The Sun.
London, England, 1852-11-11 00:00:00

CONFESSION AN!) CONVOCATION.

Yesterday, a very numerous meeting of the members of
the Church of England was held at the Freemascris'
Tavern, Great Queen-street, for the purpose of adopting
resolutions on the attempted introduction of auricular
confession, and on the threatened revival of convocation.
The chair was taken at 12 o'clock by the Earl of
Shaftesbury. Amongst those present on the occasion
we noticed the Earl of Cavan, Lord Thomas Cecil, the
Hon. and Rev. 11. M. Villiers, Lord H. Cholmondeley,
M.P., Sir H. Verney. the Rev. Lord Wriothesly Rus-
sel, Mr. Colquhoun, Rev. H. Stowell, Rev. E. Auriol,
Rev. J. Mark, Captain Trotter, General Sir Peregrine
Maitland, lion. Captain F. Maude, Admiral Vernon
Harcourt, Sir George Pollock, 1)r. Cowan, Rev. C.
Kemble, Hon. A. Kinnaird, M.P., Rev. H. Venn, Mr.
Thornton, R. E. L. Bevan, Mr. M.Queen, Rev. G. A.
Rogers, Rev. J. Miller, Ven. Archdeacon Hill, Rev.
T. Tate, Sec.
The meeting was opened with a prayer by the Rev.
Dr. Menon.
The CHAIRMAN, who on rising to open the proceed-
in.'s was received with loud and general cheering said :
Le'dies and gentlemen, and brother P. otestants of the
Church of England,—We are assembled here again in e
great crisis of the Church, not so much to deliberate on
some positive course of action as to take counsel, and to
give to .each other mutual iinstruction and encourage-
ment, and to pass resolutions which shall show our (I( -
termination to persevere until we shell have applied, by
God's blessing, to these great mischiefs some decisive and
some final remedy. (Cheers.) Now many, I understand,
have taken (objection to our course, thinking that a
meeting such us this was Lot necessary at the pre-
sent moment. He, indeed, should have been very
glad to have been spared the necessity of holding
such a meeting, but it was inevitable. The recent pro-
ceedings which had been developed in many parts of the
United Kingdom—l now more particularly allude to
Brighton and Plymouth—the recent disclosures that have
been made, have revealed to us a great and growing cor-
ruption, and they have also revealed to us our many
infirmities to resist the progress of that great and grow-
ing corruption. (Applause.) An effort was made to see
whether these matters could not be brought before the
ecclesiastical courts for the object of obtaining either the
prohibition or censure of these tribunals iu regard of
such proceedings; but the best opinions on matters of
this kind declared, setting aside the merits of the case,
that legally and technically it could not be handled in
the ecclesiastical courts. An attempt was then made to
bring the matter before the criminal courts of the realm;
but again, those best versed in such matters gave it as
their decided opinion that the case was not in a form to
be produced before the criminal courts. A third attempt
was then made by an appeal to the Primate of England,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, to see how he could
bring his power to bear to put a prohibition on the pro-
gress of these practices; but that great and worthy
Prelate—(Cheers)—gave it as his opinion that he was
wholly powerless in the matter. Thus, then, we were
left to make our appeal to public opinion—(Cheers)—
and therefore it is to public opinion we come—(Hear)—
under God's blessing, to make that appeal, and to an-
nounce our determination and perseverance, that we will
never desist until, by the Almighty's blessing, we shall
be heard and felt through the length and breadth of the
laud. (Cheers.) Now, gentlemen, we have been somewhat
criticised fur bringing into juxtaposition convocation and
the confessional. It appears to me that they are so much
akin and so nearly inseparable that I would just as soon
think of separating in the Guildhall Gog from Magog.
(" Hear, hear," and laughter) The convocation lam
speaking of is the convocation as extinguished in the
year 1717—the convocation animated by the worst sen-
timents and views of priestly despotism—(Cheers)—ae
naturally, and, to use a modern phrase, nominally resort
to the confessional as the best and most effectual engine
of priestly domination. (Applause.) But we are not
here, my friends, to denounce every form of church
synod and ecclesiastical assembly. (Hear, hear.) We
ere not here to deny the expediency of it, or the right
of the Church to have some form of, for the purposes of
selfsregulation ; but we aro here to denounce the revival
of that convocation that was partly extinguished in the
last century ; but we are here to deny to that convoca-
tion, if called together, the power and right of suggesting
the plan and the limits of its own reform—(Hear, hear)—
and we are here to say that we will not submit to any
clerical parliament—(Cheers)—that the laity of the
Church should be made mere hewers of wood and
drawers of water to a select knot of sacerdotal digni-
taries. (Hear, hear.) To form our church government
upon a reasonable and moderate foundation, in which
the laity of the Church shall have not only a great but
a dominant share, is well worthy of consideration. But
es for that other convocation that was swept away in
1717, I can only express a hope, in which I hope you
will all concur—that should there be any attempt to
revise it, her most gracious Majesty will follow the
example of her great predecessor—and, to use the lan-
guage of that great historian, Mr. Hallam, that she
will "sprinkle a little dust upon the angry insects."
(Laughter.) But the principal ground on which our de-
termination this day should be based, was the attempted
revival of the confessional—(Hear, bear)—in many parts
of the realm ; and this has acquired a greater import-
ance, because it is expected that one of our bishops has
declared ex cathedra, and officially, that the practice of
the confessional is not inconsistent with the doctrines of
the Church of England. (Hisses.) Now, I was curious
upon that point, and last night, having half an hour's
leisure, I just turned over the writings of some of our
older bishops, to ace what was the opinion of these dig-
nitaries upon the subject of the confessional. Because,
after all, one bishop may be as good as another, how-
ever great the claims and assumptions of that other may
be. (Laughter.) I turned to the works of Archbishop
Grindle, and in his injunction to the York laity, he
says—" No persons shall use the beads, or pray on beads
or knots, or any other superstitious thing, nor shall he
resort to auricular confession to any Popish priest, at
Lent or any,other time." Again, Bishop Hooper says,
in one of his sermons—" Before the receiving of the sa-
crament, the receiver of it shall prepare and make ready
his mind towards God ; he shall from the bottom of his
heart, confess his fault and his sins. I make no mention
here," says he, " of auricular confession, as though that
was a thing necessary to be done before or after receiv-
ing the sacrament." And ho assigned his reasons, and
all of you know what a man Bishop Hooper was, " for,"
says be, " confession is not of God. (Cheers.)
Bishop Pilkington quotes with approval writers who say,
that shriving to a priest was not commanded by God,
but invented by man. He goes on to say—" There has
been nothing more profitable to the Pope than ear-shriv-
ing has, besides much filthiness done by it, fur no time
was fitter to woo or work their feats in without sus-
picion than shriving time." He afterwards proceeds as
follows—" If confession might be taken away, as it here
appears it was, as not so necessary to salvation, we dis-
obey not the Church in leaving it off, seeing so many
holy men have done without it." (Hear, hear.) We
are here then to protest against the revival of the con-
fessional. (Hear, hear.) We protest against it as in-
consistent with the spiritual rights of the laity of all the
Protestant Churches, and especially of the members of
the Church of England. (Cheers.)
We protest
it not only as inconsistent with the doctrines
Church of England, but we protest against it as incon-
which
against
a i
thenst
sistent with the Word of God—(Hear, hear).-
Word of God, while it leaves us to the ministration of
the clergy in the due administration of the Sacrament
and all our Church services, declares that we are one and
all " kings and priests under God." I might quote to
you many other bishops; but not to detain you further,
I may say I believe there is but one bishop who has
been yet found in the Church of England to maintain so
monstrous a proposition? (Loud applause.) To be
sure, he may be a bishop the like of whom was never
before seen, and upon whose like we shall never look
again—(Laughter)—but, nevertheless, be is but a unit,
and this unit will never outweigh the prodigious testi-
mony which I have quoted to you from the works of
the early English authors. Very well, here we are,
abandoned, I do not hesitate to say, by those who should
take the lead in this great matter—(Hear, hear)—who
should be found in the front of the battle. We come
here to-day, a body of laymen, aided by our clerical
friends, who share with us our feelings, sympathize
with our rights, and who, with God's blessing. will,
conjointly with us, maintain the battle of the truth.
(Loud cheers.) We come here to appeal to public
opinion, and to implore God's grace that he would
so govern that opinion that we should be as stanch
for the truth as our enemies are stanch for error.
(" Hear, bear," and loud cheers.) And lam quite sure
that I am not going too far when I say that this is the
greatest crisis of the Church of England—(Hear, hear)—
and that unless by the blessing of God we shall be able
to beat back this great conspiracy upon our political
rights and spiritual privileges—l am not going too far
when I say all those who have examined recorded his-
tory will concur with me, that wo shall live to see a
state of things, should this be revived and established
with the concurrence of the people of England, that will
recal tho tyranny of the Church of Rome, and the
blasphemies of anti-Christ. (Loud and prolonged cheer-
in Sir H. VERNEY proposed the first resolution, which
was as follows :—" That while this meeting desires
thankfully to acknowledge her Majesty's gracious recep-
tion of the memorial from lay members of the Church
of England agreed to in December, 1850, it feels the
necessity of renewing the protest then recorded against
which, in various quarters, are still being made to assi-
milate the doctrines and practices of the Church of
England to those of the apostate Church of Rome.
The Earl of CAVAN, who said he had but just returned
from Florence, where he formed one of the deputation
in favour of the Madiais, seconded the resolution. The
deputation had not obtained permission to visit the Ma-
MEAT MARKETS. diais, but the Earl of Roden had visited them on Sunday
SOUTHALL, Nov. 10.—Prime beasts sold re stilly at last, and he was not without hope that they would
finally succeed in obtaining the release of their poor
fully last week's prices. All other kinds of stock were
imprisoned and suffering brethren. (Cheers.) But they
24 10d t
very dull, at barely late4drates.v.
eaßl,eef, from 2s Gd t 4
Mutton, 2s lOd to 48 ; must not be satisfied with that, but must continue to le-
to sink the offal,
their 3s .8d ;
bou'r further till they obtained religious liberty for all
08itibrs,market has been less sell\ 'e their brethren who were suffering in Tuscany.
Pork, 3s Od to 33 6310p.el
The Rev. Hume STOWELL, who was received with
ROMFORD, Nov.
prices are supporter% Beef from 2s 6d to 4;1,;
to-day, ye3ts
9d to 43 6d; Veal, 2s 10d to 4s 10d; Pork,. loud cheers, supported the resolution. He said he rose
under mingled feelings of dsep sorrow and lively thank-
2sfulness—ot deep sorrow that such a mustering as the
lOd t'ci 3s 8d per Sibs. Quarter old Store Pigs, 17s to
22s each. present was necessary, and of lively thankfulness that,
“iien necessary, the met in such stren th. Cheers.
as follows :—Beef, from 3s 2d to 4s; Mutton, 3s 6 t
LEWES, Nov. 9.—The general demand is steaddy,(,)l
Il.er?p,y_ had it been iyt the Church bad bgeen. allowed to)
6d \ pro teed on her onward and enlarged course of quiet use-
per4s 63 ; Veal, 33 4d to 3s 8d ; Pork, 3s Od to
81bs. fulne'sto supplying fresh folds for the shepherds and fresh
shepherds to recal the stray sheep. (Cheers.) He be-
lievedm
against th
thea
udep(.
rotr hs:Cceeut?,dhisagi
miroeirb.nteoi
Church
power
teettoesyaws.
to
rowt
to
wo)aar
shake
haaNbtenkhtodooihistnsehdot
hmii
ngne.
Nothing
wretchedaiahtft:y.Dissentersaienodcnotei
efsao vrnoe: wieldedfshrsehteoevohemfecearbtoirh-ue.rnrroolhap Ndietrooyt
yoi
wtobghrii
ecttgoohmphsi
lower
ordnwe
Dissent-
ers respecting the Romish leaven which they said existed
Su the Church of England. They said it showed wtat
they always asserted, that
-the Romish churoh was their

CORN AVERAGES.
GENERAL AVERAGE PRICES OF BRITISH CORN
For the Week ended Nov. 4, 1852, made up from the Returns 01 the
Inspectors in the different Cities and Towns iu England and Wales.
per Imperial Quarter.
WREAT. ".s,
PRICE OITS. ETC. BEI".
1 '
TRICE .. 1 1
.392 5d 29s 9d I 18a 3d 129 s 10d 353 3d 335 5d

DUTIES ON FOREIGN CORN.
wrissa. BARLEY. OATS. RYE. I BEANS.
is 04 is Od is Od Is Od is Od la 04
QUANTITIES OF GRAIN SOLD LAST WEEK.
Wheat; 104,510; Barley, 81,b70; Oats, 24,546; Eye, 413; 13eani,
4,90; POUi 3•400 Vartait