Catholics. The fame doctrine has been preached not long ago from the Proteftant pulpit. Thus, it is the glory of our days, to fee the unhappy spirit of perfecution dying away, and Christian charity fucceeding the intemperate zeal and unchriftian fuperftition which, for many years, had difgraced religion, and difhonoured. humanity. Bells, fteeples, and churches richly ornamented, contribute to the outward pomp and folemnity of worship: but an upright heart and pure confcience are the temples in which the Divinity delights. We would fain worship God our own way., Doubtlefs. But are we to worthip him against his will? In lighting up the facred fire, are we to burn the house of God? Saul, king of Ifrael, intended to worship God, in offering up a facrifice. The Lord rejected him, because he offered it up against the law. His intention was good; but the action criminal. Thus, the Lord would reject you, if, under pretence of a more free worship, you flocked to the ftandard of an enemy; rofe up in rebellion against lawful authority; plundered your neighbour; and imbrued your hands in the blood of your fellow-fubjects. Let none then fay, "We will have a Catholic king." Subjects are little concerned in the the religion of governors. Thousands of Catholics lofe their fouls in France and Italy, after leading a loose and diffolute life: thousands ofthem work their falvation in the Proteftant states of Holland and Germany. It is then equal to man, what religion his neighbour or king be of, provided his own confcience be pure, and his life upright. The Pruffian, Dutch, and Hanoverian Catholics live under Proteftant governments, and join their fovereigns against Catholic powers. Their religion is the fame with yours. And this religion enforces obedience to the king and magiftrates under whom we live. Chrift commanded tribute to be paid to an heathen prince, and acknowledged the temporal power of an heathen. magiftrate, who pronounced fentence of death against him. Nero, fovereign of the world, rips open his mother's womb, and begins the first bloody perfecution against the Chriftians: feventeen thoufand of whom were flaughtered in one month; and their bodies, daubed over with pitch and tar, hung up to give light to the city. St. Paul, dreading that fuch horrid ufage would force them to overturn the ftate, and join the enemies of the empire, writes to them in the following manner: "Let every man be fubject to "the "the higher powers: and they that refift re❝ceive unto themfelves damnation." * A ftrong conviction then that, in obeying our rulers, we obey God, (who leaves no virtue unrewarded, as he leaves no vice unpunished) fweetens the thoughts of fubjection; and, under the hardest mafter, obedience is no longer a hardfhip to the true Chriftian. So great was the impreffion made by this doctrine on the minds of the primitive Chriftians,fo great was their love for public order,—that, although they filled the whole empire and all the armies, they never once flew out into any diforder. Under all the cruelties that the rage of perfecutors could invent,-amidst so many feditions and civil wars,-amidst so many confpiracies against the perfons of emperors, not a feditious Chriftian could be found. We have the fame motives to animate our conduct; the fame incentives to piety, godliness, and honefty; the fame expectations that raise us above all earthly things, and put us beyond the reach of mortality. "For, here on earth," fays St. Paul," we have not a lafting city, but ex"pect a better." Let not public calamities, bloody wars, the fcourges of Heaven, and the judgments * Rom. chap. xiii. udgments of God, be incentives to vice, plunder, rebellion, and murder; but rather the occafions of the reformation of our morals, and Spurs to repentance. Let religion, which by patience has triumphed over the Cæfars, and difplayed the cross in the banners of kings without sowing disorders in their realms, fupport itself without the accurfed aid of infurrections and crimes. Far from expecting to enrich ourselves at the expence of juftice, and under the fatal fhelter of clouds of confusion and troubles, let us feriously reflect, that death will foon level the poor and rich in the duft of the grave; that we are all to appear naked before the awful tribunal of Jefus Chrift, to account for our actions; and that it is by millions of times more preferable to partake of the happiness of Lazarus, who was conveyed to Abraham's bofom, after a life of holiness and poverty, than to be rich and wicked, and to share the fate of that unhappy man who, dreffed in purple, and after a life of ease and opulence, was refufed a drop of water to allay his burning thirft. In expectation that you will comply with the inftructions of your bishop and clergy, not only from dread of the laws, but moreover from the love and fear of God, I remain, my dear brethren, Cork, Aug. 14, Your affectionate fervant, ARTHUR O'LEARY. |