Lectures for the times, or, An exposition of tridentine and tractarian popery

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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.

72 Romish and Tractarian

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

74 Romish and Traciarian

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

Claims and Pretensions. 75

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.

76 Romish and Tractarian

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.

Claims and Pretensions. 77

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

Claims and Pretensions. 79

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-

80 Romish and Tractarian

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

Claims and Pretensions. 81

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

82 Romish and Tractarian

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 ?

Claims and Pretensions. 83

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

84 Romish and Tractarian

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

Claims and Pretensions. 85

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-

86 Romish and Tractarian

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-

Claims and Pretensions. 87

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.

88 Romish and Tractarian

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

Claims and Pretensions. 89

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

90 Romish and Tractarian

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

Claims and Pretensions. 91

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

92 Romish and Tractarian

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

Claims and Pretensions. 93

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:

94 Romish and Tractarian

" 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

Claims and Pretensions. 95

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

96 Romish and Tractarian

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,

Claims and Pretensions. 97

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

98 Romish and Tractarian

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

Claims and Pretensions. 99

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-

100 Romish and Tractarian

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,

Claims and Pretensions. 101

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.

102 Romish and Tractarian

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.

Claims and Pretensions. 103

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

104* Romish and Tractarian

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

Claims and Pretensions. 105

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

106 Romish and Tractarian Claims.

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

108 The Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession. 109

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

110 The Apostolic Succession.

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-

The Apostolic Succession.

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'

The Apostolic Succession. 113

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-

114 The Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession. 115

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

The Apostolic Succession. 117

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

118 The Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession. 119

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

120 The Apostolic Succession.

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-

The Apostolic Succession. 121

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.

122 The Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession. 123

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

124 The Apostolic Succession.

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,

The Apostolic Succession. 125

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

126 The Apostolic Succession.

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-

The Apostolic Succession* 127

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

128 The Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession.

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,

130 The .Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession, ISl

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 ?

132 The Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession- 133

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-

134 \%g Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession. 135

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

136 The Apostolic Succession.

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.

The Apostolic Succession. 137

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,

138 The Apostolic Succession.

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,"

The Apostolic Succession. 139

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

140 The Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession. 141

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."

142 The Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession. 143

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

144 The Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession. 145

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

146 The Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession. 147

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

148 The Apostolic Succession.

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

The Apostolic Succession. 149

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

150 The Apostolic Succession.

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-

The Apostolic Succession.

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

152 The Apostolic Succession.

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.

The Apostolic Succession. 153

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

154 The Apostolic Succession,

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

56 The Unity of the Church.

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,

The Unity of the Church. 157

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

158 The Unity of the Church.

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,

The Unity of the Church. 159

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

160 The Unity of the Church.

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

The Unity of the Church. 161

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

162 The Unity of the Church.

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-

The Unity of the Church. 165

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

164 The Unity of the Church.

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

The Unity of the Church. 165

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

166 The Unity of the Church.

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

The Unity of the Church. 167

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

The Fathers. 169

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

170 The Fathers.

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,

The Fathers. 171

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

172 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 173

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

174 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 175

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

176 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 177

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

178 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 179

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

180 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 181

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

182 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 183

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

184- The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 185

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

186 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 187

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,

188 The Fathers.

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-

The Fathers. 189

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-

190 The Fathers.

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-

The Fathers. 191

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

192 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 193

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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194 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 195

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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196 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 197

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

198 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 199

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,

i300 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 201

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-
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202 The Fathers,

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

The Fathers. 203

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

204 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 205

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.

206 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 207

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

208 The Fathers.

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 ;

The Fathers. 209

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

210 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 211

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

The Fathers.

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

The Fathers.

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

The Fathers.

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?

The Fathers. 215

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 ;

216 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 217

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

218 The Fathers.

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,

220 The Nicene Church.

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.

The Nicene Church.

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

The Nicene Church.

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

The Nicene Church. 223

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,

The Nicene Church.

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

The Nicene Church. 225

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

The Nicene Church.

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

The Nicene Church. 227

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

228 The Nicene Church.

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

The Nicene Church. 229

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,

230 The Nicene Church.

" 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

The Nicene Church.

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

232 The Nicene Church.

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

The Nicene Church. 233

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.

234 The Nicene Church.

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

The Nicene Church. 235

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!-

236 The Nicene Church.

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

The Nicene Church. 237

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

238 The Nicene Church.

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

The Nicene Church. 239

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-

240 The Nicene Church.

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

The Fathers.

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

M

The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 243

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

244 The Fathers.

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-

The Fathers.

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

246 The Fathers.

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,

The Fathers. 247

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

248 The Fathers.

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,

The Fathers. 249

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

250 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 251

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-

The Fathers. 253

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

254 The Fathers.

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

The Fathers. 255

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

256 The Fathers.

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

The Rule of Faith. 259

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

260 The Rule of Faith.

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-

The Rule of Faith.

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 ;

262 The Rule of Faith.

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

The Rule of Faith. 263

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 ;

264 The Rule of Faith.

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

The Rule of Faith. 265

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

N

266 The Rule of Faith.

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

The Rule of Faith. 267

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

K 2

268 The Rule of Faith.

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

The Rule of Faith. 269

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

270 The Rule of Faith.

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-

The Rule of Faith. 271

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.

272 The Rule of Faith.

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

The Rule of Faith. 273

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.

N3

274 The Rule of Faith.

— " 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,

The Rule of Faith. 275

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

276 The Rule of Faith.

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.

The Rule of Faith. 277

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

278 The Rule of Faith.

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

The Rule of Faith.

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

280 The Rule of Faith.

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

The Rule of Faith. 281

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

282 The Rule of Faith.

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-

The Rule of Faith. 283

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

284 The Rule of Faith.

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,

The Rule of Faith. 285

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-

286 The Rule of Faith.

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

The Rule of Faith. 287

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,

288 The Rule of Faith.

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

The Rule of Faith. 289

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

29Q The Rule of Faith.

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

The Rule of Faith. 291

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

292 The Rule of Faith:

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

The Rule of Faith. 293

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,

294 The Rule of Faith.

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

The Rule of Faith. 295

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

296 The Rule of Faith.

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

The Rule of Faith. 297

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

£98 The Rule of Faith.

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-

The Rule of Faith. 299

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.

300 The Rule of Faith.

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-

302 The Invocation of Saints.

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-

The Invocation of Saints. 303

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

304 The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 305

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

306 The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 307

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

308 The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 309

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-

310 The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 311

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

3\2 The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 313

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

314 The Invocation of Saints.

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 —

The Invocation of Saints. 315

" 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

316 The Invocation of Saints.

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,'*

The Invocation of Saints. 317

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^

318 The Invocation of Saints.

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.

The Invocation of Saints. 319

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.

320 The Invocation of Saints.

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.

The Invocation of Saints. 321

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

322 The Invocation of Saints.

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

I he Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints.

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.)

The Invocation of Saints.

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

326 The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 327

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,

328 The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 329

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-

330 TJie Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. Sol

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

332 The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 333

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

The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 335

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,

336 The Invocation of Saints.

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

TJie Invocation of Saints. 337

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

Q

338 The Invocation of Saints.

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,

The Invocation of Saints. 339

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-

Q 2

340 Hie Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 341

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,

The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 343

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-

344 The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 345

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

34-6 The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 347

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

348 The Invocation of Saints.

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,

The Invocation of Saints. 349

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

350 The Invocation of Saints.

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-

The Invocation of Saints. 351

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

352 The Invocation of Saints.

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

The Invocation of Saints. 353

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,

Transubstantiation. 355

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,

356 Transubstantiation.

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

360 Transubstantiation.

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.

Transubstantiation, 361

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,

R

Transubstantiation.

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

Transubstantiation. 365

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

366 Transubstantiation.

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

Transubstantiation. 367

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

368 Transubstantiation.

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

Transubstantiation. 369

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-

R3

370 Transubstantiation.

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.

Transubstantiation. 371

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

Transubstantiation.

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

Trdnsubstantiation. 373

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-

374- Transubstantiation.

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

Transulstantiation. 375

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*

376 Transubstantiation.

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,

Transubstantiation. 377

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

378 Transubstantiation.

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-

Transubstantiation. 379

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

380 Transubstantiation.

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

Transubstantiation. 381

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

Transubstantiation. 383

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

384 Transubstantiation.

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-

Transubstantiation. 385

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

386 Transubstantiation.

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

Transulstantiation. 387

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

388 Transubstantiation.

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

390 Transubstantiation.

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

Transubstantiation. 391

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

392 Transubstantiation.

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

394- The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 395

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

396 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 397

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."

398 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 399

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

400 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 401

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

402 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 403

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

404- The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 405

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

406 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 407

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

408 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 409

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

110 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 41 1

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

412 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of tlie Mass. 413

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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 ;

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 415

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

416 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 4 1 7

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

418 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

\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,

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 419

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-

420 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 421

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

422 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 423

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

424 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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,

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 425

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

426 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 427

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

428 The Sacrifice of the Mass.

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 429

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 435

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

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 439

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;"

Purgatory. 441

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

Purgatory. 445

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

Purgatory. 447

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

448 Purgatory.

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

452 Purgatory.

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

Purgatory. 453

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

454 Purgatory.

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

Purgatory. 455

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

456 Purgatory.

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

Purgatory. 457

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

458 Purgatory.

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

Purgatory. 459

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

460 Purgatory.

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 ;

Purgatory. 461

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

462 Purgatory.

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,

Purgatory.

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

164 Purgatory.

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

Purgatory* 465

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

466 Purgatory.

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

Purgatory. 467

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,

468 Purgatory.

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

Purgatory. 469

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

470 Purgatory.

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,"

Purgatory. 47 1

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

472 Purgatory.

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-

Purgatory. 473

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.

474 Purgatory.

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

Purgatory. 475

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

476 Purgatory.

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

Purgatory. 477

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

478 Purgatory.

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

Purgatory. 479

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

480 Purgatory.

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

Purgatory. 481

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

482 Purgatory.

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.

Purgatory. 483

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

Protestant Christianity. 485

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,

486 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 487

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

488 Protestant Christianity.

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

Pretestunt Christianity. 489

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

490 Protestant Christianity.

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"

Protestant Christianity* 491

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

492 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 493

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

Protestant Christianity.

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."

Protestant Christianity. 495

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

496 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 497

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."

498 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 499

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

500 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 501

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

502 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 503

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-

504 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 505

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

506 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 507

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;

508 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 509

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

510 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 511

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

512 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 513

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

514 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 515

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

516 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 517

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,

518 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 519

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

520 Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity. 521

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

Protestant Christianity*

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

Protestant Christianity. 523

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

Protestant Christianity.

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

Protestant Christianity^ 525

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."

THE END.

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