FRAGMENT ON POPERY.

[WRITTEN ABOUT 1824. NOT PUBLISHED BEFORE.]

WHEN two parties, each formidable for their numbers, and the weight of their influence and property, are animated by an equal degree of zeal, it is natural to anticipate the final success of that which possesses the most inherent strength. But if one be torpid and inactive, and the other eager and enterprising,-if one reposes on its arms, while the other is incessantly on the alert,-such a difference in their spirit is sufficient to annihilate the greatest disparity of force, and to incline the balance to the side on which superior vigour is exerted. This, if I am not greatly mistaken, is pretty nearly the case at present between the protestants and the papists, as far, at least, as respects their situation in these kingdoms. The papists appear to be stimulated by zeal and elevated by hope; the protestants content themselves with being silent spectators of their progress, while many of them seem secretly to rejoice at their success. New popish chapels are rising on every side, in situations skilfully selected, with a view

to attract the public attention. The consecration is announced with ostentatious publicity, and numerously attended by the most elegant and fashionable part of a protestant population, by men of opulence, merchants, and magistrates, who are seen on no other occasions beyond the precincts of the established [church.]

Judging from the practice of a multitude in the higher classes, we are necessitated to infer, that, if the popish doctrine is not true, it is innocent and harmless; and, if not entitled to an exclusive preference, it is only inferior to that particular form of the protestant worship which they have adopted; and that, while they decline submission to its claims, it possesses a majesty which entitles it to their occasional homage and veneration. The honest fervour of indignation with which its pretensions were repelled and its impiety resented, has disappeared: popery is now viewed by the greater part of the people with careless indifference or secret complacency.

But popery, it is alleged, is changed; its venom is exhaled; and, however erroneous in a speculative view, it is no longer fraught with the mischief and the danger which rendered it so formidable to our ancestors. An infallible religion changed, is nearly a contradiction in terms. A religion which is founded on the assumption of a supernatural exemption from error, on the part of its adherents, may be confuted by argument, suppressed by force, or relinquished from conviction; but it is

impossible to conceive of its susceptibility of change. If it undergoes any alteration, it can only [be] in consequence of its professors renouncing some one or more of the doctrines which formerly characterised it. But those doctrines are neither more nor less than the recorded divisions of the church, of a church affirmed by all catholics to be infallible. The supposed infallibility of the church is the corner-stone of the whole system of popery, the centre of union amidst all the animosities and disputes which may subsist on minor subjects; and the proper definition of a catholic is one who professes to maintain the absolute infallibility of a certain community styling itself the church. For a person to dissent from a single decision of the church, is to confess himself not a catholic; because it is to affirm not only that the church may err, but that it actually has erred, and is, therefore, not infallible. An infallibility, extending to some points of religious belief, and not to others, is a ridiculous chimera, which, could it be reduced to an object of conception, would subvert every rational ground of confidence: for what assurance I can we have, that a community which has erred once will not fall into the same predicament again? Positive qualities may be conceived to subsist under [all] possible degrees of magnitude; they are susceptible, to an unlimited extent, of more or less but infallibility is a negative idea, which admits of no degrees. Detect the smallest error in the individual, or the community, which makes

this pretension, and you as effectually destroy it as by the discovery of a million. If a catholic, then, professes to have changed his opinions, on any subject on which the authority of the church has been interposed, so as to dissent from its decisions, he has relinquished catholicism, and renounced the only principle which distinguished him.

The supposed dominion over the consciences of men, assumed by the Roman pontiff, is sanctioned by the decision of general councils, and incorporated with their most solemn and public acts, and must consequently be allowed to constitute one of the fundamental tenets of the papal system; and, though that usurpation, considered in itself, would be a mere enunciation of a doctrine which might be rejected with impunity, the interference of the civil magistrate, to enforce the papal claims, was countenanced and demanded by the same authority. Beyond the narrow precincts of their temporal domain, the bishops of Rome were incapable of personally carrying their persecuting edicts into force; but princes and magistrates were diligently instructed that it was their indispensable duty to suppress and punish the heretics against whom the church had denounced its anathemas. Ecclesiastics, affecting a peculiar horror of blood, declined the office of executioners, which they devolved on the temporal authorities in each state; but it is equally certain, that, in the violences which [civil magistrates] committed in the suppression of heresy, and the support of the authority of the