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workhouses, and what is to hinder him from demanding, that in every parish of your kingdom where 50 Roman-catholics are to be found, a Romish priest shall be fixed, with a public salary? The principle, even in this extent, has been acted on abroad. It exits at this hour in Prussia. Thus you establish popery in the heart of the protestant empire. Will the progress be content to stop there? If it has climbed thus high on its feet, what will it be when you fledge it with the wings of public wealth and legislative ambition? With the people thrown into its hands, what is to check its seizure of all above the people? How long will it suffer the Act of Settlement to be law? In pointing out this natural progress, I desire to express no hostility to the Romancatholic. I would deprecate his errors-I would refute his religion-I would resist his usurpation; but I would give the right hand of fellowship to himself, and in that right hand the Bible. But it has become as impossible to doubt, as idle to disguise that popery is making rapid advances to a dangerous power in the state. Its progress is perpetual, whether by violence or by subtlety, sometimes lifting its crest, and brandishing its tongue; sometimes hiding its fangs, but torpid no more; always making new way, till, like the original enemy, it has the fruit of evil within sight, and waits only to consummate the temptation. Am I asked, what is to be done in this crisis? The protestant and the christian can have no weapon but remonstrance-petition the legislative, call for petitions throughout the empire. Like the Jewish King, lay the challenge of the enemy on the altar. Never despair of your cause; do your duty, and leave the rest to Him whose will is omnipotence. (Cheers.)

The petition still lies for signature at No. 2, Exeter Hall.

THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH,

THE BULWARK OF THE PROTESTANT CAUSE.

"Dis te minorem quod geris, imperas,

Hince omne principium, huc refer exitum."-HORACE,

THE British constitution from the earliest ages and through all its changes, has ever recognized christianity as the basis of our national institutions. But it is demonstrable that this their christian character can only be preserved and perpetuated by the means and through the agency of a national church. And here as British subjects we ought to acknowledge with unfeigned gratitude the privilege we enjoy of living beneath the shadow of that pure and reformed religion, which it has pleased Almighty God

to establish in these realms. "Justification by Faith alone," the great article of the Reformation, is the distinguishing doctrine of the church of England. It is on this protestant principle that our wise and pious ancestors erected our civil and religious constitution, and secured the succession to the throne. And as long as this national homage was rendered to a pure christianity, Great Britain prospered, and was highly exalted in power and greatness under the blessing of the Most High. But no sooner was the covenant broken by an adulterous intercourse with the church of Rome, than the divine protection was evidently withdrawn, and the two anti-christian powers of popery and infidelity were let loose to afflict and scourge a guilty land.

The fatal measure, called the Roman-catholic Relief Bill, was soon succeeded by another which bore the false and delusive appellation of Reform, whilst it recognized, in fact, the infidel and anti-scriptural doctrine of the sovereignty of the people. Ever since the passing of these two revolutionary statutes, the altar and the throne have been equally exposed to incessant assaults from the malice of their confederated enemies.

The first reform administration severed at one blow ten bishopricks from the church of Ireland. They next proceeded to sacrifice the principles of our protestant constitution by establising, at the public expense, a national system of education in Ireland, in unison with the church of Rome, and in furtherance of her designs. In 1835, power was given to an Irish papist, to exercise a supreme and dictatorial influence in the councils of the United Kingdom. And from that period the destinies of this mighty empire appear to have been virtually surrendered into his hands. At his bidding, administrations are formed, ministers of state are appointed or removed; by him the conditions of power are stipulated, and under his direction measures are introduced into parliament, session after session, with the plain and obvious tendency to overthrow the established church. It is true that the audacious attempt to appropriate a portion of the revenues of the church of Ireland for the purposes of Romanism, has providentially been frustrated. But popish agitation has succeeded in abolishing a fourth part of the Irish tithe, and extorting from England a million of money for the payment of arrears unlawfully withheld; and yet our enemies themselves declare that their malice still remains unsatiated. Nothing less will suffice than the total extinction of the protestant church. This is the war cry of popish insurrection in Ireland—the topic of declamation on the ministerial side* of the house of commons-the sentiment openly avowed and supported by the memberst of the royal household, and considered the grand recommendation in the selection of a representative of the sovereign in Ireland

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Again, it should be noted as an historical fact, that the payment of church-rates was never disputed or opposed until after the passing of the Roman-catholic Relief and the Reform Bills. Since then we have seen the abolition of this rate twice brought forward as a ministerial measure, our enemies well knowing that it is the grand connecting link betwixt the church and state, and that it involves the principle of the maintenance of our protestant establishment.

To the same source, namely-the predominant influence of the church of Rome-may be attributed other measures now in progress, which are evidently calculated and designed to subvert the church of England. The recently instituted Board of Education is intended to produce similar results here, as in Ireland, by placing the church of Rome on the same footing as the established church, in the eye of the state. Such is also the aim of the Prisons Bill. The Irish Municipal Bill is clearly introduced with no other view than to destroy those defences of the protestant religion in Ireland, which the existing corporations were always considered, and declared so to be by the papists themselves at the time of the passing of what they call their emancipation bill.

From the proceedings which have been referred to, it is manifest that the members of the church of Rome are directing all their efforts to overthrow the established church, as forming the main obstacle to their ulterior designs. Let us, as protestants, shew ourselves equally zealous to maintain the essential principle of an indissoluble connection betwixt the church and state. It is impossible to separate the one from the other without destroying the entire fabric of the British constitution.

It may be observed in conclusion, that the contest now pending appears to lie betwixt the church of England and the church of Rome. We have to lament the desertion of our dissenting brethren from the protestant standard, and the assistance they have given to further the advances of the common enemy. We also must lament the alarming apathy of the public mind, and the difficulty of awakening attention to questions involving great fundamental principles.

Yet under all these disadvantages, we hold it to be our duty, as the subjects of a christian state, to defend in the hour of danger that venerable establishment, in whose maternal bosom we were nourished and brought up. We can offer up our prayers on her behalf; believing her to be the Ark of pure religion-the Pharos of divine truth" holding forth the word of life," and always ready to afford her refuge to those who have fled from the sanguinary persecutions of the church of Rome. And we can confidently hope that there are purposes of mercy towards her, when we consider the great revival of evangelical piety among her clergy and members.

THE CHURCH OF OUR FATHERS.

"Half screen'd by its trees, in the Sabbath's calm smile,
The church of our fathers, how meekly it stands !
Oh! villagers, gaze on the old hallow'd pile;

It was dear to their hearts-it was raised by their hands.
Who loves not the place where they worshipp'd their God?
Who loves not the ground where their ashes repose?
Dear, even the daisy that blooms on the sod,
For dear is the dust out of which it arose.

"Then say, shall the church that our forefathers built,
Which the tempests of ages have battered in vain,
Abandoned by us in supineness or guilt,

Oh! say, shall it fall by the rash and profane ?
No! perish the impious hand that would take

One shred from its altar, one stone from its towers!
The life-blood of martyrs hath flowed for its sake-
And its fall, if it fall, shall be reddened with ours."

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LOOKING into the records of history, we generally find that the greatest exploits have been performed, the most important changes effected, by a comparatively insignificant party, despised at the outset of their enterprise by those who were ultimately to be prostrated beneath their power. This has been peculiarly the case in instances of national deliverance; and where the truth of God was to prevail over the craft and violence of its adversaries, it has almost invariably so happened. Who was chosen to preserve the whole Israelitish family-that germ wherein lay wrapped the predicted blessing of all nations?-The young, helpless lad, whom his treacherous brethren overpowered and sold to be a bond-servant, was exalted to rescue his kindred from impending famine, and to provide for them a dwelling-place. Whom did God make choice of, to achieve the most stupendous deliverance that the annals of the world furnish?-The foundling of the Nile, the unclaimed infant, that was cast on the compassionate care of a young maiden; the fugitive who was found tending sheep in Midian, whose slowness of speech and natural timidity of character, rendered him apparently the most unpromising of his race for the mighty deeds his lip and his arm were directed to perform. Who was employed to rend down the gorgeous temple of Dagon, burying in its ruins the multitude of idolatrous tyrants, who defied his God and oppressed his people?-Sampson; not in the first glory of his supernatural strength, but shorn, blinded, and

bound-laid so low, that the achievement for which he was destined might especially manifest the hand of the Most High. Gideon at his threshing floor-Saul in quest of his father's asses -David leaving the sheep-fold to bear a greeting and a gift to his warrior brothers-Nehemiah saddening over the royal cupall these, and many more, shine upon us from the inspired pages, as chosen ones who "out of weakness were made strong," for the glory of God, that the excellency of the power might evidently be of him.

And since the voice of inspiration ceased among men, and miraculous interposition gave place to the simple operation of cause and effect, under the over-ruling direction of Him, who "doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth," we may trace in the records of his church, and of those lands where he has planted it, a sequel to the wonders of the olden time. Who would have thought of exploring the narrow cell of a bigotted monk, and the obscure workshop of a type-founder, for the respective elements, the combination of which was to effect, not the political rescue of an empire from thraldom, but the enfranchisement of millions of captives from the iron grasp of satanic might, and the dispersion of midnight darkness from a large portion of the globe, where the devil had succeeded in quenching the lamp of truth, and under the shadows of death thereby cast over men, had succeeded in obtaining their acquiescence in his monstrous usurpation of the name, the offices, the kingdom, and the glory of Christ.

At such a period as the present, when the same diabolical process of darkening our heaven is in active operation, by the same satanic craft in devising, and by the self-same instrumentality of papal skill in working out the mischief, it is consolatory to take a retrospective view of these things;-to remember the years of the right hand of the Most High-to remember his words-to remember his wonders of old. A band of protestants, in numbers perhaps as little imposing as were Gideon's three hundred who lapped, when compared with the many thousands of faint-hearted Israelites, and the countless hosts of their embattled foes; in power, it may be, as insignificant as the poor augustine monk of Wittemberg, and with means as seemingly inadequate as were the broken fragments out of which the first alphabet of types was doubtingly fashioned; this band of protestants will assemble during the month on which we are now entering, in the central point of our empire, concerning which, it already becomes a question whether or not its ancient crown should be again cast at the feet of an imperious legate from Rome, as the price of exemption from some degrading interdict of the pontifical antichrist. Will any man who declines to cast his quota, however small, of personal influence, energy, and activity into this common fund of

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