In this conversation we have a perfect specimen of Popish casuistry. The man is suffered to believe that he has a _conscience_, and that he is ever obedient to _Scripture_. But Popery still holds him fast, and if regicide should suit its purposes, he can _give the blow_ with a safe conscience. What must be the religion when such is the morality?
And this view leads us to the true question on which the whole subject turns. In the eyes of the Tractarians, the controversy is simply between an _old_ church and a _new_. In the apologies of the apostates, it is simply between Papal infallibility and private judgment. Thus, the whole is diluted into a mere metaphysical inquiry, while both suppress the entire practical _reality_ of this tremendous superstition. In those tranquil subtleties and meek submissions they both labour to conceal the _fact_, that if they are to be Papists, they _must_ be _worshippers_ of the Virgin Mary; they must be worshippers of imaginary saints; they must be worshippers of stocks and stones, as the images of those imaginary saints; and they must be prepared to do the bidding of the Papacy, even though that should amount to the dissolution of society; for to this they _must_ come. This is _their_ yoke. To this every man who apostatises is bound for life: he must drag the whole length of the chain.
Strong curiosity is now excited by the approach of Parliament; and the inquiry into the measures contemplated by the Cabinet is intense. In the midst of the numberless conjectures hazarded at the moment, a letter from the Bishop of Durham to a body of his clergy has appeared; which, when we remember that the memorable letter of the Premier was addressed to the Bishop, and that a correspondence on the subject may have been continued, seems to throw a light on the Ministerial intentions, and probably has been written for the _express purpose_.
The Bishop, after observing that the question of religious liberty to the Roman Catholics could not possibly require "that a foreign potentate should be permitted to insult a great nation, trample on the rights of a sovereign secured by law, and disturb the peace and good order of the Established Church," proceeds to state his conception of the _necessary_ measures of protection.