The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-06-04 00:00:00

BATH PROTESTANT ASSOCIATION.

A public meeting of this association was held on Tuesday
last, at the Upper Rooms, Bath, which was very numerously
and respectably attended. Harewood, Esq. was called to
the chair.

After prayers by the Rev. Harvey Marriot, the Chairman
addressed a few introductory observations, and called upon
the Rev. R. J. McGhee to address the meeting. •
The Rev. R. J. McGHEE, on coming -forward, was re-
ceived with loud cheers. The rev. gentleman's address oc-
cupied nearly three hours, and was listened to with the-ut-
most attention. He commenced by replying to some charges
which had been brought against him since he last addressed
them in that place, by Dr. Baines, the Roman Catholic
bishop, who resides at Prior Park. Previous to the last
meeting he had invited Dr. Baines, or any person accredited
by him, to a public discussion at a meeting, half the tickets
of admission to which were to be at Dr. Baines's disposal.
The doctor declined the offer, but got up a counter meeting,
at which, while he (Mr. McGhee) and others were charged
with getting up a meeting for political purposes, proceedings
took place which were contrary to every acknowledged prin-
ciple of justice. He appealed to the invitation conveyed in
the letter to Dr. Baines. whether there was any truth in
that charge. (Cheers.) It was afterwards charged upon
him by Dr. Brown, that the quotations which he had laid
before the meeting were made from books-which were not
the class or standard books of the college of Maynooth : but
the authority on which they were brought forward was a
parliamentary report, and the persons who made the return
of those books to the Commissioners of Education were the
president and professors of the college of Maynooth them-
selves. (Hear.) He had also invited Dr. Brown to a pub-
lic discussion, at which the doctor was to take his (Mr.
McGhee's) speech in his hand, and with his own books go
through that speech item by item, and document by docu-
ment, in order to show, if he could, that the statements con-
tained in it were garbled or misquoted. Dr. Brown did not
choose to accept that invitation, but published an address to
the inhabitants of Bath, stating that he was obliged to retire
to Downside College, it being the long vacation. (Laughter.)
He (Mr. McGhee) had also challenged Dr. Brown to a con-
troversy on the subject of the Papal Confessional, in which
he could take upon himself to prove that the system was
immoral, treacherous, cruel, and intolerable to the heart of
any husband, father, or brother, who became acquainted i
with the facts. (Loud cheers.) Dr. Brown, however,
refused to notice this challenge on a subject which forms the
very foundation of the Church of Rome, identifying as they
do with this horrible confessional the whole hope of pardon
for the sinner. Leaving, however, the discussion with the
doctor, he would go to a more important subject—the peti-
tion which was to be presented to parliament against the
College of Maynooth. The most important part of the con-
troversy between Protestants and the Church of Rome, was
not the temporal afflictions which that church can inflict, but
the evil which she inflicts on the souls of those who are
bowed down under her antichristian yoke. The Roman
Catholic religion he could show was a system of antichristian
idolatry ; this would be seen by a letter addressed by the
present Pope to all the Romish clergy in the year 1832, and
printed in Ireland by the Catholic bishop's printer ; in that
letter was the following passage : " Now that all these happy
circumstances may concur, let us lift up our eyes and hands
to the most blessed Virgin Mary who alone has destroyed
all heresies, who fills us with the greatest confidence, or
rather who is the whole foundation of our hope." Before
God and man he (Mr. AVG-bee) proclaimed as a minister of
Christ that that was direct and blasphemous idolatry. The
church of Rome takes away the sympathy and tenderness
from Christ's humanity, and looks for that tenderness and
sympathy in idols. In one of their books called " The
Glories of the Virgin Mary," this passage occurs : " Holy
Virgin !" whoever recurred in vain to thy powerful protec-
tion? Heaven and earth will sooner be destroyed than you
will cease to help those who humbly invoke you. St. Fran-
cis, to increase our confidence in Mary, assures us that our
prayers will often be more speedily heard by invoking her
name than by calling on that of Jesus Christ." (Hear.)
St. Francis is also represented as saying to the Virgin
Mary, " Be my advocate with the Son ; I dare not recur to
him." The Virgin Mary is styled, " the Coadjutrix of
our redemption;" and we are told that " the Holy Virgin
told St. Bridget that as Adam and Eve sold the world for an
apple, she and her son had redeemed it with one heart.
We read in the Chronicles of St. Francis, that " Brother Leo
once saw in a vision two ladders, one red, at the summit of
which was Jesus Christ; and the other white, at the top of
which presided his blessed mother. He observed that many
who attempted to ascend the first ladder after mounting a few
steps fell down, and on trying again were equally unsuccess-
ful, so that they never attained the summit ; but a voice
having told them to make trial of the white ladder,
they soon gained the top ; the blessed virgin having held forth
her hand to help them. Peter Dens says, " all
,power, oh
Mary, is given unto you in heaven and on earth ; ' the very
words ascribed to the virgin Mary which Christ used of him-
self. What wonder that they shut up the scriptures from
the poor Roman Catholics, when they were taught to believe
in such " refuges of lies" as these ? (Loud cheers.) And
was England to be asleep ; was British principle, to say
nothing of British religion, to be silent while the papal apos-
tasy was bargaining with infidel statesmen to take away the
word of God? (Continued cheering.) The rev. gent. then
referred to the mental reservation, "salvo jure superioris,"
saving the rights of my superior, which every Roman Ca-
tholic holds in every oath he takes, made the following state-
ment with respect to the oath at present taken by the Roman
Catholic members of the legislature, contained in a document
brought forward through the talents and exertions of that
faithful maintainer of the Protestant religion and liberties,
the Bishop of Exeter. (CheerC) It was proposed that the
Bishop of Malta should have a seat in the council of that
island, and in order to qualify himself the oath above referred
to was to be taken. The Bishop well knowing that if he took
the oath he could not keep it, refused to do so till he knew
whether his holiness the Pope approved of it. It was ac-
cordingly dispatched to the Pope, and after the lapse of a con-
siderable time, during which the Bishop had made several
applications for an answer, he received a letter from Cardinal
Bennetti, stating it to be " the oracle of his holiness" (not
the opinion merely of the Pope) that that oath could not be
approved by him : and he (Mr. Al•Ghee) would affirm from
every principle of the standards, canons, and councils of the
church of Rome, that that oath not being approved of by the
Pope, was rendered perfectly nugatory upon the conscience
of any man in the church of Rome who took it. (Cheers.)
With reference to the books which are the standards and
class books of the church of Rome, the rev. speaker stated
that in 1796 the Cardinal of the Prefect of the Propaganda
wno in return neciarea tnat ruey
do so; in 1808 these bishops assembled in synod, and set up
the Compendium of St. Thomas Aquinas, which is Den's
Theology, as the guide and instructor of the Roman Catho-
lic ecclesiaitics in Ireland ; and in 1831 the Popish bishops
of Ireland assembled in synod, and set up that same book
as the guide for their pupils, commanding the clergy by that
guide to direct and drill the Roman Catholic population :
and yet Dr. Baines talked of "the Dens humbug" having
exploded." There was another book which it was neces-
sary to bring before the public notice, called " the Secret
Statutes, printed by the printer to the Roman Catholic
bishops in Ireland, to whom the whole edition is sent, the
printer not being entrusted to sell or keep a single copy.
The bishop gives one of these to each of his priests ; and if
a priest chances to be ill, the rural dean is commanded to
visit him, and to take his copy of the Secret Statutes away
with him. In one case, however, the rural dean either neg-
lected his duty, or the priest died before he got there ; and
his library being put up to auction, his copy of. the Secret
Statutes was advertised for sale. He (Mr. McGhee) gave
a commission to a bookseller to buy that and some other
books, telling him to get that and a few more at whatever
price they might be sold. The bookseller took him at his
word ; the bidding commenced at sixpence; and a book which
when new was worth about two shillings, reached the sum of
£7 10s., the auctioneer's clerk bidding against the bookseller.
Considering it rather singular that a book of such apparently
trifling value should realise so high a price, the bookseller
asked the clerk why he bid for that particular book ; he said
lie was commanded by Mr. Castegan, the priest, to buy it if
it fetched £5O. The bookseller saw it was of no use to go
on, and therefore let the clerk have the book for the £7 10s.
The circumstance got into the Irish papers, and a. Roman
Catholic dealer in books having a copy of this work took it
to the bookseller, and said he should have it if he would give
him his price, to which he consented, and he (Mr. McGhee)
thus became possessed of the book which he held in his hand.
At the conclusion of the rev. gentleman's speech, the Rev.
E. Tottenham addressed the meeting on the subject of na-
tional education, showing the danger which would result
from the introduction of the Douay version of the Scriptures
into schools. After a few observations from the Rev. H.
Marriott and Irwin, Esq., the meeting broke up.