PROPOSED ALTERATION.
SOME reference has already been made in these pages to the new proposal to alter the King’s Protestant Declaration, but the affair is so momentous in its bearing upon the interests of our nation at large that it cannot be too frequently or pointedly referred to. It is perfectly plain that we are hastening on to a very serious crisis in the history of our country, and that not long hence the question of Protestantism or Popery will be one of overwhelming importance for the people of this realm. The question, indeed, ought to be of supreme interest to all true citizens now, but the lamentable thing is that thousands seem entirely blind to the evils of Romanism, and quite indifferent whether Christ or the Pope will reign in our land. This blindness is a conspicuous feature of leaders in Church and State, and will, in all probability, bear very evil fruit at no very distant date. If the Protestant safeguards of the throne and constitution are removed, there is no saying to what depths of bondage and degradation we may fall as a nation. Popery has been the bane and curse of every country where it has secured a footing. History, past and present, bears undeniable testimony to the truth of this assertion.
One of the most serious aspects of the present situation is that the Government have encouraged the Papists to expect that they will take steps, if possible, to have the King’s Protestant Declaration altered. It was very significant that the Duke of Norfolk, the chief lay representative of Popery in this country, thanked the Government in the House of Lords for the promise they had given. Great things in the cause of Protestantism were expected of the present Government and their party when they came into power, but apart from the recent stopping of the procession of “the Host” in London, they have done very little to prove that they are better than their predecessors in this respect. For the sake of mere party interests they are ready to pander to the wishes of the Papists at almost every turn. A Popish University is being established at Dublin under their auspices. Another serious matter is the sweeping character of the “Roman Catholic Disabilities Removal Bill,” recently introduced by Mr. William Redmond, M.P., to the demands of which the Government have so far responded. This Bill expressly provides for the free inroad of Jesuits and all monastic orders into the country, and for the opening of the offices of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain and of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to Roman Catholics—the only public offices from which they are presently excluded, apart from the throne itself. The fifth clause of the Bill provides for the removal of the chief words in the King’s Protestant Declaration that are obnoxious to Papists, and the substitution of words taken from the Coronation Oath, namely, “I will, to the utmost of my power, maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel, and the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law.” The Coronation Oath, let it be observed, does not embody an expression of personal faith on the part of the Sovereign but simply those things he will “maintain,” and without the Protestant Declaration it is clearly an insufficient safeguard of the throne. A Papist may promise to “maintain” many things that he does not personally believe, if he thinks he can, by this means, secretly advance the interests of his Church.
Now, although Mr. Redmond’s Bill may never be accepted in all its parts by the Government, we have in it a loud call to be prepared for coming emergencies. “Forewarned” ought to mean “forearmed.” The Papists are waxing bolder and bolder every day. They see that leaders in the State and in the larger Protestant Churches are giving up their distinctive religious tenets and ceasing to be Protestant. The Episcopal Churches are more than half way to Rome already, while the larger Presbyterian Churches are gradually following in their wake. Established Churchmen make a mock of the few in their midst who are zealous for the Protestant cause. One of the largest Presbyteries in the United Free Church—the Glasgow Presbytery—not long since dissolved their Committee on Romanism. None of the more prominent leaders of these Churches is ever seen on a decidedly Protestant platform. Peace with Rome seems to be the order of the day, but that peace is fraught with the direst issues to many: it may yet cause the blood of witnesses for God’s truth to stain the streets of our cities and the moorlands of our country places. Now is the hour of the emissaries of the Church of Rome, and they know it. “Father” Vaughan, in England, laughs at a dying Protestantism, and Archbishop Macquire and Provost Mackintosh in Scotland anticipate the speedy return of the Scottish people to the ancient faith of their fathers. They see plainly that the Higher Critics, in robbing the people of the infallible Word of God, are playing into the hands of their pretended infallible Church. The human mind instinctively craves for certainty, and if it is deprived of the real certainty of an infallible Bible, it will grasp at the apparent certainty of an infallible Church. And this so-called infallible Church, after which so many are wondering, has been the prolific source of almost every form of evil that blights and degrades humanity. There is under its wing, among other things, at the present moment, a “Legitimist Jacobite League,” whose avowed object is to overthrow the present Protestant dynasty from the throne of Great Britain, and to set up the Princess of Bavaria, a descendant of the Stuarts, and a Roman Catholic, in the place of King Edward VII. It would well become our Royal House, if for nothing but self-interest, to adhere closely to the Protestant cause. Our forefathers knew by sad experience what Romanism meant, and they took means (in some particulars not rigorous enough), to prevent its ascendancy in State or Church during coming generations. It will be a woeful day when these safeguards are wholly removed.
The time has evidently now come when it becomes us to warn our fellow-countrymen to vote for no man as a Member of Parliament unless he gives a distinct pledge that he will oppose any change in the King’s Protestant Declaration, and will take up a distinctly Protestant position in the House of Commons. Other matters are of very minor importance in comparison with this. What are lands, or harbours, or seas, or sanitation, in comparison with the moral and religious stability and welfare of this highly-favoured country in which we have been privileged to have our birth and dwelling-place? The allowed relinquishment of Protestant truth and Protestant laws, and the allowed ascendancy of Popish intolerance, error, and superstition, imply a surrender of all that life’s worth living for. The funeral dirge of Great Britain’s truest prosperity may be rung out from every steeple in the country the moment that the flag of Protestant truth is lowered from the citadel of the throne. It is deplorable to observe the apathy that prevails on this subject in Scotland. What dreadful degeneracy has overtaken the sons of the martyrs! We hope that at least the people of our Highland and northern constituencies will refuse, when the opportunity occurs, to support the candidature of any man for Parliament who does not declare himself to be a thorough Protestant, and an opponent of any change in the King’s Protestant Declaration. Even at present they ought to make it plain to their Members of Parliament what they expect of them, seeing that they are, for most part, Protestants in profession. Profession, however, is one thing; practice is another. Our earnest prayer is that “when the enemy” cometh in “like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord” may “lift up a standard against him.”
The following is “The King’s Protestant Declaration”:—”I, Edward, do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare that I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever; and that the Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous. And I do solemnly, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare, that I do make this declaration and every part thereof in the plain and ordinary sense of the words read unto me, as they are commonly understood by English Protestants, without any Evasion, Equivocation, or mental Reservation whatsoever, and without any dispensation already granted me for this purpose by the Pope, or any other authority or person whatsoever, or without any hope of any such dispensation from any person or authority whatsoever, or without thinking that I am or can be acquitted before God or man, or absolved of this declaration or any part thereof, although the Pope or any other person or persons or power whatsoever should dispense with or annul the same or declare that it was null and void from the beginning.”—(Act of Settlement, 12 and 13 William III., cap. 2.)