The Irish Trouble

MR. MICHAEL J. F. M’CARTHY is one of the ablest living authorities on Irish affairs, and he has done invaluable service by his books and lectures for a number of years in explaining and condemning the discontent and disloyalty that has been rife in Ireland for a lengthened period. Recently he has delivered a most instructive lecture to various audiences in London, a lecture which has now been published under the title, “The Irish Trouble: Its Cause and Cure.” The booklet has appeared most opportunely at the present crisis, and if it were widely circulated and read without prejudice throughout the country, it would do a vast amount of good in dispelling ignorance, and giving light on the Irish question. Mr. M’Carthy is an educated Irishman who left the Roman Catholic Church, and he has thus first-hand knowledge of all that he writes about. He discusses everything in an intelligent, well-balanced, well-reasoned, and convincing manner that is fitted to carry conviction to any impartial mind. We bespeak for his pamphlet a widespread circulation.*

* “The Irish Trouble: Its Cause and Cure.” By M. J. F. M’Carthy, Author of “Priests and People in Ireland,” etc., etc. London: Protestant Truth Society, 3 and 4 St. Paul’s Churchyard, E.C.4. Price twopence, postage 3d. extra. Larger quantities at less rate.

Now, what is the state of Ireland at the present moment? It is, to put the matter briefly, so far as the Roman Catholic population is concerned, a seething cauldron of disloyalty and rebellion, ready to boil over in violent revolution. An “Irish Republic” has actually been established at Dublin, with a President and other officials, and the Sinn Fein party are intensely active, ready to take arms at any moment. Murder and robbery are frequently reported from many quarters. These are developments of the spirit of enmity and rebellion that has been too much in evidence during recent years. During the War, the majority of the Roman Catholic Irish showed themselves most disloyal and unsympathetic to our Government and country. When conscription was proposed, they rose up in opposition thereto. The bishops and priests led the van in this hostility to the idea of helping Britain and the Allies in a critical emergency. German successes were hailed with delight and rejoicing, and there appeared to be nothing in the world that would give more satisfaction to the hearts of Nationalists and Sinn Feiners than the destruction of Britain. Since the hostilities on the Continent came to an end, the President of the rebel “Republic” had the audacity to issue the announcement: “The War has been transferred from Germany to Ireland.” The spirit of the Germans is in Ireland, and if these rebels had the power—as they have the will—Ulster, England, and Scotland would be drenched in blood. And yet a toleration is extended to them which they know nothing of in their dealings with others. Far too much toleration, we say, for their own or others’ good. Our Government actually gave, a short time ago, passports and safe conduct to ambassadors from America to the “Irish Republic,” thus strengthening the hands of violent men in the pursuance of their wicked schemes against the constitution and existence of our own country. Could anything be more blameworthy on the part of our Government, and is such a policy of indulgence to rebels not suicidal in the extreme?

What, then, is the great root-cause of this dreadful condition of affairs in Ireland? As Mr. M’Carthy so well brings out in his pamphlet, it is not the lack of social advantages. “For thirty-four years the British Treasury, the British taxpayer, has been advancing money to Irish farmers to purchase their farms on terms which are not available in any other part of the United Kingdom, and as agriculture is the staple industry of Ireland, and the vast majority of farmers are Roman Catholics, this gives Ireland a preferential position, as compared with the other parts of the United Kingdom, in a matter of the very first magnitude. Again, the population of Ireland is less than that of Scotland, yet Ireland has 105 Members of Parliament, while Scotland has only 76. The enormous progress of Belfast and Northern Ireland under the same laws which prevail in Southern Ireland; the success of manufactures carried on even in Southern Ireland; . . . the financial prosperity of the farmers and subsidiary traders in Southern Ireland; the success and popularity of Irish professional men, and the ready welcome to all Irish manufactures in Great Britain; all these facts prove that there is equality of law and opportunity, as between Ireland and Great Britain, under the constitution of the United Kingdom” (page 3). No; it is not lack of social advantages or political freedom that is the great root-cause of the trouble. But it is, in one word, Popery. Three-fourths of the Irish people are Roman Catholic. The trouble is confined to them, and it is fostered and promoted by the bishops and priests. The laity have no power in the Roman Catholic Church, and these ecclesiastics are the servile and active agents of the Pope.

The Pope’s sympathies were with the Germans during the War, and the Irish bishops and priests were in manifest harmony with the Pontiff in his spirit and wiles. Germany’s success and Britain’s ruin were the objects of their dastardly ambition. When those American delegates came to Dublin on 3rd May, “they claimed in their first official utterance that they had come with the approval of the ecclesiastics of the Papal Church in America.” They were welcomed by bishops and others in Ireland as “like Crusaders and Apostles of old,” and as men of “a fine Irish and Catholic spirit.” Milk-and-water Protestants may blink the fact as they please, but it is Popery, and nothing less, that is the animating cause of all the disloyalty and rebellion that exist in Ireland to-day. An Irish paper in America stated in 1907: “The supremacy of England had no sting for our native land until King Henry VIII. rebelled against the Pope.” “That was Patrick Ford’s paper, the man who used to send Parnell ‘ten dollars for lead and one dollar for bread,’ at the time of the land agitation” (page 5). If Great Britain were the declared subject of the Pope, there would be no disloyal trouble in Ireland to-day.

The fact of the matter is that the Irish rebellion is the direct outcome of one of the fundamental principles of the Papal system, namely, the sovereignty of the Pope over State as well as Church. The Pontiff claims the right to annul the election of a king to a throne, to forbid succession, and to absolve subjects from allegiance. He is at war with every country that does not acknowledge his absolute supremacy, and the agents of the Vatican govern, directly or indirectly, entire Roman Catholic nations, such as Spain, Portugal, Austria, South America, etc., fomenting division, where they do not possess the supreme power, in such countries as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. There are, no doubt, some Roman Catholics here and there, in this country and throughout the world, loyal enough in practice to countries with Protestant constitutions, but these are the exceptions which prove the rule. These exemplary persons are so in spite of their creed, and not because of it, and thus their conduct affords no index as to what Romanism really is in its political arrogance and intolerance.

We have to say, in conclusion, that until our rulers awake to realise the true character and policy of the Papacy in Ireland, and to recognise its deceitful and unholy hand in the present seditious uprising, there will be no proper measures taken to cure the virulent fever of rebellion with which that unhappy country is affected. The old leaven of malice and wickedness, that has been fermenting for many generations, must be purged out by stern and drastic measures if there is to be any quietness or peace. True, it is the gospel of Christ, and that gospel alone, accompanied with divine power, which is able to regenerate the Irish and make them a new nation, but sound political steps of a justly sharp description might be a good preparation for the healing work of the gospel. We earnestly trust that the King of Zion and King of Nations may interpose at the present crisis, and effectually still the tumult, saving these kingdoms from a menace of a most undesirable and dangerous kind.

A Sermon.

BY THE REV. GEORGE HUTCHESON, M.A., of Edinburgh
and Irvine (1674).

(Ninth Sermon of Series on Psalm cxxx.)

(Continued from page 14.)

“But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.”—
PSALMS cxxx. 4.

I HAVE now broken in a little upon this great article of our creed, the remission of sins—the great gospel-news, the glad tidings of the gospel of peace to them that are in the psalmist’s posture as in the third verse, that there is no standing before God, marking iniquity in strict justice, according to the covenant of works. I am as yet detained on the first head that I proposed to be spoken to on this subject, that is, the consideration of that which is pardoned. It is iniquity, as in the preceding verse, sin or transgression, let it be called by whatsoever name it will; and as to this, I spake to these things. 1. That all have sin. 2. That sin is a debt and burden, which they who take a right look of, will see great cause to desire to be rid of it. 3. That sin being such a debt or burden, the unpardoned man, if he get a right look of his own condition, he will find himself in a woful plight. 4. That sin being such a debt as can only be done away by pardon, and such a burden as puts the unpardoned man in a woful plight, it follows, that it is good news, the best of all news to a sensible sinner, that there is pardon for iniquity with God. When a man hath said verse 3, “If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquity, who can stand?” he may add verse 4, “But there is forgiveness with thee.” And here ye may remember, that it was cleared how the least sins need a pardon; as also how the greatest sins for nature, number, or other circumstances, are pardonable, and that sensible sinners need not be troubled with that sin against the Holy Ghost, seeing their very flying to the remedy of sin in Christ is a sufficient evidence that it was not in them.

I was the last day cut short by time from speaking a word to these persons whose sins are pardonable. And this I would now speak to, before I go to the other heads I proposed to be spoken to. And the ground of that which I would say of them whose sins are pardonable, I shall take it from that pattern of prayer, Matthew vi. 9, 12, “Father, forgive us our debts.” They are children who may come to God for pardon of sin; and to open this a little, I shall speak to these three from it.

1. It would be remembered, that these who are not children must come and become children in the due order, that they may attain to the privilege of pardon. When children only are allowed to beg pardon of sin, it secludes none who are unpardoned from coming to God through the elder brother Jesus Christ, that they may be put among the children by adoption, for, Isaiah lv. 7, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon,” or multiply to pardon; and Ezekiel xxxiii. 15, 16, “If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of the sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him;” there shall be no more word of them; which (as I said the last day, when I spake from these words) leaves a sad check and ground of decay at the door of rebels, to whom the fountain for sin and uncleanness is kept open, and they have pardon in their offer, but will not follow the right method of obtaining mercy and pardon. They will not come and be children, but continue rebels still. And it leaves also a caution and a check to many, who, if anything be hinted at of their faults, will claim to pardon, and yet they will not give themselves up to be children, they would live rebels, and yet be pardoned. But ye must come to be made children, who in faith would pray, “Forgive us our sins.”

A second word which I would say from this is, that as children are daily falling in sin, so their daily sins are pardonable. There were many dangerous and damnable errors in the ancient Church, concerning the sins of church members, that come here to be reproved. Some looked upon the sins of church members, as the old agnostics, the progenitors of the libertines, did, they held that sins in godly persons consisted only in opinion; that regenerate men, do what they would, if they should commit the most vile and abominable acts, they were not sins in them. This is nothing but corrupt-principled monstrous profanity, or monstrous profanity rooted in a corrupt principle; and those that would hold themselves out of that fearful gulf, they would beware of the Antinomian principles, as that God sees no sin in believers, that His law is not to be the rule of their walk, that they need not repent, etc. For libertinism is but a new edition of Antinomianism in folio. Others again acknowledged sin to be in the godly, but they slighted repentance, and therefore, when scandals fell out in the church, they did not require any acknowledgment of their offence who had fallen in these scandals, but while they were reeking in these abominations, they entertained church communion and fellowship with them. This was a turning of the grace of God into lasciviousness, and it is the result in part of that Antinomian principle of the remission of sins from all eternity; so that, according to their opinion, repentance was not required in order to pardon of sin, but for intimation of pardon. And there was a third sort, such as the Novatians, who looked so on gross sins after baptism, as, though they would not seclude them from pardon on repentance, nor would they seclude such sinners from making profession of their repentance, yet they would not absolve them, nor admit them to church communion and fellowship, particularly in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, but left them to God, to make of them what He pleased. Now in opposition to all these is the truth I am upon. We confess that sins after the receipt of great mercies are very heinous, Ezra ix. 14, “Should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people of these abominations, wouldest not thou be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us?” Judges x. 13, “Ye have forsaken me, and served other gods, wherefore I will deliver you no more.” And sin, in particular after regeneration, is so much the more heinous, that God hath been gracious; therefore the Apostle having spoken of the abounding grace of God, where sin had abounded (Romans v.), at the close, he begins the next chapter with these words, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” He abominates that after regeneration there should be a relapsing in sin, yet the text here intimates “there is forgiveness with God” for the iniquities of godly men; and the pattern of prayer, Matthew vi., tells the children, that they may go to God and seek the forgiveness of sins, which says they would be daily sinning, and God would allow daily pardon on them in the due order. And consequently, it was horrid cruelty in the Novatians to seclude such as fall in sins after baptism from absolution and church-fellowship, and they would not pardon where God did pardon, which made Constantine at the Council of Nice say to Aclesus their Bishop, “I see no other of it, but ye would make a ladder to go to heaven your alone, and would have none with you.” I confess the godly are not to be hugged under their failings, but their failings are rather to be aggredged;* yet upright walkers, as they are most tender in their conversation, so are they most charitable in passing judgment upon others, though they have their failings.

* Viewed as aggravated.

But there is a third word I would say from this, and that is to clear, whether all sorts of sins in the godly are pardonable? This is a case that hath troubled the learned, and may trouble tender consciences, whether, when a man hath repented a sin, and found the bitterness of it, and hath found God’s favour and pardon intimated upon his repentance, he may again fall into that sin, and get it pardoned over again. A case, I say, that some who are tender may be troubled with, when they have fallen in sin and thereafter have found it bitter, and have been at God, confessed it, and believed pardon, and yet they have been over-hailed in the same sin over again. This, I confess, before I say anything to it, is a sad case. It is sad to see folks, after regeneration, and tasting of the grace of God, falling in the same sins again; and it’s yet sadder to see a person, after he hath been smarting for it, running back to that very folly, particularly if it be an out-breaking sin, and the learned could hardly find an instance in Scripture of that relapsing in sin in the godly. It is true, Peter did thrice deny his Master, and Lot was twice drunken and twice fell in incest, but none of these were after repentance and intimation of pardon; for Peter was kept in the hurry of the temptation till his sin was thrice out with him; and so it was with Lot, yet I shall give two words for clearing the case.

1. That as regeneration makes not the saints perfect, so neither do I see a ground that a saint’s repenting for a particular fault should keep him from a relapsing in that fault, and needing of pardon. It is true, Psalms lxxxv. 8, God’s speaking of peace to His people is with a caution, “That they turn not again to folly;” but to say, if repentance be true, a man will not fall in that folly he hath repented, it is not Scriptural. Regeneration is our initial repentance, and if that do not prevent falling in sin, it is no wonder that a particular act of renewed repentance will not do it; all the repentance, grief, or sorrow that a person hath attained to for sin, is but a creature, that except God concur, cannot keep him from falling in sin; and God hath not made an absolute promise, so to concur with a penitent, that he shall not again fall in the same sin. How often doth a penitent, when he hath repented to-day of his passion, pride, wandering of mind in duty, etc., fall in the same sins to-morrow; and if he may, notwithstanding of repentance, fall into lesser faults, why may he not after repentance fall into grosser? We find also godly men after their repenting for their failings, falling in grosser outbreakings. David, after he had repented his falling in trouble, and his using sinful shifts to be out of it, fell in these gross and scandalous sins of adultery and murder; and he that fell in these sins after repentance for other escapes, why might he not, after repentance, have fallen in these same sins over again, if the grace of God had not prevented it? For though repentance for particular faults leaves behind it an impression of the bitterness of these sins, and makes them to be loathed, which will make it more improbable they will be relapsed in, yet it is not impossible; otherwise, true repentance being for all sin, it should prevent relapsing in any sin.

2. A second word which I shall say for clearing the case shall be this; that as true repentance is not to be measured by relapsing in sin, so it is contrary to Scripture to determine that relapsing in sin after repentance is unpardonable; it is not the sin against the Holy Ghost, and it is therefore pardonable. Is. lv. 7, “Our God will multiply to pardon;” even as often as the sinner repents and comes again to Him to seek pardon, were it till seventy times seven, as He bids us forgive others when they sin against us (Matthew xviii. 22, and Hosea xiv. 4), He hath promised to heal backslidings. Now these are after repentance, when His people fall back in the same sins, out of which they have been recovered by repentance; and for instances of this, ye shall only ponder these two. One is (2 Chron. xviii.), Jehosaphat joining in affinity with Ahab, for which he is reproved by a prophet (chap. xix. 2), and his repentance is apparent in the reformation he fell about. And yet (chapter xx. 35) he falls in the same sin in joining with Ahaziah, to make ships to go to Tarshish in Eziongeber, which were broken, for which he was also reproved, repented, and was pardoned. Another instance is that of Jonah, a man that fled from the presence of the Lord, when sent to Nineveh, and is brought to repentance for that sin in the belly of the fish (chapter 2). Yet he falls in the same sin (chapter iv. 2), not in fleeing away from God, but in repining at His mercy, and, in his opinion, declaring it was needless to go to Nineveh, and justifying his former fleeing away: these are two clear instances of relapsing in sin after repentance and pardon for it. This I would not have abused. I may have occasion hereafter to speak to what prejudice relapsing in sin brings with it; as that it will bring former pardon in question, and under debate, and though a penitent may be pardoned, yet it is dangerous to bound* with sin, after God hath spoken peace to return to folly, and to proclaim that all the bitterness folk have found in sin is nothing. Only I cannot conceal the truth of God from any that may be under a temptation; that having repented such and such sins, they have relapsed in them, and therefore, as they question their repentance, so they think they are to expect no more pardon. Ye have it cleared from Scripture, that these are but temptations; that God would multiply to pardon upon repentance (Isaiah lv. 7), and though folks have played the harlot with many lovers, and among hands have rued their wanderings, they may return again unto the Lord (Jer. iii. 1). Now I have done with the first general head of this doctrine, concerning the remission of sin, to wit, the consideration of that which is pardoned.

* Jest.

I proceed to the second general question, and that is, anent the author of pardon, or who is it that pardons iniquity, even God. “There is forgiveness with thee,” says the text, that is (as I exponed in the entry), “It’s Thy property, in opposition to all pretenders—it’s Thy property and prerogative, when both the law and the conscience have condemned, to pardon and forgive sin.” This is a truth that was held fast in the Jewish Church, when it was most corrupt; therefore (Mark ii. 7), when Christ pardoned the man, sick of the palsy, the scribes say, “Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only?” And it is one of God’s titles (Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7), that He forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin: and He taketh it to Himself, as His prerogative, Isaiah xliii. 25, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions;” and Matthew ix. 2, etc., Christ, in curing the palsy man, parallels the pardoning of his sins with the healing of his disease as proofs of His deity: shewing that both were alike difficult, and proved Him to be God.

I must here clear a seeming difficulty, that is, that pardon of sin is attributed to others, both ministers and private persons. It’s attributed to ministers, as John xx. 23, “As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you; receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained;” but certainly it’s God only who can loose a man from everlasting wrath due to him for sin, and it’s the Word of God only that can declare whom God will pardon. Only (as Ambrose says well) ministers are judges in the matter of pardon; but without any absolute authority in that matter. And for clearing of this, ye would distinguish betwixt the external court in the Church, and the internal court in the conscience. In the external court in the Church, ministers have a power from Christ to remit scandals to scandalous persons upon their serious profession of repentance; to take in a man that hath fallen in a scandalous sin upon the profession of repentance, and to remit the scandal. In the internal court of the conscience, ministers have a ministerial power upon scandalous sinners and their repentance, ministerially to declare, they are pardoned on their repentance; and they are walking according to their commission, “Whose sins they bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever they shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew xvi. 19, and xviii. 18). But ministers, ex plenitudine potestatis* (as the Pope speaks) have not an absolute and unlimited power to pardon whom, and when, and as they will. They are but delegates, and must walk according to their commission in pardoning of sin, or rather pronouncing pardon of sin, neither have they power of pardoning sin upon conditions of their own devising, such as penances, pilgrimages, visiting of Rome in the year of Jubilee, etc., where (to mark it in the by) the Papists’ method in this is preposterous: they first pardon, and then enjoin penance, and such things as Christ hath not prescribed; neither must they take money and dispense with repentance, a fruit of faith, upon which pardon is promised. This is but a cheat, to hold their kitchen reeking. Cæsar Borgia, the son of Alexander the Sixth, when he had lost an hundred thousand crowns at the dice, passed it in a sport, saying, “Those are the sins of the Germans,” that is, they had been purchased for the remission of their sins. Again, it is attributed to private persons: and for private persons their pardoning of sin, the Scriptures speak clearly to it, as in that pattern of prayer, Matthew vi. 12, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors;” so Eph. iv. 32, “Forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you;” and Col. iii. 13, “Forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” But private persons’ forgiving of sins is the forgiving the injuries done by men’s sinning to them; rules anent which I may meet with ere I have done with this theme. But though a private person is bound to forgive injuries done against him, it is still with a reservation of God’s interest, and the sinner must account to God. Notwithstanding from all which (to resume) it’s clear, whatsoever hand man hath in forgiving sin, God is the principal creditor, whose law is violated, whose majesty is offended, whose justice must be satisfied, and therefore it’s His property and prerogative to forgive sins, and loose from the obligation to wrath that sin deserves.

* From fulness of power.

In making use of this, I shall not digress to deal with Papists, who in receiving pardons from their priests, use not a judgment of discretion, whether the persons pardoning them be acting according to their instructions and according to their own principles; for if they did, they might be easily nonplussed. They put the power to give indulgences entirely in their Pope, and assert that their priests are commissioned by him to dispense them, but they can only have a human faith concerning that commission; for, beside that the Pope’s power to do so is upon many accounts questionable, when they ask, How we know the Scripture to be the word of God? we might ask them, How they know the Pope who must give these indulgences to be the Pope? That he is a Christian, and hath gotten baptism? For, according to their own principles, the Pope is no Pope except he be baptized. Now, they cannot certainly know their Pope is baptized, that being one of their grounds, that baptism is not administered except the intention of the priest go along. Now, they cannot be certain that the priest who baptized the present Pope had an intention to baptize him while he went about that action, therefore they cannot be certain of any pardon this present Pope shall give them, nor can they have anything but a human faith as to the pardon of their sins. But the judgment of God is visible upon them for not receiving the truth in love; God hath been provoked to give them up to strong delusions to believe lies. And (shall I add further?) it’s a plague and a snare to profane men that walk in the imagination of their own heart, adding drunkenness to thirst, that they have this woful shift: get them a priest, and let them have an absolution, and then they are as ready to take in a new swack of sin as ever they were; this is the woful cheat that follows their way. If folk walk thus on a principle of conscience, they are to be pitied, but when profligate men run that way, they drive their carnal interest, and have a sleeping God to their conscience, under all their abominations.

But passing this, and leaving particular inferences till the afternoon, I shall give you these three words: 1. If God be the only pardoner of sin, they make a very blind block that pardon themselves for all their faults, that is, who can commit all sorts of iniquities and cast them over their thumb when they have done. Thou that dost so, shall know that God only is the pardoner of sin ere long, and that thy pardon will not stand. 2. It leaves a sad check on all them that satisfy themselves with the plaudits of the world. Why? They are good folk, cried up and commended of their neighbours; if they have done wrong, they will confess it, make reparation or restitution; but what is all that, if God pardon thee not, though thou shouldst get never so many to hug thee or assail thee, so long as God, the only pardoner of iniquity, doth not assail thee? And 3. It leaves a sad check also on them that care not to displease God to please men; and O! what snares to men are these, that give themselves to be pleasers of men, with displeasing of God. They make no bonds of any sins if they can please them they are obliged to. But thou that dost so will find thou hast made an ill bargain when the reckoning comes; for they cannot forgive thy sin when thou standest before God, neither wilt thou get men for thy intercessors. God only is the pardoner of iniquity, and therefore they make a very foolish bargain, who to please any, stand not to displease God.

(To be continued.)