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poor creatures , have , we fear , little godliness or love to the Deity in them ; but it is in relation to the Catholics that he demands of every Dissenter , " SHOULDST THOU HELP THE UNGODLY , AND LOVE THEM THAT HATE THE Lord ? " And but for these antipathies , who could contemplate the dissensions , the immoralities , the miseries , which the penal faws have generated and perpetuated in Ireland , and the fearful results to which they seem
to be tending , without being conscious of the most imperative obligation , as a disciple of Him who taught to love our neighbour as ourselves , to do all that can be done for the production of a better state of things ? Call the subject religious , political , or what you will ; here are millions oppressed , degraded , insulted , kept in a state of ceaseless agitation to themselves , and of ceaseless peril to others , at our very doors ; and to interpose , by whatever means we can lawfully and effectually interpose , is our duty to them , to our country , and to our God .
The Catholics , it is said , " submit to the supremacy of the Pope , and therefore owe supreme allegiance to a foreign jurisdiction . " This indeed is dwelt upon as comprising the essence of all the reasons for their exclusion . This objection is alike futile , whether we look at fact or theory . The Catholics are not , nor ever have been , traitors to their king and country in
any greater proportion than Protestants similarly circumstanced . Nay , they have usually had much more of the passive-obedience principle in them . Till the early part of the last reign , it was the High Church and Toiy party , much more than the Papists , that threatened the security of the House of Hanover ; and certainly the supremacy of the Pope did not generate either the American revolution or the Irish rebellion . And do not
Dissenters profess to owe " supreme allegiance" to a higher jurisdiction than that of George the Fourth ? Does not Mr . Ivimey call himself a subject of King Jesus ? Has not his allegiance a "but" ( p . 32 ) in it for laws which may interfere with what he deems the rights of conscience ? Suppose King , Lords , and Commons , were to make a law opposed to his interpretation of the Scriptures ; would he submit to it , by whatever penalty it might be enforced } To be sure he would not . He would call his refusal , obeying God rather than man . And so it might be ; but he would be the
expositor to himself of the divine will , as the Pope is to the Catholics , and his allegiance would be just as imperfect and divided as he says theirs is . The only difference is , that he believes in his own infallibility , and does not believe in that of the Pope ; they believe in the Pope , and not in Mr . Ivimey . Either living or dead , visible or invisible , a person or a book , in some form or other , there is to all religionists a jurisdiction above that of the temporal authority of the country in which they dwell . " Divided allegiance' ' may be played off against them all , unless they make gods of their kings . *
But the great bugbear of all , among Dissenters , is persecution . It is presumed , that if the Catholics can but obtain eligibility , they will be sure to get power ; and if they can but get power , they will be sure to persecute ; and then away will go the liberties and the lives of Protestants . Probably the difference between eligibility to office and its possession , may , in their present situation , become more obvious to Dissenters . They ought already to have learned that Catholics may have seats in Parliament without necessarily becoming the government of the country . And even if they were , and could convert the King into the bargain , that which was impossible in 1688 would not be effected in 1830 ; the liberties of the people of England would remain in proud security without occasion for one drop of
Untitled Article
5 SS Catholics and Dissenters .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1828, page 588, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2564/page/4/
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