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WHAT SHALL WE ANSWER?

A PLAIN ADDRESS

FROM A PROTESTANT MINISTER TO HIS

PEOPLE ON THE SUBJECT OF

The Romish Invasion.

BY THE

REV. DISNEY ROBINSON, M.A.,

INCUMBENT OF WOOLLEY, IN THE DIOCESE OF YORK.

PART I.

"IS THERE NOT A CAUSE?"-1 SAM. X

"The Pope, for divers usurpations, is called the common
enemy to the King and to the Realm

CORE.

LONDON:

WERTHEIM AND MACINTOSH,
24, PATERNOSTER ROW.

CHELTENHAM: WIGHT & BAILEY; AND H. DAVIES & J. NEW.

lin it. 20 3

"I REJOICE to stand on my watch-tower, and to be among my brethren in the work of appealing to the PROTESTANTS OF ENGLAND, and to bid them prepare for defending the free course of Scripture, the altar of Protestantism, and the Throne of the Monarchy. ALL THESE I BELIEVE TO BE NOW BEGINNING TO BE IN JEOPARDY."

WHAT SHALL WE ANSWER?

MY DEAR FRIENDS,

WITH feelings of more than common earnestness and anxiety do I take up my pen to address you. Within the memory of any living man there has been no occasion which calls for more solemn warning, more friendly caution, more active watchfulness; and he is no friend to his country, to his Queen, or to the souls of his fellow-sinners, who, in the present crisis, can be contentedly silent.

Honestly indignant as Englishmen and as Protestants, we may and must feel at that which has come upon us, I shall neither write in the language of indignation or of defiance. My business is not of a political character; it is purely religious; and whatever our rulers may do to meet the present aggression, (and may the Lord direct their councils,) it is the duty of every Christian Minister, and of every Christian man, to sound the alarm, to raise the cry, not of vengeance and threatening, but of holy and stern and incessant warning.

It is, doubtless, now well known to all of you, that the Pope, or as he should be more properly entitled, the Bishop of Rome, has sent a writing, called Letters Apostolical; or, as it is usually termed, a Bull, into this PROTESTANT kingdom. By this instrument he presumes to appoint and send among us, an Archbishop and twelve Bishops of the Church of Rome, and thus divides the whole kingdom of Protestant England into Episcopal and Ecclesiastical districts or dioceses, as if there were no other in existence, to be "GOVERNED" by these Bishops. This is done in defiance of all law, (if not in the letter, yet in the spirit,) both of the Church and State, and in defiance of the supremacy and authority of our beloved Queen, in this the most Protestant nation of the world.* To adopt the words of Lord John Russell in his celebrated letter, "There is an assumption of power in all the documents which have come from Rome, a pretension to supremacy over the realm of England, and a claim to sole and undivided sway, which is inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, with the

* While I write this, the Pope has presumed to add another Bishop to those already existing in Ireland; and this he is prepared to do in England, according to the tenor of his famous Bull, as follows: "Wherefore we now RESERVE to ourselves, and our successors, THE PONTIFFS OF ROME, the power of AGAIN dividing the said Province into others, and of INCREASING the number of Dioceses, as occasion shall require; and in general, that as it shall seem fitting in the Lord, we may freely decree NEW limits to them.”

rights of our Bishops and Clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation, as asserted even in Roman Catholic times."

Now I shall not, as I said, interfere with the political bearing of this question; but leave that to our Parliament and Her Majesty's Ministers, I wish you to see, ay, and to feel, that you are ALL deeply and personally interested in this aggression; for it is needful that I should warn you, and that you should bear in mind, as we find in the Roman Catechism of Pius V., that heretics and schismatics, ie., Protestants, though no longer members of the Church of Rome, are still "in the POWER of the Church, as persons to be called by it to judgment, punished, and doomed by anathema to damnation." It is also taught in the College of Maynooth that, "the Church RETAINS its jurisdiction over all apostates, heretics, and schismatics, though they no longer belong to its body." So that the Pope may claim all England, every man, woman, and child therein, as subjects to the See of Rome. Indeed, we find this most plainly stated not many weeks since, in a leading Popish newspaper :- "Rome has more than spoken, she has spoken and acted. She has again divided our land into dioceses, and has placed over each a pastor, to whom all baptized persons, without exception, within that district, are openly commanded to submit themselves in all ecclesiastical matters, under pain of damnation; and the Anglican Sees, THOSE

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