The New Accession Declaration Act

THE Accession Declaration Bill, which passed the second reading in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 27th July, was carried through the Committee stage without alteration in the course of the following two days, and was finally adopted by the House of Lords on Monday the 1st August. The whole question, and that one of national importance with far-reaching issues, was disposed of in four days’ discussion. Only two peers, Lord Kinnaird and Lord Ashtown, raised any opposition in the Upper Chamber. One of the reasons for the change of front on the part of many in both Houses was a slight modification of the form of the Declaration as it was first presented to the country. In its original form the new Declaration made the King to declare himself “a faithful member of the Protestant Reformed Church by law established in England,” but in its final form as submitted to the House of Commons by Mr. Asquith, the Declaration made the King declare himself simply “a faithful Protestant.” This was certainly a slight improvement in the Protestant direction—a faithful member of the “Church established in England” might mean, as things go now, a faithful Romaniser—but, after all, the new Declaration is a very poor substitute for the old, which did efficient service for so many years. As we shall endeavour to show, it is not fitted to be of any real use for the purpose for which such a Declaration was intended. It runs as follows:—

“I (the name of the Sovereign) do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne of my Realm, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to law.”

It is our intention in this article to sum up, as briefly and simply as possible, that all our readers may understand, the various features of the important change that has been made in our national Protestant constitution.

1. Let it be clearly noted that the change is a very sweeping one—almost revolutionary in extent. It is not the matter of the change of some words in the old Declaration, such as “superstitious and idolatrous,” as applied to certain practices in the Church of Rome—that would have been bad enough—but it is the removal of the old Declaration altogether, and the adoption of a new one of a very different cast that is largely agreeable to Romanists and Ritualists. The Pope and his followers are very happy over the change, and they have thanked Mr. Asquith for his successful efforts.

2. The new Declaration contains no positive testimony against the doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome. The old was solely devoted to this. It was evidently the opinion of our forefathers that it was the duty of the professing Christian, whether he was king or subject, not only to declare his adhesion to truth but also his renunciation of error. This twofold testimony was regarded as necessary to evince the genuineness and thoroughness of his profession, and this view of matters has a clear Scriptural basis. The faithful servants of Christ not only proclaimed the truth in its fulness, but condemned in unmistakable terms the contrary error. The King of this realm has the high honour of being entitled “The Defender of the Faith,” and our forefathers naturally required that he would begin his reign with such a declaration of his faith as would be consistent with this honourable title. His natural lineage is only a subordinate link in his right to the throne; the moment he ceases to be a Protestant, he is no longer King of Great Britain and Ireland. During the recent discussion of this subject in the press, many, who were in favour of a change, were asserting that the old Declaration was hastily drawn up in a time of panic; but it was conclusively shown by others that such was not the case, but that it was framed during a period of calm with coolness and deliberation. The dread of Popery was no doubt on the spirits of our ancestors, and they would have been insane if it were not so, in view of the fearful havoc that Rome had previously wrought in the life of the nation during the reign of the Stuarts. They felt that it was highly essential not only to lay it down as a matter of law that no Roman Catholic could ascend the Throne, but to make it certain, as far as it was possible for man to do so, that each individual Sovereign who ascended the Throne was a genuine Protestant. Their experience of James II. in particular convinced them that this was an absolute necessity for the good of the kingdom. Protestantism in Church and State they found to be the only safeguard of the civil and religious liberties of the people. And the Jesuits themselves have admitted that the Declaration hitherto in use was an effective bar to the ascendancy of a Roman Catholic to the Throne. They have said, “No Catholic could speak the words and remain a Catholic.” Notwithstanding this acknowledgment, our present rulers have had the unwarrantable presumption to remove this effective bar to Roman aggression.

3. The new Declaration may be easily taken by a Papist. This may seem a bold statement, especially to those who shut their eyes to the wiles of Popery.

Mr. Balfour, in his speech in the House of Commons in favour of the new Declaration, spoke like a man with his eyes shut. One of the things he said was: “Really nobody has ever been able to explain to me how it makes it more secure, having a Protestant Sovereign, to insist upon his condemning two particular Roman doctrines rather than insisting that he should say he is a sincere Protestant.” Now, the Sovereign in the old Declaration condemns more than two Roman doctrines, he condemns at least five, and two of these Mr. Balfour entirely overlooks. He condemns (1) Transubstantiation, (2) Invocation of the Virgin and the Saints, (3) The Sacrifice of the Mass, (4) The Doctrine of Equivocation or Mental Reservation, and (5) The Doctrine of Popish Dispensation. Passing by the Sacrifice of the Mass, which Mr. Balfour evidently includes under one head — Transubstantiation — we observe that he completely ignores the concluding part of the Declaration which embodies a condemnation of two doctrines that have a large place in the Popish system, and that are of the most intense practical importance in the present case. We have personally thought that the closing part of the old Declaration was in some respects the most important section of it, for it secured the truthfulness of the first part, and left no loophole for escaping the consequences of breach of faith. Now, this exceedingly valuable part is entirely omitted from the new Declaration and there is nothing whatever substituted in its place. How Mr. Balfour can regard the new Declaration as, providing the same degree of security as the old, it defies us to understand. He has completely shut his eyes to the strong safeguard implied in an express renunciation of all Jesuitical devices of evasion, equivocation, and such like, on the part of the Sovereign declaring. Some may reply that it is an insult to insinuate that King George V. would be guilty of such devices, to which we answer that we are by no means suggesting that the present King will make the Declaration in a dishonest way, but that several things have to be remembered. First, the Declaration is designed for the future as well as the present, and as strong men as King George have fallen a prey to the influences of the Church of Rome. His new profession of faith will not put a serious barrier in the way. Secondly, as the Declaration is for all time coming, another King may arise who will be thoroughly leavened with Jesuitism from the Romish nurseries, now busily working in the Church of England, and he will find no difficulty in violating its terms.

We have said that the new Declaration may be easily taken by a Papist, and this we shall now endeavour briefly to prove in detail. The King simply declares that he is “a faithful Protestant.” Now, while the word “Protestant” has been invariably associated in the past with a disapproval of the whole doctrine and discipline of the Church of Rome, that does not say it shall

be always so. “Protestant” simply means “bearing witness for,” and everything depends upon the nature of the things for which the witness is borne. These may not, of absolute necessity, be truly Scriptural and anti-Romish in their character. The Romanisers in the Church of England are quite well pleased with the word “Protestant” in the present case. Archbishop Laud claimed to be a faithful Protestant. Everything depends on what we are protesting for and against. The King is not now required to make his Declaration in “the plain and ordinary sense of the words,” “as they are commonly understood by English Protestants”; he may use the words in any sense he pleases. Still further, he may employ deliberate evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation, or depend upon a dispensation from the Pope, in relation to what he asserts as his belief. Thus the whole engagement may be rendered “null and void.” And the very fact that the clauses which barred out the ordinary possibility of a resort to such unholy devices, were at one time in the Declaration but are now entirely removed from it, is an incitement and an encouragement to any future King who may have Jesuitical tendencies or views, to make use of these very devices. Time will tell. But we are greatly afraid that future generations will curse the day that the flippant legislators of the present took upon them to change the time-honoured Declaration which kept the Pope and his minions and their baleful principles at a distance from the seat of authority and power in this hitherto highly-favoured Christian kingdom.

1. We do not hesitate to maintain that if ever there was a time in which the safeguards ought to be strengthened rather than weakened, it is the present. The emissaries of the Church of Rome are crowding into Great Britain. They are cast out by other countries who have known their ruinous influence too long, and they are coming in secretly, quietly, surely, with their smiling, fawning countenances. They are taking possession of all available lands, and are building their cathedrals and monasteries with imposing magnificence. With their policy of “the velvet glove,” they are endeavouring to win the people of Great Britain, high and low, into their fold; they have many friends in heart in the Protestant Churches. Is this the time, then, to make it easy for a Jesuit to occupy the highest official position in the kingdom, the throne of a world-wide empire on which the sun never sets? Truly we have fallen upon an evil time. The smoke of the bottomless pit seems to be blinding the eyes of Lords and Commons and people. The people are not wholly left to the influence of a false and delusive charity. May the Lord in His abundant mercy awaken them more and more to a sense of the great evil that has been committed in our high places, and to the imminent danger in which we stand as a nation of becoming a prey to “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, . . . the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” (Rev., chap. xvii.)