BOOKS.
TWISS ON THR POPE'S LETTERS APOSTOLIC.* DR. TWISS is well known for several publications on political eco- nomy, which often very curiously- elucidated particular branches of the science, so as to throw new light upon the subject. In his own professional department of law, he has produced a learned and • acute tract on the Schleswig-Holstein case. But his most important and extensive -work was his examination of the Oregon question. That bet& combined in a rare degree a large knowledge of the law of nations, acutely applied; a familiar acquaintance with our older voyagers, very curiously turned to account; and a clear, easy, and polite style, deficient perhaps in trenchant force, but flavoured with a quiet and effective irony. The present work exhibits the, same 'ties, and proves in a still greater degree the advantage of owing your business. Notwithstanding the number of tongues and pens that have been employed upon the subject of Papal aggression, the true state of the case has not till now been fully laid before the world, whether as it regards the real objects of the Pope, the true danger to be apprehended from them, or the gross and insolent -violation both of law and usage on the part of his Holiness.
The treatise avoids theological questions • for the dispute, as Twis-s observes is not one between Protestants and Roman Catholics, but between English Catholics and _Ultramontane Po- , pery, and would have worn the same aspect before the Reformation 1 as now. The leading subjects considered are three. 1. The Law of England ; which Dr. Twiss concludes has certainly been violated • in the creation of a bishopric St. David's, in the erection of many religious houses throughout the country, besides some - smaller matters, and in the introduction of the Apostolic Letter. " -Upon the legal interpretation of this introduction he goes farther
• than Sir Edward Sugden, holding that the repeal of the penal- ' ties of Elizabeth's law does not merely leave the act a !Ms- ' demeanour, but subjects the introducer to the penalties of treason; though any proceeding would be subject to the con- struction of the Judges — Bentham's "judge-made law." 2. The Law of Nations ; in which Dr. Twiss clearly shows, that from the times immediately succeeding primitive Christianity, the creation of a territorial bishopric—the erection of a see—was not .attem.pted by the.Pope without the consent of the territorial prince. • The doctrine has been clearly and frequently laid down, and con- atantly acted upon, not only with Roman Catholic states, or Pro- testant states having diplomatic relations with the Holy See, but with states where no communication -was open—as the empire of Russia ; and " even within the last four years the consent of the Go- vernment of the Protestant Canton of St. GO in Switzerland was held to be a necessary condition to enable Pope Pius the Ninth to • erect a see for a Roman Catholic bishop in the capital of that can- 1 ton.' 3. He shows that this act of the Pope is not spiritual, but
temporal, and is moreover needless for spiritual purposes. Vicars- Apostolic, as Bishops in partibus, could do all that was needful for religions uses ; but they were a mission, incapable of combined ac- tion for temporal objects, unable to establish an imperium in im- perio which an episcopate can do. "Dr. Wiseman has here furnished us with the true key, which will ex- plain the otherwise unaccountable proceeding of the Holy See. It is clear that all the spirit:sat wants of the members of the }Leman Catholic com- munion in England were satisfied under the existing organization of the mission. The Raman Catholic laity in England had complete religious liberty, but the Roman Catholic clergy, it must be admitted, had not com- plete ecclesiastical power. They wanted the means of organizing themselves for united action ; they had no power under the system of Vicars-Apoatolic to meet in a provincial council. Nothing, however, is suggested by Dr. Wiseman as to the nature of the points, which, as he states, required to be synodically adjusted. ..If it could be made out that there were spiritual anomalies under the existing system of Vicars-Apostolic, which the Pope was unable, though desirous, to remove, and'whicla pressed upon the con- sciences of the Roman Catholic subjects of her Majesty, it is reasonable for the English people to ask that these anomalies should be set forth, and that a provincial synod should be shown to be necessary, and alone adequate, for their removal. Unity of practice as well as of belief could surely, if they were wanting, have been enforced by the power which radiated from a com- mon centre through the Vieare-Apostolic to every part of the mission.
• • • •
"Now it is precisely in respect of its organic bond of union that the new system, as compared with the old, is fraught withpolitical danger ; and it is precisely in regard to its power of combined decision and uniform action, that the new hierarchy is an institution opposed to the genius of the con- stitution of the realm, which allows of no rival legislative body within the - realm whose decrees shall conflict with and prevail against those of the Queen and her Parliament. For it must be remembered, that the sphere of what, is held to be ecclesiastical action by the Roman Catholic Church em- braces much which, by the law of the land, is considered to be within the precincts of the Supreme Legislature. Of this fact the late edict of the Sy- nod of Thurles in Ireland is evidence. There, indeed, at a council of Ro- man Catholic Prelates, convened by the nominee of the Pope, in whose ap- pointment as the Roman Catholic Archbishop in Armagh the Irish Roman Catholic subjects of her Majesty pad, for the first time, no voice, it was car- ried by a majority of one that a statute of the land which had been voted for by the leading Roman Catholic Members of the Legislature, should, as far as possible, be frustrated in its execution and rendered inoperative ; yet it is evident from the fact that thirteen Episcopal members of the Council are reported to have entered a protest, that no spiritual question could have been involved in the resolution. Yet under the system of provincial synods this decision of the majority becomes binding on the minority, and thirteen Roman Catholic Bishops in Ireland are constrained, against their conscience, • to oppose and thwart the execution of the law. If the desire to possess this
• The Letters Apostolic of Pope Pins TX. Considered with 'Reference to the Law
• at England and the Law of Europe. By Travers Twin. D.C.L., of Doctors' Com- mons; Fellow of University College, Oxford; and Commissary-General of the Diocese of Canterbury. Published by Longman and Co. power—to have a hierarchy—through which alone it can be given, 'is,' as Dr. Wiseman states, • essentially a Catholic purpose and a Catholic ob- ject,' then Catholic objects and Catholic purposes are not those which the law of the land can be expected to further ; and Catholio organization, in the manner in which it is provided for by the Letters Apostolic, and in the sense in which it is intended according to Dr. Wiseman's -own avowal to be carried into execution in England, becomes inconsistent with the safety of the State, for it saps the foundation of the pillars of obedience to the law of the land, upon which the safety of the State rests."
These three are the leading subjects of the volume, but many subordinate or cognate questions are discussed. Dr. Twiss ex- poses very neatly and successfully the misstatements touching the Bishops of Gibraltar and Jerusalem; he answers logically the ar- guments drawn from the appointment of Colonial Bishops; and he labours to show the difference in fact between England and Ire- land,—but finds, with some others, that Ireland is his chief diffi- culty, though he makes out a strong case. He also expounds the relations which a religion must bear to the state ; pronouncing them to be toleration, protecfien, establishment. Under toleration, the state winks at the doings of dissenters ; in protection, it recognizes their ministers ; with establishment, it enforces the rules of the church : but in all cases the persons professing the religion must obey the laws of the land. The object of the Pope, or of Cardinal Wiseman if he is the originator, is to change the state of Romanism in Eng- land from a state of toleration to that of protection; and it has been attempted in defiance of our municipal law, the national law of Europe, and the spirit of the English constitution whether be- fore or since the Reformation.
The originators of "the Papal aggression" have been "hoist with their own petard." Lord Camoys hit the nail on the head when he said that Romanism was likely to suffer from these ill-advised proceedings. Since the passing of the Emancipation Act, the old British " No-Popery " feeling had nearly died away ; men thought that the Romish priesthood had been in- fluenced, like others, by the "spirit of the age" and the "march of intellect"; the majority were disposed to hold out the hand-of good fellowship almost to Jesuits, and were even indifferent to the alleged progress of Romanism—" shot for shot, and hit the luckiest." But Dr. Wiseman has changed all that. Opinion with many—with the majority, it may perhaps be said—has gotg- back to the Revolution of 1688, with some to the days of the Popish Plot; and it will not be in the power of Popes or Cardinals to convert John Bull for some time to conic. Neither is the agita- tion itself over. Unless the Ministers are prepared with a plan that shall be both sufficient for the case and satisfactory to the people, they will have raised a power not easy to lay, and very trouble- some,—as their memory might have told them. If this sufficiency and satisfaction be not attained, there is the further danger that the arrogant and presumptuous spirit of Ultramontane Popery may still further provoke the public mind,—as Dr. Twiss well per- ceives.
"It is not within the province of this work to suggest the course which ought to be adopted on the present occasion ; the responsibility of that, de- cision may be allowed to rest with the Executive Government or the Legis- lature. But thus much may be affirmed, that they cannot both stay their hands. Either the Executive must enforce the law as it stands, or the Le- gislature.must alter the proeisions of the-statute-book. The determination of this question will depend in a great degree on the feelings of the English people. These feelings have been outraged by the Pope in their most sen- sitive quarter, and it is natural that the outrage should be resented. At present, indeed, the voice of the upper classes has been mainly heard ; but if once the fears of the great middle class should become alive to the idea that there was any positive danger of the fond dream of the Papacy being realized—if a religious panic should seize. the English nation at large, as-on, more than one occasion has happened in former times, if it should be thought. for a moment likely to come to pass in England that the director would suc- ceed in wresting from the father the education of his child, and the confes- sor in intercepting from the husband the confidence of his wife, and that the family, which at present exists in its integrity almost exclueively in England, and which is the sheet-anchor of the state, would be broken up and disappear in the manner in which it has perished as an institution-in most Roman Catholic states—a great revulsion would in all probability ensue in the tolerant spirit of the English people. No greater misfortune could befall the Roman Catholics in England, than that the enterprise of Cardinal Wiseman should be attended with some notable success at the outset. The institutions of Rome are totally opposed to the manners of the people of Eng- land; and when individuals attribute the success of the Reformation in Fat- land to causes of state policy, they forget that in religion as in politics the same maxim holds good—vivon-rar pis al cm-dusts ob ire pi tAtxpCer, ciXX' ix paxpium, crrao-Legovas a impi iLlycatov. A spark of lire will serve to kindle a conflagration that shall burn a city down to its foundations, but if the materials upon which it falls are not inflammable the spark will fall harmless."
An appendix contains a variety of documents illustrative of the subjects or positions of the text,—the original Latin with an F.ng- lish translation of the Apostolic Letter, the correspondence relative to the Bishop of New South Wales, &c. &c.
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