you to remember that I record these opinions | wrong, and to gain nothing by it, are surely t not for the purpose of converting any one to add folly to fault, and to proclaim an under them, which would be an abuse of the privi- standing not led by the rule of reason, as wel lege of addressing you from the pulpit; not as a disposition unregulated by the Christian that I attach the slightest degree of importance faith. to them because they are mine; but merely to guard myself from misrepresentation upon a point on which all men's passions are, at this moment, so powerfully excited. I have said that, at this moment, all men's passions are powerfully excited on this subject. If this is true, it points out to me my line of duty. I must use my endeavours to guard against the abuse of this day; to take | care that the principles of sound reason are not lost sight of; and that such excitement, instead of rising into dangerous vehemence, is calmed into active and useful investigation of the subject. Religious charity requires that we should not judge any sect of Christians by the repre sentations of their enemies alone, without hearing and reading what they have to say in their own defence; it requires only, of course, to state such a rule to procure for it general admission. No man can pretend to say that such a rule is not founded upon the plainest principles of justice-upon those plain princi ples of justice which no one thinks of violating in the ordinary concerns of life; and yet I fear that rule is not always very strictly adhered to in religious animosities. Religious hatred is often founded on tradition, often on hearsay, often on the misrepresentations of notorious enemies; without inquiry, without the slightest examination of opposite reasons and authorities, or consideration of that which the accused party has to offer for defence or explanation. It is impossible, I admit, to examine every thing; many have not talents, many have not leisure, for such pursuits; many must be contented with the faith in which they have been brought up, and must think it the best modification of the Christian faith, because they are told it is so. But this imperfect acquaintance with religious controversy, though not blameable when it proceeds from want of power, and want of opportunity, can be no possible justi fication of violent and acrimonious opinions. I would say to the ignorant man, "It is not your ignorance I blame; you have had ne means, perhaps, of acquiring knowledge: the circumstances of your life have not led to itmay have prevented it; but then I must tell you, if you have not had leisure to inquire, you have no right to accuse. If you are unacquaint I shall, therefore, on the present occasion, not investigate generally the duties of charity and forbearance, but of charity and forbearance in religious matters; of that Christian meekness and humility which prevent the intrusion of bad passions into religious concerns, and keep calm and pure the mind intent upon eternity. And remember, I beg of you, that the rules I shall offer you for the observation of Christian charity are general, and of universal application. What you choose to do, and which way you incline upon any particular question, are, and can be, no concern of mine. It would be the height of arrogance and presumption in me, or in any other minister of God's word, to interfere on such points; I only endeavour to teach that spirit of forbearance and charity, which (though it cannot always prevent differences upon religious points) will ensure that these differences are carried on with Christian gentleness. I have endeavoured to lay down these rules for difference with care and moderation; and, if you will attend to them patiently, I think you willed with the opposite arguments,-or, knowing, agree with me, that, however the practice of them may be forgotten, the propriety of them cannot be denied. It would always be easier to fall in with human passions than to resist them; but the ministers of God must do their duty through evil report, and through good report; neither prevented nor excited by the interests of the present day. They must teach those general truths which the Christian religion has committed to their care, and upon which the happiness and peace of the world depend. cannot balance them, it is not upon you the task devolves of exposing the errors, and impugning the opinions of other sects." If charity is ever necessary, it is in those who know accurately neither the accusation nor the defence. If invective,—if rooted antipathy, in religious opinions, is ever a breach of Christian rules, it is so in those who, not being able to become wise, are not willing to become charitable and modest. Any candid man, acquainted with religious controversy, will, I think, admit that he has In pressing upon you the great duty of reli- frequently, in the course of his studies, been gious charity, the inutility of the opposite de- astonished by the force of arguments with fect of religious violence first offers itself to, which that cause has been defended, which he and, indeed, obtrudes itself upon my notice. at first thought to be incapable of any defence The evil of difference of opinion must exist; at all. Some accusations he has found to be it admits of no cure. The wildest visionary utterly groundless; in others the facts and does not now hope he can bring his fellow- arguments have been mis-stated; in other increatures to one standard of faith. If history stances the accusation has been retorted; in has taught us any one thing, it is that man- many cases the tenets have been defended by Kind, on such sort of subjects, will form their strong arguments and honest appeal to Scrip own opinions. Therefore, to want charity in ture; in many with consummate acuteness religious matters is at least useless; it hardens and deep learning. So that religious studies error and provokes recrimination; but it does often teach to opponents a greater respect for not enlighten those whom we wish to reclaim, each other's talents, motives, and acquire nor does it extend doctrines which to us ap-ments; exhibit the real difficulties of the sub rear so clear and indisputable. But to do ject; lessen the surprise and anger which are text. apt to be excited by opposition; and, by these | hearts as well as in their books. There is, means, promote that forgiving one another, unfortunately, so much pride where there and forbearing one another, which are so ought to be so much humility, that it is diffi powerfully recommended by the words of my cult, if not almost impossible, to make religious sects abjure or recant the doctrines they have once professed. It is not in this manner, I fear, that the best and purest churches are ever reformed. But the doctrine gradually be comes obsolete; and, though not disowned, ceases in fact to be a distinguishing characmodes of reformation,-this silent antiquation of doctrines,-this real improvement, which the parties themselves are too wise not to feel, though not wise enough to own, must, I ar afraid, be generally conceded to human infirmity. They are indulgences not unneces sary to many sects of Christians. The more generous method would be to admit error where error exists, to say these were the tenets and interpretations of dark and ignorant ages; wider inquiry, fresh discussion, superior intelligence have convinced us we are wrong; we will act in future upon better and wiser principles. This is what men do in laws, arts, and sciences; and happy for them would it be if they used the same modest docility in the highest of all concerns. But it is, I fear, more than experience will allow us to expect; and therefore the kindest and most charitable method is to allow religious sects silently to improve without reminding them of, and taunting them with, the improvement; without bringing them to the humiliation of former disavowal, or the still more pernicious practice of defending what they know to be indefensible. The triumphs which proceed from the neglect of these principles are not (what they pretend to be) the triumphs of religion, but the triumphs of personal vanity. The object is not to extinguish the dangerous errors with as little pain and degradation as possible to him who has fallen into the error, but the object is to exalt ourselves, and to depreciate our theological opponents, as much as possible, at any expense to God's service, and to the real interests of truth and religion. A great deal of mischief is done by not attending to the limits of interference with each other's religious opinions,-by not leaving to the power and wisdom of God that which belongs to God alone. Our holy religion consists of some doctrines which influence practeristic of the sect which professes it. These tice, and of others which are purely speculative. If religious errors are of the former description, they may, perhaps, be fair objects of human interference; but, if the opinion is merely theological and speculative, there the right of human interference seems to end, because the necessity for such interference does not exist. Any error of this nature is between the Creator and the creature,-between the Redeemer and the redeemed. If such opinions are not the best opinions which can be found, God Almighty will punish the error, if mere error seemeth to the Almighty a fit object of punishment. Why may not man wait if God waits! Where are we called upon in Scripture to pursue men for errors purely speculative?-to assist Heaven in punishing those offences which belong only to Heaven?-in fighting unasked for what we deem to be the battles of God,-of that patient and merciful God, who pities the frailties we do not pity-who forgives the errors we do not forgive,-who sends rain upon the just and the unjust, and maketh his sun to shine upon the evil and the good? Another canon of religious charity is to revise, at long intervals, the bad opinions we have been compelled, or rather our forefathers have been compelled, to form of other Christian sects; to see whether the different bias of the age, the more general diffusion of intelligence, do not render those tenets less pernicious: that which might prove a very great evil under other circumstances, and in other times, may, perhaps, however weak and erroneous, be harmless in these times, and under these circumstances. We must be aware, too, that we There is another practice not less common do not mistake recollections for apprehen- than this, and equally uncharitable; and that sions, and confound together what has passed is to represent the opinions of the most violent with what is to come,-history with futurity. and eager persons who can be met with, as For instance, it would be the most enormous the common and received opinions of the abuse of this religious institution to imagine whole sect. There are, in every denomination that such dreadful scenes of wickedness are of Christians, individuals, by whose opinion to be apprehended from the Catholics of the or by whose conduct the great body would present day, because the annals of this coun- very reluctantly be judged. Some men aim at try were disgraced by such an event two hun- attracting notice by singularity; some are dedred years ago. It would be an enormous ficient in temper; some in learning; some abuse of this day to extend the crimes of a push every principle to the extreme; distort, few desperate wretches to a whole sect; to overstate, pervert; fill every one to whom fix the passions of dark ages upon times of their cause is dear with concern that it should refinement and civilization. All these are have been committed to such rash and intemmistakes and abuses of this day, which vio- perate advocates. If you wish to gain a viclate every principle of Christian charity, en-tory over your antagonists, these are the men danger the peace of society, and give life and perpetuity to hatreds, which must perish at one time or another, and had better, for the peace of society, perish now. It would be religiously charitable, also, to consider whether the objectionable tenets, which different sects profess, are in their whose writings you should study, whose opi nions you should dwell on, and should care. fully bring forward to notice; but if you wish, as the elect of God, to put on kindness and humbleness, meekness and long-suffering,-if you wish to forbear and to forgive, it will then occur to you that you should seek the truo opinions of any sect from those only who are approved of, and reverenced by that sect; to whose authority that sect defer, and by whose arguments they consider their tenets to be properly defended. This may not suit your purpose, if you are combating for victory; but it is your duty if you are combating for truth; it is the safe, honest, and splendid conduct of him who never writes nor speaks on religious subjects, but that he may diffuse the real blessings of religion among his fellow-creatures, and restrain the bitterness of controversy by the feelings of Christian charity and forbear ance. Let us also ask ourselves, when we are sitting in severe judgment upon the faults, follies, and errors of other Christian sects, whether it is not barely possible that we have fallen into some mistakes and misrepresentations? Let us ask ourselves, honestly and fairly, whether we are wholly exempt from prejudice, from pride, from obstinate adhesion to what candour calls upon us to alter, and to yield? Are there no violent and mistaken members of our own community, by whose conduct we should be loath to be guided, by whose tenets we should not choose our faith should be judged? Has time, that improves all, found nothing in us to change for the better? Amid all the manifold divisions of the Christian world, are we the only Christians who, without having any thing to learn from the knowledge and civilization of the last three centuries, have started up, without infancy, and without error, into consummate wisdom and spotless perfection? To listen to enemies as well as friends is a rule which not only increases sense in common life, but is highly favourable to the increase of religious candour. You find that you are not so free from faults as your friends suppose, nor so full of faults as your enemies suppose. You begin to think it not impossible that you may be as unjust to others as they are to you; and that the wisest and most Christian scheme is that of mutual indulgence; that it is better to put on, as the elect of God, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another." Some men cannot understand how they are to be zealous if they are candid in religious matters; how the energy necessary for the one virtue is compatible with the calmness which the other requires. But remember that the Scriptures carefully distinguish between laudable zeal and indiscreet zeal; that the apostles and epistolary writers knew they had as much to fear from the over-excitement of some men as from the supineness of others; and in nothing have they laboured more than in preventing religion from arming human passions instead of allaying them, and rendering those principles a source of mutual jealousy and hatred which were intended for universal peace. I admit that indifference sometimes puts on the appearance of candour; but, though there is a counterfeit, yet there is a reality; and the imitation proves the value of the original, because men only attempt to multiply the appearances of "seful and important things. The object is to be at the same time pious to Go and charitable to man; to render your own faith as pure and perfect as possible, not only without hatred of those who differ from you but with a constant recollection that it is possi ble, in spite of thought and study, that you may have been mistaken, that other sects may le right, and that a zeal in his service, which God does not want, is a very bad excuse for those bad passions which his sacred word condemns. Lastly, I would suggest that many differences between sects are of less importance than the furious zeal of many men would make them. Are the tenets of any sect of such a description, that we believe they will be saved under the Christian faith? Do they fulfil the common duties of life? Do they respect property? Are they obedient to the laws? Do they speak the truth? If all these things are right, the violence of hostility may surely submit to some little softness and relaxation. honest difference of opinion cannot call for such entire separation and complete antipathy; such zeal as this, if it be zeal, and not something worse, is not surely zeal according to discretion. The arguments, then, which I have adduced in support of the great principles of religious charity are, that violence upon such subjects is rarely or ever found to be useful; but generally to produce effects opposite to those which are intended. I have observed that religious sects are not to be judged from the representations of their enemies; but that they are to be heard for themselves, in the pleadings of their best writers, not in the representations of those whose intemperate zeal is a misfortune to the sect to which they belong. If you will study the principles of your religious opponents, you will often find your contempt and hatred lessened in proportion as you are better acquainted with what you despise. Many religious opinions, which are purely speculative, are without the limits of human interference. In the numerous sects of Christianity, interpreting our religion in very opposite manners, all cannot be right. Imitate the forbearance and long-suffering of God, who throws the mantle of his mercy over all, and who will probably save, on the last day, the piously right and the piously wrong, seeking Jesus in humbleness of mind. Do not drive religious sects to the disgrace (or to what they foolishly think the disgrace) of formally disa vowing tenets they once professed, but concede something to human weakness; and, wher the tenet is virtually given up, treat it as if it were actually given up; and always consider it to be very possible that you yourself may have made mistakes, and fallen into erroneous opinions, as well as any other sect to which you are opposed. If you put on these dispositions, and this tenor of mind, you cannot be guilty of any religious fault, take what part you will in the religious disputes which appear to be coming on the world. If you choose to perpetuate the restrictions upon your fellow creatures, no one has a right to call you bigoter; if you choose to do them away, no one has al right to call you lax and indifferent; you have good. none your utmost to do right, and, whether you | always do think of in the pulpit,—that I am I shall conclude my sermon, (pushed, I am afraid, already to an unreasonable length,) by reciting to you a very short and beautiful apologue, taken from the rabbinical writers. It is, I believe, quoted by Bishop Taylor in his "Holy Living and Dying." I have not now access to that book, but I quote it to you from memory; and should be made truly happy if you would quote it to others from memory also. "As Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent, there came unto him a wayfaring man; and Abraham gave him water for his feet, and set bread before him. And Abraham said unto him, 'Let us now worship the Lord our God before we eat of this bread.' And the wayfar I have thus endeavoured to lay before you ship the Lord thy God, for thy God is not my LETTERS ON THE SUBJECT OF THE CATHOLICS, DEAR ABRAHAM, ΤΟ MY BROTHER ABRAHAM, WHO LIVES IN THE COUNTRY. LETTER I. BY PETER PLYMLEY. A WORTHIER and better man than yourself does not exist; but I have always told you, from the time of our boyhood, that you were a bit of a goose. Your parochial affairs are governed with exemplary order and regularity; you are as powerful in the vestry as Mr. Perceval is in the House of Commons,-and, I must say, with much more reason; nor do I know any church where the faces and smockfrocks of the congregation are so clean, or their eyes so uniformly directed to the preacher. There is another point upon which I will do you ample justice; and that is, that the eyes so directed towards you are wide open; for the rustic has, in general, good principles, though he cannot control his animal habits; and, however loud he may snore, his face is perpetually turned towards the fountain of orthodoxy. Having done you this act of justice, I shall proceed, according to our ancient intimacy and familiarity, to explain to you my opinions about the Catholics, and to reply to yours. In the first place, my sweet Abianam, the pope is not landed nor are there any curates sent out after him-nor has he been hid at St.. Alban's by the Dowager Lady Spencer-nor dined privately at Holland House—nor been seen near Dropmore. If these fears exist (which I do not believe), they exist only in the mind of the chancellor of the exchequer; they emanate from his zeal for the Protestant interest; and, though they reflect the highest honour upon the delicate irritability of his faith, must certainly be considered as more ambiguous proofs of the sanity and vigour of his understanding. By this time, however, the best informed clergy in the neighbourhood of the metropolis are convinced that the rumour is without foundation; and, though the pope is probably hovering about our coast in a fishing smack, it is most likely he will fall a prey to the vigilance of our cruisers; and it is certais. he has not yet polluted the Protestantism of our soil. Exactly in the same manner, the story of the wooden gods seized at Charing Cross, by an order from the Foreign Office, turns out to be without the shadow of a foundation; in. stead of the angels and archangels, mentioned | appoint a colonel of a marching regiment! by the informer, nothing was discovered but a wooden image of Lord Mulgrave, going down to Chatham, as a head-piece for the Spanker gun-vessel; it was an exact resemblance of his .ordship in his military uniform; and therefore as little like a god as can well be imagined. Having set your fears at rest as to the extent of the conspiracy formed against the Protestant religion, I will now come to the argument itself. You say these men interpret the Scriptures in an orthodox manner; and that they eat their God. Very likely. All this may seem very important to you, who live fourteen miles from a market-town, and, from long residence upon your living, are become a kind of holy vegetable; and, in a theological sense, it is highly important. But I want soldiers and sailors for the state; I want to make a greater use than I now can do of a poor country full of men; I want to render the military service popular among the Irish; to check the power of France; to make every possible exertion for the safety of Europe, which in twenty years' time will be nothing but a mass of French slaves; and then you, and ten thousand other such boobies as you, call out-"For God's sake, do not think of raising cavalry and infantry in Ireland! . They interpret the Epistle to Timothy in a different manner from what we do! ... They eat a bit of wafer every Sunday, which they call their God!" I wish to my soul they would eat you, and such reasoners as you are. What! when Turk, Jew, Heretic, Infidel, Catholic, Protestant, are all combined against this country; when men of every religious persuasion, and no religious persuasion; when the population of half the globe is up in arms against us; are we to stand examining our generals and armies as a bishop examines a candidate for holy orders and to suffer no one to bleed for England who does not agree with you about the 2d of Timothy? You talk about the Catholics! If you and your brotherhood have been able to persuade the country into a continuation of this grossest of all absurdities, you have ten times the power which the Catholic clergy ever had in their best days. Louis XIV., when he revoked the Edict of Nantes, never thought of preventing the Protestants from fighting his battles; and gained accordingly some of his most splendid victories by the talents of his Protestant generals. No power in Europe, but yourselves, has ever thought, for these hundred years past, of asking whether a bayonet is Catholic, or Presbyterian, or Lutheran; but whether it is sharp and well-tempered. A bigot delights in public ridicule; for he begins to think he is a martyr. I can promise you the full enjoyment of this pleasure, from one extremity of Europe to the other. I am as disgusted with the nonsense of the Roman Catholic religion as you can be; and no man who talks such nonsense shall ever tithe the product of the earth, nor meddle with the ecclesiastical establishment in any shape;but what have I to do with the speculative aonsense of his theology, when the object is elect the mayor of a country town, or to Will a man discharge the solemn impertinences of the one office with the less zeal, or shrink from the bloody boldness of the other with greater timidity, because the blockhead be lieves in all the Catholic nonsense of the real presence. I am sorry there should be such impious folly in the world, but I should be ten times a greater fool than he is, if I refused, in consequence of his folly, to lead him out against the enemies of the state. Your whole argument is wrong; the state has nothing whatever to do with theological errors which do not violate the common rules of morality, and militate against the fair power of the ruler: it leaves all these errors to you, and to such as you. You have every tenth porker in your parish for refuting them; and take care that you are vigilant and logical in the task. I love the church as well as you do; but you totally mistake the nature of an establishment, when you contend that it ought to be connected with the military and civil career of every individual in the state. It is quite right that there should be one clergyman to every parish interpreting the Scriptures after a particular manner, ruled by a regular hierarchy, and paid with a rich proportion of haycocks and wheatsheafs. When I have laid this foundation for a rational religion in the state—when I have placed ten thousand well-educated men in different parts of the kingdom to preach it up, and compelled every body to pay them, whether they hear them or not-I have taken such measures as I know must always procure an immense majority in favour of the established church; but I can go no farther. I cannot set up a civil inquisition, and say to one, you shall not be a butcher, because you are not orthodox; and prohibit another from brewing, and a third from administering the law, and a fourth from defending the country. If common justice did not prohibit me from such a conduct, common sense would. The advantage to be gained by quitting the heresy would make it shameful to abandon it; and men who had once left the church would continue in such a state of alienation from a point of honour, and transmit that spirit to the latest posterity. This is just the effect your disquali fying laws have produced. They have fed Dr. Rees and Dr. Kippis; crowded the congregation of the Old Jewry to suffocation; and ena bled every sublapsarian, and supralapsarian, and semipelagian clergyman, to build himself a neat brick chapel, and live with some distant resemblance to the state of a gentleman. You say the king's coronation oath will no allow him to consent to any relaxation of the Catholic laws-Why not relax the Catholic laws as well as the laws against Protestant dissenters? If one is contrary to his oath, the other must be so too; for the spirit of the oath is, to defend the church establishment; which the Quaker and the Presbyterian differ from as much or more than the Catholic; and yet his majesty has repealed the Corporation and Test Act in Ireland, and done more for the Catholics of both kingdoms than had been done for them since the Reformation. In 1778 the ministers said nothing about the rova con |