The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-10-24 00:00:00

NOTICES.

Claims of the Church to the Lore of her Children ; a
Sermon, preached in St. James's Church, Latchford,
by the Rev. James Wright, incumbent. Warrington ;
Booths.
This temperate discourse will commend itself to all en-
lightened members of our natiinal church, as affording a
clear but scriptural statement of the claims which that
church possesses on the sympathies and support of all
her faithful adherents. The words on which the sermon
is founded are, " My house is the house of prayer ;" and
from these words Mr. Wright enlarges on the antiquity of
the church, her apostolical character, and her protest
against Rome; the character of her services, the conduct
which becomes her members, and on several objections
urged against her. As respects one feature in the cha-
racter of her services, we may make the following extract :
" Is there a time when the doors of the church are
thrown open for public worship, that the word of God is
oc ..aaa to the people ? May no' the poor and the un-
learned hear, in her services, what God has to say to them ?
May not the word read tell with saving effect upon their
hearts ? And may we not hope of many such worshippers
who frequent her courts, that their faith standeth not in
the wisdom of men, but in the power of God ?' In the
Psalms, in the Lessons, in the Epistle and Gospel, those
who assemble in the house of God, hear him teaching in
his Holy Word. And for this honour done unto God in
his Word,' saith an eminent prelate of our church, ' which
doubtless has brought down, and will continue to bring
down, a blessing upon her from Him who has declared,
"Them that honour me I will honour ;" for this honour
to God's Word, and for the provision made thereby to
teach the people infallibly out of it the whole counsel of
God, independently of the defects, and errors, and re-
serves which are incident to the human teaching that they
receive, we ought, I am sure, to be thankful, if we had
nothing else in her public services to rejoice in or to be
thankful for.' "
In reply to an objection frequently raised against the
church, the following is worthy of observation :
" It is objected that doctrines similar to the worst doc-
trines of Rome have been lately taught by some of the
clergy of the church. It is with unfeigned sorrow we ad-
mit the truth of this objection. Such doctrines have been
broached, and though but partially, still to the perversion
of a few enthusiastic spirits, to their wilful excision from
the church, and to their union with Rome. Admitting
the full force of the objection, it is yet but just towards
the church, to ask, if it be fair or reasonable to judge the
church by the unsound and authoritatively-condemned
statements of a mere fractional part of her ministers ?
They went out from no, hut they were not of us.' Are
we not to judge of the church, by her Articles, her Ho-
milies, her Formularies ? And if these, with one consent,
condemn those dangerous opinions, then does the church
condemn them. We never take the opinions of a few
discontented and noisy individuals for the voice of the
nation, neither should we take the condemned opinions of
a few erratic divines for the voice of the church. The
church has not changed, though a score or two of clergy-
men, out of a body of sixteen thousand, have changed.
Their present continuance among us, to our impatient
minds, seems long ; hut what will be the brief period of
this agitation, when looked hack on at the distance of fifty
years, and through the records of ecclesiastical history ?
A dream, when one awaketh.' The church is still, as
she has been, thank God, from the beginning. ' The pillar
and the ground of the truth.' "

The House of God : its beauty and its claims. A sermon
by the Rev. R. P. Buddicom. Liverpool. Newling.
Little need be said in a town which has profited so long
and so greatly as this by Mr. Buddicom's faithful minis-
trations in proof of the Scriptural positions maintained in
this sermon, which was preached in the parish church of
St. Bees, in behalf of the incorporated society for en-
larging, building, and rcpriring churches and chapels.
The national sanctuary is here shown to be "goodly" as
the house of prayer—as the house of praise—as conse-
crated for preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ—
and as the house of sacraments. The concluding portion
of the sermon is occupied with an earnest appeal to those
who tread the courts of our favoured Zion to multiply
her tents and tabernacles in consequence of the lamentable
condition of the people, socially, civilly, and religiously.
Is there not sound truth and practical wisdom in such an
argument as this?
" It seems as if pressure and resistance, instead of the
law of love, in the sweet influences of its operation upon
all Tanks of the community, were to be the only elements
employed for keeping the social organization from falling
to pieces—a state of things unnatural in itself, and there-
fore incapable of permanent continuance. Every day
finds the machine loaded with heavier weight, jarred by a
ruder hand. Thus, continually becoming looser and less
secure in every joint and rivet, it gives day by day more
painful evidence that the beneficial effects which its move-
ments were intended to promote, under the hallowing
influences of religion, must in the end, and that not re-
motely, be arrested and destroyed. We may be thus
keeping together (if I may change the figure) materials of
the most combustible kind, which any firebrand, rashly
thrown among them, may,—and at no very distant period
must enkindle; and of which the explosion would spread
public and private misery widely around.
" What then shall we do in this mournful state of things?
Shall we deem it helpless and hopeless ; and sit down to
await the event in apathy, without taking any measures to
avoid, or at least to mitigate what our fears may deem
inevitable. GOD forbid. Much of the evil would be re-
medied if we could arrest and correct the general spirit of
self interest, which has wedded itself not only to the
most ordinary plans and pursuits of life, but to the high-
est aspirations of science, and the mightiest discoveries
of human intellect. And how shall this great purpose be
advanced ! How shall every man be taught not to look
exclusively upon ' his own things, but every,man also, in
an equal degree, upon the things of others ? Surely, by
endeavouring to bring the beams of the Sun of Righteous-
ness into contact with the opposing mass of worldiness that
would make every man the centre and circumstance of
his own pursuits; by aiming thus to thaw the cold and
into
healthier irreligion of his nature, and to call forth
healthier exercise the kindly sympathies of the rich with
the sad condition of the poor ; to exhibit that fellow feel-
ing in zealous endeavour to relieve them ; and to excite
the gratitude of the poor towards those who long and
labour to befriend them."

A Voice from Italy; or, the Conscientious Statement of
a Converted Roman Catholic. By Chevalier Rivarolo.
Reading: Thomas.
This little work, according to the author's own an-
nouncement, is intended " to destroy the poisonous seeds
of superstition—to show the usurpation of the Roman
Catholic Church--to prevent the progress of idolatry—
and to prove the evils originated by the doctrines of a
misguided Popish priesthood." _ The author writes tem-
perately but nervously, and combats in an unanswerable
manner several of the leading doctrines of the Church of
Rome, and corroborates his positions by numerous anec•
dotes, to the truth of which we presume the Chevalier has
been a witness. The opening chapter we consider the
best written in the book, and shows the author to be as
well acquainted with the genuine doctrines of Christianity
as with the Rom perversions of those doctrines. He
has collected a nu giber of facts of the most extraordinary
nature, to prove the impositions practised by the Popes
and hierarchy of Rome to perpetuate the lying devices by
which the deceived children of that apostate system are
enslaved and ruined. We take the following as a specimen
of the author's style, and as a graphic portraiture of the
accommodating character of Popery :
" The Romish religion calls itself one, but it has a sin.
gular variety of forms and aspects. For the lover of forms
and outward religion, it has a gorgeous ritual. To the
mere man of the world it shows a pope on the throne,
cardinals and bishops in palaces, and all the splendour of
earthly dominion. At the same time, for the self-deny-
ing, ascetic, mystical, and fanatical, it has all the forms of
monastic life. To him who would scourge himself into
godliness, it offers a whip. For him who who would
starve into spirituality, it provides the mendicant con-
vents of St. Francis. For the anchorite, it prepares the
death-like silence of La Trappe. To the passionate
young woman, it presents the raptures of St. Theresa, and
the marriage of St. Catherine with the Saviour. For him
who would not wish to leave the world, its luxuries, en-
joyments, and pleasures, it offers the house of the wealthy
Jesuits. For the restless pilgrim, whose piety needs
greater variety than the cell of the monk, it offers shrines,
tombs, relics, and other holy places in christian lands,
and above all, the holy sepulchre near Calvary. To the
generous, sympathising enthusiast, it opens some frater-
nity or sisterhood of charity. To him who is inclined to
take heaven by violence, it gives as much penance as he
can desire ; and to the mass of men, who wish to recon-
cile the two worlds, it promises a purgatory, so far
softened down by the masses of the priest and the prayer
of the faithful, that its fires can be anticipated without
overwhelming dread."