The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-12-25 00:00:00

COUBT CIRCULAR.-

Tuis:4

" Buckingham Palace, Dec. 21, 1840.
" At two o'clock this afternoon, the Princess Royal was
vaccinated by Mr. Blagden, in the presence of Sir James
Clark and Dr. Locock."

The Queen and Prince Albert took a carriage drive yester-
day, in the middle of the day.
Her Majesty joined the royal circle at dinner last evening,
at Buckingham Palace. The company consisted of her Royal
Highness the Duchess of Kent,, the Earl of Errol, Viscount
Melbourne, Baron St ,ckmar, Mr. George Edward Anson,
Lady Barnam, L;Aly Fanny Howard,' Hon. Miss Pitt, Hon.
Miss Spring Rice, Baroness Lehzen, Marquis of Headfort,
Hon. W. owper, Colonel Weinyss and Captain Seymour.
The Duke of Sussex visited his Royal. Highness Prince
Albert yesterday.

The Earl of gtradbroke and Mr. C. K. Murray had inter-
views with Viscount Melbourne, yesterday, in Downing-
street.

The Marquis of Normanby arrived in town, yesterday,
from Brighton.

WEDNESDAY

_ .
The Marquis of Normanby and Viscount Melbourne had
audiences yesterday of her Majesty.
The royal dinner party at Buckingham Palace last evening
included Viscount Melbourne, Lord Robert Grosvenor, and
Sir Henry Wheatley.
The Duchess of Bedford has succeeded Lady Barham as
the lady in waiting on her Majesty; and Lord Lilford and
Mr. Rich have succeeded the Marquis of Headfort and the
Hon. William Cowper as the lord and groom in waiting on
her Majesty.
The Duchess of Kent visited the Duchess of Gloucester
yesterday at Gloucester House.

The Archbishop of Canterbury had an interview with Vis-
count Melbourne yesterday in Downing-street.

THURSDAY

The Queen and his Royal Highness Prince Albert left
town yesterday morning, at half-past eleven o'clock, for
Windsor Castle. Her Majesty and his Royal Highness left
Buckingham Paiace in a carriage and four, with outriders
in scarlet liveries, escorted by a party of Lancers. A cha-
riot and four followed, containing Colonel Wemys, Equerry
to the Queen, and Major-General Sir E. Bowater, Equerry
to Prince Albert. Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal,
attended by her nurse, was in the next carriage. Two car.
riages and four followed, the Duchess of Bedford, Lady in
waiting, the Hon. Miss Paget, Maid of Honour in waiting,
and Lord Lilford, Lord in waiting, occupying the first, and
Mr. Rich, Groom in waiting, and Captain Seymour,
Groom in waiting on Prince Albert, occupying the last
carriage.

HeiMajesty was conducted to her carriage by the Lord
Steward and the Vice-Chamberlain.
The Royal staudard was lowered from the marble arch ba-
mediately on Her Majesty's departure.
The Duchess of Kent took an airing yesterday to Ken-
sington.

Her Majesty's Royal Bounty and Gate Ahni were distri-
buted on Monday and Tuesday last, under the orders of the
Lord High Almoner, by Joseph Hanby, Esq., Secretary and
Yeoman to the Ahnonry.

The Bounty was conferred upon upwards of 950 persons,
who received ss. each. The Royal Gate Alms were given to
168 person:, at 13s. each.

All the recipients were above 60 years of age, and many of
them very infirm and disabled.

The Marquis of
Brighton.

Normanby left town yesterday for

Viscount Palmerston has left town for his seat, Broadlands,
Hants.

WINDSOR, Wednesday.—Her Majesty and Prince Albert,
and the Princess Royal, attended by the Royal suite, in five
carriages and four, arrived at the Castle twenty minutes be-
fore two o'clock this afternoon from town, escorted by a
party of the Horse Guards.

A meeting has been held at the Town-hall to-day, to
address Her Majesty, &c.
The Royal dinner party at the Castle this evening will in-
clude only the members of the Royal household.

Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent is expected to
arrive at the Castle to-morrow.

DISSENTERS' BAPTISMS & CHURCH BURIALS

(From the Timea.)

It is, perhaps, not very surprising that along with the im-
proved and elevated tone of religious feeling which has shown
itself of late, both in this and other countries, there should
be perceptible also a tendency to arbitrary assumption on the
part of some of those who, in religious matters, stand be-
tween the people and the Great Object of their worship.
Such a tendency is distinctly apparent at present, and that in
various parts of the world at one and at the same time. The,
feature by which it is generally distinguishable, amidst very
different external circumstances, is that of a determination to
claim for " the church," whether Romish, Protestant-Pres-
byterian, or Protestant-Episcopal, an entire, or nearly entire,
independence of all civil jurisdiction in matters either wholly
or partly ecclesiastical.

This has been the real point at issue for several years past
between the government of Prussia and divers refractory
prelates of the Romish communion.
This is the main question between the two parties which
now so lamentably divide the church of Scotland. The do-
minant majority in the General Assembly assert that " the
Lord Jesus Christ is the sole head and ruler of His church,"
and that they; acting in His name and by His authority, will
never submit to be controlled by any civil court, or other
merely human institution.

Nor. is it possible to avoid perceiving the existence of a
kindred feeling in some few among our English clergy, who
show, by their praises of Hildebrand and of " St. Thomas of
Canterbury," the alacrity with which they would rally round
the standard—should that standard ever be raised among us
—of resolute defiance to all secular interference in ecclesias-
tical or semi-ecclesiastical matters.

A recent instance of this feeling now lies before us, in an
able pamphlet on Dissenters' Baptisms and Church Burials,
by the Rev. Walter Blunt, M.A. The object of the writer
is to overthrow the authority of the well-known judgment of
Sir John Nicholl on the question of the duty of the clergy to
perform the burial service over persons having received only
Dissenters' baptism. And his tirst and favourite argument
evidently is, that the clergy ought not to be governed in such
matters by the decision of any judge being a layman I
According to the constitution of the English church, such
constitution having never .betn. complained of by either the
prelates or the clergy, certain judges of ecclesiastical flatters
are appointed, before whom such questions as this of paro-
chial churchyards and Dissenters' burials are directed to be
brought.' But now, precisely in the spirit of the General
Assembly of the church of Scotland, the writer before us ut-
terly contemns the idea of submitting to a layman's decision
in such a matter, telling us, that " it begins to appear mar-
vellous, and to excite feelings of astonishrnent, how a large
body of the clergy should have ever given themselves up to
this decision, under the idea that Sir John Nicholl, or any
other lay ecclesiastical judge' - was competent, in point of
authority, to set such a question at rest."—(p. 11.) And
adding. with a resolute contumacy quite equal to that of the
northern ecclesiastics--" I would urge that the decision of
the Court of Arches was totally insufficient to lay the smallest
moral obligations on the clergy as to their course of action
on similar occasions ;" forgetting, of course, that there was
any such injunction in the Bible as this—" Submit yourselves
to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake.—(l Pet. ii, 13.)
For our own part, we must confess that among other rea-
sons for not desiring, like Mr. Blunt, to overturn the exist-
ing system of ecclesiatical jurisprudence,—a system which
has now obtained for centuries,—a very leading one is, the
utter confusion which is caused, and would increasingly be
caused, by leaving the sole authority in such matters in cle--
rical hands. Could the Romish prelates under the Prussian
Government have gained unlimited sway, into what a state
of confusion would they have plunged that kingdom ! Were
the majority of the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland vested with plenary and unlimited authority, into
what a turmoil would that realm be thrown ! And how far
short of popular insurrection should we fall, in England, if
Mr. Blunt's advice were followed to the letter, and the
whole of our clergy, with one consent, refused Christian
burial to the entire mass of the Dissenters and Methodists
not regularly baptised by the clergy of the Established
Church, amounting in the whole probably to a million of
souls ?

But Mr. Blunt most courageously repudiates all reference
to consequences when obedience to a divine command is in
question ; and so do we. But we should like to see the di-
vine command, so urged upon us, before we incur such haz-
ards in conforming to it. And the failure in Mr. Blunt's ar-
gument is just this—that he has nowhereshown his authority
from Scripture for the clearly revolting and perilous course
he counsels us to take.

His main effort is to establish the fact, that the church of
England enjoins it. Through one hundred and fifty pages he
labours at this point—that " baptism by what are called dis-
senting ministers may be considered in one point of view as
lay baptism, and in another also as heretical baptism : lay
baptism it is, as being administered by persons who have not
received episcopal ordination ; and heretical baptism, as being
administered in a community which is guilty of a heresy," &c.
Ele then painfully labours to prove that the English church
repudiates all lay baptism ; and at last comes to the conclu-
sion, finally, that persons so baptised are "not within the
covenant of grace ;" in fact, are in the position and standing
of the heathen world.

It would make no impression probably on Mr. Blunt to
remind him that by his remorseless theory he casts "out of
the covenant of grace" about one-third of Christendom, in-
cluding the whole Scottish nation (save some 50,000 Episco-
palians), and half the Protestants of Ireland ! He repudiates
all arguments of this kind. That the consort of his sovereign
ranks, according to his view, as an unbaptised person, is he
would probably tell us, just as little to the purpose.
Let us look, then, at that which forms his main reliance—
namely, an " induction of particulars," carried on through
more than a hundred pages, to prove that the church holds
episcopal ordination to be essential to ,confer valid orders ;
that the baptism given by ministers otherwise ordained is
merely lay baptism; and that lay baptism is wholly invalid
and ineffectual.

Now, in,the first, place, we remark, that if a point of this
kind cannot be made out in a smaller compass than half a
volume, there is at least a strong presumption that it cannot
be made out at all.

Next, we observe, that even Mr. Blunt is obliged to admit
that, amidst multitudes of other eminent churchmen who
have held the validity of lay baptism, he finds the names of
Archbishop Whitgift, of Bingham, and of " the judicious"
Hooker ! _

Lastly, however, we advance against his position the re-
corded and unquestionable practice of the whole English
episcopacy. The only sphere of action in which we meet
with this venerable body, is in the proceedings of those two
societies over which they preside—the Society for the Pro
pagation of the Gospel, and the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge.

Now, any one who takes up the life of the greatest mis-
sionary of modern times, Schwartz, as written by the pre-
sent Dean of Salisbury, will therein find various records of
ordinations in India, under the direction of the Society far
Promoting Christian Knowledge in London ; by which ordi-
nations various persons, such as Mr. Kohloff and the Hindoo
Satianenden, received orders at the hands of Lutheran mis-
sionaries, and were then sent forth to minister both the sa-
craments of the church.

Or we may take up the reports of these societies, and find
in them such passages as these :
" The solicituie expressed by their missionaries for an ad-
ditional appointtnent of the assistants to their missions, de-
nominated native or country priests, has led the society to
agree, that if two or three natives shall be found fit to be in-
vested with that office, and shall receive ordination according
to the ritual of the Lutheran Church, the customary allow-
ances shall he made to them."—(Report, 1816).
Here we have the public and avowed act of a society, pre-
sided over by the two archbishops and the whole bench of
bishops, And we believe that the records of the sister so-
ciety, tbat for the propagation of the gospel, would go still
further, and show instructions to • lay-catechists, having re-
ceived no ordination at all, to baptize the natives of our
North American colonies.

The practice of the prelates of the Anglican church, then,
wholly repudiates Mr. Blunt's doctrine, that baptism per-
formed by any but episcopally-ordained persons leaves the
person baptised "out of the pale of the covenant." And
with this fact the whole of his argument falls to the ground.
The position of Hooker, and Bingham, and Archbishop
Whitgift, is maintained, and no necessity exists for that
breaking-up of the whole framework of society, which the
proposed exclusion of two millions of our population from
the parochial churchyards would in effect produce.

The Governors of Harrow School have sanctioned the ex-
tension of the Christmas holydays from the I,3th to the 20th
of January, on the joyful occasion of the birth of the Princess
Royal.