A Letter to Henry Bathurst on the Tendency of Some of His Public Opinions, and the Benefits Likely to Accrue to the Establishment in Church and State by the Repeal of All the Disabling Statutes Against Roman Catholics & Protestant Dissenters (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1813. Excerpt: ... meat in botli Church and State. These are the means which they put in ure, to produce those sacred ends they propose. Is it not idle, then, in any one to say, and to satisfy himself, that such means will not produce such ends? Not less absurd would it be to turn a bird of passage from its course across the ocean, against its own unerring instinct, on the arrogant presumption of guiding it in the right way ---The arguments are many and specious which are urged in favour of what is called Universal Toleration, which in reality means nothing else than pulling down and extinguishing the Establishment, and afterwards, in their general philanthropy, and universal benevolence, and religious veneration of Liberty and Equality, kindly admitting that Establishment as a Sect among the rest; which, in the State to concede or suffer, would be something like King John granting to the Pope the Freehold of his Kingdom, and taking back from him an Estate at Will, with an annual outgoing of the Exchequer of tho Kingdom, and a burthen of conditions. No human laws can or ought to controul a man in the private exercise of his Religion and his Devotions, for, physically speaking, it does not affect the State; but man in a state of Society has no rights; he has given them up when he entered into Society, though they may be for the most part returned to him in the form of privileges, of which the salus rei-publicae determines the measure and extent. On the other hand, when the exercise of his Religion becomes public, or effects any political operation upon the Commonwealth, it ipso facto becomes a national concern; and of course it is but reasonable, (and certainly politically expedient) it should become subject to the controul of the Laws of the Land. As to the Roman Catholics ...