Doctor Troy declined, saying that he objected to the whole.-These are facts; if they can be contradicted, they, of course, will, and the heretical or schismatical passages will be shewn.

Observations on Dr. Troy's Letter.-Sec. 1.

The Rev. Doctor O'Conor is compelled, in self-defence, to throw himself upon the candour of his Countrymen. Far from obtruding with a spirit of pride, apostacy, or rebellion, he professes that respect for episcopal jurisdiction which distinguished the best of his ancestors in the most Catholic times, and he submits to their judgment the following observations, not from any spirit of pride or resentment, but because, in the question now before the public, the public is deeply concerned, the Catholic Priesthood is universally involved.

This is not a question pending between the most Rev. Doctor Troy, and the Rev. Doctor O'Conor, but between the most Rev. Doctor Troy and all Catholic Ireland; between the most Rev. Doctor Troy, and the whole Catholic Church. If Doctor Troy is Catholic in suspending from the celebration of the Mass a Clergyman who, he expressly declares, is guilty of no immorality, and against whom he does not allege beresy or schism, then the Catholic Church would sanction injustice, which no other Church does; then the assertion of a noble Lord, that of all Christian Churches the Catholic is the worst, would be justified by its principles and by its practice; in arming Bishops with spiritual jurisdiction, she would put into their hands a power of exerting worldly passions, and of making their ministry subservient to ambition and revenge.

. The power of suspension would thus be exerted, not for the purpose of correcting delinquency, but of putting down honesty and truth! the Catholic Religion would then no longer be a Religion of Apostolical candour and Christian fortitude, but a system of mean servility and fear, which would compel the honest to be silent or false, and enable the sycophant villain to triumph, with a sneer of malignity, over the indignant energies of virtue. The Inquisition, says the pious Fleury, destroyed Catholic morality in every country where it was established. Those who saw truth did not dare to utter it; those who doubted, did not dare to inquire or inform themselves better, lest they should be suspected; and the ingenuous candour of Christianity was eradicated from the mind.

To interpose, as far as his single voice can go, between the Church of Ireland and a degradation so pregnant with consequences so fatal, Dr. O'C. ventures, with all humility, to appeal to Dr. Troy himself; to expostulate, to reason, to entreat; and he solemnly declares that, in so reasoning and expostulating, he feels not one particle of spleen or malice to any man on the face of the globe.

(To be continued

To the Editor of the Protestant Advocate.

SIR; As an Old Protestant of the Church of England, I thank you for the interest you take in defence of its safety, and am not without some desire of the satisfaction which an endeavour to bear a part in so good a cause must yield, whether the observations I am about to offer be of sufficient moment to obtain a place in your Publication or not; for I shall1 still, if they be not so, congratulate myself that it has more powerful aid, than I have now been able to give it.

It is my wish, at present, to clear up a difficulty which may have. presented itself to many of your readers, concerning a maxim of the Church of Rome, which she has long held forth to view, and which has lately been insisted upon authoritatively, as a characteristic of that Church; I mean the maxim of semper eadem, that it is always the same. This assertion is the more remarkable because of the contrast which it appears to form with a certain enlargement of benevolence and liberality attributed to the Roman Catholics by their friends of late, and still more so with any rational idea of identity as to the Doctrines of that Church, if their identity be supposed much older than the Council of Trent, and the Doctrines strictly speaking those of Religion only. Now as that Church has never, since it has been an established church, been benevolent or liberal to any other not subject to her, and her religious doctrines have varied more from the original doctrines of Christianity than that of any other church called Christian; the application of the maxim must be either given up, or the Romish Church must be counted dubious as to its liberality; and as to its religious doctrines it is absolutely false. This difficulty suggests the idea, when the maxim is applied to the Religion of the Church of Rome, that the word Religion is, in this expression, one of those speciosa vocabula rerum, which, presenting an idea less liable to opposition, conveys, in fact, to those who are entrusted with the mystery, a very different notion! and that for religion, in its obvious, its ordinary, meaning, the word policy should be substituted;-unless the Religion and Policy of that Church be one and the same thing, which, indeed, they verily seem to be. In this sense, the truth of the maxim is almost self-evident. For what, Sir, has been the political system of that church from the very rise of its power to the present day? Despotic ambition; a desire to subdue all nations, people, and languages to itself; artful as to the means, and regardless of principle, except where the ostentation of it might afford a covering to the artifice; in its resentments, implacable; in its exercise of dominion, tyrannical; and inflexible in its purpose to rule its friends and exterminate its opponents. In every one of these particulars the maxing

is applicable, and the entire history of that church will confirm its truth, from age to age, ever since she has possessed temporal power. With what attention her policy has been pursued, may be learned from her own writers. In what school was Machiavel able to learn his system of unprincipled policy? Was it not in Italy itself, and, in a great measure, from the practice of the Court of Rome? Or was such policy ever carried to a greater extent of refinement than by its once favorite sons the Jesuits; favorites till they had so far improved upon their instructions as to be formidable to all Europe, and almost to overawe the Vatican itself? Let the nature of this policy, let the manner in which it acts, be considered. Has the Church of Rome failed, where she could advance her own interest, to promote disturbances, to foment divisions, or even to suggest and befriend usurpations, or, where otherwise it could not prevail, to intimidate opponents by the powerful machinery of superstition? Has it even left a Prince of its own communion in peace, whom it could reach, and could not govern? or observed the obligations of compact farther than convenience inclined, or necessity compelled it? What has been its uniform conduct towards Protestants but that of Persecution in its most virulent form, wherever it could persecute; and where it could not, whatever hostile policy would permit? History will answer these questions truly; and, upon its evidence, it may safely be allowed and believed that, in its Policy, the Church of Rome is semper eadem; and that, when this maxim is asserted, it is always to the policy of that Church, and to this alone, that it is to be, or can truly be referred. The case then, being so, it may, with no small propriety in these times, be asked, are the Protestants aware of this momentous truth? or do they require a repetition of the scenes of past times, painfully to convince them of it? Even whilst the ashes of the martyrs at Scullabogue* are scarcely cold, they listen with, it is to be hoped, astonishment, rather than complacence, to the praises of the loyalty and benevolence of the Catholics; but they should listen to them with horror, and such jealousy, as the novelty and inconsistency of such ill-founded merits warrant. The Protestants have granted the

In 1798, "On the very day when the Popish rebel army attacked the King's troops at New Ross, they enclosed 186 Protestants, all old men, women, and children, in a thatched barn at Scullabogue, set fire to it at noon-day, and burned them all alive; at the same time, they made upwards of sixty young able Protestant men, kneel in the front of the barn, and shot them dead during the conflagration: these were all peaceable farmers and their families residing in the neighbourhood of Scullabogue." Here is an ' example of the Benevolence and Liberality of Papists !-See Dr. Duigenan's Nature and Extent of the Demands of the Roman Catholics fully explained, p. 132.-EPIT.

franchise of voting to the Catholics; and what is the consequence? What could the Catholic members have done more for them? It may be questioned, whether a Roman Catholic parliament would have been so friendly to the liberty of the subject as to have done so much. The Protestants have admitted Catholic privates into the army. Let us thensuppose that the voters elect Roman Catholic members of parliament; and that the Roman Catholic soldiers when already disciplined have Roman Catholic officers. Very well, and what then?-Oh nothing, Sir! Nothing! but that,

I am, Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

Oct. 10, 1812.

AN OLD PROTESTANT.

To the Editor of the Protestant Advocate.

66 PRO ARIS ET FOCIS."

Sir,-At a time like the present when we behold a violent, obstinate and numerous party, which, under the cloak of freedom and philanthropy, seek to trample down and subvert those necessary barriers which the wisdom of our ancestors have placed before our venerable, sacred, and liberal constitution:-at a time when we behold Protestant senators officiously countenancing, and sedulously influencing the feelings of our Roman Catholic brethren to a discontentedness in their situations, and prompting them to seek wider and more extensive privileges, not in the language and character of modest petitioners, but, with the boisterous and unbecoming vociferation of dissatisfied and discontented partizans ;-at a time, when we behold Protestant Clergymen, nay (horresco referens), Protestant Bishops, not only not opposing but approving and mingling with, the followers of a Church which has ever been considered most illiberal and persecuting, particularly towards the Protestant Establishment, and "counting that as the proudest day of their lives," when receiving the adulatory and disgusting flippancy of the Romanists:-and, lastly, when we hehold men, who had ever strenuously and conscientiously opposed this hydra of many heads, this stalking-horse of disaffection, this watch-word of opposition, on the loss of their respected and ever-tobe-lamented leader, (more especially to be lamented on this account) unexpectedly and tamely giving up that good cause; the bulwark of our Establishment, which they had before nobly defended-when, I say, with heavy hearts, we behold all this, it is high time to cry aloud and spare not "-to lift up the voice of warning against the overwhelming tide of popular clamour-to buckle on the armour of truth in defence of our

ancient rights, and to relax our efforts only, when Protestantism shall be rendered secure.

With opinions like these, you may naturally enough suppose that I saw with great satisfaction your noble determination of upholding with all your efforts, the righteous cause for which we contend; the Prospectus of the PROTESTANT ADVOCATE, I noticed early, and the First Number, I have perused with more than common interest and satisfaction; and I fervently hope that encouragement and success will crown your arduous and praiseworthy labours. I was gratified also in finding you had dedicated a part to original correspondance, as it might serve to shew the unthinking scribblers for the Papistical cause, there are still those who will dispute the pass with them, and oppose the voice of truth to the yell of discord and discontent. I hope that your intelligent Correspondent, A Protestant Dissenter, has been misinformed as to the promised concessions to the Romanists; it cannot, it must not be; our counsellors would not so tamely submit to be cajoled, they would not suffer clamour so far to prevail over their judgments and principles as to enter into so dangerous and so disgraceful a compromise. No, rather let us hope that the conduct of the Papists, which since our concessions to them has been more insolent and more self-sufficient than before, will open the eyes of our statesmen and rulers, that they may see clearly what conduct they have to expect from the bigotted people whom they labour to please. Thus aliquis malo sit usus ab illo-and England will be saved.

If this paper shall be deemed of any use to your work, I shall feel proud in seeing it inserted. At any rate, believe that the PROTESTANT ADVOCATE has a warm friend in one who hopes ever to style himself Φιλος Πατρίδος.

October 10, 1812.

P.S. Do you intend* noticing publications on the side of the Petitioners? A pen handled in the manner you appear capable of, might put to flight a host of those scribbling gentry, who are ever ready to enlist as volunteers under the banner of popular clamour.

This question is answered by the first part of our review of Mr. Canning's Speech * and also by the way in which our fellow-labourer John Eachard treats the Romish Resolutions at Mullingar,- We shall always be happy to hear from Pidos Margidos.