THE CHURCHMAN ARMED BY AGAINST THE ERRORS OF THE TIME. 66 THE SOCIETY FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OF TRACTS IN DEFENCE OF THE UNITED CHURCH IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: Printed for J.J. STOCKDALE, No. 41, Pall-Mall, and F. C. and 1814. ски To be continued Monthly, price One Shilling each Number. This Day are published, No. I. to XXIV. (being the First and Second Volumes) of THE PROTESTANT ADVOCATE, OR A REVIEW OF PUBLICATIONS RELATING TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION, AND REPERTORY OF PROTESTANT INTELLIGENCE. London: Printed for J. J. Stockdale, No. 41, Pall-Mall, Bookseller to the Society for the Distribution of Tracts in Defence of the United Church of England and Ireland, as by Law established. THIS miscellany having now been carried on Two Years, the public may fairly judge how it has fulfilled the objects of its establishment It contains many curious and important Popish documents, and enjoys the correspondence and active support of some of the highest and most estimable characters in the United Kingdom. PROSPECTUS. At a time when the Roman Catholic Body are making the most strenuous and daring efforts to impress on the Public the NECESSITY of submitting to their claims, and even confidently assert a general willingness that they should be granted, it will appear only a measure of self-defence that there should be a PROTESTANT ADVOCATE, to defend our Establishments in Church and State, and to maintain the general cause of civil and religious liberty against the intolerant principles of the Roman Catholics, and their unceasing attempts to obtain possession of political power. The objects which the PROTESTANT ADVOCATE has more immediately in view, are, to unite the exertions of Protestants of all descriptions, in defence of the liberty, civil and religious, which is now enjoyed by the 2. subject of these realms; to convey such general information as may lay open the designs of the Roman Catholics; to expose the mistatements, religious and political, of the advocates of their cause; to open the eyes of the Public to the tenets really professed by the Irish Roman Catholic Church: to shew that it is not a slight, but a great and essential difference which exists between Popery and Protestantism, and that the leading doctrines of the former religion are the same now as they were at the period of the blessed Reformation; to scrutinize the pretensions of the Roman Catholics, and to prove the utter hopelessness of conciliating their affections by any thing short of a surrender of the Constitution; to point out the unfairness with which their claims are brought forward, to display their real extent and their unavoidable consequences, and to shew what the effect on the Constitution generally would be, and what especially on our invaluable privileges, as Protestants, and on the cause of religion, if those persons whose exclusion from power was, at the time of the RevoJution, made a permanent principle of the Constitution, were again admitted to power in this Kingdom. The object of this publication is one common to all Protestants; it is to guard the sacred cause of religious liberty; it is to defend our Protestant Brethren, IN IRELAND, ESPECIALLY, against Roman Catholic ascendancy and eventual persecution-against the domination of a sect which history has shewn to be invariably hostile to all religious freedom; it is to preserve, for the sake of peace and security, that Established Church, whose principle and practice it is to leave every man at liberty to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience; it is, in a word, to secure and perpetuate that truly tolerant Establishment, under which, by God's blessing, this country has so eminently flourished, and to transmit it, unimpaired, to our children, and to our children's children. By pursuing such a course, the Conductors of the PROTESTANT ADVOCATE trust they shall open the eyes of the Public to the vital importance of the subject; and that, whether in PARLIAMENT or in ELECTIONS, whether in social intercourse or in publications, they shall contribute to excite a proper feeling for the maintenance of that Constitution, which has long been, and which will, we hope, long be the admiration and the safeguard of the political, moral, and religious world. It will be their endeavour to point out in every view and in every instance, the DUTY and real INTEREST of PROTESTANTS: it will also be their earpest wish to draw the Roman Catholics to a sense of THEIR duty and real interest,the duty they owe to their King rather than to the Pope, to their Country rather than to Rome,-and to remind them of the many acts of indulgence granted them during the present reign. The Conductors of this work pledge themselves never to depart from the principles upon which it is undertaken. Their minds are indelibly impressed with the truth, that it is not by yielding principles, and surrendering institutions, to the difficulty of times, but only by maintaining them against all opposition and clinging to them steadily, even through the severest persecution, that we can hope to pass through the storm of infidelity and anarchy which is gathering around us, unperceived, while our eyes are dazzled by the glare of a SPURIOUS LIBERALITY. The conduct of the PROTESTANT ADVOCATE is in the hands of Members of the Established Church: but information and assistance will be most thankfully received from all persons who are friendly to the undertaking. |