SECTION XXX. The Idea erroneous, that the Maintenance of the Dignity of the Catholic Church and the Rites of Chriftianity is unfavourable to civil Liberty. GOOD order, fubordination, tranquillity, juftice, and mercy, are the legitimate and lovely children of true Religion. It is a moft unfortunate mistake, and a most unjuft calumny to think and affirm, that the Catholic Church of Chrift is hoftile to the common rights of human nature. Has any fyftem of polity ever existed in the world which honoured the pooreft and lowest ranks in fociety as it is honoured by the Chriftian Religion? In the Kingdom of Chrift, which is the Church, MAN IS RESPECTED AS MAN, exclufively of all regard to the external circumstances of rank, riches, honours, or ftation. All human beings in it are confidered as one fa mily, the offspring of one parent, and all cherished with maternal affection. The nurfing-mother feems to fay to the world, in the pathetic language and beautiful imagery of our Saviour, "How often would I "have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens "under her wings; and ye would not.” I fhould love the religion of Chrift even as a heathen philofopher and philanthropist, for its beneficent effects on the human race. It is the guide of youth, the fupport of age, the repose of the weary, the refuge of the miferable. It arrefts the hand of the oppreffor, by appalling his confcience; or if haply the oppreffor fhould prevail, it teaches the oppreffed to look with confidence to a deliverer, mighty to fave. Rome was free; yet flavery was permitted there, and flaves treated with fingular inhumanity. We read in hiftory, that when fick they were often turned out of doors to take their chance, or fent in mockery to an island in the Tiber, to be cured by the god Æfculapius. By the Roman laws a flave a flave could not give evidence without the torture; and if a mafter were killed in his own house, all the flaves, however numerous, were put to death, though their innocence were manifeft. But the Christian Emperors made laws in favour of this unfortunate fet of men, and their chains were at length broken afunder by the prevalence of Chriftianity. Slavery might, perhaps, be revived in Europe, if it were compatible with this philanthropic religion. There are perfons living without religious restraint, who feem, from the unfeeling infolence of their behaviour to their inferiors, fuffi ciently willing that hereditary slavery should be again established. But Chriflianity has banished it, and nothing but a return to barbarous ignorance, and a total apoftafy from Chriflianity can ever reftore it. Before the introduction of Christianity, infants were often expofed to deftruction by their libertine parents as foon as born, and the practice scarcely deemed infamous; men were compelled to fight with wild beafts, and to murder each other for the enter entertainment of a theatre; and the amufement was not condemned as cruel or tyrannical, till Conftantine, in confequence of his adoption of Christianity, restrained it by law; and Honorius afterwards abolished it. Punishments were fevere beyond defcription, and prifoners were treated with wanton rigor; but Conftantine abolished crucifixion, and ordered that prisoners fhould be tenderly used and conveniently accommodated with habitation. Hofpitals and eleemofynary institutions for the poor were fcarcely known before Christianity appeared; and now, if we look round a Christian metropolis, we fhall find fome of the largest and most fumptuous buildings entirely constructed for the relief of poverty combined with age and disease. Are not these ample teftimonies that Christianity is favourable to the mafs of the people, if confideṛed merely as members of an earthly fociety? Can it be adverfe to the rights, when it fo ftudiously confults the eafe and happiness of men, not of the rich and great only, but of the meanest mortal honoured with the human form? The The horrors of war have been in fome de gree mitigated by the spirit of Christianity, Rigorous and cruel as it ftill continues, it is a little foftened by the respect which Chriftianity has taught even the foldier in the ranks to pay to MAN AS MAN. This mitigation is not to be attributed to the polished manners which prevail in the enlightened nations of Europe; for it is impoffible not to observe that a nation which claims the diftinction of a fuperior polifh has been more cruel than ever, fince it relinquished Christianity. This polifh is often but a varnish, and where pride and property are concerned, feels little fympathetic tendernefs for the rights of humanity. But the Christian religion humbles pride and controls avarice, by fhewing the littleness of all earthly grandeur, the comparative worthleffness of all riches, and by founding the true dignity of human nature on the gifts of divine grace. The dignity of human nature is best promoted and preferved by the religion. which teaches that God vouchsafes to communicate his own Spirit to man; and in proportion as man learns to value him felf, |