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Untitled Article
nister , " by tlie sovereign ' s concession , " the property of their churches ; " they ought to exhort the people to the observance of the laws ; and it is especially enjoined that they should be present at the promulgation of the civil laws , and admonish the , people to bealso present . " The care of orphans , the poor , and of illegitimate children , is confided to them . w They must either personally , or through the schoolmasters , assist the military conscription , and furnish whatever information is in their power to give frotn the parish books . "
The third book proceeds to the consideration of the most delicate part of the subject , and discusses the general relations which the church bears to the state . Catholicism is generally treated as solving the questions which have been agitated on this head in a manner subversive , of the dignity and in * terests of the state ; but in this respect great difference has always existed in the degrees to which Catholic states have been inclined to give way to
clerical pretensions , and even among Protes f ants the controversy has been by no means without extremes , which it would be equally difficult to reconcile with each other , and with the liberties of the community * Dr . Magee is now thundering against the theories of Warburton on this very point , and our contemporary , the British Critic , No . III ., is doing his best to abet the former . The Court of Austria , in the midst of its Catholicism , has found
the means of keeping church authority within quite as narrow limits as most Protestants would wish to prescribe , and much straiter than would suit either Dr . Magee or the great authority which he ventures to impugn . , The Austrian ^ ecclesiastical system lays down that the church and civi l society are two moral beings or states , essentially different as to their origin * objects , and means ; but that they are not contrary to each other , and can
even much assist each other . The church can by i < $ precepts render citizens upright , tranquil , and obedient to civil authority * and * the state can assist the church by protecting its worship , &c . The church , lilie any other legal association in the state , has its property , civil rights , &c ., and is sub * ject to civil authority , to its laws and burdens . The state , as a State , is not
the subject matter of religion ; it is not ix > mbine < l With any cburch ; its compact of union with a church or churches is tiot grounded on the idea that its subjects should profess any one religion in R eference to another ; The sovereign , like his subjects , is at liberty ta enter or Wtinto the society of any church . A sovereign who is a Catholic , hfcs * as a sovereign , neither more nor less rights than a sovereign who professes any other mode of worship .
The state has jurisdiction over all civil matters . The church has no power to do any thing mixed up with civil relations or not essential to its ends , which the civil power deems pernicious , and on that head the state is the sole judge . All temporal jurisdiction on the part of the church over the civil power is of course denied , and contended to be unwarranted by scrip ) - l other
turaor rational authority . No excommunication even is allowed in Austria without the sovereign ' s consent . Ecclesiastical immunities have also been destroyed , and the clergy are tried like all other citizens . The church is allowed to claim as ri ghts—a ri g ht to liberty of , action or free exercise of religion ; a right to civil protection ; and a right to prevent the civil power from obstructing the church ' s exercise of that obligation to
prqtnote religious salvation for which it is formed , BuX the church has no other power of redress , in case of invasion of ijts < ftght& tfean those of exhortation , prayer , patience , and constancy . The civil jwwef must be predoroir
Untitled Article
6 ^ 8 Review ' .- ^ Catholicism in Attstffy .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1827, page 678, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1800/page/46/
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