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

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 14_1852.

COQ FESSION AND CONVOCATION.

mother. Thit he denied it. The Church of Rome was
the mother of harlots and abominations. She was a
mother that would nourish them wilt blood, and no'
wish the pare milk of a mother. (Hear, hear.) He
siatte.d the bishops of the Church had come forward in
a body, is the face of the laity and of the country, to
!.ntaintain the truth and purity of the Church of England,
ind to declare that, so far from countenancing, the
Church of England recoiled with horror from the ant i-
eular confession of the Church of Rome. (Hear, hear.)
He viewed with approbation the recent proclamation in
Ireland, and he hoped the policy which dictated it would
be followed out in England. Let them only remain true
to the Church of England ; let them stand with the
laity of England. They had traitors within their own
camp ; whilst they were menaced by an usurper who is
about to assume the imperial title of France, they were
also menaced by a combination of Popish Europe,
goaded on by Jesuitical intrigue ; but let her Majesty's
ministers take courage, and take their stand on Gospel
truth and liberty ; let them do justice to all men, but
never let them give political power to these men, who
were determined to use it fur the destruction of their
ffeedom, their bibles, and their lives. (Cheers.) Let
her Majeety's Ministers adopt this course, and they will
have the prayers of ,he devout, the sytc, Lades of the
levout, and the heart of Old England with them.
(Cheers.) Let the helm of the State be put about, the
country would then steer by the chart of that Protestant
:aith which their martyred forefathers had baqueathed
to them ; and though France and Austria, the Pope and
Anti-Christ, were opposed to them, ho had no fear for
the re-ttit. The Reverend Gentldinan sat down amidst
loud cheers.

THE FRIENDS OF ITALY.

Yesterday, a very numerous meeting of the members (.0'
the Church of Eogland vv:is held at the Freeirmwrif,'
Tavern, Great Qu-en-street, for the purpose of arloptiav
resolutions on t;in attempted introduction of auricular
confession, and on the threatened revival of convocation.
The chair was taken et 12 o'clock by the Earl o!
Shaftesbury. Amongst those present on the occasion
we noticed the Earl of Cavan, Lord Thomas Cecil, the
Hon. and Rev. H. 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, Hon. Captain F. Maude, Admiral Vernon
Harcourt, Sir George Pollock, Dr. 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, Itev. J. Miller, Yen. Archdeacon Hill, Bur
T. Tate, &c.
The meeting was opened with a prayer by the Rev
Dr. Mattes.

The Friends of Italy held their first cunversazione far
this season last night, at the Must hell, Store-street,
Bedford-square. Amongst the celebrities present were
Louis Kossuth, Joseph Mazzini, Mr. Lowe, M.P., Pro-
Yessor Newman, Mr. William Coringham, Professor
Tesler, &e. Alcor the meeting had been addressed by
Joseph Mazzini and Professor Newman, there was a
unanimous demand for M. Kossuth, who at once came
forward. When the applause had somewhat subsided,
he said—Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, I am deeply,
very deeply sensible of your kindness, and the value of
that interest which you have manifested for the cause of
Italy and Hungary. I thank you for this manifestation,
the more because, in connecting it with the resolutions
adopted during the evening, I feel entitled to take it.
not only as an acknowledgment, but as an approval of
the brotherly and fraternal alliance which now con-
nects Italy with Hungary. (Hear, hear.) My best
answer to you, is, as I take the hand [here he grasped
the hand of Muzzini, who rose and stood by his side] of
my friend, my brother, and as I here stand before God
and you, heed in hand with him, so, depend upon it,
he world will see the people of Italy and the people of
Hungary, not only standing up, but marching side by
tide, until:those fair parts of the world are matured to
!he natural and imprescriptible rights of every nation,
and until they once more enjoy their inalierimble right
to administer their own concerns, and to set up or pull
down, to alter or change, their mode and form of gevern
meet. (Loud tied continued applause.) Obedient to
to your cell, I have risen ; but not for the purpose of
making a speech. There is a time when it is necessary
to be silent. Such a time is the present. (Hear, ht ar.)
You in England are happy—you can hope to obtain all
that you daily require by the word. (Hear.) With us
it is different—words avail us not—we can carry nothing
by them. We have therefore resolved to be silent. I
have but one single speech in store, sad it shall be
spoken in duo time. It is—Up boys ; follow me. (Loud
cheers.)—The meeting then broke up.

The CHAMMAN, who on rising to open the proceed-
ings was received with loud tied g nt rug cheering said:—
Ladies and gentlemen, and brother Protestants of the
Church of England,—We are assembled here again in a
great crisis of the Church, not so much to deliberate or
some positive course of action as to take counsel, and to
give to .each other mtrual ;instruction and encourage
ment, and to pass resolutions which shall show our ‘1( -
termination to persevere rintil we shall 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 curse, thinking that e
meeting such as this was not necessary at tho pre-
sent moment. He, indeed, should have been very
glad to have been spared the necessity of holdine
such a meeting, but it was inevitable. The recent pro-
esedinies 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 bo brought before the
ecclesiastical courts for the object of obtaining either the
prohibition or censure of these tribunals in 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 mutters gave it N:5
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
land. (Cheers.) Now, gentlemen, we have been somewhat
criticised for 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 Cog from Magog.
(" Hear, hear," and langhier.) 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)—we
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
are not here to deny the expediency of it, or the right
of the Church to have some form of, for the purposes of
self-regulation ; but we are hero to denounce the revival
of that convocation that was partly extinguished in the
last century ; but we are hero to deny to that convects-
d
o
y
e
dettataauctl iahinsr:ohedree:
uo:enpil,omreas:wlicraa.nifrlihtelnnysCrteaah(easaaopnl
Haoanhl
nrfaetstfdoeerdoosuati
nthnwiohhltrhaadaol
t:aeyr
parliament—(Cheers)—
el
ecleeee:
ebi:rrtnihael
attrsupeei
trrr:owdamec,
sn(hsneastveasmhiyfTodlshesai
coeeowhtteadlpahhcea(m,
feo)arnciloorroswi
twtrepta:hmreewhtli
eryei
,aenr
that
have
heoohuwenhftaft
foundation,
tnuol
reform—(Hear,
romwfnohei
nttangirushooasshsareti
only
olsher:weo:urnlrfeegadb:aiapsmootwtruti
gvityolognaeartnholgrewo.
tdenadewroaasmti
hyrgt
Batt
beti
nnnnch—inuuigi
tti
h
t
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 do-
termination this day should be based, was the attempted
revival of the confessional—(flear, hear)—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 wet point, and last night, having half an hour's
leisure, I just turned over the writings of some of our
older bishops, to see 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-
aver great the claims and assumptions of that other may
be. (Laugher.) I turned to the works of Archbishop
Grindle, and in his injunction to the York laity, ho
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 he assigned his reasons, and
all of you know what a man Bishop Hooper was, " for,"
says he, " confession is not of God." (Cheers.)
Bishop Pilkington quotes with approval writers who say,
that shriving to a priest was not commanded by God,
out 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, for 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 her
here then e(nu tooa
(Hear,
protest
hear.) We
protest
site vival
against of
consistent with the spiritual rights of the laity of all the
it
the as con-
fessional.in.
Protestant Churches, and especially of the members of
the Church of England. (Cheers.)
We
not only as inconsistent with thodeoctrine doctrines protest
Church of England, but we protest against it as incon-
sistent with the Word of God—(Hear, hear)—which
„
Word of God, while it leaves us to the ministration ct
against
a i ibs
et
the clergy in the due administration of the Sacrament
and all our Church services, declares that we are one anti
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
s O
been yet found in the Church of England to mainta
be
in
monstrous a proposition? (Loud applause.) To
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, he 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,
takean
the abandoned,
lead,l d
itn) notthi
shesitate
great
tt say,er b
matter—(H
he
ao
rs e,h
hewre hea
ro we
owaarhledo,
abd
should be found in the front of the battle. We coins
hf
rei re en d tso; dwabyo, a body
share
with
laymen,afiedeel
gbsy, osuyri clericalpatbs
with our rights, and who, with God's blessing, wilt,
c(oLio,joodint.olybeewrist,h) usl,vemouoiibaltaeinbetrhee
tboatatle ppeobfl tthoe truth.
c
soopingioovne,rbantdbatto
opinion
re plo
thGaotd's
wea gr
should ha co
stanchea l dt that
ba et
forh ase s wt
aeneci
error.hd
for(
Htehaer
bear,"
e truthar
,"aasndoulorudencehmeeierss.) And lam quit© 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 conspit acy upon our political
rights and spiritual privileges—l am not going too far
when I say all those who hare examined recorded his-
tory will concur with me, that we shall live to seea
state of things, should this be revived and established
blasphemies of anti-Christ. (Loud and prolonged cheese
rwr with thtbeecottiscrusrurbeynceofof t thhee
Cpehouprloehofof England,
o tali_
badt

The resolution was then put, and carried unanimously.
Mr. COLQUHOUN moved the next resolution, as fol.
4)vss :—" That it seems especially needful, at the present
moment, to withstand the sedulous endeavours now put
,orth in various parts of the country to bring back into
the Church the practice of auricular confession and the
Romish doctrine of priestly absolution. In opposition to
which, this meeting solemnly adheres to the declarations
of God's Word, and of the Church of England, that God
hath promised forgiveness of sins to all them that, with
hearty repentance and true faith, turn to Him.' To this
Divine forgiveness, which is instant and complete, no
man can add; and from it no man can take away.
While, on the other hand, without this hearty repentance
and true faith there is no forgiveness; and in such cases
'he absolution of the priest is calculated only to delude
and harden. Objecting, then, first to this fundamental
error of the supposed efficacy attending the absolution
of a priest, this meeting further protests against the
practice which results from it, of periodical auricular
confession, as a means by which that absolution is
to be attained ; a practice most wisely expelled from
the Church of England at the Reformation , and the
revival of which involves, on the one hand, a departure
from sound doctrine as to the forgiveness of sins, while it
leads, on the other, to prurient discussions and develop-
ments of vice, which are utterly opposed to the cultiva-
tion of purity and business."

seeien
at
rhde Church
throughout
the
said he thanked God, for
The Bev, Mr. MAGEE, who
g, as
the resolution,
of
she did that day, the
for-
ward in defence of the institution
England would be saved.
England coming
dcountry as they
(Hear, hear.) It
and the co-opera-
did on that day. the Church of
ctuleerglayitaynedamlaeityfoorwf
(Hear.) The Church was in danDsav,e
tion of the laity was necessary to
it. In the Church
of England there were two parties_o
which con-
scientiously believe that the Reformationlle
evil—the other which conscientiously believe
was a great
that it was
a great blessing. One won'? carry the
people
the era before the Reformation, the other back to
main-
tain the Reformation. The one party
desiredo to intro-
duce auricular confession in its grossest form
amongst
them, but if the people held firm they Could
never in-
troduce confession in this country. (Cheers.)
The resolution was supported by Mr. J. C, WOOD, and
afterwards carried unanimously.
Mr. BAXTER. proposed the third resolution, as follows' •
—" That, in connexion with these attempts to corrupt
and debase the doctrines and practices of the Church of
England, this meeting must protest against the remedy
which is proposed by the very parties who are most
active in those endeavours. It is demanded by them,
that all such questions shall be referred to the decision
of a body, long practically defunct, but still known by
the name of Convocation. Of that body it is sufficient
to say, that no layman has any seat in it, nor any voice
in the election of those of whom it is composed. By such
a body as this, therefore, this meeting demands, ' that
the laws of the Church of England be not changed.' Nor
can it for a moment admit, that a body so constituted as
to be unfit to make a single law, may yet be fit to frame
a constitution. Whatever, therefore, may be thought
of the claim in general, that the Church should have
liberty to meet in some kind of Synod or assembly, it
appears to this meeting beyond a doubt that that Convo-
cation which was arrested in its career of turbulence
more than a century since, is a body wholly and entirely
unfit to be trusted with the conduct of affairs in the
present difficult circumstances of the Church of Eng-
land."
Mr. Cuxurslas seconded the resolution. lie thought
they ought to thank the Protestant Defence Committee
for obtaining such an expression of opinion as they heard
that day.
The resolution was put, and carried unanimously.
Admiral HARCOURT proposed a vote of thanks to the
chairman.

The Rev. D. WILSON seconded the resolution, end in
doing so hoped that they would be encouraged by what
had taken ph.ce that day' to go on in defence or thoae
pule and holy principle., which were an tc, th. it
Church and to the nation.

The motion was put and carried unanimously.
The CHAIRMAN, in returning thanks, said ho had not
heard a stogie st- ntinaou t uttered at that meeting in which
he did net concur. They had math, a great demonstra-
tive meeting in support of Protestant principles, and he
hoped that when the occssion arose again they would
ho ready to show, as they did that day, that there was a
party in the Church who were prepared to sacrifice
everything to what they believed to be the cause of
Christ Jesus. (Cheers.) Let them recollect that these
meetings produced but a temporary effect, and that it
was for them, in their various circles, to keep the flame
alive.
The meeting then separated.

log)
bin 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 thn apostate Church of Rome."
The Earl of CAVAN, who said he had but just returned
from Florence, where he formed ono of the deputation
in favour of the Madiais, seconded the resolution. The
deputation had not obtained permission to visit the Ma-
dials, but the Earl of Roden had visited them on Sunday
last, and he was not without hope that they would
finally succeed in obtaining the release of their poor
imprisoned and suffering brethren. (Cheers.) But they
must not be satisfied with that, but must continue to la-
bour further till they obtained religious liberty for all
their brethren who were sufferieg in Tuscany.
The Rev. Ikon STOWELL, who was received with
loud cheer; supported the resolution. He said he rose
prase av, J
oe:siandin of
under mingled feelings of deep sorrow and lively thank-
nre;, e s
they":Y' meta
fulness—ot deep sorrow that such a mustering as the
sluivchelystrtehnagntkhf.uln(ece
thankfulness that,
when
n t
use
Happy had it been it the Church had been allowed to
proceed on her onward and enlarged course of quiet use-
fulness, supplyinv fresh folds • the • , tor shepherds and fresh
shepherds to recal the stray sheep. (Cheers.) He be-
lieved that the greatest arm the Dissenters ever wielded
against the Church Was this wretched semi-Popery
which it nursed in its own bosom. (Hear, hear.) Ro-
thing had done more to shake the affections of the laity,
or to lower the power and dignity of the bench of
bishops. (Hear, hear.) Nothing had ever occurred to
give more plausibility to the insinuations of the Dissent-
ers respecting the Rornis.h leaven which they said existed
in.tho Church of England. They said it showed what
they always asserted, that.tho &wish Church W4S their