Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

undoubtedly say that he was now an Unitarian. His aim in it is to demonstrate from reason and Scripture that Jesus was simply a man. He does not here deal in negations merely, but in direct proofs. This sermon was, besides, no hasty composition, got up on the spur of the moment. It had been first written, the author informs us, for the Lecture at St. Thomas's Chapel, an drecomposed for the Southampton Meeting: it was printed after a further revision, and with the appendage of notes. It might, therefore, on the face of it, be fairly taken as conclusive evidence of the author's Unitarianism. But Mr. Gilchrist spurns the benefit his pamphlet would have derived from this inference, in giving to the title somewhat of the sanction of truth, and at one stroke, and a fearful stroke it is, demolishes the authority of the proof. The most austere and relentless critic that ever dipped his pen in gall would not dare, even in reference to the pamphlet now under our review, open and inviting as it is to the severest judicial censures, to say of the author what he affirms of himself by way of apology for printing and publishing this sermon:-" I preached said discourse" (he writes, p. 15) "in a state of mind bordering on distraction, with doubt and perplexity, (which was too frequently the case when called to preach Unitarian Lectures,) and when I wrote it out for the press, I may truly say, that such was the desperation of my spirit that I neither feared God nor regarded man!" Such language precludes all comment.

Mr. Gilchrist does not, however, leave us with this measure of evidence, that he never was an Unitarian, though sufficiently ample and decisive. Á large part of his pamphlet consists of a kind of Delectus Sententiarum, or Elegant Extracts" from sermons preached by him in the last ten years. These are not given merely as specimens of his pulpit eloquence, though they would as such be curiosities of their kind: they are avowedly selected for the purpose of shewing that, during this period, he did not preach Unitarianism, but something very different. Surely, then, nothing farther can be requisite to satisfy any reasonable mind, that whatever Mr. Gilchrist has "abandoned," he has not, himself being the judge, abandoned “UNITARIANISM.”

That some "extraordinary change" (p. 76) has taken place in his opinions, we are bound on his own authority to believe. We will not assign this change to any "base motives," or "to mental weakness and aberration." (P. 76.) But we must leave it to Mr. Gilchrist to reconcile, as he may be able, to Christian simplicity and integrity, the course of his public labours as an avowed Unitarian minister and advocate, with his now declared disbelief of nearly all the peculiar tenets of Unitarianism, with his unsatisfied doubts as to the divine origin of Christianity, and with the admitted inclination of his mind to the principles of Atheism.

In the perusal of this tract, it is impossible not to be occasionally amused by the supercilious and disdainful style in which the author, with singular self-complacency, delivers his judgment upon those scholars and critics to whom the learned world had been used to give some credit for erudition and talents. Such pretenders to scholarship and criticism as Geddes and Wakefield, et hoc genus omne, merit only the writer's unqualified contempt! Indeed, biblical critics are his aversion. "The labours of the most learned critics," he writes, p. 3, "were as familiar to us as the pages of popular authors; and if we have long ceased to give our days and nights to them, the sole reason was that they did us more harm than good."

He does not, however, content himself with the contemptuous treatment of the dead. The living come in for their full share of his scorn and personal abuse. The eminent persons against whom these po kadaμn, these

“bitter shafts” are levelled, need not our feeble defence, and we are sure they will never condescend to repel attacks of this description. But how are we to account for all this morbid exacerbation and rancorous personal antipathy? Does Mr. Gilchrist conceive, is he vain and egotistic enough to fancy, that all mental and moral excellence are cooped up in the narrow circle of SELF? Is he impatient beneath the sound of praise which is wafted above his head to other men, who, by the superior vigour, or more successful application, of their intellectual faculties, have attained higher stations on the ascent to the temple of fame? Among the "popular authors" whom he states to be so "familiar” to him, might possibly have been included one Esop; and he may remember an apologue of that acute and amusing writer headed in some school editions De Raná et Bove-the Frog and the Ox. We need not repeat it: but we shall quote, in conclusion, the caustic remark of an old Latin annotator, which he gives as the , or moral of the tale :Noli te inflare, ne crepes.

ART. II.-Catholicism in Austria; or an Epitome of the Austrian Ecclesiastical Law; with a Dissertation upon the Rights and Duties of the English Government with respect to the Catholics of Ireland. By Count Ferdinand dal Pozzo, late Maître des Requêtes, and First President of the Imperial Court of Genoa.

We have before observed, that though it has always suited the purposes of the No-Popery politicians to view a concession of the claims of the Catholics to equal privileges as citizens, as an abandonment of the rights of the state to ecclesiastical usurpation, these reasoners have not yet proved that in reality the resisting power of the state would, by any such measure, be at all materially weakened; that every government has not, and would not continue to have, abundant means of restraint upon any actions which could be detrimental to its existence; and, moreover, that even Catholics would consent, if left to themselves, to give way so far to the temporal authority of the papal court as in any formidable degree to interfere with the legitimate exercise of the administrative faculties of the state. We observed on the progress that had actually been making in all the principal Catholic states towards what may be called swearing the peace against their spiritual chief, and it appeared to us extremely difficult to conceive, that if a Catholic prince could, without breach of his spiritual allegiance, effectually curb those clerical propensities in his church, from which he apprehended practical mischief, a Protestant prince could not (when he had set himself right on the score of justice to his subjects, and had given them all equal rights and obligations) at least do as much in preventing any inconvenience from the connexions of a minority of his subjects, possessing no temporal power or patronage whatever.

Count dal Pozzo's book comes out very opportunely in connexion with this view of the subject. He is a Catholic, but of the school stoutly opposed to all the temporal pretensions of Rome. He has been brought up under a code which recognizes Catholicism as the state religion, yet tolerates others, and takes especial care to make its own particular favourite behave with propriety and courtesy towards other faiths. He wishes emancipation for the

Catholics of Ireland, but only on condition that their king shall take upon himself the same civil authority over their proceedings, so far as they could disturb civil order, as Catholic sovereigns make no scruple in exercising; and he proceeds to shew how unreasonable it would be, on their part, to object to this, when the regulations of the Court of Austria, which have been quietly acted upon half a century, are taken into consideration. The Emperor, he observes, is head of the temporal affairs of the churches in his dominions, whatever be their creed and whatever should be his own; and he sees no reason why the Protestant King of England, or any other king, should not be the same.

The Count, in considering the concessions which the Catholics of Ireland should make to the state, has involved himself in greater difficulty than was necessary, by not observing that the Austrian government goes much further than the English is asked to go, and that the latter consequently has still less occasion for apprehension of dissident creeds. The former not only tolerates, but recognizes as established and endowed, several religions in the same state. It conceives itself to be, as a government, properly speaking, of no religion, but to be bound to protect and keep fair play between all; and the co-existence of these establishments of course renders many regulations necessary, and creates many embarrassments, which can never arise where all that seceders venture to sue for is liberty of worship and an absence of proscriptions. Count Pozzo, in his reasonings with the Irish Catholics, (who, by the bye, have never shewn the slightest inclination to be of the Curialist, or high-temporal-pretension, party of the Church of Rome,) seems to be contemplating all those points of contact with the government which arise in his own country, where they form a powerful establishment, co-existent with one or two other less influential establishments, between which jealousy might reasonably be expected. In Ireland, the only possible interference which the government could want to exercise, would be to provide a few regulations against those actions which should have a tendency to interfere with its internal or external political relations, if any such should occur worthy of notice in the members of a body without power or institutions capable for an instant of rivalling those of a wealthy and influential establishment.

But the Count's book is a curious one, as developing the cunning, despotic policy of the Imperial Court, and displaying the mode in which it uses religion as a mere state engine, and the degree in which all this is quietly submitted to, and, in fact, rendered conducive to the quiet of society and its exemption at least from sectarian jealousies and priestly persecutions. We shall proceed to give, within as short a compass as we can, an outline of the Austrian code of law as it respects the state's connexion with ecclesiastical matters; a system founded, as it asserts, on ancient practice and the wellunderstood relative rights and duties of governments, and of the societies which unite for religious purposes within its sphere.

The Episcopal Chancellor of Lintz, George Richberg, composed a work, entitled "Enchiridion Juris Ecclesiastici Austriaci," for the use of the clergy and the civil functionaries of the empire, which had become the more necessary as the laws of Austria had almost altogether rejected what is commonly called the Canon Law, compiled with a complete subserviency, as was conceived, to the grasping purposes of the Papal court, and founded on preten→ sions which the Austrian court never conceded. This book became a textbook in the universities of Germany and in the Italian states under the Austrian dominion. An Italian translation was published at Venice, in

1819, by authority, and from this book Count Pozzo has published his abridged translation. "It contains," he observes, "a system of doctrine, in the formation of which, under the reigns of Maria Theresa, Joseph II., and Leopold II., the most learned German and Italian political writers, civilians and canonists, have co-operated, which has been maintained in practice a sufficient time to appreciate its effects, and which well deserves to fix the attention of other nations and of other governments. It is a far better system than that of the celebrated Gallican Liberties."

The work is divided into three books:-the first, treats of Ecclesiastical Law in General, and its divisions; the second, of Internal Public Ecclesiastical Law, as it regards the authorities constituted for the internal administration of the church, their mutual rights, duties, &c.; the third, of External Ecclesiastical Public Law, under which head are considered the relations between the church and the state.

The first of these books is of an abstract character; it defines the church to be a society, that is to say, a congregation of men connected by common laws or rules, having a settled object, which is in this life the fulfilment of religious duties, and in the life to come, eternal salvation. Into this church every person is free to enter or not to enter. No means of coercion are permitted on account of matters relating to this society, and the society itself is recognized as having and requiring no other powers than it is proper should be conceded to it as necessary for the internal regulation of any such an association of persons for a common object, sanctioned and approved by the state. Of course, excommunication or exclusion of members is the principal power of this sort which is allowed. Individuals are recognized to have the power of thus associating with a view to determinate objects, and a new social law is, to a certain extent, therefore introduced by the restrictions which such individuals impose on themselves. But this new social law is held to require the approbation of the civil power, and to be only valid on condition that it does not prejudice public liberty and the interests of civil society.

The sources of ecclesiastical common law are next considered. The suspected decisions or assumptions, in modern times of Papal encroachment, are not admitted as legitimate authorities. The decretals of the popes are confined to the limits fixed to their authority as heads of the church, which the Austrian ecclesiastical law confines within narrow limits; and an important division of the sources of ecclesiastical law is assigned to the internal laws, customs, and regulations, of different states, and the decrees of their rulers. The particular laws and customs of Austria for the regulation of the state's relations to the church, are enumerated under this head. It is stated, that all who in Aus'ria are destined for ecclesiastical cures, or even for the administration of civil affairs, are obliged to study the maxims of the government with regard to ecclesiastical matters; and no person can be admitted into the higher orders of the church if he have not undergone an examination upon its canon law.

The second book contains a detailed exposition of the limits and nature of purely ecclesiastical power; of the officers instituted for the maintenance of the social system of the church, and their respective powers and duties. Bishops are recognized, as by regular succession, the principal administrators of ecclesiastical authority, the church having, however, no other means at its disposal of coercing its subjects than those which are requisite to instruct and exhort them, and to exclude the refractory or disobedient from all or a part of the ecclesiastical communion. If

peculiar occasions occur which involve matters of external order and interfere with the practice of virtue, "and the church is persuaded that external measures of coercion nay with propriety be employed, they must be requested of the civil power, to which alone they belong, and not to the church."

No jurisdiction exists simultaneously with the bishop's in his own diocese. If new rules of discipline are introduced, each bishop should have the power of examining them to find whether they are suited or not to his particular church, and may refuse to receive them. The pope is recognized merely as the primate among bishops, as the successor, in the Church of Rome, of St. Peter, who is considered the first of the apostles. The Bishop of Rome is the centre of unity, with whom every bishop should keep up an epistolary intercourse. He presides in councils; and in the absence of councils is bound to administer matters according to their united intentions, and, as the vicar of all, to ordain, in a provisional manner, whatever is deemed to be necessary. The controverted questions of jurisdiction between the popes, councils, and bishops in their separate dioceses, are fully considered. The Austrian government regarding the bishop's oath of fidelity to the papal see as somewhat prejudicial to the civil authority, prescribed, in 1781, that no oath should be taken but on condition that the whole form should be understood in the just and original sense of an obedience purely canonical, and should be received so as not to clash either with the rights of the sovereign or the duties of the subject, both of which the bishops were, on that occasion, to recognize by an oath, to be taken in a form pointed out previous to the oath to the pope.

Appeals to Rome are prohibited, or are to be judged by a delegate residing in the country to which the parties belong. The powers of dispensation in marriages are required to be exercised by the bishops; the government permitting those bishops who had scruples as to exercising these powers to obtain faculties from Rome so to do, which that court readily compromised the matter by granting. All papal indulgencies are to be submitted previously to what is called the "Placet Royal," for the sanction of the state before announcement. The legatine authority is of course confined within the bounds of the pope's own authority; and the civil government has the power of examining these letters of legation, of not receiving legates, except under certain conditions, and of refusing to admit those against whom they may entertain just objections.

The powers of a bishop in his diocese for the regular administration of his church are strictly defined. They are, as before observed, exclusive and independent of every other jurisdiction, save always and excepted a pretty vigilant supervision which this despotic state takes great care to reserve to itself, while it keeps out all other intruders on the church's independence. For instance, no pastoral letter or charge, addressed to the clergy of a diocese, can be published without the approbation of government. By the ancient canons the bishops, however, are required to perform nothing of great importance without the advice of their presbytery, that is, of the priests of the diocese; from which arose diocesan synods, which the Austrian government, in some cases, restored, but probably saw fit to discourage as too popular in their character. All bishops are nominated by the emperor. By the Austrian laws it is prescribed, that all parochial benefices should be conferred on the more deserving candidate upon examination. The parish priests have the direction of the elementary schools; they admi

« ПредишнаНапред »