The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

434 Concluding Remarks.true peace nor true charity recognise tolerance ; the Church has a right to requireevery one to accept her doctrine", that "the duty of the civil power is to enforcethe laws of the Church, restrain evil doers, and punish heresy." "It is astonishing,"he writes, "how small is the space rightfully left to the exclusive domination ofthe civil power. . . . Even in passing laws, Parliamant must defer to the Church.The State must enact a law, but it must see that it in no way contravences thehigher laws of the Church." ("Essays on Religion," p. 458.)Dr. Manning plainly asserts that Rome has entered on a struggle between thesupremacy of the pope and that of the Crown, that it is a struggle for life and death,and that it embraces the whole question of the Reformation in these countries.As Colquhoun remarks, "It is the old battle fought under the Plantagenets,whether the law of England is to be sovereign and supreme, or whether weare to have a confederacy of Roman priests, aided by treacherous Englishpriests, braving English law, defying the British Parliament, and tramplingon the sovereign's crown."One of the avowed objects of the "Catholic Defence Society" is the removalfrom our statute book of the coronation oath and the Act of Settlement, whichlimit the possession of the crown of England to Protestants. Cardinal Manningconsiders that Rome has the full right to depose a Protestant sovereign."The election of a prince in a Christian community cannot be put in thecategory of a purely civil act. If therefore an heretical prince is elected, orsucceeds to the throne, the Church has a right to say, 'I annul the election, or Iforbid the succession.' Or again, if a king of a Christian nation falls into heresy,he commits an offence against God, . . . and against his people. . . . Therefore itis in the power of the Church, by virtue of the supreme authority with which sheis vested by Christ over all Christian men [Editor: it stands not in the Holy Bible,but from the antichrist!], to depose such a prince in punishment of his spiritualcrime, and to preserve his subjects from the danger of being led by his preceptand example into heresy or spiritual rebellion." ("Essays on Religion," pp. 458, 459.)There is no mistaking this doctrine. Leo XIII. has a perfect right to deposeQueen Victoria ; nay, more, it would be a bounden duty for him so to do, hehad the power ; but meantime we have foolishly given him the power to causeserious political trouble in her realm, and he is availing himself to the full of theopportunity.This is, be it observed, no antiquated claim quoted from mediæval times ; it ispublished in England in this nineteenth century by one who is styled the CardinalArchbishop of Westminster. And it is no mere theory, no mere fancy sketch ; itis a working drawing, as architects would say, a practical scheme which Rome issteadly endeavouring to carry out.The chances of his ever bringing England back under his sway are very remote ;but if "home rule" could be obtained for Ireland, it becomes at once a Papalkingdom and a perpetual menance to England. This therefore is an object tobe attained by any and every means. The chief result of home rule is to be theextirpation of Protestantism in Ireland. "The woes of Ireland are due to onesingle cause - the existence of Protestantism in Ireland. The remedy can onlybe found in the removal of that which causes the evil. . . . Would that every