can

go forward in the natural and obvious line of duty, to defend their own faith, and to carry conviction to their antagonists. We assure them, speaking under the conviction of human The spiritual weakness-we can assure them of success. dominion of Rome is in this country tottering—the seven hills are shaking with an internal intellectual earthquake; and we may hope, that to us, even to us, will be given to see the glorious consummation. The persecution (so it is termed) of sermons and schools, has proved effectual; and not all the power of the Priesthood, with all the implements of moral and physical torture, which they apply, can impede the progress of the emancipated mind. But it is most important, that the clergy should be prepared for this work; and it is with that view we have wished with deep humility, but with as deep a sense of our duty, to exhort them to be ready, to prepare for the conflict, which we hope and believe will take place; and to urge them to disregard personal inconvenience, and to risk personal character, when the cause of the Church of Christ is to be brought forward.

We would in the first place warn them, that the Roman Catholic Clergy are well aware of the effect which the eloquence and piety of our clergy displayed in regular addresses, might have upon a public meeting. That they fear to encounter them in the only mode in which an argument may be really enforced, an evasion really pointed out, and a principle pursued through its various bearings; that they will seek bythe closeness of interrogatory to surprise the unwary controversialist, and thus to evade the detection which a more lengthened debate might display. Let not our friends avoid the contest. The absurdity of supposing that a lengthened speech may not be conformable to sound and clear rea soning, must be obvious to all who are in the habit of reading the sermons of Barrow, or the speeches of Burke. But this absurdity is overlooked by our antagonists, who, because Mr. Pope is eloquent, think he is not convincing; and because he is pious, protest that he is not argumentative. But let not our advocates fear the result. It was in such conversations that Hart and Reynolds, and Laud and Fisher, and Usher and Fitzsimmons engaged; and the results are before the public: and for our own parts, when each individual has time afforded him to disengage himself from the nets of sophistry in which his antagonist may seek to entangle him, we would think such a contest peculiarly favourable to truth. But the advocate of truth must be acquainted with his subject, not merely as a matter of intellectual amusement, but of polemical exercise. He must have proved those weapons which he may to use in such contest. He must be acquainted

called

upon

be

* The writer of this has recently been visited by a poor man, a Roman Catholic, who, unable to read, yet anxious on the subject of religion, ventured to some of the controversial sermons preached in this city. The arguments he heard excited doubts; and to solve these doubts, he applied to his spiritual director, who, for his disobedience in listening to Protestant sermons, ordered him as a penance, twenty Friday fasts Such is the thraldom of mind and twenty Sunday fasts, until after hearing mass. in that church. The same man was soon after dismissed by his master, a person connected with one of the confraternities. We have seen his discharge, and it is one highly creditable to him.

with the evasions, and exceptions, and objections, which the scholastic advocates for a sophistical religion employ. We were amused during the late discussion at the frequent appeals which Mr. Maguire made to a logic which he only employed to violate in every rule; and we could have perhaps wished that his gifted opponent had turned aside from his peculiar and lofty sphere, to point out the poor and petty sophisms of his opponent. But his course was too high, and his object too pure to admit of such a diversion; and he has left it to others to prove by their commentaries the power of that reasoning, which was too direct to be wasted on dialectical trifles, and the extent of that information which had made so many sources tributary to the cause of truth.

We would not willingly seem to deny the real controversial merits of Mr. Pope's opponent. He certainly displayed an intrepidity of assumption, and an ingenuity of evasion, and a skill in managing his limited resources, that belong peculiarly to his own cause, mixed with a good-humoured confidence equally in his powers and their direction, that would have done credit to a better. But these qualities are not uncommon in this country; and the polemic schoolingof Maynooth gives them their theological direction. Against such qualities our clergy must be prepared-to question every assertion--to doubt every quotation; and in the enunciation of their own opinions, to study plainness and distinctness. An intimate knowledge of the doctrines of Rome is necessarily important, and that not only in the authorised formularies, which are maintained in the letter, though denied in the spirit, but in the most eminent of the controversialists; and an appeal to the common sense of the people, when these commentators differ from, or contradict their formularies, is a most effective mode of proving the uncertainty of their infallible church. An acquaintance with those eminent divines who fought the quarrel of Protestantism in the sixteenth century, will give the logic and the information requisite and to a controversialist we would say, devote much of your time to the study of Chillingworth; Usher and Stillingfleet, and others, will give information, and quotation, and authority; but in Chillingworth you will find the condensed and powerful logic which no polemic ever wielded with superior force; and which, with apparent ease, prostrated all the unsubstantial edifices of the enemy. We are aware that Protestants have different opinions as to the use which our clergy should make of the Fathers in this controversy; and that many deem it presumption for us to leave the high ground of Scripture, and descend into the quicksands of authority. We partially agree with them, but only partially. We do think, that as the great object which we aim at, is the circulation and study of the Scriptures, so it is to their authority we should bring every opinion, and by their sanction point every argument. We do think that the Protestant is always safest in the Scriptures, his acquaintance with which is usually superior to that of his antagonist; and in the declaration and silence of which that antagonist equally finds his condemnation. We do think that the controversialist fails indeed, who leaves the Roman Catholic in possession of a single Scriptural position-a single controverted text, and who is not able to dispute that possession

by the analogy of Scripture, by common sense, by the authority of the primitive church; and it is just here that we would introduce the Fathers. We have frequently said that though these Fathers had faults and errors, that for the first 500 years their errors were not those of the Church of Rome; and we would employ their authority, both as an argumentum ad hominem, to disprove the interpretation of Rome, and to dispossess her of her claimed property, the primitive church. When her assumptions are founded on such gross perversion of Scripture, which she supports by "the unanimous consent of the Fathers," it is surely of most material consequence to prove to the people, that an unsubstantial edifice is supported on a visionary foundation; and that this "consensus" exists no where but in the Roman Catholic creeds. It is surely of consequence to exhibit the novelty of the Church of Rome in the confession of their own authorities—to vindicate the ages from which we have received our formularies and our creeds, or at least by conflicting authorities from the Fathers to neutralize the arguments they seem to supply to the Roman Catholic. The effect we would look for is thus naturally produced, and the people who have Augustine against Jerome, or Augustine against himself, will have recourse to that book in which there is no contradiction, and from which alone there is no appeal.

In conclusion, on this most interesting subject, we would express our regret, but with deference, that the course of divinity read in our University is not better calculated to fit our clergy for their present arduous duties. We acknowledge that an improvement has taken place. We confess that the course is perhaps more effective than that read generally in other universities; and that the individuals who prepare themselves for the Professor's examination, are most respectably furnished with the elements of theological knowledge; but still only with the elements and we complain, that after a line of study, neither sufficiently extended nor sufficiently deep, a young man is suddenly placed in a situation, in which, while circumstances call for a command of information rarely possessed, these very circumstances prevent the possibility of its acquisition, by demanding the devotion of every moment to active professional duty. We are convinced from experience, that the parish minister has but little leisure indeed to attend to the mere science or polemics of his profession, and that a second year devoted to such subjects, in his preparatory course, is far from being unnecessary or uncalled for.

We have been frequently surprised at the marked difference which exists between the preparation for orders in the Established Church and among dissenting bodies; and while we acknowledge that the regular university education received by the one class, and which the other does not universally enjoy, may diminish the necessity for that extent of preparation, we cannot allow that it altogether removes it. Let the course of divinity which is read by a divinity student, as essential to orders in our church, be compared with the two volumes of lectures given by Doddridge, or with that received in the Theological Seminaries in America, and we shall

have cause to wonder that our ministry is so well qualified, from a preparation so inadequate. But circumstances will no longer permit it. A course of perhaps twenty lectures, scattered over nine months, and bringing the student through part of a book confessedly very valuable, is no preparation for the present agitating scene of polemical warfare in Ireland; and while we bear our unqualified testimony to the manner in which many of the examinations for orders are conducted in Ireland, and to the attention with which many of the divinity students employ themselves in professional reading, we yet do not think that the university will perform its duty, until in addition to the present divinity lectures, which we believe are effective so far as they can be rendered so, a considerably more extended course be made imperative; until, in addition to the admirable book* which is now the subject of study, a course of Biblical criticism, and Ecclesiastical history be read and commented on, and examined in ; and until the students acquire generally a competent knowledge, from lectures, of the Fathers of at least the first three centuries. Now, this we think could easily be effected, by extending the time of attending divinity lectures, by enabling the divinity professor to have at least two assistants to perform these duties, and by rendering close and accurate attendance, essential to a divinity testimonium. In venturing on the above sentiments, we know that we have infringed on the department of our friend, who has dedicated his pen to the service of Trinity College; but we hope the importance of the subject will plead our excuse we have done it with a full conviction, that the duty which has devolved on the present lecturers in divinity is performed as well as any duty can be by the union of talent and attention. But we deem the entire system inadequate, and while we acknowledge its superiority to that pursued in other universities, we yet think the exigencies of Ireland call for a change that may meet these exigencies. And while we look at the heads of the university, and remember that one of the visitors is an individual, than whom no one is more fitted to appreciate the value of polemical information, as no one has used it more to the advancement and interests of the church, we are not without hope that such a change may be effected as may remedy the evil complained of.

We could wish that our limits would allow us to make a few observations on the important suggestions of two of our correspondents, with regard to this interesting subject; one of whom recommends a Theological Society, and the other the establishing of Circulating Controversial and General Libraries through the country. We deem both plans highly deserving of attention, and we have reason to believe that they have received the approbation of the highest authorities in the church. The former would seem calculated to give to Theology the advantage of a union of various talents, and yet the minuteness which could be attained by a division of the labour appropriated to such talent; and the latter would place in the power of any clergyman, however contracted his resources might be, all the stores of information and piety

* Burnet on the Thirty-nine Articles.

which labour and learning had collected. Our pages will, with pleasure, be open to all who would wish to enforce these or similar measures. In conclusion, we would, above all, recommend our clerical friends to take up controversy in a Christian spirit. It is a task disagreeable in itself, and alien from the more spiritual and elevating duties of the ministry; but it is rendered necessary by circumstances; it is an important feature in the ministerial character, and it may be sanctified by prayer and charity. As the only genuine motive to engage in it, is love to the souls of our fellow-creatures-that love should ever be made manifest, and the superhuman example of our blessed Lord should ever be before our eyes, who in condemning, wept over Jerusalem, and sent the blessed tidings of immortal life, peace and reconciliation with God, first to his own blinded and infatuated murderers.

RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

ADDRESS FROM A RECENT CONFORMIST TO HIS ROMAN
CATHOLIC BRETHREN.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

DEAR SIR-I send you the enclosed, which is a copy of an original paper, handed by a respectable gentleman after reading his recantation in Crossmolina Church, to the Rev.

-, as his reasons for leaving Popery-you can have it inserted in the next Number of the Examiner.

Yours,

April, 1827,

"Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."

My dear Roman Catholic Brethren-I am aware that most of the inhabitants of Moyo will hear of my relinquishing the tenets of the church in which I was born, and of which my forefathers were, alas! proud to acknowledge themselves members, Before I advert to the immediate cause that led me to this, I shall just observe, that bad I conformed to the tenets of the Established Church while my father-inlaw was living, who was a minister of the Gospel, with which I have happily become acquainted, many, no doubt, would have said that I changed my creed from interested motives, as being the most feasible means of ingratiating myself with him. Now this supposition falls to the ground, since he is no more; and surely it cannot be said that I followed this course through interest, or any lucrative expectations, but that I was brought to a conviction of my error, and lost state, by the following cir cumstance, which induced me to search the book of life :

After the death of my father-in-law, I considered myself more at liberty to consult my own inclination and feelings, and therefore, on having a daughter born to me, I called on the Rev. Anthony Padden, then coadjutor to the Rev. Mr. Lyons, P. P. of Kilmore, Ennis, to come and baptize her, though from the same respect to my wife, which had induced me to let my other children be baptized by her father,