"Denying the Holy Trinity is to be punished with death, and confiscation of land and goods to the Lord Proprietary, (Lord Baltimore himself!). Persons using any reproachful words concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the Holy Apostles or Evangelists, to be fined £5, or in default of payment to be publicly whipped and imprisoned, at the pleasure of his Lordship, (Lord Baltimore himself!) or of his Lieutenant-General." See Laws of Maryland, at large, by T. Bacon, A. D. 1765. 16 and 17 Cecilius's Lord Baltimore.
God deliver us from such toleration! Death was the penalty for expressing certain religious opinions, not acceptable to Lord Baltimore and the Holy Catholic Church! Fines and whipping at the post was the penalty for speaking against the image-worship of the Catholic Church. But I need not pursue this subject further: the onus propandi is on your side.
Speaking of Mr. Wesley, you say:
"If Wesley were alive, what would he think of your midnight plots, and open tirades against Papists? But a letter of his has been going the rounds of the newspapers, which the Know Nothings obviously think gives the sanction of that good man to their movement. Not so. Mr. Wesley was not the man to write as inconsistently as their version of this letter makes him write."
Why, sir, Mr. Wesley goes much further in his political opposition to Roman Catholics than the American party have ever proposed to go. The American party say only that they will not vote for Catholics, or put them in office, because their principles are antagonistic to the spirit of Republican institutions. Mr. Wesley lays down the comprehensive, but true doctrine, in this very letter, that "no government not Roman Catholic ought to tolerate men of the Roman Catholic persuasion." And to show how fully and clearly he sustains this position, I quote from his letter at length. You will find the letter in Vol. 5, page 817, of Wesley's Miscellaneous Works, dated January 12th, 1780. It was originally addressed to the Dublin Freeman's Journal. Here is what Mr. Wesley says, in the very letter you seek to deny out of:
"I consider not whether the Romish religion is true or false: build nothing on one or the other supposition. Therefore, away with all your common-place declamation about intolerance and persecution for religion! Suppose every word of Pope Pius's creed to be true! Suppose the Council of Trent to have been infallible; yet I insist upon it that no government not Roman Catholic ought to tolerate men of the Roman Catholic persuasion.
"I prove this by a plain argument – let him answer it that can – that no Roman Catholic does or can give security for his allegiance or peaceable behavior. I prove it thus: It is a Roman Catholic maxim, established not by private men, but by public council, that 'No faith is to be kept with heretics.' This has been openly avowed by the Council of Constance; but it has never been openly disclaimed. Whether private persons avow or disavow it, it is a fixed maxim of the Church of Rome. But as long as it is so, nothing can be more plain than that the members of that Church can give no reasonable security to any government for their allegiance and peaceable behavior. Therefore, they ought not to be tolerated by any government, Protestant, Mohammedan, or Pagan. You say, 'Nay, but they take an oath of allegiance.' True, five hundred oaths; but the maxim, 'No faith is to be kept with heretics,' sweeps them all away as a spider's web. So that still no governors that are not Roman Catholics can have any security of their allegiance.
"Again, those who acknowledge the spiritual power of the Pope can give no security of their allegiance to any government; but all Roman Catholics acknowledge this: therefore they can give no security for their allegiance. The power of granting pardons for all sins – past, present, and to come – is, and has been for many centuries, one branch of his spiritual power. But those who acknowledge him to have this spiritual power can give no security for their allegiance, since they believe the Pope can pardon rebellion, high treason, and all other sins whatever. The power of dispensing with any promise, oath, or vow, is another branch of the spiritual power of the Pope: all who acknowledge his spiritual power must acknowledge this. But whoever acknowledges the dispensing power of the Pope, can give no security for his allegiance to any government. Oaths and promises are none: they are as light as air – a dispensation makes them null and void. Nay, not only the Pope, but even a priest has power to pardon sins! This is an essential doctrine of the Church of Rome. But they that acknowledge this, cannot possibly give any security for their allegiance to any government. Oaths are no security at all; for the priest can pardon both perjury and high treason. Setting their religion aside, it is plain that, upon principles of reason, no government ought to tolerate men who cannot give any security to that government for their allegiance and peaceful behavior. But this, no Romanist can do; not only while he holds that 'no faith is to be kept with heretics,' but so long as he acknowledges either priestly absolution, or the spiritual power of the Pope.
"If any one pleases to answer this, and set his name, I shall probably reply. But the productions of anonymous writers I do not promise to take any notice of.
But, sir, you know as well as any living man that the history of the Church, from the days of the first Pope down to the iniquitous reign of Pius IX., sustains Mr. Wesley in his views on this subject, and justifies the steps taken by the American party. Notwithstanding the oft-repeated profession of Catholic liberality and Romish toleration, so triumphantly paraded by you, and other interested aspirants and unprincipled demagogues, the Catholic Church has invariably shown herself to be destitute of both, whenever she had the opportunity of using them. Sir, intolerance is an element of her faith, and persecution a specimen of her piety; and no man knows it better than you do. In taking upon herself the obligation of "true obedience to the Pope," the Catholic Church imposes upon herself a task that proves beyond all doubt she cannot, under any circumstances, remain faithful to that obligation, and yet maintain "allegiance" to such a government as ours!
Sir, I have no patience with a Protestant minister who stands forth as the apologist of Catholicism; nor have I any confidence in one who does it, provided he is a man of intelligence, as I admit you to be. The only excuse I can render for your strange and inconsistent conduct is, that you are in your dotage; that you are a violent old partisan; and that you are the tool of designing demagogues, infamous disunionists, and unmitigated repudiators. I shall not be at all surprised to hear that you have apostatized from the Methodist Church, and gone over to the Roman Catholics. I learn from the Little Rock Gazette, a Democratic paper, that but the other day, Gov. E. N. Carway, of Arkansas, a member of the Methodist Church, had actually apostatized from Methodism, and the Protestant faith, and united with the Roman Catholics. And what makes his defection from the faith of his fathers still more notorious, his organ is down upon the Protestant clergy in bitter and unrelenting denunciations! I believe that you are preparing to go over to the Roman Catholics; and to justify your change, when the time comes, you now assert, "in humiliation but in candor," you say, that the people "have ten thousand times more to fear from Methodists than from Catholics." If you believe this, you ought to leave the Methodist Church instantly, even without the formalities of a withdrawal or expulsion – even though you should be denied admittance into the Catholic Church! I deny that we have "ten thousand times more to fear" from the Devil than we have from the Catholics; and according to your argument, the Methodists are worse than the Devil! This, their most bitter revilers and enemies do not believe; and for obvious reasons. The Methodist Church has no St. Bartholomew's Day, with its rivers of blood staining her garments: she never indiscriminately slaughtered the Albigenses, or Waldenses, or Huguenots: she never established an infernal Inquisition: she never lit up the fires of Smithfield: never burned the Holy Bible, and prohibited, upon pain of eternal death, the printing and circulating of God's word; and last, but not least, she has not sought to keep the people in ignorance. Wherever Methodism has been planted, the people have become great and happy. If you please, wherever Protestantism has prevailed, the people have been prosperous and happy. But look to Old Spain, Italy, the German Confederacies, Sardinia, Naples, Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Bavaria, Baden, South America, and