The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-07 00:00:00

VISITATION OF THE BISHOP OF

WORCESTER.
WORCESTER, MONDAY AFTERNOON. - The Lord
Bishop of Worcester :held a visitation at the Cathedral
in this city to-day. There. stas a very full attendance
of the clergy, and the wardrns of the church, by whom
it was exp,AiTed .that his ,r,ordship would, in his charge,
advert to the recent dissensions in the Church.

Morning service• commence at eleven o'clock. prayers
being read by the Rev. A. Vikweler, precentor. The Rey.
D. J. Stevenson. honorary canon of the cathedral, and
chaplain to the Lord Bishop, then preaebed an excellent
sermon from Acts t., v. 42 and 43', "And he commanded
us to preach unto the people, and to' testify- that it is he
who waA ordained of God to b the judge of quick and
dead. To him give all the prophets witness that, through
his name whosoever believeth in him shall r'ceive remo-
sion of sins." _

The Reverend Preacher's discourse from the Above
text had reference entirely to the duties and obligeions
of the Christian minister, the Reverend Preacher e,v-
servirg, that the consideration of these duties, was at
:he present time of excitement, alarm, and suspicion in
the Church, of the utmost importance. He then
divided his discourse under three heads, considering
first, the origin and offices of ministers of the Gospel,
tracing the origin of their ministrations to the Foun-
tain of all Wisdom in the eummand delivered to Peter
on the mount, "Go thou and teach all nations ;"
secondly, the Rev. Preacher dwelt upon the nature and
description of the offices of Christian ministers as minis-
ters and witnesses ; and lastly on the objects of their
ministration ; concluding a most appropriate discourse,
by exhortations to his brother clergy and the laity, the
former to cultivate mutual charity in their ministration,
and the latter to receive God's Word from them, not as
from men but from God, adding nought thereto, neither
diminishing anything therefrom.
The Bishop, accompanied by Chancellor Phillirncre
and other officers of the court, the clergy and parochial
churchwardens, then proce,ded to the court behind the
altar, when the names of the clergy and churchwardens
were called over, after which his Lordship took his seat
within the communion railings and delivered his charge
to the clergy.
His Loruship's charge had reference almost exclu-
sively to those matters which have recently agitated the
Church—viz., the question of the revival of obsolete
tornis and usagea His Lordship observed that, the
tirst matter which had presented itself to his mind,
ita- most calling for remark from him on this occasion
of his triennial visitation, was important, not only on
acccunt of its eff ct, but of the specious grounds on
which it rested—he meant an undue regard for anti-
quities which had latterly been manifested and dwelt
upon by theological writers, and which extended not only
to the terms and ceremonies of the Church, but related
also to architectural matters ; and he proceeded first to
consider whether there were sufficient grounds for
such reverential observances of these antiquities. Here
he found that scanty as were the books which had
reached us written by authors living in the first century
of the Christian era, and invaluable as those works
were in establishing the fact of the early circulation
of t lie Scriptures, they did not assist in clearine those
points which new agitated the Church. Not only was
it unsafe to appeal to those authorities, because so few
records had reached us, but also because there was reason
to believe that in those early days the Church bad
b.-come much corrupted ; and it might be doubted. whe-
ther the early lathers, while engaged in refuting the
errors which had crept into the Church, had
not really been imbued with their latent heresy.
Hence we were struck with the differences which
exist between the doctrines taught by the inspired
renewers of our Lord, and those inculcated by
the ancient fathers of the Church. By the former they
were taught that ttse expiation of sin was through the
vicarious intercession of Him who sacrificed himself for
us upon the cross ; and by the latter they were strictly
enjoined to expiatory penances and fasts. But if the
paucity of writers in the three first centuries of the
elristian era rendered it unsafe to trust to them, he
asked should they be more successful if, abandoning
these, they had recourse to the writings of the fourth
and following century ? Much stress had been laid upon
the writings of the fourth and fifth centuries of Chris-
tianity as authorities not to be questioned regarding Ca-
tholic doctrines ; but here errors much more fatal to
Christianity were found to prevail. The contest between
Christianity and Paganism finally ended in the victory
of the former, though that victory was not won without
some sacrifice. His Lordship then alluded to Roman
Catholic processions es in use in Italy, and their
similarity to the Pagan rites. All these ancient autho-
rities were contradictory one to another ; if, therefore,
they were to regard antiquity, it became a question
which of the fathers they should adopt. Should they
believe some who affirmed that the blessed should live for
a thousand years in Elysium, or should they treat that
doctrine as others of the same day had done—viz.,
as the idle dream of a child. "In short," said
his Lordship, " he who trusts to antiquity will find
so much diversity of opinion among those styled
the fathers of the Church,' that he will so be
tossed about upon these troubled waters as to search in
vain for an anchor for his soul in the midst of them."
Were, then (he asked), the writings of antiquity worse
than useless ? He answered, by no moans. Not only
were they most valuable for the sentiments of piety
which they contained, but as corroborative of the Scrip.
tures. The Established Church was deeply indebted to
the works of antiquity as furnishing corroborative evi-
dence of the book of Scripture ; but they would be
in danger of falling into the worst errors of Popery
if they went beyond this in their regard to those
works. The Bible, and the Bible alone, was the book
upon which the Protestant depended in his faith. It was
an argument against the doctrines of transubstantiation
and the adoration of the Virgin Mary, that they could
find no traces of them for six centuries of the Christian
era. Now was it likely that such important doctrines
should have been transmitted from the Apostles
while they found no traces of them until five or six
centuries after Christ ? In this negative sense it
was that the true use of antiquity consisted. The
Right Reverend Diocesan then went on to say that
there was another point to which he was anxious to call
the attention of the clergy, as resulting from excessive
attention to antiquities—a matter of very inferior conse-
quence as to doctrine, but which had its effects upon the
Church. He alluded to the pedantry (if he might so
call it) of introducing into Protestant churches stone
altars instead of the communion table, a substitution for
a reading desk, sedilia, candlesticks placed on the
communion table, never to be lighted, and texts
of Scripture emblazoned upon the walls, in divers
colours, and in Roman text, which never could
be read. He objected to the revival of these obsolete
uses in the Church—not on account of the expense
attending them (though this was, under circumstances, to
be regarded), but because be regarded them as having
a tendency to convey a wrong impression of the pur-
poses for which they assembled in church. They did
not meet to gaze with awe upon lighted tapers
carried by priests ; but they assembled together in
Protestant worship, humbly to confess that they
had left undone many things which they ought to have
done, and bad done many things which they ought
not to have done, to pray to God to forgive their sins
committed, and to offer up prayers and thanksgivings
at the throne of mercy. These were the spiritual exer-
cises for which Protestants assembled together in the
house of God. His Lordship then begged to offer some
remarks in favour of an internal arrangement in
churches, which had been made the subject of much
vituperation. He alluded to that distribution of the sit-
tings by which each family in the parish was allowed to
make, as it were a family congregation in the midst of
the general congregation. Such arrangements i.e observed
were unnecessary in Roman Catholic congregations,
where the mass of the people assembled, not to pray
but to gaze ; where the service was performed in an un-
known language, and the whole was performed by
the priests, the congregation taking little part in it.
His Lordship expressed himself in favour of family
arrangements of the pews, and asked what father
of a family, who had been accustomed to offer up his
prayers with his wife and children, would willingly
resign that privilege for a strict regard to ancient
usages ? He admitted that abuses of this privilege had
crept into practice, but such abuses should, immediately
on their detection, be corrected by the proper authori-
ties. His Lordship next alluded to the practice of
turning to the east, which he said was now exercised,
not only during the recitation of the Creed, but even
when the congregation united with the priest in prayer.
This was unquestionably a very ancient practice,
and his Lordship here quoted authorities, who, in tracing
the origin of this custom, had assigned the eastern
portion of the universe to the Omnipotent, and the
western to the enemy of mankind. On this point it
was evident that the fathers differed, and certain it was
that no authority could be found fur the usage in the
Scriptures, which abounded in evidence of the univer-
sality of the Deity. In the above observations, as also
in the expression of his opinion on other points, when
called upon (his Lordship continued), he trusted he
had sufficiently testified that there was no leaning on
his part towards the errors of Rome, no deviation from
the principles of the Reformation. He, therefore, ap-
proached with more confidence a subject upon which he
differed in opinion from most of those around him. He
alluded to his vote upon the grant to the College of
Maynooth. It might be true that a bishop, as a peer
of Parliament, was bound to give his vote according to
the dictates of his conscience, without being called upon
to render an account to his clergy in justification
of himself ; but for his part he was most anxious
to prove to his brethren that he had not given his vote
in favour of the Maynooth grant without the most
mature deliberation and upon good grounds. No con-
sideration of expediency would ever induce shim to vote
for a measure which he could consider per se sinful. His
Lordship then proceeded to combat the argument ad-
duced against this measure—viz., that it was a national
sin, and would be injurious to the Established Church.
He denied both of these positions, and said t,e quo
to the
tion was whether they should contribute t
Christianity as inculcated by Roman Catholics, or
whether their fellow-countrymen in Ireland. should not
be educated at all. The education, be considered, must
in the end contribute to the extension of the Established
Church. After some further remarks and arguments in
favour of the Maynooth endowument, his Lordship dis-
c missed the clergy in the usual form.

sumENT.] Years
Extraordinary Cure of
EADVERIT
a Diseased Knee of fen ears Standing, by Holloway's Pills
and Ointment !—r. Edward Perryns, residing at No. :31,
Fargate-street, WorMcester, is now cured of an abscess on the
,ce and a stiff joint, which had been bad for ten years, indeed,
-since he was fourteen. He had lost from the knee joint
pieces of bone, one being two inches in length. He
had been under the most eminent of the faculty in Worcester,
and at last was told that his leg must be amputated, as a cure
as quite impossible! A perfect cure has been effected in this
hopeless case by these wonderful medicines. Sold by all
hemists and by the proprietor, 244, Strand, London.
On Sunday last some 'thousands of people from
Henley, Staffordshire, came to Liverpool by a cheap train.
Ltworpool Gownor.