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dared to meet; and I repeat, that instead of retracting, would to God I could reiterate ten thousand fold all the assertions that I have made on this platform, and in the British empire. But I know that the crisis is at hand, when these facts must come out, when the case must be met in other quarters than here; these facts must be investigated by those who have the power-if they have yet the power-of meeting them. If not-if the system of criminal neglect, for so many years that are past, in the Church, on the part of bishops and clergy, of faithful, bold, aggressive, resolute testimony against the iniquities of the Church of Rome, her idolatries, her superstitions, her crimes; if this be still continued, and if the criminal supineness of the Church be imitated by those who have the guardianship of the liberties and laws of the country; if all who bear the name of Protestant do not awake to see that a system of Papal iniquity is overwhelming the empire, and to bring energy and active fidelity to God and to their sovereign to defend the nation against it, then I verily believe, that the tremendous history, both of the criminal neglect of duty on the part of the Church, and the criminal neglect of duty on the part of British statesmen, will be recorded in the best blood that flows in the veins of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.*

* Dr. M'Ghee has supplied the documents here which he promised to complete when the pressure of time obliged him to curtail them on the platform.

ROMAN CATHOLICS IN PARLIAMENT.

On Friday night, May 26th, Mr. Lane Fox gave notice in the House of Commons, that on an carly day after Whitsuntide he would move a resolution to the effect, that it was inconsistent with the principles of the Reformation to permit persons professing the Roman-catholic religion to sit and legislate in the British Parliament. The Protestant Association has prepared drafts of a petition on the subject, which any one can obtain upon applying to the office, 11, Exeter Hall, London. It is much to be desired that the voice of the country should be heard in the House of Commons, petitioning for the removal of idolaters of the Romish persuasion from the British legislature.

** In consequence of the great importance of the statements and documentary evidence furnished by the Rev. R J. M'Ghee, we were compelled to give the whole at full length, which has caused the postponement of the interesting speech of the Rev. H. Stowell, and other valuable matter, till next month.

N.B.-Every subscriber of 10s. annually to the Protestant Association is entitled to a copy of the Magazine; to be had on application at the office.

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If we do not now become well acquainted with the Papacy in all its bearings, it certainly is not for lack of a full exhibition, such as has rarely been witnessed in one country at one and the same time.. England and Ireland being still united, we speak of them as one.

It is only when we view Popery in its scriptural character, as being essentially the Antichrist, that we possess a clue to the elucidation of its proceedings, and the reconcilement of its seeming paradoxes. Without this, a man may point to Ireland, saying, "I admit that Popery is there manifest indeed; but how can you identify with it the soft and pensive spirit,

'Devout and pure,

Sober, steadfast, and demure,'

which at Oxford you also brand as Popery ?"

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Another may say, "Look at Oxford: this, we grant you, is an approach towards the blessing of catholicity. These pious, learned, laborious men, whose blameless lives wring so many just, though half reluctant, encomiums from episcopal lips, these present you with a specimen of what the church and country would become, if the ancient faith once more prevailed; but as to Ireland! catholicism repudiates those brawling demagogues, and shrinks from the sanguinary menaces of men who usurp the priestly office. No, you cannot reconcile the two; if one be Popery, the other is not."

To this we reply, Popery has one object in view-universal VOL. V.-July, 1843.

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dominion; not merely such as Alexander or Napoleon coveted, but that peculiar dominion which belongs to Christ alone. Not content to wrest from earthly monarchs the sceptre of legitimate rule, it grasps at the mediatorial kingship of the Lord Christ, and, as a part of its hideously blaspheming assumptions, it claims the monstrous prerogative of daily making Him anew, that anew it may daily sacrifice Him; thus, in fact, degrading Him to the level of the beasts whom the Israelites, by divine command, offered up every day. It is quite obvious, that before such an outrageous invention can be forced upon any people, they must either have their understandings darkened to the uttermost, or must be coerced, by physical force, into an outward conformity to what in their hearts they may either despise or abhor. Where the numerical superiority of instructed persons is large, and scriptural light extensively diffused, it is no less plain that the latter alternative must be deferred, until, by means of the former process, the ranks have been sufficiently thinned. At Oxford, Popery, with noiseless step, and downcast eye, and reverent gesture, advances, to close, by imperceptible degrees, the shutters against the troublesome glare of sunlight; at the same time supplying numerous candles, to the smoky twinkle of which it hopes the eye will gradually become accustomed; and the hapless victims of this manœuvre, rendered dependent on priestcraft for both the nature and the measure of light to be enjoyed, will by and bye be reduced to such as emanates from the distorted phantasmagoria that forms the next advance to utter darkness; which darkness they will call light; and the true light, for ever lost to them, they will call darkness. Men so deluded are ready, by any possible means, to extend the empire of what they have learned to love; they will humble themselves, and go softly, and profess to use prayer as the sole permitted means for bringing their country back into bondage; but let the time arrive when this mask may be safely dropped, and we shall see them all opening their mass-houses, as in Ireland, for fierce political demonstrations, and taking the lead in menaces of violence and slaughter against all who may dare to withstand the progress of political rebellion. This is a necessary consequence; for, to rule at all, Popery must rule with unlimited sway. The least vestige of civil rights would furnish men with some protection, some appeal, from ecclesiastical tyranny, and the smallest remnant of spiritual liberty, permission to exercise natural reason in any matter connected with doctrinal faith or ritual practice, would serve as a key to unlock the complicated mass of irons with which the slave is loaded. So mighty is the effect to be attained, that every means suggested by the subtlety of the old serpent must be adopted, each class dealt with according to its own peculiarities, and seeming contradictions studiously contrived, the better to

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