The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-12-21 00:00:00

LIVERPOOL PROTESTANT OPERATIVE

ASSOCIATION,

Operative
anniversary meeting of the Liverpool Protestant
,‘Porative Association was held on the evening of Friday, in
14e Music Hall, Bold-street, and was most numerously at-
tended. Many clergymen and gentlemen were present. In-
deed, so crowded was the room that great numbers were
unable to obtain admission. The Rev. Hugh M`Neile was
called to the chair.
The CnAtrzmax, on taking his seat, was loudly applauded.
When the cheering had subsided he said—My Christian
!fiends, we learn in our Bibles that the hearts of all men, from
the highest to the lowest, the hearts of kings and rulers, by
whose instrumentality the nations of the earth are governed,
and the hearts of tens of thousands of our people, are all in
the hands of God, who turns them whithersoever he will, and
overrules all their devices, deliberations, and decisions accord-
ing to the counsel of his own will, and for the furtherance
Ind eventual success of the purposes of his infinite wisdom.
!t is our privilege to be assured that nothing, however minute,
is overlooked, and nothing however apparently disastrous in
our eyes for a time can eventually miscarry. All things
(this is the divine record, and nothing less than this) work
together for good to them that love God. The wisdom which
as revealed this high truth has revealed also the determina-
tion of the great God, that those who love him shall ask him
to do all the good things which he has determined shall be
done. Carnal men, elated with philosophical acuteness, and
hot humbled under a sense of sin, may cavil at this ; but it is
full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to those who
feel within themselves the workings of the spirit of Christ
raising their minds to high and holy things, and acknowledg-
ing within them the constraining love of the Saviour of Sin-
ners, and the Prince of the Kings of the earth. (Hear, hear.)
So that they have pleasure in presenting all their requests
concerning their soul, their bodies, their families, their
friends, their countries, their fellow-creatures—all before
him. To such prayer it is your privilege now to be invited,
making our present objects known to him who loves us. I
will now call upon my reverend brother, Mr. Ould, to ask
God's blessing through Christ. (Hear, hear.)
The Rev. FIELDING OULD having implored the divine
blessing,
The CuArrtmAN continued : —My Christian friends—a
very important, and in some respects a painful, part of the
Will of our God concerning us during the present period of
this world's history, is, that we should he controversialists.
This we learn in our Bibles. So long as falsehood in one
shape or other is natural to man, carrying with it the majo-
rity, the great majority, so long must those who love truth,
and are really influenced by it, be involved in controversy.
This they must sustain not only against the open and avowed
advocates of falsehood, but also against cold professors of
the truth, who, not being influenced by the truth, and really
not caring about it, are unwilling to be disturbed from their
carnal ease, and therefore dislike controversy as a needless
troubles of society. There is no new thing under the sun.
We find the Jewish prophets, our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ himself, and after him his inspired apostles, all en-
gaged in this species of controversy. The teachers of Baal
who advocated and propagated idolatry, and the false teach-
ers and the false prophets in Israel who daubed the wall
with untempered mortar saying peace, peace, when there was
/ID true peace, rendered it imperative upon the faithful wit-
nesses for Jehovah to be engaged in controversy ; and, ac-
cordingly, the true prophets were controversialists. A simi-
lar necessity was imposed upon Christ himself by the Sad-
ducees who denied the resurrection, and even the existence
of angels or spirits, and by the Pharisees who, though they
did not deny the truth in wards, yet rendered it of no effect
by teaching for doctrine the commandments of men. In
like manner the apostles were compelled to be controversi-
alists against evil teachers inculcating Jewish ceremonies, in-
culcating the traditions of men, the rudiments of the world,
voluntary humility, the worshipping of angels, abstinence
from food, and such like—to whom the apostles did not give
place, no not for an hour, in order that the truth of Christ
might continue among the brethren. So it was then, so it
has been ever since, and so it is now. We have to contend
with open deniers of the truth, who deny the scriptures alto-
gether as the socialists; we have to contend against those
who propagate idolatry in despite of the scriptures as the
Itomanists ; and with those who without boldly denying
anything, yet slyly and covertly introduce another gospel
which is not another, destroying its power, perverting the
simplicity of the gospel of Christ by mixtnres of Judaism
and Paganism and Romanism, teaching for doctrine the tra-
ditions of men, under the pretence of reverence for antiquity.
(Hear, hear.) In the midst of all these we have entrusted
to us the Holy Scriptures, which command us expressly
earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.
How then is controversy to be avoided? Suppose we were
as anxious as our quiet neighbours to avoid controversy,
how could we do it? Surrounded by all these errors, what
must we do ? Must we shut our Bibles and close our mouths ?
You will say no—we do not mean that. (Cheers.) Then
if we open our Bibles and open our mouths immediately we
are controversialists, for our Bibles cannot speak without
controversy in the midst of surrounding falsehoods. Yet we
have many nominal friends—l hope some of them real friends,
though they be timid and irresolute—who dislike controversy.
I have sometimes aaked them " why do you dislike it?"
" Well," they say, " I do not know exactly why, only I do
not like it." (Laughter.) " Well," say I, " try and find
a reason ;" and I will tell you the reason they give. They
Say, " Peace is the character of a Christian man, peace ought
to be the character of Christian society, and controversy dis-
turbs peace." Well : it is in vain we tell them that the wis-
dom which comes from above is first pure and then peace-
able ; in vain we tell them that peace with falsehood is war
with truth. They admit the principle, but still they shrink
from the practice; and it is evident, when traced home, that
their real repugnance to controversy is their love of ease ; they
want to be quiet; it gives so much trouble—you force us to
think—we wish you would leave us alone. (Hear, bear.)
Well, now, my friends, I am very willing and very anxious—
very anxious—in all kindness lam anxious, not to annoy our
good quiet friends. I bear all kindliness towards them, and
wish not to annoy any of them, but how is it to be done ?
I cannot let them quiet us down into the calibre of little lap-
dogs that cannot bark, or if they do bark it is so gently that
they cause no alarm. The prophet Isaiah spoke with indig-
nation against certain professors of the truth whom he calls
dumb-dogs. Well, if there be any such, let the lash of the
prophet fall where it is deserved, and awake them out of
their gentle slumbers. For ourselves we have felt it our
duty, as ministers of the Christian church, to give all dili-
gence, to say in season and out of season, " awake thou
that steepest. This is not a world for sleeping in ; this is
world for being saved in—" Awake thou that sleepest,
aiiii—from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life. "
What are you about? Believing was we do that the church
consists not of pastors only but of the people also, we haie
been anxious to put you in possession of the elements of this
great controversy, that you, according to your various sta-
tions, and your providential opportunities, may be able,
earnestly to contend for the truth and simplicity of the gos-
pel. Hence our Protestant societies. For this purpose they
were originated—for this purpose are they continued ; and I
rejoice to meet you at this anniversary of your society, and
as the patron of it, for your continued encouragement of
it in this good work. (Hear.) This work of ours which I
have now briefly described, has first of all a personal bear-
ing. It has its effects first upon the individual enlightening
him in the nature of true christianity, in the blessed appre-
hension of divers falsehoods, which would corrupt that
Christianity, and in his own personal acts with reference to
the same. Then, enlightening one individual after another,
it rejoices to have a public effect. It pervades the conduct of
those individuals who really receive the light ; it affects their
conduct, not only in private, but in public ' • it affects their
relative conduct as members of society ; it affects their pub-
lic conduct as members of the state ; so our work beginning
in christianity goes forward into divers branches of private
and public morals, affecting the comfort of men's homes and
the government of men's countries. In this way it is that
our society becomes eventually a political engine. It is not
properly so ; it is not so with reference to special party po-
litics; and I beg the meeting will perceive and feel this, and
refrain from any manifestations of that description of party
political sounds which for one moment fell upon and wounded
my ears at the opening of this meeting. (Hear, hear.) That
is not the species of political influence which we designed to
exercise. The political influence we exercise is the result of
of christian principle imbibed, and not to present the out-
breakings of party spirit. In order then that such princi-
ples should be imbibed, instruction is to be given and
received, and we come forward as the ministers of the church
to give that instruction. We are your servants for Christ's
sake. So said Paul—" We preach not ourselves but Jesus
Christ the Lord, and ourselves your servants, for Christ's
sake." We appear before you both in the stated services of
the church, and upon occasions such as the present, and in
season and out of season, to those who will come to church,
and those who come to meetings, or who will not or dare
not, we will communicate scriptural informeion—informa-
tion directly scriptural, and indirectly controversial—against
those falsehoods which assail the scriptures. Now, the
falsehood we have chiefly to deal with is, what we
commonly understand by Romanism. It consists of those
novelties which were brought into the Christian church
after it was 1500 years old. Some of you may have
seen a report of certain proceedings which took place in
the town upon Wednesday last—[published in the Liverpool
Standard of Friday)—when I had the happiness of receiving
five men, lately members of the Church of Rome, into the
communion of the Church of England. Some of you may
have seen a report of that in a newsyaper that came out this
morning—(the Standard)—containing such a statement as I
would be glad again briefly to make to you now. (Hear.)
I shall not detain you long with it—only just to put you in
possession of the facts. I would observe, too, for your sa-
tisfaction, that the publicity given to that statement challen-
ges enquiry—challenges contradiction, if any Romanist can,
with the page of history before him, contradict it—that the
first Christian, authorised, public, authentic, catholic faith
of the church for 1500 years and more was the Nicene Creed,
which is in our Church of England prayer book ; that in the
councils of the church, of bishops and priests, at Constance,
and afterwards in the council of Ephesus, the Nicene Creed
was recognised as the faith of the catholic church ; that the
council of Ephesus not only recognised it, but pronounced
an anathema upon any who should propound any other creed;
thatlf a Jew or a heathen were to be received in the Christian
church, and if any man propounded to them as necessary to
salvation anything that was not in the Nicene Creed, if he
were a pastor he should be degraded, and if he was a layman
he should be anathematized. That was the view of the creed
of the church at that period. Now, you must observe, we
do not receive it because the council of Ephesus re-
ceived it, or because the council of Constance received
it; we receive it because it can be proved by sure warranty
of Scripture ; but we tell you, as a matter of fact, that in the
years 400, 500, 600 and 800, after Christ, and 900, and 1000,
and 1100, and 1200, and so on till the year 1500, the Nicene
Creed, which you have in the Church of England prayer
books, was received again and again as the faith of the catho-
lic church; and that it was not until after the council of
Trent sat in the sixteenth century, that any man dared to put
forth another creed, saying that it was necessary to be be-
lieved for salvation ; and the man who did ;it was no less a
man than a pope ! (Hear, hear.) A pope was the first great
heretic that put forward the new creed ! (Cheers.) Pope
Pius the Fourth was no longer content with the Nicene
Creed, but he added twelve new articles to it, and in the last
of the twelve all men are required to receive the twelve or
they cannot be saved. Here was a wholesale innovation
upon the church ; and yet, though it is a matter of fact,
which they cannot deny, that our creed is 1800 years old, and
their creed only 300 years old, they will tell you with the
greatest effrontery, that theirs is the old religion, and yours
is the new one. (Hear, hear.) No ! Our creed was in the
full vigour of 1500 years before theirs was born ! It is a fact ;
for our creed springs from the first century, and theirs was
proposed by Pius the 4th in the 16th century ! (Cheers.)
Perhaps some of you never knew that before. Perhaps there
are some here who have been taught a very different story,
and have been told that the Roicish is the old way, and that
the Protestant church was never heard of till the days of
Martin Luther. The Church of Christ stood upon the old
creeds, and resisted the introduction of the new—that is,
some of them did. If they had all resisted the introduction
of the new, the pope would not have been able to get it in,
but he got so many to back him that he got it in, and those
who would not have it what could they do but protest against
it? If there were of them a hundred thousand—(l am ;Peak-
ing to simplify the matter to some of your minds)—whatever
variety of opinions there may be among them in their own
private thoughts, still the only creed that all had was the
Nicene Creed. There comes a man, and he proposes a new
creed, and 80,000 or 90,000 out of the 100,000 avow that the
new creed is agreeable to their corrupt hearts, and say "that
is the one for us." The remaining 10,000 or 20,000 hold fast
to the old creed, and say " we will stand upon this rock, and
You shall kill us before you put us off.' (Hear, hear.)
There they were, a little band of protesters, standing upon
the old rock, and a great overwhelming host of modern
locusts came to eat them up ! (Cheers.) Which then is the
oldest church ? I will tell you which it is—it is the smallest;