IsjflSSsSSw? pi(ov(ra bibaaKaXias. Euseb. contra Marcellum, 1. 8, in which book are con- stantly conjoined Sabcllianizing and Judaizing. '\ovhdi- (t/xo's k o-vviv evcrefi&v d/cpt/Setas, koX irpa^etav dyaOcov ; Basil, de Spiritu Sancto, who distinguishes between Ktjpv- ypLara, open doctrines, and boyp.aTa, significant mysteries and rites. Suicer, Thes. Eccl. Distinction is also made between boyp.aTa and Ta.yp.aTa, or boypaTi(eiv and K.avovi(eLV, as in the synodical letter addressed by the Nicene Fathers to the churches of Egypt, the former concerning the faith and the latter concerning discipline. Ao'ypa was used in quite another sense by the Stoics, as equivalent to (pavTao-ia, the superficial imagination which men form of things, without reflecting upon and piercing into their nature. Tapao-o-ei tovs av9pu>irovs ov to. irpdypiara dkka to. Trepi tS>v 7Tpayp.aTcov 80'yparcr olov 6 OdvaTos ovbev bewbv, ertel /cat 2co/cparet av eqbaCveTo' dkka to boyp.a to 7rept 6a- I'drov oTi bewbv, enelvo to bewdv eo~Tiv. Epicteti Encheirid. c. x. And by Plato, for knowledge or understanding ; /*?/ o-acpes eyovai boyp.a Trepi avT&v. Leg.xi. §. 12. F 66 LECTURE II. for a corrupt practice, provided their creed were orthodox, and attributed a depraved in- tention and corrupt morals to those who dif- fered from themselves dogmatically. But no assumption has had worse effects on the individual characters of Christians, none has more counteracted the growth of the true principles of the Gospel, than this, that erroneous belief implies a corrupt prac- tice, and the corollaries from it, at least tacitly held ; that with orthodox belief, though the practice be externally and ac- cidentally corrupt, it is not so essentially ; but that with heterodox belief, the practice, though externally and ostensibly excellent, is not so in fact, or in the sight of God. There cannot be a more astounding proof of the deceitfulness, with which systems will grow up, blinding the eyes of those who have been bred in them, than the acquies- cence of successive multitudes in the posi- tion, that dogmatic errors depend more upon the will than upon the intellect and its con- ditions. Rather than not narrow, in a Juda- ical spirit, the privileged Church of Christ, rather than not make the idea of selection prevail altogether over that of universality, rather than not have some ground for a con- fidence of boasting, systems concerning the LECTURE II. 67 necessity of an elaborate dogmatic agreement are maintained, upon forced and unseholarlike interpretations of such passages as the text, which has no reference to such matter. And though, in an indirect way, the will has to do with the formation of intellectual judgments, it is only so far as it commands the atten- tion : the voluntary sustaining of the atten- tion is essential to a right dogmatic judgment, and so it is to an arithmetical calculation ; but it would be as monstrous to suppose an erroneous conclusion on a dogmatic point, to indicate, as a matter of course, a corrupt will, as to attribute an incapacity to solve a com- plicated algebraical question to like disease of the moral nature . ° " Errores pendere magis a voluntate quam ab intel- lects, non admitto. Credere vera vel falsa, quorum illud cognoscere, hoc errare est, nihil aliud quam conscientia aut memoria est quaedam perceptionum aut rationum ; itaque non pendet a voluntate nisi quatenus obliqua arte tandem efficitur, etiam aliquando nobis ignaris, ut quae volumus nobis videre videamur. Judicamus igitur non quia volu- mus sed quia apparet. Et quod dicitur voluntatem esse latiorem intellectu argutum est magis quam verum. Verbo dicam : ad populum phalerae. Nihil volumus quin intellectui obversetur. Errorum omnium origo eadem est suo quodam modo, quae errorum calculi ratio apud arithmeticos observatur. Nam saepe fit defectu attentionis aut memoriae ut agamus indebitum aut omittamus debi- tum, aut putemus nos egisse quod non egimus, aut quod egimus non egisse; ita fit ut notae debitae in calculo (cui ratiocinatio respondet in animo) non ponantur, indebitie F 2 68 LECTURE II. Undoubtedly there always have been men, since the first preaching of the Gospel, either actually or practically without the Christian pale, men of whom Felix is the type, who would wilfully put away from themselves the examination of any system or subject, which may render more plain to them their moral obligations : but the point, with which we are now concerned, is one of dogmatic differ- ence between persons, who acknowledge the same moral obligations, and acknowledge them, as issuing from and sanctioned by, their religion itself. It is not therefore justi- fiable to impute an immorality to all who differ from ourselves, when, in other respects, an immorality is not more evident with them, than with ourselves. And although controversialists may con- ponantur, transsiliatur aliquid inter colligendum, metho- dus turbetur. Mens scilicet nostra lassata aut distracta non satis rei attendit, aut errore memoriae assumit tan- quam olim probatum, quod tantum inculcatum saepius aut consideratum fixe, aut optatum studiose, altius in nobis haesit. Remedium quoque errorum nostrorum idem est, quod errorum calculi, ut materiae formseque attendamus, ut procedamus lente, ut repetamus operationcm variemus- que, ut examina instituamus sive comprobationes, ut longi- ores ratiocinationcs in partes secemus, quo rcspirare mens possit, partemque quamlibet peculiaribus comprobationi- bus confirmemus." Leibnitii Animadversiones ad Cartesii Principia Philosophise etc. ed. Dr. Gulirauer. 8vo. Bonn, j 844, p. 35, quoted Journal des Savants, Oct. 1850, p. 600, in an article by M. V. Cousin. LECTURE II. 69 tinue to charge upon different doctrinal te- nets a tendency to produce a relaxation of the moral principle, few would I think be disposed to enter upon an investigation, as to which of conflicting dogmatisms had been, on the whole, accompanied by the greater immoralities in those who adopted it. Such investigation must be equally uncharitable and without resultP. But the position in- tended to be maintained is, that error in dogma is not, on the face of it, in itself an immorality, and that we have no reason to believe it must in individual cases be judged as such. If we are conscious of a sincere and moral condition in ourselves, we should suppose, that others who now differ from us, would, if they had the same advantages with ourselves, coincide with us ; and we should go further and suppose also, although the error of others is inadmissible by us, and p For the superior morality of the Goths, who were Arians, over the Romans, who were orthodox, see Newman, Development &c. p. 273, and the note there. But it would not in fact be fair, to charge the immoralities of the Ro- mans on their Creed, or to attribute the morality of the barbarians to theirs. The Romans were an utterly demo- ralized people, the dregs of an expiring civilization : the Goths were as yet undepraved by civilization, not as yet relaxed by climate and luxury, and of a stock too, which, in course of centuries, has never hitherto exhibited a cor- ruption equal to that of the Greco-Italian race. 70 LECTURE II. in its concrete and complex form contradic- tory to acknowledged conclusions of our own, yet that to those who hold it, there probably lies at the root of it some principle, which we have not sufficiently remarked, which accounts for their persistence in it, and which we should hold, though without its consequences, in common with them. These maxims, which contain the germ of a principle of moral comprehension, it will be observed go much beyond the Protestant principle, as it is called, of the right of pri- vate judgment ; much beyond the Protestant principle, considered as negative, which of course dies with that which it denies. Some of the more special and positive views of Protestants will naturally come under notice in ensuing Lectures ; but with respect to the general principle itself, considered as a negative one, it may be remarked, that it cannot be that of which we are in search, be- cause it cannot at once be permanent and universal ; it can only be permanent, on the supposition of that, against which it protests, being permanent also. Now neither was the temporary character of their general prin- ciple, nor the liberty to others of carrying it out to particular applications, not contem- plated by themselves, recognised by the chief LECTURE II. 71 Reformers: and in fact the responsibility of all and each, and therefore the liberty of all and each, in matter of dogmatic religion, was not enounced by them, and only grew to be popu- larly acknowledged in process of time, as an historical generalization, from the facts which the examples of the Reformation supplied 1 . Nevertheless, while private judgment, con- sidered as a hostile right, evidently implies division, not only intellectual difference but moral separation, and can only serve as a ground of united action for temporary pur- poses ; when it is regarded as an obligation, q The case of Servetus is well known, and Valentine Gentilis, found guilty at Geneva (1558) of "voluntary heresy/' only escaped a similar fate there by retracting, but persisting afterwards in propagating his opinions, which seem to have been Arian, he was burnt at Berne. M. Merle d'Aubigne quotes, in his History of the Reformation, to prove the liberality of Luther, that reformer's letter to Lenkius, July 14, 1528, in which he says with reference to the Zwinglians, " Ego ad judicium sanguinis tardus sum etiam ubi meritum abundat," which expressions, however, indi- cate rather an illiberality of judgment, than a softness of heart. EveD Melanchthon, after the protest, April i 9, 1529, thought that the Lutherans had injured themselves by not consenting to the edict against the Zwinglians. D'Aubigne, t. iv. p. 102. In the matter of confessions, Melanchthon certainly differs from Luther ; Luther would have ex- cluded error by precise definitions, whereas Melanchthon would have ceased to define where differences began. After Luther's death the moderate principles of Melanchthon made way, but issued in a division of the Lutherans, as much as in a comprehension of the Calvinists. 72 LECTURE II. according to the precept, " Prove all things, hold fast that which is good 1 ," and still more, when it is recognised as a necessity of our nature, there is about it the character of uni- versality, which must belong to the principle, of which we are in search. But in endea- vouring to apply the maxim, we must limit our expectations of the results to follow from it, by the consideration, that if the dogma be the matter on which liberty of judging is exercised, it is impossible it should issue in absolute unity of view. Still, it would be absurd to suppose, if the proper object on which it should be exercised could be suffi- ciently described, that individual inquiries would, as a matter of fact, result in indefinite subdivision of judgments; that every man would, in the event, judge altogether differ- ently from every other ; as absurd as it would be, to imagine, that in any number of sane men, each would mistake a given material object for somewhat else, although, with limi- tation, one and the same object will not make precisely the same impression upon any two. So that little has been done already to- wards any prospect of unity, even by esta- blishing private judgment as a power or r Sec Dr. Hawkins's Sermon on the Duty of prwate judg- ment, Oxford, 1838. LECTURE II. 73 function necessary in order to it, unless also the proper matter be defined, on which that power or function shall be exercised. For as men, in the use of their faculties and senses, if they direct them to their proper objects, do not come, each one, to a dif- ferent conclusion ; so neither can we sup- pose, that the human judgment, when exer- cised upon divine things, not in the way of speculation, but in the way of observation, would in each individual differ from all others. But if any of the faculties of man, or of his senses, as for instance his sight, were to be exercised on objects, with which it is not naturally in relation ; or if men were bidden to form judgments by their sight, for which it is not fitted, that they should tell thereby the weight or density of bodies, or their internal structure ; we may well con- ceive, that, instead of an uniformity of verdict, there would ensue an infinite contrariety. And similar no doubt must have been the case, if in exercising their judgment on divine things, men have endeavoured to conclude positively upon insufficient data, to conclude definitively, concerning propositions which could not be precisely stated, to pass beyond the phenomena of the divine agency, mani- fested in effects, which we are capable of ob- 74 LECTURE II. serving, with which we have faculties suffi- ciently in relation, to essences and causes, which altogether transcend them 5 . And conversely, if such contrariety and di- versity has happened among Christians, from the earliest ages to the present, there is fur- nished a great presumption, that attempts have been made by them to form judgments, concerning objects beyond the grasp of their powers, and that a search for unity, union and communion in that direction, either by free- dom of judgment, or by a trained and shackled judgment, which does not deserve the name, is utterly futile and vain. And herein, as I humbly conceive, consists the wonderful feli- city of the Church to which we belong, that her dogmatic declarations being suspended upon Scripture, not being interpretations of Scripture, are not final, according to the sense of Scripture in any one year or century ; but are provisional, until men shall agree in the sense of Scripture. And this they will here- after, more than they have as yet, at least so far as to understand the necessary limits of their own powers and of its words ; when the form of a creed will be felt to be unimportant, s And " by pretext of true conceiving that which is re- vealed, to search and mine into that which is not re- vealed." Lord Bacon. LECTURE II. 75 in comparison of a growing consent concern- ing the Scripture itself. That either positive dogma or negation of dogma should be abso- lutely final, and for ever fixed, is inconsistent with man's condition as a progressive being ; that a statement of dogma should be provi- sional, suspended upon the attainment of fur- ther light, or upon the improvement of our faculties of judging, is perfectly consistent with it. And there is no contradiction between what is now said and what was said in a former part of the lecture, that different men, of neces- sity, judge differently,and different ages, of ne- cessity, judge differently concerning the same objects. For they do so to such extent indeed, as to render an absolute identity of judgments metaphysically impossible, and an adequate transmission from one generation to another, or a perfect acceptance by one generation, at once in terms and in sense, of the judgment of another, altogether inconceivable. Still there is, and always has been, a continuity of judgment upon the original materials, a cohe- rence of judgment, even when men have dif- fered ; and this continuity, coherence and sequence, involving similarity together with difference, is a sign of union, though it do not constitute it, though it seem even to imply 76 LECTURE II. the contrary. For we may be sure, that the men, who in some times and under some circumstances have thought and expressed themselves one way, would, under other cir- cumstances, have expressed themselves and thought otherwise. Just as in the judgments of science concerning the universe, which, to take up again an illustration already touched on, has always presented the same material to the contemplation of men, there has ever been a continuity of judgments, a coherence, a sequence of cause and effect, even when the judgments of different ages appear, as in the case of astronomy, to be utterly at vari- ance and contradictory. And these very dis- crepancies, though certainly they cannot be considered as constituting an unity, never- theless indicate the constant possession by the human race, under all its varieties, of substantially the same faculties and the same tendencies, wherein such unity did and does really consist. The universality of Christ's religion, its most divine characteristic, although obscured, has never disappeared from the eyes of men. They have sought its realization in the most unpromising directions, by limitations, ex- clusions, definitions, excommunications ; but they have ever believed, and still, across all LECTURE II. 77 differences and enmities, they believe, as it were against feeling and hearing and sight, that Christ's kingdom is to endure for ever and to embrace all men ; they know, that " as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." LECTURE III. Romans v. 1. Therefore being justified by faith, ive have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. IF now, as has been said, sameness of con- ceptions in different individuals depends not only on identity of object but on similarity of internal condition, in those to whom it is presented ; it may be thought, that the sub- jective state of believers may furnish the principle of which we are in search ; that faith, in the Lutheran sense, may prove the bond of union and communion of the saints. The preaching of justification by faith was certainly a mighty instrument, as handled by Luther, for demolishing the doctrine of human merit, attributed with more or less fairness to the Roman church ; and there gathered round his preaching and gave it power, a force of public consent, on the part of num- bers, who had revolted at the Romish prac- LECTURE III. 79 tices, which were founded on that doctrine of merit, or which seemed to ordinary observers to imply it. And in so preaching Luther appeared to draw immediately from the foun- tain head of Scripture ; to bring forth from the Christian armoury precisely the same weapon against self-justifying Romanizers, which St. Paul had used to confound self- justifying Judaizers. Of the controversial value and effects of the Apostle's arguments in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, on the subject of faith and works of law, we have no precise informa- tion ; nor as to how far the claim of legal jus- tification which he combats, would have been stated in the same terms by those whom he refutes ; nor how far, though it might not have been recognised as their own by them, other indifferent persons would have admitted the statements to be fair. But this much is at any rate clear, that the doctrine of justification by faith is with St. Paul a controversial doctrine ; and we are not to look for the same precision and abso- luteness therein, as if it were a positive doc- trine delivered explicitly in its own proper seat. From controversial statements relative to an antagonism, we cannot derive a positive doctrine, nor ought we to apply them, except 80 LECTURE III. in reference to views of a like kind with those, against which they were originally di- rected a . And it was this very hastiness of taking St. Paul's controversial arguments for enun- ciation of positive doctrine, against which St. James provides a caution. But so heated was Luther in his application of the Pauline argument, adopting it as a foundation-prin- ciple of communion, that he regarded at one time with some degree of contempt the Epistle of St. James, wherein the statements of St. Paul are modified, limited, or ex- plained b . a So in the eleventh Article ; " We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own toorks or deservings : Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only" &c. is a statement relative to the antagonist error of justification by human merit. b "Achte ich sie fur keines Apostels SchrifFt, und ist das meine Ursache : aufs erste, dass sie stracks wider S. Paulum und alle andere Schrifft, den Wercken die Gerechtigkeit gibt, u. s. w. : aufs 2. dass sie will Christen- leute lehren, und gedenckt nicht einmal in soldier langen Lehre des Leidens, der Auferstehung, des Geistes Christi. Er nennct Christum etlichmal, aber er lehret nichts von ihm, sondern sagt vom gcmeinen Glauben an Gott Darum kan ich ihn nicht unter die rechten Hauptbucher setzen, will aber damit niemand wehren, dass er ihn setze und hebe, wie es ihn gelustet, denn viel guter Sprilche sonst darinnen sind." Vorrede avf die Epistel Jacobi. But the Confession of Augsburg reconciles the two Apo- LECTURE III. 81 Now there is one marked difference to be observed, between the original use by the Apostle of the doctrine of justification by faith, and the application made of it by the Reformer ; a distinction to be noticed also, before we erect some other apostolic argu- ments into positive Gospel doctrines. The distinction I here mean is this ; that the Apostle is, for the most part, arguing with and concerning large classes of persons ; the individual application follows in the way of corollary, and is, during the argument, com- paratively out of sight. On the contrary, with Luther and Calvin the individual and personal is the most prominent, even in the case of the doctrine. With St. Paul, the breaking down of the wall of partition, the full revelation of the mystery, that the Gen- tiles should be fellow-heirs with the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, was the evan- gelical truth, which he sought, above all others, to enforce upon his own countrymen : the absence of class-superiority and privilege in spiritual things, of the wise over the un- learned, of the Greek over the barbarian, of the master over the slave, was the corre- stles, by distinguishing between an historical faith and a faith or confidence in the remission of sins for Christ's sake, and the Saxon confession in the same way. G 82 LECTURE III. sponding address of the same truth to the Gentiles. Having thus generalized and brought all within the terms of the covenant, having shewn, that all have an interest in the gra- cious plan, the Apostle, in his moral exhor- tations, individualizes, and urges upon each and all the personal obligations, which re- sult from their being so comprehended. With the Reformers, on the other hand, the indi- vidual is first, in the experimental reception of the redemption ; in the certainty of per- sonal remission and forgiveness of Luther ; in the sealing of our election by the witness of the Spirit in our hearts of Calvin. It is not so easy as might be thought, to represent fairly the difficulty of penetrating the world, not only the Jewish but the Gen- tile, with that great truth, so perseveringly inculcated by St. Paul, of the universality of Christ's religion . We are so accustomed to the phrase of the Catholic Church, that the grandeur of the idea involved in those terms escapes us. The obstacles to the reception of a truth, in those ages so novel, were in- deed a mountain, only to be removed by c That there should be one religion for all nations seemed absurd to Pagans, Or///, c. Celsum VIII. p. 425, still more so that it should be of foreign origin, fidpfiapov hdyp.a, id. I. p. 5. Giesc/rr. LECTURE III. 83 the faith of that great Apostle. The no- tion of the hereditary transmission, both of privileges and of disadvantages, was in- terwoven with the whole of the heathen life. Polytheism was a religion of separa- tions. Family and local traditions, assigning divine causes as the origin of existing rights and relations, tended to perpetuate inequa- lities. The disposition constantly evinced to recur to a system of caste d , an institution so widely spread through large branches of our race, coupling itself with rights of war, rights of citizenship, and rights of possession, al- though these were temporal things and re- lated to secular advantages, rendered the preaching of any doctrine of equality, even of a spiritual and moral one, exceedingly diffi- cult, open to misunderstanding and provo- cative of opposition. It was not therefore without special cause d This tendency was counteracted in Christendom by the enfranchisement of the " commons ;" for the citizen- ship and freemanship of Christendom has acted precisely in an opposite direction to that of the ancients. With the Greeks and Latins it was an institution founded on and continuing in degree the ancient distinction of " caste." Under the influence of Christianity it has operated to pre- vent the re-establishment of that system : with the ancients, the privileges of citizenship tended to depress those who were not citizens ; with the moderns its operation has been to elevate those who were not noble. G 2 84 LECTURE III. and express argumentative design, that, both for the sake of Gentile and Jew, St. Paul taught men to look upon themselves as de- scended from one common progenitor. They could not be persuaded to acknowledge a com- munity of redemption, unless they admitted an original identity of stock. " As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Now there had not been wanting tendencies, during the medieval period, to- wards a recurrence to hereditary caste ; feu- dality itself is an instance of it. But the principles of the Gospel were enabled to penetrate and soften those hard and harsh relations, as they grew : and at the close of that period, there was recognised, as belong- ing to all classes, a community of religious interests, of spiritual privileges, and of moral duties, in some sense superior to and over- riding the worldly obligations. So that when other causes threw Luther upon reproducing, for the controversy of his day, the great Pauline principle of justifica- tion by faith, he reproduced it under very different circumstances and, as has been said already, for an obviously different end. It was reproduced by persons, among persons and for purposes, which have given the Lu- theran doctrine a very different colour from LECTURE III. 85 that of the apostle, although couched in the same terms and, as far as words go, identical with it : an instance, we may say in passing, of what has been before alleged, of the ne- cessary variation of the senses of words in course of time, and of the difficulty of resus- citating exactly in one age the precise meta- physical or theological conceptions of a for- mer one. While the action of the apostolic preach- ing had been directed to comprehend, in one church, classes, which had hitherto been determinately distinct ; to form one commu- nion across the boundaries, which parted dissimilar and repugnant societies ; it was the object of the Reformers, when the rege- neration of the whole community of the then visible church became evidently hopeless, to make a severance, and to form new societies, out of and within the circuit of the old. In so doing, the individual element, rather than the collective one, must be brought out. And it coincided with this necessary immediate purpose of the Reformers, that, by natural constitution, those among whom they labour- ed and had most success, were predisposed for the appeal to their subjective mental condition. And besides that this mental pre- disposition cooperated with the other cir- 86 LECTURE III. cumstances of the case, the Teutonic nations had enjoyed from an early period, above other nations of the West, a native theologi- cal terminology 6 ; whence the German Re- formers derived great facilities in their ad- dresses to the understandings of their hearers, and were enabled to effect the temporary so- lution of doctrinal questions, as far as it could then be carried, not only by an appeal to the reason, but also to the religious sentiment of their countrymen. Regarding then the marked differences in their mental characteristics, between the Greco -Italian and the Teutonic races, we can account, in great measure, upon such eth- nological considerations, for the easy transi- tion of the objective faith of the medieval Church into the subjective faith of the Lu- e Thus the Christian ideas are expressed in German by native words, Gnacle, Glaube, Rechtfertigung , ErlostMg, instead of the corresponding foreign words, which we have retained from the Latin ; the word kirche or kylche, which has sometimes been derived from KvpiaKos, is more pro- bably a native word connected with kvkXos and circus ; for ecclesiastical persons the foreign word is used, as, Bischof, Monch. Concerning Messe, (Missa) see a note in the Appendix. German translations of the Bible had been frequently printed before the Reformation. One in the high German dialect first at Maycncc, 1462, reprinted 14 times before that period. A translation into the lower Saxon printed three times in Cologne, 1470; also at Lubeck and Gralberstadt. — Gieseler LECTURE III. 87 theran theology. And that I have not over- rated the probable action of such secondary cause is, I think, confirmed by the fact, that the tendency to mysticism, which, in one of its forms at least, shews an excess of the sub- jective sentiment, had revealed itself in the west previously to the Reformation princi- pally in persons of Teutonic race. Thus Gerhard Groot f , Tauler of Strasburghs, Ruys- broech of Brabant' 1 , in the fourteenth cen- tury, Hemerken, commonly called Thomas a Kempis 1 , in the fifteenth, were Germans ; mysticism evidenced itself in the Lollards and Beghards k and in the older Moravians ; f Born at Deventer (1340), was the founder of the so- ciety of the Brethren of the Common Life. s Tauler was born (1294) most probably in Alsace. He was greatly praised by Luther and Melanchthon and even approved by Bossuet. His Sermons have been fre- quently published in all German dialects, in the latest form at Frankfort a. M. 1826. h Prior of the regular canons in Gruenthal in Bra- bant (138 1 ). His works, e Brabantice idiomate reddita Latine, with a Life prefixed, published at Cologne 1552. folio. 1 Takes his name from Kempen in the diocese of Cologne, where he was born (1380). k For the Lollards, who originated in Flanders and spread into Germany, see Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. cent. xiv. For the Beghards, who were most numerous in the cities of Germany that lay on the Rhine, especially at Cologne, consult Mosheim's treatise de Beghardis et Beguinabus, Leips. 1790. 88 LECTURE III. and continued to shew its indigenous charac- ter, subsequently to the Reformation, in John Arndt k , Jacob Boehm 1 , Spener ,n , Francke n , Zinzendorf and the modern Moravians. k John A melt was born at Ballenstadt in the duchy of An halt (1555). His True Christianity, a work said to have been translated into more languages than any other ex- cept the Imitation of Christ, consists of four books : 1 . The Book of Scripture,, to shew the way of the spiritual life, and that Adam ought to die and Christ to gain the ascendant in the heart more and more daily. 2. The Book of Life, direct- ing the Christian to rejoice in sufferings, and to endure persecution after Christ's example. 3. The Book of Con- science, wherein the Christian is taught to recognise the kingdom of God within his own heart. 4. The Book of Na- ture, that all creation leads men to the knowledge of their Creator. A Latin translation of this book was printed at London, 1 708, and an English one 8°. 1 7 1 2, dedicated to queen Anne. 1 Jacob Boehmen was born at Goerlitz, in Lusatia (1575). m Philip James Spener, born at Rappolsweiler in Upper Alsace, 13 Jan. 1635. The appeal of Spener was to the moral consciousness, and the movement communicated from him may be considered as a reaction against the formal and merely intellectual character, which had su- pervened upon Lutheranism. His chief work is, Pia Desideria, in 1675. -A- life of Spener was published at Berlin in 1828, from which is compiled, A Memoir &c. 12". Philadelphia, 1832. The university of Halle was founded at his recommendation. He imbibed his prin- ciples from the True Christianity of John Arndt. n Aug. Herm. Francke was a pupil of Spener's : a memoir of him was likewise published at Philadelphia for the Sunday School Union, 12". 1831. It is not intended to mention Zinzendorf himself with honour, but the Herrcnhuttcrs are not fairly chargeable with his immoral ravings. LECTURE III. 89 And what has been said concerning the subjective character of the Lutheran theo- logy being due, mediately, to ethnical pre- dispositions, is further confirmed by the points both of resemblance and difference between that theology and the Calvinistic. For Calvin by origin and education was more predisposed than Luther to the objec- tive modes of thought which characterise the Roman theology. Luther, in making a direct and vehement attack upon a corrupt part of the then Romish system, had applied subjectively and indi- vidualized St. Paul's argument or doctrine of justification by faith. The French Refor- mer, when he undertook the defence of those who had revolted from their ecclesiastical bondage, seized, as well as the other, upon what we may call a personal fulcrum or basis for the construction of a system. They had this in common, that in their respective schemes the ultimate appeal and test of membership lay to the individual conscious- ness. In Luther's scheme, to a consciousness of a receptive and apprehending faith in the efficacy and personal application of the Re- demption : in Calvin's, to an inward sense and conviction of election and of grace. Both of them, I venture to think, modified 90 LECTURE III. in a similar way the apostolic arguments, on which they founded their own systems. For whereas St. Paul's design, both in his doctrine of justification by faith and in that of salva- tion by grace and free election, was to enforce the extension of privilege, it was the object of Luther and Calvin to prove a limitation. But they differ herein ; Luther's subjective faith certainly supposes the objective reality of the Redemption: but with Calvin the object- ivity of the divine decree and of the divine grace as a specific influence derived from it is much more remarkable ; the doctrine of as- surance is only its subjective complement. With Luther the attention is encouraged primarily to reflect on the internal condition, and thence to infer the efficacy of the Re- demption 1 ' ; with Calvin, to contemplate the external decree and grace though in refer- ence to the person. With Luther faith is first, in order of observation to the percipient. With Calvin election is prior, in order of Founded upon Augustine's doctrine ; " Inter gratiam et prsedestinationcm hoc tantum interest, quod prredesti- natio est gratise pnrparatio, gratia vero jam ipsa donatio." De pradest. Sanctor. 19. P " Ut statuant certo donari reraissioncm peccatorum." Augustana Confess. De Fide. " Hac fide cum mens eri- gitur, certum est donari remissionem peccatorum, recon- ciliationem et imputationem justitiai propter ipsius Christi merit um." Conf. Sawonica. LECTURE III. 91 causation q . And the Roman, the Lutheran and the Calvinistic schemes are thus distin- guished, by the method according to which they deal with the sense of sin in the indi- vidual. The Lutheran makes the assurance of remission come from within ; the Calvinist looks up to the divine predestination, from which grace proceeds and which faith is to contemplate as the cause of election. In the Roman Church the assurance of forgiveness, I do not say the forgiveness, but the convic- tion of it, flows from an external and histori- cal authority and is dependent on human testimony. With such differences the two Reformers adopted, one the subjective, both the indivi- dualizing principles ; and this introduction of the subjective element, and personal applica- tion of the Augustinian theology, not only sharpened the controversy between the Roman q Tunc enim deraum nobis certa est nostra salus, quum in Dei pectore causam reperimus. Sic enim vitam in Christo manifestatam fide apprehendimus, ut eadem fide duce procul intueri liceat, ex quo fonte vita prodierit. In Christo fundata est salutis fiducia, et in evangelii promis- siones recumbit. Sed hsec non parum valida fultura est, quum nunc, ut in Christum credamus, audimus nobis divi- nitus esse datum : quia ante mundi originem tarn ad fidem ordinati, quam ad vitas coelestis hsereditatem electi eramus. Consensus Genevensis, Niemeijer, Collectio Confessionum, Leips. 1840, p. 223. 92 LECTURE III. theologians and the Protestant and Reformed parties, but occasioned subsequently, within the Roman Catholic Church, the great con- flict with Jansenism. The appeal to a pri- vate internal witness of a personal state of salvation is even more opposed to the scheme of the Church of Rome, than the appeal to private judgment as a test of abstract ortho- doxy. The vital question with the Protest- ants was, whether men could be saved, and be satisfied of their salvation, if materially se- vered from communion with the historical church ; whether internal conviction of the divine election, of the reception of the Re- demption by faith, of the witness of the Spirit and of the operation of grace, were not as sound a foundation of confidence, as visible union with a corrupt church. But whatever may be evident of the satis- factoriness of such internal test, to those who experience strongly the subjective movement, or whatever may be thought, by those who en- deavour to judge dispassionately, as if aloof, of the reasonableness of the one test as com- pared with the other, the point of the present inquiry is not to be lost sight of; can the subjective condition of believers be described with sufficient definiteness, and do there meet in it those characters of universality, perpe- LECTURE III. 93 tuity and mutual action, which must belong to the catholic bond of union of the saints ? Now besides the greater prevalence of the objective tendency in the Roman race, and the indisposition of the nations descended from it to adopt fully even the Augustinian theology ; let us remark, that in the Greek Church the very questions, which gave rise to that theology, have not been entertained; and that the Neo-Platonic mysticism in Ori- ental communions was of a different cha- racter altogether from the Protestant subject- iveness. So little then can this personal internal state be taken as supplying the bond of Christian unity, that its forms are very va- rious, even according to the broadest and rudest outlines ; while it is hardly recognised in several large communions, the members of which we should shrink, unless we were under some isolating influence of the condition it- self, from excluding from the Christian pale and from all possible membership in the Communion of Saints. And not only has this subjective tendency prevailed historically, in conjunction with other causes, in severing large communions from each other ; its disuniting operation has been seen in connection with many sub- divisions of Protestants, and with those more 94 LECTURE III. detailed separations of Christians, which we call in this country by the name of dissent. So that even more hopeless is the prospect of any reunion of Christendom, if it should be thought to depend upon individual and con- gregational subjectivities being similarly af- fected by Christian verities, than if it should be hoped for, from a definition of the objects of the Christian creed being devised, which should unite universal acquiescence, without reference to its subjective action. For of those who receive the same creed, and as nearly as may be in the same sense, neces- sarily the impressions conveyed by it are most various ; and subjective faith runs, in the religious constitution of different indi- viduals, through as many degrees as mere opinion does in the non-religious intellect. If the classification of Christians according to the subjective element, and a possible comprehension by means of such classifica- tion were hoped for, it would seem open to all the difficulties attending a classification and comprehension by means of the objective dogma, compounded with those belonging to itself as another factor. For just as in mere intellectuals, there may be a feeble opinion concerning that which is real ; or a firm opinion concerning that LECTURE III. 95 which is unreal ; or a ready assent or an hesitating assent concerning the same fact ; similar varieties will be found in the reli- gious faith. Besides other difficulties which would at- tend an attempt to assert, what should be the specific characteristic of the subjective faith of the true Christian, there is evidently a want of any measure or test, either of the intensity thereof, or of its being impressed from the true and proper object. While further, if there be a difficulty in compre- hending men by the profession of a common symbol, much more can there be no com- prehension of communion, when there are no means of giving a common expression, or of ensuring the truth or sincerity of the ex- pression, of the internal state of different believers. And inasmuch as it is presumed to be cha- racteristic of the Communion of Saints, that therein are bound together, in one society, those who have been true believers, and are, and are to be, the subjective element would seem more defective than the objective in this particular. It is true, as far as the question of con- tinuance goes, that strong subjective per- suasions have prevailed with considerable 96 LECTURE TIL numbers, and apparently with whole religious communities ; nay, that there has been an effort and a semblance of perpetuating them. But the prevalence of a similar psychical condition among great numbers, under simi- lar circumstances, is not to be wondered at ; nor that such psychical condition should be, as it were, epidemic or contagious. Some fanaticisms, which no one, not under their immediate influence, could attribute to any sane religious sentiment, have been at times and places remarkably so. But although there may thus seem to be a communication of the religious fervor from individual to individual, it does not by any means come up to the character of a true koivwvlcl ; which implies, not only a common participation of the same benefits, but also a mutual consciousness, a mutual giving and receiving; and in this case is required also a power of continuing such process for ever. Now if one thing is obvious to the most cursory observer of Christendom and of the history of Christianity, it is this, that the subjective forms of religion have a tendency to become rapidly evanescent ; if they seem to have more life, they have a less enduring sub- stance, than the objective forms: and if these, in course of ages, have served their purpose LECTURE III. !)T and end, it is evident, that the subjective forms, which in some degree supplanted them, shall likewise in their turn perish. But when, by reason of a natural tendency, Christians have associated themselves toge- ther, and according to a divine design, in obedience to some vital principle of Christ- ianity itself, or from some other cause, have formed national or other churches and congre- gations, more or less local and defined, in connection with the subjective element, and the belief of direct and immediate personal influence ; the incompatibility of such claim or theory with a visible communion, and therefore, one might say at once, its inadmis- sibility as the binding principle of the union of the saints becomes very apparent. For that the same subjective impressions, the same inward witness of the same eternal election, should belong specifically to the members of the same national church, or other local congregation, would be, speaking secularly, a most marvellous coincidence ; speaking theologically, it would involve a re- trogression in the evident course of the divine dealings with mankind ; it would exemplify a return to the exclusiveness of Judaism, from the catholicity of the Gospel. If the objective dogma, as comprised in H 98 LECTURE III. symbols and formularies, has a tendency to become dead and unintelligible, so long as the forms are unchanged, while if they are added to and developed, and logical deduc- tions made from them, it varies from what it was originally ; no greater sameness or per- manency can be attributed to the subjective faith. For unless its precise characteristics be expressed and described in confessions, there will be no test, that the same in- ternal conditions animate now the supposed successors of some evangelical church or congregation of the sixteenth century : and if the test of confessions be superadded, we fall back again into the difficulties which beset the symbolic principle. And I sup- pose, in fact, that the Protestant and Re- formed confessions require, to the secular reader, nearly as much historical annotation and explanation as the Nicene Creed or that of St. Athanasius. But there is a further defect in the sub- jective principle ; we have seen, that it is not calculated for perpetuating itself in succession, neither can there be shewn a previous conti- nuous identifiable action of it in the Church ; for if there be any breaking off in the tracing- upward of the objective dogma, or any chasm in the transmission of it ; much more is there, LECTURE III 99 as far as evidence goes, in the transmission of the Lutheran subjective faith. Luther him- self did not hesitate to say, that the apostles alone of antiquity were capable of judging upon the article of justification by faith* ; and the Magdeburg Centuriators observe to the same effect upon the earliest centuries 11 . c The Roman controversialists do not fail to take advan- tage of these admissions. See, Lettres d'un Docteur Catholique a un Protestant, par le P. Scheffmacher, fifth ed. Avignon, 1840, t. ii. p. 500. Nevertheless, it should be ob- served, that neither Lutheranism nor Calvinism would have been possible, unless the views of Augustine concern- ing original sin, election and perdition had already be- come current. Augustine should thus be considered as the parent of Paulism, with which Luther is charged, and not without reason; thus he says of the Epistle to the Romans j " Diese Epistel is das rechte Haupt- stucke des Neuen Testaments, und das allerlauteste Evan- gelium die an ihr selbst ein helles Licht ist, fast genugsam die ganze SchrifFt zu erleuchten." Vorrede avf die Epistel S. P. an die Rbmer. Bretschneider, speaking of Melanchthon's Loci communes, considers, that he thereby fixed upon the Lutheran church the character of a Pauline t heology ; " gegen welche die Theologie, welche aus den Auspriichen Jesu in den drei ersten Evangelien geschopft werden kann, in Schatten treten musste." Die deutsche Reformation u. s. iv. §. 18. u Centur. Magd. Cent. II. " Doctrina de justificatione negligentius et obscurius ab his doctoribus tradita est." They then instance Justin's admiration of Socrates and other heathens, whom he calls Christians, because they lived according to reason, although they were thought not to have known God. " Quae insolens satis et superba Ethnicae csecitatis commendatio est — adeo hie articulus omnium summus et praecipuus paulatim, artificio Diaboli, obscurari coepit." Cent. 111. " De justificatione. Tenuiter H 2 100 LECTURE [II. And if, were we to recognise the subjective principle as supplying the bond of Christian communion, we must doubt concerning the perpetual succession and continuance of the Church, so we must concerning its univer- sality. For of the infinitely varied pheno- mena of the religious consciousness, which can be selected as the tests of truth ? which, were they so selected, could be predicated as uni- versally belonging to the human race ? which has the human race a tendency in a grow- ing degree to assume as characteristics ? Of conviction and certainty we never can be sure, that our own and that of another person are in the same degree ; nor, though we may trust our own sincerity, have we in this respect any test of the sincerity of another. And thus, though the objective and subjective faith may both enter among the individual Christian cha- racteristics, they can only enter subordinately as characteristics of collective Christianity. Because, there does not belong to them, in themselves, an universal character ; nor a tendency to universality ; nor previous his- torical perpetuity and succession ; nor a ten- omnino et de hac parte scripserunt maximi et prsecipui hujus setatis doctores." The Augsburg Confession does not produce any authority, except its interpretations of Scrip- ture, anterior to Augustine, beyond one passage from Am- brose, in support of the assertion, " Nee afferimus novum dogma in ecclesiam." LECTURE III. 101 dency to perpetuate themselves identically ; nor a mutual test, except very insufficient, of their existence at one and the same time in different individuals ; nor a test of their sub- stantial identity in different individuals : nor do they give evidence, of that which appears to be a similar effect issuing in fact from one and the same cause ; and therefore there can be no sufficient proof of many individuals being really common participators of the same gift ; nor is there any mutual action and reaction implied by them, except in a derivative and secondary way. It must be distinctly borne in mind as we proceed, that the question is not, in what de- grees the objective, subjective, or other prin- ciples, or in what force and proportion, they enter into the means, the condition, or the test of the individual salvation, acceptance, or justification. It is not to be doubted, since it has pleased God, that the revelation of the redemption should be connected with the his- tory of our Saviour's manifestation upon earth, and be traceable thenceforward in its historical effects ; since it has pleased him, that those to whom this knowledge should come, should be capable of reflecting upon the internal con- ditions in themselves, which that knowledge produces, and upon the characters which it 102 LECTURE III. calls up and brings to their own perception — - it is not to be doubted, considering this de- termination of Providence and constitution of man, that both these elements are, in de- grees which have never been as yet defined, comprised in the true believer, modified in each according to his individual peculiarities. But it is contended, that these elements are not the combining elements, whereby the Christian society is held together, perpetuated and enlarged, and distinguished from all other societies. For that office we require a princi- ple, which does not tend to difference but to union ; not to severance but to comprehen- sion, not to distinction but to generalization ; not to individualization but to combination. But a subordinate inquiry may not inap- propriately be introduced here, namely ; may not an uniformity of worship form a sufficient bond of union, in conjunction at least with that which in fact it must presume, uniformity of symbol and similarity of disposition ? So that common worshippers should be supposed, in great degree, to experience the same sub- jective impressions, whence their differences might be disregarded, as tending to no se- verance of communion. Now in order to the consideration, as briefly as possible, of the proper place and office of LECTURE III. 103 the Christian worship, let it be remarked, that by reason of a double relation, in which the worshipper stands, towards the Being whom he worships, and towards his brother-wor- shippers, the office of the cultus is evidently twofold. First, and most obviously, properly and strictly, it serves as an outward expres- sion of inward feeling and sentiment ; as man has naturally an inclination to give outward expression, through the bodily organs, to the working of the heart and mind ; "out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speak eth." Secondly, it is an instrument of instruction or discipline to those, who are already, in some degree, and more or less, predisposed, as it may be presumed, to the same spiritual con- dition as the rest. It can scarcely need to be observed, that in speaking of worship as an instrument of instruction, I do not allude to express in- struction or exhortation, which is frequently attached to it, but mean worship strictly so called. Now this, which in the indi- vidual serves two offices, serves two offices also in community. For with the individual worship serves two distinct offices. First, it is an expression of his feelings and senti- ments, more or less spontaneous ; an expres- sion of his wants and desires, which in rela- 104 LECTURE III. tion to an All-powerful Being, assumes the form of prayer, regard being had to the ex- istence of the petitioner in successive time, although his supplications be addressed to One who lives in present eternity ; an expresssion of his satisfaction, which, in relation to an Almighty Author and Provider, assumes the form of thanksgiving. Secondly, with the individual, worship serves, as a command upon the attention ; and as an act of adora- tion, of thanksgiving, of penitence, of faith, of submission, as the case may be, tends to imprint deeply and permanently, convictions and persuasions and feelings, which might otherwise be feeble and transitory ; it thus becomes a discipline and means of instruc- tion. And so in public worship, provided the liturgical forms correspond sufficiently with what would be the spontaneous expression of the perfect members, they become, to the im- perfect, instruments of advancement, instruc- tion and perfection, by the process indicated above : namely, as acts of faith, penitence and the like, tending to raise them to the same level of religious condition with their brother-worshippers. The influence of present authority is thus combined with the natural influence of the forms themselves". x There is properly this important difference between the LECTURE III. 105 But in order to the efficacy of this action of the one part of those engaged in the wor- ship upon the rest, it is necessary, that the worship should fully coincide with, and evi- dently represent, the religious state of the one portion ; and that the others should not only be sufficiently predisposed to the end intended to be produced, but at least feel no repugnance to the mode and instruments, by which that effect is to be accomplished. For unless the reality and sincerity of a portion of the common worshippers, in some sense preponderating, be recognised by the rest, these latter are withdrawn from the ac- tion of that most potent instrument of influ- ence, authority ; and unless they are predis- posed to be acted on and not prejudiced against the means employed, these will utterly fail of any effects common and the individual worship ; that in the individual the spontaneous and involuntary enters more largely than the voluntary and artificial ; with the common cultus ne- cessarily the contrary. As an attempt to carry the spon- taneous, which is the characteristic of the individual cultus, into common worship, may be instanced the quaker-wor- ship (according to its theory) ; and all in fact where ad- dresses to God are extemporized. An example of car- rying the involuntary and artificial into the individual worship, is found in the horary system of private devo- tion in the Romish church. y For the proper instrumentality of the Christian wor- ship, and the relations therein between the individual and 106 LECTURE III. An external worship falls, in the instruments .which it employs, (even with speech and much more in regard to its other material instru- ments), within the domain of sense and taste. And as we know the infinite variety of differ- ences in such matters, between different races and people, it would be absurd to expect, that one and the same external form of worship should either be equally natural all over the world, as the expression of the perfect wor- shipper's own sentiments, or be equally effec- tive in its operation on the imperfect, w 7 ho is to be wrought upon and elevated by it. So far from uniformity of worship tending to obliterate other differences, a variety of worship naturally grows up, even where other differences do not exist ; and should no more be taken in itself as an indication of essential diversity, than should a peculiarity of national habit be thought to exclude men foreign to ourselves from the collective humanity 2 . the congregation, see Schleiermacher , Die christliche Sitte u. s. w. Berlin, 1843, PP 537 — 599- z No liturgical forms, when forms are adopted, upon the wisdom of which I would throw no doubt, can be reason- ably expected to be altogether permanent. Nor can one and the same liturgy be equally suitable for different na- tions ; and it may admit of serious cmestion, whether a mere translation of the English liturgy into their different languages can be most appropriate at once for the use of the Hindoo convert, of the New Zealander and of the LECTURE III. 107 And in addition to the necessary diversities in the taste-perceptions of men of different states of civilization and culture, we must not on this subject leave out of sight the operation and effects of the historical ante- cedents and circumstances of Christianity. If no other religions and no other forms of worship had existed in the world upon its promulgation, it is barely supposable, that the ideas, which it presented to mankind, would have been uniformly represented by all men in their formal acts of worship. But there were preexistent in the world other forms of worship, expressing other reli- gious ideas, more or less approaching to and Iroquois. Our aim is indeed to lead the different people, who come under our legitimate influence, to worship God in an uniformity of sense. But we should ascertain first, whether, considering their native and severally peculiar mental constitutions, they are really capable of worshipping in an absolute uniformity of sense. The Romish church carries the appearance of unity still further, and causes men of all nations to worship under an uniformity of sound. But this, which would be an absurdity, upon any such view of common worship as that given in the text, is justified in the Romish system, by the assumption, that all worship is a subordinate part of " the sacrifice/' and sacra- mental. " With us sacrifice is the real worship ; every thing else is accessory ; and what matters it to the people, whether those sacramental words, which are only pro- nounced in a low tone of voice, be recited in French, in German, or in Hebrew?" De Maistre, The Pope, translated by Dawson, Lond. Dolman, 1850, p. 113. 108 LECTURE III. receding from its own. And if the Christian dogma cannot be adequately analysed, without reference to the Jewish and Polytheistic reli- gions, so neither can the forms, which the Christian worship has taken, be fairly judged, without reference to the Jewish and heathen worship. It would be altogether beside my design, to enter into any inquiry, as to how far the attempt to conciliate proselytes, by means of the externals of Christian worship, has been in any age and churches carried to excess* ; or how far, at any times and in any communions, the reaction against an uniform, a Besides other exceptionable methods of conversion em- ployed by the Jesuits in their Chinese missions in the seventeenth century, they were particularly charged with corrupting the Christian worship out of an undue conde- scension to the customs of the idolaters. See Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. Cent. xvii. §. i, and the notes in Maclaine's translation, vol. v. pp. 24, sqq. A late assailant of the order expresses himself pointedly as to the effect of such economy, and his observations admit of a much wider ap- plication than he makes of them. "Voi negate di aver reso a Confusio od agli idoli del Malabar e della Cina gli onori divini di Cristo o gli omaggi religiosi che la Chiesa porge a' suoi santi. Sia pure, se cosi vi piace; ma io vi dico che voi faceste rendere a Cristo ed ai santi gli onori degl' idoli ; II gentilesimo porge alle creature gli onori divini : il Gesuitismo da a Bio V onore delle creature, e si vale del culto per trasfcrire in esso Dio il concetto finite dette contingenze ; onde conservando V apparenza del culto cristiano, lo rcnde in effetto paganico." Gioberti, Gesuita Moderno, t. ii. c. 8. p. 509. LECTURE III. 109 a complicated, a highly symbolic and sensuous worship, has run into a morbid puritanism. Yet in such ways various models of wor- ship have arisen, and upon those models many men's religious feelings and sentiments have been moulded ; but it is surely not difficult to abstract ourselves so far from such exter- nals, as to conceive easily, that the disciples of the second Adam may hold the head and remain his members, though they differ in these forms ; as God has divided the children of the first Adam into so many kindreds and people and nations and tongues. But if we should teach, that Christ's saints, in order to be in communion one with another, must not only believe precisely alike, and feel precisely alike, but also worship alike, we should be narrowing, by successive limita- tions, the universal inheritance of mankind ; entangling men again in a yoke of bondage, forging link after link, first upon the under- standing, secondly on the heart, thirdly on the sense and taste, to fetter the liberty, wherewith Christ has made us free. LECTURE IV. Ephesians ii. 8. For by grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves : it is the gift of God. [ a 1 HE king of Israel, of whom, it is said, that God gave unto him " wisdom and understand- ing exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore b ," is remarkable, not only for the range of his knowledge, but also for the distinct distri- bution of it, and for the method by which he was enabled to acquire it. For the books of Solomon which remain are on the subject-matter of morals ; and those which have perished, or a distinct branch of them, were concerning natural history. In his moral writings he describes a The portion thus [ ] included was omitted in de- livery. b i Kings iv. 29. LECTURE IV. Ill the method of observation and induction, to have been that which he pursued ; and if such was his course in the more complex subject, we can have little doubt, that his works, wherein " he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall ;" wherein " he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes ;" were of the nature of recorded observation also. When Socrates, dissatisfied with the phy- sico-theological theories of the philosophers who had preceded him, devoted himself to the study of the matter of morals, he pur- sued also the same method of observation ; endeavouring to analyse carefully before he classified and concluded. With all subsequent philosophers the dis- tinctness of morals and physics has been held sufficiently ; but in treatment of these distinct matters, they have mostly been un- aware, that the same method was applicable to both. Although of those with whom we are best acquainted, Aristotle laid a founda- tion, then unbuilt upon, in his observations on natural history ; and elsewhere has de- scribed the dispositions, tendencies and ex- c i Kings iv. 33. 112 LECTURE IV. ternal characteristics of the elements of human society, with the same precision, with which he has pourtrayed, according to his opportunities, the habits and peculiarities of animal and vegetable being. But these sketches of true systems and methods were destined not to be filled up ; the paths thus opened were not to be pur- sued for many ages. And during the forma- tion of the Christian theology and of the science of the period, from the commence- ment of the Christian era to the decline of Scholasticism, causes were sought in metaphy- sical entities ; and a deductive logic, which took its principles from such abstract entities, was not only esteemed the proper instrument of teaching, but the full exponent of science, divine, moral and physical. These observations are intended to intro- duce the remark, that since the growth of modern philosophy,] the matter of morals, although severed effectually, since the time of Socrates and of Solomon, into a distinct sub- ject, has been the last to receive any treatment, according to the analytical and inductive methods, applied with such success to all other branches of human knowledge. One reason of this has undoubtedly been, the greater complexity of the phenomena in the LECTURE IV. 113 moral subject-matter, another has been, the especial connection in Christianity of morals with theology. It has been supposed, that as all results which practically concern human conduct are collected together, and all the means of human improvement are described for us in the sacred writings, it must be gratuitous, if not unbecoming, to attempt to rear on uninspired observation a moral system of our own ; which if not consonant to that of the Scriptures must be false ; if in accordance with it must be superfluous : and that in this case, as our principles are of un- doubted truth, rigid deduction from, and ap- plication of them is all which can properly remain to us. And it may be urged, not only is sufficient laid down in Scripture, in the way of precept, to serve adequately for moral guidance in all possible circumstances, but there also is de- clared to us, that Christians are made partakers of a specific influence, an influence proceed- ing from the Holy Spirit Himself, which both unites them to the rest of the faithful, and enables them severally to accomplish their proper works and functions. But we must take heed, lest, in this very subject of the moral influences of the Holy Spirit, we run into an error exactly parallel i 114 LECTURE IV. with that, whereby expressions, taken in their letter, or taken according to a preconceived interpretation, have been assumed, before now, as precluding scientific inquiry in the subject of physics. It is not to be denied, that passages of Scrip- ture relating to the material world, which were held at one time to contain distinct revelations of real facts, have since been acknowledged to have been spoken out of condescension, or poetically, or according to the understandings of former times. But it is necessary to repeat the statement, because of the indisposition still remaining in some quarters explicitly to admit it as true : because of the still greater in- disposition to admit, what I conceive to be equally true, that in the subject of morals, ra- ther are the words of Scripture to receive their true interpretation from what shall turn out, on careful observation and analysis, to be the real phenomena which human nature presents, than is the account given of these phenomena to be forced into accordance with a precon- ceived interpretation of the Scripture expres- sions. And herein is the great happiness of the course, into which human speculations have been providentially thrown. The mental faculties have been trained, and their methods perfected, by the discipline of mathematical LECTURE IV. 115 and physical science ; in order to prepare them for a right treatment of the moral sub- ject matter. The observation and study of the simpler phenomena has preceded that of the more complex : and in such a schooling the ideas have been brought out clear and precise, of law, of action and passion, of action and reaction, of state and function, of being and circumstances. The application of these observations will be obvious, when the particular subject is remembered, which lies before us in the present Lecture ; namely, to inquire, whe- ther divine or spiritual influence is that which is to be recognised as the binding principle of the communion of saints. But without anticipating further the conclusions, which it is hoped will be made clear in the course of the Lecture, it will be necessary to set be- fore ourselves, as plainly as possible, what the popular theories are concerning spiritual in-, fluence, or, as it is technically termed, grace. \ And here we have in English an instance, of the perpetuating of the foreign word hav- ing greatly tended to obscurity and vague- ness of conception ; for very many passages of the Epistles, which are supposed to speak of a peculiar mysterious influence, would lend no support to such notion, if x^P 1 ? were i 2 116 LECTURE IV. translated in them by some other word than "grace;" as by "favour," "goodness," "gift," or " blessing ." But I think that grace in its popular sense, which is founded upon but modified from its Augustinian and scholastic sense, is under- stood to be, a specific influence, as distinct and specific, as are in physics, light or mag- netism, a specific influence passing, as it were by a ray, from the Divine Spirit to the human, and thereby raising the powers of the latter beyond what they could naturally be d . It has frequently been observed, that no doctrine of grace became current in the c Xapis occurs iu the Septuagint version sixty-six times, of which number it stands sixty-one times for ^j-j, and its signification in the New Testament cannot be fairly esti- mated without reference to the idea expressed by that Hebrew word. This is drawn altogether from oriental life, and implies properly the good will and inclination of a superior towards an inferior, so much below him, as to seek only for a spontaneous and gratuitous favour ; or to invite the favour only by his needs, humility and suppli- cations. The favourable inclination is manifested in a kind and condescending aspect. Hence constantly the phrase "find favour in the sight of," (^ij^) • com P are parti- cularly Numb. vi. 25, " The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee," (^PITl)- See ^ ie Appendix. d So that the understanding of the word in the sense of a gift of power supernaturally infused has obliterated the sense of benefit of vocation and condition. LECTURE IV. 117 Church before the time of Augustine, nor has it strictly speaking assumed a dogmatic form. It is not to be met with in any of the three Creeds ; nor is it recognised in any ecume- nical council ; nor is there any definition of grace or explicit statement concerning it in the Articles of the Church of England : in respect to which we should also remember a canon already laid down, that scriptural terms occurring in our own Articles are to receive that interpretation, which it shall turn out scripturally belongs to them. The Western Church may indeed be con- sidered to have accepted, respecting the Pela- gian controversy, the decisions of the synods of Mileve 6 , Carthage f , and Arausio s ; but in- asmuch as it was that very controversy, which brought out the Augustinian statements con- cerning grace, we should be careful of admit- ting all those controversial views as enun- ciating positive doctrine ; bearing in mind a caution already suggested and applied to the e The Pelagian heresy was formally condemned in the second council of Mileve, (416.) f Zosimus who succeeded Innocent I. (417,) declared Pelagius and Ccelestius orthodox, but after the synods at Carthage in that and the following year, he too condemned them. Certain opinions attributed to the Pelagians were also condemned at the council of Ephesus, (431.) g The synod of Arausio (Orange) was held against the Semipelagians, (539.) 118 LECTURE IV. argumentative statements even of an apo- stolic writer. And certainly the Church of England is not to be thought, while she con- demns a Pelagian error, to adopt all theories which have been built on the an ti- Pelagian polemics of Augustine \ h As for instance his shocking doctrine concerning in- fants dying unbaptized; even Calvin, whose system is other- wise formed upon that of Augustine, extricates the chil- dren of believers from perdition : " Etsi fidelium liberi sint ex Adami corrupta stirpe ac genere, eos ad se nihilominus admittit, propter foedus videlicet cum eorum parentibus initum, eosque pro liberis suis habet ac numerat." — " Minime dubium est, quin liberi nostri hseredes sint ejus vitse ac salutis, quam nobis est pollicitus : qua de causa sanctificari eos Paulus affirmat, jam inde ab utero matris, quo ab Etlmicorum et a vera religione abhorrentium ho- minum liberis discernantur." Catech. Genev. Formula bap- tism, administ. Zwingli ventured to go further; "Hinc con- stat, si in Christo secundo Adam vitse restituimur, quemad- niodum in primo Adam sumus morti traditi, quod temere damnamus Christianis parentibus natos pueros, imo gen- tium quoque pueros. Adam enim si perdere universum genus peccando potuit, et Christus moriendo non vivifi- cavit et redemit universum genus a clade per istum data, jam non est par salus reddita per Christum et perinde (quod absit) nee verum, Sicut in Adam omnes moriuntur, ita in Christo omnes vitse restituuntur. Verum quomo- documque dc gentilium infantibus statuendum sit," &c. Zwinglii fidei ratio, Niemeyer, p. 23. The Pelagians were represented as denying baptism to infants, but on the con- trary they said ; " Infantes debere baptizari in remissionem peccatorum secundum regulam universalis ecclesiae et se- cundum evangelii sententiam, confitcmur, quia Dominus statuit, regnum ccclorum nonnisi l)aptizatis posse con- I'crri." Coelestii Symb.fragm, ap. Giesehr. Hut they dis- LECTURE IV. 119 Now from the writings of this great father, and issuing in fact from one and the same controversy, have arisen two very distinct theories of grace; the one the theory of im- mediate spiritual influence, and the other the theory of sacramental influence. I do not mean to say, that nothing like the one theory or the other is to be found anterior to Augus- tinguislied between " life eternal" and " the kingdom of heaven/' and conceived that the unbaptized might receive the former, that only the baptized could inherit the latter. August, de peccat. merit, et remiss. I. 30. In the de- velopment of the limbus infantum, the Roman Church has admitted a modification of the extreme Augustinian view, and endeavours nevertheless to keep clear of Pelagianism by an acute distinction, which yet is evidently only a dia- lectical one ; for although the state of those who are in the " limbus" may be a state of penalty, that is on descendants of Adam, and of loss as compared with heaven, yet in re- spect of some other condition and in itself it might be worthy of being called a life eternal, if that term were not preoccupied. Thus in the condemnation (by Pope Pius VI., in 1794), of the errors of the synod of Pistoia, the " limbus" is recognised, but the middle state of the Pela- gians is rejected. " Doctrinam, quae velut fabulam Pela- gianam explodit locum ilium inferorum, (quem limbi puerorum nomine fideles passim designant,) in quo animce decedentium cum sola originali culpa poena damni citra poenam ignis puniantur, perinde ac si hoc ipso, quod qui poenam ignis removent inducerent locum ilium et statum medium expertem culpa? et poense inter regnum Dei et damnationem eeternam, qualem fabulabantur Pelagiani : Palsa, temeraria, in scholas catholicas injuriosa." Damn- Syn. Pist. xxvi. — See Appendix. V20 LECTURE IV. tine ; but nothing systematic : and two very different systems may be considered, in our own day, to be characterised by the greater development of one or other of these theories : nevertheless they are frequently held together, as they were by Augustine and by Calvin. And although this division mav be thought not to be carried far enough, and that there might well be embraced within our inquiry, whether supernatural grace, understood under some other form, may prove the uniting prin- ciple of the communion of saints ; it will be seen perhaps as we proceed, that what we shall say will anticipate the necessity of carrying the examination further, or of distributing it into more heads, than those which I have stated. 1. Of grace, considered as an immediate ope- ration of the Divine Spirit upon the human. 2. Of grace, considered as an influence me- diate through sacraments or sacramental ordinances. 1 . It is plain from the whole history of hu- man religion and of human philosophy, that in the uncultivated periods men have been prone to imagine, in all that surrounds them and happens to them, the action of some power superior to themselves, operating specially and immediately on each separate occasion. As civilization advances the domain of the LECTURE IV. 121 preternatural recedes, law is found to em- brace continually more and more, the excep- tional and the occasional is found to be less and less frequent ; and at length the conviction rises clear and well defined, that in the Di- vine creation all is subject to law, and that it argues no exalted conception of the Maker of all things, that He should be interposing, correcting and adjusting defects in His own works. If all this appears very evident to us now, we should remember, that to former gene- rations, and to men in other conditions, it has been by no means evident ; that with great difficulty, and through long periods of edu- cation, unless under highly privileged cir- cumstances, have men risen to the conception of One supreme Being: and when this con- ception was attained, the more wonderful, imposing or unusual events, even in the ma- terial world, were attributed to His special interposition. Even in the present age, or- dinary persons do not readily recognise a Providence, at once general and particular, ordering all things both in heaven and earth ; and by the intervention of law, without spe- cial interposition, throwing up at their proper seasons, as well the most rare phenomena as the most common. 122 LECTURE IV. As human observation only comprehended very unequally the phenomena of the ma- terial universe, those events or appearances, which were the most unusual or startling, or farthest removed from examination, were attri- buted at one time to some subordinate agency superior to man himself, and when mono- theism at length prevailed, to peculiar inter- ventions on the part of the great Being Him- self. And when the apprehension of law r , even with respect to the sensible world, was thus slow in making its way, no wonder that un- usual phenomena in intellectual or moral being should be referred to express and im- mediate spiritual or divine agency, according to the tenor of the rest of the religion or creed ; that the mind of the poet should have been thought to be possessed with a divine afflatus; that the hero should have been believed to be born of some divine seed ; while the ravings of the madman, or the atrocities of the parricide were considered as evidences of demoniacal possession, of the avenging mission of furies, or of the inexorable movement of fate 1 . ' " And in order to clear the way for this inquiry, the re- mark may be made here, the truth of which every one will be willing to confess, that the ancients were accustomed to attribute the origin of diseases, particularly of those whose LECTURE IV. 123 But when, passing out of this state of un- reasoning theism, men have observed, and raised structures of science upon their obser- vations, the attainments which they have reached from time to time have only been provisional : and they have been too prone to think, that they had found causes, when they were only recording phenomena, assuming a tentative hypothesis, or framing a formula. Especially has this disposition been seen in those false shadows of sciences which have preceded the true, as in the occult influences and powers of the astrologer or of the searcher after the philosopher's stone. And nearly the same observation will hold concerning all in- fancy of knowledge ; there is too great an inclination to take for granted, that we have arrived at an ultimate principle. Now I see no more reason for recoiling natural cause they did not understand, to the immediate interference of the Deity. Hence they were denominated by the ancient Greeks ixda-Tiyes, or the scourges of God, a word which is employed in the New Testament by the physician Luke himself, vii. 21, and also in Mark v. 29, 34." John's Biblical Archaeology, translated by Upliam, An- dover, U. S. 1839, ch. xii. §. 184. The arguments on both sides respecting the demoniacs of the New Testament are impartially given in the same work (§§. 192 — 197)? but without any reference to a priori or philosophical consi- derations. 124 LECTURE IV. from the supposition, that in Scripture itself the operations of the Holy Spirit are de- scribed, according to the opinions and under- standings of those to whom the Scripture was first given, than there is for being fearful of admitting, that scriptural descriptions of the material creation are not consistent, in their letter, with now acknowledged physical truths; which have opened to us more and more, and far beyond the perceptions of those to whom the Scripture was immediately ad- dressed, evidences of the wisdom and good- ness, of the eternal power and Godhead of the Great Creator. The words of Scripture itself, when they relate to such things as fall under human ob- servation, such things as are subjects of human speculation, or are capable of being verified by human experience, are evidences, not of the absolute objective truth, but of the modes of thinking and speaking and of the limits of understanding of a certain age. And this observation must apply as well to the moral and intellectual world as to the mate- rial. Indisputably all origins and causes are ultimately to be referred to God Himself. " Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights." LECTURE IV. 125 And the origin of the human or Christian sanctification equally with all things elseJ. But in speaking of the manifestation of this original power in the concrete phenomenon, it must be spoken of as it could be conceived of, according to the understanding of such or such an age of men. Yet we, who know through what infinite scales and concatena- tions of mediate and subordinate causes God works, must not think, that we exalt Him or magnify the good gifts of His Holy Spirit, by continuing to speak and endeavouring to think of them as immediate, when the ob- served nature and conditions of the being, on whom they act, would lead us especially to think they must be mediate. And if this should hold with respect to statements of Scripture itself, much more will it hold with respect to theories of grace, which owe their shape to controversies of the fifth, or to subjective tendencies of the sixteenth century. Now if Pelagianism constitutes man into a cause, Augustinianism unnecessarily, and therefore not piously, multiplies divine causes. J There is no question concerning the divine origin, either of creation or of sanctification, but concerning the interpretation of scriptural descriptions of the modus ope- randi. 126 LECTURE IV. For as a question of interpretation of Holy Writ, there is after all, no more reason for conceiving, that the favour or grace of God is a power or influence, than that the love of God or the goodness of God is so ; these terms, and a variety of others, to which no attempt was ever made to affix the sense of specific powers, are terms expressing, we can hardly with piety say, modes of His Being ; rather perhaps manners of His dealing with us ; or more nearly, relations, under which He has revealed Himself to us, or permitted us to view Him. And as the love of Christ is said to constrain, because the love of another towards us is a most constraining motive to gratitude and devotedness, as the goodness of God provokes our thankfulness, the long-suf- fering of God calls us to repentance, the jus- tice of God awes us with a holy fear, so the grace of God, in comprehending us all under the redemption, binds all men, to whom that knowledge comes, to offer themselves living sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God, which is their reasonable service. And thus what is usually termed the grace and specific influence of the Holy Spirit is an elevation of the internal powers of man to their highest possible functions : such ele- vation cannot take place before the grace of LECTURE IV. 127 Christ, under the gospel, because, except un- der the gospel, the consciousness cannot em- brace a true knowledge of ourselves, of God, of our relation to Him, to His creation and to our brethren k . All living beings which we are capable of observing, are what they are, partly by reason of an internal principle proper to them, and partly by reason of the conditions which sur- round them. Beyond certain limits a varia- tion in the conditions is fatal to the existence of the being, adapted by its internal principle to exist under them. Within these limits, variations of the conditions are accompanied with remarkable variations in the phenomena k Augustine acknowledges that the knowledge of the gospel comes to men mediately ; " paucissimis esse donatum ut nullo sibi homine prredicante, per ipsum Deum vel per Angelos coelorum doctrinam salutis accipiant, multis vero id esse donatum ut Deo per homines credant." De dono perseverantia, 48. And in the most exceptional case of which we know, that of St. Paul, although his convictions were determined by the vision on the road to Damascus, and al- though he speaks of his having acted previously " ignorantly in unbelief," yet it is not possible, but that he must already have stated to himself, with more or less precision, the question at issue, between the old Jewish party and the new " way," which he was the instrument of persecuting ; he must have possessed some knowledge of what the disci- ples believed, and he had seen the effects of that belief in the martyr Stephen : this material knowledge had been supplied to him through the ordinary channels and inlets of human information. 128 LECTURE IV. of the living being. And it would be alto- gether unreasonable to suppose, when we observe a remarkable change in the pheno- mena presented by living beings, which might be accounted for by a change in the condi- tions which surround them, or which might be accounted for on supposition of the deve- lopment, when placed in new conditions, of powers already belonging to them, that there has been communicated to them a new and specifically different principle 1 . It would be altogether unreasonable, gra- tuitous, and dishonouring to the Creator, to suppose, that a new principle is given to the plant, as it passes from leaf to blossom, and from blossom to fruit, to the chrysalis, when it bursts its shell and soars a fly ; and though there is apparently a turning point, a transitional moment, when the new charac- teristics effectually predominate over the old, such, even in its most marked forms, as it is the result of long continued operation of sur- 1 And the " substantializing" of grace in the Augus- tinian system arose from the anxiety to vindicate to the divine Being an initial point which it was held necessary to assume as a distinct commencement of the process of each man's recovery from the hopeless state of nature. " Etiam initium fidei, sicut contincntiam, patientiam, jus- titiam, pictatem et cetera de quibus cum his nulla contentio est, donum Dei esse." Aug. de Freed. Sanctor. 43. LECTURE IV. 129 rounding conditions on the subject modifiable by means of them, is truly a " gradus incre- menti" and not a "gradus inceptionis" 1 ." And although we describe the metamor- phosed being by a new name, and attribute to it the possession of a new principle, we are not in fact justified philosophical!) in pre- suming a new and differential cause to be operating on a subject of which the pheno- mena vary, if it varies also in its conditions ; including under conditions, all which is ex- ternal to it, all agencies which can bear upon it and affect it ; including the time also, dur- ing which it is under these relations ; in the individual moral being or man, including all material and human agencies and relations, communications of knowledge and the like. Now to confine ourselves as much as possi- ble to that which is our proper subject in the present Lecture ; it is evident, that if there be immediately derived from the Divine Spi- rit upon the individual such a power or influ- m And the origin of whatever may be termed divine or spiritual influence in any specific sense, like all other ori- gins, must escape our notice ; for neither can we tell (only by results we infer that there must have been such), the point or moment when the life of vegetation passes into that of sense, or the life of sense into that of consciousness, nor in fact the origin or supervening of any of the higher faculties upon the lower. K 130 LECTURE IV. ence, as is popularly understood by the word grace, it cannot furnish the binding principle of Christian communion ; inasmuch as, by that very hypothesis, it does not pass from one to another, nor, unless some other means are pre- supposed, can each have evidence of the pos- session by another of the essential christian- izing force. And as was maintained in the last Lecture respecting a subjective state of conviction, a subjective faith, a subjective cer- tainty of predestination, a subjective assur- ance of being called, whatever satisfaction it is calculated to shed in the breast of him, who experiences such impressions, no other person can have assurance of his brother's inward condition, or know whether it cor- responds with his own, or has any given rela- tion to his own. And if this be so, whether communication of grace, according to its popular sense, takes place or not, or whe- ther any analogous influence of any kind takes place upon the individual or not, such individually received grace cannot be the principle of communion. If there be such, though it be a saving in- fluence, or a consoling influence, or an influ- ence effective of any individual perfection, or of all perfections in the individual, it can- not be the spirit and principle of communion, LECTURE IV. 131 because not communicable, transmissible, act- ing along with the consciousness of persons standing in a known relation. 2. We have now to inquire, whether the principle of communion is to be found in grace, considered as an influence mediate through sacraments. Sacramental influence, as understood by many, I suppose to mean, that there is, in the administration of the sa- craments, communicated to the receiver, along with the consecrated element, an action or force of the Divine Spirit upon the spirit of the receiver ; only not immediate, because it passes through or along with the element : or by another mode of expressing it, that a psychical change is wrought in the soul of the receiver supernaturally, then and there, by means of, or with the element. And gratuitous as this theory might ap- pear, support is sometimes sought for it in Scripture, and it is alleged to be conceivable, that power should be pre ter naturally trans- mitted through material instruments, because it is said of our Lord, that " there went virtue out of him and healed them all ;" and of Paul, that " from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went Luke vi. 19. K 2 132 LECTURE IV. out of them p ." Whether these expressions are to be understood as describing, strictly speaking, a means by which miracles were wrought, as describing the transmission of a supernatural virtue through material instru- ments, or whether they are to be considered as spoken in condescension to popular notions among the Jews concerning the supernatural, will be differently decided, according to each one's a priori judgment of what is more pious to suppose respecting the mode of operation of Almighty God q . But not only is any logical conclusion out of the question from such partial instances, even if we could as- certain with precision what is intended to be described ; there is not even the remotest presumption to be drawn from these ex- amples in favour of the supernatural theory p Acts xix. 1 2. q With respect also to the narrative, John v. 2 — 7, if it were taken according to the letter, that the water of the pool, when troubled by an angel, produced a miraculous effect ; inasmuch as that would be a supernatural agency, through a material instrument, upon the material bodies of the infirm, no inference or presumption could follow of a material agent, water for instance, being the means of operating a psychical change. But the statement in that passage concerning the descent of an angel is rather founded on popular opinions ; the pool being probably a mineral bath, which became more than usually efficacious, Avhen agitated by subterranean or atmospheric causes. See Jahn's Biblical Archceology , ch. xii. §. 198. LECTURE IV. 133 of the sacraments. For these particulars are not in pari materia with the sacraments, not in the moral subject matter; in those in- stances the power transmitted through the material instrument issued in a material or corporeal result ; in the case of the sacra- ments the result is a moral one, which there- fore implies a moral antecedent". It is not to be wondered at, nor imputed to the dishonour of the theologians of the reformation, who strove so anxiously not only to destroy but to reconstruct ; if, for the most part, confused with traditional dogmas, with a vague metaphysic, with a tendency to worship the letter of the Scripture 8 , with a r And although from the observation of uniformity and law in the material creation we may infer, with great pro- bability, the subordination to law of moral being likewise ; we cannot, from the observation of certain unreduced phe- nomena in one department of being, infer the existence of a specific law in another ; much less, that the mode of apparent deviation in the one case should become the con- stant characteristic in the other. And after all, the dif- ference between those who adopt the moral and those who adopt the supernatural theory concerning " means of grace" is not, whether they act according to a law, but in what terms we can intelligibly express that law. " Si quis dixerit, non dari gratiam per hujusmodi sacramenta semper et om- nibus, quantum est ex parte Dei, etiam si rite ea suscipi- ant, sed aliquando et aliquibus : anathema sit." Concil. Trident, sess. vu. can. 7. s This was particularly the case with Luther ; witness 134 LECTURE IV. necessity for hurrying from what they con- ceived to be grievous superstitions or impi- eties, and for substituting some other systems in their place, they ran into inconsistencies with each other and with themselves. But we of the present day should be falling again into the error of the dogmatic principle, if we determined, that in such and such phrases of such or such a confession of the sixteenth century lies the enunciation, for all time, of the true principle of the sacraments. Yet is there one name most eminent among the foreign reformers, the clear-headed and intrepid Zwingli, who, in treating this subject of the sacraments, anticipated the precision and consistency of modern philosophy. And while Luther, in regard to the holy Eucha- rist, was open to the reproach of teaching a creophagia as gross as that taught in the Romish church ; while Calvin would main- tain a heterogeneity of cause and effect in the sacraments, a spiritual consequence from a material antecedent, and yet not always, only to the elect, and not necessarily there and then 1 ; while Bucer endeavoured by an his pertinacity at Marburg : the colloquy is dramatically given in D' Aubiync, t. iv. pp. u6 sqq. 1 Calvini de Ccena Domini, sub fin. " Uno igitur ore fatemur omncs nos cum juxta Domini institutum fide sacra- LECTURE IV. 135 amiable and temporizing policy to agglutinate churches by fragmentary and inconsistent forms ; Zwingli made clear to himself, and has left a precise exposition of a sacramental theory, not unintelligible and not inconsist- ent with itself. Zwingli saw, that the effect to be produced by the sacraments on the moral being must be produced according to the laws of that being ; he saw, that the sacra- ments were most wisely adapted, by their form and administration, to act through the senses and other faculties upon the moral being : he felt no necessity for seeking any more re- condite mode of their operation". mentum recipimus, substantia corporis et sanguinis Christi vere fieri participes. Quomodo id fiat alii aliis melius de- finire et clarius explicare possunt — animum oportere sur- sum in coelos erigere ne existimemus D. N. I.C. eo dejectum esse ut in elementis corruptibilibus concludatur. Rursum ne vis sacrosancti hujus mysterii imminuatur, cogitare de- bemus id fieri occulta et mirabili Dei virtute : Spiritumque ipsiuSj vinculum esse hujus participationis : qua etiam ob earn causam spiritualis appellator." Br evis formula confes- sionis, " credo tamen eum (in ccena) arcana et incompre- hensibili sui Spiritus virtute fretum, vivificare animas nostras substantia corporis et sanguinis sui." u "Quae sacramentorum virtus. Virtus i ma . Res sanctse et venerandae sunt, utpote a summo sacerdote Christo in- stitute et susceptse. Virtus 2 da . Testimonium rei gestae prsebent. 3 tia virtus. Vice rerum sunt quas significant, unde et nomina earum sortiuntur. 4 ta . Res arduas signifi- cant. Ascendit autem cujusque signi pretium cum sesti- matione rei cujus est signum." As a ring given in token 136 LECTURE IV. In this country indeed for many years, little justice has been done, as it seems to me, either to the abilities or the motives of this reformer. For no man was more in advance of his age, of the prejudices of his own Romish educa- tion, or of the prejudices of the movement in which he was engaged. We cannot indeed praise in him the democratic vehemence with of espousal or investiture is not valued at its intrinsic worth, but with respect to that which it signifies. " 5 ta virtus est, Analogia symbolorum et rei significat?e. 6 ta . Auxilium opemque adferunt fidei. Et hoc prse om- nibus facit eucharistia." And as Satan endeavours to win us through the treachery of our own bodies, " Cum ergo sensus alio vocantur quam ut aurem illi prsebeant, jam minus procedit ejus consilium. In eucharistia quat- tuor potentissimi immo universi sensus a carnis cupidi- tatibus velut vindicantur ac redimuntur. Auditus cum jam — ccelestem voceni audit ; Sic Dominus Dens dilexit mundum etc. — Qui jamjam moriturus etc. Cum ista in- quam auditus accipit, an non totusconsternatur et admira- bundus in hoc unum quod prredicatur intentus est ? Visus cum panem videt et calicem — an non et ille fidei obse- quitur? Tactus panem in manus sumit, qui jam non panis sed Christus est significatione. Gustus olfactusquc et ipsi hue advocantur, ut odorent quam suavis sit Dominus. In baptismo, visus, auditus, tactusquc advocantur ad fidei opus. Sunt ergo saeramenta velut frena (////bus sensus, ad r a j)it a sua excursuri, revocuutur ac retrahuntur ut menti fideique obsecundent. 7 ma Sacramcntorum vis est. Quod vice jusjurandi sunt. Qui enim unis eisdemque sacra- mentis utuntur, una eademque gens ac sancta quondam conjuratio fiunt, etc." Zwinglii expositio Chr. fid. Niemeyer, VV-5°-53- LECTURE IV. 137 which he destroyed the ecclesiastical frame- work'' ; but for clearness of head and pre- cision of thought and language none of the Reformers, not even Calvin, surpassed him ; none equalled him in capacity for dealing with theological questions, when they are in- volved in metaphysical abstractions. With respect to the subject immediately before us, he alone of the continental reformers per- ceived, that all spiritual influence, and sacra- mental influence too, must operate according to laws y . Although we cannot in any case wholly trace the laws of any divine agency, although x Yet it admits of the same plea of local political neces- sity which is allowed to palliate many proceedings of re- formers elsewhere. y Zwingli's movement was not only independent of, but if any thing anterior to, that of Luther. As early as 15 1 6, the year before Luther's theses, he preached publicly against superstitious pilgrimages and superstitious honour paid to images. He has been less celebrated than Luther or Calvin, partly because his followers were not named after him ; partly because the movement which he directed was less connected with political relations, than those of the other reformers ; and from his premature death other men reaped the credit of that which he had done, or stayed the accomplishment of that which he had left incomplete. With the exception of the short account of Myconius, De vita et obitu Zwinglii, no contemporary undertook his history. The first life of him which appeared in Ger- man was in 1776 by Felix Nyscheler, professor of theology at Zurich. 138 LECTURE IV. in fact at some point our chain stretching back and up towards the first cause must break off, so that we must assume a connection which we cannot verify, yet it would both be unphi- losophical and shew want of piety, to ima- gine immediate and occult influences, where known powers of human nature and known laws, according to which it may be influenced, would account for results. Acting through the imagination upon the emotions and affections, and so through the affections upon the deliberate will, the sacra- ments are evidently most wisely adapted, according to the laws of our nature, to operate upon it for its purification and improvement. And thus St. Paul, for a moral purpose, pre- sents to the imagination of the Romans the recollection of their baptism, that it may pro- duce its hortative effect : " Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death : that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life 2 ." And not only is the effect, which the Apostle teaches us to look for in the sacraments, a moral and personal one, the forms of the sacraments are themselves suggestive of, and therefore become signs effectual of grace, and of the grace of / Rom. vi. 4. LECTURE IV. 139 charity above all others. " For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free a ;" and " For we, being many are one bread, and one body ; for we are all partakers of that one bread b ." In this way indeed, the sacramental influ- ence can become a binding influence in the communion of saints, so far as the relative character of Christians one towards another is thereby quickened and brought out. But in such degree only as these ordinances are, by the constitution of our nature, suggestive, can common participators presume them to have an effect common to each and all. The two sacraments, as they are of our Lord's own institution, are also evidently in their own nature and form the most distin- guishing and peculiar ordinances of the Christian worship; and, together with the Lord's prayer, the only parts of it which are of perpetual obligation, and expressly ap- pointed by Him for universal observance and adoption. But nothing can more stand in the way of their instrumental efficacy towards the true Christian edification, than the coupling with a i Cor. xii. 13. b ! Cor. x. 17. 140 LECTURE IV. them vague theories of occult and arbitrary influence. Doubtless we cannot limit the power of Almighty God to attach an immediate influ- ence to any material sign ; but in the ab- sence of His declaring that He has done so, it is maintained to be most consistent with what we know of His dealings, to suppose that he has not. And nothing can be more unfair polemically, not to say morally uncha- ritable, than to attribute to those, who making Holy Writ their rule and not finding sacra- mental influence, as popularly understood, to be provable thereby, do not think it pious to presume it, a wilful blindness to the truth, or a headstrong judging of the ways of the Almighty. Upon observation of the course and pro- gress of humanity, it appears, that for con- victions and principles to become deep-seated and habitual, there is need, during the period of moral and religious childhood, of a per- suasion of direct and immediate divine sanc- tions and interpositions. In a more advanced stage, when the principles have taken root, the notions of immediate interference may be eliminated without risk. Thus to a child, or to men in a child-like condition, the convic- tion of a Divine Providence can scarcely grow LECTURE IV. 141 up, except under the protecting persuasion of a changing action on the part of God pro re nata ; nor the feeling of a moral responsi- bility, without the encouraging sight, as it then seems, of special judgments on the wicked and special blessings on the just. Afterwards, not only do these convictions, both of the pro- vidential and moral government of God, re- main unshaken, but their growth and vigour is increased, when men rise to the recognition of God acting through laws. The popular notion of sacramental influ- ence is undoubtedly to be tolerated, as a possible opinion, as an opinion suited to the stage of advancement of those minds, which cannot reach to the idea of law in moral being. But as a dominant and necessary doctrine, it would depress the religious intellect below the level of the non-religious understanding, and cause a further severance and subdivision in any church, hitherto free on that subject, in which it should be developed into an ar- ticle of faith. But looking on the two sacraments as the most characteristic parts of the Christian wor- ship, it will be seen, according to the lower view as some will esteem it, but according to the far higher one as I venture to think it, that like other parts of the worship they 142 LECTURE IV. combine in themselves two distinct offices ; which for convenience may be called the sug- gestive or effective and the representative. By the suggestive or effective office of the sacraments is meant, that they set before the eyes of each member of the Christian commu- nion certain facts, truths, motives, and obliga- tions, and so effect a certain condition in him, become efficacia signa gratia. By the represen- tative is meant, that each member of the con- gregation declares to the congregation, his recognition of the truths, his acknowledgment of the motives and his submission to the obli- gations . I am not saying, that there is not, even in public worship, a direct appeal of the individual to the Supreme Being, but the pro- per intention of public worship in general, and of the sacraments in particular, is to sub- serve the edification of the communion. In the sacrament of baptism the suggestive or effective office appears almost exclusively ; in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper the two offices effective and representative are more evidently combined. And thus the sacra- ment of baptism may well be administered to infants, not as though any psychical change c " Sacrameuta in testimonium publicum ejus gratiae quae cuique private- prius adest." Zwinglii fidei ratio, Nie- meyer, p. 25. LECTURE IV. 143 were then and there wrought ; not as though an effect were produced on the consciousness, when consciousness has not as yet supervened upon sensation ; an intellectual effect, when there is no intellect ; an effect on the recog- nition of relations, when no cognitional power is developed ; an effect on the moral soul when there is as yet no will, or perception of good and evil : but as most consistent with the in- stitution of Christ ; as signing and sealing to the receiver an interest in the redemption and remission of sins ; and as preserving for future influence the full moral force of the words, " Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The infant may indeed be placed in a new condition, well worthy of being called a new birth, but in comparison of what it may become, it is in an imperfect and negative condition, it is rather a possibility than a reality, a material than a work or product. But as soon as, and at whatever time, and in whatever degree of strength and perseverance, the religious consciousness awakens, the re- membrance of the baptism is there, to pre- sent the peculiar Christian ideas of moral obligation which are signified by it. And this suggestive use of the appeal to the 144 LECTURE IV. baptism is common in the apostolic writ- ings. But the progress and perfection of the Christian consciousness follows a parallel or similar course to that of the mere conscious- ness. For this seems to awake out of a state of unconsciousness in the very act or energy of recognising self as an agent or patient, that is in a relation : and it becomes more and more perfect as it embraces the recog- nition of more and more extended relations. In like manner the Christian consciousness becomes more and more perfect through some such degrees as the following. 1. First awakens the mere religious consciousness, whereby we recognise ourselves in relation to a great power external to ourselves, to a supe- rior and Supreme Being. 2. Complementary hereto is the consciousness of our relation also to the universe over which His supremacy ex- tends. 3. Next arises the imperfect and as yet one-sided because isolated consciousness, whereby we recognise our own redemption and restoration. 4. Complementary to which there supervenes finally the consciousness of the restoration also of the whole human race, to which we stand in relation, not only as part of the same creation, but as part also of the same restoration. LECTURE IV. 145 And in the celebration of the Lord's Sup- per, which appeals distinctly to this fully deve- loped Christian consciousness, while the sug- gestive office of the sacrament remains, the representative one becomes prominent. For therein each one declares to the rest, not only his memory of that precious death, not only his purposes and his confidence as an individual believer, but also his obliga- tion, too much lost sight of among us, to build up the temple of the Lord. So in- completely does the word recipient express the representative act in the holy commu- nion ; so little does the word communicate comprehend all the significancy of that most sacred rite, unless it be taken to include, not only partaking, but imparting. While any other view of the sacraments, and especially of that of the Lord's Supper, tends to cherish the isolating, subjective, sign- seeking, and, as it may be called, selfish reli- gious disposition, under this, they indicate and subserve the true binding principle of the communion of saints. Each one repre- sents himself thereby, as ready to follow in his Master's steps, in His character of self-sacri- ficer ; each one, when he hears the words " This is my body which is given for you, Do this in remembrance of me," declares him- 146 LECTURE IV. self as answering, " Yea Lord, I am ready, in remembrance of Thee, to give also my body for the extension of Thy kingdom :" " This is my blood which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins ;" " Yea Lord, I am ready to shed my blood also, if thereby men's sins can be blotted out." And thus are connected by St. John the antecedent in the death of Christ, and the consequent self-devotion on the part of the true follower, which are both so strikingly pourtrayed together in that most sacred ordi- nance : " Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us : and we ought to lay down our lives for the bre- thren." LECTURE V. Gal. i. S, 4. Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver zis from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father. LET us constantly bear in mind, that the prin- ciple of communion of which we are in search must be a catholic principle, capable of unit- ing, perfecting, and indefinitely extending the Christian society ; capable in order thereto of universal recognition : it must appeal to a common sense. With peculiar certainty, the test of universal applicability is here a test of truth. In whatever degree certain quali- ties may contribute to the perfection of the personal Christian character, as long as they retain the personal character only, there is not to be looked for among them the binding principle of Christian communion. l 2 148 LECTURE V. And a variety of principles, wherein, ac- cording to different theological systems, the essence of catholic union or the communion of saints may be thought to consist, so far from serving towards union, combination and communion, tend rather, for want of a rela- tive character and power, to severance and isolation. Nor yet, although the divine knowledge comprehends in one all the separate Christian elements, can this knowledge, uncommuni- cated to us, be considered as supplying, to as, a bond of union between such scattered units 6 . If two men, unknown to each other, be beloved by some third superior person, who knows them worthy of his affection, though they severally have union with him, they have not thereby society with each other : what- ever their devotion to him, or his love to them, if they are not consciously in relation to one another, they cannot be said to be in communion one with the other. " I know my a " Semper in conspectu sit omnibus hoc Pauli dictum ; Qtfos elegit, hos vocavit. Quotiescunque de ecclesia cogi- tamus, intueamur coetum vocatorum, qui est ecclesia visi- bilis, nee alibi electos ullos esse somniemus nisi in hoc ipso coetu visibili .... nee aliam fingamus ccclesiam invi- sibilem et mutam hominum in hac vita tamen manen- tium." Melanchthon, Loci Communes, vol. i. p. 283. LECTURE V. 149 sheep," says our Lord, "and am known of mine b ;" which text does not as yet touch the idea of communion between the members ; nor yet does this ; " The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal ; The Lord knoweth them that are his ;" nor yet what follows ; " Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity ;" un- less so far as the character there intended is one which acts and is acted upon by example of life with mutual consciousness. " That they may be one even as we are one' 1 ," indi- cates communion, for there is mutual know- ledge and concurring design. And so like- wise, " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another 6 ." But before opening further the relative character of the saints, it will be necessary to examine briefly into the claim to furnish the principle of saintly communion : 1. Of the ascetic life and of kindred arti- ficial discipline : 2. And also of the virtuous life considered as a personal state or condition. I. With respect then to such asceticism as terminates in the individual, (and of asceti- cism, or what may be termed so in a higher b John x. 14. c 2 Tim. ii. 19. d John xvii. 22. e John xiii. 35. 150 LECTURE V. sense, we shall have to speak in a subsequent Lecture,) it is evident, that it must have an isolating tendency, and not a tendency to communion. For although there have been societies of ascetics, the asceticism has been perpetuated by the society and not the society bound together in a vital manner or propa- gated by the asceticism. There may even be a contagious influence in asceticism, as there is in dogmatism and in mysticism. But the tendency to asceticism is derived essen- tially from an excess of attention reflected by the individual upon his own moral condition, coupled with a persuasion, that mortification or pain is the specific instrument of moral purification, and that God will be pleased, under certain circumstances, with the pain of his creatures in itself. Certainly views of this kind have been found in the world under other systems than the Christian ; but this, of itself, neither proves their falsity nor their truth. For they might, in heathen systems, not be essential to the errors, but independent of them, and ad- mixtures of truth. And on the other hand, when they have been met with in the Chris- tian church, it is not to be presumed at once, that they have been of the essence of Chris- tianity. LECTURE V. 151 The persuasion of mortification and pain being in themselves purifying as regards the sufferer, and in themselves satisfying to God, may be traced very far back in the oriental re- ligions. Indeed it is characteristic of one of the earliest religious conditions, wherein man dei- fies every apparent power which acts upon him, and recognises among those powers some which inflict evil and are to be propitiated, as well as others which bestow good and are to be invoked. For when he attributes his own passions to these powers or to the Supreme Being, he attributes to them vengeance and anger f ; because he is himself, as yet, in a state f The inclination to regard God as subject to anger and as the author of vindictive punishments is deep-seated in man, or rather is a sentiment, which invariably emerges, when his religious conceptions are in a certain stage of development. But some heathens have risen above it, while many Christians have relapsed into it. "Nam, ut Plato ait, nemo prudens punit, quia peccatum est, sed ne peccetur. Revocari enim prseterita non possunt; futura prohibentur." Seneca, de Ira, i. 16. Ov yap i-nl koikco 81*77 yiyverai ovbep,[a. Plat. Leg. ix. §. 2. Ylpoa-qnei he iravrl ™ ev TL[X(opiq. ovtl vtt a.X\ov opOois TLfAoopovpevu) 1) /3eAnWi yiyveadai nal ovivacrOai ?} irapaheiyp,aTt. reus aAAotv yiyveaOai. Gorg. §. 170; also Protag. §.39. Uoppco 6Wes tov dhzvcu otl ovbels debs hvavovs avdpa>TroLs. Thecetet. §.22. The di- vine perfections also preclude the supposition of punish- ment, when not serving to correction or example, being required in vindication of the divine honour; " Quando igitur aut spes magna est, ut is, qui peccavit, citra pcenam ipse sese ultro corrigat : aut spes contra nulla est emen- 152 LECTURE V. of barbarism ; and on the principle, tjttov 6pyl- tfivrai toIs eavrovs \o\d^pvai, he anticipates, as he thinks, the divine anger by inflicting pu- nishment on himself. It is not within the scope of the present un- dertaking to inquire, how priesthoods, partly through ignorance, partly seduced unawares by the attractions of power, partly from more corrupt motives, have at times encouraged views, 1. of mortification being a method of expiation, purification, and atonement for sin; 2. of mortification, being a means of reaching a high state of perfection. But here it may be worth while to notice, that there were two distinct historical sources of the supposed purifying discipline, which dari eum posse et corrigi : aut jacturam dignitatis, in quam peccutum est metui non necessum est : aut non id peccatum est, cujus exernplo necessario metu succurrendum sit : turn, quicquid ita delictum est, uon sane diguum esse imponendas poenaj studium visum est." Aid. Gelt. N. A. vi. c. 14. Lactantius argues, that anger is in man a neces- sary stimulus to induce him to punish, and is a passion proper to be roused on some occasions ; whence he infers the existence of the passion in Almighty God, who made man in his own image. " Hie non cohibenda ira sed ctiam si jacet excitanda est Quod autem de homine dicimus, id etiam de Deo, qui hominem similem sui fecit. Omitto de figura Dei diccrc, quia Stoici negent habere ullam for- mam Deum ; ct ingens materia nascetur, si cos coarguerc vclimus ; de animo tantum loqnor." De Ira Dei, c. xvur. ()/>/). Paris. 174^. t. ii. p. 168. LECTURE V. 153 has at times been carried to superstitious degrees in different parts of the Church. These sources were external to the Church itself, and are to be found in the different Gnosticisms of Syria and Egypt g . The Gnosticism of Egypt was founded upon, or modified by a very different native theology from that of Syria. The ancient theology of Egypt had been a cosmical and pantheistic system, although it had degene- rated into a Polytheism with inner mys- teries. The mythology of Zoroaster, on the other hand, was taken from the human and moral point of view. Gnosticism belongs, pro- perly speaking, to Egypt ; to Persia and the adjoining countries Manicheism. The ob- s The distinction between the Syrian and Egyptian Gnosticisms, if they shall both be so called, is described with sufficient precision thus ; " La famille des Gnos- tiques de Syrie se rattache d'une maniere immediate au dualisme de l'Asie centrale, considere la creation entiere comme le domaine d'une puissance ennemie de Dieu, et pretend se distinguer de la societe Chretienne, si severe dans ses niceurs, par un ascetisme plus pur et des abne- gations plus eclatantes. Les Gnostiques d'Egypte, plus fideles au Platonisme Philonien et a la sagesse de l'ancienne Egypte, aspirent au monde intellectuel comme au seul veritable, dedaignent le monde materiel comme la source de toute espece de mah et se glorifient de spiritualiser encore davantage des doctrines que les Chretiens consi- dered comme le type du spiritualisme." Matter, Histoire du Christianisme, t. i. p. 167. 154 LECTURE V. ject of the former was the true, of the latter the good ; yvcocris as superior to irians, the credence of historically-occurring facts as they appear, was with the Gnostic the pene- trating into the doctrine intended to be con- veyed by them ; but the object of the Zo- roastrian was a moral TeXelcoai?. Besides their geographical points of contact, the two systems had this in common, that the sub- jection of the material and corporeal was necessary to both ; in the one case, to un- fettered contemplation, in the other, to a perfect restoration to life, light, and good. But still, as an instrument of the contem- plative, monachism is native, strictly speak- ing, to Egypt, and is born of Gnosticism. While as a supposed instrument of moral purification, asceticism is indigenous to Persia, and belongs to the more corrupt forms of Zo- roastrian speculation, such as Manicheism' 1 . h Concerning the ancient pantheistic theology of Egypt, see Roth, Geschichte abendland. Philosophie, Der iigyp- tische Glaubenskreis ; and for the Zoroastrian, in the same work, Die zoroastrische Speculation. The original Persian theology had also undoubtedly been a cosmical one, {Herod. I. 131.) but the system of Zoroaster had reformed or super- seded it. He Mas apparently contemporary with Hystaspes the father of Darius. l\4paais 8e roi? vvv ra ju.ei> Trporepa f-Orj cr^bdv tl airavra Trapelrcu aju.eA.ei /ecu dyareYpcnrrai, aA- Acucus oe run /cat olov va-oOevp.evoLs \pS>vTai vojj.ifxois, e/c t&v LECTURE V. 155 When asceticism and monachism in com- bination passed from Egypt and the East into the West, they became much modified from various causes ; partly from varying circumstances, in which Christianity there found itself, and partly from differences in climate and in the races which occupied those regions ; whence practices not uncom- mon in the East were rendered physically impossible in the West. The asceticism of the West was never so severe as that of the East; and anchorites, presenting the extreme of the monastic life who were so multiplied in Egypt and the East, were never numerous in the West 1 . But so deeply was Christianity tinctured with principles, which were in fact alien to its own spirit, that practices of self-denial and self-infliction came to be considered, for many ages, as having in themselves a superiority of holiness. During the growth of Chris- tianity, that is, while it was spreading over the Roman Empire, it carried with it maxims and institutions, which were in reality extra- ZwpodcrTpov tov 'Opjudo"8ecos StSay/xdrwy Kara/cr/A^eWes k. t. A. Agathias, Hist. II. fo. Par. 1660. p. 62. 1 Hermits, properly speaking, are those who retire from the world into the desert; anchorites, those who retire from the comparative seclusion of the cloister into a more perfect solitude and isolation. 156 LECTURE V. neous to itself. By the very force of its own truth it ensured the prevalence of the false also which w^as mixed up with it. And although public policy, social happiness, and private morality were opposed to, or en- dangered by monastic seclusion and obliga- tions self-imposed for the sake of self; states, by reason of their weakness, were fain to re- cognise the validity of rules, which withdrew men from their relative duties, from useful labour, from public functions and burdens ; to acknowledge the legality of oaths, by which they were deposed from their own supremacy, and to sanction or allow the formation of societies within their own bo- som, which must become more powerful than themselves k . k It is essential to the effectual supremacy of a state over its individual members, that it should be cognizant of all vows and oaths, with which they bind themselves ; and it is necessary to the uniform administration of justice, that all obligations not contracted with its sanction should be absolutely null and void. But when opinion and con- viction in individuals becomes sufficiently convergent to be stronger than previously recognised policy, it brings about a change in existing laws, which was exemplified in the influence of Christianity generally on the laws of the Roman empire. In reference to the immediate subject, the honour in which celibacy was held by the Christians caused the abrogation of the penalties enacted by the Julian and Papian laws as early as the time of Constantino. This was an instance, in which the religious sentiment LECTURE V. 157 As the doctrine of Christ bore along with its streams many a corruption utterly foreign to itself, interpolations from Manicheism and from the reveries of an Ammonius ; so upon the institution of the Church, the Commu- nion of all Saints, were engrafted barbarous fraternities which took their origin from an Anthony or a Pachomius. It is not intended to deny, that eminent services have, at many times, been rendered to humanity, by associations of men willing to employ themselves in good works for the sake of others : it is not intended to detract for instance from the honour due to the noble Benedictine order, although the first with- drawal of the founder from the world were somewhat too theatrical ; although he set the ill example of fettering men's con- sciences by a perpetual vow 1 ; although we effected an alteration in the public policy. The restraints placed by our own laws of mortmain upon the disposition of property is an instance, on the other hand, of the public policy, originating in or sustained by general opinion, repressing the action of the individual religious sentiment. De Rhcer, De effectu rel. Christ, in jurisp. Rom. Groning. 1776. Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, xxxin. 21. 1 Hitherto the Roman Church has shewn no dispo- sition to relax or modify the monastic vow in respect of stability. In the synod of Pistoia an attempt was made to regulate such vows on another principle than that of the perpetual obligation ; " Votum perpeture stabilitatis nunquam tolerandum. Non illud norant veteres monachi, 158 LECTURE V. must condemn, as equally impolitic and im- moral, the provision of his Rule, whereby children might be bound, by the act of their guardians, with the shackles of a lifelong obligation™. qui tamen ecclesise consolatio et Christianismi ornamentum extiterunt. Vota castitatis, paupertatis et obedientise nou admittencla instar communis et stabilis regular. Si quis ea vota, aut omnia, aut aliqua facere voluerit, consilium et veniam ab episcopo postulabit, qui tamen nunquam per- mittet, ut perpetua sint, nee anni fines excedent. Tan- tummodo facultas dabitur ea renovandi sub iisdem con- ditionibus." And concerning nuns; "Vota perpetua usque ad annum 40, aut 45, non admittenda." But such reforms were condemned at Rome ; " Systema vigentis atque jam antiquitus probata? ac receptee discipline subversivum, perniciosum, constitutionibus apostolicis et plurium con- ciliorum etiam generalium, turn speciatim Tridentini sanc- tionibus oppositum et injuriosum, favens haereticorum in monastica vota et regularia instituta stabiliori consiliorum evangelicorum professioni addicta con\-iciis et calunmiis." Damn Syn. Pist. lxxxiv. §. 10. Art. 6. §. 1 1. m The Rule consists of 73 chapters, (Galland. Bib/. PP. t. xi. p. 298.;) c. 5Q; "Si quis forte de nobilibus offert filium suum Deo in monasterio, si ipse puer minori letate est, parentes ejus faciant petitionem, quam supra diximus. Et cum oblatione ipsam petitionem, et manum pueri involvant in palla altaris et sic euro offerant." So likewise the 4th council of Toledo; "Monachum aut paterna devotio, aut propria professio facit, quicquid horum fecerit alligatum tenebit. Proinde his ad mundum revertendi intercludimus aditum et ad sseculum interdicimus rcgres- sum." The question as to the obligation arising from such devotion was debated with reference to a nephew of Bernard's ; who was claimed by the monks of Clunv, where his parents had offered him, and by those of Ci- LECTURE V. 159 We should be far then from including in an hasty and general condemnation all men who have belonged to, or all men who have founded, advocated, or extended religious orders and associations, having regard to the historical causes of such phenomena and to their being an evidence, in many cases, of the action of a true Christian principle. That the religious orders arose for the most part when they did was a necessary conse- quence, in conjunction with causes already re- marked, of the Christian party having become the dominant one in the Empire and civil- ised world. When the general communion embraced a more indiscriminate multitude, it followed naturally, that smaller societies should be formed, within the bosom of the Church, aiming at a higher perfection than the generality, of the mixture of whose worldly principles with their spiritual pro- teaux, where his uncle had admitted him. Bernard urged the question as to which act should be valid, " Utrum illud quod factum est de ipso per ahum ipso nesciente, an illud quod sciens et prudens de se ipso fecit/' Ep. 324. But the Pope (Calixtus II.) caused Robert to return to Cluny. By the Council of Trent no regular profession can be made before the age of 16 years. Sess. xxv. c. 15. The mo- nastic vow is considered as a matter of discipline ; conse- quently it has been held competent to the Church to vary its rules. See, Mege, Commentaire sur la Regie de S. Benoit. Paris, 1687. pp. 695 — 698. 160 LECTURE V. fession they could not approve. And if there were mingled with these stricter livers some or many, whose motives were of an earthly or ambitious character, and if with others the personal end and aim were too exclusively in view, it is because it is dif- ficult for many men to propose definitely to themselves one and the same excellent aim, and to address themselves consistently and perseveringly to its attainment. To some of the same principles which in medieval times occasioned the rise of the religious orders, we are to attribute partly the severance of Protestants into numerous sects and parties. This is not solely the consequence, as is usually supposed, of the unlimited exercise of private judgment, but has been owing, in many instances, to a sincere anxiety to reach a strictness of life and exclusive devotion to spiritual things, which can never appear as a characteristic of a large society. With contemplative ascetics, inflictions of pain are prompted by an intention of de- pressing the corporeal part of our compound nature, in order to elevate the intellectual or spiritual ; which method would be consistent with a Platonic theory, but hardly so with a really Christian doctrine, according to which LECTURE V. 1(51 the dignity of the body is so highly en- hanced : nor yet would it accord with a true philosophical view ; for it appears, as far as we have evidence, that the body, so far from being a clog; or hinderance to the soul, is, in this world, the necessary instrument of all its energies and acts. In respect, however, to moral asceticism, and to the question, whether inflictions of pain are to be considered of the nature of expiation and satisfaction ; there is no proof, either from the reason of the thing, or from the declarations of Scripture, when they are stripped of their figurative anthropopathetic imagery, that hu- man pain and suffering can in themselves make compensation, even in a secondary sense, for wickedness done ; or that the divine forgiveness is suspended upon the suffering by the sinner of a due penalty for his deeds". n The idea of penal satisfaction not only sustains the doctrine of Purgatory, but also forms part of the Romish theory of Penance. The medicinal treatment of the of- fender by means of penance is recognised, but there are superadded the notions of a compensating effect, and of a vindictive chastisement. " Proculdubio enim magnopere a peccato revocant, et quasi freno quodam coercent hse satisfactorise poense, cautioresque et vigilantiores in futurum poenitentes efficiunt; medentur quoque peccatorum re- liquiis, et vitiosos habitus male vivendo comparatos con- trariis virtutum actionibus tollunt. Neque vero securior ulla via in ecclesia Dei unquam existimata fait ad amo- M 162 LECTURE V. And with respect to any purifying effect of pain upon the soul, it may have been supposed to have such effect, properly speak- ing and in itself, by those who were not capable of tracing the laws, through which it operates upon the moral nature. For under certain circumstances, and applied in a cer- tain way, it tends to determine the will ; especially by directing or diverting the at- tention, conduces to a true judgment, which is necessary to a right will. Yet that pain is not the only and neces- sary or specific instrument in the medicinal moral treatment is evident from this con- sideration ; that in some natures it has a tendency even to confirm vices, and to sug- gest obstinacy and rebellion. Besides, in many cases the employment rather of plea- sures than pains may be effectual to the cor- rection of the moral nature : and we learn even from pagan philosophy, that a vicious pleasure may be expelled, either by its cog- nate pain, or by an heterogeneous pleasure. vendam imminentem a Domino poenam, quara ut haec pcenitentiae opera homines cum vero animi dolore fre- quentent. — Habeant autem prsc oculis (sacerdotes), ut satisfactio quam imponunt, non sit tantum ad nova vitw custodiam, et infirmitatis medicamentum, sed etiam ad prcc- teritorum peccatorum vindictam et castiffationem." Cone. Trid. Sess. xiv. c. 8. LECTURE V. 163 Pain can have no morally purifying effect, unless it be by reason of its adaptation to act ultimately on the will ; if the will were non-existent, the pain or penalty could not purify. Pain suffered by a being incapable of will, a being merely sentient, could in no intelligible sense be said to purify him. It can only purify in a moral sense one who is a moral being. And the purification of a moral being can only be such when it ope- rates on the will, so as to determine it for the future, because the very essence of the moral being, including the idea of agency, con- sists in the will. The mere perception of con- sequences as unprofitable and to be regretted, the clearing even of the judgment, unless that which was before sought be now avoided, and that which before was avoided be now sought, implies no essential change in the moral nature : to which amounts the usual distinction betw T een juera/xeAe/a and fieravola. If by the course of Providence in this world, and from providential chastisements, it should result, that a deep conviction of the evil of sin in itself should be produced in some man's heart, so deep as to ensure the determination of the will to good for the future, and yet such future evidence and fruit should be cut off by death or some m 2 164 LECTURE V. deathlike visitation, we cannot doubt, that such conviction will be rightly judged by an omniscient Being. But inasmuch as the will would not be seen to issue in act, we should not be enabled to say, that such change had occurred in the moral nature, or was complete. Now, if in the way of religious discipline or penitential purification, artificial pain be inflicted, that is, pain having no natural con- nection with the antecedent faults ; and if at the same time the opportunity of determin- ing to act be cut off, by isolation in the cloister, or the like ; and no course of action be left open, but such as has no reference whatever to the evil which is intended to be corrected ; here we cannot say, we can- not have any reason even to presume, that real purification or moral change of nature has been accomplished. And, generally stated, when pain is submitted to volun- tarily, without reference to a precise end, a habit of insensibility may supervene, but not a habit of any specific virtue : and when with a specific end proposed, the painful acts or restraints are valuable entirely with re- ference to that end, and are not to be consi- dered as of any worth in themselves. It is not to be denied, that a judicious LECTURE V. 165 moral discipline, administered without super- stition, and submitted to with sincere desire for improvement, might be an eminently useful Christian means of grace to indi- viduals. But as long as the personal ame- lioration, wrought out we will suppose by such discipline, is its own end, it has not, by its very hypothesis, the relative character, which belongs to members of a communion as such. II. With regard to the second part of the subject of the present Lecture, namely, whether the virtuous condition, considered as personal, can supply the principle of union among Christians ; it need not be explained or insisted on in this place, that even by heathen moralists man was not considered as morally perfect, unless the relative charac- ter were developed in him as well as the personal ; and that to the development of the relative or social character is necessary, not only participation in common interests, but also mutual action and reaction. Over that ground we will not therefore now go. But inasmuch as the Christian society is, in some sense, taken out of the world, there are superadded to other moral obligations, or running parallel with them, certain special moral ideas, or moral senses, or graces, the 166 LECTURE V. ideas of duty towards God and also of saving the soul. And it may be thought, that these special moral senses, the sense of duty to God, or the sense of the value, risk, and de- liverance under the Gospel of one's own soul, although personal senses, are the binding principles of the Christian body. I pur- posely say superadded, because there cer- tainly is a sense of moral obligation, even where these other senses do not as yet exist, or exist only in a rudimental state. They are not the origin of the sense of obligation, but are completions of it, additional strands, as it were, to the cord, by which as a moral being man is already bound, before he is brought under the Gospel of grace. For among the heathens we have the ex- ample of a sense of moral obligation implied and maintained by their moralists, and evi- dently acted upon in life, independently of any reference to a great Moral Governor ; even antecedently to the development among them of the idea of such a Being. But when that idea developes itself, and penetrates man- kind, the sense of moral obligation is fortified by it, attaches itself to it, and extends itself in consequence ; as may be seen in Cicero's famous condemnation of suicide. It does not therefore appear, that the superadding LECTURE V. 167 of this sense of personal duty to God, though infinitely stronger and more definite in Chris- tians than it could be in heathens, can in itself supply any principle of union among Christians, until the consciousness of other re- lations has been added to it ; unless there is also explicitly connected with it the convic- tion, that others also are His creatures, and that He works through us and by us upon His creatures. Nor indeed will the sense of the value or excellence of our own souls become a principle of union, until there has been super- added to that likewise a sense of the value of the souls of others, of our specific relations to them and power of acting upon them. And it seems to me, that even when we speak of our duty to our neighbour, we are usually led too much to think of acts of ours towards him, rather as they issue from us than as they affect him ; rather too, as they return in the way of benefit upon ourselves, as a service which God will reward in us, than as they terminate in him and benefit him ; which falls very short of the true notion of Christian charity. And therefore these higher senses of duty to God, of the value of our soul, of acknowledgment and thank- fulness for redemption and sanctification, may very possibly coexist with an excessive 168 LECTURE V. development in the individual of the per- sonal element, perhaps have some tendency, unless watchfully counteracted, towards that very excess, and are far from supplying the bond of Christian communion, wherein the relative character of Christians must be pro- minent. To suppose a man selfishly addicted to gain, pleasure, honour, or any worldly pur- suit, in accordance with the dictates of a mere worldly prudence, careless of and therefore sacrificing the interests of others to his own objects, we acknowledge, that he does not represent the true type of man. Let it be supposed now, that for the worldly objects, there be substituted future and hea- venly prospects, but still with the same ex- clusive view to self, that the salvation of himself takes the place of the gratification of himself. This man would now be as in- complete in the Christian character, as he had under the other supposition been in the mere human character. And the remedy for this one-sidedness would not be to deepen his impressions concerning his own spiritual state, to elevate his emotions, or to render him more and more certain and assured of his personal acceptance. This would in fact be only to aggravate a disorder, equally so under LECTURE V. 169 whatever doctrinal system it might take place. But the remedy would be, to make known to him, if possible to make him feel, that none approaches to the perfection of the Christian character, to the true imitation of Christ, un- less his own condition becomes in turn a cause, and active upon the condition of others. This agency, according to each man's power and op- portunities, is a juster measure of his character, one upon which he is less likely to run into error, than any other merely inward test or any outward test which he can apply. As each one has received, though freely, and without any merit of his own, yet, mediately through his fellowcreatures, who were his teachers, so should he freely give ; it is by that which every joint supplieth, that the Church groweth to be a holy temple to the Lord. And herein appears again the eminence of that great Reformer, who has already been mentioned with honour, in that he con- sidered what is technically called the cor- ruption of the human nature, to consist especially in a want of just balance between the personal and relative characters ; that the disposition to self-love is in men dis- proportionate to their love of their kind, considering their constitution, capacities, and circumstances : thus shewing a penetration 170 LECTURE V. and a just psychological view far in advance of his age . And although this statement may not be considered in itself dogmatically complete, in that the corruption of man is not therein explicitly tied to the natural en- ° Melanclithon recognises the corruption of the human nature as being evidenced in the disorder or want of balance between the several affections, and especially in the want of adjustment between our love of ourselves and our love of God : " Ignorationem Dei, dubitationes, esse sine timore Dei, sine dilectione, manifestum est defectus esse ; sed et defectus ara^ia in amore nostri, quod videlicet turbato ordine Saul magis amat sese quam Deum : sic et de aliis pravis inclinationibus judicetur. Hanc drafiW omnium appetitionum scriptores vocarunt concupiscentiam. Loci Communes, De peccato originis. Opp. Erlangen, 1828. t. i. p. 92. But the undue preponderance of the ego- tistical over the social is thus presented by Zwingli : " Eadem ergo conditione omnes ex eo nati sumus. Unde etiam fit, ut quicquid cogitemus, nostra causa cogitemus, rebus nostris consulamus : ac prorsus per omnia sic ince- damus, ut omnia nostra esse, nobis servire, nos autem super omnia esse cupiamus....Est ergo ista ad peccandum, amore sui, propensio, peccatum originale : qua? quidem propensio non est proprie peccatum, sed fons quidam ac ingenium. . . . Peccatum autem in nobis inhabitans, aliud non est, quam vitium corruptee carnis, quae amore sui per- petuo concupiscit adversus spiritum. Spiritus enim rei- publicai studet, caro privatoe : non enim consulit sibi deus, sed a se conditis, cum ipse nullius egeat, ejus omnia;... amor sui ex quo tot mala velut ex equo Trojano pro- deunt." De peccato or'ujinali ad Urb. Rhegium, Opp. Tiguri, 158 1. t. 2. pp. 115 sq. Compare Moehler's Sym- bolik, pp. 66, 67. Zwingli's letter to Urbanus Khegius of Augsburg is explanatory of his doctrine concerning original sin ; see the following note. LECTURE V. 171 gendering from Adam ; it seems to supply an important addition to the more usual statements, of the corruption of our nature consisting in the obscuring of the human moral perceptions and in the infirmity of the human will, which do not very de- finitely, or at least without further analysis, suggest a particular point, wherein Christian agencies can cooperate with the divine pur- pose of Restoration. But if this view of Zwingli's be admitted to be correct, which upon fair reflection it will probably be, it will appear, that the me- dicinal treatment and correction of man, who is thus too prone to the personal and ego- tistical, is to call up, as its counterpoise, the other character, namely, the relative. It has been said indeed, in disparagement of Zwingli's views concerning original sin, that he represents the consequences of the fall to consist not so much in a deterio- ration of nature, as in a deterioration of condition, or rather in a deterioration of nature as depending upon a deterioration of condition ; in some such way as the plant which is a native of some sunny clime and rich soil is deteriorated and stunted, when transferred into an ungenial soil and climate 1 *. p " Exemplum talc est. Bello captus, perfidia et ini- micitia commerait ut servus teueatur. Qui ex illo proge- 172 LECTURE V. But it would be as difficult in the case of man, as of any other being, to determine in what degree his powers, capabilities and func- tions can be said to be owing to his internal nature or constitution, in what degree they are owing to the medium wherein he exists. And whatever may prove the precise inter- pretation of the history of the fall in Genesis, and of allusions to it in other parts of Scrip- ture, the expulsion of man from Eden is at least as indicative of the unfavourable cir- cumstances in w 7 hich he is now placed, as nerantur olnirai, hoc est vernse, aut dominati fiimt servi : non culpa, reatu, aut crimine, sed conditione, quae culpam secuta est : nam parens, ex quo nati sunt, scelere hoc com- meruerat. Nati scelus non habent, sed poenani ac mulc- tam sceleris, puta conditionem, servitutem et ergastulum. Ista si scelus libet appellare, ideo quia pro scelere infli- guntur, non veto. Istud originale peccatum, per condi- tionem et contagionem agnasci omnibus qui ex adfectu maris et foemime gignuntur agnosco." Zwingliifidei ratio, Niemeyer, p. 2 1 . He also distinguishes upon the word " peccatum" as applied to the sin of Adam and to the " original sin" of his descendants, which latter, " morbus est proprie et conditio . . . quanquam nihil morer hunc morbum et conditionem juxta Pauli morem adpellari peccatum." Id. ib. p. 20. But the greatest offence which Zwingli gave on this subject was by the passage, very similar to one of Justin's, in which he speaks of Hercules, Theseus, So- crates, Aristides, &c. being admitted apparently into the Christian heaven. "Et summatim non fuit vir bonus, non erit mens sancta, non fidelis anima, quain non sis isthic cum Deo visurus." Zw. Exp. Chr.fidei, Niemeyer, p. 61. J.J. Hottinger, Helvetische Kirchen-Geschichte, Zurich, 1708 — J 738. t. iii. pp. 240. 568, 9. LECTURE V. 173 other passages can be of the deterioration of his internal nature. And indeed so long as we are able to represent to ourselves with the greater accuracy the facts of the human na- ture as we actually inherit it, it becomes of comparatively little practical importance, through what form of words we attach those actual facts to an antecedent cause. That with which we are practically con- cerned is this, how in our own cases, and how in the cases of others, we can work together with our Divine Redeemer, in that part of His work which consists in the destroying the power of sin in the human race. For His work is declared to us in Scripture as twofold ; first, to take away the penalty of sin ; and secondly, to destroy the power of it. As to the first, His work has been done once for all ; in that He can have no co-work- ers; His work therein being co-extensive with the evil which He came to remedy ; " As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." As to the second part of His work, we are workers together with Him, and it is a work which is to be con- tinued, as long as the human race continues upon the earth. In order to work toge- ther with Him in this part of His office, it is necessary that we should, as far as may be, 174 LECTURE V. know what is in man. We should endea- vour to ascertain the precise nature, character, and point of his defects; the effects of circum- stances and conditions upon him ; his average powers ; and altogether the laws of his nature, fallen though it be. For it is in the moral world as in the material, that we have, within limits, a certain sway over conditions, and thereby, in a sense, can modify the action of powers : in moral as well as in material being, the laws do not vary although the pheno- mena do ; but we can vary the phenomena, because, within limits, we can alter the con- ditions under which the laws act. Now it is a most important consideration, that the defect of the fall or corruption of man's nature should consist specifically, if it be true that it does, in a preponderance of the individual and personal, as compared with the social sentiment ; because we thus know pre- cisely a disproportion which is to be cor- rected, and are aware of a tendency. In the actual condition indeed in which man is now placed in the world, wherein his senses are made the inlets of all his knowledge and sentiments, and all which is derived from without is brought into a living focus in the point of consciousness ; we can see perhaps that it could not be otherwise, than that each LECTURE V. 175 one should have, in his state of nature, a ten- dency to be his universe to himself. All his wants, his most imperative and most stirring pleasures and pains, are constantly directing his attention upon self; and at first, and at the rudest view of his relations to others, their claims seem to be more or less anta- gonistic to the claims of self, fortifying self thereby into a state of defence and resistance. Upon such views we shall be able to found some methods of dealing with our fellow - creatures, carrying on in our degree and mea- sures the work commenced by Christ Himself, of counteracting the tendencies of the cor- ruption of our nature. And it must not be supposed, that in setting forth as a specifically Christian work, and a work of the Christian communion, that of acting upon the human society at large, I am departing from the subject which was origi- nally proposed in these Lectures. For the Christian charity most truly embraces all men, because, besides that they are me?i, they are all capable of becoming Christians ; and we need not repeat, that it is the very dis- tinguishing characteristic of the Christian communion as such, that it should be catholic, and tend to bring all men into, or at least under the influence of its own association. 176 LECTURE V. Moral teachers, preachers and spiritual di- rectors, are quite agreed upon the utility of the maxim, that it is good to avoid occasion of sin. Parents and guardians are anxious, that those committed to their charge should not be placed in conditions of temptation above their powers. And each one learns from his own experience, that it is often wiser to avoid evil, than to be confident of ability to resist it. From modern statistics also, which have begun to embrace the domain of morals, at least to observe some phenomena of moral action q , it is clear, that there is an average moral strength in man, as certainly as an average physical strength, as certainly as an average stature or an average weight. This average moral strength is found to be capable of resisting specific temptations of a certain feebleness, but not of resisting others of a greater vehemence. Now in the case of a child, of a pupil, or of one's self, one would anxiously take care, if the conditions were within his power, not to subject the human agent to circumstances probably beyond his strength ; but in the case of other men more distant from us, or in the case of men in the mass, it does not seem that the same maxim c i The student who has not yet touched on this subject is recommended to read the work of Professor Quetelet, Sur Vhomme ei sesfacultes, Brussels, i f° r which i* stands 69 times T 'T and 5 times for its derivatives. The root means f to gather/ as the voice of a speaker collects hearers ; whence J"rSnp ( sc - anima) 'Ex/cA^o-iaor?]?. 'Ekk. as the translation of .p is used for the " congregation of the Lord" in its strict sense, as in Deut. xxiii. 1, 2, 3, 8 ; and for the general assembly or concourse of Jews, who came together to Jerusalem at the great feasts ; see particularly 2 Chron. xxx. 2,4, 13, 17, 23, 24, 25. Although there can be little doubt, that the term {kk. is adopted in the N. T. from 182 LECTURE VI. Let us now observe, that the difference between the mere moral principle which is insufficient to bind together a communion, intended to have universal sway and per- petual succession, and that which is vital and sufficient, may be exemplified in the history of the immediate followers of our Lord. They are at first learners, incom- plete, not only in knowledge and under- standing, but in self-command and self- denial ; their motives are only personal, they expect temporal benefits, kingdoms, seats on the right hand and on the left hand of the throne. Peter, though he seemed to have something like a dogmatic faith ; " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God;" yet was immediately offended at the humiliation the Septuagint and not from classical authors, we must remember, that in its Greek sense also it is to be distin- guished from (rvyK\r)To$ or fiovki], and signifies the assembly of all who are privileged as citizens. If am/yupis, which occurs but 5 times in the O. T. is only found in the N. T. Heb. xii. 26. and there in conjunction with eK/cA?/o-ta. If it means more in that place than a ' very great number' generally, and has any reference to Greek customs, it will signify, that, as the e. was a practical and deliberative body, and the it. a body of spectators and auditors at festival solemnities, comprising citizens from many different states, so the communion of Saints in heaven will differ from that on earth, by reason of its greater comprehensiveness and of its triumphant character. LECTURE VI. 183 of his Master. The same men become, after the descent of the Holy Spirit, teachers and guides, counting all things as nothing, so that they may win others to the knowledge and practice of the truth : and no two words express more precisely the difference between these two characters, than those of disciple and apostle. In our Lord Himself, as He was the great Messenger from heaven to earth, was found the character of apostle, without any ad- mixture of that of the disciple ; in a young child, newly brought into the Christian fold, and under the Christian teaching, is found the character of the disciple, without as yet any admixture of that of the apostle ; be- tween these two extreme points or poles lie all degrees of the Christian character. Some, though they be grown in years, are still babes in knowledge, who, when for the time they ought to be teachers, have need that one teach them again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God ; to some their salvation has become nearer and better understood, than when they first believed ; saints are seen at different stages of the heavenly ladder, "adding to virtue know- ledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance brotherly kindness, and to bro- 184 LECTURE VI. therly kindness charity ;" and some emulate the self-devotion of the Apostle Paul, " not seeking their own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved." No other religious system ever presented the origin of a new moral creation from the personal centre of its founder. And so far from stripping Christianity of its peculi- arities, by throwing into the back-ground its objective and subjective faith and supposed occult influences, and bringing forward its moral principles as a binding power, we shall present that feature, which alone can be perceived with a consensus, when put before the moral nature of man, which is substan- tially one and the same always and every where: we thereby display a power in action, which alone is capable of being felt univer- sally in its effects upon the human race. It is true, that priesthoods and colleges, corporations for the purpose of speculation as well as of worship, grew up among the heathens ; and when moral enquiry had been awakened, schools of philosophy were founded, on somewhat of a moral principle, independ- ent of the priesthoods, and felt by the popu- lar superstitions to be more or less hostile to them. The garb of the philosopher was indeed often degraded into a cloak for mere LECTURE VI. 185 presumption and selfishness. But even these moral teachers, such as they were, Acade- micians, Stoics and others, with no power for acting permanently on the human nature, nevertheless indicated a want on the part of society ; they were in some degree the heralds and preparatory messengers before teachers of higher authority and of a more consistent system. They were a sort of moral and spi- ritual class, a kind of clergy, but not associ- ated upon any enduring principle, nor deriv- ing a commission from any competent head b . Still, as far as the heathen world is con- cerned, they were more truly the precursors of the Christian ministry, than were the priests of the Pagan temples ; and though not in this case by evident design, nor in ex- press imitation of a model, the Christian teachers replaced the philosophers and not the priests among the heathen, as they repre- b M. Comte thus describes this historical feature of the Greek civilization : " La seule existence permanente, libre- ment toleree, au milieu des populations Grecques, d'une classe de penseurs independans, qui, sans aucune mission reguliere, se proposaient spontanement, aux yeux etonnes mais satisfaits du public et des magistrats, pour servir habituellement de guides intellectuels et moraux, soit dans la vie individuelle, soit dans la vie collective, devenait evidemment un germe effectif de pouvoir spirituel futur, pleinement separe du pouvoir temporel." Philosophie Positive, torn. v. p. 287. 186 LECTURE VI. sented the doctors of the Sanhedrim and not the Levitical priesthood among the Jews. But our divine Master, considered as the Founder of the Christian society, is distin- guished from all other teachers, lawgivers and prophets, in that He founded it, to have perpetual succession, and to be an organiz- ation catholic for moral ends. And it is only when we take this view of the Church, that we can discover, either abstractedly in Christianity, or historically in Christendom, the action of a principle sufficiently universal and sufficiently dynamic, to be the binding principle of the Communion of Saints. The modifications of our moral nature, when we are placed in relations of moral action and passion, are as uniform under their variety, as are the impressions made on us through the senses. Here arises no question of the extent or nature of the corruption of man, or of the remains of the divine image and simi- litude which still abide in him ; for whatever the depression of his natural state, all alike inherit it ; whatever his capabilities of eleva- tion, in all are the same rudiments of improve- ment. Nor are we speaking of what individuals under certain circumstances become, but of what men generally, by nature and birth, are. From right or wrong in act there uniformly LECTURE VI. 187 follows to the agent, satisfaction or uneasi- ness. And we can have no doubt, that the peculiar pleasure of an approving conscience and the peculiar pain which we call remorse are as distinctly felt by, and are as identical to men of different ages, races and colours, as is the sense of warmth of the fire, or the pain of a wound from a sharp weapon . I do not say that the senses are in all cases excited by precisely the same objects or acts, but that the senses are identical. In no other conceptions can the same unison be met with, unless it be in the few first axio- matic principles of all knowledge, which how- ever have only an indirect tendency to unite men in social relations. The moral senses and constituents of our nature are thus capable of being uniformly affected by the moral aspects of Christianity, when presented to men in a sufficient state of education and refinement. And in this capacity for being affected morally in an uni- form way, the sources and means of a Chris- tian unison and union are to be found. But we shall in vain look for unity, as the result of the same dogmatic statement; for unity of judgment as to an abstract truth lying beyond all experience and verification : c Rom. ii. 14, 15. 188 LECTURE VI. for unity of opinion concerning the features of historical facts ; for precise agreement in the meaning of revelation conveyed in lan- guage ; for identical, or even mutually-un- derstood impressions, from supposed super- natural agency on the human subject, or the like. Now notwithstanding the early tendency of the dogmatic principle to overlay the moral, morality, treated in a general way, did occupy a large portion of the writings of some of the most eminent Fathers down to the fifth century ; as for instance among the Latins, Lactantius, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustin. Subsequently indeed to that date, as for example in the writings of Leo the Great, morality is frittered down to penitential rules or solutions of casuistical questions ; it is then re-erected as it were by the Schoolmen, derivatively from Aris- totle' 1 . And the superiority of the moral principle, as a bond of union between Christians, is evidenced, or at least strongly indicated in this fact, that when synods were held an- ciently for the purpose of settling dogmatical questions, party-spirit revealed itself, and d See Geschichte der Sittenlehre Jesu, von C. Fr. Staudlin, Gottingen, 1799 — 1823.!. 3. pp. 159 sqq. LECTURE VI. 189 such matters were debated with vehemence and decided by clamour. But when the same men engaged themselves in correcting immoral and irregular practices, and in car- rying out, according to the conceptions of their time, the precepts of the Gospel, they were comparatively united and harmoni- ous 6 . And again, the superiority of the relative principle to the personal and individual is very evident from this, that with all their ten- dency to elevate the monastic life above the ordinary, the most eminent Fathers maintain that the ccenobitical life is preferable to the herein itical ; that the life of the hermit is most dangerous to the morals ; that it is not the highest life ; that the former is connected with nobler and more powerful motives to virtue and to the profit of the community. e And while the development of the dogma was not effected without long-continued contests and permanent separations between large communions, the differences concerning morals and discipline were confined chiefly to those which were connected with the Novatian, Meletian, and Donatist schisms. These schisms themselves grew out of circumstances external to the Church itself, namely, out of the Decian and Diocletian persecutions ; and so far as they became exasperated, it was by reason of theoretical questions concerning " Lapse," " Baptism," and " Com- munion," which were raised under those circumstances. 190 LECTURE VI. They remark, that the coenobite is on this account above the hermit, in that he ob- serves the precept of active charity ; that the strictest observance of the monastic duties without the natural human duties is un- profitable f . The monastic institutions indeed, orderly, cooperative, self-devoted and corporate, when considered in their perfect idea, were in fact types of what the Christian society itself is ca- pable of being. The influence which, during its season of energy and prime, each of the more eminent religious orders exercised, is proof of the force which would belong to the Chris- tian Church, if its operations could be carried on according to its original mission ; if full advantage could be taken, for moral purposes, of the same powers among its members, of order, of cooperation, of self-devotion, of per- petuity. The founding of a society catholic, to have perpetual succession, implies the bestowing upon it a dynamic and not a static character. By static character I mean, such as belongs to a constitution or concrete, of which the parts or elements are endowed with properties of permanence only, continuing the same in f See Staudlin, torn. iv. p. 217. LECTURE VI. 191 themselves, and conducing simply to the pre- servation of the aggregate which they consti- tute, as it is. The dynamic character belongs to a constitution or body, of which the ele- ments are endowed with a power of modifying each other, and of perfecting the form of the whole which they make up ; and of bringing into it and assimilating to it other essences ori- ginally more or less foreign to itself. An inor- ganic mass may furnish an approximative ex- ample of static condition ; an organised being, exhibiting its function of growth, is a better example of dynamic being. I mean then, that the Christian Church is essentially of this latter kind ; and of the two similitudes of a temple and of a human body, to which the Church is resembled in Scripture, the lat- ter is the closer ; not only because it more vividly represents the varied action and mu- tual dependence of the parts ; but because it admits also of being carried somewhat fur- ther, and indicates a power in the organism, of assimilating that which is extraneous, and of working it up into its own living fabric and constitution. If the Christian Church be a society catho- lic, founded upon the one person of our Lord, taking its origin from Him, as it were in a single point of space and in a single point of 192 LECTURE VI. time, there must then have issued from Him a power capable of being received and propa- gated through all the world, and to the end of the seculum ; it must have been communicated at first to others who were capable of transmit- ting it, and have been transmitted by them to others capable of receiving it. He would communicate only that which was capable of being received. The fulness of Him, whereof His followers are said to have been partakers, was a fulness bounded by their capacity, not boundless according to His nature. And so in fact we read ; " As my Father sent me, even so send I you :" " As Thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word g ." Now nothing can be more im- portant, than to obtain clear notions concern- ing the power which is to be transmitted, con- s John xx. 21, xvii. 18 — 20. The particles of compa- rison are not to be pressed ; for the parallel is between the facts, and not between the manners of the facts ; between the missions, merely as missions, and not between the modes, particularities and circumstances of the missions. The word " even" in our version is superfluous in these and many other passages, and tends to mislead. Ka0o>s — Kayu), " As thou hast sent me, so a/so I" &c. LECTURE VI. 193 cerning the channels through which it is to be conveyed, and the persons to whom it is to pass. Otherwise we might limit to a few, pro- mises made to all; and among other mischiefs, men might think, that on a few only lie the full obligations of the gospel. And what has in former places been said of the sacramental influence, as popularly understood, is ap- plicable still more to that supposed kind of it, which is sometimes surmised to be materially transmitted through a succession of persons ; a notion altogether obscuring to the real moral character of the Gospel, to the proper effect on the moral nature of the spectacle of a continued ministry, evidencing the constant providence of God and continually transmit- ted moral power of the Saviour. To illustrate further the dynamic character which resides in the Christian society, from another point of view. What is the case of each or any individual Christian ? how did he become such ? Clearly not by a divine illumination operating on him immediately, but by the intervention and means of one or more who were Christians before him. There was in those other persons a sense of duty and obligation, to cause that which they had themselves received, to pass over into another; they were by that very sense of duty commis- o 194 LECTURE VI. sioned so to do ; and in so communicating their own knowledge, teaching and principles, as they had been to their teachers disciples they had in a degree become apostles ; " Freely ye have received, freely give ;" and all Chris- tians thus become instruments of transmis- sion, whatever their special office in the Church, or whether they have therein any office of government or not. And thus although it is a true statement, to say, that in the Christian congregation there is no special sacrificial priesthood, and that all men therein are made unto God kings and priests ; priests, for the offering up spiritual sacrifices of their own prayer and praise ; yet is it an insufficient statement, because such spi- ritual sacrifices regard the personal state only. All members of the Church are, in their de- gree, apostles likewise ; not necessarily apostles of government, but apostles of transmission of moral influence, and of such teaching subor- dinate to it as they may be competent to give. And in thus extending the character of apostle to the whole congregation, and so making all the members of the congregation channels of transmission, questions concerning ministerial succession fall back of themselves into a secondary importance, merely parenthe- tical in some controversies, matter of curious LECTURE VI. 195 research and inquiry, or a subject of what may be called a venial pride. And it seems as subordinate towards proving the mere per- petuity of the Church, or of any branch of it, to establish the succession of its ministers as materially coherent, as it would be, in an eth- nological inquiry concerning the identity of a nation or race, to examine the pedigree and hereditary succession of its rulers. In order then to the perpetual transmis- sion of the vital principle in the communion of saints, it is necessary, that what has been called the character of the disciple, of the Christian considered personally as a recipient only, should pass over into the character of the apostle or agent. As disciple he is con- nected with those who precede him, as apo- stle with those who succeed him. Now the test of the reality, or of any considerable de- velopment of the apostolic relation or cha- racter, which thus supervenes upon the disci- pular, consists herein, that in order to act upon others for their good he makes some sacrifice of self, if it be only in a low degree, of his time, of his ease, of his wealth. It is not therefore intended to say, that in all cases, by any means, the character of per- sonal follower or disciple must be fully com- plete, before that of apostle supervenes ; the o 2 196 LECTURE VI. two characters do in fact overlap each other. Paul himself with all his self-denial, Apostle in the fullest sense as he was, feared lest as a disciple he should be a castaway. Yet no doubt, as the character of the apostle is the higher by far, and the perfection of the imi- tation of Christ, it tends to confirm and per- fect the character of disciple ; because such an one is always led to recur to those words of our Lord ; " For their sakes therefore I sanctify myself." Now further, in making self-denial and self-sacrifice the peculiar at- tribute of the apostolic character, we must distinguish clearly, as has been in some de- gree already anticipated, between self-denial for the purpose of self-discipline ; sacrifice of some immediate object of desire for the sake of one's own best interests ; the plucking out of a right eye for the saving of the body ; the being temperate in all things, even for an incorruptible crown ; and self-sacrifice for the sake of others, terminating absolutely in the good of others as its end. Thus the rich youth who came to our Lord, being virtuous and well disposed, and not far from the kingdom of God, from being a real disciple, was yet not able, even for his own sake, inasmuch as he trusted in his riches, to exercise self-denial on a certain point. LECTURE VI. 197 The twelve when they pleaded, " Behold we have forsaken all and followed Thee, what shall we have therefore ?" had exemplified the self-denial of disciples ; a self-denial as yet for their own sakes ; not the self-sacri- fice of the apostle. But when St. Paul says, " What is my hope or joy, or crown of re- joicing ? are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming ?" he ex- hibits the full height of the apostolic cha- racter. The character of the disciple lies, as to degree, between two points, namely, between the painfulness of self-denial and an unre- luctant spontaneous obedience. Obedience, subjection and perfect submission is the sum- mit of it. In the character of apostle, con- sidered as in degree, pain and joy are like- wise elements ; it becomes perfect, as the joy of the end respecting others predominates over the pain which has its root in self ; as in the words with which St. Paul comforts him- self, just quoted, and also in the delineation of Christ by the prophet ; " He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be sa- tisfied." Therefore it falls far short of the whole truth to say, that the same formal acts may proceed from a worldly or a Christian mo= 198 LECTURE VI. tive, be part of a worldly or of a Christian character; they may, as Christian acts, be acts, either of the disciple, or of the apostle. It may be necessary however here to ex- emplify somewhat further, so that the distinct differences of these characters may be brought out. And we will take the act of a man's sacrificing his own life, and distinguish upon that act, according to its varying motives. We are familiar with instances of self-devo- tion, in other than Christian annals, some of them heroic acts, especially as seen through the mist of military history, consummated under the stimulus of the warlike passions. There are not wanting nobler examples of devotion, for friends' sakes, for honour and trust's sake. There are also self-sacrifices, which come under or nearer to the descrip- tion of suicide ; suicides from fear, of various kinds ; suicides from personal pride, like Cato's ; from haughtiness and vexation, like Saul's. We have, lying without the Christian pale, on the one hand, such an example as that recorded by Lucian, of a base renegade from philosophy and from Christianity, immo- lating himself in the most contemptible imi- tation either of martyrdom or of heroism h ; h Do Mo tie P ere . 29. (By Claude Lecoz, abp. of Besancon.) See the Appendix. LECTURE VII. 243 are as definite and as likely to be transmitted, as differences of colour, of habits, and of speech, which separate different races, we shall be thrown of necessity to seek for some principle which shall traverse them ; we shall recognise the possibility of a moral union, across very wide separations of creed, of order, of worship. We shall come to interpret the injunction of the Apostle, that we "all speak the same thing," as of the utterance of a heartfelt unanimity of moral purpose, rather than of an identical profession of creed. It will not perhaps be thought to proceed from an undue partiality for the Church and nation to which we belong, if an opinion is here expressed, that the course of action of Christianity upon the world at large in time to come, will much depend, under Provi- dence, upon the solution in this country of questions, which the history of previous gene- rations has left to us : that is, on the solution of such as can be solved, and, on the gathering of a deliberate and charitable judgment con- cerning such as are insoluble, and therefore to be laid aside as a residuum, not admitting for the present of further treatment. It is only under the remarkable circum- stances which this country presents, that conflicting churches can be effectually placed r 2 244 LECTURE VII. side by side, that the mutually compatible which their systems contain, can be fairly valued, and the incompatible likewise ascer- tained ; that the capabilities of different churches for ameliorating and christianizing humanity at large, or given portions of it, can be viewed in activity and compared ; above all, that an unity of moral purpose for the sanctification of the world can be evidenced, alike by communions, and by individuals be- longing to communions, hostile in respect of their creeds, discipline or constitution. It may be thought indeed, that such com- parison and competition cannot take place, in all cases upon equal terms. It may appear, at first sight, that in the face of any such conflict and emulation, a church, which, like our own, makes no exclusive claims to the possession of the keys of salvation, will stand at a disadvantage, when placed in fair rivalry with any which make such unyielding and exclusive claim. But I think not so: and that the more distinctly such assertions are put forth, and even not suffered to lie hid, as fair occasion for reasonable controversy offers, nor the case allowed to be represented, as though there were at stake only the civil liberty to adopt a "cultus"; that the more they are clearly drawn into the light as an assumption LECTURE VII. 245 of the exclusive power of saving from hell, the more they will produce a recoil from any church which advances them. For utterly counter to a refined moral sense, which will become judge in many con- troversies, alien altogether from the catholi- cizing conclusions of an enlarged observation of the human race, (coinciding with the decla- rations of Scripture, that " God has made of one blood all men to dwell upon the face of the earth,") are systems, falsely called catho- lic, but in fact exclusive, Jewish, unnatural, unreasonable and inhumane, whereby men are taught to look upon myriads of their fel- low creatures, as in some literal and horrible sense children of wrath, as doomed righteous- ly to eternal damnation and torment ; taught to think it more pious to stifle the voice of God testifying within them of the universal- ity of His love, than to reexamine an inter- pretation of Scripture, or to modify the mean- ing of a term in the dictum — " extra Eccle- siam nulla salus." The Church to which we have the happi- ness to belong, allows us to acknowledge the ambiguity of two of those terms, of the word Church and of the word Salvation. It neither obliges its members to restrain the application of the word Church to a partial material sue- 246 LECTURE VII. cession, nor to define it by imaginary invisible properties, nor to believe the absolute perdi- tion of those who are not "saved" in a technical and theological sense. She is not thus engaged in making proselytes through fear ; is not driven and goaded to it, as though she were compelled to pull all out of the fire who do not as yet embrace her forms ; but is con- strained, through a principle of love to all man- kind, to make known unto them the Gospel of Christ ; under which alone all the families of our common race can become vessels of honour. " The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead." And life and death, light and darkness, freedom and slavery, or any other equally contrasted contraries, are fit represen- tations of the selfishness and degradation of the non-Christian, compared with the eleva- tion of the true Christian character. The principal difficulties which now im- pede the regenerating influence of the Christian society upon the world at large may be comprised under two heads ; the one, that the Christian communion is divided against itself, with reference to subjects on which it can never come to accord ; the other, that the Christian and the worldly societies are not sufficiently distinct. LECTURE VII. 247 But as in warfare, in night assaults and other hazardous encounters, vagueness of intention, indefiniteness of orders, watch- words not common to all the forces which are to act together, ill understood by them, or too much resembling those which are in use in the adverse army, lead, of necessity, to doubt and hesitation in individual soldiers, to confusion in the ranks, and cause the rolling back of a victory already won : so in the Christian army, if the moral ends of the great battle of Armageddon are not set forth, or if, while they should be engaged with the common foe, sections of that soldiery are op- posing one another in mutual conflict for the honour of separate standards ; no wonder, that the apostolic mission of the Church, its moral mission to the world at large, should be at a halt ; no wonder, that many Christian martyrs should seem to have shed their blood in vain, for any great result upon the sin and selfishness of humanity ; because they have shed it in witness of subordinate, dubious, and, as compared together, often conflicting articles of faith. Above all, let not Christian ministers be the means of perpetuating divisions in the Chris- tian name, when their people would gladly be at one. Let them not think, that the remedy 248 LECTURE VII. of schism and dissension is to be found, in per- petual narrowing of the Catholic Church. If the thought of rending the seamless coat of Christ was a desecration ; no less un- holy was the struggle which ensued for its undivided possession. LECTURE VIII. Heb. vi. 1 Therefore leaving the 'principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection ; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands. -LET us suppose Tubal the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron, or Hiram the cunning workman, or Solomon the wise king and naturalist, to have founded societies, for the benefit of mankind, through the cul- tivation and application of certain arts and sciences : or let us imagine, in mythology, Prometheus or Hermes to have originated sacred orders, to teach men concerning the powers of nature and the resources of their own ingenuity : or let us conceive, in his- torical times, Archimedes to have set on foot a school for the application of mechanical science ; Hippocrates, for the acquisition, dif- 250 LECTURE VIII. fusion and use of medical knowledge ; Hip- parchus of Alexandria a , for the continued observation and intelligible record of the celestial phenomena : or coming down to later periods, let us remember the institution of guilds and fraternities, for the prosecution of trade, the perpetuating and improvement of crafts and the advancement of various means and appliances. It is evident, that in lapse of time, descrip- tions of the objects to be embraced by such societies, statements of results obtained, defi- nitions of truths supposed to be finally ascer- tained, rules of internal government, maxims of conduct, methods of investigation and of application, would become obsolete, unin- telligible, inadequate, superfluous, false, in- applicable, mischievous, contradictory to the very ends for which they were originally de- signed. Nevertheless a continuity might be true of such societies, even together with such changes. And not merely a material cohe- rence and succession of admitted members : a Hipparchus is commonly said to have observed at Alexandria, but is not known to have done so. He was born in Bithynia, and observed at Rhodes, B. C. 128. The precise dates of his birth and death arc not known. Biographic I r niverselle. LECTURE VIII. 251 such succession follows when there is life, but does not of necessity imply it, or imply it in any high degree : the material cohe- rence, the dry preservation of a body from which the spirit has parted, does not ensure the return of that spirit, after a cycle, to re- animate its original habitation ; and parts of a yet living body, when they become ossified, impede, by their very permanence, the vital functions of other organs. But the more generally expressed were the objects and ends of any society at its original constitution, the less would the necessary historical variations which await it, impair the sense of its continuity. The more com- prehensive, the more masterly, the more moral its designs ; the more durable would be such society, under most wide variations of form, and along with the greatest discrepancies, at different times, in its rules and teaching. The vital coherence of such bodies consists, in the taking of pains by each generation to convey to others the attainment which it seems to have made good ; rather than in the strict sameness of that which is transmitted, or even in its absolute truth ; provided that it is truth to those who deliver it b . b In such transmission consists the true " traditio larn- padis sive methodus ad filios." De Augment is, lib. vi. cap. 2. 252 LECTURE VIII. And very much the same would hold, con- cerning branches of such imaginary societies, separated and diversified by difference of local circumstances, which would be true of sections of them distributed into periods of time, each with its own characteristics. Dif- ferences in natural materials, in climatic in- fluences and human conditions render, for instance, both the practice and the theory of the medical art extremely various, in dif- ferent ages and in different countries. Yet brotherhood is not broken, between those who have so differently taught and applied it, for in their differences they have been possessed by the same intention, and have been animated by the same disposition ; they have been convinced of a truth overriding all others, namely, of the utility, practicability and success of their art in the abstract. And much more than in any other ima- ginary or real association, are we justified in considering the moral purpose which Chris- tians have manifested, as the essential bond of their union ; that moral purpose being, that men should be conformed to the image of Christ ; that they should work together with Him, in that portion of His work which admits of it, namely, in counteracting the power of sin over the human race. " For LECTURE VIII. 253 this cause was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil." In the last lecture some contrasts were drawn, in a general way, between the spiritual society and the world supposed as lying without it; but there ought now, if possible, to be suggested some means of visibly defining the limits of the Christian society, or if this be too difficult, of some portion of it. For it was said, that one great impediment in the way of Christian action upon the secular society consisted in this; that in old countries, where Christianity has long been hereditary, the two societies are not sufficiently distinct. The Christian communion is thereby prevented from dis- playing itself as a distinct example, as a city set on a hill ; for it is corrupted by principles foreign to it ; and becomes incapable of an in- tensive action upon its own members, of raising the general standard within, or of exhibiting the higher reach in individual cases of self- devotion and of the true apostolic character. In pursuing further this portion of the subject, as briefly as our limits now require, the Lecturer feels, that he lies perhaps under greater difficulty, than in any other part of his undertaking. For it would scarcely be possible for him to express himself so gene- rally, as to avoid touching altogether upon 254 LECTURE VIII. the condition of our own Church ; while if he refers at once and directly to it, he may seem to be intruding, in a practical matter of administration, upon a province which does not belong to him. And therefore in taking this latter course, he trusts that what he shall say, will be received as put forth with the greatest submission to other judgments. Christendom generally for many ages, and our own Church in particular, has so pro- nounced itself, by distinct declarations, re- specting the baptism of young children, that we may consider any question concerning it as actually settled amongst ourselves, and not at this time to be re-opened. But besides an entanglement of some theoretical statements concerning the precise effect of the act of bap- tism, there can be no doubt, that there result from this rule, under present circumstances, some complications of a practical nature ; which necessarily affect, as was said in the last lecture, the distinctness of the worldly and spiritual societies ; and thence, the re- generating action of the one upon the other. When baptism becomes national, it must ap- proach to the character of indiscriminate ; and the securities to be had for the Christian bringing up, in any sense, of great numbers of children, much less for their bringing up LECTURE VIII. 255 in the particular communion wherein they were baptized, are very insufficient, under the difficulties of a complex population. And thus while our Lord commanded His followers to disciple all nations by baptizing and by teaching them, many may become partakers of the ceremonial act alone ; from which alone, as I apprehend, no one amongst us will explicitly maintain, that there flow the moral effects of the moral instrument or teaching. Under the most favourable cir- cumstances wherein infants are brought into the Church, the teaching, which is a part of the instrumentality whereby men are to be made disciples, and so, by institution, coupled and tied to the baptism, that lawfully it could not be severed from it, in the case of a person capable of receiving it ; must nevertheless be suspended, and its effects along with it, until the infant has become a fit subject for it. Comparing the commission given in Matth. xxviii. 19, 20, with the metaphorical language of our Lord in John iii. we observe ; that the former words are addressed to those who were to make disciples of others, and are de- scriptive of the agency to be employed in so doing ; whereas the words of our Lord to Nicodemus are spoken, through him, to those who would become disciples, and are descrip- 256 LECTURE VIII. tive of the effect to be produced in them. In the one case our Saviour declares, that not only the outward act of baptism, but also a personal teaching, are to be put in use, by those who are to bring others into the fold and to enlarge the Christian communion. In the other case He makes known, that not only the initiatory act of baptism is to be submitted to, as a sign of material transition into a visible society, but that a condition of moral regene- ration must be the effect on the disciple of the moral teaching which he receives. The passage also in St. Mark leads to the same conclusion ; " He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Here is the same division as before ; for faith, which is a determinate state of the moral na- ture, — "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness," — is not produced without teaching; "Faith cometh by hearing." So that in St. Matthew we have the material and the moral instrument , in St. Mark the material and moral effect ; in St. John the material and moral effect likewise, only figu- ratively expressed. Unless we are determined beforehand to see in Christ's conversation with Nicodemus, rather the revelation of a mystery to that worldly-minded man, than a convincing of the master in Israel of ignorance LECTURE VIII. 257 and inconsequence ; when he supposed that a material birth, a birth of water, such as would readmit the Jew after ceremonial defilement to his legal privileges, or entitle the proselyte to enter within the outer court, would be sufficient alone, and without moral qualifica- tion, for admission into Christ's moral king- dom. As the "believing" of St. Mark and the "faith" of St. Paul, which come by preach- ing and hearing, come not without the Spirit ; so in St. John, the birth of the Spirit comes not without the instrumentality of teaching. And we are evidently right in considering the instrumental agency, whereby new mem- bers are added to the communion, to be di- visible into the more formal and ceremonial act and the moral agency, and in connecting the moral birth more especially with this latter. Because not only does our Lord warn Nico- demus against supposing, that this moral birth can follow from any mere material antecedent, or can be traced to a given mo- ment or to any momentary act ; — " thou canst not tell whence it cometh ;" — but St. Paul also, taking up very nearly the same figure of a moral or religious new birth, attaches it expressly to the instrumentality of teaching ; " In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel ;" with many applications of the s 258 LECTURE VIII. same or similar metaphors ; " My little chil- dren, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you b ." And the action of the Christian teacher in thus vivifying the moral nature of those whom he teaches, by the peculiar moral truths implied in the Gospel, is not alto- gether unlike that process, according to which a celebrated philosopher among the ancients is said to have brought out dormant intellectual and moral knowledge, in the minds of those who became his hearers ; which is represented to us under a figure bearing some resemblance to the scriptural ones we have been considering . Without pursuing these views any further as they might illustrate points recently con- troverted, it is sufficient to observe, that of the two instruments of disciple-making, bap- tizing and teaching, the latter in the case of adult converts naturally preceded the other ; in the case of those who are baptized in infancy, the catechumenal state is necessarily subsequent to the baptism. But if in the case of adults, baptism, as a seal of dis- h i Cor. iv. 15. Gal. iv. 19. See also 1 Tim. i. 2. 2 Tim. i. 2. Tit. i. 4. Philem. 10. Compare Is. liii. 10, 11. 1 John iii. 9. and for the instrumentality of the word to the spiritual regeneration, James i. 18. 1 Pet. i. 23. c The ixauvTLKr] t(x v V °f Socrates. Plat. Theatet. LECTURE VIII. 259 cipleship, was not administered until the catechumen had become competent to re- ceive it ; " if thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest ;" it should seem, that where baptism has preceded, whatever may be said, in the way of customary epithet or description, and in figurative language, of it or of its effects ; whatever advantage of con- dition or promise may be attached to it ; the true and full character of disciple cannot properly be held to belong to the baptized person ; until his competency has been brought up, by subsequent teaching, to the point, at which an adult would be considered a fit re- cipient of that sacrament. I am not saying, that baptism in infancy may not have a powerful moral effect in many cases in pro- ducing, as the person grows up, this very com- petency ; such has indeed already been ac- knowledged d : it has thus not only an usus significativus but an usus effectivus. Only to whatever influences and instrumentality it may be due, the communion should be sa- tisfied of the complete or sufficient formation of the character of disciple, before persons baptized in infancy are recognised as full and perfect members. Now the occasion of applying the test d Lecture IV. s 2 260 LECTURE VIII. thus required seems to be precisely sup- plied by the ordinance of Confirmation ; and by means of the judicious employment of this instrument, it would be possible for a Church in the position of our own, at once to render its benefits most diffusive and national, and to give itself a distinct and free character. For on the one hand, she would repel none from her ordinary instruc- tions ; would treat all who would conform in any degree to her worship, or listen in any degree to her ministers, as persons in the state of catechumens, and entitled to the ministration of her teaching. If they were baptized by her own ministers, they are en- titled to it by reason of that very baptism ; if irregularly baptized, they are received, in hope that they may be incorporated into her communion by Confirmation, and so all formal defects in their Christian initiation supplied ; if not at all baptized, she is ready to teach them and to regard them as candidates for that sacrament at her own hands. On the other hand, she would acknowledge none as competent disciples and full members, but those who were with due caution admitted to be confirmed. And with respect to the use which our Church or any other may make of this ordi- LECTURE VIII. 261 nance, there can be no hesitation in allowing, that variations in rules and practices respect- ing it may take place, if thought wise, without inconsistency. There have been considerable variations, as we know, in respect to both the sacraments, particularly as to the age at which they were to be, or might be administered. And let us not consider ourselves precluded from some variations, if necessary, in the ad- ministration of Confirmation, if thereby the moral characteristics of our Christian com- munion can be the better displayed, and if the free action of our Church can be secured, with perhaps more facility than by any other method. It is quite consistent with the Romish view of Confirmation, as a sacrament, and with the medieval theory of supernatural sacramental grace, that it should be adminis- tered at any early age after baptism. For, according to those theories ; First, in case of the death of the recipient a greater glory would follow upon the greater grace; Secondly, by means of an increase or reinforcement of the baptismal grace the receiver would be the more strengthened for his coming conflict in the Christian confession. According to the Romish doctrine, the grace of Confirmation will follow to those recipients who place no 262 LECTURE VIII. bar c , provided the unction, the words, and the intention of the administrator coincide at least in some point. It is not necessary to inquire how far a dis- position to present persons for Confirmation at a very early age has been perpetuated in our own Church, as a traditional residue from such opinions ; although that ordinance is with us expressly taken out of the number of sacraments, and although it seems to be the doctrine of the Church, that even the sacra- ments generally depend for their efficacy, under Christ's appointment, upon the condi- tion of the receiver, and not upon the inten- tion of the administrator. But there are some considerations which appear to me to render the administration of Confirmation at a later age than usual the preferable course, and the more efficacious towards constituting it; 1. into an effectual moral instrument on individuals ; and 2. into the means of rearing up a living Church order. Passing by all investigation as to the most e But if a person should not have been confirmed nor have been desirous of being confirmed when in possession of his full faculties, and by disease or infirmity should re- lapse into a childlike condition, it would not then be thought proper he should be confirmed. The usual age of adminis- tration of Confirmation in the Romish Church is, I believe, at T2 years. LECTURE VIII. 263 probable origin of Confirmation, we need not for our present purpose decide, whether it can properly speaking be considered an apo- stolic institution, or is due, as some doctors have held, to ecclesiastical appointment ; only the twenty-fifth Article denies that which was apparently held by Aquinas and ratified at Trent, namely, that it was instituted by our Lord Himself, and communicated to the Church by tradition, which appears to be in fact a mere historical inference from what is assumed in its definition as a sacrament f . Nor, if Confirmation be no sacrament, can it be of importance to discuss the preferable- ness of our own form of imposition of hands to the Romish form of unction and consig- f " Ergo dicendum, quod circa institutionem hujus sa- cramenti est triplex opinio. Quidam enim dixerunt, quod hoc sacramentum nou fuit institutum nee a Christo, nee ab apostclis, sed postea processu temporis in quodam con- cilio. Alii vero dixerunt quod fuit institutum ab apostolis, sed hoc non potest esse, quia instituere novum sacra- mentum, pertinet ad potestatem excellentiae, quae corn- petit soli Christo, et ideo dicendum est, quod Christus instituit hoc sacramentum non exhibendo sed promit- tendo." Th. Aq. iii a . pars. Qu. lxxii. ad i. Or otherwise, "Aliquo modo prsefiguratum fuit hoc sacramentum in manus impositione Christi super pueros....Nec hoc differt sive dominus ipsemet instituit sive apostoli ejus speciali prsecepto." iv to . Sentent. Dis. vn. Art. ii. ad i. Compare Beveridge, on Art. xxv. Dallceus, De duobus Latinorum eoe Unctione Sacramentis. De Confirm atione. Genev. 1659, and Bingham, Origines, bk. xii. chap. I. §§. 4, 5. 264 LECTURE VIII. nation ; nor can it require argument to shew, that a church, which expressly retains, as ours does, the baptism of young children, almost requires some such complementary ordinance, and would most wisely invent such, if it did not exist. And although no church might vary, in an essential part of its institution, the form of a sacrament appointed by Christ him- self, the order of Confirmation falls precisely into that matter of tradition and ceremony, wherein there has always been variety, and wherein changes may be made according to the diversity of circumstances, so as such changes be within the limits of God's word f . The particular circumstance of Confirma- tion which I have in view then in these ob- servations is the age at which it is adminis- tered. And in the degree in which we cease to regard it as a sacrament, and cease to expect from it an occult influence of spi- ritual strength upon recipients placing no bar, will the disposition increase to administer it at a later age and at varying ages. For the efficacy of it as a moral instrument will generally be greatly enhanced, in those who receive it duly, if they submit themselves to it at an age, when they already know fully, wherein the moral conflict consists, which f Ait. XXXIV. LECTURE VIII. 265 they undertake to wage under Christ's ban- ner. It will be far more influential with those who are strictly speaking able to make a choice and declare a will ; than with those who receive it in the way of obedience to the bidding of parents and teachers, when the feeble impression which it makes on the mind and heart of childhood, will pass away in the first heats of youthful vanities and sins. Experience gives no encouragement to the supposition, either that a strengthening grace is conveyed by it, or that a moral efficacy attends the administration of this rite to per- sons in the negative state of early youth, who can simply say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments in their mother tongue, and answer the questions in the short Catechism of the Church. Even according to existing rules and ru- brics, there is sufficient latitude given to the minister to defer presenting his catechumens to be confirmed by the bishop, until they shall have reached, what shall appear to him, an age of discretion ; which might, if it were thought wise, be generally, that age at which persons become legally responsible for their own acts. Nor can he feel himself bound to recommend petitioners at any age for solemn admission into full membership, merely be- 266 LECTURE VIII. cause they can understand the rudiments of what Christians believe ; unless they are also, in his judgment, capable of understanding the moral obligations of the Christian pro- fession ; unless they give promise, as far as he can see, of continuing in that moral con- test Christ's faithful soldiers and servants unto their lives' end. Thus the test of com- petency for Confirmation is brought up to the point of promise, which would be required in an adult convert from heathenism. And this full test of the moral qualification should be required, because the anxiety which would prevail with some to retrieve a heathen by baptism from the " mass of perdition," or to bring him within the promise and covenant ; cannot operate in this case to cause a sudden laying on of hands upon persons already baptized. An increased influence would follow upon individuals, if they were taught to look for- ward to Confirmation as at the end of years, and as consummating a probation, before it ad- mits to privileges. And by the more cautious administration of this rite, churches would be spared the discredit which now falls upon them and upon the Christian religion itself, when few out of the numbers, thus certified as ap- proved members, present themselves, when be- LECTURE VIII. 267 come really masters of their own acts, to the so- lemnities of the eucharist, whereto they have become formally entitled ; when they throw contempt, out of mere ignorance and heed- lessness, upon the communion which has been too prodigal of its privileges ; passing out of it, as if they owed nothing to it ; above all, shewing that their Church was premature in declaring them confirmed Christian soldiers, by the headstrong, worldly and selfish lives which they lead. The winnowing and sifting of the general congregation, through the means of this or- dinance, would impart distinctness to the Church, without detracting from its diffusive- ness ; and would infuse life, by rendering it a voluntary society, within the limits of an in- ner circle : at the same time it would con- tinue national in its general education and instructions. The necessity of discipline would be anticipated, or the only kind of it which is effectual would be restored, by re- storing that moral internal influence of the members one upon another; without which penances and penalties are inefficient, with which they are for the most part unnecessary. And for one special action of the members upon one another, of the more advanced and true lay members, upon those who are brought 268 LECTURE VIII. to confirm their baptismal undertaking and profession, there is provision made by exist- ing rules, without the necessity for any new order or enactment; if only competent spi- ritual authority would give greater life to the function of sponsors at Confirmation. For they might possibly be constituted into a class, to exercise special personal influence upon the young and upon those who are to be made full members of the communion ; not drawing those who are unstable within the inner fold, but aiding the ministers of the Church in their work of discrimination, and multiplying the joints and bands which are necessary to the growth of the body of the Lord. With- out an agency of individual upon individual, beyond that which can be exercised upon their congregations by a clergy, so limited in number as ours, the lively coherence and continuity of the members of the Church can scarcely be maintained. And we might thus obtain a striking exem- plification of that which was described theo- retically in a former Lecture as the elemen- tary action, whereby the communion of the Church is extended ; the action or relation, stimulated by a pain on both sides, between one individual within, who is here the con- firmation-sponsor, and one individual without, LECTURE VIII. 269 who is here the catechumen. The former is anxious to comprehend the other within the pure society, the latter seeks admission and takes upon him without reserve the yoke of Christ's precepts. The defect in the parallel or application consists only in this, that the person so to he comprehended is already by infant-baptism, Christian ; but his moral regeneration is not complete, until by an act of knowledge, and of will; and of faith, he places himself under Christ's law, considered as distinct from the worldly principles, under a law of self-govern- ment and control, instead of under principles of covetousness and self-indulgence, and yet still expressly as a disciple. And the confu- sion has been already adverted to, and is not I think to be escaped, whereby many will be in one sense Christian, who are in another sense not Christian ; because though they have received baptism, they have not received teaching, or this has not as yet issued in effect. Some indeed have thought, that the ele- mentary form of the Church is to be sought in the Christian family ; that the elementary action whereby it is extended, is to be de- rived from the relation of the head of the family to his household : and that a church is 270 LECTURE VIII. to be considered properly, as an aggregate of Christian families. The time would not al- low me to examine these opinions at length : but it may be observed ; First, that our Lord did not constitute heads of families, as such, to be ministers, or in any way special servants of the gospel ; that he predicts division and separation between members of families in consequence of the preaching of it ; that at some times the Christian cause has been eminently promoted by those, who were, like St. Paul, for the special advancement of the gospel, not in that relation ; that as a matter of historical observation, it does not seem to have been planted chiefly by that instru- mentality. Next, there are already proper ends for that natural relation, and the effect of re- cognising heads of families, as such, for con- gregational representatives and authorized teachers, would fuse together two instrumen- talities, which have been divinely appointed to separate functions for the good of man- kind. And under such a scheme, there would be more likelihood of Christianity degene- rating into an instrument for accomplishing ordinary social and domestic ends, than of its raising an universal population into a condi- tion truly Christian. LECTURE VIII. 271 Further, the application of such a theory to a national Church would involve ulti- mately the bringing the whole state by birth within the Church ; in other words repro- duce the absolute coextensiveness of the spi- ritual and temporal societies, an experiment which has hitherto always failed at length ; and to the great detriment of the spiritual society. Lastly, with respect to our own Church and nation, it would altogether contradict maxims of government and order, which, al- though we do not agree precisely in regard to their origin, nor do all recognise their ab- stract universal obligation, are for the most part cheerfully acquiesced in and acknow- ledged in practice. And most of these considerations tend to recommend, with ourselves, the reinforcing of the aids at the disposal of the ministry, the multiplying the personal points of contact and of influence, between those in some sense without and those within ; or if we prefer it, for raising those within to a higher standard, not by recognising an official character in heads of families, but rather by giving a more per- manent and public character to sponsors, who are already known to the law and custom of the Church. 272 LECTURE VIII. And in venturing upon this suggestion, and in describing the action of such a class of persons as elementary, we do not intrude upon the proper offices of the ministry. Which leads us to recur to what was said theoreti- cally concerning that higher Christian life, distinguished from the life of the disciple, and called the life of the apostle ; which lat- ter should in fact be exemplified in the Chris- tian minister. Upon this I cannot now enter at any length, or in any special way ; but here also as the supposition of occult influences subsides, the higher sense of moral obliga- tions revives. In ancient stories we are told of kings, rulers by merit of their nature, elevated in their moral stature, as Saul "from his shoul- ders and upward was higher than any of the people," leading their subjects, defending them, immolating themselves for their sakes. Philosophers have imagined a city wherein some men should be born inheritors of a re- fined essence, fitted by a divine superiority, to guard, govern, and be obeyed. Or they have projected a presbytery of wise and ex- perienced men, competent to become in all things, guides and advisers of their fellow- citizens 11 . And in this country, the issue of h Plato, De Ley. xii. LECTURE Vlir. 273 the Reformation under our first protestant prince seemed so fair to the eyes of some, that they thought it possible, in fact, to com- prehend the whole nation under one Chris- tian education and discipline ; and that there might be taken up the noblest and best from all ranks to serve in the highest functions of Church and State ; while from high ranks and stations the unworthy and useless should be depressed to mean arts and to them more suitable labours : all which seems to our ex- perience nearly as Utopian as those other imaginations 1 . Yet this much do we learn, as we, the clergy, neither regard ourselves, nor are regarded by those among whom we serve, to be gifted with supernatural powers, that we can only be highly esteemed for our works' sake. Re- wards of divination may well be given in silver and gold and temporal ease and social distinctions ; but honour is the meed of vir- tue : ov yap ecTTiu a/xa ^pr^iaTi^eaOaL airo tu>v kolvwv kcll tl\icl(j6cu) . We are the servants of all, and thence our honour : the greater ho- nour being given to that part of the body which lacked, to the hands rough with la- 1 Martini Buceri Scripta Anglicana fere omnia, Basileae, 1577. De Regno Christi, Lib. ii. c. 48. J Arist. Eth. Nic. VIII. 274 LECTURE VIII. bour, to the bruised and travel-soiled feet ; " How beautiful (upon the mountains) are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things!" There can be no emulation where some do not take the lead, and high example always finds some imitators. It was not with Au- gustine, his intellectual difficulties, nor his intellectual convictions, nor the discussions of friends, nor the eloquence of Ambrose, nor even the tears of a praying mother, which wrought that disturbance and unrest in him, from which he passed into the Chris- tian communion ; but it was the recital of the deeds and constancy of Christian mar- tyrs ; " What ! shall we not be able even to follow ?" Good and great men, though they be dead, yet speak ; " their sound goeth out into all lands, and their words into the ends of the world." Let us not think to people heaven with saints only of our own canoni- zation ; but " whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, let us think on these thingsV Examples of self- devoted men are links to bind together the Christian name through all time, to transmit a brotherhood through varying churches ; k Phil. iv. 8. LECTURE VIII. 275 their glories shine far beyond the limits of their daily walk in life : their odours are wafted across the boundaries of unfriendly societies : their spiritual seed is borne away and takes root and bears many- fold, in fields far distant from the gardens of the Lord where they were planted. Let us not despair of the flowing over of benefits from high examples among ourselves, upon those who in some sense are not of us ; as neither should we disdain to imitate graces from those who are without our special pale. Let us not imagine it to be impossible to ad- vantage those who are not our nearest bre- thren. And when we look at the condition of our own country especially, let us not be discouraged at any features, but those which present to us selfishness, wickedness and vice. Let us learn to consider contemporary re- ligious differences kindly and calmly as from a summit; "Despicere unde queas alios pas- simque videre Errare, atque viam palantes qugerere vitae." Unless we behold calmly we cannot act judiciously. We must regard the diversities which meet our eye in the present prospect, as we do the succession of varied scenes, as the stream of time and providence flows on. Churches as well as empires rise and fall : and we examine historically, with t 2 276 LECTURE VIIL more interest it may be, but with as little passion, the variation of creeds and worship and maxims of ecclesiastical polity, as we do the changes of dynasties, the growth and decay of constitutions, the migration of tribes, the formation and variation of habits and laws. Let us endeavour to view in like manner dispassionately, religious differences of our own time and country. With respect to those who are thus seen by us, following their diverging tracks after their several teachers, let us be ready to acknowledge con- cerning all of them, who evidence consist- ency of moral purpose and self-control, that they with us are seeking a country. Like travellers across a mountain region to a distant city, some have taken as their guides those who seemed authorized to the office, or who set their own claims the high- est ; some have surrendered themselves to those whom accident first threw before them ; some to the most clamorous and boastful ; some to those who promised the smoothest and easiest way : others have yielded to the temptation of being conducted by passes known only to the few. But when once the toils of the journey are engaged in, it is for the most part too late, to re-examine the ere- LECTURE VIIL 277 dentials and qualifications of their guides, or to endeavour to correct an erroneous selection and choice : in the main, the reaching of their final resting-place will depend on each one's constancy and perseverance ; few will be led so far astray, that their own energy and sense will not enable them to recover a true path ; none will be so well-guided, that they can delay without risk, or indulge themselves in seductive halting-places. At last, as they approach the city of their rest, the tracks which seemed so devious and wide asunder are seen to converge, and the wayfarers, emerging from their toils, meet one another, not without surprise, which is soon swallowed up in cordial greeting, at the table of their common Lord. When men lived much apart, kept asunder, not only by natural boundaries but by wars and jealousies, like inhabitants of some se- cluded vallev, thinking that on the one side was the whole world lying in wickedness, and over the hills where the sun sets, the home of their everlasting rest ; they might suppose, that the universe was made and the blood shed on Calvary for the sake only of the dwellers within their favoured limits. Too slow have men been to understand in its full meaning and application, that servants of 278 LECTURE VIII. God are sealed, not only out of chosen Ben- jamin or privileged Judah, but from the en- vious Ephraim and the benighted Naphthali ; and from all people and kindreds and na- tions and tongues. But by God's good pro- vidence the times of this ignorance are pass- ing away, and woe will be to the clergy of whatever church or sect who endeavour to perpetuate it and the uncharitableness which is its offspring. Why should we, in these days, be thought to be the last to bring the King of Peace back to His house ? In conclusion, the unity of moral dispo- sition and of moral purpose, which has in fact made all sincere followers of Christ one, in all times and in all churches, has and does and will traverse their differences, not as a ge- neralization from them ; without superseding, or tending directly to supersede, their several creeds and special constitutions, unless it be where they are essentially exclusive and dam- natory. But this unity must itself be founded on some faith ; some faith common to all Christians, some faith capable of being re- ceived, without difference, by all men. For in making the identity of their dispo- sition and purpose, rather than their dogmatic faith, than their historical faith, than their feel- ings, than the supernatural influences in which LECTURE VIII. 279 they believe, than their worship, or than their formal virtue, the true Catholic character- istic, — this moral purpose, wherever perma- nent, must imply an habitual will ; wherever there is habitual will, there is fixed faith and conviction; fixed faith and conviction of some good within reach. It is a fixed faith in the supremacy and victory of good over evil. This faith has never been wanting to the true Christian ; nor, in degree, to the true believer from the earliest time. This victory was represented in primeval imagery, in the Seed of the Woman who should bruise the ser- pent's head ; sung by the Psalmist ; " The young lion and the dragon thou shalt tread under thy feet ;" consummated on the cross, by Him who was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil ; shewn in apocalyptic visions to be the issue of the Re- deemer's kingdom, — Michael Ruler of Angels casting the dragon into the bottomless pit. By this faith, disciples in all ages have wrestled confidently with the evil within ; have stood, when enabled to stand, believing that He which had begun the good work in them would confirm it unto the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. By this, Apostles and apostolic men have removed mountains, have struggled with and 280 LECTURE VIII. overcome adversaries, have resisted unto death : because with them this faith is not only in the victory of good over evil, but that they are appointed instruments to the winning of it. " Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, look- ing unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith ; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God 1 ." Finally, if in the course of these Lectures questions new to some may seem to have been opened ; if in the minds of some, in young and vigorous soils, there shall have been sown seeds of thoughts, concerning God and man, and divine law and human history, thoughts worthy to be matured anxiously, and when matured, it may be, submitted here- after to the judgment of their own genera- tion ; let me request such to carry also with them this caution, which I trust has been sufficiently present to myself: that no mem- ber of a communion or society is bound, either 1 Hcb. xii. i, 2. LECTURE VIII. 281 by public or private duty, to unsettle received opinions, where they may seem to be erro- neous, unless he have a reasonable hope, as it appears to him, that he shall be able to sub- stitute something better in their place : we should not rob weak wayfarers in this worldly scene of the reeds on which they lean, unless we can strengthen their feeble knees, or supply into their right hands stronger staves to lean on. Das Christenthum ist kerne Philosophie. Es ist eine Er- neuung des Lebens, Avelche nicht von einem Gedanken aus- geht, sondern von einer Regung des Triebes zum Guten und von einer daran sich anschliessenden Hoffnung und Zuversicht des Zukunftigen, so die Kraft in sich tragend das Zukiinftige zum Guten zu gestalten. Dieser Uber- zeugung vom Christenthum werden freilich Viele nicht beistimmen wollen oder konnen ; denn auch zu unserer Zeit, wie sonst, findet sich die Meinung verbreitet, dass der Gedanke das Erste sei, aus welchem alles Gute her- vorgehe in unserm Leben, welches alle Eutwickelung der Vernunft einleite, und die, welche sie hegen, werden nicht zogern unsere entgegengesetste Uberzeugung, dass viel- mehr der Wille das erste sei — naturlich nicht ein bewust- loser Wille — und dass darauf erst das Wissen des Guten folge ; &c. Ritter, Christliche Philosophie, iter TheiL p. 16. APPENDIX. NOTE A. p. 6. Bingham, Origines, b. x. c. iii. §§. 5, 7. Pearson, Expo- sition ; Vossius, de tribus Sytnbolis ; Ussher, De Romance ecclesice symbolo apostolico vetere ; Lord King's Critical history of the Apostles' Creed. Other authorities may be seen in J. Georg. Walchii Bibliotheca Theologica selecta, Jena, 1757, tom. i. p. 305. It is sometimes said even now by Roman Catholics, that " the Creed which is attributed to the apostles and bears their name was in reality drawn up by them." Hierurgia, by D. Rock, D. D. 1 85 1 . But a distin- guished lay member of that communion in England expressed himself more cautiously on the subject, some years since : " The first of the Christian creeds in antiquity, confessedly is, the symbol of the apostles. On the origination of it, there are different opinions : some writers have supposed, that the apostles, before their dispersion, agreed on its several articles. An ancient tradition, recorded by Rufinus, mentions, that each of the apostles contributed to it a sentence; and a writer, under the name of St. Austin, pro- ceeds so far as to assign to each apostle, the article which he contributed. This tradition, and still more the im- provement on it, have greatly the air of a fable : and even the opinion, which generally attributes the symbol to the apostles, is open to serious objection. If it were their com- position, it seems unaccountable, that it should not be mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles ; that no reference to it should be found in any of the apostolic epistles ; that it was not included among the canonical writings ; and that, when the council of Ephesus, and afterwards the council of Chalcedon, proscribed all creeds except the APPENDIX. 283 Nicene, neither of them excepted the symbol of the apo- stles from the general proscription." C. Butler, on Con- fessions of Faith, Works, Lond. 1817, vol. iv. pp. 1, 2. There is in fact, 1. Nothing in Scripture upon which to hang the tradition. 2. In antiquity, except Clem. Rom. Ep. adJac. which is given up as not genuine, there is no authority for supposing the apostolical origin of the Creed, even in a wide sense, before Irenceus adv. Hcer. cap. 2 ; and the feature in the tradition, of the Creed being the joint work of the twelve apostles cannot be traced further back than to a sermon attributed to Ambrose. As to the substance of the Creed, no one denies that it is apostolical. But in proving that the substance is apostolical we disprove, that the precise form of words is so. Thus if the Regula fidei of Tertullian, De Virgin, veland. sub. init. were alleged to prove the material tradition of a precise form of words, it would prove rather that the Creed as we have it is not the apostolic Creed : for in the form which Tertullian there gives he does not recite " only" — " our Lord" — " who was conceived by the Holy Ghost" — " suffered" — " dead" — " buried" — " He descended into hell" — " I believe in the Holy Ghost"— "the Holy Catholic Church"— "the Com- munion of Saints" — " the forgiveness of sins" — " the life everlasting." Yet the rule of faith he declares to be " sola imniobilis et irreformabilis." Briefly, when we allow the Creed to be apostolical, as consistent with the apostolic writings, and as beyond reasonable historical doubt sub- stantially identical with what was taught in early ages, we do not concede a tradition from the apostles personally of a precise form of words ; when we deny the tradition of the Creed from the apostles in a precise form of words, we do not deny the general identity of its substance with that which they preached. A more plausible statement con- cerning the Creeds generally, including the Apostles' Creed, is that of Aquinas ; " Articuli fidei temporum successione creverunt, non quid em quantum ad fidem, sed quantum ad explicitam et expressam professionem : nam quae expli- cite et sub majore numero a posteris credita sunt, eadem omnia a superioribus Patribus implicite et sub minore numero credita sunt." ii da . ii da \ Qusest. 1. Art.vn. But this 284 APPENDIX. is fallacious. A child and a man use the same term to signify the same object ; the man, with a full knowledge of the object and with a capacity for describing it at length, uses the term as an abbreviated expression, as im- plicitly conveying his full meaning. But it cannot be said of him, that while yet a child the abbreviated form con- veyed to his then understanding implicitly all which he afterwards expressed either at length or briefly according to his wish. NOTE B. p. 9. Communicatory letters were means of keeping up an intercourse between all the faithful. Thus the Letter addressed by the Church of Smyrna to the Church at Philomelium and to the Churches in Pontus, containing an account of the martyrdom of Polycarp, Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 15. is a communicatory letter, and Mas evidently to be read from Church to Church. Such letters commence properly with some form of apostolical salutation, " Mercy, peace, and love of God our Father and of our Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied ;" or, " Peace, grace, and glory ;" Euseb. H. E. v. c. 1. They were also called Catholic Epistles, and were read in the congregation on the Lord's day at the celebration of the Eucharist, H.E. iv. c. 23. where Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, speaks also of letters of his "written at the request of the brethren" having been inter- polated. The custom is thus referred to S. Basil. Ep. lxxv. Ot rives 7T€iJ,7rov(Ti re Trpbs ypas ypap.p.ara /ecu irakiv htyovTcu nap iip.S>v...&(XTe 6 rr]v irpbs 77/^as koivwiolv cnrubibpacrKoiv /x?) \avdav€Too vpLcov Ti)V aKpifieiav Trdarji kavrbv rfjs (KKXrjcrCas a-nopprjyvvr and frequently in other letters of the same Father. Augustine considers the apostolical Epistles to be catholic bonds of union, being read in the Christian Churches, " quid autem perversius et insanius, quam lectoribus easdem Epistolas legentibus dicere, Pax tecum : et ab earum ccclesiarum pace separari, quibus ipsse Epistola) scriptae sunt." Ep. 53. Ed. Ben. On the whole, the practice of antiquity with respect to these communicatory letters tends to shew, that the several Churches were considered APPENDIX. 285 as forming, visibly and politically, a federation rather than a monarchy ; mystically indeed, a monarchy under the One Head Jesus Christ. NOTE C. p. 21. Augustana. (1530.) — Articuli fidei prcsdpui. VII. Item docent, quod una sancta Ecclesia perpetuo mansura sit. Est autem Ecclesia Christi proprie, Congre- gatio membrorum Christi, hoc est, sanctorum, qui vere credunt et obediunt Christo : etsi in hac vita huic congre- gationi multi mali et hypocritse admixti sunt usque ad novissimum judicium. Habet autem Ecclesia proprie dicta, signa sua, scilicet puram et sanam Evangelii doctri- nam, et rectum usum Sacramentorum. Et ad veram uni- tatem Ecclesise satis est consentire de doctrina Evangelii, et administratione Sacramentorum. Nee necesse est ubi- que similes esse traditiones humanas, seu ritus ab ho- minibus institutos, sicut et Paulus docet, cum ait, " Unus Doininus, una fides, unum Baptisma, unus Deus et Pater omnium." Saxonica Confessio. (1551.) — De Ecclesia. Ut igitur contra has dubitationes magis confirmarentur omnes sancti, articulus in Symbolo propositus est, " Credo esse Ecclesiam sanctam Catholicam." Hac professione adfirmamus, non abjectum esse totum genus humanum a Deo, sed esse, et mansuram esse aliquam veram Ecclesiam, ratas esse Dei promissiones, adhuc regnare Filium Dei, recipere et salvare invocantes. Et hac erecti consolatione, Deo gratias agimus, et eum invocamus : et petimus, acci- pimus, et expectamus seterna bona. Propter hanc com- monefactionem et consolationem, articulus in Symbolo recitatur, cum quidem hsec ipsa doctrina de conservations Ecclesiae ssepissime repetita sit in concionibus divinis : ut Esa. lvi. " Hoc foedus meum cum eis, dicit Dominus : Spiritus meus qui est in te, et verba mea qua? posui in ore tuo, nee recedent ab ore tuo, nee ab ore seminis tui, dicit Dominus, deinceps et in sempiternum." Et Dominus inquit, "Ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus, usque ad 286 APPENDIX. consummationem seculi." Est et ha?c dulcis consolatio, quod non alibi sint haeredes vitae aeternae, nisi in coetu vocatorum : juxta illud, " Quos elegit, lios et vocavit." Non vagentur aniini, intuentes hoc lacerum corpus Ec- clesiae, et somniantes fortassis alibi aliquos qui ignorant Evangelium, tamen esse sanctos et domicilium Dei, Fa- bium, Scipionem, Aristidem, et similes. Sed hue refer oculos. In hoc ccetu vocatorum certo scias aliquos electos esse, et ad hunc coetum te adjungito, confessione et invo- catione. Sicut dicit Psal. xxvi. " Unum petii a Domino, hoc requiro, ut habitem in domo Domini omnibus diebus vitae meae : ut videam voluntatem Domini, et visitem templum ejus." Non igitur de Ecclesia, tanquam de Idea Platonica loquimur : sed Ecclesiam monstramus, quae conspici et exaudiri potest : juxta illud, " In omnem terrain exivit sonus eorum." Vult exaudiri Filium aeternus Pater, in toto genere humano, sicut inquit, " Hunc audite :" et Psal. ii. "Ego constituo Regem meum in monte Sion, praedicabo praeceptum : Dominus dixit ad me, Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te. Et nunc reges intelligite, &c." Dicimus igitur, Ecclesiam visibilem in hac vita coetum esse, amplectentium Evangelium Christi, et recte utentium Sacramentis, iu quo Deus per ministerium Evangelii est efficax, et multos ad vitam aeternam regenerat. In quo tamen ccetu multi sunt non sancti, sed de vera doctrina consentientcs Diximus autem in descriptione Ecclesiae, multos in hac visibili Ecclesia esse non sanctos, qui tamen externa pro- fessione veram doctrinam amplectuntur : quia Donatistas improbamus, qui finxerunt, ministerium eorum qui non sunt sancti, non esse efficax. Improbamus et colluviem Anabaptisticam, quae finxit Ecclesiam visibilem, in qua omnes sint sancti. Ac fatemur, de Ecclesia visibili in hac vita sentiendum esse, sicut inquit Dominus, Matth. xxiii. " Simile est regnum ccelorum sagenre missae in mare, qua boni et mali pisces colliguntur." Sed tamen hi qui fiunt hostcs verse doctrina?, desinunt esse membra hujus visibilis congrcgationis, juxta hoc dictum, " Si quis aliud Evan- gelium docet, anathema sit." APPENDIX. 287 Wirtembergica Coneessio. (1552.) — De Eccles-ia. I. Crediinus et confitemur, quod una sit sancta Catho- lica et Apostolica Ecclesia, juxta Symbolum Apostolorum et Nicsenum. II. Quod haec Ecclesia a Spiritu Sancto ita gubernetur, ut etsi sinit earn esse in his terris iuibecillem, conservet tamen earn perpetuo, ne vel erroribus, vel peccatis pereat. III. Quod huic Ecclesise in hac terra niulti mali et hypocritoe aduiixti sunt. IV. Quod hi mali et hypocritse, si ministerium Ecclesiae legitima vocatione susceperint, veritati Sacramentorum per se nihil incommodi afferant, nisi institutionem Christi pervertant, et impia doceant. V. Quod in hac Ecclesia sit vera peccatorum remissio. VI. Quod hsec Ecclesia habeat jus judicandi de omnibus doctrinis, juxta illud, " Probate spiritus, num ex Deo shit." Et, " Ca3teri dijudicent." VII. Quod hsec Ecclesia habeat jus interpretandse Scriptura3. Sed, ubi hsec Ecclesia sit quserenda, et an jura ejus sint certis terminis circumscripta, alii aliter sentiunt. Arbi- tramur autem auctoritate sacrse Scripturae et veterum Patrum sentiendum esse, vere Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam, non ad unum certum locum aut gentem, nee ad unum certum hominum genus alligatam esse : sed in eo esse loco aut gente, ubi Evangelium Christi sinceriter prae- dicatur, et Sacramenta ejus recte, juxta institutionem Christi, administrantur. Confessio Bohemica. (1535.) — De Ecclesia sancta catholica. Art. viii. . Ubicunque enim Christus prsedicatur et sus- cipitur, ubicunque verbum et sacramenta ejus sunt, et ex illius prsescripto ac voluntate dispensantur suscipiunturque, ibi Ecclesia sancta et societas Christiana est, ac Dei popu- lus, quantus quantus fuerit eorum numerus : ubi vero Christus abest, verbumque ejus rejicitur, ibi nee vera Ecclesia, nee populus Deo gratus esse potest. 288 APPENDIX. Docent insuper, ut quisquis in hac Ecclesia unitatem Spiritus Christi teneat, omniaque ejus membra charitate complectatur, totumque se in rem illius et usum devoveat ac consecrat, sectas non invehat, seditiones non excitet, sed in vinculo pacis, et eodem cum omnibus consensu ac animo, in ea versetur, quod is sit verum membrum Ec- clesia;. De lioc sic Paulus ad Ephesios. Hortor itaque vos, ut ambuletis ita, ut dignum est, vocatione qua vocati estis, in omni submissione ac mansuetudine, cum animi lenitate, tolerantes vos invicem per charitatem, studentes servare unitatem Spiritus, per vinculum pacis, etc. Iterum : unus- quisque nostrum proximo placeat in bonum ad sedifica- tionem, et ne quid fiat per contentionem aut inanem glo- riam. Confessio Bohemica. (1575.) — Art. xi. De Ecclesia Dei. Quapropter notse certa; et infallibilcs sanctse Ecclesia; prsecipua? sunt. Primo pura prredicatio et doctrina verbi Dei et sancti evangelii, maxime quoad fuudamentum et praecipuos articulos catholics et Christiana; fidei. Secundo, pura conservatio, administratio et usus sacramentorum Domini, jnxta ipsius institutionem. Tertio, debita et legitima obedientia in servandis omnibus iis rebus, quas sanctum evangelium et lex Christi praecipit. Ideoque et ha?c signa Ecclesia; Dei sunt, nempe, mutua et fraterna charitas, tanquam membrorum Christi, crux et afflictiones magna; propter veritatem et regnum Dei, et tandem repressio manifestorum scelerum, multorumque in Deum peccatorum, cum per amicam et fraternam admo- nitionem et corrcptionem, turn etiam per ordinariam a Deo institutam excommunicationem a sancta Ecclesia, eorum, qui per antegrcssas admonitiones sese non patiuntur cor- rigi. Et hoc sancti patres nominarunt disciplinam ecclc- siasticam. Coxficssio Tetrapolitana. (1530.) — De Ecclesia, cap. xv. Jam quid de Ecclesia et sacramentis sentiamus, expo- nendum. Ecclesia itaque Christi, quae subinde regnum ccelorum appellatur, est eorum societas, qui Christo nomen APPENDIX. 289 dederunt, fideique ejus se totos commiseruut, quibus tamen ad fineni usque mundi admixti erunt, qui fidem Christi simulant, non vere liabent. Id Dominus abunde docuit parabola zizaniorum. Item rhetis quod in mare j actum, putres cum bonis pisces attrahit. Turn parabola regis, qui ad nuptias fihi sui quoslibet vocari, et postea carentem veste nuptiali ejici rursus nihilominus jubet. Porro cum Ecclesia sponsa Christi pra?dicatur, pro qua ille semetipsum exposuit, ut sanctificaret earn. Item cum domus Dei, columna et stabilimentum veritatis, mons Sion, civitas Dei viventis, Hierusalem coelestis, Ecclesia primogenitorum, qui conscripti sunt in coelis. Hae laudes, iis tan turn com- petunt, qui quod solide in Christum credunt, vere locum inter filios Dei nacti sunt. In his cum vere regnet ser- vator, proprie ejus Ecclesia et sanctorum Koivmvia i. e. so- cietas, ut in symbolo apostolorum vocabulum Ecclesia? expositum est, nominantur. Basileensis prior Confessio Fidei. (1530.) Art. v. De Ecclesia, Disp. xi. De Ecclesice natura, membris ac notis. Credimus sanctam Christianam ecclesiam, id est, com- munionem sanctorum, congregationem fidelium in Spiritu ; quae sancta et Sponsa Christi est : in qua omnes illi cives sunt, qui confitentur, Jesum esse Christum, Agnum Den tollentem peccatum mundi ; atque eandem per opera cha- ritatis demonstrant. Idem. Art. vii. — De usu Excommunicationis .... Non autem excommunicat ecclesia Christiana, nisi emen- dationis gratia. Quapropter etiam excommunicatos, poste- aquam a scandalosa vita sua destiterint, seseque emendarint, cum gaudio in gratiam recipit. Helvet. prior sive Basil, posterior Conf. Fid. (1536.) 15. Ecclesia. Et ex talibus lapidibus super vivam hanc petram, hoc pacto, inedificatis, ecclesiam construi, sanctamque sanc- u 290 APPENDIX. torum omnium collectionem et immaculatam Christi spon- sam esse tenemus. Quam Christus sanguine suo lavet et purificet, et tandem Patri suo earn sine macula et ruga statuat et tradat. Quae quidem quum solius sit Dei oculis nota, externis tamen quibusdam ritibus, ab ipso Christo institutis, et verbi Dei velut publica legittimaque disci- plina, non solum cernitur cognosciturque, sed ita consti- tuitur, ut in hanc sine his nemo (nisi singulari Dei privi- legio) censeatur. Catechismus Genevensis. (1545.) — Prafatio. Primum in hoc tarn confuso dissipatoque Christians nominis statu, utile esse judico, extare publica testimonia, quibus ecclesise, quae, longis alioqui locorum spatiis dis- sitse, consentientem liabent in Cliristo doctrinarn, se mutuo agnoscant . Pra?terquam enim quod ad mutuam confirma- tionem non parum istud valet : quid magis expetendmn, quam ut, sibi ultro citroque gratulantes, piis votis aliae alias Domino commendent? Solebant olim in hunc finem episcopi, quum adhuc staret inter omnes vigeretque fidei consensus, synodales epistolas trans mare mittere : quibus tanquam tesseris, sacram inter ecclesias communionem sancirent. Quanto nunc, in hac tam horrenda Christiani orbis vastitate, magis necesse est, paucas ecclesias, qua? Deum rite invocant, et eas quidem dispersas, et undique circumseptas profanis anticbristi synagogis, hoc sanctse conjunctionis symbolum dare vicissim et accipere, undc ad ilium, quem dixi, complexum incitentur? Be Fide. M. Porro Ecclesiam quo sensu nominas sanctam ? P. Quia scilicet, quoscunque elegit Deus, eos justificat reformatque in sanctitatem ac vitse innocentiam, quo in illis reluceat sua gloria. (Rom. viii. 30.) Atque id est quod vult Paulus, quum admonet, Christum Ecclesiam, quam redemit, sanctificasse, ut sit gloriosa puraque ab omni ma- cula. (Eph. v. 25.) M. Quid sibi vult Epitheton Catholicae vel Universalis? P. Eo docemur, sicut uiiuin est fidelium omnium caput, APPENDIX. 291 ita omnes in unurn corpus coalescere oportere, ut una sit Ecclesia per totuin orbera diffusa, non plures. (Eph. iv. 15, 1 Cor. xii. 1 2.) M. Quid autem valet illud, quod continuo de sanctorum communiotie additur ? P. Ad exprimendam clarius, quae inter Ecclesiae mem- bra est, unitatem, hoc positum est. Simul indicatur, quic- quid beneficiorum largitur Deus Ecclesia3, in commune omnium bonum spectare, quum inter se omnes commu- nionem habeant. M. Verum, estne hsec, quam Ecclesise tribuis, sanctitas jam perfecta? P. Nondum : quamdiu scilicet in hoc mundo militat. Laborat enim semper infirmitatibus : nee unquam vitiorum reliquiis penitus purgabitur, donee Christo, suo capiti, a quo sanctificatur, ad plenum adhsereat. CONFESSIO FlDEI GrALLICANA. (1559, 1561, 1566.) Art. xxvii. Credimus summo studio et prudentia discernendam esse veram Ecclesiam, cujus nomine nimium multi abu- tuntur. Itaque affirmamus ex Dei verbo, Ecclesiam esse fidelium ccetum, qui in verbo Dei sequendo, et pura reli- gione colenda consentiunt, in qua etiam quotidie profi- ciunt, crescentes et confirmantes se mutuo in Dei timore, ut qui quotidiano progressu et profectu indigeant, quos etiam, quantumcunque promoveaut, oporteat tamen assidue ad remissionem peccatorum confugere. Minime tamen inficiamur, quin fidehbus hypocritee et reprobi multi sunt permixti, sed quorum malitia ecclesiae nomen delere non possit. Confessio Belgica. (1561.) — Art. xxvii. De Ecclesia Catholica. Credimus et confitemur unicam Ecclesiam catholicam seu universalem, quse est sancta congregatio seu coetus om- nium fidelium Christianorum, qui totam suam salutem ab uno Jesu Christo expectant abluti ipsius sanguine et per Spiritum ejus sanctificati atque obsignati u % 292 APPENDIX. Art. xxviii. — De communione sanctorum cum cent Ecclesia. Credimus quod quum sanctus hie coetus et congregatio sit eorum qui servari debent : et salus nulla sit extra earn ; neminem (cujuscunque dignitatis aut nominis is fuerit) sese ab ea subducere aut segregare debere, ut sua tantum consuetudine contentus, solus ac separatim vivat. Sed omnes ac singulos teneri huic coetui se adjungere atque uniri, Ecclesia? unitatem sollicite conservare, seseque illius turn doetrinse turn discipline subjicere, collum denique Christi jugo sponte subjicere, ac tanquam communia ejus- dem corporis membra sedificationi fratrum inservire, prout Deus unicuique sua dona fuerit largitus. Porro ut hsec melius observentur, omnium fidelium partes sunt, sese juxta Dei verbum ab iis omnibus disjungere, qui sunt ex- tra Ecclesiam constituti : lmicque fidelium coetui ac con- gregationi se adjungere, ubicunque illam Deus consti- tuent : etsi id contraria principum vel magistratum edicta prohibeant, indicta etiam in eos capitis et mortis corporese poena, qui id fecerint. Quicunque igitur a vera ilia Ec- clesia recedunt, aut se illi aggregare recusant, aperte Dei mandato repugnant. Confessio Helvetica posterior. (1566.) De catholica et sancta Dei Ecclesia, et nnico capite ecclesia. Quando autem Deus ab initio salvos voluit fieri homi- nes, et ad agnitionem veritatis venire, oportet omnino semper fuisse, nunc esse, et ad finem usque seculi futuram esse Ecclesiam, id est, e mundo evocatum vel collcctum ccetum fidelium, sanctorum inquam omnium commu- nionem, eorum videlicet, qui Deum verum, in Christo ser- vatore, per verbum et Spiritum sanctum, vere cognoscunt, et rite colunt, denique omnibus bonis per Christum gra- tuito oblatis fide participant. Sunt isti omnes unius civi- tatis cives, viventes sub eodem Domino, sub iisdem legibus, in eadem omnium bouorum participatione. Sic enim hos " conches sanctorum et domesticos Dei" appellavit Apo- stolus : Sanctos appellans fideles in terris, sanguine Filii Dei sanctificatos. De quibus omnino intelligendus est APPENDIX. 293 symboli articulus, Credo sanctam ecclesiam catholicam, sanctorum communionem. Canones Synodi DoRDREcnTAN^:. (1618 — 9.) — Cap. v. Art. ix. De perseverantia sanctorum. De hac electorum ad salutem custodia, vereque fidelium in fide perseverantia, ipsi fideles certi esse possunt, et sunt pro mensura fidei, qua certo credunt se esse et perpetuo mansuros vera et viva Ecclesise membra, habere remis- sionem peccatorum, et vitam seternam. Confessio Remonstrantium. — Cap. xxii. De Ecclesia Christi ejusque notis. i. Porro ccetus illi, qui aut publica horum ministro- rum opera, aut alioqui per verbum Evangelii, quocunque modo prsedicatum, lectum auditumve, in unum quasi corpus congregantur (cujus omnia et singula membra, et mutuam quandam inter se, et cum unico ac vero capite suo Dn. N. J. Christo, spiritualem communionem obtinent) sicut revera sunt ; ita etiam jure vocantur Ecclesia Jesu Christi. De qua utraque Ecclesia, nimirum, et ejus com- munione, in Symbolo Apostolico dicimus : Credo Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam, communionem Sanctorum. Declaratio Thoruniensis Eccl. Reform. Polon. (1645.) — De Ecclesia. i. Ex iis, quse de verbo Dei, de Christo capite Ecclesise, deque Christi gratia, nee non de sacramentis, et cultu divino dicta sunt, facile intelligitur, quid de vera, falsave Ecclesia, tarn universali, quam particulari sentiamus. Vera enim Ecclesia nihil aliud est, quam ccetus fidelium, sub uno capite Christo, per eundem spiritum gratise, et potes- tate tenebrarum ad regnum Dei verbo evangelii evoca- torum, et turn interna ejusdem fidei, caritatis et spei, turn externa eorundem sacramentorum, et totius cultus divini, sanctseque disciplinse communione sociatorum. 2. Unde, quamvis illi soli vera et viva Ecclesiae membra sint, qui tarn interna, quam externa communione Christo ceu capiti, et ecclesise ceu corpori ejus mystico conjuncti 294 APPENDIX. sunt, tamen, cum interna Ecclesia?. communio et unio sit res invisibilis, judicio caritatis omnes illi pro membris ec- clesia? habendi sunt, qui in externa visibili ejusdem salvi- fica? fidei professione, et veri cultus ac disciplinae commu- nione perseverant, quamvis aliqui coram Deo forte hypo- critse sint. 3. Universalis igitur Ecclesia est ccetus fidelium omnium, toto terrarum orbe dispersorum, qui omnes sunt et manent una catholica Ecclesia, quamdiu sub uno in ccelis capite Christo, per uuum salvifica? fidei et caritatis Spiritum, unamque ejusdem professionem uniti manent : quamvis nullo communi externo in terris regimine socientur, aut etiam sociari possint, sed in regionibus et regnis, aut re- buspublicis disjunctissimis, vel etiam hostilibus dispersi, et quoad externam societatem, aut ecclesiasticum regimen plane disjuncti sint. NOTE D. p. 44. Alberico the monk of Montecasino was born in the first year or thereabouts of the twelfth century, and entered that monastery at an early age. Pietro Diacono a chronicler of the same house relates of him, that he was born of noble parents " nel Contado di Alvito diocesi di Sora," and that at the age of nine years he was seized with a mortal sick- ness and remained for nine days in a trance without sense or feeling ; that during that time he had a vision, wherein it appeared to him, that he was carried aloft by a dove and then conducted by St. Peter and two angels through purgatory and hell ; St. Peter being the interpreter of all which he, saw, who conducted him also through the seven heavens and paradise. Awakened from his trance and recovered from his sickness, he professed the monastic life under the abbot Girardo, who was superior until 1 1 23, at which time Pietro Diacono the narrator, being of the age of five years, was offered to God in the same monastery by his own parents who were also noble. Alberico was always musing on the things which he had seen in his vision. In the words of Pietro, " Tanta usque in hodiernum absti- nentia tanta morum gravitate pollet, ut pocnas peccatoruin APPENDIX. 295 perspexisse, et pertimuisse et gloriam sanctoruin ilium vi- disse nemo quis dubitet — ut multa ilium quae alios laterent, vel metuenda vel desideranda vidisse,etiamsi lingua taceret, vita loqueretur." As the fame of the vision spread, it was necessary to have an authentic relation of it, which was en- trusted to one Guido a monk of Montecasino, Avhose nar- rative was afterwards corrected and completed by Pietro Diacono, assisted by Alberico himself. But besides the written accounts of Alberico's vision it appears to have furnished the subject of paintings on walls, as scenes from the poem of Dante did at a somewhat later period. At least the author from whom some of these particulars are taken, considers that he saw a fresco of such a description, much anterior to the date of Dante, and of the twelfth cen- tury in the church of the Madonna delle Grotte at the foot of mount Ocre at Fossa in the province and diocese of Aquila, where was the ancient Aveja. Letter a di Eustazio Dicearcheo ad Anyelio Sidicino. Roma, 1801. Besides general similarities there are some remark- able ones of a minute kind between the vision and the poem, of which only two shall be mentioned here, they occur in one and the same passage. Alberico, c. 9. " Post hsec omnia ad loca tartarea et os infernalis baratri de- ductus sum, qui similis videbatur puteo, loca vero eadem horridis tenebris stridoribus quoque et nimis plena erant ejulatibus, juxta quern infernum vermis erat infinite mag- nitudinis ligatus maxima catena •" which recalls the " pozzo scuro" of the Poem, "Cerbero il gran Vermo," " il Verme reo," "il Verme infernal" of Ariosto and the " Worm" of Milton 3 . In the fifth volume of the Florence edition of Dante, 1830 — 40, the source of the Poem is discussed, and the heads of the fifty chapters of the Vision of Alberico are given. But Signor De-Romanis there considers, that this Vision was itself suggested by the "Vision of Tantalus," which is to be found in a book entitled, "Vite de' Santi a But " Waurm" is " Serpent" in M. G. and the northern languages, and so occurs in Caedmon, "wearp hine on wyrraes lie," "threw him- self into a serpent's body." See also Villemain, Cours de Litterature Francaise, Moyen Age, i re Lecon, for a similar imagination to that of the "pozzo scuro." 296 APPENDIX. Padri." Sig. De-Romanis does not enter into any detail on this point, and it would be presumptuous to maintain here a positive opinion on the subject. But I have subjoined an abridgment of the Vision of Tantalus, from which those who are familiar with the Corn/media will be able to judge for themselves, whether there is more than the most general resemblance between the two. Sig. De- Romanis thinks, that the Vite de' Santi Padri is a book of which the origin goes as far back as the fifth or sixth century; but he does not give any external evidence to that point. And if this be true with respect to some of the narratives in it, no such antiquity can on that account be claimed for the Vision of Tantalus. This however is to be observed in the Vision of Tantalus, that, with the exception of the title, there is little or nothing which corresponds with Purgatory as a distinct place from Hell. Compared with Dante, Purgatory is not as yet de- veloped. But the lengthened period is remarkable during which the fertility of the Italian mind should have dis- played itself in such stories concerning the world of souls ; during which some of the highest intellects have taken up popular tales as matter of imagination and have in turn riveted them upon the popular belief. (C In comincia la uisione di Tatulo lo quale fa alinferno, in Purgatorio, &; in Paradiso, § nota qllo che uide, aldi £>- senti. In quella provincia de Hybernia sie una citta che ha nome Corretta che in ultima parte. Elfu uno nobile caual/iero e rlcco de hauere e de possessioni fy amici, fy era forte giovine c molto bello e gratioso § aitante dela persona, e qsto nobile caualliere haueua nome Tantalo. His profligate life is described. He invites his friends to a banquet, he sud- denly cries out and falls as if dead, and would have been buried but for uno poco di caldo sot to la tetta mancha. His soul on departure from his body finds itself in a meadow and is attacked by demons. (£ Come lo omnipo- tente dio uolse dare soccorso alia mia aia plo suo angelo. The angel comes to him as a most beautiful youth, tells him he has been his angel from his birth, that his counsels APPENDIX. 297 had always been rejected, and those of one of the evil spirits now tormenting him followed. The demons leave him, and the angel then becomes his guide. © Come loro introrono in una longa via obscnra in la qual non se vedeva se non lo splendore de Vangelo. The dark valley in which they now enter era piena di carboni affogati e di sopra era una coperta di ferro fatto a modo di una gradela, el caldo de questo coperto, era magiore ch quella de carboni. Ma la puza che ui usciva era pegio che niuna ultra pena. On the grating the demons sit tormenting the souls below, le quale frigeano come fa el lardo ne la padella : these were parri- cides. Further on the demons armed with forks transfix the souls which are driven on by gusty winds, plunging them alternately in burning sulphur and in ice. © Come giosero ad unaltra vale pfondisshna puzolente fy obscura. This valley, the bottom of which is filled with burning sulphur, is traversed by a bridge, from which the souls are precipitated as they endeavour to pass over ; these are the souls of the proud. They then behold a monster whose open mouth would hold nine thousand armed men. This mouth is propped open by two men, who stand therein like two columns, Vuno haueua il capo ali denti de sopra, Valtro il capo ali denti de sotto. Terrible flames issue from this mouth, and shrieks of souls tormented within the bowels of the monster. LaJa hauedo uedute qste pene uenne quasi tutta a meno p la paura. He is abandoned by the angel and tormented for an hour within the monster, whose name is Acheron. <& Come langelo se levo con lanima per fare il suo camino. Another valley is traversed by a narrow bridge of two miles length like a plank filled with spikes, to be crossed by the sacrilegious and frau- dulent bearing with them the matter of their crimes. Tantalus has to cross it leading una uacha indomita. © Come andado langelo fy io p una uia longa ty stretta onde noi trouamo uno albergo che se chiama Pestrino. Tantalus has to pass through the tortures of the naming house, wherein he is tutto minuciato I pezi. The angel discourses to him of the justice and mercy of God ; 8f non e alcuno almondo ch sia libero da peccato, etiamdio ifantolini ch 298 APPENDIX. hanno solamente uno di, ch latta del latte dela madre porta pena del peccato originate che non toccano lobra delta morte. He tells him that the damned behold the glories of heaven before they are consigned to their punishment, in order to increase their sense of it ; and that the just in like manner are shewn the torments of hell. xapio-T&> ra> Gew k. r. A. I thank God, &c. 'H x"P iS T °v Qeov, the grace of God, &c. xi. 5, 6. there is a remnant ac- cording to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no more of works : other- wise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace. xii. 3. I say, through the grace given unto me. ver. 6. Having then gifts differ- ing according to the grace given unto us. xv. 15, 16. J. have written the more boldly because of the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. 1 Cor. i. 4. I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ. iii. to. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder. x.30. But if I by grace be a partaker, x^P LTl / jtfre X w > w hy am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks. xv. 10. But by the grace of God I am what I am : and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain ; but I laboured more abundantly than they all : yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. i. e. favour and forgiveness. not under a strictly legal dispen- sation, wherein every transgres- sion meets with its annexed pu- nishment, but under a gracious and favourable dispensation, wherein repentance for Christ's sake will be accepted. that is, by favourable and arbitrary selection. If Israel was selected without any antecedent merit on his part, which could determine the Almighty to shew that pre- ference, it might well be ad- mitted, that a similar spontane- ous favour should now have been shewn to the Gentile. as in xv. 15, 16. id. office, charge, or talent graciously as by a sovereign committed to me; compare i. 5. the favour. the office, charge, or talent. Rather, if I thankfully partake. by his favour. r} (h (fit, that which he committed to me. the power which I received from him. APPENDIX. 305 2 Cor. i. 12. not with fleshly wis- dom, but by the grace of God — otl iv clitKottjti kcu eikiKpi- veia Qeov, ovk iv ao(f)iq crap- kikji, dXX' iv xpeav tt]v Sode'iaav. al. rrjs 8odeio~r}s. ver. 8. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles, &c. iv. 7. But unto every one of us, e'866rf T) x^P ls Kara to perpov ttjs 8a>peas tov Kpio-rov. ver. 29. that it may minister grace unto the hearers. Phil. i. 7. inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the Gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace. Col. i. 6. since the day ye. . knew the grace of God in truth. iii. 16. singing with grace in your hearts, ev xdpm. iv. 6. let your speech be alway with grace, ev xnptn. 2 Thess. i. 12. according to the. grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. ii. 16. and hath given us ever- lasting consolation and good hope through grace, ev x"i nTt - 1 Tim. i. 12. And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, x (l P LV *X W - ver. 14. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abund- ant, with faith and love which is in Christ Jesi Rather I do not set at nought or make light of the gracious dis- pensation of God revealed in hie son. have turned your backs upon the Gospel dispensation. His favour, undeserved preference. So exapiTaxrev ypas, spontane- ously preferred or accepted us. by favour and undeserved selec- tion. the ministration committed to me of God's gracious dispensation of the Gospel, or the gracious office and charge committed to me ; as in ver. 7 and 8. Compare verses 11, 12, 13. the different grace thus given is the difference of office or function in the Christian society. improvement. tov 0. t). k. K. according to the dispensation in Christ. by favour. as in 2 Tim. i. 3. and in other places omitting ex fu '- His favour, not only in having mercy on me and saving me under the Gospel, hut that he also put me into the ministry; ver. i j. APPENDIX. 307 2 Tim. i. 9. according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus be- fore the world began, ji. 1. Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Tit. ii. 11. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men ; rj x<*pts tov Qeov f] aa>Tr'ipi.os. hi. 7. that being justified by his grace. Heb. ii. 9. that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. iv. 16. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. x.29. done despite unto the Spirit of grace. xii. 15. lest any man fail of the grace of God. ver. 28. let us have grace where- by we may serve God accept- ably. xiii. 9. It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats. James i. 11. the grace of the fashion of it. iv. 6. He giveth more grace. . giveth grace to the humble. 1 Pet. i. 10. of the grace that should come unto you. ver. 13. for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the reve- lation of Jesus Christ. iii. 7. heirs together of the grace of life. iv. 10. as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. v. 5. giveth grace to the hum- ble. ver. 10. The God of all grace. ver. 12. true grace of God where- in ye stand, 2 Pet. iii. 18. grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Jude 4. turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. favourable dispensation, gracious election purposed before the world began. His gracious dispensation of the Gospel of the tidings of redemp- tion. that being justified by his free forgiveness and acceptance of us. by God's favour to men. come with freedom of speech to the gracious throne — and find favour and forgiveness for a timely help : els evKaipov (3ot) - ffeiav. to the gracious Spirit. good disposition and behaviour. with an internal good disposition, and not with external legal or- dinances. evirpiireia. favour not to the worldly. benefit or favourable dispensation. the blessing and glory to be re- vealed. of the gift of eternal life hereafter. gift. favours and exalts them, as James iv. 6. of all good gifts and blessings. a truly favourable dispensation of God : (no article.) in good dispositions andbehaviour ; or in favour, as Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in. favour, &c. His gracious dispensation. x 2 308 APPENDIX. NOTE G. p. 119. "Non nescimus Augustinura in disputationibus contra Pelagianos vehementer contendere, infantibns necessariura esse baptismum, et citra baptismum non salvari, verum ea disputatio adversus Pelagianos faciebat, qui infantibus re- niissione peccatorum, quod ab Adam propagari negabant, opus non esse confirm abant, baptizari tamen eos non in re- missionem peccatorum, sed ad regnum Dei. Contra vero Augustinus necessarium ideo infantibus baptismum asse- rebat, ut in iis reatus mortis asternse, quern ex pec- cato primi hominis carnali generatione contraxerant, re- generatione spirituali in Baptismo solveretur." Cassan- der is anxious to be allowed to think, that infants pre- cluded from Baptism by death may yet be saved ; al- though he will not condemn those, " qui gravissima aucto- ritate veterum, et totius pene Ecclesise adducti, iis solis infantibus salutem addicunt, quos Deus arcano suo, sed tamen justo judicio Baptismo et regenerationis Sacra- mento dignatur." Geo. Cassandri, De Baptismo Infuntium, Opp. pp. 777, 8 - A list of sources to be consulted for the Life of Zwingli is prefixed to the Leben des Reformators Ulrich Zivingli, von H. TV. Rotermund, Bremen, 1818. NOTE H. pp. 241,2. ".°.i\V. Besides the projects alluded to in the text may be men- tioned that of George Wicelius of Fulda, who was recon- verted from Lutheranism to Roman Catholicism ; and was employed by the emperors Ferdinand and Maximilian to devise a method for the pacification of religious differ- ences. In T533 he published at Leipzig, Methodus con- cordice ecclesiasticae . He recommends a council, and argues, that true religion has been preservedin the (Roman) Catholic Church, notwithstanding the growth of some errors in doc- trine attributable to the scholastic method and termino- logy. He proposes several reforms, a new translation to be made of the Bible, the divine service in the vernacular tongues, the restraint of private masses, &c. In his Via APPENDIX. 300 Reyia, published in 1564, he attempts to conciliate the Confession of Augsburg with the faith of the Roman Church. n George Cassancler published his treatise de Officio pii viri in hoc Dissidio Religionis in J 562. He represented, that great variations and even corruptions might take place in the Church founded upon Jesus Christ, without those who so fall into error being considered to separate them- selves from their divine Head ; that they who had departed from the Roman communion ought to have remained within it, in order to bring about therein such reforms as were ne- cessary ; that they were not guilty in desiring reforms, but in endeavouring to arrive at them by means of schism. Calvin attacked this treatise vehemently, thinking it had been written by Francis Balduin of Arras, at one time inti- mate with Calvin himself, but who had subsequently mani- fested latitudinarian views ; insomuch that he was said to be Catholic in France, Calvinist at Geneva, and Lutheran at Strasburg. Upon his bringing this treatise into France Calvin assailed him with great virulence, and in the midst of the dispute Cassander revealed himself as the real au- thor, and justified his principles, in the Defensio Libelli. He was then further engaged by the emperor Ferdinand in the same attempt, and presented to Maximilian in 1564 his Consultatio. Conceding, that there existed corruptions in the Roman Church and innovations in the manner of expressing doctrine attributable to the schoolmen, he would take as the standard of faith and practice, the Scrip- ture interpreted by the tradition of the six first centuries. Here would seem to be open a probable way for reconcili- ation ; the one party must lop off their additions to the primitive doctrine and discipline, the other must submit to the voice of the Church so ascertained. Both parties must set themselves honestly and without prejudice to clear up the standard agreed upon. He then examines the Con- fession of Augsburg, and endeavours to conciliate it with the Roman doctrine. On the other hand, in order to abolish all reasonable occasion of schism, he proposed the reduction in practice of the excessive power of the Pope, 310 APPENDIX. the correction of all abuse in the matter of indulgences, and due explanation and moderation in the worship of saints, honour of reliques, and use of images. He pre- fers Communion under the two kinds, and proposes to modify the rules concerning the celibacy of the clergy. Although Cassander was thought to concede too much by some of the Roman party, he was not interfered with by authority. And indeed, as became more evident in some other instances, the Roman Church gains more than it can lose by unauthorized concessions made by members of its communion ; for that which is thus begun in conciliation has not unfrequently ended, as with Rome it always must, in reconciliation. Besides, both Wicelius and Cassander were under Imperial protection, and it was not yet certain on which side the weight of the empire Avould incline. ° Marc Antony De-Dominis, of an old family, was born in 1 566 at Arba, an island on the coast of Dalmatia. He received his education at Loretto among the Jesuits and pursued his studies afterwards at Padua. The distinction which he there gained as professor of rhetoric, philosophy and mathematics, caused him to be received into the order with the greatest expectations of the honour which he Avould shed upon it. But De-Dominis was the last man in the world for a Jesuit. For his restlessness there might have been found occupation, for his ambition some lofty aim, for his abilities sufficient play, but he was too ego- tistical ever to become a staff in another man's hand. He obtained his secularization, became bishop of Segui, and shortly afterwards archbishop of Spalato. Here he under- took to reform his clergy according to the primitive model, and engaged himself also in the interest of the Venetian party in their contest with Paul V. But finding himself thwarted, entangled, or overpowered, he resigned his arch- bishoprick and retired to Venice in 1615; from thence to Heidelberg and finally to England, where he conformed to the English church and was made dean of Windsor. He now published his great work, ' De Republica Christiana/ 1617 — 1620. Hut becoming dissatisfied with his position and with the religious prospects of the English Church, APPENDIX. 311 be negotiated his reconciliation with Rome, withdrew him- self from England, and made his submission j according to other accounts he was entrapped by means of the Spanish ambassador, or expelled by the king. After his submission at Rome, he was arrested on suspicion of still playing a double part and confined in the castle of St. An- gelo, where he died in 1624. He was however convicted of heresy after his death, his body disinterred and burnt. No one will undertake to vindicate a man in whom was mixed up so much of vanity and personal ambition. But it is not to be supposed, that a person of his abilities had not a system, which appeared to himself to give con- sistency to his conduct. The actual reforms projected by him within the Romish church, probably did not go be- yond those which Cassander and other moderate men desired. But- his theory concerning episcopal aristocracy, as distinguished from the papal monarchy, was more de- fined than that of Cassander; with respect to which it must be remembered, that it had naturally defined itself, precisely as Rome had asserted its extreme prerogative in the contest with Venice, and precisely as Bellarmin had given a perfect shape to the divine right of the Roman Monarchia. The most important part of the book de Re- publica is directed against these monarchical views of Bel- larmin, libb. iii. iv. In other respects De-Dominis does not seem to have had any sympathy with Lutheran or Calvinist doctrines, least of all with these latter, as is evident from the difficulty he experienced in conciliating them, de Republ. 1. vii. c. xi. And in his sermon preached at the Mercers' chapel he inveighs against the monarchical claim of the Roman pontiff and against many Romish corruptions, but shews no inclination for the distinctive views of any Pro- testant or reformed party 3 . Therefore it is not unlikely, that finding himself to have been disappointed, he fancied he a A Sermon preached in Italian by the most reverend father, Man- Antony De-Dominis, archb. of Spalato, the first Sunday in Advent, Anno 161 7. In the Mercers' chappel in London, to the Italians in that city, and many other honorable auditors then assembled, upou the 12 verse of the 13 chapter to the Romans, being part of the Epistle for 312 APPENDIX. had been deceived ; " Deceptum me ab Anglis Protestan- tibus fateor" — " sentio in Anglia non Anglicanam quam mihi ut modestam pnedicabant confessionem sed Calvini et multa Lutheri plane deliramenta regulam esse fidei com- munem b ." Peter Heylyn expresses himself to a similar effect concerning him in the preface to his Summa theo- logize vetermn. To De-Dominis is owing the publication of the history of Paul Sarpi, the manuscript of which he brought into England, and he is also said to have origi- nated the name of ' Puritans/ The tract of F. Lipsius, Discursus historicus prcesentans M. A. de-Dominis AEP. Spalat. in religionis negotio arundineam mutationem, 1671. has no point in it except in the title. p George Calixt was born Dec. 14, 1586, in the village of Medelby near Flensburg, in Schleswick, where his father John Calixt was minister, being a scholar and admirer of Melanchthon. Hence George received in his earliest years an inclination to the views of that Reformer, as distin- guished from the ultra- Lutheran. In 1603 he went to Helmstadt university ; " quod autem hanc ipsam acade- miam cseteris antetuli in causa fuit, quod antiqua philo- sophia et theologia in pretio essent et exularent novse opiniones c , sine quibus probatis vix alibi locus fuisset." that day. First published in Italian by the author, and thereout trans- lated into English, London. Printed by John Bill, 161 7. The vm and x books of the treatise de Republica were never completed. The edition of this work to which I have referred consists of three parts with separate titles, Libb. i — iv. Heidelb. 1618. Libb. v, vi. Franc. a-M. 1620. Libb. vii, ix. Hanov. 1622. b M. A. De-Dominis A. S. sui reditus ex Anglia consilium exponit- E Romano exemplari hoc anno edito. Dilingce, 1623. c By the old philosophy is meant the Aristotelian as distinguished from the Ilamistic. Concerning the hostility of Luther to the Aristo- telian philosophy refer to Brucker, Per. iii. Pars i. lib. ii. c. I. §§. ix. x. The necessity for an acute dialectic in order to compete with the Roman controversialists threw Melanchthon, as much as his more re- fined taste, upon restoring among the Protestants the Aristotelian philo- sophy, Idem, lib. ii. c. 111. c. xlvii. When the logic and philosophy of Ramus spread into Germany it came into contact with this restored scholasticism of Melanchthon. Ramus is sometimes considered as a forerunner of Des Cartes. See 0. Waddington-kastus, De Petri Ran,/ APPENDIX. 313 For four years he devoted himself to the humaniora, and made also some progress in medicine. After remaining six years in Helmstadt he travelled with a rich Belgian into the Netherlands, England and France. In England he became acquainted with Casaubon, who gave him an introduction to Thuanus in Paris. In 1613 he returned to Helmstadt and read lectures there. At this time he be- came engaged in a disputation with the Jesuit Augustin Turrianus, in the hope, which turned out vain, of rescuing a young gentleman of the name of Klencken from the Romish errors. But Calixt so distinguished himself in this controversy, that he was made professor of theology at Helmstadt in 16 14 by Frederic-Ulric, duke of Brunswick, not without opposition on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities, who even at that period accused Calixt of Calvinism. In 1636 he was made abbot of Konigslutter by August the succeeding duke. The whole life of Calixt was one of controversy ; but although he was assailed by all parties, he is acknowledged, even by those who are ad- verse to his views, to have been a man of comprehensive intellect, of vigorous and acute reasoning powers, well versed in patristic learning, and a sincere lover of peace and concord. Many of the controversies in which he was en- gaged had only a remote bearing upon the Syncretist questions' 1 . Vita, Scriptis, Pkilosophia, Paris, 1848. The university of Helmstadt had been founded in 1576 by Julius, djjke of Brunswick, at 'that time a supporter of the high Lutheran party, and a maintainer of the " Form of Concord." But about 1579 he gave great offence to his theologians and to other Protestant princes by permitting his son Heinrich Julius, a boy, to be elected and invested with popish ceremonies bishop of Helberstadt, and from equally interested motives causing his two other sons to receive the tonsure. About this time he abandoned the Form of Concord, but insisted on the reception by his theologians of the Cor- pus Julium, which consisted, besides the three creeds, of the Augsburg Confession, the Articles of Smalcald, the two Catechisms of Luther, the Declaratio of Chemnitz, and the Formulae of Urban Rhegius. The opposition to Calvinism on the part of the court was as strong as ever, but the ubiquitarian doctrine was surrendered, and the full develop- ment of the Lutheran theory thereby locally discouraged. d They were principally the following : " 1 . Concerning tradition or 314 APPENDIX. Tn 1645 ne attended the Colloquy at Thorn at the re- quest of the Elector of Brandenburg. Here he was scornfully repelled by the high Lutherans Calov and Hiilsemann, and forced to associate himself with the Re- formed party. It is not possible but that the result of this conference must have modified considerably the ex- pectation in Calixt of any visible practical result from his principles. And on the whole he must be considered, as the prospect of visible union declined, to have leant more to the Reformed party as he advanced in life. With respect to the Roman Church, he is distinguished as the most eminent Protestant of that day who at all engaged in projects of union in that direction, and particularly in the historical branch of the Roman controversy, who was not won over to the Roman communion e . In the year 1644,5 ne published Responsum vindiciis Theologorum Mo- guntinorum pro Romani Pontificis infallibilitate. It is not to be maintained, that Calixt was always consistent, and in ancient consent (of the five first centuries) as a secondary rule of faith." He was accused of attributing too much to tradition, in his preface to the Commonitorium of Vincentius which he edited in 1629. 2. Whether the Trinity of Persons in the Divine Essence can be de- monstrated from the Old Testament alone. He maintained, that the doctrine was not therein so explicitly revealed as to be a neces- sary article of faith under the old dispensation. 3. Num Deus dici possit peccati causa per accidens ? 4. Whether the Second Person in the Trinity manifested Himself under the old dispensation as the Angel of the Lord ? 5. Whether the human nature of Christ is omnipresent ? Upon which he distinguished between ubiquity by omni- potence and ubiquity by communication of attribute from the divine to the human nature. As the high Lutherans accused the Sacramen- tarians of Nestorianism (see note k, p. 58,) so Calixt on the other hand charges the ubiquitarian Lutherans with Eutychianism ; " Manifestuin est ex hisce, ab Eutychiamsmo alienos non esse quicunque divina attri- buta, quae reapse idem sunt cum essentia divina, humanitati attribuunt, ita ut earn in abstracto ab illis denominent, et quatenus talem intrinsece cum illis idem faciant, nominatim, qui immensitatem sive omnipnr- sentiam carni attribuunt." Dispp. de preecipuis Rel. Chr. Capit. in. §.43. For more information on these and some other minor contro- versies of Calixt's see Schuberti Just. Tk. Pol. Pars iv. c. xi. e See the interesting accounts of Casaubon and of Grotius, particularly of the latter, in Hallam, Lit. of Europe, vol. iii. c. 11. §§. 12 — 17. APPENDIX. 315 particular it is difficult to reconcile his recognition of the voice of the five first centuries as supplying, at least in a secondary sense, a Rule of Paith, with his other position, that the Apostles' Creed contains a sufficient and adequate description of Christian fundamentals. After his death, which happened in 1656, his labours bore fruit in the Colloquy at Cassel held by command of William Landgrave of Hesse in 1661. The result of this conference was, that the Preformed and Protestant inter- locutors maintained their several doctrines concerning the Eucharist, predestination, the Person of Christ, and bap- tism, but considered that the contrary opinions, though erroneous, did not exclude from salvation nor from Chris- tian brotherhood. This conclusion was of course furiously assailed f . But the greatest interest attaches to Calixt because he may fairly be considered as the parent, theo- retically, of the present Evangelical Church of Prussia ; and in the degree in which that experiment may be con_ sidered successful the statement in the text will be received with allowance. Some of the following maxims of Calixtus, from the Judicium de controversiis, are worthy of attentions. " §. 3. p. 9. Nam si error, de quo intellectui constat, de- fendatur, et quod falsum quis esse noverit, nihilominus ut verum asseruerit, crimen fuerit voluntatis et peccatum in conscientiam. " §. 4. Cseterum id quoque observandum fuerit, nonnulla creditu ad salutem necessaria, ut eorum ignorantia salute prorsus excludat et damnationem inducat. " §.5. Quod autem sine jactura salutis nescire potest, circa id etiam error innoxius fuerit. " §. 6. Distinguendi sunt errores qui fundamentum di- recte evertuut ab iis qui non directe evertunt sed per consequential)!. f Calovii Hist. Syncretistica, pp. 635 sqq. & Geo. Calixti Judicium de controversiis Theologicis qua? inter Lu- theranos et Reformatos agitantur. Et de mutua partium fraternitate atque tolerantia propter consensum in Fundamentis. Accedit ejusdem Desiderium et studium Concordia? Ecclesiastica?. Sedani, 1661. 316 APPENDIX. " §.9. If men concur in a popular statement of doctrine, they may differ in their understanding and application of technical and scholastic expressions of it, without the dif- ference being supposed to touch fundamentals. Facile au- tem est hodie terminos, quos diximus, diversimode intelligi, rebusque ipsis aptari, quum aliquamdiu philosophia et discipline diversimode fuerint traditse et nova ilia atque prava Romsc institutio veteres terminos partim aboleverit, partim aliter ac olim accepti fuerint intelligere docuerit." The body of the treatise is chiefly occupied with a discus- sion of the questions concerning predestination and concern- ing the sacramental presence. But he is evidently conscious, that there is little prospect of his principles tending to an actual union. "§.87. Nolo tamen inficias ire, donee perfectior con- sensus constituatur, ad ministerium Ecclesiasticum admitti apud nos non posse, qui in adserenda et defendenda sen- tentia Zwinglianae partis perseveraverint, neque multum spei apparere de Puritanis ut in Anglia vocantur, hominum genere turbulento et seditioso ad moderationem et mutuam tolerantiam flectendis." In his Desiderium et Studium Concordim Ecclesiastics he thus states his principles. " §. 10. Qme prsecise ad salutem sunt neccssaria, distin- guantur ab aliis quae pari modo necessaria non sunt. " §. 12. Qusestiones quarum decisio ad pietatem aut prax- im Christianam nihil confert, — omittantur vel tanquam indifferentes in medio relinquantur. " §. 14. Sufficiat consensus circa to Quod est myste- riorum, etiamsi to Quomodo non possimus penetrare. " §. 15. Sufficiat si sit consensus circa dogmata commu- nibus et cuique notis vocabulis proposita. " §. 16. Ut etiam quando hi (termini philosophici) adhi- bentur, convenire possit, usurpentur sensu, quern jamdu- dum et ab aliquot seculis obtinuerint, nee iis novus aut inusitatus tribuatur ; nee abrogata veteri adsciscatur nova aliqua philosophia. Mutata enim philosophia invehit quo- que mutationem in theologiam, ubi scholasticc tractanda venit. APPENDIX. 317 "§. 18. To take authors' words in the best sense of which they are capable. " §. 19. The judgments of churches to be taken from their public confessions rather than from individual au- thors. " §. 20. Onus probandi lies on that church which excom- municates others. " §. 21. Proof to be, 1. from Scripture ; 2. from unani- mous primitive antiquity." The following passage, which may be considered as expressing Calixt's mature sentiments, deserves especial attention, as shewing his conviction of the hopelessness of an union on a theoretical, intellectual or dogmatical basis. " Rectius autem fuerit, utramque partem simpliciter et ingenue, quod sentit, profiteri, quam alteram alteri am- biguis loquendi formulis imponere. Qualem conciliandi rationem inierunt olim Philippus et Bucerus, nempe ut prsescriberentur formula?, quarum verba utraque pars am- plecteretur, sed singula? suo sensu acciperent et interpre- tarentur. Quern conatum, quamvis ex pio eoque ingente concordia? desiderio et studio profectum, nulla successus felicitas excepit. Malumus, uti diximus, utramque partem sensa animi sincere et citra fucum exponere : et etiamsi discrepent nihilominus odia et inimicitias et conviciandi ac damnandi libidinem ponere h , etc." Calixt has also in a loose way of speaking been con- sidered the originator of German rationalism, a word which is sometimes applied to any intellectual movement in any direction. Besides Calovius, refer to Walchii Bib- liotheca Theol. Select, cap. v. sect. xvii. §§. 17 — 22. Schu- berti Inst. Theol, Polem, Part iv. ch. xi. §§.6 sqq. ch. xii. Geschichte der synkretistischen Streitigkeiten in der Zeit des Georg Calixt, von Heinrich Schmid, Erlangen, 1846, which is not too favourable to Calixt ; more so is Georg Calixt und der Synkretismus, eine dogmenhistorische Ab- handlung,vonDr. W. Gass, Breslau, 1846. G. Calixts Brief - h Be tolerantia reformatorum, Th. 87. This treatise was not published till after the death of Calixt, first by his son F. U. Calixt, in 1658, at Helmstadt, reprinted in 1697. 318 APPENDIX. wechsel in einer Auswahl aus Wblfenbuttelschen Hand- schriften, herausgegeben von E. L.Th. Henke, Halle, 1833. The letters are mostly in Latin, and do not contain much of interest. q In 1574 a translation of the Augsburg Confession into modern Greek was sent by some Lutherans of Tubingen to Jeremias II, Patriarch of Constantinople, and there ensued a correspondence without any result, turning chiefly on the manner of the real presence in the Eucharist. Acta et Scripta Theologorum Virtembergensium et Patriarchs Constantinopolitani D. H'/eremia, quce utrique ab anno 1576 usque ad annum i/,8i de August ana Confessione inter se miserunt, Greece et Latine ab iisdem theologis edita. Vitemb. 1584. In 1 630 Cyril Lucaris, P. of Constantinople commu- nicated to the reformed churches through Cornelius Hagen, the Netherlands' minister at the Porte, his confession of faith agreeing with the Calvinistic. — Corpus et Syntagma, Part iii. p. 54. But this was repudiated by all the branches of the Greek Church. Walchii Bibl. Theof. cap. in. sect. ii. §. 13. and cap. in. sect. iii. §. 7. r The correspondence of Archbishop Wake with Dr. Dupin and others (1 7 1 7 — 9), comprises all which can sensibly be said on this subject. It is characterised on the part of the Archbishop by the most perfect judgment and temper, together with the clearest understanding of the true position of the Church of England. What Abp. Wake thought might under some circumstances be possible, was not in fact a reunion with Home tlirough the Gallican Church, but an union with the Gallican Church, in the case of its asserting its independence of the Roman supre- macy. Any negotiation, although that correspondence does not properly deserve the title, was in fact premature, until the Gallican Church was at liberty. Especially so was the attempt on the part of Dr. Dupin to conciliate the Roman doctrines in a modified shape with the Articles of the Church of England. Indeed I venture to be of opinion, that such attempt at conciliation and at carrying the intellectual ami dogmatical union too Jar, might have been fatal to the project, even if Rome had been out of APPENDIX. 319 the way. And let us imagine hypothetically, that the episcopal seat at Rome should cease to be occupied by a Bishop. The ecclesiastical pacification of Christendom might thereby be much facilitated. But it would be en- dangered by nothing so much, as by an endeavour to fuse the national and other creeds and rituals of Europe. Such an attempt would lead to interminable heart-burnings and jealousies, and to the emulous setting up of Imperial, Gal- lican, Prussian, and Anglican standards. Or if a momen- tary success should attend it, a new centralization would follow, a quasi-supremacy would be revealed, to end in a re- newed Protestantism and dissent. The light in which Abp. Wake regarded the non-episcopalian reformed Churches of the Continent may be understood from his letter to M. Le Clerc, Ap. 1719. The project of M. de Beaufort mentioned at p. 242 was the occasion, besides the letter of the Abp. of Besangon, of the work, De la Reunion des Communions Chretiennes, ou His- toire des Negotiations, Conferences, Correspondences, qui out eu lieu, des Projets et des Plans qui ont ete formes a ce sujet depuis la naissance du protestantisme jusqu'a present, par M. Tabaraud, Paris, 1 808. The object of this work is to shew, by a history of the failure of these projects, the im- practicability of such union. The circulation of the book was obstructed at its first publication by the Imperial police. It was reprinted with some additions under the title, Histoire critique des Projets, fyc. Paris, 1824. On the other side was published in 1808, Rabaud, Details his- toriques sur les divers Projets de reunion, which I have not met with. P„„celon TheolM.c.1 ^'fffi^ifllil 1 1012 01131 1356 DATE DUE «JUIV 1 W>'" V * GAYLORD PRINTED IN U S A 7