The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-04-13 00:00:00

when pro;

,erly receives

k out the salvation of his immortal soul. In the
course of his sermon he proved distinctly, not only from
the text, but from various others, that the only hope of
the sinner was to be found in the Sacrifice of Christ ; and
that it was but the presumption of vain-glory and ambi-
tion to place any reliance on our own acts, as being calcu-
lated to win for us an inheritance in the Kingdom of
Heaven. He contended that man—fallen man—must first
be Quickened to spiritual life and

y the Spirit of
God, and then that, in the words of the text, he would be
" created in Christ unto good works,"—which good works
would be the effect of Christ's regeneration of the man,
and not the presumptuous efforts of his own weak mind.
The reverend gentleman concluded his excellent discourse
by making a fervent appeal for the sympathy and liberality
off onn aparrn 1- inn nn hahulf of 11

preached. -
The evening service was extremely well attended, con-
sidering the unfavourable state of the weather, an& the
many charitable appeals which have recently been made
to the benevolence of his congregation. Amongst those
present, we were happy to observe George Hall Law-
rence, Esq., our worthy mayor, and family.
At the conclusion of the prayers for the evening, the
Rev. Mr. M`Neile ascended the pulpit, and preached from
the 78th psalm, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th verses :—" I will open
my mouth in a parable ; I will utter dark sayings of old ;
which we have heard and known, and our fathers have
told us. We will not hide them from their children,
showing to the generation to come the praises of the
LORD, and his strength and his wonderful works that he
hath done." The reverend gentleman then proceeded—

My dear Brethren :,Once more our poor neighbours plead
with you, through me, on behalf of their children. It is

the high and gratifying part of practical Christianity, that
they who are strong, are called upon to help the infir-
mities of the weak ; and with reference to the edu-
cation of children, our poor neighbours are weak in-
deed. They cannot spare sufficient time to even at-

diate compliance with the divine command ; and if they
had time, they do not possess sufficient information to
communicate instruction to their little offspring. Whilst
they are thus doubly incapacitated from the want of
time, and from the want of information, they are
at the same time deficient of the necessary means of

enabling them to give them anything like either a scrip-
tural or a secular education ; so that it may truly be said
theirs is a state of great weakness. They have before
received, and I am confident they will again receive, help
from your comparative strength. You have not time to
teach those children yourselves ; and secondly, even if you
had time, many of you have not sufficient information to
enable you to do so ; but, then, in the third place, most
of you have the means whereby qualified persons may be
paid whilst they perform the office of instructors of a
large body of the children of your poor neighbours. This
is t

_le precise position in which our charity schools stand
impart :
we support qualified persons, who to the children
that instruction which it is the duty of every Christian
father and mother to provide for their offspring ; and it is
part of our Christian duty to do so—part of that Christian
duty which is inculcated in the psalm which I have just
read for you. The first portion of that psalm says—
" Give ear, 0 my people, to my law; incline your ears to
the word of my mouth." But the second vers(
-,tpq an . -
d of tb'S

creates an expectation in the mint. .ne reader
which the psalm does not fulfil. It says, " I will
open my mouth to you in a parable; I will utter dark
sayings." These words would lead you to suppose
that a " parable," or " dark saying," would be found in
the remaining portion of the psalm ; but such is not the
case. The psalm consists of a series of historical refer-
ences, and there are neither parables nor dark sayings in
it. The historical events referred to in the psalm are the
same as those selected
_by Saint Paul, where he refers to

the Jewish history, and says that the events of that his-
tory were written as types of the events which were to oc-
cur in the Christian era, as well as records of the trans-
actions of that people. If, then, the events of the Jewish
history were not merely events complete in themselves,
but also types of the Christian dispensation, then indeed
the psalmist was right—he opened his mouth in a parable.
In all parables there is the outward letter, or narrative,
as well as the inward moral, to be derived from it; and if
the Jewish history was intended by God to convey instruc-
tion, like the parables of our Saviour ; and if they had, as
well as the outward letter of historical truth, the inward
spirit of instruction, then indeed the words of the text are
correct as regards the parable which it contains. The
things contained in this parable were heard by the peo-
ple from their fathers, and they promised that they should
not hide them from their children. They promised that
they would shew from generation to generation. the praises
of the Lord,—his strength and his wonderful works. And
now, I will ask, what had the Lord then done for the peo-
ple that they should make known his praises, his strength,
and his wonderful works, from generation to generation ?-
He had established a law in Israel whichhe had commanded
the fathers to make known to their children ; and if we
refer to the books of Exodus, we will find that the tables
containing this law were called the testimony, which were
the commandments of God ; and we will also find that
these commandments were shut up in an ark, which was
called the ark of the testimony. So then the command-
ments were called the testimony •, and he established this
testimony in Israel ; for even that chosen people had seri-
ously forgotten the commandments of God. During their
Egyptian idolatry they had forgotten their God and their
duties towards his Heavenly Government. It was quite•
evident that the Lord had established the testimony,
which was the ten commandments, and that he had, also,
commanded that the fathers of the people of Israel should
teach their children to know and to observe that testi--
mony. This, in point of fact, is the only system of Na-
tional Education established by God himself. He then
took the nation under his especial charge, and amongst
those things which he did for the nation was the estab-
lishment of a National Education, part of which was to
teach the children the ten commandments and the testi-.
mony, as revealed to the people of Israel. But these were
not the only laws in force among the Jews ; there were
the ceremonial laws of the old dispensation to be observed
also, and these were observed by the people. Here the
learned preacher entered into a lengthened detail of the
nature of those ceremonial laws, and their effect upon the
morals of society, and proceeded to state, that they,
were told by the Psalmist,. that God enjoined them to
observe both these laws, and to teach them to their
children from generation to generation ; and here the
word " children " was to be understood literally,
and not to be understood as the, nation's children.
When they recollected that these parts of the Jewish
history were regarded by St. Paul as types for the insti-
tution of the Christian church—that the moral law of
God (the testimony) " remains the same yesterday, to-
day, and for ever"—and that the ceremonial law had ful-
filled its office, and merged into the Christian dispensa-
tion—they would say that the passage applied to them as
distinctly as it applied to the Jews, and that it was fully
incumbent upon them to have the instruction& contained
in the moral law of Gad inculcated on the minds of the
youths of their own day. The objects for which the chil-
dren were taught these things they would find stated in
the next portion of the psalm :—lt was. in order that the
children who learned them might set their hopes on God,
and not forget his greatness and his glory, but, remem-

„
bering his mercy, keep his commands, that they might
not be as other stubborn and rebellious generations had
been. This, he contended, was the only true basis on
which the education of youth could be founded, and it
was to him, as it must be to that congregation, a source
of great gratification to learn that the instruction im-
parted in their schools was strictly in accordance with the
commands of God upOn the subject. The rev. gentleman
then related, at considerable length, the nature of the
instruction which the children received, and concluded by
making a powerful appeal on behalf of the institutions.
The two collections amounted to £7B lls.

COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL SUMMARY,

The rapid extraction of Bullion from the country,
created by the excess of our imports of grain and other
commodities over the exports of manufactured goods, and
the decline in the stock of specie in their own coffers, as
compared with the circulation which it represents, have at
length impelled the Directors of the Bank of England to
resort to measures of self-protection. Accordingly on
Thursday morning the following notice was posted in the
Discount office of the Bank of England :