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been somewhat worse. Had any Christian established in the faith been there, which is almost an impossibility, unless, indeed, in order to become better acquainted with the outward form of Romish worship for a good purpose-a feeling of commiseration at seeing so many poor creatures carried away by such a childish religion, would have been with him the prevailing sentiment, with the same desire to enlighten them that the Apostle had when he beheld the city wholly given up to idolatry.' (Acts xvii. 16.) The Church of Rome is a Circe, betwitching the senses, intoxicating with her golden cup-a deceiver, sitting on the sevenheaded beast, captivating the ignorant multitude by a religion that substitutes forms and ceremonies for the religion of the heart. When men can think that such services are acceptable to God, they must be far gone in error, and the attempt to bring them to a sound mind seems almost visionary--but we are told not to suffer sin upon our brother, and it has therefore been made and we pray most fervently and sincerely, that, no longer occupying themselves about things which cannot profit,' Roman Catholics will cast aside their vain confidences, and following the Apostle's injunction, Hold THE HEAD, from which alone all the body, by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, increaseth with the increase of God' (Col. ii. 19)—and unite themselves to those who worship God in spirit and in truth;' for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' (Rom. xiv. 17, 18.)" The Romish controversy becomes daily of more importance. Those who would gladly avoid taking a part in it seem irresistibly to be impelled to do so.

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Many who stand by comparatively unconcerned, while evils are raging at a distance, are reluctantly driven to pay attention, when famine or fever, which has desolated other houses, extends its ravaging influence to their own. And so, too, in the midst of political delinquency and theological apostasy, it is almost impossible to avoid attending to the

controverted points. Glad should we be if all would equally, in a spirit of prayer, love, and faithfulness, protest against the evil, and endeavour to build up the weak in our most holy, because Scriptural, faith.

The perusal of the pamphlet will, we trust, afford much instruction and edification to those whose minds are not settled rightly upon the important points to which it refers.

For mere political Protestantism we have never contended. It is for the Christian faith, purified from the incrustation of Romish error, that we have been anxious. Such, too, seems to be the views of the writer of the paper before us.

A vain contest for superiority is too often injurious to the cause it was intended to serve; and always dangerous to that party entering upon it.

But here a different motive ani mates, and feelings of Christian affection would seem to have prompted the writer to admonish Romanists on the one hand against the delusions which are destroying them, and Protestants of the dangers to which they expose themselves, when they, from motives of curiosity, enter upon forbidden ground, "tempt the tempter: "and seek, in the idol temple of Rome's imaginative religion, for worship acceptable to him, who has assured us that idolaters have no inheritance in the kingdom of God and of Christ.

Awful words! But they are not our own. They are the words of eternal truth. They emanate from the Deity.

INTELLIGENCE.

DUBLIN, OCT. 23.-Contrary to the expectations of a large body of the Roman Catholic laity, and no inconsiderable portion of the clergy, Pope Pius IX. has "pronounced " against the scheme of collegiate education devised by the late Premier, and has thus afforded a signal triumph to Archbishop M'Hale and the dissenting majority of the Irish hierarchy. The confusion that will of necessity be created by the decision of the Holy See may be readily conceived, coming, as it does, at a period when the great

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difficulty" seems less likely than ever to yield to the legislative wisdom of any Cabinet, whether composed of Whigs, Conservatives, or Protectionists. The Evening Freeman (the organ of the prelates) thus refers to the Papal rescript:-" The official document announcing the decision of the Court of Rome has been just placed in our hands. We may here add, that the document is from the sacred college of the Propaganda-is signed by Cardinal Franzoni and by the ProSecretary of the Propaganda, with the addition by authority of his Holiness Pius IX.' The condemnation is special, distinct, and emphatic." THE ROMAN CATHOLIC HIERARCHY IN ENGLAND.-All the documents relating to this long debated question among the Roman Catholic clergy of England arrived on Tuesday, Oct. 26. The scene of Dr. Wiseman's labours is not to be London, as was originally supposed. He is to be Bishop of Birmingham. The Right Rev. Dr. Walsh, heretofore Vicar Apostolic of the Midland district, which includes Birmingham, and to whom Dr. Wiseman acted as coadjutor, is now Archbishop of Westminster. The title of Vicar Apostolic is to cease, and the bishops are to be for the future called after their respective sees. The further division of England into sees, preparatory to an increase in the number of bishops, is still under the consideration of his Holiness; when that is definitely arranged, the number of bishops will be increased by four. There will be also one or two created.archbishopricks

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CONVERSIONS TO POPERY.-The Rev. S. S. Wilson, late pastor of the Independent congregation in this town, has joined the Roman Catholic Church.-Hants Telegraph. At St. Gregory's College, Downside, on the 15th of September, W. T. Gordon, Esq., of Christchurch College, Oxford, was received into the Catholic Church. In his conversion, Mr. Gordon has imitated the example of his brother, the late Curate of Christ church, St. Pancras, who made his profession of Catholic Faith towards the commencement of the present year.-Tablet.

CHRISTIAN PERSUASION. Informations were taken at Dunmanway petty sessions against the Rev. J. Doheny, Popish priest, for flogging one of his congregation into the chapel on the Sunday previous.Dublin Herald.

DERBY.-Mr. Raikes attended a Public Dinner in Derby on Monday, the 25th ult., at which many of the distinguished friends of the Protestant cause were present. The attendance was very numerous, and the Protestant party seems to have gathered strength from each contest in the borough. The Meeting was addressed at considerable length by the Chairman, Joseph Lewis, Esq.; Rev. J. Dean; Sir H. S. Wilmot, Bart.; James Lord, Esq.; C. R. Colvile, Esq., M.P.; H. Raikes, Esq.; Johnson, Esq.; E. M. Mundy, Esq., M.P.; E. A. Holden, Esq.; Henry Cox, Esq.; Dr. Heygate; O. Bateman, Esq.; John Henry Cox, Esq., &c.

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Macintosh, Printer, Great New-street, London.

PROTESTANT MAGAZINE.

DECEMBER, 1847.

THE SECOND PARLIAMENT OF 1847.

PARLIAMENT has again assembled. It rarely happens that the close of the year witnesses the opening of a Parliamentary session. And what has caused this exception? Why, with Parliament so lately prorogued-dissolved-has the Legislature been so hastily summoned to resume its duties? The cause, or causes, afford no satisfactory reply to these questions. Whether to relieve the almost unprecedented mercantile embarrassments; or to devise plans for the tranquillity of Ireland; or to render life in that more than half Romish country safe from the mark of the assassin, -is cause, not for congratulation, but for condolence.

If space in our closing number allowed, we would comment upon the Papal rescript lately received in Ireland, in condemnation of "the godless colleges"-a rescript which directly brings into collision the laws of Great Britain with the laws of the Papacy, and raises the question, whether Queen Victoria, with the Cabinet of St. James's; or the Pope, with his Conclave at the Vatican, shall virtually rule in Ireland, and sway the interests of the United Empire.

Never, we believe, since the Reformation and the Revolution, has a Parliament been assembled in England at so critical a juncture, with such mighty interests at stake, and so little apparent controlling or administrative talent.

We speak not of a few individuals, who in their isolated positions are still what they long have been, but of men united, or capable of union, upon principle, or even upon expediency, to suggest and carry out a policy worthy of this still great Christian and Protestant country.

What were deemed the great parties, are now broken up, and their disjecta membra, like wrecks upon the surface of the deep, when the tempestuous storm is past, serve but to tell of the mighty powers which have been.

Oh, that they had been based upon the Scripture! Oh, that they had been guided by the eternal principles of truth and rectitude! instead of veering by the gales of a fluctuating expediency. Then the long recognised leader of what was termed the great Conservative party had never lent his aid to VOL. IX.-December, 1847. New Series, No. 24.

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dismantle and destroy our constitution; and the known leader of the Liberal party, as it was called, had not been the ally of those who, themselves the slaves of the worst of despotism, are striving to enslave our own land; but forgetful of minor differences, might have met, not to oppose one another on party grounds-but Popery as a common enemy, alike of religion, common sense, policy, morality, and their country's best interests.

As it is, we present comparatively scattered forces, without a leader against powers the most disciplined, united, and best directed.

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But shall we therefore be discouraged? By no means. wish to have the full amount of danger before us, to incite to effort.

The quiet Roman Catholics, who sought-not toleration, for that they have ever had in England-possessed of power, are denying to us Protestants the right of free discussion; of deliberating and acting for the nation's good; and seeking by intrigue in foreign diplomacy, and barbarisms and murder in Ireland, to intimidate, or allure the Protestant Government of Great Britain into an entire compliance with the demands of Papal Rome.

The Pope's myrmidons seem as much to have taken possession of Great Britain as the armies of the Allied Powers ever had occupation of Paris.

Is there not to be a Romish Archbishop of Westminster? Are we not to have the Romish Episcopate widely extended amongst us? Do not the Romish priesthood in Ireland contend for the investment in their own body of all the property upon which the schools are to be built? Do we not see their own organs contending for an endowment, with manse, and glebe, provided they can have it entirely free from State control, and governed only by the canon law?

Is there not too much reason to believe that measures are on foot to renew diplomatic relations with Rome? and thus to forge the one link which yet happily seems wanting to unite us to the apostasy, and entail upon us a portion of her plagues and punishments!

We would strongly urge upon our friends and readers to be up and doing, for evil is at the door. While they sleep, the enemy is awake, and busily employed in working his own advancement and their destruction.

Protestants! "awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!"

THE POPE.-LORD ARUNDEL AND SURREY.

POPERY is becoming the absorbing question of the day. Whether we regard the colleges in Ireland, diplomatic relations with Rome, glebe-houses for the priests in Ireland, endowment of the Romish hierarchy, the education question, foreign or domestic

policy-in each and all of these Popery has more or less a share. Monarchs, Parliaments, peasants, princes, are all made more or less to feel the weight and influence of a system whose power they have pampered into magnitude, and before which they are now quailing. The cloven foot has at length peeped out from beneath the ecclesiastical drapery of the scarlet lady of the Seven Hills; and many champions in honest sincerity, no less than many as "artificers of fraud," have come forth to help her in her time of need.

Foremost amongst the former, is Lord Arundel and Surrey-a distinguished member of a noble house, whose attachment to the cause of the Papacy is a matter of history. The Noble Lord referred to has recently addressed the following letter to the editor of the Times, on the subject of the Papal rescript with reference to the "godless colleges" in Ireland.

It contains much that is plausible, much that is fallacious, much assertion, too, we fear, which will pass for fact with those ignorant of the devices of the evil one, and the way in which Popery would represent herself as an angel of light, sent to irradiate with her sainted presence the darkness of this lower world. Yet of the sophistries thus employed to reconcile Protestantism with Popery, and England to Rome, we may exclaim,

"Vain reasoning all, and false philosophy."

The following is the letter:

"TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

"Sir,―The public papers are at this moment teeming with indignant articles against his Holiness the Pope, on account of a rescript lately addressed to the Catholic Bishops of Ireland, in which he advises them to have nothing to do with the colleges now building in that country. Every description of invective is indulged in against the beloved head of the Catholic Church, and we are told that English frigates at the mouth of the Tiber would be a far more effectual and spirited assertion of the rights of the British Government than any attempt at negotiation through an accredited Minister at the Court of Rome.

"Whether it be advisable or not that this country should be represented, as every other European Power (Protestant as well as Catholic) is, at the Roman Court, is not the point to which I wish now to advert; but I would ask any dispassionate man to look at the simple question of the Pope's rescript, and to say whether that document is such as to merit the grave censures which so many of the English papers think proper to bestow upon it. The Pope is the spiritual father of the Catholic Church. He is bound by his sacred office to protect the religion of all his flock-to encourage the weak, to instruct the ignorant, to counsel the strong. If he neglects this important duty, his own salvation is at risk. Such being the fact, he receives from the spiritual leaders of a portion of his flock (that is to say, from the Catholic Bishops of Ireland) an intimation that certain colleges are about to be erected in Ireland by the British Government. He is further informed of the system to be followed in those colleges; and

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