which the English divines give of their own principles; and "no one has a right to attribute to them principles which they "utterly disavow. If they approached us as nearly in other "points as in this, I should not despair of a gradual approxima❝tion, which would end in mutual charity; for it cannot be de

nied, that the Pope has no temporal power, and ought to have "none, directly or indirectly, in any state but in his own."

EDIT.

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN DR. TROY AND DR. O'CONOR. [Continued from page 98.]

Sec. 2.-Dr. O'Conor does not inquire whether Dr. Troy's style of writing to a Catholic clergyman who is not yet convicted of any crime, and who has not hitherto been debarred of his right to celebrate the mass, by any bishop, be such as becomes the suavity and the charity of the episcopal character. That he leaves to the consideration of his countrymen. St. Paul says, " Brethren, if any man be surprised in any crime, do you, who are governed by the spirit of God, instruct him with lenity, considering that you yourselves may be tempted."

He hopes, however, that there exists in the breasts of his countrymen, as well as in the Bible, that heavenly principle of charity which enjoins brotherly admonition previously to the infliction of a penal law." Corripe eum inter te et ipsum solum ; quod si non audierit, die Ecclesia; si Ecclesiam non audierit, sit ut Ethnicus."

The only inquiry he proposes here, is whether Dr. Troy can, by any canonical law of the Catholic Church, disfranchise any Catholic clergyman, who may happen to come into his diocese, as Dr. O'Conor has done, for legitimate and laudable purposes, without assigning any cause, without that clergyman's being convicted of any crime, without any charge of immorality, heresy, or schism, canonically preferred against him?

The only law by which Dr. O'Conor might feel himself bound in this respect, is that of the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent, which expressly relates to the celebration of the mass. He acknowledges that that law enables bishops to suspend from the celebration of mass, all vagabond priests, vagi,' all unknown priests, ignoti,' and all who are notoriously scandalous.

That decree is expressed in the following words, by which the Council defines the extent of the power, determining that extent by express li mitation.

'Decretum de observandis vel evitandis in celebratione Missæ. 'Deinde, ut irreverentia vitetur, singuli in suis diœcesibus interdicant, 'ne cui vago et ignoto Sacerdoti, missas celebrare liceat; neminem præ❝terea qui publice et notorie criminosus sit, aut Sancto Altari ministrare, ' aut Sacris interesse permittant.'-Acta Concilii Trid. Patav. 1014.

Dr. O'Conor presumes to hope, that he is neither a vagus, nor an ignotus, nor a publice vel notorie criminosus, and that, therefore, he comes not within the purview of this decree, a decree which he most sincerely respects, and most cordially reveres.

Let us now suppose, that any point of etiquette, of which Dr. O'Conor is not aware, or any recent mandate repugnant to ancient discipline, should absolutely enjoin, as a sine qua non, that any regular well-known Clergyman, coming on his legitimate occasions to Dublin, should apply to Dr. Troy for permission to celebrate the Mass, and that he, neglecting such etiquette or law, had celebrated the Mass modestly in a private oratory, according to the usage established in the country, does it follow, that therefore, he incurs suspension or interdict, at the mere will of the bishop?

St. Augustin uses the following words- It has been decided in a Council of Bishops, that no clergyman shall be suspended, unless his cause is previously examined in his own presence, and he legitimately convicted of the offence.'

For this law, which he repeatedly quotes, he refers to the 74th canon of the Council of Eliberis, and he adds, that it was enacted by several councils of Africa down to his own times.

The penalty of suspension is the most degrading that a bishop can inflict. It is also most grievous and oppressive to any man who entertains such a solemn and awful opinion as Dr. O'Conor does, of the sacred mysteries, from the celebration of which he is interdicted by Dr. Troy's letter. The proceeding is morcover injurious to his character, for the ignorant mass of the people never inquire, but infer, without inquiry, that he who is suspended, deserves suspension.

The direct tendency of Dr. Troy's letter, and of the reports which have been propagated in consequence of it, is to impress an opinion that Dr. O'C. is a suspended priest, and consequently unworthy the confidence. of his country.

Dr. O'Conor may be permitted to doubt whether, even under the present calamitous condition of the Irish Church, such a proceeding be not actionable at common law.

Oh! but Dr. O'Conor is the author of Columbanus. -Yes, and he has, a hundred times repeated, that if any thing immoral, heretical, or

schismatical, shall be pointed out to him in that work, or in any work of his, in his own words, he will unequivocally retract it.

He has shewn in that work-and he fears that this historical truth is his inexpiable crime, that the arbitrary abuse of Censures was the chief cause of all the calamities of his country, from the Waterford excommunication in 1646 to the Revolution.-This is a crime which no regularity of life can expiate, no laborious endeavours to rescue from oblivion the annals of his country can appease.

Yes, he has most invincibly shewn that 500 Catholic Priests were suspended for not adhering to the Pope's Nuncio Rinuncini, from 1645 to 1688, that, in defiance of such Censures, those Priests celebrated mass without scruple, for this obvious reason, that the Censures were not Canonical, as shewn by Rooth, in his Queries; by M'Callaghan, in his Vindicia, by Lynch, in his Alithinologia; and by Walsh, in his Remonstrance, 1674.

Treading in the steps of those illustrious and venerable men, Dr. O'Conor enters this solemn Protest against Dr. Troy's suspension, as being informal and uncanonical. First, because there ought to have been a monitory, then a citation,-then a hearing,-then the cause of a suspension fairly and accurately stated in writing, motived, and qualified as heretical, schismatical or immoral. "Causa in Scriptis allegata et probata." Then there ought to have been time allowed for a defence, and then a public trial, coram facie Ecclesiæ, if Dr. O'Conor had required it.-Not one of these sacred proceedings has been observed in this Case; not one; -and therefore, with every respect for episcopal jurisdiction, with every wish for the sacred solemnity, for the judicious gravity, the judicial proceedings, and the holy spirit of the episcopal order, with the most profound veneration for the episcopal character, Dr. O'Conor declares that he will imitate the conduct of the Walshes, the Lynches, the Clanricards, the Dillons, the Bellings, the Calons, the Harolds, and of all those who protested against the Censures of Waterford, of Jamestown, and of Clochnachter, from 1646 to 1660, and 1689; nor does he feel himself bound, either in conscience, coram Deo, or in prudence or obedience, coram hominibus, to be governed by any uncanonical decree. He will perform no act of jurisdiction in the A. Diocese of Dublin; for every Bishop is competent to prevent a stranger from performing such acts in his Diocese, even without assigning a cause; but he cannot be disfranchised from his divine right of offering up his prayers modestly and discreetly, in a tolerated oratory, unless he is proved guilty of a crime.-If he could, it is obvious that he could never write a history of his country; that he could never point out, or resist, the abuses of episcopal jurisdiction; that the

liberty of the Press would be annihilated with respect to him; for that truth is disagreeable to those who violate her injunctions, and then that the utmost degree of vengeance would be inflicted on him, merely because he writes truth. Yes-the very utmost, for if he entertains an awful opinion, as he professes to entertain, of the value of the holy Sacrifice; if he thinks that he is, on days of obligation, bound to offer it for the living and the dead, then it will follow that an undue violence is offered to his conscience, in order to extort from him a sycophant compliance, which his heart disavows, or to compel him against his plighted faith, to suppress truth.

What if Dr. O'Conor had pledged himself by a solemn engagement of Sanctity, scaled by the Sacrament, to offer up the holy Sacrifice on all days of obligation, during his life, except a physical obstacle should intervene, for any friend to whom he felt bound by such an attachment as St Augustine felt for his mother, are these heavenly ties of affection, of gratitude, of religion to be dissolved by the absolute disposal of one stroke of a pen?

Dr. O'Conor has shewn, in his Historical Address from historical facts, which no ingenuity can refute, as well as from the nature of the doctrine itself, ab intrinseco, that the principal of suspension, a divinis, before conviction, or confession, or trial, or cause canonically alleged in writing, is calculated not only to gag the Irish Clergy, and to enslave the Irish Church, but to render that Church an engine of political power in the bands of very few individuals; to render her odious to every man who venerates the constitutional administration of justice; and to establish an Imperium in Imperio, which was always formidable to every Catholic as well as to every Protestant state; and that too at a time when the Irish Nation are making a glorious effort for Constitutional Independence!

This assumption of uncanonical power drove out of Ireland her best and bravest children in the days of the Triumvirate of Rinuccini, French of Ferns, and Primate Reilly; but, thanks to the Restoration, it was the evident guilt incurred by such a principle, that banished French and Reilly soon after. For the justice of God will, one day or other, overtake the guilty.

The wisest and the best Catholic Divines, even those who are recommended in Rome, such as Natalis Alexander, and Collet, however servile and timid in many other respects, unanimously declare that the Government of the Catholic Church is not Monarchial, but tempered and mixed, and subject to the control of the Canon law.

ST. PAUL AND ST. PETER.

To the Editor of the Protestant Advocate.

SIR,-At the time when you first announced the publication of the Bishop of St. David's Letter to his Clergy, (p. 51), reviewed in your last number (p. 62), I was reading * Bishop Barlow's "Brutum Fulmen, or the Bull of Pope Pius V., concerning the Damnation, Excommunication, and Deposition, of Queen Elizabeth;" and finding, in that book, many observations concerning the supremacy of St. Peter, asserted by the Romish Church, and several statements respecting St. Paul's extended ministration in planting and fostering the Churches in many countries; I thought that my time would not be thrown away in collecting the relative pretensions of each Apostle to the Primacy, noticed by Bishop Barlow, and arranging them in opposite columns, by which means I should obtain a Synopsis of both sides of the argument. I now send you the result of my labour, which I assure you was not very soon finished; for the Bishop's observations lie scattered through many pages; and it cost me some trouble to dispose my materials in order, to contrast them properly, and to throw them into the columnar form. I have not, however, servilely copied my author; but wherever a thought struck me which seemed apposite to the matter in hand, I freely committed it to paper, and I hope that what I now send you, may serve to elucidate, in a certain degree, a subject of great importance. -The errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome are numerous and lamentable; but the political evils which it has so long inflicted on Christendom chiefly arise out of the assumed supremacy of the Pope, as the successor of St. Peter. If we shew that St. Peter

* Thomas Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, 1675; succeeded by Thomas Tennison in 1691.-Bishop Barlow published his book in 1681, when the succession of a Papist to the Throne was justly dreaded; its title gives the following words in addition to those quoted above-" as also the absolution of her subjects from their Oath of Allegiance, with a peremptory injunction, upon pain of an Anathema, never to obey any of her laws or commands; with some observations and animadversions upon it; by Thomas Lord Bishop of Lincoln: whereunto is annexed the Bull of Pope Paul III., containing the Damnation, Excommunication, &c. of King Henry VIII. Come out of her, my People, that ye partake not of her plagues. Rev. xviii. 4."-The Bulls are printed at length in the original Latin; that of Paul III. is also translated into English. Thus the Church of Rome (semper eadem ) cursed both father and daughter because they resisted the Pope's Supremacy.