The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-02-21 00:00:00

See how Papists and Socinians combine together to put
dishonour on the word of God ; the one receives it only
as it agrees with his reason, the other receives it only as
it agrees with his tradition. They may well borrow
weapons from one another's armoury; we wish them joy
of the company they choose.
Before I leave the subject of his assertions, I must
touch upon one more point. The rev. lecturer seemed
much satisfied with this, and gave it out in a tone of
considerable emphasis : " I will now distinctly say," he
exclaimed, and we wondered what the distinct announce-
ment was to be, " I will now distinctly say that the
Church, and not Protestantism, has the gift of satisfy-
ing her members." We naturally again looked for some
reason, some argument upon the subject. We did not
doubt that the lecturer, at present, is satisfied with the
change which he has made, but we would gladly have
heard some solid reason for his satisfaction. We
remembered what the apostle teaches, that firm persua-
sion is good only in a good cause—we knew that never
were men more satisfied with themselves than were
the heathens of Ephesus, when they cried out in
the enthusiasm of their idolatry, " great is Diana of
of the Ephesians," and therefore we naturally looked for
some intelligent reason for that satisfaction of which the
lecturer boasted, but again we were disappointed ; the
only attempt to account for it was the statement of the
fact the Catholic is persuaded that he is right. "Ac-
count for it as you will," said he, " the Catholics are
firmly persuaded that their church is the true one, &c. &c."
My reply to this is, first, a simple denial of the statement;
for it is notorious that were the Papal Church in Italy
and Austria left to depend upon herself, and not supported
by the gens d'armerie and the soldiery, she would have long
since had an empty house. In the next place, lam happy
to say, that, while many are, no doubt, under the comfort-
able impressions alluded to by the lecturer, many cf them
are finding out their mistake—they are discovering that
they have been in a sinking ship, and are abandoning the
Papal Church by thousands every year, and seeking and
finding real satisfaction in the Church of Christ.
But, while on this head, the lecturer once more treated
us to a quotation, and this time his weapon was taken
from the reviews of the famous Goethe, and he greatly
felicitated himself upon the discovery. He introduces it
with the following flourish :
" I cannot illustrate him better than quote from a writer
whom you. will at once acquit of any Romanizing ten-
dency—one who, in conjunction with Schiller, led the
mind of modern Germany to its present fearful bias to-
wards latitude in belief. He was a man whose powerful
imagination certainly never ran away in his intellect ; and
poet as he was, you all see; in the following extract, that
lie complains of Protestantism simply in its philosophical
and spiritual aspect. You may have guessed my witness ;
he is no other than the poet and philosopher Goethe."
Then follows the quotation in which the author of " The
Sorrows of Werther" gives,• indeed, a description of
popery worthy of a German mystic and a poet too. It is,
perhaps, almost unnecessary to occupy your time with
this authority, but the value of it will appear more mani-
fest when I remind you that there was a period in the
life of that famous man in which he came into connexion
with a party in the Lutheran Church, which answered to
the Puseyite party in the Church of England, during this
time his mind appears to have been unsettled on the sub-
ject of religion, but I am happy to say that he subse-
quently avowed himself a Protestant. In Confirmation of
this, I will read you an extract from " TheCharacteristies
of Goethe, by Muller," vol.l, page 311
" The aesthetic or critical school now sought and found
a new point of union. The Schlegels; Tieck, and Novali,
wrote in a strain of profound admiration of the forms of
Catholicism. They lauded mystical philosophy, repres
sented the middle ages and the institutions of chivalry a-
the highest and most glorious form of human. society, and
wrote sonnets to•the Virgin Mary.
" Meanwhile, the mischief they did was great. They
appear to have combined in the attempt to render Catho-
licism once more • the reigning church ; and; however
romantic this may sound, it is certain that Friedriech
Schlegel (who was then in the Austrian service) and Tieck
adopted the Catholic faith. Novalis did not renounce
Protestantism, but his tendency to mysticism in religion
was favourable to the cause of his friends.

" The sound mind of the German nation repugned these
pernicious vagaries, though traces of them are to be dis-
cerned in the latest philosophical writings. The pantheis-
tical tendency of Schelling'f; philosophy was not opposed
to this school ; even Schiller unconsciously fell under the
suspicion of having evinced a leaning to Catholicism in his
Marie Stuart. Goethe, between the years 1820 and 1830,
declared himself frankly and decidedly for Protestantism,
and nothing remained to the Schlegels, after this abortive
attempt at changing the opinions of the nation,. but to
betake themselves to some other field of action."
So much for the flourish with which this extract is intro-
duced. The lecturer, when he read it, showed us that he
understood the meaning of, at least, one German word, and
I could not help thinking it would be well if he better un-
derstood the meaning of the good old English word" fair
pla "
y.
have promised to 'notice some of the rev- leo-
turer's allusions, and I regret that it is impossible to do
them the justice which they deserve. I can only,, in a
cursory way, refer to two or three.

First, then, he alluded, with a very triumphant air, to
the number of his co-relkionists —150,000,000, as he said,
of Catholics. I believe he has greatly overstated the mat-
ter here. lam well aware, too, that the great majority of
his communion are far from being sincere believers in
their faith, and, if they were, why what then.? Is not
the reverend gentleman aware that the number of
idolators in British India alone is equal to the num-
ber which he claims for his church throughout the
world? Is the number an argument then for the truth
of their opinions ? If so, the Hindoos have an equal
claim, and the worshippers of Boodh have, at least, double
the claim to assert the truth of their creed. But the lec-
turer, in passing, ventured to allude to persecution—ven-
tured, I say, for it does require courage in a priest of
Rome to refer to this subject. Persecution, indeed, from
the lips of one who, after abandoning the protestant faith,
is permitted to stand up and ridicule and misrepresent it,
without let or hindrance, in the midst of protestant Eng-
land! How would the gentleman feel if his. change had
been made the other way at Rome ? Suppose him to have
abandoned that church, and have placarded the walls of
Rome with a notice of a lecture to this effect:—" There is
a church on earth, and that church is not a papal body"—
he would soon, I fancy, learn what persecution is, and
learn to value the toleration of that creed which he now
reviles. Another allusion of the lecturer has afforded a
scarcely less remarkable proof of courage. He referred
to the papal slander of the illegitimacy of Elizabeth. Does
not the lecturer know that the Pope offered to acknow-
ledge her legitimacy, provided she woulducknowledge his
supremacy ? and he, an Englishman, in the face of an
English audience, is content to make the legitimacy of an
English queen dependent on the noduf an Italian priest !
He ventured, also, to allude to the character of King
Henry VIII.—a king who never was a protestant at all,
and spoke a great deal on the interference of protestant
sovereigns in the progress of the Reformation. Truly,
the advocates of Rome excel in face, and it must be con-
fessed that their cause requires all that they can muster.
But, let me ask, from whom did the Pope first obtain the
title of universal bishop ? From the emperor Phocas—a
man who had murdered his master • the emperor, the em-
press, and all the royal family. And how did this infa-
mous man interfere in spiritual matters by the Pope's
express request ? I will, tell. yam how. The council of.
Constantinople had, in A.D. 58S, conferred the title of
universal bishop on the •patriarchs of Constantinople, and
Phocas issued an edict revoking this decree, and conferring
the title on the Pope. Truly thereference to the character•
of princes, and their interference in ecclesiastical affairs,.
comes badly from a priest of Rome.
But, I ask again, whencedid the Pope acquire his cha-
racter as a temporal. prince ? In a manner equally.
respeetable with that of, universal bishop. The infa-..
mous Pepin when mayor of the palace to Childeric
the. King ofFrance, conceived the idea of dethroning his,
master and usurping his throne, but before proceeding to.
do so he wrote to Pope. Zachary to ask whether it would
be lawful to do it. The: Pope worshipping, as usual, the
rising sun, answered in the affirmative, and in return, was
rewarded by the grant of extensive territories, which
were afterwards greatly enlarged by Pepin's sou, the
famous Charlemagne,.

Thus, both the spiritual primacy and the temporal power
of the Pope of Rome: originated in the grants of temporal
princes, and princes only by usurpation. Now, if these
instances are not enough, take one more. The Emperor
Constantine Copronimus assembled a council. at Con-
stantinople, in. A.D. 754. This council condemned the
worship of images ; and is held by the Greek Church to
be the seventh general council. The Latins, however,
rejected it. In. the year 787, the Empress. Irene, who
had murdered her own husband, in order to strengthen
herself On the throne, entered into an alliance with the
Pope, and assembled a council at Nice, which reversed
the decrees of that of Constantinople, and established the
worship of images. The Latins affirm that this council
at Nice• is the seventh general council, while the Greeks
hold by that at Constantinople. Who is to decide the
question—the Pope ? Why he is one of the parties to
the quarrel. How, then, is the question to be decided ?
Where is the infallible testimony ? It is here—in we
blessed Word of God, which says, " Thou shalt not both
down to them nor worship them." So much for the rev.
lecturer's historical allusions.

But the lecturer said that the English reformation was
altogether the work of government. Suppose it was so ;
does not the question still remain whether the work was
a good one or not ? Was not the overthrow of heathenism
in the Roman empire and the establishment of Christianity
the work of the government ? Was Christianity, therefore,
wrong ? and does it follow that the Protestant religion is
wrong, because the government approved of and aided it F
—nay, was not the apt of the temporal power in estabr
lishing the reformed religion far less open to exception
than the original establishment of Christianity ? For the
latter was the introduction of a new religion, and the ex-
pulsion of the old ; the former, on the other hand, was
but the restoration of the religion of the country to its
original purity. It is a false assertion that a new religion
was established at the reformation ; the Protestant religion
is new only in the sense in which a man may be said to be
a new man, who, after having lain for years with his
limbs disabled by palsy, he rises from his bed, restored to
health and energy. The church was renewed at the
reformation just as the face of the earth is renewed when,
after the death-like barrenness of the winter months, the
sunshine of spring smiles again upon the valleys, and the
life-blood once more circulates in bush, and flower, and
tree.
You have no doubt heard the illustration employed by
the poor convert of Dingle on this subject. A priest of
Rome addressed him with the hackneyed question Where
was your church before Luther ?" Paddy curtly replied,
" Where was your reverence's face before it was washed
this morning ?"
I say, then, that the part taken by the government was
not, as represented by the lecturer, the establishment of
a new religion; it was the re-establishment of pure Chris-
tianity in the land. Was it an unrighteous part that
King Josiah acted, when he exercised his royal authority
on behalf of true religion, and accomplished a reformation
in his kingdom ? Read the account of it as given in
2 Kings, xxiii. 1-25, and say, was not this exactly the
part acted by our British sovereigns when they purged
the land from papal corruptions and abuses ? Or King
Hezekiah—was he wrong when he ordered the priests and,
Levites to cleanse the temple and re-establish the pure
worship of God ? See 2 Chron. xxix. 1-30. Now I ask
the rev. lecturer, might not any of the corrupt priesthood
have objected &gm* this interference of the ciyil power