The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-11-24 00:00:00

ration of the outward man to take the place of the mor-
tification of the lusts of the soul and the evil affections

of fallen nature

It was so constructed too as to meet

every man's idiosyncracy. If you were metaphysical, it
had subtle and skilful disputes left unsolved, upon which
you could exercise your acumen ; if you had practical du-
ties to be performed, such as pilgimages and penances, if
you were a man of taste, it had paintings to gratify the

eye, poetry to charm the imagination, music the most
captivating to rivet the ear—and a great philosopher had
said, " if you make captive mans five senses, in mine

cases out of ten you nay calculate upon making captive
all the rest of the man ?" if you were rich, your wealth

was made to help you on the way to Heaven; if you were
poor, she would meet your taste in poverty ; if you would
whip yourself to heaven, she would make the whip, con-
secrate it, put it into your hands, and teach you to 1153 it
Well. Popery was admirably adapted to human nature;
in short, no evidence was needed beyond the religion of
Rome to show the false spirit of man's adversary. Satan

found that the persecutions of the first three centuries
were a mistake, a gross blunder; and when he found that
" the bl od of the saints" became the " seed of the
church," that the death of the martyrs was only the sig-
nal for thousands of Christians to spring up, he laid aside

the attitude of an open foe and assumed the position of a
concealed enemy—undermining Christianity under pro-

fessions of friendly attachment. And if jou looked at
Popery in the social aspect, the same awful talent was
displayed. It was most versatile ; a perfect Proteus. If
republicanism was in the ascendant, it was, first and fore-
most, in preaching democracy ; if despotism was the order
of the day, it would cast its instruments before the despot's
throne, and put a scourge into the tyrant's hand with
which to lash the people. In short, it was a system fitted
for all emergencies ' • adapted to all circumstances ; and the
more he thought of what Romanism was, the less was he
surprised at so many becoming Romanist. He was, in-
deed, most astonished at so few not becominz Romanists.

Like the proud vulture that hovered over t!

tle, Popery preyed upon the " dead ;" it dared n t, and
might not, touch " the living." (Cheers.) And from its
consonancy to human nature Popery was likely to spread
still more. The eloquent lecturer here quoted some sta-
tistics from the Tablet, a Roman Catholic newspaper,
shewing the increase which is said to be making to the
numbers professing the Popish faith ; and he also referred
to Dr. Wiseman's account, as given at Nottingham. of the
additions making to their chapels and cathedrals. During
the last six years many convents and nunneries for sisters
of mercy and sisters of charity had been opened. All
these cases of increase he attributed to the modes in which
Popery operated upon the fallen nature of man. Parting
from this topic, the reverend gentleman said he should
next endeavour to obviate some of the pretences of
Roman Catholicism, and in the next lecture he would
give some account of the practical conflicts and con-
troversies he had been engaged in during the last
few years. (Hear.) It was frequently urged by Roman
Catholics that they hold every truth which Protestants
hold—the Nicene creed for example—and that all the dif-
ference was that they only held a little more. They held
the Nicene creed with the additions of the articles added
to it by Pope Pius IV. (Hear.) The reverend lecturer
adverted to these additional articles in some detail, and
answered the several pretences of the Church of Rome
founded upon them. Then, continued the lecturer, some
of the Roman Catholics were continually saying, " look
around this great land, and behold its magnificent cathe-
drals: we, the Roman Catholics, built them, and if we
built them, how can our creed be what you represent it to
be?" Perhaps, on examination, it might be found that
some of the magnificent cathedrals in this country had not
been built by Roman Catholics. (Hear.) But suppos-
ing Popery had erected them all—and he admired them
beyond measure, and to hear the Gospel preached in a
cathedral was a treat to him he could not find language to
describe—did eot Herod and the Jews build temples that
were the admiration of the world ? It was possible for
these splendid structures to be mausolea and sepul-
chres instead of temples for living saints wherein to wor-
ship the living God. But he would refer to instances.
- Canterbury Cathedral was built in 1073, York in 1173,
Winchester in 1079, and Lincoln in 1118. In other words,
our most beautiful cathedrals, or most of them, were
raised between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries.
Let any Roman Catholic history be opened, and it would
be found that the whole of these cathedrals were raised
in all their grandeur when Hildebrand was treading on the
necks of princes, making emperors and kings do penance,
and kindling the fire of war over the length and breadth
of Europe. During the periods when those cathedrals
were built there was all the fanaticism of the Crusades ;
and the Waldenses were obliged to hide in the caves and
dark places of the earth. It was possible, therefore, to
build these splendid churches and yet crucify afresh and
put to open shame Him who was the light and life and
Lord of the Church. Yet Mr. Pugin, according to his
own testimony, was converted by the belief that the
Roman Catholics had built all these beautiful cathedrals.
Catholicism had been grateful to that gentleman. But he
could take the meeting to a cathedral more beautiful even
than St. Peter's when filled with all the pomp and splen-
dour of unrestricted Rom,nism—even on the day when
on its roof there were lit ten thousand lamps, mating it
almost like a sun blazing in the midst of the hills. He
could shew them a cathedral grander, nobler, more last-
ing and more glorious than York, Canterbury, Antwerp,
or St. Peter's. He could take them to the spot near
which he had spent his earliest years—to the tur-covered
cottage in any parish in Scotland. There he could intro-
duce them at eventime, and shew them the grey-haired
man opening the big Ha' Bible and reverently reading it
to his family. He loved to listen to the reading of the
good old man ; and then he would bid them kneel and
join in prayers so truly beautiful that even our own mag-
nificent liturgy could not approach to them. That turf-
covered cottage was the temple of the living God. (Cheers.)
The rev. lecturer, in closing this branch of his subject, re-
minded the audience that upon our religion in time rested
ourdestiny in eternity. The lecture itself was terminated by
some general observations of a most striking character upon
the necessity of sustaining our national protestantism. The
protestantism of England was England's glory. Whilst
that lived, she lived ; when that died, she would die.
Without being either a prophet or a prophet's son, he
ventured to predict that England's greatness and England's
protestantism must be gathered to a common grave, or be
raised to a common throne. What had raised England to
what she was—the land of asylums for the paor, of schools
for the ignorant, of churches for the people? What had
made this a land that a slave did not tread upon its shores
but the manacles fell from his bands and the fetters burst
from his feet? What made this a land in which, in many
parishes, at least, our doors might be almost without
bolts—and the days were not long since they were so ?
What had made this land a land of liberty and of bibles ?
It was its Protestant Christianity—its scriptural, pure,
and holy religion. (Cheers.) He therefore called upon
all of every denomination to bold to their ancient pro-
testantism—to embrace it with ardent sympathy, with
holy hearts, and with enduring affection. (sheers.)

THE •SECOND LECTURE
commenced by a remark that the reverend lecturer scarcely
knew which set of apologies was most injurious to the
truth—the apologies plad,e Ulna fur itaelf' or the