by which they may respectively judge their common objects most likely to be obtained in their own case, independence would have implied no schism, nor would they have sought to aggravate the errors of their neighbours in order to make out a just ground of quarrel, when their forming themselves into a distinct society was no breach of charity, and should have been considered as no quarrel at all.

The Roman Catholics then are right in maintaining, that out of Christ's Church there is no covenanted salvation : but they are wrong; and many Protestants share in their error, in mistaking the accidental state of the Church at its first origin for something essential to its nature: as if, because it was one society then in the strictest sense of the term, it must be in some other than a spiritual sense one society now. In that spiritual sense indeed it is ever one but in that sense all are members of it, to how many soever subordinate forms of Christian society they may respectively belong, so long as they acknowledge the same Maker and Saviour and Sanctifier, so long as they are one with each other, not in forms and regulations, but in principle and in spirit, in the Father and in the Son. And therefore when sincere Protestants would acknowledge as members of the Catholic Church of Christ those societies of Christians only which are governed by Bishops, on the ground that amongst them alone the apostolical succession is preserved, there appears a misapprehension of the true nature of a spiritual society, and a participation in the same erroneous views which have led the Romanists to exclude from their sense of the Catholic Church all who will not acknowledge the succession of the Popes from St. Peter the chief of the Apostles.

a I allude to a Sermon published two or three years since, by the Rev. Walter Hook, of Christ Church, Oxford. I have the less scruple in mentioning his name, as I know him to be a sincere and zealous minister of Christ; and my belief that his views on one point are erroneous, does not interfere with my high respect for his character.

The principle which we should follow in our endeavours to purify the Roman Catholic religion, might be exemplified in numerous other instances: but it will better suit my present limits if I state once more what it is, and shew the bearing of what I have last written upon my general subject. The principle is this; that we should trace the errors of the Catholics to their origin, and should thus perceive how much of them is mere corruption, that is, error introduced for an interested or ambitious purpose; how much arises from ignorance or misconception, and what the misconception was; and, above all, how much of truth is mixed with the error, and may be extracted from it by a careful and delicate analysis. In doing this we should also observe how far Protestants have either condemned the whole of a tenet of the Romish Church, without discrimination, or themselves retain the original error which gave birth to it, and therefore contend against it on wrong grounds. We should consider that our true object is not to convert Catholics to Protestantism, but to perfect their views and our own to the full wisdom and holiness of Christianity, although we may each remain distinct societies, and retain different rites and internal regulations. We should substitute inquiry for controversy; not wishing to bring them over to our side, but that both they and we should be on the side of truth, renouncing our errors, and clearing our views when indistinct and imperfect. "Whereunto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing" that is to say, while aspiring to more perfect knowledge, let not those who are more advanced despise their more backward brethren, but let both walk in the same rule of Christian holiness, and with the same spirit of Christian charity.

And for the application of all this to the great Question which now engrosses the whole mind of England; I wish to impress upon the Christian opponents of concession, that while I maintain the positive duty of granting the

Catholic claims as an act of simple justice, it is also with the most deliberate conviction, that thus and thus only can the spiritual improvement of our Catholic countrymen ever be effected. If Protestants will not endure to hear the language of impartiality and charity towards the Catholics, if they will only look upon them as men without truth, and without humanity, as ferocious bigots and blasphemous idolaters, do they think that the Catholics can be more favourably disposed to them, when over and above the irreligious prejudices they must entertain against them the galling sense of national and civil injustice? What Protestant missionary, however holy and eloquent, can have any chance of influencing men, who are not only daily reviled by Protestants, but actually degraded and oppressed by them; are treated as aliens in their own. land, as unfit and unworthy to become citizens of their own country? They who are most zealous in their endeavours to convert the slaves in the West Indies to Christianity, are also most eager to effect their temporal deliverance they are regarded therefore as friends, and the Gospel is doubly loved for the sake of those who offer the knowledge of it. Would the negroes listen to a mission of tyrannical overseers, who spoke to them with the whip in one hand and the Bible in the other; or to a set of plantation proprietors, who had most steadily refused to adopt every measure recommended by the government of Britain for the improvement of their temporal condition? We have a great, a solemn duty to perform towards our Irish brethren; we have connected them with ourselves, and therefore we are bound first to do them justice, and then to do them kindness: to labour at this eleventh hour to atone for the long day during which we have not only neglected to do them good, but have heaped upon them evil alike physical and moral.

The great numerical majority of the clergy of England are united against doing an act of Christian justice, and Christian wisdom and they tax their opponents with

:

acting upon worldly views, and sacrificing their religion to political expediency. I will not retort by impugning the motives of those who think differently from me, nor by depreciating their understandings. I know that there are amongst them men who are not to be surpassed in holiness of life, or in vigour of natural abilities. But what they do want, and I speak it neither reproachfully nor insultingly, is acquired knowledge and impartiality. It is notorious that a large portion of them abstain habitually upon principle from the study of politics; and how can they possibly understand what they have refused to learn? And what is the ordinary education of a clergyman? The history of his own country, except in a mere abridgment, forms not part of his necessary studies, either at school or at the university; still less does it generally occupy his attention when he begins to prepare himself for his own profession. Many persons certainly read much more than they are compelled to do; but not the majority; and in point of fact, I should not underrate the historical knowledge of the mass of the clergy, if I supposed them to have read Hume, perhaps with Smollett's Continuation, Clarendon, and Burnet's History of the Reformation. Of the Laws and of the progress of our Constitution of England they know but little; and of the history of the other nations of Europe, their knowledge is commonly still more limited. The impressions which they gain from the writers I have mentioned, for, with the mass of readers, the tone of an author's sentiments leaves a much deeper impression than his detail of facts, are all in favour of Toryism, or against the Catholics; and these, in the present state of affairs, belong to the same party, and lead to the same political conduct. Their professional studies tend to produce the same bias: their making the thirty-nine Articles the text-book for a large portion of their theological reading, accustoms them to look at religion controversially; they learn what are the arguments by which the Catholics are to be combated; and the obnoxious

tenets of the Romish Church are brought before their eyes in their most offensive form, while the good parts of the system, and the causes which led to its errors, and which, although they do not make them less errors, yet would often moderate our dislike and suspicion of those who held them, are not presented to them. With this previous education, if they travel for a short timea on the continent of Europe, and particularly if they visit Italy, they return home with prejudices increased and ignorance unenlightened. With little knowledge of the history and literature of the countries they travel through, and with few personal acquaintances among the people to soften their feelings towards them, they catch directly at those gross exhibitions of superstition which are so common, and think that they have now a confirmation of all their former notions of the monstrous nature of Popery.

On their return home they settle mostly in country parishes, and the little time they can spare from their pastoral duties for pursuing their own studies, is naturally devoted to works on divinity. In this state of mind and

a A longer residence abroad might perhaps lead to a different result. I was told two years ago by an English Clergyman who has resided at Rome since the year 1814, that he settled there with a strong impression against the Roman Catholic religion, and against granting the claims of the Catholics of Ireland: that his sense of the evils and errors of the Catholic religion had become continually stronger and stronger; but his opinion with regard to the Catholic Question was wholly changed: and he was satisfied that there was no prospect of relieving Ireland from its superstitions, but by granting to the Catholics their civil rights, and so alienating them from their dependence on Rome by uniting them on equal terms to their Protestant countrymen.

In confirmation of this view of the subject, I know that some of the principal members of the Papal Government, in conversation with an individual totally unconnected with England, have expressed their apprehensions lest the Catholic claims should be granted; as the influence actually enjoyed by the Pope, in Ireland, would then be superseded in the minds of the Irish by natural feelings of attachment to their country and constitution.