The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-06-01 00:00:00

VISITATION OF THE LORD BISHOP OP
CHESTER.

The lord bishop of the diocese held his visitation at St.
Peter's Church, yesterday, which was attended by a large
body of the clergy. The Rev. Jonathrn Brooks, senior
rector, read prayers, and the sermon was preached by the
Rev. W. W. Embank, incumbent of St. George's Church,
Everton. The rev. gentleman selected as his text the 26th
verse of the xiv. chapter of St. John—" But the Comforter,
which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my
name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to
your remembrance whatsoever I have said." The sermon
was peculiarly appropriate.
After the sermon, the names of the clergymen in the
Liverpool division of the deanery were called over by the
diocesan registrar.
The lord bishop, having taken his seat, then delivered the
following charge :
My Reverend Brethren,—The course of years has glided
quickly ou, and I am again permitted to come officially among
you as a witness of your exertions, the adviser of your diffi-
culties, and the encourager of your labours. Many whom I
see around me, I now meet for the fifth time, whilst others
who once filled up our number, and had all our company,
are gone to their great account. I feel convinced that in the
nearer prospect of this change, they did not repent of their
work of faith or their labour of love ; that their zeal did not
seem to have been too rigid, their devotedness too complete,
their labours too unsparing. May God give us all grace to
remember that we remain still entrusted with that steward-
ship which in many cases has been brought to a close, and
that it is required from stewards that they be found faithful !
The years to which we look back as having been united
together in the duties of the ministry have'been eventful
years, not marked indeed with such outward changes in the
history of nations as many of those which preceded, but dis-
distinguished by domestic occurrences more important to the
church, and more affecting its various interests. Some of
them were thought even to endanger her constitution as a
national establishment. Upon the one side there have been
fears, and upon the other side hopes, that the time was ap-
proaching when her 'vantage-ground would be cut away, and
her outward and earthly barriers overthrown. By God's
blessing. the fears and the hopes have been alike disap-
pointed ; and the clouds which are now fast passing off have
not been without their use, for they have cleared the atmos-
phere, and enabled us to perceive upon what alone the secu-
rity of the church as a national establishment must depend.
Being ordained of God for the eternal welfare of the people,
it must fulfil the purposes of its appointment. As the people
advance in knowledge, and the collision of many minds
sharpens intellectual acuteness, its ministers must advance
together with their flocks, and maintain their lead ; as the
country grows in population, the church must widen the
shelter of her tent, and extend the exercise of her ministra-
tions till they be corpwensurate with the charge entrusted to
her. There have been, and with justice, complaints of hard-
ship, when with means diminished rather than increased fresh
and unlimited services are required. Our case may be com•
pared with that of the Israelites in. Egypt, when public
expectation is little more reasonable than Pharaoh's task-
masters ; but this we do not plead, except in extenuation
of failure, or in reply to sin unjust accusation. The church,—
we limit her services by no bounds except the bounds of the
power that binds her. She will meet the fresh demands
upon her by prayers that increased strength may be supplied ;
in going forth in the name of the Lord, she will trust in his
blessing to fulfil the pnrposes intended by His sovereign will,
Our own diocese, brethren, may well be cited to encourage
our hopes, if encouragement were needed, and to desperse our
doubts if doubts were entertained. The diocese presented
some years ago a specimen of religious destitution, which
might well be deemed in every point of view appalling; and
there are large districts—large and populous districts, still re-
maining, where darkness yet covers the land, and gross dark-
ness the people. But, then, there are various portions where
the picture is very different, and where the prospect so
greatly brightens as to justify a sanguine belief that God has
still mercy in store for us, in designing that our church shall
remain as a blessing to the land, even to those sections of it
which would seem from circumstances to be furthest re-
moved out of its reach and influence.
Since our first meeting,now twelve years ago, the measures
already commenced for increasing the efficacy of the church
have come into fuller operation, and the spirit which excited
them. has spread in many unexpected directions. Our in-
ward strength has been increasing in an unexampled degree.
Our hundred and fifty churches have opened their doors to
admit our overgrown and still growing population. Thus,
in many a spot where hundreds of families were congregated
without any regular provision for their spiritual culture, mi-
nisters are now permanently settled in their parsonage, the
children are collected in schools, and what was a moral
desert bears the aspect of a Christian community. In other
places if there is not yet a church there is the threshhold of a
church ; there is that in a double sense, if I may use the
term, in those licensed buildings, which are alike preparing
the way for churches, and serving as substitutes for them, in
which thousands of the poorer classes are receiving instruc-
tion, which they cannot obtain elsewhere, at the hands of
curates, supported partly by private liberality, but chiefly by
the two noble societies which have relieved our urgent wants
by supplying the salaries of curates. Through this united aid
the church has gained a vast accession of strength in those
districts where her weaknes had been previously most promi-
nent, and where the existing clergy were hopelessly struggling
against a multiplying population, in attempting to fulfil the
task assigned to them.
Another important means of usefulness and influence has
advanced with corresponding success, the department of
education. Through the indefatigable exertions which have
established the diocesan board for this object, we have
returns approaching to perfect accuracy from every division
of the diocese. It would be tedious to enter here into de-
tails; but the exertions which have been used to provide the
machinery of education for our increasing population, may
be estimated from the fact that, during the last ten years,
within the parish of Whalley alone, forty-three school-rooms
have been erected, at an expense of 133,000. I will not
here allude to what I have before alluded, the exertions made
in the place from which I now speak for the same great ob-
ject. And if we were to estimate what has been done
through the whole extent of the diocese, and calculate it
from the example I have just been citing, we should fall
below the truth if we thought that the result would be less
than 350 schools, and the expenditure, including grants from
the National Society, and from government, not more than
£lOO,OOO. It is no less important that through the successful
institution of the training school at Chester, the character
of popular education bids fair to be brought within the-reach
of as high a standard as the practice—l fear I must say the
increasing practice—if early labour will permit it to be, in
the way of education.
The effect of these various means is proved in a growing
attachment to the church, in an acknowledgement of its ex-
cellency, and, in a practical sense of the value of its services.
The number of attendants upon public worship, the number
of communicants, the number of candidates for confirma-
tion have increased far beyond the growth of the population.
In some of our most extensive parishes, and especially in the
two great towns of the diocese, the communicants have
nearly doubled since the first accounts I have received. The
candidates for confirmation have trebled, and thus our clergy
—especially those whom 1 am now addressing—have the re-
ward of knowing that the labour, the anxiety, and the per-
sonal sacrifices which have procured an increase of means of
grace have not been employed in vain. Proofs, moreover,
are thus beginning to be given, that opposition and indiffer-
ence towards the estabiisbmeut, and even separation hoe%
have not generally arisen from any distrust of its discipline
or its doctrines, but from the difficulty, or rather the prac-
tical impossibility of obtaining instruction within its pale.
This has been so long suffered to exist that the effects cannot
be denied. Interest and prejudice have had time to take
deep root, and to ramify extensively ; and we must be
strangers to human nature indeed if we suppose these will not,
like the surf which disturbs the sea long after the storm has
subsided, sway the judgment, and influence the conduct,
though the cause has ceased to which they owed their origin.
Perhaps it is too much to expect, what, nevertheless, we
must desire, that there should be lio schisms or divisions.
The church of Christ will ever be what it is ; and no con-
gregation of faithful men will ever be so strongly one as to
think alike, and believe unanimously upon all subjects, upon
such subjects, for,instance, as episcopacy, or pmedo-baptism,
or liturgical forms, or church membership, or national esta-
blishments. There must be always some minds, which,
upon questions such as these, will differ from the conclu-
sions which we believe to be justly deduced from the scrip-
tures and from experience. Just, as for example, a few ad-
venturous or impatient spirits may be found to leave their
native country, whatever advantage they forego, but the mass
of mankind will dwell in their native land ; so it is with those
who dissent from the church which authority has accredited,
antiquity bequeathed, and the judgment of succeeding ages
sanctioned. They will not abandon it so long as they can
denefit by its blessings. I am firmly convinced that the
vast multitude of our community will seek instruction from
the Church of England, where it offers it to the people in
the substantive shape of an effective ministry and accepta-
ble ministrations. Her plain and scriptural articles,
her spiritual and comprehensive liturgy, are agreeable
to the earliest examples of Christian discipleship, and united
with the advantage which she possesses, and justly pos-
sesses, as the church of the nation, and the church of
our forefathers—these grounds of preference will combine
as they ought, to influence in her favour the great majority
of our population. They are grounds of preference which
can only be counterbalanced by the individual consideration—
" this church is not available to me, it is the best and purest
channel of divine truth, but no truth can flow to me through
that channel, its forms of worship approves itself to my un-
derstanding, but I have no means of knowing it, its minis-
ters are in direct succession from those whom Christ him-
self commissioned, but I am out of the reach of their instruc-
tion." Where these considerations individually exist, they
must come with over-powering force to persons once awaken-
ed to the important concerns of their immortal souls ;
they are such as no reasoning can resist—they are such as
we cannot answer, who take our stand upon scriptures, and
argue with them in our hands. The only mode of meeting
them must be to remove the causes from which they spring,
not to deny the means of satisfying their thirst to those who
are eager for instruction, but to open fresh fountains and
wider channels, that all may partake of the waters of life
freely. No further attractions will be needed than the purity
and the sufficiency of this stream.
But thankful as I am for these encouragements, I should
be deceiving you, and deceiving myself, if I supposed every
difficulty overcome, or if I thought the time had arrived
when our exertions might be relaxed or dispensed with.
There is often an inclination to hope that this may be ulti-
mately achieved ; but, though we are only putting on our
harness, we must remember we have too long delayed it, and
we must now boast of those who have taken it of and ob-
tained the victory. There is proof, real proof, that the doc-
trines of the gospel, when faithfully taught, and diligently in-
culcated, will not be proclaimed in vain, but will enlist men
upon their side, and upon the side of the Saviour who teaches
them ; but there is no proof, and there never can be, that
the same effect can be produced without those means, or by
any other means. The harvest will reward the diligent but
not the careless ;
the soviet of good seed, not of blighted
seed. The truth in Christ must be preserved, in its p
and simplicity, or we shall look in vain for the fruits we de-
sire, and which the present state of things specially requires—
attachment to the preacher, attachment to the church to
which he belongs, generosity and active zeal in the cause of
God and man of which he is an advocate. It sheathes the
heart against the subtle arts of that adversary against whom
the church is set up, and whose power it is. designed to over
throw. His activity is in exact proportion to tkhe activity-
used against him. his vigilance never fails to sueueduaaturieosupupuoerr-
tunity with which our weakness supplies him ;
is the good seed sown than tares are thrown in, and
the found
springing up among the wheat. That has
ibte_eans
been case
throughout the whole history of the church ; h
sin-
gularly and unexpectedly exemplified in the present day by
favour shewn to men which might seem inconsistent with the
advancement of righteousness, or by the revival of error
which might have been supposed for ever buried.
To enter upon this subject generally would be quite incom-
patible within the limits of a charge, and to treat it cursorily
would not be respectful to my bearers. I shall confine my-
self to a brief review of two points, in which the interests
commitied to us are especially concerned.
I shall first observe, that the principles by which in all
ages of the world the power of Satan has been most success-
fully assailed, and the human heart most strongly acted
upon; is that of simple reliance upon the Lord Jesus Christ,
the simple acceptance of the truth that he is made of God
wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemp-
tion. Accordingly, by this doctrine, lying under God's
wrath and condemnation, we are justified by faith in Jesus
Christ—this plain and simple truth has uniformly been
assailed by every instrument which the enemy could bear
against it. From the time that certain men went down from
Jerusalem, and troubled the church at Antioch, from the
time when Paul had to grieve over the disciples at Galley',
that were removed from the grace of Christ into another