CHAP. VI. SECTION II. Disqualification from Office-a serious Punish ment. Substance of Statement. 1. WE have now stated the Laws, Catholics from the Legis the preceding which exclude the lature, from all offices and situations of trust, honour, or emolument, in Corporate cities and towns, in the Army, Navy, Profession and Administration of the Laws, and various other offices and situations in this country. Importance of these disquali These incapacities and disabilities, though fications. treated with levity in the discussion of Catholic Petitions, have never been viewed by the Laws as matters of indifference. Smith,v. Read, v. 5. 282. Lord Hardwicke. House of Peers Lord Somers, We find the gravest lawyers, and the ablest statesmen, agreed in estimating their magnitude and importance. Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, perhaps the most eminent Lawyer of modern times, treated these incapacities and disabilities, as penalties of the severest nature. In the memorable conference between the Houses of peers and commons of England, respecting the Occasional conformity Bill, the managers of the former house (amongst whom Pari: Deb: 5. wasthe great Lord Somers) solemnly declared-CHAP. VI. "that an honest man cannot be reduced to a Chandler's "more unhappy condition, than to be put, by Vol. 3. p. 220. "Law, under an incapacity of serving his Prince "and his country; and that therefore, nothing, "but a crime of the most detestable nature, these disquali"ought to put him under such a disability.' 2. Accordingly, Disqualification from Importance of fications. Severity of this office is a punishment, which has generally been directed against crimes of gross profligacy and punishment. turpitude only. The Statute of 11 Henry, 4. has attached it to "Extortion in public officers, bri 66 bery-corruption in the purchase and Sale of offices, &c. It has also been visited upon him, who "openly apostatizes, or renounces Christia nity or commits peculation or breach of "trust, as a Member of Parliament-and other "majora crimina." In such cases, the offender, in the emphatic words of the Statutes, is incapacitated, as if he were dead. Even the of the Crown, crime of perjury is not deemed vile or heinous enough to be thus punished. Yet the Catholics of Ireland, struggling and remonstrating against punishments so linked with infamy, are cruelly derided and hunted down, as if consulting together under pretence, not for the real purpose, of preparing their complaints and Petitions. Hawkins' Pleas CHAP. VI. severity of this punishment. Respect, due Religion. 3. This ungenerous treatment is the Injustice and more unwarrantable, since it is grounded upon a glaring violation of the rights of private conscience, ingratitude towards meritorious citizens, and insulting reproach against the principles of the Catholic Religion. Be it recollected, too, that the Religion which has provoked these severities, has been during fourteen centuries to the Catholic the religion of the Irish People-that it prevailed in Great Britain during the most glorious period of its history-that it is steadfastly maintained at this day by the majority of Christiansand zealously so, by the most faithful and useful allies of the British empire. So magnificent and venerable a system of worship-ought a free and enlightened nation to vilify it with all the opprobrium of language, and to persecute it with all the refinements of torture? A Religion, too, which has received even from the most eminent Divines of the Protestant church, frequent and eloquent tributes of respect, and reluctant eulogium. Let us hear, for instance, the testimony of an Irish Protestant Bishop of Down, in 1647; Down's pane a prelate of no lukewarm zeal, and of no mean Catholic Reli- talent, in support of the established Religion, its rights and reputation, Bishop of gyric upon the gion. "The members of the Roman Catholic com"munion may say, that their religion was that of "their forefathers, and had the actual possession CHAP. VI. "of men's minds before the opposite opinions Sermon on the "had even a name that, having continued "through such a length of time, it would 66 it phesying, by Dr. Jeremy be Taylor, the liberty of Pro Protestant Bi this shop of Down, 1647. objected to them with an ill grace, that "was the effect of invention or design; because "it was not likely that all ages should have "the same purposes, or that the same doctrine "should serve the different ends of several ages. "This prescription, moreover, rests upon grounds, that truth is more ancient than faise-shop. "hood and that God would not, for so many 66 66 the ages, have forsaken his Church, and left her "in error. 66 Panegyric up on the Catho- "To this antiquity of doctrine is annexed "an uninterrupted succession of their Bishops "from the Apostles; and particularly of their supreme Bishop St. Peter, whose personal pre- Apology for the "rogatives were so great; and the advantageous manner, in which many eminent Pre- which bind the "lates of other Sees have expressed themselves Ireland to their "with regard to the Church of Rome. This "prerogative includes the advantages of Mo"narchy, and the constant benefits which are "derived from that form of government." "Nor does the multitude and variety of people "who are of this persuasion, their apparent con"sent with elder ages, and their agreement with feelings of Catholics of religion. 4 CHAP. VI. " one another, form a less presumption in their "favour. The same conclusion must be inferred, "from the differences, which have risen amongst Panegyric upon the Catholic religionby the Irish Protestant Bi-" their adversaries-the casualties which have shop of Down. happened to many of them-the oblique and "sinister proceedings of some, who have left "their communion." "To these negative arguments the Catholic "adds those of a more positive kind; the beau ty and splendour of the Church of Rome; "her solemn service; the stateliness and mag"nificence of her hierarchy; and the name of "CATHOLIC," which she claims as her own "due, and to concern no other sect of Christianity. It has been their happiness to be in"strumental to the conversion of many nations. "The world is witness to the piety and aus 66 terity of their religious orders; to the sinMerits of the "gle life of their Priests and Bishops; the se Cadelic Cler Iverity of their fasts and observances; the great reputation of many of their Clergy for faith "and sanctity-and the known holiness of some "of those persons, whose institutes the Religious "orders follow." END OF THE FIRST PART. |