who were returned on protective principles voting in direct opposition to the views of those by whose interests he was returned to Parliament? Have not Protestants, of whatever party or sect, seen their wishes despised; their principles derided; their remonstrances disregarded; their petitions trampled under foot-alike by the Liberal as the Conservative? The way in which some persons privately oppose Popery and yet publicly support it, believe it idolatrous, yet lend their official sanction to extend its sway, defending such inconsistency under the principle-destroying chimera of supporting party-professing to have one conscience for private, another conscience for public matters, would be ludicrous, if it was not for the gravely important results of such a process, alike as regards the individual, his country, and religion. It reminds one forcibly of the anecdote mentioned of some illustrious personage, by birth a prince of the blood, and a dignitary of the Church, who had an evil habit of swearing most profanely. When called to account by some monitor, more faithful probably than those who usually surround the throne of princes, and told frankly that it ill became a Bishop, he gaily replied, "Oh, I do not swear as the bishop, I swear as a prince. "Truly," replied the other, "but if the soul of the prince goes to perdition, what will become of the bishop!" Now so it is with those, who to curry favour with an earthly master, affront an heavenly one; so it is with those, who sacrifice at the altar of human expediency, the holy cause of truth, abandon for their party, what their conscience tells them is right, and do for their party what their conscience informs them is wrong. Oh, that each Christian elector, each sound-hearted Protestant, and many such there are, throughout the length and breadth of the land, would view the question in this light, and act consistently, with such view; that each Hon. Member would adopt a similar course! Having been once betrayed, would it not be, in a great measure, the electors' own fault if they are betrayed again? Having once suffered from the treachery of those in whom they confided, shall they be blamed if they endeavour to guard and protect themselves, in some degree, by taking constitutional securities against future treason? Many feel the necessity of this. But some doubt the policy, others the possibility. Who shall begin? We say, let each one begin. Let each one do what he can. Let each one ask his neighbour to join him. Let each one, or a Committee, address their representatives. Let this be done without delay, in each county, or division of county, and borough town. Whoever begins will soon find he is not alone, others will rapidly join him. He will soon be surrounded by many others, equally desirous with himself, to secure the return of sound Protestant men as their representatives. We can point to Manchester, to Exeter, to Reading, where such a course has been adopted, and the success been great,―greater far than could have been expected. It is not by any new edition of "organized hypocrisy," that the affairs of this great empire are to be rightly carried on. It is by having those as our rulers and legislators who are intelligently alive to the evils of Popery, and resolved to rescue their country from them, conscientiously exercising their private and public power. Each one not selling himself to a leader, not shelving his responsibility, and putting off his individuality at will, but remembering he is at all times alike responsible to Him from whom he has received his life and energies. With regard to its being unconstitutional, we would only here observe, that there is no Act of Parliament, no principle of common law, no constitutional writer, who has ventured to assert, that it is unconstitutional for electors to require a candidate to give a pledge to legislate in consistency with the Constitution, nor, at any particular crisis, to require a promise to support or oppose a particular line of policy. We cannot see, either, that the upright and honourable man, though he might wish not to be called on to give a pledge or promise, should object to it. No Hon. Member can take his seat in Parliament till, by taking the Oath of Allegiance, he has pledged himself to be faithful to the cause of his earthly sovereign. Why, then, should he object to satisfy those whose feelings and consciences are awakened, he may think too sensitively, by giving a pledge, that when in Parliament he will be faithful to the cause of his heavenly Sovereign, and be an opponent of any measure that shall tend to advance Popery and betray the sacred ark of our Protestant Constitution into the hands of its enemies? ADDRESS TO THE PROTESTANTS BELOVED BRETHREN,-Before I leave I am persuaded, with as much confidence as I know that God exists, that if those who profess his true religion, are faithful to their profession and their heavenly Master, his Word must prevail and conquer. I know, that the principles and powers of darkness must flee and vanish from the light of truth, as the shades of night before the rising sun, if men have the confidence in their God, and in his Word and power, *This is appended to a deeply important Sermon, entitled, "An Appeal to the Protestant Church of Ireland on behalf of their Roman Catholic Countrymen," preached November 5, 1846, in Harold's Cross Church, Dublin, by the Rev. R. J. M'Ghee. London: Seeley, Fleet-street; and at the Office of the Protestant Association, 11, Exeter Hall. that befits those who bear his name, to discharge their duty. If we entertain in our hearts jealous, angry, hostile feelings to our Roman Catholic countrymen, as opponents, we cannot feel free to discharge our duty to them as Christians. It seems to me a great evil amongst us, that we cannot separate in our own country the evils of a system, from the persons that are labouring under them. The Protestants of Ireland seem too generally to be classified into three divisions : One party does not seem to understand how they can be decided opponents of Popery, and at the same time show themselves sincere friends of Roman Catholics. These pride themselves on their zeal for religion. Another party does not seem to understand how they can be sincere friends of Roman Catholics, without being more or less temporizing apologists and advocates for Popery. These pride themselves liberality and charity. on their A third party, too religious to support Popery-and too charitable to oppose Roman Catholies-pride themselves on belonging neither to one nor the other, but preserve, as they consider it, a Christian neutralityand do nothing. The first support what they call the cause of their religion at the expense of Christian charity, and they irritate Roman Catholics by their opposition. The second exercise what they call charity, at the sacrifice of true religion, and they deceive Roman Catholics by their hypocrisy. The charity of the third class makes them avoid the uncharitable religion of the first; while their religion teaches them to eschew the religious charity of the second; and between their charity and their religion, they leave Popery and Roman Catholics alone-Popery to enslave Roman Catholics, and Roman Catholics to perish in Popery. It is a melancholy fact, that there are, alas! but few Protestants in Ireland who are not, in some shade or degree, reducible to one or other of these parties in the country. And now, beloved brethren, consider deliberately, is not this really a monster evil? Let us try it by the test of Christian conduct to any other class, even of Pagans, in the world. What would you think of Christians living among Hindoos, whose abhorrence of the worship of Juggernaut made them feel so uncharitably to the poor idolaters, that they could not speak of their errors without wounding or irritating the people and they should call this zeal for God? What would you think of others, who professed such charity for the idolaters, that they would compromise themselves with the worship of Juggernaut; educate the people without the Bible; tell us we ought to pay the priests of the idol's temple, and teach them the rites of their religion, provided we could improve their education by a little science and literature—and call this Christian charity? What would you think of a third, who would profess the utmost abhorrence of their idolatry, and great charity for its victims, who would, nevertheless, leave them to perish without an effort to save them? And what would you think of them all uniting in one common complaint, that indeed Christianity was making little progress among the Hindoos nay, that actually some Christians were becoming worshippers of Juggernaut-that they began to fear that our empire might eventually be shaken in India? Now, if such conduct would be inconsistent, monstrous, criminal to the last degree, when measured by the standard of genuine Christian duty, to men who are worshipping false gods in a Pagan land, what is it when practised towards our poor Roman Catholic countrymen in our own? Shall we be so really destitute of genuine Christian charity, as to entertain evil passions against our poor countrymen, because they are sunk in fearful ignorance, idolatry, and superstition ? Why are not we so too? Who maketh us to differ from another? Surely, Christian charitynay, common sense, should teach us that they are to be treated with compassion and tenderness, as the victims, and not the authors, of a fell apostasy, in which, but for God's sovereign mercy, we should be sunk as well as they. Men may talk of Christian charity -but where is the Christian religion of those who compromise whatever religion they may happen to havewho compromise the word, the authority, the truth, the salvation revealed in the Bible, with the idolatry and superstition of their countrymen, and treat their errors with a treachery and duplicity that they would blush to exercise towards a Mahometan or a Hindoo ? And if true religion teaches us the awful nature of errors; if true charity teaches us to desire to deliver those who are sunk under them even in foreign climes, in a Pagan land; how ought our hearts to burn with love and zeal for our own dear countrymen!-men who, if they were but delivered from their cruel bonds of ignorance and slavery, would repay their deliverers with a Christian love, such as Irish hearts alone can feel and can appreciate. If we do not love our countrymen, do we not even love our country? Do we not love our God? Let me ask, in his name, is this criminal apathy to last for ever? Will neither mercies allure, warnings alarm, nor judgments awaken us to any sense of duty? "Is the Lord's hand shortened, that it cannot save; or his ear heavy, that it cannot hear?" Are there none to assert the power of his Word and truth within our land? Is the Protestant Church of Ireland to be indebted to the statute-book of England; that miserable ledger, exhibiting on the face of its accounts a national bankruptcy in principle, with all to the debit and nothing to the credit of the religion of the empire; is the Protestant Church of Ireland, I say, to be indebted to this for the privilege of dragging on its trembling and miserable existence? Is it to be turning its hope and confidence from one political knave or traitor to another, and feeling for ever the righteous curse of him "who maketh the arm of flesh his trust?" What is the use of one man making an effort in one place, and another in another, while there is neither organization or array of men or principles to arrest the attention of the quickest, the most intelligent population of the whole globe;-while the system of education which the Government supplies, is an education without Christian truth, and "without God in the world?" 66 We are all at present suffering under the severe visitation of the immediate hand of God. The prayer which has been appointed, as appropriate for this calamity, justly places our unhappy divisions" in the list of those sins that are calculated to call down the Divine displeasure on our land. How can we feel any genuine contrition for these divisions, if we do not use our best exertions to heal them? If, indeed, we hold the truth, and our poor Roman Catholic countrymen are sunk in error, surely the sin must rest, with aggravated guilt, on those who know the truth, and have their neighbours and their countrymen divided from them by fatal errors, against which they protest without any effort to dispel them. It is for the purpose of endeavouring to remedy this evil, and to afford an opportunity to every man who desires to lend his aid in this great cause, to heal the unhappy divisions of our native land, and to endeavour to bring us all to the unity of the faith of Christ, that I print this sermon and make this appeal. There are two very simple plans proposed in this sermon, one of which has been already tried, on a small scale, by one individual with complete success; and must be equally successful if it were tried by the whole Protestant Church of Ireland. The only difference is, that the efforts of an individual are utterly insignificant, and easily silenced and overborne, but those of a body sufficiently numerous, must awaken and command the attention of the nation. The case is very short, and the conclusion very decisive. If a Protestant is called to conform to the Church of Rome, a creed is proposed to him to subscribe, which was never known, or heard of, or propounded to any human being, in the shape of a Creed, till the year 1564, when it was propounded by the Pope in a Bull; consequently, this could never have been the Creed of the ancient Catholic Church in Ireland. If a Roman Catholic is called on to conform to the Protestant Church, the Creed proposed to him to sign is the Creed of the Council of Nice, which the Council of Trent declares in her Third Session, to have been the Creed of the whole Church of Christ up to the year 1546; consequently, on their own evidence the Creed of the Protestant Church is, and must have been, the true profession of faith of the ancient Catholic Church in Ireland. Therefore, if Irishmen are to be united in the ancient Catholic faith, it must be in the profession of the Creed of the Protestant Church. Now the whole Roman Catholic population are totally ignorant of this; they are taught that the Creed of their Church is the ancient Creed, and that of the Protestant Church a novelty. Therefore the facts will be fully brought before them, if large and numerous bodies of Protestants, ministers and their flocks, offer to conform to the Church of Rome, as I' have publicly done, if the priests can prove the date of the Creed they propose for our subscription, previous to the year 1564. This the priests are, of course, unable to do; and therefore they are compelled to yield that antiquity, on which they totally deceive the people, to the Protestant Church of Ireland. The success of this must depend, by God's grace, on the extent to which it is carried out. But the second plan, proposed in this sermon, is by far the most important, I believe, that can be devised for the open exposure of the Church of Rome, and the instruction of the Roman Catholic population. It is of little comparative importance to silence a person in error by proving him wrong, unless you at the same time can convey to him instruction, to teach him what is right. The plan which I propose to adopt, is calculated to give the Roman Catholics, universally, opportunities of hearing sound scriptural instruction; having the truth of their new creed put to the test before them, with all the advantages that can be derived from controversy, and without any of the evils or asperities of controversy. Their priests shall have the fairest opportunities of coming forward before the people allowed to them, yet be placed exactly in this dilemma— that they must prove the falsehood of their creed, if they appear or admit it by their absence, if they do not choose to come forward. This mode of conducting the controversy with the Church of Rome has never yet been adopted; and it is the only one that really must be successful, if God is pleased to grant His divine blessing to it, without which even His own word is of no avail. The only weapon to be used in it is the sacred Scripture-"The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Instead of any harsh or irritating attacks on the errors of Popery, they can be most fully and effectually exposed, in a spirit of Christian love. The success of this plan, which I have frequently proposed to the Roman Catholic bishops and priests, is demonstrated fully, if we needed demonstration, by the fact, that not an individual has even ever attempted to answer, much less to encounter it. But I wish now, not to propose it merely, but to carry it out with the aid of my dear and reverend brethren, who I know will be forward to help in anything which they see to be wise, scriptural, kind, and practicable. And it will appear on trial, that very little acquaintance indeed with the subtleties of Romanism will be necessary here, for one great blessing and advantage will be, that the plain truth of God shall appear on one side, and if they please to try the whole sophistry of Rome, they may use it on the other. It will be the cumbrous armour of the "sword, and the spear, and the shield," against the servant of the Lord of Hosts with the stone and the sling. One, not of the least important points of this plan, will be, that it will show the British Government, that that INCORPORATED INIQUITY, THE NATIONAL BOARD OF EDUCATION, is based, as it is, on a Papal falsehood. And I trust, by the blessing of God, that our dear countrymen, the Roman Catholics of Ireland, shall see that those who maintain such an iniquitous invasion of their rights and liberties, and more, who prevent the discharge of their solemn duties to their children-nay, who blind and deceive them as to their duties and responsibilities to God-that these are indeed their real enemies, whether they are Protestants or Roman Catholics, Prime Ministers, Bishops, priests, or laymen. I trust they will see too that the bishops and clergy of Ireland who oppose this iniquitous system, and who refuse to take money from any Government at the expense of either the truth of God, or the genuine rights and liberties of their Roman Catholic countrymen,—that they are their real friends. is the truth, and the truth must prevail." "Great Now four things are necessary, with the Lord's blessing—the Bible—the Protestant and Roman Creeds-Men and a platform. We all have the Bible. I have excellent editions of the Creeds printed for the purpose. The Church of Ireland never wants men when her Master's cause requires them, and I appeal to you, my Protestant_brethren, to supply the platform. Let all |