The Charge, which I purpose to review, was delivered in circumstances peculiarly solemn. It was addressed to the numerous clergy of the diocese of Durham, in a temple dedicated to the worship of the Most High, and from the pulpit, the oracle of truth. On such an occasion, we may justly presume, that no unguarded word would be permitted to drop from the mouth of the learned Prelate. Each assertion would be previously weighed, and its accuracy anxiously ascertained. The erudition of the audience, the sacredness of the place, the sanctity of the episcopal character, demanded that truth and charity should guide and restrain the zeal of the preacher. If, then, in the following pages, I shall have occasion to complain, that the tenets of Catholics have been incorrectly stated, and their practises unfairly described, I would not be understood to impeach the sincerity or veracity of the Bishop of Durham. But while I applaud the uprightness of his intention, I may be allowed to lament the influence of prejudice, which could conceal the truth from his view, and prompt him to study the doctrine of the Catholic Church in the writings of her adversaries. I may regret that he should condescend to join the company of those misinformed but positive writers, who, Without the care of knowing right from wrong, And gains remote conclusions at a jump. I am persuaded that the learned author of the Charge will not be offended at the liberty with which I may animadvert on some of his assertions. By assuming the privilege of attack, he has not wished to deprive his opponent of the right of defence. His object was to convince our understandings, and not to wound our feelings; and if we conceive ourselves injured, he will not refuse us the consolation of attempting to prove the justice of our complaints. His love for truth will lead him to recal errors which may have been unintentionally adopted; and his zeal for the established Church will rejoice to learn, that she is descended. from a parent less corrupt than he has been taught to imagine. The Bishop begins his Charge by reminding his Clergy," that, at a former meeting, he had imputed "the overthrow of the ancient government of France, "and all its tremendous consequences, ultimately, to "the corruptions of the Church of Rome, and its wide departure from the simplicity of the Gospel."* 66 Before we subscribe to so disgraceful an accusation, we may be allowed at least to inquire, on what proof it is founded? And the only proof which his lordship has yet condescended to produce, is briefly this: that the horrors of the French revolution arose from the infidelity of its authors, and that their infidelity is to be ascribed to the corrupt doctrines of the Church in which they were educated. Popery is, in his opinion, the prolific parent of religious indifference, of deism, and of atheism.t From what period his lordship will date the origin of Popery (by that word I mean the religious creed of the nations in communion with the Bishop of Rome,) I am not able to determine. Catholics maintain, that it is coeval with Christianity; Protestants do not deny it an existence of at least a thousand years. Now, taking it at the lowest computation, is it not extraordinary, if Popery be naturally pregnant with infidelity, that the birth of the monster should have been retarded till the close of the eighteenth century? A thousand years are a long period of gestation; and unless the Bishop, with the aid of his prophetic friends, Messrs. Faber and Granville Sharpe, can mysteriously account for so late a parturition, I shall be induced to conclude, that he has mistaken the true parent, and ought to recommence the inquiry. In several French writers of great and acknow *Charge, p. t. + Bishop of Durham's Sermon before the lords, 1799 p. 10. et seq. ledged eminence,* I have met with a very different opinion respecting the origin of deism and atheism. Instead of considering them as the offspring of Popery, they persist in making deism the grandchild, and atheism the great grandchild of Protestantism. According to them, Protestantism begat Socinianism, Socinianism begat deism, and deism begat atheism. The accuracy of this genealogy they have supported with much plausibility; and, by comparing their arguments with those of the Bishop of Durham, the reader will be able to judge which of the two systems is the more deserving of credit. 66 The Right Reverend Prelate builds his opinion respecting the origin of infidelity on this basis, "that "Popery, from its corruptions, is liable to the objec"tions of thinking men." If his reasoning be just, it will naturally follow, that in Catholic countries either the number of thinking men is exceedingly small, or the number of unbelievers immensely great. The latter consequence he adopts in all its latitude, and with much solemnity assures us, "that in the nations in communion with the Church of Rome, both the members of the government and the higher classes of the "people are habitually insincere; and have continued "for many years to profess the Popish creed, not from any opinion of its evidence, but from an utter indif"ference to all religious truth whatever." It would, undoubtedly, be an insult to his candour and liberality, to question the truth of a fact which he thus unequivocally asserts: on his authority then we will endeavour to believe, however improbable it may appear, that for many years all the higher orders of foreign Catholics, all who have been eminent for virtue, learning, or rank, Popes, Princes, Statesmen, Nobles, and Prelates, and even the French clergy, who, in support of their religion, offered themselves to proscription, exile, and death, were habitually insincere, hypocrites, scep 66 * Bergier, Traite Hist. Doginat. de la Religion, vol. 12. Encycloped. tom. 17. Art. Unitaires. + Ibid. + Sermon, p. 10. tics, and unbelievers. This, indeed, to many readers' will appear extraordinary, and, had not the Bishop of Durham asserted it, incredible: but what to me appears more extraordinary and more incredible is, that these thinking men did not, when they discovered the errors of Popery, adopt the pure, rational, unadulterated system of Protestantism. What induced them to prefer to it the absurdities of infidelity? This is a mystery which the bishop has not attempted to explain. The patrons of the opposite genealogy are accustomed to appeal in favour of their opinion to the testimony of history. They maintain that infidelity did not publicly appear till after the commencement of the Reformation, and that its apostles, with perhaps one or two exceptions, proceeded, during more than two centuries, from the ranks of Protestantism. They observe that the very principle, which introduced the Reformation, naturally leads in its consequences to religious scepticism. The rights of reason were extolled at the expense of those of revelation. Each individual was made, for himself at least, the sole judge in matters of religion. His private reason became a tribunal from which no appeal was permitted. The effect of this doctrine was soon manifest; and the fathers of the Reformation saw, with the keenest regret, their own weapons turned against themselves by their own children. It was in vain that Calvin burnt Servetus at Geneva, and that Gentilis shortly afterwards lost his head in the same city. Long before the close of the sixteenth century, a sect of innovators had established themselves in Poland, who judging, like their masters, of the sense of Scripture by the infallibility of their own reason, presumed to reject all the mysteries of christianity, because they were unable to comprehend them. Their opinions were gradually disseminated through the other kingdoms of Europe, and in most of the Protestant states found a soil the best adapted to their culture. In England, the proselytes to the new doctrines were numerous; and though the fires of Smithfield, in the reigns of Edward, Elizabeth, and James, blazed in support of the tenets of the established Church, Socinianism continued to make a steady and certain progress. Among its abettors, however, there were many, whose reason was uneasy even under the small restraint which it imposed. They at length condemned the timidity of their teachers, and, arguing from the same principles, proved that the Scriptures themselves ought to be rejected. If it were the right of reason to decide, what necessity, they asked, could there be for revelation? A new system, known by the name of natural religion, was recommended, and its partisans distinguished themselves by the appellation of Deists.* Yet, even in natural reli gion, much was discovered that the human intellect could not comprehend; its mysteries were, in their turn, exploded by reasoners of greater intrepidity; and deism in a few years was improved into atheism. The first who claimed the merit of forming deism into a complete system, was our countryman, Lord Herbert of Cherbury. He published his first treatise on the subject in 1624. But he was not long permitted to enjoy the monopoly of infidelity. The praise which he had obtained, or the benevolent design of illuminating the ignorance of mankind, induced a crowd of writers to offer their discoveries also to the public. Hobbes entered on the career in 1650, Blount in 1680, Toland in 1698, Lord Shaftesbury in 1711, Collins in 1713, Woolston in 1727, Tindal in 1730, Morgan in 1737, and Hume in 1742. By their posthumous works, published in 1748 and 1754, Chubb and Lord Bolingbroke appeared as champions in the same cause. The singularity of the opinions which these writers maintained, gave them a momentary reputation; their works were industriously read, and sometimes translated by foreigners acquainted with the language; and the principles of deism were by degrees adopted by gay, profligate, and unthinking men in France and the north of Germany. The French * See Hume, Hist. c. 71. |