The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-30 00:00:00

beeil bav

this peculiar claim upon us, and towards whom we are bound
by a special responsibility—with regard to all such we pre-
sent to them, not merely the Scriptures which we present
alike to all, but likewise our formularies, whether they be
our forms of prayer, cur forms of instruction, our liturgy, or
our catechism, according to the usage which has prevailed in
this united Church of England and Ireland. (clear, hear.)
This, then, is our double plan—freedom to all that will
but join with us in investigating the Word of God, the
whole and entire trnth of God, whether in doctrine or disci-
pline ; freedom to those (and we hope their number may daily
increase) who will join themselves with us in bonds yet more
intimate, and allow us to regard them as our own children,
entering into our own special charge, and united to us by
those dearer and closer bonds which that church member-
ship implies and involves. You will observe, for it is neces-
sary in these times, when many strange principles are afloat
upon every thing that concerns church government and his-
tory, that this double system is not meant to encourage or
to countenance clissE
We are boum

to hold, as believing we hold the truth, that
dissent of every modification is in itself an evil in the Church
of Jesus Christ. (Hear,.hear.) The dissenter may be con-
scientious, but he is still a dissenter; there is a division, and
there ought to he no division. Thus it is that all differences
in opinion upon the truth as it is in Christ Jesus are, in them-
selves, a misfortune, a weakness in the Church of Christ,
and, as our blessed form of prayer takes care to insinuate into
our devotions, a matter to be deprecated before the throne
of God. (Hear.) We do not then encourage dissent; but
where it exists, where this unhappy evil already has gained
ground, we look upon ourselves, not as the fathers of the
church in early ages could, when all within the church were
one, hut as placed in very different circumstances, which,
therefore, call for somewhat different measures—measures
not different in principle, for the principles are identical and
eternal—but different in the mode of their working out, and
in their application. (Hear.) You will easily believe that,
under the circumstances, I have just insinuated to your at-
tention, there are many plans which might be conceived upon
which a structure of education could be built—that is to say,
many plans might be conceived under which education might
be given, in which all parties might share at least in a nomi-
nal union within the same academy. For example, all par-
ties might be taught the fulness of truth even in all its
minutia in every particular of doctrine and discipline ; but
it is plain that is only practicable where there is a perfect
union among all parties in Christ. That was the practice in
those days in which the Church of Christ was happily freed
from the burden of division and dissent. Another plan
which might be conceived is that all the various divisions of
those who profess the truth in Christ might be placed upon
a par—that equal instruction under the same superintendence,
and out of the same fund, be given to all those distinct modi-
fications of the general creed in Christ. That is the prac-
tice of the society of which you have heard so much this

evening, which is entitled the'national board of Ireland.
do not now enter into a further discussion of that theory,
partly because it has been subl

and partly because I entertain a confident anticipation that
before a very long period elapses, whatever modifications do
take place in that system, at least the Church of Christ in
Ireland will he legislatively liberated from the burden of sup-
porting or countenancing, I may safely say, the undesirable
position of openly making war against it. Another plan re-
mains ; it is intermediate between both. This third plan,
what does it propose to do ? It recognises the fact of divi-
sions among those who profess the truth as it is in Christ;
it also recognises the fact that no one can legitimately pa-
tronise or teach direct error. It contemplates the union of
all parties in the same education. How shall it solve the
problem? We have undertaken to solve it, and I shall
simply recount the solution. We teach to all to whom
we are immediately bound as instructors, not only the
scriptures of God, but our blessed interpretation of
those scriptures, whether as regards the doctrine or
the discipline of tile. -ehurch of Jesus Christ. To
those who refuse to join us to that extent, we present that
acknowledged basis of truth upon which all forms of Christi-
anity equally profess to rely and depend. (Cheers.) Thus
it is, that in our system we provide that there shall be not
only a clear, definite, fixed, and certain proclamation of the
church's own belief and conviction of her own unshaken
truth, that there shall be not only a full expression of her
joy in the inheritance which has been bequeathed to her
through so many centuries of difficulty and danger, but that
also there shall be, when that has been ascertaine and fixed,
from those who shall receive from us the word of God, a
liberty to form their own deductions, provided they agree
with us in taking their premises from the only source of un-
failing truth—the word of the living God. (Great cheers.)
This is the system on behalf of which we appear before you
this evening, and which we conceive to be, under all the
circumstances of the case, the best adapted for the peculiar
situation of Ireland. (Hear.) You will remember that
whatever objections some persons may frame against a so-
ciety of this description, those objections would, probably, if
they reflected, be altogether obviated by the reflection that
in Ireland, whatever happens in England, dissentions from
the established church are so numerous, the majority against
us so great, that in order to form any society adequate to the
national circumstances in that country we must form a
peculiar society. In England the national society does not
embrace that second element which I have explained ; in
Ireland we are obliged to do so because we are differently
situated. In England dissenters from the established faith
are comparatively few ; in Ireland they form a lamentable
majority of the people ; and consequently there must be
necessary for Ireland peculiar supplementary protisions that
are not necessary in England. Thus upon that ground, having
a paternal care, as we trust, for all that vast population, over
which we have been appointed overseers, we have originated
that double system which I have been endeavouring to ex-
plain. (Hear, hear.) Nor, in truth, if it be further examined
will objectiors of this description find that their case is so
strong as they had at first imagined. For example we know
that even in the primitive church of Christ it was not un-
usual to permit this species of double teaching, so long as
the whole undefiled truth of Christ was clearly affirmed.
(Hear.) We know from sundry testimonies that it was com-
mon for all Christian congregations, in the first ages, to ad-
mit all persons whatever, whether heathen or Jew, from
whatever division of the unconverted world they might be, to
enter into the holy sanctuary, and to listen to the preaching
of the word. There was an express order in the polity of the
early Christian church, that no man, whatever might be his
objection to the entire truth of Christ, should be forbidden,
or deprived of the power, to listen to the preaching of that
word. But when they had advanced further into the teach-
ing of Christian truth, to a more interior apprehension of
their system, then came, necessarily and justly, a system
of exclusiveness. The heathen might be admitted to hear
the word of God, but he was not permitted to partake of the
body and blood of the Saviour. He might be admitted as it
were into the anti-chamber of the court of heaven, but not
into its erubr3ce. What we wish to impress upon you with
regard to this case is this, that in such a polity as this,
and in such a process as this, there is involved the principle
that in the Christian church, so long as the full and entire
teaching of the church is affirmed and understood, there may
be added to its teaching a supplementary provision, by means
of which those who do not wholly join the truth in its in•
tegrity may be permitted to partake of those blessings which
must, either more or less, be involved in hearing any portion
of it, and still more in the elementary and fundamental
portion of that truth which is contained in the Scriptures of
God. (Cheers.) These are considerations which vindicate
our system. I enter upon them minutely, not that I might
not have selected some more animating and exciting topic,
but because I am addressing thinking persons, habituated to
discuss matters of this description; and I think it but just
to go, before this assembly, at the risk of being thought
tedious, into the particulars of this system, in behalf of
which we are desirous to enlist your aid, not for this evening
only, but for a long period, as advocates in this kingdom, as
eiders or auxiliaries in the best and truest fashion, to your
distant brethren in the faith in Ireland. (Hear.) There is
another point of misconception with regard to this system of
teaching. lam the more anxious to allude to it because it
refers not only to our system, but to other systems formed
upon the same basis. We are accused—we have been ac-
cused sundry times by ingenious opponents among our adver-
saries as ourselves antagonists to the spread of general
knowledge among mankin. There is no topic of declama-
tion more customary among those who oppose the advocates
of religious education than this ; that in their support of it
they introduce or involve principles that appear to cast a
slight upon the whole mass of earthly, secular, or temporal
knowledge. By these we wish to be understood—clearly
understood. Our especial society rests its claim as upon its
Scriptural character, so also upon its peculiar provisions, for
the large dissemination of sound and correct secular know-
ledge among the people of Ireland. (Hear, hear.) I would
impress this upon vou. If there be any here who is an
enthusiast upon behalf of those glorious fruits of human
reason by which our race has been so dignified—if there be
any here who justly considers that human science is a glory
to human nature—to him I would say, our Irish system of
education has no quarrel with his principles or his philoso-
phy. (Cheers.) Upon the contrary, it is our earnest wish
that sound education should involve with it not only what
must be its chief element, the knowledge of God, but what
is an equally important element, the knowledge of man and
of nature likewise. (Cheers.) I say these things, my
friends, in this audience because I know, that with all your
excellencies it is not unnecessary that this subject should be
alluded to. lam not unaware that in this city, as well as in
many of the manufacturing cities of England, a miserable
faction, unacknowledged by God, and 1 trust now unac-
knowledged by man,—(hear, hear,)—has gone forth, endea-
vouring to prostrate the minds of Christian people with
regard to this special point in their Christian Gospel ; I am
not unaware that it is necessary to apply correctives among
the people of this as of other cities with reference to this
special subject; that there are those who tell you, that when
the clergy of the church congregate together in this manner,
it is only that they may insist on your receiving the " leprous
distillment" of their own special dogmas—that they may
consolidate their clerical power and mature their own influ-
ence, raise the structure of church authority under which,
as they would tell us, every free plant of human knowledge
and energy is destined to fade away and expire. That is the
reason we think it necessary and right to refer to the special
topic of secular education upon an evening like this, which
is appointed more immediately for the consideration of edu-
cation of a religious nature. Let no man presume to put
forth such a notion as this among the ministers of this en-
lightened Church of England. We acknowledge, and doubt
not but you yourselves would be the first to acknowledge,
with joy, that our secular teachers are enabled to put before
us subjects of the deepest value in every department of know-
ledge. We are as free to confess (and why should we not ?)
that this world was made by God, as also that he made the
world to come ; and if he has made this world why should
it not be used to deepen our admiration of its Almighty
maker ? However marred, and however ruined, it is a noble
ruin, and it bears even in decay and corruption a mighty tes-
timony to the skill of its original architect. Oh, no ; sin,
dreadful as it is, and dark as it is, has not so darkened the
world that some gleams of heavenly light are not still lin-
gering among the shadows ! The sound of nature will afresh
yield a noble subject of thought, because the scheme of
nature is in itself most wondrous. No right-minded minis-
ter of the gospel ever denied that, and believe not those who
would tell you so ! (Cheers.) No right-minded minister of
the gospel ever looked upon any portion of human know-
ledge, if it be real, as other than valuable. God is the sub-
stance of all truth, and every fragment thereof, what is it
but a flash of his divinity ? (Great cheers.) We respect the
labourers in science, we compassionate their often ill-requited
toils. We rejoice as much as any man rejoices in their suc-
cess and dignity ; we delight that they should be placed
among the first of the land—and why should we not, for
among the most glorious names of England we can rank
eofcaCnhnroitstbeitlsiez
many of our own profession ! (Great cheering.) All
this we do—and all this we are ready to confess, but we
prerogatives.must
Cr imperishable
that that which
four thousand years of type, of prophesy, were not thought
too much to be expended in preparing,
(Cheers.) We
Proves, after all next
to nothing, and of no value in the world! We cannot be-
lieve that Godihimself descended from heaven, and entered,
the Creator into his own creation, to produce no valuable
accession to our human knowledge. (Renewed cheers.) 'We
cannot thus believe with regard to the great truths that reli-
gion unfolds, and therefore it is that we will never recede
while we stand as Christ's commissioned servants upon earth
from declaring that, great as may be the mass of human
knowledge, it is but as dust in the balance compared with
the knowledge that is revealed to us in the light of God's
glory in the voice of Jesus Christ our Lord. (Hear, hear,
hear.) lam myself a member of a learned body, and one
not undistinguished, I am bold to say, in the annals of human
science; and as such I am anxious to place upon record
before this meeting the feelings with which we in Ireland, in
the citadel of Irish christianity, look upon the relation be-
tween human knowledge and knowledge divine. Yes, we do
believe, and would I could impress it upon you as I ought,
that if all that natural science ever discovered, all the spe-
culations of philosophy, all the glorious visionings of fancy,