The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-03-19 00:00:00

~,rch of Rome, and chal-
Aig,mg him to a public discussion of the points contained in
those articles. This challenge having been declined by Mr:
Abbot, a series of letters was addressed by Mr. Ker to the
Roman Catholics of Norwich ; some expressions in whioli
the Lord Bishop of Norwich felt it his duty severely to ceiit.
sure; in a letter to Mr. Ker, in which the bishop.accuses
that gentleman of " exposing to insult and injury the Pro-
testant cause, by violence, abuse, and offensive language,"
and more particularly of " misrepresentation and exaggera-
tion." To these charges Mr. Ker replies in terms of indig-
nant remonstrance; requesting his lordship to point out " in
vhat particular he is guilty of misrepresentation and exag-
'ration, or what language he has used not jutified by Scrip-

ure and the C.,urch-of-Engranc
hat if Mr. Ker " cannot perce

The bishop then says
in the general tone and

spirit of his papers anything inconsistent with the character
of a ehristian Minister and gentleman, he (the bishop) has
little chance of convincing him of To this Mr. Ker
replies in terms of justly-merited indignation, accusing the
bishop of " taking the part of a Romish priest, and endea-
vouring to 'run down one of his own clergy for doing what he
conscientiously believes to be his sworn duty." The bishop
then points out the following points in the letters of Mr. Ker
which he= considers objectionable; he says, Ist, you designate
the whole Roman Catholic Church as the " very synagogue
of Satan ;" thus adopting as your own, an insulting epithet,
suitable only to a barbarous age of controversy. 2d, you

impure to all the priests of that religion the basest and most
degrading hypocrisy ; to them you allow " no quarter ;" they
being in your estimation not even " entitled to the compas-
sion one feels for blind leaders of the blind ;" they being
" wide awake to the gross and fatal errors of their system,
no one knows' its deep iniquity half so well as they do them-
selves ; buc it is their trade." 3d. you assert that their books
of devotion (you make neither exception nor qualification)
" are full of lying fables." Mr. Ker then forwarded to his
diocesan the following spirited and masterly letter; which we
will not injure by curtailment. We fancy it will be long ere
the bishop again interferes with any of his clergy in the un-
ostentatious performance of their sworn christian duties.

Woodbastwick, Dec. 22d, 1840,

Mr LORD,—In reply to your lordship's last letter, I beg
most respectfully to say, that in my humble judgment no
rank or station, however exalted, can justify an individual in
stepping forward as the accuser of another, and then, after
stating the grounds of the accusation, refusing to hear the
defence. I should be sorry to put such a construction upon
the concluding sentence of your lordship's letter, in which
you say that you " must decline continuing the correspond-
ence." I trust that your lordship will recollect that it was
begun by yourself •, that very serious and painful charges
were made in your lordship's letters, such as no one of inde-
pendent mind and feeling could submit to without, at least,
attempting a vindication •, and that as your lordship has now
stated the points in which you consider me to have so griev-
ously offended, your lordship will patiently listen to my reply.
Of the parts in my pubi:shed papers, which you consider
most objectionable, your 'lordship specifies three, which I
shall notice in their order. Ist. Your lordship says, " You
designate the whole Roman Catholic Church as the "Very
synagogue of Satan," thus adopting as your own an insult-
inz epithet suitable only to a barbarous age of controversy.
But I must here complain that, by separating those words
from their context, your lordship has made me to say vosi-
tively what I only said hypothetically. My words were these
—" I have accused it (i. e. the Church of Rome) of holding
principles of the most atrocious cruelty, tyranny, falsehood,
blasphemy, obscenity, and apostacy. These are the grave
and solemn charges which I have openly laid at the door of
this church, any one of which, if proved, is sufficient to show,
that so far from being the Church of Christ, It is the "very
synagogue of Satan." But, my lord, as I should not shrink
from using the words in a positive sense, I feel bound to
justify them in that sense. And first, as to the epithet itself,
which your lordship says, is " insulting, and suitable only to
a barbarous age of controversy," can your lordship have for-
gotten, that these are the ipsissima verba of Jesus Christ
himself, twice' used in the Book of Revelations ? lam bound
to believe, that this fact must have escaped your lordship's
memory ; else, for merely using the words of our blessed
Lord himself, you would not have accused me of adopting as
my own an "insulting epithet, suitable only to a barbrous
age of controversy." Your lordship would not surely say,
that our Divine Redeemer made use of " insulting and un-
suitable language." This, then, is my defence, so far as the
epithet itself is concerned; it is the very language of Jesus
Christ himself. Next, as to my application of it to the
Church of Rome ; if I were arguing with a Roman Catholic,
or even with a layman of the Church of England, I should
draw my proofs from Scripture and other acknowledged
standards ; but when pleading with my diocsan, who, as a
minister of the Church of England, has equally with myself
declared his assent and consent to all and every one of her
articles, the field of controversy is considerably narrowed.
Now, hen in these articles I find it not only asserted, that
the Church of Rome has erred in matters both of faith and
practice, but that her doctrines are vain, superstitious, re-
pugnant to Scripture, blasphemous fables and dangerous de-
ceits, I thinkony lord, I should not be far wrong in apply-
ing to her such an epithet. But the articles are only a
concise and legal statement of the doctrines of our church ; it
is to the Book of Homilies (which are of equal authority)
we must go for their full elucidation. The articles are, as it
were, the text, and the homilies the commentary. To them,
therefore, 1 appeal; and I fell the less hesitation in doing
so, as I understand your lordship is patron of, and takes a
deep interest in, that excellent institution, " The Prayer-
book and Homily Society." Your lorship would not, lam
persuaded, patronise end assist in the circulation of a book,
which you deemed faulty and erroneous ; and yet, I am bold
to say, that I never made use of language so strong as that in
which the Book of Homilies testifies against the Church of
Rome. I must, in proof of this assertion, and in my own
defence, select a few examples.
1. In the homily for repairing of churches we read—

With what earnestness, with what vehement zeal, did our Sa-
viour Christ drive the sellers and buyers out of the temple of God,
and hurled down, •&c. He told them that they had made his Fa-
ther's house a den of thieves. What dens of thieves the Churches
of England have been made by the blasphemous buying and selling
of the most precious body and blood of Christ in the mass. All
these abominations, they that supply the room of Christ, have
cleansed and purged the Churches of England of, taking away all
such fulsomeness and filthiness, &c.

Here is an instance in which our Saviour's own words are
applied to the Church of Rome. The Jews made the temple
a " den of thieves, and so the homily says the churches of
England were made " dens of thieves by the blasphemous
buying and selling the body of Christ in the mass."
2. The homily for Whitsunday, after describing the true
Church of Christ, thus speaks :
- •

a will corn;

this with the Church of Rome, not as it
but as it is at present, and hath been for the
hundred years and odd, you shall well perceive the
) far wide from the nature of the true Church,

,pace of n

:hereof to t

Jen after

long list of enormities char

that chu

ed again

To conclude, ye shall briefly take this short lesson ; 'wheresoever
ye find the spirit of arrogance and pride, the spirit of envy, hatred,
contention, cruelty, murder, extortion, witchcraft, necromancy,
Ric., assure yourselves that there is the spirit of the devil, and not of
God, albeit they pretend outwardly to the world never so 'Ouch
holiness. - -

How similar both the argument and the assertion in this
passage are to what I made use of in my letter, as quoted
above, I think, my lord, is evident.
3. The homily against wilful rebellion (sth part) says—

And indeed since the time that the bishops of Rome, by ambition,
treason, and usurpation, achieved and attained to this height and
greatness, they behaved themselves more like princes, kings and
emperors in all things, than remained like priests and ecclesias-
tical, or as they would be called spiritual persons, in any one thing
at all. Wherefore let all good subjects, knowing these the special
instruments and ministers of the devil, to the stirring up of all re-
bellions, and flee them, and the pestilent suggestions of such
foreign usurpers, and their adherents, &c.
If the bishops of Rome, as here asserted, are the special