The Sun.
London, England, 1824-07-08 00:00:00

LITERARY NOTICE.

On SOUTHEY'S BOOK of the CHUROH.
( Continued from THE SUN of June 19.)
The violent rage for popular preaching began,
as I said before, about the end of ELizAuvrii's
reign, when Lecturers were superadded, as a
work of supererogation, not depending upon
Bishops, nor taking an oath to the Cations, nor
even subscribing to the Articles, but only oblig-
ed to please their patrons ; being stipendiary to
most market-towns, where there was great resort,
and the people had less rustic occupation, and
factions even more apt to grow; and to all such
towns as sent Members to Parliament. In order
to prevent these factions from accumulating, and
to preserve the forms of worship by law esta-
blished, these were superadded to Parsons, and
as the people loved the cheapest religion, the
rich Corporations often joined a common stock
to buy up lay impropriations, as laymen of the
pt esent day have to no little amount of all sorts
of the church property, to distribute to the organs
of their sentiments among the lower orders.
These Lecturers were highly popular, till a
Fellow of Magdalen observed in one of these
places where they were established the impro-
priation in the same lay hand us before, and the
Lecturer himself receiving his stipend from an-
other parish. lie proved to be also a notorious
non-conformists, he was hunted from one diocese
to another, till at last he was silenced by the
High Commission ; but the greater part of the
impropriation was then laid out to support the
silenced Minister, who was never so well esta-
blished but he might be removed at the will of
the lay patrons if he were idle in the holy cause.
All this being thoroughly looked into, this feoff-
meta of corporal for lay impropriation was put
an end to by the celebrated Noy, and a Royal
Declaration issued, against which the Puritans
exclaimed, as degrading their favourite Lecturers
into mere pedagogues, and restraining them, as in
fact it did, from the liberty of preaching to the
drudgery of catechising. The popular hue and
cry .was raised—that these were ordained to pro-
vide strong meals for men, and were now con-
fined to the providing of milk for babes—ripe as
they were in, years, and more than children in
understanding, and to the revealed will alone ;
for the secret will, in the unfathomable depths of
providence, was kept under lock and key to all
but Arminians ; that they were not left to their
' former liberty, but tied up to their gowns and
surplices, and fettered with parochial cures and
with canons, oaths and subscriptions,—the badges
of Anti-Christ and enemies to the freedom of
the Gospel, which no one now can hear with
comfort in all its - truth and simplicity,
nor can receive the sacraments in their ori-
ginal nakedness, and with the divine unction
of old--the spirit now speaking by the
prophets only, and the prophets to the peo-
pie—a strain this of perfect conformity with
the tone and cant of the present times, which,
though now not 30 loud, or vehement, or pecu-
liar, is yet quite enough to betray the same
origin and alacrity, to burst forth whenever an
opportunity shall arise, which is their heart's
desire, however they may profess with their
mouths to be zealous for the Church, as it is by
law established. How often do they tell their
congregations, win, are ready to swallow every
thing they choose to deliver, with the most im-
patient voracity, that in our pulpits, except by a
chosen few, the Gospel is not preached in all
its truth, and simplicity, and comfort, and edifi-
cation, especially to the poor, for whose sake it
was more especially to be preached ; that our
sermons are only moral essays, too polished for
their comprehensions, and too dull in their com-
position, and inanimate in their delivery, to sink
ever into their hearts; that their own extempore
effusions are the only streams of the living water,
which are to provide not merely milk for babes
of grace, but also strong meat for them that have
arrived at the full stature of the perfect man—
the Calvanistic puberty. While others, who
speak not so directly, yet speak to the same pur-
pose, and with the more effect, as they make
use of insinuation, and while they are attacking
so many of its Ministers, profess more than com-
mon affection to the Church itself.
In their zeal for this Church,—while they may
well be afraid of some re-action on the part of the
majority of its preachers, whom they so covertly
attack, and under the mask of the purest and
most disinterested friendship,—they would divert
all its forces from any recriminatidn upon them-
selves—poor innocents—who can mean no harm
to any, more especially to the true church in all
their unbroken strength, to the discomfiting of
the atheist and the infidel, that when the hosts
on both sides are well nigh spent and wasted in
their resources, they may come in to enjoy their
good things, and to triumph in their tenets both
in Church and State, which have long been the
predominant passion of their very souls.
Hence their pathetic address to the good
people, who are ready to sympathize with every
lamentation over the risk which the establish-
inent is running under the present administra-
tion of its pastors.
We are often told that our Established Church
is in danger. 1 love our Church too well to hear
the complaint unmoved ; and she can never
fall but by her own hand ; he who established
will still continue to sustain her while she is
answering the purpose of her establishment. It
is by intestine divisions among ourselves, and by
branding as enthusiasts those who promote holi-
ness by preaching the doctrines of grace ; by
esteeming laborious Ministers as righteous over
much ; by forsaking the plain letter of our
articles, and by a lax, and indifferent mini-
stration of our high charge, as its clergy, that
the affections of the people can be alienated
from her. This is not a day when the Church
can afford to diminish her influence, by any cool-
ness of her Ministers among themselves ; it is a
day of rebuke and blasphemy, of infidelity and
profaneness, and demands our utmost energy to
repress the incursions of evil.
The whole of this indirect insinuation against
the less evangelical of our Ministers is only meant
to disparage them in the contrast with those
" righteous over much"—a scriptural phrase,
which uo wonder is so unpalateable to those who

affect so much more zeal for righteousness than
their brethren, and try all they can to divert
efforts, which are so justly pointed against Cal-
vinism, to the haunts of infidelity, and to direct
the cannon ecclesiastic, 'which is now arming so
successfully against the heresy of its own pale,
against the sceptic and the infidel.
But we are still of opinion that the Church
artillery cannot be better pointed than where it
is, and that our defence should be where our
greatest danger is,—from some of our own house-

hold, or from those who would, by a pretence of
simplicity, and pure affection and zeal for the
Church, gladly creep into her bosom and sting
her to the heart. We are as firmly convinced as
they can be, that if the Church ever fall it will
be by her own hand ; by those sectarians in dis- •
guise, who have been able to ingratiate them-
selves into the ministry, and not by Socinians or
other Freethinkers. For what is the doctrine
of the Socinian ? perhaps the most dangerous'of
all the Freethinkers ; and if we are to give cre-
dit to their own annals, by far the most spreading
through the country. The Socinian disciple hears
so many of the Evangelical Preachers excommu-
nicating reason from any office or part in reli-
gion, as if that which distinguishes them from the
brutes were to disqualify them for this duty to
the giver of that as of every other good and pre-
eminent gift, and the faculty of thinking itself
even en injury to religious sentiment, and to at-
tempt at reasoning a profanation of the sanctuary.
He is alarmed at the unnatural tenet, and dis-
gusted with the superstition and hostility to com-
mon sense ; he hastens to the other extreme to
erect its throne on the ruins of revelation ; he
proclaims this self-conceited axiom that no mall
is obliged to believe what he cannot understand;
or that whatever is above reason is also contrary to
reason. This is the head and front of his offending,
and as far as he succeeds would tend to destroy
all but natural religion ; but what is that to the
destruction of the others who, not to mention that
they have been the cause, however innocent, of
this infidelity, are fond of raising every thing na-
tural or supernatural into a mystery, mystifying
some of .the plainest doctrines of revelation, and
weakening all their salutary impressions in fa.
your of morality, which the Socinian by the light
of nature only can make upon the heart. While
he allows chiefly of the law written therein, or
of those doctrines only which are conformable
to it, and will not stir a step in religion which
advances him above his reason, he is less liable
to the vagaries of imagination, at least to immo-
rality and fanaticism, than they who, falling in
with the sympathies of the people, are for ever
preaching to them like the Papist Friars of old,
whom in other respects they likewise resemble,
whose favourite maxim was, 44 when Reasoa
ends,,Religion begins." Such men as these are
more likely to be popular, who publish doctrines
which must fascinate the people with an air of
mystery, who are generally delighted with what
they do not understand, than the Socinians who
allow of- no mysteries whatever, and scarcely
give them more information than they have al-
ready, and the people might have had in the
times of the Gentile world.
(To be continued.)

CATHOLIC CHAPEL AT RICHMOND.

-.~..--~

On Tuesday the ceremony of opening a newiy*
erected Chapel, dedicated to the service of the Roman Catholic
Religion, took place at Richmond, Surrey. There is a consi-
derable number of Catholics resident in and about Richmond,
and heretofore there his been no place of public worship for their
use. The want of it of course was much felt, and 111 Ws DOUGHTY,
an elderly lady, whose name we believe stands high in the list
of the pious and charitable of this country, cameo) the determi•
nation of causing the present elegant edifice to be erected at
hes own sole expence. The Chapel is of an oblong form, with
a small tower of stone at one extremity, supported by pil-
lars, and surmounted with a richly gilded cross. The interior
Is at once neat and elegant. There is ornament sufficient with-
out the gaudiness of decoration which is generally to be found
in the Catholic places of worship. The ceiling is a vaulted
one, composed of wood, divided into panels, and painted a pad
lilac. The walls are of the same colour, the cornices lightly
touched with gilding, and round the top runs a rich scroll of
gold and French white.

The altar has a very imposing appearance. There is 3
pedestal of marble, upon which is placed the plate used in
the service, and above which is elevated a golden cross.
Immediately behind, and at a considerable elevation, is
superb painting on glass, the subject being the appearance
of the Angel of God to the Shepherds, with the joyful intelli.
gence of the birth of the Saviour. The execution of this fine
piece is highly creditable to the talents of the artist: we were
informed that it was painted by the late Mr. Muss, and that it
was the last of his works. At the opposite end from the altar
is the choir, which is of necessity small, but extremely neatt
and corresponding in tastefulness of decoration with the rest or
the interior. The ceremony of consecration took place on Mon-
day, and on Tuesday morning Drs. Poynter and Eramston.
Catholic prelates, with Miss Doughty's private chaplain and
another priest, arrived to perform the ceremor”, of the °polio,*
The musical department was under the superintendence of Mr.
Le Jenne, organist at the chapel of the Spanish Embassy; and
Mr. Atkins and Miss Hammersley (of Covent-garden Theatre).
Mr. Horncastle, Mr. Golding, and other gentlemen of the
chapel royal, Saint James's, sustained the vocal parts. The
solemnization of high mass was commenced by Dr. Brameton,
at a little before eleven o'clock, at which time the chapel was
crowded almost to euffocation with persons of rank and Fashions
several of whom came in their carriages from London and the
surrounding country to witness the ceremony.
The venerable Prelate performed the service in an impres-
sive manner, and was very ably assisted by the vocal performiers.
Miss Hammersley sang with great taste and delicacy ; her tortes
were rich and mellow, and her execution extremely chaste.
Mr. Atkins also waS very efficient in his execution -of the parts
allotted to him. Ilis deep manly tones gave full effect to the
sacred composition. That first of vocalists, Madame Catalani,
had promised her powerful aid upon this occasion, but she wn‘
compelled to be at the Cambridge Festival. • Madame Catalani
has a house near Richmond.
In the course of the morning Dr. Poynter delivered n,!
pressive sermon, appropriate to the occasion, and in
greets of his discourse bestowed some high encomiums urav: •
pious founder of the Chapel.—The ceremony concluded soe:t
after two o'clock.

A BEAUTIFUL AltAßlAN.—Lieut. PARKER, Of
the United States' Navy, who arrived a few days
since in the Constitution, brought with him from
the Mediterranean a full-blooded Arabian colt,
which he obtained at Tripoli, as a present for
General Bogardus, of this city. He is the hand
somest animal of the kind we have ever seen,
aged twenty-two months, fourteen hands high,
,proportions perfect, body of a mouse colour, legs
black, star in his foreheod, hair soft and glossy
as silk, hoofs small and semi-transparent. He is
extremely docile and playful, the sailors having
taught him on his passage to shake bands with
them. Immediately after he was landed at
Brooklyn, a gentleman offered 500 -dollars for
him, which was of course refused, as be was in-
tended as a present. A filly of the same descrip-
tion is on her passage, and the two will doubtless
ba of use in improving the breed •f our horses.--
(New York Dailjj Advertiser.)

CITY, Owi o'Ctocr.

Scarcely any business has been (lone this morn-
ing in either of the Stock 'Markets, and prices,
therefore, are little else than nominal.