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FROM-THE- LIBRARY-OF RINITYCOLLJEGETORDNTOi
LECTURES FOR THE TIMES
KEV. JOHN GUMMING, D.D.
LIST Otf DR. CUMMING'S WORKS.
APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES; or, Lectures on the Book of Reve lation.
IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? A Manual of Christian Evidence. INFANT SALVATION; or, All Saved who Die in Infancy. THE BAPTISMAL FONT.
A MESSAGE FROM GOD; or, Thoughts on Religion for Thinking Men.
OCCASIONAL DISCOURSES. A Volume of Sermons. CHRISTIAN PATRIOTISM. An Essay. OUR FATHER. A Week's Family Prayers.
THE HAMMERSMITH PROTESTANT DISCUSSION. An authentic Report of the celebrated Controversy between DH. CUMMING and D. FRENCH, ESQ.
LECTURES FOR THE TIMES :
AN EXPOSITION
TKIDENTINE AND TEACTAEIAN POPEEY,
REV. JOHN GUMMING, D.D.
MINISTER OF THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL CHURCH, CROWN COURT, LITTLE RUSSELL STREET, COVKNT GARDEN.
'•* Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you ol the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."—./
A NEW EDITION,
Thoroughly Rcrised and Corrected, with important Additions by the Author.
LONDON : ARTHUR HALL & CO. 25, PATERNOSTER ROW.
11428
,'SFP
PREFACE.
THESE Lectures were delivered from notes, and taken down by an able short-hand writer, and published in a cheap form. The sale was very great, several thousand copies having been very quickly disposed of; but numbers of persons deeply interested in the subject have expressed their anxiety to see a larger and more legible edition. This desire the Author has endeavoured to gratify. He has re-cast some parts, rendered plainer and more perspicuous other parts, and, where it appeared desirable, he has added ex- planatory and illustrative notes. The absorbing controversy of the age will lie between the prin ciples of the Reformation on the one side, and the principles of Romanism, whether openly avowed and embodied in the Canons of the
IV PREFACE.
Council of Trent, or more dimly shadowed forth and expressed by the Tractarians at home. The unhappy disputes which have divided Protestants, both in England and in Scotland, about mere abstractions or questions of ecclesiastical finance, or forms and ceremonies, or patronage, or popu lar elections of ministers, are, it is feared, the too successful attempts of the great enemy to weaken the side of truth, in order to strengthen the forces and facilitate the victories of Anti christ. It is certainly the fact, that great divi sions among Protestants have always preceded Rome's greatest triumphs.
The Author felt this during the rise and progress of those disputes, which recently terminated na turally and necessarily in a secession from the Established Church of Scotland; and on this ground chiefly deprecated it then and deplores it now, though its effects seem likely, by the good Providence of God, to be very transient. This view is also taken in that masterly work — a work of profound research, varied erudi-
PREFACE.
tion, and true piety — the Rev. H. Elliot's Horae Apocalypticcs. Believing this, every true Christian ought to do his utmost to repress internal disputes and contentions among true believers ; and where it is impossible to secure outward uniformity, let us labour to nourish that forbearance in love — that gentleness and tenderness of language — that peace-making and peace-maintaining course of action, which, if it do not heal, will mitigate the schisms and heart burnings and strifes of the day. The noblest uniformity consists in resembling Christ, and the truest unity in loving Christ.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
TRIDENTINE AND TRACTARIAN POPERY ITS PRINCIPLES
AND PROGRESS.
Page
Jude 3. — " It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for" the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." . 1
LECTURE II.
ROMISH AND TRACTARIAN CLAIMS AND PRETENSIONS.
Matthew xv. 9. — " In vain do they worship me, teaching
for doctrines the commandments of men." . . GO
LECTURE III.
THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION.
1 Timothy i. 4. — " Neither give heed to fables, and end less genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying, which is in faith." . .107
VI 11 CONTEXTS.
LECTURE IV.
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
Page
Ephesiansiv.5. — " One Faith." ..... Io5
LECTURE V.
THE FATHERS.
Colossiansii. 8. — " Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." ....... 1G8
LECTURE VI.
THE NICENE CHURCH.
Matthew wiii. 17.— "Hear the Church." . . .219
LECTURE VII.
THE RULE OF FAITH - THE BIBLE ALONE, IN OPPOSITION TO TRADITION AND THE CHURCH.
Ixaiah viii. 20. — " To the law and to the testimony : if they speak not according to this word, it, is because there is no liht in them." . . . 257
LECTURE VIII.
THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS.
Matthew iv. 10. — "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy
God, and Him only shalt thou serve." . . 301
CONTENTS. IX
LECTURE IX.
TRANSUBSTANTIATION.
Page 1 Corinthians xi. 24. — " This is my body, which isbroken
for you." ........ 354
LECTURE X.
THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.
Hebrews x. 14. — " By one offering He hath perfected
for ever them that are sanctified. . . . 393
LECTURE XI.
PURGATORY.
1 John i. 7. — " The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son,
cleanseth us from all sin." 440
LECTURE XII.
PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY.
Galatians vi. 14. — " God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." . 484
LECTURE I.
TRIDENTINE AND TRACTARIAN POPERY— ITS PRINCIPLES AND PROGRESS.
JUDE 3.
It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
" THE faith delivered to the saints," is the great and precious prize for which we are exhorted to contend. We are not here urged, openly or by implication, to contend for the outward forms of ecclesiastical polity, which even their most devout admirers do not hold, or at least do not prove, to have been delivered originally to the saints by the inspired penmen. Nor does it seem to be implied, that we are earnestly to contend for those minor and subordinate truths, about which Christians may differ, and to each of which they may attach varied degrees of importance. The prize of which we are exhorted to contend, is called, iu
B
2 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
Titus i. 4, " the common faith ; " Jude 3, " the common salvation ; Phil. iii. 16, " common hope ;" and, in Ephesians iv. 3, " one Lord, one Spirit, one body, one faith, one baptism, one hope, one God and Father of all ;" the seven- fold or perfect unity of the Christian Church, embosoming within it the principles that lie at the very roots, and nourish the very substance of the Gospel — those great and everlasting truths, the exhaustion of which is the extinction of Christianity itself, and the corruption of which is the contamination of men's hearts here, and the perdition of men's souls hereafter.
It is said that this faith was " once delivered to the saints." It was specially delivered to the Apostles and Evangelists by the Holy Spirit, by whom it has been recorded for our instruction. It was entrusted to believers* — or, if you like, to the Christian Church — of every age, to be witnesses to its sacredness, to be the guardians of its in tegrity, for this end, that ministers and people might drink from its pure and refreshing streams, " without money and without price." The Old Testament was entrusted to the Jews — " to them were committed the Oracles of God ; " the Old and New Testament together were entrusted to the Christians. In both cases the Sacred Scriptures are the only conclusive and binding directory ; «* to the law and to the testimony," is the only
its Principles and Progress. 3
legitimate tribunal to which Jew and Gentile are commanded to appeal in all things sacred.
This faith was " once delivered to the saints." The very same Greek word which is here trans lated " once," and applied to the Gospel record, or the Scriptures, as delivered to the saints, is also applied to the atonement of our blessed Lord, which is declared to have been " once for all." It denotes finality and completeness. The full weight and force of the expression is, unquestionably, this : that the doctrines contained within the com mencement of Genesis and the close of Revelation, are the centre and circumference of saving truth, so complete and so perfect, that addition may be corruption, and must be in every instance deadly guilt, Subtraction from it is to incur subtrac tion pf our name from the Book of Life ; and addition to it, to draw down the infliction of all the curses that are written in this book.
The reason which St. Jude assigns for this com* mand to his converts, " earnestly to contend for this faith," is, that there were " certain men crept in unawares," who are said to have been incul cating pernicious principles, and, in addition, abetting certain immoral practices. Now we main tain, that the circumstances of the present day are, to a great extent, parallel in spirit, if not in letter, with those of the Apostle Jude's day. Never did superstition seem to menace so power.
4 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
fully the eclipse of all we love, the extinction of all we revere. Never did the Church of Rome, on the one hand, attain a spread so rapid, and a power so gigantic — even already weaving chaplets for her victories ; and never in the whole history of the Protestant Church, on the other hand, has there evolved so rapid and so fatal an apostacy, as that which is now overshadowing, not a small, but I fear a large section of the clergy of the Church of England. It is time, therefore, earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. My statements in this lecture may not be in teresting, but I believe they are necessary, and in no slight degree important. It is my object, according to the title, to lay before you the principles of the Church of Rome, on the one hand, as briefly as I can ; and, on the other, as clearly and compendiously as I may be able, the principles of certain nominally Protestant, but really Papal ministers, who seem to thirst for absorption in the Papacy, and assuredly assimilate daily to its doctrine and discipline. There are, in fact, two forms, or rather degrees of Popery, in the present day : there is Popery in the blossom, and Popery in the bud. There is Popery in its full-blown, destruc tive, and wasting practices ; and there is Popery in principle, only more perilous because concen trated, and waiting for the moment when the pressure of Protestant watchfulness and Protestant
its Principles and Progress. 5
faithfulness shall be withdrawn, to expand and develope its bud in that overshadowing despotism which has enslaved the free, tainted the holy, and made kings and nations to be prostrate at the foot of an insolent hierarch.*
The principles of the Church of Rome may be very briefly summed up. You are probably aware that the document, specially binding upon every priest and member of the Roman-Catholic Church, is made up of what are called the Canons of the
* The Rev. Mr. Garbett, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, well observes : — ** It will be a fatal day for the Church of England — her glory will be set, her influence gone, her inde pendent position incapable of maintenance — when it shall go forth to the world at large, and the nation whose soul she has hitherto been, that we only differ from Rome in words or modes ; and when our prelates shall plead with her as an intrusive, instead of warning against her as an heretical and idolatrous Church. All this may be conclu sive to dialectitians, and seem inexpugnable strength to closet theologians ; but men are governed, and the world is moved, not by the definitions of logicians, but by the broad tangible differences of things. The Church of the Refor mation is a power and an energy ; her position decisive, her attitude commanding, her principles intelligible : with the Bible in her hand she is unconquerable : — the Anglican Church of Tractarian theology is a poor and emasculated mimicry of Rome, with her wishes for domination, without her courage ; with the seminal principles of her corrup tions, without her grandeur, mystery, and soul-entrancing magnificence : she has no root in the Bible, no place in the heart of the people ; and the next storm will overwhelm her. Will she deserve to survive ? I think not."
6 jfridentine and Tractarian Popery :
Council of Trent. It would be tedious to read these ; but, immediately after that Council, Pope Pius IV. drew up, with the sanction of the Coun cil, a summary of its canons and decrees, now universally received by the Papacy; and if any Protestant abandons his own church, and joins the Church of Rome, he has to repeat that creed, and set his seal to it, as the profession of his faith. This is what is called the Creed of Pope Pius the Fourth ; and to it every priest, and bishop, and cardinal, and Pope of the Roman-Catholic Church necessarily subscribes. You will observe, that, in reading this document, I read the principles only of the Church of Rome, without any reference to the practical development of those principles in her books of devotion : I shall have occasion, in the course of my lectures, to turn your attention to the practical development of those principles, as they exist in the popular formularies and devotional works, which bear the imprimatur and the sanction of the Roman-Catholic authori ties ; but, in the mean time, I will lay before you her summary of articles of faith only.
Now, first of all, there is presented what is called the Nicene Creed, — that is, the creed com posed by the bishops who met together in the Council of Nice, in the year 325 — a creed read in the service of the Church of England, and to which every orthodox Christian would most readily
its Principles and Progress.
subscribe. After the twelve articles of the Nicene Creed have been presented, there follows what is strictly called the Creed of the Roman* Catholic Church-^-the twelve articles of Pope Pius the Fourth's Creed. The Nicene Creed is divided into twelve orthodox propositions, to which we all cheerfully assent. But, as if to prevent the effects of pre-admitted truth, there are administered im mediately afterwards the twelve poisonous and neu tralizing heresies, which are the peculiar articles of the Papacy ; and which contain, compressed in small space, the very essence of the Roman-Ca tholic superstition. The policy of this is obvious : it is just what entitles the Church of Rome to the epithet bestowed upon it by the distinguished Cecil — the master-piece of Satan. If Satan were to urge at once upon the Christian Church a foul and unscriptural superstition, every enlightened man would revolt and reject it, as plainly not from God ; but he guards against this, and shews how well he combines the archangel's wisdom with the demon's wickedness. He makes truth a pioneer to error : — he first of all opens twelve panes, clear and transparent, through which the sunbeams of heaven pour with unbroken and undimmed splendour ; but as soon as he has tempted you, by this, to come within the territory, which is sacred to himself, he puts on the twelve shutters, corre sponding to the last twelve articles, which exclude
Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
all light save the blue lights of his own kindling ; and in this amalgam of light and darkness, truth and error, we have the substance of the Roman- Catholic superstition*
The first Popish tenet in this Creed is as follows : — " I most stedfastly admit and embrace apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions, and all other observances and constitutions of the same Church.", " I also admit and embrace the Holy Scripture, according to that sense which our holy mother the Church has held and does hold ; to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpreta tion of Scripture ; neither will I ever take and interpret it otherwise than according to the una nimous consent of the Fathers."
These are the two first propositions. I shall have occasion to direct your attention to these errors in detail : at present I ask of you to mark, at the very outset, the deflection of the Papacy from God and truth, to man and tradition. When speaking of traditions, the Roman Catholic is taught to say, " I most stedfastly admit and embrace it," — the language of a hearty and cordial recognition ; but when he comes to speak of God's word, he is made merely to say, " I admit," — receiving God's word as an unwelcome visitor, whom he dare not altogether, for the sake of ap pearances, cast out, but whom he would much rather on the whole be rid of. There is a hearty
its Principles and Progress. 9
and unfeigned welcome given to ecclesiastical tradi tions : there is a bare nod of toleration of the word of God. This relative recognition is kept up throughout.
" I also profess, that there are truly and pro perly seven sacraments of the new law, instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, and necessary for the salvation of mankind, though not all for every one ; to wit, baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony ; and that these sacraments confer grace ; and that of these, baptism, confirmation and orders, cannot be reiterated without sacrilege. I also receive and admit the received and approved ceremonies of the Catholic Church, used in the solemn ad ministration of the aforesaid sacraments." Bap tism, it is here stated, cannot be repeated without sacrilege ; that is, if it has been conferred by a Roman priest, who is supposed to have the true and apostolical — or, more strictly, mechanical — suc cession, then it is not to be repeated. But if the - Archbishop of Canterbury, the distinguished and amiable prelate of the Church of England, were to baptize any individual in this assembly, that individual, on joining the Church of Rome, would be re-baptized, his baptism being regarded by that Church as utterly null and void. And, accord ingly, when the Rev. Mr. Sibthorp left the Pro-
10 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
testant Church, and joined the Church of Rome, he had, first of all, to be baptized, as if he had ? been an absolute heathen ; he had, secondly, to be ordained as a deacon, after the usual examination ; and, thirdly, he had to be ordained as a priest, after he had served the requisite time as a deacon : all that he received from the hands of the Church of England being regarded as null and void, whe ther as respected his baptism or his ordination. And it seems to me a melancholy descent, that has been, more or less, characteristic of the whole of the Churches in Christendom, and, in some measure, at the present moment. The Church of Rome excommunicates the Church of England ; the Church of England excemmunicates those that are next to her ; and, I fear, these last have not also been guiltless in excommunicating those that are next to them. And this will ever be the result, where any thing is taken to be the essential test of Christian ministry, save the apostolic requirements laid down in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus.
" I embrace and receive all and every one of the things, which have been defined and declared in the holy Council of Trent, concerning original sin and justification." Justification, I may here ex plain, according to the Church of Rome, is partly by Christ's merit, partly by men's merit, partly by
its Principles and Progress. 1 1
priestly absolution, and partly by Church power : it is a very compound and heterogeneous result indeed.
" I profess likewise," continues the Roman Catholic, " that in the Mass there is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead ; and that in the most holy sacrament of the eucharist there is truly, really and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and that there is a conversion of the whole sub stance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood ; which conversion the Catholic Church calls tran- substantiation. I also confess, that under either kind alone, Christ is received whole and entire, and there is a true sacrament." I need not add any explanation of this, as I shall afterwards have / occasion more fully to refer to it; let me only say, that the moment the priest has pronounced over the flour and water, " Hoc enim est meum corpus," [" For this is my body,"] that moment, according to the Roman-Catholic Church, the flour and water become really and tridy flesh and blood, and our Lord Jesus Christ is present on the altar, not only in spirit (as he is in the midst of his own, in every age), but bodily and substantially ; so that the Roman Catholic kneels down and adores that piece of flour and water, on
12 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
the hypothesis that it is really the body and blood, the soul and divinity, of the Son of God ; and then, after this act has been performed, which is called transubstantiation, the priest, as he be lieves, has power to take up that which we call flour and water, but which he believes to be the body and blood of the Son of God, and present it to God the Father as an atonement, proper and propitiatory, for the sins of the living and the dead. So that the very same trust which we place in the glorious atonement of our Lord on the cross, the Roman Catholic reposes on the sacri fice of the Mass. The explanation of the last clause is this : that in the Church of Rome, the cup is withheld from the laity, and given only to the officiating clergy, the bread alone being given to the laity ; simply, on their own admission, by a tra dition and arrangement of the Church, and not according to primitive and apostolic usage.
In the next place : "I constantly hold that there is a Purgatory, and that the souls therein detained are helped by the suffrages or prayers of the faithful." Every Roman Catholic believes that there are two sorts of sin — mortal sin, in which if a man die, he goes to hell for ever ; and venial sin, in which most men die, and which must be expiated in Purgatory — that is, a middle place of torment. According to the language of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, " there is a
its Principles and Progress. IS
purgatorial fire, in which the souls of the faithful suffer for a season," before they are made pure, and fit for the kingdom of heaven.
The next article is, " Likewise I believe, that the saints reigning together with Christ are to be honoured and invoked [invocandos et venerandos] and that these saints offer prayer to God for us, and that their relics are to be had in veneration." Hence, in most Roman-Catholic churches on the Continent, the remains of some saint are depo sited below the high altar. When St. Chad's Cathedral ?at Birmingham was erected, they brought the mouldering remains of a saint, as they called them, from abroad, and deposited them beneath the high altar ; and from that deposition they believe a peculiar sanctity and sacredness are communicated to the place.
" I most firmly assert," proceeds the Roman r Catholic, " that the images of Christ, of the mother of God, ever virgin, and also of other saints, ought to be had and retained, and that due honour and veneration is to be given to them." The explanation of the qualification " due," is this : — the Roman Catholic holds that the worship of SovXem, that is, an inferior worship, is to be given to the saints ; that the worship of vTTfpdovXeia is to be given to the Virgin Mary ; and then that the loftiest worship, Aarpeta, or supreme religious worship, is to be given to God.
14 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
But at the time the bishops met inthe Council of Trent, there were great disputes what degree of veneration ought to be given to the image or re presentation of Christ. Thomas Aquinas, a dis tinguished doctor of the Roman- Catholic Church, held that the highest worship, or Xarpeia, ought to be given to the picture of Christ, because the worship does not terminate on the picture, but extends to Christ himself; and that the same worship, Xarpeta, ought to be given to the cross of Christ. And, in fact, on Good Friday, this wor ship is at this moment actually given, when, at a certain moment, the priest brings forward a wooden cross, and the people adore it. On talking with a Roman Catholic, I was assured that her priest informed her that Catholics alone glory in the cross, and that Protestants do not ; and the proof the priest adduced was, that on Good Friday, in the Romish Church, the cross is produced, and the people approach and kiss it, and thereby glory in the cross ; whereas, in the Protestant Church, no such exhibition takes place. On Good Friday, according to the Roman Missal, the priest calls out, the moment he produces the cross, "Come, let us adore" [adoremus] ; and immediately afterwards he makes another move ment, and says, " Come, let us adore the wood of the cross on which the salvation of the world hung." The Council of Trent being placed in a
its Principles and Progress. 15
difficulty, whether to side with Thomas Aquinas, or with the more moderate party, defined and decreed, in the exercise of their presumed infalli- hllity, that " due honour and veneration," not expressing the kind or amount of veneration that is due, ought to be given to the images of Christ, of the mother of God, and of the other saints.
" I also affirm, that the power of Indulgences is left by Christ in the Church, and that the use of them is most wholesome to Christian people." Now, many Protestants have a wrong notion of what is meant by Indulgences in the Church of Rome. I have heard distinguished Protestant advocates commit themselves very strangely upon this subject; and nothing so rejoices a Roman Catholic as to hear a Protestant make a rash asser tion, which cannot be substantiated. An Indul-Y<?* gence does not mean liberty to commit sin for the future (though Romanists have thus used it), or pardon for sins that are past ; all that it is theo retically understood to mean, is a remission of the temporal punishment that may be due to the indi vidual, after the sin, whether mortal or venial, has its guilt forgiven. The Roman-Catholic Church holds, that after God forgives sin, or after the priest judicially forgives it in God's place, there remains a temporal punishment ; and, if it is not endured in this world, it must be borne in Purga-
16 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
tory till it is completely burnt out, and the soul thereby made fit for heaven. An indulgence is a remission of that temporal punishment. It is at best a wretched caricature of the real forgiveness of God. Hence, according to Roman- Catholic theology, if I had been guilty of a venial sin, which deserved a century of suffering in Purga tory, then if, through my influence with the Pope, or some introduction of a more substantial nature, I were to receive a bull from the Pope of fifty years' indulgence, that would exempt me from fifty years of the suffering in Purgatory : or if he gave me a full indulgence, it would extend over the whole period, and I should not have to go into Purgatory at all. You perceive the tremendous power thus conferred on the priesthood ; and on the Continent of Europe, so vigorously did the priests wield this power, up to a recent period, that a law was not long ago enacted in Belgium, now under Leopold, that no money left to a con fessor by a dying layman should be a valid be quest in the estimate of the courts ; the whole property of the dying having been found to be passing into the hands of the priests, to pay them for saying masses for the soul, and shortening the torments of Purgatory. In Bath, for instance, after Prior College was consumed by fire, circulars were issued (one of which I saw, and therefore I
its Principles and Progress. 17
can speak from my own personal knowledge), promising to every one who contributed (if I remember the exact sum) five guineas towards the rebuilding, that he should have a mass offered up for himself or his friends in Purgatory once a day ; to every one who contributed one guinea, that he should have a mass once a week ; and to every one who contributed a sum below a guinea, that he should be remembered in the general prayers of the faithful. Now, observe what is the v plain common sense of this arrangement : it is that if I contributed five guineas, my friend, presumed to be in Purgatory, would have seven prayers offered up for the deliverance of his soul, for one that another's friend would have who could contribute only one guinea; the latter receiving but a seventh portion of the meritorious appliances that mine should have ; and the obvious result would be, that my friend would get out of Purgatory seven times sooner than his. In other words, the speed with which the souls of the faithful escape from the regions of suffering, is precisely in the ratio of the golden stimulus that is placed in the " itching palms " of the priests, by way of hire for masses for the dead.
" I acknowledge the holy, apostolic, Roman Church, for the mother and mistress of all churches ; and I promise true obedience to the
18 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
Bishop of Rome, successor of St. Peter* prince of the apostles, and vicar of Jesus Christ/' Such is the next article*
" I likewise undoubtedly receive and confess all other things delivered, defined, and decreed by the Sacred Canons and General Councils, and par ticularly by the Holy Council of Trent ; and I condemn, reject> and anathematiste all things con trary thereto, and all heresies which the Church has condemned, rejected, and anathematized."
You will observe, that the Bishop of Rome is called " the vicar of Jesus Christ ; " a very awful, and perhaps blasphemous assumption. He is also called " prince of apostles," and " successor of St. Peter." Now it does so happen, just as it does with what is called apostolical succession, that the very link that is absolutely vital in this chain, is altogether wanting. In the first place, there is not one particle of evidence that the apostle Peter ever was at Rome at all. In the course of a discussion which I had with a distin*. guished advocate of the Roman-Catholic Church, his argument was, that it was perfectly clear that Peter was at Rome, because at the close of his First Epistle he says, " The Church that is at Babylon saluteth you." " What, then," said I, " do you admit that Babylon is the scriptural designation of your Church?" He replied, f< Certainly it is/'
its Principles and Progress. 19
" Then," I said, " turn with me to the eighteenth of Revelation, and read the description of your Church as it is stereotyped there ; and I am sure, if there be a possibility of shame in your mind, your countenance must blush as you hear the enormities by which it is defiled." Here, however, let me state, that what are called postscripts at the close of the Epistles, "Written from" so and so, are no part of the word of God ; they are additions not of the least value, and occasionally historically inaccurate. At all events, there is no evidence that Peter ever was at Rome. — But, in the second place, if he ever was, there is no record of his being Pope, and appointing a successor ; and we know that, in certain points, the present Pope does not look like his successor. The apostle Peter was a mar ried man ; the Scriptures speak of his " wife's mother" being ill; to be a complete successor of St. Peter, you must have every jot and tittle of St. Peter's character, and circumstances, and posi tion ; but by a law of the Church of Rome (a law, I admit, springing from its discipline), celibacy is enforced upon its clergy ; and, therefore, in one point at least, the Pope of Rome cannot be the successor of Peter. Certainly in one respect the Popes may be called his successors : Peter denied his Lord and master, and confirmed the denial with an oath ; and this succession the Church of
20 Tridentine and Traciarian Popery .»
Rome has sacredly cherished and fearfully deve loped, in every age and act of that deep and dark " mystery of iniquity." Would to God she may one day succeed Peter in his repentance, and return to Christ, and to faithfulness to his cause ! ' ,, t
I have thus laid before you what may be called the most prominent points of Popery — or, if that expression is objected to, Roman Catholicism — in its articles of faith, as these are embodied in the Creed of Pope Pius IV.
I now proceed to discharge what I feel to be a far more painful portion of my duty. I grieve tKat I should be constrained to make one single remark upon those we would otherwise rejoice to hail as Christian brethren ; but I feel that truth is even more precious than friendship, and that the purity of our most holy faith is far dearer than even the most unbroken and uninterrupted peace. If the alternative is, whether we shall sacrifice peace or truth, both precious and inestimable in their proper places, we must have not one mo ment's hesitation in sacrificing peace, rather than let go truth. Truth is the root or stem ; peace is but the blossom that waves upon the branch — let the blossom be torn off, and the stem will hear the accents of returning spring, and give forth other and no less beautiful blossoms ; but let the stem
its Principles and Progress. 21
be cut down, and the roots extracted, and no revisit of a quickening spring will make blossom or fruit appear again.
You have heard what Popery is, as stereotyped by the Roman-Catholic Church ; I must now lay before you what is the Popery disseminated, I grieve to say, by men that wear the robes and eat the bread of a Protestant Church ; disseminated by men distinguished for their talents, and some of them for their erudition — heretofore distin guished for the consistency of their outward walk in the world — but branded and chargeable, I solemnly believe, with the most desperate and decided effort ever recorded in the annals of the Church, to extinguish the principles which have been sealed with the blood of martyrs, and to bring in a deluge of soul-destroying errors, for the de signation of which no language is sufficiently strong. I have carefully selected, from the writ ings and other documents of these individuals, their leading sentiments ; and as you have heard pure Popery, as it is taught and practised under the auspices of the Church of Rome, you will see now, by the following quotations, that the whole difference between what are called the Tractarians of Oxford and the Papists of the Vatican, is solely in the matter of consistency. The Roman Catholics consistently carry out their principles to their full extent : Dr. Pusey, and Newman, Hook,
22 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
and Ward, keep their principles in reserve, wait ing for the occasion when they may be developed with impunity, and taught beneath the auspices of authority and influence, at present not fully upon their side,
I will take, first, their views of the Rule of Faith. With Protestants, the Bible alone is the rule of faith ; and I may observe, that much of the safety of the Protestant Church lies, under God, in the unimpaired maintenance of this cardinal principle. Within the boards of the Bible, you are on a Protestant and impregnable foundation ; but go beyond them for one single article of your creed, and you are on Popish ground— aye, it may be on an inclined plane, and you need not be sur prised if you soon find yourself in the gulf of the great Western Apostacy. The rule of faith given by Mr. Newman is in these words, in his Lectures on Romanism, pp. 327, 343 : " These two, the Bible and tradition together, make up a joint rule of faith : " again, " Where the sense of Sacred Scrip ture, as interpreted by reason, is contrary to the sense given to it by Catholic antiquity, we ought to side with the latter, "p. 160. Professor Keble, in his Sermons, third edition, p. 82, says, " The rule of faith is made up of Sacred Scripture and tra dition together." The British Critic, once the great organ of the party, speaks thus : " The Bible is in the hands of the Church, to be dealt with in such
its Principles and Progress. 23
a way as the Church shall consider best for the expression of her own mind at the time." — (British Critic, No. LX. p. 453.) In other words, the Bible is a mere nose of wax, to be shaped, and moulded, and directed, by a convenient phan tom that has never yet been defined or condensed, called the Church, as may be most palatable to her taste, and best suit the expediency of the moment. And again says The British Critic, " There is altogether sufficient evidence, independent of the Sacred Scriptures, that the Apostles taught as divine and necessary certain doctrines, and incul cated as essential certain practices." I say, There is not; and we defy them to produce evidence, and to prove any such thing. After such sweep ing announcements of the leading Tractarians, instinct with pure and unadulterated Popery, I cannot understand why they do not, in a body, follow Mr. Sibthorp, Mr. Wackerbarth, and Mr. Bernard Smith, into the bosom of the Church of Rome. Mr. Sibthorp has shown manliness, con sistency, and honesty, in carrying out to their full and legitimate extent and development, the prin ciples which he dishonestly taught for six years : and all I hope is, that those who hold his prin ciples, and have more than his longings, may have the consistency to follow his example. But, as a , priest remarked on the Continent, " one Newman is worth twenty Sibthorps."
24 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
The following extract of a letter is interesting : — <s During Lent, it is the custom for the best preachers at Rome to preach every day in the week, except Saturday. On one occasion, the last season of Lent, the Padre Grossie, who was remarkable for his eloquence, was preaching in the Jesuits' Church. His sermon was on the advan tages of the Roman Church, and the danger of schism. After a passionate appeal to the Greeks, urging them without delay to enter into the sanc tuary of the Papal Church, he concluded with the following appeal to the Puseyites : — ( There is yet a class of persons, very numerous, whom I would wish to address, although I fear that there may be none here ; still, perchance, should there be any, to them I turn : O Puseyites ! what shall I say to you ? You know that you are not Protestants, and we know you are not Catholics : you are much nearer to us than them. Why will you not come over entirely to us ? The Mother Church has been long waiting, with open arms, to receive you ; and the Holy Virgin, with extended arms, is ready to embrace you. Why do you longer waver in the declaration of your faith ? Why do you not make the piccolo pass which separates you from us ?' " The friend who related this, said he could swear that these were the very words of the Padre, or the full sense.
Mr. Newman writes, respecting Scripture, in
its Principles and Progress. 25
his Lectures on Romanism, p. 325, " We have as little warrant for neglecting ancient consent, as for neglecting Scripture itself." " We agree with the Romanist, in appealing to antiquity as our great teacher." Immediately after these purely Papal announcements, and almost in the very lan guage of Popish Councils, we are favoured with Tractarian views of Bible circulation — " Scripture was never intended to teach doctrine to the many ! ! "
As if to plunge our population in the gulf of Infidelity, should they fail in precipitating the Church of England into the Papacy, this writer — still a Minister of the Church — still a Fellow of the University of Oxford— states, " The Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, Incarnation, and others similar to them, are the true interpretations of the notices (! !) contained in Scripture, of these doc trines respectively." " To accept Revelation at all, we have but probability to shew, at most ; nay, to believe in the existence of an intelligent Creator."
These are the painful proofs of the spread of Popery. The progress of undisguised Popery was as scattered clouds, either growing and dissolving, or driven by the winds ; but this progression looks like an evening twilight that deepens every minute, and threatens to issue in a moonless and starless night.
c
26 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery ;
I will now refer to the Tractarian views of the Eucharist, which go the length of Transubstan- tiation.* Mr. Newman writes, in Tract 90, " It is literally true, the consecrated bread is Christ's body : so that there is a real super-local presence in the Holy Sacrament." Dr. Pusey, in his Pre face to Hooker, says, " Antiquity continually affirms the change of the sacred elements." Tract 85 says, " If baptism be a cleansing and quicken ing of the dead soul, to say nothing of the Lord's Supper, Christ's ministers work miracles." And Tract 86 contains these words — "A happy omission it is from the Communion Service, of a half ambiguous expression against the real and essential presence of Christ's natural body at the communion."
Let us now turn to the great doctrine of Jus* tification. Mr. Newman says, in his Lectures on Justification, page 167, " Christ is our righteous ness, by dwelling in us by the Spirit ; he justifies us by entering into us, he continues to justify us
* Since the above lecture was delivered, Dr. Pusey has furnished a melancholy proof of the depth to which the Romish taint has sunk in his inmost convictions. His too notorious Sermon has all the heresy without the honesty of transubstan- tiation. While this sermon proves the rapid progress of its author in " Catholic views," it has at the same time fur nished to the heads of the University of Oxford an oppor tunity, of which they have availed themselves, of declaring their disapprobation of the Tractarian system.
its Principles and Progress. 27
by remaining in us." I am sure, no Scottish Christian would ever commit so painful and un- scriptural a blunder ; and, I believe, no Christian, schooled under an evangelical ministry, would ever dream of such a wretched perversion of that great doctrine of the word of God. Justification is Christ's righteousness imputed to us ; sanctification is the Holy Spirit working within us. Justification is an act, whereby we are made righteous in the sight of God ; sanctification is a work, whereby we are renewed in the image of God more and more. Mr. Newman, ignorantly or designedly, confounds them. Dr. Pusey also agrees with Mr. Newman, in his Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, " The Anglican doctrine conceives Justification to be, not imputation merely, but the act of God's imparting his Divine presence to the soul through baptism."
Let us next hear the Tractators' views of the Atonement. Tract 80 says, " The prevailing notion of bringing forward the atonement ex plicitly and prominently on all occasions, is evi dently quite opposed to what we consider the teaching of Scripture." How the writer can have made this statement, with the full knowledge of Scripture, is to me surprising; for you will recollect, when the Apostle Paul sums up the doctrines which he had taught to the Corinthian Church, he introduces the recapitulation of his
28 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
theology by the beautiful statement — " I delivered unto you first of all, how that Christ died for our sins." And yet Tract 80 says, that the Scriptures do not bring forward the atonement " first of all ; " that it is a doctrine to be kept in " reserve," and only to be taught to the faithful, amid the esoteric mysteries of their (so called) Christian faith.
With respect to the Invocation of Saints, Tract 71 speaks thus : — " When it is said that the saints cannot hear our prayers, unless God re veals them to them, we are certainly using an unreal, because an unscriptural argument." Mr. Newman says, in Tract 90, " The practice, not the theory, of the invocation of saints, should be considered in reference to the Church of Rome ; " meaning, that it is only the grosser excesses of practice that amount to idolatry. Again, says Mr. Newman, " The Tridentine decree declares, that it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke the saints ; " quoting it, apparently, as an example for imitation.
In the sixth place, Worship of Images. " The words of the Tridentine decree," says Mr. New man, " that the images of Christ and the blessed Virgin, and the other saints, should ' receive due honour and veneration/ go to the very verge of what could be received by the cautious Chris tian, though possibly admitting of an honest inter-
its Principles and Progress. 29
pretation." And again, says the same writer, " There was a primitive doctrine on all these points, so widely received and so respectably supported, that it may be well entertained as a matter of opinion by every theologian now."
Let us turn to the marriage or Celibacy of the Clergy. " That the Church has power," says Mr. Newman, " to oblige the clergy either to marriage or to celibacy, would seem to be involved in the doctrine of the Homilies." " As far as clerical celibacy is a duty, it is grounded, not on God's law, but on the Church's rule." I believe that their benefices and their wives are, with not a few of the Tractarians, the sole obstructions to visible union with Rome.
Again : " The age is moving towards some thing; and most unhappily," says Mr. Newman in his Letter to Dr. Jelf, " the one religious communion which has of late years been prac tically in possession of that something, is the Church of Rome. She alone, amid all the errors and the evils of her practical system, has given free scope to the feelings of awe, reverence, ten derness, devoutness, and other feelings, which may be especially called Catholic." And, says The British Critic for July 1841, " We TRUST that active and visible union with the See of Rome is not of the ESSENCE of a church," — as much as to say, We believe it to be highly con-
30 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
ducive to the well-being of a church, but we trust it is not absolutely essential ; — " at the same time we are deeply conscious, that in lacking it, far from asserting a right, we forego a great privi lege. We are estranged from her in presence, not in heart." This is as true a statement as Mr. Newman ever uttered. " The great object thus momentous," continues the same British Critic, " is the unprotestantizing of the National Church." And again says the same writer, "We must go backward or forward, and it will surely be the latter ; as we go, we must recede more and more from the principles, if any such there be, of the English Reformation." I believe that this is one of the most sensible, but one of the most ominous remarks, ever made by the party. I fear a disastrous number of the clergy of a Church once distinguished by its scholarship, illustrious for its martyrs, venerable for its liturgy, and many a day (as I believe) for its primitive and apostolic piety, are at this moment in such a position, that they must either go onward and land in the arms of the Roman- Catholic Church, or they must re trace the steps they have taken, eat up the propo sitions they have announced, and cling to the ancient, scriptural, and evangelical religion — the great and truly primitive deposit of which is the word of God. " The Reformation, that deplorable schism." " The Reformation is the scandalous
its Principles ttnd Progress. 31
and crying sinful schism of the sixteenth century." " As to the Reformers, I think worse and worse of them." "Jewel was an irreverent Dissenter." Alas!
You have heard how they write of the Church of Rome ; speaking of her in almost sensual terms, as their dear mother ; longing for active and visible union and communion with her, and grieving that they are severed from that centre of unity. Now hear how they speak of Dissenters. I quote from Mr. Palmer, whose zeal for Rome, and antipathy to Episcopal as well as Presbyterian Protestantism, is perfectly glowing. " The very breath of the Protestantism of Dissenters has something sul phureous in it, and is full of self-assumption and pride." So well have they learned the spirit of cursing, distinctive of the Church of Rome, that Mr. Palmer says, " Anathema to Protestantism." " We firmly believe," says The British Critic, "that the very tone of thought of Protestantism is essen tially antichristian. Again: " Protestantism is, in all its bearings, the religion of corrupt human nature."
Contrast with this the way in which they speak, in Tract 71, of "the majesty of the chair of St. Peter," and " Rome's high gifts, and strong claims to our admiration, love and gratitude." They say, " We sigh to be one again with her." Mr. Newman says, that she alone has, of late years, been practically in possession of the deep and
32 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery —
true ; and we must at present, for want of assi milation to her, he adds, speaking of the Anglican Church, " work in chains." Dr. Pusey says, " We are a living, though a torn member of the one, true, Catholic and Apostolic body." " Already," he observes again, " an earnest has been given ; and the almost electrical rapidity with which these principles are confessedly passing from one breast to another, and from one end of England to another, the sympathy which they find in the sister or daughter Churches in Scotland and America, might well make men suspect that there is more than human agency at work." I quite agree with him ; I believe there is in it the agency of Satan, as " an angel of light," corrupting men's hearts, perverting men's principles, unhinging men's hopes, and leading them, while Protestants in name, to be thorough Papists in principle, the victims and the asserters of a soul-destroying superstition.
" It ought not to be for nothing," says one of these writers, in Sermons for the Times, " nor for any thing short of some vital truth, some truth not to be rejected without fatal error, that persons of name and influence should venture on the part of ecclesiastical agitators, intrude upon the peace of the contented, and raise doubts in the minds of the uncomplaining. All this has been done, and all this is worth hazarding again in a matter of life and death ; and this matter we believe to be (to
its Principles and Progress. 33
use an offensive, but forcible expression), tbe unprotestantizing of the National Church. As we go on, we must recede more and more from the principles of the English Reformation."
And now hear what is said of their movements by an individual one would suppose to be a very fair judge. You are aware that there is in England a clever and active bishop of the Roman-Catholic Church, called, I believe, coadjutor-bishop of the Midland district; a consummate Jesuit for the wisdom which he exhibits, and very unscrupulous in the plans he pursues, Dr. Wiseman thus writes to the Earl of Shrewsbury, in reference to the Tractarians of Oxford : " It seems to me," says the wily Jesuit, " impossible to read the works of the Oxford divines, and especially to follow them chronologically, without discovering a daily ap proach towards our holy Church, both in doctrine and in affectionate feeling. Our saints, our popes, have become dear to them by little and little ; our rites, our ceremonies, our offices, yea our rubrics are precious in their eyes — far, alas ! beyond what many of us consider them. Our monastic institu tions, our charitable and educational provisions, have become more and more objects with them of earnest study ; and every thing, in fine, that con cerns our religion, deeply interests their attention. I need not ask you, whether they ought to be met with any other feeling than sympathy, kindness, c3
34 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
and offers of co-operation. Ought we to sit down coldly while such sentiments are breathed in our hearing, and not rise up to bid the mourner have hope ? Are we, who sit in the full light, to see our friends feeling their way towards us through the gloom that surrounds them, faltering for want of an outstretched hand, or turning astray for want of a directing voice ; and sit on and keep silent, amusing ourselves at their painful efforts ?" Thus Oscott and Oxford, Wiseman and Newman, pull all in one direction.
Let me quote one or two passages more, illus trative of their principles, for I desire to make them well known. " We may be as sure," says one of them in Tract 10, "that the bishop is Christ's representative, as if we actually saw upon the bishop's head ' a cloven tongue like as of fire.' In the act of Confirmation, the bishop is our Lord's figure and likeness, when he laid his hands on children ; and whatever we ought to do, had we lived when the Apostles were alive, the same ought we to do for the bishops. He that despiseth the bishop, despiseth the Apostles. This is faith, to look at things not as seen, but as unseen." " It is from the bishop, that the news of redemption and the means of grace are all come to us."
" Once more," says Professor Sewell, in his Morals, p. 27, a book of great talent, but of the most dangerous description, — " once more, these
its Principles and Progress. £5
powers of the Church are very great ; they are even awful: if not conferred by God, they are blasphemously assumed by man. The power of communicating to man the Divine nature itself, of bringing down the Deity from heaven, and infusing his Spirit into the souls of miserable mortals — this, which is nothing more than the every-day promise of the Church, proclaimed and administered by every minister of the Church, every time he stands at the font or ministers at the altar, is so awful and so tremendous, that we scarcely dare to read it, except in familiar words which scarcely touch the ear."
You will find their principles carried, not to the verge, but beyond the verge, of persecution. In speaking of other Churches, whether the Dissenting, Reformed, Scotch, or Continental, Frowde says — • *' To dispense with episcopal ordination, is to be regarded as a surrender of the Christian priesthood ; and the attempt to substitute any other form of ordination for it, or to seek communion with Christ through any non-episcopal association, is to be regarded, not as a schism merely, but as an impossibility." " Christ," says Tract 51, " ap-' pointed the Church as the only way to heaven." Strange and unscriptural announcement ! for the Son of God has said, " Jam the way, and the truth, and the life ; no man cometh to the Father, but by ME." Again, Mr. Palmer says, " We readily admit, or rather most firmly maintain, that all sects
36 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
or denominations, even supposing them to hold what are called fundamental doctrines, are not in cluded in the Church of Christ ; all the temporal enactments and powers of the whole world could not cure this fault, nor render the Presbyterians of Scotland a portion of the Church of Christ. It is a most indubitable doctrine, that schismatics, even though they hold no error of faith, are, by the fact alone of their schism, out of the Church, and beyond the pale of salvation." By way of shewing the nearness of these views to those of Popery, we quote a Romish Professor's views : " We must, of necessity, hold that no heretics, whom the Church has rejected from her bosom, belong to her body ; and for that very reason, must hope for no salva tion." — Delahogue*
Dr. Pusey says, " Thus the power of expounding, decreeing, ordaining, implies that the Church's children are to receive her exposition, and obey her decrees, and accept her authority in controversies of the faith. And the appeal lies not to their private judgment ; they are not the arbiters whether she pronounce rightly or no ; for what sort of decree or authority were that, which every one were first to judge, and then, if his judgment coincided with the law, to obey ?" " ' If I be a father,' " continues Dr. Pusey — applying the text in Malachi to the Church — " ' if I be a father, where is mine honour ? and if I be a master, where is my fear ?' " Then The British Critic remarks,
its Principles and Progress. 37
" c Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.' We consider, that when private judgment moves in the direction of inno vation, it may be regarded with suspicion, and treated with severity. We repeat it ; If persons have strong feelings, they ought to pay for them ; if they think it a duty to unsettle things established, they should show their earnestness by being willing to suffer." You see how the spirit of Popery necessarily generates the spirit of persecution. " Not only is the Church catholic," says Mr. New man, " she is indefectible in it ; and, therefore, not only has she authority to enforce it, but is of authority in declaring it."
I trust — I believe — the Christian people of this England of ours are not to be cajoled or frightened into Popery. The experience of ancient days lifts up its voice, and with tears adjures them to be faithful to God, loyal to conscience. History with its thousand tongues, and Holy Scripture with its one, unite in proclaiming that no greater curse can light upon our shores than Romish superstition, and no more dangerous enemies appear in our ranks than Popish Jesuits. Chartism is open brute force, and may be avoided or crushed ; but Tractarianism, or Puseyism, is a pestiferous malaria that infects and kills — a canker-worm at the very root of England's faith — a dry-rot, devouring England's Church.
You may have heard, that when the " Tracts for
38 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
the Times" were frowned on by the bishop of the diocese in which they appeared — not because he seemed to object to their main principles, but because of the confusion and disturbance which they generated, — these Tractarian priests shewed their submission to their superior by instantly starting the very same series of works under a new nomenclature, substituting " Ser mons''^' "Tracts," and christening them "Sermons for the Times." From Jesuits this might have been looked for, but certainly not from those whose professed subjection to superiors seemed so rever ential and entire. In the first of these Sermons we read, that the church (that is, the sacred edifice) is not for the preaching of the Gospel at all ; that unconverted men have no business within its four walls ; that it is solely for the worship of God, and administration of the sacraments and rites of the Church.
" The time was," we read in the first of these, " when the distorted visages on the outer walls of God's house spoke of the misery of those who were excluded from saintly privileges ; and the unclean beasts" (that is, Roman-cement beasts) " raging without, showed their fruitless attempt to find a place within. The ancient churches were built up from the foundation in the form of a cross, to teach the important lesson, that it was by the way of sorrow and suffering that we could come to that joy which was lasting and divine. The arched
its Principles and Progress. 39
door said, c I am the way,' pointing upwards to him. The arched window said, ' I am the light of life,' pointing also to him ; while the painted glass, giving representations of the saints, subdued, but did not obstruct the light, and taught the spirit ualists to see him in his variously manifested likeness, and to follow them as they followed Christ, as lights in the way to glory. The bap tismal font in the porch, or at the entrance, re minded the presumptuous, sinner, that even the child of days must be washed before he could be received into the sacred courts ; and the prominent yet half-concealed altar spoke of mercy and of holiness, of majesty and of condescension, of a crucified Saviour and of a risen and reigning Lord ; inviting approach, but saying at the same time, ' How sacred is the banqueting place of his love, and how fearful in holiness is even the mercy-seat of God ! ' The body of the church was called the nave (from navis, a ship), as the antitype of the ark; tossed about on the sea of this world, and exposed to many a storm and blast, but still the only place of safety. The upper part was called the choir, and shadowed forth the heavenly man sions, where the praises of God are sung without ceasing ; and the carved work, in stall and canopy, loft and shrine, window and door, within and without, represented the workmanship of the Holy Ghost in the new creation, whose hand fashions into varied forms of surpassing beauty the rude
40 Trideniine and Tractarian Popery :
material of nature. Every ornament was wrought into the form of a cross ; while the crocketted spire, pinnacle, and point, great and little, stood like so many fingers silently pointing out the path to the heavenlies, whither Jesus our forerunner has gone before,"
One would suppose this was a representation of the Temple of Solomon, or referred to some typical or shadowy era ; and had no connection with that perfect and glorious . dispensation, the birth of which came from the grave of that which pre ceded it, and whereof the grand and distinguishing characteristic was announced by our Lord, when upon the cross he said of all type, " It is finished." All types have met their antitype ; all symbols and shadows have been submerged in the substance ; Levi, Moses, and their ritual, have for ever passed away ; " GOD is A SPIRIT, AND THEY THAT
WORSHIP HIM MUST WORSHIP HIM IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH."
This writer goes on to describe "the house of God in the present day," and to deplore some points which we Protestants have hitherto thought praiseworthy. — " It is without defence. By the law of the land, its doors must stand open as a licensed thoroughfare for the uncircumcised and the unclean." [I thought this was its beauty, — " without money and without price."] " Who, of this generation, imagines that clean hands and a
its Principles and Progress. 41
pure heart are God's stipulated qualifications for ascending the hill of the Lord, and standing in his holy place ?" [Where can these be made clean, if not in " the fountain " preached and pointed out in the Church ?] " Alas ! alas ! the penitent is no longer to be found kneeling in the porch, conscious of his unworthiness to make a nearer approach to the place where God's name is recorded, and where his honour dwelleth ; nor the publican to be seen afar off, smiting upon his breast and crying, ' God be merciful to me a sinner.' The wall of the holy place has been trodden down; and without a sacrifice, and without a washing, and without a change of vestment, the Gentiles have entered in and taken possession, as if it were their proper appointed court. Who may not come and take a seat in the presence of the King of kings ? And what is more fearful still, Who is not invited to take part in a form of worship which cannot be used without blasphemy by other than a pious soul and hallowed lips ? The very purpose of God's house is perverted, and its proper work can hardly be said to be done in it. Instead of the fire upon the altar, and the lights of the sanctuary continually burning, and the ministers waiting upon their ministry in their courses, and watching unto prayer as God's elect, crying day and night unto him, we have a deserted and shut-up house, as if it were an honour little to be desired, to wait upon the Lord,
4$ Tridentine and Tractarian Popery .'
The service of Worship, when it is performed, what is it? The reading of a beautiful composition; the uttering of words by a congregation of sinners, which they do not understand, or (with an occa sional exception) a lifeless form irreverently gone through ; and to consummate the whole, the sermon, instead of having for its purpose the edification and perfecting of God's saints, is an address to sinners, thereby sanctioning their unholy intrusion into the house of God."
Such are some of the leading views and senti ments of the Tractarian party.
Suffer me now to draw your attention to some proofs of the progress of these deadly principles — for deadly they are — in the age in which we live.
Direct Romanism is unquestionably making rapid and extensive progress:* partly by Pro-
* The organ of the Romish party, The Dublin Review, writes, September 1843 : —
" There is at this moment hardly a single town in the kingdom in which the Catholic worship is not publicly exer cised : in many we have large and beautiful churches — witness such towns as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Derby, and the metropolis, in all of which are Catholic churches of great magnitude and magnificence, in which the Catholic worship is celebrated with the solemnity even of the Continent ; whilst in our smaller towns we have churches or chapels, which equally bring our worship, though in a humbler form, before the eyes of our fellow-
its Principles and Progress. 4$
testants being unable to meet the sophisms of con fraternity emissaries, or to give a reason for the faith that is in them; partly by the peculiar atmosphere generated by the Tractarianism of Oxford ; and partly by the prospect (I fear, not far distant), of complete reunion between the Vatican and Oxford, the Tiber and the Isis, Pope
countrymen, and enable them to appreciate its sacred doctrines. Nor is the public exhibition of Catholic rites found now, as on former occasions, to produce a Protestant re-action to any extent; on the contrary, the Protestant feeling of the country becomes weaker every day.
" We might enlarge upon this statement, and we might justly speak of the Catholic colleges and convents which, we rejoice to say, now abound in England ; we might speak of the kind estimation in which their inmates are generally regarded by all classes of the community ; we might glory in the fact that their reputation is drawing towards them not only members of our own Church, but many able and pious individuals who join us from Protestant communions. We might dwell upon the religious edification given by our various nunneries, or by communities of men ; such as the magnificent establishments of the Jesuits at Stonyhurst; of the Benedictines ; of the Cistercians, at St. Bernard's Abbey in Leicestershire ; of the Passionists, at Aston in Staffordshire ; or of the Brothers of Charity, at Loughbo- rough and Sileby. We might speak of the restoration of Catholic guilds and pious confraternities, in which multi tudes of the laity are united together for the holy practice of more frequent prayer and a regular reception of the holy sacraments. In fine, we might dwell upon the large number of individuals who are daily renouncing the negative system of Protestantism, in its various forms, to embrace the grand and positive truths of Catholicism."
44 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery —
Gregory XVI. and Messrs. Newman, Pusey and Ward, with their numerous and increasing fol lowers. And, with respect to what I have called Popery in the bud, or in embryo, I conceive (and I say it with profound reverence for the doctrines, discipline, and service of the Church of England), that the principles of the Tractarians of Oxford are as deadly, and more dangerous, than the openly avowed Popery of the Council of Trent. Under the assumption of Protestant names, they are introducing the worst principles of the Church of Rome ; " the voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau ;" the coin is, in its substance, the base metal of the Vatican, but upon it they have struck and stamped the superscription of a Protestant Church, and the image of the Son of God. Let us now see what indications there are of the progress they are making.
If I refer to the pulpits of the Protestant Church of England, I grieve beyond measure to state what I know to be, in too many of these, the painful and disastrous exhibition which its occupant makes. The name Church, instead of being the lofty hill on which the cross shall shine forth effulgent in all its moral and majestic glory, has been made the sepulchre in which truth is almost utterly entombed; and those members of the priest hood who subscribe to the Tractarian sentiments, have made their gospel the screen that conceals the
its Principles and Progress. 45
Saviour, not the bright and beautiful apocalypse, that makes known " the Light of the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel." Endless genealogies, and changes of vestments, and forms and ceremonies, are preached and paraded instead of quickening truth ; while souls perish for want of living bread, passing to the judgment-seat unre- freshed by those living streams which can alone satiate the cravings of the thirsty, and give peace to the troubled, and happiness and hope to the despondent.
These principles appear, not only in the pulpit, but also in the desks and services of a large sec tion of the Church. The Church of England enjoys a beautiful and impressive service : I say so as an impartial person, not being permitted or privileged to use it. Robert Hall said, " Though a Protestant Dissenter, I am by no means insen sible to its merits. I believe that the evangelical purity of its sentiments, the chastised fervour of its devotion, and the majestic simplicity of its language, have combined to place it in the very first rank of uninspired compositions." But I am sure, if after worshipping with Romaine, or Newton, or Cecil, you were to come into some of the churches that are performing the new ceremonial, you would feel yourselves utterly at sea. At one time the priest is seen turning, like a mufti, to
46 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
the east, or like a heliotrope, to the sun, as if the progress of that luminary was the regulator of worship ; anon, passing from place to place, making varied genuflections, prostrations, &c. &c. and seeming to estimate the glory of the sanc tuary, not by the Saviour's presence, but by candelabras, and crosses, and other mummeries imported from Babylon the Great, " the mystery of iniquity."*
These principles also, I have recently discovered, are taught with an assiduity in schools, and in stilled into the infant mind with a deceptiveness, a subtlety, and a power, which cannot fail to do terrible havoc. I obtained, the other day, sixteen shillings' worth of small school books, written by Tractarians, and numbering about twenty-four little volumes, published monthly in London, and a few at Oxford ; and I will give you, from these, a specimen of the principles taught to children, that you may see how they are pre-occupying, not only
* A writer in the Dublin Review for Sept. 1843 expresses his " gratitude to Mr. Newman for his volume of University Sermons, which are indeed a most valuable and almost Catholic production. Mr. Newman has, indeed, in this volume, rendered a high service to the Catholic Church ; and in saying this, we would include in the same catalogue his admirable Essay in Defence of Ecclesiastical Miracles. No one can read these volumes, and not see that the triumph of Catholicism in England is only a question of time."
its Principles and Progress. 47
the pulpit and the press — taking the form, as I shall show, of the novel, the romance, and the poem — but pre-occupying the school-room also, with an energy worthy of a better cause, and rapidly infecting the juvenile population of the land. One of these books is entitled " Little Mary ;" and this is published at Oxford, circulated among the young, and meant for schools. There is this conversation at pages g and 3 : —
" Mamma, how do you know baby is in heaven ? did you tell him to go there ?
" No, I did not tell him to go there ; that would not have answered the purpose ; but do you not recollect, a long time ago, when your papa and myself took you and baby in the carriage to church, and when the second lesson was ended, baby's godfathers and godmothers took him to the font, (that large stone basin which was full of water,) and God's holy minister took him in his arms, and poured some of the water upon him, and prayed for him, to 'make him a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven ? '
f< Yes, mamma, I remember you told me he was baptized, and that that was his birth-day ; I know the day — not the name of it, for you have not taught me more than two or three of the days.
48 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
" It was All Saints' Day.
" Oh ! yes, it was All Saints' Day, which we keep when the weather is very cold."
" Ah ! mamma, I know God would make the baby happy, and be kind to him. It was very good of you, mamma, to take the baby and me to church to make us children of God; and I am sure I was baptized, because you told me.
" Yes, Mary, you were baptized ; but it was not only out of kindness for you, but from obedience to God, who is my Father as well as yours; for I was baptized when a baby. He has promised the baptized, and them alone, that they shall be saved through his Son's name."
Such is the instruction for the nursery ! Again, at page 15, " Her mother called Mary to her, whispered something in her ear, then took her little finger, and with it made the sign of the cross on her forehead.
" Does my Mary know why the sign of the cross was made upon her forehead, when she was baptized ?
" Mary stopped crying, but did not speak. Her mother continued — Our blessed Saviour bore a heavy cross for our sakes ; you were baptized in his name, and by the sign of the cross made his soldier."
I take, next, " Conversations with Cousin Rachel."
its Principles and Progress. 49
" B. — We went, two or three girls and I, to hear that famous preacher up at Zion Chapel, once or twice in the evening ; but I can tell you, I would not let it stand in the way of any thing I liked to do.
" E. — Ann and I do like going to Church, and we should be very sorry to miss it.
" A. — You do not surely mean, Betsey, that you went to a meeting-house !" And, in another place it is said, " Going to Dissenters' Meetings is much worse than staying at home altogether." This is another sentiment inculcated upon the minds of the young ; and he must be a very high Church man indeed, who holds these miserable views.
In another document intended for the tuition of the young, the name of Jesus is left out ; and one reason apparently assigned is, that it is too difficult for children ; but among the words that do occur in it are — transept, altar, bishop, cross, choir ; and one would think that these are at least as difficult as that ' ' Name, which sounds so sweet in a believer's ear." In another work prepared for the tuition of the young, and intended, or at least tending, to prepare the rising generation for Popery, we read, " He thought much, and for his age deeply, on the unconverted state of poor Perdita, on whom it seemed impossible to make any favourable impression. Suddenly it darted into his mind, that Perdita had not been baptized;
D
50 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
and this, he thought, might be the cause of her impenitency. He tried to remember all that Father Aiden had ever told him concerning the nature and object of baptism. He recollected, that when his little brother had been baptized, the father had spoken of his being made a child of God, and of his having a new nature given him ; and so, though he could not arrange his ideas on this important subject with the clearness that he wished, he came to the conclusion that baptism was the great thing wanting for Perdita, and that if she could obtain it, some striking change would immediately take place in her mind and disposition."
And again it is stated, that " such high privileges are only reserved for the saints ;" and then the question is asked, " Who are the saints ?" " They are what we call very advanced Christians, what the Bible calls saints for their virtues." The scripture description of all true Christians as saints is repudiated ; and, as in the Church of Rome, they only are recognised as saints, who have been duly canonized and registered as such by competent ecclesiastical authority.
But not only are these principles disseminated in the pulpit, in the desk, and in schools ; they are disseminated also in tracts. Some of you, who are old enough to recollect the founding of that noble institution, the Religious Tract Society,
its Principles and Progress. 51
— an institution, I solemnly believe, more precious and important now than ever, — will remember how some distinguished divines and clergy scoffed at the very idea of tracts ; and a tract-distributor was a name selected in order to designate a Methodist, or a Dissenter, or one who did not conform to the Established Church. But at last the Tractarians per ceived, what we rejoice in, that the tracts of Pater noster Row were instruments of power ; and now they have determined that Popery also shall have its tracts, the influence of which shall be exerted in favour of these fatal and deadly errors. Tracts once were pieces of Puritanism. Now, how ever, especially if published at Oxford, they are eminently " Catholic."
Another very remarkable engine which they have adopted, is that of novels and romances ; so much so, that there is not a library at a fashionable watering-place, which has not the leading works of this type, issued by that party. They used to speak of missionary meetings as theatrical — as conformities to the world — as altogether incom patible with the grandeur of Christian bishops and the dignity of Christian ministers. It is now found, when it subserves the purpose of these fastidious men, that novels and romances even are not at all ineligible, as vehicles of their peculiar principles; and Parnassus is enlisted in the service of Oxford and of Rome, and the D 2
52 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
Muses are charmed from their celestial choirs, to introduce to the notice of England's free men the polluting principles that emanate from the Monks.*
Another method vigorously worked is the peri odical press. The British Critic^ (now The English Review) is their great quarterly organ ; The English
* "Milford Malvoisins," " Bernard Leslie," " The Wardens of Berkenholt " are among " the last new novels " issued by the Tractarian press. " While on this subject," remarks a writer of Letters from Oxford, " it is impossible to pass without special remark the story books emanating from the Rev. F. E. Paget, who seems to devote himself to advancing Tractarianism by writing tales of fiction somewhat in the style of the Pickwick Papers ; and who affixes to them a quasi- episcopal imprimatur by informing us in his title-page that he is ' Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Oxford.' No one can deny that this gentleman possesses a natural vein of broad humour, and a strong sense of the ludicrous, which to some men would be ' a thorn in the flesh to humble them,' rather than a propensity to indulge. Mr. Paget, however, seems to use them otherwise ; for in those of his publications which I have seen, he has risen from one degree of license to another, until, in the story last named, he has attained a grossness of libel and personality which might be looked for rather in the columns of the 'Penny Satirist' than in a religious (!) story from the pen of a clergyman. The page purporting to be 'a copy of a placard announcing a meeting of the Bible Society ' is a sample of what I allude to. It libels, almost by name, some of the most influential and efficient clergymen of the Church of England.
f The undisguised Popery advocated in this periodical seems at length to have provoked official interference. It is now defunct.
its Principles and Progress. 53
Churchman, and The Christian Remembrancer, are minor periodicals : and I grieve to say, that some portions of the daily press, that I looked upon as distinguished for Protestant principle, and some times for explosions of Protestantism that were more than Protestant, have embraced the obnoxious principles of the Oxford school. I regret these desertions, not so much as proofs of the conver sion of the editors, as because they are naturally the expressions and exponents of public opinion, and engines for distributing the principles they teach through the length and breadth of our land.
With respect to the rulers of the Church of England, some of them — the Bishop of Chester particularly — have nobly denounced the whole system ; but some bishops, while they have rebuked the indiscretions and excesses of Trac- tarian zeal, have expressed, on the whole, too great admiration of many of their principles ; and some, who ought not to be silent, have coquetted with them, instead of boldly rebuking their dis honesty and heresies, or turning them out from the communion of a Church whose Articles are truly Protestant.
These are a few, out of many, proofs of the labours and progress of the party. Unhappy men ! They have lost all perception of the Sun of Righteousness that shines in the firmament above them ; therefore they now light up the twinkling
54 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
tapers of a miserable tradition. They have let go their view of the pole-star of heaven; and they are therefore now grasping and groping for the guide-posts of earth. They have involved themselves in a misty atmosphere, in which all truths and errors are seen in mis-shapen forms, and by which is hidden from their own view the true glory of the Gospel. Once I thought that the Church of England (and I think so still of her doctrines and Articles) that the Church of England and the Church of Rome were like antagonist rocks or confronting battlements, and that there inter posed an impassable chasm between the one and the other ; but, by and bye, Frowde threw one archway forward from the Anglican side, Keble added a second, Pusey a third, and the crowning arch that was required was laid by Mr. Newman, in his exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles in Tract 90, and Mr. Ward ; and now the rails are being laid down upon the inclined plane across the chasm which has been supplied ; and the wonder to me is, not that five or six clergymen have passed into the bosom of the Church of Rome, but that all the Tractarian clergy do not forthwith join the Roman- Catholic communion. Where they are, they cannot enjoy the full advantage of" Catholic Communion."
In opening this course of Lectures, I beg to state that I am actuated by no love of controversial
its Principles and Progress. 55
preaching or controversial discussion. I do not naturally like controversy ; I have a distaste for it ; circumstances, rather than my own taste, have made me take so marked a part in it. I wish there were no necessity for controversy at all. The only ground on which I feel warranted in engaging in it, is the absolute necessity, not the enjoyment, of it. If I could, I would decree that the rose should have no thorn, that the atmosphere of heaven should have no storm, that the Mil lennium should come upon us at once, like a sun burst in all its beauty, blessedness, and changeless glory. But I know that the thorn is needful to defend the rose, the storm is essential to purify the atmosphere, and there never can be, and never will be, a millennium of peace, till there is first established a millennium of truth and righteousness over the whole earth.
In the second place, let me say, that I am ac tuated by no feeling of opposition to the Church of England, either as a Church or as an Esta blishment. Those who know me best, can testify this. I have loved and lauded that Church with a warmth that has sometimes made my own Scot tish predilections to be suspected ; I have tried to defend her principles, when I conceived that duty required it ; but just as fearlessly as I defend what I conceive to be her excellences, as honestly would I rebuke her sins. I have been wont to
56 Tridentine and Tractarian Popery :
look upon her as a noble and heaven-built ship, floating with her spread sails and streaming pennants on the bosom of the deep ; and I have often thought our Scottish Church might cast anchor under her shadow, and ride out beside her the storms of coming ages ; but, alas ! the plague seems to have gone into the midst of that ocean-ark — some of the crew seem to be in mutiny, — a leak has burst here, and a rent is discovered there, and a portion of her own defenders are even trying to scuttle her ; and if that stately vessel is now doomed, by treachery on board, to be swallowed up in the fathomless abyss, — which God forbid! — we shall be forced to retire from her company, lest we be sucked into the ab sorbing vortex occasioned by her foundering. I rejoice to know, that in such an emergency there are smaller vessels — it may be of different colours, as of inferior dimensions — floating round us in every direction, and with these we shall be satisfied to sail in company ; for after all, the same pennant floats at the mast-head ; they steer by the same chart, and note the same compass ; they act under the same Captain of salvation ; and they anticipate, and are bound for, the same peaceful and ever lasting haven.
In the next place, let me observe, these Lectures are not intended to promote any form of ecclesiasti cal polity whatever. I neither advocate, in these Lectures, Episcopacy, nor Presbyterianism, nor
its Principles and Progress. 57
Independency — as such. The day is done, when we may battle as we have done about these things. I believe the contest is speedily to be, between Evan gelical Religion and soul-destroying Superstition. And if "The Church "is to be the rallying cry upon the ore side, let " Christ, and Him crucified," be the unbroken battle-shout that is heard upon the other.
It may be urged, that there are many defensive apologies to be made for these men. It is said, for instance, that there are many good men among the Tractarians. So there are : Satan is no such blunderer as to employ none butbad men to promote the peculiar principles he has now at heart. Who more devoted than some of the most distinguished heresiarchs that have stained the theology of the Church in every age ? It is Satan's ablest policy to select the best, or least objectionable weapons, to promote the worst of purposes.
But it is said further, that they have done much good. It may be so ; but I think the evil they have done more than counterbalances, a thousand fold, the supposed good. The only good I see likely to result from it at all, is a desire for greater union among all true Christians.
It is urged again, that they profess a hatred of Popery. In this lies " the mystery of iniquity :" they denounce the Roman- Catholic Church as a schism in this country, but not as a heresy ; they
58 Tridentlne and Tractarian Popery :
tell you, that if you were to go into France or Belgium, you ought to join in its worship, and become members of its communion ; and while they denounce the grosser practices of the Romish Church, they disseminate the more vigorously its evil principles.
But, it is said, their efforts are calculated to produce unity. True, but it is the unity of the dead, not of the living: the unity of the grave, only to be followed by the corruption and the misery of the damned — not the living unity of the sanctuary, and of the saints of the Most High.
It is said, again, that the principles the Trac- tarians hold are essential to the successful support of the Established Church. If an ecclesiastical esta blishment can only be sustained at the expense of divine truth, I say of it, with unrelenting mind, — " Rase it, rase it, even to the ground." But this is not the case. Much as I love the Established Churches of England, of Ireland, and of Scotland, and much as I wish (I speak my own individual sentiments,) that they may continue blessings and ornaments to the land, yet I do say, that if these deadly principles were to gain the complete ascen dancy, and to be taught, not merely by individual priests, but by the authority of the bishops or other governors, and sustained and fostered beneath the overshadowing wing of the State, then I should begin to suspect — I say it most solemnly — that what
its Principles and Progress. 59
I thought a rash and uncharitable remark made by a distinguished Dissenting minister, in a rash and I thought unhappy moment, had in its bosom more of the majesty of the prophet than the enmity of the partisan ; — I should begin to think with him, that the Church in which such principles are taught, and authoritatively enjoined, is an insti tution whose ruin cannot be too speedily accom plished, and whose removal cannot be too fervently prayed for.
I trust better things. I hope that as the Non conformists of old had no light share in reviving the dying glory on the altars of the Anglican Church, they will again be in some degree instrumental in brightening the smouldering flame ; and that the day will come, when the Church of England will no longer look back idolatrously to her pedigree, and count superstitiously the links of her genealogy, but rivet her purged eye upon the Sun of Right eousness, extending the right hand of fellowship to all who love the Lord Jesus. None, then, will pray more fervently than I, that her glory may burn and spread, till it is lost in the effulgence of the Millennial morn.
LECTURE II.
ROMISH AND TRACTARIAN CLAIMS AND PRETENSIONS.
MATTHEW XV. 9.
In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
ALMOST in every age of the world, the visible Church has had an evening twilight, of which the text seems to be the description. The Antediluvian Church apostatized from the sublime and spiritual truths of the primitive faith, and lapsed into all the darkness of the traditions of men. The Patri archal Church passed through precisely the same process, and ultimately plunged into the same degeneracy. The Jewish Church, unwarned by the beacon-lights of the past, terminated at the advent of our Lord in exactly the same condition ; it being true of the great mass of the visible community in that age, that they had lost all perception of those pure and spiritual truths, which alone elevate, sanctify, and renovate the
Romish and Tractarian Claims. 61
church that holds them ; and had precipitated both priest and people into that miserable and wretched superstition, which overshadowed the whole land during the days of our Lord, and prevented Judah from seeing in him the Messiah. And it seems as if the same analogy were destined to be illustrated still, in a considerable section of the Protestant Church ; thousands teaching as the doctrines of Scripture, the traditions and commandments of men.
In last lecture I laid before you a compendium of the leading principles of the Romish Church upon the one hand, and the avowed and most characteristic tenets of the Tractarian party, or Romish followers and approximators, on the other hand. I now propose to examine some of the assumptions and pretensions of the Romish Church and her Tractarian adherents, reserving for the next Lecture those which I may not be able to discuss in the present.
The first to which I would turn your atten tion, is the boasted splendour and beauty, which are put forward as the invariable characteristics of the Roman-Catholic ritual. I can speak of this, as I have visited most of the beautiful cathedrals of Belgium and Germany. I have gone, at all hours, to see their sublime and gorgeous ritual ; of which, I must confess, the Tractarian approxi-
62 Romish and Tractarian
mations are extremely miserable imitations ; and I do confess, painfully aware as I was of the fear ful principles that lurk beneath, I could scarcely help being charmed, fascinated, and arrested by the sublimity of their music, the impressiveness of their ritual, and the tout ensemble of a richly deco rated service. And no doubt, if to fascinate the eye with the most exquisite paintings, if to charm the ear with the strains that have emanated from the genius of the most illustrious composers, if to provide for the smell the ascending incense with its curling clouds — if these be the main ends of a church, the Church of Rome has attained those ends in an eminent degree. But if the true end of a church — if the great scope of all religion — is to raise men to the likeness of God — to make the creature feel and realize fellowship with the Creator — to render the lost and the degraded the partakers of the Divine nature — to enable men on earth " to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their God," and in heaven to reap the rewards of grace — then I assert, and I am prepared to demonstrate, that the Romish Church, instead of answering these great and solemn ends, is fitted to accomplish the very opposite. She has plunged into the grossest apostacy in principle, and produced the direst immorality in practice. Her outward glory is the covering of the corruption of the grave. The true description of the gorgeous
Claims and Pretensions. 63
splendour of the Romish Church is a very painful but a very plain one. The Italian bandits construct beautiful palaces and halls, but it is out of the robbery of orphans and the plunder of widows. The syren's music charmed the unwary traveller, but it was to de struction. Both, I venture to assert, meet their most appropriate antitype in the ritual, the beauty and attractiveness of the Romish Church. Her music is that of the syren's, that lures to ruin ; her archi tectural beauty is that of the Italian bandit's hall, constructed out of the spoils of a dishonoured God and degraded souls. Her whole structure presents a 'moral fac simile of the Egyptian temples of old : there was the most imposing architecture without, but the gods within were the filthy creatures of the Nile, and the vegetable products of its mud.
But does Christianity really stand in need of additional splendour to its ritual, or of material ornament to its lessons ? I conceive that there is something in the simple Gospel so majestic — some thing so transcending all that the pencil of the painter or pen of the poet can embody — that Christianity seems to me adorned the most, when it is adorned the least. Would you ever think of taking a few drops from a phial of otto of roses, in order to add to the perfume of the rose just gath ered on a May morning, and wet with the dews of heaven ? If that splendid monument of human genius were here, the Apollo Belvidere, unques-
64* Romish and Tractarian
tionably the product of the chisel of one of the most illustrious of ancient statuaries, should we applaud the taste of that man who would propose that the mercers' and the hatters' and the shoe makers' shops should furnish ornaments with which to deck it ? Would you not say — There is some thing in the almost living lineaments of the form so noble, something in the contour and proportions of the marble so beautiful, that the richest clothing of man would deform, not dignify — dim, not reveal, its pure and simple glories. So is it with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is so beauti ful in itself, that all accessions of material beauty serve but to conceal or mar it. The Rose of Sharon is so fragrant, and its tints so lovely, that it needs not the streams of the Isis, — still less the filthy waters of the Tiber — either to augment its perfume or to heighten its colours.
This rage for adding outward and material orna ment to the Gospel of Jesus is founded on a fact, confirmed and illustrated by almost universal experience throughout the history of the Church of Christ — that when the spiritual glory of a Church begins to depart, she proceeds to heap up and attach to herself material and worldly orna ments. When the beauty made up of "mercy and truth meeting together, righteousness and peace kissing each other," fades from her altars, the painter, and the poet, and the musician are
Claims and Pretensions. 65
summoned to her aid, to present some substitute for the lost and departed glory. The true explan ation of the Tractarian and the Romish ornaments which are piled successively upon their ritual, their faith, and their worship, is, that having ceased to draw their beauty from above, having forgotten that " the King's daughter is glorious within" — not without — they feel constrained to ransack Aaron's wardrobe and the heathen Flamin's vestry, in order to substitute the trappings and the orna ments of an exploded ritual for that beautiful worship, the inscription on the length and breadth of which is — " God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
Another apology urged on behalf of the Church of Rome, and also of those who follow in her wake, to which I have briefly alluded, is that there are many good men, the advocates of the principles of both. Unquestionably there are ; and it would indeed argue that Satan had lapsed into an unusual blunder, instead of pursuing successfully the subtle tactics by which he has always been characterized, if he were to put forward Popery merely by bad instruments, or to promote the principles of semi- Popery by men of questionable or blasted reputa tion. Satan always selects, where he can, the choicest instruments to accomplish his iniquitous designs. Reason and Scripture, however, make it not to be
66 Romish and Tractarian
wondered at, that there have been many good men in the Church of Rome. There has been a Fen el on, signalized by the moral glory that reposed on his temper and irradiated his walk ; there has been a Martin Boos, distinguished even for the faithfulness with which he preached the everlasting Gospel in the midst of Rome ; nor can I omit the celebrated Pascal, whose writings may be perused with profit by the most spiritually-minded Protestant. But it is to be observed that these men were Christians, not in consequence of their creed, but in spite of their creed ; that in the ratio of their faithfulness they were persecuted ; and they are only standing proofs that there is a brilliancy and a penetrating energy in the truths of the Gospel, which the over shadowing despotism of Rome has not been able entirely to exclude, and which the proscription of its councils has not succeeded in utterly extir pating.
This fact, that there are good men in the Church of Rome, is only one of those analogies which characterize the whole marred and dismantled world of which we are members. There is not a height on the loftiest Appennine, on which there is not some blossom which the winter frosts have not nipped, some floweret which the hurricane has not blasted. There is no desert without an oasis. And so there is not a church or a communion under heaves in the bosom of which there are not here
Claims and Pretensions. 67
and there some witnesses that God has not utterly forsaken it ; thereby presenting the very ground on which Protestants can address hundreds in the Romish Church in the language of the Apocalypse — "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not par takers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."
It has been alleged that there are many truths in the Roman- Catholic system. So doubtless there are. There are truths in Deism, throughout all its shades ; there are some truths even in Maho- metanism ; and it would be strange indeed, if there were not here and there some unextinguished truths in the vast mass of doctrinal corruption by which the Church of Rome is at this moment oppressed. But then, I allege that these truths are inoperative, if not wholly subverted as to their practical effects, by the overflowing corruptions of heresy and error. Were a tumbler of water now placed in my hand, and were I to let fall into it only six drops of pure, unadulterated prussic acid, and to request you to drink the water ; would you not reply, "No, I object to do so ; it is poison?" Suppose I were to answer, " There are ninety -nine parts of pure fountain water, and only one hundredth part prussic acid;" would you not naturally say, "Yes, but the deleterious effects of the acid are so in tense, that all the wholesome properties of the
68 Romish and Tractarian
water are thereby utterly neutralized?" So it is in the Church of Rome. Were it proved that there are (as there are not) ninety-nine parts pure and primitive Christianity in the Romish faith ; the additional part, coming from man's corrupt heart, and concocted in man's depraved imagination, is so deleterious, so deadly, that it makes void and valueless the everlasting Gospel.
The next assumption of the Roman-Catholic Church, put forward with great plausibility, and constantly on the lips of Roman Catholics, is that they are the ancient Church, and that we Protest ants form an upstart and modern sect. If by this statement it is meant that the essential principles of Popery are ancient, I do not for one moment dispute it. I believe that in its principles it is coeval with the Fall of man ; indeed I believe with Luther, that every man is born with a pope in his heart. Popery in fact is a plant indigenous to human nature ; it luxuriates in the congenial soil of the corrupt heart ; it needs no fostering, no paternal and nourishing care ; it will bloom, and flourish, and spread, if just let alone. But truth in this world is an exotic ; it belongs to a lovelier, even a celestial clime ; it needs to be ever watered by heaven's pure dews ; it requires to be touched by the rays of heaven's holy Sun ; and it is only amid the tending cares of a mother, or the anxieties
Claims and Pretensions. G9
and the watchfulness of a nurse, that Christianity is kept alive and growing, in the heart of a lapsed and God-estranged world.
Popery, I have said, is coeval in its principles with the Fall. By way of illustrating this, I will make a statement which may appear to you in the light of a paradox, but yet is a great truth : it is, that Adam was a Papist before he be came a Protestant. When Adam fled from the presence of God, and tried to wrap himself in the fig-tree leaves to conceal his nakedness, or con stitute a robe that would be a title to the con sciously-lost favour of God; when he ran from the face of Heaven, and sought shelter amid the bowers, the parterres, and the yet undismantled arbours of Paradise ; — the man, in that act, pre sented the perfect type of the Roman-Catholic Church. Her safety, she feels, is still in shelter ing herself from the searching eye of God ; her favourite raiment is the " filthy rags " of human righteousness, and her glory is the merit of canonized saints. She believes her security de pends on the secresy with which she can conceal herself from that God who pronounces of the most exalted human righteousness, that it is sin — of all human wisdom, that it is folly — and of human life itself, in its best estate, that it is only vanity. But when the glorious Gospel sounded amid the ruins of Paradise, and Adam's heart vibrated with
70 Romish and Tractarian
the soul-inspiring accents, " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head," when again he turned his face upon that very God from whom he had fled, and approached him with bended knee and broken heart, and called him " Father !" our great progenitor, in that act, presented the bright type of the Protestant Church.
In the very next generation we see the antiquity and action of Popish principles in practical de velopment ; for the fact is, there are two succes sions that have never lost a link, — unquestionably old — the succession of Papists or self-righteous sinners on the one hand, and the succession of Protestants or true believers on the other. Cain was, in principle, the first Roman-Catholic priest; and Abel, in principle, was the first Protestant minister and martyr. This will be seen, if you will only bear in mind the definition of the sacri fice of the Mass in the Church of Rome, that it is an "unbloody sacrifice " (that is, a sacrifice without shedding of blood), and after this, the definition of our sacrifice in the Protestant Church, that "without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins." When Cain was about to offer a sacri fice to God, he obviously pursued some such course as this : he selected the loveliest flowers that bloomed in his garden ; he gathered the most de licious fruit that grew upon its trees, not yet blighted by the Fall ; he brought that fruit and
Claims and Pretensions. 71
those flowers together, wove them into an amaran thine garland, laid it on the altar of his God, and knelt and said, " O Lord ! I devote these flowers and fruits to thee : thy smiles gave them all their beauty, thy breath gave them all their fragrance ; I acknowledge thee, in this act, to be my Creator and my providing and protecting God." There he stopped : but when Abel was about to offer his sacrifice, his course was not the same. He selected a meek, even a spotless lamb from the fold ; he plunged the knife in the throat of that lamb, and shed its blood ; and having laid it on the altar, he said, " O Lord, my God ! with my brother Cain I acknowledge that thou art my Creator ; with my brother Cain I acknowledge that thou art my preserver; but beyond him, and what he has fatally lost sight of, I acknowledge, O my God, that I am guilty ; that as this lamb dies, so ought I to die ; and that my faith and hope gather all their nutriment, and all my salvation, from * the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world ' — ' the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.' " The contrast shows you that Cain's was the unbloody sacrifice — exactly typical of the Mass ; and that Abel's was the sacrifice accompanied with blood-shedding—exactly typical of that sacrifice which was made once for all upon the cross in Calvary. Romish principles, we must therefore admit, are not wholly novelties.
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If by the statement urged by the Church of Rome, that that Church is the ancient Church, and prior to ours, she means that her principles, and not ours, were taught by the Apostles, then the very fair and reasonable appeal which I make to every Roman Catholic is just this : Take the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, (which Roman Catholics are aware was addressed to their Church in her purity and untainted glory,) and compare with the principles laid down in that Epistle the Canons of the Council of Trent, which can easily be furnished to you — or, if you like, the Creed of Pope Pius IV. ; and if you can show me that the principles held by your Church at the present day are coincident throughout with the principles preached by the Apostle Paul in his address to the ancient Roman Church, I will instantly cease to be a Protestant and become a Roman Catholic. Or, to bring the matter to a still more practical issue, listen to the preaching of your priests for one single year, and then, after you have done so, listen to the preaching of a minister of the Pro testant Church ; get a short-hand writer, if you can, to report their respective discourses for you, and compare the preaching of the Protestant minister and the preaching of your priest with the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans ; and if you dis cover that your priest preaches justification by faith only, without the works of the law, redemp-
Claims and Pretensions. 73
tion only through an atonement once offered by the Saviour, not to be reiterated, and " being jus tified by faith, peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," — then remain where you are, and charge Protestants with most unwarrantable schism in leaving a church so pure, eloquent with principles so apostolic ; but if you find that the very reverse is the case — that the preaching in the one pulpit dovetails with all the statements of Paul ; and that if the preaching of your priest be true, Paul's must be heresy ; and if Paul's be true, your priest must be false ; if you find that the preach ing of your priest is the opposite of the preaching of St. Paul, then I implore you by the mercies of God — I implore you by the prospect of a judgment- day — I implore you as you shall answer for the statements that are here laid before you — I implore you by all that is sweet in the Christian privi leges of time, and all that is awful in the prospects of immortality— to leave a Church where the Sa viour is practically subordinate to Mary ; and hasten, "like doves to their windows," to join a communion where " Christ is all, and in all."
And here let me just observe upon this ques tion — Which is the true and ancient Church — that it is utterly impossible to defend ourselves as Protestants upon any other ground, than the broad ground of recognising all Christians as mem bers of that Church, who " hold the faith in E
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of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteous ness of life." If you say the Church of England, or any other Protestant Church, is alone the true Church, instead of holding each to be a branch, more or less imperfect, of the visible Church, you are on Romish ground, and the priest will unquestionably beat you ; but if you take up the position, that you are not to go beyond the boards of the Bible for the definition and the determina tion of the Church of Christ, you are on impreg nable ground, and all the principalities and powers in hell, united with all the priests in the Vatican, cannot possibly scathe you.
But to return : if by the statement that the Romish Church is the ancient Church and ours the modern, it is meant to be conveyed that the Church is always visible, and that during the fourteen centuries that preceded the Reformation, the only visible Church was the Romish Church, and the only communion also that pretended or professed, by her numbers, her aspect and appearance, to be the true Church ; then I at once maintain, that it is not necessary to the definition of a scriptural Church, that it should be always and at all times visible. There was a Church when Elijah stood alone, and all his compeers were hiding from per secution ; there was a Church, (according to the statements of some distinguished advocates of the Romish communion,) and but one single individual
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in that Church, when our Lord was crucified — that Church being comprehended, as they say, in the Virgin Mary, and in her alone.
But if they ask the question, Where was the visible Protestant Church prior to the Reformation by Martin Luther ? I can tell them, to their shame ; for it is too easy to do so. The vallies of Piedmont and the Cottian Alps still breathe forth the announce ment, amid the mementos of the tears and blood by which they were stained, — ' The persecuted representatives of the true Church were hid, by thousands, here.' The dungeons of the Inquisition, and the prison of St. Angelo, if they could find a tongue, and become vocal with honesty and truth, would tell a kindred tale — ' The persecuted children of the Church were murdered and starved here.' Persecution trod down the true Church. The visible Protestant Church was in the grasp of the Romish Church ; and was not created, but only emancipated and unlocked from that grasp, at the era of the Reformation.*
I will illustrate this by an anecdote, recorded in the Travels, I think, of Lord Lindsay. That nobleman states, that on visiting the pyramids of Egypt, he found in one of those ancient reposi tories of the dead a mummy, which indicated,
* See in Mr. Elliot's Horae Apocalypticse — a work which reflects a light on prophecy unparalleled — a luminous and succcessful history of the Two Witnesses in the Paulikians and Waldenses during the middle ages.
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according to the mode of interpreting hieroglyphics adopted by Champollion and by Young, that it was full two thousand years old. On opening the case, and unrolling the mummy, he found in its right hand a bulbous or rather tuberous root. Lord Lindsay wondered whether vegetable life could out last an imprisonment of two thousand years ; and, in order to put the problem to the test, he opened the hand of the mummy, took out the vegetable root, planted it in a fertile and favourable soil, and exposed it to the sunshine and the dews of heaven ; and, to his amazement and delight, that lately dry root shot up, and presented a stem, unfolding a most beautiful dahlia. Now, I say, the Protestant Qiurch, before the Reformation, was in a position similar to that of the dahlia root ; it was compressed in the iron grasp of the most deadly despotism. And all that Calvin, and Luther, and Knox did, was to unlock the hand that held it — to take out the concealed epitome of heaven's high principles — to plant it in the father-lands of Germany, of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland — and to place ft beneath the beams of the Sun of Righteousness, and the rain-drops of the Spirit of God, till it took root, and grew up, and presented, as it does now, wide-spreading boughs crowned with ten thousand blossoms, destined to wave with immortal fra- grancy, and to constitute the accumulating glory and the richest and holiest ornaments of our native land.
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In answer, still further, to this pretension of the Church of Rome, (and let me just say, that the assumption that the true Church is always a visible Church, lies at the root of the Tractarian heresies,) I observe, that the Romanist constantly proceeds on the supposition, that at the Reform ation we founded a new Church, or started a new concern altogether. This we deny ; we merely brought out the old Church. We maintain, that the pearl of inestimable price was overlaid and concealed by accumulated rubbish, and all we did was to remove the rubbish, and disclose that pearl's inherent glories. When Hezekiah purified the rites of the ancient Church, and our Lord expelled the money-changers from the Temple in his days, the one only restored that which was corrupted, while the other purified that which was defiled. So with our Reformers. What they did was to detach all that was " of the earth, earthy ; " and to retain all that was of heaven, heavenly. I may illustrate this, (and it is, perhaps, the best way of impressing on a popular assembly, so vast and varied, a great truth,) by another little incident, which I have selected from one of the newspapers. It appears that a broker in Paris one day purchased a picture, which seemed to be a painting of the Virgin Mary, by some very inferior and inartistic hand ; he gave for it but a few francs. While he was examining it, a little bit
78 Romish and Tractarian
of the exterior paint happened to break off, and to his amazement he saw something beneath, that indicated the touches of a master pencil. He resolved, at the risk of the cost of his purchase, to remove the whole superficies, which constituted the representation of the Virgin Mary ; and on doing so, he found, to his astonishment and delight, that there was beneath it an exqusite picture of our Lord, by Poussin, if I mistake not, one of the most celebrated painters. Now, this is exactly what our Reformers did. They found Christ's body covered with representations of the saints, and of the Virgin Mary, and of the priesthood ; and all that Luther did was to scale off fragments of the outward covering, in order that its hidden beauty might peer forth. Ridley and Cramner scaled off a further part of it ; and Knox, though it is true he rubbed very roughly on the original, took off all the remains and vestiges of the corrupt and earthly crust that called itself Christ's Church, and thus proved the Reformation Church to be merely a new edition of the Apostolic Church. Alas ! after these have been detached, a miserable and misguided section, in the age in which we live, are busily occupied in collecting all the scattered fragments of the old layers, and labouring to glue and paste them on again in order to bring back the apostacy, under the pretext of restoring apo stolic practices, and to cover and conceal every
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Protestant truth by laying over each a corre spondent Popish corruption.
But if the Church of Rome persist in main taining, upon the one hand, that she is the ancient Church, and we, on the other, that we are the primitive and the truly ancient Church ; we ask of the Church of Rome, Who is to decide which is true ? If I propose the Holy Scripture as the arbiter, the Church of Rome exhausts her voca bulary of abuse, wherewith to denounce and de signate the word of God. If I propose contem poraneous churches — the Greek Church, the Syriac Church, the Coptic Church — the Roman- Catholic advocate tells me that these were and are schismatics. If I propose the most illustrious divines that Protestant Christendom has produced, the answer of the Romish advocate is, that they are heretics, and cannot be listened to. If I pro pose a General Council to decide the question, Which is the ancient and which is the modern Church, the Roman Catholic will say — "A General Council, by all means, if you please, but the Pope must be at the head of it; and if it should decide any thing contrary to his mind, it must immediately be dissolved, and its decree ne cessarily go for nothing." Then who is to deter mine the truth ? ' We are the ancient Church,' says Rome, * just because we assert it ;' and we will shelter ourselves in the olden castle of infal-
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libility, and maintain that we are right, and all the world are wrong, in spite of Revelation, ' in spite of reason, in spite of divines and doctors/ and we may add, ' in spite of common sense itself.'
I remember, in the writings of the illustrious poet, metaphysician, and I think I may add, Christian — Coleridge, there occurs a very apt illustration of the relative antiquity of the Rom ish and the Christian Church, which I would use, but apply it to my own purpose, and follow it out beyond even the statements of that beautiful and imaginative poet. He speaks of a river starting from its fountain, as the most appropriate picture of the rise and progress of Christianity. The way in which I would apply the figure which Coleridge originated, is this. The river, let us say, started eighteen centuries ago ; it flowed through a thousand lands, but, like every river, it contracted in its course stains and straws, pollu tion, and colouring matter, from tributary streams, and from the very nature of the earthly channels through which it continually poured. At last, after about fifteen centuries, and just at the time when its corruption and contamination were the greatest, there happened to be flung into it five or six massive rocks, which were invested with the strange property, peculiar to themselves, of acting as filterers. After coming to these, one branch of the river rushed onward and through
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them, pure and limpid, just as it burst forth from its primeval fountain ; another branch flowed away to the left, containing a less portion of the original stream, and all the contamination — the " wrood, hay, stubble," which had mingled with it in its course. Now, what would you think if the stream that flowed to the left, corrupted and polluted, became animated and vocal ; and looking upon the stream that flowed right on in its purity and beauty, exclaimed — * lam the ancient and original stream as I came from the fountain ; while you are but an upstart branch, most unjustly and unne cessarily pursuing a novel and erratic course ? ' Would not every impartial judge reply — f The pure and limpid stream is the original, and you are the upstart and the new one ; the former has the primitive water, and you the subsequent mud ?' Just so with Christianity. It flowed at first from the rock that was riven on Calvary, in all its un tainted and uncontaminated glories ; but after the lapse of centuries, it became mingled with much that belonged to Caesar, and was gathered from the earth, earthy ; in the sixteenth century, those rocks, (second only to the Rock of Ages, and second only because laid upon it,) Luther, and Ridley, and Latimer, and Knox, and their companions, took their stand in the stream, and became, if you will pardon the simile, moral filterers : — the pure and limpid river rolled onward in beauty and E 3
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brightness, clear as crystal, and divided into the sevenfold streams of the various Christian communions that constitute the one river " that maketh glad the city of our God :" the corrupted waters flowed away to the left ; and, standing in the midst of them, and drinking deep of the pois onous element, the advocates of the Church of Rome profess that they are the primitive and un tainted emanation from Christ, and that we Pro testants have recently sprung from Luther, non existent before, and doomed to die with the author of our existence.
" But tell us," says the Roman- Catholic advo cate, "where and when the errors began, by which you say we are deformed ; and then we will believe that they are subsequent corruptions, and therefore novelties." Now this, we reply, is try ing to merge the character of the doctrines in the chronology of the doctrines. The question is not when the doctrine began ; but the question is, whether it is denounced as error, or declared as truth, in the oracles of God. If a taint were found in the River Thames, and on two persons going to London Bridge and finding this taint or colouring matter there, if one were to maintain that it was part and parcel of the original river, and the other were to insist that it had been introduced subsequently in its course ; what would be the best way of determining the question ?
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Surely it would be, to proceed to the fountain out of which the Thames flows : if what is called the taint be there, it is part and parcel of the river ; if it be not there, then, wherever it began, it was no part or constituent element of the stream. So it is with those errors that are disas trously distinctive of the Church of Rome : the true plan is, not to trace upward their rise, and spread, and developement through darkening ages, and generations of heretics, and obscure folios, but to come to the sacred fountain, which the Church of Rome must profess to be primary and original. If transubstantiation be there, it is of God ; if it is not there — it matters not when it began — it is not of God, and is not therefore Christian truth.
The fact is, the Protestant Church is alone the primitive and ancient representation of the truths of God. I rise up to revere that Protestant Church, as having on her brow the signature of the maturity of age, radiant with the vigour and the vitality of youth. And all that we seek to do is, to detach from that Church the gaudy em broidery, and cumbrous ornaments, wherewith Rome has not adorned but deformed her ; and to let her look forth in her primeval and unshorn glory, " fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners ; " enclosing in her heart the love and life of her God, and bearing upon her brow the superscription and the likeness
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of her Lord ; irradiated by that light which was kindled at the cross, and is destined to be merged only in the more brilliant glories of the crown.
Another of the assumptions of the Church of Rome is Sanctity.
If I were to ask a Protestant what he means by sanctity, he would instantly reply — The work of the Spirit of God upon a man's heart, melting his will into Grod's will, and making his wishes run parallel with the precepts and commandments of his holy laws. But if I ask a Roman Catholic —if I ask Vicar-apostolic Milner, the ablest ad vocate of the Church of Rome, and author of one of the most subtle books written in her defence — " The End of Controversy," in which Roman Catho lics are regularly instructed, — he tells me that he understands by sanctity what his Church has al ways understood by this attribute, viz. possessing beatified and canonized saints. Hence, the Romish defender, in order to show that the Church of Rome has sanctity, does not show her principles and practice to be coincident with those stated in the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, or with the fruits of the Spirit enumerated in the fifth chapter of that to the Galatians ; but he shows that the Church of Rome has given birth to a Dominick, with rosary and torch, helping to forward the Inquisition, — to a Santa Rosa, or
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Theresa, with her wretched and miserable aus terities, — to an Aquinas, with his persecuting dogmas, — and to a Bonaventure, with his idola trous psalter. And, in order to give you some instances of what she counts sanctity, I will read to you one or two extracts from the Breviary. I may just explain, as I proceed, that the Missal in the Church of Rome answers exactly to the Prayer Book of the Church of England, but the Breviary is a book sui generis ,• it is a book, a certain portion of which must be read every day by every priest of the Church of Rome, or else he is in mortal sin, and cannot say Mass. Hence, on the Continent, I have seen priests read ing this book in the diligence or on the railway ; and in this country, I understand, when it comes near twelve o'clock at night, some of them are known to step aside from the amusements in which they are pleased to join, and hasten into a corner to peruse the requisite quantity of the contents of the Breviary, that they may thereby escape mortal sin, and be able to say Mass the next day. Now, an extract or two from this book will show you the sort of sanctity possessed by the Church of Rome ; and you will see also that it exactly coin cides with the proofs of sanctity put forth by the Tractarians of Oxford. Holiness — " doing justly, and loving mercy, and walking humbly with God" — are, with these men, old-fashioned, ex-
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ploded, Protestant doctrine ; but wearing hair cloth belts and girdles, fasting, and doing penance, are proofs of sanctity that none but a church with a true succession can manifest.
I will now read from the Roman Breviary, the Antwerp Edition. I begin with page 591 : — St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi : " She tortured her body with hair-cloth, whippings, cold, hunger, watchings, nakedness, and all kinds of punish ments." Again, St. Anthony, Bishop and Con fessor, page 572 : " He lay down to rest upon the ground, on the naked boards ; and always wear ing hair-cloth, and sometimes girded with an iron chain next to his skin, he always com pletely preserved his purity." The Summer por tion, page 398, St. Juliana : " She was wont to bruise her body with scourges, knotted little ropes, iron girdles, watchings, and sleeping on the naked ground ; she partook very sparingly of food, and that a vile sort, four days of the week ; on the other two she was content with only angels' food; the Sunday was exempt ed, on which she was nourished on bread and water only." St. Jerome Emilian, page 483 : " In a mountain having discovered a cave, he hid himself in it, where, beating himself with whips, and passing whole days fasting, prayer being protracted far into the night, and enjoying a short sleep upon the naked rock, he paid the penal-
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ties of his own faults and of those of others." St^ Ignatius the Confessor, page 508 : " He passed a year subduing his flesh by a rough chain and hair-cloth, lying on the ground, and bloodying himself with iron whips." St. Cajetan the Confessor : " He sometimes afflicted his body by beatings whole nights, and he never would be persuaded to relax the asperity of his life, witness ing that he desired to die in ashes and sack cloth." St. Francis Borgia, page 416, the Autumnal Portion : "In that pursuit of a stricter mode of life, Francis reduced his body to a state of extreme thinness by fastings, by iron chains, by a very rough hair-cloth, by bloody and long beatings, and by very short sleep." St. Theresa, page 345: " She burned with so anxious a desire of chastising her body, that although the diseases with which she was afflicted might have dissuaded her from it, she often tortured her body with hair-cloth, chains, handfuls of nettles, and other very sharp scourges, and sometimes she would roll among the thorns; being accustomed thus to address God, ' O Lord, be it my lot to suffer or to die.'" These are the children of the Church of Rome ; these the proofs that she has sanctity !
VI. The next assumption of the Church of Rome is Apostolicity ; that is, the maintaining precisely the doctrine and discipline of the ancient or primitive Church.
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Now, without entering minutely into this pre tension, let me just submit to you the following contrast, and then ask if you can well maintain gravity of feeling or face as you listen to the claim of the Romish Church to the character of apostolocity ? The Apostolic Church said — We break one bread ; the Romish Church says — We break no bread at all, for it ceases to be bread, and becomes flesh and blood. The Apostolic Church said — "Bodily exercise profiteth little;" the Church of Rome says — It profiteth much, as in penance, to the forgiveness and atonement of sin. The Apostolic Church said — " Scripture is profit able for all ; " the Romish Church says — It is not profitable for the laity ; the fourth rule of the Index of the Council of Trent containing these words, that " inasmuch as greater evil than good results from the indiscriminate perusal of the Scriptures," the laity are forbidden to have them, except with the written permission of the bishop or inquisitor. Again : the Apostolic Church said — " Prove all things ;" the Romish Church says — Prove nothing, but believe every thing. The Apostolic Church said — " A bishop must be the husband of one wife ;" the Romish Church says — He must be the husband of no wife. The Apo stolic Church said — " Marriage is honourable in all ;" the Romish Church says — Marriage is not honourable in priests. The Apostolic Church said — " The wages of sin is death;" the Romish
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Church says, (as every Roman Catholic will find in Dr. Doyle's Catechism)- — " Venial sin is a light offence, such as the stealing of an apple or a pin, which does not break charity between man and man, much less between man and God." [The illustration derived from the stealing of an apple is a most unfortunate one, for it was stealing an
apple that-—
" Brought death into the world, and all our v?oe ;"
—but let that pass.] The Apostolic Church said — " There is one sacrifice, once for all, for the sins of the world ;" the Romish Church says— There are many sacrifices, and as many priests, always trying, and never able to take away sin. Now, with this contrast, which every one possessed of a Bible and the Canons of Trent may verify, is there any foundation — in fact, can there be any foundation, for the pretension that the Romish Church is apostolical ? Her apostolicity seems like lucus a non lucendo ; that is, she calls herself apostolic because she is not so. The Spirit of God gives her a more appropriate name : she is the Apostatic Church.
Another of the assumptions of the Roman Catholic Church is, that within her bosom, and her bosom alone, is there Certainty, or the dissi pation of all doubt, for every one who embraces her principles and subscribes her creed, The
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argument of Romish priests is, ' In the Protestant Church all is uncertainty, every one is at sea ; one believes one thing and another believes another, and none can be sure that he is right ; but if you enter the Roman- Catholic Church, you come into the region of sunshine, and to the possession of a certainty which can never be shaken.'
Now let me say, that of all churches under heaven, the Roman- Catholic has the least of cer tainty in her construction. There is a canon of the Council of Trent which every Roman-Catholic priest knows, and which every Roman-Catholic layman ought to know, in which it is declared, that if the priest " should not intend to do what the Church intends," then there is no sacrament. And recollect, there are seven sacraments in the Church of Rome ; matrimony is a sacrament, penance is a sacrament, holy orders a sacrament, confirmation a sacrament, extreme unction a sacrament, as well as baptism and the eucharist. Now I know, from no questionable source, that many of the priests in Ireland, and not a few on the continent of Europe, are infidels at heart, and priests only in profession ; and the Rev. Mr. Nolan, who became a clergyman of the Church of England, having abjured the Roman-Catholic faith, has stated that for twelve months before he left the Church of Rome, he did not believe the doctrine of transubstantiation ; and adds, in his
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pamphlet, which has never been replied to, that he knew numbers of priests in Ireland who did not believe in many of the peculiar heresies of the Romish faith. In all these cases, according to the law of the Church of Rome, wherever the priest happens to be an infidel at heart, or where he does not believe in the sacrament about which he is conversant, nor hope or intend to effectuate what the Church does, there is no sacrament at all. For instance, if a priest does not believe in transubstantiation, then, though he may consecrate the wafer, there is no transubstantiation, because his intention is wanting ; and the consequence is, that in such cases every Roman Catholic must adore what, on his own principles, is only flour and water, and trust for atonement to a sacrifice which is no sacrifice. Let me refer to another sacrament — Marriage : on Protestant principles, a man knows whether he be married in the sight of God or not; on Roman- Catholic prin ciples, no Roman-Catholic husband can be sure that he is a married man. If the priest who solemnized that sacrament was an infidel, it was not solemnized at all ; it was a mockery. Not only so ; but if the bishop who ordained that priest was an infidel, Orders being a sacrament, it was no ordination ; if the bishop who ordained that bishop was an unbeliever or uncanonical, he was no bishop at all : and, in fact, a Roman
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Catholic must be able to trace the succession of his bishops and priests, and- — what is less easy — to scrutinize the thoughts of their hearts, up to the days of Gregory the Great, and beyond these, before he can be sure that he is not living in sin, or that he and his wife are lawfully married in the sight of God. So much for certainty in the Church of Rome in one particular only.
Another assumption, or rather mark, is Catho licity. The Church of Rome contends, that she is the Universal or the Catholic Church.
Now, I am prepared fully to admit, that no system ever spread so widely and fearfully through the length and breadth of the world as the Roman- Catholic system. This dread despotism has made her name to be revered, like the name of destiny itself. She struck her superscription upon the literature, the poetry, the painting, of every page of the history of Europe ; she laid her pol luting grasp upon the altar and the throne, upon coronets and crowns ; and the marks of bloodshed she left in her wake have indisputably testified, that she has spread her power from the wilds of the Arab onward to the steppes of the Cossack. But, while I admit all this, and deplore it too, I still affirm that there never was a period in the history of Europe when the Roman-Catholic Church could say, she was strictly and literally
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catholic ; that is, that every human being in Europe was a Roman Catholic. She contends for literality in the interpretation of every epithet ; and we take her own construction, and assert that she never was, as she never will be, catholic. Multitudes belong to her : "The whole world won dered after the Beast." But her greatest spread is the sign, to heaven and earth, of her near destruction. I believe, that even the true Church is not destined to be catholic until the Jews shall be brought in, and the fulness of the Gentiles shall arrive ; and then " the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established upon the top of the hills, and all nations shall flow to it."
Another lofty assumption of the Roman - Catholic Church is that of Infallibility. Now, if infallibility be a real thing, we must long to have it; if it be a promised thing, we must pray to have it.
But, in the outset, let me give you two or three specimens (the plainest will be the most effective,) of the practical worth of Romish infallibility in interpreting Scripture ; and thereby we may judge of its importance by the ascertained results of its application to the word of God.
Pope Nicholas the First, in the exercise of this infallibility, with which he professed to be in vested, proves his supremacy from Acts x. 13:
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" Arise, Peter, kill and eat ; " therefore, says the fountain of infallibility, the Pope is supreme. Pope Boniface the Eighth proves it from Genesis i. 1 : — " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth ;" the heaven representing the Pope, the earth representing the secular power ; there fore, the Pope is king of kings. The Council of Lateran proves the Pope's supremacy from the 72d Psalm : — " All kings shall bow down before him."
Again : the Second Council of Nice professed to prove the worship of images from this text — " God created man in his own image ; " and from an other, — " No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it under a bushel." Some members of this Council began to complain, not of the Council's au thority (for that they did not dispute), but of the Council's logic ; and they said, that building such doctrines upon so flimsy a foundation was not good. The reply of the distinguished president of the Council, Pope Adrian the First, was, " I will maintain these texts to be sufficient proof, in spite of fate." If infallibility makes no better comments upon the Scriptures, and deduces no more justifiable conclusions from its texts, we Protestants may be content with the exercise of private judgment, and the promised aid of the Spirit of God.
But here let me observe, that Councils have
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contradicted each other, and therefore they could not be each infallible. The Council of Nice, which met in the year 325, repudiated the Pope's supremacy ; but the fourth Council of Lateran maintained the Pope's supremacy. The apocry phal books of Scripture were rejected by the Council of Laodicea ; but they were declared to be as inspired as the Gospels, by the Council of Trent, in 1546. The celibacy of the clergy was rejected at the Council of Nice ; but it was main tained and decreed by the first Council of Lateran. The worship of images and relics was maintained by the second Council of Nice ; it was condemned by the Council of Constantinople, in the year 754. The fourth Council of Constantinople declared, that Scripture was above tradition ; the Council of Trent declared, that tradition and Scripture were precisely equal. Now, in each of these cases, if the one Council was infallible, what must the other be, which contradicts it ? Both cannot be infallible. The safe, and more than probable inference is, that all were very fallible indeed.
But if you ask Roman Catholics, in various parts of the world, where the seat and fountain of infallibility is, you will see the absurdity of this claim. It may be good, it may be true, it may be an attribute of the Christian Church; but if the seat, the locus where it exists and develops its inherent energies, cannot be discovered, what is its
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worth ? Now, if you ask a Trans-Alpine Roman ist, that is, a Roman Catholic in Italy, where in fallibility rests, he instantly answers, — " In the Pope personally, speaking ex cathedra ; " that is, speaking from the chair, or from the throne. But ask an English or a French Roman Catholic where infallibility reposes, and he instantly an swers, — " In the Pope, at the head of, or sanc tioned by, a General Council" — as, for instance, the Council of Trent. Thus, if I wish to get an infallible interpretation of any one portion of Scripture, I am dependent on the spot in which I was born for my opinions respecting the seat of that infallibility, and thereby for the meaning attached to that Scripture. It is clear, however, that if infallibility be only in the Pope at the head of a General Council, the Italian Romanist must be wrong ; and if it be in the Pope person ally and alone, the French or British Catholic must be in error.
For a proof of the utter worthlessness of this pretension, I will read to you the second clause of Pope Pius's Creed : " I admit the Holy Scripture, according to that sense which our Holy Mother the Church has held and does hold ; to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpreta tion of Scripture." In other words, the Roman Catholic asserts, that there is in the Church an infallible tribunal ; and that he will interpret Scrip,
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ture only according to the judgment of that tribunal. Now, suppose that I am disposed to become a Roman Catholic, and wish to get an infallible comment upon a part of the Gospel of St. John, I go to the nearest Roman-Catholic priest and I ask for it ; his reply is — " I am only a private individual priest ; I will give you my best exposition of the chapter, but I cannot give an infallible comment." I go then to the Roman- Catholic bishop, and I say, — "Your priest has failed to satisfy me, and I am perplexed and puz - zled by the differences of Protestants ; I come to you for such a comment upon this portion of the Word of God as will, without delay, set all my doubts at rest for ever ; " the bishop re plies — " I am only an individual bishop ; I will give you my best judgment, but I am not infal lible." I next seek an introduction to the Pope himself, which is probably granted ; and I find Gregory XVI. (as he is said to be) a most cour teous, kind, and amiable old man, and rejoiced to receive any Anglican, or even Protestant, inquir ing after truth. He takes me into his private closet, and I state my difficulty to him : " I have come from Britain to your holiness, to get an in fallible exposition of this chapter, for we Protest ants are at issue about its meaning in various — it may be not essential, but still somewhat important points." The Pope replies, — " Sir, I rejoice to F
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see the spirit of candour and inquiry by which you are actuated, and I will be as candid with you myself; I will give you an explanation of the chapter, and as long as you keep within the bounds of Italy or the Roman states, it will be absolutely infallible'; but if you cross the moun tains and go into France, or appear among the Catholics of England, it will be just as fallible as the exposition of any other bishop or priest." I exclaim — " What ! is this your boasted infalli bility ? Is not truth the same in every latitude and in every longitude, unvarying in all coun tries and in all climates, like its Author and its Source, — 'the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.' " The Pope replies — " I cannot give it you, and I am sorry to dismiss you with no better satisfaction."
Roman Catholics are indeed bitterly deceived. Infallibility glistens like a pool of quicksilver — attractive — brilliant ; but if you try to lay hold of it, it slips through your fingers. Like the mirage in the Asiatic desert, it seems like a refreshing stream, bubbling forth its living waters ; but when you come to drink of it, you are pain fully disappointed, and find it is only arid and parching sand. Were some fearful disease, some thing like the plague, ravaging London, and were it to be announced that a specific had been found which would cure the disease, I would ask the
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most likely person where I might find it, and lie tells me, it is in London, in such a street, and at such a shop ; I make inquiry there, but the answer given is, that it is not to be had in Lon don, but it is at Manchester ; I go to Manchester, and I find that I am misinformed, for I am there told that it is in Edinburgh ; I go to Edinburgh, and they tell me I am wrong again, for it is in Paris : and while I am searching for the cure, the plague gathers power and progress, and its increasing victims are carried to their long home. So is it with infallibility. The Romish Church claims it ; but she has been disputing, for seven hundred years, where it is lodged; and souls, meanwhile, are passing deluded to the judgment seat of God ; and that decisive Day overtakes them trusting to the priest instead of Jesus, re posing on the vapid pretensions of an unholy Church, instead of that precious blood which alone " cleanse th from all sin !"
I must now refer to the favourite temporary substitute proposed by the Tractarians of Oxford for the more imposing pretension infallibility, or rather the pioneer of their ultimate claim to infallibility, called the voice of the Church. The language continually reiterated by them, is that the voice of the Church is the criterion and standard of all truth, the interpreter of all Scrip-
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ture, the final expounder of all perplexities and difficulties. To support this, they quote the aphorism of Vicentius Lyrinensis, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus; that is, literally translated (but they are ashamed to translate it, because men of common sense would laugh at their folly), that which has been believed by every body in every place and in every age. This is Catholic consent, the true interpreter of Scripture, the vaunted bond that binds together all doctrines.
Now let us just reflect how it can be possible to ascertain what has been believed by every body during eighteen centuries, and in every spot of the habitable globe. It is an impossibility, and an absurdity, that needs only to be stated in order to be repelled with merited contempt. " Ah ! but," say the Tractarians, when plied with this, "we are not left to gather it and condense it for our selves ; it is embodied in the decisions of General Councils — as, for instance, in those of the Council of Nice. That Synod is the exponent of the voice of the ante-Nicene Church." On hearing this, I ask, "Why must we believe the Council of Nice to be orthodox ? " " Because it decreed orthodox doctrine," is the answer. " But why was its doc trine orthodox ? " " Because the Council of Nice decreed it."'* If the Oxford tractators would learn more of Euclid, and a little less of the schoolmen,
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they would cease to reason in a circle, and to in culcate with lofty pretensions what every man of common sense perceives to be ridiculous.
But I would state upon this subject, what has been well brought forward (and I have verified it at great length), by the Rev. Mr. Goode,* in his " Divine Rule of Faith : " a book that has few faults, and unrivalled excellency, scholarship, and re search. The Tractarian says, the voice of the Church, as expressed by a General Council, is decisive of all doctrine : I hold him to this point. Now, in 325, the Council of Nice met ; and by a majority (admitted by the Benedictines to have been brought about a good deal by force, if more., on the whole, by conviction), they decreed that Christ is God. Twenty-five years afterwards there met two councils, which were substantially one — the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia, which Bishop Stillingneet pronounces to be the most general council ever assembled in Christendom ; and at these two councils, the one representing the Eastern, the other the Western Church, there met six hundred bishops ; and surely if the three hundred bishops at Nice were the voice of the Church, the six hundred at Ariminum and Seleucia
* Another work on this controversy, of great eloquence and conclusive reasoning, is " Garbetfs Bampton Lectures.'' A. short but effective refutation of Tractarianism is contained in the Bishop of Ossory's late Charge.
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must be a still more emphatic exponent of its dogmas. Now, the Council of Nice, with its three hundred bishops, decided that Christ is God ; the Council of Ariminum and Seleucia, with its six hundred bishops, rejected the word consub- stantial, and decided that Christ is not God. If Councils constitute the voice of the Church, and if a greater Council be a more emphatic and conclusive utterance of the Church's senti ments than a less, the Tractarians will, by and by, have to dele or extinguish the first half of their name, Tract, and leave Arians as the just designation arising from their new and consistent creed.
But the Tractarians will reply, that there is one symbol which is admitted on all sides to be the voice of the Church, and the exponent of Catholic doctrine ; and that is what is called The Apostles' Creed, which they say is a proof of an unbroken tradition from the primitive Church throughout every age. Now I have looked into the various fathers, in whose writings this creed is found. Irenaeus, one father, gives the creed in two dif ferent places, but in totally different words. It is essential to a tradition, that the words be kept up, as well as the substance ; if the words are changed, the tradition is mutilated, and we are completely at sea. Tertullian, again, gives this creed in three different places, and in three different forms.
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Origen gives the creed four times, and each time differently. And Augustin, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Eusebius, maintain, that the creed was origi nally collected out of Scripture, Now, is not all this a most complete extinguisher of the Tracta- rian assumption ? Is it not the destruction of their last and loudest assertion of having an unbroken tradition ? And moreover, the creed of the first three centuries, in any of its forms, is not the same with the Apostles1 Creed in the Prayer-book. It has in it, as it now stands, " I believe in the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints ; " but there are no such clauses in the ancient creed; those words were foisted in at a subsequent period, and are not in the creed as given by Irenseus, Tertullian, and Origen. Here, then, is a tradition, but mutilated; here is the omis sion of Rome's and Oxford's most serviceable clauses, and therefore a proof that tradition is not to be trusted, — that the voice of the Church embodied in tradition, so far from being the cri terion and determiner of all truth, is itself a fluc tuating standard.
What is meant by the voice of the Church, is the conclusion come to by its clergy. This, I allege, is not likely to be always truth. It is too true that the greatest corruptors of the Gospel have sprung from the clergy, not from the laity. For
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one heresy that has originated with a layman, it is historical fact, that twenty have originated with a clergyman. We hold no council or con vocation of clergy to be infallible safeguards and guardians of truth. Painful experience has often taught this lesson. The quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus of Vicentius ap proaches truth most nearly when applied to the Christian laity.
Let me, in closing this Lecture, call upon you to be more than ever thankful for the unshackled Gospel, which our Reformers and our Martyrs, at the expense of their life's blood, have bequeathed to you. Let me conjure you to cleave to that holy faith which is embodied in the Oracles of God. Care less, — I rejoice in having a creed and a confession of faith, by which the clergy of my Church are bound, and I speak with the greatest love and respect for that creed, but I say — Care less, if you like, for the creeds of man ; care more for the Oracles of God. The Gospel, or Christi anity, may be expressed in few and short words ; it is — no expiatory efficacy save in Christ, no sanctifying energy save in the Holy Ghost, no conclusive directory save in Holy Writ ; the cross without a screen, the Bible without a clasp, and the way from ruin to God's bosom without an
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obstruction. He that holds these truths in his head, and heart, and life, is a child of God.
What has this blessed Gospel done for the world ? It has dived into the cells of the captive, and into the hovels of the poor, and carried the freedom of our faith to the one, and the riches of Christ to the possession and enjoyment of the other. This Protestant Christianity has made our England what England is — the nursery of free men, and, with all its faults, the nursery of holy men. This blessed Gospel has transformed every land it has touched into its own celestial likeness. It has made the Isles of the Pacific Ocean like gems upon the pathless deep ; it has substituted the songs of Zion for the war-whoop of the In dian, and the chimes of sabbath bells for the noise of battle. It goes forth the ambassadress of heaven, and the benefactress of earth ; it sows on the bosom of every land the seeds of truth and love and holiness, and anticipates golden harvests.
My dear Protestant friends, the age is come when Tractarians would spoil you of the pearl of inestimable price — when open assailants would wrench from you the precious deposit contained in your Bibles. I adjure you to be firm ; merge all that is little, and melt all that separates in holy and firm union. Concede prejudices, but
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compromise no principle. " Let no man take your crown." " Be faithful unto death." — Pro scription to our persons, " if needs be," confis cation to our goods, martyrdom to our ministers ; but devotedness to our faith, and faithfulness to our God !
LECTURE III.
THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION.
1 TIMOTHY i. 4.
Neither give heed to fables, and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edi fying, which is in faith.
IT will be obvious to every one who has perused the preceding lecture, that the " fables and endless genealogies," to which I intend to allude, and to which unquestionably the Apostle, with something of a prophetic spirit, alludes also, are just such as have been prominently paraded in the present age, by Romish and Tractarian disputants, as the very germs, the essence, and the core of all Chris tian Churches, and of all Christian ordinances.
I stated upon that occasion, that I would this evening direct your attention to what is called the Apostolical Succession, or what may perhaps be more strictly called, the mechanical and mate rial succession.
Before entering on this genealogical doctrine, let me observe, that I do not mean in these
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remarks to impugn or advocate any one form of ecclesiastical polity whatever. This would be wholly foreign to the great object which I have in view. My own mind is made up on this point, but this is not the place to express it. It is enough to observe that there is nothing in Episcopacy, or Independency, or Presbytery, per se (of them selves), essentially Popish. They may all exist without Popery : and they may all be turned, by the corrupt and contaminating heart of man, to Popish, or Arian, or any other purposes.
In the next place, let me observe, that this doctrine, called the Apostolical Succession, may or may not be a good thing. If those who are its advocates in the present day, had restricted them selves to the assertion of the claim that their ministry has this apostolical succession, we might have assented ; we should at least have made no objection to their assumption of it ; they might have laid it up in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, or they might have exhibited it as antiquarians do some ancient and curious thing, to be looked at and admired ; and they might, in some measure, I allow, have congratulated themselves upon pos sessing it. If all that is meant by it is the necessity of a regular ministry, transmitted in ordinary circumstances from minister to minister, in the line of bishops or presbyters, we should be silent, because satisfied. But the objection we have is, not that it may or may not
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be true, not that it may or may not be relatively important, but that it is substantially, and with most mischievous results, made " the article of a standing or a falling Church." Let there be no assumed apostolical succession (in the sense to which I am referring), and then, as we are told, there may be the loftiest spirituality in the mi nister, there may be the sublimest piety in the hearers, there may be the most clear and conclu sive evidences that the God of the universe bows the heavens to own the ministrations of his servant, yet all is void ; there are no Christianity, no sa craments, no ministry, no Church, no heaven, no hope, and uncovenanted mercies are the only re fuge. And vice versa, so greatly is this doctrine prized, that if this succession be present, then, according to Tridentine and Tractarian views, it matters not that there may be idolatry in the desk, that there be superstition in the pulpit, and blasphemy upon the altar ; if the succession be there in its integrity, there must be a true Church of Christ, a true ministry, and valid sacraments. The Church of Rome, because she possesses, or is supposed to possess, the apostolical succession, is " our dear sister," and " Christ's holy home ;" the Church of Scotland, because she is supposed to have it not, is " Samaria," that is, not far from the promised land, but still out of it ; and the Dissenters are consigned, without exception, to " the uncovenanted mercies of God," not because
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they do not preach the Saviour, but because they cannot — and, as I will prove to you by and bye, they in the Church of England cannot — trace their genealogy, link by link, until at last they land at the throne of Peter, or the footstool of Paul.
You will observe, further, that in the remarks I may make upon this occasion, I do not place the strength of my position on the assumption, that diocesan Episcopacy is un scriptural, or the reverse. It may be scriptural, or it may not ; on that point I state nothing ; my simple position is, that apo stolical succession, in the sense in which it is ex plained by those who are its advocates, cannot be proved to be a reality, even if Episcopacy can be shewn to be a Divine institution, and justly de- ducible from the Sacred Volume.
I may just notice here, that the Tractarian section of the Church of England is not solely to blame for attaching so much to apostolical succession ; for many of the Scottish Cove nanters assumed the same thing, and held that Presbytery was so truly jure divino, that Episco pacy was fatally wrong upon the one hand, and Independency as much so on the other. This is just the idolatry of the apostolical succession made to dovetail with a more popular form of church polity. I must say, however, that if there be such a fact as apostolical succession, I suspect that the presbyters of the Church of S'cotland
The Apostolic Succession. Ill
have it as truly through presbyters, as the Church of England has it through bishops. The Trac- tarian argument against this position is, that pres byters cannot give what they never were ap pointed to give ; and that as they were never ap pointed to ordain, they cannot ordain, and so they cannot keep up the succession. This proceeds on an hypothesis no Scottish Presbyter concedes ; and the argument, besides, proves too much ; and what proves too much, is not sufficient to prove the point for which it is quoted. For, a bishop is not authorized (according to any form of consecration that I have ever read,) to consecrate other bishops ; and, therefore, the very same argument that would prove presbyters incapable of ordaining other pres byters — because it is not expressed in their com mission and appointment — would prove bishops incapable of consecrating other bishops. But the truth is, and it is a law laid down by Jerome, a father of the Latin Church, that what a man has, that he can give ; and, upon this ground, Jerome held that the laity could preach and baptize, and that bishops could consecrate (for in his day bishops began to consecrate,) because they had themselves been consecrated ; and that in the same way could presbyters ordain, because they had been ordained themselves.
It may also be discovered that Patristic refer ence will prove neither Presbytery nor Episco-
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pacy. If we are to refer to the ancient fathers, and be guided by the very books quoted by Trac- tarians, it will be found that some of the chief notions promulgated from Oxford will not only be wholly overthrown, but the opposite views which they hate vindicated, by the very standards to which they appeal. They have referred, for in stance, to the ancient fathers for the doctrine, that the clergy are so completely elevated above and separate from the people, that they are in vested with awful, and mysterious, and inap proachable functions; and that they are (to use the language of an old Popish schoolman) as " the mountain," and the laity as " the beasts, that might not touch the mountain lest they be con sumed." Now, instead of this doctrine being supported by the fathers, I am prepared to prove, by extracts from some of the fathers, that not only were bishops and presbyters allowed to preach, but the laity also. Not that I ap prove of this ; not that I would sanction it in a duly constituted Church ; but it is testified by many of the ancient fathers, that the laity were allowed to preach and baptize, and that these sacred functions were not restricted to the clergy. It is also a striking fact, carefully concealed by the Tractarians, that so far from condemning the discharge of these functions by the laity, the fathers approved of it. For we read, that the'
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Bishop of Jerusalem and the Bishop of Csesarea allowed Origen to preach before he had been ordained at all ; and that upon another bishop writing to them, and complaining of this, these two bishops replied as follows : — " You write, that you never before heard that laymen should preach in presence of bishops : in this you have widely and strangely wandered from the truth; when there are found such as are able to profit the brethren, the bishops exhort them to preach." Now here is the assertion of a fact ; and though the fathers as expositors of doctrine are not to be trusted, they are invaluable as witnesses to facts. So also Hilary the Deacon, in his Comment on Ephesians, says, " It was granted to all at first, the laity as well as the clergy, both to preach the Gospel and to baptize." The Tractarians say, Go to the fathers for the lofty assumptions and claims of the clergy : I go to the fathers, and it turns out that they prove the very reverse of that for which they are quoted. And perhaps, after all, it may turn out, that there is in the fathers as much of Independent church government (though I am no advocate for it) as there is either of the Tractarian or Romish views of Episcopacy. Let me now proceed to shew you, by two simple statements, what is really understood by aposto lical succession. It is, in the first place, that each bishop has been consecrated by his contem-
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porary bishops on the death of his predecessor, and that no one link in the long line of successive con- secrators or consecrations is wanting between Dr. Howley, the present Archbishop of Canter bury, and St. Peter, St. Timothy, or St. Paul. The second position is, that ordination performed by succession bishops only, is valid ; and that the party obtaining this ordination thereby receives all the gifts and graces of the Spirit, by which he gives vitality and virtue to every sacrament and ordi nance he administers. These are the two great positions of those who advocate what is called the apostolical succession. The simplest illustration of it that I can give you, would be a long mag netic, galvanic, or electric chain, starting at the foot of an Apostle, and extending downwards to the present Primate of all England ; to the first link of which was imparted a mysterious and subtle element or virtue, which has been trans mitted by successive consecrations, from link to link, parallel with the earth, until it has reached the bishops of the present day, on whose heads, as in reservoirs, it is condensed and ready for use. Now, you will see at once, that if the first link in a long chain is wanting, the whole falls to the ground. Or if twenty links of the middle of a chain are wanting, the whole falls to the ground. Or if, in this electric chain of which I have been speaking, some links in the middle, instead of
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being suitable conductors of its mysterious virtue, are incapable of transmitting it — or are so viti ated that the current must fly off by a centrifugal force ; then, again, the transmission is arrested and dissipated, and all post hoc is vitiated. In all these respects I am ready to prove that the apo stolical succession belongs to those things called " endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying."
My first statement will, I think, go far to prove that the apostolical succession never began. If it never began, in the sense in which they assume it, it can be of no use to prove that there is the remainder of it for the last two or three hundred years. If there were a chain stretching from one side of the Thames to the other, consisting of a thousand links, it would be useless if nine hun dred and ninety -nine adhered to each other, if the first link were wanting — the very link that must connect it with the Surrey side — as the chain must instantly fall down ; and it would be of no service, were a person to stand on the Middlesex side of the river, and hold one end of the chain, and say * This is an entire communication ;' and because it descends into the bed of the river, and is lost in the mud, and you cannot trace it, to endeavour to make you believe that there is no doubt it reaches to the opposite side, is duly fixed, and is a real communication with Lambeth. Before you can
1 16 The Apostolic Succession.
trust to it, you must see the whole chain; and if it wants one link, it is worth nothing for the pur pose for which it is stretched across. Now I will shew you, that in the far-stretching chain of suc cession to the Apostles, the very first link after the Apostles is wanting.
My proof, on this point, is drawn from the re corded state of the see (using the word in the ancient sense) or bishopric, or oversight, or by whatever equally expressive name it may be called, of Alexandria. Eutychius of Alexandria states, that St. Mark the Evangelist first of all preached the Gospel at Alexandria : " Moreover," says Eutychius, " Mark appointed twelve presby ters, with Ananias, on whose head the other eleven might place their hands, and bless him and create him patriarch or bishop, and then choose some excellent man, and appoint him presbyter with themselves in place of him. Nor did this custom, that the presbyters should create their patriarch, cease at Alexandria until the time of Alexander, who was of the number of 318 bishops who met together at the Council of Nice. He forbade the presbyters to create the patriarch for the future, and decreed, that when the patriarch was dead, the bishops should meet together and then ordain a patriarch in his stead." It is here distinctly declared, that during the three hundred years that preceded the Council of Nice — that is, up to
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325 — the custom in Alexandria was, not for other bishops to consecrate the bishop that was to be the head of the diocese, but for the twelve pres byters to meet together and choose one of them selves as chairman, or moderator, or patriarch; and their choice and designation, without conse cration, was ipso facto and de jure the appoint ment of that bishop. This is utterly opposed to recent views, and even on moderate Episcopal prin ciples, it is irregular at least. If all the presbyters of London were to meet together at the death of the present Bishop of London, and to elect one of themselves as bishop and consecrate him, every Tractarian would protest against it as a departure from the vital laws of the Church, and an utter in terruption and destruction of the succession ; and such a person would be pronounced to be no more bishop than I should be held to be by the same party. But if it be the fact that the presbyters thus originally constituted their bishops, and if it be the fact also that there is no transmission of the apostolical succession where there is no con secration by bishops, then I ask, Can any one of the present bishops of the English Church prove that his succession may not be derived from some of the elected and non-consecrated presbyters of Alexandria, and after all, be null on Tractarian principles, however sound 011 ours ? Sure we are, there is a risk of some non-conducting link being
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introduced into the chain, during these three hun dred years, when a custom prevailed in so impor tant and influential a diocese, so opposite to that which is now thought essential.
This view may be confirmed by another histo rical statement, extracted from Severus : — " The presbyters and people were collected together at Alexandria, and laid their hands on Peter, a priest, and placed him on the patriarchal throne of Alexandria in the tenth year of the Emperor Diocletian." The words are — " Congregates fuisse Alexandria sacerdotes et plebem manusque impo- suisse super Petrum eumque collocasse in sede patriarchal! Alexandrino." And Jerome, a Latin father, who lived in the fourth century, states, — " At Alexandria, from Mark the Evangelist to the bishops Heraclas and Dionysius, presbyters always called one elected from among themselves, and placed him in higher rank as their bishop ; just as an army may elect its general, or deacons elect one of themselves, and call him the arch deacon." — (Epist. ad Evagr. 146.) These colla teral witnesses prove, equally, that the custom existed at Alexandria of the presbyters conse crating, or appointing, or ordering their bishops. And if this be the fact, (and we have the best of all demonstration of it, because it is proved by the very witnesses to whom the Tractarians ap peal,) then, we repeat it, as the appointment of
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presbyters was the only consecration that was had in that city during three centuries, the element which, upon Tractarian principles, is essential to the transmission of the succession, was altogether wanting.
Still further to confirm this position, and shew that Alexandria was not singular, I will read an extract from St. Ambrose, in his Comment on St. Paul's Epistles, Com. iv. 1 1 : — " The Apostle sends Timothy, created by him a presbyter or bishop, (for the chief presbyters were called bishops,) that when he departed, the one that followed in rotation might succeed him." Now, it is per fectly clear to my mind, without trenching upon any argument against Episcopacy, or for Presby tery, that Timothy was not consecrated a bishop as a Tractarian holds it requisite for a bishop to be, but simply ordained a presbyter. My rea son is this: the Apostle says, (1 Timothy iv. 14,) that Timothy was ordained by "laying on of the hands of the presbytery." But, on Tractarian principles, presbyters cannot make, or share in making, a bishop : bishops must make a bishop, and yet Timothy was made a bishop by presbyters only. The first link in the long successional chain on which the Tractarians rely, is wholly wanting. If Timothy was not consecrated a bishop, it is quite clear that the apostolical succession -never began ; and if it never began, it does not matter
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where they may find it in the middle ages, or what ministers it may be supposed to irradiate in the present day.
Again : Ambrose, in his Comment upon 1 Tim. iii. 8, says, — " The order of a bishop and a pres byter is one and the same thing. Each is a pres byter, but the bishop is chief ; so that every bishop is a presbyter, but not every presbyter a bishop, for he is a bishop who is chief among the presbyters ;" in other words, the chief presbyter is, as such, the bishop. And Irenasus, against Heretics, c. 43, b. iv. p. 343, says, — " We ought to obey those presbyters who are in the Church ; those, I mean, who have succession from the Apostles." When Irenseus speaks, you see, of apostolical succession, it is in a line of presbyters, not in the line of bishops ; the former being the only line on which it can be defended and maintained with any thing like presumptive evidence. In short, it is the fact, that at a very early age chief presbyters were bishops ; they had been ordained presbyters, but they received the superintendence, though not the consecration of bishops ; and not being consecrated bishops, they could not, upon Tractarian princi ples, transmit the succession to other bishops ; and the chain has therefore no beginning, and the claim of apostolical succession is an "endless genealogy."
But, suppose I were to grant that the aposto-
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lical succession began, in the Tractarian sense of it, there is no evidence whatever of its regular transmission, but every presumption, nay, cer tainty — that it was vitiated and broken a hundred times. Eusebius, the most ancient ecclesiastical historian, says he could find the successor, not of all the Apostles, but only of some of the most illus trious. " Who were they," continues he, " that, imitating these Apostles, were thought worthy to govern the churches which they planted, it is no easy thing to tell, except what may be gathered from Paul's own words." And Bishop Jewel, in speaking to Harding, says, — " Hereby it is clear ; that of the four first bishops of Rome, Mr. Hard ing cannot tell us who in order succeeded the other, and thus talking so much of succession, they are not well able to blase their own." Bishop Still- ingfleet, in his Irenicum, Part II. chap 6, says, — " The succession of Rome is as muddy as the Tiber." He then shows, that Tertullianputs Clement next to Peter; Augustine puts Cletus and Linus next ; and Irenaeus puts Anacletus before Peter ; and speaking of the British Church, the same Bishop says, — "From the loss of records, we can not draw down the succession of bishops to our time from the Apostles' time." So much for the earliest records of the transmission of the suc cession.
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There is one field in which there demonstrably was no beginning to the Tractarian apostolical succession ; that is, Scotland. Historical records show, that Christianity was first introduced into Scotland in the year 203 ; but a diocesan bishop was not introduced into it till the year 429, when Palladius was sent by the then reigning Pope. My authorities for this are — Prosper, Aquitanus, Bede, and John of Fordoun. The Breviary of Aberdeen, a Roman- Catholic docu ment, which the priests read every day, contains the following statement : — " The Scots had for teachers of the faith, and ministers of the sacra ments, presbyters and monks, following only the rite and custom of the primitive Church." The words are — " Habentes fidei doctores et sacramen- torum ministros presbyteros, et monachos primi- tivse ecclesiae solumodo sequentes ritum et con- suetudinem."
John Major, in his " History of Britain," book ii. chap. 2, (who is declared, by a celebrated critic, to be more distinguished for his love of truth than for his eloquence,) says, that " the Pope consecrated Palladius in the year 429, and sent him to Scotland, for the Scots were first taught by presbyters, without bishops." In Scotland, then, the apostolical succession, in the Tractarian sense, did not begin till 429. But how much will this
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assembly be surprised, when I tell them that some of the bishops of the Anglican Church, at this moment, have no other apostolical succession than what they can trace through Scottish pres byters. I reverence these bishops the more fully, not less. It is on record, that Scottish presbyters appointed one of themselves Bishop of York, and another Bishop in one of the midland districts of England; and on this rests a part at least of the present succession of the bishops in England: and this result is evolved— that if ordination by Scottish ministers be invalid, and sacraments void which are administered by clergy so ordained, the whole fabric of the Tractarian apostolical succes sion in England is undermined.
Let me give you particulars in proof of this Aidan was selected by the presbytery of lona, and appointed to be bishop in England; and the same presbytery of lona consecrated Colman to the archbishopric of York in the seventh century Archbishop Usher, who is an authority, says, that the Scots that professed no subjection to the Church of Rome were they that sent preachers for the conversion of the counties of England, and or dained bishops to govern them." Gilbert Murray a Scotch priest, and subsequently made a bishop' addressed the Pope's Legate, and said, - The Scot tish Church, before the consecration of its first bishop (which was in 429,) did ordain and conse, G2
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crate the bishops of England for the period of thirty years." I, therefore, can stand before his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, and I can, with profound respect, tell him, — ' If my orders are invalid, your Grace's are invalid too ; if the sacraments administered by my hands are vitiated, the sacraments administered by your Grace's hands are vitiated too.' Might I not whisper to the Tractarians, " Those that live in glass houses, should be very careful how they throw stones ?"
But let me show you, that if the succession in the Church of England has thus been vitiated, (I am speaking of it only in the Tractarian sense of it,) it is equally vitiated in the Church of Ireland ; and I especially note this, because some Irish clergymen have maintained, that even if it be vitiated in England, it has always been kept pure and uncontaminated in Ireland. I quote one proof from the many. I refer to a celebrated work, the Monasticum Hibernicum; in which I read, that " Colman, a bishop in England, having orders only which he received from the presbyters of lona, was no sooner settled in Innisbifonde, than that place became a bishopric." So that, an individual who was consecrated and ordained a chief presby ter or bishop by presbyters only, was the founder of one of the dioceses in Ireland : and thus the Irish Church exactly shares in the calamity, if such it may be called, of the sister English Church,
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in having no claim or pretension whatever to apo stolical succession, in the Tractarian sense.
You have heard of a distinguished divine in the Church of England, who preached any thing but a distinguished sermon from the text — " Hear the Church ; " upon which I would just say, that nothing seems to be more discreditable to a di vine than to take three words, torn and wrenched from their context, and raise upon them the ex travagant idea, which Romish priests only have hitherto done, that they mean — Listen to the archbishops, bishops, and presbyters of a particu lar branch of the Episcopal Church. Any one who takes the trouble to refer to his Bible, will find the meaning of that passage to be, that if a dispute happen among private Christians, they are first to call in two or three witnesses ; and if it cannot thus be settled, they are to tell it to " the Church" — the Christians assembled within four walls ; for though this is not the exclusive mean ing of the word Church, it is one of its meanings, and its meaning in that passage. There is no thing about doctrine there, and nothing about archbishops, bishops, or presbytery; it is simply making the appeal to a Christian's most appro priate tribunal — the congregation to which he be longs.
This divine, however, boasts of the fact, that he gathered some of his new Tractarian infection
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from the Scottish bishops ; and Mr. Fronde says, that the Scotch Episcopal Church is the purest of all communions, and that he would prefer having his orders from the Scotch bishops to any other. When speaking of Scotch non-juring bishops, I do not use the word bishop exactly in the sense conveyed by it in England, for the Scotch bishops are very poor men, the ministers of little meeting houses, supported wholly upon the voluntary sys tem, — the Presbyterial clergy being the Esta blished Church. Now, I maintain, that if there is an episcopacy in the universe altogether vitiated, it is the Scotch ; it is worse than the English by far ; and my proofs are so conclusive, that I am sure they must convince every one who hears them. In the first place, in the year 1610, Spot- tiswoode, Lamb, and Hamilton, three presbyters of the Scottish Church, ordained by presbyters onlyy were consecrated bishops of Glasgow, Brechin, and Galloway. Now let it be observed, that it is a Tractarian notion, that if a man is not baptized by an apostolical-succession minister, he is not baptized at all, and is incapable of holy orders; and If he is not a valid presbyter, he is incapable of being made a valid bishop ; but these three men were baptized by Presbyterian ministers, ordained presbyters by Presbyterian ministers, and then consecrated bishops by the three bishops who were sent from England. On Tractarian princi-
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pies, they were never baptized, for Presbyterian baptism is no baptism ; they were never ordained, for Presbyterian ordination is no ordination ; they were, therefore, incapable of being consecrated, and they were at last no bishops at all. All the men that they ordained, were not ordained ; all that they consecrated, were not consecrated ; and the Episcopal communion in Scotland, from that mo ment, became a vitiated and corrupted succession. But, suppose this defect remedied : the succes sion afterwards became equally vitiated. In 1661, Sharp, Fairfoul, Leighton, and Hamilton, who had only Presbyterian baptism, were ordained and con secrated to be bishops — one of a diocese whose bishop was living, and his consecration therefore invalid. I have said, it is a law in Tractarian the ology, that a person not baptized is incapable of receiving holy orders, and that baptism adminis tered in a Presbyterian Church is no baptism ; and, therefore, these bishops, baptized by Scottish presbyters, though consecrated, were incapable of the dignity, and their consecration was, on Trac tarian principles, null and void. But the mischief did not rest here ; they consecrated Haliburton, a Presbyterian minister, to be Bishop of Dunkeld ; Mackenzie, who had taken " the solemn league and covenant " fourteen times ( ! ) to be Bishop of Moray ; Paterson, Presbyterian minister of Aber deen, to be Bishop of Ross ; and Wallace to the
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bishopric of the Isles. All these men were Pres byterian ministers, and were consecrated bishops on the footing that Presbyterian baptism and Pres byterian orders were valid ; but if Presbyterian baptism is invalid, and if Presbyterian orders are invalid too, there is clearly no such thing in the Scottish communion as a valid succession, answering to the lowest definition of the Tractarians ; and the sooner they get the succession restored, as well as the Popish Communion Service purged, the better it will be for the maintenance of their extreme and exclusive views.
Let us now appeal to a wider field. Supposing the apostolical succession to have begun, let us look at the history of it — not in one province, such as Scotland, but on the broad surface of Europe. We gather on this field the following facts, known to every student of history. Cyprian was conse crated a bishop instantly after he was baptized and converted from heathenism ; one would think he was not very well qualified for the office. Eu- ftherius, a layman, was made Bishop of Lyons. Photius, also a layman, was made a patriarch. John the Ninth, from a layman, was made Pope, and was therefore a lay Pope : what sort of apo stolical succession lie could transmit, I leave you to judge. Clement the Fifth, in 1308, gave the archbishopric of Mentz to his physician, a lay man, on account of a cure which he had wrought on
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his holiness. When we ordain a presbyter in the Church of Scotland, we try to ascertain if his qua lifications answer to those stated by the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to Timothy ; and if we find that they do, we commit to him the functions we have ourselves received; but this Pope acted on far different principles, for the reason he gave for the appointment was, that he who was so clever in curing bodily disease, as the physician in question had shewn himself to be, was, of all men, the most fitted for the cure of souls. Again : from the year 1159 to the year 1182, there were four persons claiming to be Pops at the same time ; and it is not yet settled which was the true Pope, and therefore in which channel the true succession flowed. From the year 1378 to the year 1409, there were two Popes, one at Avignon, and the other at Rome : Which was the legitimate and true Pope ? John the Twelfth, who was made Bishop of Rome at eighteen years of age, conferred holy orders upon boys for money, and consecrated a youth of ten years old Bishop of Todi : what sort of transmission of apostolical succession this lad could present, I leave you to fancy. In the time of Pope Sergius, bishoprics were put up for sale — to auction, as we should say ; and when it was proposed by one of the members of a council, that all bishops and priests who had received simoniacal consecration or ordination should be expelled,
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and their orders pronounced null and void, the objection, on the ground of which this proposition was overruled, was, that if it were carried into effect, there would be no bishops or priests left in Europe — so fearful was the extent to which simo- niacal practices prevailed.
Let us see the moral condition of the conduc tors themselves. You know well, that if rain drops fall through a sooty and polluted atmo sphere, they cannot be pure ; and that if a river be made to flow through a tainted soil, it cannot remain uncorrupt. Now I will give you a picture of the Church of Rome, through which the apo stolical succession has descended — a picture, not .from the pen of a Protestant, or an enemy, but from the pen of the celebrated Cardinal Baronius, the most distinguished historian of the Church of Rome. Describing the commencement of the tenth century, he says, " Behold, the nine hun dredth year of the Redeemer begins, in which a new age commences, which by reason of its aspe rity and barrenness of good has been wont to be called the iron age, and by the deformity of its exuberant evil the leaden age, and by its poverty of writers the dark age. Standing upon the threshold of which, we have found it expedient, before we proceed further, on account of the crimes which it has been our lot to behold before the door, to make some preface by way of admonition
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to the reader, lest the weak-minded should take offence, if he sometimes perceives the abomination of desolation standing in the temple." — (The Eccle siastical Annals of Baronius : Pope Stephen Se<- venth, A.D. 900. Antwerp, 1603.)
" What was then the face of the holy Roman Church ? How exceeding foul was it, when most powerful, and sordid, and abandoned women ruled at Rome, at whose will the sees were changed, bishops were presented, and, what is horrid to hear and unutterable, false pontiffs,* their lovers, were intruded into the chair of Peter, who were only written in the catalogue of Roman pontiffs for the sake of marking the times ! For who can affirm, that men illegally intruded by wicked women of this sort, were Roman pontiffs? There was never any mention of the clergy electing or after wards approving. All the canons were closed in silence, the decrees of the pontiffs were sup pressed, the ancient traditions were proscribed, and the ancient customs in electing the Pope, and the sacred ceremonies, and the usages of former days, were wholly extinct. Thus, lust, relying upon the secular power, and mad and stimulated with the rage of dominion, claimed every thing for itself. Then, as it seems, Christ evidently was in a deep sleep in the ship, when these winds blow-
* If this be true, what becomes of the Papal succession from Peter ?
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ing so strongly, the ship itself was covered with the waves." — (Baronius, A. D. 912.)
"For nearly 150 years, about fifty Popes, namely, from John Eighth, who succeeded the holy Popes Nicholas and Adrian Second, to Leo Ninth (who, called by God as another Aaron, first brought back from heaven the ancient integrity of the Popes to the apostolic see), deserted wholly the virtue of their predecessors, being apostate, rather than apostolical. Of so many Popes, five only are even slightly praised." — (Genebrard's Chronicles, A. c. 904.)
" After the death of Sergius, there was a schism in the Church of Rome, between Benedict Eighth, son of Gregory, Count of Frescati, and one Gre gory, who was elected by some Romans who ousted Benedict. He fled to Henry, King of Germany, who immediately raised forces, and marched into Italy to re-establish him. As soon as the king arrived, Gregory fled for it, and Benedict was re ceived without any opposition." — (An. 1012.)
" Benedict died in 1024. The Count of Fres cati, that the popedom might still be in his family, caused his other son to be elected in the room of Benedict the Eighth, though he was not then in orders. He was ordained and called John * * * It is said, that some time after, this Pope being sensible that his election was vicious and simonia- cal, withdrew into a monastery, therein to suffer
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penance, and that he forebore perorming any part of his functions till such time AS he was chosen again by his clergy." — (An. lO&k — Dupin's Eccle siastical History of the Eleventh Century of Christianity.)
" Let us see what remedy theyfirst had recourse to, in order to extinguish th*» three-headed beast who had issued from the gates of hell. A remedy was devised precisely similar to that which the poets feigned in destroying the fabulous Cerberus, — namely, the filling of his jaws with a pitchy mouthful, by giving them something to eat, so that they should altogether leave off barking. But let us see who it was that prepared that remedy, which the unhappiness of the times demanded. Otho faithfully relates it as follows : " A certain pious priest, named Gratian, seeing this most wretched state of the Church, and his zealous piety filling him with compassion for his mother, he approached the above-mentioned men, and pre vailed upon them by money to depart from the holy see, the revenues of England being made over to Benedict, because he appeared to be of chief authority. Upon this account, the citizens elected the aforesaid priest for their Pope, as being the liberator of the Church, and called him Gregory Sixth."— (Baronius. An. Ch. 1044.)
These are a few of the descriptions presented, not by a Protestant, but by a distinguished Roman-
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Catholic historian, of the medium through which the succession of consecrations and ordinations was transmitted.
To show, further, the utter impossibility of any thing like certainty of the apostolical succession, let me refer to rr.ore modern facts, which you will do well to remem.Lor when you hear a Tractarian or a Romanist boast o£ the apostolical succession. In the Hon. and Rev. Arthur Perceval's Cata logue, thirteen bishops are necessarily left out, because there is no certain record of their conse cration, and therefore no sure evidence that a Church exists in England. In the case of the celebrated Pearson, the author of the " Comment ary on the Creed," there is no record of his conse cration to be found. Now, if a Tractarian insists that apostolical succession is essential to valid sacraments, the onus probandi, the burden of proof, rests with him ; if I assert that apostolical succession is not possessed, and he asserts that it is, it rests not with me to prove a negative, but with him to prove the whole series of successive consecrations by canonical bishops. Dr. Whately, the present Archbishop of Dublin, referring to this difficulty, says : — " Even in the memory of persons living, there existed a bishop concerning whom there was so much mystery and uncertainty, when, where, and by whom ordained, that doubts existed in the minds of many persons whether he
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was ordained at all : " this, of course, is at a recent period. Birch relates, that " Sydserf, a Scottish bishop, ordained all of the English clergy that came to him, without demanding oaths of canonical obedience, or subscription to articles, merely for a subsistence by the fees which he re ceived for the orders that he granted." A Scotch bishop had no business ordaining in England at all ; and in this respect alone all was void, and every ordination for money is held universally to be vitiated. He ordained the celebrated Tillot son, who had never been ordained a deacon, and therefore was incapable of priests' orders, which were ostensibly conferred upon him.
Bishop Butler, the author of that magnificent specimen of philosophical reasoning, " The Ana logy," was the son of a Presbyterian minister, and had only such baptism as a Presbyterian minister could give ; he was never re-baptized, though he was ordained deacon, then priest, and ultimately made a bishop : on Tractarian principles, he had no baptism at all, was therefore incapable of holy orders, and of consecration. Archbishop Tillotson was the son of a Baptist minister ; and it is demonstrable, from the custom of the Baptist body, that their children are not baptized. There is no evidence that Tillotson ever was baptized when he grew up, and the overwhelming pre sumption is, that he was not baptized at all ; he
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was thereby incapable of holy orders, and in Archbishop Tillotson the apostolical succession was thus entirely vitiated. Archbishop Seeker, who succeeded him, was the son of a Dissenting minister, by whom he was baptized ; he was never re-baptized,* but on the footing of that baptism was made Archbishop of Canterbury. And thus three of the most illustrious prelates that ever wore the mitre in England, were, upon Tractarian principles, unbaptized schismatics, incapable of re ceiving holy orders, and as incapable of trans mitting them ; and every minister of the Church of England ordained by these men was, upon Tractarian principles, no minister at all.
Mark a few more of the results that follow from Tractarian theology. You are aware that there is in the Anglican Prayer-book a service (which I do not condemn) for Charles the First ; and the Tractarian party make a great deal of the unhappy monarch as one of their most distinguished martyrs ; but this audience will be surprised when I tell them, that Charles the First was baptized by a Presby terian minister at Dunfermline, and on Tractarian principles was not even a Christian, much less a Christian martyr. On the same principles, the King of Prussia, who lately visited this country, and became sponsor for the infant prince, is no
* It has been intimated to me, since the appearance of the first edition of these Lectures, that there is a record of his being re-baptized. I have not seen it.
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Christian at all ; for he is a member of a Presby terian church, and has only Presbyterian baptism. Prince Albert, the illustrious consort of our beloved Queen, was baptized by a Presbyterian minister, and, on Tractarian principles, is not a Christian ; and Mr. Escott, the vicar of Gedney, would refuse him Christian burial. They say, however, they are not responsible for consequences.
The Tractarian party refuse to call the ministers of the Scottish Church, or those of the Independent and other dissenting bodies, by the title of Reverend, which civil law gives the former, and which com mon courtesy gives to all, but which really is worth nothing : and the reason they allege is, that we have not the apostolical succession. I have shown you that they have it not ; and if they claim to be called by that title because they have the apostolical succession — as they do — though I should be ex tremely sorry to be uncourteous, or to violate the laws of decorum, yet as they have failed to prove that they have the succession, and I have demon strated that they have it not, I must merge my courtesy in my Christian consistency, and address my letters, if I have occasion, to " John Henry Newman, Esquire" " Walter Farquhar Hook, Esquire," or " William Palmer, Esquire."
Before, however, I leave this subject, I wish to show you, that the views of the Tractarians of Ox ford have not been the views of the ancient fathers,
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to whom they themselves appeal, or of those who may be called the fathers of the Anglican Church, and the most distinguished of its divines.
First of all, let us see whether the early fathers attach importance to the personal succession, or to the doctrinal succession.
TERTULLIAN, de Prescript, chap, xxxvii. p. 216. — " Do we prove the faith by persons, or per sons by the faith ?" (The Tractarian view is, that faith is proved by the persons.) " Now, if the heretics should make out personal succession, they will have done nothing ; for their doctrine, compared with the apostolical doctrines, will show, from its difference and its contrariety, that it has neither an apostle nor a disciple of an apostle for its author."
IREN>EUS, adv. Hares, book iv. c. 48. — " Those presbyters who serve their own pleasures, and do not make the fear of God their rule, but persecute others with reproaches, from all such presbyters it behoves us to stand aloof, and cleave to those pres byters who both retain the doctrine of the Gospel, and exhibit soundness in word, and a blameless conversation."
AMBROSE, on Luke, book vi. § 8. — " Christ is the only one, whom no one ought to forsake. If there is any Church which rejects the faith, and does not possess the fundamentals of the doctrine of the Apostles, it is to be deserted,"
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Again, AUGUSTINE against the Donatists, vol. ix. c. 19. col. 372.—" We ought to find the Church where we find the Head of the Church — namely, in the canonical Scriptures; not to inquire for it in the various reports and deeds and opinions of men. The holy Scriptures are the proofs, these the foundation, these the support of the Church."
CHRYSOSTOM, 49th Homily on Matthew. — " When ye shall see the impious heresy, which is the army of antichrist, standing in the holy places of the Church, then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountain ; that is, let Christians take themselves to the holy Scriptures."
But what say the fathers, on the other hand, of succession of doctrine ? With the following fathers this is every thing, and the other nothing : —
CHRYSOSTOM says, — "Where pure faith is, there the Church is ; but where pure faith is not, there the Church is not." Again, he says, — " He does not go out of the Church who goes out of it bodily, but he who spiritually deserts the foundations of ecclesiastical truth. We have gone out from the heretics in body, but they have gone out from us in mind ; we have gone out from them in respect of place, but they have gone out from us in respect to faith ; we have left with them the foun dations of the walls, but they have left with us the foundations of the Holy Scriptures."
AMBROSE, on Luke, book vi. § 98. — "Thy rock
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is faith ; the foundation of the Church is faith : if thou hast found faith, thou shalt be in the Church." GREGORY NAZIANZEN, Oration Twenty-first : — " He is elevated to the chair of St. Mark, not more in the succession of his piety, than of his seat ; in point of time very distant from him, BUT
IN TRUE RELIGION, WHICH IS PROPERLY CALLED
APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION, directly after him. For he that holdeth the same doctrine is of the same chair ; but he who is an enemy to the doctrine, is an enemy to the chair."
Let us now turn to some of the most illustrious of English Churchmen ; and we shall see, that if they represent the Church of England, Drs. Hook, Pusey, and Newman misrepresent it.
Hooker says, " The whole Church visible being the true original subject of all power, it hath not ordinarily allowed any other than bishops alone to ordain : howbeit, as the ordinary course in all things is ordinarily to be observed, so it may be in some cases necessary that we decline from the ordinary ways." — Book vii. p. 285.
Again : " To change those things that are not essential to salvation, as forms of Church govern ment, is no otherwise to change the plan of salva tion than a path is changed by altering only the uppermost face of it, which, be it laid with gravel or with grass, or paved with stones, remaineth still the same path. Doctrine is like garments, that
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cover the body of the Church — the other like rings, bracelets, and jewels, which only adorn it. The one is like the food, which the Church doth live by ; the other like that which maketh her diet liberal, dainty, and more delicious."
Again : " He wrhich affirmeth speech to be ne cessary amongst all men throughout the world, doth not thereby import that all men must ne cessarily speak one and the same language ; even so the necessity of polity and regimen may be held, without holding any one certain form to be ne cessary in them all."
" Let the bishops continually bear in mind, that it is rather the force of custom — whereby the Church, having so long found it good to continue under the regimen of her virtuous bishops, doth still uphold, maintain, and honour them in that respect — than that any such true and heavenly law can be shewed, by the evidence whereof it may of a truth appear, that the Lord himself hath appointed presbyters for ever to be under the regimen of bishops. Their authority is a sword, which the Church hath power to take from them." -(Eccl. Pol. vi. 8.)
On Hooker's views, Warburton, a no less learned divine, remarks, " The great Hooker was not only against, but laid down principles that have entirely subverted all pretences to a divine, unalterable right in any form of Church government whatever."
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Bishop Cosins, who, upon the continent of Eu rope, took the Lord's Supper repeatedly in Pres- byterial Churches, says, " Are all the Churches of Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Germany, France, Scotland, in all points, either of substance or cir cumstance, disciplinated alike ? Nay, they nei ther are nor can be ; nor yet need be, since it cannot be proved that any set and exact parti cular form is recommended to us by the word of God." — (Ans.to Abstract, sect. 18. p. 58.)
Lord Bacon writes ; " For the second point, that there should be but one form of discipline in all churches, and that imposed by necessity of commandment and prescript out of the word of God, I, for my part, do confess, that on revolving the Scriptures, I could never find any such thing ; but that God hath left the like liberty to the church government that he hath done to the Civil government, to be raised according to time and place and accidents, which, nevertheless, his high and Divine Providence doth order and dis pose. So, likewise, in church matters, the sub stance of doctrine is immutable, and so are the general rules of government; but for rites and ceremonies, and for the particular hierarchies, policies, and disciplines of churches, they be left at large ; and therefore it is good we return to the ancient bounds of unity in the church of God, which was one faith, one baptism, and not
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one hierarchy, one discipline." — (Works, vol. iii. p. 530.)
Dr. Fulke, regarded in his day as a very high Churchman, writes ; " Although in Scripture a bishop and presbyter is one authority in preach ing and in the sacraments, yet in government, by ancient use of speech, he is only bishop who in Scripture is called Proistamenos, to whom the ordination or consecration by imposition of hands belonged; for the rest of the presbyters did lay on their hands, or else the bishop did lay on his hands in the name of the rest" — (Ans. to Rh. Test, on Titus i. 8.)
Field says, " Who, then, dare condemn all those worthy ministers of God, who were ordained by Presbyters in sundry churches, at such times as bishops, in those parts where they lived, op*- posed themselves against the truth of God?" — (Book iii. c. 37.)
Francis Mason, an enthusiastic defender of the Anglican Church, says, " If you mean by Divine right, that which is according to Scripture, then the pre-eminence of bishops is jure divino. Secondly, if by divine right you mean the ordi nance of God, in this sense also it is jure divino. But if by jure divino you understand a law or commandment of God binding all Christian Churches perpetually, unchangeably, and with such absolute necessity that no other order of
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regimen may in any case be admitted, in this sense neither may we grant it, nor yet can you prove it to Itejure divino."
Mason says also, p. 160 ; " Seeing a Presbyter is equal to a bishop in the power of order, he hath equally intrinsical poiuer to give orders" — Def. of Foreign Ord. Oxf., 1641.
Downham, bishop of Derry, writes, " Though, in respect of the institution, there is small differ ence between an apostolical and Divine ordinance, yet in respect of perpetuity, difference by some is made between those things which be of divini and those which be of apostolici juris ; the former in their understanding being perpetually, gene rally, and immutably necessary ; the latter, not so. So that the meaning of my defence plainly is, that the episcopal government hath this com mendation above other forms of ecclesiastical government, that in respect of the first institu tion it is a Divine ordinance. But that it should be such a Divine ordinance as should be gene rally, perpetually, immutably, necessarily ob served, so as no other form of government may in no case be admitted, I did not take upon me to maintain." — (Def. of Ser. p. 139.)
Bishop Sanderson says, " The Papist groundeth the Pope's oecumenical supremacy upon Christ's command to Peter to execute it, and to all the flock of Christ to submit to him as their universal
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pastor. The Presbyterian crieth up his model of government and discipline as the very sceptre of Christ's kingdom, whereunto all kings are bound to submit theirs, making it as unalterably and universally necessary to the being of a Church, as the word and sacraments are. The Independent Separatist says, that nothing is to be ordered in Church matters otherwise than Christ hath ap pointed in his word ; holdeth that any company of people gathered together by mutual consent in a Church way, is, jure divino, free and absolute within itself to govern itself by such rules as it shall judge agreeable to God's word, without de pendence upon any but Christ alone, or subjection to any prince, prelate, or person, or consistory whatsoever. All these do not only claim a jus divinum, and that of a very high nature, but in setting down their opinions seem in some ex pressly tending to the diminution of the ecclesi astical supremacy of princes. Whereas the epi scopal party neither meddle with the power of princes, nor are ordinarily very forward to press the jus divinum ; but rather purposely decline the mentioning of it, as a term subject to misconstruc tion, or else to interpret it as not of necessity to import any more than an apostolical institution."
-p. 40. " Whitgift says, " We see manifestly that in
sundry points the government of the Church used
H
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in the Apostles' time is, and has been of necessity altered ; whereby it is plain that any one certain form or kind of external government, perpetually to be observed, is nowhere in the Scriptures pre scribed in the churches, but the charge thereof is left to the Christian magistrate, so that nothing be done contrary to the word of God ; neither do I know any learned man of a contrary judgment."
Again : "I deny that the Scripture doth set down any one certain form and kind of govern ment in the Church."— (Def. p. 659.)
Stillingfleet says, " Though one form of govern ment be agreeable to the word of God, it doth not follow that another is not ; or, because one is lawful, another is unlawful. But one form may be more agreeable to some places and times than others are. I doubt not but to make it evident, that before these late unhappy times, the main ground for settling episcopal government in this nation was not any pretence of Divine right, but the conveniency of that form to the state and condi tion of this Church at the times of its reformation" — (Irenicum, p, 10.)
Bishop Hall, who is found in Dr. Pusey's Catena, says,—" Blessed be God, there is no difference in any essential matter betwixt the Church of Eng land and her sisters of the Reformation. We accord in every point of Christian doctrine, without the least variation. Their public confessions and
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ours are sufficient convictions to the world of our full and absolute agreement. The only difference is in the form of outward administration, wherein also we are so far agreed as that we all profess this form not to be essential to the being of a Church, though much importing the well or better being of it according to our several apprehensions thereof; and that we do all retain a reverent and loving opinion of each other in our several ways, not seeing any reason why so poor a diversity should work any alienation or affection in us one towards another. But, withal, nothing hinders but that we may come yet closer to one another, if both may resolve to meet in that primitive government whereby it is meet we should both be regulated, universally agreed on by all antiquity, wherein all things were ordered and transacted by the consent of the Presbytery, moderated by one constant president thereof. But if there must be a differ ence of judgment on these matters of outward policy, why should not our hearts be one ? Why should such a diversity be of power to endanger the dissolving of the bond of brotherhood ? May we have the grace but to follow the truth in love ; we shall in these several tracks overtake her hap pily in the end, and find her embracing of peace, and crowning us with blessedness."— (Peacemaker, sect. 6.)
Archbishop Bramhall writes of the Presbyterial
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Churches, — "Because I esteem them churches not completely formed, do I therefore exclude them from all hope of salvation ? or esteem them aliens and strangers, or account them formal schis matics ? No such thing. It is not at all material, whether episcopacy and priesthood be two distinct orders, or distinct degrees of the same order."-— (Bramhall's Works, fol. 164.)
Archbishop Usher writes, — " For the testifying of my communion with these churches, wrhich I do love and honour as true members of the church universal, I do profess that with like affection I would receive the blessed sacrament at the hands of the Dutch (i. e. presbyterial) ministers in Holland, as I would do at the hands of the French ministers."
Archbishop Wake writes, — " I bless God that I was born and have been bred in our Episcopal Church, which I am convinced has been the government established in the Church from the very time of the Apostles ; but I should be un- ivilling to affirm, that where jhe ministry is not episcopal, there is no church, nor any true adminis- tration of the sacraments ; and very many there are among us, who are zealous for episcopacy, yet dare not go so far as to annul the ordinances of God performed by any other ministry."
Bishop Tomline says, — " I readily admit that there is no precept in the New Testament which
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commands that every church should be governed by bishops. The Scriptures do not prescribe any definite form of church government.^
I need not multiply extracts from Cramner, Ridley, and the early Reformers. They were Episcopalians by preference, but held communion with all the regularly ordained presbyters of foreign churches.
Cranmer said, " Bishops and priests were not two things, but both one office, in the beginning of Chrises religion.1" " And of these two orders only — viz. priests and deacons — Scripture maketh express mention." " For the said fathers, consi dering the great and infinite multitude of Chris tian men so largely increased through the world, and taking examples of the Old Testament, thought it expedient to make an order of de grees to be among the spiritual governors of the church, and so ordained some to be patriarchs, some to be primates, some to be metropolitans, some to be archbishops, and some to be bishops."
One extract from Bishop Jewel : — " Is it so horrible a heresy, to say that by the Scriptures of God a bishop and a priest are all one ? Verily, Chrysostom saith, ' Inter episcopum et presbyte- rum interest ferme nihil.' Augustine saith, f Quid est episcopus, nisi primus presbyter ?' " — (Jewel's Works; Defence, 202.)
Dean Sherlock says, "A church may be a truly
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catholic church, and such as we may and ought to communicate with, without bishops." — (Gibson's Preservative, Vol. III. p. 410.)
Dr. Claget says, " Some things are necessary to the being of a church ; and they are the acknow ledgment of the one Lord, the profession of the one faith, and admission into the state of Chris tian duties and privileges by one baptism. And this is all that I can find absolutely necessary to the being of a church."
" The Church of England does not unchurch those parts of Christendom that hold the unity of the faith. Hence the folly of that conceit, that in this divided state of Christendom there must be one church, which is the only church of Christ, exclusive of all the rest that are not in communion with her." — (Gibson's Preservative, Vol. I. Tit. 3, c.2, p. 121.)
Many other quotations might be made, all lead ing to the same conclusion, that episcopal ordina tion is not to be regarded as essential to a true church. And I am sure, when we appeal to the only standard of error and of truth, if there be one danger against which Christians are warned in every page, it is that of trusting to those who claim to have apostolical succession. With a few of the passages to which I allude, I will conclude my remarks upon this topic.
Isaiah viii. 20 : — " To the law and to the testi-
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mony ; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." When this appeal was made, there were prophets commis sioned from above, and chief priests who had a real and demonstrable succession ; and yet the people were commanded not to believe them absolutely, but to bring their doctrine to God's word. Again : Matthew xvi. 6, 12: "Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the Phari sees and of the Sadducees. Then understood they how that he bade them, not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." And yet the Pharisees " sat in Moses' seat," and had the true ecclesiastical succession of their age. Galatians i. 8 : — " But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." If we are to try an Apostle's doctrine by the Sacred Vo lume, much more the doctrine of a professed suc cessor of the Apostles. If an angel were to come from the realms of glory, and, with the radiance and splendour of heaven, were to preach to us doctrines opposed to God's word, and plainly con trary to its express and reiterated statements, it would be the duty of every Christian to say, * Let a brand be fixed upon that angel's brow, and let his wing be blasted ; he is not a messenger from God, but a messenger from Satan only, and to be
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cursed.' Again : 1 Thessalonians v. 21 : — " Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good." 1 John iv. 1 : — " Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits," (that is, the ministers) " whether they are of God;" — and on what ground? — "Because many false prophets are gone out into the world." Aaron was the high priest, and possessed a valid and legitimate succession; but Aaron made a golden calf: Were the people justified in worshipping it 2 Urijah was a high priest, of legitimate suc cession from Aaron, but Urijah introduced idola try into the temple : the people, in that day, were under the solemn duty of becoming dissenters from it — not conformists to it. Caiaphas, the chief priest by a legitimate succession, gave sentence against Christ, denouncing him as a blasphemer; and if I had listened to the teaching of the church in the days of our Lord, I should have joined in the cry, " Away with him, away with him ! Crucify him, crucify him ! " but if I had listened to the teaching of the Spirit of God, in the oracles he had given, I should have said, " Hosannah ! blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord!" And lastly, we read, that the sheep of Christ are not to follow " raven ing wolves," some of whom, the Apostle said, were to rise up among their own selves ; but they were to watch, and to adhere to the doctrine they had learned of God.
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Let me add a simple illustration of the worth and value of apostolical succession, founded upon that beautiful announcement in the Gospel o* John : — " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The Is raelites, you remember, were dying in the wilder ness by the sting of fiery serpents ; and Moses raised a brazen serpent upon the top of a pole, and bade the dying look ; and the instant that they looked, they were cured. We are told that this is an exact type of the blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ; and, if I address Roman Catholics, or Tractarian Romanists, I implore them to look through the misty and glittering medium they live in, at its glorious announcements ; and while they look, I pray that they may live. Suppose now, when Moses went round to the Israelites, as they were dying by thousands, and said to them, * Behold the brazen serpent on the pole, and live,' that some dying Jew had lifted up his eye, and said, * Moses, before I look to the serpent, tell me, on what is it elevated ? ' Moses would surely have replied, (if we can suppose such a conversa tion to have occurred,) * That is no concern of yours : this must be the simple question with you, Is the serpent visible ? And if it be, you are to look.' But suppose the dying Israelite to reply, ( If you
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will tell me the composition of the pole — whether it be brass, or iron, or oak — I will look ; but if you will not tell me, or if you say it is only wood, I will not look, but I will lie down and rather die.' Or suppose him to say, ' If it is wood, at all events I will not look until I know the botanical succession of that pole ; that it was cut from a tree that sprung up a hundred years ago, which again grew from another which grew before the Flood, which again sprang from another which grew before Adam fell : I must have its succession demon strated, from the creation to the day when it was cut by the carpenter, before I will look and be cured.' Infatuation as it seems, it is just the essence of the Tractarian gospel. I maintain, that the best pole must have been that which lifted highest the brazen serpent before the people ; and the best church, have it or have it not the apo stolical succession, is that which holds Christ aloft and alone prominent, and clothed in his own majestic glory, that the dying may look, and the living rejoice.
LECTURE IV.
THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. EPHESIANS iv. 5.
" One Faith"
I NOW proceed to bring before you briefly one more assumption of the Church of Rome — that she alone has Unity.
I deny that the Church of Rome has unity. Take, for instance, the doctrine of infallibility. One party in that church, the Trans-Alpines, say that the Pope is personally infallible when speak ing ex cathedra ; the other party, the Cis-Alpines, say, that a decree is infallible only when it issues from a General Coucil, with the Pope at its head ; and thus there is a want of unity upon one of the cardinal doctrines of the Roman- Catholic Church. So, again, with regard to the fifth Council of La- teran, which consisted of one hundred and four teen bishops, with the Pope at their head: one party in the Church of Rome asserts that it was a General Council, and that all its decrees are to be received ; and another party maintains that it was
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not a General Council, and that its decrees have no authority. Respecting penance, the Church of Rome is divided : a large party, including De- lahogue, P. Lombard Bona, and Gabriel, assert that absolution by a priest is simply declarative ; but the Council of Trent, backed by Estius and Vasquez, maintain that absolution is judicial, and equivalent to God's. Again : the Church of Rome is not agreed whether love to God is necessary to salvation: a large section of its theologians, ap proved by Benedict the Fourteenth, in his Trea tise Syn. Diaec. lib. 7, c. 13, hold that all which is required for absolution by the priest, and for salvation, is to have that fear of God which has only the fear of hell ; and but a small portion of theologians of the Church of Rome hold, that the love of God is an essential element in this fear. Awful apostacy ! to hold that souls may be borne to glory, and realize the forgiveness of sins, with out " loving God with all their heart, and mind, and strength !" But the Church of Rome has not even unity in point of discipline ; for she has Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Jesuits, blue friars, grey friars, black friars, begging and men dicant monks of every description. And I am sure, if the Apostle Peter could behold them, assembled in a motley crowd, all professing to be successors of the Apostles, and to belong to the one Catholic Church, surprised at the spectacle,
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he would exclaim— " Paul I know, and John I know, but who are ye?"
But mere unity is no necessary proof of pos sessing truth, Aaron, and the vast multitude that surrounded him, were united in the worship of the golden calf: Were they, therefore, right? The ten tribes that met at Bethel were united, as much as the two that met at Jerusalem. Satan and his angels are just as united as the angels in heaven are ; only, the union of the angels in glory is the concord of the holy, while the union of Satan and his host is the conspiracy of the damned. It is not mere union, but the principles and grounds of it, that entitle it to respect or reverence.
Uniformity is the just expression of the sort of union in the Church of Rome, rather than unity ; and it is produced by two causes — ignorance and compression. The first cause is ignorance. The Greeks and Romans were united in the worship of idols before they became Christians, the Ephesians were united in the worship of Diana, and the Jews were perfectly agreed in crying, with simultaneous accents, " Crucify him, crucify him ; " but the moment that light shone amid the Ephesians, they were disunited, a party following Christ, and a party following Diana ; the moment that the Go spel sounded upon the banks of the Tiber, and in the groves of Ilissus, that moment Greek and
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Roman were divided on the worship of their idols. Light dissolves the union that is produced in ig norance ; as in the gigantic iceberg, a collection of all heterogeneous elements, which is dissolved when the sunbeams of heaven rest upon it, and its waters flow in one way, and its chaff and hay and stubble are driven in another by the winds of hea ven. — And, secondly, the uniformity in the Church of Rome is produced by compression. In Spain, all are perfectly united, but it is the union of the dead ; the people that live upon the earth above, being scarcely better than those who slumber in the graves below. And, if mere compression or compulsion be all that is required to complete unity, Botany Bay must be the fairest colony ap pended to the British dominions, for there it exists in perfection ; and, on this ground, thirty- nine bayonets would be a more powerful guaran tee for union than Thirty-nine Articles, and New gate more renowned for it than a Christian church. But this is not the unity for which we contend. We seek the unity of minds enlightened by the truth, the unity of hearts impressed by the truth ; but the unity of the Church of Rome is the unity of " unclean birds," kept together by a force ab extra, and not by internal attraction. The hands are united, but the hearts are at antipodes. The fear of Purgatory, and the penalties of the Church,
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guarantee a semblance of unity ; but it is not real. On the contrary, it is a place, to use the language of Milton, —
" Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds Perverse all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, unutterable, and worse Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived; Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire."
Mine be the rolling waves of the ocean, rather than the putrefying Dead Sea ! Mine be the roaring- cataract, rather than the stagnant marsh ! Mine be all the excitement of living truth, rather than the quiescence of pestilential error ! "A living dog is better than a dead lion."
And here I must state, that I do not think it was ever the mind of God that there should be perfect uniformity in the visible Church of Christ. I am attached to my own Church, and (I will use the expression) most enthusiasti cally; but I should deplore the day when all England's Christians should become converts to its polity ; and I should equally deplore the day when they should all become Episcopalians. I believe it to be God's ordinance, that while there is only one ark, there should be different chambers in it ; that there should be branches differing in outward peculiarity, while there is only one living Vine, and one pervading sap. There is one living Catholic
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Church, but there may be many outward mani festations and developments of it, in its contact with the world* And it is by this very process that the whole catholic truth of God is preserved. You will always find, that one Communion holds in solution a truth overlooked by its neighbour, and that neighbour a truth overlooked by another ; and it is by these diversities of outward constitution, that all the truths of Christianity are held promi nent and distinct. If all men were advocates of an Establishment, voluntary liberality would be repressed ; if all men were advocates of the volun tary system, the duties and responsibilities of nations would be overlooked. In Presbytery, we have retained the presbyter, but lost the oversight of the bishop ; in Episcopacy, they have retained the bishop's superintendence, but lost the pres byter ; in Independency, they have retained the power of the people, but have lost what I con ceive to be necessary for the unity and govern ment of the church — the superintendence of the bishop or presbytery. But thus it happens, that one party preserves that which the other has lost sight of; and thus if we take in the whole Catholic Church of Christ, we see all the truths of the Gospel therein developed, manifested, and maintained. But I allege, that it is not God's ordinance that there should be uniformity in nature, and that this is indicative of his mind
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with regard to the Church. Look to the firma ment above: you cannot count its thousands of stars, and " one star differeth from another star in glory :'* God might have made them alike, but he has not done so. View the whole earth in the season of spring or of summer : one flower is a rose, and another is a violet, another a lily ; there is the same generic law for the whole vegetable creation, but the specific developments of it are distinct and diversified. Search into the bowels of the earth : the minerals are essentially the same, but their crystallization varied and diversi fied, though all under one law. Look upon this vast assembly : each face is a human face, and yet there are not two countenances alike. Unifor mity would be a blemish ; diversity is a beauty. And I allege, that to seek uniformity in the Church of Christ, is to seek a violation of the laws of God. To advocate unity at heart, amidst diversity of manifestation, is to join in the prayer of our blessed Lord, " That they all may be ONE."
We have, in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, a perfect specimen of the unity of the Protestant Church : " one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all." In once arguing with a Roman Catholic, I put the question to the whole assembly, if these were not the characteristics
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of their Church. I asked the Baptists, and they answered, " Yes ; " I asked the Indepen dents, and they answered, " Yes ; " I asked the Episcopalians, and they answered, "Yes." We have, then, in our only rule of faith — the Bible — the sevenfold unity which is character istic of the true Church ; and therefore Protest ants, however different in name, are essentially one in truth. In the Church of Rome, they will forgive you every error if you only cling to the chair of St. Peter ; in the Protestant Church, we forgive you every circumstantial difference if you only cleave to Christ. The points of diversity are, Christ and Antichrist. In the Church of Rome, they pardon all, if all only look to the Pope ; in the Protestant Church, we forgive all circum stantial diversities, on condition that all rejoice in " beholding the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world,"
Let me now draw my remarks to a close on this head, by giving some practical advice to Protest ants.
And first, let our common faith be written as with a diamond's point upon the living rock ; let our diversities in regimen and ecclesiastical disci pline be inscribed as upon the shifting sand. Cast away Satan's microscope, which magnifies the points of divergence ; use God's telescope, which brings within the horizon of your view the mani-
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fold and mingling glories, in the magnificence of which all our contrarieties and shades of senti ment are merged and lost. The things in which we agree are majestic as the attributes of God, and enduring as the eternity to which they point ; the things in which we differ are trivial, and it needs an uncharitable microscope to magnify and discover them. The points in which we differ are like chaff in comparison with the wheat ; the doc trines in which we agree are precious and weighty as the virgin gold. Our Lord's constant injunction is, "A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another ; " " Let brotherly love con tinue." And all this I will sum up in that beau tiful sentiment — " In essential things unity, in doubtful things liberty, in all things charity."
Again : Let me urge union and communion among all true Christians, on the ground of our near and dear relationship. We are fellow-sol diers, fellow-travellers, fellow-voyagers. " Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between thy herd- men and my herdmen ; for we be brethren." It is our solemn duty to cultivate this union. We are only insuperable, whilst we are inseparable. Remember the bundle of arrows : united, incapa ble of being broken ; disunited, severed easily into pieces.
To enforce and illustrate this advice, let me call upon all true Christians to look less at the defects
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by which their brethren are deformed, and more intensely at the beauties by which they are dis tinguished. When I look at the Independent Dissenters, I will forget any that have exceeded the bounds of charity, and think of a Moffatj of a Williams, and other kindred spirits. When we look at the Church of Scotland, let us forget its recent fierce and headstrong spirits, who have reflected no honour upon it, and think of its many peaceful and holy ministers. And when we look at the Church of England, let us forget its Newmans, its Puseys, and its Hooks, and think of its Noels, its M'Neiles, its Bick- ersteths, its Sumners, and its devoted bishops, who in past ages have shed a halo and a glory upon Christendom. Act the part of the painter, who wras called upon to sketch Alexander the Great. Alexander had a scar upon his fore head, which he had received in the course of his Macedonian battles; and the painter was perplexed to find a way by which to escape show ing this deformity on the portrait : at last he hit upon the happy expedient of representing the monarch sitting in his chair, his head leaning upon his right arm, and the fore finger covering the scar upon his brow. When I sketch the Independent communion, I would put my finger upon the scar by which it may be deformed ; when you sketch the Church of Scotland, lay the finger of charity
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upon the scar by which she has been defaced; when we sketch the Church of England, let us put our finger over the scar which I fear is growing in breadth and deformity upon her ; and I would say the same of the Church of Rome, only she is all scar — there is no soundness in her at all. This is God's way of treating us, and it ought to be our way of treating one another. When Rahab is referred to in Scripture, Rahab's lie is not men tioned, but Rahab's faith is spoken of. When Job is referred to, his fretfulness is forgotten, and his patience is canonized. When David is mentioned, David's sin is not spoken of, but David's grace is remembered. And if we had only love in our hearts, depend upon it, there would be greater charity in our sketches of one another. Love is the Ten Commandments kept in a monosyllable, just as sin is the Ten Commandments broken in a mono syllable. If we could only believe it, we are really and truly one. I do not ask any one to break down his ecclesiastical polity ; I do not ask any one to violate the laws he has subscribed ; but I ask you, in every holy and Christian work, to feel, that whatever the colour of the robes in which your ministers preach, or the forms in which you worship, you are, if God's children, essentially and truly one. Take a quantity of quicksilver, and throw it upon the earth, and it breaks into a thou sand globules : Why ? Because of the unevenness
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of the earth's surface. But the affinities of the quicksilver are not destroyed : use a little care, a little gentleness — collect the globules, and they will unite into a bright mass, reflecting your coun tenance as you behold it. So with Christians : it is earth that originates the contrarieties ; it is sin that severs: a little charity might soon collect them into one common mass, reflecting the glory of their common God, the righteousness of their common Saviour, and the splendour of their ever lasting home.
Finally : to maintain the unity of the Protestant Church, let us live nearer to Christ, that we may live nearer to one another. You know, that in a circumference or hoop, if there are a number of radii or lines proceeding from the circumference towards the centre, as each line approaches the centre it comes nearer to its neighbour. So in the Gospel : Christ is the great centre ; we are converts from the circumference of the wide world ; and the nearer we come to Christ, the nearer we come to one another. And it is when we are absorbed, and meet in Christ, that " Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim."
And now, if there be in this assembly any Roman Catholic, (and I know that on the past oc casions there have been many,) let me adjure him to burst the withs of that church and priesthood by which he is bound, and to come forth into the
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liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free. Let me tell you of the true Purgatory — the blood of Jesus Christ that " cleanseth from all sin ;" let me tell you of the only Saviour — Jesus Christ and him crucified. Belong you to the Romish Church, or belong you to the Protestant, if you look away from Mary, and from saints and angels, and look by faith to the Son of God alone, you shall never come into condemnation.
May apostolical succession be less in our estima tion ! may apostolical doctrine be more ! May the uniformity of Rome be scattered and broken, as by a thunder-peal ! may the unity of the church of the living God reign and spread on earth, till it is lost in the glory of the church triumphant in heaven !
LECTURE V.
THE FATHERS NOT SAFE EXPOSITORS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, AND THE NICENE CHURCH NOT THE RIGHT MODEL OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
COLOSSIANS ii. 8.
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
I HAVE selected the text which I have now quoted, as embodying, in some measure, the spirit of the statements which I am about to submit. And I shall have to tax your patience to its very utmost, and to draw upon your indulgence to no ordinary extent ; because what I shall adduce will be less of argument or illustration, and more of dry but important and authentic documents, proving, by bare and stern facts, the principles I am anxious to inculcate.
The two topics before us this evening for dis cussion are — The Fathers, and the Nicene Church. It will require some preliminary explanation to
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make you clearly understand what these are. I can conceive that " Nicene Church," and " Fa thers," and all the other high-sounding terms to which modern controversy has been obliged to have recourse, must sound as something approach ing an unknown tongue in the ears of merely Bible-taught and evangelical Christians. But these words, I assure you, play a most conspi cuous part in the present day ; and it is most important — nay, I hold it, under God, almost essential to your protection from poisonous and deleterious tenets — that you should fairly under stand them, and be able fully and firmly to repel the deductions that are too frequently made from them.
By the Fathers is meant certain divines who flourished in (to take the longest range) the first five centuries, though some say twelve centuries, of the Christian Church. Some of these were distinguished for their genius, some for their elo quence, a few for their piety, and too many for their fanaticism and superstition. It is recorded by Dr. Delahogue, (who was professor in the Roman-Catholic College of Maynooth,) on the authority of Eusebius, that the fathers who were really most fitted to be the luminaries of the age in which they lived, were too busy in preparing their flocks for martyrdom, to commit any thing to writing ; and, therefore, by the admission of
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this Roman- Catholic divine, we have not the full and fair exponent of the views of all the fathers of the earlier centuries, but only of those who were most ambitious of literary distinction, and least attentive to their charges. It is generally true in the present day, that the minister who has a large congregation, and much to do in it, has very little time for writing elaborate treatises upon any of the controversies of the age, or even for publishing sermons. It was so then : the most devoted and pious of the fathers were busy teaching their flocks ; the more vain and ambi tious occupied their time in preparing treatises. If all the fathers who signalized the age had committed their sentiments to writing, we might then have had a fair representation of the theology of the Church of the fathers ; but as only a few have done so (many even of their writings being mutilated or lost), and these not the most devoted and spiritually-minded, I con tend, that it is as unjust to judge of the theo logy of the early centuries by the writings of the few fathers who are its only surviving represen tatives, as it would be to judge of the theology of the nineteenth century by the sermons of Mr. Newman, the speeches of Dr. Candlish, or the various productions of the late Edward Irving. It is admitted, moreover, by Roman-Catholic divines, that some of the fathers have erred,
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that not a few of them have broached heresies, and that they must be read in the light of " the Church," in order to their being read safely.
But let me observe, that those called the fathers are not strictly and properly the fathers at all. The advantage taken by the advocates of their writings, as exponents of primitive theology, is this — that these are the men who lived near the Apostles, and are covered with the hoar of a thou sand years ; and that it becomes us, the mere youths and striplings of a day, to defer to the grey hairs, and reverence the experience, of a remote and venerable age. Now, I contend that the gifted divines of the present age are the true fa thers of the Christian Church; and that Augustine, and Jerome, and Chrysostom, were, in comparison, but the beardless boys of the Christian dispen sation. My reason for this strange, and apparently to a Roman-Catholic extravagant assertion, is, I think, a very just one. The great majority of the fathers, probably nine -tenths of them, never saw an apostle. Twenty or two hundred years after the death of an apostle, are about equal, in as far as the knowledge of his views is concerned. What do we know of Martin Luther, after the lapse of three hundred years, except what we gather from his written and accredited biography ? What more did our fathers know of him a hundred years ago ? 12
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How much do we know of John Wesley, except from his writings ? Scarcely any thing ; and a person living a thousand years hence, will be just as likely to understand and estimate properly the character of that remarkable man, as a person living only a hundred years after his death. The length of the intervening period makes little differ ence, if there is no personal contact with the indi vidual. The fathers had the same Bible that we have, the same eyes, the same judgments, the same promise of the Holy Spirit to guide them ; up to this point we are perfectly on a par. What then is the point of difference between them and us ? It is this : we have, in addition, all the biblical criti cism, the physical illustrations, the philosophical facts, the historical evidence, which have been ac cumulated by an induction of seventeen centuries. All the advantage, therefore, is on our side, as interpreters of the Bible ; and I contend that a priori, Matthew Henry and Scott are more likely to be sound expositors of Scripture, than the most illustrious of the fathers. And I am prepared to demonstrate, by reference to the docu mentary evidence, that in the Commentaries of Henry and Scott, in the sermons of Robert Hall and Bradley, Hare, Chalmers, the Bishop of Ches ter, and other divines in the present age, we have more luminous expositions of Christian theology, than in the splendid orations of the golden-mouthed
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Chrysostom, or in the evangelical comments of Augustine, or in the more acrimonous and volu minous discussions of Jerome. I do not mean to say that there is nothing good in the fathers ; quite the reverse ; I allow, that in the Homilies of Chrysostom there are some of the most exqui site gems of Christian theology, an eloquence the most fervid, the impress of a genius the most glowing, feelings the most earnest and intense, and powers of reasoning which would do credit to the most gifted divine of the age in which we live ; in Augustine, also, the most orthodox of the fathers, there is much evangelical and vital reli gion, much that may refresh and edify the mind of any reader ; whilst in Jerome, though too noto rious for controversial bitterness, there is no little powerful and eloquent writing. But when I have made all these admissions, I contend, without being guilty of a foolish and rather popular idola try of the nineteenth century, that they are no more to be compared with the leading divines of the age in which we live, than the schoolmen of the dark ages with Lord Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, and other philosophers who flourished since the era of inductive philosophy.
I fear I must draw upon the reader's patience ; but I am quite sure that the importance of the extracts I have to adduce, will make up for the apparent tedium. A few have appeared in
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print ; the great mass has not ; they have been taken carefully from the original documents, faith fully translated, and the Greek and Latin originals are at hand ; the reader may, therefore, depend upon them as authentic*
What I wish to shew is, first, that the fathers are contradictory expositors of Scripture ; and next, that they are superstitious and fanatical commentators upon Scripture. And the inference I wish to draw from all this is, that they are not trust-worthy commentators ; and next, that the position of the Roman-Catholic Church, as an nounced in the Creed of Pope Pius IV., is wholly untenable : — " Nor will I ever take and interpret the Holy Scriptures otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers."
The first passage to which I will entreat atten tion, as illustrative of this, is one of the best known in the whole word of God ; it is what is called the Lord's Prayer. One would suppose, that if there be a part of Scripture on which all interpreters would be unanimous, and to which the Romish pre-requisite of patristic unanimity is applicable, it would be this ; in short, that one meaning would pervade the commentaries upon every clause. I will give you, however, the opinions of the different fathers upon it.
1. The first clause is, " Our Father, who art in
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heaven." Every one knows perfectly what that means. But Cyril, Ambrose, and Augustine, understand " heaven " to mean the souls of all believers ; Gregory Nyssen, Chrysostom, and the monk Bernard, hold that " heaven" means lite rally heaven. Now here are three fathers against three, on the interpretation of the very first clause of the Lord's Prayer.
2. I take the next clause, " Hallowed be Thy name." Tertullian and Cyprian say this means, " May we persevere in holiness ; " and Cyril, Chrysostom, and Jerome, say it means, " May God's name be glorified." Here so many fathers take one opinion, and so many precisely the opposite.
3. " Thy kingdom come." Ambrose says, this means exclusively and only the kingdom of grace. Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine say, it means the kingdom of glory, and not the kingdom of grace at all.
4. " Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Tertullian and Augustine say, " heaven" means the spirit, and " earth" means the flesh; Cyprian says, " heaven" means the faithful, and " earth" means unbelievers ; and the other fathers say, that " heaven" means just heaven, and " earth" means just earth. Now observe here, again, so many fathers for the first, one for the second, and the rest for a third and totally distinct opinion. Are
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these " unanimous" interpreters of the meaning of God's word ?
5. " Give us this day our daily bread." Chry- sostom says, this means our bodily nourishment. Jerome, Ambrose, and Cyril say, that it means only our spiritual nourishment.
6. " Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." Tertullian, Cyprian, Gregory Nyssen, understand this to be, that all, both sinners and saints, need forgiveness. Augus tine holds that it means, Forgive us our venial sins only, but not our mortal sins. Chrysostom holds, that even after baptism, it denotes that there is a place for penance and for indulgence. Now, observe, here are three different interpreta tions of the same passage, and each maintained by equally illustrious fathers of the Christian Church.
7. " Lead us not into temptation." Hilary and Jerome differ a little from Tertullian, Cyprian, and Chrysostom, with respect to this clause.
8. " Deliver us from evil." Gregory Nyssen, Cyril, Chrysostom, Theophylact, and all the Greek fathers, hold that this means, Deliver us from Satan ; but Cyprian and Augustine, and all the Latin fathers, hold that it means, Deliver us from evil in general.
Such is the exposition of the Lord's Prayer, excavated from the writings of the fathers ; and it proves, that if you expect unanimity in the
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interpretation of the plainest portions of Scripture by the fathers, you expect that which is not to be found.
I take another passage — Genesis iv. 23, " I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt." Upon this text, in the Douay Bible, there is the following note : — It is the tradition of the Hebrews, that Lamech, in hunting, slew Cain, mistaking him for a wild beast; and that, having discovered what he had done, he beat so unmercifully the youth by whom he was led into the mistake, that he died of the blows." In the fourth century, Pope Dumasus wrote to Jerome, requesting him to impart to him the meaning of certain passages of Holy Writ, and of the above passage among the rest. Pope Damasus' letter is published with Jerome's works. Jerome in his reply says, " Methusael begat Lamech, who being the seventh from Adam, not spontaneously, as it is written in a certain Hebrew book, slew Cain, as he afterwards confesses, ' for I have slain a man to my wounding,' &c." Thus, Jerome adopts the Hebrew tradition, and believes that Lamech slew Cain ; and the Douay expositors record the same tradition. When we refer, however, to Chrysos- tom, we find that he evidently took a very differ ent view of the matter; for he thus interprets the meaning of God's declaration to Cain (in cap. iv. Gen. Horn, xix.) — " Have you feared lest you
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should be killed ? Be of good courage, that shall not happen. For he who does this shall expose himself to a seven-fold penalty." When, again, we refer to Augustine, we find him quite at vari ance with Jerome; for he compares the mark set upon the Jews, and their preservation, with the mark set upon Cain, and his preservation ; and the comparison could not have been justly instituted, if Cain had been slain by Lamech. Augustine's words are as follows : (Enarr. in Psalm 39.) " For Cain, the elder brother, who slew the younger brother, received a mark, 'lest any man should slay him,' as it is written in Genesis, God placed a mark upon Cain, that nobody should slay him. Therefore, the Jewish nation itself remains. Cain has not been slain, he has not been slain, he has his mark." If we consult Basil (Epist. 260. class 2), we find that he expressly refers to the tradition that Lamech slew Cain, and affirms that it was not true: " some think that Cain was slain by Lamech, as if he had lived until that time in order that he might yield a longer punishment ; but it is not true." Here are autho rities against authorities among the fathers : and yet the Roman Catholic is never to interpret Scrip ture "except according to the unanimous consent of the fathers." As that unanimity does not exist upon the two passages of Scripture which I have read to you, every Roman Catholic is
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bound, on his own principles, to attach no mean ing to them at all, and every Protestant to pause before he receives implicitly patristic expositions.
There is another passage, which the Roman- Catholic Church has made very much of, as de fensive of the doctrine of Purgatory, but which, upon the same principle, must be discarded alto gether, as utterly incapable of any interpretation at all. 1 Corinthians iii. — " According to the grace of God that is given to me, as a wise master- builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other founda tion can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be manifest ; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward : if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss ; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire." Now I will extract the epitome which Cardinal Bellarmine gives of the difficulties of this passage, and the differences of the fathers : —
" The difficulties of this passage are five in number. 1. What is to be understood by the
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builders? 2. What is to be understood by gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stuble ? 3. "What is to be understood by the day of the Lord ? 4. What is to be understood by the fire, of which it is said, that in the day of the Lord it shall prove every man's work? 5. What is to be un derstood by the fire, of which it is said he shall be saved, yet so as by fire ? When these things are explained, the passage will be clear.
" The first difficulty, therefore, is, Who are the architects who build upon the foundation ? The blessed Augustine, in his book on Faith and Works, c. 16, and in his 'Enchiridion,' c. 68, and else where, thinks that all Christians are here called by the Apostle architects, and that all build upon the foundation of the faith either good or bad works. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, and CEcumenius, appear to me to teach the same upon this passage. Many others teach that only the doctors and preachers of the Gospel are here called architects by the Apostle. Jerome insi nuates this in his second book against Jovinianus. The blessed Anselm and the blessed Thomas hold the same opinion on this passage, although they do not reject the former opinion. Many more moderns think the same, as Dionysius the Carthu sian, Lyra, Cajetan, and others.
" The other difficulty is rather more serious, for there are six opinions. Some, by the name of
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foundation, understand a true but an ill-digested faith; by the name of gold, silver, and precious stones, good works ; by the names of wood, hay, and stubble, mortal sins. Thus Chrysostom upon this place, who is followed by Theophylact. The second opinion is, that Christ, or the preaching of the faith, is to be understood by the name of foundation ; that by the names of gold, silver, precious stones, are to be understood Catholic expositions, as the commentary of Ambrose and even Jerome seem to teach. The third opinion, by the name foundation, understands living faith ; and by the name of gold, silver, and precious stones, understands works of supererogation, &c. Thus the blessed Augustine, in his book on faith and works, lib. 6. The fourth opinion is that of those who explain by gold, silver, &c., to be meant good works; by hay, stubble, &c., venial sins. Thus the blessed Gregory, in the fourth book of his Dialogues, c. 39, and others. The fifth is the opinion of those who understand by gold, silver, &c,, good hearers; and by stubble, &c., bad hearers. Thus Theodoret and CEcumenius. The sixth opinion, which we prefer to all, is, that by the name of foundation is to be understood Christ as preached by the first preachers ; by the name of gold, silver, &c., is to be understood the useful doctrine of the other preachers, who teach those who now received the faith ; but by the name of
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wood, hay, &c., is to be understood the doctrine, not indeed heretical, or bad, but singular, of those preachers who preach catholically to the Catholic people, without the fruit and usefulness which God requires.
" The third difficulty regards the day of the Lord. Some understand by the name of day, the present life or the time of tribulation. Thus Augustine, in his book of Faith and Works, c. 16, and Gregory, in the fourth book of his Dialogues, c. 39 But all the ancients seem to have un derstood by that day, the day of the last judgment, as Theodoret, Theophylact, Anselm, and others.
" The fourth difficulty is, What is the fire, which in the day of the Lord shall prove every man's work ? Some understand the tribulations of this life, as Augustine and Gregory, in the places noted; but these we have already rejected. Some understand eternal fire ; but that cannot be, for fire
shall not try the building of gold and silver
Some understand it to be the pains of purgatory ; but that cannot be truly said. First, because the fire of purgatory does not prove the works of those who build gold and silver; but the fire of which we are speaking shall prove every man's work what it is. Secondly, the Apostle clearly makes a distinction between the works and the workmen, and says, concerning the fire, that it shall burn the works, but not the workers ; for he
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says, ' if any one's work shall remain, and if any work shall burn ;' but the fire of purgatory, which is a real fire, cannot burn works, which are trans itory actions, and have already passed. Lastly, it would follow that all men, even the most holy, would pass through the fire of purgatory, and be saved by fire, for all are to pass through the fire of which we are speaking. But that all are to pass through the fire of purgatory, and be saved by fire, is clearly false ; for the Apostle here openly says, that only those who build wood and hay are to be saved as if by fire : the Church, also, has always been persuaded, that holy martyrs, and infants dying after baptism, are presently received into heaven without any passage through fire, as the Council of Florence teaches in its last session. It remains, therefore, that we should say, that the Apostle here speaks of the fire of the severe and just judgment of God, which is not a purging or pun ishing fire, but one that probes and examines. Thus Ambrose explains it on Psalm cxviii. and also Sedulius.
"The fifth and last difficulty is, What is to be understood by the fire, when he says, ' But he shall be saved, yet so as by fire ?' Some understand the tribulations of this life; but this cannot be properly said, because then even he who built gold and silver would be saved by fire. Where fore Augustine and Gregory, who are the authors
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of this opinion, when they were not satisfied with it, proposed another, of which we shall speak by- and-bye. Some understand it to be eternal fire, as Chrysostom and Theophylact. But this we have already refuted. Others understand the fire of the conflagration of the world. It is there fore the common opinion of theologians, that by the name of this fire is to be understood some purgatorial and temporal fire, to which, after death, those are adjudged who are found in their trial to have built wood, hay, and stubble."
Here is another illustration of the worthlessness of the comments of the fathers, and the utter absurdity of that vow which every Roman Catholic makes in principle, while his priests make it in words — that they will not interpret Scripture un less " according to the unanimous consent of the fathers." And if ever a Roman Catholic should urge upon you the doctrine of Purgatory, building it upon this passage, ask him if he is not bound by the laws of his Church, first to ascertain that the fathers are unanimous upon it; and if it be the fact that the fathers are all at issue upon the meaning of every clause, tell him he must put a padlock upon his mouth, instead of daring to determine and declare the meaning of a passage, so contradictorily explained by the ancient autho rities.
Let us take another passage, a very favourite
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text with the Church of Rome. If you discuss with a Roman Catholic, Who is the chief bishop, and what is the true Church, he will tell you, Peter is the rock and the foundation on which the Church rests; and he will quote the words — " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." Now, the question at present is, not what is the true meaning of this passage, but whether the fathers shed light on it, and whether a Roman Catholic is warranted to interpret it. If the fathers are unanimous in the interpretation of it, then the Roman Catholic is bound to take that interpretation; but if they are not unanimous, he is bound to put no interpretation on it at all. Then hear what the fathers say. Some of them say, that the rock is Peter's faith ; as Cyril of Alexan dria, (Dial. 4, on Holy Trin.) " He called nothing but the firm and immovable faith of the disciple the rock upon which the Church was founded, without the possibility of falling :" and thus also Chrysostom (Serin, de Pent.) — "He did not say, upon Peter, for he did not found his Church upon a man, but upon faith. What, therefore, is meant by ' upon this rock ? ' Upon the confession con tained in his words." Also (Chrys. Serm. 54, on Matt.) "And I say unto thee, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church ; that is to say, upon the faith of the confession." Augustine sometimes interprets the rock to mean Peter, and
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sometimes to mean Christ ; and referring to his con tradictions in his Book of Retractations, he leaves the reader to choose for himself whichever of the in terpretations he prefers. His words are the follow ing : (Retract, lib. 1,) " I have said, in a certain pass age respecting the Apostle Peter, that the Church is founded upon him as upon a rock. .... But I know that I have frequently afterwards so expressed myself that the phrase, f upon this rock,' should be understood to be the rock which Peter confessed. For it was not said to him, Thou art Petra, but Thou art Petrus ; for the rock was Christ. Let the reader select which of these two opinions he deems the most probable."
On the same passage Roman Catholics build the position, that Peter had an absolute supremacy among the Apostles, and, therefore, that he was first Pope of Rome, the present Pope being his legiti mate successor. But Cyprian denies that Peter had any successor. He says (De Unit. Eccles.), " The other Apostles jjvere the same as Peter, endowed with an equal fellowship both of honour and power, (pari consortio praediti et honoris et potestatis,) but the beginning proceeded from unity, that the Church of Christ might be shewn to be one."
Again, take the passage, " Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted ; and whose sins ye retain, they are retained." Protestants maintain that this is a
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ministerial and declarative absolution ; Roman Catholics, that it is judicial; and so do the Trac- tarians. I grieve that there is retained, in that magnificent compendium of primitive devotion, the Prayer-Book of the Church of England, a form of absolution in the Service for the Visitation of the Sick, devoutly used by Tractarians, but which I believe a clergyman is not bound to use, and which I admit is capable of some explanation ; but the explanation is not satisfactory to a plain un biassed mind, and I would that it were wholly expunged ; it is an unhappy service, wrhich is now being revived by the Tractarians, after consider able desuetude-: but Protestants hold, that in all such cases the minister forgives ministerially ; that is, he merely declares forgiveness to you, provided you are penitent and believe. The Roman Ca tholic holds that it is a judicial act, and that the priest forgives exactly as if he were God, and the penitent seated in his presence. Upon this passage of Scripture, however, Chrysostom ex presses himself in terms which agree with the decree of the Council of Trent ; while Augustine, in opposition to the Donatists, who claimed this priestly power, maintains that the act is merely ministerial. For he says, (Contra Epist. Parme- niani, lib. 2,) " That passage in the Gospel, * As my Father hath sent me, so also do I send you ; when he had said this, he breathed upon them,
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and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; if you for give any one's sins, they shall be forgiven ; and if you retain any one's sins, they shall be retained,' — would be against us, so that we should be com pelled to confess that this was done by men, and not through men, if after he had said, ' And I also send you,' he had immediately added, ' Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted, and whose sins ye retain, they shall be retained.' But since the words are introduced, 'When he had said this, he breathed upon them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost,' and then was conferred through them either the remission or retention of sins, it is sufficiently shewn, that they themselves did not act, but the Holy Spirit through them ; as he says in another place, ' It is not ye that speak, but the Holy Spirit who is in you.'" In opposition to this interpretation of Augustine's, the Council of Trent decree, that the priest forgives sins judi cially, and not ministerially; and therefore the Church of Rome, in this instance, interprets Scrip ture inconsistently with the opinion of one of the most distinguished of the fathers.
Again : John v. 39. — " Search the Scriptures." In the Roman-Catholic version it is — " Ye search the Scriptures ;" and as the Greek verb is the same in the indicative as in the imperative mood, they may be warranted in this transla tion ; although I conceive it makes no differ-
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ence, for the passage, even then, shews an ac quiescence in the propriety of the practice ; either way it proves the duty of searching the Scriptures. Cyril of Alexandria agrees with the Church of Rome, in considering that the passage does not contain a command to search the Scriptures ; but Chrysostom maintains that it does. Chrysostom says, in his 40th Homily on St. John's Gospel — " lie did not say, read the Scriptures, but search the Scriptures, since the things that are said of him require much research. For this reason he commands (Kf\cvei) them to search with diligence, that they may discover the things that lie deep."
One more passage : Matthew v. 25, " Agree with thine adversary quickly." Jerome is of opinion that the adversary is the brother who is offended, but he mentions that others held that the devil was the adversary, (alii-juxta epistolam Petri dicentis " adversarius vester diabolus," &c.) Bellarmine informs us (c. iv. De Purgatorio, lib. 1), that " some by the adversary understand ' the devil,' as Origen (Horn. 35, on Luke), Ambrose* Enthymius, and Thophylact (in cap. 12 Lucae), and Jerome (in Epist. 8 ad Demet.) Others un derstand by the adversary ' the flesh,' but these are justly refuted by Augustine. Others by the adversary understand the Spirit, which the flesh is commanded to obey, but Jerome refutes this. Others by the adversary understand sin ; thus Am-
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brose : this is not probable. Others by the adver sary understand another man that has injured us, or whom we have injured; thus Hilary, Anselm, and Jerome (on Matt, v.) The truest exposition is, that the adversary is the law of God, or God himself. Thus Ambrose, Anselm, and Augustine, Gregory and Bernard."
These instances wrill suffice to shew, that the vow of the Roman Catholic, "never to interpret Holy Scripture otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers," is precisely equivalent to removing the Scriptures from the laity altogether, and making them a dead letter, capable of bearing any meaning, or justifying any interpretation. I know that distinguished Roman- Catholic divines have accused the advocates of the Protestant Church of making false or disinge nuous statements, when it has been alleged that the Scriptures are practically withheld from the perusal of the people ; and I admit, that in the nineteenth century, amid the light and the privi leges of England, the Scriptures are allowed by priests to the laity ; but I contend that it is giving them a book with a padlock upon it, of which the priest holds the key; it is like telling them to drink of a fountain, over the mouth of which is a stone they are unable to roll away ; it is giving the Scriptures to the eye, but withholding the Scriptures from the heart. Suppose a Roman-
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Catholic labourer, just imported from the bogs of Ireland, is told and taught not to interpret a chap ter of God's blessed book, till he has found "the unanimous consent of the fathers" upon it. I quote to him the passage — " Search the Scrip tures;" he says to me, ' That passage may have a meaning which you and I know nothing of; I must ascertain "the unanimous consent of the fathers," before I put any meaning upon it at all.' He goes to the British Museum, tells the Librarian his vow, and asks to be shewn the writings of the fathers upon this text. To his surprise and horror, some hundred folio volumes are brought to him — the Benedictine (the choicest) edition of the an cient fathers. He opens a volume, and is amazed to find that they are written in Latin and Greek; and he never learned a word of either in his life. But supposing (what is very improbable) he mas ters the Greek and Latin languages, or is satisfied to take an unauthorized translation, such as is given forth by the Oxford writers in their edition, — and a Roman Catholic may, on the whole, trust an Oxford divine in this matter, — suppose, then, that by the aid of an elaborate index, he ascer tains all the recorded views of the fathers respect ing the passage ; — he finds, that one father says the text in question is a direct prohibition against searching the Scriptures ; another father says it means, you are to search them ; another says it
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means something else ; and at the close of his labo rious and persevering researches, he finds that there is no unanimity at all, and he must return to his home wholly at a loss, shut up his Bible, and wait till the fathers have become unanimous (which will be at " the Greek calends,") or till Infallibility lays them on its Procrustes' bed and makes them so, before he puts any meaning upon it at all.
Having shewn you that the opinions of the fathers are contradictory, I wish to point out, in the next place, how fanatical and superstitious are many of the interpretations of the fathers. The Oxford divines assert, that the fathers are the truest exponents of the primitive theology ; and I wish to show you the consequences of this assertion.
I quote now from the Preface of the Benedictine edition of St. Basil, dated Paris, 1721. Thewriterre- marks upon the six days' creation. "Among those," say the Benedictines, " who thought that things were created at once, and not by degrees, Philo may be first enumerated. It is not wonderful that Origen, who loved allegories more than all men, should have run into the same opinion. With these may be reckoned that most valiant defender of the Catholic faith, Athanasius; Gregory Nyssen speaks so plainly, that one cannot doubt that he embraced the same opinion. It (this opinion) ap peared to Basil more probable than the other ; but
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this most prudent man would not assert any thing positively in a doubtful matter." The fathers, you observe, were divided on the question, Whether the record of the creation in the book of Genesis was an historical fact, or a myth.
Again : on the Spirit on the waters, I quote from the Benedictine Edition of Chrysostom, in c. 1, Genesis, Horn. iii. " The Spirit of God," he says, " was borne upon the water. This appears to me to signify, that some vital energy was present in the waters, and that the water was not simply standing and unmoved, but moved as having some vital power. For that which is unmoved is altogether useless; but that which is moved is serviceable for many things."
Again: Genesis vi. — "The sons of God saw the daughters of men." Chrysostom, in his 22nd Homily on Genesis, observes — "Your lore should so apprehend the true meaning of the Scripture, as not to lend your ears to those who speak these blasphemies, and dare to say things against their own understanding; for they say that this is not said of men, but of angels, for that God called these ' the sons of God/ Let them show, first, where angels are called the sons of God." And Augustine, in his Questions on Genesis, con cludes — " Whence is it more credible, that just men, who were called either angels or the sons of God, through lust tinned with women, than that
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angels, who were not flesh, could have descended to this sin?" This opinion, however, which Chry- sostom terms "blasphemous," is stated to have been "the opinion of many of the ancients," in cluding Justin, Athenagoras, and Clemens of Alexandria.
In the interpretation of the portion of Scrip ture that relates to Rebecca, Jerome writes to PopeDamasus — " Isaac represents God the Father, Rebecca the Holy Spirit, Esau the former people multiplied by the devil, Jacob the Church of Christ. Isaac's growing old signifies the consum mation of the world; that he grew blind, shows that faith before him perished from the world, and that the light of religion had been neglected." The most fanciful commentator upon Scripture in the present day, never approached such an exposi tion as this in puerility and absurdity.
Turn next to doctrine. Jerome says, (Ques tion X. p. 238 — 3.)—" The vessels of mercy, which he prepared for glory, which he called, that is to say, us who are not from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles, he does not save irrationally, or with out a true judgment, but for preceding causes, be cause some have not received the Son of God, and others of their own accord have received him." So that Jerome was what we should call a very low Arminian. But, says Augustine, (Epist. contra Julianum Pelagianum, lib. v.) — " Those whom he
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predestined, them he also called. These are the called according to his purpose. These are there fore elect, and this before the constitution of the world, by Him who calleth those things that be not as though they were ; but elect by the election of grace. Whence he says also of Israel, a remnant was made by the election of grace ; and lest by chance they should be thought to be elect before the foundation of the world by reason of their fore known works, he proceeded and added, But if by grace, then it is not of works; else grace is no more grace !" So that Augustine, in opposition to Jerome, was what we call a Calvinist. Again, on works of supererogation, Chrysostom, on He brews x., Homily xix., thus speaks — " And be sides, Christ enjoins nothing which is impossible, since many have surpassed his commandments.'"
Abraham, according to Chrysostom, actually fixed the knife in his son's throat. He says, (Epist. 2 ad Cor. Horn, iii.) — " For the hand of the just man fixed it (the sword) in the boy's throat ; but the hand of God did not permit it, though fixed in it, to be contaminated by the boy's blood."
Ambrose holds, that we must all pass through fire to heaven. In his exposition of Psalm 118, (Benedictine Edition, Paris, 1686,) he says— " It is necessary, that all who desire to return to Paradise should be proved by fire; for it is not written "nrrwrernedly, that Adam arid Eve being
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driven out of the seat of Paradise, God placed a fiery sword which turned every way at their exit from Paradise. It is necessary that all should pass through flames. Whether he be John the Evangelist, whom the Lord so loved that he said of him to Peter/ If I will that he remain, what is that to thee ? do you follow me:' some have doubted respecting his death, we cannot doubt re specting his passage through the fire, because he is in Paradise, and is not separated from Christ. Or whether it be Peter, who received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and walked on the sea, it is needful that he should say, ' Thou hast laid afflic tion upon our loins, thou hast caused men to ride over our heads ; we have passed through fire and water, and thou hast brought us into refrigerium.' "
Concerning Cain and Abel, Ambrose thus writes (Lib. ii. c. 3.) — "Wherefore we do not uncon cernedly wonder in the Gospel, that the Lord Jesus sat upon the foal of an ass, because the Gentile people, which according to the Law was accounted unclean, began to be the sacrifice of Christ." And in his book De Eliaet Jejunio, he says of Paradise, that "God established the first law about fasting there, when he said, ( Ye shall not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.' '
In his fifth Homily on Matthew, Chrysostom writes as follows: — "They say that John practised such austerity, that all his limbs became dead, and
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from continual prayer and perpetual intercourse with the pavement, his forehead was so hard as to be nothing" better than the knee of a camel." " That he would grant to me, to be encircled with the body of Paul, to be fastened to his soul, and to see the dust of his body." " To see the dust of those hands by which all were charmed, through the imposition of which the Spirit was supplied." And in the 54th Homily — " If we are to be re generated, the cross is present ; if to be nourished with the food, if to be ordained, if to do any thing else, that symbol is present. We inscribe it on our houses, walls, windows, forehead."
On the subject of the veneration of relics, Chry- sostom,in his Homily " delivered after the relics of the Martyrs, &c." torn. 12, p. 468, speaks thus : — " When the Empress had gone, in the middle of the night, into the great Church, and borne thence the relics of the Martyr, and followed them through the middle of the forum, when the church to which the relics belonged was distant nine miles from the city, this sermon was preached in the Martyr's Church, the Empress being present with the magistrates and all the city." " For when the devils see the rays of the sun, they suffer nothing; but unable to bear the splendour which proceeds from these, being blinded, they fly, and go to a great distance ; so great is the power in the ashes of the saints, not only residing in their
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relics, but proceeding beyond them, and driving away unclean spirits, and sanctifying with much abundance those who approach them in faith. Wherefore she (the Empress) loving Christ, fol lowed the relics, continually touching them, and drawing to herself a blessing, and becoming an in structress to all, of this beautiful and spiritual gain, and teaching all to draw from this fountain, which is always drawn from and never emptier; for as the springing streams of the fountains are not contained within their own bosoms, but run over and flow forth, so the grace of the Spirit, which reclines in the bones and dwells in the saints, also goes forth to those who follow it, and runs forth from the souls to the bodies, and from the bodies to the garments, and from the garments to the sandals, and from the sandals to the shadows. For this reason, riot only do the bodies of the holy Apostles work, but also the handkerchiefs and aprons ; and not only these, but also the shadow of Peter wrought greater things than the living. Thus it happens also at this day ; for whilst the relics were carried, there was the burning of the devils, and bowlings and lamentations were raised on every side, the rays issuing forth from the bones, and burning the phalanx of hostile pow ers." " All will call you blessed, the hostess of the saints, the pattern of churches, equal in zeal to the Apostles ; for though you have had allotted
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to you a woman's nature, it is permitted to you to rival the acts of the Apostles."
Hear also Jerome against Vigilantius, who, it appears, was opposed to the worship of relics. Jerome begins by punning upon his name. " Vigilantius, or rather Dormitantius," [the sleepy-headed, not the wakeful,] "has sud denly arisen, who, with an unclean spirit, fights against Christ, and denies that the sepulchres of the martyrs are to be venerated." " Does the Roman Bishop act wrongly, who offers sacrifices to the Lord, over the (according to us) to be vene rated bones (but, according to you, the vile dust) of dead men, Peter and Paul, and regards their graves as altars ? And not only does the bishop of one city, but do the bishops of the whole world, err, who, despising the huckster Vigilantius, enter the temples of the dead ?" " Tertullian, a most learned man, wrote a celebrated volume against your heresy." "You laugh at the relics of the martyrs, and with Eunonimous, the author of this heresy, calumniate the Church of Christ." " Was the Emperor Constantine sacrilegious, who trans lated the relics of Andrew, Luke, and Timothy, at which the devils roar, to Constantinople ; and those who dwell in Vigilantius confess that they perceive their presence ? Is Augustus Arcadius now to be called sacrilegious, who transferred the bones of the blessed Samuel, after a long period,
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from Judea into Thrace ? Are all the bishops to be deemed, not only sacrilegious, but fools, who carried a most vile thing and mouldering ashes in silk and a golden vessel ? Are the people of all the Churches foolish, who met the sacred relics, and with such joy received them, as if they be held the prophet present and living, so that swarms of people were united from Palestine to Chalcedon, and with one voice resounded the praise of Christ? " " They follow the Lamb where- ever he goes; if the Lamb is everywhere, these also, who are with the Lamb, are to be believed to be everywhere."
Ambrose has the following passage, on the bury ing of the bodies of the martyrs, Gervains and Protasius. I quote from Epistle xxii. chap. 1. Benedictine Edition, Paris, 1690, p. 875. " The heavens," he says, " declare the glory of God. At this day, by this fortuitous reading, it has been made known what heavens declare the glory of God. Behold at my right hand, behold at my left hand, the sacred relics ; behold the men of hea venly conversation ; behold the trophies of a sub lime mind : these are ( the heavens,' which ' de clare the glory of God.' And now you hear the devils crying out, and confessing to the martyrs that they cannot bear their pains, and saying, Why have you come to torment us so grievously ? "
Chrysostom, (torn. xii. p. 177, in Epist. ad
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Hebr. c. vii. Horn, xii.) — "Wherefore, I said, so that He should not hurt our free will. It rests with us, therefore, and with him. For it is need ful that we should first elect good things; and when we have elected, he also adds what are his. He does not go before our wills, lest he should destroy our free-will; but when we have elected, then he brings to us much help."
Let me give an instance or two from Augus tine's Retractations. C. xxiii. : "When I was still a priest, it happened that at Carthage, among us who were together, the Apostle's letter to the Romans was read — ' I know that the law is spiri tual, but I am carnal:' which I was not willing to receive of the person of the Apostle, who was already spiritual, but of a man under the law, and not yet under grace, for thus formerly I under stood those words. Which, afterwards, having read some commentators on the Divine Word, whose authority moved me, / more diligently con sidered, and saw that that which he says might even be understood of the Apostle himself, viz. * We know that the law is spiritual, but I am car nal.' Which I showed, as well as I could, in the books which I lately wrote against the Pelagians." Again, torn. i. book 2, c. v. : "Now, there are two books of mine, of which the title is, ' Against the Party of Donatus ; ' in the first of which books I have said, that it did not please me, that schisma- K 3
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tics should be violently driven to communion by the force of any secular power ; and truly it did not please me, since I had not yet experienced how much evil their impunity dared, or how much a diligent discipline could confer upon them in changing them for the better." Lib. 2, c. xvii. : " When I said in the Fourth Book, that suffering might be substituted for baptism, I adduced the example of that thief, which was not sufficiently apposite, since it is uncertain whether he was not baptized." Chap. Iv. p. 1 17. : " Concerning also the thief, to whom it was said, ' To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise,' I have laid it down as nearly certain, that he was not visibly baptized ; whereas it is uncertain, and it is rather to be believed that he was baptized, as I have also after ward elsewhere contended."
I proceed next to shew you, how the fathers themselves condemn one another's errors and ab surdities. Chrysostom says— "Who can tolerate Origen, when he says that the souls were angels in heaven, and that after they sinned above, they were cast down into the world, and were confined in these bodies as in graves and sepulchres, in order that they might pay the penalty of their for mer sins ? and that the bodies of believers are not the temples of Christ, but prisons of the con demned ?" " I pass over his frivolous exposition of the garments of skins; with what effort and
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arguments has lie striven to make us believe, that the coats of skins were human bodies ! " " And who can bear Origen with patience, when he denies, with specious arguments, the resurrection of this flesh, as he most clearly declares in the book of his Explanation of the First Psalm, and in many other places? And who can bear Origen giving to us a paradise in the third heaven, and transferring to heavenly places that paradise which the Scripture describes as belonging to the earth ; and so allegorically understanding all the trees, which are described in Genesis, as that the trees were angelic powers ? And who will not instantly cast away and despise those fallacies, when Origen said of the waters which are above the firmament, that they were not waters, but certain forces of heavenly power ; and that the waters, again, which are over the earth, that is to say, under the fir mament, were contrary powers, that is to say, demons ?" " The words of Origen are adverse and hateful, and repugnant to God and his saints ; and not those only which I have repeated, but numberless others also." Jerome, also, writing to Pammachius, exclaims — " Depart, O most beloved, from Origen's heresy, and from all other heresies." " Origen teaches^ that rational crea tures gradually descend by Jacob's ladder to the last step, that is to say, to flesh and blood; and that it is impossible that any one should at once
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be precipitated from the hundredth to the first number, but by single numbers, as by the steps of a ladder, until he reach the last ; and that they changed their bodies as often as they changed mansions [in their way] from heaven to earth." And against Vigilantius, letter 79, Jerome says again — •" Origen is a heretic: what is that to me, who do not deny that he is a heretic in most things ? He erred concerning the resurrection of the body, concerning the state of souls, concern ing the repentance of the devil ; and what is more, in his Commentaries on Isaiah, he testified that the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit, are sera phim."
Of Tertullian, Jerome writes (to Pammachius and Oceanus) — "The blessed Cyprian uses Tertullian as a master, as his writings prove : and although he is delighted with the genius of that erudite and ardent man, he does not, with him, follow Montanus and Maximilla." Of Lactantius and Origen — " Lactantius in his books, and chiefly in his Letters to Demetrian, altogether denies the substance of the Holy Spirit, and with the Jewish error says, that he is to be referred either to the Father or the Son, and that the saiictificatioii of each of these persons is exhibited under his name." " And confess also, that Origen errs in some things ; acknowledge that he thought wrong ly concerning the Son, and worse concerning the
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Holy Spirit; that he impiously brought forward the [doctrine of the] ruin of the souls from heaven ; that he only verbally confesses the resurrection of the flesh, but virtually destroys it; and that he holds, that after many ages and the final restitu tion of all things, Gabriel would be the same as the devil, Paul as Caiaphas, virgins as harlots." " Others, as well Greeks as Latins, have erred in the faith."
A few extracts from Dupin's History of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries will shew you the estimate of the fathers formed by that distin- tinguished and generally impartial Roman-Catho lic historian. Concerning Eusebius of Caesarea: " He seems to insinuate, in some places, and chiefly book ii. c. 7, that the person of the Son is not equal to the person of the Father, and that the same adoration is not due to him ; and it is not only in these books that he speaks after this manner, for he does the like in all his other writ ings." Of St. Hilary : " St. Hilary had not very clear notions concerning spiritual beings, for in the Fifth Canon of his Commentary upon St. Matthew, he says, that all creatures are corporeal, and that the souls which are in bodies are corpo real substances. He held also an intolerable error concerning the last judgment. I do not insist upon some smaller errors; as when in Canon 31 and 32 on St. Matthew, he excuses the sin of St.
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Peter ; when he says, in Canon 1 6, that the words of Jesus Christ, ' Get thee behind me, Satan,' were not addressed to this Apostle; upon Psalm 119> that the Virgin shall be purged by fire at the day of judgment ; in Canon 20, that Moses did not die, and that he shall come again at the Day of Judgment." Of Gregory Nyssen: " He is always abstruse, either by allegories or abstracted reason ings ; he mingles philosophy with divinity, and makes use of the principles of philosophers, both in his explications of mysteries and in his dis courses of morality : upon which account his works are more like the treatises of Plato and Aristotle, than those of other Christians." " It may be said also, that St. Gregory Nyssen, having his head full of the books and principles of Origen, could not always be so careful, but some of his errors would slip unawares into his reasonings, though he was not really of his opinion, and he rejected them at other times when he was more attentive." Of Epiphanius, Dupin says — " The style of St. Epiphanius is neither beautiful nor lofty ; on the contrary, it is plain, low, and mean* He had much reading and learning, but no faculty of discerning, nor exactness of judgment, He often uses reasons for refuting the heretics, which are false. He was very credulous, and not very accurate." And of Jerome : "In St. Jerome's Commentaries, there are also several opinions that
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savour of Jewish superstitions, or the too great credulity of the first Christians ; as when he as serts, in the Commentaries on the Prophets Daniel and Micah, that the world shall last but a thou sand years. He sometimes gives allegorical senses to things which are to be understood literally ; as when, in the Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, he says, that Jacob's wrestling with the angel is not to be understood of a corporeal and visible combat, but mystically of the invisible fight." " When he disputes with Helodius, he commends virginity to that excess, that it was thought he designed to condemn matrimony ; and he so exalts the dignity of priests in abating the pride of deacons, that he seems not to think them inferior to bishops."
Let us hear Erasmus also upon this topic. I quote from Jacobo Sadoleto, lib. 28. Erasmus says — " Tertullian, whilst he too sharply contends with threats against those who ascribe too much to matrimony, was carried into the other fit, con demning what Christ approved of, and exacting what Christ did not require, but only counselled. Jerome fights with so much ardour against those who exalted matrimony to the injury of virginity, that he could not have defended his cause against an unfavourable judge, if he had been deemed guilty of having treated marriage, and second mar riage, with too little respect. Augustine, fighting
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with all his energy against Pelagius, sometimes attributes less to free-will than the theologians who now reign in the schools think right." " If these things are to be wrested against him who some times errs, what shall we do to the same Hilary (besides so many other distinguished doctors of the Church), who, in so many places, seems to feel that Christ had a body which was not susceptible of pain, and that hunger, thirst, weariness, and other affections of this kind, were not natural in him, but pretended? For this he plainly wrote in expounding the 68th Psalm." Again : Erasmus writes, (26th book of Letters,) — " Jerome dif fered from Ambrose and Cyprian ; there was not a slight skirmishing between him and Augustine ; and who is there of the ancients from whom the more recent theologians do not differ in many places ? "
The corruptions of the writings of the fathers is a topic I must not pass over. Erasmus writes, in his Epistles, (In Sanct. Basilii librum de Spiritu Sancto,) " I. appeared to myself to have detected, in this work, what we behold with indignation to have been done in certain of the most celebrated and extolled writers, as in Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Jerome. You ask, What is this ? After I had gone through half of the work without weariness, the phraseology appeared to me to belong to an other parent, and to breathe a different genius ;
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sometimes the diction swelled out to the tragic style, and it subsided again into common discourse ; some times it appeared to me to have something flowing softly. . . . From these circumstances a suspicion entered my mind, that some student, in order to render the volume more copious, had interwoven some things, either grafts culled from other authors (for this subject has been accurately handled by many of the Greeks), or devised by himself; for some of these are erudite, but differing from Basil's style. . . . Moreover, it is a most wicked species of contamination to interweave one's own cloth with most distinguished purple of celebrated men ; or, to express myself more correctly, to corrupt their generous wine with one's own dead stuff; which has been done, with intolerable sacrilege, in the divine Jerome's Commentaries on the Psalms, so evidently that it cannot be denied." And again, quoting still from Erasmus, (In Hilarium Epist. lib. 28,) — "What is this temerity with other people's books, especially those of the ancients, whose memory is or ought to be sacred to us .... that every one, according to his fancy, should shave, expunge, add, take away, change, sub stitute ? " And once more, (In Athan. Epist. ad Serapionem de Spiritu Sancto,) — "We have given some fragments of this sort. For what purpose, you will say ? That it may hence appear with what impiety the Greek scribes have raged against the
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monuments of such men, in which even to change a syllable is sacrilege. And what has not the same temerity dared to do among the Latins, in substi tuting, mutilating, increasing, and contaminating the commentaries of the orthodox ? "
A multitude of works, it seems, have been falsely ascribed to Chrysostom. In the Benedictine edi tion of that father, torn. v. p. 672, (Paris, 1836,) in the admonition to the Homily on the Fifteenth Psalm, we read — " John Chrysostom was so highly esteemed by the Greeks, that his works and small treatises were sought with the greatest eagerness ; and whatever bore the name of Chrysostom was held as genuine by men not endowed with critical knowledge, such as were almost all those of the later ages. There were persons who rashly embel lished with the name of Chrysostom sermons and homilies written by themselves. Transcribers of books also, for the sake of gain, sold homilies patched together by themselves or others, with the name of Chrysostom in the title-page. Hence proceeded innumerable spurious works ; of which some immediately supply the evidences of spuri- ousness, others require a fuller investigation."
Doubts, also, are felt about Basil's works, as may be seen by the Benedictine Preface (Paris, 1721). "It remained that I should separate the true works of Basil from the false ones; which separation revealed a labour of the most extensive
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kind, since there are not a few of his writings that are called in question, but all of them. The learned, indeed, differ among themselves respecting the number of the homilies on * the six days' work' and the Psalms. These one -and -thirty Orations are not all ascribed to one and the same writer. The two books which we have on baptism are held to be doubtful by some persons. The book on true virginity is controverted. That most ample book on the sixteen first chapters of Isaiah is not exempt from all suspicion. The opinion of all persons is not one respecting the five books against Eunomius. There are those who have not been ashamed to place among the false and sup posititious the last fifteen chapters, and those the principal chapters, of the book on the Holy Spirit. The opinions of the ancients and more modern con cerning his ascetic writings do not agree. Hardly any thing certain can be defined respecting the liturgy. His epistles contain, as it were, a sort of seminary of quarrels and discords. For in what year, in what month, from whom to whom, re specting what subject, they were written, is daily, vehemently, and sharply disputed. All must per ceive, I think, how easy it is to err in this so great variety of things and opinions, as in a moonless night." Again, p. 48 : — " I have in a certain place admonished you, that that commentary on the first sixteen chapters of Isaiah, although it is
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held by almost all to be the genuine offspring of Basil, is not exempt from all suspicion : you will find, indeed, very few who deny it, if you compare them with those who affirm the commentary to be truly Basil's. For, among the latter, you may reckon Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, Marasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, &c. Nor is it wonderful if the more modern, after the example of the ancients, have embraced the same opinion. The most celebrated of these, Taliman, Ducas, Cambeficius, Natalis Alexander, Dupin, Tillemont, and Lequier, to whose opinion, unless most serious reasons hindered me, I should always be proud to accede. It is more easy to enumerate the patrons of the other opinion, since we find only three or four; John Drungar, Erasmus, Rivetus, Petavius. But I am so far, therefore, from ascribing that imperfect commentary to St. Basil, that I deem it to be most unworthy of him. I have perused and reperused the work, nor have I ever found any thing Basilian. Every thing has a foreign odour; whatever all the most erudite admire in the writings of Basil — perspicuity of speech, eloquence, a certain wonderful facility in interpreting Scripture, the selection of the best words, weighty opinions — of these not even a vestige exists in these commentaries."
Of the falsifications of the works of the fathers generally, we read in the same preface — "It is
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difficult to say how great diligence must be ap plied by him, who wishes certainly and safely to decide respecting the spuriousness or genuineness of any work ; for it is wonderful, since truth and falsehood so greatly differ, yet one very frequently so much resembles the other, that in distinguish ing between them, we can scarcely avoid error, unless we take great care." And, again : " Per haps there is no class of men, who have more injured good study, than those who have mixed up the true writings of the fathers with false ones. For how many evils have, both formerly and in the present day, sprung up from hence, nobody who is not altogether unexperienced in ecclesiastical matters, is ignorant ; doctrines are obscured, mo rals are polluted, history falters, tradition is dis turbed; and to express my meaning in a word, if once the genuine writings of the holy fathers are confounded with the adulterous ones, all things must necessarily be confounded together. The examples of what I have stated are too frequent, for it to be necessary for me to mention any of them. I will only call to mind the imprudence of the Apollinarists and the Eutychians, who, when they had promulgated their own for the sincere and true writings of the holy fathers, so infected the whole Church, that even until this present day, it has been impossible to close and cure this kind of wound. For, at the present day, so great
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is the disagreement among the erudite respecting the authorship of certain writers, that if any one adduces any evidence either of that great Atha- nasius, Bishop of Alexandria, or of Julius, the high Pontiff, or of Gregory, the wonder-worker, immediately you will hear some say that Athana- sius, Julius, Gregory, did not say these things, but Apollinarius, some of whose works were for merly deceitfully attributed to these great men, in order that the more simple might be led astray. But, to be now silent respecting the Apollinarists and Eutychians, I will generally observe, that innumerable inconveniences flowed from the same fountain."
So difficult, or rather impossible, is it, to as certain the true works of the fathers. When we do reach them, then, from the specimens and examples I have laid before you, I venture to assert, that every dispassionate judge must come to the conclusion, that they are not competent expounders of Holy Writ, but contradict one another, and propose comments so superstitious and fanatical, that, in some instances, we might as well go to Johanna Southcote, or to the wildest interpreters of the last or the present age.
I do not mean to deny, that there are some beautiful and scriptural, and truly Protestant state ments to be found in the fathers, when the good can be separated from the bad. Three or four extract?
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will illustrate my meaning ; and with them I will conclude this part of the subject.
Gregory Naziaiizen, Oratio 42. vii. — "But you contained walls, and tablets, and elegantly cut stones, and long circuitous passages ; and you were resplendent on every side with gold, and you scat tered it as water, and treasured it up as the sand ; being ignorant that faith in the open air is better than sumptuous impiety, and that a few gathered together in the name of the Lord are more in the estimation of God than many ten thousands who deny the godhead. Whether truly will you prefer all the Canaanites to one Abraham ; or the inha bitants of Sodom to one Lot ; or the Midianites to Moses — to those who were sojourners and foreigners ? Will you prefer to the three hundred who nobly drank with Gideon, the thousands who turned away ; or to those born in the house of Abraham, who were scarcely more in number than these, many kings, and the ten thousands of the army, whom, though they were few, they pursued and put to flight ? But how do you understand this passage — 'Although the number of the children of Israel were as the sand of the sea, a remnant should be saved ? ' And how the following — ' I have left to myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal?' Is it not, God is not well pleased with the many ? You reckon up the tens of thousands, but God reckons the saved ;
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you indeed [reckon] the innumerable dust, but I [reckon] the vessels of election. For nothing is so magnificent to God as pure language and a soul perfect in the doctrines of truth."
Basil. " But whether the bishops are ejected from their churches, let not this at all move you ; or whether any betrayers have proceeded from the clergy themselves, let not this weaken your faith in God. For they are not names which save us, but our purpose, and a true love towards Him who created us. Consider, that in the conspiracy against our Lord, the chief priests and scribes and elders prepared the deceit, but there were found a few among the people who truly received the word ; and that it is not the multitude which is saved, but the elect of God. Let not, therefore, the multitude of the people terrify you, who are carried about like the water of the sea by the winds ; for if ever one be saved, like Lot in Sodom, he ought to remain in a right judgment, having an immovable hope in Christ, because the Lord will not desert his saints."
Augustine to Jerome, torn. ii. p. 551. ( ' For I confess to your charity, that I have learned to ascribe only to the books of the Scriptures, which are now called canonical, such fear and honour as to believe that not one of their authors erred in any thing ; and if I should stumble at any thing in them which appears to be opposed to truth, I
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should not doubt, either that the manuscript was fallacious, or that the interpreter had not followed what was said, or that I had not at all understood it. But I read the others in such wise, that, how ever they may excel in sanctity and doctrine, I do not think a thing true because they have been of that opinion, but because they have been able to persuade me, either by those canonical authors, or by a probable reason which is not abhorrent from the truth. Nor do I think that you, O my bro ther, think at all otherwise ; I do not believe that you desire at all that your books should be read like those of the Prophets and Apostles, concerning whose writings it is wicked to doubt that they are exempt from all error. Far be this from your pious humility and your correct thoughts of yourself."
Jerome. (Letter to Pammachius and Oceanus on Origen's errors.) " For what folly it is, so to praise any one's doctrine, as to follow his blas phemy ! Even the blessed Cyprian uses Tertullian as his master, as his writings prove ; and although he is pleased with the understanding of that erudite and ardent man, he does not follow with him Montanus and Maximilla. Apollinarius wrote very strong books against Porphyry ; Eusebius ably com posed an ecclesiastical history : one of them intro duced a divided Christian system, the other was a most open defender of the impiety of Arius."
Jerome on Lactantius's heresy. " An apostle
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teaches, * reading all things, holding fast those things which are good.' Lactantius in his books, and especially in his Epistles to Demetrian, alto gether denies the substance of the Holy Spirit, and, with the Jewish error, says, that he is to be referred either to the Father or to the Son, and that the sanctificaticn of each person is shown under his name. Who can forbid me to read his books of Institutions, in which he wrote most forcibly against the Gentiles, because his former opinion is worthy of detestation ? "
Jerome. (Apology against Ruffinus.) "Foras- ir.uch as you are fickle, you have argued with wonderful acuteness in my praise and dispraise ; and [you hold] that you have as much right to speak favourably or unfavourably of me, as I had to censure Origen and Didymus, whom I formerly had praised. Learn, therefore, O most learned man, and the head of the Roman art of logic, that it is no fault to praise the same man in some things and to accuse him in others, but to praise and condemn the same thing. In Tertullian, we praise his genius, but we condemn his heresy ; in Origen we admire his knowledge of the Scrip tures, and yet we do not receive the fallacy of his doctrines; in Didymus, we acknowledge both his memory and his purity on the faith of the Trinity, but in other things, in which he wrongly trusted to Origen, we withdraw from him. For not the vices, but the virtues of masters are to be imitated."
LECTU11E VI.
THE NICENE CHUKCH.
MATT. XVIII. 17.
" Hear the Church."
I NOW proceed to bring before you the state of the Church in the Nicene age.
The importance of this subject will appear at once from the following fact. The Reformers — Luther, and Ridley, and Cranmer, and Knox, and all that followed them — took the Apostolic Church, as embodied in the apostolic writings, as the only model and the perfect standard of a visible church ; but the Oxford Tract writers, and those that follow them, hold that this is not the proper model of a Christian church, that the Reformers did wrong in this respect, that the true exemplar of a Church is that embodied in the first three or four centuries of the Christian era, and that those who wish to bring the Church of England up to the standard of perfection, should seek to make her approximate to the Church of Chrysostom,
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of Augustine, of Jerome, or, in other words, of the period preceding and immediately following the Council of Nice in 325. Now, I maintain, that in the Nicene Church there was more of open error, more of persecution, more of violence, more of disorder — its bishops being mailed barons rather than mitred ministers of the Gospel, and its temples scenes of outrage rather than sanctuaries of peace — than in the worst state of the Protestant Church, from the days of Luther to the present hour ; and that the Nicene Church, instead of presenting a model for our imitation, flames upon us as a beacon to warn us off the rocks and shoals on which its pilots made shipwreck. If you listen to Mr. Newman, Mr. Palmer, Dr. Pusey, or Dr. Hook, you would suppose that the Nicene Church — that is, the Church that existed about the year 325 — was a perfect millennium ; that it was an epoch of harmony, and beauty, and peace ; and that nothing is requisite for a jarring and discordant world, but to stereotype the Nicene Church, and fix it by Act of Parliament and sentence of Convocation in England for ever : I maintain, that the greatest calamity that could overtake our father-land, would be the expulsion of the Church embodied in the writings of the Apostles, and the introduction of the Church re presented in the writings and polity of the Nicene age. I will give you a few proofs and illustrations of my statement.
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I take, first of all, from Dupin's Ecclesiastical History, an account of Councils that met at this period. He states, that in the year 322, Alex ander, Bishop of Alexandria, held a council of nearly a hundred Egyptian bishops, who condemned Arius — the head of the Arian heresy. In the next year, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and the other bishops who protected Arius, held a council in Bithynia, wherein they declared Arius orthodox. In 324, Hosius held a council at Alexandria ; he did what he could to reconcile men's minds, and not being able to compass his designs, would decide nothing. In 325, the Council of Nice was held, and decided in favour of orthodoxy. In 335 the Council of Tyre was held, at which there were sixty eastern bishops ; Athanasius, the author of the Athanasiaii Creed, came with forty Egyptian bishops, but he was forced to appear as a criminal, and the synod pronounced against him a sentence of deposition. In 335 the Council of Jerusalem received Arius and his party, and were satisfied of his orthodoxy. In 338, Eusebius of Nicomedia, (who had a mind to usurp the see of Alexandria,) and the bishops of his party, being enemies to Paul because he was a defender of Athanasius, stirred up against him his priest Macedonius, who accused him of leading a life unbecoming the priesthood; and they pre sently assembled a synod at Constantinople, wherein they deposed him, and chose in his room Eusebius of Nicomedia. In 340, a council at Alexandria
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decided in favour of Atlianasius. In 341, a coun cil at Rome, under Pope Julius, acquitted Atha- nasius ; but the Eusebians, without waiting for this synod, assembled oftentimes at Antioch, where they ordained one Gregory to fill the see of Alex andria, and sent him to seize upon it by main force ; and Athanasius, understanding what they had done, retired to Rome. In 841-2, a council of ninety eastern bishops was held at Antioch, who declared that they were not followers of Arius, but restored him, as they found his doctrines ortho dox ; and they made a confession of faith, which omitted the statement that Christ was "consub- stantial" with the Father. In 341, another coun cil was held at Antioch, partly made up of the same bishops ; and they complained, that Pope Julius had taken into his communion Athanasius and Marcellus. In 345, came the Council of Antioch, which was orthodox. In 346, a council was held at Cologne against Euphrates ; of which the acts are forged. In 347, the Council of Sardica was attended by a hundred bishops from the west, and seventy-three from the east ; those of the east de clared they would not be present; unless St. Athan asius, Marcellus, and other bishops, who were condemned, were excluded from ecclesiastical communion ; and the western bishops refusing to accept of this condition, the council was divided, and the eastern bishops withdrew. The eastern bishops then assembled at Philippopolis, and wrote
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a letter, which they dated from Sardica, addressed to all the bishops of the world, crying out against St. Athanasius and Marcellus of Ancyra, and making them pass for wicked rogues. In 344, the First Council of Sirmium was held against the heretic Photinus : this council was orthodox. So also was the Second Council of Sirmium, held in 357, and consisting of eastern bishops. In 353, came the Council of Aries, consisting of western bishops, who were constrained by Yalens, as well as the Pope's legates, to subscribe the condemnation of St. Athanasius ; only a very few continued obstinate, and were banished. In 355, the Council of Milan met, consisting of nearly three hundred western bishops, but few of them resisted the solicitations of the Emperor Valens to condemn Athanasius. In 356, Saturninus, Bishop of Aries, assembled a council at Beziers, and used all his endeavours to make it receive the followers of Arius ; St. Hilary opposed him stoutly, for which he and Rhodanius, Bishop of Toulouse, were banished. After he was forced away, the bishops of this council, being devoted to the in terests of Saturninus, did whatever he desired ; but the other bishops of France would not communi cate with him. In 357, the Second Council of Sirmium was held, and in this year the second creed of Sirmium was made in that city by Pota- mius. Bishop of Lisbon, in the presence of Valens,
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Ursacius, Germanius, and some other bishops : this creed was Arian, and in it they rejected the word consubstantial, and declared that the Father was greater than the Son. In 358, the Council of Antioch, under Eudoxius, Bishop of Antioch, con demned the term consubstantial. In the same year the Council of Ancyra condemned the heresy of Hosius ; yet, at the end of their anathemas against his heretical dogmas, there is an anathema against those who say that the Father and Son are consubstantial or equal. In 359, the Third Council of Sirmium assembled, and appears to have been orthodox. In the same year, at the Council of Ariminum, three hundred of the four hundred bishops who attended at first, were orthodox, but were induced to subscribe a semi-Arian confession. At the Council of Seleucia, still in the same year, there were a hundred and sixty bishops, of whom forty were Arians, and a hundred and five semi- Arians. In 360, in the Council of Constantinople, consisting of fifty bishops, the Creed of Ariminum was adopted, which rejected the term substance, as applied to Christ. In 361, the Synod of Antioch declared, that the Son of God was not at all like his Father in substance, and that he was created of nothing. The next six councils appear to have been orthodox ; they were those of Alexandria, in 362; of Italy, in 362; of Egypt, in 363; of Antioch, in the same year ; and of Lampsacus, in
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365. In 366, the Council of Sinyedanum consisted of Arian bishops. The bishops who were called semi-Arians, assembled many councils after the Synod of Lampsacus — one at Smyrna, composed of the bishops of Asia, one in the province of Pam- phylia, another in Isauria, another in Lycia ; and the result seems to have been a reconciliation with the Church, though their letters are not extant. In 368, a council was held through the Emperor Valens : the term consubstantial was rejected. Next came the Council of Rome under Damasus ; when a synodical letter was written against the Arians. And in 381, the Council of Constantinople decreed orthodox doctrine.
The result of all this will be seen to be, that in the fourth century nineteen councils of the Church were orthodox, and nineteen heretical ; in one nothing was settled on account of divisions, and in two, Athanasius (the orthodox) was condemned by imperial constraint. At Ariminum, though there were three hundred professedly orthodox to one hundred Arian members, the council was con strained to adopt a heterodox creed ; which sub sequently, through fear of banishment, was sub scribed by almost all the bishops, both in the east and west, until afterwards the same power which caused Arianism to triumph, adopted orthodoxy. Now, is this a model for the Christian Church in the nineteenth century ? Is this a millennial pic-
L3
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ture which we ought to transfer to our own days ? I affirm, after all the discussions which have taken place in the Protestant Church between Churchmen and Dissenters, and notwithstanding occasional expressions of bitterness, which were to be deprecated and ought to have been retracted, that all has been gentleness and quiet, and might be called peace itself, in comparison with the dis orders and violence of antagonist councils in the Nicene age. Of this, however, we shall see a little more as we proceed.
That the faith and morals of the Church in the Nicene age were at a very low ebb, is confirmed by the testimony of unexceptionable witnesses. Cyril of Jerusalem writes, (Cat. 15, p. 209, Oxon. 1703), "Formerly, indeed, there were open heretics, but now the Church is filled with con cealed heretics." Augustine (Enarr. in 41 Ps. Ben. edit. Par. 1691.) " When we see those who are the strength of the Church, yielding for the most part to offences, does not the body of Christ say, An enemy is breaking my bones?" Gregory Na- zianzen (Orat. Sec. sect. 82, Ben. ed. Par. 1778) says, " Nor do the people behave in one way, and the priest in another ; but rather, that saying seems to be wholly fulfilled, which was formerly uttered in reproach, The priest is become as the people." In his 43rd Oration, the same ancient father speaks thus of the clergy : " But now there is a danger
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lest the order which is the holiest of all, should become the most ridiculous of all. For authority is not more obtained by virtue, than by malice and wickedness ; and the chairs belong, not to the most worthy, but to the most powerful." Euse- bius (Lib. 8, Hist. c. L) recites, that "on account of the too great laxity of discipline, men fell into effeminacy and slothfulness, envying and abusing one another, and only not making war upon each other with arms and spears in the place of words ; the rulers opposing rulers, and the people disputing with the people." Basil says, (Sophron. Epist. 172) " Because iniquity is multiplied, the love of many has waxed cold. For now nothing is so rare as to meet with a spiritual brother." Chysostom (Advers. Oppugn. Vit. Mon. lib. iii. Ben. edit. Par. 1839,) gives the most appalling description of the wide-spread depravity of the Greek Church, and truly remarks that it was wonderful that they had not experienced the fate of Sodom. We can not pollute eyes or ears with his narrative. Those, too, who should have checked these abominations, he describes as being too callous and corrupt to interpose ; and he builds his defence of the so litary life of the recluses in the mountains, upon the impossibility of a young man's living like a Christian in the midst of the general de pravity. " The tribunals," he says, " and the laws are of no use ; nor are instructors, fathers
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or teachers ; some are corrupted by money, others only think of being paid what is due to them," &c. ; and after describing the horrible wickedness which prevailed, he says, " If any have avoided these snares, they with difficulty avoid sharing the bad reputation, through those who reproach them with these things — first, because they are very few, and for this reason may easily be hidden in the multitude of the wicked; secondly, because those wicked and detestable demons, when they cannot avenge themselves upon those who despise them in any other way, seek to injure them in that manner. . . . Wherefore, I have heard many say that they wondered that another shower of fire had not come down at this day, and that our city (Constantinople) had not suffered the fate of Sodom." Chrysostom complains of the general misconduct of the people, even during Divine Service. (Chrys. in Epist. 1 ad Cor. Horn. 36.) "If any one would attempt or wishes to corrupt a woman, no place seems fitter to such a one than the church ; and if any thing is to be bought or sold, the church seems to be fitter for it than the market-place."
The lamentable character of the Nicene age is confessed in many of the writings of the fathers. Thus Gregory Nazianzen (Oratio ii. 80) speaks as follows : — " We observe the sins of others, not that we may grieve, but that we may reproach ; not that
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we may heal, but that we may strike afresh, and that the wounds of our neighbours may be an excuse for our own sins. And the things which we praise to-day we condemn to-morrow. For it is not manners, but enmity or friendship, which is the characteristic of good and evil. And the things which are deemed guilty by others are admired by us ; and all things are readily pardoned to the impious, so magnanimous are we with respect to evil. But all things are become like the beginning, when as yet order was not, nor the good arrange ment and form which now exist ; but when every thing, confused and anomalous, required the hand of power that should give them form. Or, if you will, as in a night engagement, and with the obscure rays of the moon, not distinguishing the faces of enemies or friends ; or as in a sea-fight and tempest, and in gusts of wind and in the boil ing current, and the dashing of the waves and col lision of ships, and the pushing of boat-hooks, and the voices of the commanders, and the groans of the falling, are uttering faint sounds, and perplex ed, and having an opportunity for the display of bravery (alas ! for the calamity), they fall upon each other, and are destroyed by each other. Nor do the people behave thus, and the priest differently; but now that appears clearly to be fulfilled which was formerly said in the curse — ' The priest has become like the people.' " And again (Orat. 21,
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" For in truth the pastors have been foolish, according to what is written, ' And many pastors have laid waste my vineyard, they have brought disgrace upon my desired portion.' I mean the Church of God, which was collected with many labours and slaughters, both before and after Christ, and with the great sufferings themselves of God for us. For, with the exception of a few, and those such as were overlooked on account of their insignificance, or who resisted through their virtue, who it was needful should be left as a seed and root to Israel, that he should flourish again and revive through the influences of the Spirit, all yielded to the times ; in this differing from each, that some did it sooner and some later, and that some were the champions and leaders of impiety, and others rank second, either shaken by fear, or led captive by profit, or ensnared by flattery, or circumvented by ignorance, which is the least of all."
To the same effect writes Basil (de Spiritu Sancto, c. xxx.): — " But than what sea-storm is not this tempest of the churches more fierce ; in which every boundary of the fathers has been moved, and every foundation and fortification of doctrines has been unsettled, all things are agitated and overthrown, having been raised upon a rotten foundation ? Falling upon each other, we are over thrown by each other ; and if your enemy does not
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first strike you, your friend wounds you ; and if he should fall, being stricken, your fellow-soldier rises against you. "We are in fellowship so far as to hate our adversaries in common ; but when our enemies have disappeared, we immediately regard each other as enemies. On this account, who can enumerate the number of shipwrecks, either of those who sink from the attack of enemies, or of those who go down from the hidden snares of their companions, or of others who perish from the un- skilfulness of their leaders ; since the Churches, with the men themselves, are destroyed by heretical snares, as it were by hidden rocks, and others of the enemies of the Lord's passion who have taken the helm, have made shipwreck as to their faith ? A certain harsh clamour of those who are in collision, through contention, and a confused shouting, and an indistinct sound from the never-silent uproar of these about the true doctrine of righteousness, by enlarging or contracting it, has now filled almost the whole Church. For some are carried into Judaism, on account of the confusion of the per sons ; and others to Gentilism, on account of the contraction of the natures ; neither the divinely- inspired Scriptures are sufficient to mediate be tween them, nor the apostolical traditions to decide their respective differences." And again (Epist. 92. 2. An. 372.):— " For neither is one Church endangered, nor are two or three fallen into this
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dreadful storm. For the evil of this heresy feeds almost from the boundaries of Illyricum unto Thebais ; and being deeply rooted by many who meanwhile have cultivated sedulously impiety, now it has sprouted forth those destructive fruits. For the doctrines of piety have been overthrown ; the laws of the Churches have been confounded ; the ambition of those who fear not the Lord has leaped into the highest stations ; and the first seat hence forth is openly proposed as the reward of impiety ; so that he who has most shockingly blasphemed is preferred as the people's bishop. Priestly gravity has departed ; those who should feed the flock of the Lord with knowledge are wanting ; the ambi tious always consuming the money of the poor on their own enjoyment, or in the distribution of gifts. The accuracy of the canons is obscured ; there is great liberty of sinning; for those who have attained power through human favour, make a return for the grace of their favour in granting to those who sin all things that are pleasurable to them. The just judgment has perished ; every one walks according to the desire of his own heart ; wickedness is boundless; the people reject all advice ; their rulers have no freedom of speech. On account of these things, unbelievers laugh, the weak in faith fluctuate. Faith is doubtful, igno rance overspreads souls, on account of those who craftily pervert the word, imitating the truth. The
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mouths of the pious are silent ; every blasphemous tongue is loosened; sacred things are profaned; the healthy among the people fly from the houses of prayer as the schools of impiety, and in the deserts raise their hands with groans and tears to the Lord in heaven. . . . This is the most pitiable of all, that that part which appears to be healthy is divided in itself; and similar misfortunes appa rently surround us with those which happened at Jerusalem at Vespasian's siege. For they were pressed at once with external war, and were con sumed at the same time with the internal sedition of their own countrymen. But with us, in addition to the open war of the heretics, that also which has arisen among those who appear to be orthodox has brought the Churches to the extremity of weakness." And again (Letter 164. An. 374): — " Scarcely any part of the world has escaped the conflagration of heresy."
Respecting the heresies of this period, we read in the Preface to the Council of Nice, translated from Arabian manuscripts, by Abrahamo Exchel- lenti- — " Now such dissensions and discords had arisen among the faithful, that the perverse here tics were more numerous than the orthodox, (ut plures essent perversi hseretici quam orthodoxi,) and the adversaries daily increased, whilst the faithful diminished, so that they almost resembled corn in a most ample and fertile field of darnel.
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Nor did these abstain from persecuting the Church of God; but rather were worse than heretics, for in some places they altered the Scriptures, and some places they added to them ; in some places they expunged those passages which were least favourable to their doctrines, and substituted for the apostolical traditions and rejected decretals, other things of their own invention." Such things as these are not perpetrated in the nineteenth century: and therefore the transference of the state of the Nicene Church to the present age, would surely be a calamity and a curse, and not a blessing.
You may be aware also that when you reason with Roman Catholics, or Tractarians, they cite what they call the long list of sects, by which Pro testant Christianity is disfigured; they tell you of Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, and Inde pendents, and Wesleyans, and Huntingtonians, and Southcotians, and Ranters, and Jumpers, and a long list of others, which they conjure up, and for half of which Protestantism is not responsible. But for every one of the sects that have existed in the nineteenth century, I will produce two rampant in the Nicene age. I will just run over a list of a few of them. There were — 1. The Sabbatians; a sect so called from keeping the Jewish, in preference to the Christian Sabbath. 2. Simonites; from Simon Magus. 3. Mareionists; who held three
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gods. 4. Sophists ; who held the transmigration of souls into beasts. 5. Manichaeans ; who held two principles, one good, and one evil. 6. Pauli- anists ; who held one god, in substance and per son, with three names. 7. Photinians ; who held, that the three Divine Persons were compounded, and, by their composition, united in one : if any one laughed, he was turned out. 8. Barbari; who were given to all sorts of iniquity. 9. Phocalites ; who held all things to be unclean, and denied the Resurrection and Judgment to come. 10. Disan- ites ; who held two gods, one good, one bad, and that neither good nor bad works were in a man's power ; they opposed the Resurrection and Last Judgment. 11. Arians. 12. Eunomians; who were semi- Arians. 13. Macedonians; who denied the Deity of the Holy Spirit. 14. Montanists ; who gave a divine honour to the Virgin, and held many other errors. 15. Timotheists; who only rejected the rich. 16. Novatians, or Cathari ; who maintained that no repentance was accepted, after sin committed, whether great or small. And, besides these sects, there were many others, of seventy of whom Clemens has made mention in his Second Epistle. Such was the unity of the Nicene age.
The description of some of the Councils held at this period is on record, and must not be forgotten here. Of the Councils of Seleucia and Constant!-
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nople, Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxi. 22.) says— " The Council which was first held at Seleucia, a city of the holy and beautiful virgin Hecla, and afterwards at this great city, being the work of this power, caused them to be celebrated for the vilest things, who hitherto were distinguished by the most honourable • whether we are to call that council the Tower of Babel, which rightly divided the tongues, (would that theirs had been divided, for there was a symphony in evil !) or whether we are to call it the Council of Caiaphas, in which Christ was condemned, or by whatever other name it is to be called, which overturned and confounded all things." The Council of Constantinople, and the state of the Church in general, are also fully described in the Benedictine Preface to the Works of Gregory Nazianzen, in a passage which I pro ceed to quote. " Let us now relate who and what were the bishops whom Gregory disquiets in his verses, and what was the face of the whole Church. Theodosius the Great, having been puri fied in the sacred font by Ascholius, Bishop of Thessalonica, in the year 380, issued his golden edict to the people of the city of Constantinople, in which he enacted, that the heretics who should not embrace the faith which Pope Damasus and Peter Bishop of Alexandria followed, should be judged and punished. Hence, then, were many bishops, of whom Gregory Nazianzen says, ' As
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to what regards the faith, they were prepared for either part, not observing the laws of God, but of the times.' Such bishops, who being middle men between the Arians and Catholics, set themselves to sale \_se venditabant] to either party according to the times, being received by the Church with the honour and rank of the episcopal order and dignity which they had obtained, now so aug mented the number of wicked bishops, that some times even in councils they prevailed over the good bishops. Hence those just complaints of Gregory, who could not restrain his zeal and in dignation. Baronius, An. 381, speaking of the First General Council of Constantinople, says — * There were at hand many of those, who for merly in time of Valens, through the favour of the Arians, the orthodox being expelled, had accepted the vacant sees ; for these, yielding to the times, under a Catholic emperor, presented themselves equally as the defenders of the Ca tholic Faith You understand, I think, of
what sort, with the exception of a few, the bishops of the Eastern Church were then wont to be ; how they were wont to have their faith changeable according to the fashion of the times, and only accommodated to private advantage ; of which thing not only Gregory, but Basil in his writings is an abundant witness, as has been shown before in its place.' Baronius might have added
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many other witnesses, chiefly Chrysostom and Jerome. " There were many also of the ortho dox bishops labouring under serious vices, of which the least was ignorance (which is itself in deed an evil), who, scarcely purged by baptism of their former sins, brought no virtues to the epi scopal office. Concerning these Gregory thus speaks : ' I am ashamed indeed to say in what manner our affairs are provided, but I will sing notwithstanding. Whereas we have been ordained and constituted the teachers of virtue, we are the workshop of all evil. A ruler is found in a mo ment, who has never governed any thing before, and who comes as a novice to the dignity. Divine things are now like the cast of dice Yester day discharging the office of an orator, you held law and right to be venal ; but now you are sud denly made a judge and a Daniel No one
can change his garment as easily as you change
your morals Yesterday you were a Simon
Magus ; to-day, a Simon Peter Alas ! too
great celerity ! Alas ! instead of a little fox,
thou hast come forth a lion.' "
With regard to the Council of Ephesus, hear what Dupin says, in his Ecclesiastical History : — " There are several objections made against the nature of this council, and the management of it. Some say it ought to be accounted no better than a tumul tuous and rash assembly, where all things were
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carried by passion and noise, and not for an oecu menical assembly The proceedings, in my
judgment, seem to prove more clearly, that St. Cyril and the bishops of his party were hurried by passion ; that they greatly aimed at the con demnation of Nestorius, and were afraid of no thing more than of the coming of the eastern bishops, for fear they should not be able to do what they pleased. For in their first session they cited Nestorius twice, read the testimonies of the fathers, St. Cyril's letters, and the twelve chap ters, Nestorius's writings; and all gave their judg ments. Was ever any business concluded with so much haste? The least matter of this nature
required a whole session The sentence which
they caused to be delivered to Nestorius was made up of such words as discover the passion they
were in: 'To Nestorius, another Judas.'
Was it not enough to condemn and depose him, but they insult over him with abusive words? Lastly, this council was so far from bringing peace, that it brought nothing but trouble, divi sions, and scandals, into the Church of Christ. So that that may be said of this council with a great deal more truth, which Gregory Nazianzen said of the councils of his time, — ' That he never saw an assembly of bishops that had a good and happy conclusion ; that they alway increased the distem per rather than cured it ; that the obstinate con-
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tests, and the ambition of overcoming and domi neering, which ordinarily reigns among them, are prejudicial ; and ordinarily those who are con cerned to judge others are moved thereto by ill will, rather than by a design to restrain the faults of others.' This seems to agree with the Coun cil of Ephesus, better than any other assembly of bishops."
I find, in Dupin, the following account of the discord after the Council of Ephesus : — " The con clusion of the council did not at all conduce to the peace of the Church; but, on the contrary, the minds of men appeared more discontented than ever, and the eastern bishops, who had the worst of it, sought to revenge themselves. In their return they wrote to Theodotus, bishop of Ancyra, against the letters of the bishops of the council ; at Tarsus they confirmed what they had done, and deposed, not only Cyril and Memnon, but also six of the deputies of the Council of Ephesus; Juvenales, bishop of Jerusalem; Flavian, bishop of Philippi ; Ferinus, bishop of Caesarea ; Theo dotus, bishop of Ancyra ; Acacius, bishop of Meletene ; and Enoptius, bishop of Ptolemais. Afterwards, having come into the East, they met again at Antioch, confirmed what they had done a second time, and from thence wrote to the emperor. . . . But as the party of Cyril was ill- used in the East, so those of the Nestorian party
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of the eastern bishops met no better usage in Asia, Cappadocia, and Thracia. Maximian, chosen bishop of Constantinople, who began already to exercise his jurisdiction over the churches of those dioceses, would have himself acknowledged by all the bishops, and deprived those who would not communicate with him. Ferinus, bishop of Caesarea, came to Tyana, and ordained a bishop in the place of Eutherius ; but he, getting some help, forced him whom Ferinus had ordained to renounce his ordination. They also attempted to depose Doro- theus, metropolitan of Martianople, and ordain Saturninus in his place. They also strove to deprive Halladus, bishop of Tarsus. Finally, all places were full of deposed and exiled bishops, and the Church was in terrible trouble and con fusion."
Again : I take from Fleuri's Ecclesiastical His tory, liv. 27, an account of the false Council of Ephesus. " The bishops embrace the feet of Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, supplicating him not to depose Flavian, bishop of Constantinople. He caused the proconsul to enter with a great multitude of soldiers, armed with swords, sticks, and chains. The bishops, constrained by force, for the most part signed a blank paper; Flavian was banished, but died a few days after, of the kicks and other ill treatment which he had received,
chiefly from Barsymas and his monks The
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one hundred and thirty bishops seemed to have been opposed, but not of a very meek spirit. . . . When they came to the last session, in the place when Eusebius of Doylee pressed Eutyches to confess two natures after the incarnation, and that Jesus Christ is consubstantial with us according to the flesh, the Council of Ephesus cried out — i Take away and burn Eusebius ; let him be burned alive ; let him be cut in two ; as he has divided, let him be divided.' " And again : " In his place [Flavian's], and apparently after his death, they ordained Anatolius, deacon of Alexandria, bishop of Constantinople. Thus there was a schism in the Church ; the bishops of Egypt, of Thrace, and Palestine, followed Dioscorus ; these of Pontus and Asia followed those of the communion of Flavian; and this schism lasted till the death of the Emperor Theodosius."
I take the following letter of Athanasius and the Egyptian bishops, detailing Arian outrages, from Manse's Councils, ii. p. 1164, An. 336.— " We do not doubt that the news has reached you, of how many and what things we daily suffer from the heretics, and principally from the Arians, since we are persecuted by them to such a degree, that we are even tired of our existence. For, at the present time, when they suddenly and unexpect edly rushed in upon us and could not seize us, — who, according to the precept of the Lord, who
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says, " If they persecute you in one city, fly unto another," had avoided them by flying lest the people should suffer, — they have laid waste every thing. For they have so devastated our property, that they neither have left us books, or clerical vestments, or any other utensils. Burning, more over, our books, even to the very least, on account of the faithful representation of truth, and not leaving an iota of them, in contempt of ourselves and all Christians ; they even burned the Nicene Synod, with which the clergy and the people were principally imbued." And the Synodical Letter of the Council of Alexandria, held in the year 339, is to the like effect : " We think that the things which they have dared to perpetrate at Alexandria cannot be unknown to you, since their report is spread throughout all lands. Swords were drawn against the sacred virgins and the brethren : whips were applied to those bodies which were precious to God: the feet of those who meditated chastity and all good works were lamed by the violence of stripes. Hence the crimes committed against them ; the Gentile people stripped them, beat them, treated them contume- liously, threatened them with the altars and sacri fices of idols, &c. Among these things the virgins [were seen] to fly, the Gentiles to insult the Church, bishops walking about in the very houses where these things were perpetrated, to please
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whom [in quorum gratiam~\ wretched virgins were compelled to meet drawn swords, all kinds of dangers, and every insult and injury. And they suffered these things, at the very time of the fast, from the guests of the bishops [c&pulonibus episcoporum], with whom they feasted within [cum quibus convivium intus agitabanf]" At the Council of Sardica also, it appears from Hilary's account of the deposition of the bishops (Fragm. Op. Hist. 11. c. 4.), that "some showed the marks of swords, blows, and scars ; others com plained, that they had been tortured by them by hunger ; to these were added the stripping of virgins, the burning of churches and prisons for the ministers of God." The Arians retorted the same accusations upon the orthodox ; and the seceding bishops protested — " By force, by slaugh ter, by wars, having ravaged the churches of the Alexandrians, and this by battles and Gentile slaughters, an immense multitude of all sorts of wicked and abandoned men, coming from Con stantinople and Alexandria, had assembled at Sardica ; men .guilty of homicides, blood, slaugh ter, thefts, spoiling, and all sorts of wicked and sacrilegious crimes, who had broken the altars, set fire to the churches, &c., and had atrociously slain the wisest elders, deacons, and priests of God."
To take from a more modern writer an account of outrages at Constantinople, Milman, in his His-
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tory of Christianity (vol. iii. p. 12.), writes thus :— " At the death of Eusebius, the Athanasian party revived the claims of Paul, whom they asserted to have been canonically elected, and unjustly de prived of the see ; the Arians supported Macae- donius. The dispute spread from the church into the streets, from the clergy to the populace ; blood was shed ; the whole city was in arms, on one part or the other. The Emperor was at Antioch ; he commanded Hermogenes, who was appointed to the command of the cavalry in Thrace, to pass through Constantinople, and expel the intruder Paul. Hermogenes, at the head of his soldiery, advanced to force Paul from the church ; the populace arose ; the soldiers were repelled. The general took refuge in a house, which was in stantly set on fire. The mangled body of Hermo genes was dragged through the street, and at length cast into the sea."
To refer, for a moment, to similar outrages at Rome, we are told, in Platina's Life of Damasus — " But Damasus, when he was elected to assume the Pontificate, had the Deacon Uricinus for a rival in the Church, when many were killed on both sides in the church itself, since the matter was not only discussed by votes, but by force of arms."
Then, as to persecution, I find it stated in Manse's Councils, vol. iii. p. 527. — " But the
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emperor [Theodosius] provided, by the most severe laws, that whoever dissented from the Nicene and Constantinople Symbol [of faith], should be deprived of their bishoprics, and not only should not be promoted by others, but should be driven from the Church, from the walls of the cities, and from the company of men."
I ask you whether it would be a blessing to our fatherland, that the scenes and circumstances, the laws and practices of the Nicene Church, should be revived as models, and enjoined for observ ance and imitation in the Protestant Church in this nineteenth century.
First, it is clear that no system of ecclesiastical polity is perfect. You have seen how, in that fige, bishops fought with bishops, and decided their claims, not by texts and arguments, but by hard blows.
Secondly, presbyteries, synods, and general as semblies, seem to have exhibited no better cha racteristics. The one anathematized the other j and that which was most packed by artifice, and frequently by force, decided what was orthodox and what was error.
Thirdly, popular election has proved itself tno better than either. The people frequently chose bishops stained with crime, and fought for bishops who preached heterodox doctrine.
Fourthly, it is altogether a mistaken controversy,
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whether the Voluntary System, or the Established Church System, was the true source of all the mis chiefs that prevailed in the Church of the first five centuries. The fact is, that when there was the Voluntary System, errors the most grievous, and principles the most deleterious prevailed ; and when the Established Church System began, and the wing of the State was thrown over the Nicene Church, those errors and corruptions seem only to have germinated and shot forth, and spread their pernicious and devastating influence more widely.
We are driven from all systems of ecclesiastical polity, from all prescriptions of patronage or popular election, simply " to the law and to the testimony," It alone is the standard of truth ; its testimony alone is our protection against error. Whatever is according to this Book, is truth ; but if all the bishops, and fathers, and doctors of the Universal Church were to assert something not according to it, their consentaneous asseverations would weigh but as a feather against one single text taken from the Oracles of God.
Let me now, in contrast to the picture I have had to place before you, endeavour briefly to sketch the Apostolic Church of Christ, as she is described in his word.
Her first grand characteristic is Christ's presence with her : " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world," I know the Roman
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Catholic misquotes that text : " Lo, I am with you alway," — he infers immediately, therefore the Church is infallible. He takes care to omit the former part of the verse — " Teaching them to ob serve all things whatsoever I have commanded you." As long as the Church teaches the people to observe whatsoever Christ has commanded, so long Christ is with her ; but the moment she ceases so to teach, she forfeits the promise. — A second characteristic is, Christ is its head; and just as my head transmits to my little finger all its nervous vitality and vigour, so Christ, as the Head of the Church, transmits to the meanest member of it all his spiritual vitality and strength. — Again, the Church of Christ is described as the object of his love : " He loved us, and gave himself for us ;" " Unto Him that loved us." She is described as redeemed by Christ : " Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ." She is de scribed as chosen in Christ: " chosen in Him before the foundation of the world." She is by Him provided with ministers : " He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evan gelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the minis try." She is described as one — " one fold under one Shepherd;" "We, being many, are one body;" In Christ Jesus there is neither Greek nor Jew,
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circumcision nor uncircumcision, but all are one in Christ ;" — outward diversity, but real and sub stantial unity. And lastly, she is to extend over the whole earth : the " stone cut out without hands " is to " become a great mountain and fill the whole earth ; " " all nations shall serve him ; " " the mountain of the Lord's house shall be esta blished on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it." Or, as it is beautifully expressed in a few lines—
" Arabia's desert ranger To Him shall bow the knee, And Ethiopian stranger His glory come and see ; With anthems of devotion Ships from the isles shall greet) And pour the wealth of ocean In tribute at his feet.
"Kings shall fall down before him. And gold and incense bring ; All nations shall adore him, His praise all people sing. For he shall have dominion O'er river, sea, and shore ; Far as the eagle's pinion Or dove's light wing can soar."
Let me notice some of the epithets bestowed upon the Church. She is called the Lamb's wife ; and what does this imply ? The moment that a
M3
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woman is married, she loses her own name, and assumes her husband's ; she loses her legal respon sibility, and he becomes responsible for all her debts, contracted either before or subsequent to her marriage. It is so with Christ the hus band, and the Church his spouse. We submerge our name, which is Marah (bitterness), in Christ's name, which is Benoni (beautiful) ; we lose our name, which is Sin, and clothed in the righteous ness of Christ, his name becomes ours, so that, as is said in Jeremiah, "this is the name wherewith SHE shall be called, The Lord our righteousness." And — bright and beautiful thought ! — he becomes responsible for all our debts : not a sin I have com mitted remains unexpiated by his blood, not a stain upon my soul uncovered by his righteousness ; so that, sheltered in the glorious robe, I can stand before the throne of God and of the Lamb, and feel that in him there is no blemish nor imperfec tion in my title, — that his title is my indefeas ible title also. — The Church of Christ is de scribed in Scripture as his body ; clothed, pro tected and nourished by him. It is described also as the city of God : " We have a strong city ; " (f glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God." A city is not an emanation from the earth — as a tree, or a plant or a flower — but an artificial thing, constructed by man's skill, and executed by man's power ; and the Church of Christ is not an
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earth-born thing, like a flower, or a plant, or an earthly production, destined to crumble into its original elements of earth; but she is a super- celestial thing, in plan, and principle, and pattern, let down from heaven, and destined to survive the ruin and desolation of the world, and, like Hope described by the poet —
" It shall o'er the ruin smile,
And light its torch at Nature's funeral pile."
" Glorious things," indeed, are spoken of this city; its walls are not like walls of stone, nor even like the ships, " the wooden walls of Eng land," but " salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks." It is described as the "vine yard of the Lord," as the "pillar of truth," as the " heritage of God," as " the fold of Christ," as " the vision of peace," as " the daughter of the King."
The Church of Christ is described in its mem bers, under various beautiful similitudes. Every believer in that Church is described by one most expressive symbol — the apple of God's eye ; and in Scripture, remember, there are no such things as hyperboles ; on the contrary, all lan guage sinks beneath the weight and magnificence of the truth which the Holy Spirit of God would convey. Instead of deducting, as the mere world ling says, fifty per cent, from its statements, you
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are to recollect, that when God has exhausted all the treasures of earthly metaphor, they never over-express, but always under-express, the great truths of the Gospel. Now God says, he will " keep us as the apple of his eye." If a mote in the sun-beam, or a single particle of straw borne upon the light wings of the wind, were approach ing my eye, the eyelid, by an instinctive movement without any volition of mine, instantly closes, and protects the eye-ball ; and just so do the great attributes of the everlasting God close around each believer; and you must dethrone the Eternal, and destroy the Omnipotent, and outwit the Omniscient, before you can touch a hair of the head of one redeemed child of the Most High, or injure the spirit of one whose trust is in the Lamb of God who was slain for us*
Another representation of the Christian is the olive tree— the emblem of fruitfulness and of peace ; a branch of which, in the mouth of the dove, is everywhere the emblem of peace. An other symbol of the believer is the palm tree ; which, the more it is cut and crushed, buds and shoots the more vigorously. Another is the branch of the vine, — not tied to it, but part and parcel of the stem ; and just as the sap from the parent trunk permeates the branches and makes them bear fruit, so does the Spirit of Christ ani-
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mate all believers, and make them bear " the peaceable fruit of righteousness." Believers, again, are compared to the cedars of Lebanon, to denote stability, for the cedar outlives many a hurri cane ; to denote fragrance, the well-known pro perty of its wood ; to denote perpetuity, for it is also the most durable. Believers are termed jewels : " they shall be mine, saith God, in that day when I make up my jewels." A jewel is a rough unseemly lump, when found in its parent matrix ; but it is extracted from the earth, under goes a process of purification, is subjected to the polisher, and then reflects the rays of the sun in the heavens. So with the believer : at first " of the earth, earthy," and undistinguishable from others, but selected by the wisdom, and chosen by the good pleasure of God, he is subjected to the discipline — it may be of sickness, it may be of affliction, but all under the Spirit of God — and at last is made to reflect the beams, not of a sun whose fountain shall be dried up, but of that sun whose beams are healing, and whose rays are destined to illumine all creation. We have a mountain in Scotland, called Cairngorm — lite rally, the blue mountain — on which are found valuable rock crystals ; and the way in which the Highlanders gather the stones, called Cairngorms, is this : when there is a sun-burst after a violent
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shower, they go and look along the whole brow of the mountain, for certain sparkling spots ; the shower having washed away the loose earth, the sun-beams light upon and are reflected from the precious stones, and thus they are detected. It is just G od's way of bringing forth his own — his "jewels." Affliction lays them bare ; but while it washes from them all that is of the earth, it brings them in contact with the Sun of Righteous ness, and prepares them to reflect the glories of redemption in time, and in eternity to be set, as gems he has selected and made brilliant, in his amaranthine and fadeless crown.
One single text, which describes the whole Church of Christ, is fatal, in my judgment, to all Tractarian and all Romish pretensions : " Where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them." It is not the multitude of the assembly ; Christ meets his people in the " upper room," as well as amid the thousands that crowd together here : the criterion is — " in my Name." Whether you meet in a garret or in a cathedral, in a chapel or in a kirk, if you meet in the name of Jesus, you are a sec tion of the Church of Christ, and may expect his blessing. Not that I discountenance places set apart for sacred purposes ; not that I am opposed to regularity in a duly constituted church ; not
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that I disapprove of an order of ministers, for I hold this to be God's appointment; but this, I maintain, is the essential of a church — " two or three gathered together in Christ's name." If they are looking to him as a Priest to plead for them, as a Prophet to teach them, as a King to rule them, there is substantially, and in the sight of God, a true portion of the Church of the living God.
In this text, also, behold the true safety of the Church. It is not the fathers in her bosom, it is not the Nicene lineaments transferred to her ; it is Christ in the midst of her. If all the laws that establish the Church of England, or the Church of Scotland, were abolished to-morrow, these churches would not fall, for Christ is in the midst of them ; nay, if the days of persecution, and proscription, and bloodshed, were to return, the lofty hills and the tangled forests would become Zion's defence, and the steep rocks her palisadoes, because the living God is her strength and her ally. And in this, too, behold the true unity of the Church : wherever souls rally round Christ as their Prophet, Priest, and King, there they are one. They may differ in circumstantials, they may be divided in non-essentials ; but in the sight of God, and by the standard of the sanctuary, they are truly one. And lastly, in this, see the true
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glory of the Church. It is not the eloquence that speaks from the pulpit ; it is not the coronets that sparkle in the pew ; it is not the riches that are poured into the plate ; it is not the embroidery that is heaped upon her shrines ; nor is it the gold that is piled upon her altars. It is CHRIST in the midst, that is the ground of her unity, the element of her endurance, her glory in time, and her por tion in eternity.
LECTURE VII.
THE EULE OF FAITH— THE BIBLE ALONE, IN OPPO SITION TO TRADITION AND THE CHURCH.
ISAIAH VIII. 20.
To the law and to the testimony : if they speak not according to this wordy it is because there is no light in them.
PAUSE for one moment, to consider the highly favoured epoch in which these words were spoken. This standard of appeal was proposed, not in an age when there was no immediate communication with the mind of God, and no direct intimations of his will from on high, but in a dispensation when pro phets spake as Inspiration directed them, and mes sengers came from the upper sanctuary, armed, not with the sentiments and expositions of infal lible men, but with the immediate prescriptions of Infinite Wisdom. In such an age, and under such circumstances, the people of Israel are com manded to test even a prophet's message, by its analogy with that which was written ; and to bring his dreams, his visions, and his announcements,
258 The Rule of Faith.
not to the Church, nor to tradition, nor to the priest, but "to the law and to the testimony:" " if they speak not according to this word," what ever be their pretensions, how persuasive soever their eloquence, " it is because there is no light in them."
In the Rom an -Catholic Church, the rule of faith — that is, the standard by which all doctrines are to be tested, and all opinions determined — is not the Bible alone, but the " Bible and tra dition; and both these, propounded and ex pounded by what is called the Church." Among the Tractarians, or Romanizing Protestants, (if the name Protestant may at all be applied to them,) the Rule of Faith is the Bible, and the universal voice of Catholic antiquity; and both set before you and taught on the authority of the Church. So that, though there is a difference in words, there is substantially no difference in prin ciple, between the rule of faith laid down in the canons of the Council of Trent, and that laid down by the learned divines of Oxford; and it will be obvious, that in discussing the merits of the one, I am really canvassing those of the other also ; and that whatever tends to over throw the foundations of the former, must o, necessity go to sap and undermine the pretensions of the latter.
On the other hand, the Protestant Rule of
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Faith is — not as Protestants frequently express it, and as Roman Catholics generally urge it, the Bible explained by every man's private judgment, but — THE BIBLE ALONE, without note or com ment, or any thing extrinsic to itself. This is the only standard of appeal which a Protestant can recognise ; and as long as he keeps within the circumference of the Bible, he is on impregnable ground, but the instant that he goes beyond the Bible, and allows that the opinion of Scott or Henry, or the comments of the Anglican or the Scottish or any other church, form part and par cel of the Rule of Faith, he has left " the mu nition of rocks," where no power can dislodge him, and he has placed himself upon Roman- Catholic ground, and must, if consistent, terminate his downward course in the full reception of Roman- Catholic dogmas.
And whether, on the one side, the term used be the voice of antiquity, or the opinion of the Ca tholic Church, or tradition, or the consent of the fathers, they all substantially resolve themselves into a continuous tradition, circulated and transmitted from age to age until the present moment.
Now, it is a remarkable fact, that from the very commencement of Scripture to its close, we are never taught that there is any value in oral tradi tion, but we are incessantly warned to beware of it, Now, this is an a priori presumption, that it
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is not to be trusted — at least to the extent to which the Tractarians and the Roman Catholics rely on it. We are continually warned in Scripture, to be on our guard against the traditions of men; we are not directed to revere and pay equal de ference to Scripture and unwritten traditions.
Oral tradition, let me here observe, pre-supposes a number of things which never have existed, do not now exist, and are never likely to exist. It pre-supposes perfect memories, to retain what is entrusted to them ; perfect faithfulness, to trans mit, without subtraction or addition, what has been received; and a perfect and pure moral cha racter, not to bias or distort in the least the sacred truths which are to be conveyed to others. There has beeji no age in the whole history of man, since the Fall, in which a perfect memory has existed ; no age in which men have been so immaculate, untainted, and undefiled, that we could believe without doubt that they would transmit uncontami- nated to others the sacred truths which unveiled their sins and condemned them ; and we know, that during whole centuries, the corruption of the Church has been so entire, as recorded in the Annals of Baronius, and in the History of Dupin, that so far from being fit and suitable conductors of sacred truths, its priests were the most unsuit able and unfit that could possibly be selected. And if we must believe that water cannot be trans-
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mitted pure and untainted through a defiled and corrupted channel, we must equally believe that the pure and living streams, which come originally from the ocean fulness of God's truth, cannot (even if committed to them,) have been conveyed pure and untainted through imperfect memories, damaged consciences, immoral conduct, and men whom Baronius, one of themselves, pronounces to be worthy of the name of Apostates, but not in the least of that of Apostolicals.
There is in Scripture a very early record of the distorting nature and tendency of tradition ; and at the same time an exemplification of the cor rective power of the word of God. In the Gospel of St. John, at the close of that most beautiful and interesting, because inspired biography, we read, that " Peter, seeing John, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do ? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? Follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad (a tradition) among the brethren, that that disciple should not die." Our Lord made no promise, he merely stated an hypothesis: tradition, with its natural tendency to magnify, distort, and misstate, altered the hypothetical statement into a positive prediction. But mark the corrective power of "the law and the testimony," by which tradition was nipped in its bud ; for it is beautifully added — " Yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die ;
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but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?"
A strong presumption against tradition being any part of the channel of truth to us, is found in the fact, that there is no appointment of an order of men for the express purpose of transmitting tradition. Under the ancient Levitical economy, an order of men was instituted for continuing the morning and evening and yearly sacrifices ; and under the New-Testament economy, there is an order of men whose function it is to " preach the Gospel to every creature," and to minister the sacraments. But there is not the least intimation of an order or class of men to whom were to be entrusted certain isoteric and secret communica tions, which they were to transmit to their suc cessors, and so on to the present day, as the necessary lights that are to illuminate the sacred page, and amid the blaze of which we should see and comprehend all truth.
It has, too, been found to be the invariable result in practice, that if we admit tradition to a level with Scripture, the balance will not be long maintained, but by and bye Scripture will come to be depressed, and tradition to be exalted. In fact, it is a law in the spiritual economy, that the moment you admit a human element into con nexion with that which is divine, the divine element shrivels or dies by the contact, and the human
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comes to be alone. Here especially it seems to be true, that "no man can serve two masters." You cannot bow to the Scriptures on the right hand, and recognise tradition on the left as equal ; for by and bye you will find, you must serve the one and dismiss the other ; and it needs no seer's or prophet's eye to tell which will be retained and which dismissed. Tradition is full of all that chimes in with man's fallen and corrupt propen sities ; it stands ever ready to minister apologies for sins, and occasions for the indulgence of his appetites : Scripture, on the contrary, rebukes our sins in the tones of a judge, and proclaims our duties in the accents of an authoritative master ; and it is clear, that the natural heart will prefer that which tells me smooth things, and will shrink from that which speaks what it calls evil concern ing me. In the long run, the result will assuredly be, that Scripture, which is God's word, shall be trampled under foot, and tradition, which is man's word (as in the Church of Rome), made practically and substantially the only and conclusive rule of faith.
In order now to give you some specimens of the mind of God on the subject of tradition, I will read to you a few texts. Ezekiel xx. 18, 19: " Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile your selves with their idols : I am the Lord your God ;
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walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them." That is to say, Do not follow the fathers in their devious courses, guided by the flickering taper of tradition ; but come afresh " to the law and to the testimony," just as if a previous generation had never existed, and take thence the tone of your character and the direction of your career. Matthew xv. 1, 2: " Then came to Jesus Scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples trans gress the tradition of the elders ? " For at the close of the Jewish economy, tradition, by its necessary tendency, had come to be all; and Scripture, being uncongenial to man's depraved heart, had come to be depressed. This was a purely Roman-Catholic question ; and the reply of our Lord was a purely Protestant reply — " Why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition ? " Mark vii. 5 — 7 : " The Pharisees and Scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands ? He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you, hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me ; howbeit, in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the command ments of men;" — another very express and decisive rebuke of deferring to tradition, and departing
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from the precepts and doctrines of God. Again : 1 Peter i. 18: "Ye were not redeemed with cor ruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, bat with the precious blood of Christ." "We associate this beautiful announcement with redemption from sin — and we do well ; but one great result of the atoning blood of the Son of God was redemption, not merely from the con demnation of sin, but from the bondage of the traditions and commandments of men: and that man, in one respect, sins against the redeeming blood of the Son of God, who elevates the tra ditions and commandments of men to a level with the precepts and doctrines of God, just as that man sins against the cleansing blood of Christ, who continues in the practice of sin because grace hath abounded.
In the next place, the Scriptures invariably de clare and urge their own sufficiency as a rule of faith. There can therefore be no necessity for any traditions. If the sun, as he shines in the firma ment, is sufficient to direct the footsteps of the traveller, it is altogether unnecessary to introduce the glow-worm, or to light up the evening tapers at noonday ; and if Scripture assert itself to be perfectly sufficient as a rule of faith to men, and to ministers too, it is clear that nothing beside, oral or written, is necessary to " guide us into all
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truth." I quote then, first, from 2 Tim. iii. 15: " The Holy Scriptures are abfe to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus ;" and if this be so, we Protestants must be right, because the Bible is sufficient " to make us wise unto salvation," while Roman Catholics may be wrong (to go no farther) in mixing up alien elements with that which is sufficient. In the next verse, — "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." And what is the result ? " That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." What necessity, then, can there be for tradition ? Dr. Wiseman, I know, asserts, that " man of God " means not a private Christian, but a priest, a minister of the Gospel ; and I think he is right, and that his is the true interpretation of this text. But his deduction, that therefore the laity should not read the Scriptures, is wrong. Now I contend, that if the Scriptures are adequate to make a minister " perfect," which is the greater result, they are, a fortiori, adequate to make a lay man perfect, who has no need of such extensive erudition ; and therefore, taking the construction which the Roman- Catholic bishop puts upon the text, it proves the Scripture sufficient to make perfect the greater, and, consequently, the less also. Again : Psalm xix. 7, " The law of the Lord
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is perfect, converting the soul," — the great object we are all anxious to attain : " the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple ;" and if adequate to this blessed result, I cannot see what need we have of tradition also. John xvii. 3, " This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent;" and John xx. 31, "These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing, ye might have life through his name :"and if this could be said of the Gospel of St. John alone, it must be still more true, that the whole New Testament is able to accomplish these results. Romans xv. 4, "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through pa tience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope." I contend, that these texts fairly and clearly make out the self-asserted sufficiency of Scripture to make the Christian wise to everlasting life.
I will, in the next place, endeavour to prove to you by a few texts, that the Scriptures alone are decisive — the standard of appeal in all questions respecting truth and error. The very first proof I adduce is the text ; for if the statements of a prophet, commissioned from the throne of God, were to be tested and tried by " the law and the testimony," much more must those of an ordinary
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minister of the Gospel, who claims no supernal inspiration, and no personal infallibility. Joshua xxiii. 6, " Be ye therefore very courageous, to keep and do all that is written in the Book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom, to the right hand or to the left ;" they were to bring all religious questions and perplexities, neither to tradition on the right nor to the Church on the left, but only to the statutes and the laws of their God. Mark xii. 24, " Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God ?" — so that the cause of error arid wrong judgment is ignorance of the Scriptures. Luke xvi. 29, " They have Moses and the Prophets ; let them hear them." The rich man had said, ' I have brothers and sisters upon earth ; and if some spirit were to go from the realms of glory, fra grant with the perfumes and robed with the light of the blessed land, and were to speak with angel's tongue of its harmonies, its joys, its happiness, and its deep peace, my brothers would be so impressed that they would believe and live; or if a spirit were to rise from the depths of hell, and to tell forth, in the hear ing of mortality, the secrets of its awful prison- house, they would surely hear and believe ;' but our Lord replies, that this would be of no service (as far as instruction and direction are involved) to those who ought to appeal to the
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word of God, and that if granted, it would fail to convince and convert them ; and if this was true of the Old Testament, much more surely is it true of the Old and New combined. Acts xvii. 1 1 , " These were more noble than those in Thes- salonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so ; they recog nised only one standard of appeal, and to it they brought even an Apostle's preaching. If a Roman Catholic were to go home and test his priest's preaching by the Douay Bible, he would be told that he was becoming a heretic, or had already ceased to be a Catholic ; but the Bereans, ir> stead of being told that they would become more deeply rooted Jews or idolaters, are commended as " more noble " in doing so. But if you mark the whole conduct of our Lord, you will find him constantly appealing to the word of God for an answer to every question ; for instead of saying, ' My words are law, and I tell you this is truth, and that is error,' his answer ever was, " How readest thou ?" " What saith the Scriptures ?" " Have ye not read?'' "Search the Scriptures." And even after he had risen from the dead, instead of saying, ' I will lay before you the secrets of heaven, and divulge new mysteries,' " beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." When
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Satan tempted him in the wilderness, (and Satan knew who he was, for he has never lapsed into heresy, he has never denied the deity of our blessed Lord, he " believes and trembles/') he was not thrust aside by the arm of Omnipotence, or " I say," or blasted with the lightning's flash of penetrating Omniscience ; he was repelled with a simple — " It is written — it is written." Words cannot express the honour that the Lord of Glory poured upon the Sacred Volume throughout all his pilgrimage of tears ; to this standard he ever ap pealed, and to this tribunal he submitted all his teachings.
In the next place, I assert, that it is the people's duty and privilege to read the Scriptures. The fourth rule of the Index of the Council of Trent says, that " forasmuch as the reading of the Scrip tures in the vulgar tongue " (the language of the country in which they are circulated,) "has been productive of more evil than good, it is expedient that they be not translated into the vulgate, or read or possessed by any one, without a written license from the inquisitor or the bishop of the diocese." That is the rule now binding in the Church of Rome ; and in the celebrated bull Unigenitus, containing one hundred and one pro positions extracted from the writings of Quesnel, which are therein denounced as heterodox and heretical, it is said in one of these proposi-
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tions, " The reading of the Holy Scriptures is for all men," and " to forbid Christians the reading of the Holy Scriptures is to interdict the use of light to the sons of light ;" again, " It is necessary and useful at all times and in every place, and for all sorts of people, to study and know the spirit, piety, and mysteries of the Holy Scriptures." On these the following judgment is pronounced in the bull Unigenitus by Clement ; and this bull, by the ad mission of Doyle and Murray, Irish Roman-Catholic Bishops, is obligatory in Ireland : " We declare, and condemn, and reprobate these as false, captious, ill- sounding, offensive to pious ears ; impious, blas phemous, suspected of heresy and savouring of heresy (suspectas de hseresi ac haeresim ipsam sa- pientes)." And only recently, in Belgium, the Bishop of Bruges issued an episcopal or circular letter, condemning the circulation of the Scrip tures in the language of Belgium,* among the poor people.
* Nothing, let me here remark in passing, gave me greater delight, in wandering through that country last summer, than to find a colporteur, employed by the Bible Society, walking round amid the cafes and stalls, pressing on the people the value of the Bible ; he came to me, and supposing me a Roman Catholic, began to speak to me of the New Testa ment, which he wished me to purchase ; I did purchase it, but explained to him, that that Bible was in my heart before I took it from his hand, and I wished him God-speed in his truly sublime work.
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The text most frequently quoted by Roman Catholics, as a proof that the people ought not to read the Scriptures, is in 2 Peter iii. 16. "As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things ; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction." Now, in the first place, the " things hard to be understood" are not said to be in " the epistles " generally, or the Scriptures, but among those things which the apostle Paul had written respecting the coming of the Lord ; it is not in the feminine gender *v afc, but the neuter fv ols : ' among which subjects are some hard to be understood.' In the next place, the Roman Catholic acts inconsistently and absurdly in con cluding that because some "wrest these things to their own destruction," therefore we are to take the Scriptures from the people. The incen diary abuses fire, but we are not therefore to forego its warmth: fire consumed the Tower, and the Exchange, and the Houses of Parliament, and destroys much valuable property, but that is the careless neglect, and not the legitimate use of it ; but it never can be seriously alleged, that the abuse of the blessings of Providence is a fail- argument for rejecting the use of them altogether. But this text, instead of proving the refusal of the Scriptures to the laity to be a scriptural act, proves
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the very reverse ; for how could the people have "wrested the Scriptures to their own destruction," in the days of Paul and Peter, if they had not been in the habit of reading them ? and if they read them in the apostolic age, I cannot see why we are not to read them now. But after this admission of abuse, what is the prescription the Apostle proposes ? Does he say, " Cast them aside, do not read them any more, put your judgment in the hands of the priest, and believe nothing beyond what he says ? " No ; he virtually counsels, Read the Scriptures more, and you will " wrest them " less : " but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." It is igno rance of Scripture that leads to the perversion of it. It is not therefore proved from this Scripture that they are to be the property of the priest, and not the privilege of the people also.*
Our blessed Lord's express commandment is, — " Search the Scriptures." I recollect the use which an Irish Scripture reader made of this beautiful injunction. He was reading the Scrip tures in a cabin to some poor Roman Catholics, who were hearing with delight of " the wonderful works of God," when the priest of the district came in, and asked him, in a most dictatorial tone
* We of course condemn " wresting " the Scriptures, and never give them to be thus treated, but to be read prayer fully and humbly.
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— " How dare you read the Scriptures to any of my flock ? " " Please your reverence," said the man, with the readiness for which an Irishman is always distinguished, " I have got a search war rant to do it." "Produce it," said the priest; " I am sure it cannot be from the hishop, or from his Holiness the Pope." " No," said the Scripture reader, " it is from God, and here it is — John v. 39 : ' Search the Scriptures.' "
Let us see how God commanded his ancient people to keep the Scriptures continually before them. Deuteronomy vi. 7, " These words, which I command this day, shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up ; and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." Isaiah xxxiv. 16, " Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read." Luke xi. 28, " Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it." 2 Peter i. 19, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed." I find that the king on his throne, and amidst his council, is to read the Scriptures: Deuteronomy xvii. 18, "It shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom,
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that the copy of this law shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life." I find, that the commander of an army is not exempted from the duty of reading the Scriptures ; for it was said to Joshua (i. 8) — " This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night." A prime minister, with all his toils and cares, is not to neglect the Scriptures, — and probably, if prime ministers of all parties studied God's word as much as the mere rules and laws of human expe diency, they might rule and govern more justly and successfully. We read (Acts viii. 28), " that a man of Ethiopia, of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure," travelling in his chariot, "read Esaias the prophet." And this is the attribute of true nobility, as we have seen in the case of the Bereans ; it is not a crown that makes a king, nor a coronet that makes a noble, nor a cassock or a surplice that consecrates a priest. True royalty reposes in being kings and priests unto God ; true nobility, in searching and treasur ing up a knowledge of God's word ; and a true ministry, whatever be its shape, in the faithful utterance of God's truth. So again, 2 Timothy iii. xv. " From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures." St. .Tames addresses his Epistle, not to the clergy only, but to the Twelve Tribes which
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are scattered abroad." St. Peter wrote, not to the ministers only, but to " the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia;" St. John, to "fathers," " young men," and " children," and he addressed an Epistle " to the elect lady and her children." In Colossians iv. 16, also, we find it said, "When this epistle is read amongst you, cause that it be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans, and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea."
These texts go triumphantly to prove, that it is our duty and our privilege to read the Scrip tures. Permission to read the Scriptures, as Rome speaks, is insult. How dares that Church to talk of " permission " to read the Scriptures ! " Permit " me to enjoy the rays of the sun in the firmament ! " Permit " me to breathe the atmo sphere of heaven! "Permit" me to drink from earth's unsullied and exhaustless fountains ! The very word is wrong-doing to man, treason and blasphemy against God. This Book is an epistle from my Father to me, an exile in a distant land ; and the very fact, that it is a letter addressed to me from that Father whom I love, and in whose bosom I have reposed my hope, my happiness, my soul, is warrant enough to me for treasuring it up with all the care and the affection of a son, reading it when I lie down, and studying it when I rise up.
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I now proceed to a part of the subject which Roman Catholics make a great deal of. Having listened to all these passages of Scripture, and unable to vindicate their false faith, they turn upon us and say — " Ah ! you forget that you are indebted to us for the Bible ; and if we have been the guardians of the Bible in every age, and have transmitted it to you, how can you dare to say that we are not the wtrue Church, and thereby not the only authorized interpreters of it ? "
Now, if the Church of Rome has been the transmitter of the Bible to us, we praise God, who made so treacherous a body the instrument of conveying so sacred a deposit. But when she alleges that the supposed fact, that she gave us the Scriptures, is a ground why we should bow to her interpretation of them, then I answer, The Jews transmitted the Old Testament to our Lord and his Apostles, but this was not admitted as a reason for regarding the Jews as just and authoritative interpreters of the Scripture ; their interpretation was that Christ should be crucified. And further, we deny that the Church of Rome alone trans mitted the Scriptures to us. We have no objec tion to admit, that she, with other contempo raneous churches, preserved and handed down copies of them ; but if she says, ' You shall not have them from my hand, unless you will take my interpretation of them,' I answer, * Then I will
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appeal to the Greek Church for them, or to the old Saxon Church, or to the Syriac Church, or to any contemporaneous church that will give me the Scriptures without so fatal a restriction. Suppose that a water company in one neighbourhood sent their agent to me, and said, ' We will supply your house with water from our fountain, but only on condition that you use the conduit pipes we have laid down, which, it is of no use to conceal from you, have a slight coating of arsenic ; and also that you employ our buckets, which, it would be unfair to disguise, have acquired a deleterious taint; and unless you consent to this, we will not supply you with water at all ;' — my answer would be — ( Then, as there are half-a-dozen other water companies in London, I will go to one of them, that will give me water without any admixture or taint.' Even so, if the Church of Rome will not supply me with the living waters which come from the Oracles of God, except I make use of her cor rupted conduit pipes and buckets, then I answer, I will go to one of those churches which will give me life's untainted streams first-hand and pure, from their glorious and ever-flowing fountain, and without the admixture of the deleterious elements Rome has so largely infused.
' But,' says the Church of Rome, when silenced upon this point, ' are you aware that certain books of the Bible have been lost, and therefore, that
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you have been merely beating the air, in attempt ing to demonstrate that the Bible is sufficient as a rule of faith ?' What ! I exclaim ; certain books lost, and you incessantly telling us you have been the watcher over the Bible in every age ! What a sleepy guardian, to allow some books to dis appear, and with matchless effrontery to boast of being the keeper of the Bible, and of our being indebted to you for the precious deposit ! If a book be lost, who is to blame ? Surely, in trying to assail our fortress, you are taking stones from your own fabric.
It is not true, however, that any books of the Bible have been lost ; and in this respect I cast no blame upon the Church of Rome. When I ask what books have been lost, she answers, that in the Old Testament we read of " the book of Jasher," and " the book of the wars of the Lord." These, she says, must have been inspired books now lost. I reply, There is no evidence what ever that those were inspired books. To say that the allusion to a book in the Bible proves it to be one of the inspired books, is to prove too much ; for the Apostle Paul quotes from Aretas, a Greek poet, and from Epimenides, another Greek writer ; and if, because Moses refers to the book of Jasher, that book is therefore inspired, then because Paul refers to Aretas and Epime nides, those Greek authors are also therefore
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inspired. The fact that an inspired penman al ludes to extraneous and contemporaneous works, is no evidence whatever that he held them as inspired. There is not the slightest proof, or approximation to proof, that one single inspired book has been lost.
f But,' says the Church of Rome, ' compare our Bible with your Protestant Bible, and you will find that there are certain books in ours which are not in yours ; the books of Maccabees, the books of Esdras, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, and various others, are all contained in the Douay Bible, but are wanting in the Protestant.' There is unquestion ably a difference here, and a very marked one ; the books of the Apocrypha are not recognised by any Protestant church as inspired, whereas by an express canon of the Council of Trent they are declared to be as inspired as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. I will tell you the reason : the apochryphal books are the only books that have ever had, right or wrong, the name of Scripture, which contain the least " shadow of a shade" of argument for the peculiar heresies of the Church of Rome ; and she has, there fore, a deep interest in the maintenance of their claims to inspiration ; and hence, her recent doctors and councils have wielded their most powerful arguments in defence of them. But it may be very easily shown that they are not inspired. In the
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first place, they were not written in Hebrew, as are the other books of the Old Testament, but in Greek. In the second place, they were never once quoted by our blessed Lord or his Apostles. Thirdly, the Old-Testament Scriptures were committed to the Jews, as their legitimate guardians ; "to them were committed the Oracles of God," and our Lord accused them of " making void the word of God by their traditions," and of neglecting the Scripture, but never of omitting any book really inspired. If they had omitted the Apocryphal Books (and they never did receive them into the sacred canon,) while these were really inspired, unquestionably our Lord would have charged them with this deadly crime. Fourthly, the Apocrypha contains doctrines totally destructive of morality. For instance, in the Second Book of Maccabees (xiv. 42.) we read thus — " Now as the multitude sought to rush into his house and break open the door, and to set fire to it, when he was ready to be taken, he struck himself with the sword, choosing to die nobly, rather than to fall into the hands of the wicked, and to suffer abuses unbecoming his noble birth." In this, we ob serve, there is a distinct eulogium upon suicide; it is declared, that the man who rushed unbidden and unsent into the presence of his God "died nobly." To such morality as this, we find no parallel or counterpart in the rest of the Sacred
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Volume. And in the same Second Book of Macca bees, we read that "it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins." In other portions of the Apocrypha, especially in the book of Tobias (which has been received by the Romish Church as inspired), it is written, that " to depart from injustice is to offer a propitiatory sacrifice for injustice, and is the obtaining of pardon for sins." These, and other doctrines that might be quoted from the Apocrypha, show distinctly that these books are not inspired, nor identified with the Sacred Volume. And further, we have decisive evidence that the Apocrypha is not part of the Word of God, from the simple fact, that the writers of the Apocrypha disclaim for themselves all pretensions to inspiration whatever. For in stance, at the end of the Second Book of Macca bees, which is received by the Church of Rome as part of the Sacred Scriptures, it is stated — " So these things being by Nicanor, &c., I also will here make an end of my narrative, which, if I have done well, it is what I desired ; but if not so perfectly, it must be pardoned me." Can you conceive of an inspired penman begging pardon for the mistakes of his narrative? We find no parallel apology in the rest of Sacred Writ ; and this very closing statement of the writer of the Books of Maccabees, would be sufficient to dis-
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prove all claim or pretence to inspiration on the part of the writer.
Perhaps, to a Roman Catholic, the most decisive evidence of all upon this subject, is the voice of the fathers ; and though the fathers are hardly unani-: mous in the interpretation of the plainest passages of Scripture, yet, strange to say, in the rejection of the Apocryphal Books, they all nearly agree, Pope Gregory the Great, also, who lived in the sixth century, admitted the Apocryphal Books tc be uninspired; Pope Gregory the XVI., who lives in the nineteenth century, declares them to be inspired : — so much en passant for the unity oi the Roman- Catholic Church. But to refer for a moment to the fathers. Origen, who lived in the year 200, gives a catalogue of the books of Scrip ture, but does not include one of the Apocrypha. Eusebius, speaking of Melito's Catalogue, rejects the Apocrypha. Athanasius, who lived in the year 340, rejects the whole of the Apocrypha, except one book, which he thinks may be inspired, called the Book of Baruch. Hilary, who lived in the year 354, rejects all the Apocrypha. Epipha- nius, who lived in the year 368, rejects it all. The fathers in the Council of Laodicea, A. D. 367, reject all the Apocrypha. Gregory of Nazianzen, who lived in 370, rejects all. Amphilochius, who lived in 370, also rejects all. Jerome, who lived in 322, rejects it all. Now, as a Roman Catholic
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is bound to interpret according to the unanimous consent of the fathers, let him take their unani mity in this instance, where it does seem to exist, and declare that infallibility has proved itself sig nally fallible, and unity its concord truly discord ant, in proclaiming the Apocryphal Books to be inspired.
But, driven from this point, and unable to shew that any part of the word of God has been lost, the Roman Catholic turns upon us again, and says — ' You cannot prove the Bible to be the Bible at all, unless by the Church.' I remember, in the course of a discussion with a Roman Catholic, after I had replied to his objections, he said to me, " What book is that in your hand, with black morocco binding and a silver clasp?" " The Bible," I answered. He said, " I deny it." I bade him look at it, but still he said it was not the Bible. I felt, that as he was accustomed to believe flour and water to be flesh and blood every Sunday, and therefore was deceived once a week, I must not be surprised if he believed my Bible to be a novel, or one of the fathers. But he said, " I deny that this volume is the Bible. I call upon you to demonstrate it to be the Bible : we Catho lics alone are able to prove the Bible." " In deed," I said, "and pray how do you prove it?" " By the Church." " But how do you prove the Church ?" His answer, after some hesitation,
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was, " By the Bible." That, you see, is reasoning in a circle ; and thus, by a play upon words, some credulous persons are led to believe that you can not prove the Bible to be God's word, unless you admit the assumptions and claims of the Roman-Catholic Church.
You are always driven by a Roman Catholic to this point ; and hence every Protestant ought to have the evidences of Christianity in an epitome, so that he can give an idea of the mode in which he proves the Bible to be God's Word ; and I did prove it on that occasion, I believe, in such a way that no jury in England would refuse to give in a verdict of " proved." Of this proof I would give a brief synopsis.
First of all, I would appeal to miracles. We have historical evidence, that miracles were wrought at the first preaching of the Gospel. But what is a miracle ? It is just the superscrip tion of Heaven, struck upon the sacred page — the seal, and (if you will allow the expression,) the crest of God impressed upon this document, and stamping it His, and therefore divine. This alone furnishes irresistible evidence, that this book has for its all-pervading element the inspiration, as it bears burning upon its brow the shechinah, of God.
My second proof is prophecy. I can select a thousand prophecies of the Old-Testament Scrip-
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tures, and show their complete and indisputable fulfilment; and from this I must infer that the men who predicted events so remote and so un likely, were inspired. I said to my antagonist, on the occasion I have just referred to, " I appeal, for one proof of the prescience of the sacred writers, to the Second of Thessalonians, where the man of sin was described eighteen centuries ago : that description, and the embodiment of it in the existing Church of Rome, are perfectly parallel, the one answering the other ( as face an swers to face,' insomuch that he who gave the pic ture must have foreseen the reality in after ages." I take the patriarchal bud, and find it unfolding itself in the blossom of the Gospel; I take the ancient symbols and types, and find them all merging and melting into their substance, Christ. Let me recal the scenes and awful transactions of memorable Calvary ; let me look at the witnesses of that solemn hour. I see gathered round the cross the hoary patriarchs of far back generations, the venerable prophets and seers of a distant day ; I behold types and symbols become animate and vocal, coalescing and concentrating their majestic testimony, and uttering forth the inspiration they embosomed in the words of John, " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world."
You will find another branch of this argument
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effectively brought out, in Keith's Fulfilment of Prophecy. Tyre from its ruins, Sodom from its ashes, Rome in her apostacy, Jerusalem in her degradation, the Arab in his tent, the Jew upon our streets, living and lasting witnesses, proclaim that this book has God for its author, truth for its matter, as it has immortality and glory for its issues. Let me suppose, for a moment, that a number of persons in dif ferent ages and places had been engaged in making various parts of a marble statue ; sup pose a person in Petersburgh made a finger, a second in Rome a hand, a third in Edinburgh an ear, a fourth in Athens the body, and so on till the whole was completed, but all without communication with one another, and in different ages as in different lands. Suppose, that when all the fragments were brought together, they formed that magnificent statue, called the Apollo Belvedere ; would you not say, that some super intending statuary must have guided and given an impulse to every chissel ; that some beau ideal, some great archetype must have been before them, after the form of which they constantly worked ? in other words, that they composed the parts, not as their own fancy prescribed, but as the presiding power directed ? This is fact in reference to the Scriptures, Let us take the portrait of our blessed Lord. Isaiah describes his sorrows,
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Malachi his triumphs ; the dying Patriarch pro claims his empire, and the sweet Psalmist of Israel the extension of his kingdom ; one pro phet gives one feature, and another gives ano ther ; and looking at the parts in detail, irrespec tive of the original, and comparing one with ano ther, you would say that they are so contradictory, that they can never belong to the same being. At last Calvary lifts its awful head — the Son of God appears upon the cross — what prophets said, is compared with what Christ is ; and lo ! all the parts delineated by the pens of prophets in distant and dif ferent centuries, and under different circumstances, apparently contradictory, come to be put together, and they constitute " the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person." By this alone it is proved that the prophets " wrote as they were moved and guided by the Holy Spirit." The next matter I adduce to prove that the Scriptures are divine, consists of experimental evidence. In order to get at it, I would bid you come with me to some sequestered glen amid the hills and valleys of Scotland, — I will take you to the patriarchal occupant of a lonely cabin ; be hold the grey-headed man, amid intermingling smiles and tears, bending, morning, noon, and night, over one book — " the big ha' Bible." Let us ask him, t How do you know that that book called the Bible is the book of God ? You never read the
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writings of a Paley, the Analogy of a Butler ; you never studied the Credibility of a Lardner, you never followed the eloquent demonstrations of a Chalmers ; how came you to believe it ?' ' Come to believe it ? ' would the peasant say ; ' I have felt it in my heart and conscience to be the Book of God ; it >has taught me the truths I never knew before, it has given me a peace the world could not give ; it has calmed my beating heart, it has staunched my bleeding wounds, when the world was all bitterness and Marah. Not the Book of God ! I am as convinced of it, as that I am here a living, breathing man.' That is the experimental evidence.
Let me briefly show you, in one illustration, the three kinds of evidence, by which we may prove to a Roman-Catholic that the Bible is the word of God. Suppose that an individual had been an invalid, and after six weeks' illness had been re stored to perfect health and strength by means of a tonic prescribed by some physician ; suppose that tonic to be port wine. A stranger comes to this recovered man, and says, " That is not port wine which you have taken, it is only water from the ditch." What would be his reply ? He might say, "I will convince you from three distinct sources, that that which I am taking is port wine." First, he brings the wine merchant ; and the wine merchant states, that he saw the grapes in the o
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vineyard, he saw them prepared in the wine press, he saw the wine put into the cask — drawn off into bottles — placed in the chamber of the invalid. That is external evidence. — He next calls the chemist ; and the chemist says, he has subjected the wine to the usual and appropri ate tests, and he is sure it is port wine. That is internal evidence. — But the third witness is the recovered patient ; and he says — " I can add the experimental to these evidences ; I was reduced to the verge of the grave by debility, and this has raised me up, renewed my vigour, imparted strength to my constitution : I am persuaded that it is not water, but an efficacious tonic that I have taken." It is so with this Book. And therefore, to a Christian taught by the Spirit of God, you can never disprove the Bible ; prove what you will, his constant reply will be, " I have felt the glorious Gospel in the inmost recesses of my heart," and " I know in whom I have believed ; " no sophistries or subtleties of man can disprove this to be " the wisdom of God, and the grace of God unto salvation."
There is, however, another argument, frequently overlooked, which I would adduce — the miracu lous preservation of the Bible. The fact that this book is in my hand, is one of the most stupendous miracles that has ever occurred ; for it has been more proscribed, and persecuted, and trodden
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under foot, than all the books of ancient and modern times together. Were there to come into the midst of this assembly a man who had outlived eighteen centuries, — who had been cast into the sea, and not drowned, — thrown to the wild beasts, and not devoured, — made to drink deadly poisons, and not killed, — shot at and stabbed, and not injured — would you not believe, that the broad shield of Omnipotence must have been over him, and that he " lived and moved and had his being " in the heart of a perpetual miracle ? My dear friends, this is that man. The Bible has been cast into the fires, but not consumed; it has been thrown into the waves, but not overwhelmed ; the deadly and deleterious notes of the Douay and Rhemish translators have been forced upon it, but it has not been tainted ; it stands before us still, in un shorn and untarnished glory, reflecting the love of our heavenly Father, and the destinies of his be lieving and happy family. That must be the Book of God, which has been enshrined in perpetual miracle. The productions of the Greek and Latin Muses, which men have been anxious to preserve because they ministered to their corrupt taste, have been lost; but the Book that protests against men's sins, and rebukes men's lusts — which man hated — has been preserved by man, and in spite of man.
But when, by these simple evidences, you have proved to a Roman Catholic that the Bible is the o 2
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word of God, he will say, " When you Protest ants have got the Bible, you cannot agree about the interpretation of it ; and therefore it is much better to leave the matter to the Church, and be guided solely by her. My answer to this is simple : There are certain points so essential, that there is no Church and no Gospel without them ; and on these vital truths all sections of the Protestant Church are agreed, except Socinians, who are no Christians at all ; while the points about which we differ are circumstantial and non-essential. More- over, if we differ about the interpretation of cer tain passages, it is not the fault of our rule of faith, but the fault of our own hearts. Let me explain my meaning by a very simple illustration. Suppose an Act of Parliament is to be made upon some sub ject affecting property : first of all, it is placed in the hands of skilful solicitors or law-agents, and they most carefully draw it up ; it is then clearly written out, introduced, and read a first time be fore the House of Commons ; one proposes one correction, another a second, and another a third ; and after it has been canvassed and altered, and re modelled and reconstructed, it is read a third time : it is ushered into the House of Lords, and under goes a process of curtailment and addition and alteration there ; and after being three times read and canvassed in the House of Lords, it is at last submitted to the Queen : the Queen reads it in
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Council, and gives her seal and approval to it, and it becomes the law of the country. Now if it be possible to have a document not liable to misap prehension or mistake, destitute of a loop-hole through which guilty ingenuity can escape, it must surely be this. It has been submitted to the most learned — -it has been examined by those who were anxious to find flaws in it — and at last a person would say, This must be as perfect as human wisdom can make it. But wait twelve months, and what do you find ? A dispute has come be fore a court of law about that Act of Parliament. A. says — " It gives such property to me ; " B. says — " No, it makes it mine ; " C. says — " Half belongs to you and half to me ; " and D. says — " It belongs to none of you, but wholly and alto gether to me ; " and each of them quotes the same Act, and each has a certain amount of plausible pretext for the interpretation which he puts upon it. And why so ? Is it that the Act is imperfect ? Not at all ; it is because each person has a greater desire to get hold of the property that is in ques tion, than to get at the real meaning of the Act of Parliament ; each reads it in the light of his covetousness, and therefore puts his own interpre tation upon it. This is the secret of half our differences about the interpretation of the Bible. I fear the Episcopalian reads it in the light of Episcopacy, the Dissenter in the light of Dissent,
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the Free-Seceder in the light of the Free-Seces sion ; and that each goes too much to the Bible, not to cause it to pass as a ploughshare through all his preconceived notions, but with a hankering after his own system, and a determination to turn every text to its support. Professing to be Protestants, each nevertheless reads and interprets after some favourite tradition. But the remedy is, not to go to the Pope for a new rule of faith, but to pray to God for a new heart ; not to seek a new Bible, but to ask for fresh inward and celestial sunshine, amid the brilliancy of which to read the Bible we have.
We need an infallible interpreter, no doubt; the Roman Catholic is right in that. But who is that interpreter 1 The Popes and Councils have proved themselves most fallible ; Protestant minis ters have proved themselves fallible ; we need the Spirit of God to open up the Book He Himself has inspired, and then we shall not err. If I had written a book upon philosophy, and if, in the course of your reading it, you came to a passage which you could not understand, you would go probably to a friend, or to your minister, and ask for his explanation of it ; and you receive, no doubt, his best interpretation. Still you think the meaning obscure. But suppose you hear that the author of the book is to be in the vestry of a certain church on a certain night, and
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that you can have access to him there, — will you not apply to him, as you must prefer his interpre tation to that of any other, however learned or in* genious 1 Will you not ask him, therefore, to ex plain his own meaning? The Author of this Book lives, and is near, every hour and in every place, to every one of us. Let us go to Him, and say, " Oh! send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me ;" and in that clearest light of God we shall see all things clear.
This is the true secret of the various interpre tations of Sacred Writ — so many read it in any light but in " the true light ; " and the difference between reading God's Book in the light of God's Spirit and in any other light, is immense. Were you to go forth and look upon one of the lovely landscapes of our father-land, when the moon at midnight shines upon it in her calm and silver beauty, you may, indeed, comprehend the gene ral outline of the scene, but you will fail to distin guish flowers and plants, and their many-tinted colourings : a misty haze will hang on the whole panorama. But if you go forth to contemplate it at noonday, you will discern the tint of every flower, the nature of every tree — trace the mean dering of every stream ; and the whole landscape in its length and breadth will be presented with a beauty and a perspicuity you were unconscious of before. So with the Bible. Read it in
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the misty moonlight of the fathers, and it is very inexplicable indeed ; read it under the mistier star-light of the Church, and it is more unintelli gible still ; but in the exercise of chastened and sanctified judgments, bring the sacred page be neath the beams of the Sun of Righteousness, implore the presence of the Holy Spirit, and forthwith it will be flooded with a glory that will make every perplexity plain, every difficulty vanish, and each text radiant with life, simplicity, and beauty.
It was the rule of faith held by the Roman- Catholic divines, and by the Oxford Tractarians, that plunged Europe in all the murky darkness of the middle ages ; and it was the Protestant rule of faith rescued from their grasp, that had folded within itself all the blessings, civil and religious, which Britons now enjoy. The moment Luther brought the Bible, the Protestant rule of faith, from its prison-house, the Augean stable began to be swept — the idols fell from their niches like Dagon before the ark of the Lord — the trumpet of another Jubilee sounded through the length and breadth of Christendom, filling men's hearts with the enthusiasm of truth, and waking all Europe with the thunders of long dormant and oppressed Christianity. It is owing to the noble efforts of the Reformers of the sixteenth century, under the blessing of God, that we are what and where
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ive are. They planted the tree of life in the midst of our native land ; they watered it with the tears of weeping eyes, and with the blood of warm hearts ; and all the reward they coveted on earth was, that we, their children, and their children's children, might sit down beneath its shadow, and eat its fruit, so pleasant to our taste ; whilst their ashes moulder at its root, and their happy spirits look down from their seats of glory, and rejoice that " they laboured, and we have entered into their labours."
What was it that brought wreck upon Jerusa lem, and occasioned the extirpation of all its grandeur ? They preferred the traditions of man to the commandments of God ; and from the moment they began to do so, corruption revelled at the core, and spread forth its contagion to the utmost circumference of the Jewish race. Let it be a warning to us in the present day. The Jews had ecclesiastical authority, outward sanctity, a succession most legitimate, a gorgeous ritual, the Law and the promises, and alms-givings and fast ings such as the Eremites and Cenobites of Ox ford have never attempted to rival; their whole economy was instituted amidst stupendous mira cles, and cradled amid glorious mercies ; they had prophets commissioned from heaven to guide and teach them; they had a temple, the glory and the admiration of the whole earth ; — but, in an evil and o 3
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disastrous hour, they preferred the traditions of man to the commandments of God, and from that moment they felt and proved the great truth, that the church which tries to steal a ray from the glory of God, takes a consuming curse into its own bosom. When the Son of God came to Jeru salem, how did they receive him? They who boasted of being "the temple of the Lord," the only Church, the occupants of Moses' chair, ex claimed — " Away with him, away with him ; " and at last He was condemned to be crucified between two thieves, by a people that declared them selves the children of Abraham, and the chosen of the Most High. What consuming and crushing judgments followed! Thirty years afterwards, the Roman armies concentrated around foredoomed, because guilty, Jerusalem; the firebrands soon blazed amid the carved work of the sanctuary ; the shouts of the Roman soldiery were heard in those cloisters where the accents of prayer and thanks giving had been uttered by venerable priests and prostrate auditories ; the Roman Eagle spread its wings where the Cherubim were ; and Josephus, a spared priest, sat amid the ruins of his father-land, the weeping chronicler of its faded glories. Every stone that now remains cries out, in dumb but awful eloquence, Ichabod! Ichabod! the glory is departed! And why? " My people have com mitted two great evils: they forsook the foun-
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tain of living waters, and hewed out to them selves cisterns, broken cisterns, that could hold no water."
My dear friends, if you wish to arrest a scarcely less dreadful national ruin — if you wrould stem, under God, the tide and torrent of superstition that now threatens to inundate the land of our fathers — if you would support the great principles you love, and disperse the overshadowing heresies you hate — cleave more closely to your Bibles, clasp to your hearts your Bibles, read and study and comprehend your Bibles. The Bible, taught you by the Holy Ghost, is your bulwark and your glory. If God, in judgment, were to take the stars from the firmament, the tides from the ocean, the verdure from the green earth, he would not inflict by half so tremendous a catastrophe as to permit the removal of His Book from its supremacy, and to suffer the traditions and commandments of men to supersede or be a substitute for it. To the Bible we are indebted for our brightest hopes, for our most substantial peace, for our deep and holy faith, for the knowledge of our God an Saviour Jesus Christ. It alone, of all the monitors of our universe, teaches me that I am not an orphan ; trumpet-tongued, and with the solemnity of a judge, and the certainty of a prophet, it de clares that eternity is the measure of my lifetime, infinitude the boundary of my home, and God, "even our own God," my portion.
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I have great faith in the promises of God, and in the inborn grandeur of real Christianity. Sooner may the stars be wiped from the firmament, than it perish. Its ministers may be made martyrs, its true-hearted ones may be sorely tried and perse cuted, but a seed shall be left in the worst pro scription to serve their God. Crushed they may be for a season, but conquer they eventually must. The ark in which the Gospel is, is perishable even when fairest ; but however often it may be ship wrecked, the Gospel always comes safe to shore. Of its doctrines the Angel of the Everlasting Cove nant has said, " there shall be no loss of any one." Should Popery, and its subordinate drudge, Tract- arianism, rise to a still more gigantic and over shadowing influence, the sacred truths of the Gospel will not be extinguished ; the persecuted Church will become purer and intenser as her outward oppression accumulates, and speak forth a more free and faithful testimony. The most stirring notes of the trumpet of the everlasting Gospel have been uttered amid dreary glens and tangled deserts, and the brightest glory has arisen from the ashes of the martyrs. When the number of martyrs shall be the greatest, the holy splendours of the millennium will be the nearest.
LECTURE VIII.
THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS.
MATTHEW iv. 10.
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.
You will perceive, in the verse I have now quoted, an illustration of the statement which I adduced on a previous evening, — that our blessed Lord repelled the temptation of Satan, not by an appeal to his own omniscience as God, but by an appeal " to the law and to the testimony," as de cisive on the declared duty of man, and on the revealed doctrines of truth. On three several occasions Satan plied him with temptations ; and on each of those occasions our Lord repelled him with the simple, but to us satisfactory announce ment — " It is written." My text is one of these ; " It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."
* But,' asks some one in this assembly, ' is it needful to address such a text to any section of Christendom whatever ? It may be most appro-
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priate amid the idolatrous isles of the Pacific, it maybe a most important prescription to incul cate on some savage and unenlightened shores ; but do you mean to say, that there is any portion of the professing visible church that needs to have it impressed upon its priests, or inculcated on its people — " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve ?" '
There is a portion of the visible church that needs to have this inculcated. In the Church of Rome, I contend, that however subtle and deli cate her theoretical distinctions on the worship of saints, the practical effect is, that Mary has as sumed the place and prerogatives that belong to Christ ; and that angels and spirits, who are, or are supposed to be, before the Throne, are made to receive, and absorb themselves, the adorations and the praises that ought to ascend, exclusive and undiluted, to our God and Father, through Jesus Christ, the only Mediator.
The title selected for this Lecture is — The In vocation of Saints. Some Protestant may perhaps ask, What is meant by this ? I will explain. We believe, in common with the Apostles, that all true Christians are saints — that every man whose heart is changed, is a saint; but Roman Catholics use different phraseology — they call those who belong to her visible communion " the faithful ;" and " saints" those who are canon-
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ized and beatified, and supposed to be in heaven before the Throne — the objects of their invocation, and intercessors between Christ and them, just as Christ is the intercessor between God and us. The Tractarians give the same restricted meaning to the word saint. Perhaps there is a little Popery in our ordinary phraseology, for we speak of Saint Matthew, Saint Peter, Saint John, Saint Paul, as if they alone of all Christians were saints ; whereas the humblest orphan who is clothed in the glorious righteousness of Christ, and has "washed his robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," is just as much entitled to all the glories of the celestial residence, as is the loftiest hierarch that stands near the Throne, or the most illumi nated evangelist that ever brought the tidings of mercy and of peace to the lost and the ruined of the human family.
I have this evening to adduce strange and start ling illustrations of what I venture, faithfully but in no offensive spirit, and duly comprehending the full force and meaning of the expression, to call the idolatry of the Church of Rome. In order to explain the subject to you more clearly, and to present authentic information, I will begin by reading to you the definitions of the Creed of Pope Pius IV., and of the Council of Trent, on this subject.
In the Creed of Pope Pius IV., it is said— " I
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believe likewise that the saints, reigning together with Christ, are to be honoured and invocated," — honorandos et invocandos. And in the decree of the Council of Trent on the invocation and veneration of saints — " The holy synod commands the bishops, and others who have the office and care of instruc tion, that according to the custom of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, which has been received from the first ages of the Christian religion, the consent of the holy fathers, and the decrees of the sacred councils, they make it a chief point," — to do what ? to preach Christ and Him crucified ? to beckon sinners to the Cross ? No, but — " dili gently to instruct the faithful concerning the in tercession and the invocation of saints, the honour of relics, and the lawful use of images ; teaching them that the saints, reigning together with Christ, offer to God their prayers for men ; and that it is good and useful to invoke them with supplications, and on account of the benefits obtained from God through his Son Jesus Christ our Lord (who alone is our Redeemer and Saviour,) to have recourse to the prayers, aid, and assistance of the saints ; but that they who deny that the saints, enjoying eter nal happiness in heaven, are to be invoked, — or who assert, either that they do not pray for men, or that the invoking them that they may pray for each of us is idolatry, or that it is contrary to the honour of God, and opposed to the honour of
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the one Mediator between God and man, or that it is folly either in word or thought to supplicate them, — are to be accursed."
The distinctions drawn by the Church of Rome are these : they say, that the supreme worship that is to be given to God is \arpeia [latria] — a Greek word signifying worship ; that the worship which is to be given to the Virgin Mary is v7Tfp8ov\eia [hyper-doulia] — a very lofty form of worship, but not so high as that given to God ; and that the worship to be given to the saints in gene ral, is 8ov\€ia [doulia] — an inferior kind of worship.
The Roman Catholics, however, will deny that they worship the Virgin Mary with the same wor ship as God ; and I fully concede, that, in the Canons of the Council of Trent, and in the Creed of Pope Pius IV., the distinction is clearly and definitely kept up. But what I allege is, that in the books of a Church that professes to be infallible, and under the expressed sanction of illustrious Popes and distinguished Councils, a worship (as I shall now proceed to shew) is given to the saints and to the Virgin Mary, which can be character ized by no softer epithet than that of absolute and fearful idolatry.
The first document which I shall produce, in order to make good my assertion, is one with which most Roman Catholics are perfectly fa miliar : it is called The glories of Mary — a strange
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expression, certainly, to a Protestant's ear. He can understand well the glories of Christ, but the glories of Mary is a language that seems to grate upon a heart to which Christ has long been all, and Mary comparatively nothing. To show you the authority of this document, I may mention that the illustrious author, Alphonso Liguori, was canonized and beatified so lately as the year 1839, by the present Pope, Gregory XVI. Four Popes, it is stated in the title-page, have expressed their approbation of the life and writings of this illus trious saint ; and we are informed in the preface, that the Council at Rome, the sacred Congrega tion of Rites, having made the most 'rigorous examination of the writings of the saint, to the number of a hundred or more, pronounced that there was nothing in them deserving of censure ; and this sentence was approved by Pope Pius VII. in 1 803, by his successor Leo X., and also by Pope Urban VIII. ; and in 1839, St. Liguori was ca nonized by the present Pope, Gregory XVL It is thus asserted in the preface, that it contains nothing but what is consistent with the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and that it may be used by the faithful for the edification and instruction of their souls. Now, in order to give you some idea of the worship rendered to the Virgin Mary, (for I shall chiefly restrict myself to that, because she is the most illustrious saint in the Roman
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Calendar, and the object of most fervent worship to Roman-Catholic devotees,) I take the following extracts from this volume : —
Page 35 : " Queen of heaven and of earth ! Mother of God ! my sovereign mistress ! I present myself before you, as a poor mendicant before a mighty queen. From the height of your throne, deign to cast your eyes upon a miserable sinner, and lose not sight of him till you render him truly holy. O illustrious Virgin ! you are the queen of the universe, and consequently mine. I desire to consecrate myself more particularly to thy service ; dispose of me according to your good pleasure. Direct me ; I abandon myself wholly to your con duct. Chastise me, if I disobey you. I am, then, no longer mine ; I am all yours. Save me, O powerful queen, save me." — It is added, I admit, " by the intercession of your Son."
Page 88 : " God commanded Moses to make the propitiatory of the most pure gold, because it was from thence He wished to speak to him. A learned writer states, that Mary is the propitiatory of the Christian people, whence our Lord gives them answers of pardon and forgiveness, and dis penses to them his gifts and his graces."
Page 1 36 : " Blessed Virgin, who, in your double quality of queen and mother, dispense your favours with such munificence and love! I, who am so poor in merit and virtue, and greatly indebted to
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the Divine justice, humbly recommend myself to you. You, O Mary, have the keys of the Divine mercy ; draw on thine inexhaustible treasure, and dispense its riches to this poor sinner, in proportion to his immense wants. All who trust in Mary will see heaven's gates open to receive them. She is the gate of heaven, since the Church styles her Janua Coeli. The Holy Church styles her also the Star of the Sea."
In page 177, we read that "Brother Leo once saw in a vision two ladders reaching to heaven ; one red, at the summit of which was Jesus Christ ; and the other white, at the top of which pre sided his blessed mother. He observed that many who endeavoured to ascend to heaven by the red ladder, at the top of which was Christ, after mounting a few steps, fell down, and on trying again were equally unsuccessful ; but a voice having told them to make trial of the white ladder, at the top of which was his mother, they imme diately got up to heaven, the blessed Virgin hav ing held out her hands to receive them." It is thus taught to Roman Catholics — six millions in Ireland, and two millions in England — that if the poor and desponding sinner attempts to enter heaven by that blessed Redeemer, who is "the way and the truth and the life," he will be rejected ; but that if he make the effort to ascend by the Virgin Mary from the depths of ruin to the
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very heights of glory, he will find abundant access* The creature is thus raised above God, and the name of a saint above that of the Saviour.
The next document from which I shall read is another of the popular books of devotion circulated among the Roman Catholics. It is called Sal vation made easy to Sinners by Devotion to the most Sacred Heart of Mary ; dated 1840. At page 32 we read, " God has decreed in His infinite wisdom to grant us every thing by Mary, by whom He hap given to us Jesus. Oh ! who could ever appreciate that treasure as much as Mary ? Who loves us more tenderly ? The charity of Mary for us had reached its most sublime degree, since she loved us so far as to give us her own dearest treasure, even to consent to the bloody immolation of Jesus." Thus language goes beyond idolatry, and ap proaches the very skirts of blasphemy itself.
I take next, A Portrait of the admirable Joseph, dated Dublin 1838, and stated on the title-page to be composed by " a Catholic priest." At page 35 I read, " O most desirable Jesus, O most amiable Mary, O most dear Joseph ! O holy Trinity ! " — calling these three " Holy Trinity." Again : " O Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, who can express the sanctity of your lives and of your conversation ? " Page 36 : " O Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, most blessed Trinity, bless me with the triple bene diction of the most holy Lord." And this expres-
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sion " Trinity " is frequently applied to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
The next document from which I quote is The Sacred Heart — a very popular book of devotion among Roman Catholics. I find the following passage at page 171 : " Come, poor and hardened sinners, how great soever your crimes may be, come and behold ! Mary stretches out her hand, opens her breast to receive you. Though insensible to the great concerns of your salvation, though un fortunately proof against the most engaging invi tations and inspirations of the Holy Ghost, fling yourselves at the feet of Mary, this powerful advo cate. Her heart is all love, all tenderness." The amount of this is, that those whom the Holy Spirit fails or refuses to convince and convert, the Virgin Mary has love and power to convince and convert.
The next extract I take is from the encyclical letter of the present Pope, Gregory the Sixteenth, addressed by him in 1832 to all the bishops and priests of the Roman -Catholic Church, scattered throughout the whole of Great Britain and Ireland. After alluding to the various difficulties with which the Church was surrounded, he closes the letter by saying — "And that all may have a successful and happy issue, let us raise our eyes to the most blessed Virgin Mary, who alone destroys heresies, wrho is our greatest hope, yea, the entire ground
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of our hope." This I have taken from the Laity's Directory for the year 1832; and this language of the present Pope was then read from every Roman- Catholic altar throughout this kingdom.
Bonald, Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons, thus addresses his clergy in his Charge in 1842: — " Catholic families, let Mary be in the midst of you as a model in all the situations of life, as the mother of your children, the mistress of your dwelling. Poor sufferers from sickness, turn your dying eyes to the image of the mother of com passion. May our last sigh be breathed out, with the last words of St. Thomas of Canterbury falling under the iron of his assassins, ' to God and to Mary.' "
On a church at Mons, in Belgium, a printed paper is hung up, with these words : " I salute you, my divine queen. Amiable mediatrix, it is particularly in this holy place you exercise your glorious office, and open to poor mortals the trea sures of divine favours, which, without your aid, Heaven would refuse."
The following is a copy of a card sold by the booksellers in Brussels, and illuminated in various colours : —
"A MARIE.
" Notre Mere, qui etes aux cieux : O Marie ! que votre nom soit beni a jamais ; que votre amour vienne a tous les coeurs ; que vos desirs
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s'accomplissent en la terre comme au ciel. Donnez nous aujourd'hui la grace et la misericorde ; donnez nous le pardon de nos fautes, comme nous 1'esperons de votre bonte sans homes ; et ne nous laissez plus succomber a la tentation, mais delivrez nous du mal. Ainsi soit il."
"To MARY.
"Our Mother, who art in heaven; hallowed be thy name. Let thy love come to all our hearts ; let thy will be done on earth as in heaven. Give us this day grace and mercy ; give us the pardon of our sins, as we hope from thy unbounded good ness. Let us not sink under temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen."
But perhaps the most extraordinary specimen of Roman- Catholic idolatry, which has ever been presented to the Christian public, is that wrhich I am now about to lay before you. I searched for two or three years for what is called The Psalter of the blessed Bonaventure, and after much in quiry I found an extremely ancient edition ; and the book is so valuable, though torn and tattered, it is probably worth 7/. or 8/. It has no title- page, and thus it gives proof of being printed at a very distant date. St. Bonaventure is a distin guished saint in the Roman- Catholic Calendar, and 011 Bonaventure's Day every Roman Catholic in England prays in the following words — " O Lord, who didst give blessed Bonaventure to thy
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people for a minister of eternal salvation, grant that he, who was the instructor of our life here on earth, may become our intercessor in heaven." Every Roman Catholic, therefore, must feel obliged to any one who brings before him the doctrines which Bonaventure taught; and I am sure, if Roman Catholics have aught of the light of Scripture in their minds, and the grace of God in their hearts, they will cease to repeat this prayer; as soon as they learn Bonaventure's sentiments, they will cast from them his writings and his name, as a disgrace even to the Roman communion.
This book, which is written in the old Saxon character, begins by quoting certain passages from the Gospels, by way of illustrating the honour and the glory of Mary. It commences — " Come unto Mary, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and she will give you rest." The nineteenth Psalm, according to this Roman-Catholic doctor and saint, runs thus : " The heavens declare the glory of the Virgin, and the firmament showeth forth her handywork." In the ninety-fifth Psalm, which is used every Sunday in the Morning Service of the Church of England, we read — " Oh ! come, let us sing unto our Lady ; let us heartily rejoice in the Virgin, that brings us salvation ; let us come be fore her presence with singing, let us praise her together ; come, let us adore and fall down before P
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her ; let us confess our sins to her with mourning, that she may obtain for us a full indulgence.'* The 110th Psalm, one would suppose, might (if any) escape this dreadful corruption, because it so expressly applies to our blessed Lord ; but in this version it is — " The Lord said unto Mary, Stand thou at my right hand, until I have made thine enemies thy footstool." And the whole Psalter has thus in every psalm the name of God expunged, and the name of Mary substituted for it. At the close of the Psalms there are certain other pieces of devotion, extracted from ancient liturgies and rituals ; and one of them is perhaps, in its pure and scriptural form, the most sublime and exquisite hymn in the whole compass of Christian theology ; and I admire and envy the Church whose assem bled people are taught to surround the Everlasting Throne, and say, with one heart and voice — " We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord ; all the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting." But conceive how every Christian feeling must be shocked, how every holy and scriptural sensibility must recoil, when in every sentence of this sublime hymn the name of God is expunged, and the name of Mary put in its place. This has been done by Bonaventure in the edition I now hold in my hand. According to that seraphic doctor, for whose instruction every Roman Catholic is bound to pray, it runs thus —
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" We praise thee, O Mary ; we acknowledge thee to be a virgin. All the earth doth worship thee, the spouse of the Eternal. To thee angels and archangels, to thee thrones and principalities, to thee choirs and cherubim and seraphim, continually cry, Holy, holy, holy, art thou, O Mary, mother of God. Heaven and earth are full of the glory of the fruit of thy womb. The glorious company of the apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the prophets praise thee, the noble army of martyrs praise thee, O Virgin;" — and so on to the close of the Te Deum.
After this document there is another, which is called The Litany of the Blessed Virgin. It be gins, like the Litany in the Prayer Book, with a scriptural and proper aspiration ; for all that the Reformers did, in compiling the Book of Common Prayer, was just to weed out the idolatry, and leave the pure theology behind, retaining all that was scriptural in the Roman books of devotion, and expunging all that was not. Accordingly this Litany begins — "O God, the Father of heaven, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners ; O God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners ; O God the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners." But then comes — " Holy Mary, who exaltest thy people, pray for us ; holy Mother, pray for us
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sinners ;" and under various epithets they pray for Mary's intercession. And so it goes on, repeat ing about fifty times, " Holy Mary," and adding some prayer ; and then comes — " Be merciful unto us, and spare us, O Lady ; from all evil and mischief, from the temptation of Satan and the wrath of God, from presumption and despair, de liver us, O Mary. By thy joy and satisfaction at the incarnation of Christ, by thy grief and anguish at his crucifixion, by thy joy at his resurrection, by thy belief of his sending the Holy Spirit, de liver us and save us, O Mary. By thy joy at thine own coronation, deliver us, O Mary." And then comes one sentence, which is to me extremely painful; for I remember, when first I entered a parochial church in England, and listened to the liturgy, read with great beauty and power, there was one clause that seemed to me so rich in all that is spiritual, so replete with all that is expressive in human language, and so instinct with all that is truly worthy of the God whom saints rejoice to worship, that it made an im pression on my mind too deep to be ever effaced — " In all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment, good Lord deliver us." How beauti ful, how scriptural, how apposite to a truly Protestant Church! But "how is the gold be come dim, how is the most fine gold changed,'*
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in the following perversion of this sublime petition — " In all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment, from the torments of the damned, deliver us, O Virgin Mary!" Contrast these prayers, and decide which is the true church — the church that lifts up its petitions to God, or the church that addresses them to the Virgin. I am sure that the most decided Presbyterian, Inde pendent, Moravian, or Wesleyan, will overlook all that he believes to be faulty in the constitution and communion of the Church of England ; and, as far as its Liturgy and its Articles are the embo diment of its everlasting principles, will say with me to that Church, as a noble national repre sentative of truth, " Where thou goest I will go, where thou lodgest I will lodge ; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."
Some one will probably say, ' You have admit ted that it is an ancient and scarce document from which you have now been reading : is it altogether fair, to ransack the museums of the country for the obsolete productions of a dark and forgotten age, and to adduce these as proofs of the present feeling and the present worship of the Roman- Catholic Church ? ' Now I say, that as the Church of Rome claims to be semper eadem [always the same,] what was truth with her in the tenth entury, is truth with her in the nineteenth ; an^
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if the Psalter of Bonaventure was recognised by her prelates three hundred years ago, they cannot cease to r'ecognise it now, unless they will cease to claim infallibility as their prerogative, and admit that by the lapse of years and the light of Pro testantism, that Church has become improved. But let me state, that I have now ten successive editions of Bonaventure's Psalter, which were pur chased, one or two of them by a lady at Rome, and one of them at the doors of St. Peter's. One of these, which is at this moment before me, is called by St. Bonaventure The Psalter of the Blessed Virgin, published at Rome in the year 1839, having the imprimatur and re-imprimatur of the present ecclesiastical authorities of the Holy See ; it is published in the Italian or vul gar tongue, sold for two-pence, and possessed and perused and prayed by the most devout of the existing Roman population. In this book there are the Psalms and Te Deum, precisely as I have quoted them from the ancient copy. I give the Te Deum in Italian, as now used in Rome.
" A Te, Madre di Dio, innalziamo le nostre lodi : * Te Maria Vergine predichiamo,
Te Sposa dell' Eterno Padre * venera tutta la terra.
A Te gli Angeli tutti e gli Arcangeli : * a Te i Troni e i Principati umili si inchinano.
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A Te le Podesta tutte e le Virtu superne del cieli * e tutte le Dominazioni prestano ubbi- dienza.
A Te i Cori tutti, a Te i Cherubim e i Serafim
* assistono intorno esultanti,
A Te le angeliche creature tutte * con inces- sante voce di lode cantano ;
Santa, Santa, Santa Maria * Genitrice di Dio, Vergine insieme e Madre,
Pieni sono i cieli e la terra* della maesta gloriosa del frutto del tuo grembo.
Te il glorioso coro degli Apostoli * Te Madre del loro Creatore collaudano.
Te il puro ceto dei Martiri beati * Te Genitrice di Cristo concelebra.
Te il glorioso esercito dei Confessori * tempio della Trinita sacrosanta ti appella.
Te P amabil coro delle sante Vergini festanti,
* esempio di umilta ti encomia, e di virginale candore.
Te la corte celestiale tutta * onora come Regina. A Te per tutto 1'universo * la Chiesa ineggia, e ti invoca
Madre * della divina Maesta.
Te veneranda, te vera puerpera del Re del cielo,
* santa, amorosa e pia.
Tu se' la Signora degli Angeli : * Tu se' la porta del paradiso.
Tu scala al regno * ed alia gloria del cielo.
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Tu talamo, * tu area di pieta e di grazia,
Tu se' sorgente e vena di misericordia : * Tu Sposa e Madre del Re de' secoli eterni.
Tu , tempio e sacrario dello Spirito Santo, * e della Trinita santissima nobile triclinio.
Tu mediatrice fra gli uomini e Dio, * amorevole a noi mortali, e luce di cielo.
Tu fortezza ai combattenti, avvocata ai pecca- tori : * Tu ai miseri pietoso rifugio.
Tu dispensiera dei celesti doni, * sterminatrice dei demoni e dei superbi.
Tu Signora del mondo, * Regina del Cielo, e dopo Dio nostra unica speranza.
Tu salute a cni ti invoca, porto ai naufraganti,
* sollievo ai miseri, e ai pericolanti rifugio.
Tu Madre di tutti i Beati, e dopo Dio lor gau- dio pieno, * gioja di tutti i cittadini del cielo.
Tu promotrice dei giusti, * accoglitrice dei tra- viati, Tu promessa gia ai Patriarchi.
Tu luce di verita ai Profeti, * Tu preconizzata dagli Apostoli, e sapienza di quelli : tu ammaes- tratrice degli Evangelisti.
Tu fortezza ai Martiri, esempio ai Confessori,
* vanto, gloria e giubbilo delle Vergini.
Tu per liberare 1' uomo dall' esilio di morte
* accogliesti nel tuo grembo il Figliuolo di Dio. Per Te debellato 1' avversario nostro antico,
* fu riaperto ai Fedeli il regno dei cieli.
Tu col Figliuolo tuo * siedi alia destra del Padre.
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A Lui Tu supplica per noi, o Vergine Maria, * il quale crediamo, che ci abbia un giorno a giu- dicare.
Te dunque noi preghiamo, perche tu voglia ve nire in soccorso ai servi tuoi : * a noi redenti col prezioso sangue del tuo Figliuolo.
O pia Vergine Maria, * deh ! fa che insieme coi Santi tuoi siamo della eterna gloria rimunerati.
Salvo sia per te, o Signora, il popolo tuo, * si che siamo fatti partecipi della eredita del tuo Figliuolo.
Sii nostra guida, * sii sostegno e difesa nostra in eterno.
In ciascun giorno, o Maria Signora nostra, * ti salutiamo.
E bramiamo cantare le lodi tue * cola mente e colla voce in sempiterno.
Degnati, dolcissima Maria, ora e sempre * con- servarci illesi da peccato.
Abbi, o Pia, di noi misericordia : * abbi miseri- cordia di noi.
Fa misericordia ai figliuoli tuoi : * che in Te, o Vergine Maria, abbiamo riposta tutta la fiducia nostra.
In te dolcissima Maria, noi tutti speriamo : * di- fendici in eterno.
A Te le lodi, a Te F impero, * a Te virtu e glo ria pei secoli dei secoli Cosi sia."
And to shew you the popularity of this for- p3
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mulary of devotion, sanctioned as it is by the present Pope, and approved by the appointed cen sors, I may mention, that in the course of the five years which have elapsed from 1 834 to the end of 1839, it went through ten editions ; and I hold in my hand at this moment the tenth edition, dated Rome 1839, which is an exact reprint of that of 1834. I have also recently seen a gentleman, to whom a friend at Rome has sent a copy of the ele venth edition, dated 1840. So that, on an average, this Psalter of Bonaventure is so popular, as to re quire at least two editions every year; and in order that every Roman Catholic may possess it, it is sold at the very smallest possible price at which it can be printed. Now if streams be the purest near to the fountain, and if light is the more unsullied and clear the nearer we approach to the sun from which it emanates, may we not presume, that the theology of the Romish Church is most unalloyed under the very wing and superintendence of his holiness the Pope ; and that if we are to find the pure and unquestionable exponent of Roman- Catholic theology in any part of the universe, it will be where censors of books are appointed, as at Rome, to see that nothing erroneous passes through the press, and where the Pope, armed with the tremendous attribute of infallibility, in spects the publication, adds to it his signature, and pronounces it calculated to edify and instruct
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the faithful? I therefore contend, that I have made out a charge of pure and undiluted idolatry against the Church of Rome ; and either she must renounce these books as unscriptural and abomi nable, and herself as fallible and guilty, or we Protestants must continue to bless that God, who has emancipated our Service from her pollutions ; and labour by every scriptural and Christian effort to bring the victims of that dreadful super stition to the knowledge of those truths, which would fall like sunbeams amid the darkness of the Vatican, — " God is a Spirit ; " " There is one Me diator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus ; " " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."*
* Pope Pius VII., by a rescript dated March 21, 1815, grants three hundred days of indulgence, for every day in the month of May on which any one offers a special service to the Virgin.
There is inscribed under a fresco painting of the Madonna, in the Via del Vaccaro, near the Church of the SS. Apostoli at Rome —
Se da te si sospira,
Ecco la Madre Che placa 1'ira del Eterno Padre,
E col materno zelo Chiude 1'Averno,
E ti conduce al Cielo.
(If by thyself thou sighest, behold the Mother, who soothes the wrath of the Eternal Father, and with maternal zeal, closes the door of hell, and leads thee up to heaven.)
Not far from the same place, (in the Corso, near the Piazza di Venezia,) is an oil picture of the Madonna, with
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But some one will ask — f How can the Church of Rome justify this monstrous idolatry, either as it refers to saints and the Virgin Mary, or as it applies to images of them ?' For you are aware, that on the Continent of Europe, (and I can speak .from personal inspection, so far as Belgium is con cerned,) in almost every church, and in the most beautiful cathedrals, surrounded by exquisite paintings, the masterpieces of a Rubens and a Vandyck, you will find in the middle a huge and hideous image of the Virgin Mary, sometimes nearly six feet high, dressed out in blue satin, trimmed with the finest Brussels and Valenciennes lace ; and in the morning the poor women, as they come to the market with their eggs and butter, leave their baskets in the porch, hurry into the
these words underneath : ' Amiamo Gesu e Maria, e le loro chiamate, Perch£ ci liberino dalT inferno.'
(Let us love Jesus and Mary, and call ye on them both, for they deliver us from hell.)
Under a similar portrait, near the Chiesa Nuova, are the words —
Piegha, O mortal che passi, umil la fronte,
Or del Rosario alia gran Vergine pia !
Se tu brami le grazie, eccotti il fonte ;
E salvo tu sarai, s'ami Maria.
(Bend low, O mortal passenger, thy head To the great Virgin of the Rosary ; If thou desirest graces, here's their fount; And if thou lovest Mary, thou art safe.)
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cathedral, fall down upon their knees before the linage, repeat a few prayers, and then retire to the ordinary business of the day ; and again in the afternoon, when vespers commence, the poor people are crowding round the image, and offering up their petitions to it. And even in this country there are some pictures extremely repulsive to a Protestant. I recollect in a Romish chapel atWigan, I saw over the pulpit a picture of God the Father on one side, of God the Son on the other side, and the Virgin Mary enthroned between the two, with a crown upon her head, as if she were the most illustrious personage of all. Now you naturally ask, How can Roman Catholics put up with these practices, when there are such express prohibi tions of them in the word of God ?
My first answer is, that practically the word of God is to Roman Catholics a sealed book, and a dead letter. They are permitted to read it with certain restrictions ; but the conditions are so complex and so strict, that they amount to an actual prohibition of perusing it with any profitable or valuable result. And the books which in Ire land and on the Continent are practically substi tuted for the Bible, are what are called the Cate chisms of the Roman-Catholic Church. I have now before me three of these Catechisms bound together — one of them published by the four Ro man-Catholic archbishops of Ireland, another by
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the most reverend archbishop Reilly, and the other the Abridgement of Christian Doctrine. I will now read you an account of the Ten Command ments, as they are put forth in these books, cir culated under such high auspices. I take up the the first — " Q. How many commandments hath God given us ?" " A. Ten." " Q. Say them." " A. First, * I am the Lord thy God ; thou shalt have no other god but me.' Second, 'Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain.' " Every Pro testant perceives a chasm ; and that which is wanting, is the Second Commandment, that pro hibits the worshipping and bowing down to any graven image, or to the likeness of any thing in heaven, or earth, or sea. Next, I take the Abridge ment of Christian Doctrine : " Q. Say the Ten Commandments." "A. ' I am the Lord thy God : thou shalt have no strange gods ; thou shalt not have an idol or any figure to adore.' Second, ' Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.' " I take the third Catechism : " Q. Say the Ten Commandments." " A. ( I am the Lord thy God : thou shalt have no strange gods before me.' Second, ' Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.'" And if you ask how they make out ten commandments, they do as the dishonest servant did with his mas ter's goods ; having ten parcels to deliver, and wishing to keep one back, he took the largest of
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the other nine, and divided it into two, so as to keep up the number ten. In the Church of Rome, they take the last Commandment and split it into two, giving the wife the Ninth Commandment — " Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife" — and giving the goods the Tenth ; showing their cour tesy, as a priest of the Church of Rome expressed it, (but which seems to exceed their Christianity,) by their anxiety to separate the wife from the goods, and to assign her the honour of a distinct and whole Commandment.
This is the case in Ireland ; and on the Conti nent the very same thing takes place. In an Italian Catechism now before me, called Dottrina Christiana, commanded by Pope Clement VIII., and drawn up by the celebrated Cardinal Bellar- mine, and revised and approved by the Congrega tion of Sacred Rites, and appointed for the use of the faithful, dated Rome 1836, printed with the license and the privilege of the superiors, I find the Ten Commandments begin thus: "First, I am the Lord thy God ; thou shalt have none other gods before me. Second, Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain." And I cannot but observe in passing, that as in Italy the light is darker than in Ireland, they take leave not only to exclude the Second Commandment, but to tamper with the Fourth ; and this accounts for the painful and uni versal fact, that throughout the whole Continent of Europe the Sabbath-Day is almost extinguished,
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and the chimes of its bells convey no sacredness to the ear. The Fourth Commandment stands — not " Remember the Sabbath-Day to keep it holy; six days shalt thou labour," and so on — but " Re member to keep holy the festivals (le feste)." This is indeed " teaching for doctrines the com mandments of men."
The reason of all this cannot be misunderstood. The alternative was before the Church of Rome, either to bring her practices up to God's word (which was her duty), or to bring down God's word to the level of her practices. She, worthy of the name and the principles of a corrupt and apostate communion, has brought down God's most holy word to the level of her most unholy prac tices ; and since she felt that it rebuked her, and prophesied evil concerning her, while she continued in her sins, she has extinguished the testimony of the prophet, lest her misguided people should catch a gleam of celestial and holy day, and come forth from that fearful superstition, in which all that is pure has evaporated, all that is true has been crushed, and all that is holy has been dese crated and denied.
To shew you that the Church of Rome does not scruple at making God's word speak what will favour her practices, I will quote a passage from a celebrated Catechism, to which I have already referred — the "Abridgment of Christian Doctrine," p. 119. " Q. Is it lawful to honour the angels
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and saints?" — "A. Yes." " Q. How prove you that?" — "A. Revelation xix. 10: 'And I fell1 down, said he, to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things ; ' " — with fearful tact, you observe, vindicating her dreadful practice by leaving out the remainder of the text, which contains all the meaning — "And he said unto me, See thou do it not; I am thy fellow- servant : worship God."
The Church of Rome appeals, indeed, to several portions of Scripture in vindication of these idola trous practices, and alleges that she is warranted in invocating and worshipping the saints by ex press passages of Holy Writ. To these I must now call your attention.
When we tell a Roman Catholic, what seems to us plain and obvious common sense, that we can not conceive how, if a saint be a creature — the Virgin Mary, for instance, (glorified and beatified, as we believe her to be, saved by the Redeemer's blood, and not in virtue of her own merit) — being, by the very definition of a creature, restricted to one locality, she can hear the prayers offered to her at the same moment in London, in Paris, in Brussels, in Rome, in Petersburgh, and attend to the wants of all her suppliants ; and when we add, that we see no reason to believe that the saints in heaven are directly cognizant of prayers offered up on earth (not disputing that they may be in-
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formed of them), or that they are able to respond to them, the Roman Catholic instantly lays his finger on the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, and says, there is evidence that the angels in heaven do hear and know what is doing upon earth, for he reads — ( ' I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." Therefore, he says, the saints around the Throne know what is transacting in our world, and it is not in vain to pray to them; they know, it is here expressly declared, when a sinner repents. Now let me call your attention to the whole passage ; for I conceive, that instead of vindicating the Romish practice, it distinctly supports the Protestant doctrine. " Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners, for to hear him. And the Pharisees and Scribes mur mured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety-and-nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost until he find it ? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me ; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner
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that repenteth, more than over ninety-and-nine just persons, which need no repentance." That is to say, as the man who has found his sheep which was lost calls together his friends, and tells them of the fact, that they may rejoice with him, so God proclaims, amid the choirs of angels and of saints in heaven, what they are ignorant of, that some poor sinner has repented ; and then they rejoice, not because they see what is done upon earth, but because they are told by Him, who has no pleasure in the death, but only in the repent ance of His people.
Another passage quoted by Roman Catho lics in favour of this tenet of theirs, is in Genesis xlviii. 15: " And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." The Roman-Catholic dispu tant quotes the latter clause — " The angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads ;" but he omits the preceding part of the sentence, which in fact determines the meaning of it. For it is evi dently the same personage, who in the first limb of the sentence is called " God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk ;" in the second limb " the God which fed me all my life long unto this day ;" and in the third limb " the angel which redeemed me from all evil." "When
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we take this in connection with the fact, that Christ is called in the Old-Testament Scriptures " the Angel of the Covenant," and that in the third of Exodus, " the angel of the Lord " appeared in the burning bush, and assumed and appropriated the name peculiar to Deity, — viz. Jehovah, — we see at once, that " the angel " spoken of by Jacob is the Angel Jehovah, " the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person." Let me just explain to you, as I am at this point, that the expression, " the angel of the Lord," in our version, is not the literal translation of the original ; the exact phrase is " the Angel Je hovah," or, more literally, " the sent Jehovah," or, still more appropriately, " Shiloh Jehovah ; " implying at once, that the Angel Lord was Jesus Christ, who, it would seem, so loved the lost, and so intensely thirsted after the redemption of the world, that before he was incarnate, he paid visits — even if " like angel visits, few and far between"— to our dismantled and marred land, as if experi mentally to know and guage the height and depth of that sympathy which he should have to feel, before the lost sheep should be brought home to the fold.
Another passage quoted by Roman Catholics, in defence of the worship of saints, is Hosea xii. 4. " Yea, he [Jacob] had power over the angel, and prevailed ; he wept, and made supplication unto
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him ; he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us" — and the Roman Catholic stops there, instead of adding the words that follow — "even the Lord God of Hosts ; the Lord is his memo rial." It was no created angel, but "the Lord God of Hosts ; " and nothing but mutilation of Sacred Scripture makes any other meaning. I have found it to be an invariable result, that the very passages which a Roman Catholic quotes to sub stantiate his position, may, when fully and fairly quoted, be most legitimately appealed to for the overthrow of the doctrines he professes to build on them.
In order further to satisfy you upon this subject, I will now proceed to adduce some passages of Scripture that bear more directly upon it. Let me first show you that there is recognised in Scripture but one Mediator between God and us. — 1 Timothy ii. 5 : " There is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus : " just as it is a cardinal doctrine of natural religion, that there is one God, so it is a cardinal doctrine of Christianity or revealed re ligion, that there is one Mediator. John vi. 68 : f< Lord, to whom shall we go ? " to saints, to angels, to seraphim, to cherubim ? No ; " thou hast the words of eternal life." John xiv. 6 : "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life ; no man cometh unto the Father but by
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me : " neither by saint, nor angel, nor cherubim, but " by me." Acts iv. 12: " Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ." Would that these words were written upon the altars, and upon the doors and lintels and gar ments and whole ritual of Rome ! would they were inscribed by the Holy Ghost on the people's hearts ! Ephesians ii. 18 : " For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." We Protestants, therefore, must be safe, while Roman Catholics (to take the most favourable view) may be wrong ; for they are trying to find admission to the Father by doors that wre dare not attempt, and which I believe never have been opened, or at least are nailed up from the Fall." 1 John ii. 1 : " If any man sin, we have " — what ? ten thousand saints and mediators ? No, but " an advocate with the Father — Jesus Christ the right eous ;" and he is our advocate on the only basis — viz. his atonement — on which intercession can have any virtue ; for "he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." Hebrews vii. 25 : " He is able to save them to the uttermost, that come unto God by him ; " and I appeal to every Roman Catholic in this assembly, Are not Pro testants safe? for they "come unto God by
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Christ " only, and lie is " able to save such to the uttermost." What is the limit of " uttermost ? " Infinitude itself. And if Protestants are " saved to the uttermost by Christ," what need of the intercession and assistance of the Virgin Mary and other saints ? Again, Hebrews xii. 24 : " Ye are come," at once, without intervention, "to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling."
In the next place, I shall show that we have no warrant whatever in Scripture to pray to saints that are in glory. Christ's command is (Matthew xi. 28), not " Come unto Mary," or " Come unto angels or to saints/' but " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Again (John xiv. 13), "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do." And again, " Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." And again, " Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry "—what ? " Hail, Mary ? " " O blessed Joseph, hear us ? " "0 queen of heaven, deliver us ? " No, but — " whereby we cry, Abba, Father ; " at once, directly, and without the intervention of any but Christ the Mediator : " And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father."
Again ; What is prayer ? Prayer is a sacrifice,
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just as praise is a sacrifice. Not a propitiatory sacrifice : there is but one propitiatory sacrifice ; but praise and prayer and alms-giving are all sacrifices. Now, Where only must sacrifices be offered ? On the altar. But what altar have we ? Not the miserable mimicry of altars raised within the pale of the Roman- Catholic communion; not the still more lame and contemptible mimicry of Rome's altars raised by Tractarian doctors ; these are altars that a mouse may undermine, that a hammer may destroy, that time will overthrow : but we have an ALTAR whose base is the circum ference of the earth, or rather whose centre or apex is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere ; and on this altar we are to lay our praises and our prayers and our thanksgivings, knowing that it is " the altar that sanctifies the gift," and makes our praises and prayers acceptable to God. And as it is to God that all sacrifice must be offered even on Roman-Catholic principles, we see at once, that as praise and prayer are spiritual sacrifices, we are to lift them up to God only, upon Christ the only Altar, and rejoice to know that there they meet a glorious acceptance.
When the high priest had offered sacrifice with out, he went alone unto the Holy of Holies to intercede. So Christ, having offered himself without spot unto God without, went into the true holy place, that is, the heavenly, alone, to pour
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down, by his intercession in heaven, what he pro cured by his sacrifice on earth. With Him there are no other mediators : He is alone.
In the next place, I assert that there is no evidence whatever that the saints in heaven have any cognisance directly of what is doing upon earth. Ecclesiastes ix. 5 : " The living know that they shall die, but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten ; also their love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished, neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun." 2 Kings ii. 9 : " And Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee before I shall be taken away from thee ; " implying that when admitted into heaven he could do nothing for him, and all that he did for him must be done before he was taken from earth. God speaks thus to the good king Josiah (2 Kings xxii. 20) : " Behold, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace, and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place." Job xiv. 20: "His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not." Isaiah Ixiii. 16 :" Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us."
Let me now turn your attention more especially to passages that expressly repudiate all worship ing of saints or angels. Colossians ii. 18: "Let
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no man beguile you of your reward, in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen." Hebrews i. 14: "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" — not to receive their prayers, but to minister for them according to the bidding of God. " I fell down," says John, " before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things; then saith he unto me, See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow-servant ; worship God."
With respect to the Virgin Mary, the great object of Roman- Catholic idolatry, to shew that all worship to her is interdicted and forbidden in Scripture, I will refer to a discussion with a priest of the Roman-Catholic Church in the town of Reading — the Rev. Mr. Sisk, priest of the chapel at Chelsea, — on the subject of the worship which ought to be given to the Virgin Mary, in which he endeavoured to prove that it was lawful to give to her all the worship ren dered to her in the Romish Church; and that the Church of Rome was not only warranted by tradition (in which I did not profess to follow him), but by Scripture, in venerating the Virgin. He quoted the text — "All generations shall call me blessed ; " and argued that she was therefore en titled to a homage and a veneration altogether peculiar and sui generis; such, in short, I may add,
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as that of which I have given you some specimens. My reply was, that what proves too much, fails to prove the point for which it is quoted ; we read, "Blessed are the meek," "Blessed are they that mourn," " Blessed are they that hear the Word of God and keep it ; " but do we therefore fall down and worship them ? If a person, because pro nounced blessed, is to be worshipped, every Chris tian must fall down and worship his neighbour, in the strains in which the Roman Catholic adores the Virgin Mary. " But," said he, " you forget that there is a peculiar blessedness ascribed to the Virgin Mary ; for it is written of her, * Blessed art thou among women : ' Mary being obviously selected as the object of peculiar and distinguishing bless edness." I replied, that if this was the principle on which he acted, I would prove it the duty of the Roman Church to take down every statue and picture of the Virgin, and put up the picture of another in its place ; for I read in Judges v. 24, " Blessed above women shall Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, be." If Mary is to be wor shipped because she is pronounced " blessed among women," a fortiori should Jael be worshipped, for she is blessed above women ; and the Roman- Catholic Church would therefore take a step towards a more scriptural worship, if she were to expunge the name of Mary from every Litany, and to sub-
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stitute the name of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite.
But in the word of God there are passages so ex pressly and distinctly bearing against the invocation of Mary, that there can scarcely be a doubt that our blessed Lord not only foresaw the awful ido latry which would obtain upon this very subject, but made special provision in the Scriptures against it : and to me this is a most remarkable evidence of the truth and inspiration of the Scriptures. On every occasion in which the Virgin Mary is intro duced in the Bible, our Lord says something cal culated to repress any disposition to worship, or to attach supernatural claims to her person. Mary her self proves that she felt she was saved, not because she was the mother of the Saviour's flesh, but be cause she had " washed her robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." She sings, with the faith, 'humility, and joy of a true believer, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejced in God my Saviour." But who needs a "Saviour?" A sinner. Mary, notwithstanding the epithet immaculate, which the Church of Rome be stows upon her, owned herself a sinner, and a sin ner that sought mercy and acceptance at the feet of the Saviour of sinners. On one occasion we read, (Luke ii. 27,) that " a certain woman of the com pany lift up her voice and said unto him, Blessed is
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the womb that hare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked ;" that is, she was an embryo Roman Catholic ; the principle and germ of the Marian worship was in that woman's heart. What did our Lord reply I Did he say, * Let her be the empress of the earth, let her be the queen of heaven ; by all means come to me through her ?' No : but he said, " Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it." What a sublime and magnificent rebuke ! yet, like Christ's severest rebukes, bearing a blessing in the heart of it. And how should we pray, that every Roman Ca tholic should feel this blessed truth, that the man who hears God's word in the depths of his heart, and does it, is more blessed in so doing, than the Virgin Mary was in being selected to be the mother of our Lord according to the flesh ! On another occasion, (Matthew xii. 47,) we find the same disposition to check and crush the first ap proach to Marian worship : " One said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand with out, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother, and who are my brethren ? And he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren ; for whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." A clear and decisive intimation, is this,
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that all the affinities which had been generated be tween the Son of God and his virgin mother, were, in the estimate of Heaven, and for the purposes of our salvation, as practically extinguished for ever ; and that the only bond which can knit the sinner to the Saviour, is faith in his blood, and cordial repose in his perfect righteousness — Christ within our hearts as the hope of glory. And says the Apostle, to confirm this, " Neither is there salva tion in any other ; for there is none other name under heaven given amongst men, whereby we must be saved."
Mary made no atonement for the sins of the world, and therefore is destitute of any thing like a valid plea on which to raise a superstructure of an effectual intercession.
But there is no room for the interposing media tion of the Virgin Mary, if we consider what Christ is. He is God-Man. As such he is a perfect path way to glory. Sin made a yawning chasm between the absolutely holy God and the guilty and ruined creature ; and the Lord Jesus Christ, by his death, removed sin, which is the separating element be tween God and us, and introduced himself as the uniting element, the bridge, the glorious ladder, connecting heaven and earth. Christ is God, on the one hand, and can hold communion with God ; and he is man, on the other, and can hold communion with man. There is, then, no room for the Virgin
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Mary between Christ and God, for he is God, and in close contact with God ; and there is no room for the Virgin Mary between Christ and man, for he is very man, in close contact with man, entering into the depths of our sympathies, con versant with the sources of our tears, and able to call the orphan his brother, and the widow his sister. Therefore, from the Throne of God, enshrined amid glory unutterable, down to the lowest depths of human ruin, there is no room for the Virgin Mary; for Christ spans the whole chasm, and forms a pathway so wide that the greatest sinner may walk in it, and yet so holy that the least sin is not tolerated in it.
Our blessed Lord's recorded rebuke to Mary herself, teaches us his own mind on this solemn subject. In the second chapter of the Gospel of St. John, we find Mary, at the wedding feast, ex hibiting those sinful feelings of pride by which many a Mary is still characterised. On seeing that her relatives had not wine enough to supply all the guests that had been invited, and fearing lest the poverty of a relative's feast should be ex posed, she said, in delicate but intelligible terms, " They have no wine :" meaning thereby, that Christ should work a miracle to gratify her pride. What did our Lord reply ? " Woman," (the lan guage of respect,) " what have I to do with thee ?" — as much as to say, ' I must " tread the wine-
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press alone ;" even a mother's tears must not mingle with the expiatory blood of redemption ; of the people there must be " none with me ;" in the great work of atonement I have nothing to do with thee ; thou neither hast, nor art able to have, any share here.' Mary's privilege it was to listen to his gracious words, and Mary's exemplary advice it wasr " what He saithunto you, do." One would suppose that such a rebuke as this would extinguish all pretexts and apologies for the Marian worship on the part of Roman Catholics. How do they meet it ? They present, in connection with this, a very awful specimen of tampering with God's word. The very same Greek words which we here translate " What have I to do with thee ?" occur again in Mark v. 7, when the demon said to our Lord, " What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God ?" Now, in this latter passage the Church of Rome translates these words just as we do ; but in the former (John ii.), where a clear rebuke of their idolatry is implied, they have translated the words in a way that de stroys their rebuke, by destroying their meaning — " Woman, what is to thee and to me ?" How is it, that in the one passage, where a mere historical incident is concerned, the Church of Rome trans lates the words one way, and this way full of ob vious meaning — and in the other passage, where the Virgin Mary is reproved, that church translates the
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words in another way, which renders them utterly unintelligible ? The reason is obvious ; the wor ship of the Virgin Mary is just that point on which the Church of Rome seems, like the idolaters of old, " mad upon their idols ;" and because God's word rebukes it, she will rather abandon and cor rupt the truths of that word, than abandon her own corrupt and idolatrous worship.
But throughout the whole of Scripture, we find our blessed Lord exhibited as the Saviour of the people, and in no one instance is the Virgin Mary thus set forth. Heaven and earth, and all between, witness constantly to Jesus Christ. If I ask the Apostle Paul who is to be the great object of our hope and faith, he answers — " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." If I appeal to the dying martyr Stephen in the immediate prospect of a judgment-seat, his departing cry was, (for he died a Protestant, not a Roman Catholic,) — not * Mary,' but "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And here let me mention a little in cident, illustrative of the intensity of Romish idolatry. A Roman-Catholic layman distinguished for his talent and his scholarship, with whom I had a discussion, was laid upon a sick-bed; a clergyman of the Church of England and myself resolved to call upon him. I said, when we were admitted, "My dear friend, we have dis- Q3
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cussed the points at issue between us long enough ; now let us have done with controversy, and do just listen to me, while I try to tell you what the blessed Gospel is, in which I place all my trust." He consented ; and I tried to preach to him the true Atonement, and the true Purgatory, and the only Sacrifice ; and I asked, " Cannot you take up the language of dying Stephen, and if called to leave this bed, and stand before God, would not your last words be, ' Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ?' Surely, I said, in the prospect of eternity, Mary won't do." After a deliberate pause, he spoke ; " If I had but three minutes to live," he said, " my last words would be — Holy Mary, blessed art thou among women ; blessed is the fruit of thy womb ; pray for me now, and in the hour of death." He lived ; and I trust what I said may not be forgotten, though on that occasion all seemed of no avail.
If I address the Patriarch Job, * What are thy hope and glory ? ' the broken-hearted patriarch replies, " I know that my Redeemer liveth." If I ask the saints around the Throne, who is the burden of their song, I hear the anthem peal borne from the celestial choirs, and significant of their faith and joy — "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his blood, be glory and dominion for^ever and ever." If I ask the Ever lasting Father, Who is Christ ? — I hear the re. spending voice from heaven — " This is my beloved
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Son : hear ye him." If I ask the Lord Jesus him self—" I am the way." If I ask the Holy Spirit, he descends like a dove to bear witness to him and to seal him as Messiah. If I inquire of angels, what is the theme of their admiration, they exclaim, " Unto you is born a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord;" "Into these things we desire to look; " And let all the angels of God worship him." If I refer to the Prophets, " to Him give all the Prophets witness." If I turn to the Baptist, he gathers up all that had been symbolized and sha dowed in the ancient economy, and compresses it into one golden and magnificent ascription, " Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." If I ask the Apostles who it is that they preach — " Whom wTe preach " — a We are witnesses." If I ask the whole Church of Christ the ground of their hope — " To whom shall we go but unto Thee ? Thou hast the words of eternal life." If I ask, What mean the sacraments ? — they are voices in the wilderness, " We are not that Christ ; we bear witness of him : He must in crease, we must decrease." If I appeal to creation around me, every rock bears inscribed upon its brow, The Rock of Ages — every vine announces the true and living Vine ; the sun in the firma ment tells me of the Sun of Righteousness ; the stars set forth the bright and morning Star ; and the rose that blooms in the field and garden, carries
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by its fragrance to my heart the loveliness of Jesus, the Rose of Sharon. All creation, all re velation — prophets, saints and martyrs — turn away from Mary and from angels, and concentrate their regard, and converge their attention, upon Jesus, and glorify him crucified, him crowned. Nay, more : if the Virgin Mary could speak to her Roman-Catholic worshippers upon earth, I am sure she would give them different advice from that which they now follow. You may recollect, when Diogenes the Cynic was seated in his tub, basking in the sunshine according to his practice, that Alexander the Great, smitten with admira tion of the strange man, and wondering at his self- sacrifice, one day asked him if there was any favour in Macedon which he could bestow, and which Dio genes could select. After a pause, the old Cynic answered, " This is my only request, that your majesty would stand aside from between me and the sun." And if the Virgin or the most illustrious saint or angel were to come from the happy land, and to ask me at this moment what is the greatest favour he could confer upon me on earth or secure for me in heaven, I would tell him, even if he were one of the bright cherubim radiant from God's presence, that it is, and ever will be, to stand aside from between me and the Sun of righteousness, that his beams may illumine me, his warmth quicken me, his blood cleanse me, his righteousness clothe me,
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and his life and death, and love and peace, be all in all to my -soul.
One beautiful relationship to his church, under which Christ is set forth in Scripture, is that of her Everlasting Husband ; and just mark what this implies. Would you suppose, that that wife was living in harmony with her husband, who, when anxious to obtain money for the supply of the family for the week, should call upon her next- door neighbour, and say, ' Will you go up to my husband, and ask him to give me five pounds to provide for us during the next week ? ' Would not every one suspect that' such a wife did not live on good terms with her husband, and that the husband could have none of the feelings of a hus band towards her whom he called his wife ? When husband and wife live in concord and reciprocal affection, the wife would not hesitate herself to tell him what is needed for the wants of the common circle. Now Christ is our loving and enthroned Husband, with ten thousand times a husband's power, and ten thousand times ten thousand times a husband's heart, for his is the heart of hearts ; and you that are the members of his body, you that constitute " the Lamb's wife," have only to say, " Jesus, give," and he has infinitely more joy in giving than you have in asking.
Preach the Law, and you may preach men to de struction ; preach ' Do and live,' and despair \vill
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be the close, as a mercenary spirit must be the com mencement; preach the terrors of hell, and you may scare, but you will not reclaim men; preach the commandment or the curse of Sinai, and you will not reach man's heart, the secret source of his alienation ; but preach the love and devotedness of Christ — disclose the ever open and unfolded arms of the everlasting Father — and, under the blessing of the Spirit of God, there will be found that in the exhibition of a Father's love, in the gift and atonement of his dear Son, which will melt the hard heart, and thaw the frozen soul, and enable the hearer to know what this means, " We love God because God first loved us." I once tried to convince a dying man by the Law ; I tried to convince him by various other lessons ; I failed : but when I told him of the prodigal's return, and reception, and recovery, it reached his heart. That poor youth, you remember, had gone to a strange land, wasted his substance in riotous living, and lay in the very depth of distress and despair; but he said to himself, " I will arise and go" — where? to his father's butler, or his father's friend, to intercede for him and introduce him? or to lie down at his father's door, and do some painful and agonizing penance to conciliate his father's feelings towards him ? No ; he knew what was in his father's heart, and that his appeal to it would touch a string that would vibrate with afFec-
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tion and sympathy. He said, " I will arise and go to my father." The father, it is evident, was look ing out for his son; and "when he was yet a great way off, he saw him." He was probably standing on the highest turret of his house; and as he saw in the far distant horizon a speck, he thought within himself as it dilated, ' Can it be my poor stray boy?' He looked again, and it grew to a ragged and barefooted youth; and soon a father's fond eye detected the well-known gait and features of his long-lost son. Now did the father say, ' I will allow him to taste the fruits of his own folly ; I will keep him at bay, till he has made every one about me his friend, and then he shall be intro duced to myself; I will make him do some pe- nance before I receive him?" No! he ran and fell on his son's neck, and bade all the household rejoice at his return ; and when the son began to appeal for an humble place in the family, the father overwhelmed him with caresses, and silenced him with the overflowings of paternal kindness, and said, ' Nay, nay, bring forth and kill for him the fatted calf, and let us eat and be merry.' So is it, my dear Roman-Catholic friends, my dear Protestant fellow-Christians, — so is it with God ; and the greatest wrong that we do that gracious God, is the hard thoughts we have of him. You look at him as an Egyptian task-master ; you think of the great and good God as a Pharaoh. My dear
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friends, he hangs over you with more than parental tenderness; your first movement to him is met by a forward movement on his part from heaven to earth ; and there is joy amid the angels over one soul that repenteth and turneth to God.
Once more : Christ Jesus is the true ladder of Jacob's vision — one end of it touching the earth, and the other reaching the uttermost heaven. By it you may climb from grace to glory, looking neither to the right nor to the left, but trusting only in Him who is " the way." Oh ! what deep dishonour you do to that Saviour, when you go to other ways, to other names, to other introductions to heaven! For what has Christ, the offended God, done to bring you to heaven ? He has made HIMSELF "the way." He lies down, that you, the guilty, may walk on that way, and reach the bosom of God, I regard it as one of the most stupendous proofs of the love and humiliation of Christ, that not satisfied with dying for us, he has made himself the way for us, on which to walk to heaven and to happiness. How unlike is this love to man's ! I remember reading of two High land chiefs, bitter enemies and antagonists of each other, who met in a very narrow pathway, cross ing a deep ravine between two hills, and along which only one person could pass at a time. It was the rule, that if two persons met there, one should lie down and the other step over him ; but
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the one proud chief said, * Shall I allow this coward to walk over me ?' and the other, * Shall I allow my foe to tread upon me ? ' They at last entered into desperate and mortal combat, every feeling stirred and every sinew stretched to its utmost, both knowing that one or other must pe rish. At length, one was thrown over the preci pice ; and the other walked on, triumphing in the result. — That was man. But it is not thus with GOD. He, the offended, who might have stood upon terms, is the party that has become the Way, along which the guilty offender may walk to God, and thus find " glory, honour, and immortality." Truly, " his thoughts are not our thoughts, nei ther are his ways our ways ; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts.
L E C T U E E IX.
TRANSUBSTANTIATION.
1 CORINTHIANS xi. 24.
This is my body, which is broken for you.
I AM sure there are few Protestants who do not appreciate, in its beauty and in its force, the short but comprehensive sentence which I have now read. You all understand, that by these words, so solemnly uttered by our blessed Lord as the dying precept which he enjoined, and therefore the more imperative upon our observance, he meant to convey — ' This bread, which is broken upon the table, is the seal and symbol of that body which is about to be broken for you ; it is the simple but expressive epitome of all the benefits arid blessings that accrue to God's redeemed and living people, from the incarnation and sorrows, the agony and the expiatory death, of the Redeemer.' And when we approach the Communion-table, whatever be the form in which we celebrate that holy rite,
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we feel that it points backward to the past, and proclaims the height and depth, the length and breadth, of that love which Christ manifested to man ; and that it points forward to the future also, and declares the certainty of that glorious advent which the Redeemer himself predicted, when he said — " I will not leave you comfortless ; I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also."
One may well ask, By what strange halluci nation has it come to pass, that a large section of the visible and professing church attaches to these words so different a meaning as transubstantiation ? — alleging that they ought to be taken, not in that figurative and symbolic sense in wrhich we have been accustomed to receive them, but that it was literally true, that when our blessed Lord uttered these words, the bread and wine that were placed before him on the table instantly were changed or transubstantiated into the literal body and the literal blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and this change still takes place when these words are uttered by the priest. So truly is this believed by every member of the Church of Rome, that he holds, that the moment the priest has pronounced the words Hoc est enim meum corpus (for this is my body), that moment the flour and water, in the shape of a wafer, which has been laid on the altar,
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become literally and truly and substantially the very flesh and blood and soul and deity of the Son of God. If you should protest to the Roman Catholic — ' It looks like a wafer — it tastes like a wafer — it smells like a wafer — it crumbles like a wafer of flour and water — and if I leave it long enough, it corrupts and moulders like a wafer' — his answer is — ' Your senses are all betrayed, it is no such thing ; your five senses tell you it is flour and water, but you are told in the Inspired Volume by our Lord himself that it is his body ; and in spite of all your senses proclaiming it to be flour and water, you are bound to believe it is literally and truly flesh and blood.'
You will easily conceive that this is a demand upon our belief, of a very severe and extraordinary description ; and that it will need, upon the part of the Church of Rome, neither few nor frail arguments to prove that they are right and that we are wrong. You wrill also perceive the vast importance of the truth or falsehood of this doc trine, from the necessary sequences or conse quences of it. In the Church of Rome, they believe, that as soon as the flour and water have been transubstantiated into the body and blood of our blessed Lord, and the priest holds it up, or " elevates the host," in the midst of the congrega tion, they may and do justly fall down and adore it, as truly the Lord Jesus Christ. If they are right in
Transubstantiation. 357
the previous supposition, that this transubstan- tiation takes place, their adoration is certainly proper ; but if they are wrong in the assumption that the flour and water are turned into flesh and blood, then their adoration, upon their own prin ciples, must be revolting idolatry. But this is not the only consequence of their doctrine : as soon as it has been thus changed and adored, the priest in every Roman- Catholic chapel instantly offers up this — which he believes to be the body and blood, the soul and divinity, of our blessed Lord— a sacrifice propitiatory for the sins of the living and the dead, possessing exactly the efficacy of the atonement on Calvary ; a sacrifice, in short, ade quate to cancel and remit the sins of the living and the dead, just as if it were the literal and true sacrifice offered upon the cross every Sunday. I shall not be able, in this Lecture, to enter upon a consideration of the doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass, which may be viewed quite distinctly from the doctrine of transubstantiation ; for I may re mark in passing, that if I were to grant to the Roman Catholic that transubstantiation is true, I should yet be prepared to repudiate as false the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass ; being prepared to prove and to demonstrate that there is but one glorious and perfect expiatory Sacrifice — -a sacrifice of such spotless excellency, such glorious per fection, that nothing that is in heaven itself can
358 Transubstantiation.
add to it, and nothing that is in hell can detract from it or destroy it.
In order that we may proceed fairly and logically to the consideration of this topic, I will first read to you a brief extract from the Creed of Pope Pius the Fourth — the Creed of the Church of Rome, and which every member of that Church subscribes. " I profess likewise, that in the Mass there is offered to God a true, proper, and pro pitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead ; that in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, there is truly, really, and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and that there is a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the \vhole substance of the wine into the blood ; which conversion the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation. I also confess, that under either kind alone Christ is received whole and entire, and there is a true sacrament."
I will also read the following extracts from the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent. Chapter IV. on the Eucharist : " Since Christ our Redeemer truly said that that which he offered under the appearance of bread was his body, there fore the Church of Christ has ever been persuaded, and this holy Synod declares it anew, that by the consecration of the bread and wine, a conversion
Transubstantiation. 359
takes place of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood ; which conversion the holy Catholic Church suitably and properly calls tran- substantiation." Again : the First Canon of the Council of Trent on the Eucharist is, " If any man shall deny, that in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist there is contained, truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so a whole Christ — but shall say that he is only in it in sign, or figure, or power — let him be accursed." Also Canon VJ. : " If any shall say, that in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is not to be adored, and that outwardly with the worship of latria [the chiefest worship], and therefore that he ought neither to be venerated by any especial celebration, nor carried solemnly about in pro cession, according to the laudable and universal custom of the Church, or that he ought not to be exhibited to the people, and that the worshippers of him are idolaters, let him be accursed." This is Transubstantiation, as it is defined and embodied in the authoritative documents of the Church of Rome.
To show you how very near the Tractarians of Oxford approach to the Canons of the Council of
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Trent, and how true and just is the statement I have made, that the Oxford Tracts, especially the last, ought to be appended to those Canons as com mentaries upon them, I will read one or two extracts from some of the most notorious works of the Tractarian school. In Tract LXXXVI. it is stated, that " there is the real and essential pre sence of Christ's natural body and blood in the Eucharist." I will read also from Mr. Palmer's Letter to The Oxford Herald: "With regard to the blessed sacraments, I protest against nothing ; it seems to me a question of no moment, whether the natural substance of bread and wine remains, or not ; I do not, I say, protest at all, nor am I a Protestant on the point of transubstaiitiation." Then comes Mr. Newman in Tract XC. : " Let them but believe and act on the truth, that the consecrated bread is Christ's body, as He says, and no officious comment on His words will be attempted by any well-judging mind. But when they say * This cannot be literally true, because it is impossible,' then they force those who think it is literally true, to explain how, according to their notions, it is not impossible. And those who ask hard questions, must put up with hard answers." And then he goes on to say, that there is a literal and true presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist.
Such, then, is the doctrine we are now to con sider.
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The great argument of the Roman- Catholic Church is, that you are to take the words — " This is my body," literally and strictly ; and that thus taking them, you must conclude that transubstan- tiation is scriptural and true. Now if they insist upon our taking these words literally, let us first of all inquire whether they themselves take the words literally. You cannot fail to observe, that if the words are to be interpreted literally, they merely imply — This bread is Christ's body. But you will recollect, that in the first Canon of the Council of Trent on the Eucharist, they say that there is a transubstantiation, by virtue of which there is present, not only the body, but <c the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ." If we take the words literally, we must conclude that there is present only the body of Christ, and not the soul and divinity ; for these are not included in the words. They themselves, therefore, whilst they contend for a literal interpretation, set the example of departing from the literal import, and practically attach to the words a figurative meaning.
But, if they insist upon taking these words li-> terally in reference to the bread, we call upon them to carry through their principle, and to take also the words literally that refer to the wine. Our Lord says, " This cup is the New Testament in my blood." Now if " This is my body" means that the bread is transubstantiated into flesh, then,
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consecutively, and by parity of reasoning, " This cup is the New Testament" must import that the cup is literally transubstantiated into a New Test ament. But they take the first half literally, because it suits their own purposes ; and they take the second half figuratively, just for the very same reason. This is strange interpretation.
But, if we are to attach a literal interpretation to this passage, and to this peculiar form of phraseology, I contend that we are bound, by all the principles of fair and consistent interpretation, to attach a literal meaning to about thirty-seven passages of a homogeneous character, which occur in various portions of the Sacred Volume. " I am the door :" must we not take that literally ? " I am the vine :" must we not take that literally ? " The seven ears of corn are seven years :" " the seven candlesticks are seven churches :" " the field is the world:" "that rock was Christ:" "the seven heads are seven mountains :" " their throat is an open sepulchre :" " thou art that head of gold :" and so on. If we are bound to take the words — " This is my body" in their literal sense, then we must take similar phraseology in other passages in the literal sense ; we must believe, that our Lord was changed into a vine — that he was transformed into a door — that seven can dlesticks became literally transubstantiated into seven churches — -that the throat of the wicked
Transubstantiation. 363
becomes literally a sepulchre — that seven ears of corn were literally transmuted into seven years — and thus the whole word of God is irrational and absurd. If, on the other hand, we take the Pro testant principle of interpretation — that of attach ing a figurative interpretation where a figurative is obviously required — then beauty, consistency and harmony pervade the Sacred Volume. I can then understand how the rock is the symbol of the Rock of Ages ; that the vine is the symbol of Christ — the parent root and stem and source of all the vitality that is found in His people, its branches ; that the throat of the wicked is likened to a sepulchre, because of the words of malice and the thoughts of evil of which it is the channel ; that the seven ears represent seven years, and the seven candle sticks are the meet and expressive symbols of seven churches ; and in accordance with this, that the bread is not literally transubstantiated into flesh, but is the expressive and apposite symbol of the incarnation of God, " God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory,"
We have a powerful argument for this mode of interpretation, in the language applied to the ancient sacrament, under the Levitical economy. One is extremely appropriate. When the lamb was slain and placed upon the table, and the fami* R 2
364 Tramubstantiation.
lies of Israel gathered round to eat of it, the offi ciating priest (for the patriarch of the home is the priest of the church assembling in that home), pointing to the lamb, said — " This is the Lord's passover." Now, if you take these words in their literal meaning, as the Romanists take the words " This is my body," you must understand by them that the patriarch meant to convey — This lamb, on which you are feeding as still animal flesh, is now transubstantiated into an angel spreading his wings upon the air, and sweeping through the length and the breadth of the land of Egypt ; leaving mourning in the habitations of Rahab, and songs of joy in the homes of the children of Israel. But here would evidently be a stretch of inter pretation so extravagant and absurd, that even a Roman Catholic cannot receive it. And in like man ner, when circumcision is referred to, under the Old-Testament economy, it is said of it — " This is the Lord's covenant." We understand by these expressions, that circumcision was a symbol or a seal of the covenant of God, in the one rite ; and that the lamb was the sign or memorial of that memorable night, in which God spared the first born of Israel, through the sprinkling of blood, while he smote with a high hand and an out stretched arm the first-born of guilty and dis obedient Egypt.
Not only are we borne out in this principle of
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interpretation by the obvious usage of Scripture, but it is in accordance with the usages of man, in every language, and under all circumstances. If I walk into the British Museum, and take you through the gallery that contains those busts and statues that came from the chissels of ancient and distinguished statuaries, and if, as you enter, I point to the left hand, and say, " That is Homer," do you understand, when you look upon that ex quisite specimen of sculpture, that it is Homer alive and risen from the dead, and that you may now listen to the strains of the hoary bard again ? You attach no such meaning to the phrase. Or, if I take you into the school -room, and pointing to a map on the wall, say, " This is England," " That is Scotland," " That is Europe," you never suppose that the canvass and the paint are transub stantiated into England, Scotland, or Europe. You at once understand, that I use a figure of speech, familiar in every language in every part of the world ; and that all I mean is, that the sculp tured marble is the representation of the ancient poet, and that the map projected on the paper or the canvass, is the representative epitome of the districts, the counties, and the parishes of Europe, of England, and of Scotland.
The Roman Catholic, however, will appeal to other parts of Scripture, which he contends will prove this doctrine. There is one chapter, which
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every Roman Catholic has committed to memory, if no other portion of the Bible, namely, the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. He contends, that we have in that chapter such a clear and incontrovertible exposition of the doc trine of transubstantiation, that no one can resist it; and hence, in almost every Roman- Catholic controversial document, you will find the last half of that chapter quoted ; and it is taken for granted in every instance, that it refers to the Lord's Supper, and to that alone. But this is not its reference. You will recollect the circumstances originating the conversation in that chapter. Our Lord had fed the five thousand miraculously with a few loaves and fishes ; and the Capernaites, un- baptized and unconverted, charmed with the great ness of the miracle, and attracted by the prospect of leading lives of indolence and being fed with- our trouble, followed him wherever he went. Our Lord told them, that they sought him not because of the works he had done, but because of the loaves and fishes ; and then he preached to them in the following words : " I am the bread of life ; " " This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die ; " "Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." The Roman Catholic contends, that all these passages refer so directly and so explicitly to the doctrine
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of transubstantiation, that no Protestant can re sist their force. Let us look at them. In the first place, is it probable, or at all in accordance with the wonted teaching of our Lord, that he should begin first of all to proclaim to the untutored and heathen Capernaites, not salvation freely through His blood, but the mystery of the Eucharist ? In the second place, is it probable, that our blessed Lord explained the sacrament of the Supper to the people, to whom neither he nor any other had ever preached the very elements of Christianity ? And, in the last place, you will find, that throughout the whole chapter, there is no mention whatever either of the cup or of the bread, or of the words of consecration, or of any thing that could lead you to suppose that there is the least allusion to the Lord's Supper. The truth is, as you will find by an analysis of the chapter, that our blessed Lord sets forth faith under the similitude of hun gering and thirsting, and of eating and drinking ; and you are aware that it is a very common usage on the part of our Saviour, to represent himself under a variety of figures, and faith as taking its tone from each of those figures. Thus, if Christ is represented as the everlasting rock, faith reposes upon that rock, and feels secure amid the convulsions of an agitated world ; if Christ is set forth as a fountain of living waters, faith comes and drinks of the refreshing streams "without
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money and without price ; " if Christ is repre sented as bread, faith eats of it, and is recruited and strengthened ; if Christ is represented as "the way," faith walks in the way ; if as " the truth," faith receives the truth ; if as " the life," faith lays hold upon that life ; if as an anchor, faith grasps the anchor; if as an ark, faith leaves the shattered and the sinking wreck of nature, and goes into that ark, which will waft its happy and its holy ones across the turmoils and the troubles of the world, and land them in that better place, where faith is lost in fruition, and hope merged in enjoyment. Now this is precisely the process adopted by our blessed Lord throughout this chapter ; and you will see, by referring to some of the passages, that he regards believing and hun gering as perfectly identical. Observe : " Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life ; he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst : " shewing that coming to Christ and believing on him are equivalent to eating that bread. And again : " This is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life ; " and in a parallel passage — " Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life : " showing that to eat of that living bread, and to come to
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him in the exercise of faith, are exactly the same thing, and are both followed by the blessing of everlasting life.
Were we to suppose that this chapter refers to the Eucharist, and to grant (for the sake of argu ment) that transubstantiation is here clearly indi cated, it would prove what no Roman Catholic can conscientiously admit. For instance, in one verse it is said, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." If the Eucharist, or the Lord's Supper, is here intended, it follows, that every one who does not partake of the Lord's Supper, has not eternal life. But the thief upon the cross passed from his shame to his glory, and never tasted of the Lord's Supper. The infant that dies like un timely fruit in its mother's bosom, passes to the bosom of the everlasting Father, and the possession of an eternal home ; and yet that infant has never received the Lord's Supper. But if this refers to the Lord's Supper, it proves, that unless you par take of that sacrament, it is impossible that you can have life in you. And then the converse of this is also made out ; for it is said — " He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eter~ nal life." If this refers to the Lord's Supper, every man that partakes of that sacrament has eternal life. But I venture to assert, that no Roman Catholic will agree to this, Luther fre-
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quently partook of the Lord's Supper in the Church of Rome; but Roman Catholics do not believe that this " arch-heresiarch " has eternal life. Judas, there is reason to suppose, partook of the Lord's Supper ; and yet Judas did not obtain ever lasting life. And there have been thousands in the bosom of the Roman-Catholic communion who have repeatedly partaken of the Lord's Sup per, and yet there has not been one shadow of a shade of evidence satisfactory to a Roman-Catholic priest, or bishop, or council, that they were even probable inheritors of everlasting life, or did not die in mortal sin.
But the close of that chapter is, in fact, the clearest exposition of it. When the Capernaites wondered " how this man could give them his flesh to eat," what did our Lord say? He added — "It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh pro- fiteth nothing : the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, arid they are life." Now, with the Roman Catholic, " the flesh profiteth" so much, that unless you " eat the flesh" in the Lord's Sup per, you have not eternal life ; but in the estimate of our Lord the flesh profiteth so little, that you are not to consider it at all. " The words that I speak unto you" are full of spiritual meaning, illustrative of spiritual truths, to be apprehended by spiritual minds, and to be made the germs of grace and glory in renovated and spiritual hearts.
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Notwithstanding all this, the Roman Catholic alleges, that the flour and water on the Communion Table (or, as he calls it, the altar), are really and truly changed; and we are to believe it, though all our senses protest against it. If so, I must add, that of all the weapons ever placed in the hands of the infidel, the Church of Rome has in this instance furnished the most effective and the most plausible. Nor is it at all to be matter of sur prise, that France, Popish the one year, is infidel the next ; for I believe, that the most sure precursor of universal scepticism would be the extensive and universal spread of Roman-Catholic super stition ; and that in those countries where the Church of Rome has attained her most rapid vic tories, and put forth her most gigantic powers, the reaction which has followed has proved how true it is, that from the one extreme of superstition and credulity to the other extreme of infidelity and scepticism, is but a short way. And to shew that if we repudiate the testimony of the senses, we put weapons in the hand of the infidel, I would refer to the resurrection of Christ from the dead. How do we prove this ? The answer of Scripture is, that " he was seen of the Twelve," and after wards of " above five hundred brethren at once ; " Thomas handled him, and the rest of the Apostles held converse with him. But the Church of Rome contends, that man's senses are deceived every
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Sunday, when he looks at the sacrament upon the altar; and the infidel will consistently reply, * If man's senses are deceived every Sunday in the nineteenth century, may they not have been de ceived in the first? may not the Apostles' senses have been all deceived, when they said they saw Christ risen ? may not the senses of the five hun dred have been deceived, when they said they saw Christ all at one and the moment 1 and may it. not therefore be true, according to your own principles, that Christ is not risen, that (( you are yet in your sins, your preaching vain, and the people's faith also vain ? " In like manner, again, we prove the miracles of our blessed Lord by the testimony of the senses. What is a miracle ? An appeal to man's senses ; a suspension of the laws of nature, visible to man's senses. But if the senses may be deceived, miracles may never have been wrought ; a fascination only of the senses may have been produced ; and what we regard as the seals and the everlasting credentials of the truth and inspir ation of the Gospel, may, on Roman-Catholic principles, have been only a delusio visits — a de ception of the sight. And thus it is, that the transition from superstition to infidelity is very easy, and every way very rapid. I know that Roman- Catholic disputants quote several refer ences from Scripture, to prove that the senses may be deceived. They quote the instance of the
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disciples journeying to Emmaus, when our blessed Lord drew near to them and walked with them, and yet they did not know it was Christ. But there was a reason for it; for it is added, " Their eyes were holden, that they should not know him/' The Roman-Catholic disputant quotes an other instance — that of Mary in the garden, when Christ appeared after his resurrection from the dead; she "supposed him to have been the gardener." But there it is obvious, that though her eyes were unable to recognise her Master, yet when our blessed Lord uttered the word " Mary," her ear faithfully corrected the short-coming of her eye, and instantly she recognised her Lord and Saviour Christ. Again, the Roman Catholic quotes the passage, where it is stated that Christ appeared in the midst of the disciples, " the doors being shut;" and he quietly infers, that our Lord's body must have passed through the closed doors, and consequently cannot be regarded as sub ject to the same natural laws to which our bodies are liable. But there is not one particle of evidence for this ; on the contrary, I conceive that the ex pression, "the doors being shut" is an expressive phrase, used in ancient times, to denote evening, just as we say, "the candles were lighted," or " the shutters were closed," when we mean that it was night, and the daylight was gone. All that seems to be implied in this passage is, that even-
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ing was come, and the sun had set, when our blessed Lord on that occasion made his appearance in the midst of his disciples.
In order to shew you the utter falsity of the doctrine of transubstantiation, I will now prove to you from Scripture — first of all, that the body of our blessed Lord is contained in heaven until the appointed period of his second advent; and being contained in heaven literally as far as his humanity is concerned, cannot be bodily on earth at the same time. Acts iii. 21 i "Whom the heaven must receive until the time of restitution of all things." 2 Corinthians v. 16: " Henceforth know we no man after the flesh ; yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more" — that is, literally, corpo really, and physically. Colossians iii. 1 : "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." Further: there are passages of Scrip ture, which shew that our blessed Lord, having a true body, cannot (as far as is revealed,) be in several places in that body at the same time. That his was a true body, we prove from Hebrews ii. 17, "In all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren." It is the characteristic of every human body, that it can only be in one place at a time ; and as our Lord had true and proper humanity, and all that is characteristic of
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humanity, sin excepted, he could only be bodily in one place at a time. Matthew xxviii. 5, 6 : " Ye seek Jesus which was crucified ; he is not here, FOR he is risen : " implying that he could not be bodily there in the grave, and risen from the dead, at one and the same time. The way in which the Roman Catholic explains that statement of the angel is, that it was meant simply to convey — * Christ is not visi ble here.' But would not this be uttering a direct untruth ? If you and I were together in a room, and if I hid myself in a corner of it, would it be truth, if you were to say to a third person, inquir ing for me, ' He is not here, he is gone out ? • Unless, therefore, we can suppose an angel, sent upon the message of his God, to have told a direct and deliberate untruth, (which we cannot,) we must infer, that our Lord's body could not be at the same moment in the grave, and enshrined amid the glories of the Father's right hand.
Again : when our Lord had risen from the dead, we find him appealing to the senses, and saying, (Luke xxiv. 39, 40,) " Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet." What does this teach us ? That the senses are to judge of the bodily presence of Christ ; that handling him, beholding his feet and his hands, was the evidence of his bodily anc*
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corporeal presence ; and that where there is no such evidence afforded, (and there is none in the Mass,) there we must infer, that he is not bodily and corporeally present. On this, Scripture is peculiarly full. John xx. 27 : " Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hand ; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side : and be not faithless, but believing :" implying, that his bodily presence was to be ap preciated by the senses, and that where the senses could not detect him, there his bodily presence was not.
In the next place, I will shew, that there is direct scriptural proof, that the elements of bread and wine are not, after consecration, transubstan tiated into the body and blood of our blessed Lord. After he had pronounced the words of consecration, on which transubstantiation takes place, or " given thanks," you will find that our Lord adds, (Matthew xxvi. 29,) " I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom :" our Lord shows by these words, that after what the Roman Catholic believes to be the words of transubstantiation, the wine remains sub stantially what it was before. Again : 1 Corinth ians x. 16 : " The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ?" This is uttered after the consecration of the elements,
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when, therefore, there is no literal bread left. The Roman Catholic believes, however, that while the wafer may be broken, Christ's true body can not be broken ; and yet the Apostle distinctly de clares, that he breaks that which has been conse crated, and that the breaking of it is the com munion of the body of Christ. — Let me next refer to the passage from which my text is taken — " For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you; that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread : and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat ; this is my body, which is broken for you : this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come." Here, you observe, the Apostle distinctly calls it " this bread " after it has been consecrated, and speaks in the same way of " this cup."
In the next place, I maintain, that the very na ture of the ordinance itself shews that there is no transubstantiation. It is said, " Do this in remem brance of me." Now, memory refers to a thing that is absent, not to a thing that is present ; and, therefore, the end of this command proves, that
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Christ is not bodily present, but is, as Scripture asserts, at his Father's right hand in heaven. Again : — " Ye do shew the Lord's death till he come ;" this implies, that he is not yet personally come — that His advent is future — and that He is yet absent in bodily presence, and not, as the Roman Catholic says, bodily and literally present on the altar.
Perhaps this also is the appropriate place for introducing a very beautiful extract from one of the ancient fathers, which shews that the doctrine of transubstantiation had no place in their views of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. I do not say that the fathers are to be regarded as authorities in the exposition of Scripture, but as witnesses to fact their testimony is of considerable value ; and at all events, as the Roman Catholic is bound to interpret Scripture " only according to the unani mous consent of the fathers," it is of the utmost importance for him to learn, that some of them hold the Protestant view of the Lord's Supper. Hear, then, Augustine, the most evangelical of all the fathers : " If a passage is preceptive, and either forbids a crime or wickedness, it is not figurative; but, if it seem to command a crime, or to forbid usefulness or kindness, it is figurative. ( Unless ye shall eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you :' he appears to en join wickedness and a crime ; it is a figure, there-
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fore, teaching us that we partake of the benefit of the Lord's passion, and that we must sweetly and pro fitably treasure up in our memories, that His flesh was crucified and wounded for us." (Benedictine edition, Paris, 1685, v. iii. p. 52.) And, again, the same author says — " How shall I put forth my hand to heaven, and lay hold of Him who sitteth there ] Put forth your faith, and you will have laid hold on Christ." Again, from the same author : " * Jesus answered and said, This is the work of God, that ye believe in Him whom He hath sent ;' to do this, is to eat the meat which perishes not, but endures to eternal life. Why do you prepare your teeth and your stomach? Believe only, and you will have eaten." " This, therefore, is to eat that food, and to drink that cup — namely, to abide in Christ, and to have Christ abiding in you; and for this reason, he who does not abide in Christ, and in whom Christ does not abide, beyond all doubt, does not spiritually eat his flesh, or drink his blood, al though he carnally presses with his teeth the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ." Such are the words of Augustine, a father much relied on by Roman-Catholic divines, and fre quently quoted to prove the doctrine of transub- stantiation.
Take another ancient father — Isidore, a bishop who lived in the seventh century ; and we shall see
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that our interpretation of the words in question as figurative was held in that day also : — "Where fore Scripture calls it the spirit of Samuel, because images are wont to be called by the names of those things of whom they are images ; thus all things painted or sculptured are called by the names of those things of which they are resemblances, and the proper name is unhesitatingly given. It is said, < That is Cicero/ < that is Sallust,' ' that is Achilles,' ' that is Hector/ ' that is the river Simois ;' although they are nothing else than the painted images. The representations of the sacred cherubim, though celestial powers, being made of metal, were also called ' cherubim.' So when one has a dream, he does not say, * I saw the picture of Augustine,' but ' I saw Augustine,' though at the moment of this sight Augustine was ignorant of any thing of the kind ; so obvious is it, that the images of the men, and not the men themselves, are seen. Thus, Pharaoh said he saw ears of corn and kine in his dream, not a representation of ears and of kine." The explanation, you observe, fur nished in the seventh century exactly agrees with the interpretation adopted by Protestants.
But let me now shew you the awful results to which the doctrine of transubstantiation must necessarily lead. Every Roman Catholic fully and conscientiously believes, that if the piece of flour and water which the priest has consecrated
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on the altar were broken into ten thousand parti cles, and those particles scattered to the remotest confines of the habitable globe, the whole body and blood of our blessed Lord would be in each of the ten thousand particles, and in each a whole body complete and entire. He believes, that every Sunday morning, in the six hundred Roman-Ca tholic chapels in Britain, and in the thousands of chapels on the continent, if each priest pronounce the words, " This is my body," at or nearly at the same moment of time, on each and every altar, though thousands of miles apart from each other, there will be not a fragment of the body, but the whole of the body and blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; so that he holds it possible for our Lord's literal body to be in ten thousand different places at one and the same instant. Now, if this be true of our Lord's body, it may be true of the body of any person ; for he was <( in all things made like unto his brethren," and took our very nature upon him, sin only excepted. Hence, therefore, according to the Roman- Catholic prin ciple, this is possible in the case of Peter, or John, or Thomas, or any one else ; and by a strange, inexplicable, and, to any but to a Roman Catholic, incredible absurdity, it may be asserted, that Peter is fasting in London, feasting in Paris, and asleep in Edinburgh, at one and the same moment ; be cause a true body, according to this doctrine, may
382 Transubstantiation.
at the same moment be in different places, in dif ferent states and conditions, and under the action of different circumstances.
I know the Roman Catholic will reply — ' All things are possible with God ; God is omnipotent.' It is perfectly true ; but it is not God's omni potence, it is God's written word, that is the rule of our faith. And in one direction, at least, we must restrict omnipotence ; for it is expressly said by the inspired penman, that God " cannot lie." ' But,' rejoins the Roman Catholic, ' Christ's body is now a spiritual body ; and though it might be perfectly true of a mortal body upon earth, that it could not be in ten thousand places at the same moment, it may be true of his now glorified and exalted humanity.' Here, however, he forgets that the Supper was instituted before our Lord had died, risen from the dead, and been glorified; and there is no reason for believing that what was not true then is true now. But the Roman-Catholic disputant will say — * It is a mystery, and are we to deny mysteries ? do we not believe the doctrine of the Trinity, which is equally a mystery ? ' Many an able Protestant divine has involved him self in inextricable confusion here, by setting out with the postulate, or the hypothesis, that he is not bound to believe any thing that is above his senses. We assert, on the contrary, that we must believe many things that are above our senses, but
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none that are contrary to them. We deny that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is to be placed in the same category with the doctrine of Transub stantiation. The doctrine of the Trinity is a sub lime and spiritual mystery, confessedly far beyond the range or grasp of man's finite intellect ; but the doctrine of transubstantiation is a thing con versant with material elements, by its very nature coming within the cognisance of man's senses; and being tried by man's senses its legitimate jury, is found to be an absurdity, a deception, and an untruth.
To shew you further the necessary and revolting results to which the doctrine of transubstantiation leads, let me briefly refer to the prefix to the large Latin Missal from which Roman-Catholic priests usually read in the celebration of this sacrament. In that volume (not the laity's edition, for that omits it), there is a treatise de Defections Misstz, that is, on the defects which may occur in the celebration of the Mass or the Eucharist. I will read one or two of its statements, to shew the absurd as well as painful and revolting results of the doctrine of transubstantiation, of which the priests themselves must be thus made perfectly conscious. "Defects in the celebration of the Mass. — A defect may happen, either as to the matter to be consecrated, the form to be used, or the officiating minister ; in whatever of these there be any defect, there is no
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sacrament made." If the officiating minister, therefore, should be one to whom a single link is wanting in the long chain of succession, that stretches through eighteen centuries to the days of the Apostles, the deficiency is such that there is no sacrament at all ; and in that case, the Roman Catholic, on his own principles, worships flour and water instead of God, and trusts to the semblance of a sacrifice instead of the reality. Again : " Defects that may occur in reference to the bread. If the bread be not of wheat, or if, being of wheat, it be mixed with such a quantity of other grain that it doth not remain wheaten bread, or if it be in any other way corrupted, the sacrament is not made ;" that is to say, the transubstantiation does not take place. Again : " If the wine be quite sour, or quite putrid, or be made of sour grapes, the sacrament is not made." Just mark the fear ful casualties to which every Roman Catholic is necessarily subject. If the flour merchant should have mixed the wheaten flour with grain of an inferior description, or if the baker should have introduced flour of a lower quality, in vain does the priest pronounce the magic words of conse cration ; they worship what, upon their own theory, is then flour and water still. Or if the wine mer chant has corrupted the wine, by an admixture of water, or of wine produced from sour grapes, or by any other vitiating elements, the priest's bless-
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ing is in vain, the wine remains wine, and is not transubstantiated into the Saviour's blood. Am I not justified in saying, that the Roman Catholic is dependent on his flour merchant and his wine merchant for the sacrifice for his sins — for the God that he adores ? I omit many other equally gross defects : one is, provision against an animal running away with what the Romanist believes to be the body of Christ.
Nor is this the whole extent of the casualties to which the Roman Catholic is liable. Defects may occur on the part of the officiating minister ; and the first is in " intention," the next in " vest ments," and " disposition in the service itself as to those matters which can occur in it." Popery, you perceive, attaches a sacramental and mys terious virtue to the vestments that the priest wears ; and, accordingly, a Roman Catholic looks upon the priest in those robes as altogether a dif ferent being from what he is on the highway ; so much so, that I have heard from Irish clergymen, upon whose word I could place implicit credence, that the very persons who would maltreat a priest upon the highway, and show him no respect what ever, would fall down before him in the chapel, as possessed of something of the attributes, and robed in the authority of God. Now it is here asserted, that if the priest is in wrong vestments, the sacra ment is not made. But above all, there is no
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sacrament if the priest's " intention " is wanting ; as if, for instance, he should not believe in transub- stantiation ; and many priests have disbelieved it, and one of them (Mr. Nolan) declares that he did not believe it for at least two years before he left the Roman-Catholic Church. Many priests on the Continent and in Ireland are sceptics at heart ; and in all such cases, there is no transubstantiation of the material elements into the body and blood of our blessed Lord; and the assembled congregation bow down to that, which, on their own principles, must be confessed to remain flour and water still, and rest upon that which is no propitiatory sacrifice at alL And therefore, when the Roman Catholic uses all plausible pretexts to withdraw you from a Church, which he describes as all discord, and division, and uncertainty, you have a right to tell him, that there is no church under heaven, where all is so uncertain, so precarious, so unsettled, as that which professes to save you from the doubts of Protestantism, and guarantee you, without any anxiety, all the glories of heaven.
I have thus shown you some of the extravagant results to which this doctrine must necessarily lead; I have laid before you some of the con sequences of asserting that the senses may be de ceived ; I have stated what a weapon is thus put into the hands of the infidel ; I have proved, by express passages of Scripture, that what was bread
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before consecration is bread afterwards ; I nave pointed 'out the consequences of the defects, admitted by the Roman Catholic himself as not unlikely to occur ; and I think, that what I have said will impress upon you, that the Protestant doctrine of the Eucharist is the true one, which teaches you to take that bread at the Lord's Table, in remembrance of that Saviour who died upon the cross to atone for our sins, and in joyful anti cipation of his second advent, when he shall come and reign " from sea to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth."
Suffer me now, in conclusion, to show you that our blessed Lord, in speakimg in these passages of "bread," has chosen a symbol, as beautiful as it is expressive, of the blessings of his incarnation, and the benefits of his meritorious passion. And it does seem to me one of the most interesting proofs of the divinity of Scripture, as well as the wisdom of our blessed Lord, that when he instituted this per manent symbol of his death — this perfect epitome of his love — he did not ransack the caves of ocean for their concealed gems, nor the bowels of the earth for its hidden gold; nor did he command those who would observe the ceremony to slay their first-born, or to bring costly offerings to heap upon the shrine, and to decorate the altar; but he took the simplest element — which is found in every country, which the poor have, and the rich cannot
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do without — and he made that the eloquent seal of truths so sublime that angels cannot grasp them, of blessings so vast that eternity can not exhaust them, and of a Gospel so glorious that the poorest and the richest have it equally within their reach.
Our Lord, in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. John, likens himself to the manna which the children of Israel ate as their heaven-sent bread in the wilderness : let us look for a mo ment at this symbol, as descriptive of him and his benefits. In the first place, the manna came from heaven direct ; it was not the product of earth, like the flower that blooms upon its surface, or the ore that is treasured in its bowels, or the waters that spring from its fountains. In all this it shadows forth the Lord Jesus. He " came down from heaven," Heaven's high gift to man's lost and ruined race ; as it is written, " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believe th in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." When the manna fell down from heaven, the Israelites were so surprised at it that they exclaimed, Manhu — what is this ? They could hardly believe it was really nutriment for their perishing bodies. So when the Redeemer came from heaven to redeem the lost, the world " saw no beauty in him ;" he appeared as " a root out of a dry ground," he will
Transubstantiation. 389
was " despised and rejected of men ; '* " they es teemed him not." The manna was the unsought, unmerited gift of God, So was our blessed Redeemer ; not one soul cried from its ruin for the interposition of Heaven's mercy ; "all flesh had corrupted its way," and the simulta neous expression of every man's real feelings was — "No God:" but God "remembered us in our low estate ; " "not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for us." Further; the manna descended equally upon the rich and the poor, the priests and the people, the learned and the unlearned. So Christ comes and is offered to every creature under heaven; the richest man that lives cannot spend eternity in happiness without Christ, and the poorest beggar by the way side need not live and need not die without Christ. Again : the manna spread itself over the length and breadth of the desert ; and if any man perish for lack of food, it was not because there was no manna wherewith to nourish him, but because he had no desire or disposition to gather it. So now, if one soul is lost in that eter nity which is to come, it is not because there is no efficacy in the Saviour's blood, it is not because there is no love in God's heart; it is because it has loved sin more than it has loved its own high interest, and preferred the world to Jesus Christ, " the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of
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the world." The Israelites, however, had to go out of their tents in order to gather the manna ; as if to show that God will not work a miracle, where ordinary means are perfectly sufficient. So is the preaching of the Gospel : you must come and hear, — and the very fact of coming to hear involves some sacrifice ; and our blessed Lord's words, whilst they imply no merit on the part of man, yet compel a vigorous use of means — " Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life." We read, again, that when the manna fell, it was so wisely and so beautifully arranged, that " he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack. So is it with faith in Christ ; it is not that the man who has great faith, thereby receives a great saviour, and the man who has little faith, a little saviour ; the man who has strong faith, that can " remove mountains," and the man who has a faith that trembles on the very verge of extinction, receive equal righteousness, an equal Saviour, equal par don, equal happiness, and an equal home. It is also related, that when the manna fell, it adapted itself to every man's taste. So is it with our bles sed Redeemer ; he is so fitted to supply the wants, and suit all the varied tastes of the children of men, that they who have known most of his grace, find it sweetest ; and they who can perceive sweet ness in nought beside, are constrained to admit
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that his word is sweeter than honey from the honeycomb, and his truth more precious than fine gold. Such is Christ, as he is set before us in the Scriptures ; and such the free welcome of all, to receive the benefits and blessings of his glorious salvation.
When the Israelites collected the manna, we find the time but not the manner of gathering it pre scribed. It is not stated that they were all obliged to use only one kind of basket, and that only that one kind of basket sufficed to contain it. This teaches us a very beautiful and catholic lesson : what the basket was to the manna, the visible ministry is to the bread of life,- — the true bread that cometh down from heaven ; it is God's ordinance that there shall be a visible church, but it is not God's ordinance that it shall be the same in all circum stances, the same in all its rites, in its discipline, in its formularies, in its laws and internal arrangements. The colour, and shape, and size of the baskets vary, but the contents are all the same. We do not read, in the simple record of the Israelites collecting the manna in the wilder ness, that one collected it with a golden basket, another with a silver, and a third with a wicker ; and that he who had but a wicker basket did not receive true manna, and that it was collected by, and nourished and refreshed, only those who had golden baskets. Nor is it so with the
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living bread. I will grant, if you please, that in the Church of England they have a golden basket wherewith to collect the manna, and that in the Church of Scotland they have but a wicker basket; but in the hour of death, and in the Day of Judg ment, the question will not be, by what process or with what vessel you collected, but whether you have really gathered and been nourished with the bread of life. Living nutriment for the soul is the main thing : secure this, and all besides is sub ordinate. The existing distinctions by which the visible church is now characterised will all be abolished. The question at the judgment morn will not be what is made so much of now. Attend ant angels will inquire, " What are these, and whence came they ? " — and the answer, in reference to those who are about to enter the kingdom of glory, will not be, " These are worshippers from St. Paul's," "These are worshippers from St. George's," " These are from the English, and these from the Scotch Church," " These are from Surrey Chapel," " These are Dissenters, and those are Churchmen ; " but the response that will come from the Judge upon the throne, and from the re deemed myriads around him, will be simply this — " These are they that have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb ; therefore are they before the throne of God."
LECTURE X.
THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.
HEBREWS X. 14.
By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
IN last Lecture I discussed the doctrine of Tran- substantiation ; and on that occasion I proved to you, that this doctrine involves so many extrava gant consequences, implies so many absurd and improbable demands, and contradicts so plainly and expressly the whole analogy of Scripture, that we are bound to reject it as a superstitious dogma, — as either no part of Sacred Writ, or directly condemned in it. I also observed upon that occasion, that the doctrine of the Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass is based upon the previous doctrine of transubstantiation ; and that if tran- substantiation has been proved to be false, it is utterly impossible that the doctrine of the mass can be proved to be true ; the latter resting for its strength and existence upon the former. But such
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is the power, and so vast and varied are the re sources of Christian truth, that we can afford, for the sake of argument, to grant to the Roman Catholics that transubstantiation is true, and yet we can demonstrate from Scripture that the so- called propitiatory sacrifice of the mass is un tenable.
The propitiatory sacrifice of the mass, I may observe, is the great and distinguishing peculiarity of Roman-Catholic worship. Ask the Roman Catholic on a Sunday morning where he is going, and his answer will immediately be — " To Mass." It is the substance and body of worship in the Roman- Catholic service, constituting, on the one hand, the great distinction of the Church of Rome, in contrast to all the churches of the Reformation ; and forming, on the other, the great basis of the faith and hopes of the Roman-Catholic worshipper. If it be false, all Popery is an awful superstition ; if it be true, we Protestants are in extreme and instant jeopardy.
The meaning of the expression — " the Mass," may be briefly stated. Some ancient Roman- Catholic doctors have tried to deduce this word from the Hebrew ; but as it is quite clear that the Mass was unknown to the Hebrews, even by Ro man-Catholic admission, we cannot suppose that it is derived from any part of their service, or pro bably from any expression in their language. The
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true origin of it would seem to be this : At the close of the service in the Latin or Western Church, when the Holy Communion was to be celebrated, and the ordinary ritual of the day was done, the priest addressed the people from the pulpit, and said — " Missa est ;" that is, "The congregation is dismissed ;" and then followed the Communion, immediately after the dismission of the congrega tion — that is, of those who were not strictly what we call members or communicants. From this expression, " Missa est" being thus anciently used previously to the celebration of the Communion, the Communion came to be called, in very early times, " Missa," and hence, in English, " the Mass."
Let me now explain to you, from Roman- Catholic documents of authority, what the doctrine of the Mass really is.
The following declaration is contained in the Creed of Pope Pius IV., which is a summary of the faith held by every Roman Catholic. The words are solemn, and the doctrine they imply peculiarly awful : " I profess, that in the mass there is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead."
In the chapters on the Sacrifice of the Mass, from the twenty-second session of the Council of Trent, held in the year 1562, there are various definitions and explanations given of this doctrine. The first
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chapter is to the following effect : — " Since, as the Apostle Paul witnesseth, under the former testa ment there was no perfection, by reason of the imperfection of the Levitical priesthood, it was necessary, according to the ordinance of God, the Father of mercies, that another priest should arise ; He, therefore, our Lord and God, although he was able to offer himself once for all upon the altar of the cross, by the intervention of death, that there he might work eternal redemption, yet, because his priesthood was not to be extinguished by death, in his last Supper, ' the night in which he was be trayed,' that he might leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice, according to the exigencies of man's nature, by which that bloody one, once for all performed on the cross, might be represented, and the memory of it remain even unto the end of the world, and its saving virtue be applied for the remission of those sins which are daily committed by us, declaring himself to be ordained ( a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec/ offered to God the Father his body and blood, under the species of bread and wine ; and under the symbols of the same things delivered them to the Apostles, whom he then appointed priests of the New Testament, that they might receive them ; and in these words — f Do this in remembrance of me,' he charged them and their successors in the priesthood, that they should offer
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Him, as the Catholic Church has always understood and taught. For after the celebration of the old Passover, he instituted a hew Passover, even him self, to be sacrificed by the Church, through the priests, under visible signs, in memory of his de parture from this world to the Father, while by the shedding of his blood he redeemed us, and snatched us from the power of darkness, and trans lated us into the kingdom of God."
Let me next refer to the Tridentine Canons of the Mass. The first is — " If any man shall say that in the mass there is not offered to God a true and proper sacrifice, let him be accursed." The second — "If any man shall say, that in these words * Do this in remembrance of me,' Christ did not appoint the Apostles to be priests, or did not ordain that they and other priests should offer his body and blood, let him be accursed." And the third — " If any man shall say that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanks giving, or a bare commemoration of the sacrifice made upon the cross, and that it is not propiti atory, or that it profits only the receiver, and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead, for their sins, &c., let him be accursed." And again — " If any shall say, that by the sacri fice of the mass, blasphemy is offered to the most holy sacrifice of Christ accomplished on the cross, or that it is dishonoured, let him he accursed."
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Such is the doctrine of the Church of Rome upon this subject.
Now, as I have endeavoured throughout to expose the accordance that subsists between the doctrine of the Church of Rome and those held by the Tractarians of England, I will show you, by one or two brief extracts, that these latter ought, to be consistent, to find their congenial home and their appropriate locality in the domains of the Pope, and in communion with the Roman-Catholic Church.
I quote, first, from Tract XXXVIII. " Laicus. For instance, in King Edward's first book, the dead in Christ were prayed for; in the second, the commemoration was omitted. Again, in the first book, the elements of the Lord's Supper were more distinctly offered up to God, and more for mally consecrated, than in the second edition, or at present. Had Queen Mary not succeeded, per haps the men who effected this would have gone further." " Clericus. I believe they would ; nay, indeed they did at a subsequent period; they took away the liturgy altogether, and substituted a di rectory." The Tractarian, you observe, expresses his great satisfaction that Mary came to the throne, and prevented Protestantism expanding any fur ther — and his great regret, that after the days of Mary, and notwithstanding all her very pious efforts, a Protestant ritual or liturgy has been
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preserved for the Anglican branch of the Pro testant Church.
Mr. Froude, another of these divines, remarks — " I am more and more indignant at the Protest ant doctrine of the Eucharist, and think that the principle on which it is founded is irration al, proud, and foolish as any heresy, even Soci- nianism. When we find that the Church has always considered the holy sacrament to be not only a feast, but a sacrifice, we must look upon our present condition as a judgment upon us for what our Reformers did."
I quote also from Tract LXXXI. " It may be well in these days, before going further, to state what the doctrine of the Eucharist as. The doctrine, then, of the early Church is this : that in the Eucharist an oblation or sacrifice is made by the Church to God, under the form of bread and wine, according to our blessed Lord's holy institution, in memory of his cross and passion; and this they believed to be the ' pure offering* or sacrifice, which the prophet Malachi foretold that the Gentiles should offer; and that it was enjoined by our Lord in these words, ' Do this for a memo rial of me ;' and that it was alluded to when our Lord, or St. Paul, spake of a Christian altar, and was typified by the Passover, which was both a sacrifice, and a feast upon a sacrifice."
In this tract the very language of the most
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strenuous defenders of the Roman- Catholic doctrine of the mass, is literally and almost verbatim used. And to shew you that the Tractarians are not only resuscitating Roman-Catholic doctrine, but are even proud to borrow or steal Roman-Catholic language, when they can lay hold of it, I will read you an extract from Dr. Delahogue, professor in the Roman-Catholic College of Maynooth. He says — •" The holy fathers require altars for cele bration of the Eucharist ; they call the ministers of the Eucharist priests, and their office priest hood, and expressly say that they sacrifice for the Emperor, for Bishops, for the Church, for the whole world." Much of the language, you per ceive, is identical, and the ideas are perfectly so ; in fact, there is nothing to prevent the author of Tract LXXXL,' as far as I can estimate his views upon the doctrine of transubstantiation and the Eucharist, from instantly joining the Roman- Catholic communion.
One more extract from the same tract ; and it is so very decidedly Roman-Catholic language, as well as Roman- Catholic doctrine, that you can have no question about it at all. " This commemorative oblation or sacrifice they doubted not to be ac ceptable to God, who had appointed it, and to be a means of bringing down God's favour upon the whole Church; and how should it be otherwise, when they presented to the Almighty Father the
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symbols and the memorials of the meritorious death and passion of his only-begotten and be loved Son, and besought him, by that precious sacrifice, to look graciously upon the Church, which he had purchased by his own blood ? It is, then, to use our technical phraseology, a comme morative impetratory sacrifice; that is, a sacrifice that deserves and obtains blessings. The Eucha rist, then, according to them, consists of two parts — a commemorative sacrifice, and a communion ; the sacrifice, obtaining remission of sins for the Church, — the communion, the strengthening and refreshing of the soul. As being, moreover, appointed by the Lord, they believed that the continued obla tion of this sacrifice, like the daily sacrifice ap pointed in the elder Church, was a benefit to the whole Church, independently and over and above the benefit to the individual communicants ; that the sacrifices in each branch of the Christian Church were mutually of benefit to every other branch, God for its sake diffusing unseen and inestimable blessings throughout the whole body. Lastly" — (observe how the Tractarian follows in the wake of the Church of Rome, which, as we have seen, holds the mass to be a sacrifice pro pitiatory for the sins, not only of the living, but also of the dead,} — " lastly, since they knew not of our chill separation between those who, being dead in Christ, live to Christ and with Christ, and
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those who are yet in the flesh, they" (the great fathers of the Church) " felt assured this sacrifice, offered by the Church on earth for the whole Church, conveyed to that portion of it which had passed into the unseen world, such benefits of Christ's death as, their conflicts over, and they at rest, were still applicable to them — namely, to those that were dead, additional refreshment, additional joys and satisfactions."
The language and the sentiments of the Romish and Tractarian doctors, are perfectly identical; and there can be no doubt, from these extracts, that the Tractarian divines plainly and distinctly hold the Roman-Catholic doctrine, that in the Eucharist there is a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead. And how they can reconcile it to their superiors, how they can reconcile it to their consciences, how they can reconcile it to their God, to announce such senti ments, and yet sign the Article, that the Mass is " a blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit," I leave them to consider — the Judgment morning to determine.
Now, in calling your attention to this doctrine, let us clearly understand what we are about to discuss. We do not deny that there are sacrifices in the Christian Church. Praise is a sacrifice ; prayer is a sacrifice ; almsgiving is a sacrifice ; our
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own bodies are offered as sacrifices. " Present your bodies living sacrifices ;" " To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." But the distinction is this : we contend, that whilst there are a thousand spi ritual sacrifices in the Christian Church, offered to God by believers every day, there is, and has been, and will be, but one propitiatory sacrifice offered once for all upon the cross by our blessed Lord. The whole distinction lies in the word propitiatory — impetratory , or atoning; there being but one propitiatory sacrifice, and that Christ's", — there being many spiritual sacrifices offered up by believers in the church every day.
The first argument of Roman- Catholic divines, is taken from the antiquity of the doctrine. They say, the solemn services of the mass have resounded in the cathedrals and the churches of Europe for fifteen centuries, undisturbed and uninterrupted till the days of Luther. Now, if it were so, this would be no evidence of the truth of the doctrine ; antiquity is not a test of truth : if antiquity were a proof of truth, -ZEsop's Fables would be truer than St. Paul's Epistles, for they are some years older. But shew us, they say, the period in the history of the Christian Church when this so-called new dogma was introduced, if it be a novelty, and form 110 part of the apostolic revelation ; and they tell you, that unless you can shew the precise day
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and hour when it was first preached, you are bound to believe that it is a true and primitive doctrine, and receive it as such. "We answer, This is to make chronology, instead of Scripture, the cri terion of truth. It matters not when the tares may have been sown, if they are proved to be tares by comparing them with the wheat. Suppose, on some morning in May, a husband and wife walk forth into the garden, and the wife notices upon the loveliest rose-tree two or three caterpillars crawling up the stem ; she calls to her husband, ' Do you see these new and unexpected rosebuds that have started into birth and beauty?' The husband naturally replies — ' Rosebuds ! they are caterpillars : how can you declare them to be rose buds?' Suppose the wife to reply — 'Unless you can shew the precise hour of the night when these so-called caterpillars crept upon the tree, I feel bound to believe that they are rosebuds, and not caterpillars ; but if you can shew that they crept on at a given .hour and minute, then I wrill believe that they are what you call them, and not what I have expressed them to be, buds from the parent stem.' It needs but to be stated, to create a smile at the absurdity of saying—* I will hold darkness to be light, error to be truth, delusion to be pre cious gospel, unless you can specify the hour in the midnight of Europe, when, Christianity being overpowered by superstition, and the human
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intellect stagnant, this doctrine crept into the church.
The next proof of this doctrine quoted by the Roman- Catholic Church is found in certain an cient liturgies, in which they declare it is clearly revealed ; and which liturgies they assert to have been composed by the men whose names they respectively bear. There are three of them, bear ing the names of Peter, Mark, and James, which the Roman- Catholic controversialist asserts to have been composed by the Evangelist Mark and the Apostles Peter and James ; and I admit, that in these liturgies there unquestionably is language that approaches that of the Roman-Catholic doctrine of the mass ; and, if it can be demon strated that the liturgies were composed by the sainted men whose names they claim, the Roman Catholic will have a very strong presumption, though by no means a Scripture proof, in favour of the doctrine of the mass. But I allege, in opposition to these pretensions, that there is evi dence upon the face of the documents in question, that they are impudent and flagitious forgeries. They bear internal and unquestionable proofs of being the composition of the fourth or fifth century, and it may be found that there are incorporated with them doctrines and tenets and delusions even of a later century than that. In the first place, in one of these liturgies, we find the names of
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persons introduced, who lived two hundred years after the Apostles were dead. Secondly, in these liturgies we find the expression " Mother of God" applied to the blessed Virgin ; an epithet not known until the discussions in the time of the Nestorian heresy in the fifth century. In the next place, we find in them prayers expressly offered for " the Patriarch ; " a name which, it is admitted, was not employed in the Christian Church till the end of the fourth century. We find in them, also, the Trisagion, as it is called — the Doxology, " Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the be ginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end;" and though the doctrine involved in this is unquestionably contained in Holy Scripture, the peculiar formula or mode in which it is expressed was not introduced into the public service of the Christian Church until a much later era. We find, likewise, frequent allusions to an order of men not known in the Christian Church in the early centuries, namely, Confessors. From all these internal evidences, we conclude that these liturgies are forgeries ; and even Cardinal Bona, and the celebrated Cardinal Bellarmine, admit that they were greatly corrupted in the later editions ; while the historian Dupin, whose candour has made him to be suspected in the Roman- Catholic communion, declares, that after the most careful
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analysis, he must hold them to be arrogant and contemptible forgeries. Suppose a book were produced in the present day, declared to have been written by the celebrated John Wesley, and suppose that book contained an account of the passing of the Roman-Catholic Emancipation Act (as it is called) in 1829, and the Reform Act in 1832, and other bills subsequently passed in the British Parliament; if 'any one maintained that this book was the veritable composition of Mr. Wesley, would you not instantly say — ' That is impossible, for it contains allusions to transactions that occurred long after Wesley was dead ? Either the whole must be a forgery, or it must be so interpolated with the additions of another, that I cannot receive it as the genuine production of that distinguished and devoted Christian.' So with these liturgies; they must be either so interpo lated that no superstructure of Christian truth can be based upon them, or (as admitted by Dupin) forgeries altogether, and unworthy of the credit so long and so extensively assigned to them.
There is one more reason, independently of Scripture, adduced by the Roman- Catholic contro versialist in defence of the doctrine of the mass ; and that is, the statements of the fathers of the Christian Church. I need not now enter upon this subject, because we have already discussed it. It is sufficient to add, that if you allow the
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Roman Catholic to -drag you into the complicated writings of the fathers upon any one point of the Protestant faith, you will find that the discussion, instead of being closed with triumph, will be end lessly protracted- — the one quoting on one side, and the other on the contrary — even to the Greek Kalends. The fact is, that the fathers present to the Roman-Catholic disputant a most admirable and appropriate means of defence ; and he quotes their writings in something of the same way in which the American sharp-shooters used their forests in the late war. Our soldiers relate, that when a sharp-shooter got behind one immense trunk, they were obliged to destroy the tree before they could dislodge him ; but no sooner had they done this, than he was behind another, and they found they must sweep America of its forests, before they could sweep America of its rebels. Just so in this controversy ; you must, at the out set, clear the field of all the claims and preten sions of the fathers, or bring the Romish dis putant to the clear light of inspired Scripture — to "the law and the testimony" — in order to close with triumph this vital controversy.
Sometimes it is worth while to follow the Ro man Catholic to the fathers, not for the sake of quoting from them to prove your point, but for the sake of disproving his. The plan which I
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pursued in the course of a recent discussion (and which I think is the only safe one) was this : my opponent said, that he would produce from the fathers the most overwhelming extinction of all the pretensions of the Protestant Church ; knowing well, that if he seduced me into that endless forest, he could protract the discussion ad infinitum. I told him — As sure as you bring an extract from a father apparently in favour of the doctrine of the mass, so sure I will bring an extract from the same father in opposition to it ; and when I have placed my extract by the side of yours, the inference I shall insist upon your deducing is, that as the fathers contradict one the other, and each himself, it must be our duty to discard all secondary testi mony, to pass by the fathers, and appeal to the grandfathers — the Apostles and Evangelists of the New-Testament Scriptures.
One extract from a father I will adduce on this subject, and I am sure you will be pleased to hear it, because it is so beautifully descriptive of the practice of the early Church, in the celebration of the Eucharist. It is from Justin Martyr, one of the most sainted of the fathers. If the sacrifice of the mass had been known in his day, A. D. 140, no doubt he would have given a detailed and cir cumstantial account of its whole ceremonial; for in this passage of his celebrated Apology for the Christians, (vol. ii. p. 97, Paris edition, 1615,) he
T
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gives a full description of the Sabbath service of a Christian congregation. I extract that part which treats of the celebration of the Eucharist ; and I must say, though I admire the ceremonial of the Anglican Church, though I love the more simple ceremonial of the Scottish Church, yet I do think that the service described by Justin Martyr is neither the English nor the Scotch ; I do not attach much to the form, or think it of any great value, but such is the fact. Let me read the extract.
" Then the bread and the cup of the water and of the wine mixed with it, is offered to the president of the brethren, and he, taking it, offers up praise and glory to the Father of all, in the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and at some length he performs a thanksgiving, for having been honoured with these things by him. When he has finished the prayers and the thanks giving, all the people present joyfully cry out, Amen. Amen signifies, in the Hebrew tongue, so be it. But the president having returned thanks, and all the people having joyfully cried out, those who are called by us deacons, give to each of those who are present, a portion of the bread and the wine and the water, over which a thanksgiving has been performed, and they carry away some for those who are not present. And this food is called by us the Eucharist, of which
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no one is permitted to partake, but he who be lieves that the things taught to us are true, and who has been washed for the remission of sins and for regeneration, and who lives as Christ has en joined. For we do not receive these things as common bread, or common drink; but as the in carnate Jesus became, by the word of God, Christ our Saviour, and received flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food which is made the Eucharist by the prayer, according to his word, by which our flesh and blood are nourished, is both the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus. For the Apostles, in the histories which they have written, which are called Gospels, have thus recorded that Jesus commanded them; that he, taking bread and giving thanks, .said, ' Do this in remembrance of me ; This is my body ; ' and that he, in like manner, taking the cup arid giving thanks, said, ' This is my blood,' And, in all that we offer, we bless the Maker of all things by his Son Jesus Christ, and by the Holy Spirit. And on the day that is called Sunday, there is an assembly in the same place, of those who dwell in towns or in the country; and the histories of the Apostles and the writings of the Prophets are read, whilst the time permits: then, the reader ceasing, the president verbally admo nishes and exhorts to the imitation of those gocd things. Then we all rise in common and offer
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prayers, and, as we have already said, when we have finished our prayers, bread and wine and water are offered, and the president, in like man ner, offers prayers and thanksgivings as far as it is in his power to do so, and the people joyfully cry out, saying, Amen. And the distribution and communication is to each of those who have re turned thanks, and it is sent by the deacons to those who are not present. Those who are rich and willing, each according to his own pleasure contributes what he pleases ; and what is thus col lected is put away by the president, and he assists the orphans, and widows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are destitute, and also those who are in bondage, and those who are strangers journeying, and in short, he aids all those who are in want. But we all meet in com mon on Sunday, because it is the first day in the which God, who produced the darkness and mat ter, made the world ; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day arose from the dead."
I will add to this the apostolic description in 1 Corinthians xi. 23 — 27 : " For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread ; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat ; this is my body, which is broken for you : this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also
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lie took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood : this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, an-d drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord,"
In order to shew you the complete contrast be tween the simple description of the celebration of the Eucharist, as related in the pages of Justin, or as it is embodied in the inspired language of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and the description of the mass as it is celebrated in the Church of Rome, I will give you the rubrics from the Roman- Catholic Missal, or mass-book. In Justin Martyr, we read nothing about a iepevs \hiereus\ or priest, but merely of "the president" and the congrega tion ; nothing about an altar, on which sacrifice is offered ; nothing about the elevation of the host ; nothing about its being propitiatory for the living and the dead. But in the Roman- Catholic Church we read — first, that the priest is to approach the foot of the altar, saying — " In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost :" the congregation are then to utter the following confession — "I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary ever virgin, to blessed Michael the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy
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Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the saints, and to you, Father, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word and deed ; therefore, I beseech the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, the blessed Michael the archangel, the blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints, and you, O Father, to pray for me ;" then the priest goes to the altar, and prays ; then he comes back ; then follows the Kyrie eleison ; then Gloria in excelsis ; then he is to turn towards the people and salute them ; then he is to offer up the fol lowing collect — " Preserve us, O Lord, we beseech thee, from all dangers of body and soul, and by the intercession of glorious and blessed Mary, the ever-virgin mother of God, of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul," &c., &c. ; then he is to repeat the Nicene Creed ; here follows the Offertory ; then the priest is to put wine and water into the chalice ; then there is the oblation of the chalice ; then the priest bows ; then he incenses the altar ; then he gives the censer to the deacon ; then he washes his hands ; then he bows before the middle of the altar; then he reads the secret, &c. &c. ; then follows the Canon of the Mass, strictly so called, and at this point, kneeling down, he adores and elevates the chalice ; then he presents special sacrifice in commemoration of the dead ; then special mention is made of the dead ; then he strikes his breast, and confesses ; then he prays ;
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then again he bows and confesses ; then a prayer is said for the dead ; then he takes the chalice, and prays ; then he receives reverently both parts of the host, &c., &c., &c.
The contrast between the majestic announcement of Paul, followed by the simple and beautiful narrative of Justin Martyr, and the perplexed col lection of rubrics in the Roman-Catholic ritual, necessary to the celebration of the mass, is so marked and so complete, that if St. Paul's is the inspired description of the Lord's Supper, and Justin Martyr's a record of the celebration of the Eucharist in the second century, the cere monial in the missal must be a celebration of something totally and altogether different from it. The record in Justin Martyr is a simple narrative of a scriptural Communion Sabbath ; but the narrative in the Missal looks like the exposi tion of " a blasphemous fable, and dangerous de ceit," as the Church of England justly denominates the sacrifice of the mass.
Let me now consider several passages of Scrip ture, usually quoted by Roman Catholics in de fence of this doctrine. They quote the passage in Malachi : " My name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be of fered unto my name, and a pure offering." Thi* promise, or prophecy, they say, refers expressly to the sacrifice of the mass. Now, I might easily
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prove, that it describes the offering up of the prayers and praises of Christian people ; I might also show, that the original Hebrew words mincha and miktar are expressly applied to the Gentiles, who shall be made a pure offering to the Lord. But it is sufficient that I call upon the Roman Catholic to prove that the passage refers at all to the mass ; we have nothing at pre sent but his assertion for it. Unless, therefore, he can shew us that an application of it has been made by the Evangelists or Apostles expressly to the doctrine of the mass, we are not bound to believe it because he asserts it.
The Roman Catholic quotes also, in favour of this doctrine, a statement in the 13th of the Acts, where it is said of the Apostles — " As they minis tered to the Lord." The original is \€tTovpyovvTa>v fie avr&v; literally, going through the Liturgy, or performing the service or worship of the Lord. The Roman- Catholic disputant contends that this denotes, while they were offering up the sacrifice of the mass ; and, in a New Testament printed at Bordeaux with the approbation and examina tion of the superiors, and dated 1786, the passage is actually translated — " While they were offering to the Lord the mass" [la messe]. But if the Roman Catholic will assert that such is the mean ing of the original word Xftrovpyeo* here used, he will find that his quotation proves so much, that
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he will be obliged, in self-defence, to shrink from it. The same word is used when angels are called " ministering spirits" — A«rovpyiKa Tn/ei^ara ; which, therefore, ought to be translated "spirits that offer up the sacrifice of the mass" — obviously an ab surd rendering. Kings, again, are described by the same word, when they are called " ministers of God for good" — \eirovpyoi Qcov ; and, accordingly, we ought to believe that kings, or laymen, offer up the mass — which again is absurd. The passage in the Acts has, therefore, no reference to the Mass.
There is yet another passage quoted by Roman Catholics in favour of this doctrine — Genesis xiv. 18, where it is said, that when Abraham returned from battle, Melchisedec met him, and brought forth bread and wine ; and he was the priest of the Most High God." The Roman-Catholic version is — "For he was the priest of the Most High God." I say nothing on that point, though I am perfectly satisfied that the Pro testant translation is the correct one; but, al lowing the version proposed by the Roman- Catholic Church, we find that the word in the ori ginal vulgate, corresponding to our translation — " He brought forth bread and wine," is "protuKtf" whereas, if it had been meant that he offered them them up in sacrifice, it would have been " obtulit" Jerome saw that it only meant, that bread and T 3
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\vine were brought forth to refresh the weary patriarch.
Again : throughout the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, we have all the details of Christian worship, and in the Acts of the Apostles we have an ex press description of primitive Christian Sabbaths ; now, if the mass had been known to the Apostles, or practised by the early Christians, or recog nised as a doctrine of the word of God taught in the apostolic age, is it at all probable, that these books would have been silent upon so great a peculiarity of Christian worship, that there should be no allusion to those elaborate and com plicated rites, which I have read to you from the Roman-Catholic Missal ?
But, of all disproofs of the mass, the most triumphant are contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews. It seems to me as if that sublime epistle had been written prospectively, to crush this corrupt doctrine of the Church of Rome. The great truth that pervades the whole Epistle to the Hebrews, and gives to it its tone, is, that there is but one propitiatory sacrifice, once for all, for all the sins that are past, and for all the sins of the generations that are yet to come ; a sacrifice so complete, that to profess to offer up any other, is not only to make it void with respect to the offering, but to offer dishonour to God. The Apostle says — " They truly were many priests,
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because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death ; but this Man, because he con- tinueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood." In order to offer up a propitiatory sacrifice, there must be a sacrificing priest — itpevs (hiereus), as it is in the original ; but the Apostle says, that Jesus Christ has " an unchangeable priesthood," — lite rally, a priesthood that does not pass from one to another. The original word, which we translate " unchangeable," is anapa^arov ; a word com pounded of a, negative ; napa, beside or beyond ; and pawa, to pass. In the Lexicon of Stephanus, it is defined thus: " sacerdotium quod ad alium transire nequit" — a priesthood which cannot pass over to any other person. In the Lexicon of Constantinus, it is " sacerdotium quod ad alium praeterire non potest" — a priesthood which cannot pass over to any other person. The priests of the Roman-Catholic Church, and the priests of the Tractarian section of the Church of England, de clare that they are strictly and properly sacrificing priests, and that they have inherited as a vested right the essential and peculiar priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ; but the Apostle says, that Christ has an intransferaUe priesthood, that does not pass from him ; and it seems to me as blas phemous to claim the inheritance of the priesthood of Christ, as it would be to claim the inheritance of his omniscience, his omnipresence, his omni-
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potence, or any other essentially Divine attribute. Again : in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the words f$a7ra£ or a7ra£, " once for all," are repeated nine different times in connexion with the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus he says (vii. 27) : " He needeth not daily, as those high -priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's; for this he did ONCE, when he offered up himself." Again (ix. 12): "By his own blood he entered in ONCE into the holy place." Again (ix. 25, 26) : " Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high-priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others ; for then must he often have suffered since the foun dation of the world." In other words, where there is propitiatory offering, there, argues St. Paul, must be painful suffering; the two are linked together by the Apostle. If, therefore, the priests of Rome offer up Christ a propitiatory sacrifice, they must crucify the Lord of Glory afresh, and subject him again to all his pangs, his agony and woe. If they maintain that there is no such devotion of Christ to corporeal suffering, then must I infer that there is no offering. On either horn of this dilemma, I place the Tractarian and Romisli priesthood : if there be now a propitiatory sacri fice, Christ must suffer ; if there be no suffering, there is no propitiatory sacrifice. In like manner, the Apostle says — " Without shedding of blood is
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no remission." In the Canons of the Council of Trent, the mass is called " the unbloody sacrifice," as it is also called in the celebrated " Abridgment of Christian Doctrine," by Dr. Doyle ; meaning, that it is a propitiatory sacrifice without shedding of blood. But if there be no shedding of blood, it is not propitiatory for sin; and the sacrifice of the mass is, on this admission, vox et pr&terea nihil — a sound, and nothing more. Again: we read (Hebrews ix. 27), "As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was ONCE offered to bear the sins of many:" as a man can only die once, so Christ can be offered only once. In the passage connected with my t ext : "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."1 And in a preceding verse : " The law can never, with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the coiners there unto perfect ; for then would they not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins :" — implying, that where there are many sacri fices day after day, there can be no permanent purging from sin ; but where there is one sacrifice once for all, we are by one offering completely sanctified.
It was also a grand peculiarity in the ancient economy, that when the high priest was within the
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holy of holies, pleading and interceding before God, there was no sacrifice going on without. First, the sacrifices were offered, and then the high priest proceeded into the holy place and there made intercession ; and while he was interceding there, no sacrifice was offered without. Now Christ, the everlasting Priest, has entered into the holy place not made with hands ; and, in order that the antitype may completely correspond to the type, there must now, while he is in the true " holy," be no propitiatory sacrifice going on in the outer court of the visible and professing Church.
There is not a single particle of evidence, through out the whole of Scripture, for the assertion of the Roman- Catholic and Tractarian party, that there are any officially sacrificing priests in the Church. All Christians are called priests : " Ye are a royal priesthood ;" " He hath made us kings and priests unto God ;" and as we are priests, so we offer up spiritual sacrifices of praise and prayer, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ; but the expression priest is not once applied to a Christian minister as distinguished from the laity, throughout the whole of the New-Testament Scriptures. And what is very remarkable, so guarded were the original Reformers of the Church of England, that in the Rubrics they have used, not the Greek word ifpevs (hiereus), or the Latin sacerdos, both of
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which properly signify priest, but they have used the Greek word presbuteros, which signifies an elder or minister ; and it is this latter word which they use in every place where the Rubric in the Anglican Prayer Book now has the word priest. This last word however is not derived from Upevs (sacrific ing priest), but from TrpeorpvTfpos (minister) ; in the German, prester ; and in the English, priest. It does not therefore mean, in the Anglican Prayer Book, a priest in the sense in which the Tractarians and Roman Catholics use that term.
To sum up the argument : — Roman Catholic divines maintain, that the sacrifice of the mass is the very same sacrifice that was offered on the cross, perpetuated and prolonged in the Christian Church. Now, let me shew you, that there are the most insuperable difficulties in any such posi tion. I defy the Roman-Catholic divine, with the word of God in his hands, to prove that the sacri fice of the mass is in any respect the same as the sacrifice that was offered up upon the cross. In the first place, the sacrifice completed on the cross was the death of the Son of God ; but in the sacrifice of the mass the Son of God does not die, for Scripture declares — " He dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him." In the second place, the sacrifice on the cross was painful ; and the agony of the Redeemer's heart, the intensity of that sorrow which wrung from his grieved and
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wounded soul the awful and mysterious accents, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" were so dreadful, that language fails to embody them, and human imagination to conceive them ; but in the sacrifice of the mass, offered upon the altars of Rome every day, there palpably is no such pain — the Son of God is obviously subjected to no such suffering, and therefore it cannot be the same sacrifice. Thirdly, the sacrifice on the cross was visible ; the eye beheld the Redeemer's tears, and saw the drops of his blood ; the ear heard him express his agonies, and all the senses testified that he died : but in the Roman- Catholic sacrifice of the mass, the eye sees no Saviour present, the ear hears not the accents of his voice ; and the mass cannot therefore be the same with the sacri fice made by the Son of God upon the cross. Fourthly, the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross, according to the declaration of St. Paul, was offered up "once for all" — repetition being declared in compatible with its nature ; but the sacrifice of the mass is offered up every Sunday ; and on a moderate calculation, the body and blood, the soul and divinity of our blessed Lord (according to Roman- Catholic definition), have been offered up, a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead, about 400,000,000 of times since the commence ment of the present century. In the next place, the sacrifice of our blessed Lord was so complete,
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and glorious, and perfect, that it was adequate to the redemption of the whole world ; every suffer ing was possessed of infinite virtue, every tear was the extinction of a curse, every agony was the exhaustion of our guilt, every pain of his spotless soul and holy body was adequate to the quenching of our eternal hell, and to the opening of the gates of an everlasting and glorious heaven ; hut the sacrifice of the mass is so feeble and inefficacious, that it needs to be offered up thousands and thou sands of times before it can bring one single soul out of the sufferings of Purgatory. To illustrate this statement by a fact : — nothing is more com mon, it is well known, than for Roman Catholics on their death-bed to leave large sums of money wherewith to pay the officiating priests for offer ing up sacrifices for the repose of their departed souls. An instance of this was quoted eby the Rev. Mr. Stoney, in the course of a discussion with the Rev. Mr. Hughes, a Roman- Catholic priest. Mr. Stoney stated, that masses were sold regularly in Ireland for half-a-crown. Mr. Hughes replied in words involving a distinction, but not a denial : " Not at all ; the half-crown is received by the priest, and a mass is offered up, but masses are not sold for half-a-crown." It was stated (and to this I wish to direct your attention), that a Mr. Bolger left on his death-bed his jewellery, silver plate, and £600 to the Rev. John Roach, to
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pay him for saying masses for his soul ; altogether, equivalent to about £700. Adopting the estimate suggested by Mr. Hughes, viz., 2s. 6d* per mass, 5600 masses must be offered up before the soul of Mr. Bolger could escape from its torment in Purga tory. How dreadful ! Christ's body and blood must be sacrificed 5600 times, in order that one soul may cease to suffer. But we believe that the atone ment of Christ is so efficacious, that once for all, it is adequate to the redemption of the whole world, and needs not to be repeated ; whereas the sacrifice of the mass is so utterly inefficacious, that for the deliverance of a single soul, and that not from hell but from purgatory, it must be offered up 5600 times. It cannot, therefore, be the same as the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. But some Roman-Catholic divines, in order to defend this doctrine, assert, that the mass — if not the same continued oblation — is the repetition of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. Now I answer, that it cannot be the repetition of that sacrifice, because a thing once done cannot be repeated. If I strike a blow upon this book, I may strike a second blow ; but I cannot strike the same blow over again : once struck, it is done. When a battle is once fought, the same battle cannot be repeated ; you may fight another under very simi lar circumstances, with many of the same men, upon somewhat of the same scale, and accompanied
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with the same stratagems, but it is not a repeti tion of the same battle. The assertion, therefore, that the sacrifice of the mass is a repetition of the sacrifice on the cross, carries in its bosom its own clear and explicit refutation.
But the Roman- Catholic priesthood tell you, it is the repetition of the sacrifice upon Calvary, but confessedly without certain original concomi tants of that awful sacrifice — for instance, without the concomitant of the shedding of the blood. Now, this seems to me nothing more or less than the sacrifice of Calvary without its essential and distinguishing peculiarity. What would you say, if I were to collect some few thousand soldiers in some extensive plain in England, and make them go through all the evolutions which the soldiers under the illustrious Wellington went through upon the plains of Waterloo ; and if I were then gravely to assure you, that "this is truly and really the battle of Waterloo, only without the shedding of blood that accompanied it ? " You would tell me, that it might be a good pantomime of that battle, a pretty mimicry of it, but that it no more resembled it than theatrical thunder re sembles the thunder of the sky. It is not the same thing, you would say, and it can in no sense be called the battle of Waterloo.
I contend, also, that the sacrifice of the mass
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cannot be a sacrament and a sacrifice at the same time. What is a sacrament ? It is something which we receive from God. What is a sacrifice ? It is something which we offer to God. If, then, it be a sacrament received from God, it cannot be a sacrifice offered to God ; and thus the mass is proved not to be a propitiatory sacrifice. Or, on the other hand, if it be a sacrifice, it cannot be a sacrament ; and then the Roman-Catholic Church is destitute of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Both, it cannot be. Let the Romish Church take her choice.
But suppose we grant for a moment, that, not withstanding all these difficulties, there is presented every day upon the altars of Rome a sacrificial ceremonial, propitiatory for the sins of the living and the dead. The first question I feel bound to ask is, Wherein does the sacrificial act lie ? Of old it lay in the death or destruction of the offering. Does the sacrifice lie in the breaking of the wafer or bread ? They answer, No. Bread is no t broken on the Roman-Catholic altar, for it has ceased to be bread, and has become Christ's body ; and Christ's body is not broken, for, on Roman- Catho lic principles, it cannot be broken. Then what is broken ? The Roman- Catholic priest answers, Accidents ; that is, colour, form, shape, size. But what they break is that which they sacrifice ; and
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since, on their own shewing, they break accidents, they must have a sacrifice of accidents, a salvation of accidents, a heaven of accidents — which is a hell of terrible realities.
By referring to the practice of the Corinthian Church, so forcibly rebuked by the Apostle Paul, we see that this rite was not viewed as a sacrifice. In that Church some of the communicants drank of the wine to excess, and were reproved by the Apostle for this gross profanation of so solemn an ordinance. Now, if the ordinance of the Lord's Supper had been a propitiatory sacrifice, offered up with all the Roman- Catholic solemnities, and only by the officiating priest, it is perfectly clear that no such abuse could possibly have occurred. The very fact, therefore, that the Corinthians abused the sacrament by partaking of its wine to excess, is, to my mind, a clear and decisive evi dence that they looked upon it as a feast, and not as a sacrifice.
A. just estimate of the ancient Passover, that beautiful and expressive type, shows that it is a supper, and not a sacrifice. The ancient people of God were called upon, first, to sacrifice the lamb, which was the painful part of the solemnity ; they were next called upon to sit down together and feast upon the roasted lamb, which was the pleasant part of the ceremonial. Now our blessed Lord,
430 The Sacrifice of the Mass.
the great Antitype, illustrated and exhausted in himself the painful part, which was the sacrifice of Himself, an atoning victim amid the burning wrath of God due to the sins of mankind ; and we, be lieving in him, enjoy in every age the pleasant part of the ceremonial, which is partaking of the feast upon or after the sacrifice, commemorating that perfect atonement which was accomplished by our Lord, as the central fact of the past, and look ing forward to the day when he shall come again to be admired of all them that believe, as the great glory of the future.
It has been objected by the Roman-Catholic Church, that if the arguments which I have ad duced are all true, we Protestants are destitute of the grand distinguishing peculiarity of Christian worship — a perpetual sacrifice ; and the Roman- Catholic priest will twit you with the remark, " You are no Church, because you have no sacri fice." Our reply to this is, We have a sacrifice more gl orious than yours, as the infinite is more magnificent than the finite. The sacrifice which we have, stretched back to the ruins and the wreck of Paradise, and, reflecting redemption glories upon dismantled Eden, spoke peace to Adam's broken heart. It awoke and nourished the hopes of the patriarch Abraham — and through its prospective efficacy the world's grey fathers anticipated in peace the joys
The Sacrifice of the Mass. 43 1
and pleasures that are at God's right hand ; while it extends so surely to the future, and remains for that future so ample, that its efficacy shall not be terminated, or its virtue exhausted, until the last man has been gathered to his home, and the mighty purpose for which it was made achieved and consummated. We are not a church with out a sacrifice. We have a Propitiatory Sacrifice so replete with virtue, that the guiltiest is not beyond its reach — that the greatest sin is not beyond its efficacy. In it there is atonement ever ample — ever near — ever free for all. We have in that Sacrifice a righteousness so perfect, that all the beauties of earth would tarnish it — all the glories of heaven would not add to it ; an angel's tear would stain it, and a martyr's blood would only defile it. We have a righteousness so perfect, that, robed and arrayed in it, we shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, at the mar riage supper of the Lamb. It is as incapable of increase by our merits as is the ocean by a tear, or the noonday glory by a glow-worm.
The Roman Catholic again will tell you, that we are no Church because we have no priest. Let your answer be, that earthly sacrificing priests have no more business in the midst of the Christian Church, than a regiment of soldiers or a com pany of dragoons. These officers died when the economy of Levi died ; and the only priests that
432 The Sacrifice of the Mass.
are now to enter the Christian pulpit are the faith ful preachers of the everlasting Gospel. But, in another sense, a Protestant can reply — We have a Priest : not a priest " who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities," but a priest who " ever liveth to make intercession for us." We have a High Priest who is present in every sanctuary, in every closet, in every believing heart. We have " a great High Priest which has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God." And though I be in the depths of the sea, even there he can hear me, as he heard the prayer of Jonah from the fish's belly. Though I be driven to the most barbarous clime, even there he listens to my peti tion. Though I be buried in the bowels of the earth, in one of the deepest coal-mines, even there I can see my Altar and my Priest, and there, for his sake, my cry is heard. My altar is God ; my sacrifice, the propitiation of Christ. Christ's divi* nity is the altar, his humanity the sacrifice offered upon it, and he himself is the Priest who presents it before God.
But the Roman Catholic will say, that we Pro testants have no altar, and therefore are no church. Our answer to this must be — We have an altar. True, we have not the golden shrines and the gilded altars of the Roman-Catholic apostacy ; true, we have not the candelabras, and the lights, and all the drapery of a miserable and a material ceremony ;
The Sacrifice of the Mass. 433
we have an altar in the Protestant Church, but unquestionably it is not such as yours, — which a mouse may undermine, — which the hammer may break in pieces, — which the invaders may remove f and time must destroy ; but an Altar, " of which they have no right to eat that serve the tabernacle" viz. " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." The foundations of our altar are the attributes of Deity ; its cement is everlasting and living love ; its superstructure is God manifest in the flesh ; and the glory that burns and glows upon it is made up of the intermingling beams of " mercy and truth that have met together, right eousness and peace that have kissed each other." Herein is the glory of our altar : the Roman- Catholic priest can only offer his sacrifice where there is a consecrated and material structure ; but our altar descends to the caves of ocean, and reaches to the loftiest crags of the Alpine range ; it may be found by the miner in the bowels of the earth, by the sailor on the bosom of the boundless deep, by the pilgrim in Arabian deserts, or amid African sands. Wherever there is a sinner, there is a Saviour ; wherever there is a Christian prayer, there is the ever present Priest; wheresoever there is a Christian sacrifice, there is an Altar on which can be offered gifts, the altar sanctifying the sacrifice.
What, then, is the use of a so-called propitia- u
434 The Sacrifice of the Mass.
tory sacrifice of the mass in a Christian Church ? Is it to satisfy the Law ? The Law has been " mag nified and made honourable." Is it to satisfy God ? God's justice is satisfied; God's truth is satisfied; God's holiness is satisfied. There is, therefore, no necessity for any more propitiatory sacrifice now ; there is no obstruction to our salvation on God's part. The secret of the Roman-Catholic doctrine of the propitiatory sacrifice of the mass lies in the circumstance, that he believes God still to be an estranged and an angry God, who needs to be made placable by a succession of propitiatory sacrifices. This idea revolts against the great first principles of the everlasting Gospel. All Chris tianity breathes forth the blessed fact, that we did not require Christ's death to make God love us : Christ's death was the expression, not the cause of that love which God bore to us ; and all that was requisite, and what the atonement achieved, was a pathway, broad, full, and stable, from the bosom of God down to the depths of our ruin, along which God's deep love might travel in per fect consistence with the demands of his holiness and truth. That golden pathway has been provided by the death and the atonement of Christ; and that justice which protested against the outgush- ings of love without a sacrifice, and that holiness which would not receive the guilty to his bosom without an atonement, now, in consequence of
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what Christ has done once for all, form themselves into a channel, no longer to repress God's love, but to convey it to the heart, amid the rejoicing ac quiescence of the minds and consciences of all that believe.
Suppose, to illustrate this truth, an enclosure in some part of our world, many miles in circumfer ence, filled with the diseased, the dying, and the dead. Love, like an angel of mercy, comes down from the upper sanctuary, and looks upon the gi gantic enclosure, weeping at the painful spectacle of the dying in all their stages of disease, and the dead sleeping beneath the shadow of despair. Approaching one of the gates, Love finds a sentinel stationed to guard it, and asks his name; he answers, ' I am Truth.' Love asks, * Is it pos sible I may enter here to heal the dying, and bid the dead arise ?' Truth replies, ' I have written, The soul that sinneth, it shall die ; and I cannot cancel it.' Love hastens to another gate, and finds another sentinel, and asks his name ; and his answer is, * I am Holiness.' Love says, Cannot the dying be restored, and the dead be made to live?' Holi ness replies, ' I can permit none that are impure to escape from their congenial residence, and hold communion with the holy.' Love goes to a third gate, and finds there a sentinel whose name is Justice ; Love asks the question, ' Can the dying be healed ? can the dead be quickened ? may I
436 The Sacrifice of the Mass.
enter to redeem the one, and to restore the other? Justice replies, ' I have weighed them in the scales, and it is written upon them all, Altoge ther wanting.' Love asks, ' Then what is to he done ? I would recover the dying, I would quicken the dead. How is it possible to accomplish it ? ' Justice, and Truth, and Holiness reply, ' If an atonement can be made adequate to our demands, we will surrender the keys entrusted to our care ; and not only may the dying be recovered, and the dead live, but we will assist to accomplish it.' Love returns to that residence from whence it came, and announces the solemn and faithful fact, that either all living creatures in our lost world must sink into hell for ever, or some glorious atonement must be made, so efficacious that all the attributes of God shall be glorified, and Love enabled to reach and to reclaim the perishing guilty. The question is asked, amid the millions of heaven — ' Who will go for us ? Who is prepared to bear the curse and exhaust it, to magnify the law and make it honourable ?' All heaven is dumb ; angels are dumb, archangels are dumb, the seraphim that burn and glow around the everlasting Throne are dumb. At last, * a still small voice ' proceeds from the Throne, as of a Lamb that had been slain, saying, " Here am I, send me ; lo, I come ! " That Sa viour descends to our world — assumes our nature — for us endures the curse — for us obeys the law — for
The Sacrifice of the Mass. 437
us takes its sting from death, and its triumph from the grave; and as the mingled tones of agony and triumph — " It is finished" — reverberate through the earth and reach the heavens, Justice resigns its keys, Holiness flings open its gates, Truth declares all threatenings met and satisfied, Mercy enters the enclosure with more than Gilead's balm ; the dying are restored, the departed are quickened, the tombs of the dead become the tabernacles of the living, the wilderness rejoices, and Zion's courts resound " Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill toward men.' Here, then, every obstruction is removed to the outgushing of God's love, and there is nothing be tween the bosom of God and the very guiltiest sinner on this side of hell, but that sinner's own love of sin and unbelief of God's love ; and there is nothing to prevent the chief of sinners from ap proaching God in the name of Jesus, and calling him " Abba, Father!" God loves you. God sent his Son to die for you, to express that love ; and all that is required now is, that you will consent to be saved in the way which God has appointed — a way that humbles the sinner in the dust while it elevates his soul to heaven, and which surrounds God with the highest glory when the greatest numbers of the guilty are reclaimed and made heirs of Paradise.
Let me commend to you the argument ; let me
438 The Sacrifice of the Mass.
press upon you to value more and more your own blessed Protestant Christianity. Let it devolve upon you as a sacred duty, to make known your glorious High Priest, your all-sufficient and never- to-be-repeated Sacrifice, your ever present Altar, to those who are under the bondage of supersti tion, weltering in Papal darkness, practically " without Christ " in the world. Those who have tasted the sweetness of the Gospel, will ever feel it their privilege to extend it. God makes us saints, that we may be his servants. We are made Christians in order that we may be mis sionaries ; and this is the feeling of every man who possesses " the unsearchable riches of Christ," not only in reference to the heathen, but in reference to all ignorant of the Gospel.
The mass, and all the fictions of the Roman Apostacy, are doomed. They are the relic-rays of a superstition which melts away beneath the inten sity of that celestial splendour from which it can not be concealed. The Romish priest may chant its beauty, and the Tractarian prepare its fringes and phylacteries ; but God has weighed them in the scales of truth, and proclaimed in no equivocal accents their demerit and destruction. But the great truths of Christianity have come down to our world like the rays of a distant star, neither dimmed nor spent by their transit through time and space. Already they are translated into
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almost every speech of civilized and barbarous nations. They are sounded forth from ten thousand times ten thousand tongues, from the pine forests of the North to the palm groves of Eastern Ind. They mingle with the hum of the crowded city, and with the chimes of the desert sea. They are the thoughts of the wise, the hopes of the jusL
"Salvation! — oh! salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim, Till earth's remotest nation
Has heard Messiah's name ; Till o'er our ransomed nature
The Lamb for sinners slain — Redeemer, King, Creator —
In bliss returns to reign J"
LECTURE XL
PURGATORY,
1 JOHN I. 7.
The blood of Jesus Christy his Son, cleanseth m from all sin.
I CANNOT find, in the whole compass of Scripture, a more decided refutation of the unscriptural heresy that has been recently broached by the Tractarians of Oxford — that sins before baptism are cancelled by the blood of Christ, but that sins after baptism must be expiated by various peni tential processes, — than the text which I have now read in your hearing. You will observe, that it is declared to apply, not merely to those who are unbaptized, but to those who are baptized; nay, it pre-supposes, that the parties to whom it is specially applicable, are parties "walking in the light," — making a profession of the Gospel — mem bers of the visible church. The commencement of the verse is — " If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another;"
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and under such circumstances, (though not re stricted to such circumstances,) " the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." This great truth needs to be impressed upon the whole visible church in the present age — that there is no purgatory for the infant that has opened its eyes upon a marred and dismantled world, but the blood of Jesus ; that there is no purgatory for the youth, amid all the buoyancy of unfolding years, stirred by strong passions and surrounded by syren temptations, but the blood of Jesus ; and that in the hour of death, and at the day of judgment, there is no plea that the guilty can present before God, no foundation on which faith and hope can lean, but this precious and all-sufficient announce ment — " The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin."
You are aware, that the doctrine on which I have to comment this evening, is that which is commonly known by the name — Purgatory. There is, I take leave to observe, not only a Roman- Catholic, but a Protestant purgatory also. The Roman-Catholic purgatory I shall proceed to de fine, and to illustrate from their own undoubted and authorized documents; the Protestant pur gatory is announced in my text — " The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth," or purgeth, or acts as a purgatory "from all sin." Luther, be fore he was enlig itened in the knowledge of the u 3
Purgatory.
Gospel, looked forward with fear to the purgatory which is defined by the Council of Trent, and illustrated in the histories of the Church of Rome ; but the moment that great-hearted man came to be acquainted with the truths of the Gospel, the Spirit of God shining into his understanding, and enabling him savingly to comprehend those truths — that moment Luther abandoned the Popish purgatory, and kept fast by the precious provision of the everlasting Gospel — "The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth from all sin."
In the Conversations of Luther, which are in some measure a posthumous publication, we read, that on one occasion, when the monk was begin- ing to awaken from the stupor and the supersti tions of the Roman-Catholic communion, and to feel, or rather to grope his way, amid the truths of the Gospel and the revelations of Scripture, to the knowledge of Christ as the only Saviour, Satan, either in reality or in a dream, appeared in the depth of the night, and addressed him in the following terms : " Luther, how dare you pretend to be a reformer of the Church? Luther, let your memory do its duty — let your conscience do its duty : you have committed this sin — you have been guilty of that sin; you have omitted this duty, and you have neglected that duty : let your reform begin in your own bosom. How dare you attempt to be a reformer of the Church ?"
Purgatory. 443
Luther, with the self-possession and magnanimity by which he was characterized, (whether it was a dream or a reality, he himself professes not to de cide,) said to Satan — " Take up the slate that lies on the table, and write down all the sins with which you have now charged me ; and, if there be any additional, append them too." Satan, re joiced to have the opportunity of accusing, just as our blessed Lord is rejoiced to have the oppor tunity of advocating, took up a pencil, and wrote a long and painful roll of the real or imputed sins of Luther. Luther said, " Have you written the whole?" Satan answered, "Yes; and a black and dark catalogue it is, and sufficient to deter you from making any attempt to reform others, till you have first purified and reformed yourself." Luther replied, " Take up the slate, and write as I shall dictate to you. My sins are many ; my transgressions in the sight of an infinitely holy God, are countless as the hairs of my head : in me there dwelleth no good thing ; but, Satan, after the last sin you have recorded, write the announce ment which I shall repeat from 1 John i. 7 : ' The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth from •ALL sin.'" Luther in that text had peace; and Satan, knowing the source of his peace, had no advantage against him.
Without entering more fully on the vast and varied range of Christian truth that seems to me
444 Purgatory.
to be comprehended in my text, I will endeavour, first of all, to lay before you the definition and description of Purgatory, as it is embodied in the standards of the Roman- Catholic Church. In the Creed of Pope Pius IV., the following definition is given : "I constantly hold that there is a purga tory, and that the souls therein detained are helped by the suffrages of the faithful." In the twenty- fifth session of the Council of Trent, there is this decree on purgatory : " There is a purgatory, and the souls therein detained are helped by the suf frages of the faithful, but most chiefly by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar,"- — that is, the pro pitiatory sacrifice of the mass. And in the Cate chism of the Council of Trent, which every priest is instructed to teach his flock, the following words occur : " Besides, there is a purgatorial fire, in which the souls of the pious being tormented [cruciate] for a definite period, are expiated in order that an entrance may be opened for them into the eternal country, into which nothing polluted enters."
Such is the definition of Purgatory ; it is a place of suffering and of purification between death and the day of judgment, wherein souls that die with the guilt of venial sin not yet fully expiated, are detained and tormented in fire until they are purified and made meet for the abodes of the redeemed and the glo rified. It is not for those who die (as we should
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say) unbelievers and enemies to God ; it is for the faithful and the pious — those whom we should call the saints; those that the Romish Church has reason to believe are really and truly Christians. And thus the painful thought must flash upon the mind of every Roman Catholic, that, however his past and present conduct may be characterized by all the " fruits of the Spirit," yet, when he dies, he does not pass immediately to the presence of God, but goes to a place of purgatorial suffering, in which he is tormented and purified, until he is made meet for the mansions of heaven. Let this, therefore, be clearly understood, — that purgatory is not for sinners, who die in what the Roman- Catholic Church calls mortal sin; it is not for those who die rejecting and despising the Gospel : but it is for those who have been the most faithful, the most devoted, the most signalised, in the esti mate of the Romish Church, by the distinctive graces of Christianity, and applauded by the most competent judges of those who are in close com munion with God.
The origin and necessity of purgatory arise from the distinction that subsists in the judgment of the Roman-Catholic Church between venial and mortal sin. A venial sin, according to Dr. Doyle, in the Catechism taught to Roman Catholics in Ireland, "is a sin which does not break charity between man and man, much less between man
446 Purgatory.
and God, — such as the stealing of an apple, a pin," &c. Or, as it is in the " Abridgment of Christian Doctrine : " " Q. Whither go such as die in mortal sin ? " — " A. To hell for all eternity, as you have heard in the Creed." " Q. Whither go such as die in venial sin, or not having fully satisfied for the temporal punishments due to their mortal sins, which are forgiven them ? " — " A. To purgatory, till they have made full satisfaction for them, and then to heaven." " Q. By what kind of sins are the commandments broken ?"- "A. By mortal sins only; for venial sins are not, strictly speaking, contrary to ' the end of the commandments, which is charity.' ' " Q. When is a theft a mortal sin?" — "A. When the thing stolen is of considerable value, or causeth a con siderable hurt to our neighbour." " Q. When is a lie a mortal sin]" — "A. When it is any great dishonour to God, or notable prejudice to our neighbour."
Strange questions, and strange replies, in the judgment of an enlightened and Bible-taught Christian. But to shew you still further the dis tinction between venial and mortal sins in the Church of Rome, I will read an extract from a celebrated work of Dr. Bailly, which is taught to the priests who are trained in the Roman-Catholic college of St. Patrick in Maynooth, and prepared for the discharge of their duty in the Romish
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parishes in which they may be placed as priests. We have, in this extract, the doctrines that are inculcated upon the minds of the rising priest hood ; and we may regard this as an exposition of the principles acted on in the confessional by every Roman-Catholic priest in Ireland. I quote from chapter vii. p. 232, where a question is asked, strangely at variance with our ideas ; for we are all taught, that whether a farthing or a pound be stolen, it is equally a violation of God's command ment ; nay, that the theft of a small thing may be a greater sin in the sight of God, because the temptation is less. " Q. How great must be the quantity of the thing stolen, in order to constitute the theft a mortal sin?" — "A. The quantity can not easily be determined" — [such is the reply of a Church in which all things are represented to be certain, stereotyped, and fixed ; where all is lucid as the light of meridian day, and certain as the landmarks of creation] — "the quantity cannot easily be determined, since nothing has been decided on this point, either in natural, divine, or human law. Some are of opinion that a quantity necessary for the maintenance of an individual for one day, in a manner suitable to his station in this world, is sufficient to make the theft a mortal sin ; others think that it requires a quantity which, every thing considered, inflicts a grievous injury on our neighbour, and deprives him of something
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particularly useful. A loss, however, which in respect of one — a rich man, for instance — is slight, in respect of a poor man may he considered heavy. Hence, theologians are accustomed to distinguish men into four ranks. The first rank consists of the illustrious, who live in splendour ; the second, of those who live en their own estates, but not so splendidly — such as are moderately rich ; the third, of artificers, who support themselves by their own handicraft and labour ; and the fourth, of the poor, who provide for themselves by begging. It is generally laid down, and you (the priests) may lay it down as determined, that in order that a theft should be a mortal sin, when committed on persons of the first rank, fifty or sixty pence are sufficient." So that, if from the Queen, or any of our illustrious nobility, you should steal sixty pence, if you die with that sin unforgiven, you go to hell to all eternity; but if you so manage matters as to steal only fifty-nine pence and three farthings, then you can only be sent to purgatory, for purification in its fires, until the Day of Judg ment. He goes on to say, that with respect to persons in the second class, forty pence are enough to constitute a mortal sin ; and with respect to persons in the third rank, twenty pence, " if their trade be a very lucrative one ; if less lucrative, ten pence." So that servants are to be encouraged to find out whether their master's trade is a lucrative
Purgatory. 449
one, and to get rich and escape the punishment of hell by stealing thirty-nine pence per day, which is only a venial sin, and dooming the transgressor only to purgatory.
Again: at page 237, the question is discussed, " Whether wives commit a mortal sin of theft, if, contrary to the reasonable wishes of their hus bands, they secretly take any thing considerable from the property which is under the power of their husbands." And the answer is — "They commit a mortal sin of theft, because they greatly injure the just right of the husband. But what quantity ought to be accounted considerable in these thefts, cannot easily be determined ; this one thing is certain, — that a greater quantity is re quired in thefts committed by a wife, or a son, than in thefts committed by strangers, because a husband, or the father of a family, is more un willing that money should be taken by a stranger than by a wife or a son."
At page 239, we read—" What is to be thought of servants who pilfer any thing from their mas ters ?"— "^. That they sin mortally, if they pilfer a considerable quantity ; vemally, if they pilfer a small quantity. But if they steal money, furni ture, or such things, the same quantity is required to constitute a mortal sin as if they were strangers." And then follows a very remarkable provision, which must have been specially applicable in the
450 Purgatory.
dark ages, when the Church of Rome had wide spread and unbounded wealth and possessions : " Servants sin mortally, if they plunder for the purpose of carousing, or in order to sell, or give away to others, or if they should make use of dainties and choice wines, which the master wishes to reserve for himself, and which are not usually allowed to servants."
You ask, How does this bear upon the question that is immediately before us ? It bears most vitally upon it. Purgatory is only for venial sins ; hell is for mortal sins: every Roman Catholic, therefore, is interested — on his own principles ever lastingly interested — in the question, whether the sins of which he is guilty are to be regarded as venial sins, to be expiated in purgatory — for eman cipation from which a legacy will provide masses — or as mortal sins, to be visited with the wrath of Heaven through all eternity. And not only the peo ple, but the priests are interested in the solution of this question ; for they have to sit in a box, called the confessional, and every person, from ten or twelve years upwards, must approach that spot at least once a-year, and breathe into the priest's ear every thought that has passed through his heart, every sentiment that has been entertained in his mind, every word he has spoken since he last con fessed, of a sinful or a questionable kind. Every action which he can at all suspect to have been
Purgatory. 45 1
tainted with iniquity, he must fully and faithfully confess, under the menaced guilt of sinning against the Holy Ghost — the unpardonable sin ; and when the priest has heard the confession, it is most important that he should be able to determine whether a sin is mortal .or venial, that he may apportion the proper expiatory process, and minis ter, on the one hand, the consolation that belongs to a venial transgressor, and point out, on the other, the means of forgiveness and expiation for a mortal sinner. You will also see, that if the distinction of venial and mortal sin is an untenable doctrine, the pretensions of Purgatory are dissi* pated, and, being shorn of its foundation, it must necessarily fall to the ground.
Before, however, I proceed further, I shall en deavour to give you some illustrations of the belief of the Church of Rome, respecting the nature of the sufferings of those who are confined in purgatory. With this view, I shall quote from the celebrated Cardinal Bellarmine — the most dis tinguished champion of the Roman-Catholic faith ; from whose large and massive and learned folios, all the controversial arguments of modern Roman- Catholic priests are usually derived. Cardinal Bellarmine, in his work De Gemitu Columbce, book ii. chapter 9, gives the following account of per sons whom he knew to be in purgatory, and whose sufferings, therefore, he is fully competent to
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narrate ; and it is important that Roman Catholics, if I address any to night, should know what is before them in purgatory, if they still cleave to their superstition ; whilst it is important also, that Pro testants should understand what are the prospects of a Church, which tramples upon the blood of the Everlasting Covenant, and puts in its place the devices of man.
" Since many persons," says Bellarmine, " will not believe what they have never seen, it has pleased Almighty God sometimes to raise his ser vants from the dead, and to send them to announce to the living what they have really beheld. A pious father of a family in Northumberland died, after a long illness, in the early part of one night, but, to the great terror of those who watched by his body, came to life again at the dawn of the following day. All but his faithful and affection ate wife fled at the sight of him, and to her he communicated, in the most soothing terms, the peculiar circumstances of his case ; that he had indeed been dead, but was permitted to live again upon earth, though by no means in the same manner as before. In short, he sold all his pro perty — divided the produce equally between his wife, his children, and the poor — and then retired to the Abbey of Melrose ; he there lived in such a state of unexampled mortification, as made it quite evident, even if he had not said a word on
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the subject, that he had seen things, whatever was the nature of them, which no one else had been permitted to behold. * One,' said the old man, ' whose aspect was as of light, and his garment glis tening, conducted me to a valley of great depth and width, but of immeasureable length ; one side of which was dreadful beyond expression for its burning heat, and the other as horrible for its no less intolerable cold. Both were filled with souls of men, which seemed to be tossed, as by the fury of the tempest, from one side to the other; for, being quite unable to endure the heat on the right hand, the miserable wretches kept throwing them selves to the opposite side into the equal torment of cold, and thence back again into the raging flames. This, thought I to myself, must be hell ; but my guide answered to my thought, that it was not so. This valley, says he, is the place of tor ment for the souls of those who, after delaying to confess and expiate their sins, have at length, in articulo mortis, had recourse to penance, and so have died ; these, at the Day of Judgment, will be admitted into the kingdom of heaven, by reason of their confession and penance, late as it was ; but, meanwhile, many of them may be assisted and liberated before that day, by the prayers, alms, and fastings of the living, particularly by the sacrifice of the mass.' "
This is the first instance which the Cardinal
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gives ; he then quotes another extraordinary story? narrated of St. Christina, whose life was pub lished by "an author of high repute, Thomas Can- tepratensis, who was contemporary with the saint ; confirmed, too, by the testimony of the learned Cardinal James de Vitriaco, in the preface to his book of the Life and Acts of St. Mary de Oeg- nies." St. Christina has her place in the Roman Calendar, and a festival is appointed to her honour on the 23rd of July. The following are stated to be the words spoken by her, immediately after her return to life, in the presence of many witnesses : " Immediately as I departed from the body, my soul was received by ministers of light and angels of God, and conducted to a dark and horrid place, filled with the souls of men. The torments which I there witnessed are so dreadful, that to attempt to describe them would be utterly in vain; and, there I beheld not a few, who had been known to me while they were alive. Greatly concerned for their hap less state, I asked what place it was, thinking it was hell; but I was told that it was purgatory, where are kept those who in their life had re pented indeed of their sins, but had not paid the punishment due for them. I was next taken to see the torments of hell, where also I recognised some of my former acquaintances upon earth. Afterwards I was translated to paradise, even to
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the throne of the Divine Majesty ; and when I saw the Lord congratulating me, I was beyond mea sure rejoiced, concluding, of course, that I should henceforward dwell with Him for evermore. But he presently said to me — ' In very deed, my sweetest daughter, here you shall be with me ; but, for the present, I offer you your choice. Will you stay for ever with me now ? or will you return to the earth, and there in your mortal body, but without any detriment to it, endure punishments, by which you may deliver out of purgatory all those souls whom you so much pitied, and may also, by the sight of your penance and the example of your life, be a means of converting to me some who are yet alive in the body ; and so come again to me at last, with a great increase of your merits ? ' I accepted, without hesitation, the return to life, on the condition proposed ; and the Lord,. congratu lating me on the promptitude of my obedience, ordered that my body should be restored to me. And here I had an opportunity of admiring the incredible celerity of the blessed spirits ; for in that very hour, having been placed before the throne of God at the first recital of the Agnus Dei in the mass which was said for me, at the third my body was restored. This is an account of my death, and return to life." The author of her Life then narrates, that " she walked into burning ovens, and though she was so tortured
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by the flames that her anguish extorted from her the most horrible cries, yet, when she came out, there was not a trace of any burning to be de tected on her body. Again, during a hard frost, she would go and place herself under the frozen surface of a river, for six days and more at a time. Sometimes she would be carried round by the wheel of a water-mill with the water of the river, and having been whirled round in a horrible man ner, she was as whole in body as if nothing had happened to her — not a limb was hurt. At other times she would make all the dogs in the town fall upon her, and would run before them like a hunted beast ; and yet, in spite of being torn by thorns and brambles, and worried and lacerated by the dogs, to such a degree that no part of her body escaped without wounds, there was not a weal nor scar to be seen." " Such," says the illus trious and learned Cardinal Bellarmine, of whose genius and erudition (apart from his moral and religious principles) any church might be glad — " such is the narrative of Thomas Cantepratensis ; and that he said nothing but the truth, is evident, not only from the confirmation given to his testi mony by the Bishop and Cardinal De Vitriaco, and from his only telling what happened in the very province in which he was a bishop, but because the thing spoke for itself. It was quite plain that the body must have been endued with a divine
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virtue, which could endure all that hers endured, without being damaged ; and this, not for a few days, but for forty-two years, during which she continued alive after her resurrection. But still more manifest does this become, from the many sinners whom she brought to penitence, and from the miracles, after her death, by which she was distinguished; for God determined to stop the mouth of unbelievers."
One more instance is given by the Cardinal, as a proof of the possible duration of the pains of purgatory, even to the Day of Judgment. He quotes from the Life of St. Ludgardis, written by the same author as that of St. Christina : — "About this time, Pope Innocent III., after having held the Lateran Council, departed out of this life, and shortly afterwards appeared to Ludgardis. She, as soon as she beheld him encircled with a vast flame, demanded who he was ; and on his answer ing that he was Pope Innocent, exclaimed with a groan, * What can this be ? how is it that the common father of us all is thus tormented ? ' * The reasons of my suffering thus,' he answered, ' are three in number ; and they would have con signed me to eternal punishments, had I not, through the intercession of the most pious mother of God, to whom I founded a monastery, repented, when in extremis. As it is, though I am spared x
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eternal suffering, yet I shall be tortured in the most horrible manner to the Day of Judgment ; and that I am now permitted to come and pray for your suffrages, is a boon, which the mother of mercy has obtained for me from her Son.' With these words he disappeared. Ludgardis not only communicated to her holy sisters the sad necessity to which the Pope was reduced in order to obtain their succour, but she also, herself, submitted to astonishing torments on his account." And the author adds, " The reader must understand, that Ludgardis herself revealed to me the three causes of the Pope's sufferings ; but I forbear to disclose them, out of reverence to so great a pontiff." "This instance," says Cardinal Bellar mine, "al ways affects me with the greatest terror. For if a pontiff entitled to so much praise, one who to all human observation was not merely a man of integrity and prudence, but of eminent, nay, most exemplary sanctity — if even he so narrowly es caped hell, and, as it is, must suffer the most excruciating torments till the Day of Judgment — what prelate is there, who does not tremble ? Who does not scrutinize the secrets of his own conscience with the most unsparing rigour ? For I cannot easily persuade myself, that so great a pontiff could have been capable of committing deadly sins, unless he were deceived, under some
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semblance of good, by flatterers and relatives, of whom the Gospel says, ' a man's foes shall be of his own household.' "
I have thus given you instances illustrative of the nature and duration of the torments of purga tory, drawn from sources so grave and weighty that no Roman Catholic can possibly doubt them. And now, as I have good reason to know that I enjoy the satisfaction of addressing many of my Roman-Catholic fellow-countrymen on this occa sion, I place before them the prospects that must overshadow their departing moments, and the horrible doom which the best and most faithful of their communion are destined to experience — if their creed be not a fable — if their faith be not delusion — before the Day of Judgment overtakes the world. I ask you, How can you, with so horrible a prospect, depart in peace ? How can you feel that the Gospel preached to you is good tidings at all ? My dear hearers, contrast the dying saint in the communion of the Protestant Church, and the words his minister can address to him, with the dying faithful in the bosom of the Roman-Catholic Church, and the words that the priest must, if honest and consistent, address to him. In your Church, if you were one of the most faithful and consistent on whom the sun ever shone, when your last moment draws near, and the manifested con solations of the Gospel ought to be richest and
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fullest, your priest must tell you, if lie speak what he believes, in that awful crisis, " Unhappy are the dying and the deadj for they enter into purgatory, and endure its torments, until masses have been offered up adequate to the re demption of the soul from its apportioned sorrow," But when the Protestant minister goes to the death-bed of a departing believer, he, in Heaven's tones of exquisite melody,, because of exhaustless comfort, can lift up his voice in the ear of the de parting saint, and testify, even in the agony of death, " Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours." The former is a gospel, which is "an other" or no gospel ; the latter is worthy of the name, for it is " good news " indeed,
By way of illustrating the practical effects of this doctrine, I will mention an interesting fact, which occurred in my own experience. I was asked to deliver a lecture at Poplar, on the errors of the Roman-Catholic Church, in the Infant School-room, granted for the occasion by an emi nent Christian gentleman, Mr. Green. I spoke to the people that were assembled, upon the uncom- fortableness (to say the least of it) of the doctrine of purgatory, and shewed them the contradiction between the peculiar principles of Popery and the express and declared mind of the Spirit of God. Some hundreds of Roman Catholics were present ;
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some of them listening with evident anxiety, and others interrupting with contemptuous sneers, One lady, I observed, who had a pencil in her hand,, noted down the texts I adduced, and some of the arguments I urged; and I noticed some times a sneer, and sometimes a smile, but now and then the pencil stopped, and her eyes were fixed upon the ground. I was to deliver a second lec ture, and on that occasion I recognised many of the same faces, and among them this lady; and after I had spoken a little, her pencil was laid down, her eye was fixed upon me, and her ear drank in every word I uttered. At the close of the meeting, she handed me a slip of paper, containing a request to have an interview with me. We met, and she said — " I have been a devoted member of the Roman-Catholic chapel at Poplar ; the priest is my intimate friend, and the godfather of my boy; I was to play the new organ, when it was put up ; I have gone regularly to mass and to confession, and have been regarded as one of the elite of the communion ; — but, after considering carefully and prayerfully what I have heard in your two lectures, I dare no longer remain a Roman Catholic." She told me, that when she saw the placard announcing the meeting, she informed the priest that a notorious firebrand was coming to Poplar. The priest did not wish to take any notice of the matter; but on her
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urging the expediency of being made acquainted with what was said, he agreed that she had better go and take notes of the lecture. She did so ; and wrote him a letter immediately after the close of it, telling him there was to be another lecture, and he must come and answer it, or the Roman Catholics in Poplar would all turn Protestants. The priest returned no answer to this suggestion ; and she wrote to another priest then in the neigh bourhood, Dr. Butler ; but he also took no notice of her communication. I knew the reason of their silence : the moment a Roman Catholic's judgment begins to be stumbled, his conscience stirred, and his heart impressed, the priest feels that he is gone, and lets go his hope of detaining him. The second lecture confirmed the impression of the first, and she resolved to renounce the Roman- Catholic communion for ever. I asked her what points struck her most forcibly in my statements, and alienated her affections so rapidly from the Roman- Catholic Church. She said, it was not so much the arguments I brought forward as the texts I quoted — a very striking and precious testimony. One of these texts, she said, fell upon her like a sunbeam from heaven, and unveiled to her hopes and prospects to which she was an utter stranger before; — and that text was, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord ; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may" — not suffer in purgatory,
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but — " rest from their labours." She told me, that she felt this most acutely, because she had been formerly laid upon a sick-bed, and her medical attendant had given up all hope, and told her there was no chance of her recovery ; she sent for an aged priest from a neighbouring place, to administer the sacrament of Extreme Unction. On receiving it, she asked him, " Am I now safe?" to which, according to her testimony, he replied, " I can pledge my own safety that you are." " But," added she, ' ' have I not to pass through purgatory?" "Unquestionably," said the priest. " Then tell me, as a dying woman, what is the nature of the purgatory that I have to experi ence?" The priest, with great solemnity, and, if his creed be right, with great truth, replied, " Purgatory, my dear child, is a place where you will have to suffer the torments of the damned, only of shorter duration." She said every nerve tingled with agony at the announcement. But when the text I illustrated came upon her ear, and reached her heart, declaring that the dead in Christ " rest from their labours," — and again, " to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord," — she felt that either the priest must be wrong and the Bible true, or the Bible must be false if purgatory be true.
I may illustrate these statements still further. On the continent of Europe, purgatory is obtruded
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on the notice of the people in every possible shape and form, as I had an opportunity of witnessing last summer. One place I shall not soon forget ; it was in the city of Antwerp, and the name of it is La Calvaire. There is an ascent rising at an angle of about twenty-five degrees, and on each side of the path are pictures and images of saints ; at the top of it is a picture of our blessed Lord stretched upon the cross (probably about ten feet in length), and out of his wounded side there hangs a red wire, to imitate a stream of blood flowing into a cup held by the Virgin Mary, who is believed, in the Romish theology, to be the great dispensatrix of the virtues of her Son Jesus Christ. Below this crucifix there is represented a purgatory ; I noticed twelve or fourteen heads cut out in oak, surrounded by flames that rise in every direction ; and over this is a text from Isaiah, but perverted and misquoted — " The spirit of the Lord hath sent me to preach indulgences to the captives." Immediately below the text there is a box for receiving money to remunerate the priests, who offer up masses for the repose of those whose pictures are exhibited struggling in the flames of purgatory.
Another illustration of the same thing I saw in the exquisite Cathedral Church of Malines, in the very heart of Belgium, where the railways meet and converge. On going into that beautiful church
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I found the funeral ceremony for one of the de parted faithful going on. The coffin was placed in the body of the cathedral, and a priest in his robes stood at each corner of it ; two priests went through the duty peculiar to the altar, and other two came to the coffin, sprinkled it with holy water, incensed it with burning perfume, and chaunted some prayers. After the ceremony, two men with wands, preceded by the official with the staff of authority, came to each person in the ca thedral with a box, in which they collected money ; the box was extremely large, probably a foot and a half in length, and half the lid was raised and stood at right angles with the box, so that a sur face of about half a foot square was presented to the individual before whom it was placed. I waited to give a small coin, not for the sake of the value of the masses to be said, but because I wished to see more distinctly a picture, of which I had just caught a glimpse, on the box ; and I found that it represented seven or eight human bodies writhing and struggling amid the flames of purgatory ; and, on the bottom of the lid there was inscribed — " Priez pour les fideles trepasses" [Pray for the faithful who are dead]. It was a picture of purgatorial torment, on the strength of which the collectors appealed to the feelings of the faithful, in order to raise funds to pay the x 3
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priests for offering up masses for the relief of the departed man presumed to be suffering the burn ing torments of purgatory.
But, of all the painful spectacles to be witnessed on the Continent, in connection with this subject, the most heart-rending is that of weeping mothers and weeping sons. Almost every day you may see, as you pass the beautiful and tasteful church yards, on one grave a mother weeping and praying, with a fervour worthy of a purer and holier cause, that the soul of her departed son or daughter may have repose from the torments of purgatory ; and, on another grave, the son or the daughter praying for the soul of the mother, or the widow praying for the repose of her husband's spirit. Thus Christianity, instead of being a faith of joyful hope and unutterable peace, seems to be the har binger of woe, the source of tears, and the mes senger of sadness. Sad, not glad, tidings seem thus to be its burden. The practical effects of the doctrine of purgatory are found to be, subjection to the priest, and aggrandizement of the Church. It is only where the glorious Gospel is preached in its purity, and realized in its power, that we can leave the graves of departed Christians, and feel that they suffer not in the regions of the sor rowful, nor expiate the sins of life after death, but stand before the Throne of God, " having
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washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
I have already remarked, that the doctrine of Purgatory proceeds upon the assumption, that some sins are mortal, and others venial. If this distinction be unfounded, the doctrine is unten able. Now I will show you, from the plainest announcements of Scripture, that the distinction is unscripturaL Romans vi. 23, " The wages of sin is death ;" it is not limited to mortal sin, but spoken of sin generally — all sin. Ezekiel xviii. 20,— " The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Gala- tians iii. 10, — " Cursed is every one that continu- eth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Still more conclusive is James ii. 10, — " Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all:" there is no individual who does not "offend in one point," and, therefore, there is no soul, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, who is not guilty of mortal sin. In other words, there is no distinction of venial sin and mortal sin, in fixing the destinies of eternity ; but the wages of all sin, if visited upon us, are equally everlasting destruction. I admit that one sin is more heinous than another ; but I contend that the wages of all sin is death, and that while the greatest sin is not so great that the blood of Jesus cannot cancel it,
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the least sin is not so little that it will not sink you, like an ocean load, to the depths of perdition, unless expiated by the sin-forgiving cross of the Lamb of God.
Another postulate that purgatory impiously in volves and assumes, is, that we may, by suffering, satisfy for sin. Against this idea the whole scope and tenor of the everlasting Gospel militate. Job xxxv. 5 — 7, " Look unto the heavens, and see ; and behold the clouds, which are higher than thou. If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him ? or if thy transgression be multiplied, what doest thou unto him ? If thou be righteous, what givest thou him ? or what receiveth he of thine hand ?*' This implies, that our sins cannot injure God, nor our suffering profit him. Psalm xvi. 2, " Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee." Nothing that we can do can profit God, or deserve reward from him. Micah vi. 6, 7, " Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself be fore the high God ? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old ? will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ?" No, by none of these means can we appease the just judgment of God, or expiate the sins of which we have been guilty. Luke xvii. 10, " When ye shall have
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done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants ; we have done that which was our duty to do." 1 Corinthians iv. 7, "What hast thou, that thou didst not re ceive ?" All this shews, that no sufferings we can endure, no actions we can achieve, are possessed of any meritorious efficacy, either to atone for the sins of the past, or to advantage God in the way of securing a righteousness which may be a title to the glories of the future.
There remain three or four texts quoted by Ro man Catholics in defence of Purgatory, which it is my duty briefly to examine. One is in Matthew xii. 32, " Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come ;" from which the Roman Catholic infers, that there is forgive ness for some sins in the world to come, and therefore that there is Scripture warrant for a place where they may be expiated. The words seem to have been spoken by our Lord to over throw the superstitious notion of the Jews, that there was forgiveness for sin in some undefined and indescribable state in eternity. In the first place, purgatory cannot be referred to in this text, because purgatory is not in " the world to come," for it is before, and not after the judgment. In the next place, this text cannot refer to purgatory, because it speaks of " forgiveness" of sins ; but purgatory
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is not forgiveness, but paying the last farthing ; it is suffering so much, and thereby deserving so much ; " forgiveness," which is of grace, cannot have any connection with expiatory suffering, which is merit in the sight of God. And in the last place, the text is satisfactorily explained by a reference to the parallel passage, (Mark iii. 29,) which runs — " He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, hath never forgiveness." The passage, therefore, does not prove purgatory.
Another text quoted by the Roman Catholic, is 1 Corinthians iii. 13 — 15: " Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire ; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss : but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire." Here, exclaims the Roman-Catholic disputant, is the doctrine of purgatory clearly revealed. Now, we can at once shut his mouth upon this text ; for we have seen that it is a law of the Roman- Catholic Church, that where the fathers are not unanimous upon the meaning of a text, the Ro man Catholic has no right or power to interpret ; and I have shewn you in a previous Lecture, that the fathers differ in relation to this passage about the "fire," about the "work," about the "day,"
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about the " reward," and about the "loss." The Roman Catholic, therefore, on his own principles, has no right to adduce this text at all. But, sup pose that he had, it would not prove purgatory. In the first place, the great function of the purga torial fire is to purify, whereas the process here described is, to "try every man's work, of what sort it is." To " try" a piece of metal, is to ascer tain whether it be gold or brass ; but to purify it, is to remove what is dross, and preserve only what is valuable : as purgatory is not for " trying," but for purging, this text cannot describe purgatory. In the next place, the passage states that " every man's work" shall be tried ; but purgatory is not for every man ; it is only for those who die in venial sin : the Virgin Mary, we are told, did not go to purgatory, nor the Apostles (I think) ; and, on the other hand, none go there who die in mortal sin ; but, as the text speaks of a fire that is for " every man," it proves too much. Further, the fire spoken of by the Apostle, is to try every man's "work;" but purgatory is for purifying men's souls : a work is not the soul, and, there fore, again we infer, the passage cannot refer to purgatory. It is here stated, that some shall " suffer loss;" but in purgatory none " suffer loss" — they all eventually get out, and receive much gain. Lastly, the expression, " saved so as by fire," is simply a proverbial phrase for denoting
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difficulty of escape : we have an expression paral lel to it in the words — " Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" Any one acquainted with the Greek poets knows that this form of expression is common with them, to denote the greatest difficulty in escaping from danger and at taining a place of safety.
Another passage quoted by Roman-Catholic divines, is in 1 Peter iii. 19; "By which [Spirit] also Christ went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah." Here, says the Roman Catholic, is clearly the statement, that there are spirits in prison, to whom Christ went and preached the Gospel. All this, however, proceeds upon the supposition, that the preaching was by Christ per sonally, and that the last half of the text is to be disjointed and disconnected from the first. The meaning of it is obviously this : to those souls that were disobedient in the days of Noah, Christ preached, but without effect, for they are now in prison. But how did he preach in the days of Noah ? Christ preached directly and personally in the days of his flesh, and he preached indi rectly by his ministering servants. Noah, as one of these, is called " a preacher of righteousness," and by him, Christ preached to the antediluvian world; but they rejected the patriarch's proclama-
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tions of the Gospel, and despised his invitations to come into the ark ; and the spirits of these antedi luvian sceptics are now in the prison of hell. But to settle all pretensions of the Romanist to prove purgatory by this passage, I must observe, that according to the Roman- Catholic Church, idola try, unbelief, and rejection of the truth, are mortal sins; the antediluvians denied the exist ence, despised the mercies, and rejected the invi tations of God, and therefore they died in mortal sin; but purgatory is only for those who die in venial sin, since those who die in mortal, go to hell for ever ; consequently, the antediluvians can not have gone to purgatory, but must [on Roman- Catholic principles] be in the prison of hell for ever.
Another passage quoted by Roman Catholics, is in Matthew v. 25: " Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison: " they say, this means the prison of purgatory. The simple reply to this is, that unjust anger, of which Christ is speaking, is one of the seven mortal sins enumerated by the Roman-Catholic Church; and a person guilty of it, therefore, does not go to purgatory, but is con signed to hell. Hence, this passage cannot prove purgatory.
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How many beautiful and impressive texts prove the reverse ! The announcement of Isaiah, de scriptive of the destiny of the just, ought to fall like the sunbeams of heaven on the hearts of those that mourn : " He shall enter into peace ; they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness." Of the rich man it is recorded, that when he died, his soul passed at once into the regions of the damned ; and of Lazarus, that his soul was borne instantly to the bosom of Abra ham. The thief upon the cross beheld the ma jesty that peered forth amid the sorrow of the Son of God ; and, recognising in that lone sufferer no ordinary child of mortality, he lifted up his earnest petition, " Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." Our blessed Re deemer, if the Roman-Catholic tenet had been true, would have replied, ' Thou shalt, a thousand years hence, be with me in Paradise, but, for years and years to come, thou must be purified in pur gatory;1 and, if any one needed to go to purga tory for purity, it was surely he. But our Lord proclaimed the great hope of the Gospel, fraught with consolation to the mourner, and with peace to the troubled — " Verily, I say unto thee, to-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise."
Again : the Apostle Paul said, " I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ;" " We are willing to be absent from the body and to be present with
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the Lord." The dying martyr Stephen beheld Jesus at the right hand of God, and exclaimed, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." We read (Romans viii. 1) " There is no condemnation," in the present or in the future, " to them that are in Christ Jesus." In John v. 2, 4, " He that be- lieveth hath everlasting life." " Christ hath re deemed us from the curse of the law." " He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows ; he was wounded for our transgressions ; he was bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed :" — would it be just in God to exact payment twice ? If Christ has paid the debt — if Christ has borne the responsibility — we stand free and acquitted in the sight of God. " Who, his owrn self," it is said in another passage, " bare our sins in his own body on the tree." And again : " Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?" Will God do it ? " It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" Will Christ do it? " It is Christ that died ; yea, rather, that is risen again." And in the prospect of a judgment morn, the Apostle could triumphantly declare — " I am per suaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from
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the love of God which is in Christ Jesus oUi* Lord."
Let me next shew you, that beside the blood of Christ, we have no intimation of any purgatory. My text describes the true purgatory ; and imme diately afterwards we read, ' If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just" — faithful to his promise, and just because Christ has died—" to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous ness." "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If we are made spotless as the driven snow — if our transgressions are so far removed that only the purity of wool remains behind — then there is no sin for purgatory to expiate, there is no stain for its torments to efface. Again : " Neither is there salvation in any other;" but if purgatory be true, there is a process of salvation going on there. " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." " I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy trans gressions, and as a cloud thy sins." " And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they ? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they " — which have escaped the purgatorial tor ments of the middle state ? which have purified
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themselves by an expiatory process, dreadful as that which Pope Innocent was doomed to endure ? which have come from a region where they were driven, in terrible and endless succession, from intense cold to intense heat ? No : that would be Popery. The Bible is eloquent with the most glorious truths of evangelical Protestantism ; and therefore it proclaims, in its own majestic tones — which I pray that the Spirit of God may make to be music and melody in the heart of every one that hears me ! — " These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb ; therefore are they before the throne of God."
Once more : There is no evidence whatever in Scripture, that the saints suffer after death. " Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord ; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their la bours." " Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." " He shall enter," not into purgatory, but — "into peace; they shall" — not suffer in fire, but — " rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness." Ecclesiastes xi. 3 : "If the tree fall toward the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there shall it be.'' The moment a man dies, his character is (if I may use the expression) stereotyped ; it is made a fix ture for eternity. The man that dies an unfor- given sinner, spends eternity an unforgiven and a
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suffering sinner ; and the man that dies having his sins expiated in the blood of Jesus, spends eternity a rejoicing and a glorified saint. Where death leaves you, judgment will find you. The decision of the judgment morn is, " He that is un just, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still ; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still ; and he that is holy, let him be holy still." Again : it is beautifully said, " He forgive th all thine iniquities; for as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him ; as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he re moved our transgressions from us." I ask, Is purgatory consistent with these glorious truths ? "What is the great object of the death and atone ment of Christ ? Not to make God love us, but to render it possible for God to save us in full harmony with his justice and holiness. And to suppose that after Jesus has suffered that the world might be redeemed — after heaven heard the triumphant accents, " It is finished," and hell became blank with dismay as the words rever berated there — after salvation has been completed, and a channel opened from heaven to earth, so glorious that heaven's full tide of love may roll down and visit and refresh the guiltiest — to expect, after Gethsemane and Calvary, that God will still demand the punishment and penalty for
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sin, as if Christ had never borne it — is to carica ture the Eternal, and to invert the whole drift and scope of the truth of God.
Again: " We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were disssolved, we have " — a pur gatory to go to ? No — " a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Simeon said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." Abraham spake in this manner to the rich man : " Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and like wise Lazarus evil things ; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented ;" implying that Lazarus instantly entered on the enjoyments of heaven when he left the world.
I protest also against the doctrine of purga tory, because it presents a picture of the forgive ness of God, miserable, meagre, and contempt ible. I cannot find the least foundation for such a view in the word of God. It seems to me, as if God exhausted the resources of human language, and the figures and the metaphors of human rhetoric, to set forth the fulness and per fection of his forgiveness in Christ. He says, that our sins " He will remember no more." He represents his forgiveness by non-imputa tion : " not imputing their trespasses unto them." He represents it by covering : " Blessed is the man whose sin is covered." He represents it by
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taking away : " the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world" lifteth it away as a burden. He represents it by blotting out : "I am He that blotteth out thine iniquities." He represents it as casting behind : " Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." He represents it as removing : " As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us." And in a beautiful passage it is asked, "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage, because he delighteth in mercy ?"
But some one may say, " These are descriptions of sin's annihilation; but are we not all conscious of sin, and have we not still a lingering feeling that all is not right in the sight of God ? My dear friends, if we are the children of God, we ought now to rejoice in the forgiveness of sin. God means that Christians should not be miserable, but happy : God destines you for joy, not for sorrow and doubt; and if you are possessed with de spondency or distrust, it is you that are straight ened, not God. I believe the reason of much of the sadness of Christians is, that they keep look ing at the sin which is blotted out, not re membered, and forgiven ; instead of looking at the Saviour, who has borne it away. Suppose that I have owed an individual £100, I have not
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his receipt for it ; suppose I come to his place of business, and looking over his ledger, I see the account against me of items making up the £100. I feel the uneasy impression flash across my mind, that I may not be able to prove I have paid it ; and I confess it to him. " True," he says, " you. read your name in my ledger, with the account of the goods, and the sums appended ; but do you not notice a diagonal line, in red ink, extending from one corner to another ? That means that all is paid, and I have no demand against you." My dear friends, we keep looking at the sin and the penalty, and therefore we despond. Look again at that precious red line which crosses out the whole — " the blood of Christ, which cleanseth from all sin."
The doctrine of purgatory interferes with the effect of the expiatory blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore I protest against it. By the blood of Christ, we read in Scripture, every needed blessing is realized. Is peace desired ? He hath "made peace by the blood of his cross." Is bold ness of approach to the mercy-seat a blessing ? " We have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him." Is nearness to God heaven itself? Those who were afar off " are made nigh by the blood of Christ." Is redemption a bless ing ? " We have redemption through his blood," Y
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Is victory over sin, and Satan, and the world, a blessing ? " They overcame by the blood of the Lamb." Is cleansing a blessing ? " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin."
One thought more, and I shall express it in the words of a beautiful French poem, which has been placed in my hands, and which will teach Pro testants and Roman Catholics what is the true pur gatory on which they can rely.
" Great God ! thy ways are true, thy judgments right ;
It ever is thy pleasure to be kind ; But I so long to graee have done despite,
Thy justice fails if I should pardon find. Yea, Holy One ! a life of guilt like mine
Leaves thee no power my punishment to waive ; Thine honour and my peace can never join,
Nor can thy mercy plead with thee to save. Then do thy will ; for this thy glory cries ;
Ev'n at thy Cross let thy just anger rise ; Let lightnings flash, in thunder strike thy foe ;
In sinking, I adore my righteous God.
BUT ON WHAT PART CAN VENGEANCE DEAL THE BLOW,
THAT is NOT COVERED WITH A SAVIOUR'S BLOOD ? "
" Grand Dieu ! tes jugemens sont remplis d'equite ;
Toujours tu prends plaisir a nous etre propice ; Mais j'ai tant fait de mal que jamais ta bont£,
Ne me pardonnera sans choquer ta justice. Oui, mon Dieu I la grandeur de mon impi^te
Ne laisse a ton pouvoir que le choix du supplice ; Ton interet s'oppose a ma felicit£,
Et ta clemence meme attend que je p£risse.
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Content ton desir, puisqu'il t'est glorieux ;
Offense toi des pleurs qui coulent de mes yeux ; Tonne, frappe, il est terns ; rends moi guerre pour guerre ;
J' adore en perissant la raison qui t' aigrit. Mais dessus quel endroit tomber a ton tonnerre,
Qui ne soit tout couvert du sang de Jesus Christ ! "
LECTURE XII.
PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY,
GALATIANS vi. 14.
God forbid that I should glory , save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
CONTROVERSY, it must be admitted by those who are its most devoted champions, is not the atmo sphere a Christian wishes continually to breathe. It seems, when we pass from the contentions of controversy to the exhibition of the glorious truths of the blessed Gospel, as if we had escaped from the storm and the windy tempest, and got into a sweet haven, in which we are peacefully and safely sheltered. And here I cannot but re mark, that in all controversial discussion, however carefully conducted, there must be some harsh expressions that require to be explained, some sentences that need to be expunged, and some remarks that ought to be softened and qualified. Not forgetting this, let me add, that, as I am told it is the intention of some Roman- Catholic divines
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who have been present, to reply to these Lectures, I hope they will forget, forgive, or despise all that belongs to me ; but prayerfully, solemnly, and in the prospect of a judgment- seat, consider and weigh the truths and arguments that are drawn direct from the Oracles of God.
The text which I have chosen this evening, seems to me to embosom the most distinguishing peculiarities of the Gospel of Christ. It silently rebukes the world, sweetly refutes the Romanist, and fully expresses the faith, the affection, and the hopes of a Christian. " God forbid that I should glory," says the believer, " save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world,"
What is there in the world to glory in, except the cross of Christ ? It seems to me, that to the eye that has been purged of that sin which has been contracted by the Fall, and illumined by those rays that come from the Sun of Righteousness, the whole world, with its thrones, its crowns, its prin cipalities, its powers, and whatsoever man's heart loves most fully, whatsoever man's ambition covets most earnestly, has inscribed upon it, in letters so plain that " he may run that readeth," " Ichabod, Ichabod, the glory is departed." "God forbid, then, that I should glory" in any thing in the world, " save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
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by whom that world has been crucified unto me, and I unto the world."
Is there any thing in birth in which man may g] ory ? It is no doubt delightful to be able to trace one's ge nealogy to illustrious barons and royal princes ; but is this a valid subject or ground of glorying ? It is ground of thankfulness, it is matter of respon sibility ; but in no respect can it be regarded as the source of glorying. Our Queen is surrounded with the greatest honour, and occupies the place of greatest dignity, when she casts her crown at the foot of the Cross, and says, amid the rays radiated from that crown, " God forbid that I should glory, in this, or in any thing, save in the Cross of Jesus Christ.'*
Is there any thing in health to glory in ? An accident may disturb it for ever. The fever of a day blasts the health and destroys the vigour of a giant. And in the healthiest individual in this vast assembly, there are the seeds and the germs of wasting disease ; God has only to withdraw, one moment, his own providence and power— -and con sumption or fever, or some other wasting disease, lays them in the grave ; and the place that now knows them, knows them no more for ever.
Is there any thing in reputation to glory in— in renown— that for which statesmen strive ; for which diplomatists plan ; for which many an orator speaks ; for which many a philosopher wastes the
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midnight oil ? Is there any thing to glory in in reputation, the most illustrious that ever shone upon the name of a Newton or a Bacon ? What is reputation ? A whisper — and it is blasted ; an inuendo — and it is gone for ever.
Is there any thing in riches in which we can glory ? They take wings and fly away. And after all, what is the real value of riches ? Did you ever hear that a soverain could cure a head-ache ? Did you ever hear that a five-pound note could arrest the progress of a wasting consumption ? that riches would keep death at bay ? that a cheque could be a passport at the judgment-seat? No, my dear friends ; at the judgment morning, crowns and coronets, the ermine of judges, the lawn of bishops, the purple of monarchs, will be found to have been left behind in the grave, their birth place and their doom ; and the soul, naked, and alone, will stand shorn of all save its responsi bilities, at the bar of the Judge of heaven and of earth.
There is nothing, then, in the whole world, in which the Christian can glory ; and after he has reviewed and estimated the whole, he will be con strained to say, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches ; but let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he
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understandeth and knoweth me ; that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteonsness in the earth ; for in these things I delight, saith the Lord." Did you, in fact, ever find a man who was satisfied with any thing the world had given him, or with any thing the world ever poured into the lap of the most fortunate ? You never did. You frequently hear the servant make the remark, ' Ah 1 if I were but a master, then I should l>e happy ;' but if you will listen to the master, in his solitary musing, you will hear him saying, ' Oh ! if I were but a rich man, then I should be happy/ And if you can interpret the silent beatings of the rich man's heart, you will find frequently expressed — ' Oh ! if I could only be a baronet or a noble, an earl or a duke, then I should be happy.' And if you could read the thoughts that flash through the mind and hang on the memory of the most illustrious noble, you would find there — f If I were only a king, then I should be happy.' And if you could come with me and listen to the most illustrious monarch on whom the sun ever shone, — a monarch surrounded with all that the world's honours could give, and all that its stores could supply, — you would hear from that monarch, who had attained the very acme of human glory, and stood upon the topmost pinnacle of human grandeur — "Oh that I had
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wings like a dove, for then would I flee away, and be at rest."
But if there be nothing in the world, is there any thing in the Church, the visible Church, in which a Christian can glory ? Shall we glory in the ministry ? Then the Spirit of God replies, 4( Who is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers {servants], by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man ? I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then, neither is he that planteth any thing,''" — if you believe some modern teachers, "he that planteth" is every thing, and sacraments have no efficacy without him, and. preaching has no power without a given and peculiar commission, and the Church has no existence unless he be its body, and its substance, and its centre ; but the Apostle says, •" Neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth, but GOD that giveth the in crease." That ministry which begins to look com placently on itself — that ministry in which the people begin to glory, and build their hopes of spiritual prosperity ; believing of it, that unless from certain lips and from a certain place, they cannot hear the Gospel with profit or with power — that ministry is made an idol of, and God will probably soon remove it out of the way. The ministry that glories in itself, or is gloried in by the people, becomes an idol; and its right hand
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will soon be paralyzed, its usefulness will speedily decay.
Shall we glory in the sacraments? These are but shells ; Christ is the substance. The sacra ments are but dumb symbols, that have no meaning unless Christ makes them vocal with the accents of the Gospel. The sacraments, at best, are but voices crying in the wilderness— " We are not the Christ: He cometh after us. Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world ! " Or shall we glory in the Church ? The Church is but the outward expression of the inward and spiritual worship. We estimate a mirror, not according to the beauty of its frame, but according to the faithfulness with which it reflects our fea tures : we estimate a light, not by the exquisite carving of the candelabra or the candlestick, but by the brilliancy and intensity of ray that it sheds around it. And we are to estimate a church, not by the magnificence of its architecture, or by the learning of its clergy, but by the evangelical faith fulness of its pulpit, and the holiness of the people that occupy its pews.
Shall we glory, then, in any thing in the Church ? There is nothing there in which we can glory. Shall we glory in our sins ? They are our shame. Shall we glory in our graces ? They are not our own. Therefore, " let him that glorieth glory in THE LORD." "God forbid that I should glory"
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in any thing that is in the world, in any thing that is in the Church, " save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."
Let me, in humble reliance upon Divine grace, lay before you three great grounds for glorying in the Cross; that is, in the Gospel, of which the cross is merely the figurative exponent and symbol. The first ground is, that it reveals God a Father ; the second, that it reveals Jehovah " the Lord our righteousness ;" and the third, that it reveals the Holy Spirit our Sanctifier and Comforter. The first, the Father's bosom, to which we can ap proach ; the second, the righteousness that renders us entitled to heaven ; and the third, the requisite fitness for heaven — the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
I. The Gospel reveals God a Father. And it seems to me one of those beautiful peculiarities which strike the most superficial reader, that in the Gospel according to St. John, the expression •" Father," as applied to God, occurs about a, hundred times; so that, if the Gospel of St, Matthew is peculiarly the gospel for the Jew, and the Gospel of St. Luke peculiarly the gospel for the Gentile, the Gospel of St. John seems dis tinctively the gospel for the sanctified, the adopted sons of the Father. It is that gospel
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which was written by the disciple in whose bosom there was constitutionally most sweetness, and from whose pen there seemed to distil the very essence of Christian and holy love.
Nature gives a revelation of a God; the Law gives also a revelation of God ; and the Gospel, or the " cross," gives likewise a revelation of God. But when I try to find out God in nature, he is so compassed round with darkness, with shadows, and with uncertainty, that I am constrained to fall down despairing before him, as in the pre sence of " the unknown God." If, again, I go to Sinai to look for a revelation of God, I find God there clearly revealed ; but he is God (( a con suming fire." It is when I go to the Cross, and listen to the accents of the Saviour's lips, and trace the features of mercy, philanthropy, and goodness beaming from his marred but majestic countenance, that I see no longer the unknown and the undeciphered God — no longer the " con suming fire" that I dare not approach — but " Immanuel, God with us," a vivid and unfading apocalypse of God our Father, God our Friend, " God in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." I know that the Infidel has contended that God may be discovered in creation, or in " the Book of Nature," as he calls it, in all the light, and in all the relation ships, in which we profess to discover Him in the
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Book of Revelation ; but I conceive that if the Infidel or the Deist will give an impartial hearing to Nature's testimony respecting God, he will he constrained to admit that it is a jarring and con flicting testimony. Suppose, for illustration, that I walk forth some morning in company with a Deist, — that is, one who rejects revelation, but who holds that there is a God, and also that this God may be fully and sufficiently discovered in the book of Nature ; — we see a lark rise from its nest, float in the atmosphere, and make the sky vocal with its merry minstrelsy. My Deist friend remarks, * Do you not see what an exquisite proof of a benevolent and loving Father that little creature presents ? Its pinions are so admirably made as to enable it to rise, almost with the speed of the winds, to any height it pleases ; its happi ness is so intense, that it breaks forth, at every stroke of its wing, in tones of melody and thanks giving. Can you deny,' he asks with an air of triumph, ' that Nature reveals sufficiently a God of love, a God of benevolence, and that we need no other mirror to reflect his features than Nature's bright one?' I wait a moment; and just as he has concluded his philosophical induction, I notice a dark speck in the distance. It dilates ; it assumes the shape of a bird, approaching the happy lark with a rapid and powerful wing ; it draws nearer and nearer, till at last it lays hold upon the
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lark, tears its limbs to pieces, revels in its blood, and finds its enjoyment in the death of another of God's creatures. I say to him, f Where is your proof of a benevolent God now ? The joy of the lark, you say, told you God is benevolent; but here the joy of the hawk must tell you he is an angry and an offended God. How do you har monize into one induction the hawk finding its satisfaction in destruction, and the lark finding its satisfaction in song and melody ? ' He is dumb ; he cannot answer. Revelation explains the my stery, and tells us that sin entered into the world, and death by sin. But if he is consistent with the conclusions that he must legitimately draw, he must infer that there is no discovery of God, either as a sin-pardoning, or simply as a benevolent God, on the surface of the Book of Nature, It is only in the Gospel that we discover God in all the attributes of an affectionate Father, and yet an august Legislator; just, through the atonement, while he justifies the ungodly that believe in Jesus,
Let me now explain a few of the peculiarities of this beautiful relationship, in which God is displayed in the cross. The more we appreciate these, the more we shall be disposed to exclaim of the cross that reveals them, " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
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The very first idea that seems to be involved in it is, that if God be our Father, then, as believers, we are his offspring, " Born, not of the will of the flesh, but of God." " Of His own will begat He us." If, then, it be an ennobling fact, that one can trace his lineage through a succession of illustrious nobles, how much greater must be the dignity which rests on one who can claim to be a child, not of the royalty that is doomed to die, but of the King of kings, the everlasting Father, who is throned on the riches and the glory of the universe itself ! It is this conviction — that we are the children of God — that dims the glory of an earthly crown, and sheds a halo of beauty and of dignity upon the hut of the orphan and the hovel of the peasant.
In the next place, if God be a Father, it is im plied that he gives his name to those that are his children. " The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," says the Apostle, " of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." " Baptizing them in the name of the Father." " I will write upon him my new name."
A third idea seems to be implied in this rela tionship — that if God be our Father, he will pro vide for us food and raiment. He "has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel," who "pro vides not for his own." God will not be unfaithful to the first law of this sweet relationship. He
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will " satisfy the poor with bread ; " He will feed his own " with the finest of the wheat ; " He will array us in raiment of peerless glory ; he will satisfy us with food of immortal virtue. " They that love the Lord shall not want any good thing."
If God be our Father, then He will pro tect and preserve us. Fathers, you know, have risked their lives to preserve those of their chil dren ; how much more will our Father who is in heaven provide for those that love him ! Hence Paternal Omniscience is described in Scripture as continually watching us. The wing of God's omnipotence is described as continually spread over us. All his promises and all his prophecies are made ours, in virtue of this relationship ; and as " the apple of His eye," He will preserve those whom the Saviour has redeemed by his blood, and to whom he has given the spirit of adoption, enabling them to say, Abba, Father.
It is also implied, in this relationship, that God, as a Father, will sympathize with his chil dren. It is the very essence of this relationship, that the father feels for and sympathizes with his offspring ; and if this be true of the earthly relationship, it is much more true of the heavenly. " Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him ; for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust." He
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comforts the feeble, he invites the weary ; he ''gathers the lambs with his arm, and carries them in his bosom."
If God be our Father, he will hail with joy the first accents of prayer that we utter. Is it not a fact, in the earthly relationship, that the first utterance in your hearing, by your first-born, of that exqui site epithet "father," conveys to your spirit more of delightful melody and real harmony than all the strains of a Handel, or the compositions of a Haydn ? Some such feeling seems to be ascribed in Scripture to the Everlasting Father. When the apostle Paul was converted from the error of his ways, and began, under a sense of his wants, to draw from Christ's fulness, instantly it was an nounced from heaven, " Behold he prayeth." And so much does God love the epithet " Father," and so much does he delight that his children should make use of it, that he has sent down the Spirit of adoption into our hearts, on purpose to enable us to breathe that sound which is sweetest to His ear — " Abba, Father ! "
Further, it is the practice of an earthly father to remove whatever is hurtful from his children. If your child plays with a knife, or any instrument that will injure it, you feel it affection as well as faithfulness to remove it. God frequently deals so with us ; for after all,
" Men are but children of a larger growth."
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If in this assembly there is some mother that is making an idol of her first-born, God, for the sake of thy soul, will smite the idol, lest thou perish with it. If there be some rich man who is making a god of his riches, and exclaiming in the infatu ation of his soul, " I have much goods laid up for many years, I will take mine ease ; " if thou art a child of the Everlasting Father, he will dissipate thy possessions, and leave thee to feel and to re alize the truth, that there is, in the relationship that knits the child to the Father in heaven, some thing more precious than riches, something more magnificent than the world itself.
In the next place, a father educates his children. In fact, the greatest inheritance you can leave behind you to your children, is that of a holy example and a Christian education ; and the pa rent who can leave these two to his offspring, has left them no mean or ignoble legacy. Now, the Everlasting Father does not fail to educate them that are his ; in fact, God has made the whole world — all that is in nature, all that is in the Law, all that is in the Gospel — to be so many means of Christian instruction. If you look around you on the universe that God has made, every star that shines in the firmament is made to be a lesson- book of the overpassing glories of " the bright and morning Star ;" every flower that blooms in the field is consecrated, that it may teach you
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something of the loveliness, and give you some conception of the fragrance, of "the Rose of Sha ron ; " and the minerals that are in the bosom of the earth, the gold that is dug from its mines, the riches that are accumulated in our coffers, are all sent and intended of God to lead you to long for " the unsearchable riches of Christ." The sick-chamber itself is made a school, in which you are to learn Christian lessons. The very Law, that was your foe, under the Gospel is consecrated " a schoolmaster to lead you to Christ." Affliction and bereavement — sorrow and sickness — all that betides you in life, all that befalls you in Provi dence-— are made of God to be faithful and af fectionate teachers, prompting you to let go the things of time, which are doomed to perish, and to grasp the realities and aspire to the rewards of eternity. To crown all, there is for the children of God in reversion " a crown of glory, an in heritance incorruptible, undefined, and that fadeth not away."
We have thus looked at what seems to be in volved in the relationship of father, which God sustains to his own redeemed and adopted chil dren. Let me add, that it is only in the Gospel that this relationship is clearly indicated ; it is only amid the sunbeams of the cross that God is revealed a loving, a faithful, and an affectionate Father. In nature, as I have told you, God is
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faintly discoverable ; in the Law, God is arrayed against you; but in the Gospel, God is exhibited as your Father. The Saviour appeals to this beautiful and touching relationship when he says, in a part of the Gospel — " If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him !" If I could wield a pencil, and could apply it with the skill I conceive to be adequate to the subject, I would depict the loveliest spectacle that ever was unfolded on the surface of our marred and dis mantled world, when the great Saviour of the guilty knelt upon the earth he had watered with his tears at Jerusalem ; and gathering round him his apostles and disciples, a frail and sorrowrful family, became their spokesman and their mouth piece to his Father and their Father, to his God and their God ; and breathed forth in tones of majesty, yet tones of mercy and love, that sub- limest of all forms, that simplest of all prayers — " Our Father which art in heaven."
II. The second ground of glorying in the cross is not only its revelation of God as a Father, but also its revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ as our righteousness.
This is beautifully predicted and indicated by the prophet Jeremiah, xxiii. 6 : " This is his
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name whereby he shall be called, JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." Let me observe, by way of preliminary remark upon this passage, that our blessed Lord is distinctly called in it Jehovah. The name Jehovah was so sacred in the estimate of a Jew, that whenever he came to a passage in the Scriptures that contained it, he substituted the other Hebrew name — Adonai, in its stead ; and even now, when a Jew writes an extract from the Scriptures, and comes to a passage in which the name Jehovah occurs, he writes two YODS in a triangle or a circle, — that sublime name being too sacred to be written or spoken. So sacred is this name held to this day by a really earnest Jew, (if such exist in the world,) that if he find a scrap of paper in the street, on which that lofty and glo rious Name is inscribed, he will treasure it up as a relic too valuable to be consumed. If you can prove to a Jew that the Lord Jesus Christ is called Jehovah, that instant he will admit that Jesus Christ is God in the loftiest sense of the word. Not that I believe that the deity of our blessed Lord is dependent upon this or any other isolated passage ; for all Scripture teems with that pre cious truth, apart from which Christianity is a carcase without life, a heart without a pulse, a system without a sun, a world without vitality in the midst of it. For instance ; Christ is declared to be unchangeable — "The same yesterday, and
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to-day, and for ever ;" and no one can be called un changeable but Jehovah. I will take the most consistent man in this assembly, and I will appeal to his own feelings, whether he is the same in sen timents and thoughts and estimates to-day that he was yesterday, and whether he will be the same to-morrow that he is to-day. No, my dear friends ; change — fluctuation — even inconsistency, are the attributes of the most consistent of us all. But the Lord Jesus Christ remains unchanged and un changeable in the yesterday of the past, in the to-day of the present, and in the to-morrow of the endless future. Again : Christ is spoken of as omniscient — " Lord, thou knowest all things." He is omnipotent — " All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made." He is omnipresent — " Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Next Sunday there will be congregations of Christians assembled on 'the banks of the Ganges, the Missouri, the Thames, the Shannon, the Tweed, the Nile ; there will be congregations amid the 'burning sands of Asia, in the deserts of Africa,, on the far-spread con tinents of America, and throughout the polished lands of Europe ; but it will be true of every Christian assembly in the universe, that the Lord Jesus Christ is present in the midst of it ; Christ must, therefore, be God. What a rebuke does
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this text administer to the stupid and unscriptural assumptions of those who hold that there is only a church wheresoever there is a given and peculiar ecclesiastical polity ! If six Christians pray to gether in the deepest depth of the deepest coal-pit in Northumberland, there is an altar, a sacrifice, and a priest, in the midst of them ; or, if half a dozen Christians meet together upon the topmost crag of the loftiest Appennine to worship God in the name of Jesus, there is substantially in such circumstances a church, and. Jehovah our Right eousness is in the midst of them.
But I do not dwell upon the proofs of Christ's divinity on this occasion : the thought I wish to impress is this, that Christ Jesus, as Jehovah, is " Jehovah our righteousness." Let me shew the necessity of this. There has been given a law on the part of God — the moral law : that law must be fulfilled, either by the sinner or by an accepted substitute, before one single soul can see God in peace. There prevails, I sometimes fear, the greatest possible misapprehension about the law of God. Some men fancy, that the Gospel is a sort of diluted Law ; and that all that God now asks, is an imperfect but sincere obedience, and that this will constitute a valid and sufficient title to his presence in heaven hereafter. There can be no greater misapprehension of the truth of God. What, in fact, is God's law ? It is just the expo-
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nent of God's holiness ; it is the exact expression of God's own very being. Its revelation was not its creation. As long as there is a sun, so long there will be sun-beams ; and as long as there is a God, so long there will be the emanation or fluxional manifestation of God's character, which is the mo ral law. The Law, therefore, is everlasting as the existence of the God that gave it. It is no more cancelled in the nineteenth century after Christ, than it was in the nineteenth century preceding his advent. It is indestructible. Now, that law demands perfect conformity, perfect obedience, — or it is broken, and pronounces sentence of utter destruction from the presence of God. But the principle of this perfect obedience we lost in the Fall, and the practice of it we lose and let go every day of our being. The law, then, being broken, and still as ever demanding perfect conformity, before those who are subject to it can ever see glory, one of three alternatives must take place. Either, first, the whole human race must be ever lastingly destroyed — but this God's love will not permit ; or, secondly, God's law must be abro- ragated in whole or in part — but this God's holi ness will not permit ; or, thirdly, a righteous ness must be rendered to that law, a conformity must be furnished to that law, by one accepted in the room of sinners, who have broken that law. Then the question that remains is, By whom is
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that righteousness to be rendered — by whom is that conformity to be made? It cannot be by any thing that we can do, or by any thing that we are. It cannot be rendered by our works : no thing of ours, nothing that we can do, can render this perfect obedience, which God's law demands. For suppose that from the present moment the rest of my pilgrimage on earth were to be so spotless in thought, so unimpeachable in ac tion, so perfect and correct in word, that even if weighed in the scales of the sanctuary, there would be nothing chargeable against me, — I should yet stand before God a sinner; for no perfect obedience for the future, can make up or atone for the obliquities of the past. This perfect righteousness cannot be rendered by any thing we can do ; for in the first place, in order that works may be meritorious, they must be done by man himself; but we can do nothing in our own strength, for our strength is perfect weakness, and in God we "live and move and have our being.'* Secondly, they must not be due and owing to God; but "when we have done all, we are unpro fitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do." And, thirdly, in order to be merito rious, they must be done so as to benefit God ; but " our goodness extendeth not to Him." It is, therefore, clear as any proposition in Euclid — first, that we ourselves are not to perish — for this z
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God's love does not permit ; secondly, that God's law is not to be abrogated — for this his justice and holiness do not permit ; thirdly, that a right eousness must be rendered before we can be saved; fourthly, that our own works cannot, in any shape, as to the past, the present, or the future, constitute that righteousness which the perfect law of God still demands.
But some one will say — * Is not repentance ac cepted by God as an atonement for the iniquities of the past ? ' I answer, There is no evidence of any such thing. The law has no opening for tears ; it says nothing of the efficacy of repent ance; it does not recognise repentance in any shape, or in any sense. Repentance, so far from being meritorious, is not recognised as a sufficient atonement in the constitution of human society, or in the usages of human life. If a criminal is placed at the bar, who is guilty of murder, and if, when the judge asks him whether he has any rea son to assign why sentence should not be passed upon him, that criminal were to say, ' I have hear tily repented of the murder, and, in virtue of that repentance, I ask exemption from the penalty of the law,' the judge would answer, that the law of the land recognises no such exempting efficacy in repentance. Or, suppose that a nobleman had " wasted his substance in riotous living," and had forfeited (as many did in the Scottish rebellion of
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1745,) his coronet, his rank, and his estates; and suppose that a few years afterwards he repents of the dissipation of his life, and of his revolt from the allegiance due to the throne, do you find that his repentance restores his riches, or sets his coro net again upon his head ? No. It is evident, that neither in the usages of human law, nor in the providence of God, is this atoning and expiatory efficacy of repentance admitted or acted on in any shape. It is clear, therefore, that all flesh must stand dumb and self-condemned in the presence of a holy God. The solemn sentence I feel to be true in the depths of my conscience — I feel to be true by the prescriptions of God's law — I feel to be true by the testimony of the Gospel — " By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified."
In such circumstances, then, and after such a conclusion, how interesting and beautiful the truth, which I am now endeavouring to open up as the second ground of glorying in the Gospel — that "what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh," God has done by "sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin!" We hail with ecstacy the truth, The Lord Jesus Christ is " Jehovah our Righteousness."
In presenting this great truth, I must make a distinction. Possibly some of you may not agree with me to the full extent of this distinction;
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what, therefore, you think to be mine, reject; but what I prove by God's word, ponder and prayer fully receive. I believe, according to the distinc tion that obtained among the ancient Scottish divines, that there is in Christ's work what may be called an active and a passive righteousness ; in other words, I understand, that Christ by his suf ferings cancelled our hell, and by his righteous ness merited our heaven. In virtue of the former, we are delivered from that condemnation, which is the fruit of a broken law : in virtue of the latter, we are entitled to that glory, which is the fruit of a law obeyed and " magnified and made hon ourable." If Christ had never borne the pe nalties of the broken law, we had never been delivered from hell ; if Christ had never obeyed the precepts of the commanding law, we had never been entitled to heaven. But because he has endured the curse, and exhausted it as he endured — and because he has obeyed the law, and magnified it as he obeyed — we not only escape the condemnation of everlasting hell, but are enti tled in him to all the glories of an expanding and eternal heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ is, there fore, our righteousness, our only deliverer from hell, and our only and all-sufficient title to heaven. He is our righteousness exclusively ; in other words, we must be saved wholly by the righteous ness of Christ, or we cannot be saved by it at
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all. It will not do to say, I will take a large piece of the perfect robe of Christ's righteousness, and I will tack to it so many of the rags of my own, and I will indulge the hope that the two will con stitute a valid and availing title to everlasting happiness. The law of the Gospel is this : if you will be saved, you must be saved by Christ wholly, or he will have no part or share in your salvation. If you suppose that the robes of the priest, or the efficacy of the sacraments, or the virtues of the Church, or the mysteries of the apostolical suc cession, any or all of them, are to be added to Christ's righteousness to complete your title to heaven, you have no part or lot in that righteous ness at all. You must be saved by it wholly, or you will be lost wholly without it. He will sub mit to no compromise. Therefore, my dear Roman^ Catholic friends (if I address any such), I beseech you to cast behind you the rags, the mummery, and the wretched so-called expiatory ceremonies and rites of a corrupt and superstitious com munion ; and resolve that your only plea at the judgment bar, your only title to the glories of heaven, shall be nothing less, and nothing more, than a righteousness so perfect, that Eden's un tainted streams cannot increase its purity, and heaven's effulgent splendour cannot augment its glories — so faultless, that the blood of sainted
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martyrs would only taint it, and the tears of angels would only defile and pollute it.
In the next place, this righteousness is ours ly imputation. I know that there is a section of the Christian Church who differ from me in words (I solemnly believe it is not in substance) on this truth ; but it does seem to me, and I say it with the utmost deference to those who may have more light or more knowledge, that the doctrine of im puted righteousness is a doctrine of Holy Writ. One single text seems to me almost decisive : " He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." In what sense was Christ " made sin for us ? " Nobody, except the followers of the late misguided Edward Irving, is prepared to say that Christ had sinful flesh. What we understand by that expression is, that our sins (in the lan guage of Scripture) " were laid upon him " — were imputed to him. Now, in the same sense — as I understand the Apostle — in which Christ was " made sin for us," we are " made righteousness in him." He was made sin for us by imputation ; therefore, we are made righteousness through him by imputation. And as it was just in God to punish Christ for imputed sin, so, blessed be his name! it is just in God to save us because of im puted righteousness. Another text I may just
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c^uote : "As by one man's disobedience many were made (or constituted) sinners, so by one man's obedience many are constituted righteous."
Again : tins righteousness is ours through faith. It is argued by the Tractarian, that it is ours through baptism ; it is argued by the Romanist, that it is ours through absolution and penance and other penitential exercises, through the blessing of the Church and the intercession of saints ; it is maintained by the Protestant Christian, that it is ours by faith, and by faith alone. But some will say, " Does not Scripture assert, that we are jus tified by other things besides faith ? for instance, that we are justified by Christ ; and according to the apostle James, that we are justified by works, while according to the apostle Paul, it is by faith ? How do you reconcile these apparently antagonist and conflicting statements ? I answer, The recon ciliation is easy ; and in this apparent contradic tion you have a specimen of the shallow objections the infidel constantly urges against the Gospel. We are justified by Christ meritoriously ; we are justified by faith instrumental^ ; we are justified by works declaratwely . Christ is the ground of our justification, faith is the instrument, and works are the proofs to the Church and to the world. And the part that faith occupies in receiving the righteousness, is just going with a naked soul to be clothed with a glorious robe — with an empty
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heart to be filled with all the fulness that is in Jesus Christ. Faith has no more merit in the matter of a sinner's acceptance in the sight of God, than works of any sort, or repentance of any degree whatever. If I were cast into the ocean, and a person threw from a rock a rope which I laid hold of, and if by means of it I were taken safely to land, what would you think of my con duct if I were to kneel down and praise the rope for saving me ? or if I were to say, it was neither the rope nor the person who flung it to me, but the sinews of my own arm, that saved me ? You would instantly conclude, that I must be added to the roll of monomaniacs, by whom society has from time to time been agitated. Surely, I should feel at once that it was the benevolence of my friend that saved me ; the hand and the rope were but the instruments by which I availed myself of his benevolence. So is it with faith. It is Christ that is the meritorious ground of our accept ance ; and faith is but the hand — the instrument —that lays hold upon it and obtains salvation by it.
Once more : this righteousness, which is our title, is for ever. All the raiment that this world can boast, or that its illustrious and its throned ones can wear, is doomed to decay; there is a moth in the richest robe, there is rust upon the purest gold, there are the germs of decay in the
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brightest crown, there is a worm in the stateliest cedar ; all that is of the earth is earthy, and must blend with its primeval and its parent dust. But the righteousness of God, which is the righteous ness of the believer, endureth for ever. Death does not blast it, the grave does not corrupt it, the searching light of the judgment morn will not penetrate it ; it endures for ever and ever ; at once the panoply of the saint, and the bright mirror of the glories of Him, whose blood has wrashed the robe and made it everlastingly clean.
It is only in this robe, that you and I can stand before God. Oh ! if any are expecting that God will admit them into heaven because they have received the sacrament — because a priest has ab solved them — because they " have a Levite for their priest," and belong to a Church that claims as its foundation a genealogical and apostolical succession ; — if any are supposing that they are safe for eternity because they are applauded by their fellow-men, and no one dare charge them with a single short-coming or crime before any judge, or jury, or company of their countrymen ; — I warn you on the authority of God's most holy word, that you are going to eternity with " a lie in your right hand." I implore you to remember, that this is not a mere demonstration of mine — a piece of ab stract, barren, and scholastic theology ; these are personally affecting and solemn truths, and for
z3
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hearing and for uttering them you and I shall have to give account. We may never meet again in this world, but we must meet at the judg ment-seat of Almighty God ; and I must there stand by what I have now preached, and you must render an account how you have received it. Better — oh ! far batter — that you had never entered within these walls, than that you should hear truths that electrify the saved and stir all hell with thirstings after one hour of your privi leges, — and trample them under your feet as a common thing. Pause, I beseech you, for one moment, and think on this solemn fact, — that not one of us may hear these overtures again, or be sure he shall see to-morrow. Physiologists can trace life and all its functions till they come to the heart, but there they stop ; they cannot as sign any reason why that heart keeps dilating and contracting, stroke after stroke. I can ex plain it ; it is God's finger that gives to the heart its every pulse. And that God you are slighting — that God you are despising — that very God who "so loved you that he gave you his Son " to endure your curse — stands and waits to save, to ransom, to sanctify, to glorify you ; and can you say, if not in words, at least in feel ing—* No God, no God ! '
III. I now proceed to the third ground of
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glorying in the Cross : — that it reveals the Holy Spirit as our Sanctifier.
I am sure that those who listen to the Go spel under a faithful ministry, have frequently heard that there are two things requisite before we can ever hope to reach heaven : first, a title to it — which is, " the Lord our Righteousness ; " and, secondly, a fitness for it — which the Holy Spirit alone can work in our hearts. So true is this, that if it were possible for us to obtain a title te heaven, and yet be destitute of that renewed and regenerated mind which the Holy Spirit alone can produce, the very first day we spent in heaven we should be tormented, I believe, by longings to be plunged in hell, as our more congenial habit ation. Hence the Apostle says, " He hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light," i. e. adapted for it ; and it is thus that we take a man's graces, and virtues, and good deeds, from the category of the title, and transfer them to the category of a qualification. The ob jection, therefore, that is made against the Gospel of free and full good news of acceptance " without money and without price " through the righteous ness of Christ, — that it makes no provision for a holy, and consistent, and pure life, — is utterly dis sipated by this important distinction — namely, that good works are worse than poison if introduced
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into your title, but precious as gold if made the proofs and evidences of your meetness for heaven.
It is, in fact, a law, not only in physical things hut in spiritual, that every creature is fitted for the sphere in which it is to move — the bird to wing its flight in the atmosphere, the fish to swim in the depths of the ocean, the ox to graze upon the pas tures of the earth : the ox cannot live at the bottom of the sea, nor the fish fly in the air, nor the bird swim a hundred fathoms down in the deep, deep sea. Each creature is so made, by the infinite wisdom of God, for its own sphere, that there only it can live. Just so with man. Heaven is a pre pared place for a prepared people. It is, there fore, just as important that you should be fitted for heaven, as the bird for the air, the fish for the sea, and the ox for the field.
' But, are we not naturally fit ? ' I an swer, No. Heaven is not a sudden step or jump from a condition of worldliness, earthliness, sen suality, and ungodliness, into a Mahometan Ely sium, or a Persian paradise. Heaven is not so much a locality as a character. I can describe, I think, correctly what heaven is ; and I can tell every one whether he is fit for heaven. It is not so difficult a question as many suppose. Satan tells you that you cannot get there unless you are elected. If you have elected God, depend upon it
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he has elected you ; if you have chosen God, he has chosen you ; if you love God, he loves you. And just with the same certainty can you tell, in your own conscience, whether you are fit for heaven. What is heaven? " There remaineth," says the Apostle, " to the people of God Sabbatis- mos " — a perpetual Sabbath-keeping. Heaven is a cloudless, uninterrupted, unending Sabbath. That you may try your fitness for heaven, let me ask you, Have the chimes of Sabbath bells any music for your ear ? Have the songs of the sanc tuary any melody to your taste ? Do you approach the Throne of Grace and the Communion-table with believing and happy spirits ? Can you say from the very depths of your soul, " A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand ?" Can you say, " The Sabbath is a delight ?" Can you say the sanc tuary is sweeter and dearer than a home, and the message of the everlasting Gospel so delightful, so profitable to your spirit, that you do not wish the preacher were done, but grieve when the sermon is closed, and the glad tidings cease to be addressed to you ? If so, the Spirit of God is making you meet for heaven ; for the Sabbath of earth is just a little parenthesis, within which a portion of heaven is compressed, and let down into this world, to enable the pilgrims to the sky to ascertain whether heaven would really be heaven to them,
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and whether they are making progress in that holy, pure, and lofty character, which the Spirit of God alone can generate, and which is requisite as fitness and meetness for the kingdom of God.
This meetness, then, is just the harmonizing of man's discordant affections with God's — the melt ing of man's will into God's will ; so that he can really join with David in the words, " Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee." Can you say so in deed, and in truth ] There are, probably, in this assembly, mothers who have babes in the presence of God in glory ; and I am one of those who believe, that all infants, dying in infancy, are infallibly and everlastingly saved : now, when you stretch your affections to that better land, when you count up the treasures and expatiate on the glories that are there, can you turn your back even upon your first-born that has preceded you, and say, " Whom have I in heaven," blessed Jesus, " but Thee ? " And when you look around you to your families on earth, husbands and wives to your homes, ministers to your flocks, trades men to your shops, merchants to all that you have afloat upon the ocean ; can you say, giving these all the value that justly belongs to them, " There is none upon earth," blessed Jesus, " that I desire in comparison of Thee ? " And when your heart
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and your flesh faint and fail, as faint and fail they will, can you hope in deed and in truth that that blessed Lord is the only "strength of your heart," as he will be your glory, and "y our portion for ever?" Now, if this fitness is required, it is the Spirit of God alone who can generate it. Baptism can not do it. It is one of the most drivelling and foolish absurdities ever broached, to suppose that every baptized man is necessarily a regenerate and a sanctified man. The best disproof of it is fact. The Old Bailey is filled with men who have been baptized; Botany Bay is colonized with thousands of the baptized ; the heathen in London are pro bably nine-tenths of them baptized ; and therefore the fact stares you in the face, that baptism is not necessarily regeneration. When those who advocated the existence of miracles in the Church contended that God's word shewed that there are miracles still, the reply I ever felt to be most effective was, " Do you not see that there are not miracles now in the Church?" And so, when persons contend for baptismal regeneration, the effective reply is — •" Look around you ; the fact proves that baptism is not necessarily regenera tion." The truth is, that as justification by the righteousness of Christ is the article of a standing or a falling Church, so regeneration of heart by the Spirit of Christ is the article of a living or a dying Church. The Church that is without
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Christ's righteousness has lost the only element of its standing ; the Church that is without the Holy Spirit's work has no element of life. It is just as necessary that we should preach to the people the necessity of fitness for heaven by the work of God's Spirit, as that we should preach the neces sity of a title to heaven by the work of God's Son.
And therefore, my dear friends, because the Cross unveils God surrounded with the subdued and softening glories of the Everlasting Father — because the Cross unveils Christ the all-sufficient and glorious Title and Righteousness of his people — and because the Cross unbosoms the Spirit (" I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter,") as the Sanctifier of all the children of God, — therefore I exclaim — and I trust you in your hearts will add the fervent Amen — " God forbid that I should glory," — God forbid that any of them — the Church of England, or the Church of Scotland, or the Dissenting, the Wesleyan, the Independent, the Baptist Church — God forbid that any one should glory, " save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
In drawing these remarks to a close, let me say that the antiquity of the Cross, or the Gospel, is a ground for glorying in it. If antiquity com mands veneration, what can parallel the cross in
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all the elements of a true antiquity? Before the foundations of the earth were laid — before the ocean rolled upon its oozy bed — before " the sons of the morning" sang together and celebrated a new-born world — even then the cross of Christ stood forth in prominent relief, an illumined and a glorious thing ; the cental object, shedding its splendours on the past, the source of its beauty— and casting its glories upon the future, the only hope of them that should believe to the end of the world. All the institutions of the ancient economy prefigured it; the types were dim shadows, cast from the Cross back on the bosom of the Church that then was ; the ceremonial law was but the symbol of the Cross. Abraham saw it, and re joiced in it; the Psalmist saw it, and sang its glories ; the prophets beheld it from afar through the dim vista of a thousand years, and proclaimed it as the hope and life of the world ; angels chanted the praises of its bearer when Christ was born in Bethlehem. Adam saw it spread, rainbow-like, over the wreck of Paradise ; Enoch, because of it, " walked with God ;" Noah, from his knowledge of it, "preached righteousness." Angels paused at its manifestation; demons trembled; and all creation felt that no mean tragedy was closed, when the rocks rent, and the graves opened, and the Saviour cried — " It is finished." Creation added its deep Amen. Nature, throughout her
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mechanism, testified that the Son of God, the pre dicted of ancient seers, had come in our nature, and had made the long-looked-for expiation for the sins of the people.
The Bearer of the cross was, in all respects, a wonderful and mysterious being. He was so poor, that he had nothing o£ his own in the wrorld to shelter or sustain him ; and yet he was so august, that a star shot forth in the deep blue firmament to illuminate the spot that was consecrated by his birth. He was so truly " despised and rejected of men," that few even of them he came to save would say to him — ' God speed thee.' He could exclaim — "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head ;" and yet, notwithstanding, he spoke to the whistling winds, and they lay down like little infants and played by his hallowed feet ; he spoke to the restless and tumultuous sea- waves, and they subsided and made themselves a promenade for him and his messengers of love ; he spoke to the dead, and they came forth from their sleeping-places ; he whispered to the deaf, — they heard him ; and when none did celebrate his praise, he unloosed the tongues of the dumb, and they shouted "Hosanna! blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."
We glory in the cross of Christ, on account of the effects also of that cross. There the curse
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has been endured and exhausted ; there the law has been obeyed and magnified ; there the grave has been despoiled; death has been deprived of its sting ; God has been glorified, and sinners are graciously saved. The first anthem that was sung when the Saviour was born, is the anthem that shall be last sung over a regenerate and recovered creation — " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men."
And what is it, let me ask, that can make England to be great, and, through all its provinces, happy, peaceful, and prosperous ? The only balm must be the cross of Christ laid near to England's heart; the only prescription, the virtues of that cross realized by England's people. The Star of Bethlehem is the star of her destiny. In the stirring and rushing day in which we live, instead of wrangling and quarrelling with each other about the "jots and tittles" of ecclesiastical polity, on which Christians will differ to the very end of the world, there ought to be one simultaneous and united effort to evangelize the dark places of the earth, to carry the knowledge of what the Cross has achieved, and what the Cross unveils, to those, even at our own doors, that still " sit in darkness and in the shadow of death," " having no hope, and without God in the world."
To see how true it is, that only " righteousness exalteth a nation," even in its present aspect, you
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have only to compare those portions of the world where a pure Gospel is preached, with those where a corrupt form of Christianity obtains; and you will at once agree with me, that the Cross is that which makes nations happy and prosperous upon earth, as well as individuals safe and blessed in eternity. Let me appeal, for instance, to Switzer land. It has been remarked by different travellers whose books I have read, and the remark has been repeated and confirmed by acquaintance of my own who have visited that country, that the moment you enter a canton, you can say whether it is Protestant or Roman-Catholic from its outward aspect. In the Roman- Catholic canton, all indi cates the abode of indolence and filth, peopled by swarms of beggars, and filled with the proofs of a degraded and a listless population : in the Pro testant, you see the plough, the cultivated lands, the tidy housewife ; you hear the sound of the busy water-wheel, you see the signs of an active and an industrious people. Almost every traveller, of whatever politics, has been constrained to note and recognise the distinction. But to come nearer home ; let us compare Scotland and Ireland. Ireland has a rich and prolific soil ; it has har bours in which the navies of the world might ride in security ; it has a genial sun, and a splendid climate ; and I venture to say, that the Irish cha racter, on the whole, is naturally more noble and
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generous than that of the people of Scotland. And yet you find Ireland the scene of constant disturbance, proverbially the land of squalid wretchedness, for which statesmen legislate in vain, and diplomatists prescribe without success. In Scotland you see a perfect contrast ; you have industrious mechanics, active citizens, and a noble peasantry. In Ireland, the minister of the Gospel has been shot as he has gone forth on his holy errand to proclaim the " glad tidings of great joy ; " in Scotland, to my certain knowledge, no foot is so beautiful as his who travels our grey moors, and walks through our glens and mountains, to bring to our cottage homes the precious hopes of the everlasting Gospel. In Ireland, the late Dr. Doyle, a distinguished Roman-Catholic bishop, when he heard that a peasant had taken one of the Bible Society's Bibles, and buried it in the earth, declared, that if he knew that man's name, he would publicly reward him : in Scotland, the biff ha' Bible has been long the poor man's dearest treasure, the fountain of his hopes, and the charter of his freedom — the patent that makes the Chris tian peasant nobler than the greatest aristocrat. Each home is a house of God, and every day's labour is a holy ritual. What has made the dif ference ? Ireland is not nearly so much taxed as Scotland ; it has more soldiers to keep it quiet ; it
526 Protestant Christianity.
has a better soil, and constitutionally as good a people. The reason is, — Scotland (I speak com paratively) is covered with a people that love their Bible, glory in the Cross, and fear their God: Ireland is cursed with a people, priest-ridden, degraded, ignorant of Christ's righteousness, unac quainted with the Spirit's work; who, neverthe less, need only to have the Gospel preached to them, and received by them, to make them what one of their poets has described —
" Great, glorious, and free, First flower of the earth, first gem of the sea."
But we need not take a field of comparison so wide. Compare Ulster, one province of Ireland, with Leinster, Munster, and Connaught. The remark made by every visitor of Ulster is, that there is a comparatively industrious and peaceful population; but the moment you enter the other provinces, life is not safe, property is in perpetual peril, the people are in rags and wretchedness, and barbarism overspreads a restless peasant popula tion. Why is this distinction ? Ulster is blessed with multiplied and multiplying Protestant churches and chapels ; the other three provinces are almost wholly Popish. And thus it comes to pass, that wherever Protestantism prevails, there it exerts a civilizing and transforming power,
Protestant Christianity. 527
greater far than the fabled caduceus of Mercury ; " the wilderness and the solitary place are made glad, arid the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose :" but wherever the Papal superstition reigns, it invariably prepares a moral valley of Java; freedom dies, intelligence is crushed, morality pines, the land mourns as if it were clothed in sack cloth and covered with ashes. If you wish, then, to fit a people for the kingdom of heaven, — if you wish to give them the sure title and the unfading hope of glory, — try to teach them the doctrines of the Cross. If you wish to see our country happy, its population contented, its parishes co vered with an industrious and a thriving people, teach them to glory in the Cross, by teaching them the truths which the Cross unveils in the word of God. " Merry England" will then be merry England again. Wherever the Gospel is thus preached, there a blessing ever has, and ever will be sent ; and in proportion to the progress of the Gospel, will be the progress of " whatsoever things are pure, just, honest, true, lovely, and of good report."
I now close the Lectures. I have endeavoured to submit a faithful analysis of those deadly and pestiferous doctrines, which I fear no efforts of ours will materially check : for I suspect they are
528 Protestant Christianity.
destined (no doubt in just judgment for our past sins,) to gain a prominence and power far more fearful than many at this moment are disposed to think. We can only feel, in this painful prospect, that whatever may be God's will, shall in the end issue in his glory, and in his church's purity and good. One great result, which, I have no doubt, will be produced by the spread of this advancing Apostacy, will be, that the true ministers of Christ, and true Christians, will be fused and melted more thoroughly together, and made more one with each other, as they are one in Christ Jesus. I see a cloud of portentous darkness now blackening the length and breadth of the sky, and mantling every star. I see that some of the very principles which I have too long thought of perhaps too great value, have been worked out, and expanded, and developed, with systematic perseverance, into an overshadowing and deadly superstition. I feel more and more, I trust, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit of God, that between Mr. Newman and me, as ministers, there is 110 sympathy, no common ground, scarcely one inch, on which I can stand and recognise a brother ; but between me and all faithful ministers, there is much common ground, broad and beautiful and prolific of all that will outlive the grave — watered by a Sa viour's tears, and sanctified by a Saviour's blood ;
Protestant Christianity. 529
ground on which we can stand at the judgment bar — on which we can glory, and from which, no doubt, in God's good time, will be removed those remaining hedges and landmarks which still subsist, through Satan overshooting the mark at which he aimed ; and we that preach what alone is worth preaching, worth hearing, and worth dying for, may yet be able still more closely to come together, " Ephraim not envying Judah, nor Judah vexing Ephraim." I confess to you, though I do not wish to urge my own peculiar views of prophecy, that I believe we are on the very verge of "the last times;" I fancy I hear from afar the sound of the Redeemer's chariot wheels : at all events, we are confessedly on the verge of great and awful convulsions. I may be mistaken, and I would speak with diffidence and humility ; but I believe that the cloud, which has begun to overshadow the sun that has shone so long and so brightly from our firmament, will deepen, darken, and expand ; it may be the time now to have a martyr's spirit in our hearts, lest a martyr's doom may be at our doors. Many things lead us to anticipate, not the best, but the worst, for a season. But though we " sow in tears, we shall reap in joy." Christ's cause cannot die. Om nipotence is its bulwark, and immortality its 'des tiny. The Redeemer shall reign " from sea to sea, 2 A
530 Protestant Christianity.
and from the rivers to the ends of the earth." What man calls great must perish: what God pronounces true must endure.
However gigantic and appalling the Papal su perstition may become, it carries in its greatest triumph the elements of defeat. That fearful sys tem, which is treachery against man and blasphemy against God — which combines in its nature the corruption of the grave and the wickedness of the damned — however great the extent to which it may eclipse our privileges, and conceal that Cross in which we glory, has its doom sealed at that bar, from which there can be no rappeal. It shall be " consumed with the Spirit of Jehovah's mouth, and destroyed with the brightness of his coming." The time must come, I solemnly believe, when Baby lon's judgments shall lighten upon her as in one day ; when all the children of God shall combine together in a holy and sublime crusade against this dismantler of the beautiful, this enslaver of the free, this corrupter of the holy. And when Babylon shall sink an accursed and doomed thing, like a mill-stone in the mighty waters, if any shall be so faithless and so sentimental as to sympathize with her in the hour of her dread judgment, those sympathies will not rest on her. They will recoil and rush to Smithfield, St. Bar tholomew's, and the Sicilian Vespers ; and kin-
Protestant Christianity. 531
died there, they will return armed with vengeance, prepared to precipitate and triumph in the de struction of an apostacy which has been, wherever it has had the power, the persecutor of the saints, and the corrupter of the truths of the Most High. The slain that are below the altar utter forth their longings, " Lord, how long !" We rejoice that the efforts made by Tractarians to prop up a wretched system cannot ultimately suc ceed. We pray that these conspirators against Christ's cause may not be successful in destroying the Church of which they are ministers and mem bers. Let us pray, that the number of her faith ful clergy may mightily increase ; that truth may yet remain undimmed in the midst of that com munion ; and while Tractarians gather together the hulls and shells and sere leaves of an effete and accursed superstition, let the faithful ministers of Jesus bring forth in more glorious and visible relief and brilliancy the great and precious truths of the Gospel — the virgin sands of the Rock of Ages — the living waters of the Fountain of God. Finally, let us pray, that to us, each in his sphere, there may be given that spirit of faithfulness and love and a sound mind, which will enable us, to count all " but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord." And may the Church of Christ, in all its sections, approxi-
532 Protestant Christianity.
mate more and more, by the blessing of the Spirit of God, to that high and holy and spiritual position, which will enable her to say, with ten thousand tongues, but with one heart — " God forbid that we should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
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