The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-05-20 00:00:00

PROTESTANT ASSOCIATION

The annual meeting took place on Wednesday, in
Exeter-hall. Lord Winchelsea in the chair. The large
room was crowded in every part by a most respectable
audience.
The Revs. R. J. M'Ghee and Dr. O'Sullivan attended.
The former gentleman spoke very eloquently in support
of the following resolution :—" That, from the system of
instruction adopted at the College of Maynooth in train-
ing up young men for the office of Roman Catholic priest-
hood, from the immoral, intolerant, anti-social, and per-
secuting character of the books used, and the system
taught in that college, and from the principles in which
the Roman Catholic hierarchy are pledged to Rome to
train the priesthood in reference to the Protestant Sove-
reign of these realms, and in which they are proved to
train them not only in Maynooth, but atter they leave
that college and enter on their office as priests, it appears
to this meeting that the endowment of the College of
Maynooth is not only irreconcileable with the duty which
Protestants owe to God, but with loyalty and fidelity to
our gracious Sovereign, with due regard to the safety of
our constitution and to the laws, the liberties, and the re-
ligion of this great empire." The principles taught at
Maynooth might he gathered from the letter of instruc-
tions of the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda at Rome
to the trustees of Maynooth College, and were contained
in the work of Dens and the Secunda Secundm of Thomas
Aquinas. It was demonstrable, from the Roman Catholic
Directory, and from the statutes of the Roman Catholic
bishops, that since 1831 the priests had been trained in
the principles of those books. The first doctrine of those
aed all the Roman Catholic writers on the subject of oaths
was, that the bishops had the power of dispensing with
an oath whenever the bishop considered that the interests
of the church required it. It was held to be a power, a
right, and a duty to absolve from oaths to Protestant
Sovereigns whenever it should be advisable for the inter-
ests of the church ; so that on the occasion of an invasion
of Ireland, if approved by the Pope, the Roman Catholics
of that country might be absolved from their allegiance to
the Sovereign. The Secunda Secundee of Aquinas was
adopted by all the Roman Catholic bishops of Ireland, in
1808, as the best authority for the training of priests, and
it had been adopted by the Roman Catholic bishops of
the province of Leinster, as the best standard for the
secrLt conferences of the priests. He had offered to prove
these facts from returns and public documents, in a letter
to Sir Robert Peel, but he had declined to avail himself
of the offer. Sir Robert Peel had two or three times said
that he must entreat the house to be careful how they
drew conclusions as to the nature of the education pursued
at Maynooth from the principles contained in certain
books used there; but, surely, if a book was commanded
to be read on certain specific points, and if a certain au-
thority was commanded to be taken as a master and a
guide on those points for the students, and if the rulers
of the college pledged themselves to take those books as
a master and a guide on these points, then, he said, that
common sense and truth must compel every one to say
that the doctrines of those books were the doctrines of
the college. What were the doctrines of Thomas Aquinas ?
" We, holding the statutes of our predecessors, absolve
those who are bound by the sacrament of an oath of alle-
giance to those who are excommunicated, and prohibit
them from fidelity to them till they make satisfaction."
Now, apostates and heretics are excommunicated wholly,
and therefore subjects must not obey apostate and heretic
sovereigns. Thomas Aquinas also said, quoting Augus-
tine's letter to Boniface, " Heretics are to be compelled
to hold the faith." The letter of the Cardinal Prefect of
the Propaganda, in 1796, had been quoted by Mr. lEneas
Macdonnell, of whom he would only say, that not in the
whole range of the Roman Catholic religion was there a
man that played a deeper game than he had, with his let-
ters to the Times, and his mock attacks on Mr. O'Con-
nell, and his assertions of the sanctity of an oath ; but
that gentleman had taken care to quote only the beginning
of that letter, in which it was recommended that the Ro-
man Catholic youth should be sedulously admonished of
the duty of submission to princes and authorities, and it
was no wonder that when that part of the letter was pub-
lished every man thought that Maynooth was a nurse of
purity and loyalty to the Crown of England ; but mark
the duplicity of the writer ! Towards the close of the let-
ter, however, he commanded that which Mr. Macdonnell
well knew would be understood as meaning that they
were to train the priests in all the papal doctrines of se-
dition. Amongst the books which the students of May-
nooth were bound to bring into the college with them was
the " Commentaries of IV,enochius," which, upon the
text of separating the tares from the wheat, did not teach
that heretics should be taken away and put to death, but
referred the student to one of the standard works of the
college, " Maldonatus," which did. The rev. gentleman
quoted largely from these works to prove this position,
dwelling particularly on a passage in the last named book,
which said that heretics were the children of the Devil.
Dr. O'Sullivan addressed the meeting in powerful lan-
guage, after proposing as follows :—" That this associa-
tion regards the coronation oath as a solemn pledge given
to the nation, in the face of Almighty God, for the defence
of their rights and liberties, and, abo7e all, for the main-
tenance of true Christianity and of the Protestant reform-
ed religion in this kingdom. That true allegiance requires
of every subject the most tender regard for that sacred
obligation which the law has thereby imposed upon his
Sovereign, and that all her Majesty's faithful subjects are
therefore bound in duty to exert their utmost powers of
legal resistance against any legislative measures which in
their consciences they believe to be at variance with the
spirit of the Queen's oath, and destructive of the (very)
objects for which that oath was and is required by the
(very) laws which called her royal ancesters to the throne
oflEngland." The rev. gentleman then applied himself
with much ability to the argument that the increased grant
to Maynooth was nothing more than restitution money,
by showing that the Church of Rome never had any pro-
perty in Ireland ; inasmuch as the whole framework of
the Protestant Church, with all its changes, was made
two years prior to the existence of that creed—the creed
of Pius IV., which every Roman Catholic priest, before
he entered into the possession of a benefice, must swear
to. It was that " creed" that determined the church ;
the Roman Catholic church was, therefore, a new church,
inasmuch as it was a new creed she had embraced ;
whereas the Church of England had simply made those
alterations, which she was at liberty to do, and bound to
de. He repeated his conviction, that the effects of this
Maynooth Bill would be to produce a Catholic ascendan-
cy, and with it convulsion, and either the dismemberment
of the empire, or a most sanguinary civil war. What
would be the consequences of Roman Catholic ascend-
ancy ? The destruction of a few clergymen ? No ; far
more important results would follow. Only let the Ro-
man Catholics be enabled to send ninety members to the
House of Commons, bent upon advancing the interests of
their faith, and where would be the British minister that
could carry on the affairs of this kingdom? When that
time came it would not be from Ireland that the call for
repeal would come. Such would be the embarrassment
of the legislature that, throughout the whole of England,
there would be one unanimous call to send back the Irish
legislators. Sir Robert Peel had said that he had no other
course to pursue ; but he (Dr. O'Sullivan) would much
rather have the old system of granting annually £9,000
than trust to Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham ;
and he did not believe that a majority of the repeal asso-
ciation would submit to the disgrace of having the doc-
trines which his reverend friend had mentioned taught at
their expense.

Mr. 17. M. Percival, in seconding the resolution, ad-
dressed himself exclusively to the subject of the corona-
tion oath, contending that the Maynooth Bill, by making
the college of Maynooth an institution of the monarchy,
and by doubling the number of Roman Catholic priests,
militated against the nature and intention of that oath (the
terms of which he quoted), and was directly opposed also
to the fifth article of the union, which declared that the
continuation of the Established Church in Ireland should
be deemed and taken to be a fundamental principle of the
union.