the Roman Catholic Treaty, the 15th of Sept. 1643, and on the 18th the English Parliament agreed to the solemn league. It is clear, therefore, that the coalition with the Roman Catholics cost Charles the First his life; and it would be. but common caution in Ministers not to advise his Majesty to follow a line of policy which has already cost one King so much." We have not a particle of doubt, that if the claims of the Papists be conceded, Ireland will soon find the Catholic Board, and the Secret Consistory at Maynooth, to be governed by the same sentiments which formerly swayed the minds of the Council of Kilkenny ;*-and the Papists of England will presently participate in all their feelings, and in all their views. We think, therefore, with the autho: of the tract before us, that it is High time for the Protestants of this free and happy country to come forward in their own cause.-It is high time for them to repel the injurious insinuation, that satisfaction may be produced in their breasts by opening wide the door for the admission of Papists to all offices and situations of power, trust, and authority, to the exercise of all functions, civil, political, and legislative, in this Protestant state. It has been said above, that the question now before us is the same as that which occurred at the period of the revolution. But there is this difference between the two On the former occasion, the door was not shut upon Popery until the revolution was completed; and the question till then was, whether or not it should be shut? This question was brought forward by the Exclusion-Bill, in the reign of Charles II. and in the debates upon that bill it was thus emphatically stated by Colonel Titus in the House of Commons:: cases. I hear a lion in the lobby roar : Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door To try if we can turn him out again? The Exclusion-Bill, after passing in the House of Commons, was thrown out by the Lords, and thus the door was left open. But further experience proved that there could be no safety for the Protestant establishment in such a state of things. It was therefore, at length, found neces * We expect, from a Correspondent of high copsideration in Dublin, some observations on" feast of religious liberty lately given by the Papists of Kilkenny, to some noblemen and gentlemen attached to the party called "the Talents," We hope for some curious historical details of former transactions at Kilkenny. ary, indispensably necessary, to shut the door. This operation was performed by the revolution, when every possible precaution was taken to prevent its being ever again opened. But though the period which has since intervened has been endeared to us by the happy consequences resulting from that Exclusion, the question of the present day, strange to tell, is, whether we shall again open the door, in order to let in the lionwho is roaring for admission more vociferously than ever. The Papists are thundering at our door ;-they are pressing against it with all the force they can derive from their numerical majority in Ireland. And shall not the Protestant people of England and Scotland lend their aid to resist the pressure [and vigorously co-operate with Protestants in Ireland]? That they have not hitherto come forward for this purpose, must be attributed to their confidence in a British Legislature-to their conviction that a British Parliament will never annul the laws which experience has proved to be essential to the security of the Protestant establishment. But upon this vital question Parliament, alas! is divided. It contains within itself a strong party, which is favorable to Popish claims; and the Protestant advocates stand in urgent need of public support, to enable them to maintain their ground. Nay, jadging from the state in which the question was left by the last Parliament, there is reason to fear that an adjustment will at length be made which shall have the effect of conceding all that remains to be granted to Popish ambition; and this even on the supposition, that such an adjustment may prove satisfactory to all classes of His Majesty's subjects, and consequently to the Protestants themselves. But it should not be forgotten that, if once the mischief be done, it will be irreparable. Concession is like the letting out of water, which cannot be gathered up again. It is, indeed, a final adjustment which is proposed to be made. Not one of trial and experiment-not one of a provisional nature, which may be revocable if it fail of success :-but one which is to seal our des tiny as a Protestant State. We subjoin the conclusion of this spirited composition, in which we do most sincerely concur; and we hope that it will have a very powerful effect in awakening the British people to an active struggle in defence of all that is dear to them. We call them not tumultuously to beseige the Parliament in person; but we most earnestly entreat them to speak, as becomes Protestants, to the Lords and Commons, in the way prescribed by the Constitution, viz. by PETITIONS. If then the people of this country still value the noble birthright of con situtional freedom, derived from their ancestors, and which it is the bounden duty to transmit unimpaired to their descendants ;-if they still cherish the liberties, civil and religious, established by their forefathers on the basis of law, and which, by infusing a high national spirit, have raised them to a distinguished pre-eminence among the nations of Europe; -if they still prize that security from arbitrary power and religious pesecution, which they have enjoyed ever since the period of the revolution, and for which they are indebted to the support then given to the Protestant reformed religion ;-let them raise their voice, ere it be too late, in defence of these high, these invaluable privileges; let them pour forth petitions, from all parts of the kingdom, imploring Parliament to maintain the fences and safeguards, reared by the wisdom and firmness of former times around the Constitution,-and to adhere to the principles of the glorious revolution ;-let them declare, that while they rejoice to see their fellow-subjects of the Romish Church relieved from all pains and penalties on account of their religion, and in the full enjoyment of the blessings of Toleration, they cannot, without alarm, witness the persevering efforts of that description of persons to obtain possession of political power and legislative authority: efforts, the success of which cannot fail to destroy that Protestant ascendancy, to which, under Providence, the British people are indebted for the establishment of their liberties on a firm and solid foundation; let them, in short, protest, in the most solemn manner, against the repeal of those laws, by which it is made a fundamental principle of the British Constitution, that the Legislative and Executive authorities of this Protestant country, can be administered only by Protestants; laws which-in their estimation-ought to be no less sacred and inviolable than the HABEAS CORPUS ACT and even MAGNA CHARTA itself. Observations on Part of Mr. Canning's Speech. [Continued from page 148.] WARD'S controversy of Ordination, published after his death, in the year 1719, was reprinted by Coyne, in the month of December 1807. In this, he endeavours to prove, that our bishops have no right to consecrate or ordain, being without mission or succession and constituted only by patent or act of Parliament; and consequently, that the English congregation of worshippers, is not a church, as wanting bishops and priests; that the people, as often as they communicate with them, are guilty of sacrilege, and of an insult to the Deity. This virulent Fibel on the Established Church, has been ably answered by the Rev. Dr. Elrington, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin. Such are the sentiments of Thomas Ward, whose works the Roman Catholics of Ireland are eagerly publishing, patronizing, and disseminating, with indefatigable industry. Is this the proof given to the Protestants of Ireland, that the Roman Catholics wish to bury religious animosity in oblivion? Is this the peace-offering by which concession is to be purchased? Is it by raking up from the dust, in which they had lain for one hundred years, the most malignant productions against the Reformation, that the people of Great Britain, and the Imperial Parliament, are to be taught, that time has softened that spirit of bigotry which was formerly an object of such terror? Is it by republishing, at such a time as the present, a scurrilous invective against the Protestant religion, that the peace of Ireland can be preserved ? In the year 1807, the Rev. Doctor Milner, Vicar Apostolic of the Romish Church, made a tour in Ireland, of which he published an account in London, in the year 1808, entitled " An Inquiry into certain Vulgar Opinions, concerning the Catholic Inhabitants and the Antiquities of Ireland." Strictures were written on this work by the Rev. Doctor Ryan, with considerable ability; and he observes, that its author speaks of penal laws, which have been long repealed-of English perfidy in violating the articles of Limerick-of the Irish wearing their shackles to the end of time. In short, his report is calculated to exasperate the Romish clergy against the British nation and the Irish Protestants-to inflame the lower class of the people against both, and to prevent them from enlisting in the army or navy-to create a mutiny in both, and to render the King odious to the Roman Catholics of the empire. In page 33, he says of Queen Elizabeth, "that vain and sacrilegious female required, upon pain of death, to be acknowledged supreme governess of the church of Christ, throughout all her dominions ;" and in his Ecclesiastical Democracy, he bestows the following encomiums on the traitors who suffered for having formed treasonable conspiracies against her life and her government: "those holy men, no less than constant martyrs, whom Catholics, in every part of the Church, have looked upon with such high veneration," p. 178. He calls them saint-like personages, in page 184. In page 192, he speaks of " the zeal and piety of these truly apostolical men." It is consonant to the principles of his religion to praise them as saints and martyrs; for it is decreed by the Fourth Lateran Council, can. 33, * See pages 71, 72, 211, 223, 227, 235. VOL. I. [Prot. Adv. Jan. 1813.] that those who set about the extirpation of heretics, shall obtain a full remission of their sins, and enjoy eternal salvation.* The third Lateran Council, cap. 27, grants very extraordinary indulgences to persons who shall do so. The fourth Lateran Council, and the Council of Constance require and command all archbishops and bishops to enforce the extirpation of heretics, under pain of deprivation. Pope Sixtus V., in the year 1585, issued a bull of excommunication against Henry III, of France, in which he granted nine years' indulgence to such of his subjects as should rise in arms against him, and absolved them from their oath of allegiance to him; and for no other reason, than that he spared the blood of his Protestant subjects ;-for those who protect heretics are equally criminal with them, both by the general councils and canon law. On this, his subjects rebelled against him, and he was murdered by Clement, a friar. On the death of Henry, the Pope held a public consistory at Rome, where, in a long premeditated speech, he applauded the virtue and firmness of the holy friar, declared that his fervent zeal towards God, surpassed that of Judith and Eleazar, that he would enjoy a crown of martyrdom, and that this assassination was brought about by Divine Providence. This accounts for Doctor Milner's praising the traitors against Elizabeth's government. Of all the books and pamphlets which the Popish clergy circulate among their Rocks, to inspire them with disaffection to the government, and fanatical hatred to their Protestant fellow-subjects, one, bearing the following title, appears to be best calculated for that purpose," The General History of the Church, from her Birth, to her final triumphant State in Heaven, chiefly deduced from the Apocalypse of St. John the Apostle, by Signior Pastorini ;" # of which four editions were printed in Dublin, in 1771, 1790, 1800, and 1806. The author tells us, in his introduction, that his design is "to give an exposition of the prophecies, contained in the Apocalypse of St. John." He says, " to St. Peter were given the keys of heaven, but to Luther is given the key of the bottomless pitt, or hell." "Our Saviour said to St. Peter, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; bat Luther boldly opened the bottomless pit, or the gates. of hell, to endeavour to prevail against the church of Christ." He says, in p. 203, from the smoke of the abyss (opened by Luther) is gene. rated a swarm of locusts that disperse themselves," and he tells us that Concil. Later, quartam, toth. xi. apud Binium, p. 149. + Apad Binium, Concil. Later, tom. xi. p. 152; Concil. Const. sess. 45, Thuanus, vol. iv. p. 767. tom. vii. p. 662. tom. vii. p. 1121. This work is the subject of particular observation in the eleventh section of Strong Reasons for rejecting the Catholic Claims." 1 vol. 8vo. J. J. Stockdale. |