tihvaty of Che t:heological ^tminavy
PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY
Gift of
Samuel Agnew, Esq.
1881
BX 4810 .M5E1846
Miller, John.
The design of the church
DESIGN OF THE CHURCH
THE
DESIGN OF THE CHURCH,
/
AS AN INDEX TO
HER REAL NATURE
THE TRUE LAW OF HER COMMUNION.
BY JOHN'MILLER,
PASTOR OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN FREDERICK, MD.
PHILADELPHIA:
JAMES M. CAMPBELL, 98 CHESTNUT STREET.
NEW YORK: SAXTON AND MILES, 205 BROABWAY.
'1846.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846,
By James M. Campbell,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania.
C. SHERMAN, PRINTER,
19 St. James Street.
CONTEIs'TS. • %vr.*-
Introduction, - - - - 1^
CPIAPTER I.
The Principle of Design, - - - 33
CHAPTER II.
The Design of Religion, - - - 61
CHAPTER III.
The Design of Externals in Religion, - - 72
CHAPTER IV.
The Design of an External Church, - 90
CHAPTER V.
Danger of Attributing to Externals Certain
Spurious Designs, - - - - 103
1*
VI ♦ CONTENTS. j#
CHAPTER VI.
A Spurious Design of Certain Externals, 119
CHAPTER VII.
The True Doctrine of Church Communion, Ar-
gued from the Design of an External
Church, . - - - 171
pbhtcetoh
THE0L0CIC4L
P R EFTCli.
The world has had three grand lessons, each lasting
about two thousand years, bearing on a single point of
the church's creed ; and, as if to keep the three always
and distinctly with us, three grand monuments remain :
the wrecks of institutions out of the history of which these
lessons have been brought. Poor a learner as the world
always is, still, it is an idea specially hard to bear, that
such lessons have gone for nothing, and that He who
alone is worthy to open the book of Providence, or to
look thereon, has loosed already a fourth seal, and is
busy unwinding the roll again, and pointing in the dim
future to a fourth wreck, a monument for another age.
1. God gave to Adam after the fall a pure religion. It
grew corrupt. The main form of its corruption was,
THE EXALTING OF EXTERNALS, tO the nCgleCt of tWO faCtS,
that God is a Spirit, and that He can be worshipped only
with the spirit. It grew more and more corrupt, as the
dividing families of men carried it abroad into the places
of their dispersion, till it had secured for the world,
through all after history, that vast preponderance of
heathenism, against which Christianity is toiling yet.
2. Nearly two thousand years later, God gave to
Abraham a pure religion, a religion having the advan-
tage now of past example ; guarded by the calling of
8 PREFACE.
Abram out from among those fathers beyond the flood
who served other gods ;^ having the warning of God
Himself out of Sinai, — " Thou shalt not bow down to
their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works : but
thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down
their images,"^ and having a memento, in the very wreck
of a past religion, of the precise nature and hard result
of such apostacy. In spite of all, it grew corrupt. The
main form of its corruption was, the exalting of exter-
nals, precisely as before. It grew more and more cor-
rupt, till first the images of Baal and the fires of Moloch,
the gods of the nations in whose land it dwelt, had
gathered to them more worshippers than God, and then,
after the Captivity, when foreign idolatry was cast away,
its own rites had claimed their turn in the superstition —
the Pharisee, that embodiment of the whole corruption,
had appeared, and trust to mere externals had become
general enough to find a place in alleged divine tradition
for the rule, " No circumcised man can perish."
3. About two thousand years from Abraham, God
gave by Jesus Christ a pure religion ; still with the warn-
ing, " Flee from idolatry,"'^ " Little children, keep your-
selves from idols ;"'^ and now, with two monuments, pre-
sent in all lands, wherever it might turn, the wreck of
oral religion, in the heathenism of the world, and the
wreck of Abraham's religion, in its Judaism.
Precisely, as if these costly lessons of forty centuries
had been on some other planet, and our first experiment
in rehgion opened with the Christian era, it grew cor-
rupt again. The main form of its corruption was the
exalting of externals, without a shade of essential
=> Josh. xxiv. 2. b Ex. xxiii. 24. ^ j Cor. x. 14. ^ 1 John v. 21.
PREFACE.
difference between this instance of it and the last. It
grew more and more corrupt, and even faster than be-
fore, so that in less than two thousand years baptism had
taken the place of circumcision, as a saving rite, and
birth in the church of a birth from Abraham, as a saving
birth, and wafer, and wine, and penance of the " blood
of bullocks," and " the fat of fed beasts," and of the " new-
moons, and sabbaths, and calling of assemblies," as, in
themselves, of saving efficacy ; differing, it is true, in de-
tail of doctrine, but bringing up to our minds the same
essential principles — direct efficiency, and absolute neces-
sity of certain externals in salvation.
4. Fifteen centuries from Christ, God gave back the
same religion by the hand of Luther, and the men of that
reformation — men who, into whatever country they
might go, to restore the written word, and to attack the
reigning superstition, had now three monuments at hand
to attest the value of their errand : — the wreck of the
first religion, (heathenism,) the wreck of Abraham's
religion, (Judaism,) and a wreck of Christianity, in the.
religion of Rome. What has been the result? Alas!
strange as it is that, among a hundred roads to ruin, the
world should be always choosing one ; strange as it is
that an error, narrow and singled out, like this, and re-
impressed upon the memories of all by the heaviest
curses that our race has felt, should lift its head, once
more, and show its old familiar features, and men not
shrink from it with quick fear, or attack it with liveliest
jealousy ; — strange as this is — the religion reformed in
the time of Luther, is growing corrupt again. The main
form of its corruption is, the exalting of externals. It
is growing more and more corrupt ; no longer, blessed
be God, in one corrupting mass, but in members stand-
10 ^ PREFACE.
ing aloof from the rest in doctrine and government, —
standing aloof, and yet dear to us, by virtue of the family
name, and for their share in the early struggles of our
common Protestantism.
What is to be done ? To take up the cold instruments
of reasoning, and begin to challenge and refute, is cheer-
less business. History, since the vi^orld began, turning
over that one error, and showing it in a thousand phases,
has defined it a thousand-fold more clearly than the best
chosen form of words. God, out of heaven, blasting it
with curses, wherever it has raised its head, has argued
against it with such light and power, that there seems
nothing left for human demonstration. Nay, all, the most
pure of mankind, at three successive periods of the world,
and after near twenty centuries of trial and rebuke, call-
ing up the error before their minds, in its single narrow-
ness, have openly recanted it, and left their experience
on record, for the benefit of all after time. What can be
done more ? Where has error risen nearer to the point
(if there be one), where truth may rest from the toil and
strife of argument, and deal only in calm denunciation ?
, What can be done ! All that Elijah did, patiently bear-
ing testimony, and arguing on ; — all that Elijah did, when,
though the Shekinah was yet in Jerusalem, and miracles,
clearly giving witness to the one spiritual Jehovah, were
yet in Israel, still " Baal's prophets were four hundred
and fifty men," — patiently bearing testimony, " if the
Lord be God, follow Him, and, if Baal, then follow
him," and cheerfully oflering appropriate proof, " The
God that answereth by fire, let him be God."^
Two things may be done. Two aims ought to be
» 1 Kings 18.
PREFACE. 1 1
kept steadily in view by all that is still purely Protes-
tant: —
1. To draw a clear line between itself and this pecu-
liar error; not to listen when men suggest that the differ-
ence is all in words, but rather to remember that there
must be some insidious charm by which so notorious an
evil has every where yet succeeded in stealing in, and that
these very suggestions may be part of it, and, therefore,
to fix the boundary, and keep it visible, and to hold all
that is yet untainted aloof from the first symptoms of the
error, with the same necessary care that we would shun
leprosy.
2. To arrange fundamental arguments against the
heresy ; I mean by that, arguments reaching in for their
proof to the very vitals of the gospel. They are quicker
and surer. Every thing that prolongs debate between so
strong a thing as Christ's religion, and so weak a thing
as this corruption of it, subtracts respect from the former,
and adds it to the latter. The errorist knows the fact,
and, therefore, is ever busy in dealing with minor evi-
dences. The advocate of truth ought to know it, and to
be ever drawing his opponent back to what is chief and
central ; remembering that he is not meeting the untried
perplexities of something new, but trying to despatch,
with the strongest hand, and with the clearest head, and
as briefly as he can, an error so old and thoroughly ex-
ploded, as that the hardest effort of intellect in it, is not
to prove it false, but to know how, after it has been proved
so a thousand times, it still manages to appear again.
The minor evidences, among which may be instanced
isolated texts of Scripture, are as strong as any other, if
we can make them positive, for proof is proof, no matter
how trivial its subject-matter; but there precisely is the
12 PREFACE.
difficulty. In trying to make them positive, we spend
time that might have been enough, perhaps, for deahng
■with the whole circle of higher proof. Poor as its cause
may be, we throw ourselves down on a level with the
error we oppose, and, in the end, rather increase than
abate the confidence of the people in its claims. An
isolated text, if positive, is conclusive, and there is an
end of all strife ;; but the moment it is proved to be not
so, as, perhaps, most single texts may be, and by that is
meant to be not shut up to a single meaning, and no
more ; that moment a debate over it proves itself to be
interminable, and every step further in it is but a sacri-
fice of the truth, by how much it is made to seem no
better than error, when at issue with it in a debate, of
necessity, endless. It should be one of the practical
marks, therefore, of pure religion, that she makes her
appeal from the very first to the broader principles of
the gospel.
Such must be her chosen ends.
To the two, the book that follows is intended as a
respectful contribution, and it is humbly consecrated to
God, the God and Father of our common Protestantism,
the one only pure and primitive religion, with the prayer
that it may be useful ; but with the more especially fer-
vent prayer that, if not useful, it may, at least, be kept
from the list of cases in which that religion has been
most deeply wounded by its sincerest friends.
J. M.
Frederick, Md., Dec. 30th, 1845.
INTRODUCTION.
I. Where is the spirit of ancient paganism ? If the
Scripture be true, " as in water, face answereth to face ;
so the heart of man to man ;"^ what has become of that
corruption of the heart which once filled the world with
idols'? From the Bible, and from uninspired history,
and from the accounts that come to us of heathenism as
it lasts on to our own time, it has given ample proof that
it is one of the chief of human sins. It has shown itself
not to be the creature of circumstances, or superinduced
only by external causes ; but to be that which springs
up naturally, and cherishes itself in the heart, even
against influences from without.
Where is it? what shape has it taken among our-
selves? That which, in all other times and among
every other people, has been the crying fault of these
hearts of ours — the most prolific in judgments upon our
race, and the strongest in ripening the seeds of general
corruption — cannot be altogether dead and ended among
us now.
Its main element, too — the elevation of the external
to the place of the spiritual— the endowment of matter
with such a relation to deity as that body may do the
work of soul,— however not to be expected to appear
* Prov. xxvii. 19.
2
14 INTRODUCTION.
again, on the ground of its folly, and its often detected
folly, still might be confidently expected to appear again
in every land, whether pagan or Christian, on that best
of all grounds, the ground of experience. Each sepa-
rate page in the annals of the world, being, as all history
is, but the history of the human soul, gives w^arrant to
this as no presumption. The spirit that framed the old
mythologies, and then gave them such iron power over
the hearts of men — that debased itself so low in searching
for its deities among the very meanest of the works of
God ; — the spirit that gave our own fathers their lesson
in Druid rites and human sacrifices, and that still carves
its idols, and rears its altars among the heathen, and
lights their funeral fires, and guides their cruel pilgrim-
ages, must have something to answer to it here among
ourselves.
What a call for searching into the purity of our
churches ! expressly, too, with our eye upon that which
is the peculiar province of the evil — the visible part of
our religion.
It will not do to say that idolatry is the impiety of an
ignorant age, and that therefore the call for jealousy
over ourselves in the use of what is outward is set aside
by the light which the church possesses. For if the
secular intelligence of men is the light that is intended,
experience will make it a question, whether it do not
increase the danger. " The world by wisdom knew^ not
God,"'' and He has seen fit to bring this to the proof by
making the wisdom of the world but a tool in debasing
its religion. It is a notorious fact that in most countries
the advancement of letters, and the degrading of w^or-
ship have gone hand in hand. Egypt became the cradle
» 1 Cor. i. 21.
INTRODUCTION. 15
of science, only to fasten upon her popular faith the
worst absurdities — that leeks and onions, cats and dogs
and crocodiles, must be adored as deities. The idolatry
of Greece seems to have kept pace in vileness and
obscenity with the advance of her philosophy; and
Rome, through the progress of her arms and under the
growing light of her Augustan age, only learned, by
borrowing from abroad, and by inventing at home, to
multiply and, so, degrade the modes and objects of her
worship.
The fact is, an ordered system of mythology, in its
more minute and, of course, more degrading detail, seems
to require some degree of light to give it birth and sta-
bility. Oar own aborigines and most other savage
tribes approach nearer a low form of natural religion than
the most cultivated nations, not evangelized. The Great
Spirit of the American Indian, and He is but a type of
the God belonging generally to that grade of civilization,
may be looked upon as a noble conception of the Al-
mighty, when contrasted with the faith of more en-
lightened races.
No ; learning, though of right and by legitimate ten-
dency the handmaid of religion, yet has proved herself,
under the force of depravity, its frequent and worst
seducer.
If, however, it be pleaded that the true religion — that
kind of intelligence — when once it secures a foothold,
must preclude for the time the revival of idolatry, it may
be asked, how was it in the land of Israel? There,
clearly, the two dwelt together upon the same soil, the
light of the one, bright as it was, scarcely ever dispel-
ling the gross darkness of the other. Perhaps it would
not to be too strong to say that idolatry was the dominant
16 INTRODUCTION.
religion of the people, through their whole history, from
Egypt to Babylon. The high-places, and the house of
Baal, stood, generation after generation, hardly beyond
the shadow of the house of God, while the best consola-
tion found for Elijah, and that, probably, not at the worst
time in the history of the tribes, was : " I have left me
seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not
bowed unto Baal and every mouth which hath not
kissed him."^ Then, if the Israelites, with miracle, and
" the cloudy presence" and the " open vision" still among
them, could find in their hearts a principle strong enough
to seduce them to the lowest image-worship, either
human hearts have changed, or that principle must still
be looked for counterworking our own religion.
Men may say that it now takes the form of spiritual
idolatry, i. e., the worship of time and sense, such, for
example, as that " covetousness which is idolatry f^ but,
let it be remembered, this form existed then, as now,
and yet did not supplant the other. They were pointed
at and rebuked together. They are difterent evils, be-
gotten of different principles. One looks at present
good ; the other at final safety ; the last a positive wor-
ship, the first only figuratively so. The one then will
answer badly for the other in meeting the calls of the
heart. They are mutually necessary. Literal idolatry
is good to quiet conscience, that spiritual idolatry may
be undisturbed; for only set up a false worship, and
God and mammon can be best served together.
Let me notice one more objection to the idea that
there are the strongest a priori grounds for anticipating
the infection of our churches with idolatry. The Chris-
tian religion does not furnish that hold for the evil that
» 1 Kings xix. 18. ^ Col. iii. 5.
INTRODUCTION. 17
the Jewish religion did. Their ritual was full, and
therefore more exposed than ours. The ceremonial law
presented a hundred points where temptation might
attack it. While the gospel is so thoroughly spiritual,
and clothes itself in so httle that is fleshly, that idolatry
has scarce any thing on which to fasten.
In reply, the question occurs at once, has God left
any rites to the Christian system '? If not, we look else-
where for the evil. If He has, there is the point to
which suspicion must be directed. The Jew exalted his
own rites till they became idolatrous ; do we the same 1
The Jew added to his own the rites of Baal ; is it so at
all with us? The burden of ceremony laid upon the
church in the days of her novitiate has left scarcely any
thing behind it, but two plain, unostentatious obser-
vances ; for Christ, as if at once to rebuke and prevent
the hope of salvation by external means, has brought
down the ritual binding upon us to the very lowest ex-
treme of familiar simplicity. Still here, however less
excusable superstition has become — here is sphere
enough for the temptation. The spirit that turned God's
rite of sacrifice into an idolatrous channel, and made
the perverted rite the pervading idolatry of the world,
bringing so much heathenism out of so small a reve-
lation, might easily find in these enough for like unhal-
lowed purposes. The two sacraments, of baptism and
the Lord's supper, and, associated with these, the ex-
ternal order of the church, might be anticipated as ral-
lying points of superstition; about which idolatrous
regards would always cluster, and to which new rites
and vain appendages would be added to help out the
system of delusion.
II. What, in these days, is the force and use of the
9*
18 INTRODUCTION.
second commandment 1 Certainly not to meet merely
that one narrow superstition — image-worship. This
idea is forbidden as well by the analogy of the second
with the rest of the ten, as by the common habit of
scripture. One overt act of sin stands as the type of
many, and represents that whole principle of evil from
which it is seen to spring. What is the province, then,
of this commandment in its bearing upon us 1 That
God has thought it constant enough in application to
make it one of a decalogue so framed as to meet all duty
and to forbid all sin, warrants us in two conclusions —
first, that it occupies the whole ground of false worship,
and challenges in every form the superstitious misuse of
ordinances ; and second, that the very space it fills in the
law declares a tendency to this misuse to be one of the
cardinal corruptions of our nature.
Here, therefore, coming up in another shape, is more
evidence for the need of jealousy over our souls in set-
tling that part of our faith which regards the rites and
order of the visible church.
The fact is, a reliance upon external ordinances has
in it all the moral elements of idolatry strictly defined,
i. e., image-worship. An intelligent advocate of the
error may tell you that none of his adoration terminates
on the ordinance, and that its necessity is only as a
channel of grace from God ; but so will an intelligent
idolater explain what he does before his idol. It is not
his deity, but only the shrine that hides the real object of
his worship. Many heathen have been wise enough to
see in the wide polytheism of their countrymen, only
varied forms for shadowing forth one Infinite Spirit.
Does this excuse the system? Talk with the ignorant
in either case, and you will find that matter, whether as
INTRODUCTION. 19
rite or image, if looked upon as supernaturally endued,
or invariably accompanied with the power of God,
gathers upon itself some at least of the adoration that it
engages to hand on to Him.
That much of the essence of the Gospel goes with
these abuses, cannot so sanctify them as to change their
nature. A mixture of truth cannot erase the strong
lines of their resemblance to pagan ceremonies. They
are alike in this very feature, aside from others, viz., that
there is present with them only partial error. What
superstition can you find, not grafted upon some truth?
for, in the nature of things, none can be purely false.
The meanest idol has clustering around it many just
ideas of God — His power — His ability to save or to
destroy — the hope of his rewarding those that diligently
seek Him.
The common mode of ministering to the idol, i. e., by
sacrifice, is but a truly primitive rite perverted. In many
diverse forms, on the smoking altar, on the funeral
pyre, in the lacerating scourge, in rack and cell and
pilgrimage, it ever points to the idea of atonement sha-
dowed forth in that divinely appointed and earliest cere-
mony. So of the rites of cleansing ; the Hindoo, wash-
ing away his sins in the holy Ganges, is but toiling in
the distance in dim traditionary light after the fountain
opened for sin and uncleanness ; and whether he bor-
rows what he does from the " divers washings" of the
Jews, or invents it from his own sight of its appropriate-
ness, still there is truth in it. Indeed, there must be
truth in error, to make it possible that it be believed, or
just to punish it; " for the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness, and unrighteousness of
men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because
20 INTRODUCTION.
that which may be known of God is manifest in them ;
for God hath shewed it unto tliem" — " so that they are
without excuse. Because that when they knew God,
they glorified him not as God," — " but became vain in
their imaginations" — " and changed the glory of the
uncorruptible God into an image made like to corrupti-
ble man, and to birds and fourfooted beasts and creep-
ing things."*
The path of this idolatry, therefore, starts from the
very door of the Christian church. The Christian who
clothes matter, or men in holy office, with the power of
God, beyond all scripture warrant, making them divine
vehicles or channels of salvation, when scripture does
not make them so, is not only wrong, but wrong like the
heathen. No matter how he wraps up with mystery the
grand doctrines of our creed, his heresy has the great
features of idol-worship ; the brutal pagan, whose spi-
ritual lot he pities, and whose folly he abhors, is his
brother, by a birth less disgraceful, because less guilty,
in the same family of error.
III. But a still louder warning to look well how we
settle our faith as to the externals of religion, rises from
the fact that the suspicions on whose weight we have
been insisting, have actually been realized. Those re-
flected from the idolatry of other races, showing how
invariably every where else the soul has been betrayed,
and those reflected from the table of the law, showing
how the Creator of the soul foresaw the danger of pre-
cisely such betrayal, yield in strength, perhaps, to those
made necessary by the appearance of the evil in the
bosom of the church.
And by this it is not meant to take for granted
^ Rom. i. 19—23.
INTRODUCTION.
21
charges which it is our very work to prove, or at all to
build any thing upon the extent to which superstition
has grown among us, or the number of points around
which it has centred. Appeal shall go no farther than
confession as made by all, viz., that the visible church
has been infected by idolatry. Where,— may be a
matter of controversy ; but the fact itself scarce any
one will deny.
For example, take out the single class of ultra Ro-
manists, and all others will admit that that church is
more or less infected. The sincere and thinking part
of her communion will point to many practices, if not as
sanctioned by her ghostly head, yet as indulged in by
her more corrupt and ignorant members, especially in
new stations among races newly reclaimed from heathen-
ism, which they will willingly give up as amenable to
the charge that has been made ; while all other churches,
grade after grade in departure from Rome, will accuse
her as wide from the simplicity of Christ, or as wholly
given up to idolatry. Nay, it would seem that no ex-
ception need be made even of the blindest and most de-
graded under the papacy. For, bring all the eastern
churches into the account, with the mutual recrimina-
tions of the whole in the west and east, and there seems
little risk in saying that corruption, somewhere, by ido-
latry, is a charge from which there will be no dissent.
To all true-hearted Protestants, however, the appeal
is most direct and forcible. A system of enormous
superstition has been feeding for ages upon the strength
of the church. Before our very eyes we see it ; her
decay and death in that member of her body where the
poison has been longest working ; her ordinances quite
forgetting their old design, and turned to that of seducing
22 INTRODUCTION.
men away from what, is pure and spiritual in worship ;
her officers betraying the worst folly of man, in the
very act of claiming the high honours of God ; and her
v/hole system squared as with studied art to cherish the
evil to which the soul has so amply proved its tendency.
Here, therefore, in the deep and long apostacy of this,
the largest society of men that ever bore the name of
Christ, we, who by sovereign grace have come out
from her communion may find our strongest reason for
a wise jealousy over each other. How does it stand
with us? Is that current of corruption that carries
every thing before it in the Roman church, unfelt by
Protestants? If it is, few problems in the spiritual
w^orld would be harder to explain than the cause of this
exemption. Does superstition break off at the door of
the Papacy ; and are all without untainted by it ? Is
there a chasm fixing a clear boundary between pure
worship and false? or, as in other cases, do truth and
error but half renounce their fellowship, and throwing
out their arms towards each other, depart from either
territory only in lingering degrees, leaving at each
grade of separation some portion of their strength to
parley for new alliances ? Is it a common thing at all
for that clear bright line marking between wrong and
right, whether in faith or worship, so totally to divorce
their respective adherents as to deny all mutual ap-
proaches ? If it be not, then in the case before us, it is
plain where our suspicions must rest.
If Rome be false, against whose influence can we be
more wisely guarded than theirs who are looking to-
wards Rome? Above all, that damning sin of the
Papacy, — man arrogating the claims of God, — the
water and the bread and the wine in his hands hiding
INTRODUCTION. 23
Christ and the atonement, — things visible in his wor-
ship, vanities that perish in the using, overshadowing
and causing him to forget the claims of a true devotion,
— this sin, so far as the reader will confess it one, may-
be his index in judging, if at all, and where, the church
is losing her integrity. If in any one of her branches
the simple rites or offices of our religion are gathering
again about them those meretricious honours of which
it was the chief labour of the Reformation that they
might be shorn, let here be our mark against that
branch ; and let our pity be turned upon it, and our
watch be set against it, not only for the measure of its
likeness to its apostate mother now, but for the peril in
which it stands of returning fully to her embraces.
IV. It is time for the Reformed church to grow cor-
rupt. Happy will it be for her if one branch will draw
off upon itself all she has to fear — one loathsome issue
satisfying the disease, and leaving a measure of health
in the other members of her body.
Three centuries from the death of Christ, evidence
in every shape warrants the belief that the primitive
church had strayed far from the truth. We are now
three centuries from the dawn of the Reformation. If
there be any sign in this, the time has come for our
corruption, and if the path downward be as steep as in
the patriarchal, the Jewish, or the early Christian age,
God only knows with what rapid strides our corruption
may advance.
What were the circumstances of the last apostacy ?
Was the Man of Sin the creature of rising ambition in
the clergy, and of waning self-respect and Christian
liberty among the people ? Look well if like influences
are begetting no such results among ourselves. Did
24 INTRODUCTION.
the church most rapidly decline, wherever it was ear-
liest and best supported by the secular power ? Where,
next to Rome, does the modern church receive its
richest governmental endowments t Were the seeds of
corruption thus matured, transplanted from under the
smile of kings to take root in other lands ? then so it
may be now. We may have planted among us a court
religion, bringing with it all its corruptions, without the
patronage for which it sold itself. Once more : did the
ancient church court the favour of the Pagans by a base
adultery with their superstitions 1 Did mere externals
and new externals become prominent in her preaching
that the heathen mind might find something congenial
in what she offered ? then the same policy may rise
again ; let us watch the first signs of sympathy with
Rome, meeting as it may the prurient appetite of the
people by yielding to her blandishments, and taking at
her hand, without the stint of fresh invention, or the toil
with which she toiled through the seed-time and harvest
of error, the fruits of her ripe degeneracy.
On all these grounds of strong suspicion let us build,
not prejudice, but caution. No partiality is asked, but
simply that direction, which admitted truths like these
must give to candid study. Certainly the least amends
that can be won back from superstition for all her mis-
chiefs in the heathen world and in one scarcely less
heathen church, is, that they give warning against them-
selves, so that we may have forecast enough to set a
double guard upon them. For " these things were our
examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil
things, as they also lusted ; neither be idolaters, as were
some of them."*
» 1 Cor. X. 6, 7.
INTRODUCTION.
25
The object of the chapters that follow is, by going
down to the lowest principles on which the institution of
the church is founded, not only to show how thoroughly
the foregoing suspicions are realized by existing viola-
tions of those principles, but also to erect a lest, by
which the plausible beginnings of idolatry, which have
periodically and so easily deceived the church, and are
beginning, for the fourth time, again to deceive her now,
may be detected and shunned.
It is useless to attempt this, however, till the hollow-
ness of a certain popular and ready argument, wielded
in behalf of more than one sect of modern Protestants,
be shown in the light of what has been already said.
In whatever language it is given, it will be recognised
as familiar. " You admit the validity of our ordi-
nances ; we deny the validity of yours. Is it not better
at once to take that ground as to whose safety we are
both agreed?"
As illustration, take the mode of baptism. A branch
of the church believe that the command in Christ's com-
mission to the apostles, "Go teach all nations ; baptizing
them," &c., is obeyed by no other mode of the rite than
immersion, i. e., the dipping of the whole person under
water ; and that one undergoing any other ceremony is
not initiated into the visible church. The rest adopt
sprinkling as the valid rite, but with widely different
views of the importance of the mode, without making it
a test of membership, or valid to the exclusion of the
other. The first, then, we are told have plainly the ad-
vantage as to popular choice. If, so far as concerns
validity, all agree in immersion, and but a part in sprink-
ling, respect for the giver of the rite should determine
3
26 INTRODUCTION.
US to that in which we can have the testimony of both
parties, that we are obeying Him.
This logical formula becomes still more potent where
men's fears can be assailed. The advocates of that error,
in any of its phases, which makes valid church orders or
ordinances the only channel of God's covenanted mercy,
easily construct upon it an argument that tells directly
upon a certain class of minds. " You acknowledge us
to be a true church of Jesus Christ; we are constrained
to withhold any such acknowledgment from you. To
the validity of our communion, therefore, witness is
borne by both ; therefore, care for your own salvation
demands that you should make sure of being within the
true pale by this twofold testimony. Come to our
ground, and you risk nothing on your own, while you
gain all on ours."
Certainly, if this has weight, it is quite unnecessary
work to discuss the intrinsic claims of either system.
The least shade of doubt that might be left, must deter-
mine to the safe side. Let opinion ever so much forbid,
still the doctrine of probabilities must constrain compli-
ance ; for if the exclusive claim have any, the remotest
chance at all, of being right, since we venture nothing
by abandoning the other, better yield at once, that the
benefit of that chance may be gained.
Against such fearful odds the truth could in no single
instance be maintained. The least vestige of doubt on
one side, would be the utmost triumph on the other.
Those minds — -and where in our dark world could they
be found — only those that could banish all misgiving,
and clothe their creed in perfect light, would dare prac-
tically to acknowledge the weight of any evidence that
INTRODUCTION. 27
the less pretending party could accumulate. Indeed,
carry out the principle, and a moderate party must
always practically be wrong. Exclusive claims would
be by set rule a passport to success. No church need
do more than rise above her sisters in any form of ar-
rogant assumption — retaining ev^ery thing they have and
adding some one thing more — to challenge by this very
act the adherence of all the rest. The papacy is the
only body worth communing with. Especially for any
sect who thinks well of her essential soundness as a
church of Christ, it is the utmost rashness to be one mo-
ment out of her pale. How can we but yield to her sole
catholicity 1 for that common possibility of salvation,
which few question in her, she denies to all.
As the first fallacy of this whole argument, and a
good evidence besides of the mischief of that trust to
externals which it contributes to uphold, look at this one
result. Here are God's holy ordinances offered to meet
an intention in which the recipient has by his ow^n con-
fession no faith. Remember he is invited to them as
a matter of safety, aside from his predominant opinion.
The very call by which he has been won over, w^as to
make provision for a chance, not to bow to usual reasons.
How clear, then, the first lesson that his new mother
teaches, that the sacraments are precious, irrespective of
his belief Bad as it is to make their necessity absolute
luith faith, here that worse deformity of the error is un-
veiled — a necessity apart from faith — nay, against it.
This lesson is inwrought into the very texture of the ar-
gument ; for as the office of the argument is to set con-
siderations of safety against predominant belief, disen-
gaging men from their proper communion at a presup-
posed sacrifice of opinion and feeling, it is clear that the
28 INTRODUCTION.
chance for which they have left all, is nothing, if the out-
ward sacrament will not do its work or be pleasing to
God in the face of what they beheve.
So that the advocate of immersion, deeply as he may
abhor such teaching, does in fact endorse it, whenever
that most unhappy argument is on his lips. He offers
baptism, whose preciousness he, beyond others, insists is
in the faith of the baptized, to one the whole tenor of
whose mind forbids that mode and sense, without which
he counts it no ordinance. It is true that all parties be-
lieve in much that is essential to the rite ; but that is
nothing, so long as those very points on the ground of
which a change of church relation is invited, are not
believed, but must be yielded to mechanically, and not
from the heart.
Let us keep this plea in sight hereafter, as a good ex-
ponent of the system whose corruption it so effectively
upholds, a clear recommended example of form divorced
from faith, or of grace promised if the body will meet a
condition for which the mind is known to be unprepared.
But to hasten on to the grand fallacy of the argument,
it urges sin as a step to safety.
When it is assumed that we admit the validity of in-
stitutions for which these exclusive claims are indulged,
let that word be kept to its true limits. It is wide enough
from the sense of the admission, that the use of our own
or those is a matter of indifference. A church may be
far gone in corruption, and yet hold fast to so much es-
sential truth as will warrant us to invite its members to
our communion, and to acknowledge its ecclesiastical
acts. But there is a vast diflerence between a true
church, and a sound one, and between a valid and a pure
ordinance, and you might see abundant reason to give
INTRODUCTION. 29
the right hand of fellowship to a body of Christians, un-
der the influence of whose creed you would not for a
moment live. So a baptism may have been so loaded
with superstition that nothing could have tempted you to
countenance it, and yet, should the exigency occur, you
may be quite right in refusing to ask its repetition.
In judging of private Christians, it would never do to
make supposed piety a sanction for all the opinions and
practices with w^hich it is seen associated.
Then our judgment of churches must bear with it the
same reserve. Usages that we think corrupt, though
they do not destroy validity, must forbid conformity ;
for it seems to be forgotten, that such a thing as false
worship is possible, and is a grievous wickedness. If I
consent to sacraments administered in a sense in which
I believe from my heart God never gave them, can I
be innocent in his eyes ? and have I any right to com-
promise my duty to guard against a distant chance ?
If, when rightly explained ordinances are within my
reach, I, of set purpose, choose those that I believe cor-
rupt, and choose them, too, on the very ground of the
superstitious claim that makes them corrupt; — or, to
descend to the lower ground, if I submit to a 7node of
administration repulsive to my faith, and a snare to my
mind in discerning the meaning of the rite, who will
dare to say I can be approved of God ; when always,
but especially in a case like this, " whatsoever is not of
faith is sin ?"'
Look at the effects of such a step. He who thus
resorts to foreign ordinances both gives and takes —
gives countenance and the influence of his name to that
» Rom. xiv. 23.
3*
30 INTRODUCTION.
which he prevalently believes is error ; and takes a
moulding impression from the new alliance. Beyond
the sin of tempting others, he has brought temptation
upon himself, and grace only can secure his creed from
sinking to the level of the one to which it already
ostensibly belongs.
Then, no matter though superstitious fear may say
that a system, though it looks towards idoktry, may yet
be right, and thence, of course, be vital, if you do
violence to better faith and yield, the act is much more
a sign of peril than a step toward safety. Few as
plausible Christian acts could so call in question Christian
character ; or leave more room to fear that, like him
who, in the apostles' day, sought with sinister views the
benefits of the church, you have " neither part nor lot
in the matter," your heart being " not right in the sight
of God."^
The Hindoos, at least so far as numbers give weight,
deserve to have their views of truth somewhat con-
sidered. There is shut up under their peculiar creed a
good proportion of the living mind of our race, and that,
too, in their better castes by no means uncultivated
mind. Shall it have no voice in our spiritual councils?
The word of their proverbially acute and subtle Brah-
mins might surely go for something in balancing our
chances ; why not listen, and satisfy its claims ? If ever
afterward we could stand aloof, and devote ourselves
to our own religion, could it be wrong to give one day,
for example, to such devotions as might make us safe
by theirs ? Would not security in both be better than
in one ? and if a bath in the Holy River would so meet
* Acts, viii. 21.
INTRODUCTION. 31
their faith that should it prove the true one, our souls
would be found cleansed by that single washing, could
it be amiss to leave our proper worship for a day to get
the whole benefit of the chances of the truth of the
testimony of this respectable part of men 1
The analogy is no distorted one. It is a strange
policy in religion. While it betrays the creed that
invites it, it can be resolved into nothing else than the
principle : — Let us do evil and good may come.
The reader, therefore, whatever sympathy he may
have, whether much or little, with the conclusions to
which we may hereafter come, cannot refuse us the
open field and equal footing, which the following maxim
will secure : —
All church claims must appeal to their own intrinsic
merits. The question of safety coincides with the ques-
tion of truth.
RtCWH
DESIGN OF THE CHURCH.
CHAPTER I.
THE PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
Thouuh God is not the father of truth, it being as
eternal and necessary as Himself, still His mouth is its
only oracle, and His mind is its perfect gauge. Pretended
truth, not gotten in some way from Him, is no truth ;
but gotten in any way from Him, it stands good, past
all possibility of mistake or wrong, and is imperative
at once upon his creatures. The opinions, therefore,
that divide mankind, all defer to the question, what
would God have us believe'? and conflict between them,
however wide the interest it involves, and however keen
the interest it excites, has no colour of excuse for lasting
beyond the time when it shall have been shown, either
that no truth has come from God on the subject in dis-
pute, or precisely what truth has come from Him. So
that the grand end in studying any question is to bring
the mind of God, whether by reason, which is His voice,
34 PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
or by nature, which is His work, or by the Bible, which
is His word, in contact with our own minds.
By whichever of the three, however, this contact may
be formed, it is of yjrime importance to settle the office
of reason, for it has work to do, no matter how God
may open Himself to man.
This work has been obscured and thrown into doubt
by a favourite mutiny of reason — a desertion of its pro-
per office and a usurpation of another. Its proper office
is to stand and weigh evidence for the truth, and to
give sanction to faith as soon as that evidence reaches
a sufficient height. Its mutiny has been in insisting that
it shall see through a truth as well as see its evidence,
in intruding its own power to understand into the list of
necessary proofs, and so in refusing to believe what it
cannot comprehend. Or, a little differently, for error
has never only a single phase, it is a withholding of be-
lief from every thing that reason cannot argue out from
common principles. How grossly it is bred of preju-
dice may be seen in the fact that it is not for a moment
tolerated any where else than in religion. Natural
science does not wait to record her acquisitions till she
has robbed them of all mystery. Reason does not com-
prehend the union of soul and body; yet believes it.
Reason cannot argue out the attraction of the earth and
sun from any principle not gathered from the fact itself.
Indeed the only principle that seems to touch the case,
•* nothing can act where it is not," seems all against it ;
yet reason submissively believes. Let it get within the
circle of religious truth, however, and its tone changes.
Men's feelings, then, are with it in its errors. We like
it to doubt and cavil. The trinity we do not believe,
and the incarnation we do not believe, and miracles we
PRINCirLE OF DESIGN. 35
do not believe, because reason, not acting as she always
does, but instructed by our prejudices, revolts at the
method by which they are reached and at the mystery
in v^hich they are wrapped. This error of the mind
has gotten the name of Rationalism.
Winning a pretext from it, but still for an interested
end, i. e., to shield false doctrine from the scrutiny of
reason, another school of religionists have passed over to
the opposite extreme, and held, that in all questions of
faith, reason must be silent, for that " where faith begins
reason ends."
This is no escape from Rationalism, except as from
one folly into a worse. The curse of Rationalism lies
not in the use of reason in religion, nor even in the too
great use of reason, a thing impossible, as much so as
for an eye to gaze at a distant object too keenly to see
it, or for a judge to look into a cause too closely to de-
cide it. It lies in a total misdirection of reason. The
man who denies the force of gravity, because he cannot
understand it, is not bowing to reason, but making reason
bow to prejudice. Let him reason farther, and his faith
will return to him. So of the Rationalist. He does not
reason enough, or else not well enough ; for in admitting
evidence for mysteries he would stand on a far higher
level even of intellect, than in suffering his faith to go no
farther than his sight. Indeed his principle carried out
would strip us of all knowledge ; for where is the truth
that does not trace its root deeper than our eye can fol-
low it? Simply then because what is rationalistic is not
rational, does it brand itself as error.
Let it be remembered that reason in common and
popular discourse denotes that power by which we dis-
36 PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
tinguish truth from falsehood and right from wrong,* or
striking out the last words, inasmuch as wrong and right
are but different modes of truth, that power by which
we distinguish truth from falsehood. Now, who dare
say that contact may be formed between the divine
mind and ours, and truth pass from one into the other,
without the use of this power ? Must we not " know of
the doctrine whether it be of God V-^ God's being the
oracle cannot discharge reason from being the judge;
for let any one attempt to conceive, how thought of any
kind could get into his soul without passing the tribunal
of reason. It may be received superstitiously on the sole
authority of the church, or reverently on the sole au-
thority of God, but authority itself in either case offers
itself as a reason. So that, to say nothing of our duty
to "prove all things and hold fast that which is good,"
there is a mental necessity upon us. Faith cannot be so
implicit, or authority so supreme, as neither to give, or
be, or seem a reason for itself. The fact is, credulity is
never so servile as to cast from it all private judgment.
It may degrade the judgment of reason, but cannot re-
sign it ; for dismiss reason from its office, and man has
nothing more to do with truth, nor, actively, with God.
Under no circumstances of divine communication
does reason seem to have less to do than where truth is
imprinted on the mind by direct inspiration. Then there
seems to be nothing needed, but to listen, — " I will hear
what God the Lord will speak." Better reflection, how-
ever, will convince us that reason has an office here,
much the same as in any other mode of learning. First
of all it is cast upon us to judge whether God is speak-
* Stewart's Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 10. ^ John vii. 17.
PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN. 37
ing. All truth that enters the mind is not inspired truth.
We must " try the spirits whether they are of God."»
Then close upon this follows another work, of telling the
meaning of what he speaks. If the inspiration has been
one of words alone, as was probably the case with
Balaam, then the prophet has the same labour with his
hearers to decipher and explain. If it has been an im-
printing of the thought itself, as it was perhaps with
holier men than Balaam, still a sanctified reason must
again come in to unfold and connect and apply the
thought.
Inspiration, however, is rare. Only one mortal among
millions has enjoyed it, and he for the benefit of the
rest. To us truth out of the mind of God must come at
second hand, through those few favoured men, and though
God guides them in receiving it, and makes them in-
fallible in deHvering it to us, still w^e get it not in the
shape it came to them. Poor forms of matter, when
most refined, but a rough way of conveying thought, are
the only media of communion between man and man,
and therefore the only way w^hich inspired men have
had to hand down their oracles to us.
Obscured, divided, and broken up as truth necessarily
must be in descending from God's mind into no better
vehicle than dull material signs, language as we call
them, it may readily be imagined how greatly the labour
of reason must be enhanced when it descends from the
simple work of receiving an inspiration from the mind
of God, to the less honourable but more complex work
of interpreting it from out of the lips, or from under the
pen of man. This last is our work. Thought, which
* John iv. 1.
4
38 PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
going forth from its infinite source, has poured itself into
rude signs, we must gather back and identify and store
away for our spiritual uses. Our creed, in this age of
the world, must be got by reading ; and reading must
necessarily task all the faculties of the mind. It implies
at each step a judgment of evidence and of meaning ;
and what other power have we for this than the sanc-
tified power of reason?
The doctrine that sways all private judgment to the
authority of the church, and that would withdraw the
written word from the people, would not, should we
grant it, vitiate our conclusion. Some one must read.
If not the people for themselves, then the Church for
the people : and the minds that make up " the Church,"
no matter who they are, if we trust them to get for us
the sense of Scripture, must get it by interpretation, and
by that only conceivable mode of right interpretation —
the exercise of an enlightened and divinely -directed
reason in the work of judging.
This is no easy work. Preparation for it came by
our earliest and longest studies ; and though the Bible,
now that education has furnished us with a knowledge
of its grammatical signs, seems to give up its meaning
to us with little trouble, yet how much it still withholds !
The Bible still grows with all of us in size and riches
by the careful sifting of its language. It admits and
rewards all degrees of toil and exactness ; and he must
rest content to starve his faith with but half a revelation,
who does not put all his powers under task for inter-
pretation. Those translations of the sacred text in
which so many make it an act of piety to confide, at the
very time when they would depose reason from any
office in religion and even ridicule its claims, are the
PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN. 39
fruits of long years of closest and most various exercise
of reason. The fact is, call reasoning Rationalism, and
brand it as an evil, and the Bible is at once shut up and
sealed. Make trust in the mind's decision heresy, and
you shut up the only path to trust in God ; you have set
your name to the most thorough scepticism. That cor-
rupt reason breeds error infallibly, calls not that it be
renounced, but that it be renewed ; not at all that we
seek some other avenue to truth ; there is no other ; but
that we call down the Spirit to open and widen and
straighten that which God himself has appointed.
These remarks will bring the mind of the reader to
the right point for introducing a principle which is to
be the radical one in all that follows.
The mere recognition of grammatical signs, is not
the whole of reading. Were language an exact picture
of thought, then the will of God would sufler nothing in
clearness and fulness from being committed to such a
medium, but could be gathered by an act of mind as
near to simple apprehension as the act by which ancient
prophets saw what " the spirit within them did signify."
Absolute precision, however, is no attribute of language.
Signs, whatever their mode, are essentially ambiguous.
The shades of thought are so much finer and more
endlessly varied than the modes of matter, that one can
never find a true expression in the other.
This is most true, of course, of the ruder signs— forms
of motion, or, as we call them, gestures ; a method of
making matter the utterer of mind, the vagueness of
which^is extreme. If the principle we are about to
notice, did not furnish us a key, it would be a mys-
tery how men impart to them, or see in them, so
much significancy. Still, though in these lower modes
40 PRINCIPLE or DESIGN.
the obscurity is greatest, we do not wholly get out of it
in reaching the very highest level of artificial refine-
ment, and in adopting signs most narrow in meaning
and best defined. Language, though by far the most
transparent medium of thought of which we have any
conception, is thoroughly ambiguous. Not only so, but
in a thousand cases, read as it stands, each word in its
strictest definition, it is worse than ambiguous, — false. It
is the necessary habit of writers, trusting to a principle,
distinct from mere grammar, for finding the sense, to
compose sentences whose natural, downright meaning is
palpably untrue. The Bible is full of such sentences.
Nay, we know not that it would be going too far to
say, that if nothing could come in, as a basis of herme-
neutics, but bald definition, scarcely any part of scripture
but would be so far ambiguous as to teach less truth
than error.
Let some remarkable instances illustrate what is
meant. The tenth commandment is, " Thou shalt not
covet." Take these words as they stand in their simple
sense, and they bring discord into the whole moral law.
The mad faith of the Stoic might be built upon them, or
any system absurd enough to forbid the exercise of
one of man's inborn and necessary emotions ; but true
religion would contradict them at every point. Desire,
(and the same word in the original has elsewhere this
translation) the strongest desire is a Christian duty and
a grace of the Holy Spirit. " Covet earnestly the best
gifts." There can be no love of God without it. It is
plain there must be some clue in the mind of the plain
unlettered reader to a sense much narrower than the
word, self-interpreted, would justify.
So with another of the decalogue : " Thou shalt not
PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN. 41
kill." Definition alone is not all that must interpret it.
Appeal to nothing else, and you would have a precept
that would meet well enough the conscience of a Brah-
min, but would contradict the duty no less than the
practice of every Christian.
" It repented the Lord that He had made man on the
earth, and it grieved Him at his heart."* Shall we
take this as it stands; just as our dictionaries would
define it? Could there be better evidence that in read-
ing, the mind is called to an office beyond mere telling
the common force of words, and the current use of
sentences ; and must be furnished beforehand with some
governing principle, on the strength of which, it may feel
authorized to depart from that force and use 1 We
have quoted marked instances to make the truth more
prominent, but deeper examination of any written book
would show it to be general ; inasmuch as all language,
in its strictness, either falls short of the shade of thought
committed to it, or else wanders from it.
Revelation, then, is worth nothing to us without the
aid of what we shall call the principle of design. The
humblest reader of the Bible uses it ; if unwittingly,
still, of course, and constantly.
As we have seen, the only end of the reader is to
bring himself in contact with the mind of the writer —
to discover his will, or his intention in the language he
has chosen. We assume the hypothesis, that that inten-
tion harmonizes in all its parts. Especially in reading
the Bible, each leaf is turned with faith in the oneness
of its Author's will. This harmonized will is his design.
Now what was it in respect to the passages just
* Gen. vi, 6.
4*
42 PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
quoted, that convinced us they would not bear the strict
meaning of their own words 1 Plainly, previous know-
ledge, on our part, of what God would have us believe.
The sense was at once swayed to its proper bearing,
by the discord any other would occasion with the truth
already in the mind. The manifest design changed and
fixed the sense.
So it must in each step of interpretation. The words
alone do not give the meaning to us, but the words cor-
rected and modified by light from other quarters. Our
former knowledge must digest our new acquisitions; just
as the food of the body can be assimilated to it only by
the warmth and strength of its previous nourishment.
To brand this as "philosophy and vain deceit," is
idle. There is a deep and radical necessity in such a
course. It is not a license ; it is not a privilege ; it is
the very life and soul of reading, in its simplest forms —
that which each mind adopts at once, without choice or
doubt. The Bible was never meant to work its ends
without it. It would have been no more impossible for
Galileo to read the sentence, " Sun, stand thou still upon
Gibeon,"^ in its directed sense, or, ex animo, to recant
before it on the charge of vain philosophy, than for the
least sophisticated reader to go counter to his own
sense of design in reading the plainest scriptures.
That principle is much the same to which, in the legal
profession, there is such constant appeal, and in neglect
of which such endless injustice has been done : we mean
intention, a principle not safely or even sanely lost sight
of in any kind of writing; for, indeed, insanity could
hardly bring together such strange and incoherent
thoughts as any book would present without it. As
a Josh. X. 12.
PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN. ^ 43
examples, take Matt. iii. 10, 12; v. 29, 30. All figura-
tive passages are more or less in point.
What would naked grammatical interpretation do for
such sentences as these 1 " If any man come to me and
hate not his father and mother and wife and children
and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he
cannot be my disciple."'' " Whosoever is born of God
doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him;
and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.'"" " Pray
without ceasing."*^ " It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe."*^ Let any
reader ask himself what such sentences would be worth
to him as forms of truth, if he were forbidden to task
his already acquired store of kindred truth to render
them intelligible. Let him go deeper, and by watching
his own mind in all reading, and the poverty and way-
wardness of language in all writing, see if he can read
at all, without shaping and limiting and enlarging the
ideas that words offer to him. The line of the intended
thought, and the line of simple definition, often and
widely diverge, but seldom strictly coincide.
The fact is, we have spoken of natural grammatical
interpretation, but the idea is a mere figment. Language
was never given for such self-limitation. The principle
of design is essentially a part of grammar; for until it
can be shown that without a miracle words can point
with perfect singleness of indication to one shade of
meaning, this principle must determine our choice be-
tween many shades. Call grammar that which gives
the intention and rules of language, and we read gram-
matically only when we feel free to depart, as occasion
asks it, from the common sense of words.
* Luke xiv. 14. ^ 1 John iii. 9. « 1 Thess. v. 17. ^ 1 Cor. i. 21.
44 PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
How, on any other principle, are we to give faith to
the exact verbal contradictions of the Bible? "Answer
not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like
unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he
be wise in his own conceit."^ Compare also (Rom. iii.
28, and iv. 2), " A man is justified by faith without the
deeds of the law." " If Abraham were justified by
works, he hath whereof to glory;" with (James ii. 21,
24), " Was not Abraham, our father justified by works,
when he had oflfered Isaac," &c. " Ye see then, how
that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only."
And yet these passages, in strict letter so opposite, are,
in the intention of their writers, simply and beautifully
consistent, a little previous knowledge brought to the
reading of them being enough to bring the utmost logical
harmony out of the utmost verbal discord.
Again, what clue but that of which we are speaking,
, can help to fix in their proper places the various means
by which men are said to be saved, so as not to contra-
dict the fact of one salvation. " There is none other
name under heaven given among men w^hereby we can
be saved."'' " If by any means I (Paul) might save some
of them."'' " In doing this, thou shalt save thyself."^
" Baptism doth now save us,"^ &c. " We are saved by
hope."^ " Receive the engrafted word which is able to
save your souls."^ It is cast upon the mind in each case
to shape the meaning, that the unity of God's saving
work may not be broken.
Our Lord's discourses are somewhat remarkable for
the degree in which he takes for granted, in those who
listen to them, this prompt perception of design. " Joy
* Prov. xxvi. 45. ^ Acts iv. 12. c Romans ii. 14. ^ 1 Tim. iv. 16.
e 1 Peter iii. 21. f Rom. viii. 24. 6 James i. 21.
PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN. ' 45
shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more
than over ninety and nine just persons which need no
repentance."^ " Think not that I am come to send
peace on earth; I came not to send peace but a sword.
For I am come to set a man at variance against his
father,'"' &c. "Take no thought for your life,"*= &c.
"The maid is not dead,"*^ &c. He questions the people
as to its possession. "What think ye of Christ ? How
doth David in spirit call Him Lord ?" &c. He rebukes
them for the want of it. " O ye of little faith ; why
reason ye among yourselves because ye have brought
no bread ?' " How is it that ye do not understand, that I
spake not to you concerning bread ?' &c.
His disciples, too, and other inspired writers, have left
on record hundreds of such mistakes, in which we see the
mischief of losing sight of the principle of design, and by
which, therefore, that principle is set in the clearest and
most striking light. We beg the reader to notice, as we
mention some of them, how uniformly the persons who
make the mistake, fail to get hold of the design by car-
nal, external views of what the writer or speaker means
— in one word, by a tendency to literalism — that wide
and general form of literalism, which is the offspring of
a mind devoted to externals.
From what source but this, came that interpretation
of the scribes, which made all the Old Testament pro-
phecies of the Messiah, point to an earthly king, who, in
a long personal reign should restore the kingdom to Je-
rusalem 1 " We trusted that it had been he, which should
have redeemed Israel"^
By taking narrower cases, they may be multiplied to
» Luke XV. 7. ^ Matt. x. 34. ^ Matt. vi. 25.
d Matt. ix. 24. • Luke xxiv. 21.
46
PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
almost any extent. " If thou knewest the gift of God,
thou wouldst have asked (of me) living water. Sir, thou
hast notJiing to draw with, and the loell is deep;'"" &c.
"I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Hath any
man brought him aught to eat V'^ It is vv^onderful how
these mistakes, in every way so unique, cluster together
in some chapters. " Whither I go ye cannot come. Will
he kill himself? The truth shall make you free. We be
Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man ;
how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free 1 Ye do that
which ye have seen with your father. Abraham is our
father. If a man keep my saying, he shall never see
death. Now, we know that thou hast a devil Art thou
greater than our father, Abraham, which is dead ; and
the prophets ? &c. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see
my day, and he saw it and was glad. Thou art not yet
fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Before
Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones,'"" &c.
Could there be more signal proof of the emptiness of
mere words to minds unfurnished with the key to their
design ?
A similar train of misconceptions occurs in John vi.,
in many points more interesting to us, because, notwith-
standing Christ's repeated explanations,—" It is the spirit
that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing,"— the very
same misconceptions are persevered in till the present
day. The reader will mark that the error is still literal-
ism— a refusal to see a figure, where the speaker meant
one. "The bread of God is he which cometh down
from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Lord,
evermore give us this bread. I am the bread of life. The
"^ John iv. 10, 11. b joiin iy. 33^ 33. c John
viii.
PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN. 47
Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the
bread which came down from heaven. Is not this Jesus,
the son of Joseph ? &c. He that believeth on me hath
everlasting Hfe. I am the hving bread that came down
from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live
for ever ; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which
I will give for the life of the world. The Jews, there-
fore, strove among themselves, saying, How can this man
give us his flesh to eat 1 Except ye eat the flesh of the
Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
This is an hard saying, who can hear it 1 It is the spirit
that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing ; the words
that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and^^they are life."
The whole (and it should be read together, for many of
the tokens of a spiritual meaning which Christ held out
to render the mistake of his hearers inexcusable, are seen
in the sentences we have omitted) may stand as a type
of the many superstitious interpretations to which the
words of Christ and his apostles are still subjected, help-
ing carnal men to exalt the externals of the church at the
expense of what is spiritual.
Let us be satisfied now, however, with this inference
from our quotations. There is a partial knowledge of
design which is an essential element of reading. Each
sentence, as it stands by itself, presupposes, in the mind
of its reader, light to define its meaning, which the bare
language does not in all cases furnish.
Strong objection, we know, will at once array itself.
The principle in question is open to the most dangerous
abuse. Give up reliance on the self-defining power of
language, and let each man's reason set its limit, and
what unity or safety will be left in revelation'? Where
is the ofi^ice of grammar, what is the end of words,
48 PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
where is the good of Scripture, if nothing precise or de-
finite is given to the mind 1
The difficulty might be met by casting upon those
who urge it the responsibihty of its solution. Our
argument was from experience, supporting itself at each
point on fact — the fact that men actually do, and that
involuntarily, call in to their help in reading, more than
mere definition of words. First explain away the fact,
and then you have a right to the objection. Look into
any commentary, or hear any plain Christian expound
the Scripture, and tell us why appeal is so often made to
"what makes good sense," or "what would be consistent
for the inspir^ man to say," or " what would meet his
purpose." We stand on the safest of all grounds, fact
and necessity.
Waiving this right, however : does not the weight of
the difficulty bear only upon the extravagant use of de-
sign ? While the argument had in view the folly of trust-
ing in mere grammar to the neglect of design; does not
the objection meet only the opposite extreme — trust to a
knowledge of design to the neglect of grammar? The
fact is, in arguing this whole question, men have falsified
both sides of it, by choosing either of two equally wrong
positions. The so-called philosophical method of inter-
pretation and the grammatical method have been held
up as essentially distinct, and as able, either, as chosen,
to stand alone. There never was a greater misconcep-
tion. There never was a more sure result than the
fastening of error on both antagonist parties. The phi-
losophical method is well enough as the name of the
extreme on that side, and the grammatical method of
the extreme there; but no amount of practical error can
divorce them wholly. Each must include the elements
PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN. 49
of either, however wrongfully one may predominate.
The true method, moreov^er, lies between them, and is
true only in proportion as it blends both in harmony.
You say, this license as to design will destroy all cer-
tainty of language. But have we not seen (in case of
the Jews) the license of language destroy all justness of
design? There must be some accommodation between
the two, and it lies in this — we have no right to depart
from a common or possible usage of words. There is
our limit on that side. Language is certain up to that
degree of precision which its known usage gives it. If
its usage could in the nature of things be single, as was
said early in this paper, no consideration of design would
be needed. But to meet its ambiguities and its shaded
and varied meanings, direct and metonymical, exact and
exaggerated, literal and figurative, something else is
loudly called for; and the principle of design, if it but
restrict itself to the limit of this variety, makes interpre-
tation actually more sure and safe. One is a check
upon the other. Language limits the design; this defines
the language.
It is time, however, now to ask whence this previous
acquaintance with design is gathered ; for it must be
got legitimately, or we have no right to use it. What
has been pronounced a real, necessary, and instinctive
act of the mind in reading, must be only a perversion
and a prejudice, unless it traces itself back to a foothold
in the truth. The moment, too, it does trace itself back,
it becomes available orally to defend, as it was mentally
to discover the meaning of the passage, in the reading
of which it has been enlisted; it becoming possible, as it
does with all instinctive acts of the mind, to dissect and
set it down, step by step, in writing, and then to use it,
5
50 PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
as we wish to do hereafter, as a Hnk in logical argu-
ment.
Now, for that general acquaintance w^ith design with
which we come to the reading of a text in scripture,
three sources may be given. The list might be length-
ened. Experience and testimony might be added to it ;
indeed, any source of certain knowledge. 1. The intui-
tive truths of the mind. 2. Other scripture. 3. Deduc-
tions from other scripture.
1. As to the intuitive truths of the mind, no fear need
be had of giving in to the idea that they sway the sense
in reading, however cautious men ought to be in doing
homage to the human mind by setting it as judge
over revelation. For to intuitive truths every thing
must bow. It is on intuitive truth that all faith in a
Bible, or even in God's being is pillared. The mind's
intuition is the first and highest voice of God to man ;
so that it is but a light honour to put upon it to say that
it helps men to honour God's design in sentences of
scripture, when all scripture and all faith must in the
nature of things acknowledge it as their last appeal.
If a text should appear in the Bible in letter com-
manding us to blaspheme God, the intuitive principle
would just as promptly revolt against a literal meaning,
and force the mind to recognise some other design, as
it would revolt against Berkeley's notion that matter
has no real existence, or Pyrrho's doctrine of the certain
existence of nothing. So when a text does appear
saying, that, " the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both
with wrath and fierce anger"^ or that " God hardened
Pharaoh's heart,'"' or that " this cup is the New Testa-
* Isaiah xiii. 9. ^ Exodus x. 20.
PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN. 61
ment in my blood,"* the same inward voice cries out
against the blasphemous or absurd rendering in either
sentence, and turns the mind in search after another.
Some previous acquaintance with design, then, is had
by intuition.
2. Much more is had by scripture previously read. A
clear revelation on any page, the mind at once seizes as
a standard for every other. These standards multiply
and gather in the mind as we read on, so that we cannot
be reading long without forming something like a system
in our minds, — God's harmonized will, as it has appeared
to us; and this goes with us in after reading, a test, as it
grows, of all additions to itself.
3. This would be quite enough to meet the ambiguities
of language, if they w^ere its only imperfection. But
language lacks in fulness, as well as in precision. The
Bible reveals all truth that it is necessary for us to know,
virtually, but not verbally. Thought is a plane ; lan-
guage touches its surface only at scattered points ; and
all the intermediate spaces, where it fails in contact, the
mind must supply. The world itself could not contain
the books that should be written if every shade of neces-
sary truth were formally expressed in revelation. The
lack of this is no evil, if the mind be set to the work for
which God made it: by legitimate deduction to fill up
the chasms of scripture. Revelation, in effect, includes
all doctrines that by sound reasoning are drawn from
it ; they were in the mind of God when He gave the
parent truth from which they are deduced. The exact
thought of revelation is but the framework of our faith,
» Luke xxii. 20.
52 PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
— the seeds of things intended for growth and increase
in the soil of the mind.
If this be not so, why do nnen resort to homiUes and
expositions to fill out and enlarge upon the word ? Let
its letter be enough, if study can gain from it no addi-
tional instruction. It is unquestionably a perfect rule of
faith, but only so, when viewed in that office for which
it was given, as a guide and basis of evidence to intelli-
gent and reasoning minds. God meant it to bring into
act every faculty of the soul, in weighing, discrimi-
nating, enlarging, balancing, in all intellectual exercise
by which one truth seeks its sanction in another.
As illustration we quote again, " Thou shalt not kill."
It is not a little remarkable what varied action of the
mind this httle text requires.
First, other scripture occurs to narrow down its
meaning. It cannot be God's design to say, clear of
all reserve, " Thou shalt not kill," or else he would
not have enjoined animal sacrifices upon Abel, or have
granted animal food to Noah. Nor, imagining human
life to be alone referred to, could it yet be his design to
say, positively, " Thou shalt not kill ;" for cases^of sanc-
tioned war,^ and the law of capital punishment^ prove
the contrary.
Then when direct scripture has gone so far, fair de-
duction must go still farther. A thousand minor cases
require settlement. When may life be sacrificed for
great national ends? When, in the various instances
that may occur, may one life go for the rescue of many 1
How far may life be jeoparded, and for what ends 1 We
* Joshua viii. 1. ^ Genesis ix. 6.
PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN. 63
meet all such questions virtually by appeal to scripture,
yet not to the letter of scripture, but to the design ; and
the task to gather this is thrown upon the judgment of
the reader.
But now still another step : the command is one of the
decalogue, and must have its wide and spiritual mean-
ing ; for it has its place to fill in that moral law which
is exceeding broad. Here opens an illimitable field on
which the bare command, "Thou shalt do no murder,"
is but the starting point. All the language ever spoken
cannot cover it, we mean specifically and in every
minute application. The mind, taking with it such ex-
amples of interpretation as that in Matt. v. 22, where
Christ brings causeless anger under this commandment,
must by just inference fill out the spiritual sense, letting
this command like the rest of the ten grow wide and
long before its eye, till together they embody the whole
of morals, engrossing in their comprehensiveness, that
all engrossing law — the Law of Love.
Thus our view is finished of that system of ways and
means by w^hich God's mind is opened to his creatures.
Now the v/hole meets a beautiful analogy in nature.
God's mind is the sun of the spiritual world. Man's
mind is the eye, without which the light is wasted. It
has nowhere else to impress itself. Man's reason is
the judge to discriminate the shape and colour of what
is seen, and to divide between the light and the dark-
ness ; misused, if it judge farther than its judgment lies ;
as much so as if an eye should labour to discern the
centre instead of the surface of surrounding objects, or
refuse to own them to be there unless it could see through
them ; but totally abused, if it imagine that it has not
some judgment on every truth that the mind receives, as
5^
54 PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
certainly as sensation has on every shade or shape that
the eye takes in. Language is the medium that conveys
the light, dark in itself, bright only as the carrier of those
transnnitted rays. But where is the analogy for what
we have claimed in design.
Philosophers tell us that if the diffusion of light de-
pended solely upon the direct rays of the sun, every thing
would be in darkness, that did not stand in those rays.
The sun would have to shine immediately upon an object
to render it visible at all, and even then we could see it
only on its illuminated side. That light which is now
poured over all nature, which penetrates the forest, which
bathes the mountain, which goes down into the cavern,
which visits us in our houses, awakening us before the
sun and cheering us after its going down, all diffused
light, would vanish. Day and night would be alike any-
where but under direct solar power.
What principle is that, beyond direct illumination, that
orders the system as it is 1 Reflection. One object, when
illuminated, lights up the rest. The air, the clouds, the
earth throw back the rays and scatter them, and thus
fill the spaces which otherwise they could not reach. A
thousand objects that have never seen the sun, borrow
his 1'ght from those right under bis beams.
The analogy could scarcely be more complete. Re-
flection does not create light. It only scatters it. It
makes one illumination do the work of many ; carrying
the ray shed on one point, and diffusing it over a thou-
sand others. Mark, too, it not only extends, but corrects
our vision. Objects, of which, without it, but one side
w^ould be revealed, and which hence, in many positions,
would send us a distorted outhne, horned or cusped, this
would unfold in their true form and colouring, giving us
miNCIPLE OF DESIGN. 55
the advantage in our judgment of their perspective and
their shade.
But we hasten on from mere illustration to reach again
a point of absorbing interest, which from the first has
been kept anxiously in view. Is there not danger in this
whole matter 1 Can any man be safe in the use of such
a key to revelation 1
We need not hesitate. Certainly there is the utmost
danger. So long as the human mind is not only fal-
lible, but prone to falsehood, how could we dream of
safety in its judgments 1 Nay, give it up to itself, and
we might be sure that it would judge wrong, nor gather
one spiritual truth from the whole of revelation.^
But then, while this is sober fact, it is wild argument.
Each step in thought that the unconverted mind takes is
perilous ; shall it take none? All uses of the mind in in-
quiry after God are fraught with danger ; are they there-
fore false or vain uses ? The fact is, the objection lies as
much against the whole of reading as against this part
of it. Mind must be appealed to ; if not for design, then
for grammar itself. Who knows not how words are
warped and changed under the pretence of strict philo-
logy ; how the dearest articles of our faith are taken
from us sentence by sentence, under the sanction of
alleged usage ? Germany, where the varieties of lan-
guage have been most deeply studied, is witness enough,
that if danger must condemn, then all interpretation
must be given up.
Even inspiration asks for mind, and, therefore, argues
danger. Those visions of Balaam, the sceptre rising
out of Israel and the star out of Jacob, did not so write
* 1 Corinthians ii. 14.
56 PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
their truth on the heart of the seer, that he could not
pervert them. Is, therefore, the use or worth of inspira-
tion nothing? Prove that man can deal with truth,
without help from mind, or prove that apostate mind
can walk in any path to truth, and be infallible, or else
confess that danger alone proves nothing in the matter.
But let us not dismiss this fact. There is danger.
The position which it cannot overthrow, it may favour
and confirm. Set over against it another fact, for which
we have appealed to consciousness and accumulated
proof, that no man can read a sentence without the help
of preconceived notions of design, be they true or false,
and we have, first of all, the explanation of a noted
problem in religion. How is so brief a book as the
Bible made to speak so many languages, in becoming
the basis, as it has, of so manifold, nay, and opposite
systems of belief? The truth is notorious, that all forms
of obliquity in faith or morals profess their own warrant
in this single volume, a truth pointing plainly on the one
hand to the slenderness of the self-limiting power of
language, and on the other, to the potency of that mental
instinct, if we may call it so, which brings the precon-
ceived ideas of the mind to mingle in the work of read-
ing. A scrupulous man, possessed with a corresponding
notion of God's design, opens the book only to find the
spirit of his own bondage copied there. " Resist not
evil : but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek,
turn to him the other also."^ " Give to him that asketh
thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not
thou away."^ The Universahst strengthens himself there
in his doctrine. " Who (God) will have all men to be
* Matt. V. 39. b Matt. v. 42.
PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN. 57
saved," &c. " Who gave himself a ransom for all," &c.*
"Not willing that any should perish," &c.^ So the Per-
fectionist : " Whosoever is born of God doth not commit
sin ; he cannot sin, because he is born of God."*= " Be
ye, therefore, perfect as your Father which is in heaven
is perfect.""^ And the Antinomian : *' Now we are de-
livered from the law,"^ &c. And lastly the superstitious
man, pleading for all literal senses and exalting every
thing external. " This is my body which is broken for
you."*" "Except a man be born of water and of the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."=
Now, it will not do to say, the very fault is, that these
preconceived notions should be allowed any voice ; so
it is, if you refer to their error, but by no means, if you
refer to the whole fact of preconception. It is necessary
— they will enter ; if not falsely coloured, they would be
vital to the discovery of truth. If an eye be jaundiced,
the way to provide against false judgments is to cure it,
not to put it out. Then here : until you prove that you
can digest fresh truth with no help from what has been
taken into the mind before ; that, empty of every thing
but the mere machinery of words, you are fit for the
work of reading ; that thought asks nothing from former
thought, but increases wisdom by accumulation and not
by growth, you must rest contented in making safe and
sure, what you cannot abandon.
Can it be made sure ? Certainly : just as any other act
of the mind. How can it be made sure ? To the extent
of speculative soundness, just as any other act of the mind
may be made so — by a sound and wise preconception,
resting on a sober previous study of the truth. It is the
* 1 Tim. ii. 4, 6. ^2 Peter iii. 9. <= ] John iii. 9. ^ Matt. v. 48.
* Romans vii. 6. ^ 1 Cor. xi. 24. § John iii. 5.
58 PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
" Qiilearned and unstable that wrest the Scriptures to
their own destruction."'' To the extent of spiritual
soundness, however, and a saving apprehension of the
truth, and, indeed, we may say, to the point of entire
safety, either speculatively or spiritually, it can be made
sure only by the special guidance of the Holy Ghost.
For " the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God,"^ &c.
The analogy of faith, as framed in the mind of an
unconverted man, is valuable in proportion as it is
rationally well considered ; but, since it can be only an
intellectual system, it must fail to introduce him to any
saving truth, and may shape itself in the grossest specu-
lative error. What can make us sure ? A sense of
design framed under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
To establish this Principle of Design as a test in con-
troversy, is that for which this chapter has been made
the first step in our discussion. We need it specially in
studying the nature of the visible church. Who is not
tired of hearing controversy on this head, turning end-
lessly on one or two narrow ambiguous scriptures, which
God never meant as our chief light in shaping the order
of His church, which may be proved to be susceptible
of debate indefinitely, and, therefore, over which men
may battle till the end of time, and still read them each
in their own tongue wherein they were born. A pattern-
ing after nature, by a simple watching of the instincts,
or native impulses of the mind, would totally cure men
of such waste discussion. How does the mind, in its
earliest and most unbiassed movement, meet such a text
as this, " I have said, ye are gods."« Not by long in-
* 2 Pet. iii. 16. ^ I Cor. ii. 14. ^ Ys. Ixxxii. 6.
PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN. 59
ward contention over the words themselves, but by in-
stantly and briefly referring them back, for limitation,
to the general truth, there are no more Gods than one.
So of the church and all externals. We cannot help
framing for ourselves w^ide gospel principles in regard
to them, and on them the mind instinctively falls back
when any language jars with them. " This is my body,"
for example. It is artificial and opposed to nature for
the mind to debate over mere grammar, in a case like
this, when it has once appeared, that it can mean some-
thing else than its baldest, briefest sense. That moment
the mere verbal controversy has pronounced itself in-
terminable, and the mind is longing to cast herself back
upon broader principles, and the grander and better wit-
nessed doctrine of the gospel, thereby to digest and
decide the passage. This is nature — the instinct of the
mind, and as with all natural instinct, it is logical and
true. The mind, fresh and not yet touched by prejudice,
will follow it ; and we have but to observe our minds,
and copy their working, to get upon our paper the briefest
and strongest mode of settling Bible questions, the most
certain to convince, because the mind intuitively resorts
to it to convince herself, and the least open to a challenge,
because appealing back at once out of the reach of lesser
and more entangled questions to the broad and high
ground of the gospel. The fact is, we talk about it as
wise to bring out orally and in writing, that method to
which the mind secretly and of herself resorts ; but it
is more than wise. It is necessary and universal. Most
arguments virtually use it. And only because it is not
more distinctly recognised and stated, does it so seldom
do what in many a private mind it has often done, ?'. e.,
seal and settle controversy.
60 ' PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN.
Our only choice is, whether to use it unwittingly and
wath but half effect, — for even in canvassing one verse,
we must use it — or to give it such depth and prominence,
that we may mould whole arguments upon it.
What is the design of all religion ? Included in this,
what is the design of all externals in religion? In-
cluded in this, what is the design of an external church ?
Such thorough carrying out of our own principle will
be the business of the remaining chapters, and will fur-
nish us, we trust, with tests for a whole circle of refuted
errors as to the sacraments and power of the church.
CHAPTER II.
THE DESIGN OF RELIGION.
The word religion, in comnaon with others bearing a
like relation to the mind, has two meanings. It means,
the service of God ; or it means, any system of faith and
duty, in conformity with which that service shapes itself.
These two meanings are recognised in Scripture. " If
any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth
not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's
rehgion is vain. Pure religion, and undefiled before
God and the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless and
widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world."^ " Ye have heard of my conversation
in time past, in the Jew's religion, how I profited in
the Jew's religion above many my equals in mine own
nation."^
These meanings, too, respectively exhaust the word.
Religion, in the first sense, or, as some might call it,
(though it would seem not logically) subjective religion,
cannot be more than the service of God — service of course,
we mean, whether corporeal or mental — either " in body
or in spirit, which are God's." For what can a man do
religiously other than move his body in work or wor-
ship, or exercise his soul in faith and love as the servant
a James i. 26, 27. ^ Gal. i. 13, 14.
6
62 THE DESIGN OF RELIGION.
of his maker 1 " Fear God and keep his command-
ments, for this is the whole duty of man."^' " What doth
the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God f^
Objective religion, on the other hand, cannot be more
than a system of faith and duty ; for what else can the
Holy Spirit reveal to man besides a creed of tenets to
be believed, and a circle of acts to be performed. We
said, " any system," because not only are there false
religions as well as true, but true religion admits of
plurality. The religion of Adam, before he fell, was not
the religion of his children. The religion of Enoch
and Noah, of Melchizedek, and Job, and Jethro, dif-
fered widely from that of Aaron; while our religion
has come from under the hand of Christ, with still new
differences.
They differ; but let it be remembered they do not
disagree. They do not bear that mark of error — mutual
contradiction. They change only to meet correspond-
ing changes in God's will, as to worship — and in man's
history, as to faith. Not only one law and one Deity,
but (with all but that first mentioned, — the religion of
man in innocence) one atonement and one regeneration
are common to them all. However many their points
of difference, therefore, they may be regarded as one in
our present inquiry. What is their design ? (Of course
it is only to objective religion that this question is now
pertinent.) What is the mind of God in framing a re-
hgion for man ?
The design of objective religion is to lead men to
subjective religion, or piety. Or, using the definitions
* Eccles. xii. 13. ^ Micah vi, 8,
THE DESIGN OF RELIGION. 63
that have been given, the design of any right system of
faith and duty, is to lead men to the service of God.
Let it not be objected that this statement is not full
enough, and that the service and love of God would be
a truer expression ; for love is one form of service : nor
that knowledge and service would be better; for, though
this would be even more plainly to our purpose than the
briefer statement, still there would be tautology ; for,
viewing body and mind together, as it has been said we
must, knowledge is as much a form of service as love.
Nor let it be objected that religion is for man's salva-
tion, as well as to lead him to the service of God. This
is only mentioning the end of an end ; service, the end
of religion, and salvation, one end of service. Religion
can be conceived to contribute to the last in no way else
than by contributing to the first.
It is true there are acts bearing on salvation which
make no part of man's service, but they are the acts of
God, and therefore not religious acts ; so there are truths
relating to salvation w^hich stir up no service and are
no objects either of love or knowledge, but then they
are truths shut up in the mind of God, and therefore not
religious truths. True religion is that revealed system
of faith and duty, the only immediate design of which
is to lead men to the service of God.
Thus we have fixed the design.
But now out of the design we wish to frame a test.
" I rather think," says Calvin, " the word (religion) is
opposed to a liberty of wandering without restraint;
because the greater part of the world rashly embrace
whatever they meet with, and also ramble from one
thing to another; but piety, in order to walk with a
steady step, collects {relegit) itself within its proper limits.
64 THE DESIGN OF RELIGION.
The word superstition also appears to me to import a
discontent with the method and order prescribed, and
an accumulation of a superfluous mass of vain things."
Whether Calvin's derivations be good or not, they indi-
cate very aptly just what we wish to effect. We wish
to make religion (religere) gather itself within its true
limits, by help of a test gotten from its own design, which
shall detect at once whatever {superest) is superstitious,
so that a clear circle of separation may be drawn.
Now the sentence already fallen upon: the design of
any system of faith and duty is to lead men to the service
of God, though it does not yet show such a test, yet does
in fact involve one. As yet, men of all religions would
agree in it, for the lowest idolater, except, perhaps, one
given up to demon worship, or mere exorcism, would
agree that a religion, whether invented or revealed, can
have no other use to him than to lead him to the service
of his deities. It is evident, however, that there is one
expression in the sentence that admits of further defini-
tion, and which, when so defined, will take the sentence
out of the mouth of the idolater, and make it draw a
line between us and him. That expression is, the ser-
vice of God. The idolater agrees to the sentence, be-
cause he can define this " service" as he will, making
his own foul rites, and vain gestures and attitudes, apart
of it. The moment, however, the ample testimony of
the Bible is brought in, to limit the service, and show
what it must always be, the religion of the Bible, and
superstitious departures from it, can no longer hold the
sentence in common, but will find in it a convenient
and remarkably clear dividing mark between them.
A single text^ will do this work for us. We choose
^ John iv. 24.
THE DESIGN OF RELIGION. 65
it for its comprehensive simplicity) and we use but one
for the sake of brevity and singleness in the application,
only taking care not to fall into the mistake we have
condemned, of trusting for authority to an isolated text,
but to throw down into a note, below, a full list of con-
current testimonies.^
" God is a spirit : and they that worship Him, must
worship Him in spirit, and in truth."
Let it be premised, that the circumstances in which
these words were uttered do not change, but entirely
* John iv. 23 . " But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true wor.
shippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth ; for the Father
seeketh such to worship Him."
Psalm li. 16, 17 : " For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give
it : thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a
broken spirit ; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not de-
spise." Psalm 1. 13, etc.
Matt. XV. 8 : " This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth,
and honoureth me with their lips : but their heart is far from me. But
in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments
of men." Isaiah xxix. 13; Ezra, xxxiii. 31.
Acts xvii. 25 : " Neither is God worshipped with men's hands, as
though he needed any thing ; seeing he giveth to aU life, and breath, and
all things." Acts vii. 48.
Rom. i. 9 : " God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the
gospel of his Son," etc.
Rom. ii. 28, 29 : " For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly ; nei-
ther is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh : but he is a Jew
which is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the
spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God." 1
Cor. vii. 19 ; Heb. ix. 9.
Rom. xii. 1 : " Reasonable service" {xoyiKnv).
Phil. iii. 3 : " For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the
spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."
Acts xvii. 23 : " Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him declare
I unto you."
6*
66 THE DESIGN OF RELIGION.
confirm their apparent and simple meaning. Christ is
speaking, at the well, with the woman of Samaria. Halfj
perhaps, to turn off the conversation from a more deli-
cate subject, the woman introduces the vexed question be-
tween Mount Gerizzim and Jerusalem, as places " where
men ought to worship." Christ, aware that much of
the importance of this question was borrowed from the
superstitious reliance of the rival worshippers upon their
sacred places, and that in the mind of this woman it
won its interest from her care for the place, and words,
and rites of worship, rather than for its intelligence and
truthfulness, replied by uttering two predictions : — first,
that these hostile sanctuaries should be forsaken, for the
hour should come in which neither in that mountain, nor
yet at Jerusalem, should men worship the Father ; and
second, that a race of intelligent worshippers was even
then springing up, for the hour was coming, and had
already come, when the true worshippers should wor-
ship the Father in spirit and in truth. Then follows
what stands above, its force made obvious by that trust
to outward forms that it was intended to rebuke — " God
is a spirit : and they that worship Him, must worship
Him in spirit and in truth."
Here are two defining rules for subjective^ religion,
or the service of God.
1. It must be " in spirit." Now the reason prefixed
to this, places its meaning beyond a doubt. " God is a
spirit ;" that is, an immaterial being ; " and (so) they
that worship Him, must worship Him," not spirit with
matter, but spirit with spirit, i. e., " in spirit." The
simple sense, therefore, of this half of the rule must be,.
* We use this word for its convenience and intelligibleness, rather than
for its exact appropriateness.
THE DESIGN OF RELIGION. 67
that the whole of worship must be done by the imma-
terial part of man ; and that if material forms come in
at all, such as attitudes, or words, or motions, — such as
rites or sacrifices, — such as times or places, it must be
just as instruments for the soul, of no worth in them-
selves, and of no worth at ali, but as the soul is in them.
Though the rule is brief, therefore, it is clear and
wide, rebuking not only the viler superstitions, as where
a heathen offers food to his idol, or gives his own body
to appease him, nor only rebuking the higher form in
which the Samaritan and the Jew transgressed, by
thinking a prayer on Gerizzim, or an offering at either
temple, good out of all proportion to the heart that might
be in it, but equally rebuking the no more refined nor
rational idolatries of our age and church.
At first glance it might seem that here already is the
promised test. " The design of any system of faith and
duty is to lead men to such ' a service of God' as is
strictly ' in spirit' — a service of mind to mind — of the
spiritual part of man to God, who is a Spirit." But the
reply of opponents, against whom this test might be
used, would soon convince us that it is not enough. If
religion were altogether an isolated and private thing
between God and one soul, it would do ; exposing ad-
mirably, as it must, the folly of men who hope to please
God by outward sacrament or prayer, or any bodily
attitude or change, any farther than the heart goes out
in them in spiritual worship. But then religion is not
an isolated thing, but social, not only between God and
one soul, but between one soul (or the church, which is
an aggregate of souls) and another. So that this test,
though it may condemn a man for expecting blessing
on prayer, when his own mind is not in it, does not
68 THE DESIGN OP RELIGION.
condemn a man for expecting blessing on prayer for
others, when their mind is not in it; for prayer and
preaching, and disciphne, and all other social acts, may
do infidels and blasphemers good, though at the time
they may be not only unassenting, but hostile. So, too,
then, errorists may say, it may condemn ministers for
administering sacraments with the hand alone, and not
the heart, — but it does not condemn the idea of direct
and mystic efficacy from those sacraments to others
whose bodies only receive them.
In one word, this first defining rule, " m spiuit," will
serve us admirably where, in religious acts, the agent
only is in view, but not so well if used directly, in what
concerns the subjects of such acts. The second rule,
however, will cover the whole ground, and three sepa-
rate tests may be argued out of it, each of them com-
plete for every case.
2. God's service must be " in truth" — that is, to take
the simplest paraphrase, it must be true service, or that
which truly serves the Being to whom it is directed. It
must harmonize, therefore, with the nature of God.^
Now, what is that nature ? I shall be content with three
cardinal attributes, and one of them repeated from the
text,
1, "God is a spirit;" and, therefore, the design of
religion is to lead men to the service of God as a spirit.
This single test of the three includes the last rule alto-
* This rule is virtually im^YieA in the other; for if service to God must
be " in spirit," i. e,, an intellig-ent service, it must be, therefore, by easy-
inference, an appropriate service. Besides, (to add a third confirmation
to the rule,) the text itself argues from the necessity of such appro-
priateness : — " God is a spirit, and (therefore) they that worship Him
must worship Him in spirit," &.c.
THE DESIGN OF RELIGION.
69
gether. If God must be served as a Spirit, then to
serve him *' in spirit," is the most natural and simplest
requisite. The test, however, includes more.
If the design of religion be to lead men to the service
of God as a Spirit, then it cannot be the design of reli-
gion to teach any doctrine, or ordinance, that obscures
the spirituality of God.
All that is cared for now is to establish the truth of
the tests. Their application to particular heresies will
come in the sequel.
The two remaining ones are derived from those dis-
tinguishing features of true religion— the offices of the
Second and Third Persons of the Trinity.
2. God is our Redeemer— Christ Jesus. Therefore
the design of religion is, to lead men to the service of
God our Redeemer.
Before using the test that is drawn out from this, it
might at first sight seem necessary to define exactly
what Christ's redemption is. But it will at once seem
not necessary when it is avowed that the argument does
not depend upon the soundest views of that much-debated
doctrine, and therefore spending time in making good
such views, when they are really not indispensable in
the way of argument, would only unnecessarily perplex
and delay, besides giving a handle to cast off the whole,
to those whom we wish, on this very account, to meet
as far as possible on their own ground.
All who have the shadow of a title to the name of
Christians, believe that something that Christ did was
necessary in the eye of God (if not by eternal right, yet
by God's will) for the salvation of men ;^ and that the
=^ Where truth stands so confessed, and is so rife in all scripture, it
is scarcely worth while to multiply proof texts ; but as we wish to base
70 THE DESIGN OF RELIGION.
recognition of this by men is a nnatter of such moment
in practical religion, that unless in some way they be-
lieve it and trust in it, they cannot be saved. Then,
we are ready for the test.
If the design of religion be to lead men to the service
of God our Redeemer, the« it cannot be the design of
religion to teach any doctrine or ordinance that obscures
the work of Christ as our Redeemer.
Again, 3. God is the Holy Ghost, our Sanctifier.
Therefore the design oi religion is to lead men to the
service of God, our Sanctifier.
Asking, as before, only the most general acknow-
ledgm.ent of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, viz., that
this power is somehow exerted, and that necessarily, in
sanctifying the soul,^ and that a recognition of this is a
part of His worship ; then we say, —
all regularly on the Bible, we quote a few. If they are familiar, and
acknowledged in the sense we give them, it is what the very design of
this treatise claims that all its texts should be, aiming as it does to get
back to the higher and less contested ground of revelation.
1 Tim. ii. 5, 6 : " There is one Mediator between God and men, the
man Christ Jesus ; who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in
due time." Matt. xx. 28 ; Is. liii. 5, 8, 11.
Heb. ix. 28: "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many."
Dan. ix. 24, 26 ; Tit. ii. 14.
Rev. i. 5 : " Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in
his own blood," &c.
Gal. vi. 14 : " But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ."
' John vi. 63 : " It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth
nothing."
Rom. viii. 9 : " If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his."
1 Cor. iii. 13 : " Know ye not that ye are the temple of the Holy
Ghost, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ?"
Matt. iii. 31:" He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost."
1 Cor. vi. 11 : "Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified, in
the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God,"
THE DESIGN OF RELIGION. 71
If the design of religion be to lead men to the service
of God, our Sanctifier, then it cannot be the design of
religion to teach any doctrine or ordinance that obscures
the work of the Holy Spirit, as our Sanctifier.
Thus this chapter has established criteria, both posi-
tive and negative, to which every thing in religion may
be brought. The positive shall be used in the two chap-
ters that follow ; the negative in two that are beyond
them.
CHAPTER III. •
THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION.
Let us recapitulate. Starting with what is almost a
truism, The design of religion is to lead men to religion,
and substituting for the word, in these two w^ell-known
senses, definitions that no one can dispute, we reached
the sentence, The design of any system of faith and duty,
is to had men to the service of God. This sentence was
confessed to be so indefinite as to be readily adopted as
his own by any religionist whatever; but we fixed upon
one of its words — the word service, which, when defined
out of the Bible, took away much of its indefiniteness,
and left it thus. The design of religion is to lead men to
such a service of God as is " in spirit" and " in truth."
Now we are ready to take out and change another
indefinite word — the word to lead.
Only in regard to externals can this give any trouble.
Religion is a system of faith and duty. Religion, as a
system of faith, can lead to the service of God only in
one way, i. e., by teaching, and if a system of faith (or
truth) were the only thing in question, the word teach
might at once go down upon our page instead of lead.
But rehgion is also a system of duty, and of duty part of
which is external ; and on this word to lead, when ex-
ternals are in question, the widest differences of opinion
turn.
Certain externals lead men to the service of God, a
THE DESIGN OF EXTEP.XALS IN RELIGION. 73
school of professed Christians assert, by a supernatural
power lodged in thenn, a power which enlightens the
mind, and nourishes up the heart to holiness, and so leads
men to serve God. That service they may admit must
be " in spirit," /. e., terminating in the mind, and not the
body; and "in truth," that is, toward no mistaken ob-
ject ; but men are led to it, they say, by the mystic
pow^er of external sacraments. \f, therefore, the extent
to which we have defined already will help us to define
further, and to fix narrowly the meaning of that word
" lead,-'' it will draw a line where we most need one, and
remove the last indefiniteness from the test we are pre-
paring. ,
Precisely this may be done. There is a certain form
of influence of external things upon man's service of
God, more definite than is expressed by the word " /o
Ze<2<i," which all agree exists, and which many believe
is the only form of religious influence that any external
can exert. To exhibit this in detail shall be the work
of the present chapter; and then to sh )W that other
alleged forms are imaginary and false, shall be under-
taken in the sequel.
In looking for a w^ord to express this single form of
influence, none more apt occurs than the word teach.
The design of externals in religion is to teach^ men in
^ Paradoxical as it may seem, it is true in a striking sense that, the
body is the teacher of the soul. How true it is, the mind will be thrown
into tlie best attitude for discerning, by the question, What v/ould the
soul lose if created without a body ? Take nothing from it in faculty
or nature that now belongs to it; make it just what it is, a human soul,
entering existence as it always does in perfect emptiness of thought, only
imagine it born unclothed — a mere spirit — what would it lose by being
without a body ? An infinite spirit loses nothing, because fleshly organs
could not add to its direct and perfect intercourse with matter and mind.
7
74 THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION.
tlie service of God. The word, however, will not an-
swer; it must be very carefully said, unless we include
An angelic spirit, nothing- ; because, created totally different from ours, its
organs of sense, in itself placed, like its Maker, in immediate communica-
tion with other beings, and independent (at least so is the popular belief)
of all outward senses. A disembodied human spirit, that is, one that has
passed a probation in the body, and put it off, might lose little — nay
might live and act and feel with greater intensity than before, because
the senses, in its past state, have already fed it with knowledge, and
memory now fills the office of present sense ; or because, perhaps, God
changes it at death, and endows it with some of the attributes of angelic
natures, for that state between death and resurrection. But the infant
spirit, as it is, what would it lose, if born without the body ?
A follower of Locke would answer, — every thing. The mind, born
barren of all ideas, he would say, receives them first and so is started in
thought by the senses. Reflection afterwards digests this food, and
greatly multiplies the store of knowledge, thus begun ; but the senses, at
birth, and always, arc the doors by which simple ideas first win their
entrance.
An inference from this would seem to him to be, that the soul, if
ushered into her theatre of knowledge without such material avenues of
connexion with it, would lie, as to all mental action, dead, unthinking,
and unfeeling. At least no one can show how the mind could reach any
idea or emotion, if not linked by fleshly organs v^ith other beings. Con-
sciousness alone, so far as he could see, could furnish nothing, for where
would be an object to call forth that antecedent act or feeling that could
become matter of consciousness ? Therefore, the " breath of life" or that
human spirit of which God is the Father, must be breathed into the
nostrils of a body, before it can become a living or, at least, active soul.
What discoveries, he would argue on, does the soul make now, beyond
itself? Plainly none, in which sense is not its minister — none, not trace-
able, as the fruit of reflection, to former discoveries, which the eye or the
ear or some other organ has made. Yet there is no reason why the soul
now might not make such independent discoveries, as well as if born a
naked spirit. The body is no veil over it, It is as near God and his
works, and could hold as direct intercourse with them in its fleshly co-
vering, as if never in the flesh. So that the fact that the soul does not
make such direct discoveries now, measures our loss if born without a
body.
Thus a disciple of Locke might reason. This imagined language is
THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION. iO
in it, as notice is here given that we constantly shall,
the idea of discipline as well as of instruction. Such
compass for the word is, perhaps, not without sanction,^
but whether so, or not, will not affect the truth of what
is said, if the reader is clearly advertised how we use it.
Externals in religion are designed as natural and intelli-
gible means of teaching {i. e., of instructing and disci-
pHning) men in the service of God, in distinction from
supernatural and mystic means of baptizing or nourish-
ing them into that service.
Now, there are, it is believed, but four ways in which
this influence in teaching is carried on ; even when we
include the influence not only of church externals, tech-
njxially so called, but (that our view may be complete)
of all external things as bearing on religion :
I. They teach (instruct), by revealing God and our-
selves.
II. They teach (discipline), by pain and pleasure.
III. They teach (instruct), by intercourse with other
beings.
IV. They teach (discipline), by exercise in moral
action.
introduced, not to make common cause with a system of human philo-
sophy, nor at all, by linking them in one, to endanger what is intended to
be quite another argument. We introduce it, not to hold fast or trust
any thing to its extreme position, The soul learns every thing (mediately
or immediately) through the body ; but, simply, by the depth to which
this philosophy goes, to deepen the reader's view of a much more easily
acknowledged truth. The soul learns through the body ; or changed into
a sentence of corresponding drift, The body is the teacher of the soul.
We turn to it, not to borrow evidence, but thought, that may open and
enlarge our conception of the religious design of externals, as proposed
above.
* Judges viii. 16.
76 THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION.
I. Externals teach by revealing God and ourselves.
These two objects of knowledge are singled out because
all others, intrinsically, matter nothing in religion. Re-
ligion (the service of God) is a thing between God and
ourselves.
Now, putting the two by for a moment, it is safe to
say that external things tell us all we know of the rest of
the universe. They are the universe, so far as it is ma-
terial ; and they are the only ordinar}^ media of commu-
nication with the universe, so far as it is spiritual. For
that one external, each man's own body, with its senses,
is his sole means of knowing that there is such a thing
as a surrounding world. He would be alone with God,
did not external sense link him with his fellow-existences.
Though this solitude need not, in itself considered, de-
stroy religion, yet, indirectly, it must deeply affect it, and
that, by keeping us much in ignorance of those two ob-
jects of knowledge which we put aside from the rest,
and which might be imagined not to need externals to
reveal them to us. I mean God and ourselves.
Worldly philosophy goes so far as to say that, apart
from some supernatural path not now open,'and, there-
fore, not here to be considered, no manner of simple idea
of any thing whatever, could first enter a mind without
being introduced by external sense — ^that God would re-
main unknown, and a man's own spirit would lie mo-
tionless and unconscious of itself, till it were started in
thought by outw-ard sensation. Now, though we should
cast out the theory, still there is Bible truth enough in its
foundation, to make this much certain — that what could
be known of God (granting that any thing could), or that
might be seen in one's own dark, empty spirit (if any
THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION. 77
thing might), would be wonderfully narrowed down by
the lack of these outward sources of knowledge.
As we can know matter solely by its properties, so we
can know mind, whether our own or another's, solely by
its acts and feelings. Now, how many of the acts and
feelings of the Infinite Mind could we know without an
external world ? Where else has He acted and felt visi-
bly or sensibly so that man could know it, than towards
His works 1 "For the invisible things of Him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made, even His eternal power and
Godhead."^ " The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament showeth His handiwork."^ The part
that revelation takes in teaching us does not rob outward
things of this importance, but confirms it ; for revelation
itself has become an outward thinoj — a matter of sisjns
and words addressing itself to external sense ; so that
whether God write upon the face of nature or upon the
sacred page, the eye must read in either case.
Go over the attributes of God (certainly the basis of
all piety) ; His immensity and eternity, moving our ado-
ration ; His justice and holiness, exciting our awe ; His
love and mercy, warming our gratitude, and judge how
far your picture of each is drawn by what you see and
hear and feel of the perfections of God by the senses.
Reflection does indeed order and enrich the picture, but
sense must take the lead, and originate the form.s and
colours; for the sinjple question, what has it taught me?
may lead the plainest mind to see how much it must
have to do with all that can be known by man of the
glory of God.
» Rom. i. 20. b Ps. xix. 1.
7*
78 THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION.
Then, on the other hand, how many of the acts and
feehngs of our own nnind could we know without an ex-
ternal w^orld ? or rather, how often would it act or feel?
That outward body of which we have the use, and those
outward objects on which we use it, are the grand means
of showing us to ourselves, because they are the grand
things with which we act, and for which we feel. Dis-
embodied and alone with our Maker, grant that mental
exercise could originate at all, how much more dull and
narrowly than when in contact, at a thousand points,
with other existences.
It is of main importance to know ourselves morally.
But without external sense that half of morality which
regards love to other men would lie dormant in our na-
ture, for it is only by sense that we are niade av/are of
the being of other men ; while the other half of morality
not being able to define itself by outward act, imagining
it to be felt at all, could only be felt in the vaguest and
most narrow way.
Externals, therefore, teach by revealing God and our-
selves.
II. They teach by pain and pleasure.
Of pain and pleasure there are two varieties; of the
body and of the mind ; or, rather, as the mind is the seat
of the emotion, in either case, those which do and those
which do not spring from the body.
Now, interrupted by the disorders of our present state,
yet sufficiently regular to work many salutary ends of
government, is the law that pain shall follow sin, and
pleasure, right doing. They are the marks soonest seen
and most respected of moral good and evil, and they
bring all men under some degree of discipline in the
school of virtue.
THE DESIGxV OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION. 79
Which of the above varieties is strongest for this end,
might be matter of doubt ; but that the discipHne of the
last would be sadly crippled without the first, it is believed
no one will question. There is something in bodily pain
that gives vividness to fear and definiteness to punish-
ment; and how truly soever men may say that simple
pain of mind is worse, certain it is that it does not ter-
rify so much nor discipline so well. Besides that, simple
pain of mind would be less if there were no such thing
as bodily pain. The idea of this mingles with the other,
and gives distinctness to the punishment. Remorse, for
example, must be much more intense where associated
with the memory, or the sense, or the fear of outward
tokens of displeasure, and despair much more fearful
where the desolateness of the mind is or has been con-
nected with the more tangible sufferings of the body.
III. Externals teach by intercourse with other beings.
However souls hereafter in their disembodied state
may by some new faculty know each other and hold
mutual communion, it is certain that they are strangers
to one another as to any such direct communion now.
We trust wholly to the body to tell us of the presence of
our fellow men, and to learn their thoughts ; and this
not because the body like a curtain hides our spirits from
each other, but because we are conscious that our
spirits altogether lack the power of independent inter-
course.
Then, judge how important, in this new aspect, the
office of external sense. Other men, as ministers of
God for our good, give us vastly the larger part of all
the knowledge and discipline that we enjoy. Take the
word examj)le in its widest sense, as left in the history
of the past, or as witnessed in the actions of the living,
80 THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION.
and imagine yourself divested of all the influence ithas had
in moulding your character; and then the word, language,
in a like widest meaning, writing, speech, signs, all con-
ventional media of intercourse, and put away every thing
ever learned by these, and you may measure how much
you owe to the body in this office of interpreter. It is
true, God by direct inspiration might more than meet the
deficiency so created, but we are asking for what he
does, not for what he could do ; to what specific func-
tion of a spiritual kind he actually has appointed our
animal senses. His whole revelation comes to us by
them ; all his ordinances, each method of grace, not
wholly private and purely mental, — every ministry of
whatever kind, in w^ord or act or symbol, set up as " the
power of God unto our salvation," use our fleshly or-
gans as their media to the heart. The common remark,
that God, in condescension to our weakness in this
carnal state, addresses truth often to the senses, falls
short of the fact. He addresses it always to the senses,
and must change the nature of our hearts, or begin to
deal with them by direct inspiration, to reach them in
any other way. The meaning of the remark is, that he
often uses outward emblems or significant riles to con-
vey his will ; but these are nothing more than a sym-
bolic or scenic form of language, instead of language
written or spoken ; and both alike reach the soul through
the avenues of sense. In such case the rite bears much
the same relation to the word that the hieroglyphic pic-
ture of the Egyptians bore to their alphabetic writing,
both seeking the mind through the eye, but the truth in
the one seen at a glance under a figure, that in the other
deciphered from a scries of conventional signs.
A sacrifice, for example, to the eye of an Israelite
THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION. 81
was nothing more than a dense, brief, yet rude form of
language — a prophecy ; itself and the written prophecies
uniting at once to interpret and impress each other ;
both foretelling what we, by clearer words and by other
rites, more fully understand as Christ's personal atone-
ment.
Externals, therefore, are the social link that connects
one spirit with another.
IV. They teach by exercise in moral action.
Who has not observed how the uttering of thought by
the lips or by the pen clears it in the mind 1 Up to the
very moment when the ideas of a thinker come from
him in audible words, or on the paper before him, they
are very generally misshapen, or but half-conceived.
In the stimulus that either method of composing gives
by its call at the moment to precise conception, and
still more, perhaps, in the reimpression upon the mind
itself of its own last step in thought, by the sound or the
sight of the language that it has just been framing, may
be mainly traced the secret of the improvement — that
marked superiority to w^hich many men have learned to
trust, — of what they say over what they premeditated
to say.
Now, what the tongue does for thought, the whole
body does for moral feelings; it utters or acts them out;
and in the very act elevates their tone, and reimpresses
them upon the soul. If conscience could only feel and
not do, one chief means of cherishing strong and definite
principles would be gone. Its ideas of duty — grant
that they could be as numerous, and, by internal reflec-
tion simply, could be exercised as frequently as now —
still could not be as high and vivid.
And, in proof of this, we need but mention the actual
82 THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION.
advantages in moral culture that the body can be seen
to secure. An external act, is a scenic display — a sign
a symbol of the virtue that prompts it — a symbol, too,
each element of which speaks back eloquently and with
invariable effect to the heart. Do an act of charity for
example — let your benevolence utter itself in making
over a part of your fortune to a distressed neighbour.
The whole scene together speaks to you, and stirs you
up ; the tears of the sufferer suing for mercy — the in-
convenience of the gift fortifying your generous principle
— the pleasures of giving enlisting still further every
thing kind and noble in your nature— the whole stimu-
lating you, before the act is over, to a far higher level of
moral feeling, than any silent contemplation of the
abstract grace, benevolence. Mental acts themselves
must by like cause differ in elevation. Where they are
purely mental acts of thought and will, not using the
body, they must be, other things being equal, less clearly
seen, less definitely done, and less thorough in enlisting
the feelings.
A further evidence of an incidental kind occurs to
me in the promises made to external actions. Why are
they specially rewarded ; — " the deeds done in the
body ?' Not of course for any merit in the physical
motion itself, but because that motion marks, and hasj
so to speak, drawn out a strong exercise of love and
will and virtuous principle. The exigency of an ex-
ternal kind has awakened the heart, and shown it the
way to a high moral emotion, and then that emotion is
the thing rewarded.
This would be giving the body a most important
office, even if the present glory of God and the good
forthcoming from each single act in reward to ourselves
THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION. 83
and charity to others were the only good. But when
we remember that the heart, after one of these sudden
weaves of virtuous feehng that a hard effort or a gene-
rous gift for the relief of others has stirred up, does not
sink again as low as its state before, but settles at a
hif]rher level, and so rises wave after wave accordino;
to the frequency and height of its moral emotions,
being thus exercised to what men call a higher habit of
virtue, we must do honour to the body as wielding a
still nobler influence in the rapid and permanent forma-
tion of character.
Just as the words of an orator speak back to his mind,
and impress it, and store themselves in it, far more
thoroughly than his thoughts before ; so the acted virtues
of men reimprint themselves upon their consciences far
more deeply than w^hen latent or abstractly reflected
over, with no summons to exertion from the outward
senses. To sentence a heart with a human constitution
to pass a season of virtuous discipline, and yet forbid it
ever to use the body to give shape and order to its habits,
would be worse than sentencing a mind to trace out
within itself a long and intricate system of truth, with
no use of the voice or the pen. In all this it will be ob-
served, however, that we rest satisfied in claiming for
the body only what is needed to show its definite office
in religion. Pushed to the extent of metaphysical truth,
it might (for before-mentioned reasons) well become a
question, whether a human heart, left from the first with-
out a body, could have any exercised or felt morality
at all.
If there is added now a third good result of bodily
acts — special rewards — the view of their benefit will be
complete. The soul is instigated in them to a high and
84 THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION.
definite exercise of its moral feelings, and then, apart
from the recompense it has in its own virtuous disci-
pline, it makes sure, in exact proportion to that exercise,
a promised recompense from God. The external act
has awakened and drawn out the heart to a certain kind
and strength of will and feeling, — then, according to
that strength and kind, will be the reckoning of its
reward.
Now, the ground that this treatise will endeavour to
defend, is, that in the three benefits thus carefully de-
scribed, the whole personal advantage of external duties
is exhausted. No matter what they are — acts for man,
or for self, or for God — worship, or charity, or self-sup-
port — ordinance, or rite, or sacrament — no matter —
advantage of a moral or religious kind to the actor in
them, exhausts itself in these three particulars.
Take, for instance, the ordinance of external prayer.
The kneeling posture — the earnest gesture — the audible
requests, are an exhibition before the senses of the man
of the whole spirit of prayer. They rouse him to the
work with clearness of desire and intensity of feeling.
Thought, simply, could not pray so. In his own words
he hears his wants, and learns and feels them better.
Like a speaker, aided by the very act of oratory in
pouring out his thoughts and feelings to the people, so
this man can make known far better by words and orally
his requests to God. This is the first benefit, — a height-
ened exercise of devotion.
The second is an improved habit of devotion.
The third is that special promise which God makes
to prayer, viz., an answer ; a promise, not to the voice,
or the attitude, or externally to the act, but to that kind
THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION. 85
and degree of devotion, to which all these, simply, and
by known means, have ministered.
Now let us go deeper, and take a sacrament; pre-
cisely kindred benefits occur. The Lord's Supper, for
example, is a scenic display, in the midst of which, and
by whose aid, the actor is to go forward to certain lead-
ing duties of our religion. As, in the exercise of bene-
volence, w^e have a natural ceremonial* to assist the
duty, — the sufterer, — as an external object, to call it out,
and the gift, or charitable effort, as an external act, to
stir it up ; so, in hke relation, the Lord's Supper is an
artificial ceremonial, that, through symbols, in default of
any thing more direct, faith and fellowship, our cove-
nanting and vows may have the stimulus of bodily acts
and external exhibitions.^ We have faith to exercise.
Therefore, as the grand object of faith, Christ, our sacri-
fice, is invisible, we have a memorial of him, an em-
blematic object, in the wine and the bread of the supper.
And as the exercise of faith is abstract, we have an
external act, the receiving of the bread and wine, to
suggest it, and draw it out. So, too, we have commu-
nion with God to maintain. Therefore, His altogether
unseen communications are freshened upon our memo-
ries and definitely offered in the emblematic food upon
his table, while our participation in them is more easily
* We would not say, even figuratively, this is the sacrament of bene-
volence, because we should be confounding- a distinction which exists
between baptism and the eucharist, and all other forms of duty ; but we
do say, that sense has a like office in either performance.
^ Let the reader bear in mind, I am not begging the question by
assuming that there is no other design in the eucharist. I simply give
an intelligible and natural office, that it, certainly, does fulfil, and shall
show that it fulfils no other, afterwards.
8
86 THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RETJGION.
and eagerly realized through the emblematic act of out-
ward feasting. Again, communion with the church is
to be assisted. How, better, than by sitting at the same
table, and, through appointed symbols, eating of the same
spiritual meat and drinking of the same spiritual drink?
A seal is to be set ; a vow is to be given. Therefore, as
the act, itself, is, exclusively, mental, and hence, too,
likely to be vague, and, too certainly, difficult, a token
is offered by either party; God gives the holy supper,
under the hands of his minister, and man, in the time
marked, and under the impression made by the solemn
act of eating, may accept the token of God, and so, defi-
nitely affix his own.
Now, in some minds, and for a change, in all minds,
the whole ceremony enforces and assists the chief duties
of the gospel far better than any abstract thought. If
entered upon worthily, and without superstition, as the
humble instrument, not the supplanter of the Holy Ghost,
it stirs up the soul, at the time, to higher exercises of
Christian grace. This is the first benefit of the three.
The second is a permanently improved habit of Chris-
tian exercise, after each well-celebrated sacrament.
The third must be given with care.
It was said that the third benefit of prayer was its
special reward, viz., an answer. No other than a kin-
dred benefit (in addition to the two already noticed)
follows the sacrament — its special reward, viz., a reci-
procation, on the part of God, corresponding to each act
of his guests at the table ; a reciprocation, let it be pre-
mised, however, not to the external act, itself, but, as in
prayer, to that exercise of grace which the external act
has stirred up. If we feed upon Christ, by faith, as we
feed upon the bread, he will nourish us. If we take
THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION. 87
his gifts, in communion, as we take the bread, he will
communicate them to us. If we give our blessing, in
communion, to our brethren, theirs, or a better, shall
return to us. If we set our seal (with new devotedness)
to the covenant, God will set his (with new blessings)
there.
Of no other form of real presence, but this, does the
Bible ever dream. There is grace in the sacrament, in
a guarded sense; and it is around this nucleus of truth
that a legion of errors has grown ; there may be in-
stantaneous growth in grace, at the moment of eating ;
but it is grace /b?' grace — grace promised to the height-
ened exercise of grace, which the outward symbol has
enhsted. Just as, without grace, a man may " eat and
drink judgment" in the very act ; so, in proportion to
his grace, pardon, strength, or peace, in the very act.
We are free to say, too, " There is special grace in
the sacrament." We are not willing that error should
lay exclusive claim, even to this mode of speech, or reap
from it exclusive credit. Just as the fruits of prayer are
richer, because the duty is by special appointment, and
the reward by special promise, so, the benefits of the
eucharist are richer, because of its special institution by
the Saviour. If the church, granting she have the right,
were to invent another sacrament, for like uses, to those
that we have mentioned, from the lack of special pro-
mise, it would be inferior in benefit to its fellows. God's
rite w^ould be the more richly blessed. But this, let it
be carefully guarded (and here is the secret of the diffe-
rence), not because there is an increase of reward in it,
over and above an increase of attending faith, but be-
cause the known fact of appointment prompts and en-
courages a higher exercise of faith. The uncommanded
88 THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION.
ceremony is undertaken for one object only — exercise
in piety ; the commanded ceremony for another, also, —
obedience. The one has only an imagined seal; and is,
therefore, rather the symbol of a symbol — the emblem
of a sacrament. The other has a seal set and consented
to by God himself; hence its better influence and re-
ward.
. One clear, sufficient office in religion, the body has
thus marked out for itself We shall, therefore, stand
on a vantage-ground, when, in the sequel, we try its
claim to certain other offices. For though, of course,
the idea of totally another is not, in the statement itself,
absurd, nor, in this chapter, directly refuted, yet, so com-
pletely does the one already given cover the whole field
of church externals, justify their imposition, plead for
their necessity, enter into the meaning of each appoint-
ment ; so entirely does it relieve the worshipper in his
search after some sufficient reason for the labour to
which he submits, that the instructive presumption is
against the existence of any other.
If you saw a misshapen piece of metal lying by the
bedside of a sick man, from the total want of other ex-
planation, you would listen, with much credulity, to one
who should tell you that it was designed, for the sake
of some hidden virtue in it, to be applied as a cure.
But, if you saw a spoon with a phial at its side, know-
ing, as you might, at a glance, a use quite sufficient to
bring it there, your credulity would measure itself much
more nicely by the amount of proof, if told that there
was a second use intended from some virtue in the
spoon. Or, to come nearer the case in hand, suppose
you saw an orator, with clear words and impassioned
gestures, exhibiting the truth before the people. Know-
THE DESIGN OF EXTERNALS IN RELIGION. 89
ing, as you might, that the excitement visible in his
audience has quite enough to explain it in his fervent
oratory, how would you meet the assertion of a friend,
that the main effect was produced by a mystic influence
from the person of the man, directed by his will and
assisted by his gestures? You would have no right,
before evidence in the case, to deny, but every right to
doubt. You would believe only after the very clearest
proof; sifting the evidence through, with a jealousy that
no common case could possibly enlist.
Let such be the attitude of the reader toward the
assertion of a second and mystic office of externals*
which subsequent chapters w^ll bring before him. Or,
rather, let him prepare himself candidly to judge whether
the presumption may not be realized, on still higher
grounds, by showing that no manner of evidence can
prove it, inasmuch as it indirectly contradicts itself, and
impugns the character of God.
* Some other way by which they " lead''' to an intelligent and true ser-
vice of God, for, that far, we have defined and limited already.
8*
CHAPTER IV.
THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH.
Conspicuous on the list of externals, stands an external
church. In narrowing down our view still further, it
will be well to single this out from the rest, and look at
it alone, since its ritual embraces every thing that is
matter of dispute ; and if the design of a whole be the
design of all its parts, then just as the design of religion
must be the design of all externals in religion, so the
design of all externals must be the design of an external
church.
Now, as we have shown that teaching, (instruction
and discipline) in the service of God, is a design of ex-
ternals in religion, and have laid it by for proof, in the
sequel, that it is the design, it will be well to question
experience and admitted fact, to show that it is a design
of an external church, and, moreover, that it seems
sufficient to be the design.
Imagine the world without a church.
Aside from those mystic benefits in which some believe,
it is admitted that individual men might do every thing,
in kind, that the church can do. All that is now the
essential work of the church might be the duty of isolated
believers. A revelation might be received by any man,
as by Adam, before there were a plurality of believers,
THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH. 91
to form a church. That revelation might be studied, as
by the Ethiopian eunuch, or by the wise men of the
East, with, perhaps, no notion of a church. It might
be dispensed to others, as by "Noah, a preacher of
righteousness," wdth, so far as w^e can tell, no license by
a church. The truths of that revelation might be con-
fessed before the world, as by the first believer, with no
manner of register in a church. Its rites might be ad-
ministered, as by Cain and Abel, with no known com-
mission from earth, or heaven. The mischief, therefore,
to the world, of being without a church, would be, not
so much the lessening of the number of the means of
grace, as in lessening their efficiency.
Still, its mischief would be tremendous.
To judge of it, imagine its effects in detail. Revela-
tion — if no custody of a church body were at hand to
which to commit it, how wretchedly would it be wasted.
Pure as it might be at first, w^hat quick alliances would
error make with it, as it passed from mouth to mouth ;
and, more than this, how rapidly, in such an unsheltered
state, would its evidences (in an external view, of as
much moment as its truth) sink and disappear. The
study of the truth — how obviously would it lack its
present facility and confidence. That grandest, hardest,
most perilous work of man, the merchandise of truth,
carried on in all the various ways of writing and speak-
ing, ordinance and ceremony — how would it be crippled
by the want of what secular men instinctively enlist in
all heavy enterprises — that potent helper — union. Pro-
fession would be made at random, and, therefore, bring
out clearly, neither the self-impression, nor the example,
now incident upon confessing the faith. Rites, as they
would become endlessly common, would be endlessly
92 THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH.
profaned, and so would directly reverse their intended
influence upon the people. It nriight well be made a
question whether piety, if it could ever rise so high as to
feel its own wants, would not invent a church, in default
of God's appointment.
Virtually, the experiment has been tried, of a world
without a church. From Adam to Abraham, so many
of the features of any subsequent ecclesiastical body
are absent from what several soundly-judging divines
still see evidence to call a church, that, even in their
opinion, it must approximate the case of a total absence
of the institution. Without, therefore, discussing the
question, whether, for the first two thousand years after
the creation, there was a church on earth (a discussion
scarcely otherwise than nugatory, inasmuch as the men-
tion that must preface it of things necessary to a church,
must, on one side, or the other, be a begging of the
question), we may infer the simple purpose for which,
when fully organized, it was meant, from the pecuUar
evils resulting from what some men call its absence,
and others, its incompleteness. Certain it is, that we
hear of no initiatory rite, fencing off*, in ordinary cases,
the church from the world, — of no commissioned officer,*
giving up his whole time and strength to the interests of
religion, — of no wide communion, or any settled co-
operation among large companies of believers. And
then, side by side with this, we have the natural
consequence — the children of God mixed up with the
children of men, and, therefore, few and scattered, and
their families, like the families of Lot and Laban, soon
losing the truth in idolatry. The giving of an exclusive
* Unless some one will stand out for the fact of a regular commission
to each father, as prophet, priest, and king, in his own family.
THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH. 93
seal to Abraham, and, still more, the commissioning of
priests and the framing of a ritual under Moses, recom-
mend themselves to reason, as means necessary, so far
as means can be, for the rescue of the truth. Their
simple efficiency was seen, at once, in greatly multiply-
ing the pious; so that, while religion under the old
principle of isolation seems to have made its experiment
most conclusive by completely dying out among the
gentiles, Israel grew a peculiar treasure unto God — a
kingdom of priests — a holy nation, so that, in one of
their darkest times, when, organized as they were, they
seemed almost gone over to the darkness of the heathen,
still, even in that small province, — nay, even without
Judea, there were " seven thousand men that had not
bowed the knee to the image of Baal ;" more believers,
perhaps, than the whole world had furnished, through
the first two thousand years of her history.
" The vineyard of the Lord of hosts was the house of
Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant." The
whole analogy of nature might suggest that the plants
of grace would flourish in health and numbers beyond
com.parison more, if brought together and cultivated,
than if left to scatter their own seed, and take root
where they may, amidst briers and thorns. Corn that
will yield a hundred-fold, when hedged in by itself in a
cultivated field, if left in its native woods to contend
with the affinities of other plants, and to strike its roots
where it can, amidst a ranker herbage, will be found
scattered and dwindled, its fruit positively nothing in
contrast with what husbandry would make it yield, and
the grain scarcely known by the farmer as the same
that his field produces.
What is easier, therefore, than by the good the church
94 THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH.
is actually seen to do, to tell a sufficient design for its
institution.
Let us go into still more detail. As its benefits come
up in order, a glance will show that each resolves itself
into one, already proposed as the sole design of what-
ever is visible in religion — teaching — the ministration of
the truth, whether for instruction, or discipline.
I. The church stores up the truth. If truth were
dear to men, perishable and easily corrupted as it is, its
revelation might be risked through any private channel,
trusting that the mind that heard it first, would be at
the pains to give it over exactly to others, and that the
word would scrupulously keep it, and hand it down.
We know not that in heaven any organized society is
needed to preserve entire the new discoveries God
makes of himself to men.
But, so long as the truth is regarded as man's worst
enemy, the whole world being in league against it,
hating the light, neither coming to the light, lest their
deeds should be reproved ; and so long as any man, as
it passes from hand to hand, is at perfect liberty to hand
on to his neighbour a total counterfeit of what came to
him, and so long as this counterfeit, if the whole cur-
rency of truth were in random circulation, would stand
on much the same foot as the original, it is plain that
any revelation would be wasted, if sent individually to
private men. The spirit that now fills the world with
spurious rehgions could then reach its end by a shorter
path, in framing its imposture out of the ruins of the
true. A gospel could scarcely last beyond its own
generation, for the world would lose its hold of ii by its
concealment, or disappearance under a mass of errors.
We take this to be the reason why God talked so
THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH. 95
often with men in the infant period of the world. He
kindly kept up reh'gion by fresh truth from himself; and
we take the varied idolatries of the earth, traced back,
indefinitely, by ancient and distant heathen, to be the
wrecks of that early, oral religion, in its successive
renewals among the fathers of our race. Constant
revelations kept a scattered few in the light, but at a
fearful expense. God's words, altogether unstored, and,
therefore, turning quickly into error, passed off from them
to sow the earth with heathenism. At the very time
w^hen the nations were dividing in the earth, after the
flood, this fatal want existed ; no organized band of pious
men in each to see that a pure faith w^ent with them.
Hence, an oral faith carried away from the places
where God frequently appeared — unrenewed — unguard-
ed — unwritten — passing into the corners of the earth,
there became the perverted centre around which the
heathen heart wove busily its dark mythologies, a
melancholy monument of whose high origin remains in
those atoning rites of sacrifice and penance that are
found in all of them.
What would have become of revelation, w^ithout the
church, is best told by what has become of all revelation,
except that kept by the church. Since the world began,
God has revealed vastly more than those few books —
the Bible. By the Urim and Thummim — by the open
vision — by the thousand prophets of Israel, vastly more
was spoken and heard and written, just as true, and, at
the time, as binding, than was given to the church to
keep. By Christ, much, not down in the gospels, was
uttered, just as true, of course, and at the time as binding
as any thing recorded ; much was done — so much that,
if written, the world itself could not contain the books
96 THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH.
that should be written. But yet, from the priest, the
prophet, or the seer, from Christ, or his apostles, what
well-attested revelation has come down to us through
private hands'? What more have we of all, than the
little that was measured out for the church to keep?
Tradition, even where that, too, for centuries, has been
taken up and written out by a church, and enjoyed her
care, comes to us mongrel and corrupt, pretending to
bring down to us but little, and that little stamped all
over with marks of modern origin. The cheerful ad-
mission of this, as it touches the Jews and all Old Tes-
tament tradition, will sufficiently screen me from the
charge, on the part of any Christian sect, of assuming
the failure of tradition. For even the Romanist, talk as
he may of the preserving of tradition since the time of
Christ, will confess it failed through the greater part of
the world's history.
Inspired truth, that would have filled many volumes,
seems to have been uttered by the prophets — but one
volume has come down to us. Of all that was left in
private hands, nothing has been saved ; of the little
committed to the church, nothing has been lost. The
five books of Moses have had two distinct preservations
- — by Israel — by Judah — each attesting the other; and
all the rest, under the care of officers expressly set apart
to write out and keep the scriptures, have come down
to us, though in many MSS., yet with scarce an essen-
tial syllable of difference. And to show, still more
signally, the wisdom, and, so to speak, the self-censor-
ship of such organized custody, here are the Jews, still
keeping every letter of their testament inviolate in the
face of all the taunts and jeers and controversies which
have been moved against them, on the ground of pas-
THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH. 97
sages which they cannot explain, and which a few
strokes of the pen nnight expunge ; clear testimonies to
Jesus, thus preserving themselves by his own institution
— the church — in the very mouths of his enemies.
We leave this point, however, not without carefully
exonerating ourselves from the charge of robbing God's
providence of the honour of having wonderfully pre-
served the Bible, and specially confounded and silenced
traditions. But Providence works by instruments, and
may specially smile upon any well-chosen instrument (as
the sacrifice of Abel), or frown upon any ill-chosen (as
the sacrifice of Cain), and yet not forbid us to see fitness,
or unfitness in their relative success. The very fact of
a smile, or frown, where, as in the official, or private
treasuring of God's words, the effort, either way, is
equally praiseworthy, is a virtual decision, by Provi-
dence itself, that one way is efficient, the other not
so. Precisely thus, Providence specially blesses public
preaching, not from arbitrary choice, or that other
means are intrinsically wrong, but from the fitness of
things, and that this means is intrinsically best.
II. The church stores up evidence for the truth. No
religion can prove itself externally, but by something
supernatural. All external evidence, therefore, looks for
its basis to miracle, or prophecy. To bring this proof
in contact with the mind, however, a second link in
evidence is needed — either sense, or testimony. Of
these, how far testimony predominates, in practical use,
over the senses, will be answered by this question, how
many miracles we have actually seen performed, or
prophecies actually seen fulfilled. The whole store of
past miracle would go for nothing, were it not for testi-
mony, bringing it to us over thousands of years, and all
9
98 THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH.
accomplished prophecy, too, if not for testimony to
prove the prophecy older than its accomplishment.
Testimony, therefore, covers nearly the whole field of
evidence, and is vital to the outward claim of any
religion.
Now, testimony is, peculiarly, the foster child of the
visible church. It could scarcely live without her. In
two ways her cherishing influence over it is felt. 1. Her
own annals are its main form ; her own person — the
church herself — is its chief monument. Just as you
cannot separate the history of a nation from its fables,
until it begins to shape itself into a settled government,
and chronicle itself in its own public oflices ; so you
would be hopelessly puzzled with the alliances of fiction
with fact in religion, if, for thousands of years, a well-
organized church had not been striving, for the sake
of her own existence, to keep them separate. Then, 2.
The church attracts notice ; strangely little, to be sure,
especially, in its earlier age, but far more than isolated
believers would ; and hence, in that notice, and by its
means, multiplies a second and, in some respects, a richer
store of testimony — the testimony of indifferent specta-
tors and enemies. We owe much to our organization
for a place, at all, on the pages of secular history.
Thus, by its own heightened care and by the greater
scrutiny of the world, religion can better prove itself, if
it dwell united in an external body.
III. The church dispenses the truth. In union is
strength. Where man's heaviest work is to be done,
viz., the actual teaching of religion — the good of concert
is too plain for argument.
Piety and malignity — the followers of Christ and the
emissaries of Satan — must not stand on the same footing
THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH. 99
as religious counsellors. Let dying men have at least
the poor shield of a wide Christian sanction for ^vhat
they hear, and not be left to a random, lying, discordant
teaching ; let ihem have a steady pressure of the truth
upon their minds — a full instruction, and not be given
up to the fitful efforts of private charity.
Division of labour, a principle almost instinctively
obeyed, in secular work, might be expected to rule in
this. If one man can teach a thousand, then let one be
disengaged from the business of the thousand, and be set
apart for religious labour and high accomplishment; and
let the thousand band together to support and hear him.
The truth of all this has been signally tested by spu-
rious gospels. Where a church has been framed to
spread them, they have taken root and lasted. Where
they have passed privately from mind to mind, they have
died at once.
Remember, too, the grander enterprises of the cross ;
that the merchandise of wisdom is not a domestic trade,
alone, but a wide commerce, that seeks its market through
the w^orid. Only glance at the question, whether the
heathen — wretchedly served even by the church — might,
without cruelty, be given up to private effort, and we
need say no more.
IV. The church gives exercise in the truth. Profes-
sion, worship, liberality — these three duties would amply
repay its institution. Profession — by keeping riveted
on the mind the fact that it has renounced the world ;
worship — by placing the soul, weekly, in the happiest at-
titude for high spiritual exercise ; liberality — by securing
regular appeals to the heart, for generous sacrifice in the
noblest cause.
V. The church enforces the truth. With no such in-
100 THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH.
stitution, discipline would be a thing unknown ; except,
perhaps, the weak rod of public opinion, which, as no
faith could be formally professed, would be but lightly
used.
Now, we know that discipline, at best, is but an indi-
rect means of grace. The pain or fear that it produces
gives nothing in itself to piety ; not even where God, by
Providence, chasteneth His people. No surer, however,
is the good result of this divine chastening, than where
man, not overstepping the limit of moral penalties, nor
using the sword instead of the simple excommunication
that Christ has put into his mouth, stands in the place of
God, to punish an apostate brother. Direct or indirect,
the tendency is to humble the offender and turn his soul
in thought, upon his sin, and to foreshadow a day more
melancholy, a sentence infinitely sterner, and a banish-
ment eternal and not to be revoked.
To make evident this good of organized religion, you
need but contrast the piety of a church so lax as that its
judicial function is steadily neglected, with that of one
so inflexible as that it is steadily performed. The me-
lancholy difference will show the meaning of the church,
at least, as a judicial body.
Now, accordant, to the very letter, with the offices thus
given in detail, is the plan on which the church is organ-
ized. Just so — given the above-mentioned purposes for
the institution — we would, ourselves, have framed it a
priori. Who shall be its members? Certainly, if truth is
to be kept, and its evidence loved and cherished ; if
truth is to be taught, and its power exemplified and acted
forth ; if discipline is to mean any thing, or worship to
be other than an empty name ; not mankind in mass, but
the pious of mankind. Will the visible church and the
THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH. 101
invisible agree in boundary? No. As membership will
be simply by profession and outward character, some
men of weak faith will be afraid to seek it, and many
men of no faith will seek and gain it; so that, by this
natural and common sense view, membership or its want
will be certain security for nothing ; a man may be in
either church visible or invisible, and not in the other.
Will the visible church be divided into branches f Yes.
Because, as perfect unity of opinion is the fruit of perfect
sanctification, the doctrine of which she is the store-
house, will differ as to minor points in different minds;
so that her members, still nourished from a common
root and holding free communion with each other, will
find it wise to act and teach and worship in different
branches.
All other fellowships have officers ; will the church
need them ? Certainly ; if she is to teach and rule and
give efficiently, over each duty of the three, qualified
members must preside. Secular offices are entered upon,
not by intrusion, but appointment; if of august character,
not informally, but by solemn rite ; how shall it be with
this ? By all reason the same; some mode of choice —
some ceremony of entrance — marked and impressive
according to the solemnity of the work.
Thus the church has explained herself throughout on
the plain principles of common sense. She has given
ample reason for her existence, in a list of obvious and
sufficient benefits — for her rule of membership in the
folly of any other — for her officers, their call and ordi-
nation, in her own essential worthlessness without them
— all explained under that one design — to teach, instruct,
and discipline, without resort to any thing mystic, or
aside from natural laws — no miracle in her work — no
9*
102 THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH.
charm in her membership — no wielding of God's power
in the rite of ordination, or by the men whom it invests ;
leaving unclaimed in the hands of the Holy Spirit (this
own best depositary) all the power that is to bless her
simple, human, though divinely-appointed and especially
successful instrumentahty.
If any man can break this beautiful simplicity, and
introduce a totally distinct design, let it be only by strict-
est evidence.
CHAPTER V.
DANGER OF ATTRIBUTING TO EXTERNALS CERTAIN SPURIOUS
DESIGNS.
One, whole, symmetrical design has been found in
the last two chapters, for externals and an external
church, w ith no necessity, or place, as concerns the
completeness of that one, to interweave other designs
which learned men have defended, and which large de-
nominations have embraced. And we have promised
an attempt to show that these other designs lack proof,
and contravene the gospel, and must, therefore, give
place and leave the first unmarred in its simpleness and
unity. If, by devoting a chapter in advance, however,
a natural origin for just such spurious notions in the
church can be pointed out, and it can be made to appear
that precisely these might have been predicted from the
known laws of man's depravity, it may be obviating
prejudice based on the wdde currency they have had,
and will be further clearing the way for that final argu-
ment. The notion of a power of magic enchantment in
an orator would, as we have seen, be rendered highly
improbable, in that the spell evident upon the people
finds a sufficient cause in his impassioned eloquence;
but still more improbable, in advance of direct evidence,
if an origin can be found for the notion in some well-
known idiosyncrasy of those who wish us to believe it.
104 DANGER OF ATTRIBUTING TO EXTERNALS
Now, that there is such a thing as superstition, an
original and main corruption of our nature, we have
never heard denied. It is either creative, or alterant
It may be defined to be that vice of the soul which busies
itself, either in originating new modes, or objects of w^or-
ship, or in turning the natural into the supernatural.
The Hindoo is led by superstition when he creates a
god of evil. The Parsee is led by superstition when he
turns the sun into a god. It is with this last operation
of the vice that we have now to do.
Our religion, with all its array of natural means, is
revealed to minds, by confession, superstitious. What
might we predict as the result 1 That superstition would
be, at once, at work, turning each natural m.eans into its
corresponding supernatural means, or (to change the
name so as to meet the extreme result of this tendency)
into its corresponding supernatural cause. As an expe-
riment, to see whether this is actually done, let us take
the list of means already given under the heads of " ex-
ternals" and " an external church," and let us, ourselves,
definitely make the changes which the above rule of the
vice prescribes. We shall get a corresponding list of
products, which will be, partly, acknowledged supersti-
tions (so plainly got by this rule, and yet so foul in their
nature, as to throw the utmost suspicion on all brought
into company with them, by a like deduction), and, partly,
those very pretended offices, whose spuriousness the
next chapter is to prove.
I. Externals.
I. They teach by revealing God and ourselves. The
" natural means" in this case are the externals them-
CERTAIN SPURIOUS DESIGNS. 105
selves ; as works of God and objects of the thought and
action of man.
a. As works of God, they are the means of teaching,
by the marks of design that they contain and by the
beauty, complexity, and benevolence of that design, the
power, wisdom, and goodness of the Great First Cause.
Superstition, therefore, would hasten to mistake (if the
" means" for the " cause," then) God's works for himself —
the instruments of this bright display for its author —
" worshipping and serving the creature more than the
creator."
By whatever means God's glory was most displayed,
— by the sun, the moon, earth, fire, — those means would
be first turned into deities, and then the lower orders of
creation, one by one, would find their place in an easily
satisfied and growing mythology. Rivers and fountains
— plants and animals — showing, by apt design, special
kindness in God toward the countries where they are —
men gifted with high strength, wisdom, or virtue — any
thing, indeed, that vividly manifests its creator, would
be deified, at once, without the trouble of looking through
it to a higher divinity.
We may go farther. If man, in his fondness for
aiding all his conceptions by sense, should carve an
emblem of God, this symbolic " means" of reminding
him of the divine perfections, though, at first, innocently
made, might usurp the place of the " Cause," and at last
arrest in itself the regards it once cherished for the Deity.
So far might this be the case, as to render it highly dan-
gerous to use such symbols in worship, and to make a
prohibition, in this respect, a part of God's revelation to
men.
The rule, so far, is true to fact. Its product is precisely
106 DANGER OF ATTRIBUTING TO EXTERNALS
that error which man's mind has reahzed in looking
upon outward nature — that deep and desolating curse —
idolatry — that has reigned, the most crying enormity of
our nature, all over the world — that child of superstition,
by a birth confessed and palpable, which, in one age or
other, has turned all nature into gods — which worshipped
in Persia fire and the host of heaven ; in Egypt, the plants
of her gardens, the beasts of the land, and the monsters
of the river ; in Greece, her countrymen, those wise in
council, or brave in war, or cunning in the arts ; in
India, the emblems that her fathers chose, her grim idols
and her holy river.
h. As objects of the thought and action of men, exter-
nals are the means of revealing us to ourselves, in that
exercise of our nature in varied thought and action
which would be impossible without an external world.
The mistake of superstition here would be (if the " means"
for the "cause," then) the externals themselves for the
exercise of which they are the means, i. e., the outward
for the inward act, leading us to value and regard our-
selves as though the body w^ere ourselves, not the soul,
and, therefore, its motions were to be the mark of cha-
racter, not the motions of the soul which are back of
them — leading us, in fine, to imagine merit in mere
words of the lips and actions of the hand, when the heart
is not in them.
How far this result is true to nature, w^e need not stop
to show.^
2. Externals teach by pain and pleasure.
The natural means in this case are, on the one hand,
pain. Just as its physical office is, to protect the body
* Is. xxix. 13.
CERTAIN SPURIOUS DESIGNS. 107
from injuries, by making it feel their touch, so, its
rehgious office is to keep the soul from sin, by reminding
it of the displeasure of God. Taking the corresponding
cause, the mistake of superstition would be, to imagine
an efficient virtue in pain itself, tending to drive out sin.
Asa practical result, we might look for ascetic life
and all forms of voluntary wretchedness, courting, for
the extirpation of depravity, this direct powder of pain.
And then the realized fact is notorious among ancient
and modern heretics and heathen.
But, in this instance, the mistake occurs in a second
form. Pain is the natural means of punishment, as well
as of discipline. Superstition might clothe it with a
supernatural power to punish — to punish more than its
own severity would naturally count — more than as so
much pain and so long— might give it an efficiency
which it can only have when a divine person endures
it, to exhaust justice and make expiation for the sinner.
The practical result would be all forms of self-inflicted
punishment ; and the realized fact is at hand in the knives
and lancets of the priests of Baal — in the fires of Moloch
— in the rack and the hook, and the car andthe pyre, of
the Indian devotee, and (the presumption at least is over-
whelming) in the knotty scourge— in the iron bed — in
the hair garment — and the whole catalogue of penances
of the Roman church.
Pleasure, on the other hand, passing through a like
hypothetical change, yields a product still more notori-
ously agreeing w^ith man's actual experience, and which,
though in common speech, not brought under the head
of superstition, but found wide enough to have a name
alone, will only serve to show a feature of common
108 DANGER OF ATTRIBUTING TO EXTERNALS
kindred in superstition with that general depravity of
which it forms a part.
Pleasure, as the body wins it for us through the
avenues of sense, is a means intended to keep men re-
minded of the goodness and all-satisfying riches of its
Cause. The error, here, w^ould be, to mistake the channel
for the fountain, letting pleasure arrest in itself the hopes
and desires and affections that it should send up higher
— and claim a supernatural power to make us happy,
which can be realized only in God.
How far this result is answered by reality, men's
strongest temptations may bear witness. " The lust of
the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," all
finding their centre in this one mistake, seem to fill up
half the measure of the soul's corruption.
3. Externals teach by intercourse with other beings.
As before, let us say, by example — by language.
a. Example is a "means" intended to bring before the
soul a living model of virtue, thereby winning an influ-
ence that abstract description could never win. Of
course, example is imperative, only so far as it is
virtuous, and, as a judge of this, whoever suffers its in-
fluence, is held responsible.
Now, the hypothetic mistake here would be, to suffer
example to be the deciding cause-of our moral judg-
ments, and not simply the means of judging; giving it a
primary influence, simply as example, and not a repre-
sentative influence, merely, as showing itself to be
virtuous.
At a glance, this will be recognised as an actual and
wide-spread delusion, so strong as to deceive some into
the belief that it alone, and no inborn depravity, is the
CERTAIN SPURIOUS DESIGNS. 109-
reason why all men, since the fall, are sinners, so strong,
certainly, as to lead to one result, as strange as it is
melancholy, that the .examples of wickedness should
have the ascendency over those of virtue.
h. Language (speech, writing, signs, &c.) may seem a
term scarcely wide enough to exhaust all the rest that
social intercourse does for us in religion, when it is
remembered that it may be auxiliary to all the other
spiritual uses of the body, (as where a fellow-man leads
us to the study of nature, or brings upon us pleasure or
pain, or stirs us up to moral action), and that it is, of
course, primary in all the uses of the church. Give it an
office, however, as wide as we have given both ex-
ternals and the church, and it wull submit itself to our
experiment, just as happily. Social intercourse is a
means of teaching and discipline, in order to grace in the
soul. The usual mistake, here, w^ould be, to give it a
causal influence in the more direct imparting of grace,
making our fellow-man not the exhibitor, or furtherer of
truth, in order to salvation, but, in analogy with all the
other changes, the dispenser of salvation. There would
be room, here, for an endless number of intermediate and
lesser degrees of change, but this would be the point of
ultimate tendency — to give to means a supernatural
power to do that to which they were only meant to
minister.
Think a moment, and you will perceive a double con-
sequence from this — that it would take, on the one hand,
prerogative out of the hands of God, and, on the other,
work out of the hands of man — building up, on the one
hand, an idolatrous religion, and, on the other, one
thoroughly vicarious. Because, just so far as a means
ascends toward the position of a cause, by arrogating to
10
110 DANGER OF ATTRIBUTING TO EXTERNALS
itself more immediate power, will it, not only, trench
upon the province of God, but save the labour of man.
Means must he used, with labour proportioned to their
character, as merely means ; power need be only felt.
We might anticipate, therefore, a twofold result from
the mistake in question — an idolatrous reverence for
certain men, and a vicarious trust to what they do in
works of general obedience, or in official acts.
How far this precisely has been realized, must be con-
fessed in the ascendency won by priests over the homage
and spiritual confidence of men, endlessly, among the
Pagans and, measurably, among the Jews — and, also,
(unless, by direct proof, established as an exception,) in
the works of supererogation, the absolution, the saving
rites and ghostly power of the Church of Rome, as well
as in kindred reliances in nominally Protestant com-
munions.
4. Externals teach by exercise in moral action.
a. Outward action is the spoken language of virtue,
intended to exhibit to the senses of the body the exercises
of the soul, that these may be drawn out in the act and
by the exigency. Briefly, then, it is a means intended
to enlist the soul in a higher exercise of piety. Here
superstition, by its unchanging rule, would give to the
outward act a causal power, and say that it directly pro-
cured piety — that such acts as might be seized upon as
fit subjects of the error would, of themselves, (with more,
or less, demand of previous grace, according as the error
is less or more advanced) bring grace into the soul ; —
that payment of a certain sum, or submission to a cer-
tain rite, or endurance of a certain pain, would, all ex-
ternal as it is, be anointed by God with strength to
affect our spiritual condition ; of course, as in former
CERTAIN SPURIOUS DESIGNS. Ill
cases, by itself, dropping off any consideration of its
success as a means in naturally stirring up, or evidencing
the exercise of grace.
Paganism, with its shouts and dances; Judaism, with
its fasts^ and washings; Popery, with its crossings and
bowings, and professed Protestantism, so far as it has
learnt any thing akin to these, will give abundant ex-
amples, either confessed, or suspected, of this, as no
imaginary change.''
h. But, closely allied with the above result, and, per-
haps, on the side of superstition, not to be distinguished
from it, is the construction put upon the special rewards
to which outward action ministers. It ministers to them,
we have seen, as a "means" of higher moral exercise in
the soul, and so, as a means (though, of course, one step
further off) of higher reward to the soul. Now the
usual mistake would be (to exalt the " means"), to count
the act and not the exercise, and hence, too often, the
act, without the exercise, as winning the reward. The
practical operation of which would be, endless attention
to outward effort and ceremonial, and the promise of
* Fasting might seem a curious exception to the common office of
external acts, and something akin to penance. When, however, in its
influence on piety, it is placed side by side with temperance, or a care of
health, its true design is evident, not, indeed, primarily, to exercise in
piety, but to lighten and clear the mind for it, by well-known natural
principles. Of this singularity in means, however, superstition, in making
her change, takes little note, but gives fasting a direct office, like her
whole list of other acts.
'' The corresponding account that superstition would give of habits
mentioned before, as the second benefit of external acts, is so obvious
that it need not be noticed. What sound religion would call the result,
through grace, of constant exercise, superstition would call the aggregate
of frequent direct impartings of grace by externals.
112
DANGER OF ATTRIBUTING TO EXTERNALS
^reward for that, with insufficient regard to the state of
the heart that prompts it.
To nnake incontestable something more than theory
here, the whole religious history of man would load our
pages with examples. Indeed, we need not search par-
ticular mythologies, or creeds ; each heart will plead
guilty to the error. The earliest religious mistake of
childhood, and the persevering mistake of the maturest
piety, is to make the body do for it a vicarious worship,
the mere w^ords of prayer expecting the reward of
actually conceived petitions, and a mere presence in a
church, the reward of devotion there, and the mere
reading of the word of God, the reward of gathering and
remembering its truths.
Having seen how untiringly superstition follows the
body through every turn of its religious duty, and that,
too, without caring to depart from one single rule of
deception, and how, in all Romanism, and in much Pro-
testantism, things are found bearing a most unhappy
likeness to the confessed and foulest fruits of this decep-
tion, so much so, that, before hearing of their sanction
by pretended revelation, we might have anticipated
them among us as from the same mother, and by the
same law of birth, let us enter upon the other half of our
proposed experinient.
II. The Church.
1. It stores away the truth. The " natural means,"
and, therefore, the great advantage, that an associa-
tion of Christians has to keep the parts of a revelation
together, and to transcribe each copy, strictly, under
niutual supervision, a glance has already made apparent.
Handed about and copied at random, by good men, or
bad, it would soon be dissipated.
CERTAIN SrURIOUS DESIGNS. 113
Superstition, however, would hasten to change the
"means" into a "supernatural power." Not satisfied
with regarding the church as intended, from the sim-
ple advantages of her position, and from that special
blessing that any of God's faithful servants has, to hold
fast a sound revelation, as successive ages rise to
take it at her hands and form their judgment of it, it
would regard her as anointed with a species of divine
wisdom, not to keep and know and judge like private
men, but to say, by a kind of holy intuition, lodged
somewhere in her body, what precisely God's revelation
is; then to comment upon it and tell its meaning, so
that the comment, on the very ground of its origin, shall
be as necessarily true as the text ; — in one word, to keep
the Bible, not by means alone, and, therefore, in a way
subject to error, but by infallible power, a power much
like that of its first inspiration, deciding, with equal cer-
tainty, what it is, and what it signifies.
Perfectly of a piece with all this, would be the notion
that the church, in every respect, is not the minister, but
the master of revelation, with power to tell the people
how much of it may be read, or whether any; or to
seal it to all but herself, and make her own word, at
second hand, the people's revelation ; or to add to it, not
her glosses only, but matter quite additional, inventing
new rites and ceremonies, and laying new claims upon
the service of her members.
That precisely these things have been realized in the
Christian church, is of course notorious. That precisely
these, if not of God, would issue from the working of
superstition, only prejudice we think could persist in
questioning.
2. The Church stores up evidence for the truth.
10*
114 DANGER OF ATTRIBUTING TO EXTERNALS
Turning the means into a cause, the mistake, here,
would be, to consider the church as originating, or con-
stituting evidence, rather than as simply gathering it, or
in her own history making a part of it. Men would
learn to count her word as intrinsically proof — taking
the sentences from her lips as self established, without
the necessity of independent evidence. An authority
not even claimed by inspired apostles^ would be granted
her, to have all right of private judgment merged in her
decisions. And, indeed, this would be but a consequence
of the last mistake that we considered ; for the same
argument that could maintain the necessary infallibility
of the Church, would fully cover and justify her claim
to belief for her own sake, as incapable of erring.
That superstition has actually led to such a result, it
need not be pointed at in the creeds of churches to help
you to suspect; but we may assert the fact, at once, from
the personal experience of all men, who, while they may
reject in theory the authority of their church, yet in
practice detect in themselves a constant tendency to
build their belief upon it. Indeed, if men would
thoroughly examine how they first comeby their creeds,
and how much well-investigated evidence, at the very
best, they have for them, those who hate most the prin-
ciple of blind adhesion, would be often startled at the
strength with which it practically governs them. Birth
in this church, or that gives more men their speculative
creeds, than all the study ever elicited in the choice.
3. The Church dispenses the truth. The means which
her associated strength gives her so much facility to use,
" " Though we, or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto
you than that which we have preached unto 3'^ou, let him be accursed."
Gal. i. 8.
CERTAIN SPURIOUS DESIGNS. 115
would pass the usual metamorphosis, and be turned into
hidden virtues, placed at her disposal for the immediate
salvation, or reprobation of men. Her language would
be less of preaching than of infusing and imparting ; and
whereas these virtues could be treasured nowhere else,
the notion would soon be started, that want of visible
church membership, apart from any wilful contumacy
in declining it, must cut a man off from any but un-
covenanted and extraordinary provisions for hope or
pardon. The church, which seemed but as an instrument
made for man, and not man for it, — but as a servant to
store and spread a gospel truth, itself, only the instru-
ment of an all-giving and all-determining Spirit — but a
help, therefore, which a man might totally decline and
shun, and yet expose himself to nothing but the guilt of
rejecting an ordinance of God, and the loss of its bless-
ing as a means, — would be erected into a great secondary
cause, and so into a deciding test. The simple union
that God had given to the labour of Christians, with its
train of still simpler ordinances, would be made to
embosom a mystic charge, a flaw, or failure, or neglect
in w^ielding which would cost a soul perdition.
How far such a mistake has been realized in some
religions, and how well it may be suspected in others,
four denounced victims of a principle, in each case, appa-
rently the same, may serve in all brevity to show — the
Gentile of Judaism, the infidel of Mohammedanism,
the heretic of Popery, and the Dissenter of English
Prelacy.
4. The Church gives exercise in the truth. Her means
■for this are the strong restraints of public profession, the
high advantages of public worship, and the warm
appeals of pubhc charity. Turning the natural into the
116 DANGER OF ATTRIBUTING TO EXTERNALS
supernatural, the usual mistake would be, to attribute a
mystic good to each of these, altogether beyond the
blessing of God upon simple means.
Gifts to the church would be thought to redound to
the profit of the giver in a way not to be estimated ex-
clusively, by the strength of his motive in them, nor to
be compared with the common gifts of private benevo-
lence.
Church ordinances would assume a ghostly meaning.
Sacraments, from being simple memorials, seals, and
symbols, occasions of communion, or initiatory rites,
bearing with them a special blessing, only in view of the
special exercise of piety that they stir up, would clothe
themselves with divine efficiency, actually embosoming
the agency they were intended to represent, themselves
setting the seal they were to teach foith to set, them-
selves constituting the communion to which, by obvious
influences, they were meant only to minister.
Sacred places would be idolized. The church, in-,
stead of merely answering a rational design, as a conve-
nient place of worship, would become, mystically, favour-
able to it, to the prohibition of other places. Prayer
there would be thought to tell better upon the soul than
prayer elsewhere of equal piety and by equal numbers ;
and that, not as the simple answer of some early petition,
like Solomon's, that God would always meet with his
people there and hear them, but by virtue of its use and
consecration as a house of God.
Time would gather to itself the same power with
place. Certain set hours of prayer, and certain set days
of fasting, would promise better answers and results than
others.
Words would become holy, so as to be retained for
CERTAIN SPURIOUS DESIGNS. 117
their mystic value, even with embarrassment and incon-
venience, nay with seeming absurdity, when they have
become no longer the vernacular tongue.
I might fill out the mistake more completely, by
writing a complete list of every thing prominent in
worship — official dress and gesture, church furniture and
arrangement, &c., &c. — but my end is already answered.
Now, to the realization of all this, it is a little strange
with what well-yoked agreement Paganism and nominal
Christianity unite to contribute. Let me run over briefly
a list of actual, or suspected instances.
As to sacred gifts — we have the Corban of the Jew,
that well-known sentence, claiming, in alms sent to the
temple, virtue above all other charities, and excuse from
the most holy debts of gratitude or kindred ; we have
the money of the Hindoo on the altar of his idol, as a
propitiation against what he fears, or a price for what
he hopes ; and we have the varied forms of mass, in-
dulgence, and absolution, in which the Papist buys a
pardon for himself, or for the dead.
As to sacraments, we hav^e the reliance upon circum-
cision of the Mohammedans and Jews, upon a bath in
the Ganges by the Indian devotee, and upon the " opus
operatum" of baptism and the eucharist by professed
branches of the modern church.
As to words, w^e have liturgies and forms of prayer,
held fast from an imagined sacredness, after their lan-
guage has become dead, — the Hebrew liturgy of the
Jew — the Syriac of the Greek — and the Latin of the
Roman, with many additional instances in the obsolete
languages of Eastern heathen.
Then as to place, time, dress, &c., we have the groves,
and temples, and churches; the matins and vespers, and
118 DANGER OF ATTRIBUTING TO EXTERNALS, ETC.
the "new moons and appointed feasts," the fasts and
saints' days ; the phylacteries and bordered garments,
the tonsure and cowl and cassock ; the mitre and sur-
plice ; not all, of course, nor, always, idolatrous, but of
whose likeness, in the reverence and importance they
have claimed to the result we have imagined, the reader,
in each instance of their use, will be able to decide.
5. The church enforces the truth.
The means in this case is discipline, a rational instru-
mentality, which, by censure and excommunication in
the visible church, humbles the offender, and reminds
him of corresponding evils, which, if the discernment of
the ecclesiastical court has been true, he is in peril of,
in his relations with the church invisible. Now, the mis-
take of superstition would be, to drop the idea of natural
instrumentality, and give a ghostly power over those
evils, themselves, into the hands of the church. Its mere
declarative censures would be exchanged into efficient
curses; its sentence of visible excommunication into
effective banishment from the hope of life.
Having thus found in the prolific mother of all idolatry,
and in her varied progeny, got by one law of birth,
parent and kindred for the whole class of alleged church
abuses, to whose catalogue they must go the moment
proof against them is complete, let us attempt its com-
pletion, at once, by resuming, again, our main line of
argument.
CHAPTER VI.
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
The uses in religion, as we understand them, of every-
thing that presents itself to sense, have been seen beauti-
fully to harmonize in one design : —
Externals teach (instruct and discipline) in piety;
that piety being the only condition, on man's part, of
salvation.
Error has never the singleness of truth, and it is, there-
fore, hard to express all the spurious uses under a
second, general design. The nearest expression to this,
however, of which language is capable, is, perhaps, the
following :
1. Certain externals directly impart grace; and 2,
are, themselves, essential conditions of salvation.
This sentence, too, is practically correct, as it gives
the precise doctrine of our opponents as to " certain
externals." It only fails by asserting too much of cer-
tain others, which, though they claim a supernatural
efficacy, forbidding them to be ranked (as we rank all)
as mere natural means, still, offer their efficacy, under
some condition, on the one hand, or assert their necessity
as not totally absolute, on the other.
How often and how far — under what exceptions and
with what reserves those who differ from us on these
120 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
points will adopt the sentence, can be best judged by
glancing over some of the rites of their religion.
Roman Catholics believe that the soul of an infant
receives direct grace in baptism — in such sense as that,
dying without baptism, it shall fail of heaven, but, with
it, shall be received there.^ In this case, of course, the
sentence holds good, unconditionally, in both its members.
They say, again, that the baptism of adults " remits
original sin, and actual guilt — however enormous,"^ and
" with it, all the punishment due to sin ;"•= that it " re-
plenishes our souls with divine grace ;"'' that it " unites
us to Christ, as members to their head ;"° that it " seals
us with a character that can never be effaced from the
soul,"^ and '' opens to us the portals of Heaven ;"s all
this, however, only on condition, beforehand, of " faith,
compunction, and a firm purpose of avoiding sin ;'"' and
that it is essential,^ with a very narrow exception, (in
case of martyrs, " and adults, who, not being able to
have the sacrament administered to them, die with a
sincere desire of receiving it, accompanied by, and inclu-
ded in perfect charity ,"J) to the salvation of the soul.
They teach that the sacrifice of the mass " is not less
* " Infants, unless baptized, cannot enter heaven, and, hence, we may
well conceive how deep the enormity of their guilt, who, through negli-
gence, suffer them to remain without the grace of the sacrament longer
than necessity may require." Catechism of Council of Trent, p. 164,
(American edition.)
^ Catechism of the Council of Trent, p. 167. (Baltimore edition.)
<= Ibid. p. 169. d Ibid. p. 172, « Ibid. p. 173.
f Ibid. p. 174. s Ibid. p. 175. ^ ibid. p. 233.
* " Unless they are regenerated through the grace of baptism, be their
parents Christians, or infidels, they are born to eternal misery and ever-
lasting destruction." Ibid. p. 162.
J Catechism of the Christian Doctrine, (2d ed.) p. 86.
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 121
available when offered for them," (the dead,) " than when
offered in atonement for the sins, in alleviation of the
punishments, the satisfactions, the calamities, or for the
relief of the necessities of the living ;"* and that some
such sacrifice, under the hand of the living, is indispensa-
bly necessary to the relief of the dead.
They believe that the eucharist " imparts grace to the
soul,"^ only, however, on condition of certain acts and
exercises of preparation.''
The doctrine of certain Protestants approaches these
in all degrees of nearness. They believe that the sacra-
ments, — we need not stop to particularize, — are in such
sense efficacious to life; that the soul excluding itself
from them must be given over to God's " uncovenanted
mercies.'"^ Opinions of this kind, in churches once pro-
testing against Rome, are not yet sufficiently matured
to be definitely, or harmoniously, or at all, authoritatively,
(by any concordant act of council or convention), enter-
» Catalogue of the Christian Doctrine, 2d ed., p. 166. ^ Ibid., p. 220.
<: Ibid., p. 223.
^ " Baptism gives life." Pusey^s Sermon, p. 6. " Baptism containeth
the remission of sins, and hath the germ of spiritual life." Ibid., p. 5,
N. Y. ed. " In baptism two very different causes are combined : the
one, God himself; the other, a creature" (water) " which He hath thought
fit to hallow to that end." Ox. Tr., vol. 2, p. 26. " This miracle." Ibid.,
vol. 2, p. 68. In baptism " the old man is laid aside, the new taken ; he
entereth a sinner, he ariseth justified." Vol. 2, p. 47. " According both
to the declaration of our Lord and our faith, it is truly flesh and truly
blood. And these, received into us, cause that we are in Christ and
Christ in us." Pusei/s Sermon on the Eucharist (N. Y.), p. 7. " His
flesh and blood in the sacrament shall give life, not only because they
are the flesh and blood of the incarnate Word, who is life, but also
because they are the very flesh and blood which were given and shed
for the life of the world." Idem, p. 10.
11
122 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
tained ; we, therefore, present them in language only
not too general to meet our purpose.
It appears, then, that the first member of our proposi-
tion : — Certain externals directly impart grace, is a true
expression in every instance of the class of opinions that
are in question ; Baptism, Eucharist, or Confirmation —
Unction or Penance, all being thought directly to confer
grace, only, some under a condition, some uncondition-
ally.
It appears, moreover, that the second member, — And
are themselves essential conditions of salvation, is
avowed in some instances, and disavowed in others.
From which, of course, we gather, that in principle it
is maintained, that an external may be absolutely essen-
tial to salvation, one or two, actually, being so.
Now, it shall be our aim to show, that neither member
of the proposition can be true, no external being, either,
directly efficient, or absolutely necessary ; — that the first
member is false, even when conditional — still more pal-
pably false when unconditional ; and that it gathers to
itself a still higher measure of evident falsehood, when
associated with the last member.
I. " God is a spirit." * Certain externals (i. e. matter
in some form or change) directly impart grace.' Be-
tween these is the first inconsistency.
If God has ordered it so, that certain externals shall
directly secure grace. He has done it necessarily, as in
the nature of things indispensable to man's salvation; or,
He has done it of choice, as better than other, possible
arrangements, i. e. as tending best to His design.
He has not done it necessarily, as indispensable to
man's salvation, for that would be absurd, on two
I
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 123
accounts ; 1st, That man was saved (as all but apostate
Jews admit) without such direct efficacy of externals
under a former dispensation; and 2d, That it would be
a blank denial of the spirituality, either of God, or of
man, or of both, by making matter, in its changes indis-
pensable, and that, not in any intelligent or intelligible
way, as a medium of influence between one and the
other — i. e. between an infinite and a finite mind, in
working the one upon the other a spiritual change.
The idea is out of the question, and we believe is never
entertained.
Then He must have done it in choosing between dif-
ferent expedients, and as best matching His design.
Now His design in all religion, and, therefore, in these
parts of it among the rest, is to lead men to the intelli-
gent, hearty, and truthful service of God, a spirit. The
step pertinent to our inquiry, then, would be, how far
such a law of externals would tend to this design? If a
priest in due form sprinkle a little water upon the head
of a child, and it dies, it will go to heaven ; if he does
not, and it dies, it will be shut out for ever ; and that
not, in nature, a necessary arrangement, but one chosen
out of others to serve a plan, that plan being to lead
men to the spiritual worship of a spiritual God. How
do these things agree ?
Were such ceremonial acts — the act of baptism for
example — an isolated thing, a thing between one soul
and God, the reader might see, without the least confu-
sion of mind, that they could not be valuable in them-
selves, but only because of the heart that might be in
them. For this much is already made sure, that mind
must worship mind ; for " God is a spirit, and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."
124 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
But an opponent would claim, and we dare not but
admit a difference between church benefits and the
heart's obedience — that there are private acts of service
to God and official acts of influence upon men, — that a
man, or an aggregate of men (the church), stand in two
aspects toward externals, using them, either, as turned
toward heaven, in the way of obedience, or upon the
earth, in dealing with the souls of others ; and that in
the latter use of them, the rule "in spirit and in truth"
has not the same authority. For example, a man may
stand up and preach the gospel, with his heart quite
alien from his work ; and yet the words he utters, and
the tones and gestures that impress them, may reach
their end and save the people. So a man may admi-
nister the sacraments, and without discerning the Lord's
body himself, may exhibit it to others; and without
sealing one vow himself, may administer many vows.
An opponent, then, might argue, — I admit that an act
of simple obedience to God must be " in spirit," but an
act of official ministry to men may be not " in spirit,"
and yet work its end.
The difference between his opinion and our own is
nothing, if he goes no farther. But should he go on to
argue that the subject of that ministerial act might be
directly benefited by it, at the time, in any other mea-
sure, or by any other rule, than as his heart went after
it, so that neither minister, nor subject, nor auditor,
should proportion the benefit by his faith at the time,
and yet that benefit immediately flow, we join issue with
him at once; there can be no benefit of externals in
themselves, and none, except as some heart is in them.
One would suppose that the law of value in church
administrations would be the same as in private acts of
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 125
obedience, because we see not but that the reason, " God
is a spirit," is as pertinent in one case as in the other.
If God, in asking obedience from man, sees fit to say
that it shall consist in exercises of mind, and not (for
their own sake) motions of body, we see not why, for
Uke cause, in asking conditions for such a thing as salva-
tion, He should not ask exercises of mind, and not (for
their own sake) motions of body. If God must be
served by man " in Spirit," i. e. Spirit serving spirit,
God not being pleased, nor man impressed with any
other service, and if, when externals come in at all,
they must come in inteUigibly, to help, and not mysti-
cally, to supersede (an argument which the Bible plainly
gives into our hands"), then, by like reasoning, it would
seem that if man must be saved by God, it must be " in
spirit," i. e. spirit saving Spirit, and externals, where
they come in at all, must come in inteUigibly, to dis-
play, and not mystically, to hide the working of a spirit.
But something more than supposition is within our
reach.
Recurring to Chapter II., we find this test prepared
for us : — It cannot be the design of religion to teach any
doctrine, or ordinance that obscures the spirituahty of
God.
If God plans religion to meet its ends ; above all, if
God plans religion to meet the peculiar necessities of
men, He must plan it so as to keep up before their eyes
His own spirituality. The most superstitious person
that calls himself a Christian, will admit, that there has
been a heavy downward tendency of man, from exalt-
ing God as' a pure spirit, to degrading Him into the
* John iv. 24.
11*
126 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
lowest forms of matter. The idol proves it — and the
beast and the bird,'— in every quarter of the world taking
the name of gods ; the carcass on the altar proves it —
and the knife of circumcision and the water of the river
— all over the world doing the work of God ; so that if
God intended for man the directest temptation to his
strongest sin, He would give him some form of matter,
which, for its own sake, as so appointed, and not for the
piety that went with it, should secure divine benefits.
Besides, the most superstitious person believes that,
every where, men have left too much to the body and
too little to the soul in acts of private obedience, and
that the hardest labour of a man, whether spent upon
himself or others, is to keep the hands, or the lips, or the
knees from confounding their part in worship with the
worship of the mind. So that if God intended the di-
rectest temptation to man to one of his strongest sins,
He would let that highest human good, the soul's salva-
tion, depend upon a form — some uttered mass, or sprin-
kled baptism, or kneeHng penance, — the outward act of
one man for another. This then is our naked argument.
It cannot be the design of God to teach that any ex-
ternal, whatsoever, directly imparts grace, because, with-
out answering the great design of religion, which is to
lead men to the truthful and spiritual worship of God, a
Spirit, it directly tempts them to clothe Him in a mate-
rial form, and to worship Him in a material way.
II. God is our Redeemer. " Certain externals are
essential conditions of salvation." Between these is the
second inconsistency.
Let me premise, — The ground of any blessing must
necessarily be a condition of that blessing ; but a condi-
* Rom. i.
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 127
lion need not necessarily be the ground. The death of
Christ is the ground of a sinner's pardon, and, therefore,
must be a condition of that pardon ; but baptism might be
a condition without necessarily being its ground. This
fact only casts the more upon us, in the way of argu-
ment.
We might have brief despatch with the error, if it
would narrow itself down to the position, that notwith-
standing it is for the sake of Christ, and on the ground
of his redemption, that grace is given, yet, that it is
given for the sake of the sacraments, and on the ground
of their administration, they being in some sort an expia-
tion for sin, or a propitiation of favour. The two posi-
tions might be seen so evidently to clash, that we might
well afford to dismiss them with the simplest statement.
And we know not that any intelligent man would stand
up to defend them as ideas that could ever blend to-
gether in the same system.
As conditions, merely, the sacraments are best held
up by errorists — conditions made such by God's special
appointment; and it is in this less manageable shape
that w^e must meet the error. It is the shape in which
it is most plausible for them, and hardest for us to over-
throw, but then, in which, if overthrown, d, fortiori, it is
overthrown in its less plausible and more repulsive
forms. The infant, for example, is saved by baptism,
not because baptism atones for any guilt lying at its
door, but because God has chosen to make the rite the
indispensable channel of His grace. So the adult is
pardoned under its administration, by the like sovereign
pleasure enduing it with power, mystically, to seal and
sanctify, and not because there is sufficient merit, either
in his preparation for it, or submission to it, to earn its
efficacy.
128 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
Let me, at the outset, be clearly understood in saying,
that there is nothing directly absurd, or unjust in such a
condition. The infant is in God's hands. He may suffer
it to expand its depraved intellectual and moral powers
in another world, with the same justice that he may in
this. There is nothing in the principles of rectitude to
decide that He may suffer it to live, and grow up de-
praved here, but must not suffer it to die and be de-
praved elsewhere. To save it, or not, therefore, after
death, is a question that might be left, with no answer
from justice, for His good pleasure to decide. Then to
save some and abandon some, and to make baptism or
any thing else the distinguishing condition, may, indeed,
be proved inconsistent and unwise, but not, in itself,
unjust or palpably absurd. So, too, of adults ; God
would be righteous, if all of them had been left to perish.
To make any thing then a condition, whether it be a
piece of money, or the motion of a hand, or the most
trivial thought or look, could not be unrighteous, —
simply, because, where God has an unconditional right
to give, He may set what condition He pleases to His
gift. There could be nothing intrinsically absurd or
unjust in the promise that if, this moment, I should write
the name Jehovah on the paper before me, my soul, for
Christ's sake, should pass in an instant from death to
life ; and more than this, that I should never be con-
verted unless the name was wa'itten.
Many things, however, not, at first blush, absurd, may
yield to very brief and very simple argum.ent, and this
seems to be one — the idea that any external could be
singled out by a wise and consistent God, and made
essential, or in any sort directly efficient, to salvation.
The end of religion stands confessed to be to lead man
to the intelligent service of God. Nothing in rite or tenet.
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 129
not conducive to this end, can be admitted ; still less, that
clashes with it. Now Christians will speak still more
definitely, and exclude every thing not conducive to the
intelligent service of the three Persons of the Godhead ;
and will thence adaiit, that to lead the minds of men up
to Christ in duty and regard, is comprised in the whole
intention of that religion, visible or invisible, that God
hath revealed. All the lines of revelation may be ex-
pected to meet in Him, and certainly nothing, the direct
tendency of which is to lead men to nnisjudge or forget
Him, can form a part of His religion. By reasoning
akin to this, before, w^e framed our second test. It can-
not be the design of religion to teach any doctrine or
ordinance that obscures the work of Christ as our Re-
deemer.
Observe, before we offer to condemn by this test
those few misinterpreted ceremonies, how beautifully
every thing else in religion passes it. Not only the
negative fact, that it does not obscure, but the positive
fact, that it illustrates, is manifest of the whole circle
of Christianity besides. Its scriptures teach; and its
churches teach; and its clergy teach; and its sacra-
ments teach (we mean when construed as seals and
emblems) ; and much of all their teaching is the testi-
mony of Jesus. Every thing has some eye to that;
nothing goes counter to it through all religion, except
that part where the opinion of our opponents touches.
If an external be insisted on as efficient or essential, and
yet it cannot be shown — as it will be seen it cannot —
how God, by ordaining it so, furthers an intelligent ser-
vice of Himself,— Father, Son, and Spirit,— the case
would stand alone, a strange exception in the circle of
divine enactments.
"The word" — "the truth" — "wisdom and instruc-
130 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
tion" — " exhortation" and " preaching" — " correction"
or " chastisement," are the language that comes at once
to the pen of the inspired writer whenever the means of
salvation form the matter in question. Where sacra-
ments, which some bid us call the chief channels of
grace, are mentioned once, the truth, in some mode of
its natural and simple dispensation, is mentioned many
times ; and for a single instance wdiere the abuse of a
sacrament is rebuked, and its evil results depicted, may-
be shown a thousand denouncing the perversion of the
word of God, and perdition as its consequence.
But let us hasten on. We would not denounce the
mystic rites that are in question, merely, because they
fail to do what all rehgion besides contributes harmo-
niously to do, i. e., to lead men by natural means (of
course, under a supernatural efficiency of the Holy
Spirit) to Christ ; but because they do just the opposite
— by direct tendency, leading souls away from a recog-
nition of Christ as their Redeemer.
If a man be told that the sprinkling of w^ater upon his
infant child, in orderly baptism, will work a change upon
its soul, and that if it die in infancy, that sprinkling is
the settled condition of its salvation, it is affirmed that
the direct working of the doctrine is to obscure in his
mind the idea of pardon for the sake of Christ. (1.) It
makes that idea complex. It adds to it a second, which
must be grasped with it, making it much easier for our
weak and hostile minds to misconceive and abuse it.
(2.) It misleads by resemblance. Christ's death is one
condition; the child's baptism is another; we grant very
different in their nature ; we grant not absurd in their
union ; but so far alike as to usurp each other's ground
before the ignorant and prejudiced minds of the mass of
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 131
fallen men ; both essential ; — the visible and carnal thing,
on that very account, most conspicuous of the two ;
Xilso in the order of nature, the antecedent of the other,
and decisive of it in the way of occasion and result.
The temptation would be too much for man. Souls
wishing, as all originally do, to push Christ out of sight,
would seem to see in it far too direct sanction to trust
to that condition of the two which is more peculiarly in
their power. Precisely so with adult baptism ; just so
far as men hope for grace through the rite itself, and
not simply from Christ by that faith w^hich the rite stirs
up; and just so far as they hold the rite essential to
remission, will they be in danger of confounding the
arbitrary condition of baptism w^th the fundamental and
eternal condition of Christ's atonement.
If it be said, the fear that men would ever exercise
the wrong kind of faith in such simple rites is absurd,
inasmuch as the weakest intellect would revolt at the
idea of withdrawing trust from Christ to place it on a
little water, or some simple form, we answer, the
strongest intellects have not revolted at it. How was
it with the Jews ? Trust due only to Christ, taken off
from Him and reposed in circumcision and descent from
Abraham, and in divers washings and sacrifices, was
not too revolting for the Jews, even though without the
temptation, as all confess, of a sovereign act of God
making any of their rites inseparable from salvation*
If, without this temptation, therefore, they fell so griev-
ously into the folly of trusting to Christ's emblems rather
than to Himself, — so that a whole epistle had to be writ-
ten to those of Gallatia, dealing with this single error, —
d, fortioriy would no strength of man be a safeguard
against the folly, now, if those emblems have given
132 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
place to others, which are to superadd the share of their
own direct efficiency and necessity.
Now, we say, nothing can be religion which contra^^
venes the very object of religion, and nothing can be of
God whose direct tendency is to lead from God. There-
fore, by no sovereign good pleasure of His, or at all
with his approval, are externals to be, in themselves,
essential, or in any degree directly efficacious to salva-
tion.
And to fortify this conclusion, let us state three facts,
never known to be denied. (1.) There is an "offence
in the cross," which makes the idea of free redemption
abhorrent to unconverted men. There is a stupidity in
the heart, which renders it easy to be deceived, espe-
cially in the vital truths of religion. No quality in
God's revelation, then, could be a greater blessing to
man than earnest plainness in telling him the truth, and
care to put away all confusion. (2.) That ordination of
God, by which it is pretended that certain externals are
clothed with mystic power, is arbitrary (in the innocent
sense of that word), and cannot be indispensable to reli-
gion, for the simplest of all reasons, that religion once
flourished without it. (3.) No grand cardinal advantage
can be discovered in it, no wide-reaching influence to
be expected from it, pointing the careless world, or
Christians, more happily, to the knowledge of God — no
one thing of an important kind, to make it seem better
to God than the plan we assert, of holiness as the sole
condition, of the Spirit as the sole supernatural effi-
ciency, and of rites as the mere natural means, acting
on obvious principles. We know trivial advantages
will be invented, but nothing cardinal, nothing at all to
counterbalance the amazing evil of the system. Then,
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 133
we say, here is positive evidence that it is not from
God.
It will be argued in reply, that church-membership
and the sacraments are by express command of God,
and are, therefore, necessary, inasmuch as no Christian
can wilfully neglect them. Close to that sentence if an
opponent will stand, and will plead for no other neces-
sity, we perfectly agree with him ; but he will observe
that by that sentence the sacraments are no more neces-
sary than any other known duty which the Christian
may not wilfully neglect, — alms-giving, or patriotism,
or what you please, from the list of virtues.
He does not plead for the value of the sacrament,
simply as a good work; — that properly understood (i. e.,
the blessing, moral exercise, &c., of a good work) is
our ground, — but for its value to the infant, and to the
man in purgatory, with no goodness in it, and for its
value to the living believer in itself, and not propor-
tioned to his goodness in it. The sacrament with him
is a God-given channel of grace ; not in every case, nor
merely in any, a God-rewarded good work.
If it be put on that ground, however, it is argued,
with still more force, absence from the sacraments is
not always wilful, nor, with deluded heretics or ignorant
men, ever so. Then shall an error in faith about exter-
nals, as to which, from their very nature, there can be
no internal evidence, no self-witness of the Spirit, cost
me more than an error in grave questions in doctrinal
theology 1 May I err as to predestination, or persever-
ance, the Sonship of Christ, or man's ability to repent,
and keep my place, as many by confession do, in the
true communion of the genuine church, but be cast out
and perish for misjudging the necessity of an outward
12
134 A sruRious design of certain externals.
ceremonial ; that, too, when, in the first case, piety alone
might lead me right, and in the other, only special and
sovereign enactments of God? And, on the other hand,
may I commit all kinds of outrageous and self-condemn-
ing sins, and be forgiven, but for failing to place my
body in certain positions, under certain officers, and
that not wilfully, but from believing otherwise, be cast
off for ever 1 The idea on this ground is, what we have
confessed it is not on the other, — openly and, at first
glance, absurd. Then I may blaspheme Christ, and be
pardoned, but, dying without baptism, by a certain line
of ministry, shall carry up to judgment an unpardonable
sin.
No ; it cannot be from holiness in the act, or sin,
merely in its neglect, that salvation is made to depend
on baptism, but simply that in God's good pleasure he
has chosen to make it the vehicle of grace. We fall
back then upon our former ground of refutation. There
is no tribute to the grand purpose of religion in such a
doctrine, but, on the contrary, direct temptation in it to
abandon Christ. It is, therefore, not from God.
We cannot have done, however, without meeting our
ov^m argument turned against itself.
Why is faith ordained by God as necessary and effi-
cacious to salvation 1 If the design of religion be to
make Christ's work stand forth as the grand procuring
cause, why is it ordered that we must be saved by be-
lieving? Grant that Christ's righteousness and our faith
occupy totally diflferent positions, one being the ground,
the other the means, of our salvation, still they are both
conditions; and so long as the latter, beyond, question,
obscures in many minds the glory and the fulness of the
former, why should not our Saviour's righteousness, by
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CEP.TAIN EXTERNALS. 135
itself, avail, with no additional condition? Does not this
instance to the contrary vitiate the argument, that Scrip-
ture cannot design to teach what by direct tendency
obscures the atonement 1
In reply, let it be freely admitted that faith is liable to
the abuse with which it is charged. Superstition is
often busy on it, working her usual change, making
faith forget itself as an instrument, and stand as the
ground of pardon ; " God, for Christ's sake, has lowered
the demands of His law, and now faith is our obe-
dience, and in its own right wins the favour that we
need." That this error is a serious and actual one, it is
out of our power to question. The force of the case,
however, as setting against ourselves, may be met by a
few plain distinctions, showing that, as to exposure to
mistake, the doctrine of faith is not at all on a level with
the exceptionable doctrine of sacraments.
1. Faith is, in its own nature, indispensable to salva-
tion. God might make provision to show^ favour to his
people without their believing. He does it. Every
infant that is saved by dying, and every adult believer,
before his conversion, afford instances of such antici-
pated favour. But that saving act which gives present
blessings under the covenant, actually beginning the
good that has been held in store, cannot do it in the
absence of faith, because holiness is the essence of that
good, and faith is the leading element of holiness. To
save, then, without faith, so far as such an act might
terminate on the sinner, would be nothing, working no
change, and bringing no relief. The condition of the
redeemed soul would be as good before as after it.
Man could not be saved with any present blessing to
himself, in this life, without faith ; nor, indeed, in any
136 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS,
life, without, either faith, or that direct, spiritual sight
which shall hereafter answer to it.
How different those mystic instruments which men
would make co-ordinate to faith ! So far from being in
themselves indispensable, their most idolatrous supporters
admit that for ages they were unused and unknown in
the church. There is nothing in their own nature essen-
tial or even kindred to the gift of pardon, or to the bless-
ings of holiness. So far as any thing intrinsic can
decide, men might be saved before, after, or without
them, with absolute indifference. The appointment
claimed for them, therefore, as inseparable instruments,
since it must be altogether arbitrary, places the evil to
which they tend in a totally different light from that evil
which our depravity draws from the doctrine of faith.
2. Faith is itself a fruit of salvation. Therefore, only,
metonymically, is it a means at all. It looks to Christ's
atonement as its own procuring price. " For by grace
are ye saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves :
it is the gift of God."^
In the order of time faith and salvation coincide.^ In
the order of condition, faith is first and salvation after-
ward.'' But in the order of nature, salvation is first,
and faith is its earliest benefit.'^
Of course, there is a wide difference in this point be-
tween faith and a regenerating sacrament.
3. Faith, in its very -nature, honours Christ as the only
^ Ephes. ii. 8.
^ " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." John iii. 36.
c " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Acts
xvi. 31.
•^ " For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe
on Him, but also," &c. Pliil. i. 29.
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 137
foundation of trust. If its office then subserve the ends
of unbelief, it naust be precisely in the face of its defini-
tion ; because the very elements that constitute it are a
renunciation of self, and an exclusive reliance upon Jesus
Christ.
It need not be said that no other instrument can be
conceived that so completely directs the adoring regards
of man, away from itself. This leads me to a fourth
distinction.
4. It is not the direct tendency of the doctrine of faith
to lead men to superstitious error. That it is liable to
perversion, has been cheerfully granted. But so are all
doctrines in the whole circle of revelation. The atone-
ment itself, i. e., free pardon by the blood of Jesus, has
had grafted upon it countless heresies. Universalism
has professed to grow out of it, and all antinomian
error; but is not its legitimate tendency quite opposite
from these? To speak definitely, is not the doctrine
calculated to do more good than harm, presenting more
truth tending to piety, than truth tempting to sin? If it
is, |hen therein it ditfers from the doctrine of the absolute
necessity of sacraments.
Any manner of mistrust of the whole argument, thus
brought to a close, may perhaps be best removed by
placing, side by side with its results, the results of a kin-
dred argument by an inspired apostle. Indeed, so
clearly does the apostle Paul first reason against, and
then pronounce against, the idea of the absolute effi-
ciency, or necessity of rites, as to make one fault of
every oiher argument a fair matter of question, the
fault of imagining itself of any use after his ample testi-
mony ; so plainly does he speak to the very point we
12*
138 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
have in hand, and settle it by a twofold sanction— in-
spired argument and inspired assertion.
Paul was led to write to the church of Galatia by
hearing that it was tainted with Jewish heresies. Some
of its members, leaving the pure doctrine of Christ, had
resorted to the rites of the ceremonial law, under an
assurance, on the part of their teachers, that it was indis-
pensable to their salvation — precisely the counsel and
the claim of teachers among ourselves. The whole
epistle is shaped by these circumstances. Its drift is
this, " that a man is not justified by the works of the
law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ."* " If righteous-
ness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain ;"^
meaning " by the law," in either case, not, as a stranger
to the usages of speech among the Jews might imagine,
the moral, but the ceremonial law, and meaning by " the
works of the law," not perfect moral obedience, but
attention to just such ceremonial rights as w^e are con-
sidering. That such is the meaning, the apostle has left
us ample means of proof. Observe what he calls " the
works of the law," when he comes to speak more defi-
nitely, — " the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto
ye desire again to be in bondage. Ye observe days and
months and times and years. I am afraid of you," &c.*^
Indeed, he puts it past all question that ceremonial works,
and not perfect obedience, w^ere his mark, by himself
urging the necessity of perfect obedience, in case the rites
his opponents contended for were necessary, presup-
posing, of course, that this was a consequence that they
would not at all like to recognise. " Behold, I, Paul, say
*Gal. ii. 16. bGal. ii. 21. <= Gal. iv. 9, 10, 11.
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 139
unto you, that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit
you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is
circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law."''
It seems they mingled, as many now do, grace with
ceremonies as grounds of salvation — some hope in
Christ with much hope in their own ritual observances.
Indeed, Paul uses the fact that they were not willing
w^holly to abandon a reliance upon Christ, to impress
them with the folly of the rest of their belief. " Christ
is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are
justified by the law ; ye are fallen from grace.'"*
Lest any one should say, however, that he excludes
from our ground of trust only the old Jewish rites, by
no means the new Christian sacraments ; he makes his
argument one of principles, not merely of specific cases ;
that wherein it touches circumcision, touches baptism
and the eucharist. It admits of no confinement to any
form, or law, or age of external worship, but cuts oflT
the whole of it, in all times and lands, from any share
in what is of absolute necessity to salvation. That
closing declaration, " For in Christ Jesus neither cir-
cumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a
new creature,"*" is uttered in support of a sentiment as
general and as exclusive as any that Paul could choose
as the sum and ending of his argument. " God forbid
that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ."d
III. God is our Sanctifier. " Certain externals di-
rectly impart grace." Betw^een these is the third in-
consistency.
» Gal. V. 2, 3. b Gal. v. 4. <= Gal. vi. 15. ^ Gal. vi. 14.
140 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
Our argument is cumulative. Though the first and
second steps were false, this last is distinct and new,
and by itself would serve our purpose with quite inde-
pendent proof
No conception can be had, we think, of more than
three general ways in which the idea of the efficacy of
externals can be interpreted. It must either be (1), that
the external has intrinsic power to renew the soul, ex-
clusive of the Spirit; or (2) that it has instrumental
power to renew, in the hand of the Spirit ; or (3) that it
has summoning power, by promise to mark the time of
the Spirit; in shorter words, that it is either (1) the
whole, or (2) the help, or (3) the signal of renewing
influence.
(1.) It is not the whole; that would revolt both par-
ties. Pretended Christians may err in the doctrines of
grace as they may, they cannot give up the opinion that
the Holy Ghost does something in the renewal of the
soul, and that that something, too, must be of a primary
kind, since nothing could be more complex in absurdity
than the idea of a spiritual Creator acting as auxiliary
to a material creature in renewing a spirit. That God
wills it so, and purposely stands aloof, and delegates to
matter spiritual powder ; or that they are both primary —
God and matter — working together and doing the same
things, is absurdity quite as great, only turned over in
another view.
Let it be clearly understood, therefore, that opinion
like this is not charged upon any educated advocate of
sacraments in the Popish form. However well con-
vinced that the error tends to something much like it in
the minds of the lower orders of the people, still we
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 141
hurry on, without caring to stop and argue formally, for
we are sure that no thinker will take me to task for it
as any omission.
(2.) But neither can an external be the directly effi-
cient auxiliary of the Holy Ghost in imparting grace.
What kind of efficacy does it borrow ? How does He
use it? Take what is substantial in a rite, whether it
be water or oil, or the person of the priest — for here the
efficiency must lie if any where, — let us know what
form of efficiency it assumes. Do you say, the water is
the channel of the Spirit? What do you mean, — that
He is present in it? He is every where. That He
moves with it, entering the soul as it touches the body ?
This is nothing different from the third form of the error,
asserting only an attendant influence of the Spirit, —
that by promise, though altogether detached essentially
from the rite. He makes its administration the signal of
what He does. Do you say the water is the helper of
the Spirit? Surely, no; not dumb matter the helper of
the Almighty in dealing with the soul. Do you say it
is the essential instrument of the Spirit ? Not so, cer-
tainly, if for the first four thousand years of the history
of our redemption, by all admission. He had no such in-
strument. Do you say not the essential instrument, but
a temporary one, endued with mystic virtue, under the
hand of the consecrating priest, by God's good pleasure,
during this dispensation? Then, we say, sift this idea;
try to find some resting-place for thought upon it, and
see if such mystic virtue can, in the nature of things, be
given to the water, so as to be any thing else than an
attending influence of the Spirit. The water is applied,
and, in the very act, by preconcerted covenant, the
Spirit is applied. The Holy Ghost docs not store him-
142 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
self in the water, except metonymica%, by promise,
nor does He lend His own attributes to the water; for
this last idea is blasphemous, and the first is no idea at
all. The intelligent Papist, therefore, as soon as he
begins to think, must be driven to the third form of the
error ; and on that account this form has been, perhaps,
the most generally received — (except in the anomalous
case of the eucharist) — with all the reasoning class in
that communion.
(3). As the priest baptizes with water, or imposes
hands, or anoints with oil, sins are remitted by God, and
grace is imparted by the Holy Ghost." This, the hardest
to set aside of the three, inasmuch as it has nearest
affinity with reason, shall discover to us now its utter
falsehood. We have narrowed down the error to one
definite form, that we may have something single before
our minds ; not at all to escape the others, because,
a fortiori, if our reasoning proves this false, it will esta-
blish the same of them.
' The doctrine thus worded differs totally from ours, in this. We te-
lieve that remission is given in view of faith, stirred up by the sacra-
ment ; they believe that it is given in view of the sacrament, in some
cases, without faith, as of infants, &c. ; and, in others, not at all in closest
connexion with faith, or by means of it, or in proportion to it ; but simply
in reference to it, as a minor condition, or there being no bar in the total
want of it. In our case, faith is the grand means, and the sacrament of
value, only so far as it enlists faith. In theirs, the sacrament is the
means, and faith — (and that in some cases only) — a mere collateral
condition.
" This may even be set down as the essence of sectarian doctrine, to
consider faith, and not the sacraments, as tlie proper instrument of justi-
fication, and other gospel gifts ; instead of holding, that the grace of
Christ comes to us altogether from without, (as from Him, so through
externals of His ordaining), faith being but the sine qua non, the neces-
sary condition on our parts, for duly receiving it." Oxford Tracts, Am,
Ed., Advert, p. 5.
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTALN EXTERNALS. 143
Let it be said frankly, there is no prima facie absur-
dity in the opinion. We have chosen the form above
given, mainly on this account, that we cannot despatch
it, as we might the others, by help of contradiction borne
on its very face, but must let its refutation rest back on
fundamental principles. The Spirit can renew the soul
when He pleases, and, therefore, can make any, the most
trivial act of man, or change of matter, the signal of His
work. The inconsistency is great, but must be sought
deeper than the surface.
What if the Almighty should command me to carve
a marble statue, and set it in a niche in my study wall,
and go through my daily devotions before it ? What
though He promise special presence in the marble — not
actual presence specially, for that is absurd ; He is pre-
sent every where ; but such a presence as, that every
where else, He would be a dumb and deaf God, careless
of my prayers, but there all attention and mercy t At
first view there would be no self-contradiction in the
offer. As God is bound to hear nowhere, He might hear
any where, and I should have cause for gratitude that,
though in this little space of all the globe, and before this
single stone among the thousand other possible media
of worship, still I am admitted at all to an audience with
God.
The impossibility of such an offer, however, would be
apparent on a little closer reasoning. What is the whole
end of religion, whether in doctrine or worship? To
lead men to the service of God. Is service accepted by
him, any farther than it is intelligent? No; " God is a
Spirit," &c. Then would the statue bear any tribute to
the great object of religion? Plainly not; this binding
144 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
necessary relation would tell nothing of the attributes
and ways of God, — no, but degrade, and obscure them ;
while, by a known law of the huaian heart, the
worshipper, and still more his children and his children's
children, would more and more merge the Deity in the
marble of the image. This would be a direct tendency ;
stamping the whole as not from God.
Precisely a like argument sets aside, even in its mild-
est form, the Popish idea of sacraments. Were God to
make them indispensable concomitants of grace, he
would be giving over to them, so far as the strongest
temptation can do it, man's reverence for the Holy
Ghost. The statue, as bearing on God, and such sacra-
ments, as bearing on the Spirit, stand in exactly kindred
relation. No one can pretend that they are indispensable
in the nature of things, or on any other ground than
God's special enactment. No one can see any cardinal
advantage in a rule that should make them indispen-
sable. No one can deny that man's dependence upon
the Spirit is one of the most odious to him of all those
that are vital in our creed. No one can make it seem,
therefore, any thing but false, that God, by an enactment
bearing no conceivable tribute to the truth, should frame
for man a direct temptation to a favourite error.
If it be urged, that the idea is preposterous, that
rational men could be put in peril of any such mistake
as to repose in water, or some carnal rite, trust due only
to the Spirit, we are content simply to point to what has
been done. A world that has worshipped leeks and
onions — cats and crocodiles — stocks and stones and
men, ought to be modest in singling out the blunders
against which it shall declare itself secure. God cannot
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 145
be the minister of crimes into which Jews and Christians
and Pagans have ahke proved themselves capable of
falling.
Not only does the vital necessity attributed to the rite
tempt men to view it with idolatrous regard, and aftbrd
them an easy method of deluding themselves away from
the burdensome task of striving after the Spirit, but the
man who administers, presents himself a still more
perilous object to the people. His will claims a deter-
mining power of life or death. The soul of the dying
infant, and the soul tortured in purgatory, both rest for
their happiness upon his decision. And measurably in
respect to all his living flock, eternal destinies are made
or marred — not mediately by his pious labours, but
directly at his official pleasure. If he refuse to baptize
the child, it fails of heaven ; if he neglect the mass for
the dead, they suffer on in purgatory ; if he withold
church ordinances from the living, he starves their souls
of grace.
Now, we are willing again to repeat, the absurdity of
this is not direct. God may make either nothing, or
dumb matter, or huinan act, mark the time of his grace ;
simply because, grace or no grace, grace now, or then,
or never, is a matter, in itself considered, altogether at
his own sovereign option. We may go farther, and tell
instances where human act is really decisive of grace.
A slight motion of my hand might plant a dagger in the
heart of some man already regenerate, and summon the
Spirit that moment to finish his sanctifying work. So
we might murder an infant, and our blow, w^e firmly be-
lieve, would be the signal for an instantaneous and per-
fect change upon its soul. No, such connexion of man's
act and God's power, is itself absurd ; and where death
13
146 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
is at once the interpreter and the rite, no ulterior incon-
sistency or damage appears. But an authoritative act,
in which a man is empowered, officially to decide
whether a soul shall live or die, presents an overwhelm-
ing temptation to the people. A God, who knows the
iron strength of superstition on our minds, and in how
many instances it has conquered all counter motives of
envy and pride, and led us to make deities of weak men
like ourselves^ could not, from the very end for which
he designs religion, and from the want of all tribute here
to such an end, could not ordain temptation so direct.
The argument may be ended, then, by quoting our
formal test :— It cannot be the design of religion to teach
any doctrine or ordinance that obscures the work of the
Holy Spirit as our Sanctifier ; a test that may be left
still more confidently with the reader, if he will go over
the commonly acknowledged facts of his religion, and
its externals, in that harmonious sense in which we have
explained them, and see how beautifully it answers to
them all.
But it does not, it will be said. It conflicts with the
office of the truth in sanctifying. If every thing should
point to the Spirit, why is it ordered that faith shall
come by hearing? One party says that the sprinkled
water of baptism is necessary to salvation, so that no
one, in any common way, is saved without it. Another
party says, that the carrying of the outward word, and
the motion of the lips, or of the pen in teaching, are ne-
cessary to salvation, so that no one, in any common
way, is saved without this. Now, both are externals ;
where is the difference? Why not let the work of the
Spirit stand out alone with no auxiliary ?
In reply, it may be said, — the lack of baptism would
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 147
not imply an absurdity, because, to give one reason out
of many, there was once a time when there was no such
ordinance. But the absence of the truth would imply
absurdity. What is the end of the Spirit's work 1 The
new birth of a nature, the main attribute of which is
thought. Now, before thought, as in the case of an
infant, we can conceive of a soul regenerated without
the truth. The Spirit's agency in the work is so direct
that we see not that it can be shown that where thought
is not active at the time, the work cannot go on for lack
of truth ; and it is not in that way that truth seems to
me to be necessary. For imagine a case. A man is
asleep. There is a heart there; and a heart in a
certain state ; and that state is such, that w^hen the cur-
rent of responsible thought begins again at waking, it
will be a polluted current. Now, to say that the Pow er
that makes the heart could not take that one in its dor-
mant condition and change it from one moral state to
another (of course without the truth), strikes me as
utterly without reason. It is not said. He might do it
consistently with this plan ; that does not touch the prin-
ciple ; but that He might do it, in the nature of things,
and consistently wnth the constitution of men, and that
He probably may do it in the cases of those infants who
die, or who are sanctified to God, if any be, from the
womb.
But when that sleeping heart wakes up, or the infant
comes of years, and is thinking and feeling at the time,
the case is different. He cannot be sanctified without
the truth.
He cannot be sanctified and remain as he is; for as
he is, he is thinking and feeling error. If he thinks on,
after the change, as he must, he must think truth ; for
148 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CEPv-TAlN EXTERNALS.
that only is now consistent with his state. If he thinks
falsehood, pride, and prejudice, as before, he is not sanc-
tified, therefore he must be sanctified by, in, or accord-
ing to, the truth, as you may please to call it. The
heart imagined to be changed in its sleeping and un-
thinking hours, must wake up to behold the truth. The
heart changed in its thinking hours must be changed in
beholding the truth ; for the state and the current, i. e.,
the heart and the thought, must grow clear and pure
together.
But this is not enough, it will be argued. It shows
the necessity of the presence of the truth, but not of its
instrumentality. It shows that when the eyes of a mind
are opened in conversion, the truth that it already pos-
sesses must appear before them in a new and spiritual
light, but not that truth must come in as a means in open-
ing those eyes. The Spirit does not convert so indis-
criminately in respect to time, as just to enlighten men's
minds to see spiritually the truth that chances to be in
them, without preference of this truth, to that of much
truth, to little, or of much attention to the truth, to no
attention, but He converts decidedly by the truth : that
is, He converts a man who is reading, or thinking, more
probably, than one who is ploughing, or trading, and
one who is hearing the Gospel in a church, more likely
than one who is pleading law, or casting up accounts. A
hardened man is made less so, generally, by something
that he hears, or reads, or thinks, and less and less so in
each stage of approach toward conversion by successive
entrances of truth. If converted, it is more likely to be
under some powerful sermon, than in a listless, unthinking
hour. If rapid in his growth in grace, it is apt to be by
much commerce with the truth ; and if ever cold and
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 149
backslidden, some visit of the truth will have more or
less to do with his recovery. In one word, conversion
is not only an opening of the eyes to the truth, but it is
truth opening the eyes. How, and why is this ?
In reply, let it be premised. Truth is not an indepen-
dent existence. It is a mere quality, neither spirit nor
matter. It is the law to which, under the Spirit's in-
fluence, the dispositions of the soul conform themselves,
like those vegetable laws of texture and colour, in which
a plant grows up. To say, as gross errorists do, that
the truth regenerates without the Spirit, is either boldly
metonymical, or absurd ; for the truth is nothing, and,
therefore, to attribute to it actual power, and that highest
power, too, of moulding a spirit, is quite in the face of
reason. No better sense can come out of it than this,
that man regenerates himself, in conformity with the
truth.
So, on like accounts, when men say that truth is, in
any common sense, the instrument of the Spirit in re-
generation, they speak metonymically, or falsely. Seek-
ing warrant for the language, in the idea that there can
be nothing like direct impact of one free spirit upon
another, and that, therefore, God cannot reach the soul
without the intervention of a third agent — truth. Some
have called truth the point, with which God pierces the
spiritual ear, or the couching instrument with which he
moves away the film from the spiritual eye ; figures
quite as unhappy, when so strictly meant, as the idea
from which their warrant is to come. How is God to
push or wield or drive the truth ? Truth is nothing.
How is He to grasp or press it home ? Spiritually, as
you please to view it, how is He, in default of His own
direct impact upon a spirit, to handle such a nonentity
13*
150 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
as truth, and with it touch and move. He may make
men preach better, and write clearer, but that is not the
thing ; where does that power impinge that makes like
truth melt at one time, when it hardens at another ?
Not upon the truth ; for truth is truth ; the same (if the
same truth) at one time as another ; not sharper, not
stronger, not sweeter ; incapable of borrowing energy ;
no, not upon the truth, but directly upon the heart itself.
The Spirit that had impact on a Spirit in creating, had
impact on it, still, in creating it anew. He comes di-
rectly up and opens the heart, that the truth may shine
in, and so, only, in a metonymical sense, gives power to
the truth. He uses His own genial energy, and melts
the heart, that the truth may pierce and enter, and so,
only, metonymically, is the truth " the sword of the
Spirit."
This is the spirit opening our eyes to the truth. But
now, too, we are ready to see how it is that the truth
opens our eyes — how, precisely, the truth is a means of
sanctification. We are satisfied that in this matter the
minds of men have suffered themselves to be unnecessa-
rily bewildered.
All living creatures grow by the exercise of their own
faculties. It seems a law of the universe. A tree grows
only when the mouths in its roots are drinking, and the
veins in its boughs are running, and the lungs in its
leaves are playing. An animal grows only with the
action of its nerves and glands and muscles. More
than this, it is by peculiar exercise of various organs,
that it grows well, if sick, or sick, if well. So, precisely,
with a living spirit. It grows by exercise : whether
stronger, or holier, or more depraved.
Adaai was born in depravity by an exercise, i. e., by
A SPUillOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 151
a sin. He grew in depravity by exercise in sinning/
If saved, he was born in holiness by an exercise, i. e.,
by faith, and he grew in holiness by exercise in faith.
This will explain how truth operates. The Holy Spirit,
always moving more or less upon the hearts of men,
moves upon a heart that is reading, or hearing, or think-
ing of serious truth. That influence opens the heart, and
the truth shines in a little, at first only in a common
way ; and the heart exercises itself in seeing, and feel-
ing, and, perhaps, admiring the truth. The Spirit, in the
very act of that exercise, opens it still more, and moves
it still higher, and so on from act to act, till saving in-
fluence begins and the heart is born again ; and then
on from act to act, the heart, under the influence of the
Spirit, still " exercising itself unto godliness."^
Two things are then necessary in sanctification, ac-
cording to the law by which God has chosen to bless
us; (1) The Spirit to move upon the heart, and (2)
the truth to give it exercise. If the Spirit be there, and
not the truth, God may, indeed, waive his law and sanc-
tify, as in the case of infants ; or call into Hfe, as He
did the trees of Paradise, full grown at once, but not by
His common rule of working, which asks exercise, and,
therefore, truth, as the only thing that can give exercise
to mind. If the truth is there, and not the Spirit, there
will be no sanctification, any more than growth in a
tree, if the principle of life be stricken from it. If much
truth be there, and strong truth, it is better than weak,
or little truth, because a better opportunity for the Spirit
» Of course, it is not meant by this, that sin consists of nothing but
exercise (i. e., voluntary act), but that evil disposition, that other part of
sin, grows in the heart by exercise.
b 1 Tim. iv. 7.
152 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
in moving the heart to exercise. It will be seen, then,
in how modified a way truth is an instrument in sanc-
tification.
Still, it will be argued, it " obscures the work of the
Spirit ;" and that, when its necessity is not absolute in
the nature of things ; for the Spirit might stand out
alone and sanctify without it. We reply by denying
the charge. It does not obscure, but manifests the
Spirit.
Why was not the world created in an instant, instead
of in six days ? Because, as it rose in successive wonder
and beauty, the roar of an awakening chaos — the out-
bursting of the light — the gathering of the waters — the
garnishing of the heavens — the clothing of the earth —
the unveiling of the stars — the teeming births of the sea
and of the land, and then the Creator's finger upon a
human spirit, moulding its ethereal essence, and linking
it in strange union with the dust, were a far richer
lesson to the universe in the glory of God than had the
world stood up at once created.
Again, another question : Easy as working is to God,
there is no waste of work ; cheap as being is to God,
there is no waste of being. Why then does not a grand
frugality of both reign through His dominions, casting
out the long chain of intermediate causes with which
His working is delayed, and emptying away the mass
of subordinate means by which the universe is crowded
full? Why? Because He knows that whereas no man
can see him personally, these declare Him. To speak
and have it done, disdaining any thing between the word
and the w^ork, w^ould be. noble in a society of gods, but
delay and detail are necessary in the lessons of finite
men. The drama of Providence He will not shorten ;
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 153
the frame-work of means must stand as it is ; for though
briefer work might be more natural to God, precisely
this work is most useful for His creatures.
So of sanctification. To sanctify by natural power,
rather than in the train of the heart's own exercise in
seeing and loving the truth, while it would not rid us of
the temptation of putting aside the Spirit, or of imagin-
ing that the flashing in of light, and a sudden effort of
the will, were all the power that wrought each succes-
sive change in us ; would rob us of those long-continued,
happily-presented, leisurely-regarded, manifestations of
Him that we have, as " the flesh lusteth against the
spirit, and the spirit against the flesh."
Exhausted so far, objection becomes wearisome.
Two points remain, that we do not like to omit ; but the
statement and reply shall be as brief as they can be
made.
(a.) Why gospel truth 1 Why does God tempt men
to imagine some mystic powder in the truth itself, by
choosing a certain kind of truth as positively essential
to salvation ? Take a pagan, let him see the folly of his
worship, and throw away his idols ; why may not the
Spirit, in default of any news of Christ, open his mind
to common moral truth, and save him? It is not so
powerful or melting as the truth as it is in Jesus ; but
why may not the w^eaker truth sometimes sanctify?
Because the temptation of this plan would be worse
than the temptation of the other. Because a man awak-
ened simply by moral truth, i. e., by the law of God,
would be plunged at once into the depths of despair.
Strange discord would be brought into the heart born
again of the Holy Ghost ; and the brighter half of Chris-
tian character — peace, and joy, and hope — would be
154 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
supplied by the blackness of darkness of remorse and
fear ; no sense of pardon — no peace with God — no
motive of reward in heaven; a state which, if tho-
roughly converted, the sufferer could not endure, but,
by a melancholy death, would fill the minds of his
neighbours with the conviction that he had fallen under
some heavy curse, and with horror at the thought of a
like visitation. This is one reason on a list of many.
{b.) Why external truth? That is the very thing
argued against above — an external, absolutely essential
to salvation. The Holy Ghost might inspire truth in
any heart, just as well as impress it. Why has God
ordered it so, that we must write, and speak, and send,
so that as, according to some, if men withhold an exter-
nal baptism, an infant perishes, so, if we withhold an ex-
ternal word, the heathen perish ? Would not the Spirit's
work be less obscured, if He carried the truth as well as
used it?
Crediting the objection as it is given in, without
affirming or denying that some heathen may be saved,
we say, it makes the necessity of the external word no
parallel case in obscuring the Spirit, to an external
Popish sacrament. The first is an intelligible necessity,
and one growing out of the nature of things, because, as
we have seen, man has no intercourse with man, nor
God (naturally) with man, saving by the avenues of
sense. The last, if a necessity, is just made such, — for
a certain age, and for no certain purpose. As to the
gift of the truth at once into the heart by inspiration, in-
stead of its entering there by teaching, we know not, if,
in the present age, it ever happens so, but, if it does, it is
no escape from temptation. It is still truth, and truth
still liable to arrogate the work of the Spirit. Especially,
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 155
if this mode became the common one, and the impres-
siveness of miracle were lost from it, truth just rising in
the heart, instead of being gathered in by sense, would
be, perhaps, more likely to share with the heart the
honours of its own impression, and forget the Spirit, than
ordered as it now is.
Truth, then — and truth as a means — and truth as just
such a means — giving out tribute, as it does so intelligibly,
to the intelligent service of God, cannot be made to
stand on the same level with the mystic sacraments, in
obscuring the work of the Holy Ghost.
Serious objections to the reasoning, under each of the
foregoing heads, shall now come up to be answered at
once for the three.
The three rest on one foundation — the doctrine that
the design of religion would be frustrated, if, by any of
its ordinances, God should directly tempt men away
from the intelligent service of himself.
1. Is this doctrine true? Is it not notorious that God
actually does try the faith of men? And may he not, in
full memory of our superstition, still make outward
sacraments inseparable from salvation, in order to put
his people's faith in Christ and the Spirit to the proof?
If not, what is the meaning of such passages as these : —
Gen. xxii. 1. " And it came to pass, after these things,
that God did tempt Abraham."
2 Chr. xxxii. 31. "God left him (Hezekiah) to try
him, that he might know all that was in his heart."
Deut. viii. 2.
2 Sam. xxiv. 1. " Again the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them
to say, Go, number Israel and Judah."
156 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. ^
Job vii. 18. " That thou (God) shouldest visit him
every morning, and try him every moment."
In reply, it might be asked whether any advocate of
the system that has been opposed, would be willing to
stand by this, as its grand benefit, viz., that it tries the
faith of men. Sacraments, with the powder in which he
clothes them, form a most conspicuous part of his
religion, as the great channels of grace ; now, when we
ask after some adequate good that is to flow from
making them such, will he venture to say that that good
is temptation — the ordeal it secures for faith. Recollect,
they are not casual events, like the trial of Abraham,
but permanent and wide-reaching ordinances ; will he
stand to it that temptation is benefit enough to make
them what he says they are ?
Passing by, however, all lighter considerations, as has
been the aim throughout, let us go, at once, to the root of
the objection. To give it its utmost weight, and, so, to ex-
haust it, as far as possible, when we come to reply, let
there be added to it a second, quite as serious, and often
urged in independent form.
God knew that man was superstitious. Why, in the
infancy of the world, did he ordain sacrifices only to
have them perverted into idolatry ? When, for two
thousand years, they had been perverted, and God was
about to choose from a whole race of abandoned
heathen one nation for himself, why did he deliberately
renew, with more detail, and, so far, with higher temp-
tation to idolatry, a circle of sacrificial rites ] Lastly,
and most wonderful of all, and most conclusive, it will
be argued, against our attempt to settle what does or
does not frustrate the design of religion — when the Jews
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 157
had most shamefully abused external ceremonies again,
God does not spare us the temptation, by sweeping away
the rites, but actually invents two new ceremonials for
the modern church. No matter, now, it will be urged,
whether these new sacraments are mysteriously efficient,
or, like the old sacrament of circumcision, not so. Why
are they revived at all ? Our whole argument will be
denounced, as having proved too much, and charged in-
consistency upon God for what all parties grant he has
unquestionably done, i. e., for reviving forms of worship,
in which, notoriously, temptation has been found to turn
away from Christ, and from his Holy Spirit.
With this whole argument distinctly in view, and
bowing, as, of course, we must, even to its strongest
instance, — " God tempted Abraham," — still, we answer,
God tempteth no man. To meet the charge of contra-
diction, therefore, it must be shown, as it easily may be,
that there are two kinds of temptation, one consistent
w^ith the revealed purpose of rehgion, the other not so.
(1.) Temptation may be a direct soliciting of the soul
to sin — a crime not to be dreamed of on the part of
God. " He cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempteth
he any man ; but a man is tempted when he is drawn
away of his own lust and enticed."^ This kind w^e do
not charge upon the system of our opponents, only one
practically like it. Two other kinds must, therefore,
still be mentioned.
(2.) Temptation may be an exposure of the soul to
sin, by institutions having no one cardinal advantage
over simpler institutions, but having every thing in them
to bewilder and invite mistake — institutions so easily
' James i. 13.
14
158 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
misconceived, that though the mind of a perfect angel,
with however much amazement at their conflict with
all the rest of God's arrangements for us, might yet
hold them to their proper place, the mind of a fallen
man could scarcely escape the open snare of an idola-
trous interpretation. This is the kind we have been
attacking. This is not the kind that has furnished the
instances just quoted from the Bible. (3d.) Temptation
may be an opportunity for the soul to sin, afl?brded by
things ordered as they are for very great and very evi-
dent advantage, and whose misconception must be
through strange perverseness, in the face of a direct
and benevolent tendency the other way. Examples of
this, we grant, most cheerfully, are found every where
through all the Bible, in the central and most interesting
parts of the Christian system. Precisely so the cross is
a " stumbling block," and the Almighty sacrifice Him-
self " a stone of stumbling and rock of ofl^ence." In a
like sense, He who came expressly to bring peace on
earth came not to send peace, but a sword. So, too,
every single doctrine and ordinance in our religion (for
not one can plead exemption) has bitterly tempted the
souls of men, — by known intention good, but, by man's
perversion, prostitute to evil. Very different is the case
with those pretended institutions, whose far more direct,
and, beyond all contrast, less easily avoided, temptation
is balanced by no good intention, that any but the most
minute and prejudiced ingenuity can discover or devise.
Emblematic worship was, indeed, revived in the
family of Abraham, after it had tempted the world for
two thousand years, and revived again by Jesus Christ,
when it had tempted worse for two thousand more;
but then emblematic worship bears immediate tribute to
that intelligent service of God for which all religion is
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 159
intended; and something akin to emblematic worship,
and liable to like abuses, is necessary to man. Truth,
as sent down from God, must reach us through the
senses. This we have seen long ago ; that as sense is
our only link with other minds, those whom God has
inspired, can tell us his will, only through some outward
channel ; and only so can we be kept reminded and re-
impressed. That channel may be any system of signs,
conventional or natural. Minute symbols may serve
us, as the letters of an alphabet, or the sounds of a
voice ; or briefer and more comprehensive symbols, as
sacramental or sacrificial rites. To say, then, that God
deliberately revived emblematic worship, is, simply, to
say that he revived what one prime necessity of the
soul demands. To say that He revived it in the face of
the fact that it had always been abused, is, simply, what
may be said of any useful or necessary provision He
has made. To say that He revived it when alphabetic
symbols or language might have served alone, is, in the
first place, to forget that this method has been abused,
no less than that, — men trusting to the word without the
spirit; and, in the second place, that rites and sacra-
ments have met ends of impression and moral exercise,
that mere writing could never meet. To urge, as a last
resort, that God, in degree, might have abated the temp-
tation, by making the sacrament less formal or less pro-
minent, is, in fact, to forbid him to draw the fine at all,
since, wherever he might draw it, the same objection
w^ould occur. Religious externals, therefore, in our
sense of them, take their places clearly under the third
kind of temptation.
Nor can any of the scattered instances quoted above,
or, indeed, any thing that shall be, by both parties,
160 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
confessed to be from God, identify itself with the second
kind ; not the tempting of Abraham (to suffer the most
difficult case to stand for all). Let it be granted, that
unbelief is a main corruption of our nature. Let it be
granted, that a command to kill his son, after so glorious
a covenant as God had reiterated respecting him and
his seed, and after so recent a promise that in this very
Isaac should his seed be called, was a sore trial to the
faith of Abraham ; still, the temptation fails, in respect to
evil tendency on the one side, and the absence of good
design on the other. Abraham lived in an age of mira-
cles ; he had spent a life of strange interpositions ; to
doubt God now, would have been the height of ingrati-
tude. One who had ushered in the birth of his son by
miraculous signs, and who had delayed that birth till it
became itself a miracle, might well be trusted here,
since, even if the sacrifice were accomplished, a word
from God he knew would restore the life that he had
taken. This, therefore, was the very form that his faith
assumed, " accounting that God was able to raise him
up even from the dead, from whence also he received
him in a figure.''^ Such w^as the degree and nature of
the temptation, — a simple trial whether he v,?ould trust
God in an easily anticipated and very possible exercise
of this power. Now, balanced against this, we have a
general fact, and a very obvious good intention.
We have the general fact, that all that was essential,
in the tempting of Abraham, every believer is called
through life to feel. Abraham was promised glorious
posterity from Isaac, and then called to high trust in
God's power in direct prospect of Isaac's death. The
» Heb. xi. 19.
A spuraous design of certain externals. 161
believer is promised that all things shall work together
for his good, and then often called deliberately to expose
himself to the most forbidding and seemingly mischiev-
ous providences. The case is, by no means, a singular
one ; Israel, at the waters of Meribah, after his glorious
hopes in Egypt, — Hagar, in the wilderness of Beersheba,
after the promise to Abraham of Ishmael's power, — the
disciples at the cross of Jesus, after all'the prophecies of
the glory of his kingdom, and all men, who pass on to
the fulfilment of the words of God, through strangely
adverse histories, endure, in all essential points, a kin-
dred temptation.
The case, thus associated with a wide class of provi-
dences, will, very readily, disclose its good intention. It
taught Abraham a lesson of immediate reliance on God,
rather than on outward circumstances. Jehovah-jireh
was the precious moral of the whole. The same lesson
was taught at Meribah, and through all that wilderness.
Means are the mere servants of God, and hope must be
graduated, not by their appearance of failure or promise,
but by the word of the Almighty. To state the moral in
the very language of Moses : " He humbled thee, and
suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna (which
thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know), that He
might make thee know that man doth not live by bread
only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of the Lord doth man live."^ Such was the de-
sign in Abraham's case, to turn his reliance directly
upon God ; and the gracious issue of the trial quickly
cleared up every thing that was perplexing in it, and
sealed its good intention.
* Deut. viii. 3.
11*
162 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
How different the trial that must ensue upon giving
external things immediate efficiency, or in any sense in-
separably linking them with pardon. The influence
must be precisely contrary — to turn man's reliance
directly away from God. The temptation, in itself
totally different from the other, would be redeemed by
no great lesson. Some honour might be shed on the
sovereignty of God, by showing that man may be saved
independently of means ; but casting away one set of
means (faith, prayer, &c.) and choosing others (rites
and sacraments), and making these last just as essential
in one creed, as the first are in ours, would, of course,
have nothing to do with such a lesson. It might do good
to show men that God can save them by any, or difler-
ent means, but surely this is not shown by a salvation
that attaches itself inseparably to one. The only possible
lesson, as we conceive, that can be asserted for the
system, is, — that God may save with distant and inap-
propriate means — a lesson true as to his power, but
most false as to his wisdom, a wisdom which could
never deliberately betray the souls of men by things
carnal, instead of things spiritual, or even by things
dumb, instead of things significant, away from the true
nature of Christ's salvation. Thus, all unbalanced by
good design, by useful lesson, or even by humbling,
mortifying influence, we see obtruded upon us, as a thing
from God, the naked snare ; of which may be mentioned
one other fatal difference from the hard command to
Abraham, and the heavy curse at Meribah, that while
both these were cleared up and reversed, and made
speedily and triumphantly useful to the sufferers, this
beclouds and bewilders endlessly, with no dawning of
better light, — a planet always turning an evil phase — a
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 163
spell without a talisman — a puzzle without a key — a den,
that never sees the light, harbouring, in the very bosom
of our religion, the wildest excesses of man's only too
eager superstition.
2. But a second and more formidable objection may
be framed out of the resemblance of a sacrament, in the
Popish sense, to any Bible miracle, and the alleged equal
applicability of the arguments that have been used, to
either of the two.
One minister of God fixes his eyes upon a man, and
at a word heals his body ;'' another minister of God
lays his hands upon a man, and at a word confirms his
spirit. One minister stretches himself upon the corpse
of a child, and raises it from physical death ;^ another
sprinkles water upon the head of a child, and raises it
from spiritual death. Both are wielding, instrumentally,
the power of God. Where is the difference as regards
the temptation of the people 1 Moses, at the word of the
Lord, rears a brazen serpent upon a pole in the camp of
Israel, and the bite of fiery serpents that are infesting
the camp, is cured by looking at it. Seven centuries
afterward, the people are burning incense before that
piece of brass as their God.*" The.apostles Barnabas and
Paul saw a man at Lystra, who had been " a cripple
from his mother's womb ;" and Paul, perceiving " that
he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice. Stand
upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked. And
when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up
their voices, saying. The Gods are come down to us in
the likeness of men. And they called Barnabas Jupiter,
and Paul, Mercurius. Then the priest of Jupiter,
- - ■ Acts iii. 4—8. ^ 2 Kings iv. 34, 35. • 2 Kings xviii. 4.
164 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands
unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the
people."^ This is not the only instance of the kind that
Paul's history furnishes, — *' Howbeit, they looked when
he should have swollen, or fallen down dead, suddenly ;
but after they had looked a great while, and saw no
harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said
that he w^as a god.'"' Now where is the difference, it
will be asked, between this temptation and that which
w^e have been trying to show cannot be ?
Difference enough radically to distinguish them, may
be stated, it is thought, in a single sentence. Miracles
are necessary ; those mystic sacraments are not so. That
men must be saved by faith, or sanctified by the truth,
are arrangements in the kingdom of God, full of tempta-
tion to carnal men, but then they are necessary arrange-
ments, and, therefore, the fact of their indirectly tempting,
loses its power as an argument against them. They are
necessary. Now, so are miracles.
The design of religion is to lead men to the intelligent
service of God. First in order of all mere means, as
conducive to this design, is revelation ; and one of the
next, as the mainstay ^of revelation in respect to its ex-
ternal evidence, is miracle. God first talked to men ;
and then, under the hand of the minister by whom He
spake, broke the laws of nature, and gave the sanction
of something supernatural, to prove that he had talked
to them. Miracle must be the groundwork of all out-
w-ard evidence for religious truth ; and testimony is of
value only when it reaches back to miracle ; and that
miracle, too, must be an external thing. That it is
"■ Acts xiv. 8—13. h Acts xxviii. 6.
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 165
necessary, therefore, is just as certain as that a revela-
tion is of no value to man until something tells him that
it is a revelation.
We might expect, we know, that God w^ould abate
the snare of miracles as much as is consistent with his
plan ; and might predict, therefore, facts like these ; —
that miracles would be but temporary ; that each part
of revelation would be certified by them, and then their
time would end ; that some appeal to God, a prayer, or
an invocation of His name, should be just as apparent in
the miracle, if wrought by man, as the miracle itself;
and that, in case temptation did result, care would be
taken to remove it ; as Hezekiah did when he " brake in
pieces the brazen serpent;"^ as Peter did, when he said,
" Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this ? or why
look ye so earnestly on us, as though, by our own power
or holiness, we had made this man to walk t"^ or, as
Paul did, when he said to the men of Lystra, " Sirs, we
also are men of like passions wath you ?"=
If we turn now to those mystic sacraments, their case
is quite another one. To say nothing of the fact, that
they claim supernatural power over spirit, i. e. of things
outward over things inward ; while all other miracles
claim it only over matter, or of externals over exter-
nals ; — to say nothing of the fact, that they reach to the
destinies of another world ; — to say nothing of the fact,
that they are not grand exceptions to a general law,
occasionally admitted for an extraordinary end, but
form a law in themselves, settled and lasting for
thousands of years ; — their great condemnation is, they
* 2 Kings xviii. 4. ^ Acts iii. 12. « Acts xiv. 15.
1G6 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
are not necessary. The mischief to which they tend, is
not balanced by any essential good.
They do not the good even of common miracles,
granting that miracles were needed now. For the
strength of a miracle, in the way of proof for any thing,
is, of course, that its result be open to public gaze, or,
at least, that it come in some way or other to the cog-
nizance of men. But the result of these miracles is
buried. The baptismal regeneration of a child, or the
delivery of a soul from purgatory — the more unembar-
rassed, unconditional, direct results of sacraments, trans-
pire behind that curtain that hides us from another
world; while sacramental influences upon adult men
are so w^isely mixed up in the theory of the errorist
with the conditions of " compunction and faith," &c.,
that when they fail, we cannot say, it was the sacra-
ment; and when they succeed, he cannot say, it was
not the " faith." It is God only that searcheth the
heart. Certainly a poor subject-matter for a miracle
(which, if it is to be proof for any thing, should make a
bold and plain impression upon the people), the change
wrought by ghostly hand, or sacred font, or consecrated
bread, must be, if, to see any miracle at all, we must so
nicely dissect away what must have been the fruit of
sacrament and faith together, from what might have
been the fruit of faith alone.
3. But the grand protest against our reasoning will
be, it is presumptuous ; it dictates to God. What right
have we to ask what God might or might not do ? or, if
He makes an appointment, to say how or how not it
may be conditioned and arranged 1 This naked ques-
tion is enough : What do the words of God, simply and
aside from prejudice, direct? Nay, is not here a clue
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CEP.TAIN EXTERNALS. 167
to the much asked for design of mystic sacraments, —
that they are intended for this very thing, i. e., to be a
lesson to man in the matter of implicit obedience ? All
God's other commandments bring reasons with them,
and may be seen to work out the honour of Himself, and
the benefit of His creature. Might it not be well that
some few should be, without ostensible reasons given,
with no other meaning in them than this, that God has
a right to command and condition, sovereignly, as He
pleases? Is not "the tree of knowledge of good and
evil,"* in point, as an example of some such design ? It
was an external. It was made " directly efficient" upon
the soul, in bringing ruin, and " absolutely essential,"
negatively, as respects salvation ; that is to say, refrain-
ing from it, though a mere outward thing, was essential
to spiritual life. Yet, to teach the lesson of his own
sovereignty, God ordained it ; and why not a kindred
sacrament at the present day ?
Now, in reply, as to the two foundation sentences of
all this, " Man has no right to ask, what God might, or
might not do," but, " What do His w^ords, simply and
aside from prejudice, direct;" we think argument, long
since gone into, shows, pretty conclusively, that the two
do not agree. Man cannot, simply and without preju-
dice, find what God's words direct, without asking what
He might or might not do. Christ bids us " hate"
" father and mother,"^ and tells us he came not to send
peace, but a sword.'' In either case, cautious and reve-
rent thought of what he might or might not do, is a
thing of course. To say that a reader may indulge it,
is half untrue ; he must, and ivilU by one of the most
* Gen. iii. »> Luke xiv. 26. « Matt. x. 34.
168 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
imperative of all mental necessities. The charge of
presumption may lie against it, just, precisely, when it
may against any other laws of reading, i. e., when they
miss their aim, or are pressed too far.
As to the idea, that a lesson in implicit obedience is
the great design of making baptism and other rites ab-
solute terms of pardon, it would be plausible enough, if,
in the opinion of those who might advance it, the good
of the sacrament were at all proportioned to any one's
implicit obedience in it. That would be coming near
our own ground. It is not proportioned to the obe-
dience of the subject; for he maybe an infant, or a
man in purgatory. It is not proportioned to the obe-
dience of the actor, for he may be a graceless hypocrite,
and yet, as we, and they, and all, admit, his administra-
tions may be valid. No, if men were " washed, and
justified, and sanctified," under ordinances, in any pro-
portion to their implicit, resigned obedience, under them,
or to any other holy exercise or grace, and not by the
external itself, as appointed of God, that would be more
our doctrine, than the one we are controverting.
And, as to the tree of knowledge in the garden of
Eden, we are happy to close this chapter, by leaving on
the reader's mind the points of difference between sacra-
ments in the Popish sense, and this, the thing ostensibly,
perhaps, most like them of any thing recorded as real,
in the word of God.
Of course, it was an external, as they are. Of course,
it had a decisive bearing on eternal life, as they profess
to have. Of course, that bearing was direct and prompt ;
the moment Adam ate, he died ; just as the moment the
infant is baptized, it lives. So we seem to have all that
our opponents ask, and all that will crush our argument,
A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS. 169
i. e., an external, linked inseparably with the question of
life, or death. Here, however, the resemblance ends.
The tree of knowledge might have been (so far as
any principle is involved), and, probably, was, only a
natural means ;* any tree in the garden might have an-
swered just as well. It could work no mischief in itself.
Had Adam eaten of its fruit by accident, we have no
reason to believe it would have done him harm. It was
just an object singled out by God, to try the obedience
of our parents with, and the wrong decision of a tempted
mind in them, and no poison in its fruit, began and ended
the work of death. Adam was cursed, just in proportion
as the sin, bred in him, deserved, and might have been
cursed the same before any object that God might have
chosen to forbid.
Here, then, precisely, is the difference: the Papist
will not say, it is not the baptism, but the faith. We
will say, it is not the baptism, but the faith. Both will
say, it was not the apple, but the sin. Then, to which
party the force of the example belongs, is evident at
once.
The point of seeming resemblance the other way was
that the tree was inseparable from death, just as the
mystic sacrament is said to be from life. But that in-
separableness was of a natural kind in the way of
templing and discipline ; this, of a supernatural kind, in
the way of divine and mystic virtue. If it be asked,
why a " tree of knowledge" at all 1 why not leave Adam
to choose, (so to speak,) his own sin ? We answer,
* See, in the different commentaries, the usual arguments', to show that
neither this, nor the " tree of life," were any thing but symbolic sacra-
ments, or had in them any inherent virtue, even for physical life, or
death.
15
170 A SPURIOUS DESIGN OF CERTAIN EXTERNALS.
because the arrangement bore upon the great design of
religion, " the intelhgent service of God ;" the universe
would have lost a lesson in the mingled littleness and
enormous folly of sin, which no other arrangement could
have furnished — millions of spirits cast into eternal
chains (whether by transmitted guilt, or by natural con-
sequence, need not be debated), to gratify the desire of
one, after an object as trivial, in itself, as any that God
could have chosen to prohibit.
CHAPTER VII.
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION, ARGUED FROM
THE DESIGN OF AN EXTERNAL CHURCH.
The last chapter has proved that no external can be
directly efficient, or absolutely essential to salvation, the
argument itself making it appear what was meant by
direct efficiency, on the one hand, and absolute necessity,
on the other. Till, therefore, some third design of ex-
ternals is imagined, we are shut up to the first: — The
sole design of externals is to teach (i. e. instruct and
discipline) in the service of God ; and then, too, looking
at one external separately, — The sole design of an ex-
ternal church is to teach (instruct and discipline) in the
service of God.
It is our purpose now, from this design of an external
church, to argue the True Doctrine of Church Commu-
nion.
Four doctrines have been proposed : —
I. There is a visible church, conformed to a certain
primitive model, beyond the pale of which there is no
salvation, and, therefore, no rights or duties of church
communion.
II. There is a visible church, conformed to a certain
primitive model, beyond the pale of which there is no
church, and, therefore, no rights or duties of church com-
munion.
172 THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
III. The visible church is made up of various
branches, between which there are certain rights and
duties of church communion.
IV. The visible church is made up of various
branches, between which there are, not only, certain
rights and duties of church communion, but an interest
and an obligation to come together into one, upon some
liberal and general platform.
I. There is a visible church, conformed to a certain
primitive model, beyond the pale of v\^hich there is no
salvation, and, therefore, no right or duties of church
communion.
This doctrine cannot be the true one, because it
teaches, that without external membership in a church, a
man is not saved, whereas, " no external can be abso-
lutely essential to salvation."
It may be said. The case is an exception to the
general rule ; it is replied, the argument that esta-
blished the rule, admitted no exception.
It may be said, One exception must be admitted. The
truth is absolutely necessary to the salvation of adults ;
and externals are absolutely necessary to convey the
truth ; it is replied, the case is no exception. The propo-
sition, external things are absolutely necessary to salva-
tion, or, some external is absolutely necessary, is by no
means at variance with the proposition, no external is
absolutely necessary. The first is a statement of the
natural fact, that, constituted as we are, w^e cannot dis-
pense wdth the intelligence in religion brought to us by
external sense ; the last is a statement of the fact, that no
one object of sense, or set of objects, has been supernatu-
rally or Providentially erected into a condition, sine qua
71071, of salvation.
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION. 173
Externals may be essential in an intelligible way, to
convey the truth, but no one external is essential. And
though that one external, the church, embodies in itself
a whole circle of religious means, so that most of God's
people are converted by its labour, still it does not
follow that all are, or that a man, not in the church, may
not hand the Bible, or give the word, or send the tract
that leads to a soul's conversion.
Besides, the doctrine condemned is not, that there is
no salvation without the church, but no salvation with-
out jomzT?^ the church, making that narrow external —
membership in a church, and that, too, membership in
one particular body, claiming that name, in contra-
distinction to every other, absolutely essential to sal-
vation.
And, as it is not true that a man must join a certain
church to be saved ; so neither is it true that a man will
join a certain church, if saved ; — another form of natural
necessity that may be pleaded for the doctrine.
Christ, we grant, has framed a church ; and Christ,
by clear precept, has bound every soul to join it. Christ,
we grant, has framed a church after a certain model ;
and Christ, by inferred precept, has bound every soul to
join a church after that model. In any common circum-
stances, he who joins no church, errs, and so does he
who joins one not duly modelled. But then there is no
manner of foothold here for the doctrine that no man
will err so, if saved.
Error is of two kinds, practical and speculative. In
practical error, as, for example, in theft or drunkenness,
a man, if he is saved, will not wilfully persist; so that it
becomes true, that "drunkards shall not inherit the
15*
174 THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
kingdom of God,"^ or that there is a limit of common
honesty, " beyond the pale of which there can be no
salvation, and, therefore, no rights or duties of church
communion." But speculative error is a thing widely
different. It is sin; but do Christians never sin? It
cannot be directly wilful in its maintenance, and, there-
fore, Christians may persist in it till their dying day. For
it is supposed, the best advocates of the doctrine under
review will confess, as cheerfully as we will, that good
men may fall into many speculative errors, and that no
man. Christian or unconverted, has a perfectly unsullied
creed, at any one moment of his history.
Now, it is speculative error that breaks up the church
into branches. Error in pure doctrine, our opponents
confess, may exist among good men; but then, they say,
it must not divide the church. Error in church order,
in the nature of things, must divide the church ; there-
fore, they say, it may not exist among good men. But
both. are speculative error, yes, and error in church
order is less culpable than error in pure doctrine. Doc-
trine, being an internal thing, appeals to native con-
science ; order, being an external, never can. Doctrine
may carry with it the witness of the Spirit, w^hich will
serve the most unlettered in lieu of outward evidence ;
order, in its own nature, never may. Doctrine is dwelt
upon in the Bible, and turned over in many shapes, and
is linked together by natural connexions ; order is briefly
noticed, and stands alone. To confess false doctrine,
then, and give over to reprobation for a mistake in order,
is monstrously absurd.
* 1 Cor. vi. 10.
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION. 175
Only natural necessity, it will be remembered, is the
plea that we have been meeting. The moment any
thing supernatural is objected, as, for instance, the
sacraments, as being only found in the church, so that
a man must join it to be saved, we are thrown back
again upon our general position. It cannot be true, that
without external membership in a certain church, a man
is not saved, because, " No external can be directly effi-
cient, or absolutely essential, to salvation."
II. There is a visible church, conformed to a certain
primitive model, beyond the pale of which there is no
church, and, therefore, no rights or duties of church
communion.
Here are two unchurching phrases, — " no church,"
and " no rights or duties of church communion." The
last is the important one ; the first has no significance,
as it stands alone.
A common argument, to establish the first, is essen-
tially as follows : — Jesus Christ framed a certain orga-
nization of men, and called it The Church ; therefore a
different organization of men, whatever else it may be,
is not The Church, or any part of it.
Now, the premises are sound ; and, if they be counted
on all hands as fixing for us a strict definition, the con-
clusion is a perfect truism. The moment it is agreed,
by consent of parties, that precisely that thing, in form
and order, that Christ called The Church, shall still bear
the name, and that nothing else shall, then, certainly, " a
different organization is not The Church, or any part of
it." But, then, this is no argument, but only the state-
ment and restatement of a definition.
If it be asked, Would not such a strict definition be
the right one ? it is answered, certainly, if all will agree
176 THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
on it ; and then it would be perfectly right for each man
to pronounce his own religious body The Church (if he
believes it to be of primitive model), and to find some
other name for all the rest. If it be further asked, But
is not the word so confined in the New Testament ? we
answer, certainly, it is. Aside from other uses, which
are matters of indifference here, the apostles applied it
to one body, framed in one way. But, then, how else
could they apply it ? The infant society was yet one,
no varieties of organization having occurred, to divide
the name. If it be asked. Ought it not to be confined to
one 1 we answer, that is a question for philologists and
grammarians. Did not Christ mean it to be applied but
to one? We are not aware that the use of words is a
matter that He aimed to settle. Has it not been con-
fined to one? Certainly not; for why, then, the com-
plaint, that it has been applied to several?
Turn the thing over as we will, the question of
church or no church, canvassed in this naked form, is
no question. It becomes a question, only when linked
in with another, thus : Is a certain body no church, in
the sense, that we may not hold communion with it?
The name is a matter of human convention ; the privi-
lege, of divine command.
It makes no difference to us, if pious men call our re-
ligious society no church of Jesus Christ, in case it is
agreed, that that only shall be called His church, that is
after the model that he gave ; for we know they must
think their society that one, just as we think that ours
is. But it makes great difference to us, if they refuse
fellowship with us, or if we are to be bound to refuse
fellowship with them.
The vitality of the question, then, whether the doc-
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION. 177
trine, above set down, be the true one, is this ; Ought a
body of professing Christians, organized after the primi-
tive model, to refuse communion with a body organized
differently ?
Communion is of three kinds ; invisible communion,
or the communion of truly pious men, in the gifts of the
Holy Ghost; private communion, or the communion of
apparently pious men, in common Christian intercourse ;
and church communion, or the communion of profes-
sedly pious men, in certain public ordinances. The
first, it is impossible to refuse ; God regulates it ; and
finds its subjects, as we have seen, in no one external
church. The second, it is absurd to refuse ; for piety
must respect piety, across any church lines. The last
must be the thing in question : Ought not a body, that
feels itself to be the truly primitive church, to refuse ex-
ternal church communion with one after another model ?
An arrogation, let it be granted, at the worst, of a much
milder kind than any these chapters have yet considered;
making externals bear upon externals, irregularity in ex-
ternal order suffering the forfeit only of external privilege.
Now, there never was a question that appealed more
directly to the " principle of design." New Testament
example will do nothing for it ; for Peter and Paul
knew nothing of any Christian society but their own.
The divisions they denounced, were in doctrine, and
had not gone to the length of separate organization.
New^ Testament precept will do as little. It tells us
how to deal with ministers of another faith, — " Though
we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel,
than that which w^e have preached unto you, let him be
anathema;"^ but nowhere how to deal wdih ministers
» Gal. i. 8.
178 THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION.-
of another church. We are not aware, that any one
has ventured to show a passage, as speaking at all upon
the matter.
What, then, is the design of the church ? To teach
(i. e., instruct and discipline) in the service of God, to
more advantage, by the union of believers.
What would be the result of the unchurching rule?
Speculative error, we have seen, must be endless, and,
especially, in the detail of external order, where so small
a book as the Testament treats of it, and so small a part
of that. Each point, in the detail, would be subject-
matter for mistake — each sacrament, each rule, each
office; so that, out of the varied combination that
this would give, a hundred sects would spring, each
after a model of its own. And, then, if it be the duty
of that one which is truly primitive, to unchurch all the
rest, then all, believing themselves that one, would be,
mutually, unchurched, and the result would be, complete
disunion of believers, to the extent of this speculative
difference. The second doctrine in the list, therefore,
cannot be the true one, because, the design of religion
is, to teach men in the service of God, to more advan-
tage, by the union of believers.
If it be said, God, who has promised to be with His
church, even to the end of the world, might interfere to
keep the mass of his people right on these external
points : the reply is, it must be by miracle. Minds end-
lessly astray on plainer points, and always right on
these, would be kept so only by supernatural power. Now%
remembering that the design of the church is to teach,
and to teach men, and to teach with reference to the
peculiar temptations of men, we ask, would God per-
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION. 179
form the only miracle of the present age, or, if you
choose, one of His few only miracles, in tempting men
by exalting externals, i. e., while they are left to err in
much more vital, because much more spiritual matters,
interposing, by miracle, or by special Providence, if that
be a better name, to keep them right in the matter of ex-
ternals ?
Besides, God has not interfered. The advocates of
the particular doctrine before us, confess that multitudes
of good men are out of the true communion.
If it be said, the true church fences herself round, as
an act of discipline ; for as departure from the primitive
model is an evil, making her weak and crippled in her
teaching, she refuses fellowship with those who are
guilty of it, as a check upon the evil ; I reply, then she
is a tempter of the world.
Some amount of practical error she tolerates, and a
great amount — in all her members — of pride, and envy-
ing, and covetousness. Yet they cripple her teaching
much more than diversity of order. Some amount of
doctrinal error she tolerates, and a great amount in
many of her members — error on points as vital, as the
grace of God, and Christ's atonement. Why not refuse
fellowship for them ? How more direct the lesson of
temptation, that externals after all are the great thing for
the soul, than to tolerate a distorted faith, and draw
church lines fondly and indulgently about it, but to cut
off and count alien, at once, for a flaw in external order.
To sum up the argument, then, if the object of organ-
izing a church, at all, be union, in order to teaching ;
this doctrine would thwart it in two directions. (1). It
would defeat union, by separating men, confessedly the
180 THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
children of God, in the noble efforts of gospel enterprise,
and in the high acts of gospel worship ; and (2), it would
defeat teachhig, by tempting men precisely in the path
of favourite error, viz., to believe that those externals
Vv'hich are thus to take the precedence of purity of heart
and evangelical behef, as a test of fellowship, must cer-
tainly be the vital things of religion.
The second doctrine, therefore, is not the true one.
III. The visible church is made up of various
branches, between which there are certain rights and
duties of church communion.
The establishment of this doctrine is a result of the
refutation of the last.
As. to the wording in the early part of the sentence, it
is, intrinsically, of httle moment. It has been said, the
visible church is made up of various branches, because
we get language by use, and most writers seemed to
speak so. If the New Testament gives to us no prece-
dent, it is because there w^as no chance for it ; the church
in its infancy being homogeneously organized.
But though, philologically, we prefer speaking as we
have done ; theologically, we would be quite willing to
speak differently. For if all would agree, it might not
be as safe, but it would be as true, to say, — The churchy
(after the primitive model,) finds herself in company with
a number of other organized bodies of pious men, with
whom she has certain rights and duties of visible com-
munion.
The really debateable and vital half of the sentence is
the last, — " with whom she has, &c.," and the truth of
that is ours already, without any further argument. If
she has no right to refuse all, she is bound to hold some,
visible communion with them.
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION. 181
The only question that remains is, what, in manner
and extent, must that communion be?
It cannot be perfect, for that is inconsistent with the
idea of different organizations. Communion is perfect
only when the body is homogeneously one. How and
what must it be, between divided sects ?
Now, a very easy, a very adequate, and, so far on in
the argument, a very evident rule of communion is, that
it is the right and duty of every ecclesiastical body to
hold communion with every other, in any institution of
the church, in all degrees not inconsistent with the
design of that particular institution.
Let us look separately at the institutions in v*'hich
communion is held, and draw out the rule in detail.
Communion is of four kinds: (1) Communion in
ministry, (2) Communion in sacraments, (3) Commu-
nion in membership, (4) Communion in government.
(1.) The rule as to the first would be, it is the right
and duty of every ecclesiastical body to hold commu-
nion in ministry with every other, in all degrees not in-
consistent with the design of the ministry.
Now, the design of the ministry is, to secure proper
men to instruct and discipline in the service of God. In
this, three things are vitally requisite, by a necessity
growing out of the nature of things ; (a.) piety, know-
ledge, and certain natural accomplishments; (b.) office,
singling out the men for support and acknowledgment
by the people ; (c.) separation to that office, by an ordain-
ing choice or rite.
Suppose, therefore, a case occurs — a minister of one
branch of the church is in a position officially to serve
another branch; how far may his labour be accepted?
Recollecting the rule, it must be asked, how far does
16
182 THE TRUE DOCTPv-INE OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
the man meet the design of the gospel ministry? (c.) How
far was his ordination, in its source and manner, a suffi-
cient guaranty of a proper choice? and (b.) how far is
his office hke the one the duties of which he is to do, so
as to be a guaranty that he is (a) fit to do thera? And
then it will be the right and duty of the church to be
served by him, in the degree which the answer to these
questions warrants.
It is gratifying to observe, with how few and widely-
condemned exceptions, the Protestant world use virtu-
ally this very method. Whole classes of ministers are
disowned from all communion, but only because their
ordination in some fatally apostate church, or by some
rule that defeats itself, is a pledge that they are quite
unfit or unsafe as labourers. Again, whole classes are
received into all communion, with scarcely more restric-
tion than by their own assemblies, because the doctrine
on either side is found the same, and the order but
slightly diflferent. Then, between these extremes of total
corruption, and of near agreement, are all degrees of
acknowledgment and interchange.
If a minister belong to a church, organized amiss, and
fallen into grave error, he may not be settled as pastor
by a sounder body, nor go among its people, officially,
and by their request, to preach and govern, as he may
among his own ; but if, vitally, his creed is good, he may
safely be called to preach those occasional sermons, in
which the peculiarities of his creed are not likely to
appear, or in which, if they do, a regular pastor may be
at hand to observe and correct them. In fine, it should
be the rule, and practically it will be, and is, among all
good Protestants, that just so far as the good done by
the ministry of an erroneous church overbalances the
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION. 183
evil, the whole circle of purer churches should acknow-
ledge them by using their assistance, and by wishing
them God speed in their own enterprises among the
people. •
This is all that is vitally of any moment. Whether
they shall be acknowledged specifically, as bishops,
presbyters, or deacons, is too often a question of words.
Precisely in the Bible sense they may not deserve to be ;
or, having given up the Bible names, they may not ask
to be. The grand question for us to settle, as we keep
close to the idea of design, is, how far do they meet the
design of that office, be it what it may, in which they
have a chance to serve us? It is unfortunate that they
bear ill-chosen names, and still more unfortunate that
they bear office that is even slightly changed, and they
should be discountenanced to the extent of that misfor-
tune ; but if they have held fast to the main idea of
the ministry, they must be countenanced to the extent
of that.
(2.) Next in order is, communion in sacraments.
When may we accredit the baptism.s of another
church ? and when, in the absence of its own ministry,
may we consent to baptize its children or its members ?
When may we sit down at the Lord's table, in another
church ? and when may we invite its members to com-
mune in ours 1
Giving the rule as directed, we answer, — Always,
when the design of the sacrament has been or will be
answered, in this particular administration of it. And
by this we do not mean, only when the sacrament meets
its end, and its spiritual benefit is actually had through
the faith of its recipient ; for of that we are not to judge,
and no sacrament is to be repeated for default of that.
184 THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
But we mean only when the sacrament is suitable to its
end, and agrees with the design for which God gave it.
For the application of this rule, in detail, we are not
furnished : for it will require a separate treatise to esta-
blish, specifically, the design of the sacraments.
The mode of its application, however, may be happily
illustrated by a question lately revived in this country.
Is baptism in the Papal Church to be counted valid?
1. Baptism, to meet its design, must be by the minis-
try.* The question, therefore, must be settled, whether
the Papal Church is pure enough to have a ministry.
2. Baptism, to meet its design, must be not too far aside
from a certain form. The question, therefore, must be
settled, whether the Papists, by the mode and meaning
that they give it, do not turn it too far aside. 3. Bap-
tism, to meet its design, must not be renounced by the
party that has been the subject of it.^ The question,
therefore, is of weight, whether that party has irremov-
able scruples in regard to it, and desires the ordinance
to be administered anew. 4. Baptism, to meet its
design, need only be pure in its particular instance of
administration, and is not to be implicated with corrup-
tions that may exist in the same church, in other
countries. The question, therefore, is of interest, how far
the Papal Church is to be acknowledged as a unit, and
whether it is not m.uch broken up into dissenting
branches, and far purer in some corners of the world
^ These points are assumed, as the paragraph is simply for illustration.
t* Of course it is meant where a sounder administration of it is in
view. To renounce a baptism, and ask it again in the same form, would
be absurd, for if it has been wickedly attended on, faith should go back
even after the lapse of years, and conform and embrace it, and not be
baptized again.
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION. ] 85
than in others ; the Catechism of the Council of Trent
not being, as, in all consistency, it would be, the uniform
creed of all, but, there actually being wide departure
from it in purity and gospel light.
Without so far anticipating the minuter data with
which a separate treatise would furnish us, as to attempt
an answer to the question here, it is maintained that this
general issue is the only one to which it can be legiti-
mately brought.
In case of the other sacrament — the Lord's Supper —
the Baptist Churches afford us a singular example of the
refusal of communion.
In rejecting the baptisms of other churches, they are
unquestionably consistent. If, agreeably to their opinion,
baptism is designed only for adult believers, they are
right when they say that baptism, administered in
infancy, not meeting that design, is no baptism. And if
the design of baptism is only met by immersion, they are
right in what they say of affusion and sprinkling. So
that they cannot consistently accredit any administration
of the rite by other churches. But that which has gotten
the name of " dose commiimon^'' is by no means as harm-
less, nor as harmonious with a svstem of doctrine other-
wise so evangelical.
Their reasoning, however, has at least that semblance
of truth — brevity, {a.) The Lord's Supper is only for
those who are members of the church, {h.) Baptism,
being the initiatory rite, is necessary to church member-
ship, (c.) That only is baptism which is by immersion
after a profession of the faith, {d.) Therefore, the Lord's
Supper is only for those who are so baptized. Certainly
here is something plausible, and yet every instinct of
piety revolts at the conclusion. The dearer the table
16*
186 THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
of the Lord, and the more sacred that carefulness with
which it is fenced around, and the stronger the tie that
binds one good man to another, the more abhorrent, at
first thought, at least, must this principle appear. The
richest and rarest piety this earth has ever seen, must
then keep aloof from communion in a church one of the
highest on the list in evangelical purity ! Vastly the
minority of pious men must denounce the majority of
pious men, as fallen utterly short of the outward covenant
and visible kingdom of Jesus Christ, and that, too, in the
very act of acknowledging their piety, and, strange to
say, their ministry too, in the performance of some of
its highest functions ! That instinct is just. There must
be some flaw in a train, leading to such confusion.
The flaw occurs in the second position of the four.
(h.) Baptism, being the initiatory rite, is necessary to
church membership. It is the initiatory rite, and yet is
no more necessary to church membership, than it is to
salvation. The proof of this, however, will come best
under the next head.
(3.) Communion in membership.
Rule. — It is the right, and duty, of every ecclesias-
tical body, to hold communion, in membership, with
every other, in all degrees not inconsistent with the
design of membership.
What is the design of church membership ? To unite
piety, for greater advantage in instruction and disci-
pline.
What is the great requisite of membership, then?
Unquestionably, piety; and no other requisite must be
suffered to drive off" some of the little piety in the world,
unless of moment enough to overbalance the loss, by the
greater effectiveness it gives the rest.
i
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNIOxV. 187
Our simple test of membership, then, is piety (the ap-
pearance of it), and no other will be acknowledged, till
shown to be by direct command of scripture, or to be
inferred, as this has been, from the higher principles of
the gospel.
If it be said, Baptism is the initiatory rite, and its ad-
ministration is, therefore, one test of membership ; it is
answered. Baptism is the regenerating rite, and yet, its
administration is not a test of regeneration. And,
though the two cases are not precisely parallel, baptism
being to membership, what it is not at all to regenera-
tion, that is, really a part of the process of induction,
still, it is not the whole, nor at all an absolutely vital
part.
The first step toward membership, is the vital one,
viz., admission by an authoritative vote. Baptism is the
initiatory rite, in that a part of its intention, as a sacra-
ment, is, symbolically, to declare that vote, and, cere-
monially, to carry it out. Just so the first step towards,
the ministry, is the vital one, viz., appointment by an
authoritative vote. Imposition of hands is the initiatory
rite, in that the whole of its intention is, symbolically, to
declare that vote, and, ceremonially, to carry it out.
Therefore, as no good Protestant church, by the voice
of its council, would reverse its vote, setting apart a fit
man as a minister, simply because, when the imposition
of hands is proposed, he has conscientious scruples, and
declines it; so no good Protestant church ought to
reverse its vote, admitting a man as a member, simply
because, when baptism is spoken of, he must decline it,
from conscientious scruples. Both, the laying on of
hands, and the sprinkling of the water, are precepts of
Christ; but precepts, the neglect of which, through
188 THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
speculative er'or, is so much lighter an enormity than
a mistake of the purer doctrines of the gospel, that, to
cast out for the first, and not for the last, is an idolatrous
exalting of externals, and a direct snare to souls.
But, now, let us guard what has been said. A man,
admitted to the church without baptism, would not be a
full member, and for a very simple reason.
Membership is membership, only so far as it holds
communion. As it is hy an authoritative act, so it is
for an external fellowship, and it is nothing without it.
Of what account would membership be, with no part in
ministry, sacraments, or government? Baptism, there-
fore, being one of these, the man who, through specula-
tive error, has declined it, has impoverished his mem-
bership. This should be borne in mind. The disap-
proving eye of the church should be upon him. He
should be warned, that he is living in neglect of one of
his Saviour's precepts, and, as soon as instruction and
exhortation can convince him he is wrong, his relation
to the church should be perfected.
Just so, if a devotedly pious Christian should fall into
the Quaker error, of declining both the sacraments; and,
though the only privilege of membership, in his case,
would be, recognition by the church, still, should he
ask it, we see not but that we must carry out the prin-
ciple. If he is disorderly, in spreading his errors, let
him be refused, as an act of discipline, and to defend the
church. But, if not, let him be admitted. Piety is the
main concern. To exclude him, for these mistakes,
when we would admit him, with much sadder mistakes,
in the purer doctrines of his creed, is as unsafe, as it is
uncommanded. Let him be admitted ; only, let the
care of the church be directed, to show him how,
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION. 189
unhappily, his membership is crippled, and to recover
him from an opinion, by which his piety is so much
wronged.
(4.) Communion in government. Less of this is
practicable, it is imagined, than in either of the other
cases ; — though we word the rule as before.
The first open result of church difference, either in
faith or order, is separate jurisdiction, and this sepa-
rateness of jurisdiction is but little relieved, formally, —
however much it may be virtually, — by the usual plans
of friendly intercourse, — for instance, by the plan of
delegated or corresponding members, in the council of
a sister church, or, by general convention of all the
churches, in union, upon some plan of Christian en-
terprise.
How liberal this necessary exclusiveness must be,
however, a question, that may be adduced, will finely
illustrate.
May a member, or, especially, a minister, who is out
of the reach of his own church, or w^io conceives a
church model to be scriptural, which no existing body
possesses, adopt and join any evangelical church,
most like his own, within the bounds of which it
may be necessary for him to live? How shall we
answer?
Church government is, certainly, jure divino, and
some model of it, too ; for all is of divine right, that is,
of divine command; and that church government ex-
isted in primitive times, and that Christ framed it, and
that he framed it harmoniously, in a certain way, and
that he meant it to be kept harmoniously one, and said
so, it is hard not to believe. And positive proof is
190 THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
given below to that effect.^ But, then, there are two
kinds of precept in the Bible, — natural and positive, —
and two kinds of divine right, springing from the two.
The first must be obeyed, without any possible excep-
tion ; for we ought not to blaspheme God, or to hate our
enemy, if it were to save us from the most horrid death.
The right, then, of God to our adoration, and of man to
our benevolence, is of the most absolute and unyielding
nature.
But the last kind are altogether different. While the
^ Phil. i. 1. "Paul and Timotheus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus
which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons."
1 Tim. iii. 1. "If a man desire the office of a bishop," &c.
1 Tim. iii. 2. " A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one v/ife,"
&c.
Tit. i. 5-7. " For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest
set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city,
as I had appointed thee. If any be blameless, the husband of one wife,
having faithful children, not accused of riot, or unruly. For a bishop
must be blameless, as the steward of God ; not self-willed, not soon angry,
not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre."
Acts XX. 28. " Take heed to all the flock, over the which the Holy
Ghost hath made you bishops."
1 Tim. V. 17. "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of
double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine-"
Acts vi. 1-6. (Ordination of deacons.)
1 Tim. iii. 8. "Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double-
tongued," &c.
1 Tim. iii, 12. "Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife," &c.
10. " Let these, also, first be proved ; then let them use the office of a
deacon, being found blameless."
2 Tim. ii. 2. " The things that thou hast heard of me, the same com-
mit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."
Acts xiv. 23. " Ordained elders in every church."
Rev. ii. 1. " To the angel of the church of Ephesus, write," &:,c., &c,
James v. 14. "Let him call for the elders of the church."
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION. 191
first grow out of the nature of virtue, and are right, in-
trinsically, and by themselves, these are positive, i. e.,
by special appointment of God, to meet certain designs.
They admit of endless exception. It is, often, absolutely
sinful to obey them ; and, when such cases are, it is cast
upon us to learn, by settling the question, When do they
defeat their own, or some higher design ?
" Have ye not read what David did when he was an
hungered, and they that were with him ; how he entered
into the house of God, and did eat the shew-bread, which
was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which
were with him, but only for the priests.""" The design
of this rule, as to the shew-bread, was to carry out a
certain symbolical meaning. The design of David, was
to save his own and his servants' life. He soon made
up his mind which was the most important ; and, we
see, Jesus Christ sanctions the conclusion to which he
came. But if the chance for life, had been in profaning
the Lord, instead of the Lord's table, he must have de-
cided very differently.
So of the sabbath, in respect to which David's ease is
quoted by our Saviour ; its observance is by precept ;
its claim is jure divino; and, yet, Christ never mentions
the day, except to rebuke the superstitious strictness of
the Pharisees, and to show in what various cases men
may " profane it, and be blameless ;" building his posi-
tion, too, upon the principle of design — " The sabbath
was made for man, and not man for the sabbath."^
Our answer, then, to the question before us, is an
easy one. There is precept for the church. There is
preceptive model for its form. There is divine right for
» Matt. xii. 3, 4. ^ Mark ii. 27.
192 THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
its claim. And yet, there maybe grievous sin in observ-
ing either. If extraordinary circumstances in any land
make another model better, it is sin to prefer our church
to that. If the mistake of those with whom we hve
make another model necessary, it is sin to prefer no
church to theirs ; unless, indeed, it can be proved that
their church is worse than none.
We know^ these are delicate matters. The model that
Christ has left must not be lightly departed from, any
more than there may be a departure lightly from the
observance of the sabbath day; but some departure,
sometimes, is absolutely necessary, from either, and here
is the wisdom of the saints, to tell how and when.
IV. The visible church is made up of various branches,
between which there are not only certain rights and
duties of church communion, but an interest and an obli-
gation to come together into one upon some liberal and
general platform.
The corner stone which this last doctrine claims, is a
noble truth. Certainly, the beau ideal of the church is,
one homogeneous body all over the world. And though
the reigning system of denominations has been overruled
by God for incalculable good, yet for good which, like
the crucifixion of Jesus, has come through the path of
evil, a path which no good man dare ever, intentionally,
use. Christian union is precious. And, great as the
growth of our cause has been under existing divisions, it
is firmly believed that the day of most growth will be
the day of most union.
But then Christian union, even of an outward kind,
must be twofold — not union in church alone, but union
also in church creed. The man who blends the two
before his eye, and prays for them, and toils after them
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION. 193
for his country and for the world, is a patriot and a
benefactor. But the man who separates the two, and
labours after union in church, in spite of discrepance in
creed, is an enthusiast; and it is this last kind of end
that the doctrine above stated has in view.
The truth is, that, pious as some of the men have been,
who have thus wished to bring the branches of the
church together, its errors and dissensions remaining as
they are, their idea, savouring, as it does, of homage to
outward unity, on its own account, and aside from its
design, is one of the entering steps toward superstition ;
and we were not surprised recently to hear that pre-
cisely the same idea was a favourite one in the early
studies of one of the modern heresiarchs of England.''
It is true the plan now agitated in Germany, and by
one, or more good men in this country, professes to pro-
vide for union in creed, as well as in church relation. It
would take the grander doctrines of the cross, in which
evangelical sects agree, and build out of them a liberal
and general platform on which all might stand. But that
such a union in creed as this — one effected by striking
out, not by abating, differences — w^ill not answer, may
be made evident, we think, by considering the objects in
which the contemplated union is to be.
(1.) There is to be union in ministry.
Now, how^ever possible it might be to have a creed
that should deal in generals, i. e. the mere skeleton of a
creed, for each private Christian to clothe with flesh as
' Dr. Pusey. A friend who not long since made his acquaintance at
Oxford, after speaking of his suavity of manner, and bonhomie, as con.
trasted with the monkish sternness of one at least of his fellow Tracta-
rians, added, in substance, that the attractive idea of one united church.
appeared to have been the first that allured him into the path of error,
17
194 THE TRUE DOCTPaNE OF CHURCH COMMUNION.
he might choose; it would be exceedingly hard to have
a ministry that should deal in generals; especially, if that
ministry is to be " evangelical," and those generals are
to be " the grander doctrines of the cross."
And hard for two reasons : — that an evangelical
ministry (a) could not, if they would, and (b) would not,
if they could, deal in generals.
(a.) They could not do it, because the points in which
sister churches differ, though called minor points, so
touch the vitals of the gospel, that no minister could
long preach that without preaching them. He could not
always dissect them away. AbiHty or inability — perse-
verance or falling from grace — original guilt or original
innocence, are points on which a constant preacher must
speak his mind, that is, if he have creed enough to tell,
and warmth and clearness enough to tell it, so as to do
his people any good ; and many a hearer would be
obliged to bring his children and his friends, and to come
himself under the influence of teaching, the tendency of
which he might seriously fear.
(b.) But furthermore, an evangelical ministry icould
not deal in generals. Their orders are " to declare all
the counsel of God ;"^ and that loss of power and pun-
gency in preaching which the hiding of the pecuHarities
of their faith would cause, they would never consent to,
if for no other reason than that the sacrifice would be
vastly greater than the end to be attained.
It is no more true, however, that an evangelical
ministry must preach their mind, than that, if they do,
the evangelical churches cannot be united. Let the creed
be as general as it might, a pointed preaching would ruin
» Acts XX. 27.
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION. 195
the plan of union. It would cause collision between
pastor and people. The people, however docilely dis-
posed, would not consent to the mischief of hearing
error. It would cause collision between pastor and
pastor, not only in the ecclesiastical council, but in the
public arena. It would cause collision between people
and people, in choosing a pastor, and in sustaining one
after he is voted in. Therefore, as the very design of
the church is, " union, in order to naore advantageous
teaching," this concord most of all discordant, is neither
her " interest," nor her " obhgation," for it can be
neither, to adopt a plan that frustrates her own design.
(2.) Union in sacraments.
Evangelical churches differ as to the mode and mean-
ing of baptism and the Lord's Supper. Multitudes would
be unable to sacrifice the difference, believing the dying
command of Christ, and the seal of regeneration given
by the Father were matters too holy to be left to human
convention. These must so far dissent from the plan of
union.
Others might yield. But when we remember that the
good of a sacrament is by faith, it is easy to see how
they would be destroying this wdiole department of
worship, receiving sacraments which are explained con-
trary to their faith, and administered contrary to their
faith, and which their faith challenges as really not the
sacraments to which the promises of God are given.
How could a Baptist countenance the solemn mockery
of infant baptism, or one not a Baptist the half-idolatry
of insisting upon immersion 1 Even supposing all human
passion to be held in check, the whole matter would be
one of inextricable difficulty.
There could not be union in sacraments.
196 THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUKION.
(3.) Union in membership.
This of course would have no obstacles peculiarly its
own ; but would find more than enough to render it
impracticable in each of the other three.
(4.) Union in government.
One church out of the many would have to be chosen,
and its government given to all the rest, the rest having,
in their own judgment, to exchange a scriptural for an
unscriptural form.
Now, many would believe their government in such
sense jure divino, that no possible reason is enough to
change it ; while many more would beheve theirs in such
sense jur^e divino, that this particular reason (outward
union) is not enough; of course neither class could have
anything to do with the plan.
Grant, however, that after these were stricken from
the list, a few should remain, and two or three churches,
or parts of two or three, should come together, sober
proof, and proof taken from what quarter you please, —
from church history, or from church experience, or from
self-inspection, would warrant the belief that they would
have less actual concord, and that, too, on the score of
government, when one, than when two or three. The
Christian world would gain in harmony less than it would
lose.
That spirit of innovation which most of all breeds de-
bate, is hard enough to hold in check even under the
present system, where the doors of the churches are open
from one into the other, and men are free to find a
govern n:ient precisely right, but vastly harder under a
system of constrained, artificial oneness and difiicult con-
cession. So, too, that impatience under the arm of dis.
cipline which most of all breeds disorder, is hard enough
THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF CHURCH COMMUNION. 197
to awe down, even under the sanction of a divine right,
but vastly harder under a government confessedly the
fruit of human convention.
An honest summing up of the argument, therefore,
must, we are sure, decide for the third doctrine, and re-
ject the fourth. To excommunicate beyond what the
design of the church requires, is idolatrous. To unite
beyond what the design of the church requires, is idola-
trous. And both, though it may seem a paradox, may spring
from the same source — idolatrous regard for an external
unity. The Protestant churches, as they are, stand, the
mass of them, in an admirable medium — kept from dissen-
sion by being divided, kept from alienation by communion
— agreement and disagreement, in that measure which the
case may show, having found for themselves naturally
their point of equilibrium.
True, as has been admitted all along, perfect union is
devoutly to be wished, but it must be a union beginning
in the creed, and working out to the externals ; any thing
else will be like the healing of the surface over a fester-
ing wound. Speculative error is the sin ; speculative
error, then, is the subject-matter for repentance ; there
let it begin. There must be unison, or there cannot be
union ; all of us speaking the same things, if there are to
be no divisions among us.^" For should one triumph of
the Millennium be a church harmoniously one, it will be
no triumph over the principle that the church must not
be one, any farther than she can be one harmoniously.
» 1 Cor. i. 10.
THE END.
17*
ERRATA.
Page 60, line 10, for *' refuted" read reputed.
Page 88, line 19, for "instructive" read instinctive.
Page 102, line 3, for " this" read His.
Page 115, line 21, for " charge" read charm.
Page 132, line 1, for '* share" read snare.
Page 147, line 21, for " this" read His.
Page 155, line 8, erase " out,"
CHEAP EDITIONS
OF
VALUABLE THEOLOGICAL BOOKS, &c.
Travelling Colporteurs wanted, with whom liberal
terms will be made.
JAMES M. CAMFBELL,
NO. 98 CHESTNUT STREET, PHII^ADErPHIA,
PUBLISHES
O'AIJBIIiN^'S HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN
Germany and Switzerland. Complete in one volume, 8t'o,
with all the Notes and References. — In cloth, $1 ; half-cloth,
75 cents ; paper cover 50 cents.
(IIj^'Also, a new a3*^d beautiful edition of the same tvork, in
three volumes, 12mo,tvith Portraits of Luther, Melancthos-, and
Tetzel.— Half-cloth, $1.
"We wish that a copy of the History of the Reformation could be
placed in the hands of every family in the United States." — New York
Observer.
"When we first read D'Auhign^'s History of the Reformation, we
felt an earnest desire that it might be spread broad-cast through the
land, that the mass of our population everywhere might be familiar
with the price at which that glorious disenthralment was purchased,
and the time-honoured names that shared the struggle. We have now
a prospect of realizing our wish. The American Tract Society is en-
gaged with it. But the greatest effort yet made is found in the follow-
ing notice : (The advertisement of J. M. Campbell's fifty centedition.)
Let it be bought by the lovers of the Reformation, and given to every
person in the land willing to read it and not able to buy it." — Episcopal
Recorder.
" This History is one of the most interesting and important works
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server.
" D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation is a work which, to the
importance of truth, adds the interest of the most stirring romance.'" —
Berks ^- Schuylkill Journal.
1
(2)
THE ORIGIN, PRINCIPLES, AND RESULTS OP THE
BRITISH REPDRMATION. % the rt. Rev. john Henry
Hopkins, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Dio-
cese of Vermont^ l2mo, — Cloth, $1.
" This admirable work is valuable to all true Protestants, and im-
portant to all religious thinkers— a sound work, arranged by a master
hand: one who, if he were not a bishop, would deserve, for this pro-
duction alone, to wear the crown of distinction. Bishop Onderdorik s
prohibition that these lectures should not be delivered from the pulpit
m Philadelphia, has done a sure good to the reading public at large,
affording them an opportunity to 'read, mark, and inwardly digest
them in their own closets, and substantially to profit by that full tide
of thought which solely carries us to the right haven. Clear Chris-
tian truths, aided by the light of history, are enforced and exemplified,
and a careful examination instituted between the principles of the
actual British Reformation and that effected by those eminent men
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full of the clear thought, the kind spirit, and the easy style, which we
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<' These lectures discuss the ensuing topics: 'The Reformation
and its Results— The Rule of Faith— Roman Doctrine of Tradition
and Infallibility Disproved— Papal Supremacy— Romish Anathemas
and Persecution— Celibacy and Monachism— Worship of the Virgin
and Saints, and Rehcs, and Images— Purgatory, Satisfaction, and In-
duP'-ences — and Transubstantiation.' The whole verifies that Rome
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quity are of great value, and critically correct as far as we couJd ex-
amine them ; and the whole volume is a contribution to our series of
antipapist works, which will convince and edify all those who have
not devoted much time to the investigation of Vo^ery:'— Christian In-
telligencer.
" No Episcopalian, who takes an interest in the current religious
discussions, should pass this volume by."— tJ. S. Saturday Post.
AN EXTRAORDINARY DISCOURSE ON THE RISE
AND Fall of Papacy. By Robert Fleming, V. D. M.
Quo. — Paper cover, 25 cents.
(3)
THE ERRORS OF ROMANISM traced to their origin
IN Human Nature. By Archbishop Whately. 8fo. —
Paper cover, 25 cents.
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the unflinching opponent of High Churchism wherever it is found;
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principles of fallen nature, instead of any accidental causes. Of course
it is highly philosophical." — Congregational Journal.
" We are gratified to see this able work in the handsome form be- <
fore us — a form adapted for general and extensive circulation. Those
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need no argument to persuade them to read this learned and lucid
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Christian Observer. . , ^., -u- ^ j„
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cussion of the errors of Romanism, displaying intimate knowledge of
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mind, prepared to distinguish between things that are peculiarly Ro-
mish and such as are common to professed Christians of every sect,
who exalt the human above the divine. • ^ ^ •
" We venture to say that no candid reader will be disappointed m
the perusal of this book." — Protestant Banner.
A VOICE FROM ROME, answered by an American Citi-
zen ; or, A Review of the Encyclical Letter of Pope Gregory
XVI. , A. D. 1832. The Bishop's Oath and the Pope's Curse,
^c, 127710. Paper cover, 12^ cents.
" The documents mentioned in the title are given in full and from
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potism. This is just the sort of testimony which is wanted, and which
is above impeachment. We have referred heretofore at some length
to the incongruities between the liberal professions of Roman Catho-
lic bishops in the United States, and their oath of allegiance to a povver
which denounces, and, as far as it can, prevents by force, the exercise
of every man's natural right to believe what his conscience dictates.
We wish heartily that this pamphlet could be in the hands of every
man, woman, and child in the land. We wish, that those who have
been reared to trust in the purity and justice of the Church of Rome,
would read these documents and judge for themselves, whether their
civil liberty could be secure were tliat church ascendant; whether the
privileges which Americans profess to hold dear would not all be
crushed under its influence. -, . • j
"An able hand has collected the materials of this publication, and
connected them with lucid and forcible comments." — North American.
(4)
HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN, FROM
THE Time of its Establishment to the Retgn of Ferdinatvp
VII. Composed from the Original Documents of the Archives of
the Supreme Council, ^c. By D. Juan Antonio Llorente.
One volume, 8vo. — Half-cloth, 50 cents ; paper cover, 37|
cents.
" Don Juan Antonio Llorente is the only writer who has succeeded
in completely lifting the veil from the dread mysteries of the Inquisi-
tion. It is obvious how very fev/ would be competent to this task,
since the proceedings of the Holy Office were shrouded in such im-
penetrable secrecy, that even the prisoners who were arraigned before
it were kept in ignorance of their own processes. Even such of its
functionaries as have, at different times, pretended to give its transac-
tions to the world, have confined themselves to an historical outline,
with meager notices of such parts of its internal discipline as might be
safely disclosed to the public.
" Llorente was Secretary to the Tribunal of Madrid from 1790 to
1792. His official station consequently afforded him every facility for
an acquaintance with the most recondite affairs of the Inquisition;
and on its suppression, at the close of 1808, he devoted several years
to a lawful investigation of the registry of the tribunals, both of the
capital and of the "provinces, as well as of such other original docu-
ments contained within their archives as had not hitherto been con-
fided to the light of day. It is entitled to the credit of being the most,
indeed S^ The onln authentic History of the Modern Inquisition .-.^Jl
exhibiting its minutest forms of practice, and the insidious policy by
which they were directed, from the origin of the institution down to
its temporary abolition. It well deserves to be studied, as the record
of the most humiliating triumphs which fanaticism has ever been able
to obtain over human reason, and that, too, during the most civilized
periods, and in the most civilized portions of the world." — Prescotfs
Ferdinand and Isabella.
FATHER CLEMENT, a Roman Catholic Story. 12mo.
Paper cover, 25 cents.
" This book, by a lady whose name is deservedly celebrated, con-
tains, fictionary as it is, more valuable truth than many elaborate vo-
lumes against Popery. We perused it many years ago, not only with
interest, but with a sense of foscination and profound feeling. It is the
ablest of Miss Kennedy's striking works. The Papists have been so
much galled by it, as to produce a tale on their part ; a most lame and
impotent affair." — Princeton Review.
(5)
FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS, illustrated. Onc volume, Svo.
In cloth, $1 50.
(JIj* Also, a new and cheap edition, Illustrated luith 54 En-
gravings. — In half-cloth, §1.
" It is one of the remarkable things of the day, that this book can be
sold at ONE DOLLAR. So neat and even beautiful in its appearance, so
plain in its typography ; 650 octavo pages of close print, for the sura
that the most common labourer gets in a single day ! Here the reader
may become acquainted with many of the most remarkable characters
in the Church's remarkable history, and study the gospel in the lives
and deaths of its martyrs." — Episcopal Recorder.
" Fox's Book of Martyrs is a work which ought to be in every Pro-
testant family. The present edition is offered at the extremely low
price of one dollar per copy, and is probably, next to Mr. Campbell's
edition of DAubigne, the cheapest book in the American market.
The publication of such standard works as the History of the Refor-
mation, and the Book of Martyrs, at a rate which places them within
the means of every class of the community, is an enterprise which
commends itself to the favour of every Christian." — Southern Church-
man.
" A republication of this work at this peculiar crisis, when the coun-
try is agitated upon the Catholic question, is exceedingly appropriate.
Mr. Campbell has performed his part in direct reference to the public
taste. The work is embellished by fifty or more engravings, strikingly
illustrative of those dark scenes of depravity which have drenched the
earth in the purest blood which has ever flowed in human veins.
"The persecutions of the Protestants by the Papal Church, which
are here faithfully recorded, are enough to chill one's blood in their
recital, and quite enough to awaken a fearful anxiety lest the same
awful scenes should be repeated in the future history of the Church
and world." — Olive Branch.
A HISTORY OF THE SIE&E OF LONDDNDERRY,
AND Defence of Enniskillen in 1688 and 1689. Bi/ ike
Rev. John Graham, A. M., Rector of Tamlaghtard, in the
Diocese of Berry. l2mo. — Cloth, 62^ cents.
" This is a thrilling narrative of an event in the history of the un-
happy times of Ireland, when religious and civil animosities engen-
dered feuds of the most savage character. There is much at the pre-
sent time to revive interest in the perusal of a book of this sort, and
we doiibt not it will have an extensive sale."' — Phila. Gazette.
" It is full of interest. The sufferings of the Protestants during the
siege are almost incredible. The enumeration is sickening, j-et it is
true. It shows how much human nature can endure when conscience
and religion demand the sacrifice." — Richmond Christ. Advocate.
(6)
PAPAL ROME AS IT IS. ByaRoman.theU^y.h. Gius-
TiNiANi, D. Jy.^ formerly a Roman Priest, now minister of iht
Evangelical Lutheran Church. Duodecimo. — Paper cover,
25 cents.
"Much as we have heard of this volume and its author, it has but
lately fallen into our hands. And it is due to the public, more than
to the publisher, to say, that we regard it as worthy of all confidence,
and as forming a rich though sad treasury of facts, illustrative of the
character of ' Babylon the Great.' Dr. Giustiniani is a Roman by birtJi
and education; a man of learning, and, so far as we can judge, of
sound evangelical piety. Once a Roman priest, he is now a minister
of the Evangelical Lutheran church in this country, labouring with
zeal and strong affection for the conversion of deluded Romanists. As
a stranger he needs credentials ; and they are modestly furnished, from
the highest sources. Whoever reads his "work will be satisfied at once,
that he is an honest, able, and faithful witness, who ' sets down naught
in malice,' but writes in the fear of God, and with an eye to his final ac-
count. ' Papal Rome as it is,' ought not to be overlooked by any man
who lies under the solemn responsibilities of an American citizen, to
God, his country, and the world." — Boston Recorder.
"This little volume of 132 pages should be read by every Protes-
tant. Here, ' Popery as it is,' is brought out and exposed, not with
malevolence, but in a Christian spirit ; not by a Protestant, but by a
Roman; not by a stranger, or a looker-on, but by one born in Rome,
educated a priest, and who actually officiated in the abominations he
portrays.
" This book, if read, will do good, and we are glad to see such truth-
ful expositions of the errors and corruptions of the Papal church,
brought before the public by one fully competent to the task, and in
whom they may have entire confidence." — Baptist Record.
" This volume contains an account of the author's conversion to Pro-
testantism. In developing the different stages of this slow but gradual
process of Divine illumination and sanctiification, the writer presents
to the reader, in a spirited and apparent candid way, much of the 'ini-
quity' of Romanism, indicating that Rome never changes, and not a
few arguments of powerful logic to the overthrow of some of its most
unscriptural and absurd errors. We hope it will be extensively circu-
lated." — Southern Churchman.
** This work seems to be written in a spirit of great kindness, and at
^ this time, when the attention of the world seems distracted by ques-
tions in which Papacy exerts a prominent influence, it will be found
useful for both Catholic and Protestant." — Phita. Gazette.
"The value of this little volume consists in the authentic testimony
which it gives of the corruptions of the Church of Rome, by one who
has been behind the scenes. It is truly marvellous that such a system
should ever be embraced vinder the name of Religion." — Presbyterian.
(7)
THE LIVES OF POPE ALEXANDER VI., AND HIS
Son, Cesar Borgia. By George Gordon. One volume^
Svo. — Paper cover, 37^ cents.
" These are notorious characters, ' condemned to everlasting fame,'
or infamy. To read of their intrigues, their lust, their simony and
cruelty, while professing to guide and govern the church, is to be pain-
fully oppressed with a conviction of the dreadful lengths in wicked-
ness to which a human being can proceed under devout pretences ;
and to feel that God is indeed slow to anger, and of great forbearance,
that he can endure so long, while wretches so vile breathe his air.
Look at this flagrant wickedness, and say if Luther was premature in
his attempt at reformation, or too indignant at abominations which
must have been intolerably loathsome and revolting to a decent mo-
ralist." — Christian Mirror.
" The persons whose biographies are here presented, stand forth
prominently in Ecclesiastical and Civil History, and their lives present
much incident of the deepest interest. The times in which they lived
were filled with stirring events, and the men themselves, from their
personal character, and the infamy with which their career was stained,
must long excite general curiosity. The book is large, handsomely
printed, and will doubtless be very generally read." — N. Y. Courier.
"It comprises the lives of perhaps two of the most depraved and
desperate ministers that ever boasted of succession from the Holy
Apostles of the blessed Redeemer. The lives of these infamous men
were filled with every species of iniquity. But for the fact that they
exhibit the spirit that pervades the headship of a false and apostate
church, such enormities as are here revealed ought to be buried in the
deep and gloomy oblivion of the dark ages.'' — Richmond Christian
Advocate.
A NARRATIVE DF THE INIQUITIES AND
Barbarities practised at Rome in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury. By Raffaele Ciocci, formerly a Benedictine and
Cistercian Monk, Student and Hon. Librarian of the Papal Col-
lege of San Bernardo, .Bile Terme Biocleziane, in Borne. Second
American, from second London edition. With an .American In-
troductory Notice, showing the Existence of Similar Practices
in the United States. V2mo. — Paper cover, 25 cents.
"Among the authentic narratives of modern Jesuit colleges, semi-
naries, and monastic institutions, this history is one of the highest
rank and value ; for it is a development of their true character, as is
proved by two facts ; American youth, male and female, are prohibit-
ed from seeing their family relatives and friends ; and letters are rob-
bed and forged in every papist school and college in the United States,
exactly as Ciocci describes the felonious practice in Rome. Every
citizen should read and ponder this affecting volume. We earnestly
call upon all the lovers of the Bible, and the friends of our public
schools, to study this narrative."' — Christian Intelligencer.
(8)
" We invite attention to this work as an exceeding interesting and
important narrative. We have here unveiled the machinations of
Jesuit priests in the nineteenth century. It is a dark picture of fraud
and cruelty, and shows that the historic mirror yet reveals Rome as
she is." — Episcopal Recorder.
" It abounds with startHng revelations on the subject indicated by
its title. The book ought to be read by every Protestant. — N. Y.
Commercial Advertiser.
" A narrative of thrilling interest, detailing numerous instances of
deceit, falsehood, and fiendish cruelty, practised by the Jesuits and
monks of Rome at the present time. Romanists will no doubt accuse
him of falsehood; but his narrative carries internal evidence of its
truth, in the record of his own errors, and his numerous references to
persons of distinction now living." — Christiaii Observer.
" A simple, truth-like narrative, which makes the blood of an Ameri-
can boil. It cannot be read but with strong emotion.
" This ' Narrative' contains an account of the most outrageous decep-
tions and atrocious cruelties practised at Rome on the author himself
from his thirteenth year, when he entered the Pontifical College. It
should be read by every one who imagines that the character of the
Church of Rome has essentially changed, and that the bloody persecu-
tions of the Vatican have ceased ; and by all who need any testimony
to the barbarity and tyranny of the religious system of that church at
the present time, where it is allowed to develope itself untrammeled
by the restraints of public opinion or legislative enactments." —
Southern Churchman.
EOME'S POLICY TOWAROS THE BIBLE;
or Papal Efforts to Suppress the Scriptures in the
LAST Five Centuries. Exposed by an American Citizen.
l2mo. Paper cover, 15 cents.
"'A Voice from P^ome,' and 'Rome's Policy towards the Bible,' are
tvi'O very instructive and interesting publications from the press of
Mr. Campbell of this city. To this publisher the Christian public is
greatly indebted for the impulse which he has imparted to the circu-
lation of cheap religious literature. For this, he has certainly entitled
himself to the gratitude and the patronage of all who desire to see the
press an ally to the pulpit. The publications which we have just
named afford an illustration of this remark. They present some of
the strongest arguments against popery, in the shape of a simple
statement of facts, or exhibition of authentic documents; and they
exhibit aspects of the subject which cannot often be presented with
convenience from the sacred desk. They present an array of evidence
against the papal power, which is deemed sulTicient to convince any
reasonable man, that popery in the nineteenth century is as utterly
incompatible with the enjoyment of civil and religious freedom as it
was in the sixteenth. Out of the mouth of the canon law, by bulls
of popes, the decrees of CEcumenical councils, and their own solemn
oath of installation, the bishops of the Church of Rome are convicted
of implacable hostility to free institutions. We commend these vo-
lumes to all who feel an interest in the topics of which they treat." —
Episcopal Recorder.
(9)
SPIRITUAL DIREGTION, AND AURICULAR
Confession ; their History, Theory, and Consequences. Being
a translation of " Du Pretre^De la Femme, De la Famille.''^ By
M. MicHELET. \2mo Price 50 cents, in cloth.
" This work has created an immense sensation in Paris, and has
doubtless been one of the principal causes of the late expulsion of the
Jesuits from France.
Notices of the American Press.
"Michelet is one of the ablest writers of the age, and he has thrown
his whole strength into this work." — Neiv York Tribune.
*' The work is intended for his countrymen, but its truths are im-
portant in this. The ghosts of the papal regime are gliding about in
our streets. They betray our humanity into giving them a refuge, too
often in our hearts. But the veil must be hfted from them. Their
hideousness must be exposed, and this Michelet has done most tho-
roughly. He shows that the ignorant priests of our day, instead of
doing less mischief than those of old, do more." — Christian Intelli-
gencer.
" This work is likely to excite considerable attention. It contains
some startling revelations in relation to the almost universal though
secret influence of the Jesuits, even in the privacy of domestic life.
The author asserts that the invisible Jesuit sits in the family circ'e and
boldly denounces the order as ' enemies of the modern mind, enemies
of hberty and of the future.' " — Commercial Advertiser.
" This is emphatically a great book, full of thought ele2:antly ex-
pressed, portraying, in vivid light, the secret intrigues of Jesuitism.
No one can read the work of Michelet without rising from its perusal
alarmed at the power exercised in the confessional over women, and
thus over the family." — Protestant Banner.
" We earnestly hope that the high character of the author, the vigour
and interest of the work, and the importance of the discussion, will
secure for the work a wide circulation and a careful and attentive pe-
rusal. It is just the boolc that is needed on this subject in our country
at the present time." — N. Y. Evangelist.
" This volume owes its origin to the controversy now existing be-
tween the Jesuits and some of the colleges of France. Its develop-
ments of the nature and effects of Auricular Confession are striking
and fearful, and demonstrate, that, as practised in the Roman church,
it is a horrible source of vice and iniquity." — Southern Churchman.
THE LITTLE STONE ANB THE GREAT IMASE;
or, Lectures on the Prophecies Symbolized in Nebu-
chadnezzar's VISION OF the Golden-headed Monster.
By Rev. George Junkin, D. D., President of Miami Univer-
sity, Ohio, 8vo. — In cloth, f 1 50.
( 11 )
THE FROTESTANT GIBLINA FRENCH NUNNERY;
or, School Girl in France. 18mo. — Cloth, Price 37i cents.
" They have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for my
feet.'''' — Jer. xviii. 22.
" This is a narrative founded on facts, intended to point out the al-
leged ' evils attendant on the too common practice of sending young
persons to Romish schools,' thereby 'sapping and undermining the
foundation of a Protestant education.' The work possesses much ge-
neral interest, and induces reflections which are all-important in a
country where an entire separation of church and state is considered
as one of the strongest bulwarks of republican liberty." — Phila. Gaz.
" Those of our readers who wish to know what a Roman Catholic
nunnery is, and what kind of influences are exerted upon Protestant
girls who are placed in them, may profitably consult this little book.
It is written in a fascinating style, and the interest of the narrative is
well sustained." — Vrotestant Banner.
" An aflfecting history, developing the arts of Romanism and the
power and influence of its numerous attractions. The Christian pa-
rent or guardian, who is tempted to intrust the education of his chil-
dren to institutions professedly established for the extension of learn-
ing, but really for the propagation of Popery, would do well to read
this book, and learn what he may reasonably expect. It bears the
stamp of truth. We have seldom been more interested in a narrative ;
but we have higher objects than merely to interest them, when we
cordially recommend its perusal to others." — Baptist Advocate.
" This book might be profitably read by all Protestant parents, too
many of whom are insensible to the snares and dangers to which they
expose their children by intrusting their education to those whom we
believe to be in serious error, and whose proselyting spirit ought to
be so well known." — Banner of the Cross.
" Those Protestant parents who believe that no harm will follow
from intrusting the education of their children to Roman Catholic
teachers, would do well to read this book, and there learn the various
means resorted to by Catholics in order to make proselytes. It em-
braces many points of thrilling interest in regard to the arts and ma-
chinations of the Pope, which are well-calculated to4raw in the young
and unwary.
" It will be extremely useful in Sabbath-school libraries." — Baptist
Record.
THE GIPSIES IN SPAIN: with an original collection of
their Songs and Poetry. By George Borrow. 8^0. — Paper
cover, 3H cents.
" A strange book this ; a strange subject, written by a strange man ;
the only living man competent to write such a book. The volume
contains fine materials for romance, and some even for history ; in-
formation collected from the ends of the earth, and exhibited without
pretensions or parade."- — Westminster Review,
( 12)
NEANSER'S HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN
Religion during the First Three Centuries. &vo. pp 48.
—Cloth, $1 50.
'* This is a work of established and high reputation. Neander has
been termed the great ecclesiastical historian of the age." — Christian
Intelligencer.
"We are gratified to find that this valuable and cheap publication
is presented t-o the public on good paper and legible type ; thus prov-
ing that convenience and cheapness may be combined.
" We commend this work to our readers of all ages : it is a subject
of which none should be ignorant. Who does not wish for accurate
knowledge of the history of the Christian religion and church, during
the first three centuries! The grain of mustard-seed, planted in the
apostolic age, has become a mighty tree, on whose fruit the nations
live, and by whose branches they are sheltered. The reader will find,
in the recital of the early history of the Christian church, an argument
in support of the divinity of its origin. It was introduced into the
world without the attractions of pomp, or the support of power ; and
did not constrain the judgment of men by offering them ' the tribute
or the sword.' Wrapped at first in swaddling-clothes and laid in a
manger, it gradually developed the vigour of manhood, and the purity
of heaven.
" The worshippers of the late false gods of Greece and Rome opposed
the progress of the new religion. But the results of every succeeding
persecution, armed with imperial power, affording additional proof
that the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church, the reli-
gion of Greece and Rome were buried beneath the ruins of their civil
and political institutions. The religion of Jesus of Nazareth survived ;
and when the sign appeared in Heaven, ' By this thou shalt conquer,'
it ascended the throne of the Csesars. Genius and learning have con-
spired for its overthrow ; and the rock remains unshaken. The insidi-
ous pen of the historian has seemed to praise while it aimed to destroy ;
but the simple histories of the ' Fishermen of Gahlee' will be received
by the world, after existing empires shall have declined and fallen,
and new dynasties shall have arisen. In vain did Voltaire proclaim to
the world, ' Crush the wretch.' Every opposer of this Divine Teacher
shall be brought to acknowledge, with the dying apostate Julian, ' O
Galilean ! thou hast conquered.'
"The work of Dr. Neander, which is translated from the German,
has never before been republished in the United States, and is very rare.
Its character may be inferred from a general view of its contents, viz. :
the introduction ; the history of the persecution of Christianity ; the
history of Church discipline and of Christian life and worship ; the his-
tory of Christian sects and doctrines, and an account of the chief
fathers of the Church. Dr. Neander has attained high reputation as a
scholar ; and the discussion of such subjects by an eminent writer
cannot fail to possess high interest, and to contain valuable informa-
tion." — Baltimore American.
(13)
THE HISTORT OF THE GHURGH OF EMUNS,
TO THE Revolution of 1688. By the Rt. Rev. Thomas Fow-
ler Short, D. D., Bishop of So dor and Man. First Ameri-
can^ from the third London edition. 8vo. pp. 380. — Cloth,
$1 50.
" This is a book as interesting to the general reader as to one speci-
ally interested in the remarkable history it develops and extends. It
is written, as far as we can judge from a hasty glance at it, in a liberal,
comprehensive, and Christian spiiit, not sparing the defects of the
Church of England, and not failing to give credit to other sects where
the Vi^riter has thought it was due to them. The typography and gene-
ral appearance of the book are creditable to the taste of the enter-
prising publisher." — -Philadelphia Gazette.
" We welcome this elaborate and valuable work as a most important
addition to the series of Protestant publications from the press of J. M.
Campbell." — North American.
" We feel grateful to Mr. Campbell for his handsome reprint of this
learned, impartial, and valuable work. The publisher of such books
deserves to be liberally sustained and encouraged by the Christian
public, and especially by churchmen. It is the fruit of many years'
reading and immense labour and research ; and, though its professed
object is ' to facilitate the studies of young men who are preparing
themselves for the offices of the church,' there is no class of readers
who will not find in it pleasure and profit." — Banner of the Cross.
" There is a degree of candour and impartiality in this work, which,
for a churchman, is as unusual as it is commendable. The author has
a justifiable partiality for his own church and the tory party, of which
it has been a prominent section in all periods of English history; but
this preference is not allowed to interfere with a candid and honest
statement of facts, whether they bear against the interest and charac-
ter of his friends or are favourable to that of his opponents. With a
just admiration of excellence, wherever found, and a love of fre-edom
and popular rights, he looks upon the whole field of history with the
impartial comprehensiveness of an historian, rather than with the jeal-
ous zeal of a partisan, or the exclusiveness of a sectary. He eulogizes
the Reformation; does something like justice to the character of the
Puritans, of Cromwell, and the Presbyterians; admits the tyranny of
Laud, the weakness and selfishness of Charles, and the violence and
irreligion of the royalists at the period of the revolution." — New York
Evangelist.
" An octavo volume of 352 pages, accompanied by a chronological
and genealogical table and very full index. It is a work of real merit,
written by one strongly attached, of course, to the church of which he
is a member, but apparently no bigot. We will not pretend to vouch
for all his opinions; but such a perusal as we have been enabled to give
to his writings, convinces us that he is sincere in them, and that he is
honest in the statement of facts. His references are numerous. The
religious sentiments which he expresses in the progress of the work
are evangelical in their character ; and the views which he entertains
of Christians of other persuasions evince a charitable spirit." — Baptist
Advocate.
( 14)
" This book has particular claims on the attention of the intelligent
laity, theological students, eind the younger members of the clergy, and
will not be without claims on the elder members of tliat honourable
profession.
" The fact that this work embraces the history of the English church
from the earliest period of English history down to the glorious revo-
lution of 16SS, is all that need be urged in favour of its importance.
The style is easy and chaste ; and the arrangement of numerical sec-
tions enables the reader, by looking over the contents of a chapter, to
find at once the particular subject of his inquiry. As a book of refer-
ence, its value is much increased by the chronological tables and a co-
pious index. The spirit of the author is liberal and Christian. It is
printed in double columns ; and the paper, type, &c., are in the best
style of the publisher.'' — Baltimore American.
NEANBER'S HISTORY OF THE PLANTIN& AND
Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles.
Translated from the third German edition, by J. E. Ryland.
Svo. pp. 335.— Cloth, $1 50; Sheep, $1 75.
[" The author has gained so high a reputation for his learning in the
History of the Church, that it is needless to say his works may always
be read with interest and profit. His peculiar notions as to Church
government, though hostile to Episcopacy, should not deter from the
perusal of a treatise which contains much sound Biblical criticism, and
presents the history of the Apostolic age jn that full detail which is so
necessary to its just comprehension. Almost every page bears the
mark of unwearied research, careful thought, and profound piety,
and while it can be expected of few that they will acquiesce in the
correctness of all his conclusions, yet it will be hard to rise from its
perusal without having exercised useful reflections on the history of
the development of Christianity ; an unbounded theme for philosophi-
cal and religious contemplation." — Protestant Churchman.
" This is a true history of a very important period in the Church.
Its author is one of the most celebrated of living theologians, and his
book will doubtless be heartily welcomed by theological readers.'' —
N. Y. Courier.
" In issuing an American edition of this celebrated work, the enter-
prising publisher has rendered an important service to the public,
the value of which is enhanced by the excellent style in which it ap-
pears." — Christian Observer.
" Some of the author's views do not accord with our own, but, in the
main, we are much pleased with the work, and cheerfully recommend
it" — Baptist Advocate.
( 15)
THE HUGUENOT CAPTAIN; or, the life of Theodore
Agrippa D'Aubigne, during the Civil Wars of France^ in the
reigns of Charles IX., Henry IIL, Henry IV.^ and the majority
nf Louis XUL One volume^ 8vo. — Paper cover, 25 cents.
"This is a handsome pamphlet of 120 octavo pages. It contains
the autobiography of Theodore Agrippa DAubign^, with an account
of the most remarkable occurrences during the civil wars of France,
in the reigns of Charles IX., Henry III., Henry IV., and the minority
of Louis XIII. It forms a highly interesting narrative, which, by
those who can appreciate the character of a brave and honest man,
maintaining his integrity and his principles of piety, amid contentions,
in the face of all the arts and blandishments of courts, and at the
hazard of every interest and life itself, will be read with pleasure.
D'Aubigne was one of the heroic Huguenots, whose memory it is but
an act of justice to rescue from oblivion. Their character and deeds
are worthy of an imperishable record. Many of their descendants, in
the Southern states, are distinguished for intelligence and piety, and
exert an important influence in sustaining the best interests of so-
ciety." — ChrMiari Observer.
A CHARSE, BELIVEKEB TO THE GLEHBY
OF THE United Dioceses of Ossory, Ferns, and Leighlin,
AT his Primary Visitation in September, 1842. By .Tames
Thomas O'Brien, D. D., Bishop of Ossory, ^'c. 8vo. — 25
cents.
"To all interested in the Tractarian Controversy; and what intelli-
gent Protestant is notl this charge of Dr. O'Brien will be invaluable.
The author is well known to be one of the most learned divines of the
day, and ' the Charge' fully sustains the high reputation which Dr.
O'Brien had acquired by his earlier publications. It is a standard work,
and is worthy of the careful examination of all who are interested
in the ditTusion and success of Protestant or Scriptural principles.'' —
Protestant Banner.
"Charge to the Clergy. — "We have received from James M.
Campbell, of Philadelphia, a lucid and elaborate exposition of the na-
ture and dangerous tendencies of Pu^eyism, in a charge delivered by
James Thomas O'Brien, Bishop of Ossory, Ferns, and Leighlin. The
pubUsher deserves the thanks of the community for republishing this
pamphlet. The Bishop speaks like an Episcopalian ; but he never-
theless adopts the languai^e of our common Christianity, not that of
the bigoted Puseyite and Papist. This work contains the best history
of the gradual and stealthy introduction of Puseyism which we have
Been. Its advocates seem" to have deeply studied the ' pious frauds'
of Jesuitism.'' — Preshjjcriun A'lvocatc.
(16)
THE BIBLE IN SPAIN: or,THE journeys, adventures,
AND Imprisonments of an Englishman, in an attempt to
Circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula. By George
Borrow. One volume, 8yo. — In cloth, 62^ cents ; paper cover,
37^ cents.
" So great has been the demand for this work, that the present edi-
tion has been stereotyped. It has been pronounced by all the review-
ers as one of the most charming books of the day ; and we must cer-
tainly agree with them in this particular. It is written in a style of
the most perfect ease and elegance, and is full of recountals of thrilling
adventures and picturesque descriptions. Though imbued with ge-
nuine religious feeling, there is nothing of a sectarian character in
this work; but it is rather a narration of the authors residence and
travels in all parts of Spain, during the five years in which he was the
agent of the English Bible Society for the circulation of the Scriptures
in the Spanish Peninsula.
" We consider Mr. Borrow as an author of the highest rank, and not
merely as an adventurer. His book seems to us to be one of the most
extraordinary that has appeared in our own or any other language for
a long time past. Indeed, we are more frequently reminded of 'Gil
Bias,' in the narrative of this pious, single-hearted man, than in the
perusal of almost any modern novelists pages. We may add, that
Mr. Borrow has an almost irrepressible love of humour, great enjoy-
ment in the observation of character, and a liking for adventure ap-
proached only by the knights of fairy tale. Thus sifted, armed, and
accomplished, he wanders through the wildest scenery of the most ro-
mantic of all lands, Spain ; living with such as he may chance to meet
in the village or forest; or on barren sierra, on lonely heath, or in her
Moorish halls ; and amidst the lowe^ grades of her crowded but im-
{)overished cities; and gathering from all, he brinijs before us such
iving groups as few of us have seen, even in pictures.
" The former work of Mr. Borrow, 'The Gipsies of Spain,' although
it received our highest praise, and however much we had reason to ex-
pect from any subsequent effort of the writer, we were certainly not
prepared for any thing so striking as this work. Apart from its ad-
venturous interest, its literary merit is extraordinary. Never was a
book more legibly impressed with the unmistakeable marks of genius.
W^e cordially recommend this book to the public, and feel sure that
they will agree with us in classing it as one of the most agreeable, en
tertaining, and instructive works ever published." — Athenae^um.
MILNER'S CHURCH HISTORY. The His-
TORT OF THE Church OF Christ. By thc Rkv. Joseph Milxer,
A. M. ; with Additions and Corrections, by the Rev. Isaac Mil-
der, D. D., F. R. S., Dean of Carlisle, and President of Queeyi's
College, Cambridge. From the last London editian. Two volumes,
8t'o.— Sheep, §4 50.
(20)
CONVERSATIONS ON THE PARABLES
OF THE New Testament. By the Rt. Hon. Lord Stanley,
From iht Fifth London edition. — In Cloth, 37^ cents.
" This is a small work designed to assist parents in the religious
education of their children. It is written in a free and easy style, and
contains a very just delineation of the parables of Christ, happily
adapted to the capacity of children. It is related as a singular evidence
of the general appreciation of the book, that it passed through several
editions before the public knew any thing of its autlior." — Richmond
Christian Advocate.
THE ABBEY OF IKNISMOYLE. a storv
OF ANOTHER Century. By the author of " Father Clement,''^
" The Decision,'''* '^ Profession not Principle^'' ^c. \%mo. —
Price, 37^ cents, cloth.
"I love to linger in the narrow field
Of rest ; to wander round from tomb to tomb,
And think of some who silent sleep alone." — Orahame.
" The authorship of this little volume is a sufficient passport to pub-
lic favour. Those who have read the former works of the gifted au-
thoress, will not be disappointed in this." — Presbyterian.
" The author of " Father Clement" is well known as an able advo-
cate of truth, and an interesting writer, whose name will attract the
attention of many readers to the new and handsome volume which
Mr. Campbell has just issued." — Christian Observer.
" This is an exceeding interesting little book. It is by the author of
* Father Clement ;^ and when we say this, we give to all who are ac-
quainted with that work the strongest proof the present one is marked
with uncommon ability. We have often said that we consider ' Father
Clement' unrivalled in that line of composition." — Episcopal Recorder.
THE CURATE OF LINWODD : or, The Real strength
OF the Christian Ministry. First American edition. 18mo.
—Cloth, 37i cents.
(23)
IE GOBMENIN'S HISTORY OF THE POPES,
From the first to the nineteenth Century. Publishing
in numbers of 96 pp. 8vo., to be complete in eight or nine num-
bers. — Price, with two coloured plates, 37^ cents ; without
plates, 25 cents per number.
"De Cormenin's work gives us in a popular and condensed form, a
continuous history of that long succession of Pontitfs who have filled
the 'Holy See.' As a work of mere chronological reference, it will be
found to be one of great value. The author is liimself a Roman Catho-
hc; we are therefore to presume that he has written such a work ao
cannot be accused of any prescriptive feeling. We therefore feel great
gleasure in having this translation laid before the American public,
efore it has appeared even in England, except in its original lan-
guage. Its pages will be found full of startling incident, narrated with
graphic force; it not only affords a comprehensive history of the Chris-
tian Church, but necessarily involves the pohtical history of the world,
for the power of Rome was at one time interwoven with the state
policy of every nation in Christendom. As its narrative emerges from
the darkness of primitive times it gathers strengh and interest; it is
invested with all the attributes of the author's genius, and has Ihrouirh-
out a healthy tone of republican fcelins:, which must commend it to
the attention of every American."' — Phita. Gazette.
"The History of the Popes is a history of crime in its highest forms,
and is the best commentary which can be furnished on the true charac-
ter of Popery ; for surely we may judge of the system by its head.
De Cormenin is a Roman Catholic, and his testimony therefore may be
relied on, and awful are the disclosures he makes. The edition of
Mr. Campbell will commend itself to favour." — Presbyterian.
" This work is to be issued in numbers, illustrated with engravings,
and contains a terrible story of the crimes that constitute so large a
part of the history of the Church of Rome. It will doubtless be widely
circulated, and will aid essentially in opening the eyes of the people
to the mystery of iniquity." — New York Observer.
" The want of a history of the Popes of Rome, at once complete,
concise, and at the same time written in a popular style, has long been
felt as a desideratum in our language. That void is now supplied ;
and at this juncture, when the struggle of the Church of Rome for fu-
ture power has been transferred from Europe to our own land, it is
desirable that such a book be placed within the reach of all." — CAm-
tian Intelligencer.
(33)
PUBLISHING IN NUMBERS.
SCOTT'S COMMENTAKY ON THE HOLY BIBLE.
Ji quarto edition. From the London Standard edition, with the
author'' s last corrections and improvements. To he completed in
fifty numbers. — Price 35 cents each.
"We have seen no edition of Scott equal to this in typographical
execution ; it is admirably adapted for a ' Family Bible,' to last through
a generation, and as it is expected to make fifty numbers, the cost will
be $12 50, when the old coitions cost from $18 to $25. Some other
commentators may be superior to Scott in a knowledge of Eastern
languages and an application to the laws of interpretation ; while he
will be read for generations for his sound sense, reverence for the di-
vine authority of the scriptures, and his unequalled 'Practical Obser-
vations.' " — Congregational Journal.
" We regard it as superior to any preceding edition." — Preshijterinn.
"As a convenient readable book, for the aged as well as the young,
it is superior to every other edition with which we are acquainted." —
Christian Observer.
" We are reioiced at the publication of this great work, not only be-
cause of its excellence, its sound theology, and practical piety, but
also because the style of the work is just what it should be. It is such
a satisfaction to have the Bible in large, clear, eleiiant pages; such as
the copy before us. Then the notes too, are not crowded and confused
that no one but a proof reader can follow them ; on the contrary, they
are so clear and plain, that any one, the oldest people, that can read
at all, may read them with ease and pleasure. We rejoice most
heartily at this publication." — New Orleans Protestant.
" It is almost superfluous to speak of the character and merits of
Scott's Commentary, so widely known and so highly approved by the
various evangelical denominations both in our own country and in
England. It gives us pleasure, however, on this^rs^ occasion pre-
sented to us by the appearance of a new edition of the work, to express
our opinion of its value, formed after an extended and familiar ac-
quaintance with English commentators on the Holy Scriptures; that
for all purposes which christians in general demand of a commentary
on the sacred writings, Scott's stands as yet unrivalled in our language.
The present edition, for which the public will be indebted to the en-
terprize of Mr. Campbell, is in a large quarto form, on excellent paper,
and on large and clear type, which, as regards the notes and practical
observations, is of no little importance, in a work of daily use. We
hope Mr. C. will receive a patronage for his meritorious enterprize,
which will justify the issue of a large edition." — Richmond Christian
Advocate.
Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library
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