Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-12-08 00:00:00

LIVERPOOL QUARTER SES3IONS,

The general Quarter Sessions' of tha Peace for the
Borough of Liverpool camnaenced yesterda,', in the Nisi
Pries Court. St George's Hall, before Gilbert Henderson,
Esq., Recorder.
The calendar contains the names of 181 prisoners for
trial ; .123 felonies, and 53 for misdemeanors.
The following gentlemen were s worn on the Grand Jury
W. M'Gregor, ironfounder, Vauxhall-road—Foreman.
Thomas Adli,on, share-broker Dale-street.
James Alexan ler, merchant, Dale-street.
E. Balman, merchant, North John-street.
George Thoker, merchant, Rumford-place.
Thomas Briscoll, oil merchant, Seel-street.
G. R. Clover, shipbuilder, Baffin-street.
H. K. ClAypole, merchant, Lord street.
R. W. Dagleish. merchant, Harrington-street.
F. Darcy, merchant, Coventgarden.
E. Eales, merchant Chapel-street.
E. Evans, wholesale druggist, Hanover-street.
R. Gill, jun., broker, Chapel-street.
W. Hoaro, soap manufacturer, Vauxhall-road.
George Melly, merchant, Water-street.

JohnNewall, broke; We-street.
J. T. Naylor, merchant, South Castle:strest

Charles Henry Percival, broker, Ex 3hanga-street.
Alexander Taylor, merchant, Launcolot's-hey.
His Worship delivered to them the following carne :
G-entlemen of the Grand Jury,—Although seven weeks'
have not yet elapsed since last sessions', you are called
upon to dispose of a list containing the names of 181
parsons, sent for trial. Of this number 123 are charged
with felony, and strange to say, the majority of these are
women ; so that the degradation of the sex in this town
has reached such a pitch that the maj part of your felons
are likely to be women. This is a state of things quite
unprecedented, and unparalleled, I venture to say,
elsewhere. There are 53 persons einarg-A with
misdemeanors, many of the offences being cases
in which knives and other dangerous instruments
have been used with unlawful violence; still, gentlemen,
I may observe as to the calendar generally, and especially
with regard to the felonies, that there is a total absence of
serious cases of house.breaking, embezzlement, plunder
from quays or offices, or warehouses —she most important
cases with which this court has to deal ; and, therefore, I
do not think it necessary to particularise any case, or to
give you any special direction with reference to any of
them. Looking at the large demands that have been made
on the time of pa sons in th s Court of late, I cannot help
feeling some regret that the acts conferring summary
jurisdiction on magistrates have not been found more
effectual here to lighten the calendar lam quite aware
that it is a very difficult and delicate point for me to
express an opinion upon how far it is possible to do more
than has been done. At the same time lam quite aware
that the acts in question have been extensively put in
force by the magistrates, still if more co&cl bo done, I
am sure that it would be desirable. _ _

The grand jury then retired to their room to consider
the bills.

Tule REVENUE FROM OM NlllCsta :OM C the
year 1856 the revenue derived from th. 3 duty on omni-
buses within the metropolis amounted to £74 270, against
£85,065 in 1855, and £108,451 in 1851. The revenue
fr'im cabs in the metropolis •was £82,110 against
having
county n
stoppedt oyu
apprehended,onlse,tohfhtahve
£75,281 and £64,210 in 1855 and 1854.
ged
APPRg/lENSION OF A Iltaaw Viga.N.—Oil Friday night
magistrates,
thez fr
la‘t, a notorious highwaymen, named George Fletcher,
llweiogge atd acCyl
alill'saiseorntfilketlhedi:
highway, near Ballow, on Tuesday last, about three
o'clock in the afternoon. Mr. Clark was in a gig, and
cbwleiafasor
Fletcher painted at him a pistol. and another at the horse.
The man threatened to take Mr. Clark's life, and male him
stand up in the gig and show that he had neither watch
nor money. All the cash Mr. Clark had was lls 90, and
the prisoner compelled him to th-ow it on the ground to
him. On Mr. Clark's asking the man to give him six-
pence to pay his bars, he refused, and told him to drive
on, and he would be safe. When apprehended the
prisoner had upon him 2s 4d and a small signal whistle.
The prisoner denied the charge, and was remanded until
Wednesday,

REV. 3. K. GLAZEBROOK TO REV. J,
MACNALIGHT.

Sir,--It has been proved in my three last letters
that the principle laid down by Mr. Macnaught in
his letter 20th Nov., and elsewhere, that " Reason
is superior to every Rule of Faith," is a Socinian
principle. Mr. .M. maintains further, that this is
not a principle arbitrarely laid down by man, but
that it is the especial appointment of God. In
No. 2. query Nov. 20, he says, " Has rot God, by
making human reason thus the judge over all rules '
of faith, clearly declared the fallible reason of
man to be superiour to every other rule of faith°
That it is a glaring mistake to make such an
assertion cannot but be evident to all who candidly
consider the question- This was illustrated by
reference to the Supremacy of the law
over those who are yet judges of the
law. I did not suppose so well-known a fact could
be disputed. Mr. M., however, with wonderful
courage and infatuation, in his letter of Nov. 30,
has endeavoured to show his readers that this
supposed fact is not a fact at all, but a mistake. I
had thought that the supremacy of the law, and
its title to that supremacy, were never doubted in
civilised states. And, on reading yesterday's
Examiner and Times' leading article I find it said :-
41 Of course law is everything. Law, which
emanates from the people, is higher than the highest
personage in the realm, superior to the prerogatives of Par-
liament, or time decrees of the Crown This, we say, is a
common thing. The schoolboy learns it in his primer ;
it is a hustings platitude—an everyday sentiment."
It seems, however, that Mr. M. has forgotten his
primer, .and that Reason whose province
he would presumptuously extend to a
superiority over the Divine Rule of Faith
in the Scriptures has failed him in a
point which " the seboolbey learns in his primer."
This strange hallucination must have arisen in
Mr. M,'s mind from ate unwilling consciousness
that one of his most dearly cherished first prin-
ciples was failing him. It was a sort of literary
•earthquake, that produced a confusion and insensi-
bitity of mind. After witnessing such desperate
efforts to maintain the supremacy of reason, we
should not easily believe that the same advocate
would be so regardless of consistency as to speak
of human reason in disparaging terms. And yet
so it is—when striving to prove Scripture is not
infallible, in his questions on the Bishop of Ches-
ter's speech, October 19, he says—" Will the bishop
be good enough to explain to us of what use an
infallible book could be to readers, who, like
himself and us, acknowledge ourselves to be
fallible and liable to err in understanding the
contents even of the Bible itself ? What text has
not been differently interpreted and honestly mis-
understood, on one side or the other, by the various
theologians who form the great chain of thinkers
from Professor Pusey to W. E. Charming ? I ask,
then, will his lordship state to us the nee of infalli-
bility, in a book, to be read by fallible men ? It
is scarcely possible to depreciate the power of
human reason more than by these words. Truly
he must be blind whose sight the light of the
meridian sun cannot reach, Orthodox Protestants
demonstrate the necessity for a Divine revelation
from the fallibility of human reason. Mr. M.
argues the uselessness of an infallible revelation
from the same cause. His declared object
in using this argument was to show
that " it is totally impossible to believe that there
is any kind of infallibility in the sacred volume."
It is for Mr. M. to reconcile a strange inconsistency
in his scheme. If his sincere opinion be that
human reason is so feeble and fallible that even an
infallible revelation would be useless to it, how
can he consistently believe that it is constituted.
by God to be superior to any other Rule of Faith ?
If the depreciating terms in which the fallibility
of human reason was described by Ms M. was
only a rhetorical artifice and a controversial
stratagem—a false argument, which he did not
himself believe—it would be well for him to
remember that false arguments are the Sepoys of
literary warfare, and always rebel against their
masters. When Mr. M. is again doing battle
for the supremacy of hum ;n reason, impiously
elevating it above the word of God, not canonizing
son—
upon others to join in his idolatry—let him call
to mind, let them remember, how feeble, how falli-
ble, how powerless their idol is admitted to be.
What ! man's " fallible reason constituted by God,
superior to every other Rule of Faith." Blasphe-
mous impeachment of Divine Wisdom ! What
saith tha Scripture—" where is the wise ? where is
the Scribe? where is the disputer of this world ?
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this
world ; for after that, in the wisdom of God, the
world, by wisdom, knew not God ; it pleased God,
by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that
believe"-1 Cor. i. 20, 21. Need we, in confir-
mation of these infallible declarations of the
spirit, call to mind the deplorable ignorance and
debasing superstitions of ancient and modern
heathen nations. The atrocities committed in
.India aro surely a striking commentary in the
truth of these inspired words. The testimony of
the heathen world ought to make it impossible to
place any confidence in reason as a rule of faith,
much less to say that it is so constituted by God.
A similar testimony is delivered by the melancholy
history of those unhappy infidels, who have
trusted to the false and feeble light of human
reason, and have not only partially, like the Se-
cinians, but wholly rejected the Scriptures. Let
us take one example, "Mr. Woolston, who, in his
discourses on the miracles of our Saviour,
under pretence of vindicating the allegorical
sense of Scripture, endeavours absolutely to
destroy the truth of the fasts recorded in
the Gospel. This writer asserts that he
is the farthest of any man from being engaged
in the cause of infidelity—that infidelity has no
place in his heart—that ho writes for the honour
of Jesus, and in defence of Christianity ;—and
that his design in writing is to advance the Mes-
suthship and Truth of the Holy Jesus, to whom,'
he says, be glory for ever. Amen ; anti yet
that the Gospels are full of incredulities, impossi-
bilities, and absurdities—that they resemble Gut
liverian tales of persons and things, which, out of
romances, never had a being—that the miracles
recorded in the Gospels, taken literally,
will not abide the test of reason and common sense,
but must be rejected, and the authority of Jesus
along with them; and at the same time he casts
the most scurrilous reflections on Christ's

.Hartwell Home, th 3 Necessity of a Divine Revelation.
Vol. 1, p. 23, 7th edition. One instance is
enough ; time and space will not allow a
particular reference to other infidels. But
there are few spectaAes more melancholy and
touching than a mind overthrown by the pride of
reasn. An infidel's creed is the essence of credu-
lity, contraiiction, and absurdity ; and yet, an
infidel is the professed votary of reason, which is
his rule of faith. Would it not be profitable to
those who, like Mr. M, have cast away the sheet
anchor of faith in the infallibility of God's word, to
consider carefully the sure road to error and
destruction on which they have entered. The
same scoffing infidel spirit which is exhibited
in the creed of Woolston is shown by
Mr. Min his objections to the Scriptures. In
No. 11 paragraph he says, " How pure (i. e unmixed
or infallible) truth can exist in a book which teaches
that Jesus was on his birth, is part of the pro-
blem which I have invited the Bishop of Ches ter to
solve, for the edification of us all ;" and in his
questions to the Bishop of Chester, the whole
paragraph fears, " whether in spite of geological
science, we are to believe that the earth and the
universe were created in a given order of sueces
sion in six days, some six thousand years ago, &c
It is the irreverent spirit which is so rampant in
these queries, that merits the strongest condemna-
tion. The delight in discovering and magnifying
apparent contradictions; the industry which busies
itself in. finding difficulties, and which, not only
does not sincerely search for solutions, but sneers
at their variety and number when offered.- It is

.. ._ .....
these daring presumptuous rebellious attacks upon
revelation, that place their authors deservedly in
the rank of infidels. That they arP thus regarded
with justice, is evident when we hear ..Mr. M.

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