The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-06-09 00:00:00

the land. Pagan Rome became papal Rome; the Pope took
the chair ; he ruled the victory, and once again the light
seemed to be put out. But a monk in his cell met with a
dusty folio. It was the Bible, and it was Luther who was
reading it. (Cheers.) He found by it how far the nations
had departed from God. He raised his voice in words of
power; he spoke against the idolatry of the land, and against
the coarse superstition that had put out the truth. He
revived the doctrines of the cross ; he declared that all
'
images should be cast down, and the Lord alone be exalted ;
he maintained in his latter days, that he who sat upon the
chair at Rome, was a usurper and Auto-Christ. (Cheers.)
That voice increased ; the mighty echo swelled, for salvation
was upon it, and men felt the comfort of the liberty of the
gospel : they felt the thraldom of papal Rome ; the little
band swelled into a multitude ; the voice of the gospel
reached England, and Risme tottered to its base at its pro-
clamation. (Loud cheering.) Then came a noble band of
men forward in defence of the truth, they watered the plains
with their blood ; they gave their bodies to be burned in
Smithfield. (Cheers.) The blood of the martyrs proved
the seed of the church ; the seed flourished ' • it rose and
brought forth fruit ; and the word of God, and the gospel of
Jesus Christ became once again established in this kingdom.
(Hear.) But, again, after all this trouble and exertion,
there came a coldness. The violent protesters fell asleep,
and again coldness began to gather, Romanism remained
quiet for a long time—for so long as the truth prevailed,
popery was dormant—but its evil workings were going
forward ; as the gospel declined in the pulpits, so cold
morality succeeded; and as many seized upon livings for
the sake of the loaves and fishes, more than from the love
of souls, Romanism began to usurp its place. The church
became fractured in • her powers, and popery seemed to
flourish for a season. Now he dated the progress of all
dissent from the moment that coldness succeeded the
doctrines of Jesus Christ. From that moment Arianism,
Socinianism, and all the various forms of dissent began
to take the place the church should have held. We
could not wonder, so long as the church did not take her
place, that dissent should spread ; but the church having
slept her sleep, she seemed to have awoke as a giant re-
freshed with wine. Our Zion seemed to have put on her
beautiful garmebts; she was now appearing in her strength,
and could we be surprised that these upstart sects—and this
whilst she slept—should start forth in opposition to her?
We could discover the spirit of some of this opposition ; it
seemed not tO be an honest desire for the glory of Jesus
Christ, or for the spread of the gospel, or else why did they
not protest against the established church whilst she was
asleep? (Cheers.) Then they were all quiet; they were
gathering their own strength. The church was at peace,
doing little good or little evil, she was not exerting herself as
she ought, he grieved to say ; but was it the part of a true
friend to hide her faults? But now when she did take her
place and boldly stood forward as the national bulwark, when
she entered her most solemn protest against the usurpatibn
of a foreign tyranny—for the Church of England was the
protesting church of this land. (Hear.) When she seemed
to raise her voice preeminently (he would not say exclusively)
against the beast ; all their energies were roused against her,
and they cried " Down with her, down with her even to the
ground." (Cheers.) In all this we saw it was not the love
of the truth that actuated them, or why not join the Church
of England in the noble tight? Here we saw the lurking
jealousy that existed against the establishment. In all this
he saw nothing good. (Hear.) He saw nothing but that
restless spirit of democracy which would exalt itself above
God himself, and which would establish itself; he saw not
in it the spirit of truth, or an honest desire to spread the
knowledge of Jesus Christ. They put us upon our defence :
we were therefore obliged to band ourselves together and to
form these societies, to maintain the principles of the church
'by which we would stand, or by which we were determined
to fall. (Cheers.) It was not because the church was esta-
blished that we defended her, but because she contained
within her the pearl of great price. Upon these grounds
alone—upon the scriptural character of the Church of Eng-
land, we loved her, and belived that she had been the means
of giving to England the unexampled prosperity she had en-
joyed. The rev. gent. concluded by moving the resolution.
The Rev. Dr. TATFERSHALL rose to second • the resolu•
Lion. It was with much pleasure that he came forward to
take some part in the proceedings of this evening. He felt
it a privilege to have this repeated opportunity, after havii g
expressed his sentiments with reference to the design and
constitution of the society at a former meeting, of giving ut-
terance to •the same approbation, and of declaring to them
again how grateful he felt to Almighty God that lie had put
it into their hearts to associate together for the purpose fcr
which the society had teen established. He could indeed
have rejoiced greatly had there been no occasion for any as-
sociation of this nature, and had the cause not arisen which
made it necessary that they should associate as a society in
&fence of the Established Church. Such occasion, however,
had arisen. We were not the aggressors. Other associa-
tions had been formed with a view 'of assailing the Esta-
blished Church with, as we believed, so little reason iu their
nature, that it became a sacred duty which we owed to our,
selves, to the Church, and to the Great Head of the Church,
our Lord Jesus Christ, not to be backward to defend that
sacred institution of which Ile was the Head, and which was
constituted upon the model which He had handed down,
through the instrumentality of-His inspired servants, to us.
(Applause.) It would not be 'necessary to go in detail
through all the particulars of the resolution which had been
so ably commended to their attention, but he would venture
tO make one or two remarks with regard to some of those,
particulars. He might, however, observe, that he felt
strongly, and was gratified to hear, the remark of his reve-
rend brother with reference to a clause at the close of the re-
solution. He had intended to have made a similar remark
himself; but he was happy to unite in the views just ex,
pressed, and to approve of the alteration of the word " sur-
prise" to " regret." He did not feel surprise, though he
might feel sorrow, at the endeavours of the enemies ot , the
Church to injure her. His surprise was that any who called
themselves Christians, and who professed to be actuated by
the love of God, and by zeal for the salvation of souls, should
,146- the enemies of the Church of Ehgland. (Cheers.) But,
being enemies, be Was not surprised that they should endea-
vour to injure her; he Was only sbrry they should continue
to walk in that enmity against the church, and, as he believed,
.against the interests of religion, which was so much in ac-
cordancewith the interests of the adversary who " goes about
as a roaring lion, seeking. whom he may devour." . The re-
solution said, in effect, that they (the Society) loved the
Church of England.. -They had good reason to love the
Church of England. But love was sometimes established
upon very different principles. There was love founded upon
prejudice, and love from impulse ; but neither of these were
of great value, as they had in them little or nothirig Of the
principle of permanency. We were.COMManded to love God
' with all our heart, with all our soul,' and with all our
strength"—with an intelligent ns-Well as a fervent affection.
We ought_ to know the reason why we loved the Church ;
and in proportion as out love was founded upon settled and
well-understood grounds, we had a pledge that that Wye would
be permanent and utficacimis.• Now there were assigned in
the resolution good, ailid•suffieient, reasons why they should
iese the .Church of I:iigland. In adopting the resolution
they 4clared they loved her for her scriptural character—
tlaat,was:dhe supposed, for her scriptural doctrines, and her
scriptural constitution. These were very weighty words.
(Bear, hear.), To say they loved her for her scriptural cha-
racter and •doctrines was to convey a great deal of meaning;
.ar.d he hoped,. therefore, that the adoption of these words
would befelt to have a great and a strong meaning. (Cheers.)
They were not mere words of course. If they loved the
Church upon account of her scriptural doctrines, let them re-
member that those doctrines were not flattering doctrines.
We were'- reminded in the doctrines of the Church of Eng--
land of our own fallen condition by nature, and of the utter
impossibilits4y,ansy,process of our own of turning ourselves
to God.- (Hoar.) The doctrines of the Church of England
were not deceptive doctrines : they did not teach us to look
-to any works or righteousness' of our own as the ground of
our acceptance with God. The doctrines of the Church of
Englatid.were designed distinctly to point out exclusively the
Lord Jesus Christ as the only source of righteousness and
strength.: The doctrines of the Church of England directed
us to look for the spirit of holiness as the only source from
which we might derive that grace by means of which we
might walk before God holy and acceptable all the days of
our 'lives. To say that they loved her upon account of her
'scriptural character, was to say that they loved her because
they loved her teachings, because they loved to be faithfully
and plainly dealt with, because they believed her to speak ac-
cording to the oracles of truth, and able to direct them safely
into the way of holiness and into the way of heaven. (Hear.)
If such were really the ground and basis of their love for the
Church of England, lie need not say there was in it an assu-
rance that their love would be permanent, and that as day
by day they appreciated the benefits of her spiritual influence
and services, so day by day would their love of the Church
of England increase, and with it their desire for her per-
manency increase also. (Cheers.) The resolution also
said they loved the Church of England on account of the
national pledge she offered of our adherence to christianity.
He would venture another slight correction upon the phrase-
ology of this part of the resolution. He felt strongly that a
distinction should be drawn bet Ween christianity and every
mere pretence to christianity, and therefore he would beg to
insert the word " pure" before the word "christianity."
(Cheers.) They loved the Church of England then because
she offered a pledge of our adherence to pure christianity, to
primitive christianity, to christianity unalloyed, and to chris-
tianity unmutilated. (Cheers.) Reference had been ably
made to the corrupt forms of christianity. It waa not neces-
sary he should go over that ground again; but he must say
that it was the glory of the Church of England that she stood
forward as the bulwark of pure christianity. (Hear, hear.)
When we considered ourselves as an established church, it
was the glory of our country that we held our position as an
established church upon the very ground of protesting against
all the corruptions of christianity. (Hear.) The very rea-
son why we were an established church was because we
protested against the errors of the Church of Rome ; and if
it had not been for that we should not have been an esta-
blished church. (Cheers.) Before he sat down he would
beg leave to mention one thing in which this Young Men's
Society might shew in a practical and useful manner their
regard for the Church of England. There was a society, a
branch of which was established in this town, which if any
other deserved that character, might be well described as
purely a church society—a society for distributing the prayer-
book and homilies of the Church of England, and especially
for distributing those formularies-Of the Church of England,
among a class of individuals difficult to reach, and to whom,
it was to be feared, but very little attention was paid—he
meant the seafaring population of the port, to whom, it was
needless to say, this town was very much indebted. The
Prayer-book and Homily Society had had an auxiliary in this
town for some years, although it had not attracted the notice
or received that support which its necessities required and
its objedts deServed. (Hear.) There was an agency in this
town to. visit the shipping., and dispose of copies of the prayer-
bock and homilies to as many seamen as were willing to pur-
chase them at a cheap rate, but its efforts were greatly
crippled by the want of sufficient means. Now he could
scarcely imagine any object more completely in unison with
the spirit of the Young Men's Established Church Society,
than to take that society in hand, to help it forward, and so
practically to shew their attachment to the formularies of the
Church of England, in fact, in this respect as well as in a
more solemn one, to shew their faith by their works. (Hear.)
Most happy should he be if the Young Men's Established
Church Society would consider this hint. If that were the
case, if they resolved to take that society by the hand, and if
each individual member would make it convenient either to
contribute or raise by contributions among their friends only
five shillings a year, they would benefit the funds, and promote
the efficiency of the institution to a very great extent. (Hear.)
With these remarks he begged to second the resolution.—
The resolution was then put and carried unanimously.
The Rev. THOMAS IVPGILL moved the second resolution,
" That this meeting, feeling grateful to Almighty God for the
success he has been pleased to vouchsafe to the attempts made
by this and similar societies to rouse the energies of church-
men, pledge themselves to increased exertion in the sacred
cause they have united to support." lie was very glad to
discover so, wise a sentiment in the hearts of this society, as
an expression that the blessing which God had conferred
upon this and other similar institutions, was not to be the
cause of lukewarmness on their part, but of increased and
renewed exertion. There was in this a good scriptural feel-
ing, namely, that we should show forth our gratitude, not in
in our words, but in our works. Some kind of apology had
been made by the gentleman who had preceded him for com-
ing forward to support this society. He called it apology,
because although, as ministers of the church, they, of course,
must belong to every institution which had for its object the
support of that church, yet for himself, and for his reverend
brethren, he might say that nothing would induce them to
appear on that platform if they did not see in the object the
means of promoting the knowledge of that glorious gospel of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which was committed to
the care, the custody, and to the protection of our venerable
church. (Cheers.) All political triumphs, all polemical
achievements, all party victories, must ever sink in compari-
son with that great victory which it was the chief end and the