ON PUIESTS IX UENEllAL, AND lUISII PRIESTS IN PARTICUI-AR. 



The influence of the priesthood in Catholic countries is proverbial. 

 The causes of that influence are also well understood and appreciated. 

 They are temporal as well as spiritual magistrates ; their power extends 

 equally over worldly and eternal affairs ; tliey coerce the body and 

 dispose of the soul, ad iibilum. If we ask how this mastery has been 

 obtained, the answer is simple — by exacting blind submission as an 

 article of faith, and making inquiry into their rights a crime against 

 God. Were the priesthood to depend ujion the proofs of their authority, 

 ■of course their unholy dynasty could not outlive popular examination ; 

 but, like the cunning exhibitors of puppet-shows, they will permit none 

 to peep behind the curtain, and so contrive to keep all in ignorance and 

 wonder before it. The reason why the Protestant clergy do not possess 

 this vicious ascendancy, is because the Protestant religion is the fruit of 

 a struggle against despotism, and is, therefore, essentially founded upon 

 that principle, the establishment of which may be said to mark the era 

 of the Reformation — the right of private judgment. Take from Protest- 

 ants the privilege of investigation, and they are no longer distinguishable 

 from the herd of mental slaves. But the profession of the Protestant is 

 something more than the mere shew of freedom. He not only claims 

 the right to judge for himself by the evidences of Christianity, but he 

 places these evidences in the hands of the whole world, in order that 

 £very body else may judge as well as himself. His prerogative would be 

 little better than a hollow pretence, if he concealed the means of its con- 

 servation. The Popish priest, on the other hand, neither possesses, him- 

 self, nor, if he did, would he impart to others, the evidence by which the 

 authenticity of his doctrines is attested. His whole array of proofs is 

 vague and evasive ; resolving the sum of laical obedience into the un- 

 traceable right of command inherited by the church. The Protestant 

 •religion, with all its doctrines, is to be found in the only record of 

 divine revelation that is either tangible to our sense, or supported by 

 authority, internal and external : whatever is not set forth in the Bible 

 xloes not belong to the reformed faith — whatever is, does. The Pro- 

 testant, therefore, not only asserts his belief, but affords the weapon of 

 defence. His clergy cannot delude him ; and their influence is conse- 

 <juently limited to the amount of their individual utility. Popish 

 doctrines are not to be found in the Bible, except those immutable mys- 

 teries upon which both agree, and with which, for the sake of propriety, 

 the old Pagans could not presume to tamper. It is true that by the per- 

 version of whole passages, by intentional mis-translations, by suppres- 

 sions and intei'polations, the priest attempts to draw forth .some of his 

 dogmas from the pages of holy writ ; but, even granting him the disre- 

 putable advantage he claims, he can no where, except in that cloudy, 

 unintelligible, and unwritten testimony, tradition, give us any test of 

 the existence of the remainder. Here, then, the ecclesiastical tyranny 

 begins. Nations are enslaved, and superstitions perpetuated by the art 

 of a corporation that says it derives its charter from heaven, but forbids 

 those upon whom it inflicts its moral taxation to inquire where tlie mys- 

 terious document is deposited. Surely if Catholics were to pause and 

 think, they must discover this fact — tiiat if they j)erniit their priests to 

 assert their dominion upon the edicts of an unwritten, and, therefore, 

 tinprodnceahlc law, they, in effect, permit them to enact any decree they 



M.M. New Series Vol. VIII. No. 47. 3« 



