The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

Concluding Remarks.435Protestant meeting-house were swept from the land! Then would Ireland recoverherself and outrages be unknown." ("Catholic Press.")That this attempt would be made is not to be questioned. Cardinal Manninginsists that it is a sin, and even an "insanity," to hold that men have an inalienableright to liberty of conscience and of worship, or to deny that Rome has the right torepress by force all religious observance save her own, or to teach that Protestantsin a Catholic country should be allowed the exercise of their religion."Catholicism," says a Romish magazine, "is the most intolerant of creeds ; it isintolerance itself, because it is truth itself. The impiety of religious liberty is onlyequalled by its absurdity."Conceive what home rule in Ireland would be in the light of these statements !A most important point to be borne in mind in the consideration of this questionis, that Romanism is not a religion merely, but a politicalsystem. We are of course bound to allow to Roman Catholics the liberty ofconscience which we claim for ourselves ; but we are not bound by any law, humanor Divine, to allow them the right of conspiring for the overthrow of our liberties,Government, and empire. Adam Smith well says: " The constitution of the Churchof Rome may be considered the most formidable combinationthat was ever formed against the authority and securityof civil government, as well as against the liberty, reason, and happinessof mankind." ("Wealth of Nations," p. 237.)Peace and prosperity are impossible under Papal and priestly rule, as allhistory attests. "The Papacy," says Prince Bismarck, "has ever beena political power which, with the greatest audacity andwith the most momentous consequences, has interferedin the affairs of this world." The question before our country nowis, whether we are willing to make a further and mist decisive advance on theroad in which we have already travelled too far, and to grant to an alien andantagonistic political power a most real practical supremacy over five millionsof the queen's subjects in Ireland, including a million of loyal Protestants in thatland.I cannot close these lectures without urging you to study the subject morethoroughly, and to get well grounded in your Protestant principles. A dangerouslaxity on doctrinal matters marks the present day. Multitudes hardly know whatthey believe, or why they believe what they do. In Reformation days peopleknew the ground on which they had become Protestants ; but we havebeen so long sheltered behind the bulwarks erectedby our fathers, that we have forgotten that we mayhave to defend our own civil and religious liberties,and neglected to furnish ourselves with arms for the conflict. It does notdo however to be unprepared and defenceless in theseperilous times. Let me urge you to read up carefullythe history of the Reformation and something onthe Romish controversy. Read up also the history ofyour country in the days of the Stuarts, when a dark