LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Shelf— i^Sf 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 5§|f (JIjrisMHii ti(npr(. 
 
 SIX SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, NEWBURYPORT, MASS. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. J. H. Van Buren. 
 
 " Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one 
 Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one 
 God and Father of all." — Eph. TV: 3-6. 
 
 NEW YORK : JAMES POTT & COMPANY. 
 
 NEWBURYPORT, MASS.: GEO. H. PEARSON. 
 
 1886. 
 
iN **» 
 
 #N^ 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by 
 
 JAMES H. VAN BUREN, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 PKINTED AND BOUND BY 
 
 THE CLAREMONT MANUFACTURING CO., 
 
 CLAREMONT, N. H. 
 
®0 
 
 5L Venerable priest 
 
 in tl)£ (Eljttrcf) of <&>ob, 
 
 lUDortljp of Jmitation, for ijis pure Jfaitl), cSouno learning, 
 
 ant 3ibnntant labours in % Gospel, 
 
 £l)is Book 
 
 10, bt) permission, 
 tilespertfullt) JDeoicateo. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 These sermons are published at the request of many who 
 heard them when they were preached. It is hoped that they 
 may prove useful in suggesting a deeper study of the topics 
 they outline. For there is need to-day of a positive Church- 
 manship, based upon principle ; and not merely the result of 
 a gratified aesthetic perception, or of release from outworn 
 systems of human device. 
 
 That so large a proportion of the serious and reflective el- 
 ement among the people of the United States are turning 
 away from sensational claptrap and secular topics, which in 
 many quarters take the place of the pure Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, is a fact to inspire devout thanksgiving. Attracted 
 by the reverence and decorum of the Prayer Book, the daily 
 accessions to our parishes, indicate in what direction religious 
 thought is tending. Official figures show that in 1875, the 
 number of our communicants was 280,000. In 1885, it had 
 reached 398,098 — an increase of 42 per cent.\ whereas the in- 
 crease of population in the United States during the same 
 decade was estimated at only 25 per cent. But the increase 
 in parishioners, regularly enrolled or semi-detached, during 
 the same period, has far exceeded that of the communicants. 
 How far cannot be told, as statistics are not reported. Among 
 these people vestiges of former prejudice, misconstruction and 
 misinformation need to be removed, that the way may be 
 opened to those highest blessings which the Church has to 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 offer to all sorts and conditions of men ; in the ways of Con- 
 firmation and Holy Communion. In the spirit of a sincere 
 desire to serve this end, and with a deepening sense of the 
 responsibility resting upon us, to tell abroad what things the 
 Lord hath done for us, and for our fathers, this course of ser- 
 mons was undertaken. Where topics have been touched with 
 enforced brevity, needful references will point to fuller infor- 
 mation. The bitter spirit of controversy has no place in these 
 pages. 
 
 J. H. V. B, 
 March, 1886. 
 
I. 
 
 THE FOUNDATION OF APOSTLES AND 
 PROPHETS. 
 
 " Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens 
 with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built 
 upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
 himself being the chief corner stoite." — Ephes. ii : 19, 20. 
 
 The history of the Christian Church deservedly claims a 
 place in the foremost rank of important studies. Many re- 
 ligious questions that perplex the minds of our people would 
 be seen in their true relations, did they consider them in their 
 historical aspect. Many customs and appliances would be 
 better appreciated if their history were more generally under- 
 stood. A better charity is always begotten of a fuller knowl- 
 edge of that truth in which charity rejoiceth. A deeper con- 
 fidence in the verities of our most holy faith ever follows the 
 learning which explores the territory of conquest which has 
 been won in fulfilment of the words : "This is the victory 
 that overcometh the world, even your faith." 
 
 Not long ago I was permitted to examine before you in a 
 course of sermons, the Foundations of the Faith. The atten- 
 tion and interest which you evinced in that study and the 
 many kind expressions of appreciation which I was so thank- 
 ful to hear, have emboldened me to think that a similar series 
 having the Christian Church for its theme might be equally 
 
8 THE FOUNDATION OF 
 
 serviceable. In the nature of the case, I must, now, as then, 
 repeat some things which are well known to many of you. I 
 hope I may also have the good fortune to tell you some things 
 which have escaped your attention. 
 
 It shall be my endeavour to tell "a plain unvarnished tale," 
 to indulge in no theories., to avoid speculations, to withhold 
 no fact of importance to the story, so far as truth may be rec- 
 onciled with brevity. I shall not shrink from laying bare the 
 deformity that has marred the record of some who were chil- 
 dren of the Church. There will be pages I shall be sorry to 
 read but none that I shall be afraid to open. We shall look 
 upon phases of Christian History when lethargy seemed to 
 have laid hold upon the very life of the Church. We shall 
 trace the origin of sect and division, in no spirit of conten- 
 tious pride or bigotry ; but taking shame and sorrow to our- 
 selves where they are due, for the occasion that gave them 
 excuse. We shall come, I trust, to a more perfect understand- 
 ing of the work the Christian Church still has to do, and a 
 more intelligent use of that part of the Creed wherein we say, 
 "I believe .... in the Holy Catholic Church." 
 
 The subject for this morning, is the Foundation of Apos- 
 tles and Prophets, or the Church in the Bible Age. And here 
 let me beg you to avoid that notion which I fear is toe widely 
 prevalent, that there is no connection between the Jewish and 
 the Christian Church. Many people seem to think that God 
 was trying an experiment in the Jewish dispensation and 
 found it did not work. That is the Gospel according to In- 
 gersoll but not according to St. Paul, who declares that " the 
 law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." Not with- 
 out deep significance does he link together in the text I have 
 chosen, the words "apostles and prophets:" telling the Eph- 
 
APOSTLES AND PROPHETS. 9 
 
 esian Christians that they are built upon the one foundation 
 of them both. I have even heard people say that they had 
 almost entirely given up reading the Old Testament, because 
 they felt that most of it did not concern them. Such people 
 never understand the Christian Church. For though it is 
 written, "Old things are passed away; behold, all things are 
 become new," yet, did not the Master say, also, " I am come 
 not to destroy the works of the law, but to fulfil" ? God made 
 no vain experiment in the Jewish Church. He did not bring 
 in the Christian Church because that one was a failure. The 
 very thought is revolting if not profane. The way for the 
 new was prepared by the old, and principles that were en- 
 shrined there, bloomed as plants removed from the nursery 
 and set in the wide field to enjoy the sunshine and cope with 
 the storm. The Gospel adds no new commandment, but it 
 summarizes the ten in the new form of two. The first and 
 great commandment "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God," is 
 the first four in shorter yet more comprehensive form, the 
 second which is like unto it, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour," 
 was "writ large" in the last six. The Christian Church is 
 the larger development of the Jewish. Its enemies at the first 
 considered it as nothing but a Jewish sect. Said the Roman 
 Jews who came to visit St. Paul when he was a prisoner, 
 " We desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest, for as concern- 
 ing this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against." 
 Not only did our Lord Himself attend the worship and obev 
 the ordinances of the Temple when He was in Jerusalem, and 
 join in the forms prescribed for the synagogue when else- 
 where, but His disciples also for a long time did the same. 
 Corruptions had crept into the Jewish Church, it is very true, 
 and our Saviour condemned them ; but the Church itself was 
 
IO THE FOUNDATION OF 
 
 pure in its standards. Simeon was not corrupt, neither was 
 Anna, nor Nathanael, "an Israelite indeed in whom was no 
 guile." And so the transition from Jewish to Christian was 
 not abrupt, it was gradual. Much that was fit to survive, 
 passed into the new dispensation. Baptism was not new ; 
 sacrifice kept its spiritual part and laid aside only its outward 
 shell ; the Holy Communion was instituted in the very ele- 
 ments of the Paschal Supper, and sin offering was consum- 
 mated in the one, full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation 
 and satisfaction, that was offered on Calvary. 
 
 " There remaineth no more sacrifice for sin," while there 
 do remain spiritual sacrifices to be offered up by the royal 
 priesthood of all Christian believers. The idea of a chosen 
 people was not obliterated, it was so deepened and expanded, 
 that an Apostle finds inspiration guiding him to say to 
 Christians " Ye are the temple of the living God, as God 
 hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them and I will 
 be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come 
 out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord." 
 Both the Old Testament and the Jewish Church must be un- 
 derstood in order to an understanding of the New Testament 
 and of the Christian Church. The foundation of apostles is 
 never perfectly held, except when it is understood to embrace 
 the foundation of prophets also. 
 
 A brief sketch of the Jewish Church will open the way to 
 an intelligent pursuit of that study which we have set before 
 us. Says Dean Stanley in the preface to his lectures on this 
 subject, "The History of the Jewish Church, is divided into 
 three great periods : each subdivided into lesser portions ; 
 each with its own peculiar characteristics ; each terminated 
 by a single catastrophe. 
 
APOSTLES AND PROPHETS. II 
 
 " The first commences, properly speaking, with the Exodus ; 
 and then, passing through the stages of the Desert, the Con- 
 quest, and the settlement in Palestine, ends with the destruc- 
 tion of the Sanctuary at Shiloh, and the new institution of 
 the Monarchy. Its great characters are Abraham, Moses 
 and Samuel." This, he says, "embraces the first Revelation 
 of the Mosaic Religion and the first foundation of the Jewish 
 Church and Commonwealth. 
 
 " The second period covers the whole history of the Mon- 
 archy. It includes the Empire of David and Solomon ; and 
 then dividing itself into the two separate streams of the North- 
 ern and Southern kingdoms, terminates in the overthrow of 
 Jerusalem and the Temple by the Chaldean armies. It com- 
 prehends the great development of the Jewish Church and 
 Religion through the growth of the Prophetic Order and the 
 first establishment of the Jewish Commonwealth as a fixed 
 institution. It is marked by the rise and fall of the tribe of 
 Judah. The third period begins with the captivity. It includes 
 the Exile, the Return, and the successive periods of Persian, 
 Grecian, and Roman Dominion." Out of this period, he adds, 
 grew "the last and greatest development of the Prophetic 
 Spirit, out of which grew the Christian Church, and, the con- 
 sequent expansion of the Jewish Religion into a higher relig- 
 ion ; whilst at the same time the dissolution of the existing 
 Church and Commonwealth of Judea was brought about by 
 the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple in the war of 
 Titus, and by the final extinction of the national independ- 
 ence, in the war of Hadrian." 
 
 I have quoted these words of the late Dean of Westminster 
 not only for the clear language in which they sum up the en- 
 tire history from the Exodus to the Pentecostal Birthday of 
 
12 THE FOUNDATION OF 
 
 the Christian Church, but also because they furnish a most 
 convenient and orderly presentation of the grand subject of 
 the Jewish Church itself, in a method most easily remem- 
 bered. Please bear in mind this threefold division, and the 
 Old Testament will be very much more clear to you as you 
 understand to which period its writings belong. There are the 
 writings which refer to events before the Exodus, and then 
 come the three great periods of the History of the Jewish 
 Church viz.: From the Exodus in the days of Moses to the 
 Monarchy in the days of Samuel. From the Monarchy to 
 the Babylonish Exile, and from the Exile to Christ. 
 
 Now through all these ages, the Jewish Church had an 
 identity. It could always be discerned. The ten tribes of 
 the north lapsed into idolatry and you will find the story of 
 it in the books of the Kings, and in the twelve Minor Proph- 
 ets, beginning with Hosea. The writings of Isaiah and Jere- 
 miah also are burdened with it. Judah and Benjamin kept 
 the true worship, not perfectly indeed, but with many a tra- 
 dition overlying the truth, begotten of the dreary formalism 
 of Scribes and Pharisees. Still that part of the nation called 
 Judah did not fall into idolatry, and we can see very clearly 
 what was the nature of the Jewish Church. Look at what- 
 ever age of that Church you please, as the nation passed from 
 one condition to another you will always find four dominant 
 ideas pervading its whole fabric, viz., these : (a) The Oneness 
 of God in distinction from the many gods of the heathen. 
 
 (b) The idea of Sacrifice as a means of communion with God. 
 
 (c) A divinely appointed Priesthood to represent the ideal 
 holiness of the nation and to offer sacrifice as their represen- 
 tatives, and (d) The onlooking toward a Future in which they 
 were to conquer all other nations, under the leadership of One 
 
APOSTLES AND PROPHETS. 1 3 
 
 whom they called the Messiah. These four things are always 
 present in the varying history and fortunes of the Jewish 
 Church. As time went on, Prophets appeared and sacred 
 books were multiplied. Armies were organized, and cities 
 built, a throne was erected, and a nation formed, battles were 
 fought and won or lost, part of the nation became idolaters ; 
 but, all along, these four things belonging to the very nature 
 of the Jewish Church are plainly visible : The worship of one 
 God, the system of Sacrifice, the office of the Ministry, and 
 the expectation of Messiah. 
 
 The sweep of centuries transformed the tribal and nomad- 
 ic people into a settled commonwealth ; the commonwealth 
 became a kingdom ; the tent or Tabernacle gave place to one 
 majestic Temple, with splendid ritual and elaborate ceremonial, 
 its minutest details ordered by Divine direction. High Priest, 
 Priest and Levite, each as an order in the threefold ministry, 
 had his official station and duty. A Synagogue was built in 
 later days, in every considerable town, modelled after the one 
 great Temple both in architecture and in ritual. But always 
 these four things were the predominant features of the Jew- 
 ish Church. Whatever might be the variations in outward 
 form, they remained unchanged, wherever the Jews were true 
 to their own religion. 
 
 Without entering minutely at present into the features of 
 the regular worship and discipline in Temple and in Syna- 
 gogue, it will be sufficient to point out a fact to which we 
 shall return later on, viz : that the Jewish worship was litur- 
 gical, after a prescribed order. To that prescribed order our 
 Saviour conformed and upon it the worship of the Christian 
 Church was afterward framed. The forms of prayer in use 
 in the Synagogues were the means of worship to which Christ 
 
14 THE FOUNDATION OF 
 
 was accustomed, as is abundantly manifest from frequent ref- 
 erences in the New Testament. The Synagogue had its an- 
 nual round of festivals and fasts, its weekly Sabbath, its- spe- 
 cial offices, its appointed hours of prayer, and its attitudes of 
 devotion. It had its regular table of lessons from the Law 
 and the Prophets, its Hymnal was the Book of Psalms. Its 
 Creed was the Shema, composed of three passages from the 
 Old Testament beginning "Hear O Israel : The Lord our God 
 is one Lord." It was called the Shema from the Hebrew 
 word meaning " Hear," which began it. It had its sermon 
 for teaching, and its benedictions. Such in its principal fea- 
 tures was the public worship to which our Saviour lent the 
 sanction of His own observance. We shall revert to this 
 point when we come to consider how the Book of Common 
 Prayer grew out of the Synagogue worship. 
 
 Passing on now from the foundation of prophets to the 
 foundation of apostles we must briefly touch upon the Gospel 
 which the Christian Church has to proclaim. That Gospel 
 is the history of the Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ from 
 His Advent to His Ascension, together with the doctrines 
 which logically grow out of that History. The facts and the 
 doctrines of the Gospel, together with the two institutions of 
 Baptism and Holy Communion, our Lord's own appointment, 
 we find to be the treasure committed to the Christian Church. 
 And from the very outset we find four predominant features 
 by which the Christian Church is to be distinguished. Four 
 features marked the Jewish Church, four also mark the Chris- 
 tian ; for we, read in the second chapter of the Acts of the 
 Apostles, that "they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' 
 doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and 
 in [the] prayers." x Here were reproduced in fullness the 
 
APOSTLES AND PROPHETS. 15 
 
 features of the elder Church. Here was preserved the iden- 
 tity of the foundation of apostles and prophets. As time 
 went by, the life of Jesus Christ was written, and the Chris- 
 tian Church added to the Old Testament the four accounts 
 of the one Gospel, together with epistles in which the doc- 
 trines of the Christian religion were stated by those whom 
 our Saviour had appointed to proclaim that Gospel. But we 
 must never forget that the Christian Church was founded long 
 before a word of the New Testament was written. Accord- 
 ingly, we look, in the New Testament, to find the history of 
 things already begun, and not to find directions of things yet 
 to be done. We look not to find commandments about the 
 foundation of the Church, but to find the account of that 
 foundation which had been already laid. 
 
 And thus in the beginning it is plain that the Church was 
 not Episcopal, neither was it Presbyterian, nor yet Congre- 
 gational, nor Methodist, nor Baptist, nor Quaker, nor Unita- 
 rian. What then was it ? It was Apostolic. The little 
 company of eleven apostles added one to their number after 
 the apostacy of Judas, and restored the original number of 
 twelve ; the number of the twelve tribes of God's ancient 
 people, and waited for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It 
 came; and they began, under that inspiration, to build up the 
 apostolic Church in the one apostolic faith of the gospel. 
 Their appointment as ambassadors for Christ did not come 
 from the people, it came from Christ. Their commission 
 came not from below but from above. Gradually as the 
 numbers of disciples increased, new officers appeared, in- 
 creasing the number of apostles. Their original purpose 
 was to be witnesses to the people of the Resurrection of our 
 Lord ; but, by divine appointment, Saul was added to the 
 
l6 THE FOUNDATION OF 
 
 number, who was not an eye-witness of the Resurrection ; 
 at least not as the others were. 
 
 Barnabas was likewise ordained an apostle, showing that 
 there were some duties belonging to the apostolic office which 
 were not to be confined to the twelve. An emergency arose 
 in the distribution of alms ; the apostles were ready for it. 
 "Look ye out seven men," said they, "of honest report 
 whom we may appoint over this business." Upon these 
 seven the apostles laid their hands and thus arose the order 
 now known as deacons. These deacons could preach and 
 baptize, both of which things they did ; but there were other 
 offices which they could not perform ; as for example, when 
 Philip, one of the seven, went down to Samaria and preached, 2 
 they who believed were baptized ; but Philip could take 
 them no farther, and so we read that "when the apostles which 
 were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word 
 of God, they sent unto them Peter and John, and they laid 
 their hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost." 
 The same thing happened at Ephesus. That was Confirma- 
 tion. By and bye we find mention of presbyters or elders, 
 with no record of their first appointment, and after that we 
 read that the apostles ordained elders in every city. These 
 elders were also called bishops, or overseers, as well as pres- 
 byters, (the Greek word presbyter, is the same as elder,) and 
 thus we find in the New Testament these three orders in the 
 Christian ministry, (i) Apostles, (2) Bishops or elders or pres- 
 byters, and (3) Deacons. The old ordering of the Jewish 
 ministry was reproduced. High Priest, Priest, and Levite 
 found their fulfilment in Apostle, Bishop or Presbyter, and 
 Deacon. It is not for me to say whether this was right or 
 wrong. I am here to tell you the facts. These three offices 
 
APOSTLES AND PROPHETS. 1 7 
 
 were distinct in some functions, in others they were identi- 
 cal. All were engaged in preaching and baptizing, but not 
 all in ordaining, or in governing the various congregations. 
 Miraculous gifts were gradually withdrawn, but certain func- 
 tions remained. Apostles and Bishops or Presbyters united 
 in ordaining to the office of the ministry, an act in which no 
 Deacon is said to have taken part. The care of a particular 
 parish Or church was entrusted to a bishop or presbyter, who 
 is called also (in Revelation) the angel of that church, and 
 usually included the entire Christian community, not a 
 large number, in each city or town. Deacons were joined 
 with the Bishop or Presbyter in his parochial work, and the 
 Apostles had care over all the parishes or churches. As 
 time passed on, the original order was modified and the title 
 of Apostle was confined to those who were so called in the 
 New Testament. As in the Jewish Church there were 
 prophets and teachers, so we read that there were the same in 
 the early Christian Church, but these did not continue, or form, 
 in either case, a separate order in the ministry. They served 
 an end in time of critical emergency and were not perpet- 
 uated. We shall see in the next sermon how the sub-apos- 
 tolic age modified the form while it kept the substance of the 
 Church ; adapting it as was done in Jewish times to the 
 needs of the day. But through all the ages of the Christian 
 Church the four things which distinguished that Church at 
 the first are always to be found ; they ran like a golden 
 thread through all her history, no place can be found where 
 the thread is broken : no age in which there cannot be found 
 the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, the breaking of the 
 bread, and the prayers. 
 
 True, we shall often find places where sin abounds. Often 
 
1 8 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 
 
 we shall find the trappings and ceremonial of a corrupt and 
 idolatrous practice stealing in and obscuring the true and 
 primitive purity just as was the case in the history of the 
 Jewish Church ; but we shall see the golden thread with its 
 fourfold witness gleaming again and again when the impuri- 
 ties are rolled away. And these four things are in the world 
 to-day, kept by the Christian Church from age to age ; — the 
 Christian Bible, the Christian Ministry, the Christian Com- 
 munion and the Christian Liturgy; — the apostles' doctrine 
 and fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers. 
 Having these four things we are certified that we have a 
 right to take those inspired words to ourselves, in this far off 
 century, and to be sure that we also "are no more strangers 
 and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the 
 household of God, and are built upon the foundation of 
 apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief 
 corner stone." 
 
 II. 
 
 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND THE TEN 
 GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill 
 you : and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.— 
 St. Matt, xxiv : 9.. 
 
 The time covered by the New Testament writings had not 
 elapsed before these terrible predictions began to be fulfilled. 
 
THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 1 9 
 
 We can see the spirit of persecution beginning to oppress 
 the infant Church at Jerusalem, its birth-place, as though the 
 Church were to be strangled before it had strength to defend 
 itself. "The priests and the captain of the temple and .the 
 Saducees came upon them, being grieved that they taught the 
 people." " Herod the King stretched forth his hands to vex 
 certain of the church, and he killed James the brother of 
 John with the sword," and put Peter in prison "and delivered 
 him to four quarternions of soldiers to keep him." " Un- 
 believing Jews stirred up the Gentiles" at Iconium, "and 
 made their minds evil affected at the brethren." At Athens, 
 they cried out, "These that have turned the world upside 
 down are come hither also." These passages and others 
 like them are familiar to every reader of the book of the 
 Acts of the Apostles. 
 
 But notwithstanding, the number of believers increased, 
 and churches were multiplied, so that when the time that is 
 included in the New Testament Scriptures had ended, we 
 find churches in the following places, Jerusalem, Antioch, 
 Ephesus, Corinth, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Phil- 
 adelphia, Laodicea, Philippi, Colosse, Cenchrea, Rome, Thessa- 
 lonica, besides the other churches of Galatia, of Syria and 
 Cilicia where St. Paul "went confirming the churches," 
 Crete, probably also in Cyprus, Cyrene, Lystra, Derbe, Ico- 
 nium, and Cesarea, with indications of still others. These 
 all had one religion, one common gospel. And we are told 
 that the apostles as they went through the cities, "delivered 
 them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the 
 apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem, and so were the 
 churches established in the faith, and increased in number 
 daily." * 
 
20 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 
 
 We read also that the apostles "ordained them elders in 
 every church," 4 and St. Paul writes to Titus, "For this cause 
 left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldst set in order the things 
 that are wanting and ordain elders in every city, as I had ap- 
 pointed thee :" 5 adding these .words: "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." In the opening verse of the Epistle to 
 the Philippians we find these words: "Paul and Timotheus, 
 the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus 
 which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." And 
 again the Spirit of the Lord addresses, through St. John in 
 the Revelation, those who were in charge of individual 
 churches and calls them the "Angels" of those churches. 
 The word angel means simply "messenger." Accordingly 
 we find that all these apostolic churches were under the di- 
 rection of elders, called also bishops, or angels, or presbyters; 
 that is to say, they had one and the same form of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 We are now to leave behind the apostolic days, and take 
 up the history of the Christian Church during the sub- 
 apostolic age, giving some account of what are commonly 
 called the "Ten Great Persecutions." But first it may be 
 necessary to say that as the word Bishop is from the Greek, 
 "Episcopos," therefore, when we speak of a church as being 
 Episcopal we mean simply that it is under the government 
 of Bishops. And as was pointed out last Sunday, the 
 Church at the first was not Episcopal but Apostolic. We are 
 not to make any theories here, but to tell the history sincerely, 
 and just as we find it; neither distorting the facts, nor col- 
 ouring the record; neither biased by prejudice nor influenced 
 
THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 21 
 
 by feeling. The first writer in sub-apostolic times to whom 
 I shall refer is Clement of Rome. He wrote the epistle 
 from which I shall quote, about the year 95. The term sub- 
 apostolic is preferred to post-apostolic because it means near- 
 est or next to the apostolic times, whereas " post-apostolic," 
 may mean any time after the apostles. I take the sub-apos- 
 tolic age to mean from the times of the Twelve to the First 
 General Council at Nicaea, in 325 A. D. 
 
 St. John, the " beloved disciple," lived until about 100, A. D. 
 Nearly one third of the history of the first three centu- 
 ries of the Church occurred during his lifetime. Starting 
 with all these apostolic churches, just as they were when St. 
 John was yet living, each under the rule of a Bishop, or 
 Presbyter, or Angel, what does Clement say ? The epistle is 
 full of exhortations to unity, humility, patience, faithfulness, 
 and diligence. It was a time as we know, of suffering, and 
 the exhortations are enforced by scriptural quotations in great 
 number. The following words will be of interest as showing 
 how in the year 95 the Church was constituted, all the Twelve 
 having died but St. John. Clement says : "The apostles re- 
 ceived the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ. ... So 
 preaching everywhere in country and town, they appointed 
 their first-fruits ; when they had proved them by the Spirit, 
 to be bishops and deacons." "And our apostles knew 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife over 
 the name of the bishop's office. For this cause therefore, 
 having received complete foreknowledge, they appointed the 
 aforesaid persons, and afterward they provided a continuance 
 [gave instructions] that if these should fall asleep, other ap- 
 proved men should succeed to their ministration." "Blessed 
 are those Presbyters who have gone, before,, seeing that, their 
 
22 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 
 
 departure was fruitful and ripe." Clement is writing to the 
 church at Corinth and we find him using the following en. 
 treaties against such divisions as we know had already begun 
 to appear in the Corinthian church ; "Take up the epistle of 
 the blessed Paul the Apostle," he says : "What wrote he 
 first unto you in the beginning of the gospel ? Of a truth 
 he charged you in the Spirit concerning himself and Cephas 
 and Apollos, because that even then ye had made parties. 
 Yet that making of parties brought less sin upon you ; for 
 ye were partisans of apostles that were highly reputed, and 
 of a man highly reputed in their sight. It is shameful, 
 dearly beloved, yes, utterly shameful, and unworthy of your 
 conduct in Christ, that it should be reported that the very 
 steadfast and ancient church of the Corinthians, for the sake 
 of one or two persons maketh sedition against its presbyters. 
 And this report hath reached not only us, but them also 
 which differ from us, so that ye even heap blasphemies on 
 the name of the Lord by reason of your folly, and moreover 
 create peril for yourselves." I shall make but one more 
 quotation from this writer and then pass on to a later one. 
 "We ought to do all things," he says, "in order, as many as 
 the Master hath commanded us to perform at their appointed 
 seasons. Now the offerings and ministrations he commanded 
 to be performed with care, and not to be done rashly or in 
 disorder, but at fixed times and seasons. They therefore 
 that make their offerings at the appointed seasons are ac- 
 ceptable and blessed ; for while they follow the institutions of 
 the Master they cannot go wrong." 
 
 It may be asked at this point, what those institutions were ? 
 The only answer that can be given is that found in the book 
 of the Acts, "the apostles' doctrine, and fellowship, the 
 
THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 23 . 
 
 breaking of bread, and [the] prayers." The " offerings " must 
 have been spiritual and material. 
 
 The next writer to whom I ask your attention is Pliny the 
 younger ; but first I must ask you to remember again in 
 what troublesome times the Christians of those early days 
 were living. A period of persecution was that in which the 
 sun went down on the life of St. Paul, in the days of Nero 
 the Emperor, about the year 65. From that time to the 
 year 95 was a time of rest. Then came the second of the 
 " Ten Great Persecutions " as they are commonly called, 
 under the Emperor Domitian. It was then that St. John 
 was banished to the island of Patmos where he wrote the 
 book of the Revelation. Eight years of peace ensued. 
 When that was over Trajan came to the throne and from 104 
 to 1 17 persecution for the third time prevailed. Pliny was 
 Trajan's nephew and we shall read some extracts from his 
 letters to the Emperor, written when he was proconsul of 
 Pontus and Bithynia. The fourth persecution followed an- 
 other interval of rest and was in the reign of Hadrian, 125 
 A. D. Marcus Aurelius who reigned from 161 to 180, perse- 
 cuted ; and this made the fifth persecution. Polycarp, Bishop 
 of Smyrna, was slain at that time. Again peace lasted for 
 20 years, after which Severus persecuted the Church, espe- 
 cially in Africa, from 200 to 211. This was the sixth. 
 After another interval of rest the seventh persecution 
 came, in the reign of Maximinus, 235 to 237. The eighth 
 was in the reign of Decius from 250 to 253. Valerian con- 
 ducted the ninth persecution, 257 ; during which Cyprian was 
 a martyr ; and the tenth was under Diocletian, 303 A. D. 
 All these persecutions were marked by great severity, 
 and they had for their end the purpose of compelling the 
 
24 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 
 
 Christians to give up their new creed and conform to the 
 religion of the empire. Says one writer, " Death itself 
 seemed too slight a punishment in. the eyes of these cruel 
 persecutors, unless it was accompanied by the most painful 
 and trying circumstances. It was by crucifixion and devour- 
 ing beasts and lingering fiery torments that the great multi- 
 tudes of those early martyrs received their crown. Racked 
 and scorched, lacerated and torn limb from limb, agonized in 
 body, mocked at and insulted, they were objects of pity even 
 to the heathen themselves." 6 
 
 Pliny the younger was sent, about the year 105-110, as 
 has been related, as proconsul to Pontus and Bithynia. He 
 writes 7 that he there found that the temples of the national 
 religion were almost deserted, that persons accused of Chris- 
 tianity were very numerous ; of every age and both sexes, 
 of all ranks, and were found not only in towns but in villages 
 and country places. He wrote to the Emperor for instruc- 
 tions, stating that he had questioned the accused repeatedly; 
 of those who persisted in avowing themselves Christians, he 
 had ordered some to be put to death, and had reserved oth- 
 ers, who were entitled to the privileges of Roman citizens, 
 with the intention of sending them to Rome. " I had no 
 doubt," he says, "that whatever they might confess, wilful- 
 ness and inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished." 
 "Some," he says, "worshipped thy image and spoke male- 
 dictions of Christ." {male dixerunt Christo.) "They af- 
 firmed that this had been the sum total of their guilt or error, 
 that they had been accustomed on an appointed day to meet 
 together before daylight and sing responsively a hymn to 
 Christ as God, and that they bound themselves together by a 
 sacrament, not to commit theft, or robbery, or adultery ; and 
 
THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 25 
 
 not to break a promise or betray a trust and that when these 
 things had been done, it had been their custom to disperse 
 and come together again for the partaking of a common 
 and harmless banquet, but that they had desisted from doing 
 this since my edict, in which, according to your commands, 
 I had forbidden fraternities to exist. Wherefore I thought it 
 the more necessary to find out by torture, what was the truth, 
 from two female servants (ancillis) who were called ministers 
 {ministrae). I found nothing else but a perverse and exces- 
 sive superstition." My friends, this celebrated letter of the 
 zealous and inconsistent Pliny, the anxious young proconsul, 
 who put Christians to death because he was not sure what 
 they believed, is one of the good things that came to the 
 Church in God's providence, out of those dark days of per- 
 secution. It tells its own story. We know from other 
 sources that there were Deaconesses in the early Church, we 
 know from Christian authors, of a sacrament which binds 
 the disciple of Jesus Christ to renounce " all the sinful lusts 
 of the flesh." We know of a banquet partaken together and 
 innocent, we know of the ancient antiphons or anthems, sung 
 responsively to Christ as God, but the testimony of a heathen 
 ruler to the existence of these things in the Church as early 
 as the year no, is of unquestionable importance. 
 
 I quote next from another writer who lived in the days of 
 Trajan and who was admitted to the honour of martyrdom 
 Dec. 20, 1 1 6, A. D. That is, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. 
 There are three epistles from him, of undoubted genuine-* 
 ness. One is addressed to "Polycarp, Bishop of the Smyr- 
 neans." Another is addressed " to the most blissworthy 
 church which is in Ephesus," and the third ''to the church 
 of the Romans." The noblest language pervades these let- 
 
26 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 
 
 ters and that you may see how he looked forward to martyr- 
 dom I quote from his epistle to the Romans ; " I am God's 
 wheat, and by the teeth of the beasts am I ground, that I may 
 be found God's pure bread." Ignatius, we are told by Euse- 
 bius, was the son of the second Bishop of Antioch after the 
 days of St. Peter. He was a disciple of St. John. His 
 writings are from ten to twenty years later than those of 
 Clement of Rome ; and we find in them the distinction first 
 recognized between the bishops and the presbyters. The 
 following passage is remarkable for that very thing. And 
 here again, I must disclaim any theory on the subject. I 
 take the facts just as I find them and those facts disclose in 
 the beginning of the second century, say in the year no, an 
 episcopal form of government just such as we now have. 
 " Keep ye to the bishop," says Ignatius, "that God also may 
 keep to you. I pledge my soul for those who are subject to 
 the bishop and the presbyters and the deacons ; may my 
 portion with God be with them ! Labour together, struggle 
 together, run together, go to sleep together, rise together as 
 God's stewards and intimate friends and ministers." "Let 
 your baptism be to you as armor, and faith as a helmet and 
 love as a spear and patience as a panoply." Earlier in this 
 same epistle to Polycarp, whom he calls, "the Bishop of the 
 Smyrneans," he says: " Let not those confound thee who, 
 appearing worthy of truth, teach strange doctrines. Stand 
 in the truth like an anvil to be struck, for it becometh a great 
 athlete to be struck and to conquer. More especially on 
 God's account it behoveth us to endure everything, that he 
 also may endure us. Be careful more than thou art. Be 
 discerning of the times." 
 
 In what way these early Bishops regarded their office, will 
 
THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 27 
 
 appear from an extract taken from Polycarp, the Bishop to 
 whom Ignatius was writing. He says in his letter to the 
 church at Philippi, " I have not assumed to myself, brethren, 
 the liberty of writing to you these things concerning right- 
 eousness ; but ye yourselves encouraged me. For neither 
 can I, nor any other such as I am, come up to the wisdom of 
 the blessed and renowned Paul." He exhorts them to be 
 "subject to the presbyters and deacons ;" and in the opening 
 words of his letter he says " Polycarp and the presbyters that 
 are with him to the church of God which is at Philippi." 
 
 About the year 125, another Barnabas (not the companion 
 of St. Paul) wrote a letter supposed to have been addressed 
 to the Alexandrian Christians. A short extract from it will 
 show how at that time the custom of keeping Sunday instead 
 of the Sabbath had become fixed. After a somewhat lengthy 
 argument on the subject, he says, "Look ye how he saith, 
 'your present Sabbaths are not acceptable unto me, but the 
 Sabbath which I have made, in the which, when I have fin- 
 ished all things, I will make the beginning of the eighth day, 
 which is the beginning of the new world.' Wherefore also 
 we keep the eighth day unto gladness, in the which Jesus 
 also rose from the dead, and, after that he had been manifest- 
 ed, ascended into the heavens." 
 
 Justin, called also the Martyr, was born about the year 100, 
 and was put to death in the year 163. I quote next from his 
 Apologia, as showing what was then the Church's doctrine of 
 Baptism and the Holy Communion. " How we dedicated our- 
 selves to God, being new made through Christ, I will explain, 
 lest if I omit this, I appear to be cheating in my explanation. 
 All, then, who are persuaded and believe that the things 
 which are taught and affirmed by us are true ; and who prom- 
 
28 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 
 
 ise to be able to live accordingly, are taught to pray, and beg 
 God with fasting to grant them forgiveness of their former 
 sins ; and we pray and fast with them. Then we bring them 
 where there is water, and after the same manner of regener- 
 ation in which we also were regenerated ourselves, they are re- 
 generated ; for, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of 
 all things, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy 
 Ghost, they then receive the washing of water." Infant bap- 
 tism is mentioned frequently by the early Fathers. 
 
 In another place describing the celebration of the Lord's 
 Supper, Justin says, " Then is brought to the president of the 
 brethren, bread, and a cup of water and wine, which he re- 
 ceives, and offers up praise and glory to the Father of all 
 things, through the name of his Son and of the Holy Ghost, 
 and he returns thanks at length for our being vouchsafed 
 these things by him ; when he has concluded the prayers and 
 thanksgivings, all the people who are present express their 
 assent by saying Amen. . . And when the president has 
 celebrated the eucharist, and all the people have assented, 
 they whom we call deacons give to each of those who are 
 present a portion of the eucharistic bread, and wine and water, 
 and carry them to those who are absent. And the food is 
 called by us eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake 
 but he who believes the truth of our doctrines, and who has 
 been washed with the washing that is for the forgiveness of 
 sins and to regeneration, and who so lives as Christ has di- 
 rected. For we do not receive them as ordinary food or or- 
 dinary drink ; but . . the food which was blessed ... is, we 
 are taught, both the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was 
 made flesh." "Sunday is the day on which we all hold our 
 common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, 
 
THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 20, 
 
 when he changed the darkness and matter made the world ; 
 and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the 
 dead : for the day before that of Saturn he was crucified, and 
 on the day after it, which is Sunday he appeared to his apos- 
 tles and disciples and taught them these things which we 
 have given to you also for your consideration." 8 
 
 The unity of the Church, and the New Testament Scrip- 
 tures to which all sacred writers of those days refer, are testi- 
 fied by a writing of unknown authorship, which is assigned by 
 scholars to the year 170 or thereabouts, and called, from the 
 name of its discoverer, the "Muratorian Fragment." It gives 
 a partial, almost a complete list of the books of the New 
 Testament, and says, "The blessed apostle Paul himself, fol- 
 lowing the order of his predecessor John, writes only to seven 
 churches. . . But to the Corinthians and Thessalonians, 
 though for rebuke he wrote twice, notwithstanding it is known 
 that there is only one Church scattered over the whole earth." 
 
 Tertullian who died about the year 220, gives 9 a list of the 
 Bishops of Rome from the times of the Apostles to his own 
 day. His voluminous writings speak, among other things, of 
 baptism and confirmation, of prayer, of penitence and of flight 
 in persecution. 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, a master mind of about the same 
 time, writes as follows : IO " According to my opinion, the 
 grades here in the church, of bishops, presbyters, deacons, 
 are imitations of the angelic glory, and of that economy which, 
 the Scriptures say, awaits those who, following the footsteps 
 of the apostles, have lived in perfection of righteousness ac- 
 cording to the gospel. For these taken up in the clouds, 
 the apostle writes, will first minister [as deacons] then be 
 
30 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 
 
 classed in the presbyterate, by promotion in glory (for glory 
 differs from glory) till they grow into a perfect man." 
 
 Of the other writers of the sub-apostolic age, time will not 
 permit me to quote. O'rigen, Cyprian, Firmilian, and Cor- 
 nelius are among the principal Christian writers of that time, 
 beside those who have been mentioned. It was indeed a 
 troublesome age. The words of the Master were amply fulfilled, 
 and many times it must have seemed as though the end were 
 at hand. Emperor after emperor persecuted the little flock ; 
 but still the little flock grew larger and stronger. Torn by 
 deepest distress without, they were also perplexed #by the rise 
 of heresies within. Of that we shall speak in the next ser- 
 mon when we come to examine the Church's way of treating 
 heresy in the age of the Six General Councils, or, as it is 
 commonly called, the Conciliar age, dating from 325 to 680 
 A. D. 
 
 But the age of persecution had now spent itself, "the blood 
 of the martyrs had been the seed of the Church," and in the 
 Emperor Constantine the world first saw a Christian on the 
 Imperial throne. His reign was from 312 to 337, A. D., al- 
 though he was proclaimed Emperor in the year 306. 
 
 Before closing however, I beg to call your attention to one 
 more writer, the great historian of the period we have been 
 studying to-day, Eusebius, who wrote about the year 300. I 
 am happy to furnish from his writings, a record, which will 
 perhaps be of some value in connecting together the inter- 
 mittent glimpses which these other writers have given us. 
 People very often ask, What evidence have you to show that 
 the continuity of the apostolic Church was maintained ? And 
 how do you know that it was continued in the Bishops ? The 
 answer as it is given in the pages of Eusebius is such as to 
 
THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 3 1 
 
 satisfy any unprejudiced mind. I ask your patience for a few 
 moments longer while I show you what Eusebius has done 
 for us in this regard. Pray bear in mind the persecutions we 
 have described and the struggle through which the Church 
 of Christ lived. If ever "the gates of hell" were to prevail 
 it was then when the numbers were few and the churches 
 scattered far and wide with fearful foes to contend against. 
 If ever the ministry was to be destroyed and the succession 
 broken then was the time. But how was it? Hear the testi- 
 mony of Eusebius. He says, " " There were many others, 
 also, noted in these times, who held the first rank in the apos- 
 tolic succession. These, as the holy disciples of such men, 
 also built up the churches where foundations had been pre- 
 viously laid in every place by the apostles." . . "As it is im- 
 possible for us to give the numbers of the individuals that be- 
 came pastors or evangelists, during the first immediate suc- 
 cession from the Apostles in the churches throughout the 
 world, we have only recorded those by name in our history, 
 of whom we have received the traditional account as it is de- 
 livered in the various comments in the apostolic doctrine still 
 extant." He gives the names of the Bishops who succeeded 
 the Apostles, in the churches at Jerusalem, at Antioch, at 
 Rome, and at Alexandria. In the case of the church of Je- 
 rusalem he names them in their order, in the other three he 
 gives them, not in a connected list, but in various parts of 
 his history, from which they have been collected ; and we have 
 on his testimony these four successions without a break from 
 the Apostles to the time in which Eusebius lived, about the 
 year 300. I have tabulated them here in their order : I2 — 
 
32 
 
 THE SUB-APOSTOLIC AGE, AND 
 
 
 Church in 
 
 Church in 
 
 Church in 
 
 Church in 
 
 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 Antioch. 
 
 Rome. 
 
 Alexandria. 
 
 1 
 
 James. 
 
 Euodius. 
 
 Linus. 
 
 Annianus. 
 
 2 
 
 Symeon. 
 
 Ignatius. 
 
 Anacletus. 
 
 Avilius. 
 
 3 
 
 Justus. 
 
 Heron. 
 
 Clement. 
 
 Cerdon. 
 
 4 
 
 Zacchaeus. 
 
 Cornelius. 
 
 Evarestus. 
 
 Primus. 
 
 5 
 
 Tobias. 
 
 Eros. 
 
 Alexander. 
 
 Justus. 
 
 (5 
 
 Benjamin. 
 
 Theophilus. 
 
 Xvstus. 
 
 Eumenes. 
 
 7 
 
 John. 
 
 Maximinus. 
 
 Telesphorus. 
 
 Marcus. 
 
 8 
 
 Matthias. 
 
 Serapion. 
 
 Hyginus. 
 
 Celadion. 
 
 
 
 Philip. 
 
 Asclepiades. 
 
 Pius. 
 
 Agrippinus. 
 
 10 
 
 Seneca. 
 
 Philetus. 
 
 Anicetus. 
 
 Julianus. 
 
 11 
 
 Justus. 
 
 Zebinus. 
 
 Soter. 
 
 Demetrius. 
 
 12 
 
 Levi. 
 
 Babylas. 
 
 Eleutherus. 
 
 Heraclas. 
 
 13 
 
 Ephres. 
 
 Fabius. 
 
 Victor. 
 
 Dionysius. 
 
 14 
 
 Joseph. 
 
 Demetrianus. 
 
 Zephyrinus. 
 
 Maximinus. 
 
 15 
 
 Judas. 
 
 Paul of Samosata. 
 
 Callistus. 
 
 Theonas. 
 
 16 
 
 Marcus. 
 
 Domnus. 
 
 Urbanus. 
 
 Peter. 
 
 17 
 
 Cassianus. 
 
 Timaeus. 
 
 Pontianus. 
 
 
 18 
 
 Publius. 
 
 Cyrillus. 
 
 Anteros. 
 
 [The note under 
 
 19 
 
 Maxim us. 
 
 
 Fabianus. 
 
 Antioch applies also 
 
 20 
 
 Julianus. 
 
 [Although there 
 
 Cornelius. 
 
 in this case.] 
 
 21 
 
 Cains. 
 
 were not so many in 
 
 Lucius. 
 
 
 22 
 
 Symmachus. 
 
 this succession as in 
 
 Stephanus. 
 
 
 23 
 
 Caius, 2nd. 
 
 those at Jerusalem 
 
 Xvstus. 
 
 
 24 
 
 Julianus. 
 
 and Rome yet they 
 
 Dionysius. 
 
 
 25 
 
 Capito. 
 
 embraced the same 
 
 Felix. 
 
 
 26 
 
 Maximus. 
 
 length of time.] 
 
 Eutychianus. 
 
 
 27 
 
 Antoninus. 
 
 
 Caius. 
 
 
 28 
 
 Valens. 
 
 
 Marcellinus. 
 
 
 20 
 
 Dolichianus. 
 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 Narcissus. 
 
 
 
 
 " Irenaeus, who was a martyr in the year 202, gives I3 the 
 same list of the succession in Rome as far as his own time, 
 ending with Eleutherus, who, he says, "does now, in the 
 twelfth place from the Apostles hold the inheritance of the 
 episcopate." He further says, 14 " It is within the power of 
 all, in every church, who may wish to see the truth, to con- 
 template clearly the tradition of the Apostles manifested 
 throughout the whole world ; and we are in a position to reck- 
 on up those who were by the Apostles instituted bishops in the 
 churches, and [to demonstrate] the successions of these men 
 to our own times." 
 
 It is time however, now to close this sermon lest your pa- 
 tience be overtaxed. The words of St Paul to Timothy come 
 to our remembrance as we look at the history of these early 
 
THE TEN GREAT PERSECUTIONS. 33 
 
 days. " The things that thou hast heard of me among many 
 witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be 
 able to teach others also." We have no " theory of apostolic- 
 al succession," it is simply a historical fact. After the Apos- 
 tles, Bishops took their place every where, by apostolic con- 
 sent and appointment ; no other way of administration was 
 dreamed of for the period of 1500 years, as we shall see. 
 The Church of Christ in the age next to the apostles was ev- 
 erywhere Episcopal. The continuity of the Church in the sub- 
 apostolic age, in its threefold ministry of Bishops, Presbyters, 
 and Deacons is as clearly demonstrated as the continuity 
 of the Gospel itself. Priest is the shortened form of the word 
 Presbyter, when used in this connection. Let him who has 
 a "theory" on the subject, point out when that ministry was 
 obliterated. The burden of proof rests not on us who ac- 
 cept the history of the Church as we find it. Says the Prayer 
 Book, and we agree in the saying, "It is evident tmto all 
 men diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient Authors, 
 that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders 
 of Ministers in Christ's Church, — Bishops, Priests l and Dea- 
 cons, which offices were evermore had in such reverend estima- 
 tion, that 7io man might presume to execute any of them, except 
 he were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such 
 qualities as a?e requisite for the same; and also by public 
 Prayer with Imposition of Hands were approved and admitted 
 thereto by lawful authority "** There is no theory here; it is 
 simply the statement of a fact. I can not understand how any 
 one should refuse to believe it. 
 
34 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 
 
 u The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom : 
 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling 
 block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; But unto them which 
 are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, 
 and the wisdom of God." — I Corinthians i: 22, 23, 24. 
 
 The topics and the events which are to come before us to- 
 day, in our study of the history of the Christian Church, are 
 of surpassing importance. We are to follow the thread of 
 history from the year 312, to the year 680. During that 
 period the Six General Councils were held, and from them 
 the period is called the Conciliar Age. Why those councils 
 were held, what they did, who composed them, and what 
 shape they gave to Christian history : — these shall be our 
 questions. 
 
 Last Sunday we saw the Church of the first three centu- 
 ries under the gloomy clouds of the ten great persecutions. 
 Now we are to see her prospering under the smile and sun- 
 shine of Imperial favour. The clouds break away in the days 
 of the Emperor Constantine, the persecutors lay aside their 
 instruments of torture, the refugees come out of their hiding 
 places in caves and catacombs, Christian temples abound 
 and the worship grows stately. Not only are "they of Cae- 
 sar's household" favourable to the new religion, but Caesar him- 
 
THE CONCILIAR AGE. 35 
 
 self declares by an imperial edict that the sword is no more to 
 drink the blood of Christians. It would seem as though the 
 world were already conquered and following at the wheels of 
 the triumphal chariot of Christ ; it would seem as though all 
 dangers now were past and that the Church has nothing 
 more to fear. But the appearance is deceitful. A harder 
 trial than mocking and scourging awaits the Church. Swift 
 on the trial of adversity, follows the trial of prosperity, hard- 
 er to bear, harder to overcome, because the foe now hides his 
 frown behind a smiling mask, and seeks by the offer of glory 
 and pomp, that ruin he has failed to accomplish by cruelty. 
 
 Constantine was proclaimed Emperor in the year 306, but 
 not until the year 312, when he conquered Maxentius the ty- 
 rant, at the Milvian Bridge, did he reach the throne in the 
 Imperial city; and not until ten or twelve years from that 
 date (according to different historians) did he obtain sole 
 possession of the Roman Empire by the defeat of his col- 
 league Licinius. In 312, Constantine issued an edict in favour 
 of the Christians, and followed it by a second in the next 
 year establishing "for them in common with all other sub- 
 jects of the empire, complete religious freedom." 
 
 From the very beginning the Gospel had a conflict with 
 the philosophies of those early ages. Certain of the Epicu- 
 reans and Stoics reasoned against the Christians, and we 
 read of St. Paul that he daily "disputed in the school of one 
 Tyrannus." It is not possible now, and it is not desirable in 
 this connection, to enter into any discussion of the teachings 
 of the heathen philosophers. The Greeks were seeking after 
 wisdom ; many of them found it in Christ ; and, coming into 
 the Church with the methods of reasoning in which they had 
 been trained they instituted differing schools or types o£ 
 
36 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 
 
 Christian theology. Very naturally the varying opinions of 
 men centered around the nature and person of Jesus Christ. 
 The relation of Deity to humanity, the question of the origin 
 of evil, and the way of overcoming evil : these had long 
 been discussed in the schools of the philosophers. And 
 now came a body of men saying with St. Paul, " We 
 preach Christ crucified, the power of God and the wisdom 
 of God." In the gospel of Christ Jesus a new impulse 
 was given to those old studies and questions that had 
 troubled the minds of the wise men ; for in Him, Deity and 
 Humanity met ; good and evil were seen arrayed by Him. 
 He claimed to have overcome the evil, and to have van- 
 quished the last enemy, death, the most malignant manifes- 
 tation of evil. No wonder then that the gospel became a 
 new cause of strife among the philosophers, no wonder that 
 it opened up again all the old questions which they had spent 
 their lives in debating. And according as they accepted one 
 part or another of that gospel, so on one side or the other 
 did heresies arise to plague the Church. 
 
 There was the Gnostic heresy which grafted a few Chris- 
 tian tenets upon a philosophy whose chief characteristic was 
 its utter repudiation of faith There were the Ebionites 
 who denied the Godhead of Christ and declared that He was 
 merely a man. There were the followers of Basilides who 
 held that there were 365 orders of spirits emanating from 
 the Supreme God, each order consisting of seven spirits 
 and having for each order a separate heaven. The Mar- 
 cionites rejected the Old Testament and most of the New, 
 and held that there were three principles, God, the devil, and 
 the Demiurge, the latter occupying a place between the for- 
 mer two. A dispute arose very early concerning the date of 
 
THE CONCILIAR AGE. 37 
 
 Easter day, called the Quarto-deciman controversy, from the 
 Asiatic custom of celebrating the paschal supper on the 14th 
 day of the first Jewish month. There was the heresy of the 
 Montanists characterized by the great severity and rigor of 
 its system, its multiplied fasts, and precepts as to penance. 
 There was Sabellianism which speculated upon the mystery 
 of the Godhead. There were the Patripassians who con- 
 founded the Father with the Son and declared that the Fa- 
 ther suffered on the cross. The Neoplatonic school tried to 
 unite the wisdom of all ages in one system. Chiliasm or 
 Millenarianism taught a literal view of the Millenium. The 
 Novatian heresy held that a person who sinned after repent- 
 ance must be forever excluded from the communion of the 
 Church. Then there was Manichaeism which taught that 
 there were two eternally contending forces or principles pre- 
 siding respectively over the realms of good and evil. God 
 was one and Demon or Matter the other and God was sup- 
 posed to have the advantage. Docetism held that the body 
 of Jesus was merely a phantom. 
 
 These were among the principal heresies which arose in 
 the first three centuries ; and were in existence when the 
 edict of toleration was published by Constantine in 312 A. D. 
 
 But there were three others which must be mentioned, 
 because they were not only heresies but were sects in 
 the Church ; viz : the Circumcellions, the Donatists and the 
 Arians. These three emerge into the clearer light of history 
 at the time when Constantine reached the fulness of his Im- 
 perial power. The Circumcellions were the lower and more 
 fanatical members of the Donatist schism, committing all 
 sorts of crimes and extravagances in the name of religion. 
 The Donatists proper, though they were fanatics also, yet 
 
38 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 
 
 they disapproved the excesses of the Circumcellions. Ari- 
 anism which took its name from Arius a native of Libya or 
 Cyrenaica, held that Christ was created, that there was a 
 time when He was not. It was this heresy which led to the 
 First General Council. 
 
 The Emperor Constantine had become a Christian. The 
 familiar story of his conversion need not detain us long. It 
 was said that he and his soldiers saw inscribed in the clouds, 
 the sign of a cross or a monogram of the name of Christ, 
 combining the first two Greek letters X and P (Chi and Rko) 
 of the word ; together with the words touto nike, or as it is 
 usually written in Latin, In hoc signo vinces : " Under this 
 standard thou shalt conquer." This was said to have taken 
 place in the year 312, and to have very shortly preceded his 
 victory at the Milvian Bridge. Whatever may have been the 
 truth concerning the vision, Constantine, previously disposed 
 to favour the Christians, became from that time their open 
 champion and defender. Then was the first alliance between 
 Church and State ; an alliance which I do not think has ever 
 been a good one. From that time, so far as Roman history is 
 concerned, the Church shared the fortunes of the Empire. 
 As the Empire grew corrupt the Church in Rome partook of 
 her corruption, and when Rome fell, Saracens, Goths and 
 Vandals trod the Church's holy things beneath their feet, 
 and the heathen entered into God's inheritance. Eight cen- 
 turies of gloom followed the sunset of Imperial splendour, 
 and the Church felt that darkness also. On the ruined 
 throne of the Roman Caesars, sat a monarch in the person of 
 a pope whose tyranny often rivalled the tyranny of his 
 pagan predecessors. But not to anticipate, let us return to 
 the story of the days of Constantine. 
 
THE CONCILIAR AGE. 39 
 
 In view of the spreading heresy of the Arians, Constan- 
 tine called a council to meet in Nicaea in June, 325. Romish 
 historians will tell you that it was called, not by the Emperor 
 but by the pope, and that the pope presided. Neither of 
 these statements is true. It was called by Constantine and 
 presided over by Hosius, Bishop of Cordova. It is known 
 by the name of an (Ecumenical or General Council, because, 
 while there had been many councils before that time, this was 
 the first to which delegates were summoned from every part 
 of the universal Church. It is believed that the number of 
 Bishops present was correctly stated by Athanasius, as 318, 
 although some place the number as low as 200. There were 
 four persons however most conspicuous in the deliberations, 
 and those were Constantine, Alexander, Bishop of Alexan- 
 dria, Arius the heretic, and Athanasius. 
 
 The earlier sessions of the council "seem to have been 
 held in a church. Arius was repeatedly heard in defence of 
 his opinion," but so open was the avowal that it caused those 
 present to stop their ears. " About a fortnight after the 
 opening of the council, Constantine arrived, and the sittings 
 were transferred to the palace, where the Emperor appeared 
 at them, and acted as moderator." The deliberations of the 
 Council were up to this time marred by confusion and con- 
 tention, but now it seems to have become more orderly. The 
 Ouartodeciman controversy concerning the date of Easter 
 Day was one subject of discussion, the Arian heresy the 
 other. The former question was decided adversely ; the 
 Arian opinions were condemned. Arius was banished, and 
 the Nicene creed was issued, bearing the signatures of all 
 but two of the Bishops present : these two being probably 
 personal friends of Arius. This creed which was designed 
 
40 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 
 
 to furnish a barrier against the Arian heresy, was the asser- 
 tion by the Nicene Council, not of a new gospel, but of what 
 had been, from the first, less explicitly stated in the Apostles' 
 Creed, of whose origin we have no record. It did not come 
 from Nicaea in the -form in which we now have it. It ended 
 with the words "I believe in the Holy Ghost." All the rest 
 was added later. How did the remaining words find place 
 there ? The answer to this question is the story of the Sec- 
 ond General Council, called the first of Constantinople? 
 which was held in the year 381, under the reign of Theo- 
 dosius the Great. 
 
 Heresy was not destroyed by the action of the Nicene 
 Council though the true Catholic faith was declared touching 
 the Divinity of Christ. A new heresy appeared called Mace- 
 donianism, from the name of Macedonius who was patriarch 
 of Constantinople and who had added to the Arian heresy a 
 denial of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. At this Council 
 150 Bishops were present and the Nicene Creed was reaffirmed 
 with the addition of all those words which follow " I believe 
 in the Holy Ghost," excepting only the famous words, "ftl- 
 ioqne" stating that He "proceedeth from the Father, and the 
 S011." The words " and the Son," were added still later, and 
 have never been accepted by the Eastern Church. The 
 great division between the Eastern and the Western Churches, 
 you will find commonly ascribed to the controversies which 
 arose in the eleventh century over this phrase ; but it is by 
 no means to be inferred that that was the only cause of the 
 breach, as we shall see in the next sermon. 
 
 A moment ago I used the word " patriarch." Let me stop 
 for a few words of explanation. In the early part of the 
 second century the only office known to have existed, in the 
 
THE CONCILIAR AGE. 41 
 
 ministry of the Church, beside those of Bishops, Priests, 
 and Deacons, was that of Deaconesses, who were employed 
 in such work as men, from the customs of the East were not 
 able to perform. But we find that in the latter part of the 
 same century several new offices were introduced, lower than 
 that of Deacon, doubtless appointed for special emergency, 
 as they were not universally adopted. They were sub-dea- 
 cons, acolyths, exorcists, readers and door-keepers. And 
 while the lower orders were being thus supplemented, we 
 find a growing system of defining and distinguishing among 
 the higher officers, the Bishops. The chief city being re- 
 garded as a metropolis the synods naturally met there and 
 the Bishop of the place presided. Thus arose the name and 
 rank of a " metropolitan ; " not a new order in the ministry, 
 any more than an arch-bishop in after times, but simply a 
 Bishop held in higher regard because of the greater impor- 
 tance attaching to his diocese, or jurisdiction, for that is 
 what the Greek word diocese means. A country Bishop was 
 called a choi'episcopus. Then, a still higher authority was at- 
 tached to those Bishops who were placed over the seats of 
 government, especially those in which the apostles them- 
 selves had planted the Church, as for example, Jerusalem, 
 Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. The bishops in these places 
 were called "Patriarchs," l6 and sometimes "Popes." 
 
 The sunshine of Imperial favour wrought many changes in 
 the Church's ritual which we shall have time to consider by 
 and bye, in a later discourse, but a word may be said as to 
 the arrangements of the Christian Temples. When they came 
 out of their dark hiding places in caverns and dens of the 
 earth, the Christians found awaiting them certain buildings 
 at Rome, called the Basilicas. But even before that, Tertul- 
 
4 2 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 
 
 lian speaks of church buildings, as early as 200 A. D. Eu- 
 sebius, A. D. 300, describes the church building at Tyre as 
 having a court, surrounded with cloisters, with a fountain in 
 the middle for purification. Our word "font" is short for 
 fountain. Beyond this was a chancel having " the holy altar," 
 as he calls it, " in the middle," stalls for the bishops, and low- 
 er seats. The chancel was divided from the rest of the church 
 by a screen of elaborate workmanship and made of wood. 17 
 But in the western countries it was the Roman Basilica which 
 determined the form of the subsequent Christian Church 
 building. What purpose the Basilica served among the Ro- 
 mans is not clearly known ; probably it was a kind of court 
 room, or perhaps a place of exchange. Here the favoured 
 Christians held their public worship. The buildings were 
 oblong and were divided lengthwise by two rows of columns 
 into a middle part, or nave and two aisles of inferior height. At 
 one end was a raised platform or "bema" terminating in a 
 semicircular portion or "absis" from which our word apse is 
 derived. At Constantinople the foundation was made in the 
 form of a cross when churches were built, and the buildings 
 usually fronted the east. 18 Afterward, however, the practice 
 became universal in the west, of having the chancel toward 
 the east, as a reminder to the people, of Christ the risen Sun 
 of righteousness, who was ever to be kept before their eyes. 
 I would be glad to spend more time than I can now afford 
 in pointing out the work of a few faithful men among the 
 many who in that age of intellectual activity kept the Cath- 
 olic faith. But I must pass over with the' merest mention 
 the names of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Chrysostom, 
 Bishop of Constantinople, the great friend of missions and 
 builder of hospitals, and Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who 
 
THE CONCILIAR AGE. 43 
 
 introduced choral music'into the western Church. We must 
 hasten to the Third General Council, composed of some 200 
 Bishops, summoned by the Emperor Theodosius the young- 
 er, A.D. 431, and held at Ephesus. This Council condemned 
 the heresy of Nestorius, who taught that the Virgin Mary 
 was the mother of our Lord's human nature only, implying 
 that Christ had not always been God. The Council of Eph- 
 esus, while it affirmed the Catholic faith and condemned also 
 the heresy of Pelagius concerning free will, yet was in 
 many respects a disgraceful affair. The streets were filled 
 with a rabble of ignorant partisans, the bishops themselves 
 indulged in angry contentions and violent recriminations, and 
 Nestorius declared that his life was in danger. There is no 
 quarrel more bitter than a religious quarrel ; and the story of 
 the Ephesine Council illustrated this fact. We must turn 
 with unfeigned disgust from many scenes in the history of 
 the Christian Church. Often the stream is swollen and im- 
 pure : but the treasure, to change the figure, is the thing of 
 value after all, and must be considered apart from the earth- 
 ern vessels which contain and transmit it from age to age. 
 We may gladly draw the veil over the riotous proceedings of 
 this Third General Council, and turn to the next conspicuous 
 figure in the story. It is that of Eutyches. He taught that 
 Christ was God only, and not man. It is wonderful to see 
 how in those early days men played fast and loose with the 
 Gospel of Christ crucified, how they tossed the subject from 
 side to side, as in a game of battledore and shuttlecock, how 
 they insisted now on one opinion and again on the very op- 
 posite. Whether the Church dealt wisely or not in holding 
 these General Councils, is not the question we have to decide 
 at present. We are only looking to see what happened, wise 
 
44 THE CONCILIAR AGE. 
 
 or otherwise. Eutyches was condemned and Eutychianism 
 with him, by the Fourth General Council, held at Chalcedon 
 in the year 451, under the reign of the Emperor Marcian. 
 The number of Bishops attending is variously reported from 
 520 to 630. Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria, who had shown 
 himself a tyrant and scandalously immoral was deposed and 
 banished to Paphlagonia. This Council also was the scene 
 of noisy and tumultuous disorder. " Mutual anathemas were 
 shouted forth against the asserters and the deniers of the two 
 Natures " of Christ ; and " the description of the scene might 
 recall to our minds the tempests of modern " political " as- 
 semblies rather than the ideal which we might have naturally 
 formed of the Church's greatest general council." I9 The 
 Fifth General Council was held at Constantinople in the year 
 553 and was attended by 165 Bishops. It reaffirmed the 
 decisions of the first four councils, especially those against 
 the Nestorians. The Sixth was held in the same city in the 
 year 680. Both these were called by the reigning Emperor. 
 The last condemned a new development of Eutychianism. 
 These Six General Councils have been accepted by the entire 
 Christian Church in all lands, and in all times since they 
 were held, as uttering the testimony of the Catholic Church 
 with a united voice, concerning the matters in debate. No 
 other councils have been .so recognized. True there have 
 been other councils, great numbers of them, called by th e 
 Bishops of Rome and entitled CEcumenical ; but they were not 
 CEcumenical and were never received as such by the Church 
 Catholic. It does not seem probable that there will ever be 
 another General Council, gathered from all parts of the Chris- 
 tian Church. Some hold that it would not be desirable, even 
 if it were possible ; but it seems to me that if the Western 
 
THE CONCILIAR AGE. 45 
 
 and the Oriental Branches of the Church could meet by del- 
 egates and establish a basis of union and communion and af- 
 firm once more in the hearing of all the world, the one faith 
 in our Crucified Redeemer, it might do very much toward 
 convincing the unbelief and the ignorance of men that He is 
 indeed, to Jew and to Greek, " the power of God and the wis- 
 dom of God." 
 
 As that distracted age fades out of sight, and its clamors 
 die away, two things command our devout and thankful rec- 
 ognition. One is that the faith was kept, pure from the her- 
 esies of heathen philosophers, and the other, that the 
 Church's order was not broken. The superstitions of mod- 
 ern Rome and the departures from the ancient ministry came 
 later. Two names come into prominence in the latter part of 
 the Conciliar age and must be mentioned : Mahomet and 
 Gregory the Great. It would be aside from our course were 
 we to give very much attention to Mahomet ; yet his influ- 
 ence was not a slight one upon the Christians of the time. 
 Mahometanism was prepared for in the East, by the Arian 
 heresy. It fastened upon the weakened churches of the East, 
 a mongrel religion of perverted Christianity, pagan supersti- 
 tion and corrupt Judaism. 
 
 Gregory the Great, will come before us more at length in 
 the next sermon. Suffice it for now to say that the title 
 which has been given to him is a just one. Would that the 
 other Bishops of Rome had never departed from his wisdom, 
 or changed his ways. He marks the transition from the Early, 
 to the Middle period of Christian History, and from him the 
 rise of the Papacy and the decline of learning are rapid. 
 The twilight steals on apace, and the night that slowly wears 
 away for the next eight hundred years, is a time of thrilling 
 
46 THE MIDDLE AGE, 
 
 interest in some respects, a time of discouraging darkness in 
 others. The age we have now been considering, from 312 
 to 680, was beyond doubt the most trying, yet the most rapid 
 in the spread of Christianity ; the most distracted, yet the 
 most exact in its dogmatic statements, the Church has ever 
 seen. He who studies the history of the Church in those days, 
 must remember that they marked the growing corruption of 
 Roman life and the decadence of the Empire ; and yet, be- 
 neath the turbulent surface of the history were many true and 
 noble lives. The power of the Cross was mighty in that 
 troubled age, and through all the distractions and debates, 
 animating all discussions and inspiring all actions, even when 
 zeal took a misdirected form of expression, it is not hard to 
 trace the influence of Christ crucified, "the power of God, 
 and the wisdom of God." The philosophy of the Cross sur- 
 vived, where human philosophies perished. It will always 
 be so. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE MIDDLE AGE, AND THE RISE OF 
 THE PAPACY. 
 
 * "Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion 
 over them, and they that aie great exercise authority upon them. 
 But it shalt not be so among you!' — St. Matt, xx : 25, 26. 
 
 To day we are to see how these words of the Master were 
 disobeyed, in what is called the Middle Age of Christian 
 history, When our blessed Lord said, " I say unto thee, 
 
AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY. 47 
 
 Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church," 
 what are we to understand by the word "rock"? Rome 
 under her later papal development understands that the 
 Church is built upon St. Peter. Catholics who are not Ro- 
 manists understand that the Church is "built upon the foun- 
 dation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being 
 the head corner stone," and that the "Rock" is that Christ 
 whom Peter had confessed just before. When our Saviour 
 said to St. Peter, "I will give unto thee the keys of the 
 kingdom of heaven," modern Rome holds that He created 
 St. Peter the infallible chief Bishop over the whole Church, 
 and that his successors, the Bishops of Rome, inherit that 
 pre-eminence. Catholics who are not Romanists maintain 
 that our Lord explained His own words, when, later, He 
 gave to all the Twelve that which St. Peter received repre- 
 sentatively, saying as He breathed on them, " Receive ye 
 the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remit- 
 ted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain they are re- 
 tained." And as to the infallibility of the successors of the 
 fallible St. Peter, two things need to be remembered ; in the 
 first place the name of St. Peter is joined, by ancient histo- 
 rians, with that of St. Paul, as founders of the Church at 
 Rome. St. Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans. St. 
 Peter was the apostle to the Jews ; so much we know from 
 Holy Scripture ; and in the second place, the New Testament 
 knows nothing about infallibility in any apostle, least of all 
 in St. Peter who thrice denied his Lord, before the coming of 
 the Holy Ghost, and was "withstood to the face" by St. Paul, 
 "because he was to be blamed," after the Holy Ghost had 
 come. 2 ° 
 
 There are some intimations of a superiority claimed for the 
 
48 THE MIDDLE AGE, 
 
 Roman Church before the Middle Age. For instance Iren- 
 aeus writes, about 185 A. D., in his great work "Against 
 Heresies," 2I " It is matter of necessity that every church 
 should agree with this church " that is, the Church at Rome, 
 "on account of its pre-eminent authority," (propter potior em 
 principalitatem ; latin version.) Yet Irenseus himself says 
 on the same page that this Church was " founded and organ- 
 ized at Rome by two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul. " 
 So it is evident that Irenoeus knew nothing of the theory 
 that St. Peter alone founded the Roman Church and pos- 
 sessed infallibility and supremacy over the whole Church. 22 
 The "pre-eminent authority" of which he speaks may be un- 
 derstood as a natural reference to the superior position which 
 the Church would enjoy at the seat of the Empire, even in 
 those days of persecution. But the original Greek is lost and 
 "we have only the old Latin version of it." 23 Again, Leo 
 the Great, 440 to 461, A.'D. "raised the claims of the Ro- 
 man Bishop as the representative of St. Peter to a height 
 before unknown." 24 But all intimations of Roman suprem- 
 acy before the days of Gregory the Great are sufficiently de- 
 molished by the letters which that Bishop wrote with his own 
 hand. Gregory was born at Rome, about the year 540, and 
 was consecrated Bishop of Rome in September 590. He 
 was one of the wisest rulers, one of the noblest characters, 
 and one of the greatest Bishops the Church has ever had. 
 His benefactions to the needy, his improvements in the edu- 
 cational standards of his clergy, his reforms and elevation of 
 the character of worship, his attention to music as shown in 
 the Gregorian Chants, which are called so from him, are mat- 
 ters of history. It is related of him that " when a poor man 
 had been found dead in the street, Gregory abstained for 
 
AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY. 49 
 
 some time from the celebration of the Eucharist, as consid- 
 ering himself to be the cause of his death. He was in the 
 habit of sending dishes from his own table to persons whom 
 he knew to be in want, but too proud or too bashful to ask 
 relief." The possessions of the Roman Church by this time 
 had become enormous. They were called by the name of 
 "the patrimony of St. Peter," and embraced many "estates 
 in Italy and the adjacent islands," also in Gaul, Illyria, Dal- 
 matia, Africa and Asia. Under his Episcopate these posses- 
 sions grew still greater, and he administered their affairs 
 through the agency of commissioners chosen from the lower 
 orders in the ministry. Thus many churches became tribu- 
 tary to Rome and subordinate to Gregory. In his hands 
 however, the power was wisely wielded ; and yet Gregory 
 contributed in these ways innocently enough, to the erection 
 of a system which became in after times the blight of Chris- 
 tendom. The name "pope" which meant simply father, was 
 not at first confined to the Bishop of Rome, nor was it so in 
 Gregory's day. It was a common appellation given not only 
 to Bishops, but, in many instances, to other ministers. 
 " Gregory always treated the eastern patriarchs as independ- 
 ent." He spoke of the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch 
 as his equals. And this brings us to some very interesting 
 and important correspondence, which will serve to shew that, 
 however Gregory might have upheld the dignity of his own 
 position, the papacy with which we are acquainted was of a 
 later growth. 
 
 The story is this. In the year 585, John, who was called 
 "the Faster," on account of his ascetic life, was raised to the 
 dignity of Patriarch of Constantinople. In 587 he assumed, 
 like some of his predecessors, the title of "CEcumenical 
 
50 THE MIDDLE AGE, 
 
 Bishop." Gregory remonstrated, not because of any en- 
 croachment upon his own right, but because it derogated 
 from the dignity of the Emperor. 25 He declared that John 
 had been drawn by his flatterers into the use of that " proud 
 and foolish" word ; that the assumption "was an imitation of 
 the devil, who exalted himself above his brother angels ; that 
 it was unlike the conduct of St. Peter, who, although the 
 first of the apostles, was but a member of the same class zvith 
 the rest. The council of Chalcedon, he said, had indeed 
 given the title to the Bishops of Rome," (which was a mis- 
 take, the Council did nothing qf the sort,) "but that they had 
 never adopted it, lest they should seem to deny the pontificate 
 to others!' He further declared that the term " CEcumenical 
 Bishop" was an invention of the first apostate. He wrote 
 to Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria, and to Anastasius, Bishop 
 of Antioch, endeavouring to enlist their interest against the 
 adoption of such a title by John. Eulogius, in his reply 
 stated that he had ceased to use it in writing to John, as 
 Gregory had commanded, and in his letter he addressed 
 Gregory as "universal pope;" to which the Bishop of Rome 
 replied, " I beg that you would not speak of commanding, 
 since I know who I am, and who you are. In dignity you are 
 my brother ; in character my father. I pray your most 
 sweet holiness to address me no more with the proud appel- 
 lation of 'universal pope,' since that which is given to an- 
 other beyond what reason requires is subtracted from 
 yourself. If. you style me ' universal pope,' you deny that 
 you are at all that which you own me to be universally. 
 Away with, words which puff up vanity and wound charity." 26 
 Romish historians have vainly tried to evade the plain 
 sense of these damaging letters. Catholics who are not 
 
AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY. 5 1 
 
 Romanists assent to every word that I have quoted. In 
 praising the wisdom and generosity of Gregory, I do not 
 mean to imply that he made no mistakes. Under him the 
 Romish doctrine and ritual of the Mass was brought into 
 substantially its present form, and that service is contrary to 
 the teaching of the Bible. .Gregory was in many ways justly 
 entitled to be called the Great. He was pre-eminently a 
 statesman. He sought to build up a spiritual kingdom whose 
 outward magnificence and universal extent should command 
 the allegiance of all hearts. He sent Augustine as a mis- 
 sionary to Britain in the year 596. What Augustine discov- 
 ered in England we shall have to tell next Sunday. But we 
 may dismiss the name of Gregory with a single remark. He 
 was one of the most protestant of Bishops, so far as the Pa- 
 pal Supremacy and Infallibility are concerned. 
 
 The successors of Gregory departed from his wisdom and 
 catholicity however and their representatives at the 6th Gen- 
 eral Council in 680, gave to Agatho the title which Gregory 
 had rejected and denounced, and thereafter the Bishops of 
 Rome have kept it. From that time onward the reverence 
 for images and relics and pictures, which had begun before, 
 grew to great proportions. It was sought by Leo the 
 " Isaurian " to check and suppress this superstition, but the 
 superstition only grew worse. What it is to-day may be seen 
 from the conduct of the Romanists in Montreal during the 
 recent epidemic, when processions and relics having taken 
 the place of reasonable and certain means of checking the 
 disease, the people perished miserably in great numbers. 
 
 We must pass rapidly over this period of growing idolatry 
 which is one of the plague spots in modern Romanism ; we 
 must pass with the merest mention the conversion of Ger- 
 
52 THE MIDDLE AGE, 
 
 many by Boniface, 715 to 755, A. D. and come to the name 
 of Charlemagne who was crowned as Emperor of Rome, by 
 Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, A. D. 800. Charlemagne 
 who had acquired possession of the Frankish throne, after 
 the death of Pipin, conquered the Lombards in 773 or 774, 
 and became the master of the rest of Italy in 786. The 
 coronation of the Emperor by the Pope took place at the 
 Mass, in St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome, and Charlemagne 
 professed both surprise and indignation. But whether 
 Charlemagne was sincere or no, the pope's action led to the 
 subsequent claim that the Bishop of Rome was able by his 
 own authority, to bestow the gift of Empire. More than 
 this, the coronation of Charlemagne separated Rome from 
 the Greek Empire, and led to the division between the east- 
 ern and western Churches which took place in the eleventh 
 century and has never since been healed. Charlemagne 
 reigned from the time of his coronation 14 years, making a 
 term of nearly 50 years from the death of his father. By 
 his gifts the possessions of the Roman Church were enor- 
 mously increased. He sought to spread Christianity by vio- 
 lent measures, and made great efforts for the revival of 
 learning. The growth of monasteries and the monastic sys- 
 tem had begun long before, and it was under the guidance of 
 Alcuin, a learned monk, that Charlemagne tried to overcome 
 the decline in letters, which had been great in the latter part 
 of the Merovingian dynasty. The growing reverence for the 
 Virgin Mary took the form of multiplied festival days in her 
 honour. Other saints were added to the calendar and in some 
 instances it was doubtful whether the honoured saint were 
 a real or a fictitious personage. Wafers were substituted for 
 common bread in the Eucharist about the year 700. But the 
 
AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY. 53 
 
 cup was not withdrawn from the laity in the Holy Commun- 
 ion until the twelfth century ; and to-day, the Roman Cath- 
 olic laity never receive the wine ; only the wafer ! They who 
 receive the Communion least often, are therefore most closely 
 copying the Romanist. After the time of Gregory the Great 
 the doctrine of purgatory and masses for the dead were de- 
 veloped, and that with rapidity. 
 
 Between the years 829 and 857, appeared what are known 
 as the famous forged Decretals. These bore the honoured 
 name of Isidore, Bishop of Seville. They consisted of nearly 
 100 letters, written in the names of very early Bishops of 
 Rome, placing the privileges of the clergy, especially of the 
 Bishops very high, while the power of the pope is extended 
 beyond anything as yet known. He appears as the " head, 
 lawgiver and judge of the whole Church." The forgery of 
 these decretals was not exposed until the popes had derived 
 great benefit from them ; and yet their falsity must have 
 been easy to detect had there been any desire to do so. 
 Quotations from St. Jerome's version of the Bible are con- 
 tained in them, alleged to have been made by Bishops who 
 died before St. Jerome was born. Other like discrepancies 
 appear, and they are now universally allowed to have been 
 gross forgeries. But the discovery was one of the fruits of 
 the Reformation. Let us hope with Archbishop Trench, 27 
 that the popes who appealed to them in support of the Papal 
 Supremacy did so in the sincere belief that they were gen- 
 uine. And it is neither fair nor just to suppose that the Pa- 
 pal subjugation of western Christendom was due entirely to 
 fraud and aggression. We must remember again with 
 Trench, "the succession of statesmen, and these of the very 
 first order, who, often at the most critical moments, and just 
 
54 THE MIDDLE AGE, 
 
 when they were needed the most, occupied the Papal throne." 
 I have no interest in excusing, and no desire to justify the 
 growth of the Papacy. It lives upon the superstition of that 
 ignorance which it fosters. Yet I cannot find it in my heart 
 to deal unfairly even with so insidious and so monstrous a 
 corruption of the pure and sweet and simple faith of Christ's 
 Church and Gospel. I agree again with Trench, when he 
 says, " who can doubt that in ages of such savagery and vio- 
 lence, times in which all laws of God and man were so reck- 
 lessly trampled under foot, it was much, and it was felt to be 
 much, that there should be one man in the world, who could, 
 and who sometimes did, rebuke without fear or favour the 
 strongest and proudest of the wrong doers, the men of the 
 earth, who were fain to persuade themselves that everything 
 was permitted to them?" .... " There never was," he contin- 
 ues, "and there never will be a golden age for the church till 
 Christ her Lord shall come ; but every age will be full of 
 scandals and shames : none were more crowded with such 
 than those of which we are treating now." 28 
 
 There were in the days which followed the production of 
 the False Decretals, many who held the Pontifical chair, who 
 were monsters of vice and cruelty. They were not all such, 
 and the names of Adrian II, John XII, Innocent III (in later 
 times), and Boniface VIII, must be balanced in the account 
 of good and evil against such names as Nicholas I, Gregory 
 VII, Alexander III, Innocent II, and many others both 
 wise and well meaning. And then we must remember the 
 frequent protests like those of the saintly Hincmar, Arch- 
 bishop of Rheims, against the Papal usurpations. 
 
 There was a struggle going on in the ninth, tenth and 
 eleventh centuries, between Rome and Constantinople, for 
 
AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY. 55 
 
 the political supremacy. Besides, there was the quarrel over 
 the words "and the Son," in the Nicene Creed, which was 
 mentioned last Sunday. These jealousies and quarrels took 
 shape in the eleventh century in an open rupture between 
 the Eastern and Western Churches. That breach has never 
 been healed. The year 1053 is memorable for this, that in 
 that year Leo IX. issued a sentence of excommunication 
 " against the Patriarch of Constantinople and all who adhered 
 to him." The next year Michael Cerularius the Patriarch 
 of Constantinople, returned the compliment by retorting the 
 excommunication upon the Latins. 
 
 I must pass by the growth of the custom of the celibacy 
 of the clergy, saying only by way of dismissing it, that 
 Adrian II, the Pope who perhaps most stoutly insisted upon 
 it about the year 867, for the rest of the clergy, had been 
 married himself, and was the son of a Bishop. 
 
 The next conspicuous figure in the history of the Papacy 
 is that of Hildebrand (afterwards called Pope Gregory the 
 VII). He did what he could in his own way to reform the 
 Church. In carrying out his plans he came in conflict with 
 the weak and wicked Emperor, Henry IV of Germany. 
 Hildebrand was cruel. He made the king, who was penitent 
 for resisting him, stand, in a coarse woolen dress, barefooted, 
 without food from morning till night three whole days, ex- 
 posed to the piercing cold of winter, outside the walls of the 
 Castle of Canossa, an Apennine fortress, whither the Pope 
 had gone to meet him. At last the king was admitted and 
 after the most abject submission and prostration before the 
 Pope he received terms of absolution. The terms were such 
 that he could not accept them and he went away ; but the 
 end was to come. In 108 1 Henry led an army against Rome 
 
56 THE MIDDLE AGE, 
 
 and three years afterward Hildebrand was overcome, deposed, 
 banished, and a new Pope, or anti-pope, was consecrated. 
 Hildebrand's was a character to inspire awe and ''perhaps 
 admiration, but in no human bosom can it awaken a feeling 
 of love." The advance of Papal Supremacy was his ruling 
 passion, and no means were spared to secure that end'. 
 
 Briefly to speak of the Crusades, which began with the 
 First in the twelfth century, would be so unsatisfactory, that 
 I must reluctantly pass them by without description as not 
 essential to the history of the Papacy, and come to speak of 
 some of the religious orders and sects of the Middle Age. 
 The Waldenses and Albigenses were probably the most im- 
 portant. "They fought for a scriptural religion." "Stretch- 
 ing through central Europe to Thrace and Bulgaria, they 
 joined hands with the Paulicians of the East, and shared 
 their errors." They appeared first in the eleventh century 
 but were so rapidly multiplied that they outnumbered, in the 
 twelfth century the adherents of Rome. They were over- 
 come, however, by the Roman organized methods of sup- 
 pression, and began to disappear toward the close of the 
 thirteenth century. Afterward came the Beghards and Beg- 
 uines which were, at the first, free guilds and associations 
 banded together for works of piety. Then, came the Fran- 
 ciscans, an order distinguished for the rigor of its discipline. 
 These orders became hostile to Rome and were the source 
 of great danger to the Supremacy. Pope Innocent III sent 
 a crusading army against them under the notorious Simon 
 de Montfort. The horrors of the Albigensian war extended 
 over a period of twenty years, (from 1209 to 1229.) The 
 sword, fire and fagot were not swift enough for the extermin- 
 ation of these hated foes, and in 1232, Pope Gregory the 
 
AND THE RISE OF THE PAPACY. 57 
 
 Ninth organized, for more effective work, a system of trial 
 which afterward became a permanent organization and is to 
 be forever known as the blackest disgrace on the page of 
 Papal history: "The Holy Office of the Inquisition." By 
 the middle of the fourteenth century there were but a few 
 Albigenses left, and all their organizations had been broken 
 up. In the latter half of the fifteenth century the Inquisi- 
 tion was busy mainly in burning Jews ; Torquemada in Spain, 
 sending alone, it is said, some eight or nine thousand to the 
 stake. The Waldenses survived, and, as Trench says, they 
 alone were worthy to survive. The others, he says, could not 
 have reformed the Church, for they carried in themselves the 
 seeds of their own destruction. "It is only truth which can 
 make men free, and they had not the truth." 
 
 Among the doctrinal errors of Rome which grew up in 
 the Middle Age, were transubstantiation, the doctrine of 
 opus operatum, purgatory, indulgences, invocation of the 
 saints and the denial of the cup to the laity in the Holy 
 Communion. To discuss these topics fully would require a 
 volume for each. Each was defended by what are known as 
 the Schoolmen or defenders of Mediaeval Theology. This 
 kind of scholasticism, which was never willing to learn any 
 thing new and defended always the existing and established 
 order, though it lingered on into the fifteenth century, came 
 at last to be occupied with idle and unprofitable questions, 
 and passed away. 
 
 But a brighter day was breaking. The Renaissance or 
 Revival of Learning could not long tolerate the gross dark- 
 ness of ignorance and superstition which shrouded the land. 
 Rome had, by the decree of the Council of Toulouse in 
 1229, forbidden the laity to read or even to have copies of 
 
5 8 THE MIDDLE AGE. 
 
 the Bible, and by her simoniacal practices, she had impover- 
 ished and wearied her children past endurance. True and 
 earnest hearts on all sides were longing for reformation, "in 
 the Church, in its head and in its members." Who should 
 lead it ? Who first lift up the rallying cry and gather to- 
 gether those who were willing to shake off" the yoke of this 
 tyranny ? The Papacy was an excrescence. Who should 
 cut it away ? These questions we shall answer next Sunday. 
 But for the present, in closing this outline of Mediaeval 
 History, let me say, I have purposely omitted to trace the 
 history of the Eastern Church after the division, for it could 
 not be done with any thoroughness in the limits of this dis- 
 course. Nor have I told as yet the history of the Church of 
 England. That will come before us next Sunday. We must 
 bear in mind that the monstrous assumptions of the Papacy 
 met with many a resistance and many a protest. It was a 
 cruel age, a cruel system. It had far departed from obedi- 
 ence to the words of our Saviour, in the text we have left so 
 far behind us to-day. Yet dark though that age was, there 
 were always true men in every century, there were saints in 
 the earth even then, and out of the darkness four things 
 emerge into the clear light of the Reformation age, pure as 
 gold that is tried in the furnace. Those four are the Bible, 
 the unbroken continuity of the Church's Order, the Holy 
 Communion and the Ancient Liturgy. That is to say, " The 
 apostles' doctrine and fellowship, the breaking of the bread, 
 and the prayers." Praised be God, that though the men 
 who kept these things were, as we have seen, oftentimes 
 most unworthy of the trust, yet the four great inheritances 
 of the Catholic Church, the four things by which, in every 
 age, the Church of Christ can be known, were not lost. 
 
THE REFORMATION AGE. * 59 
 
 The Bible which was read in the Apostolic churches is ours 
 to-day ; the ministry, sacraments and worship which be- 
 longed to the Apostolic Church are not lost. The power 
 which kept the Bible, kept these also : that is to say the 
 power of Him who said, " Upon this rock I will build my 
 church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 
 
 V. 
 
 THE REFORMATION AGE. 
 
 " Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah, that enter 
 in at these gates to worship the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of 
 hosts, the God of Israel, amend your ways and your doings, 
 and I will cause you to dwell in this place." — Jer. vii: 2, 3. 
 
 There were two Reformations. The one which is called 
 the Continental Reformation found a leader, at first, in Martin 
 Luther, and had its place in the countries of continental Eu- 
 rope ; principally Germany and Switzerland. The other took 
 place in England and is known as the English Reformation. 
 A wide divergence marks the lines on which these two great 
 Reformations proceeded. The former was a movement, or 
 series of movements " under the conduct of individual 
 leaders." 29 It took the names of Lutheran and Calvinistic 
 from the men who headed it. The latter, the English Refor- 
 
60 THE REFORMATION AGE. 
 
 mation, took the name of no individual, but " was based 
 upon a recognition of the rights of autonomous national 
 churches ; on 'the principle of nationality as opposed to papal 
 universalism ;' and took its form accordingly." 3 ° The start- 
 ing points of these two, being thus distinct, the lines they 
 followed were divergent. In the Continental the historic 
 continuity of the Church was lost ; in the Anglican it was 
 kept. A new form of church government appeared in the 
 former called the Presbyterian which owes its origin to Cal- 
 vin. In this respect, Presbyterianism departed from Luther- 
 anism, which paid little attention to the subject of minis- 
 terial succession. But Calvinism which arose later, saw that 
 the subject of Episcopacy could not be ignored. Calvin 
 himself is reported to have said that " The office of a Bishop 
 was instituted by the authority and defined by the ordinance 
 of God." 3I On the doctrine of the Holy Communion, 
 Presbyterian standards are very like the teachings of the 
 Church of England, while Lutherans held what is called 
 " consubstantiation," in place of the Romish theory of "tran- 
 substantiation." Calvin and Melancthon, another great Pres- 
 byterian leader, both, made efforts to secure Episcopacy from 
 England but failed. The ground thereafter taken by Presby- 
 terians was that the apostolical succession was complete in 
 the order of Presbyters. Hence the name Presbyterian. 
 Luther died in February, 1546. Calvin died in May, 1564. 
 The origin of the Continental Reformation is too well known 
 to demand more than a passing word. The hammer in Mar- 
 tin Luther's hand when he nailed his 95 theses on the papal 
 doctrine of indulgences, upon the door of the Cathedral of 
 Wittenberg sounded an alarm which spread with marvellous 
 rapidity. It would be interesting had we the time, to tell the 
 
THE REFORMATION AGE. 6 1 
 
 whole history of this movement and to examine more closely 
 the practice of the wholesale barter of Indulgences in the 
 hands of John Tetzel ; to review the history of such men as 
 Melancthon and Erasmus, Zwingli and Arminius ; to tell the 
 story of the Diet of Worms, and the Synod of Dort, and the 
 Diet of Augsburg with its celebrated Confession of Faith, 
 and to tell of the Westminster Assembly. But we are 
 to concern ourselves to-day, more with the English Ref- 
 ormation and must therefore pass by the many inviting 
 topics and the men some of them good and true, who were 
 identified with the Reformation on the Continent under its 
 Lutheran or its Presbyterian phases. It ill becomes us to 
 cast words of reproach upon the Continental Reformers or 
 upon their descendants. Better far, while maintaining 
 that the Church of England was right in keeping the ancient 
 threefold ministry, to remember that the purpose of Refor- 
 mation was alike, with all who took it in hand, to purify the 
 Church of God, from the abuses and corruptions it had re- 
 ceived. We cannot justify the departure from the ancient 
 Church and her order. We deplore the loss of apostolic 
 ministry and practice wherever they have been lost. Yet 
 there was not a sect which arose at the Reformation but had 
 an element of truth in it. . If there were evil minded men 
 and false ideas connected with them, as unquestionably there 
 were, it becomes us to remember the sins and errors of the 
 age in which they lived, sins and errors from which our own 
 forefathers were not free ; — and seek for the good that was 
 in all. A wonderful reaching out toward one another for 
 the restoration of the lost fraternity spirit, is seen on the 
 part of all Christian people to-day. God forbid that we should 
 say or do aught to hinder its perfect consummation in the 
 
62 THE REFORMATION AGE. 
 
 blessed Spirit of the Christian Unity of the One Body, to be 
 thenceforth maintained in the bond of peace. 
 
 In studying the Reformation of the Church in England,, we 
 must remember that England did not owe her Church or her 
 Gospel to the Papacy of Rome. We saw last Sunday that 
 the Papacy was a usurpation of Mediaeval growth. But 
 Britain had her national Church long before the days when 
 Gregory the Great sent Augustine, with forty other monks, 
 there in 596, A. D. Some have thought that St. Paul 
 brought the Gospel into Britain, referring among other 
 sources to Clement's words who wrote, about the year 95, 
 that St. Paul "won the noblest renown which was the reward 
 of his faith, having taught righteousness unto the whole 
 world, and having reached the farthest bounds of the west." 32 
 But as Robertson says, " the early introduction of Christian- 
 ity into Britain appears more certain than the agency by 
 which it was effected." In the year 314, at the Council of 
 Aries in France, we find the names of three British Bishops: 
 Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, and Adelfius of 
 Lincoln. The year 314 therefore saw the Church in Britain 
 under Episcopal government sending its representatives to 
 take part in a council, and the year 314 is long enough be- 
 fore the rise of the Papacy to prove that the Church of 
 Christ was not established in England by Papal mission- 
 aries. 
 
 The Saxons drove the Christians away to the western 
 mountainous districts of Wales about the year 450. The 
 venerable Bede, about 730, A. D., says that " Public and pri- 
 vate buildings were alike destroyed, priests were everywhere 
 murdered at the altar ; bishops and their people were indis- 
 criminately slaughtered with fire and sword, and there was 
 
THE REFORMATION AGE. 63 
 
 no one to bury the victims of such cruelty." In A. D. 597, 
 Augustine set foot upon British soil. That he found the 
 Christian Church there at all, was largely due to the work of 
 Columba and the monks of Iona who did too much to be told 
 here, for the cause of Christian education and nurture in Eng- 
 land and Scotland. Ethelbert was King, reigning over the 
 kingdom of Kent when Augustine came, and he had married 
 Bertha, a Christian princess. Ethelbert received the mission- 
 aries kindly and gave them "leave to take up their abode in 
 Durovernum " now called Canterbury. There they found a 
 church building of the ancient "Roman-British" period and 
 in it Augustine and his followers worshipped. The spot is 
 occupied to this day by a church, said to exhibit a large pro- 
 portion of the ancient Roman materials. Augustine, the first 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, by permission of Gregory adapted 
 the ritual of the Roman use to the customs which he found 
 in vogue in Britain, and which customs are Supposed to have 
 been derived from the Liturgy of the Gallican use. Gregory 
 furthermore wrote to Augustine, "we commit the care of all 
 the British Bishops, to your brotherhood, that the ignorant 
 may be instructed, the weak may be strengthened by your 
 counsel, the perverse may be corrected by your authority." 
 But the Bishops of the ancient British Church refused to 
 submit, and Augustine is said to have told them in anger, 
 that " if they would not have peace with their brethren they 
 would have war with their enemies, and die by the hands of 
 those to whom they refused to preach the gospel." Soon 
 after this, Augustine died, having consecrated a Bishop, re- 
 spectively, for the three 'cities of Rochester, London and 
 Canterbury ; the latter as his own successor. 
 
 Of the growing usurpations of the Roman Bishops after that 
 
64 THE REFORMATION AGE. 
 
 time, enough has been said to show how England's Church, 
 in common with the other western Churches, came under Pa- 
 pal jurisdiction. Yet in hastening on to the time when that 
 yoke was cast off I must not omit to mention that there were 
 frequent protests on the part of the English, against the 
 growing papal aggressions. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury in 961, refused to comply with the Pope's order to re- 
 store a certain English earl who had been excommunicated, 
 but who had by the use of money and influence obtained the 
 Pope's mandate for his restoration. So in the following cen- 
 tury the Archbishop of York " openly impugned the doctrine 
 of transubstantiation ; " and in the next century the Bishop 
 of Hereford defied the papal authority, and " paid no regard 
 to the thunders of the Vatican " though he was twice excom- 
 municated ; and in the next, "the Bishop of Lincoln visited 
 Rome, and protested against its corruptions before the Pope 
 and Cardinals."* 
 
 On the 14th of October 1066, William the Norman won 
 the battle of Hastings and became the King of England. 
 Under the Norman reign the rivets of the Papal subjugation 
 were more firmly fastened. But we may not linger over the 
 details. A blow was struck for freedom in the days of King 
 John. That blow was the prelude to the Reformation. The 
 story of Runnymede and the Magna Charta is too familiar to 
 need repetition here. Suffice it to say that the declaration 
 was made in the very first article of that instrument, in 12 13, 
 that " the Church of England shall be free, and shall have 
 her rights entire and her liberties uninjured." 
 
 When the sixteenth century opened, there was a wide- 
 spread expectation that "Europe would ere long be shaken by 
 some purifying tempest." " New importance was attached 
 
THE REFORMATION AGE. 65 
 
 to individual freedom, and a higher value set on individual 
 
 souls." "Every order of society was disturbed The 
 
 feelings of many were exasperated by the scandalous lives of 
 the ecclesiastics, . . . and a party of doctrinal reformers was 
 emerging, almost simultaneously." In 1522 Pope Adrian 
 VI. himself admitted that "many abominations had for a 
 long time existed even in the holy see, yea, that all things 
 had been grievously altered and perverted." 33 Papal usurpa- 
 tion, and the corruption of doctrines and life, were the two 
 things to be cast off. Numerous converging lines indicated 
 the way. The translation of the Bible into the vernacular, 
 the revival of learning, and the spirit of freedom were most 
 prominent among them. As early as 1375, John Wyclif 
 had denounced the Pope as "anti-Christ, the proud worldly 
 priest of Rome, and the most cursed of clippers and purse- 
 carvers ; " and in 1380 he entered upon the work of trans- 
 lating the Bible. For these things Wyclif is sometimes 
 called "the grandsire " of the English Reformation; and for 
 teaching his doctrines Huss and Jerome of Prague were put 
 to death by the Pope. 
 
 The alarm which Rome felt. at the turn matters had taken 
 in the early part of the sixteenth century is plainly seen by 
 the course pursued at the Council of Trent in 1545. Yet 
 Rome re-asserted in the later sessions of that council in 
 155 1, some of her worst errors in most aggravated form, and 
 insisted upon their being received under pain of anathema; 
 but by that time England was free ! 
 
 What was the English Reformation ? Our reply is twofold. 
 It was, first, "the abolition of papal jurisdiction" over the 
 realm and Church of England ; it was secondly, for this could 
 come only after the other, the restoration of the primitive 
 
66 THE REFORMATION AGE. 
 
 purity of doctrine, discipline, and worship. It was not the 
 making of a new Church, for that is impossible. It was not 
 a departure from the ancient Church, which would have been 
 folly. Not a departure but a return. It occurred in the 
 reign of Henry VIII. It has well been said that "the Church 
 of England is in no way responsible for Henry VIII." It 
 may well be added, that Henry VIII is in no way responsi- 
 ble for that Church. 
 
 He became King in 1509, at the age of 18. He died in 1547, 
 "unwept, unhonoured and unsung," after a reign of 38 years. 
 His character and conduct are condemned by an almost uni- 
 versal verdict. I say almost, for I am aware that he has been 
 defended by Froude. But the profligate life he led and all 
 its unsavory details need not enter into the present discourse. 
 "The Reformers based their work," says Hardwicke, "upon 
 the principle that Christian nations, and consequently nation- 
 al churches, do not owe allegiance, as a matter of Divine 
 right, to any foreign potentate whatever;" "in the second 
 place they secured the oneness of the Modern with the Med- 
 iaeval Church of England, by preserving the continuity of 
 its organization, by unbroken ties of holy orders, by innu- 
 merable traditions of thought and sentiment, of faith, of feel- 
 ing and of ritual, such especially as the Prayer Book has re- 
 tained." "In the third place, the Reformers openly directed 
 their appeal to the intelligence and reasoning powers no less 
 than to the conscience of the individual churchman, affirm- 
 ing the necessity of personal faith in God and personal fel- 
 lowship with Christ;" "thus connecting a revival of religion 
 with the growth of inteHectual freedom and the onward 
 march of man and of society." 
 
 But how did all this come about ? Free your minds from 
 
THE REFORMATION AGE. 67 
 
 the notion that it happened by a single act, or in a short time. 
 It was the growth of many years, the result of long, persis- 
 tent, dogged determination. We have seen something of the 
 long train of events which led to it, and of the long process 
 of ripening thought which sought for an opportunity to speak. 
 That opportunity came in the disjointed relations, the wide- 
 ning breach between Henry VIII, King of England and the 
 Roman Pontiff. Too great prominence has been given to the 
 King's quarrel with the Pope on the subject of the divorce 
 from Catharine of Aragon. That quarrel led to the culmina- 
 tion of the King's rupture with the Papacy, but it was far 
 from being all. Catharine was the widow of Henry's brother 
 when he married her. It was not until 1533 that Archbishop 
 Crammer, declared in face of the Pope's refusal to grant a 
 divorce that the marriage had been invalid from the very 
 first. Crammer's character is not above reproach by any 
 means, as will be seen if you will take the trouble to read 
 Strype's Memorials. And in this instance it may be doubted 
 whether he acted judiciously or from a time-serving spirit of 
 expediency. In many respects Crammer was one of the most 
 influential men in giving shape to the earlier proceedings of 
 the Reformation. The Pope, Clement VII, had angered the 
 King by evasions and delays, and in 1529 postponed the case 
 again. Cardinals Wolsey and Campeggio were the Pope's 
 agents in this matter and from that time the downfall of 
 Wolsey, the King's favourite and prime minister was of head- 
 long rapidity. 
 
 As early as 15 16 the King had asserted his own Royal 
 Supremacy in the strongest language. But now he was fu- 
 riously bent on making good his words. In 1530 he issued 
 a proclamation forbidding the admission into the Kingdom of 
 
68 THE REFORMATION AGE. 
 
 bulls from Rome. In 1 531 Convocation petitioned the King 
 to declare that, if the Pope refused to release the Bishops 
 from the duty of paying " annats " or first fruits, then " the 
 obedience of him and the people be withdrawn from the see 
 of Rome." Parliament accordingly "passed an Act ordain- 
 ing that ' all payments of first fruits to the Court of Rome 
 should be put down and forever restrained.' " 34 In 1532-3, 
 an act was passed abolishing all appeals to Rome and provid- 
 ing that "appeals shall lie from the archdeacon's court to the 
 bishop's, and from the bishop's to the archbishop's, where 
 final judgment shall be given." Of this enactment, Bishop 
 Williams says: it "cut the tap-root of papal jurisdiction in 
 England, nor, with the exception of the brief reign of Mary, 
 has that jurisdiction ever been revived." The abolition of 
 Peter's Pence and of Dispensations shortly followed. 
 
 Thus the papal supremacy over England's Church was 
 abolished. In its rejection we see the clergy in convocation 
 taking the initiative steps; King and Parliament passing 
 the needful enactments, as the constituted legislative power. 
 Was England made a new Empire by thus casting off her 
 galling subjection to the yoke of a foreign tyrant? I trow 
 not ! No more was the Church of England, made a new 
 Church when ihe work of reform was completed ! The 
 one theory stands or falls with the other. Rome in England 
 like Rome in America is always an alien ! Always an in- 
 truder! England's Church is Catholic! 
 
 The Church of England is sometimes said to have been 
 "created by act of Parliament." It ought to be considered 
 a sufficient answer to the charge to call attention to the facts 
 which have just been recited; but if that is not enough it 
 may be added that "she existed" as Bishop Williams says, 
 
THE REFORMATION AGE. 69 
 
 "as the established Church of the Country hundreds of 
 years before Parliament came into being." .... "The State 
 never gave the Church its organization nor ordered its gov- 
 ernment. It would be far more correct to say that the 
 Church in England shaped the State." .... "The National 
 Church grew up with the national life, side by side with the 
 civil polity of the nation." In view of the present state of 
 feeling toward the subject of disestablishment and the mon- 
 strous proposition of disendowment, I may perhaps be jus- 
 tified in quoting further from the Bishop of Connecticut. 
 He says, and his words are susceptible of proof to the very 
 letter, "The State never endowed the Church of England 
 as a body. Cathedral churches and bishops' sees were en- 
 dowed by individual gifts." .... "Parish churches, chapels, 
 chantries and even monasteries were endowed in the same 
 way." You can see then what a difference there is between 
 disestablishment and disendowment. The former may be 
 regarded as a justifiable separation between things of civil 
 and things of Ecclesiastical relation. Some people think it 
 would be a wise thing to disconnect the two if it could be 
 done peaceably and with due regard to vested rights, so that 
 the Church might stand or fall upon its. own merits, as in the 
 United States. But for the State to disendow the Church, to 
 take away the property which the Church never received from 
 the State, would strike the unprejudiced mind as an act for- 
 bidden by that ancient law which says, "Thou shalt not 
 steal." 
 
 In the year 1531, Henry VIII, undercover of a pretended 
 desire to protect the clergy from Romish exactions assumed 
 the title of "sole protector and supreme head of the Church." 
 Much has been said and written about this, in seeming for- 
 
yO THE REFORMATION AGE. 
 
 getfulness of the fact that the Convocation passed a resolu- 
 tion at once to the effect that the title could only be accepted 
 with the limiting condition of the words "so far as may be 
 consistent with the law of Christ." This opposition brought 
 the King to an explanation which should dismiss the subject 
 forever. He said that he "meant no intrusion into the sacer- 
 dotal functions. Only so far as spiritual things included 
 property and justice, whatever power was necessary to pre- 
 serve the peace of society was comprehended in the commis- 
 sion borne by the supreme ruler." Do the courts of Massa- 
 chusetts claim very much less than that ? Do we not live 
 and enjoy the protection of our rights to "property and jus- 
 tice " as parishes, and as dioceses, by the very same princi- 
 ple ? We may now dismiss the subject of the Reformation 
 so far as it relates to the Papal supremacy, having seen that 
 the tyranny of Rome was cast aside, without breaking the 
 historic continuity of the Church of England with the 
 Church in all the ages that had elapsed. 
 
 Two things yet remain to make the story of the Reforma- 
 tion complete. One is the reform of doctrine by a return to 
 the one true, pure and primitive faith of the gospel, as 
 summed up in the Catholic Creed. The other is the reform 
 of worship by a purification of the liturgical standards of the 
 Church of England, especially the Book of Common Prayer. 
 Next Sunday morning we shall treat of this last topic, in the 
 concluding sermon of this series, on the History of the 
 Prayer Book. A few words must be said to-day on the re- 
 form of doctrine. 
 
 Here again the work was gradual, not sudden. As early 
 as 1536, the southern convocation issued a manifesto entitled 
 " Articles to stablyshe christen quietnes and unitie amonge 
 
THE REFORMATION AGE. *]\ 
 
 us, and to avoyd contentious opinions." The spirit of Medie- 
 valism pervaded these ten articles, although they mentioned 
 but three sacraments, instead of the seven which Rome still 
 holds. Latimer preached a sermon at this time which shows 
 that the intent of the articles was in the interest of doctrinal 
 reform ; and in the course of that sermon he alluded to those 
 " that begot and brought forth our old ancient purgatory pick- 
 purse." In the next year a committee of prelates and di- 
 vines put forth a work called the "Bishop's Book" or " In- 
 stitution of a Christen Man." This was followed in 1543, by 
 another book called " The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition 
 for any Christian Man." Both these works marked a great 
 advance in the line of reform in doctrine, and they relate to 
 the Apostles' Creed, the Seven Sacraments,' the Ten Com- 
 mandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ave Maria, the doc- 
 trines of Justification and Purgatory. These three formularies 
 marked the progress made in Henry's reign. 
 
 In 1547, Edward VI was acknowledged King of England; 
 at the age of nine years. On his accession the first book of 
 Homilies was authorized to be read in churches every Sun- 
 day, and the work was undertaken of expurgating the various 
 service books of Sarum, Lincoln, York and Bangor, "so as 
 to compile one i Use ' that should be in future the vehicle of 
 worship to all members of the English Church." Arch- 
 bishop Cranmer was the principal leader and director of 
 these enterprises. They resulted in 1549 in what is known 
 as the "First Prayer Book of Edward VI," which came into 
 use in almost every parish of the realm. We shall spend 
 more time on this important work next Sunday. 
 
 About this time arose a multitude of zealous spirits, 
 revolutionary in their views and eager in maintaining them. 
 
72 THE REFORMATION AGE. 
 
 Some among them were Anabaptists ; some were followers 
 of the extreme views of the Lollards of 1494, and others 
 adopted the opinions of the Swiss reformers, especially those 
 of Zwingli. They were the forerunners of the Puritans of 
 later days, but they bore the general name of "Sacramen- 
 taries." Soon the Prayer Book of Edward became the sub- 
 ject of revision. John Knox and Calvin "represented in the 
 strongest colours that the Service-Book, as it then stood was 
 deeply penetrated by the taint of Popery." It was revised 
 in 1552, and again revised in the reign of Elizabeth in 1559. 
 A few changes were made in the reign of James I ; but sub- 
 stantially, the Prayer Book we have used to-day is that of the 
 Elizabethan age. I must mention very briefly the six arti- 
 cles better known as "The Six Stringed Whip" which ap- 
 peared in 1539 a fierce and bloody enactment, making little 
 or no advance from papal doctrine. But in 1552 appeared 
 the Forty-two Articles, which after ten years w r ere modified 
 and reduced to the present thirty-nine of the Prayer Book. 
 These have sometimes been called Calvinistic ; often they 
 have been derided. But no one who knows their history or 
 understands their theology will be guilty of casting aspersions 
 upon a body of doctrinal statements which, considering the 
 times in which they were framed, are so well worthy of the 
 place they occupy. I would gladly spend a little time in trac- 
 ing the thread of this history down to the present day. I wish 
 I had time to tell the rise of Congregationalism, Methodism, 
 Socinianism or Unitarianism, the Baptists, and Quakers, and 
 to give some account of the distinctive tenets of each. Puri- 
 tanism had the mighty conception of purity behind it; but it 
 revived the ancient heresy of the Novatians, and drew a line of 
 demarcation between the visible and the invisible Church ; 
 
THE REFORMATION AGE. 73 
 
 whereas the Bible has nothing to say of an invisible Church 
 from beginning to end. The height of fanaticism was 
 reached in the days of Elizabeth, and in those of Cromwell, 35 
 when puritans mocked the Holy Communion, (I will omit the 
 revolting particulars, all which can be found in the histories,) 
 and stabled their horses in the Cathedrals. It was a time 
 when it could be said with grim humor, that, " religion was 
 so thoroughly reformed that even the horses went to church." 
 But those days of witch burning and window breaking are 
 gone. There was wrong on all sides. The multiplication of 
 sects by the law of sub-division has been enormous. To tell 
 their history minutely would be of interest and of service. 
 But the time is not long enough for that. All of these de- 
 nominations hold certain doctrines in common with the 
 Church. All their adherents who are baptized, are thereby 
 members of the one Church of all the ages. Like the Lu- 
 theran and Presbyterian movements, they enter the stage of 
 Christian history during, or after the Reformation. I do 
 not deny that there was apathy and indifference and cruelty 
 in the English Church, which were efficient causes in pro- 
 moting their growth. Each sect has had its saints and its 
 sinners. They all reject the threefold ministry which we 
 have received, and deny the historic continuity of the 
 Church, in that three-fold order. In doctrine and in worship 
 also there is every shade and degree of different opinions. 
 That is how the matter stands to-day. God grant the time 
 may speedily come when all Christians shall be visibly united, 
 as at the first they were ! We cannot repudiate the princi- 
 ples for which our forefathers, the leaders in the English 
 Reformation, went to the stake. We do repudiate the here- 
 sies and abominable corruptions of the Papacy, whose later 
 
74 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 
 
 growth, under Jesuit control has been a growth in error. 
 We owe nothing to Romanism but to love her deluded 
 children and to pray for her return to the Catholic Faith and 
 Order. But the only ground on which the claims of Rome 
 can be successfully answered is that of the historic Church. 
 
 A voice went forth in Reformation days, heard in the con- 
 sciences and obeyed in the actions .of Bishops and other 
 Clergy. That voice did not say, "Make a new Israel," or 
 "Organize a new Judah," but even the same as the God of 
 Israel spake in the days of old, " Amend your ways and 
 your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place." 
 The voice was obeyed, and the promise was fulfilled ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE OF THE 
 BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 
 
 "Let all things be done decently and in order." — 
 
 I Cor. xiv: 40. 
 
 "Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard 
 of rne } in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus."- — II Tim. 1:13. 
 
 Fully nine-tenths of the Prayer Book came bodily from 
 the Bible, and the other tenth is a flower of devotion, whose 
 seed is in the Bible. All the Psalter, in that pure and mu- 
 sical translation of Miles Coverdale (1539,) seventy years 
 older than the King James version ; all the Epistles and Gos- 
 
OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 75 
 
 pels for Sundays, Festivals and Fasts ; all the Canticles of 
 Morning and Evening Prayer ; all the Lessons, which, in 
 orderly manner bring to your hearts the due analogy and 
 proportion of Old and New Testaments ; the Lord's Prayer, 
 which enters into every stated and occasional Office ; the 
 Ten Commandments, which are rehearsed every Sunday ; 
 the "Comfortable Words," in the Communion Office; the 
 Offertory Sentences : the Sentences with which the public 
 worship begins, and the Benediction of Peace with which it 
 ends — all these are from the Bible. Twelve chapters of 
 Holy Scripture make up the average quota for every appoint- 
 ed day of public worship. The Offices for Baptism, Cate- 
 chism, Confirmation, Holy Matrimony, Visitation of the 
 Sick, Burial of the Dead, Churching of Women, Forms of 
 Prayer to be used at Sea, Visitation of Prisoners, Thanks- 
 giving, Family Prayer, Thirty-nine Articles, and Ordination, 
 are all saturated with the very language and spirit of Holy 
 Scripture, — and yet there are not wanting some people, who 
 still being blind to the Scriptural glory of our Book of Com- 
 mon Prayer, seek for a more Scriptural service. There is 
 no service of man, that ever was devised for the wor- 
 ship of God, so packed full with the treasures of the In- 
 spired Word ! Precomposed forms of prayer find their 
 ,sufficient warrant in the words of the Master : " If two of 
 you shall agree on earth as touching anything they shall ask, 
 it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven." 
 In contrasting the services of the Prayer Book with extem- 
 poraneous worship, lest I may seem to speak from prejudice, 
 I beg to quote from one who, being a Presbyterian minister, 
 may justly be supposed to speak from experience. At the 
 " Congress of Churches" held last May, in the city of Hart- 
 
^6 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 
 
 ford, Conn., the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D. D., a Professor in 
 the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, at Auburn, N. Y., 
 spoke as follows : '■ It is the glory and beauty of secret 
 devotion, that the worshipper enters into his closet, and there 
 communes in the simple language of a child — -the simpler the 
 better, — with his Father who sees in secret ; telling though 
 it were in broken sobs, the whole story of his weaknesses 
 and his wants. But public prayer is ' common prayer,' and 
 ought to express, in grave, dignified phrase, the common 
 wants of the entire congregation. Trivial phrases and 
 broken utterances are here out of place. The result is that 
 the people are left to be practiced on by beginners who halt 
 and stammer in the alphabet of prayer, and only after some 
 years ' experience rise to anything like the ease and dignity 
 proper to such a service. For this inconvenience, the use 
 of judicious forms presents a remedy. The congregation min- 
 istered to by the poorest young deacon with a Prayer Book 
 in his hand, fares as well as the flock gathered in any 'St. 
 Thomas's ' or in any ■ Trinity.' " 
 
 Pardon me for yielding to the temptation to hear a little 
 more from Dr. Hopkins. Speaking of the objections to ex- 
 temporaneous public worship, he continues : the minister 
 "has been trained in the seminary to think that the sermon 
 is the great essential element in public worship, and to lay 
 out his whole strength upon it. As for prayer, he has been 
 practiced in 'that exercise, (!) during years of prayer-meeting 
 experience, and always has the common place topics and 
 phrases at his tongue's end. He must take many hours of 
 hard work to prepare what he has to say to his fellow sinners. 
 What he has to say to God he can leave to memory, habit, 
 and the inspiration of the moment. He can get through 
 
OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. *]*] 
 
 with it in some way or other. Generally it is a trial to him 
 — at least to the beginner. To him, at least, it is not a de- 
 votional exercise. It is a rhetorical exercise. He has to 
 invent as he goes along ; to tax his memory ; to select his 
 phraseology ; to think whether he has included all the proper 
 topics ; or if he has forgotten anything, to go back and pick 
 up ; . . . and all the time, to keep his mind's eye on the 
 clock ; so as neither much to exceed, nor much to fall short 
 of, the conventional twelve or fifteen minutes. The effect of 
 this sort of intellectual praying, on the mind of the minister 
 himself, cannot but be unhappy. He is really starving his 
 own soul for the sake of his people. The long prayer ex- 
 hausts him more than the sermon. He is as glad to be done 
 with it, as the people are to have him. 
 
 "The influence of this method upon the people is no less 
 unhappy. They are expected to take no oral part in the ser- 
 vice whatever; not even to utter the Apostolic "Amen" at 
 the end of the prayer. They are to take the prayer as the 
 preacher deals it out to them, sentence by sentence, and ab- 
 sorb it if they can, and turn it into subjective devotion. 
 Whether they do so or not, nobody knows." (Extemporane- 
 ous worship is extremely " Romish," in thus taking the peo- 
 ple's part away.) 
 
 " The congregation sit mute as fishes through the whole, 
 scarce joining at all even in the singing. They are not de- 
 sired to sing. They are not invited to repeat the Lord's 
 Prayer. They take part in no responsive reading of the 
 Scriptures. They have no litany, to whose passionate ex- 
 claims they can offer their response. The minister at one 
 end, and the quartette at the other, do all the vocal part of 
 
y8 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 
 
 the service. To supply the want of worship by musical ef- 
 fects, the organ thunders in long drawn voluntaries. A high- 
 priced soprano warbles unintelligible strains of something. 
 A violin solo carries the minds of the younger sisters irresis- 
 tibly away to the ball room or the concert-hall ; or a brass 
 band stirs the enthusiasm of the boys to a pitch not much 
 below that occasioned by the entrance of a circus. 
 I ask, sadly, is there not something better than this ?" 
 Without offering any comment whatever upon these words, 
 so full of the sad confession of the weariness and weakness 
 of a worship to which I am thankful to be a stranger, I ask 
 your attention to a brief outline of the history and structure 
 of the Book of Common Prayer. As was said in a former 
 sermon of this series, the Prayer Book services grew out of 
 the Synagogue worship to which our Saviour lent the sanc- 
 tion of His own constant daily attendance. Strictly speak- 
 ing this applies to the order of Morning and Evening Prayer 
 only. The Communion Office technically called the Liturgy, 
 and other Christian Offices, as Baptism, of necessity came in 
 with the Gospel, the words of the institution and the form- 
 ula of Baptism, supplying the framework. 
 
 " From the Synagogue came the first use of fixed forms of 
 prayer. 36 To that the first disciples had been accustomed 
 from their youth. They had asked their Master to give them 
 a distinctive one, and He had complied with their request, as 
 the Baptist had done before for his disciples, as every Rabbi 
 did for his. . . To their minds there would seem nothing 
 inconsistent with true heart worship in the recurrence of a 
 fixed order, of the same prayers, hymns, doxologies, such as 
 all liturgical study leads us to think of as existing in the 
 Apostolic Age. . . ' Moses ' was ' read in the Synagogues 
 
OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 79 
 
 every Sabbath-day,' 37 the whole law being read consecutively, 
 so as to be completed, according to one cycle, in three years, 
 according to that which ultimately prevailed and determined 
 the existing divisions of the Hebrew text in the 52 weeks of 
 a single year. The writings of the Prophets were read as 
 second lessons in a corresponding order. They were followed 
 by the Derash, 'the word of exhortation ' 38 the exposition, the 
 sermon of the Synagogue." These are the elements which 
 make up the Order of our Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, 
 with the addition, of course, of the New Testament Scriptures. 
 
 The disciples came together to break bread on the first day 
 of the wdek. The weekly celebration of the Holy Commun- 
 ion is a custom of apostolic origin, testifying to that spiritual 
 perception of "the eternal fitness of things," which linked to- 
 gether the Lord's Supper and the Lord's Day, in a constant 
 witness of the Resurrection of Christ and the risen life of 
 His disciples. 
 
 Four among all the great number of ancient Liturgies, ap- 
 peared in the apostolic age, as follows : The liturgy of St. 
 James, used at Jerusalem ; the liturgy of St. Mark used at 
 Alexandria ; the liturgy of St. Peter, used at Rome ; and the 
 liturgy of St John, used at Ephesus. In I Cor. ii : 9, St. 
 Paul says, "It is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
 neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which 
 God hath prepared for them that love him." There are a 
 great many other places in the New Testament where the 
 words occur "it is written." Now you will look in vain for 
 any place in the Old Testament where the duplicates of some 
 of these passages are found, but the words I have quoted to 
 you are the exact words of the Liturgy of St. James. Very 
 early, too early for the light of history to disclose the origin of 
 
80 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 
 
 it, appeared the Apostles' Creed, doubtless a protest against 
 the Gnostic heresy, as the Nicene Creed against the Arians. 
 
 The charge is sometimes ignorantly made that the Prayer 
 Book was derived from Romish sources. It gives me great 
 satisfaction to demolish that charge at a single blow. The 
 Prayer Book of the Church of England, of which our own is 
 substantially a copy, was derived from the Mozarabic or Gal- 
 lican Liturgy which came, not from the Roman but from the 
 Ephesian Liturgy of St. John. Our Morning and Evening 
 Prayer were modelled upon the Ancient " Use " of Sarum. 
 The Sarum Use was " based on the Anglo Saxon and Nor- 
 man customs, particularly that of Rouen, and put forth by S. 
 Osmund, A. D. 1087 as a means of reducing the different 
 customs of his diocese, to something like order. It gradu- 
 ally was adopted by other dioceses, and Hereford and York 
 based their missals upon it." 39 
 
 True there are in the Roman Breviary many prayers like 
 those we have. They came down from the pure and saintly 
 men whose devotional thought with constant enrichment, 
 crystallized around the original nucleus. In the four Apos- 
 tolic Liturgies, there is a similarity of construction which in- 
 dicates a common source. To the framers of the Prayer Book 
 in Reformation days, the vast store -house of the ancient lit- 
 urgies were open. It is cause of devout thankfulness that 
 they were enabled to make such use of their materials as to 
 produce a service book which to-day stands peerless in the 
 estimation of all high Christian scholarship. That scholar- 
 ship is voiced by the Rev. Prof. Shields, of Princeton Univer- 
 sity, a Presbyterian minister, who said in "The Century 
 Magazine" of last November. "The English Liturgy next 
 to the English Bible, is the most wonderful product of the 
 
OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 8 1 
 
 Reformation. The very fortunes of the book are the ro- 
 mance of history. As we trace its development, its rubrics 
 seem dyed in the blood of martyrs ; its offices echo with po- 
 lemic phrases ; its canticles mingle with the battle-cries of 
 armed sects and factions ; and its successive revisions mark 
 the career of dynasties, states and* churches. . . It is not 
 too much to say that were the problem given, to frame out of 
 the imperfectly organized and sectarian Christianity of our 
 times a liturgical model for the communion of saints in the 
 one universal Church, the result might be expressed in some 
 such compilation as the English Book of Common Prayer." 
 These words are as wholesome and refreshing as they are 
 welcome. 
 
 The First Book of Edward was mentioned last Sunday, as 
 the attempt to unite all the various " Uses " into one. That 
 work, though it marked a great advance, was tentative. It 
 was framed in a time of transition. It retained the Roman 
 name of the Mass for the Holy Communion, Auricular Con- 
 Confession, Prayers for the dead, and was in general use 
 for only a short time. Its laws and its customs are not 
 the present obligation of the Church of England. The 
 revisions which followed, and brought it to its present shape 
 have also been mentioned. How far removed the Prayer 
 Book of Queen Elizabeth is from Romanism, in the charac- 
 ter of its worship, as well as in the sources whence it came 
 may be seen by a brief quotation from a book called the 
 " Raccolta," a collection of prayers " specially indulgenced 
 by the Popes, and therefore of indisputable authority in the 
 Roman Church." 40 I crave your pardon for reading words 
 so profane, but it is my aim that no room shall be left for the 
 ignorant prejudice which still fears to take and use this herit- 
 
82 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 
 
 age of the faithful. The words to which I ask your attention 
 are these : " I acknowledge thee, and I venerate thee most 
 Holy Virgin, Queen of Heaven, Lady and Mistress of the 
 Universe, as Daughter of the Eternal Father, Mother of his 
 well-beloved Son, and most loving Spouse of the Holy Spirit. 
 Kneeling at the feet of thy great Majesty, with all humility I 
 pray thee through that Divine charity wherewith thou wast 
 so bounteously enriched on thine assumption into heaven, to 
 vouchsafe me favour and pity." Roman books of devotion 
 are filled with such "prayers" as that. But where, from be- 
 ginning to end of the Book of Common Prayer can the faint- 
 est approach to such blasphemy be found ? The chains of 
 Babylonish bondage to Rome were forever broken by the work 
 of the Reformation. In the days of King James I, the 
 puritan ministers presented what is known as the Millenary 
 Petition. It was a petition for certain changes of small con- 
 sequence in the Prayer Book. King James was a monarch 
 whose self-conceit was large in the inverse ratio of his Kingly 
 qualities. 41 At the Hampton Court Conference in 1604, this 
 petition was discussed in the presence of James, who acted 
 as moderator. The petitions were many of them granted, but 
 in so contemptuous a fashion as to make the story not a pleas- 
 ant one for Churchmen to read. The Savoy Conference, in 
 1 66 1, considered the petition of the Presbyterians for many 
 important changes in the Prayer Book. But very few of these 
 alterations were made, and those which were made did not 
 affect the distinctive features of the Book. 
 
 In regard to the structure and use of the Prayer Book, I 
 must say but a few words. The aim of the Book is to pre- 
 sent a vehicle of public worship, as nearly as possible, after 
 the principles of the Holy Scripture ; a book of devotions 
 
OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 83 
 
 which shall secure the rights of the clergy and laity alike as 
 members of "the royal priesthood," . . " to offer up spiritual sac- 
 rifices of praise and thanksgiving." With what minute and 
 scrupulous fidelity this principle has been observed in the 
 framing of the Book, I may best illustrate by quoting the 
 quaint words of Wheatley. Speaking of the place where the 
 Creed comes, in Morning and Evening Prayer, he says : "That 
 which goes before it are the Lessons taken out of the word 
 of God ; for faith comes by hearing ; and therefore when we 
 have heard God's word, it is fit we should profess our belief 
 in it, thereby setting our seals (as it were) to the truth of God. 
 .... What follows the creed are the prayers which are ground- 
 ed upon it ; for we cannot call on him in whom we have not be- 
 lieved" 
 
 As to the postures, which some people seem to find so 
 troublesome, they all accord with the act in which we en- 
 gage. Three elements enter into our public worship : prayer, 
 praise and instruction. Three postures are observed, and all 
 are founded upon the teaching of the Bible— kneeling, stand- 
 ing and sitting. We kneel (or ought to) when* we pray, be- 
 cause Jesus knelt. We stand before our Sovereign when we 
 offer praise, because that is the attitude of those who stand 
 about the great white throne in heaven ; and we sit during 
 the Lessons and sermon, because it is the position most fa- 
 vourable for listening. We stand also during the Creed, "to 
 signify" as Wheatley says, "our resolution to stand up stoutly 
 in its defence." We bow at the name of Jesus Christ, for at 
 His name all knees shall bow. We are directed to stand 
 when the Gospel for the day is announced, and when it is 
 read ; to indicate that while the Epistle is the writing of an 
 inspired man, the Gospel is the record of words or deeds of 
 
84 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 
 
 our Saviour. But is not all this very formal ? I think I hear 
 some one ask. I answer, Yes ; but what says the apostle ? 
 "Let all things be done decently and in order." And as for 
 sincerity in the use of these forms, I beg to submit the words 
 of the Rev. Prof. Phelps, a Congregational minister in the An- 
 dover Seminary. He says : "Will not the use of forms degen- 
 erate into nothing but form ? Always possibly ; never neces- 
 sarily. I seriously question whether such repetition induces 
 any more formality than the silent attempt of listeners to fol- 
 low the impromptu thought of a leader of extemporaneous 
 prayer. Prayer impromptu may be the superior to the lead- 
 er ; but, to the hearer, the following is a difficult and compli- 
 cated act. Such prayer to the hearer is a series of surprises." 
 (It should be remarked that Prof. Phelps in speaking of the 
 "hearer" of prayer is not referring to God but to the audience 
 assembled to listen in meeting.) "It requires a quick mind 
 to follow it with no loss of devotional sincerity. To children 
 it is commonly a dead loss of time. They do not participate 
 in it, and are not reverently interested in it. During the first 
 fifteen years of a child's life, the public devotions of our 
 churches are generally a blank." 42 
 
 Such a frank confession of the inadequacy and insincerity of 
 extemporaneous worship, coming from one who speaks from 
 experience, is melancholy. But is it not taught in many 
 quarters that children are not members of the Church ? Why 
 should they be interested in what does not belong to them ? 
 Such was not the teaching of our blessed Saviour, who said, 
 "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them 
 not ; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." And as for "lis- 
 tening" to ministers pray, it seems a. curious thing to us;'but 
 what that listening means in many cases may be inferred 
 
OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 85 
 
 from the frequent remark, "Mr. So-and-So is eloquent or 
 gifted in prayer." What does that mean ? It means that 
 the people who say it have been criticizing instead of praying ! 
 It never can be said where the Prayer Book is used. And as 
 to the reverence which the Prayer Book inculcates, let me 
 again quote from Prof. Phelps. He says : "No other branch 
 of the Church universal has so lofty an ideal as the Church of 
 England and its off-shoot in this country. In all the liturgic 
 literature of our language, nothing equals the Anglican Lit- 
 urgy. Its variety of thought, its spiritual pathos, its choice 
 selection of the most vital themes of prayer, its reverent im- 
 portunity, its theological orthodoxy and its exquisite proprie- 
 ty of style, will commend it to the hearts of devout worship- 
 pers of many generations to come, as they have done to gen- 
 erations past." ..." Grant that Episcopal usage sometimes 
 crowds its churchly reverence to an extreme ; but is not that 
 a safer extreme than ours ? . . . The educating influence of this 
 sentiment on children of the church is of untold value." 
 "We have something yet to learn of the rudiments of bibli- 
 cal worship. Our Episcopal brethren are farther advanced 
 than we in this line of Christian culture." I could not have 
 written those last words myself, but since the Bible says, 
 "Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth," I 
 may be pardoned for quoting them. 
 
 I must now draw this course of sermons to a close. I know 
 I do so at the peril of leaving many things unsaid. I have 
 not touched upon the Christian Year, and the Saints' Days, 
 and that weekly Fast on Friday which Christians have kept 
 from a date almost as early as that of Sunday, in sorrowful 
 commemoration of the day of crucifixion. There are a mul- 
 titude of topics which must be passed by in discourses so 
 
86 THE HISTORY, STRUCTURE AND USE 
 
 limited as these, but the problem has been all along how to 
 condense the material at hand, and tell the story in the spirit 
 of love to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ. I have but 
 a few words to add to what has been said. 
 
 You have been baptized. Into what ? A sect ? No ! Into 
 the body of Christ, the Church of the living God. You are 
 asked to be confirmed and many of you have been confirmed. 
 Why ? Because that is the way we have of "professing re- 
 ligion"? We never "profess religion," nor does that phrase 
 come from the Bible. We confess the need of religion and 
 the desire to live a godly life. Confirmation was one of ' the 
 Bible ways of confessing Christ before men at the very be- 
 ginning, and in it is asked and received a gift of the seven- 
 fold spirit of God ; a gift which every Christian ought to seek, 
 a confession which every disciple ought to make. You are 
 invited to the Holy Communion. Why ? Because of those 
 words of the Master in which He commanded, "Do this, in re- 
 membrance of me." Your Christian Baptism entitles you 
 to come. 
 
 From the days of our weakest infancy the Church leads us 
 by the hand, a loving Mother, on to the days of our weak and 
 infirm old age, when she lays us tenderly at rest. She calls 
 the little children to baptism and instruction, and blesses the 
 young men and maidens in confirmation. She speaks the 
 solemn and beautiful words that bind the lives of husband 
 and wife together until death. She ministers, through her 
 visitation office, at the bedside of suffering ; and fills the 
 weak and weary heart with patience. She speaks above the 
 grave where finally our hands and feet find repose, the words 
 of Resurrection and of life. She leads us ever beside the 
 still waters, and notes no distinction between high and 
 
OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 8? 
 
 low, rich and poor, — all her children are alike to hen A 
 thousand leagues of land and sea may stretch between us and 
 our kin ; wherever the wanderer's foot may tarry, there the 
 Church with sweet and holy office knits anew the parted 
 bonds, and families are one again, in the dear familiar words 
 of common prayer and praise. 
 
 "Though sundered far, by faith they meet 
 Around one common mercy seat." 
 
 And if from out their resting places beneath the stones that 
 
 stand like mute sentinels around this hallowed spot, could 
 
 come the forms of those who once were worshippers here, 
 
 the loved "not lost but gone before," could they tell us of 
 
 that celestial country where white-robed choirs in heavenly 
 
 strains uplift the eternal song, would they not rejoice with 
 
 us in "holding fast the form of sound words," words which 
 
 were their own and still are our blessed comfort, and the 
 
 song of our pilgrimage ? 
 
 "We are .travelling home to God, 
 In the way the fathers trod." 
 
 The love we bear for the Church of the living God, deep, 
 unfaltering, unalterable love, has its example in the love of 
 Jesus Christ, who not only "loved the Church," but "gave 
 himself for it." Oh, shall we not also give ourselves to it, 
 and for it, in a new consecration to its glorious work, and a 
 more reverent heed to all those invitations which the Church 
 so constantly utters ? Shall we not do all that in us lies to 
 extend its privileges to them that are as yet unfamiliar 
 with that magnificent thought which bursts from heart and 
 lips when we say, "I believe one Catholic and Apostolic 
 Church !" Her foundations are in the holy mountains of a 
 remote and primitive antiquity. Her witness is for the ever- 
 lasting truth. 
 
88 NOTES. 
 
 I shall conjure with a potent spell, when, in closing, I 
 quote the words of your former well-beloved Rector, the Rev. 
 Dr. Washburn. His was a grand conception of the Church ; 
 no human words it seems to me, can more fitly tell her mis- 
 sion and her character. And while "he being dead, yet speak- 
 eth," we may well listen in reverent silence. He says : "Be 
 this undivided Christ ours, brethren and friends ! May He 
 grant that we prize our creed, our worship, as not fetters to 
 bind, or jewels to hoard, but gifts to share. May we each 
 feel that we belong to no denomination, but to the Church 
 which is for all the children of one Father and followers of 
 one Master, which repeats one truth of redemption, seals on 
 all one calling, opens to all one communion. May we in this 
 time of waiting hearts labour for that unity ; and as the scaf- 
 folding falls from the outside of the building when the work 
 nears its end, see in the decay of human systems the grandeur 
 of the temple itself, the walls and crowning towers of Thine 
 eternal city, O my God and my Lord." 43 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note. — I have made no references in these sermons to the Apostolical 
 Constitutions, because of the doubts existing as to their genuineness. The 
 argument seems sufficiently strong without them. 
 
 1. See Revised Version. 
 
 2. Acts viii: 5. 
 
 3. Acts xvi: 4, 5. 
 
 4. Acts xiv : 23. 
 
 5. Chapter i: 5. 
 
 6. Blunt, Key to Church History, (ancient) p. 61. 
 
 7. Epistle 96. 
 
 8. All these quotations are taken from "The Apostolic Fathers," 
 translated by Jackson, and edited by Prof. Fisher. 
 
NOTES. 89 
 
 9. Vol III. p. 357. T & T. Clark. 
 
 10. Stromata, p. 366. 
 
 11. Bk. Ill : Chap. 37. 
 
 12. I am indebted for the names given here from Eusebius, to the re- 
 searches of the Rev. J. J. Blunt, B. D., "History of Christian Church, 
 first three Centuries," though I have, in part, verified the lists. 
 
 13. Book III. Chapter 3. "Against Heresies." 
 
 14. Ibidem. 
 
 15. Preface to the Ordinal. 
 
 16. Robertson. 
 
 17. Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., Bk. x. chap. 4. 
 
 18. Robertson : Church History, Vol. II, p. 48, ff. 
 
 19. Robertson, Vol. II : p. 221. 
 
 20. Gal. il: 11. 
 
 21. Page 261, T. & T. Clark's edition. 
 
 22. See Bishop Wordsworth's St. Hyppolytus and the Church of Rome 
 Chapter xii. 
 
 23. Wordsworth. 
 
 24. Robertson Vol. II. page 238. 
 
 25. Epistle v. 20. 
 
 26. Epistle viii. 30. 
 
 27. Mediaeval Church History, page 157. 
 
 28. Page 160. 
 
 29. Bp. Williams's Eng. Ref . p. 35. 
 
 30. Ibid. 
 
 31. Bp. Randall's, Why I am a Churchman, p. 95. 
 
 32. Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians. § 5. 
 
 33. Hardwicke's Beformation. 
 
 34. Bishop Williams. 
 
 35. See Curteis' Dissent in its Rel. to Ch. of Eng. 
 
 36. Smith's Diet. Bible. 
 
 37. Acts xv : 21. 
 
 38. Actsxiii: 15. 
 
 39. Shipley's Glossary of Eccl. Terms. 
 
 40. Littledale's Plain Reasons, 30. 
 
 41. It is he, I think, of whom it was said, or might have been, that 
 " He never spoke of himself without lifting his hat." 
 
 42. My Study, page 280. 
 
 43. Sermon, Christ and Sect. p. 23.