and political ideas was the
inevitable consequence of the usurpation by the Protestant State of the
functions of the Church, and of the supremacy which, in the modern
system of government, it has assumed over her. It follows also that the
false principles by which religious truth was assailed have been
transferred to the political order, and that here, too, Catholics must
be prepared to meet them; whilst the objections made to the Church on
doctrinal grounds have lost much of their attractiveness and effect, the
enmity she provokes on political grounds is more intense. It is the same
old enemy with a new face. No reproach is more common, no argument
better suited to the temper of these times, than those which are
founded on the supposed inferiority or incapacity of the Church in
political matters. As her dogma, for instance, is assailed from opposite
sides,--as she has had to defend the divine nature of Christ against the
Ebionites, and His humanity against Docetism, and was attacked both on
the plea of excessive rigorism and excessive laxity (Clement Alex.,
_Stromata_, iii. 5),--so in politics she is arraigned on behalf of the
political system of every phase of heresy. She was accused of favouring
revolutionary principles in the time of Elizabeth and James I., and of
absolutist tendencies under James II. and his successors. Since
Protestant England has been divided into two great political parties,
each of these reproaches has found a permanent voice in one of them.
Whilst Tory writers affirm that the Catholic religion is the enemy of
all conservatism and stability, the Liberals consider it radically
opposed to all true freedom.

"What are we to think," says the _Edinburgh Review_ (vol. ciii. p.
586), "of the penetration or the sincerity of a man who professes to
study and admire the liberties of England and the character of her
people, but who does not see that English freedom has been nurtured
from the earliest times by resistance to Papal authority, and
established by the blessing of a reformed religion? That is, under
Heaven, the basis of all the rights we possess; and the weight we
might otherwise be disposed to concede to M. de Montalembert's
opinions on England is materially lessened by the discovery that,
after all, he would, if he had the power, place this free country
under that spiritual bondage which broods over the empires of Austria
or of Spain."

On the other hand,