people the Violet Books : the Ita- lian!j called them Libri Turchinl, and sometimes Torchini from their tendency to iniiame the laity against Popes and Bishops. It can never be suf- ficiently lamented that certain highly respectable names appear subscribed to this and the following Blue Books ; but as 1 have reason to believe that a great proportion of those subscribers never once perused the books, and as I have positive proof of its not being thought necessary that a distin- guished churchman, whose name appears signed to them, should have seen them or^ven consented to such use being marie of his name, so I shall continue to consider the Secretary or rather the Director of our Committee, (like the Sovereign's Prime Minister, with respect to his speeches) as exclusively answerable, in Foro Exteriori, for C 2 12 the doctrines anil sentiments (Contained in these schismatical pnblicationij. ' The Bill, containftig the new oatb, was stopped in its progress for more than a twelvemonth. In the mean time the episeopal college and the canse of orthodoxy with it, were weakened and nearly overwhelmed in oonsequence of the death of two of .the Vicars Apostolical, Dr. Mathew Gibson, and Dr. James Talbot. The danger was the greater as every effort was now made by the Se- cretary and his friends tp realize that project, with which he had begun his career three years earlier, namely that of electing successors to the deceased Prelates by promiscuous assemblies, and then getting them consecrated by any. Bishop v.ho might be willing to sell his conscience for such a wicked purpose. This if carried into elTeat, would have made a downright schism be- tween English Catholics and tlie rest of the Ghurch, being precisely the same schism which the French National Assembly, with the hireling part of the clergy of France, liad just then formed. The avowed object of it was to g€t ob- sequious Bishops and Clergy, such as would con- Sjciit not only to the condemned oath and title, but also to that ulterior '" regulation of every part *' of our national ciiurcli discipline," which we hixd been instructed by the Secretary that '^ ordi^ *^ naries, so chosen by their flocks, would be 13 " competent iviih those flocks to make." Many books were ^vritteii by the Protesting CatlwUc Dissenters, for so tliey now signed themselves^ in defence of the Secretary's plan, and several by the old fashioned Roman Catholics, three of which works, you will recollect, came from my pen. At length the canse of orthodoxy and ciiurch discipline triumphed, v»'hen Dr. William Gibson and Dr. Douglass, who had been regu- larly recommended to His Holiness- by the senior Mcar Apostolic, the immortal Wahnesley, and supported b}^ myself and his other adherents, were consecrated in Lulworth Chapel. These new Bishops did not fail to realize the high ex- pectations which tlie Catholic Church, as well as tlie English Catholics had formed of tJtem. Undaanted by the fear of opposition and disre- garding all self-interested considerations, they joined with their venerable consecrator in cori- firmiug tiie synodical decision of October l^tb, 1739. by afresh Encyclical Letter dated Janu* ary '21, 1791. This proved still more mortifying to the Director than the former had been. Ac- cordingly, in the short space of twelve days, with the assistance of a clerical coadjutor, he got up his Second Blue Book, being much more copious than tlie former in its contents and juuch more virulent in its abuse of Popes and Bishops, This you will suppose from its conclusion, whicli consists of a solemn prgtesf, under a threefold 14 mvocation of GocFs holy name, against the tw<> abovementiono 1 very modest and edifying Ency- clical Letter. These are qualified '' arbitrary '* unjust encroaching on our natural, civil and '^ religious rights, inculcating principles hostile '' to society and government, &c." Thus the Bishops and the Roman Catholics were fairly at issue with the Secretary and his Protesting Catholic Dissenters ; the question be- tween them being whether the pastors of God's Church or a lay conveyancer had the better claim to pronounce upon the orthodoxy of an oath, involving the deepest and most important questions of theology, and upon the propriety of retaining or renouncing one of the marks of the true Church. The latter had every worldly advantage on his side, and he was so confident of success that I well remember he laughed me to scorn when I told him that we should find friends in Parliament. The Bishops had no other effective supporters in London than Mr. Weld, the Rev. Charles Plowden with his brother Francis and myself. Nevertheless, with the help of a good cause and plain honest dealing, under the divine protection, we gained not only a com- plete but also an easy victory. The chief debate took nlace in the House of Commons on the 1st of March, when Lord Rcdesdale, according to his instructions, whilst he extolled the Protesting 15 Catholic Dissenters up to the skies heavily de- pressed us poor Papists, whom he accused of having, in certain instances;, actually starved to death .some of the former. One sliort hand bill, endorsed A slate of the contest amongst the Ca- tholics, which I had caused to be dehvercd to the Members as they entered their House, blunted the edge of all this abuse, and brusl^d down all the Secretary's cobweb projects which he had been almost two years in spinning. Mr. Pitt after perusing the paper, said that he had beeu " mistaken in the great outlines oi the Bill 3" the then Attorney General declared, in his place, that we " had proved our^lyes to be as desery- '' ing of relief as our rivals ;" and a leading man amongst the Dissenters, who is still an ornament to Parliament, the Hon. W. S. said tQ me j ^^ Our '' grand objection against your people is that we '' think them not sufficiently scrupulous about '' the obligation of oaths : but now when we see '' that you are so much more strict on that head " than the other party, we will support you in *' preference to them." And of what do you suppose this hand bill consisted ? Of nothintr more th^n l>aif a dozen short extracts from tba Blue Books m defence of the new appellation and oath, and of the same number of brief plain answers to those ^xtraci:s. In fact it was found impossible to retract the forn^^er and equally impossible to reply to the latter. Thus, op th^ 16 memorable night of March 1, 1791, was " trie «' leading feature' of Mr. C. Butler's Bill, as he had termed the schismatical appellation,* anni- liilated and the heterodox oath shattered in seve- ral of its parts. The title of Protesting m\^ Dis- setters, under whrch the Bill had been brought into Parliament, Avas absolutely interdicted, and in fact does not appear annexed to the very pa- pers in the Blue Books published subsequently to that date. With respect to the oath, it was then decided that either our consciences should be sa- tisfied or that the Bill should be rejected. In the end we obtained your approved and orthodox form of oath. This was a most blessed event, not only with respect to English but also to fo- reign Catholics : for as on one hand, the schis- matical clergy of France already boasted, in their printed Acts, of having gained over the Secre- tary's friends to their communion, so on the other nothinsr is more certain than that if the thou- sands of confessors of the faith who landed on our coasts soon after the Bill was passed had been required to subscribe themselves Protesting Dis- senters and to take Mr. Butler's heterodox oath, they would one and all have exclaimed, " Send ^' us back to the lantern and the guillotine ; we *^ have not preserved the name and faith of *' Catholics at the risk of life in our own countrv •^' to renounce them here^, in a land of exile." * Red Book. 1st Blue Book, p. 2. 17 It is true the learned gentleman had recourse to' two devices in favour of his oath ; one before it was totally rejected by Parliament, the other to save its reputation afterwards : but as these partook of the same crooked policy which had dictated the oath itself, so they came to the same disgraceful end with it. The first of these con- sisted in privately printing and circulating amongst the leading Protestants exclusively, a paper called A State of Facts which described me, though the avowed agent of the English Bishops and their adherents, as the only indivi- dual CathoHc who objected to the oath, and which referred to a list of those who had signed the Protestation, (copies of which list were pre- sented with the copies of the paper) as to persons who all then supported the obnoxious oath 1 Among these names were those of the Bishops themselves, on whose behalf I acted. You may be sure due care was taken that the name of John Milner, though actually subscribed to the original, should not appear in these printed copies, as the appearance of that would have led to an explanation, and defeated the whole object of the furtive hand bill. If you wish to see an account of the strange embarrassment of the Se- cretary and the wretched shifts to which he was reduced on my discovery of this plot and my re- proaching him with it, you will find it in the D 18 Second Appendix\omf Ecclesiastical Democraci^ Detected. The other device was that of sing- ing Te Deum after a defeat. We liad succeeded in getting the Secretary *s oath, which in fact was built on the Protestation^ though far worse than it thrown out of !Parhament, and your Irish oath of 1774- estahhshed by law as the proper mode of our protesting against the calumnies imputed to us. However, lo throw a kind of false glare 0- er the degraded Protestation, this gentleman bethought himself of getting it lodged in the Bri- tish Museum. Having then procured a majority of votes for this purpose, at a Tavern Meeting, (though Bishop Douglas, on his own part and that of his colleagues, and almost all the clergy present voted against it,) he undertook to carry the measure into effect. Fortunately, however, for the cause of orthodoxy and the credit of the English Catholics our diplomatic Secretary sub- stituted a fabricated copy for the original, and to this spurious production he annexed the names of the 1800 Catholics who had been imposed upon to sign the original, as also a copious and false commentary of his own upon it, the existence of which his most intimate friends were ignorant of, 'till I had occasion to expose it. The glaring differences between the Original Protestation, as first printed to obtain our signatures, and as cer- tlfied hy the Secretary himself to be accurately printed J have been carried to demc^istrative evi- 19 dence by the Rev. Charles Plbwden* and myself^ in the pamphlets which we published in answer to printed challenges on this head, and may still be ascertained by any intelligent man, who will compare the abovementioned certified publication w^ith the parchment, now in a tin case at the Museum. Such nun^rous and humiliating de- feats, could not fail of bringing the learned gen- tlenaan into disgrace with the honourable persons who had employed him. Accordingly, sinc^ this controversy about the authenticity of th^ Protestation, (without however relaxing the least in his endeavours to manage and direct every act and concern of the Catholics, and to influ- ence every person of the least consequence among them) he has never chosen to publish his name or to appear openly in these concerns, till the present occasion when he comes forward in his own character to direct the Catholics of Ireland, in opposition to their native Bishops. But it is essential that I should keep up the chain of my chronology ; hence I must mention different events (some of them better known to you than they are to myself) and make several observations before I enter upon the business im- * A Reply to the Report of the Cisalpine Club on ilia Authenticity of the Protestation. t Letter to the Cisalpine Club. D £ 20 mediately before us. In 1771, an additional sa- lary of .i^IO. making ^40. per annum in the whole, was granted to your priests who chose to renounce their religion. In 1774 your people obtained of the legislature an orthodox oath of allegiance. In 1778 they procured some scanty relief. In 1792 they presumed to hope for fur- ther relief, but that hope was spurned at.* In 1793 they gained greater privileges than they had even hoped for,f and greater than they were en- titled to, in case they still deserved to be treated as slaves. This they demonstrated in 1794, when in consequence of the physical rather than the moral strength of their cause, Mr. Pitt sent over Lord Fitzwilliam to unchain them. Of this wise act, however, he was soon induced, no matter by what means, to repent, when it became ne- cessary to resort to the old policy of dividing the Irish for the purpose of governing them, and of ultimately suppressing their national legislature. To you and to those who knew Ireland there is nothing very surprizing in the open civil war and the extermination of whole counties of Catholics in the North which now took place ; but when these and similar proceedings were conducted by the magistracy and connived at by government * An Address was this year rejected because it menlioned holies, f The elective franchis©. 21 for six or eight months together, we may be sure that the latter had some great object in view. In short the rebelhon of 1798 took place : Ire- land was inundated with blood, and effectually divided and weakened, which being effected the proposal of the Union was made to the several parties with the prospect of benefit to each of them. In fact the Protestant interest was insured in its ascendancy^ and the great landholders were indemnified in solid coin for their parliamentary interest, while the Catholic laity and clergy were paid with promises. There was, however, this difference between the promises made to the for- mer and the latter, that the Minister really in- tended to emancipate the laity, provided he should find it convenient to do so, which he never did ; whereas, so far from your religion being secured and honoured and established in Ireland, (as some of your venerable brethren wxTe led to believe when they treated with his agent in 1799) it now appears from the confes- sion of this very agent, that it was to be shackled and made subservient to the interests of an ad- verse Church, and that you yourselves were to be made dependent on a Protestant ministry in- stead of the chair of St. Peter, for your offices and the management of them with an express ex- clusion of the discipline of the Council of Trent.* • See Lord Castlereagh's Speech ill the revised Beport of th« last Catholic Debate, published by Keating and Co. S2 It is true this titled agent would have us beheve that Mr. Pitt, in subsidizhig the Catholic Prelates and assuming the appointment of them aimed at nothing more than securing their loyalty, as if he entertained any real doubts or fears on this head ! and that he did not xcish to be troubled with any degree of substantial patronage over f>ur church : Oh ! rjo to be sure, not even to turn the scale in a contested election ! In oppo- sition to Lord Castlereagh's assurances as to the real object of the Minister in w-ishing to subsi- dize the Irish Prelacy and to interfere in their ap- pointment, I will mention the following circi^m- stance of a fact which took place in the year preceding the one in question, and to which his Lordship refers in his speech. When ^ir. Pitt affixed the seal of his office to a very moderate annuity in favour of the Catliolic Bishops and Clergy of Scotland, which 1 am sure was very purely and unsuspectingly accepted of by them, lie said, '^ This is the best bargain I ever made *^ in my life : I have gained the greatest power '^ with the least mone3^'^ Such was the case also with the ten most upright Prelates of Ire- land, who were drawn into a communication with the great agent of the Union in 1799. They did not see into Mr. Pitt's real object, as it is now unfolded, not only by Lord Castlereagh, but also by Lord Grenville. Had it been barely hinted to them that they vv^ere expected to re- 23 nounce the discipline of Trent, they would have stopped their ears with horror, and run away from the negociator. They treated upon the sole ground of giving another test of their loyalty ; they stipulated for the consent of Rome and for their own due influence^ or ccfntrouling power. This implies all the restrictions which I after- wards proposed, but which were rejected. After all, these Resolutions of the ten individual Pre- lates were never acted upon, were never accepted, were never so much as made "knou^ either in England or in Ireland. Not even Sir John Hip- pisley or the Ex-Secretary was acquainted with them till vT/Yer the debates of 1808, But, though the Resolutions were not known, and therefore of no avail, yet, ever since the Kill's scruples were talked of, that is to say im- mediately after the Union, the subject* of allow- ihg some kind of power to the Grown in the ap. pointment of our Prelates was always more or less in agitation among our political fj-iends and the Catholics themselves. You and others of your brethren as well as some of my English bre- thren are witnesses of the fears tli at I expressed in 1807 that a storm was ready to break over our heads on this subject, and the Noble Lord who carried your petitions through this town back- ward and forward knows how often and how (garnestlv J warned Jiim never to coi"«ent to x\\^. 524 uncanonical proposal of Catholic Prelates being, in any way, chosen by persons who themselves were not Catholics. Your last Petition but one was fixed for debate at the end of May 1808, at which time I went up to London, as your agent, to lend it what little support was in my power, and still more to oppose any violation of your ec- clesiastical jurisdiction, which might be attempted in consequence of it. The morning after my arrival there I was conducted by Lord Fingal to Mr. Ponsonby, when I gave the latter my opinion^ on the subjects which he proposed to me, with truth and frankness, but without a suspicion that this opinion and much less a proposal grounded on it, was to be brought before Parliament. With the same unguarded confidence I wrote a hasty memorandum to the Rt. Hon. Gentleman on a variety of matters, but not as a studied pro- ject^ such as I was willing should be laid before the public in any shape whatever. Hence when I heard it asserted and saw it printed that I had authorized, a proposal which tended to make the King as much the head of the Catholic as of the Established Church, I was struck with inexpres- sible horror. Accordingly I hastened to the press, and printed a Protest against the proposal which Protest the Rt. Hon. Gentleman himself the next day consented to my circulating. I shewed it also to Lord Grenville, previously to his opening the Debate in the House of Ix)rds. 25 It is true that whilst I was under the idea of your Prelates agreeing to a strictly linnited Veto, I printed a paper, called A Letter to a Parish Priest, in explanation and defence of it ; being in- tended as a mere problematical essay for their con- sideration, and therefore sent by me exclusively to Bishops, not as a thesis on which I had ulti^ mately made up my mind. As I was greatly mortified when I first saw it published, so I have since heartily revoked and condemned it.* Your synod having at length resolved that " It is in- '' expedient to make any alteration in the pre- " sent canonical mode of appointing Bishops/* I not only submitted to it, but also clearly saw that you had followed the only safe course in a business of more consequence than all the king- doms of the world. But how much more warm- ly did I approve of your decision when, in the course of two months afterwards, I clearly ascer- tained til at the restricted Veto, such as I had for a time advocated, would not satisfy our political friends, but that they required one unrestricted, both as to the number of times and the motive ot * It is because I have protested against the sense affixed to I7iy note addressed to Mr. Ponsonby, and because I have con- demned mv Letter to a Parish Priest that my opponent now republishes them. Well let him continue to reprint them, provided he will fbilow my example in explaining those ot his writings which require to be explained, and in retracting those which ought to be retracted. E 26 its exercise, aiid that its real object was to give additional strength to the religious not the civil estabhshment of the country ; a measure which no true Cathohc can ever concur in. During no part of this or the preceding periods had our Ex- Secretary been idle : on the contrary, though concealed from the public eye, he was ever ex- erting his great talents and the influence which he had acquired over persons of different parties professions and religions in England, Ireland and at Rome, for the advancing of his projects. I found him more actively than usefully interfering in my controversy with Dr. Sturges, in Sir Harry Mildmay's Rill against tJ^e Nuns, in the appoint- ment to n>y present station, and in my being nominated to be your agent. In 1809 I recog- nized him, under various disguises very harm- lessly engaged in stimulating your countrymen to present another petition, though he was far from being then sincere in his professed opposi- tion to the Veto. We are now descending fast to the present pe- riod, and the existing controversy. At the be- ginning of last year, namely on the 13th of Ja- nuary, I put forth a paper in Mr. Gobbet's Re- gister, complaining of the persecution exercised on the Catholic soldiers in Spain, which paper I concluded with the friendly advice to our politi- cal friends, not to insist on the vexatious measure S7 of the Veto ; predicting that, '^ if they did per- * ' sist in it, your countrymen would consider it *' as a choice of evils between them and their *' enemies.'' Twelve days after this, appeared the celebrated Letter of Lord Grenville, a noble- man for whom I shall ever entertain the greatest veneration, on account of his talents, liis private virtues, his patriotism, and especially his import- ant services to our Religion, on two critical occa- sions ; but whom my duty to this Religion forces me to withstand on the present occasion. The pui-port of this letter was to signify that we were not to expect the aid of his mighty povvers mi our behalf in future upon any other terms, than those of our entering into arrangements for secu- ring the Estabhshed Church, and for admitting an effectual Protestant cotitroul over the appoint- ment of our head pastors, which implied that you were to revoke the Synodical Resolution which you had passed sixteen months before, amidst thunders of applause from every shore of your island. It was vainly imagined, that if the Eng- lish Cathohc Meeting which was appointed to be held on the ensuing 1st of February, sheuM j^ignify their acquiescence in this requisition, it would induce the Irish Bishops and lay Commit- tee to do the same. Accordingly a Resolution, containing the essential meaning of tlie letter and nearly in the words of it, was handed to our managers on the S9th of January, and though 28 they were deeply pledged in numerous ietteps not to adopt any measure in the general concern, and least of all respecting the Veto, except in con- junction with and as secondary to your more powerful exertions, they agreed to the Resolu- tion, which as I have intimated, contained every thing of the Veto, except the name. Still one of the gentlemen, whose word and honour were particularly implicated in the letters, trembled for the consequences of the Resolution when it should beconie public, and it is owing to his exr ertions, during the three intermediate days, that the clause in it, expressing a willingness to ad- mit of an arrangement respecting the appoint- ment of Bjshops was left out. When proposed to me at a dinner on the evening of the 31st, I argued in the strongest manner \ could on the necessity of the English Catholics acting in con- cert v/ith their brethren in Ireland, and of Ca- tholic Bishops holding the same language in re- ligious matters all the world over. In opposition to this it was contended, tha;t the cause of the pnglish stood upon a different ground from that of the Irish, and that, by opposing my couritry- men I had vacated rpy seat as an English Pre- late. At the meeting on the following morning, two of my brethren vvho were present, vote^ with me against the Resohition, though after- wards, while my back was turned, being misled by a downright falsehood concerning me, they 29 were induced to sign it in the form of a Petition to Parliament. The grand question now amongst us was, how all these measures in England would succeed in Ireland, to which country indeed they were all principally directed ; when, in a very short time, my three predictions were exactly verified ; and the respectable gentleman who had been most urgent with me to hold a different conduct can- didly owned, that / had acted right, and that he, ill my situation and with my knowledge of circiim^ stances, would have acted in the same manner. Tq be brief, your Committee sent orders to their agent to get their Petition presented to the House of Lords, but not through Lord Grenville ; in the second place, they directed him to hold no com- munication with the English Catholics ; and thirdly, your vjenerable brethren resumed their Synod and therein (after asserting the rights of our persecuted Pontiff, their own rights, as the judges of faith and discipline, and their loyalty to the Sovereign, in sixteen Resolutions Avhicli will for ever shine bright in the annals of this century) they voted their unanimous thanks in a seventeenth Resolution, to their episcopal ageitt in England, for his *^ firmness in opposing a '^ vague, indefinite Declaration (the fifth Reso- "^ lution of the St. Alban's Tavern Meeting) ^' pledging Roman Catholics to aii eventual ac- so '* quiescence in arrangements possibly prejudi- " cial to the integrity and safety of our Church " discipHne/* This your seventeenth Resolu- tion, which I took care to communicatie to the gentleman, as soon as I received it, was quite a thunderbolt : it astounded him, and it crushe 1810, in which, amidst many hollow compli- ments to your dignity, &c. your seventeenth Re- solution is declared to be '^ a fabrication — a sp?/- '' rious libel — aitkivard malice — intended to for- ^ umrd danger CMS viezcs and slanders.'' It con- eludes with a threat that " as long as Dr. M. con- *' tinues exposed to such uncontradicted libels a?^ ** this vote of thanks, and a late infamous letter ** in the Irish papers, signed Detector, he will be **. precluded from holding any future communi- ** cation with his Catholic countrymen on their ♦* pohtical interests^*" that is to say, until you * A certain young gentleraan who condescends to be agent to the conveyancer, iias endeavoured to realize this threat, and to shut the doors of all the CathoHcs against me. But, if he •could. succeed in this tidicuLous attempt, ray duty as a preacher 31 retract your Syno^lical act, the English Catholics will hold no connnunication with me, or rather with you, who passed the vote and whose agent I was : and all this insulting^'language to a Catho- lic Hierarchy and a Canonical Synod, is written in the name of the Board of^^EnglisIi " Catholics^* and of my ^' Catholic ccuntrymeii'* in general I This ridiculous attempt to filghten Irish Prelates into an immoral as well as a dishonourable act failing, the next was that of endeavouring to prevent your Resolution from becoming known in England, by laying an embargo on the different Newspapers and other presses in London ; but this also being after a certain time, defeated, no resource remained but that of impugning the knowai truth. Accordingly in the late thin folio, labelled Roman Catholic Petitions, S(c, 18iO, in quoting the sixteen Resolutions of your Synod it is termed, *' The Concluding Resolution, isc.** thereby signifying to the public, what had before been asserted to your faces, tliatyour se^,enteenth Resolution is a forgery : and though, in my last publication I complained of this imposition, the genileman is not ashamed to repeat it in his pre- sent pamphlet, again entitling the sixteentti Re- of truth is marked out to roe by my master : Sliake off'thelr vciy dust frojn yonr feci in tc'sti?nony against t/tem. Oit ! that I couid make this young man sensible how far (jreferable the respect of true Catholics and conscious viitue is to a vuie of Thar;ks, an inscribed tea-urn and ^1000 ! 32 solution ^^ the Concluding Resolution of the Irish *' Prelates, &c.'' At the conclusion of last May the Catholic question came en to be once more agitated in Parliament, when m^rfirm adherence to the cause of honour and truth, in refusing to sanction what Mr. Ponsonby had inadvertently advanced in his place, two years before, on one hand, and to accept of Mr. Perceval's compliments in the- Morning Post with the view of my countenanc- ing a direct attack on that gentleman's moral gliaracter on the other, having caused them both to make speeches against me, the gentleman and his assents took care to inundate both islands with Newspaper reports of those illogical effusions. Not content with this, the agents got together about thirty Catholics to vote that they were *^ not responsible for my political conduct and " writings," alluding particularly to my recent Elucidation of the Veto, which had produced a very powerful and happy effect. Had I pub- lished in the Newspapers, that I was not responsi- ble for the theology of several of those Catholics, at the same time naming them, I am well assu- red they would have been quite unable to defend it , whereas nothing was so easy as to defend my politics, since these consisted in nothing else but plain honesty and conscience, and in refusing to be a party to that crooked policy in which my 33 opponent was then engaged. Accordingly I demonstrated tliis in the Statesman Newspaper, professing at the same time a cordial charity to- wards the subscribers in general, but calhng upon them, as gentlemen and as men, to force their fee'd writer and manager to meet me under his own name, in the fair field of open argument on the principal subjects of our differences. Thus constrained he, at length, comes forward with an averted countenance, but still without a vizor. I rejoice at the determination, not from an ambi- tion of measuring my strength, but viy cause with his, the cause of ecclesiastical subordina- tion and unity with that of insubordination and anarchy. It will now appear what credit is to be given to those confident assertions, those juri- dical evasions, and that ostensible respect for the Church and its pastors, which the writer of the Blue Books so largely deals in. Having failed iu a late attempt to get his English Blue Books, Protest and all,* reprinted in Ireland f in order * In a printed Letter now before me, dated Lincoln's Inn, July 1 1, 17t)l, Mr. Charles Eutler writes as follows : " The *' Protest and Appeal (against the Bishops) has been the sub- *' ject of my most serious consideration ; but the reasons " which make me think it a defensible measure, would swell " this letter into a dissertation." t The publisher of the Blue Books experiencing some in- convenience from the report of his attempt to get them re- printed in Ireland, tried to induce the person whom he had applied to for this purpose, to deny the fact before a witness, F 34 to dispose your flocks for the general duty of re- ligious respect and submission to their pastors, he now addresses a fresh Blue Book written express- ly for their use, under the title of A Letter to an Irish Catholic Gentleman on the Fifth Resolution, in order to shew them what account they are to make of your sy nodical decree, pronouncing it " vague, indefinite, and possibly prejudicial to " our Church discipUne." I shall resume the subject in a future letter : in the mean time I remain, &c. J. M. Wolverhampton, March 20. addressing him in the terms itiade use of to induce the Irish Prelates to disavow their seventeenth Resolution, namely, " I ** anticipate your answer, &c " But that person was a coun- tryman of the Prelates, an honest man and a sincere Catho- lic : the attempt of^ course, failed. 35 LETTER II. My Dear Friend and Rt. Rev. Brother in Christ, V OU and most of the leading Catholics of Ire- land will by til is time have seen A Letter to an Irish Catholic Gentleman on the Fifth Resolution of a Meeting of English Catholics, February 1, 1810, by Charles Butler, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn. It is addressed to one gentleman ; but it is intended for the zvhole of your gentry and nobility : it pre- tends to be a defence of the English , but it is an attempt upon the Irish j it professes great vene- ration for the authority of your Prelates -, but it is a direct attack upon the solemn act of your united body : it app.ears to reprobate everi/ species of Veto ; but is calculated to dispose your peo- ple to accept of a?2J/ species of it which he, the framer of the heterodox oath and schismatical appellation of 1791, shall find it convenient to arrange with Protestant Statesmen. In short this Irish Blue Book is as specious in its appear- F 2 Q 6 ance but as mischievous in its effects as the Eng- lish Blue Books were. Since the same object is now in view, the same means are now employed, and the same pohtician now directs them, as twenty years ago, what so just, what so prudent then as to look back to the history of that period, in order to gain light for our conduct at the pre- sent r This is the principal object I had before my eyes in my former chronological letter. I. Mr. Butler divides his book into eight po- sitions. The first of them is this : *' The Veto '^ originated among you,'* Irish Catholics. This he afterwards explains by referring to two dif- ferent periods and transactions ; the communica- tion of the ten Irish Prelates in 1799 with Lord Castlereagh, and the proposal made in Parlia- ment by Mr. Ponsonby in May, 1808. The proposition taken either way, is flatly contra- dicted by the two Noble Lords who were hereto- fore colleagues in office, but who now hardly agree in any point except in giving the Veto an English origiiial, and referring it to the head of ^Ir. Pitt, at the time when he planned the Union. Lord Grenvillc is reported to have expressed him- self as follows,^ in his speech of May 27, 1808 : * The following extracts from the Debates on the Catholic question in ISOS, are quoted from the Report printed for Faulder, and edited by certain Catholics oi distinction. The extracts fi'om those of 1810, are taken from the revised 37 *^ The removal of civil disabilities is only a part '^ of a large and comprehensive system. It was '^ so considered by that great statesman now no *^ more. Oar opinions on this subject were not " only in complete unison, but, I may truly say, " were framed together by mutual communica- " tion and unreserved confidence. The plans " which were then in contemplation, embraced ^* the whole ecclesiastical state of Ireland, its " religious establishments in all their various " branches. If you tolerate the CathoHc Church, ^' which is episcopal, you must, of course, allow '* it to have its Bishops, but it is unquestionably ^"^ proper that the Crown should exercise an ejfec- ^^ tunl negative ccer the appointment of the per- *' sons called to exeixise those functions. To me '* it is NOT NEW, / always felt the propriety of " providing for this point. It formed a part of *' the plans intended to be brought for ivard at the " period of the Union'* His Lordship expresses himself to the same effect, as to the origin as well as the necessity of the Veto, in his Letter to speeches, lately printed by Kealinj< and Brown. For a true account of what was actually spoken in Parliament, I o-reatlv prefer the Reports of the Morning Chronicle or of any other respectable Newspaper (with the exception of the Globe and the Press, these papers being under the guidance of our Ex- Secretary,) but as the speeches in those books have, in gene- ral, been revised by the speakers, I take them as containing at least the second thoughts of the orators. 38 Lord Fill gal.* Let us now attend to what Mr, Pitt's agent in Ireland at the time of the Union, Lord Castlereagh, said on the subject in his speech of May 25th, 1810, Describing '' the *' feelings and impressions under which Mr. Pitt's *^ government contemplated, at the period of *^ the Union, the possibility of effecting a gene- '"' ral settlement," he adds: '' Upon the eccle- " siastical part of the arrangement I was aiUho- *' rized in 1799 to communicate with the Catho- '' lie clergy." After much vague and inaccu- rate talking about the discipline of Catholics in foreign countries, both CathoHc and Protestant, liis Lordship proceeds to inveigh heavily against the alleged obstinacy of the L'ish Catholics in adhering to the discipline of the Council of Trenty after whicli he says : *' V^^onsuch principles con- *' cession never ivas contemplated b\) Mr. Pitt, or *' those who acted with him at the time of the *' Union. They had no desire to interfere with ** the discipline of the Roman Catholics, as far *' as it regarded mattei's of worship, but in so '' far as it concerned the appointment of their *' ^^^^SlJy especially the titular Bishops, and ^^ more particularly the intercourse of the Roman • John Joseph Dillon who more than intimates that his in- formation is derived from the liable Baron, declares himself to be now satisfied that the plan of the Veto " originated in a *' ^reat and exalted mind ;" meaning Mr. Pitt's. See his Two Memoirs. Appendix p. 7. 39 " Catlwlic body with the see of Rome ; they de- «* sired to see it brought under such regnlationSy " as, without imposing any degrading depend- " ence on the Crown, might dissipate the im- " pression of alarm, &c."* Upon the credit then of these two Noble Lords, speaking of a business in which they themselves were con- cerned, I aver it to be a falsehood that the Veto, or plan of giving to the Crown a powder of inter- fering in the appointment of Catholic Bishops, originated zvith the Irish ^ as Mr. B. asserts, and that, on the contrary, it originated with Mr, Pitt. In consequence also of what Lord Castle- reagh now declares, I maintain that the ten Pre- lates who communicated with him at the period in question, were greatly imposed upon. For had his Lordship once hinted that it was expected from them to renounce the discipline of the Coun- cil of Trent, they would have turned their backs upon him with as much disdain as if he had re- quired cf them to give up one of the seven sacra- ments. Nor did the mention of tiie WlO in 1S08, originate either with the Irish Bishops or laity : since it is admitted, on all hands, that in my conference with the Kt, Hon. Mr Ponsonby, I repeatedly declared, / had no inytructloiis on thr 40 ndyject from Ireland j in consequence of which declaration I was directed to write thither for in- structions. This passed on Saturday, May 21, and the proposal was made in the House of Com- mons on the following Wednesday, ISlay 25th. Of course no instructions could have arrived from thence in time to sanction the proposal. Nor was this proposal any way authorized by me^ the agent of the Irish Bishops, as Mr. P. himself has now candidly and publicly declared. His words, as reported, are these : " The Pa. Hon. Gentleman " (Mr. Ryder) has stated to the House that llie " accredited agent of the Catholic Bishops had *' authorized me to make a proposal to this House ** in their name. Now he is perfectly incorrect in '^ tliis statement. / never said any snch thing, *' I stated 1 had reason to helieze that the Catho- '' lie Bishops and Clergy of Ireland and the Ga- *' tholics in general were disposed to give the " Crown an effectual negative to the nomination ^* of their Bishops, and when I was asked for '' my authority, I answered that it was Dr. Mil- ic ner."* Here then is the testimony of Mr. Ponsonby binhelf in my favour. He expressly denies that I authorized him to make any propo-* sal to the House, and he as expressly states, that in tlie communications between us I had barely given him '' reason to believe''' that there was a * Pa<>e 1.35. 41 disposition in Ireland to grant the Crown a nega- tive. Only two minor points then remain to be cleared up : 1st. Did I give my opinion con- cerning the presumed disposition of the Bishops, (for I never gave so much as an opinion about the disposition of any other persons) with the view or idea of its being proposed in Parliament ? I answer : NO, and it is absurd to suppose that I had such a view or idea : 2dly. Was my opi- nioiiy whatever my views might be, a sufficient ground for the introduction of so important and dehcate a matter into Parliament ? This point I leave to the judgment of wise and experienced men. Mr. Whitbread has publicly decided upon it, when he said : '' I confess I think it (the Veto) " was prematurely brought forward by my Rt. « Hon. Friend."* Mr. B. proceeds to declare as follows: '^ Often " as the Catholic concerns have been canvassed ** over in public and private meetings, in open **^ and confidential conversations both by Protest- " ants and Catholics, and numerous as are the *' books and pamphlets and publications upon " them, it is not in my recollection, that, before *' the late mention of a Veto in the House of *' Commons, the word Veto, or any thing which *' expresses or implies, or can be thought to ex- • Page 174.' G ii2 " press or imply it was ever mentioned or hinted " at by a single Catholic on this side of the *^ channel.'* What must se\^ral distinguished persons, both Protestants and Catholics, whom. I could name, think of a man, who, professing to be acquainted with alt that has been canvassed relative to the Catholic concerns, not only m public, but also in private meetings, not only in open but also in coiifidential conversations, denies his ever having heard of proposals for vesting even the absolute patrojiage of our Bishoprics in the Crown ; to say nothing of Vetos and other limitations of that measure I But when he ap- peals to publicalions, he appeals to downright evidence against himself. Has he tlien never read the celebrated letters of Peter Plimley, so called, published previously to the Debate in question, and the following passage among others ? *' To my certain hioivkdge the Catholics have ^^ long since expressed to his Majesty* s Ministers '^*^ their perfect readiness to t;ejrinihis Majesty, *^' either with the consent of the* Pope, or zv it h- *^ out it, if it cannot be obtained, the nomiTtaticn ^^ of the Cfitholic Prelacy,*'* Did he never see Ks friend, Mr. M'Kenna's pamphlets, in one of which the writer declares that ** There exists the '^ utmost readiness to give satisfaction, on this " head," that of nominating to Catholic digni- • Letter ix. p. 30. 43. ties^* Or does be pretend to be a stranger to the following declaration of one of our leading and- best ; informed Catholics of distinction, in which he^ speaks of the Royal patronage as a thing which had not only been canvassed but also unanimously agreed upon, among English Catholics: *' Government has only to signify " that it is their wish that the King in future *^ should have the nomination of the Catholic " Bishops. This will be conceded."'}' Finally, I should like to ask this learned gentleman, who so confidently denies that any intimation of a ministerial interference with our Catholic ap- pointments is to be found in books, or pamphlets published before tlie debate of 1808, whether he ever read those ' invaluable publications of our ** invaluable friend*' Sir John Hippisley, to which he so confidently refers J in which the author positively declares that he himself " ante- * ' cedently to the Union suggested to his Majes- ** ty's Government a regulation providing that " lists of persons recommended to fill vacant '* titular sees or deaneries, previous to their trans- ^* mission to Rome, should be communicated to *' his Majesty's Ministers. "§ The work from * Preface to tfee Petition of 1807. p. 16. f Considerations on the Catholic Debate of 1805, by Sir John Throckmorton, Bart. p. 148. X I-etter, p. H. ^ Substance of Addit. Observat. p. 117. G2 4'4 which I quote was first printed in 1805, and it refers, as you see, to a period antecedent to the Union. Who, after seeing all this will be im- posed upon by the confidence of Mr. C. Butler's declarations ! II. Mr. Butler's second position is this : — *^ Your Offer ^'' that is to say the offer of you, the Catholics of Ireland, " of the Veto produced " on the public mind a strong impression in your '^ favour." As to the fact here assumed by Mr. B. it is notoriously false, as your General Com- mittee assembled at D'Arcy's Hotel on the 24th of last April, expressly voted, and as was still more emphatically expressed by almost all Ire- land in the numerous Assemblies which were held on the subject upwards of two years ago. It is a marked insult to Catholic Ireland to charge her with having ^* made an offer of the *' Veto.*' And as to the alleged beneficial con- sequences of the unauthorized proposal of it, on the 2.5th of May, 1808, if we may believe Mr. Whitbread, '' it did not make one convert to the ^^ cause.'** This declaration is supported by the printed speeches of Mr. Perceval, Mr. Saunders Duudas, Lord Liverpool, the Lord Chancellor and their supporters in both Houses of Parliament. * Page 174 45 III. Mr. B. continues: '* The recal of the Veto ** made a strong impression against you.*' Here is the same deliberate mis-statement as before. The Veto never was recalled, because it was never granted. It is true that an absurd as well as false idea had been impressed on the public mind that the Catholics «' had agreed to make the King vir- '' tuallj head of their Church,"(2) and that this idea of the Catholics being prepared to go over to the established religion, had disposed many of its professors to receive them as proselyted bre- thren. It is also true that the dissipation of this illusion caused a reflux of religious bigotry against us; but this effect which is the natural conse- quence of a delusion being dissipated, is not to be ascribed to the persons who were not implica- ted in it, but to those who were. Thus the learned Gentleman's heterodox oath of 1791, being a work of falsehood and deception, when it came to be exposed, fell in ruins on the head of its in- ventor. And so also, when it shall appear, as it will appear, that a majority of those English Ca- tholics who signed the Fifth Resolution will not abide by what our Parliamentary friends consider as the natural sense of it, they will be over- whelmed with reproaches, and will clearly see how much better they would have consulted their worldly reputation by rejecting it, than by sub- scribing to it. Having reproached your Bishops for the *^ strangeness" of your decision in 1808, 4,6 the' Gentleman goes on to make art empty apo- logj for it, the substance of which is that Mf. Pitt and Mr. Fox were both alive in 179 9^ and that they were both dead in 1 808 . You and ; I know that your synodieal decision against a change in your disciphne, had no connection whatever with the existence or non-existence of either of those statesmen. The arguments which you made use of as I well remember, were to the following effect : " Why are we, who have given •' such pregnant proofs of our layaky and peace- ;** able conduct singled out among all the relit <"■ gious societies, differing from the establish-^ ^' ment, to be thus shackled? If it werelawi\il ?' and expedient to make a change in our disci* "-^ pdine, the marked opposition of our flocks to it '' caught to deter us from attempting it.— We ;' were assured at the time of the Union that the ^' CdthoriG religion would be protected and '' honoured ; whereas we have ever since expe^ '' rieneed that it has been undermined and de- " graded —-We are told that the Veto is to be ** confined to civil purposes; but how can we *' oblige the party which carries the sword in ** their hands to observe this condition ?— We >*' remember the fable of the axe-head, which *' petitioned the forest for a mere sapling to make " a handle of, and having obtained that laid att " the lofty trees prostrate.** Such was your rea- soning before you were acquainted v»'ith the ulti- 47 mate object of the Veto, namely the security of the Established Church -, had that been proposed to your Synod, you would not hav^de igned to debate the question. IV. Having thus misrepresented your conduct, the writer proceeds to gloss over his own. He says that the fifth Resolution was adopted in order " to allay the ferment occasioned by the unlbr- *' tunate event," of your refusing to alter your Church discipline. But that refusal had taken place and been publicly known sixteen months before the fifth Resolution was thought of; and the ferment on this side of the water, such as it was, had entirely subsided. In fact, the Resolu- tion was not adopted to allay an existing ferment in England, but to prevent one that was justly dreaded among the Catholics of Ireland, as sobn as Lord Grenville's Letter, which had just been published in London, should reach the latter country. It was vainly imagined that the little row-boat which swam in the wake of the stately vessel was capable of stopping her course and drawing her back, stern foremost. A few days sufficed to dissipate this illusion, and to verify all my predictions. Your Committee declined the aid of Lord Grenville's patronage on the terms proposed in his Letter, and they broke off all connexion with those English Catholics who had, in their fifth Resolution, subscribed to the sub- 48 stance of that letter. On the other hand, you Prelates resumed your Synod and censured that Resolution as dangerous to ecclesiastical disci- pline. It is reall}^ believed by a great number of distinguished personages, both Protestants and Catholics, that your rejection of the fifth Reso- lution was owing to my having previously re- jected it. How grossly ignorant are my coun- tr^'^men of all matters relating to Ireland 1 Your venerable body had withdrawn me from the de- fence of the most limited kind of Veto ; but, I should form a much lower opinion of it than I do, were I capable of guiding its decisions upon any matter connected with faith or discipline whatever. Take the matter either way, that is to sQ.y, which ever ferment the fifth Resolution was opposed to, by the account of the writer himself, it was intended to counteract your deci- sion of September, 1808 ; re-echoed as it was from sea to sea across your island, and to make an opening for a negociation on Lord Grenville's plan, at a future time, when it was justly sup- posed he would be able to treat; with much greater weight than he then could. The gentle- man says next : '' Previously to the appearance '' of Lord Grenville's Letter, January !2o, 1810, " no communication of any kind had taken place *-' between the English Catholics and their Par- *' liamentary friqnds on the subject of the Veto. *' After it vais kn«)\vn tliat the Irish Bishops had 49 *' recalled the offer of it (what a calumnious in- *' sinuation!) no English Catholic took the least " step or was engaged, directly or indirectly, in " any measure to make it a condition of our re- " iief.'^ The falsehood of the first assertion has been sufficiently proved ; 1 could demonstrate it still more clearly ; but I shall content myself, for the present, with mentioning, what this writer cannot be ignorant of, that during the heat of the Catholic Debate in 1808, two Catholics of dis* tinction, one of them of a noble family, waited upon one of our greatest and most powerful friends to ask wliether an offer of the Veto on the part of the English Catliolic laity ivould he accep- table. As it was then expected that your bre- thren would comply, the deputies were answered that the business belonged to the Bishops, As to the second assertion, I could wish to ask the wri- ter whether he means to exclude his brother bar- rister, John Joseph Dillon, (who claims so high a rank) from every rank among English Catho- lics ? Certain it is that the latter, in his printed letters to Edward Jerningham, Esq. after censu- ring the conduct of the Irish Prelates as " bigot- '' ed, weak and infatuated," proposes that the English Catholics should *' declare their senti- " ments on the subject of the V^eto, without any *' dictation to the Catholics of Ireland," expres- sing at the same time his opinion that the former \\ 50 *y from their rank, education, attainments, &c. *' are entitled to claim respect from the latter." I should like to ask liie writer two or three more questions : whether a certain leading Catholic, an intimate friend of his, did not, to his certain knowledge, about the time of the Tavern Meet- ing, draw up the plan of a Veto, on the model of the one printed in Sir John Hippisley's late speech, ibr the purpose of assimilating the state of the Vicars Apostolical to that proposed for the Irish Prelates ? Also, whether this was not com- municated to an eminent statesman, who was then expected to fill a high department of govern- ment ? Lastly, whether the latter did not agree that it would be proper the said Vicars on acqui- escing to the Veto plan, should receive ^500 per annum each ? The letter- writer next endeavours to persuade you that, when he did *' come into action," as he expresses it, he neither contravened your Episcopal decision passed sixteen montlis before, nor violated his promises, expressed in nimierous letters not to adopt any measure, regarding the general concern, but as auxiliary to the more cllectual and previous measures of the Irish Ca- tholics. In the first place, how does this agree with his ovvn account of the fifth Resoiution, which he says was intended to allay the ferment occasioned by your past conduct, but which, in 51 fact, was intended to overawe and to direct you in your subsequent conduct. In the second place, wiiat was that proposition which appeared, to him and his friends *' so reasonable and free from ob- '^ jection," and yet at the same so consistent with his respect for your decision and his solemn promises to your lay Committee ? It was the following : '^ The Catholics are ready to enter ^^ into any arrangement, consistent with their '' faith and discipline, which may be required of ^' them for securing the loyalty of persons to be '' raised to the rank or office of Bishops.'* The writer admits that he approved of this proposition on the 29th of January, but he forgets to tell you that he actually adopted it, and that it would have been brought forward, as the fifth Resolution of the Meeting at the St. Alban's Tavern, if a friend of his who was deeply pledged to you and your countrymen, that the business of the Veto should not be so much as touched upon, had not with great difficulty ob- tained on the day preceding the meeting, that the actual mention and offer of the Veto should be suppressed in the Resolution. Such however is the gentleman's coniidence in his own talents, or his contempt of those possessed by the Irish Catholics, that he undertakes to convince them that a State arrangement regarding the appoint- ment of Catholic Bishops is a distinct thing from H 2 5t the Veto 5 that to enter into a pledge for effecting this is consistent with your decision as to the in- expediency of any alteration at all in this matter, and that to settle so important a business with- out any communication \vith a single Catholic of Ireland, is acting " a secondary part to the more ^' powerful exertions of a nation of Catholics.'* The fifth Resolution then, the subject of the learned gentleman's present pamphlet, was set- tled on the 31st of January in its present form ; and whereas due care was taken, in drawing up the preceding form, to avoid the zvord VETO, so the chief precaution adopted in framing the second consisted in omitting the express mention at an interference in the appointment of Catholic Bishops, among the arrangements claimed on the part of the state for the security of the Established Church. In the mean time there was neither a man nor a woman of the least information who entertained a doubt that the Resolution in ques- tion wag intended to express a readiness on the part of the subscribers, to grant to the Crown that claim which you Bishops had refused to grant, and which was held in so much al^hor- rence by your people, In speaking of his conferences with the two Noble Lords, in which the different forms of the fifth Resolution were iramed, the writer 53 is animated to enthusiasm and '' irnokes the " parties present to testify, that he and they '^ were most anxious to frame the Resolution in " such terms as should not be thought objec- *' tionable by you (the Irish laity) or your vener- '' able Prelates." This is Mr. the theological layman all over 1 Thus he acted twenty years asro, when he formed a new creed to be sworn to by the English Catholics, and then wrote a Red Book to instruct their Bishops concerning it, and to prove- to them that he had most anxiously provided for the orthodoxy of the said oath I Thus also he has acted on various other occasions, in wresting the crosier out of the hands of the Bishops into his own : And thus he will act in settling the new arrangements for the church discipline, of Irish as well as English Catholics, whenever our political friends get into the Minis- try, if we do not unite in opposing him. — So it seems, Mr. Butler, you were '' most anxious to ^' frame the Resolution respecting their Church ^'^ discipline, in such terms as should not be ^^ thought objectionable by the venerable Pre- ^* lates of Ireland!'* Why then, Sir, did not you consult them upon the matter ? Why did not you inform those Protestant friends that, agreeably to that " strict adherence to the ** tenets and disciph'ne of th« Roman Cathohc *^^ religion" of which you make profession in this rer\' resolution, it was essentially neci^ssary that 54 the Bishops should be consulted, inasmuch as Christ has appointed them to be judges of the tenets and disciphne of his Church, and also to hold the form of sound ivords respecting these tenets and discipline ? Behold what has once more been the consequence of your profane teme- rity 1 Your favourite Resolution has been cen- sured by a national synod and the censure has been re-echoed back to Ireland from the most distant Churches ! You have greatly encreased, instead of relieving the embarrassment of our po- litical friends ; and you have made a temporary breach between the Catholics of Ireland and England ! Oh ! w hen will you fulfil that ]3ro- mise still upon record ; '^ My theological career " is at an end. Henceforward I shall retire to «' say our Lady's Office, and read Pere St. Jure " in peace." Having given his account of the formation of the fifth Resolution, the Gentleman says that *' it '* was unanimously adopted at the Meeting, with " the exception of the Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District ; whereas he has seen it avowed in print that the two other Prelates, there present, voted against it, though they were afterwai'ds in- duced by a false report concerning that Vicar, to sign a Petition containing the Resolution. He next lays claim to the merit of '' edifying beha- " viour'* in not opposing your decision, at the 56 very time that he is opposing it, especially as he pretends to have " ample room and verge" for this purpose in the documents which he mentions. Tiiese are ist.* my Letter to a Parish Priest, vv4iich was published sorely against my will, and which I have since revoked and condemned : 2dly. Dr. O'Reilly ^s Letter to Lord Southwell, wliich he quite misrepresents : for that excellent prelate declared in your hearing and in mine, that his objections against the restricted Veto would by no means be removed by a change of Ministry : .'^dly. The mutilated quotation of your 16th Resolution, which he and his agents have re-published scores of times, in order to make the public believe, tliat you are prepared to enter into any arrangements which may be proposed to you, provided they are not inconsistent with our faith and essential discipline^ such, for example, as would give ^^ou orthodox and canonical pas- tors, but tepid and worldly minded ones : whereas yo4i stipulate in your sixteenth Resolution for the *^ safety of the Roman Catholic religion." not only in its '* faith, communion and discipline," * Meeting me some two years 320 the gentlemnn asked me, in a magisterial manner, xvhat rii^ht I had to pttbUtih a certain pastoral Letter, on a mere tlieological subject, (my con- troversy with Blomchard.) Another lay gentleman, an inti- mate tVientl of hl^, took upon himself bv his own lay autho- rity, to interci'Ct the rircuialion of a second Pastors! of mine on the same subject. 56 but also in "its subordination (vvbich inipiies *' that you and not lay conveyancers, are to be *^ judges in these matters) and its moral cocky' which code requires you to take the utmost care in your power to have successors worthy of you in every respect. The writer proceeds to make a boast still more extraordinary than the former. He vaunts that he and his friends have been exemplary ** in *' giving to God the things which belong to " God," particularly in what relates to the su- premacy of the Holy See, Yes, tins author of the condemned oath, which renounces the ec- clesiastical jurisdiction of that see, the publisher of the Blue Books, which are full of abuse and protests against the Popes and their vicars, the fautor of Dr. Geddes,* and the public defender * The gentleman is understood to have denied that he has edited a continuation of Geddes's translation of the scrip- ture, which was formaUy censured by the assembled Vicars Apa"?tolic in 1792. Thus much js certain, that I have lying before me : " A New Translation of the Book of Psalms, by *' the late Dr. Geddes, printed for J. .Johnson, St. Paul's " Qmrch Yard, 1807/* with a previous advertisement of eight pages, celebrating that unhappy priest, who lived and died like aa infidel, signed " John Di.^ney, Charles Butler, •' London, Jan. 17, 1807," they being the persons who un» dertook to revise the papers of the deceased^ ^ubjoiried to the work is 3 list of works published by the Doctor against 57 of the fifth resolution, in opposition to a nation- al synod of Catholic Prelates, has the confi- dence to boast of the exemplarity of his past submission to church authority ; and to refer to his past conduct in this respect, as a pledge of ^his submitting the arrangements in question, whenever they come forward, to the due autho- rity of the Church ! Yes, he and I are thus far agreed, that he will act on this as he has done lieretofore on similar occasions. He and two or three of his lay friends will settle the arrange- ments with Protestant statesmen, and then he will write a new Red Book, hke the one before me, in order to prove that he was ** most *' anxious to frame the arrangements in such ** manner as should not be thought objection- *^ able by the venerable prelates." V. After this history of the fifth resolution, the learned conveyancer undertakes to prove, that what your national synod, speaking, ** in the ** name of Christ, and having God alone before ** their eyes," has pronounced to be, *' a vague, ** indefinite resolution, pledging Roman Catho- ** lies to an eventual acquiescence in arrangements ** possibly prejudicial to the integrity and safety each of the following bishops, Walraesly Gibson, Doiiglas, &c. the circumstances of which publications the gentlenian is too well acquainted with. 58 ** of our Church discipline," is precise, defined, and exposes Church discipline to no danger at all. In undertaking this, the conveyancer cer- tainly illustrates *' the edifying exemplarity" of his respect for Church authority and that sub- mission to your decision of which he has been boasting. Let ivs^ once more look at the resolu- tion itself. *' The Catholics of England are *^ firmly persuaded that adequate provision for *' the maintenance of the civil and relicrious es- *^ tahlishments of this kingdom may be made " consistently with the strictest adherence on " their part, to the tenets and discipline of the ** lloman Catholic religion ; and that any ar- " rangements founded on this basis of mutual ** satisfaction and security, and extending to *' them the full enjoyment of the civil constitu- " tion of their country will meet with their *' grateful concurrence." Let us now hear Mr. C, Butlers demonstration of the perfect innocence of this position. He is so partial to it, that he prints the whole of it in capital letters. He says : ** Surely no person ecclesiastic or secular will ** assert distinctly or unequivocally, that Roman *' Catholic emancipation and the strictest adhe- *' rence of Roman Catholics to the tenets and " discipline of the Roman Catholic Church are ^' in any manner inconsistent with the state's ** having adequate provision for the mainte- ** nance of its civil and religious establishment." 59 So then, it seems, ]Vf r. B. that all your laborious study and conferences Avith eminent statesmen •in framing two different forms of the fifth reso- lution, had no other object in view than to ex- press that there is no contradiction in our taking- care of our religion, and in Protestants taking care of theirs ; so then it was pc^'rfectly well un- derstood, that the statesmen expected ?io conces- sion on our part, nor any concurrence as to a change in our discipline, for the purpose of giv- ing additional strength to the established Church, I wish I were now in London to ascertain the sort of publication which is given to the letter before me : I observe that Mr. Booker, a Catho- lic, is the only pubhsher named in its title page ; ' whereas in Mr. Butler's '' Historical Account of '' the Penal laws," which issued from the same press, nearly at the same time, besides the Catho- lic publishers, Messrs. Faulder and Budd and Ptidgeway are advertised. The truth is, the former work is intended chiefly for the use of Protestants, the latter exclusiveli/ for that of Catholics. It was thus in our former contest, twenty years ago, the Blue Books, and other congenial works intended to persuade Catholics of the orthodoxy of the oath were given to good Mr. Coghlan to print and circulate : while The State of Facts, and the spurious editions of the Protestation, &c. were printed at a Protestant press in the city, and thence privately handed 60 to persons of considerable consequence in the legislature. Thus much I \yill venture to say, that Mr. B. never calculated this his grand de- monstration of the purity of the fifth resolutioa to meet the eye of intelligent Protestants. Aware, however, of the awkward pledge contained in the concluding clause of the re- solution, which expresses that the Catholics are ready to concur in maintaining a religion which they believe to be false, and being afraid to look this pledge fairly in the face, as it would at once overset his capital demonstration, he endeavours to get rid of it by a side wind; and for this purpose offers money to any person who will '^ specify an instance in which the en- *' gagements contracted by this resolution, ex- ** ceed those contracted by your oath of 1793," which pledge you ** not to exercise any privi- '* lege to which you are or may become entitled '* to disturb and weaken the Protestant religion '' and government." I will not accept of the gen- tleman's money, nor of any body's money, whilst, my .religion is exposed to danger as it is at pre? sent,* being mindful of the prophet's maxim : • A friend and agent of the gentleman has lately circulated letters for the purpose of collecting money throughout evei v Catholic congregation in England; the first object of which is to subsidize the Vicars Apostolic, at the discretion of a club, of which the gentleman is manager. This scheme is expressly calculated to give him the influence of a Chancellor of the 61 a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and per- vert the words of the righteous : but without a fee I will inform the gentleman, that it is one thing to omit doing a good action and another to do a bad one. The obvious and received meaning of your oath of I793 is that you will not make use of the elective franchise which you then acquired, to take away tithes or over^ turn the Established Church : while the obvious ^nd received sense of the fifth resolution is, that he will enter into arrangements for preventing the appointment of able and zealous bishops, in order to pievent conversions from the Pro- testant to the Catholic religion. VI. Advancing in his theological careqr, and ^till grapling with your seventeenth Resolution, pur conveyancer denies " the possibility that his ^f fifth Resolution can, at any future time, pledge *^ him to q^rrangements inconsistent with our re- " ligion.*' In proof of this he says: '^ Inge- " nuity cannot specify a provision for the rnain- " tenance of the civil and religious establish *' ment of this kingdom, inconsistent with the J>cchequ€r in all the concerns of English Roman Catholics. Sir Thomas More, when Lord Chancellor, received the present of a golden cup from a lady who had a suit in his conrt. He ordered the cup to be filled with wine and sent back to her, with a message, that she was welcome to have it replenished £s often as she pleased. 62 ^' strictest adherence to the tenets and disciphi^e ^' of the Cathohc rehgion which, with perfect *' consistency with the words and spirit of this " Resolution, a Cathohc may not refuse;" — ^To this I have already given an answer, and I further answer, that ingenuity cannot specify an act, however indifferent in itseltV which consistently with the tenets, discipline, and moral code of his religion, a Catholic can perform, or concur in performing for the purpose here specified, that of maintaining the Protestant religion. Much less can a Catholic agree to alter the discipline of hijs own Church and to zveaken its constitution, by opening a door for the admission of negligent, temporizing Pastors, for such an avowed unlawful purpose.-^ln vain does he remind us of the salvo in the Resolution in favour of our tenets and dis- cipline : for he ought to have learnt from your six- teenth Article, that we are bound to provide, in the best manner we can, not only for the tenets and discipline^ but also for the moral co'de of our Holy Religion, a primary point of which requires, that she should be furnished not only with ortho- dox, but also wit^h zealous Pastors. In fact it is an easy matter to arrange the plan of a Veto, w^hich shall exclude all heterodox Prelates, and not directly violate any positive law of the Church, but which it would be perfectly unlaw- ful for us to agree to. In vain also does he harp upon " This basis of mutual satisfaction and se- 63 - cnrity." Because THIS BASIS, as I have proved, is too narroiv to be a secure one ; and because, from the nature of the thing and the declarations of our Protestant friends, we are perfectly convinced that they will judge of and decide upon what is and what is not conformable to our faith and discipline ; of what is a SUFFI- CIENT SECURITY to jthe Catholic as well as to the Protestant Church. Such a basis of security for our Holy Religion may l^e satisfactory to Mr. Butler, but I own it is not so to me, and I am sure it will not be so to you Prelates, or your Ca- tholic flocks.* At the same time that I repro- bate the Resolution itself, I am far, very far from censuring the great majority of the individuals in this country who have signed it. According to Mr. Butler's own account it was settled without being communicated to the Bishops, and this within a single day of its being brought forward to be signed. In short, like its prototype, the studiously ambiguous Protestation, it owes its chief success to specious glosses and false asser- tions. • On this subject I must refer to ^vhat I shewed in my late Instructions, that our best and most powerful friends in Parlia- ment profess only " to attend to our reasonable objections/' namely, to such as they themselves shall deem reasonable, and they give us notice that they \\\\\pass thelaio and we must take the consequence ', to which violent course they are strori^^]/ urged by J. J. Dillon and others of our own body. 64 VII. The seventh article of this letter, in- scribed to '' An Irish Catholic Gentleman," but intended for the practical use of the whole Catho- lic body of Ireland, contains a variety of con- fused matter. Its principal subject, however, relates to the terms required of us, as the price of our Civil Emancipation, by Lord Grenville, Lord Grey, and the greater number of the other members of Parliament. These I have proved in my late work by express quotations from their writings and printed speeches, contain a complete subjugation of our Church, for the avowed pur- pose of giving an additional security to a Church which protests against ours ; and we may be quite sure that if the Noble personages in question had hitherto changed their minds on this matter (as I still- hope and pray they may do) Mr. Butler would have procured some declaration or some testimony of their having declared themselves to this effect. Unable to obtain a line of this nature, he is reduced to gloss their words directly con- trary to their avowed meaning. Thus he main- tains that, the " complicated arrangements" which Lord Grenville describes as necessary con- ditions of the Emancipation relate only to civil, and by no means to any religious concerns : and yet he at the same time quotes his Lordship's W'Ords, which expressly include *' an efiectual *^ negative on the appointment of our Bishops*' amoni? the arrangements ! As I have given ex- 65 tracts above from the Noble Baron's Speech in 1808, and of that which he made on presenting the Waterford Petition in 1810, as also of his Letter to Lord Fingal, none of which require the least gloss to explain their meaning, I will avoid repeating them here. Instead of this I will cite a few words from his ordinary antagonist, the Lord Chancellor's observations on the letter. It must be allowed that the last mentioned was com- petent to judge of the nature of Lord Grenville's requisition, especially as no one of Lord Gren- ville*s friends complained that his sense had been misrepresented. His w^ords are these : *' We have *' ihe authority of the Noble Baron himself, in ** his zvritien opinion, that he conceives it impos- *^ sible to comply with the claims of the Catho- . *^ lies, unless they are prepared to concede that ^' which the]/ have positively denied, a?id a great *^ deal more.^'' Will Mr. B. now pretend that your brethren, or any pther Catholics, have ob- jected to civil arrangements P at the same time that it is absolutely false, as this gentleman con- tinues to assert, that you have rejected a specif x Veto, In fact he knows, as well as you or I do, that the vote which you passed in 1808, and con- firmed in 1810, censured no specific measure w^hatever, but declared in general that it was in- expedient to make any change at all in your ac- * Page 50. 66^ tiial discipline concerning the appointment pi Bishops. As to the speech of Earl Grey, on pre- senting the fifth Resohition, in which his Lord- ship dwells so emphatically on the necessity of our giving fresh secm'ity to the Established Church, and asserts so positively that the sub- scribers to that Resolution have authorized him to express their ivillingness to accept of provi- sions for this purpose, the writer has no other re- source than to repeat his dishonourable falsifica- tion of it in all its essential parts, and still more shamefully to brazen it out after all my reproaches to him on this head* that it is printed " AS RE- <^ PORTED IN THE GLOBE PAPER !"t— When an obscure emigrant obliges me to verify my quotations by producing the work I quote, nnd after acknowledging their fidelity persists in charging me with false quotations, I am mortified without being surprised ; but that a gejitlanaii should persist in asserting that two publications are alike^ which have been proved to differ in their niost essential parts, would be incredible, were not the instance of it before our eyes 1 As it is of the utmost importance towards settlmg the whole controversy concerning the fifth Reso- lution, to ascertain the sense in which it is under- stood by the legislature to which it has been pre- * See The Instructions, &c. p. 34 f See Mr. Butler's Historical Account of the Penal r.aws, just published, p. S-"^. 67 sented, I will here extract a few passages from the late speeches of some of its members in addi- tion to those of Earl Grey, which I gave before.* The Hon. Mr. Lamb, alluding to this Resolution, describes the English Catholics as having '' acce- '' dcd to the Veto."t Sir Wilham Scot had be- fore spoken to the same effect. IMr. Ponsonby, in answering Mr. Secretary Ryder, thus expresses himself: - The Rt. Hon. Gentleman says, that '' it would be a departure from Catholic faith to '' sanction the appointment of a Catholic Bishop '' in the way proposed by the effect of the Veto : " he must know that several of the Catholics ■ " have signiiied something like an approbation " to the arrangement proposed. "J Lord Boring- don says, in the House of Peers : - Can we now '' hejustified in entertaining a hope that ^/ie Veto or any other specific security which might be thought necessary, would be offered in a Com- mittee ? On the contrary are we not all con- vinced, do not we all feel that no such con- '' cession would be made, that no such security " would be offered .? Did the question remain " wholly with the Catlwlics of England, differ- '' ent expectationsrmgUi^QssMy be entertained. '' § Finally, Mr. Secretary Dundas says : '' U the '' Rt. Hon. Gentleman thinks that every Catholic • Instruct, p. 32. f Revised Report, p. 115. jPage 145. § Page 73. 65 ** is as sanguine as the petitioners (the Irish •** Catholics) I can safely say there are many ** Cathohcs who would object to untimited conces- '' sion, I believe there are many who think that " some such measure as that contended for by ** Lord Grenville would be highly necessary and *' beneficial. I know that the English Catholics do '* not agree in perfect unanimity with the Irish."* Methinks I witness the astonishment which you- and your Irish friends will be thrown into at hear- ing this evidence that there are many Catholics on this side of the water who themselves object to unlimited concessionSy and who, in seeking for civil liberty for themselves, are actually in- triguing to impose fresh chains on their clergy and religion, and that they are, at this present moment, in the Confidence both oi the late and present ministry ! Nothing, however, of this sort is either new or strange to me. Upon no one subject does the gentleman feel so sore as upon this of the declarations made in Parliament, many of which I republished in my last work ; he accordingly quits it as soon as he can, and returns to his favourite topic, the history of the fifth resolution. On this he rises into sen- * In farther proof of the sense in which our legislators u»;- derstand the fifth resolution, I may add that I have been se- verely condemned by one of the nwst eoiisklerable among them for denying, in my instructions, that ray friends wb«> signed it are pledged to ih.e Veto. 69 timent, and patlietkally relates how " oar two *^ illustrious friends, the Lords Grenville and *^ Grey, holding in their hands the resolutions *' of your prelates in 1799, and the written sug- ** gestion of their agent to Mr. Ponsonby, had '^ formally and solemnly assured Parliament of *^ your consent to the King's having a negative, " &c. but that after a few months your prelates " recalled their resolutions/' Now mark the nu- merous falsehoods contained in this relation : 1st. Lord Grey was not even present at the debates of 1808, when the subject of the Veto was started, but remained in Nortlmmberland. 2dly. Lord Grenville did not at that time hold in his hand the resolutions of the ten prelates, passed nine years before, as I myself was employed to pro- cure a copy of them from Ireland, by a near re- lative of his Lordship, afler the debate was over, ^dly. Lord Grenville did not hold in his hand my suggestion, as Mr. B. chooses to call it : he was not then acquainted with the existence of the paper in question -, but what his Lordship did hold in his hands, or at least what was delivered into his hands on the 27th of May, previously to his opening the debate in the House of Peers, was a printed protest against what had been said on my authority in the other House. ■4th. Lord Grenville did not give a solemn and positive assurance, or any assurance at all, as Mr. Butler says he did. Lastly, the only assurance of this nature v;hich was given to 70 Parliament by either of these our illustrious friends, was given by Lord Grey, on the 2^d of February, 1810, and this on the authority of the fifth resolution, which he then actually held in his hands, and presented to the House. After all these false statements the writer proceeds to com- plain of the Bishops having recalled their resolu- tions, as with equal falsehood, he states the matter, and then panegyrizes, in high terms, the magnanimity of our political friends in consent- ing to open a new negociation. In these circum- stances he asks : *' Was it for us to refuse the *^ opening ? to be starch and to stare, and to re- '' sile from it. All the hellebore of Anticyra *' would not have cured such madness.** Why really I cannot say any thing about Mr. Butler*s being starch, and his staring and i^esiling ; but this I am suie of, that he ought not, in the existing circumstances, to have treated with No- ble Lords, upon any business respecting ourcom- njon concern, and much less about '^ an ar- " rangement respecting the choice of Catholic " Bishops," or about *' concurring in making '' provision for the maintenance of tiie establish- *' ed religion. What he ought to have said in answer to any proposals of this nature is as fol- lows : M3' Lords, I and my friends are deeply pledged to the Catholics of Ireland not so much as to touch upon the business of the Veto at oar approaching meeting, and indeed not to take any 71 measure at all, except " as auxiliary to their '^ more powerful exertions, because here in Eng- " land, we are not the people.'* I am still more firmly bound, in quality of a lay Catholic, not to enter into any resolution, or pronounce upon any question of religion, except in subordination to the pastors of the Catholic Church. Give us time, my Lords, to communicate your proposals, whatever they may be, to the lay Catholics of Ireland. If they are of a religious nature, we know that they will submit them to their Bishops. In the course of a month we hope to be able to communicate to your Lordships answers from the Catholic Bishops and Laity, both of Ireland and of England. Whatever these may be in other respects, they will certainly express that respect •and gratitude which all descriptions of Catholics entertain for your Lordships. Instead, however, of following this prudent course, the gentleman says of himself: " Well, then, we did enter into '' a negociation, and we laid the foundation." — Of what? Why, of that cruel disappointment which our noble friends experienced, of the difle- rences which took place between the Catholics of Ireland andEngland, of those censures which have fallen upon your own head, and of the general dis- esteem and odium which you have incurred among the Catholics in general. What sort of weight you may continue to carry with the board or club to which you belong is more than I can tell .; but I 72 will forfeit all pretensions to common sense, if the Catholics of Ireland, or any part of them, will ever confide their religious concern to Charles Butler, Esq. " Here then," says he, ^' the matter rests ;" and here I am content to let it rest. Hence, in- stead of following him through his wild supposi- tions concerning the ultimate arrangements of the legislature,^ I shall satisfy myself with protest- ing, that if our Holy Religion is finally en- thralled and subjected to a fresh persecution, the event will be chiefly owing to the theological po- litics of this conveyancer, and that if its discip- line and freedom are preserved, the Catholics of both islands will be indebted for the blessing, un- der God, to the vigilance and firmness of the Catholic prelates of Ireland. Yes, you have snatched the helm from the profane intruder, and you have held it hard a lee, by which conduct there are hopes that in saving your own Church from the shoal which we were nearing, you have * From this pr\ssage, and the whole tenor of Mr. Butler*? pamphlet, and other clear evidence, those good men shall see their dangerous error, who are ever telling me : " We are all ** at peace, there is an end of the Veto. Why then conti- ^nue to sound the alarm ? Would to God things were so : but with.such armies as I have described in my last work fronting us, and with treachery amidst our own forces, woe to the Holy City if its sentinels sleep on thfir charge or are in- active. 73 saved ours also. Should the storm become more violent, and be directed chiefly at the unpro- tected pilot, we have learnt from the Holy Fa- thers, that a true Catholic bishop, defending the cause of God, and protected by his grace, " may '' be killed, but cannot be conquered." The lawyer here again charges me with " the ravings *^ of enthusiasm."* But whether he acts irra- tionally or I, will be ultimately and publicly set- tled at a tribunal where we shall both soon appear. VIII. Having paid some hollow compliments to the Irish, and proclaimed " the canonization " and sanctifi cation" of the Lords Grey and Grenville, for which none of the parties will thank him, the gentleman recapitulates his positions, and concludes with a proposal to the Irish Ca- tholics that ; '' if government should propose to us a?ij/ form of security for the civil and eccle- siastical government of this country more satis- '' factor!/ to them, than that which they now '' possess, it should be cootli/, dispassionately *' and reqtsonabhj examined, and that, if it is *' found consistent with our faith and discipline, '' we should acquiesce in the proposal." Here then is the scope and ultimate object of the whole * Third Blue Book, p. 18, alluding to my sermon at the consecration of Bishop Gibson, at Lulworth Castle. KeAting- and Brown. 74 pamphlet. He wishes the laity of Ireland to ac- qidcsce in the proposals of the statesmen, whom he calls government, for securing the Protestant ecclesiastical goi'ernment, in ia manner more sa tisfactory to them than at present; but why not propose the unrestricted Veto in plain terms ? The statesmen have told us again and again, that this is the s^^atisfactory security which they want, bitt if they did not tell us, so common sense tells us, that, having the King, the law, the army, the weahh, the numbers on their side, it is impossi- ble we can add to the security of their ecclesias- tical government, except by subjugating our pas- tors and Church to it. Mr. Butler would have the proposal examined, coolly, cUspassionateli/ and rea:;onabfy, thereby insinuating that your two sj-nods, the one of three, the other of five days continuance, which decided against inno- vations in general, pronounced rashly^ passion- ately and unreasonably. Hence he is silent about referriiig future proposals to you. No ; he will ease you of the trouble of examining and decid- ing concerning them ; just as he acted w'ith res- pect to the English Vicars Apostolic in the af- fair of his new invented oath and appellation; and should you be dissatisfied with his decision and arrangements, lie will write another Red Book to explain the whole matter to you. But peace to our theological lawyer, wdio is just as well qualified to judge of the tenets, dis- 73 cipline, moral code and adequate security of the Catholic Church, as I am to judge of the legal security of any marriage settlement which he may be now drawing up. You Bishops ivhom the Holy Ghost hath appointed to rule the Church of God, Acts xxi. 28. have twice met and decided with canonical solemnity aixd religious piety on the whole question at issue, and your decision has been received with shouts of triumph by your own millions, and with veneration and applause by your fellow Bishops on the Continents of the old and the new world. In deciding as you have done, you have entrenched your church disci- pline and jurisdiction, and your own awful re- sponsibility at the present critical period in the only safe and impregnable lines. You have se- cured them from assailants of different charac- ters ; and, with very little trouble, you will baffle the pretences under which the more ostensible party claims a right to interfere in the internal ceconomy of your primitive Church. I myself, on your and my own part, have three or four times over publicly refuted all these pretensions, and^ though other passages of my publications, have been noticed in Parliament and fron) the Press, no person has attempted to answer this my refutation, except by fllglits of oratory which do not even meet the understanding. I have reasoned with our politiced friends to this effect : 76 — You tell us that you want a test of our loyalty ; to which we reply that we have given you every test to this effect, which you yourselves have pro- posed to us, and you have at different times changed this test almost as often as Laban did the wages of Jacob. But we have given you more substantial proofs of loyalty than any oaths can be; such as we challenge you to parallel with the conduct of any description of other clergy, either in the grand rebelhon, or in the riots of 1780. As, in the existing circumstances, we have dechned your salaries for the safety of our religion, so, in the insurrection of 1798, we braved the fury of pur deluded people in vindica- tion of our loyalty. You say that you are satis- fied with our present loyalty, but that you are afraid that we, and still more that our successors may decline from it. And pray who is itthat ??zflrj/ not decline from his duty. But what likelihood is there of the' Catholic .Clergy, who have e\e\Y where been found the firmest supporters of the altar and the throne, in this age of revolution and anarchy, should be the first to turn rebels? and being actually loyal, as you confess we are, who are so well qualified, to choose successors of our civil as well as religious principles as ourselves -^ But the Pope may seduce us and give us foreign- ers for our successors. Give us foreign successors Jie cannot, while your Alien Act remains in force, and, as to seducing us from our allegian-ce, he 77 cannot do that, since our purses, our persons, our sermons and our public prayers have been and are irrevocably devoted to the service of our King and Country : I will add that if the mere possibility of such a misuse of the influence of religion, be a sufficient reason for your controul- ing the appointment of its ministers, why do not you controul the appointment of the Methodist Preachers ? It is an indisputable fact that almost the whole principality of Wales, and perhaps a fourth part of the population of England are, se- veral times in the week, harangued into Antino- mianism, or a persuasion that, being freed by Christ, they are subject to no law whatever, hu- man or divine. And it is a fact worthy your at- tention, that this sect is gaining so fast upon the Established Church in Ireland, as to threaten it with the loss of all its adherents except those who are paid for continuing so. Now is it not much more likely that the Methodists should realize their principles, and defend their conduct by their private interpretation of the Scriptures, (as was actually done by their predecessors in 1648, and m 1780) than that the Venerable Patriarch of the West, as James I. called the Pope, and the lineal successors of the Apostles, the Catholic Bishops, should pawn their character and consciences in the cause of invasion or rebellion ? Vje^^m then with appointing the Methodist Preachers, if you feel yourselves strong enough to attempt this, I 78 say the same as to their progenitors^ the Mora- vian Bishops, who are appointed by certain ob.- sciire Elders at Hernuth in Moravia. Oh ! but the Pope is the prisoner of the pubUc enemy. —The Pope has lost his personal freedom, besides his principality, because he zvould not be unjust to yoUy and because he was resolved to exercise his spiritual jurisdiction independent li/ of any civil pozver whatever : and we have lately pledged ourselves to God and the whole Catholic Church, '-' not to acknowledge any act of the Pope or ^•' any successor to him, without evidence of such '^ act and such choice being perfectly free."* Still you say, we cannot consent to our Catholic subjects receiving jurisdiction of any kind from a subject of our capital enemy.— Why then you must either get a British subject made Pope, or resolve to have no Catholic subjects at all. The circumstance you object to has occurred, with- out any practical inconvenience, in different countries ever since the foundation of the Church by Jesus Christ, and your objection arises ivvlien he tells us, that he himself.*^ made a solemn vow on the day of his *' ordination in the church of St. John Lateran, *^ before the great altar, never to sacrifice the *' canons of the universal Church." No. III. p. 7. Such as he describes these four articles to be, he is either now guilty of a deliberate falsehood, or he was then and there g^iilty of a criminal pre- varication {{such as Thomas Cranmer was guilty of at his consecration :) for he knows in his con- science, that if he had signified to the Pope's Pre- lates that such were his sentiments, and such his vow with respect to the articles, he would not only have been dismissed from the Church of St, John Lateran, without his order, but also from the Lu- dovisian college. His third general accusation is, that the Bishops are exclusive doctorsj arrogating to themselves the exclusive right of ** proposing, " entertaining and judging, without any lay ** intervention on points of Cinistian faith and ** general discipline," for such is the declared sense of your prelates, on the 26th of February, 1810, of your resolution two days before, in which you claimed for those of your order *' the ** exclusive right of discussing all matters ap- ** pertaining to the doctrine and discipline of 110 " the Catholic Church." You never meant to deny the right of priests to instruct their flocks, to give their opinions in diocesan synods, or to argue on theological matters in quality of theo- logians : all that you claimed, and this you were bound to claim on the part of yourselves and brethren, and especially of your head, the ex- clusive right of discussing and determining all such matters in quality of ecclesiastical judges and legislators. In a word your resolu- tion had a particular regard to a new arrange- ment of the discipline of your Church, which, it was well known, certain laymen, Protestant, as well as Catholic, with the advice of a ^e\v un- authorized clergymen, such as Dr. O'Connor, were then making, without the least communi- {•alion whatever with you. It is true, this writer does liot ill this passage proceed so iki\ in^is doctrine, as these laymen were proceeding in their conduct. He does not deny that the Bishops have a right to decide upon these mat- ters, hut he contends that priests of the second order have an equal right with them. But even this is contrary to the doctrine and practice of the Church in all her councils and synods, «and stands in direct opposition to the authority which himself quotes, of Benedict XIV. who expressly teaches, a^ do all other canonists, that not only in General and Provincial Councils, but also in diocesan synods, though priests may give their- Ill votes, bishops alone have a right to decide. If such, however, were not the establislied doc- trine and practice of the Catholic Church, what prudent and good man could suffer the intolera- ble arrogance of this petty chaplain, in arraign- ing and condemning, as he nepeatedfy does, each one of tlie three last synods of the Catholic Chureh of Ireland. He elsewhere schismati- cally terms the collection of the prelates ** twenty-six self-appointed arbiters for four mil- " hons of people." No. II. p. 2.* and he inso- lently threatens them that '' since they hold ** their synodical decree (concerning their ex- ** elusive right too sacred to be revoked, they '• will feel the necessity of yielding to the inter- '* ference of the law." No. II. p. 211. Not sa- tisfied, liowever, with the chastisement of the law, he threatens them with his own chastise- ment also, in the following magisterial terms : '* I have before me a narrative, which has been ** lately transmitted from Ireland. Respect for *^ the episcopal order arrests the hand of justice ** in expectation of amendment, but let not that ' " amendment be deferred." No. III. p. ll!8. Hence we learn that this officious chaplain ha? • This is a general charge against Uie Prehcy : he else- where confines it to ihe Ei.sliops lately ai)|joiiitcd : " Those " who have been recently appointed to Irish sees are iUigi- *' timate iniruders-^MswypQrs in the eye of sanctity, &:c." No. III. p. 42. 112 agents in Ireland for the purpose of transmit- ting to him all the scandal, whether founded or unfounded, arising in the Catholic body ; which being received, he ** thinks himself bound to " submit it to the consideration of those whose ** judgment and discretion is Ukely to assist him ^' in forming his opinion of it." No. I. p. 3, The modern Columban's fourth grand charge against the Catholic Bishops, is on the subject of their allegiance, against which he brings more than insinuations ; though Lord Grenville in his Letter, and Lord Castlereagh with the other le- gislators of both parties in their Parliamentary Speeches, do them ample justice on this head. He writes a whole chapter to prove that the *' Bishop's oath of allegiance is worse than nuga- *^ tory, until ultramontane ideas are restrained.*' No. XL p. 114, in which chapter they are charged with " the violation of that oath," by adhering to their present canonical discipline. No. II. p. 50. In another passage, having given an account of the conduct of Rinuccini, which he calls '' im- 'V pious, and a direct violation of public faith, and " of an oath — the first part of which consisted of*' allegiance to the King'' — he proceeds '' And " yet they" the orators of the Irish Catholic Committee, " have seen an Upper and a Lower " House, formed by Ultramontanists, in the *' course of this very year! (1810) The Upper 1 13 " House composed of My Tx>rds, the Ultramoti- " tane Bishops, assembled in Synod ; the Lower " of Delegates from the different counties, with *' Lord French at their head ; and the Upper ^^ guilty precisely of the crime of which Rinuc- '* cini gave the example; for their very first Re- " solution of February 26th, is an arrogant as- " sumption of exclusive power." No. II. p. ao6. In support of this alarming charge against *' the foreign-influenced Bishops,'' and the Ultra* " montane Bishops," as he constantly calls the Catholic Prelates of Ireland, and of that against his foster-father, the Pope, whom he always re- presents as the sworn enemy of Ireland, he brings forward in his second number what he calls *' An '' Historical Address," consisting chiefly of a most malignant misrepresented account of the transactions of the Catholics in Ireland, during the grand rebellion in England, and more parti- cularly of the conduct of the Catholic Bishops and of the Pope's Nuncio, Rinuccini. Now sup- posing iill this were as bad as he represents it, I maintain that it is quite as just to reproach the present Parliament with the rebellious and regi- cide proceedings of the Long Parliament, as it is to charge the present Catholic Bishops and the poor prisoner, in the dungeons of Savona, with Q 114 any thing amiss which might have been done by Catholic Ecclesiastics during the same precise period in Ireland. As there is not perhaps a sin- gle trait of history given by this writer, nor hard- ly a quotation or the translation of a quotation* which is not, some how or other corrupted or distorted, so there is not any part of his volumi- nous publication, which contains more misrepre- sentation and falsehood than the part in question. This will appear by comparing it with the candid and authenticated '' Review of the Civil Wars in ''Ireland," drawn up by Dr. Curry, whom he calls " his friend," and revised and published by his own grandfather, Charles O'Connor of Bala- nagar, whose life he wrote and printed. From this it appears that, when England and Scotland were up in arms to murder their King and overturn the Constitution, there was a settled plan, which was executed to a dreadful extent by the Irish Government itself, of exterminating the Catho- lics of Ireland, f and that of course the Catholics * A judgment may be formed of this writer's fidelity by merely comparing his own quotations with the versions which he gives of them. For example, he gives these words from Sandini : ** Nemo quantumvis eruditus et sanctus non inter- " dum hallucinatury cacntit labitur.'' These he translates — " Saints, however respectable for learning and sanctity, are *' often great fools /" No. II. p. vii. f The writer noiv describes " the Irish rabble bursting *' forth in 1641, and committing the atrocious S. Bartholemi " Massacre.'' No. II. p. 54. Before he sold the Irish MSS^ 115 were justified by the law of nature, in standing upon their own defence. This could not be done without a regular association, the leading article of which after swearing allegiance to the King, was '^ not to lay down their arms till the penal " statutes were annulled.'* How different was this engagement from the tenor of the solemn league and covenant, entered into at the same period by the Protestants of England and Scot- land ! The Confederates had applied to the Pope of his grandfather, and exchanged his Irish parish for an English palace he represented " the Protestants and Catholics " as equally guilty of the massacre of 164- 1/' p. 129. But Dr. Curry and his Grandfather invincibly prove that the for- mer began the work of blood at Isle Magee, where 3000 peaceable unoffending Catholics were massacred in cold blood by the Puritans. Review vol. 1. p. 195. With the same adu« latory insincerity he pronounces a formal panegyric upon *' English honour, punctuality and fair dealing.*' No. II. p.' ^, with all the narrative of Curry and his Grandfather before his eyes, together with all the penal statutes passed sipce the Treaty of Limerick, as also the recent violation of the terms of the Union. He even joins with the infamous Walsh in ascribing the whole sanguinary code of persecution since the Reformation, not to the cruelty and bigotry of Elizabeth and the Protestant Ggvernment, but to the doctrines and prac- tices of the Catholics : — the first of which offences he says was their refusal to take '* the Oath of Supremacy.'* No. II. p. 33. He elsewhere tries to prepare Catholics for taking this oath, by an exposition of it contrary to grammatical and his- torical truth. It is an undeniable fact that the Child Edward and the Woman Elizabeth in virtue of their spiritual supre- macy, .suspended Bishops and dictated to them their doctrine gnd discipline, &;c. 116 for assistance, who accordingly sent them money, ships and arms, but unfortunately with these a commander, Rinuccini, of too violent a temper, one who attempted to enforce political, though just and wise measures, by spiritual censures. Several of the leading Confederates were weak, temfKJrizing men, who betrayed the cause of their countrymen and their posterity, by entering into engagements with the perfidious traitor Ormond, and who exceeded their powers and broke their oath of association by doing so, without stipula- ting for the said repeal of the penal laws, and without obtaining proper security (when the Monarch could neither protect them nor himself) for the observance of the terms. This fatal con- duct Rinuccini opposed with all his force : but he did wrong in making use of ecclesiastical cen- sures against it. Had his advice, however, been followed, the Catholics would not only have effected their own salvation, but also that of their King and Constitution > the curse of Cromwell would never have been known, nor the cruel and unjust laws of William and of Anne. England and Ireland would have remained united under one King, enjoying the same Civil Constitution, but each possessing its own Religion. The cause of why these wise and consistent measures were not followed was the folly of some of the Catho- lic nobility and gentry, in trusting to the perfi- dious Ormond. " It is therefore no wonder that 117 *^ Ormond's brother-in-law. Lord Muskeriy, (one *« of these weak Confederates) when on his death '* bed declared to himself, that the heaviest fear *' that possessed his soul, then going to eternity, *' was for his having confided so much in his *^ Grace who had deceived them all and ruined ^* his poor countrymen."* The work which I Jiere quote demonstrates a series of barbarity, perfidy, hypocrisy, and rapaciousness in this boasted loyalist, Ormond, hardly to be parallel- ed in history. Ormond began his career in Ire- land as the sanguinary tool of the infamous Par-^ sons and company, carrying devastation and murder through whole counties, without distinc* tion of age or sex, of armed or unarmed. f He was the continual and it may be said the sole cause during whole years v/hy peace was not mads with the Catholics, to the mutual advan- tage of the Royal and the Catholic cause, dis** obeying in this particular, the repeated and posi* tive orders of his Royal Master, and even impri* soning the Earl of Glamorgan, who was sent by Charles to do what Ormond had so often refused to do. When at last he did treat with them, it was for the express purpose of betraying them into the hands of their sworn enemies, f At length., rather than unite with the Catholics, • Curry's Review, revised by the late C, O'Connor of Balangare. Vol.2, p. 134-. t Vol. 1. p. 246, 265. t P. 315, 319. 118 whom he knew to be strictly loyal, and who might still have saved their King and Country, as being the last subjects who bore arms in this cause, he delivered up Dublin and the Govern- ment of Ireland into the hands of the regicides, after stipulating for a proper compensation for himself.* In the reign of Charles II. his pro- fessed object was to ruin the Catholics, whom the sword had spared, by intestine divisions. One of his creatures Lord Orrery writes to him as fol- lows : " I humbly offer to your Grace whether " this may not be a fit season to make that '* schism, which you have been sowing among ** the Popish Clergy, publicly break out, so as *' to set them at open difference, as we may *^ reap some practical advantage thereby. "f He afterwards publicly declared that his ^' aim in ** permitting a meeting of the Catholic Clergy, *•" was to work a division among them, and that *' he believed he had compassed it, if he had not ** been removed. ''J Finally, for the sake of en- joying a large share of the plundered property, he was the chief cause why the loyal Irish Catho- lics had not their estates restored to them in the aforesaid reign. § All this time the wretched Apostate was a Catholic in his heart as appeared at the end of his life, though he had not the grace to follow the dictates of his conscience. Such • P^ 380. t Vol. 2. p. 94-. i p. 95. § P. 97. 120. 119 is the man whom the modern St. Columban re- commends in the strongest terms to the admira- tion and affection of his Cathohc comitrymen. No. II. p. 263, praising him even fur giving up Dublin to the Regicides, rather than unite with the Gatliolics, and selecting liim for a comparison with tiie man to whom he is bound by gratif 'de, but whose name he " dare^ not mention." Thank God, however, there is no resemblance between the two, except in the imagination of the blun- dering panegyrist.* I cannot say, my dear friend, with St. Jerome, '* Dabo operam ut me oderint omnes ha^retici :** but I can say, nearly in the words of the Roman orator: *' Nemo per hos annos viginti ecclesia^ ^^ hostis fuit, qui mihi quoqne non helium in- ^' dixit." Hence I should have been disap- *' This writer seems to insinuate a comparison between himself and Father Walsh : at any rate he repeatedly loads him with praises. Now it appears that Walsh's boasted loy- alty was as much at the service of Cromwel as of diaries ; that he was the tool of Ormond in all and every one of the lattcr's attempts to divide the Catholics for the purpose of ruin- ing them; that he ridiculed the necessity of believing in the definitions of the Council of Trent, and that " he was in all *• points of controviprsy almost wholly a Protestant, but that " he excused his adhering to the Church of Rome — because *' he could do some good in staying on that side, but that he *' could do none at all if he should come over" to Piotestant- i!«m. See Bishop Burnet's History of his own tinje^ Vol, I. p. 194, &c. also Hist. of Remon. 120 pointed if Columban had not honoured me also with a due share of his abuse and calumnies. He threatened me the other day with bringing my assertion concerning his denial of the spiritual jurisdiction of Catholic Prelates, &c. into a court of law, as " affecting his professional character, kc. No. III. p, 6. Now I declare beforehand, that I shall never summon him to a court of law, for any of the libellous matter which I am about to state, no more than I am sure you will for pubhshing that your oath of allegiance is worse than nugatory. He begins with calling me ** a *' stick, a stone, a clod of earth, a polypus, &c.*' No. I. p. 55, He charges me with " exciting " men to suffer martyrdom for my own wicked *' and heretical additions to revelation,'* and with '* impeaching the infallibihty of the Catho- *' lie Church/' No. I. p. 59. because I have re- peatedly published, that I would " rather spill ^* the last drop of my blood than concur in giv- " ing either power or influence to any person or '^ persons, who are not themselves Catholics, over *' any portion of the Catholic Church." He again charges me with " arrogant and heretical *^ pretensions, the monstrous offspring of pride *^ and ignorance, which naturally confederate ** against humility and learning." No. HI. p. S\, because 1 have taught that it is the right of Bishops to judge of, and decide upon matters of faith and Christian morality. He says much the 12i same in No. I IT. p. 22. He once more accuses my doctrine " with being not only heretical but " also expressly coridemned as such, because,^ he says, '\ I am guilty of the deep crimiliahty of '' attempting to degrade the second order of '' priesthood, by dogmatizing that they have no " right to judge or to discuss what is or is not '^ an article of their own faith, what is or is " not martyrdom, or whether death for faction ^^ masked bi/ relighus canting^ can he sanctified '^ by aprofanation of religious names.'' No. III. p. 39. He says that my pretensions are not only heretica], bnt also '' degraded by the Mahome- " tan principles of the Turkish diocese of Casta- *^' bala.'^ No. IH. p. 31. and that he himself *^ -would be degraded, if he could submit to the '^ Mahometan principles of Castabala," No. H. p. 37. He calls me *^ a Turkish basha of Cas- '' tabala.'* No. III. p. 138.* He signifies that I " wear a turban," No. III. p. 37. that I *' me- " ditate on the Koran, ibid.'* that my *' favourite '' theology is that of the Koran C' No. U. p. 102 ; and that I have '' holy pigeons," (as Ma- * The see of Castabala, though the very name of it sickens Colimiban and some of his associates, after all, is an aposto- lical see, mentioned by St. Ignatius of Antioch, in the first century, whose bishop Mozes sat in the first council of Nice. The city itself is famous for a breed of vigilant mastifts, the scriptural emblenns of faithful pastors. 122 hornet is said to liave had) to bill m my ear, in order to pass ibr a person inspired. According to him I am 'V ignorant not only of the canons ** but idso of the faith of my own Church/' No. III. p. 32 ; because I denied, as he falsely says, '' that priests, by a dispensation from the Pope, can confer the sacrament of confirmation, which point he represents as an ^' article of faith taught '' by Bellarmine ;" though it is no such thing, nor does Bellarmine affirm it. He insinuates that I teach *' smuggling to be no sin." No. III. p. .35. .On this subject, in particular, I should be glad to be informed by him when and where I taught that princij)lc. He describes my writing as '' the vulgar, bigottcd, pamphleteering jargo^i '' of Castabala.'' No. III. p. 2o9, and he com- plains that I am *' so ignortini as to confound ''. St. Columba of lona with St. Columbnn of **' Lu lieu." No. III. p. 56.* Indignant that it should fall to my k»t to have vindieated the ex- istence of the }»atron saint of Ireland, and the derivat"i:/a of its Christianity from the centre of unity, botli which facts the whole collection of * I luwe expressly distlr.guivslied between them in my " Eluciilaiioii of ihe Veto,'* p. 9, where I !iave said that Dr. O'Consjor is neither one of them nor the other. It appears tiiat thi.s Ijislj Anticjuary is himself ignorant, tliat the Saint whose name he u.sUiV>s,' frequently calls himself Columba^ Pa- ludaniis, and anv name that has referep.ce to a Dove, which I liave intimated, is the reason why I sometimes call the writer };lmself Columba, 123 modem writers, seduced by Dr. Ledwich, scouted before my letters from Ireland appeared, Dr. O'Connor nibbles at a few of my numerous docu- ments in support of them, No- II T. p. 49. and yet some of these he himself had appealed to in the Life of his Grandfather as genuine, and all of them are admitted by such men as Usher, Ware, Harris, Colgan, Alban Butler, &c. In return, he puts him- self to the expense of engraving four lines of an Italian MS. which he says is 1000 years old, and in which St. Patrick's name occurs. But what degree of light can even an auth'jnticated MS. of 1000 years old cast upon a fact demonstrated upon authorities so much more ancient and cer- tain !^ It is like holding up -a farthing candle to shew the sun by. He says that he helped me to some of the best additional authorities, contained in the second edition of my tour, concerning this saint ; and I aver that this assertion is a down- right fldsehood. With the same disregard of truth he tells a pretended and self refuted story of a conversation between us, relative to my alledged quotation of Gildas, in the History of Winchester, *' for the History of King Arthur," No. Hi. p. ♦50, and he elsewhere reproaches me with such pretended false quotation. Now then let my said history be inspected. Vol. I. p. 61, note 4; it will be found that I (piote Gildas merely for the year, viz. the 44th from the arrival of the Saxons, \^ which the battle of Mons Badonicus, or of 124 BatU was fought, but that I quote in the follow- ing note, WiHiam of Malnisbury as my authority for t.lie exploits of Arthur in that battle. See not^j 5, p. 61. See also the rest of my account of Ar^; thur, and my authorities, p.p. 62, 73, 74. Not content with making me a Turk and a Mahometan, tliis man, who is so jealous of his own professional and moral character, accuses me of Pagan Druidism ^and sorcery. He says : " Jt ill becomes a Christian bisho]) to encourage '* well-pilgrimages, connected with sorcery, and '' undertaken for purposes of Dnddkal hnprcca- tiany to gratify malice and riot iri revenge.'' No. IJI. p. lOl. Having quoted ccrtaii> Saxon ca-- nons, prohibiting *' the worship of the sun, the *' moon, fire, rivers, foun|;^ins and trees,'* as like- wise *' the custom of the Pagans in introducing " diviners or sorcerers, or attending Pagan lus- ' ■ trations,*' he adds '* the Bishop of Castabala '' has written a miraculous pamphlet in defence '' of them." p.p. 103 — 104. He elsewhere charges me with ^' canonizing Druidism, and " mixing it up with the doctrines of Christia- '' nity.*' p. 79. These are pretty heavy and li- bellous charges against a Christian bishop ; let us now .see how he substantiates them. He says- that the Saxon prelates forbid the worship of the sun, moon, fountains, he, as also the introduc- tion of diviners, sorcerers, and tlie use of Pagan. 125 Juslrations. I answer, they did well in so doing > as all these things are forbidden iu the first of the Ten Commandments. He next undertakes tb trace well-worshipping ail the way from Persia^ througii Arabia, Egypt, Greece and Italy, into Ireland, wh^re, previously to tbe preaching of St. Patrick '' the; Pagan Irish adored fountains a? *' divinities." No. III. p. 82.* Be it so; but he might just as well have traced the system of deception from the imposition of the serpent on Qur first mother dov/n to his late publieation^ 9s to have thrown the dust of his dissertation int- tQ the eyes of the ignorant; ;by ,'way i of proving that I worship wells. He then goes on to maiiir tain^ ^s a certain fact, that superstition, and even idolatry, in this point, prevails still in Ireland^ particularly in his parish of Castlerea, as he heretofore ascertained by conversing with a very old man, Owen Hester, p. 83. To this I reply, that if there are any superstitions (idolatry, I am sure there is none) respecting fountains, ^c. among the Irish people, I am sure that the resident Bishops and clergy endeavour to root them out, and by the same rule Dr. O'Connor * He elsewhere s?xy% that *' they are forbidden by the " venerable councils of our Saro7i ancestors.*^ No. III. p. 10 1 . I did not know befordthat Dr. O'Connor was so far Anglicized as to have abjured his Milesian origin, and to be capable of boasting of, his being a Sas-^cmaqh in a work which he addres- sed ad Hibrrnos. 126 would have employed his time much better in instructing his own parishioners and Owen Hester upon the spot concerning them, than m holding these people up to scorn in another country. He admits, indeed, of '* travelHng to " the shrines of the saints and the tombs of the " martyrs," p. 37. and he says, that *^ the pri- ** mitive Christians made pilgrimages to the *' tombs of the martyrs and the sepulchre of our " Saviour, but well-pilgrimages he reprobates." p. 101. I should like, however, to ask him, whe- ther it was not usual for the pilgrims who visited the cave in which Christ's body was laid, to bathe also in the Jordan in which Christ was baptized ? and how a respect for the water, in the latter case is more superstitious than a res- pect for the earth in the former case. The fact is, and every Catholic man, woman and child knows it, that we reverence tne memorials of Christ and his saints, whatever these may consist of, not for any divinity, power or virtue which they have in themselves, but inasmuch as they are memoiials of them, and in as much as God, who is master of his own works, is pleased occa- sionally to dis})lay his supernatural power at som.e of them. It is unfortunate that, in this writer's journey from Persia to Ireland, he should not have halted in a \ery interesting country called Palestine ; because there he would have -een this SQvy water, the Jordan, imd would have 127 learnt that it bad been appointed by God to be the instrument of a very well attested miraculous cure, that of Naainan the leper, before the time of Christ. IL alias IV. King, c. v. He would also have seen there the pool or well of Siloam, the water of which, by the appointment of Christ, restored sight to a man born blind, John ix. 7. Finally, he would have seen the holy well of Bethsaida, which had the miraculous quality at- tached to it, of curing the first sick person who bathed in it at a certain season. John v. 4. Had our captious critic been acquainted with these facts, he would have spared himself the trouble of his long rambling invective against me, becom- ing sensible that whatever argumonts he might use to distinguish between the scriptural and the Pagan lustrations, I should certainly adopt in favour of the good Christians who choose to bathe at Holywell. The fact is my '' Authentic Documents con- '' cerning the miraculous cure of W. White at " Holywell on the 28th of June, 1805.*' are so strongly entrenched that neither this lax Catholic nor any of the firm Protestants, who have ex- amined them, or the person herself who is the subject of them, has been able to make the slightest impression u^ion them. I was called upon by the office which I bear to examine into a reported miracle : I juridically proved it to he ,128 true, both as to the fact itself, and the superua- t-aral nature of it, by the testimony of number-^ tes» credible witnesses, unknown fo each other. Pi^otestarits no less than Catholic^, iniLancashire, Cheshire, and Flintshire, as well as in StafTord- shire, and amongst these by the physician and surgeon who had attended the poor patient, for between tw6 and three years ; so that I do not know, how the fact in either respect can be de- nied without undcrminii^ijn^ the Gospel itself. ' iTo be.ljrief, a great number of the witnesses are still li\inj^, and ready to answer all interrogations as is W. White herself, still in perfect health. Should the modern Columban, or any other perj^on choose to travel into Sorat^rsetshire, rather than Staffordshire, he will find, at Taunton Lodge, a person oi* the name of jSI. Wood, who has expe- r'enced a cure equally sudden and astonishing by the application of moss fro»n the well in ques- tion, through faith and prayer,* The writer nrfoorr * C. say^ ^hatwhat is called by th^ people St. Winefrid's Woocl, is a vegetable substance, BJssus pof^fhm. It is;plain he knows notbingof the matter. I have seen the stones of the M-ell and hare one of them before me now ; tl^ey are spotted and streaked with red. With respect to the hiiracle^ vvpdoght in his time at Holywell, see the account of Baronins, in his notes on the Roman Martyrology, Nov. 3. from the testimony of iioldnell. Bishop of St. Asaph, who obtained the Pope's sanction for the pilgrimage in question. See Dodd's Hist. Vol. 1. See also ihe Otarty for tn^fahd in the common- Catlioh'c ManMal. 129 quotes Drk Linden to prove that the \vatcr of Holywell has ^latural salubrious power. Be it so : but can that or any other water vuiuralhj cure a patient n»ore than half dead with the pal- sy and other complaints, which had baffled the medicines of physicians and the knives of sur- geons, IN AN INSTANT ? Can a bit of moss or any other substance naturalli) restore the use of a hand which had been lost by the cutting through of the tendons necessary to move it, and Avhich the surgeons despaired of curing, and this in the same complete and expeditious manner ? With respect to the former case he says that " The Council of Trent enjoins that Bishops *' shall not decidcy upon questions touching mi- *' racles, without calling a council of their Dio- '' cesan clergij who are to discuss and decide, '^ whether the supposed miraculous facts could " not be the result of natural causes." p. 101. Now see, in the Latin text, whether there is a word about Diocesan clergy, or about the right of any clergy to decide in this matter. *^ Statuit *' S. Sy nodus nulla admittenda esse nova miracu- " la — nisi recognescente et approbante Episcopo : " qui simulatque de iis aliquid compertum habu- '' erit, adhibitis in consilium theologis & aliis '* piis viris ea faciat qu^ veritati & pictati con- *' sentanea judicaverit.^Sess. XXV. de Inv. S. S. However it so happens that I did take the advice S 130 of such clergy of my district, as were ^est qua- lified to give it in this case. But it is not that this Critic really doubts of the truth of a single fact, or the justice of a single reasoning in the work which he has thought pro- per to arraign before the public : *' What I com- '' plain of" he says, '' is that the Bishop of '^ Castabala countenances supposed miraculous '^ cures w^hich shake the faith of weak brethren. " in the genuine miracles of primitive times." p. 60. -To this I reply in general, that it is his duty to guide and not to be guided by weak bre- thren, be they who or what they may. He ought to instri^ct them, that, as there was a suc- cession of Divine interpositions recorded in Scrip- ture, from the beginning of the world nearly to the time of Christ, so he was pleased to promise those, zvho believe in hi?n, shall do the ivovks zvhich he doth and greater works than he doth ; in a v/ord, that there has been a succession q^ mira- cles in the true Catholic Church, recorded by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and evident- ly proved at the canonization of all the saints, down to the present time ; and that this is one of the most striking proofs of Uie Church, which is under the protection and favour of the most High God. But to have done with this paragon of all sa- cerdotal pretenders to Catholicity, at every page 131 and almost at every line of his heterodox and schismatical farago, I lift np my eyes in gratitude to God, and inwardly congratulate with my ve- nerable brethren and their religious flocks in Ire- land, that the former have been saved from such a colleague and the latter from such a pastor ! The deliverance, however, I consider als preca- rious, till it is demonstrated that Protestant States- men sh^ll not interfere in the government of the Catholic Church. If they ever succeed in gain- ing the least degreee of power or influence in this concern, depend upon it that you will soon have Columban among you, and that, in process of time, your Church and ours also will be entirely in the hands of the Columbani. Then adieu to the religion of St. Patrick and St. Augustine i I conclude with the address of St. Jerom to the great St. Augustine, an address which I might make to each of your brethren as well as to your- self in the strict sense of the terms: '' Alacte '' virtute : in 07^be cdebrari. Catholici te condito- *' rem antiqua^ fldei venerantur atque suspiciunt *' et quod signum viajoris glorice est, hceretici de- '^ testantur: et me pari odio persequuntur. Inco- f^ lumem &. mei memorem. te Christi Domini. "^ dementia tueatur, Domine venerande et bea '^ tissime Papa, J. m/ April Q,3y 1811. s ^«^-...Tr.^ *=? ^mJDNVSOl^ i m^ ' %il3AINil-3V^^ m m ^^Aavnani ^•lOSANCElfn "^ojnvDjo^ "^ojiwa-jo^ ^J'iiiomoi^ %il3AINfliWN .\\^EUNIVERSyA ^mmii^ '^nm^rmv^ '^^mmrn^^ ^lOSANCEl^^ Q <«31]DNYS01^ "^aaAiNfliwv^ ^^WEUNIVER% ^lOSAKCEier^ 5 6 %a3AiNn'3\^^ LIBRARY. ^OFCAUFOfiU^ ^4 >''--^ >r ^OFCAl:^;P^ "^^Aavaaii-^ "^^^Anvaani^ -j^jXUBRARYO^ -^^lUBRARY^?/;^ 5 i 5 i aweuniver% ^TiiaONVSOl^ ^lOSANCEl^ '^miKmi^ ^OFCAUFOB'y^ ^OFCAUFOftij^ •>t?AOTani^ aweunivers/a ^^ilJONVSOl^ ^lOSANCElfJJ %a3A!r O tL, 93 G n^ %a3AiNfi-3«^' I I ill 3 1158 01056 2907^^ .J^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles is book is DUE on the last date stamped below. This #i .^liV ^-^ IBRARY LOANS i •?351|FTW0 WFm FROM DA ' RFrcipr MM^ -a^s- ER% SOl^ •^ ? -p p i i S %