The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-11-10 00:00:00

Providence had, in former days, tried the virtue of our fa-
thers ; that we are fallen upon times, and men, and measures,
in which principle is sacrificed to expediency, and the wel-
fare and prosperity of the nation to the love of place and
emolument ; that the " standing orders and principles of
the Church of Rome are now ripened into a full, well-orga-
nised, and daring system of airzression er ---.<*nt

oacuwent
upon our Protestant church and state; and that Popery and
whiggerY, and malignant radical dissent, are leagued toge-
ther, to rob us of our chartered rights and privileges, and to
erect Romish ascendancy upon the ruin of the Protestant
religion in this great country. (Hear:) It is, therefore, sir,
our bounden and imperative duty to be up and stirring, to
rouse from our lethargy, to awaken from the torpor of in-
sensibility, and seek, in the aid of confederacy and associa-
tion, the means of the national safety and protection. It is,
therefore, sir, our duty as Protestants, as true and sincere
Christians, to strengthen our spirits, and animate our cou-
rage and resolution, by the contemplation of the noble ex-
amples of firmness and constancy, of patriotism and devo-
tedness, to the principles of the glorious reformation, in
defence of which our fathers burned at the stake and bled
on the scaffold, and which they have transmitted to us
as the best and dearest inheritance they could bequeath
to their posterity. (" Hear, hear," and loud applause.)
The good old Church of England has been shamefully de-
serted by her hollow friends, who have loved the wages of
unrighteousness, and followed the example of Balaam, the
son of Bazor. The Church of England now stands alone,
and, thank God, she is able to stand alone. She has wea-
thered many a storm. She has survived the wreck of ages,
the revolutions of empires, the fires of Smithfield, and the
bloody atrocities of the Marian persecution. Yes, sir, she
has outlived the earthquakes of civil commotion, and the
perishable, shortlived, and blood-stained triumphs of malig-
nant Puritanism ; and, with the blessing of God, neither the
gates of hell nor the powers of darkness shall ever be able to
prevail against her. (Loud applause.) lam aware. sir, of
the industry that has been and is still employed, and of the
untiring efforts that have been made, and are daily making,
by the advocates of the Church of Rome, and with what zeal
the imposture is echoed and circulated by a whip-radical
Popish press, to persuade the people of this great country
that Popery is altered, and that it is no longer the monster
of bigotry, persecution, and intolerance, that it was in by-
gone days. Do not suffer yourselves to be misled by the
misrepresentations of an hireling press. I tell you, Pro-
testants of Liverpool, that Popery is unchanged and 'un-
changeable. I ask, without fear of contradiction, is not the
Church of Rome, wherever it is predominant, a persecuting
church ? 'And do not her essential principles naturally pro-
duce intolerance? Political considerations, it is tire, may
restrain, anti modify, and soften down the general tendencies
of the system, but what is the principle of the canons, and
councils of that church ? Does not the Church of Rome
deny the right of private judgment? And does she not con-
sider any instance of deviation from her creed as heresy, and
all without her pale as schismatics ? And are not heresy and
schism, according to the impious language of her councils,
mortal sins, which, if unrepented of, will secure the inevitable
daMnation of those who commit them ? Has not the Church
of Rome always employed, when she could, the power of the
civil magistrate, to assist her in carrying into execution the
sentences of her ecclesiastical courts? Hence the well-known
phrase, " to deliver to the secular power," by which the
transfer of her victims is made. And has she not most un-
equivocally recognised and established the principles of per-
secution in the decrees of her general councils

Is it not

one of the principles of the ChurA of Rome, that, themost
solemn oaths are binding only so far as they tend to promote,
and may be broken without scruple when they interfere, with
the temporal and spiritual interests of the church? Is it not
one of the standing orders of the Church of Rome, " that no
faith is to be kept with heretics," but, on the contrary, if the
good of thechurch require it, that it is lawful to murder them,
lest they may destroy the souls of the faithful by their poi-
sonous and damnable errors ? Does not Popery plant in the
very errors of society a despotism encroaching invariably and
indefatigably upon every other power which exists on earth ?
And where it is acknowledged by any state to be the estab-
lished religion, have not all its efforts and energies been
exerted with unvarying success, for the subjugation of the
state to its own policy and councils ? Where is the country
of Modern Europe, where the Popish priesthood has been for
a very long period invested with the authority and privileges
of an established church, that its constant and uniform
aim has not been the acquisition of political power ?
The character of popery has ever been the same, grasping,
ambitious, cruel, treacherous, and blood-thirsty. Look at
it in the palmy days of its ascendancy, and in the height of
its supremacy, deposing princes, trampling upon the rights
of kings, and alienating subjects from their allegiance to
their lawful sovereigns ! Look at it in the reign of the eighth
Harry, mean, temporising, and rapacious ; triumphant, per-
secuting, and intolerant, in the reign of Mary; restless,
plotting, and rebellious under Elizabeth ; wholesale assassins
in the time of James the First ; and destroyers of liberty in
that of James the Second. Look at it manifesting the same
genius and disposition in the reigns of George the Fourth
and our late king ; and look at it now in Ireland, notwith-
standing the concession of what is falsely termed Catholic
emancipation, in 1829 ; not content with equality, but agitat-
ing for a repeal of the legislative union, threatening a dis-
memberment of the empire, if justice be not done to Ireland,
and unequivocally declaring, that, by justice to Ireland, it
means a separation of the two countries, and the complete
and exclusive government of that country by the Roman
Catholics. It was thought, sir, nay, the most solemn pledges,
the most impassioned assurances were given to Protestants
by the advocates of that measure, that emancipation would
have proved a healing measure, a panacea for the evils of
Ireland—that it would reconcile two antagonist religions—
that it would introduce peace and tranquillity into Ireland,
put an end to all jars and jealousies, and heart-burnings,
between that country and this—that it would make the people
a nation
,of brothers—that it would be the bulwark and
security of the established church in both divisions of the
empire—that the Roman Catholic hierarchy would return to
the proper sphere of their duties, and issue circulars to their
clergy, to dissolve their unhallowed connexion with politics,
and to withdraw their countenance and support from all
agitators and demagogues—that the Romish altars and pul-
pits would for ever cease to be the arenas of political dis-

eussion, and that no sound would be heard in future in the
'tallish chapels, but the healing voice of Christian charity—
that the Roman Catholic brethren would become dutiful
and loyal subjects to a Protestant government—that the Irish
Peasantry would become peaceable and industrious—that it
wi_auld procure respect and attachment the ersns and
aracters of the Protestant clergy, preso ert
ve their houses
and properties from violation, and themselves and their
families from the dagger of the midnight murderer and ruth-
less assassin. But, alas ! sir, the hopes and expectations of
Protestants have been disappointed—all these pleasing illu-
siOns have vanished, and I am afraid, for ever. (Hear, hear.)
Let the repeal of the union, and the final separation of the
two counties take place to-morrow, would that satisfy the

demands of Mr. d'Connell and the priests ? No, sir, the
next demand would be the restoration of the forfeited
estates. Let them be given up, would that satisfy the de-
mands of Mr. O'Connell and the Irish agitators? No, sir.
The monasteries and nunneries must be rebuilt, the church
lands restored to the •See of Rome, the Saxon heretics ba-
nished and totally extirpated from Ireland, and Popish
supremacy once more re-established upon the ruin of the
Protestant religion. And now, sir, were all this accom-
p►lished, I ask, would there, then, be peace and tranquillity
in Ireland? No, sir. They would be glad to get the Saxons
back again to keep them from murdering each other.
It is much to be lamented, that the chartered rights and

privileges of the Irish municipal corporations, together with
the constabulary force of Ireland, are already in the actual

possession of Mr. O'Connell and the radical party !
And, sir, had it not been for the firmness and determined stand
of the House of Lords,—(applause)—the hereditary advisers
of the crown, the ruin and spoliation of the protestant church
of Ireland would have been effected long before now by the
Whigs, in concert with the lawless agitators and demagogues,
who have unfortunately but too long ruled the destinies of
lay unhappy country. Had it not been for the firmness and
constancy of the ancient bulwarks of the constitution, the
repeal of the legislative union, and the final separation of the
two countries, would have been effected before now by a re-
formed House of Commons, composed of ruling popish radi-
cals, and infidel architects of ruin. Had it it not been for
the stability of the pillars of the Corinthian capital of polished
society, and the firmness of the hereditary supporters of the
throne, the restoration of the forfeited estates would have
been, long before now, awarded back from their present own-
ers, by the irresistible voice of the seven millions. Yes, sir,
by the powerful arm of that fierce and savage democracy,
which Mr. O'Connell now wields, and with which he swears,
in the plenitude of his power, and in the pride of his ascend-
ancy, to annihilate protestantism altogether in Ireland, and
to extirpate, root and branch, the still lingering remains of
an expiring faction. The Lords, by their firmness and virtue,
have saved the constitution from the encroachments of de-

mocracy, rescued the empire from the horrors of civil war,

and quieted our apprehensions of anarchy and blood. The
Lords, by their firm and manly conduct, have earned for

themselves an imperishable fame and glory, and have esta-
blished an eternal claim not only to the gratitude of all the

existing moral worth and excellence in the nation, but to the

esteem and gratitude of futurity. (Cheers.) All true and
Sincere lovers of rational liberty have reason to rejoice, that
there is another tribunal in this great and complicated em-
pire, to guard the constitution from the often dangerous and
destructive measures of the House of Commons. The friends
of sober and rational liberty have rather reason to rejoice,
that the dissolution of the present ministry has been delayed,
until their morals have been ripened to that maturity of cor-
ruption, at which the very worst examples cease to be con-
tagious. The friends of the constitution and of monarchy
have reason to thank God, that the retreat of the present ad-

ministration, and their fall from power have been deferred,
until whiggery and papacy have so completely developed their
true characters, and exhibited themselves in such hideous

and aggravated features, as to produce a general confederacy
of all that is good and virtuous in the community, to hunt
,
these monsters from the land, and shame them for ever from

society. The mind really sickens and recoils at the scenes
of public depravity, of personal baseness, and moral turpi-
tude, of 3haracteristic drivelling and incapacity, of destruc-

tive fatuity almost universal, which have -passed before our
eyes, not in dramatic representation only, but in sad and la-

nientable reality, since the present whigs were called to the
government of this once happy and flourishing kingdom.
The dissolution of the present ministry and their fall from

Power cannot be far distant, and when that happy and long
Wished hour shall have arrived, their names shall not be shel-
tered from infamy, by sneaking out of life and shrinking into
oblivion. I am not come here to excommunicate the church of
Rome. No, I am not so ungenerous or unmanly. lam

not come here to night to bring charges against the church of
Rome which I cannot prove and substantiate. No, but I

come here to night, to Cell the protestants of LiverpOol that
Popery is unchanged and unchangeable, that its principles
and standing orders are the same now they ever were, and
that they will continue to be the same, until the predictions
of prophecy shall be fulfilled in the fatal catastrophe of the
Man of sin, and final extermination of the papal anti-
christ, " whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his
Mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming."
Yes, sir, until the "mystery of iniquity" be completely
obliterated from the earth. Not only my rcord, sir, of past
times, but every day's experience, demonstrate the indisput-
able, but melancholy truth, that popery is ever the same—
lemper cadent. _

The rev. gentleman then proceeded to detail the persecu-
tions to which he and a dear friend had been subjected by the
Catholics, which was listened to with the most marked
attention, and he concluded a speech of nearly an hour long

amidst the loudest applause, at -20 minutes to twelve. The
resolution which he proposed was, the appointment of the
committee for the ensuing year.
The Rxv. MR. ALLEN briefly seconded the resolution,
Which was carried unanimously.
The CHAIRMAN then gave the three watchwords of the
namely—" Church extension," " Scriptural educa-
q°4,' and " Protestant ascendancy," which were received
With enthusiastic cheering and waving of handkerchiefs, after
Which the doxology was sung, the blessing pronounced, and
the meeting separated in the most orderly. manner at twelve
o'clock.