The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-10-22 00:00:00

The (
geared,

For the amendment ..
For the original motion
The motion was consequently lost

- -
Upon the proposition of Mr. JACKSON, thanks were then
voted to the chairman, and the meeting separated at a quar-
ter after six o'clock.

ROMISH CONTROVERSI

TO THE RI

DR. BUTLER.

Sts,-1 our publisher and advocate, the Editor of the
.Mercury, announced, a short time previous to the late elec-
tions, that you would accept the invitation 1 had given you
to discuss the doctrines of Romanism as soon as the excite-
ment of those elections should have been over.

Hoping that your mind and the minds of your followers
are now sufficiently free from political excitement to permit
you to investigate the truth of your principles, I beg to re-
mind you of your friend's promise, and also of your own
published one to meet me when "had answered your work.

Truth, sir, needs no shrinking. If you have riot sufficient
confidence in your ability to defend your religious system,
you should not have published a controversial work : and if
you are fully assured of the truth of that system, you will
not fear to bring it to a fair, open test, by meeting its im-
pugner face to face, and appealing, in the presence of your
people, to the Written. Word of God.
You have entitled your controversial work, "THr. TRUTHS
OF THE CATHOLIC RELIGION PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE

ALONE."
Now, sir, I have publicly proved that you have failed to

.
establish your assertions. -You have called the dogmas of
Romanism the truths of the Catholic religion, and you have
not proved them from Scripture.
The best test which can be given of this to those who are
unhappily led astray by Romish priests, falsely calling them-
selves Catholic, is this :
If the doctrines of Romanism be Catholic truths—
And if Catholic truths can be proved from Scripture alone—
Then there must be passages of Scripture which teach
those doctrines.
I call upon you, therefore, to meet me,- in the presence of
your people, and to bring to the test of Scripture the follow-
ing Romish doctrines :
1. Romanism teaches that the host is to be worshipped as
God.
Have we precept or example in the New Testament for the
worship of the host ?
2. Romanism teaches that the sacrifice of the mass is a
propitious offering for the sins of the dead.
Where is this taught in Scripture? Do we read anywhere
of Christ or his apostles making an offering for the dead ?
3. Romanism pronounces the man accursed who believes
that justifying faith is nothing else than a confidence in the
Divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ's sake.
Where does Scripture pronounce that curse? Did Christ
or his apostles teach that it is a damnable heresy to trust
alone in God's mercy through Christ?
4. Romanism pronounces the man accursed who believes
himself to be in the number of the elect.
Where is that curse pronounced in Scripture ?
5. The Bishop of Rome claims supreme authority over the
whole church as the successor of St. Peter.
Where doe Scripture teach us that St. Peter was ever
Bishop of Rome ? or that he conferred any prerogative upon
the Roman See ?
I have thus, sir, given you a fair opportunity of testing the
truth of your principles. You assert, in the title of your
work, that Catholic truths (by which you mean Romish
dogmas) can be proved from Scripture alone.
I have selected five dogmas which you admit to be Romish
doctrines. It is of tire highest importance to ascertain whe-
ther they are true or false. They involve the question whe-
ther that which you worship be God, or only consecrated
bread ; whether sins can be expiated after death, or whether
the church which teaches a sinner to hope for cleansing and
atonement after death is teaching him to trust in a false re-
fuge, and to go down to the grave, as the Word of God says,
" with a lie in his right hand."
They also involve the question whether that blessed God
was mistaken, who inspired the Apostle John to say, " We
know that we have passed from death unto life " ; and St.
Paul to affirm, " Neither height nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
They involve the inquiry whether the supremacy claimed
by the Pope, and exercised over the souls of men, to the
everlasting ruin of countless thousands, be a mere human
invention, unsupported by the Word of God.
Ah, sir ! I feel constrained to address you in the words of
the Apostle, " Glory not, and .lie not against the truth."
You and your brethren are the advocates of a false system.
The Word of the living God denounces you as teachers of
error. It forewarns the people who listen to you of their
danger. It entreats them and you to return to the ways of
truth and holiness. May God of his mercy give you all
" ears to hear what the Spirit saith to the churches."
I have now only to add one word respecting myself.
Adopting the language of an eminent controversialist and
honoured servant of God, of old, I earnestly ask nay Romish
fellow-countrymen, " Am I therefore become your enemy
because I tell you the truth ? "
I remai„, sir, your faithful servant in Christ,
JOSEPH BAYLEE.
Parkfield; Birkenhead, Oct. 21, 1841.

TO THE LIVERPOOL DOCK COMMITTEE

GENTLEMEN,—You have gone to. the expense of provid-
ing all the dock masters offices whit barometers, yet they
are like a candle hid under a bushel, comparatively of little
use—except to those who take the trouble to look at them.
Now as we have just bad one hard gale, and the bad wea-
ther is about setting in
I beg leave to propose for the ,
fu-
ture, whenever those instruments indicate a gale, that a
black ball be hoisted on each dock office, and by that means
not only the vessels in the docks, but also the various small
vessels and boats that may be in the river will have timely
notice to get well secured,, or into some place of safety be-
fore the gale comes on. Should this proposal be attended
to, I am sure it would be the means of saving much valu-
able property as well as lives, by people not crossing the river
in open boats at such times. The cost would be very trifling,
and they ought to be solely under the harbour master's direc-
tions. At the Cape, Isle of France, Madras, and many other
places, similar warnings are held out, and I do not see why
the same cannot be adopted in Liverpool, as there is often-
times much more property exposed.—l remain, gentlemen,
your most obedient servant,
A LIVERPOOL SHIPMASTER.

GREEK WINE.—The favourite Vino Santo of the iEgean
is often sold on the spot for a penny a gallon. Some Eng-
lish merchants occupy the Marsala vineyards in Sicily ; they,
or others, might well extend their enterprise to the Greek
islands, where a vast supply of most cheap and excellent wine
could be sold.

A FALSE FROPIIET.--The Brighton Herald, a radical
paper, prophesied three months since, that " the Queen
would never, under any Fircumstances, send for Sir Robert
Peel to form an adalimatration"—that if a conservative
House of Commons were elected, " Mr. O'Connell and all
the Irish liberals would return to Ireland, and never sit in
the Imperial Parliament again !" and that " Neiier, never,
will a Cory 'government be allowed to rule this country.
These predictions were
wound up with the following an-
nouncement :—" We can place the greatest reliance on the
quarter from which we have received the above statements."

WHAT AI THE EIVGLISH ROMAN dATITOLI

TO DO?

It has for years past excited at once the surprise and a

spleen of our loud Whigs, that the names of certain leading
Boman Catholic families in Lancashire were to be found,

II occasions, arra

A on the side of good order and

settled government, and supporting, at every contested elec-
tion, the cause of Conservative candidates. Unscrupulous

in their own political alliances, ready themselves to embrace
any pollution which might serve the immediate purpose of
of the

the hour, it had never entered into the imaginatio
Whig party that a body of men could be found, in this age
of ultra-liberalism, unwilling

for the mere purposes of fac-