MdoXL Eilt^— YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY outlines' of CHRISTIANITY, BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF SIX LECTURES DELIVERED IN THE CATHOLIC CHAPEL, PIERREPONT PLACE, BATH, DURING THE SUNDAYS IN LENT, 1839. PETER AUGUSTINE BAINES, D.D. BISHOP OF SIGA, V. A. W. &C. PRIOR PARK: PRINTED BY W. MURRAY, ST. PAUL'S PRESS. , BATH : SOLD BY SAMUEL GIBBS, UNION STREET, AND JOSEPH SPENCER, PIERREPONT PLACE. LONDON : KEATING & BROWN, AND BOOKER & DOLMAN. MDCCCXXXIX. TO THE READER. Those who attended the Lectures, of which the following purport to be the substance, will perceive that they are greatly altered in form, and somewhat in arrangement. In delivering instructions to a large and promiscuous audience, it is necessaxy to be more diffuse, to present the same subject under different aspects, and to impress, by frequent repetition, points of greater importance, which would otherwise escape the attention of less acute or more distracted auditors. But instruptions in a printed form admit of compression, inasmuch as the reader can recur to subjects which he has passed over too lightly, and review arguments which subsequent information has rendered more forcible.' In this country many erroneous notions prevail respect ing the nature of Christianity, which have the effect of producing a fatal indifference to revealed truth. Hence few give themselves much trouble about religious inquiries, and almost aU, who do, are at once directed into a path, which, however safe to those who have a guide, becomes an inextricable labyrinth to those who refuse to be directed. The following Lectures are intended to show what true Christianity is, and how it may be foimd. They are, as they purport to be, a mere outline. The best mode of filling up this outline would be the oral instructions [iv] of a Catholic theologian, accompanied, if the inquirer be a Protestant, with the comments of his own pastor. But if written information is preferred, it will be found in the common Catholic Catechism; the Catechism of the Council of Trent ; the Faith of Catholics ; the Com parative View, Sermons, and other controversial works of the Rev. John Fletcher, D.D. ; Bishop Milner's End of Religious Controversy ; Dr. Lingard's Tracts ; the Bishop of Strasburg's Amicable Discussion ; Dr. Wise man's Lectures ; Husenbeth's Replies to Faber ; and in a work which, though not controversial, is not perhaps less convincing, I mean the FoUowing of Christ, as edited by Catholics, including its fourth book, which, for obvious reasons, is suppressed in the Protestant editions. These, and many other similar works of calm and well reasoned religious instruction, may be met with in London, at Keating and Brown's, Duke-street, Grosvenor-square, at Booker and Dolman's, New Bond-street, and at all Catholic bookseUers. These particulars are mentioned, because Catholic books, for some reason or other, are seldom to be met with in Protestant libraries. CONTENTS: page Lecture I. — Nature of Religion 1 II. — Knowledge of Religion 17 III. — History of Religion 37 IV. — The Church of Christ 61 v. — State of Departed Souls 89 VI. — The Eucharistic Mystery 113 LECTURE THE FIRST. NATURE OF RELIGION. What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul ?- or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?" — Math. xv. 26. . My Christian Brethern, The importance of religion is powerfully illustrated in the words of our Blessed Saviour just recited — " What will it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul ?" For by these words we are taught that there is a future life, that to prepare for it is our principal concem, and that no advantages, no honours, no enjoyments of this world, can compensate any man for the loss of his immortal soul. The reason is clear ; the present life is short, the future endless. Whatever may be our good fortune in this world, its duration is necessarily limited to a very few years. It must then pass away, as if it had never been. Whereas our future Hfe, whether happy or miserable, will be eternal, that is, will never end, I may add, what can never be said either of the goods or e\'i]s of this life, that the goods of eternity will be excellent above expression or comprehension, and its evils ineffably and inconceivably 2 nature of religion. terrible. Of the former it is said, that " eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what things God has, prepared for those that lovehim," (1 Cor. ii. 9) ; of the latter, that " the worm" of the damned "dlethnot, nor is their fire extinguished," (M.a.th. ix. 43.) In other words, that to the most excruciating external torment, signified by the fire, are added the horrors of internal despair, signified by the never-dying worm, . Now, it is by religion that we are to provide for our future and eternal life. Upon the manner in which the duties of religion are discharged or neglected will depend whether, after death, we are to be happy or miserable for ever. Surely nothing more need be said to demonstrate the overwhelming importance of Religion, You will easily perceive from these remarks, that I understand by religion something very different from what seems to be too often understood by it in this country. One Would suppose, from the conduct of many, that religion was a matter of very inferior moment. With what levity and flippancy are not its awful doctrines discussed in newspapers and tracts, erroneously called religious ! How constantly is it made a mere political engine, a step ping-stone to ambition, the watchword of a party ! Even in places dedicated to the worship of God, how is the sacred name of religion outraged ! what violent and inde cent declamation ! what artful concealments, what ingenious distortions, what unscrupulous misrepresentations of the religious tenets bf the Catholic Church ! Even falsehoods which, in a court of justice, no one would dare to utter, and which, in good cociety, would not be tolerated, excite no surprise when delivered from the pulpit, as if what ought to be the chair of Truth had become^ the only place where Truth can be violated without guilt or disgrace. lecture the first. a If there be any amongst my present audience who ex pect that I shall imitate such conduct by returning raillery for raillery or calumny for calumny, thev will be disap pointed, I have no wish but to promote the cause of truth, and as truth can afford to be calm and charitable, whilst it is argumentative and powerful, I shall confine myself to a simple exposition and defence of the real doctrines of the Catholic Church ; or if occasionally I am under the necessity of refuting the doctrines or asser tions of her opponents, I shall do it with the most scrupulous regard to truth, and the most charitable feel ings towards the erring. What, then, is the nature of Religion, and what the extent of its duties ? Religion is not, my Christian brethren, a political engine, nor an invention of designing men. It is not a voluntary association, to which men can aggregate, or from which they can separate themselves at pleasure. Tt is not even a mere school of morality, much less a mere external mode of paying divine worship. But religion, in the sense in which I speak of it, is a system or code of tmchemgeable laws, which God has prescribed to mankind, as the means of pleasing Him and attaining salvation. As such it embraces every duty, of every kind, which God has ordained for all, or imposed upon each of us, in our respective states of life. Now, some of these duties belong to the natural, others to the revealed law. In other words, some duties of religion are known to us by the light of reason, whilst others are known only by a special revelation from God. Hence the distinction which you sometimes hear made between natural and revealed religion, — terms which would be incorrect if they implied that there can be more than b2 4 nature of religion. one religion acceptable to God, or that the mere observ ance of the natural law would suffice to salvation. For us Christians, who have enjoyed from our childhood the blessings of revelation, it is no easy matter to distin guish between the simple dictates of the natural law and the knowledge which has been divinely communicated. When the eye has beheld external objects by the light of day, and become familiar mth their forms and dimensions, it seems to discern them clearly even in the obscurity of night, when to those who have never before beheld them, they present only false and delusive outlines. Many duties relating to justice, charity, and humility, wliich were invisible to, or faintly seen by, the sages of paganism, are manifest to every class of Christians, and command uni versal assent, because the light of the gospel has shone upon them, and banished the obscurity which reason alone could not dispel. Even many of the truths, which the ancient philosophers taught as the dictates of natural reason, were probably derived in great part from an original revelation, preserved amongst mankind by a general tradition. In fact, if God, after creating inan, had withdrawn altogether , his Divine presence, and left his creature to the sole exer cise of his reasoning powers, how limited must have been his discoveries, particularly when, having lost his innocence, the mists of passion and the shades ©f guilt overclouded his intellect ! He would undoubtedly have discovered that a Creator existed of infinite power, wisdom and goodness, and perhaps he Inight have arrived at a conviction of his own spiritual and immortal nature; but with raspect to the duties which God expected at his hands, and the precise means "by which his future existence was to be made happy, for this knowledge he required the light of revela tion, which was therefore mercifully granted. lecture the flRST, 5 Whilst our first parents continued in innocence, God was pleased to converse familiai'ly with them in a visible forra. The angels, also, it is probable, were frequent visitors in the earthly paradise, for we can hardly suppose that their first vdsit was to expel the guilty pair from their happy abode, and guard its entrance against them with the cherubim's flaming sword. Even after their fall, God did not altogether withdraw his communications from mankind. The promise of a Redeemer was made to Adam, and fully understood by him, though, in the book of Genesis, this sa%dng promise is expressed in figura tive, and to us obscure, terms. To Cain also, after the murder of his brother, a divine revelation was vouchsafed respecting himself and his race. Similar communications continued to be made from time to time, some of which, but probably a very small portion, are recorded by Moses in the Pentateuch, though all of them were no doubt care fully preserved by oral tradition, and faithfully handed down from father to son. We have no knowledge that any divine revelation was committed to writing till the time of Moses, viz. about 2400 years after the creation of the world. Neither have we any proof, nor is there any probability, that the five short books written by Moses were intended to be a substitute for, or to supersede the whole mass of traditional revelation, which had been handed down in the patriarchal families. The author of the Pentateuch was rather the legislator of the Jewish nation than the historian of the human race, and therefore, though he is diffuse and precise in detailing the civil and religious ordinances of that particular people, he passes over in a cursory way the events which regarded the world at large^ as if his object was merely to connect the present with past times, 6 nature of religion. and to show the chain of revelation rather than to detail its doctrines and ordinances. Certain it is, that the Jev^rs have ever claimed to possess a rich store of traditional revelation, distinct from that which the inspired volumes contained, without which they considered the latter a sealed book. With some of their traditions our Blessed Saviour found fault, but these seem not to have been the original revelations handed down in the Jewish Church, but certain ordinances and regulations which had been graduaUy introduced, and which, therefore. He denominates the " com mandments of men." (Math, xv. 9, Mark vii. 8.) On their traditions in general Jesus Christ pronounces no censure, much less does he any where insinuate that the only sources of revealed knowledge were the books which the Jews deno minated emphatically the scriptures. In the same spirit we find St. Paul charging his Christian converts " to holdfast the traditions, which they had learnt, whether hy word, or ly his epistles." {2 Thess. ii, 14.) Josue, the contemporary of Moses, is supposed to have written the book which bears his name, and the prophet Samuel, who lived about 400 years later, is believed to have been the author of the two first books of Judges, or, as they are called in the English Protestant version, the first and second of Samuel. The other books of the old testament were written by several authors, some of whom are unknown, during a period, from Moses to the prophet Malachi, of about 1200, and including the book of Maccabees, which the Catholic Church considers canonical scripture, 1500 years,— the last portion of the ancient testament being thus completed only about a hundred years before the final abolition of the Jewish religion. The contents of the ancient scriptures are chiefly histo- LECTURE THE FIRST. 7 rical, and confined for the most' part to the Jewish nation. The events recorded are sometimes in the form of simple narrative, sometimes in the figurative stile of poetical com position, and sometimes in the more abstruse form of pro phecy. The sacred record sometimes appears to be an abridgement of more voluminous works now lost, to which reference is made for farther information. Thus, in the 2d alias 4th book of Kings, chap. xii. v. 19, it is said, " The rest of the acts of Joas, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judo. ?" It is well known that many of the Psalms were not the composition of the Royal Prophet, but only col lected together by liim and associated with his. Whether they were pre\dously written, or, like many poetical compo sitions of early nations, transmitted orally from minstrel to minstrel, or whether, before their insertion in the book of Psalms, they were considered as divinely inspired, we know not. I said that the contents of the sacred scriptures were chiefly historical — ^but they were by no means wholly so. The books of Moses may be considered as a code of laws both religious and civil, intermixed with historical narrative, and compressed into a small compass. These, with the rest of the sacred volume, contain, in one form or another, if not all that God revealed to his ancient people, at least an admirable body of moral and religious doctrines. The ten commandments, as explained by the Jewish legislator, form an abridgement of the moral law, with the addition of the precept which ordained the sanctlfication of the seventh day. The same moral duties are enforced, professedly or incidentally, in every part of the ancient scriptures, whilst the great variety of the ancient sacrifices, which God commanded to be offered, the num berless ceremonies with which the oblation of sacrifice. 8 nature of RELIGldN. the ordination of priests, the purification of the unclean, and in fine every office of religion, was to be attended, gave a uniform and steady character to the Jewish worship. The rite of circumcision, or mitiation into the Jewish church, the various festivals and public fasts interspersed through the year, the temple of Jerusalem, unrivalled for its magnificence, richness and beauty, where alone sacri fice was allowed to be offered, the Levitical race de voted by birth to the service of religion, and moreover, further qualified for their sacred office by a solemn reli gious rite, — all served to impress upon the minds of the Jews this great truth, that religion consists not merely in the observance of the moral law, but in the fulfilment of the whole will of God, as manifested to us by revelation. They, moreover, intimated to all future ages, the expres sive and awful manner in which God is pleased to be worshipped, and powerfully shadowed forth the beautiful unity and unrivalled glories of the great Christian Church, of which the Jewish was the harbinger and figure. One fact is particularly striking, that though the future sacrifice of the Cross, or of the Christian altar, was manifestly prefigured in all the Jewish sacrifices, though various per sonages of the old testament were known tef be peKsonifi- cations of the future Mespijaii, though th« prophets, amidst Various predictions relating to the fortunes of the Jewish nation, or to the fate of other kingdoms, never failed to in termingle some new communication respecting the Desired of all nations, through faith in whom both Jews and Gentiles were to be saved, the necessity of such faith is nowhere clearly asserted in the old testament, — a proof that this sacred volume di^ not contain the entire deposit of divine revelation. As was to be expected, the Christian Church correspond- lecture the FIRST. 9 ed in every respect with^ its prototype. Like the old law, it came immediately from God, through his divine incarnate Son, and, like the ordinances of that law, the doctrines and or dinances of Jesus Christ were transmitted for a time through oral tradition alone. We have no proof that anything was commanded to be written ; but in the same manner as the books of the old testament were gTadually composed through a period of fifteen hundred years, as circumstances seemed to dictate, so were the books of the new testament written during a period of about sixty years, as various exigences seemed to require. The new converts of the apostles having heard from their inspired teachers the history of their Divine Redeemer's life, felt naturally desfrous to have the same in writing, that they might, at thefr leisure, enjoy the happiness of recalling his admirable sayings and wonderful works. It was to satisfy these rea sonable desfres that St. Mathew composed his gospel in favour of the Jewish converts, about six years after the ascension of our Lord. St. Mark, about four years later, wrote his abridgement of that gospel, it is supposed at Rome ; whilst St. Luke, the companion of St. Paul, about twenty-four years after the ascension, composed the gospel wliich bears ids name, and, a few years later, the Acts of the Apostles, which commences its narrative with the ascension of our Lord, and brings it down to about thirty years later. It records the first promulgation of the Christian religion by St. Peter and the other apostles, and then confines itself chiefly to the acts of St. Paul, of whom the author was the companion and assistant. The gospel of St. John was written by that apostle at the request of his disciples, with a view to oppose the errors of Ebion, Corinthus^ and others, who impugned the Divinity of Jesus Christ, about sixty-three years after the 10 NATURE OF RELIGION. ascension, and his Apocalypse, the most mysterious of all the sacred books, during his banishment in the Island of Patmos, the following year. The various epistles, or letters of the apostles, were addressed, as circumstances required, to the different churches whose names they bear, and treat of events which were well known at the time, but with some of which we are unacquainted — a circum stance which occasions no small difficulty to modern readers. That the new testament is the most precious volume that ever was penned, that it contains the most perfect code of religious truth that ever was revealed to man, that it either teaches in express terms, or obscurely alludes to, most of the leading doctrines revealed by the Divine Founder of Christianity, that it is eminently "profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice," (2 Tim. iii. 17) no one wiU deny; that it contains "all things which he commanded to be observed," seems repug nant to its own express declaration, and is manifestly contrary to fact. The gospel of St. John was written several years after all the other books of the new testa ment, except his own Apocalype, which was written one year later. Yet the last words of St, John's gospel are these : " There are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written." (John xxi. 25.) In fact, Jesus Christ not only instructed his apostles for three whole years before his death, of which instructions comparatively little could be recorded in the gospels, but after his resurrection, "he shewed himself alive for forty days, appearing to them and speaki'Ag of the kingdom of God," (Acts i. 3) that is, giving them instructions respecting his Church. Of the vast im- LECTURE THE FIRST. 11 portance of these instructions no one can doubt. Yet little is recorded of them in scripture, except the commission given by our Lord to Peter to "feed Ji'is lamhs aiid sheep" (Johnxx'.) and his charge to the assemblecL apostles Lo "for give sins," (John xx.) and to " teach all nations." (Math. xviii.) And what were they to teach them ? To " ob serve all things ivhatsoever he had commanded them." He did not say teach them to observe all things that shall be written in a small book which will, four hundred years hence, be declared to be my scripture, but " teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." As an instance of one of the things which Jesus undoubt edly commanded, but which is nowhere written in the new testament, may be cited the abolition of the ancient sab bath, and a transfer of its obligations to a different day of the week. The Decalogue ordained not only that one day in seven should be kept holy, but that the seventh day itself should be so kept, assigning as a reason, that " in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, flnd rested the seventh day ; wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it." (Exod. xx. 11.) Now, our Blessed Saviour expressly confirmed the precepts of the Decalogue (Math. xix. 17), which were the great commandments of the law, and declared that " he who should break even one of its least commandments, and should so teach men, should be called the least in the kingdom of heaven." (Math. v. 19.) Yet all Christians agree in breaking the great commandment in question, for which infraction it is idle to pretend that there is any authority in scripture, but for which there is undoubtedly authority elsewhere. The same may be said of infant baptism, and certain other doctrines and practises common to all Chris tians, and considered by them as portions of divine reve- 12 NATURE OF RELIGION. lation, though not contained in any part of the inspired writings. So far we have learnt that religion is the sole means by which we are to arrive at future happiness ; that its duties are not confined^ to the ordinances of the natural or moral law, that there are positive ordinances, emanat ing immediately from God, which reason could not teach, but which are essential conditions of salvation, simply because God has commanded them. We have seen in what manner God has made his revelations to mankind, sometimes by his own Divine mouth, sometimes by that of his Eternal Son, sometimes through the medium of men divinely inspired, or supernaturally guided by Him ; that the writings of the latter, emphatically called scripture^ contain perhaps the greater part, but certainly not all, the essential duties which God has revealed, and that these sacred books were never intended to abolish or supersede the instructions which God might have himself directly communicated to mankind. We have seen that religion was preserved in the world for two thousand four hundred years by tradition alone, before any portion of scripture was written, and that the ancient scripture was not completed till within one century of the coming of Christ. We have seen that of aU that Jesus taught for the space of three years, only one small volume, full of repeti tions, and written without order or general design, has come down to us under the name of scripture. Reason teaches us that this book cannot, and fact attests that it does not, contain all the essential duties of the Christian reUgion. Experience, moreover, unfortunately proves, that, from some cause or other, since certain individuals undertook to reform the Church, all who have foUowed them have dis agreed with the rest of the Christian world, and been at LECTURE THE FIRST. 13 eternal variance amongst themselves, as to what has and what has not been revealed, what is and what is not essential to salvation ; so that, unless God has taught contradictory doctrines, which is impossible, or has aUowed his ordinances to depend upon the varying opinions of men, which is absurd, all the different sects, into which Christianity is unhappily divided, save one, must be manifestly in error. Such cannot have been the designs of God. Wisdom and goodness equally required that, in originaUy revealing His wiU to man, God should have appointed some certain means by which that divine revela tion could be securely transmitted to after ages. Those means, whatever they are, must lead to unity not to division ; for where there is unity there may be truth, but where there is division there must be error ; and God him self would be the author of error, if he established a rule which necessarUy led to division. The question of what are the means which God has appointed for preserving religious truth amongst men, is too important and too extensive to admit of being fully discussed in this Lecture ; but I cannot conclude without briefly adverting to two very prevalent plans, which cer tainly are not of divine appointment. One is to subject all the doctrines of religion to the test of reason. Now, if all reUgion had been founded on the natural law, there might have been some ground for supposing that aU its doctrines would be discoverable by reason. "StUl, even in this case, it ought not have been the reason of each individual which should decide the question; for the powers of the human mind are very unequal in different persons, and what is perfectly clear to one is utterly incomprehensible to another. On this plan religion would be a very different thing, as understood by 14 NATURE OF RELIGION. Plato or Aristotle, from what it would be as explained by a Boeotian peasant or an African savage ; so that if men would not err even respecting the natural law, they must be content to believe, on the authority of others, what their own reason cannot fathom. But as we -have seen that all religion is not founded on ¦the natural law, that God has enjoined duties which had their origin not in natural reason, but in liis own supreme and absolute will, it is clear that these portions of religion must be learnt from revelation, and proved , by testimony. How could Teason have taught the Jew the necessity of resting from servile work on Saturday, and devoting that particular day to the duties of religion ; -or how could it teach the Christian the obUgat'.on of doing so on Sunday ? How could reason have imagined that God should be propitiated by bloody sacrifices, or by oblations of cakes, wine and fi'uits ? Ought not reason rather to have been shocked at the thought of worshipping God by the same kind of rites with wliich idolaters propitiated thefr false deities? How could human reason have conceived the idea, or dwelt for a moment on, the supposition, of an incarnate God becoming a victim for the sins of his own creatures, committed against himself? or how could it imagine the various duties resulting from so wonderful an ordinaj;ion of divine providence ? It is clear that, to admit the existence of revealed religion, and to insist upon sub jecting its doctrines to the test of reason, is as inconsistent as it would be to subject the colours of external objects to the sense of hearing, or the harmonies of sounds to the sense of smelling. Reason may claim the right of investi gating the proofs on which revelation rests, but she usurps a province which does not belong to l;er, and " becomes ¦wiser than it behoveth," if she claim to discern by her LECTURE THE FIRST. 15 feeble powers " the invisible things of God," to fathom his " incomprehensible judgments," or trace "his unsearchable ways." Another plan employed for discovering the dudes of reUgion, is for each uidn'dual to read the scriptures and expound them for himself. This plyn has formed the groundwork of all the modern and of almost all the ancient sects, and opens a door to eve_y diversity of doctrine. It goes upon the supposition that scripture contains all the essential ordina.aces of reU^ion, which we have seen to be false, and that aU men, women and children, are capable of reading and understancliug the most mysterious and difficult of books, wliich is fanatical. It -arg-ues either that ell who read and expou/id can understand alike, or that divine tiuth may be as various as the faculties, the passions, the prejudices, and fancies of men. ReUgious truth may be above reason, but it never can be contraiy to it, which the rule in question undoubtedly is. For what would be thought of a human legislator who should compile a code of laws in the form of history, poetry, prophecy, without order or method, and then, put ting it into the hands of the people, say, explain it for yourselves, and you shall not err ? Nay, what would be thought of him, if he left to private intrepre tation the clearest and most systematicaUy digested code that ever existed ? No human la,wgiver was ever guilty of such folly. None but God was ever charged with it. Human wisdom has always accompanied the dead letter with the living expo sitor of the law, and human pride has never gone the length of asserting that liberty is violated, when legal litigants are compelled to bend to the judgment of the lawfully constituted courts of law. The scraps of scripture brought forward to prove the doctrine in question, elucidate power- 16 NATURE OF RELIGION. fully the danger of private interpretation, but nothing else. We shall see, in the next Lecture, what rule the wisdom of God has estabUshed for preserving incorrupt the sacred deposit of revealed truth, and guarding from the poison of error the fountains of eternal life. LECTURE THE SECOND. KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGION. " The lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they they shall seek the law at his mouth; because he is the angel of the Lord of Hosts." — Malachi ii, 7. My Christian Brethren, We have seen that ReUgion does not consist merely in the observance of the moral law, but in the fulfilment of the whole wiU of God, as manifested to us by revelation. We have seen, that if reason could have taught us the doc trines and duties of the natural law, it could not possibly have made us acquainted with those pecuUar doctrines and ordinances which relate to subjects above our natural comprehension, or proceed from the free and absolute will of God. These doctrines and ordinances can be known only by special revelation, and revelation only by testimony. It can hardly be necessary to remark, that in whatever words or phrases it pleased the divine wisdom to disclose his wiU to man, those words and phrases were intended to convey a particular meaning: which meaning, not the words and phrases themselves, are the object of divine c 18 KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGION. revelation. If, then, a man were in possession of the exact words " which proceeded from the mouth of God," but understood them in a wrong sense, he could not be said to know the wiU of God ; and if he founded a religion on his erroneous understanding of the divine expression, such religion would not be religion of God, but of man. Now, experience proves that human language is liable to be misunderstood. Even that of God himself is unfortunately so; for never, perhaps, was any book so variously interpreted, and consequently, so much misun derstood, as the sacred scriptures.. In this single island, it i's said, that as many as from one to two hundred different religious sects exist, aU grounding their respective doc trines and practises on scripture, and aU, consequently, interpreting its meaning so differently, as to justify or demand a breach of reUgious unity. To pretend that such a mass of contradiction and error can be revealed by God, is absurd ; to assert that the authors of it are always deficient in sincerity, is uncharitable ; to suppose that God, in his aU-wise providence, left men without any certain means of knowing the truths on which their future happiness depends, is almost blasphemy. We may, therefore, safely take it for granted, that when God con descended to reveal His divine wiU, He at the same time provided means by which it could be securely transmitted to all those for whom it was intended. Has, then, God estabUshed any certain plan for commu nicating to men of all ages his revealed ordinances ? Have we any account of such a plan under the old law ? if so, the same will most probably be foUowed under the new, — the object in both cases being the same, and God being generally uniform and always consistent in his divine ordinances. We know not what plan the Almighty or- LECTURE THE SECOND. 19 dained for preserving his revelation pure during the long period whicli preceded the written law. Probably the long lives of the patriarchs, and the great interest felt by them in events which attended the fall of man, to which themselves or their iimnediate progenitors must have been eye witnesses, afforded a sufficient security to all who were anxious to know the truth. Be that as it may, we have certain knowledge of the plan adopted by God under the written law, which presented a state of things entirely analagous to our o\vn. Moses, as we have seen, was the legislator and ruler, under God, of the Jewish people. In compliance with the divine command, or at least under the divine inspir ation or guidance, he wrote those books of the old testa ment which contain the constitution and laws of the Jewish church. The principal of these laws he received immediately from the divine dictation. What was his next step ? Did he order aU the scribes, who could be put in requisition, to make copies of these laws and distribute them among the people, with an introduc tion announcuig that the new scriptures contained aU that God had taught, and that each individual was to read and expound them for himself ? No : he acted exactly as every other legislator would have done. He appointed judges in every city, to expound, administer and execute the law, leaving an appeal from the inferior judges to the highest tribunal, viz. that of the priests, whose judgments in aU disputed cases was to be final, and acquiesced in under the penalty of death. — " If thou perceive there be among you a hard and doubtful matter in judgment between blood and blood, cause and cause, leprosy and leprosy, and thou see that the words of the judges within thy gates vary :. arise and go up to the place which the Lord thy God shall c2 20 KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGION. choose : and thou shalt come to the Priests of the Levitical race, and to the judges that shall be at the time : and thou shalt ask of them, and they shall shew thee the truth of the judgment: and thou shalt do whatsoever they shall say, that preside in the place, which the Lord shall choose, and what they shall teach thee, according to the law ; and thou shalt follow their sentence ; neither shalt thou decline to the right hand nor to the left hand. But he that will he proud, and refuse to obey the commandments of the priest, who ministereth at the time to the Lord thy God, and the decree of the judge, that man shall die, and thou shalt take away the evil from Israel: and all the people hearing it shall fear, that no one afterwards swell with pride." (Deut. xvii. 8, et seq.) This was undoubtedly investing the ancient priesthood with a formidable power ; but it is not greater than is claimed by every civil government, even the most liberal, in favour of its supreme functionaries, in all civil cases. It is for them to expound the law, and for the people to obey. But if it be said that it is harder to obey men in spiritual than in temporal matters, the objection was met under the old law by the extraordinary powers conferred upon the priesthood, in order to fit them for their high office. " Thou shalt clothe Aaron (these are words of God to Moses) with his vestments, that is, with the linen gar ment and the tunick, and the ephod and the rational, which thou shalt gird with the girdle. And thou shalt put the mitre upon his head, and the holy plate upon the mitre, and thou shalt pour the oil of unction upon his head; and hy this rite shall he be consecrated." This rite of annoint- ing was followed by the oblation of sacrifice, accompanied by many awful and mysterious ceremonies, as you read in the 29th chapter of the book of Exodus. What was the LECTURE THE SECOND. 21 result ? " The altar," said the Lord, " shall be sanctified by my glory ; and I will sanctify also the tabernacle of the testimony with the altar, and Aaron with his sons to do the offce of priesthood unto me. And I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel, and will be their God." Thus sanctified and consecrated for their high office by the authority of God himself, who promised to remain with them and the people whom they governed, nothing was wanting to the priests of the old law to entitle them to the fuU confidence and ready obedience of their fiock. We have a singular instance of the severity of God's judgments towards those who schismatically revolted against his priests. Core, Dathan, Abiron, and other dis tinguished men of the synagogue, refused to submit to the authority of Moses and Aaron, on the plea that all the people were holy, and that, therefore, the peculiar sanc tlfication of the priests gave them no superiority over others. Such was thefr private interpretation of the law, which they maintained in opposition to the au thorised interpreters. " They stood up against Moses and Aaron and said, let it be enough for you that all the multitude consisteth of holy ones and the Lord is among them : why lift ye up yourselves against the people of the Lord?" "N^hat was the consequence ? No sooner did they sacrilegiously attempt the exercise of the priestly office, to which they were not ordained, than " the earth broke asunder under their feet : and opening her mouth, devoured them with their tents and. all their substance ; and they went down alive into hell." (Numbers xvi. 31, et seq.) That the office of expounding the law to the people con tinued with the priests tiU the time of our Saviour is weU known. Hence, when the wise men appeared in Jerusalem after the birth of Christ, and inquired " where 22 KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGION, is he that is horn king of the Jews," Herod did not presume to become his own interpreter of the scripture, but " assembling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where Christ should be born. But they said to him in Bethlehem of Juda ; for so it is written hy the prophet : ' And thou Bethlehem the land of Juda art not the least arhong the princes of Juda : for out of thee shall come forth the captain that shall rule my people Israel.' " (Math, ii.) In this authoritative exposition of the scripture Herod acquiesced, and took his measures accordingly. For the same reason our Blessed Saviour, though He strongly condemned the conduct of the Jewish priesthood of his time, who had become a worldly, selfish and avaricious race, and who, to promote their private ends, had introduced into the practice of religion many blameable usages, still ordered the people to listen to them as their divinely appointed teachers, " saying, the scribes and the' pharisees have sitten in the chair of Moses ': all things, therefore, whatsoever they shall say to you do ; hut according to their works do ye not." (Math. xiu. 2, 3.) Whether, in the time of our Saviour, the civil con stitution of the Jewish nation authorised the infliction of capital punishment on those "who refused to obey the commandment of the priest," I know not ; but it is clear that the Jewish priesthood possessed and exercised at that time the power of excommunication, which is caUed in the gospels " putting out of the synagogue." Thus, in the 9th chapter of St. John it is recorded, that the parents of the blind man feared to give open testimony to his cure by Jesiis Christ, " because they feared the Jews ; for the Jews had already agreed among themselves, that if any man should confess him to be Christ, he should be put out of the LECTURE THE SECOND, 23 synagogue," — a punishment which they actuaUy inflicted upon the bUnd man himself. It is evident from this nar rative, that the sentence of excommunication was much dreaded by the Jews. Hence, our Blessed Saviour thought it necessary to forewarn his apostles that such would be thefr lot. " These things have I spoken to you that you may not he scandalized. They will put you out of the synagogues; yea, the hour cometh that ivhosoever killeth you icill think that he doth a service to God," (John xvi. 2) as carrying into effect the Uteral ordinances of the Mosaic law. It is true, that in these instances the Jewish priests criminaUy abused their power ; but their familiar and un disputed exercise of it proves that they possessed it, and that it was not considered a usurpation on their part. Hence, our Blessed Saviour did not teU'the blind man that the Jews had no right to cast him out of the synagogue, but he exacted from him a profession of faith " in the Son of God," and then initiated him by anticipation into a better communion. Proofs might be multipUed in abuidance, to show that the priests of the old law were the authoritative expositors of the scripture and teachers of reUgion to the Jewish people. Thus, the prophet Ezekiel, who foresaw, during the cap tivity, the reestabUshment of his nation, recounts amongst the offices which the priests should again fulfil, the instruc tion of the people. " They shall teach my people the difference between holy and profane ... . and when there shall be a controversy, they shall stand in my judgments and shall judge." (Ezekiel xiv. 23-4.) The reason is as signed by Malachi, the last of the prophets, in the words of my text — " The lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth ; because he is the angel of the Lord of Hosts," — that is, because he is £4 KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGION. the envoy, the representative of God, chosen by Him, ordained by Him, and commissioned by Him, for this high and necessary office, I have said, if God commissioned his priests to teach , the people under the old law, we may reasonably expect that he will do the same under the new. For, in the first place, the revelations of the new cove nant are not less important to man, the mysteries which it unfolds are not less incomprehensible to reason, nor the duties it enforces less humiUating to our pride, or less repugnant to oxa corrupt dispositions, than those of , the old. In the next place, it must be remembered, that the religion of Moses was intended only for a single nation, whilst that of Jesus Christ was designed for the whole world. If, then, authorised teachers were required in a mere national community, where all had for ages professed the same beUef, where the child was initiated from infancy, through the discourse and example of his parents, in the duties of religion, and where the whole population, as far as religion was concerned, was more civilized and better educated than any other in the world, how much more necessary must authorised teachers be in the Christian Church, which includes in its pale nations of every cUme, language and custom ; from the polished Greek and Roman to the rude and unciviUzed barbarian! To sup pose that such a Church could be instructed and kept ia unity of belief, without a body of teachers duly authorised, and fully qualified for their high office, is to suppose an impossibiUty, or a standing miracle. Reason can afford no countenance to such a notion. To estabUsh its belief, revelation should be clear and incontrovertible. Yet what is the fact ? Certainly if there be any point estabUshed beyond the LECTURE THE SECOND. 25 reach of controversy, any doctrine expressed in terms which would seem incapable of misconstruction, it is that which estabUshes the teaching authority of the Christian priesthood. The doctrines of Christianity were taught by the Son of God himself to his twelve apostles, during the space of three years. At the expiration of that period he was put to death, and rose again the thfrd day. Deeming his for mer instructions insufficient, or considering, perhaps, that those which he might deUver in his altered state would be more impressive, he constantly came amongst his apostles after his resurrection, "for forty days appearing to them and speaking of the kingdom of God," (Acts i. 3) that is, his spfritual kingdom, the Church, It is evident that they to whom out divine Lord taught his doctrines were alone competent to teach them to others. But the power to teach is one thing, and the authority to teach another. Had the apostles received no order to teach, but had taken the office upon themselves, we might have been justified in not listening to thefr in structions. Had they taught, as any other individuals of thefr rank and situation would teach, we might justly have questioned thefr accuracy, and disputed thefr statements. Had some history been written, under divine inspfration, of our divine Redeemer's actions and sayings, we might have said, give me the inspfred volume, and let me read and explain it for myself: I prefer its teaching to yours, and think myself as weU quaUfied to understand the written as you are to understand the oral doctrines of our common lawgiver. But how different was the case ! In the first place, appearing suddenly after his resurrec tion amongst his apostles, he informs them that he is about to communicate to them all the powers which he had received 26 KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGION. from God, and which he had hitherto exercised in person. "Peace he to you; as the Father hath sent me, I also send you.'' But lest human frailty, as an ancient Father ob serves, should sink under the weight of so superhuman a charge, " when he -had said this he breathed on them and said to them, ' Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained.' " (John xx.) On another oc casion, St. Luke teUs us (chap. xxiv. 45) that "he opened their understanding that they might understand the scrip tures," — a proceeding which seems to imply, that to under stand the scriptures is a 'privilege which requires to. be communicated by God, and which does not naturaUy be long to man. At last, assembling his apostles together on a mountain in GaUlee, immediately before his ascension into heaven, he thus addressed them, " All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Going, therefore, teach all nations : baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world." (Math, xxviii. 18, et seq.) It would seem impos sible to misunderstand these words. When Jesus 'says, " teach all nationSf' what else can he mean than " I con stitute you teachers of all nations," or, " I give you au thority to teach all nations" ? But the command to the apostles to teach, implies a command to the people to allow themselves to be taught. Hence, on another occa sion, when our Blessed Saviour sent out his seventy-two disciples, he expressly declared, that it should be better for Sodom, or Tyre, or Sidon, in the day of judgment, than for the city which should refuse to be taught by them ; because, adds he, " He that heareth you heareth LECTURE THE SECOND. 27 me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me ; and he that despiseth me despiseth Him that sent me." (Luke x. 16.) So that, according to this declaration, to reject the teach ing of the lawfully constituted ministers is a formal con tempt of God hiraself. That this coramission to teach was not personal to the apostles, is evident fi'om the pro mise whicii accompanies it, " behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world," — ^for, as the apostles were not to continue till the end of the world, their lawful successors must be included in the promise ; and if these lawful successors of the apostles were for all future ages authorised to teach, the people of aU future ages were commanded to hear. One would suppose that the apostles are now fuUy qua lified to begin their work of teaching. But no ; they are forbidden to commence the great undertaking, till they receive another promise, previously made to them (Acts i, 8), viz, that of the Holy Ghost, " Stay you in the city till you he indued with power from on high." (Luke xxiv, 49.) They did so ; and, after ten days spent in retirement and prayer, the Holy Ghost descended, and conferred upon them the power to speak with divers tongues, so as to be imderstood by the different nations they had to teach. He, moreover, enUghtened their minds, and so confbrmed thefr, courage, that they neither wanted know ledge nor fortitude for the execution of thefr high and dangerous commission. No wonder, then, that St. John estabUshes, as the sure criterion of truth or error, the receiving or rejecting the apostoUc teachers. " He that knoweth God heareth us : he that is not of God heareth us not : hy this we know the spirit of truth and spirit of error." (1 John iv.) So that, according to this declaration, whatever doctrines a person 28 KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGION. may learn by other means, he is in error if he refuse to be taught by the apostolic teachers. Hence, St. Paul, speaking of the Church of God, caUs it the "pillar and ground of truth." (1 Tim. iii. 15.) It is evident that perpetual protection of some kind is promised by our Blessed Saviour to the apostles and their lawful successors, in the vvords " behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world; and as this pro mise is made to them in their teaching capacity, there can be no doubt that it impUe's a protection against falling into error. The same is evidently implied when Christ promises to give his apostles " the spirit of truth, who may abide with them for ever." (John xiv. 16-17.) But, as in both cases the promise is made to the apostles as a body, rather than as individuals, it has ever been understood as conferring the privilege of infaUibiUty upon the Christian Church, though not upon each individual teacher. That thff apostles themselves understood the promise in this sense, seems evident from a transaction recorded in the 15th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. It was natural that many of the Jews, who became converts to Christianity, should be attached to the law under which they had been educated, and should feel a satisfaction in practising the rites to which th-ey had been so long accustomed. Whilst in this manner they associated their old with their new re ligion, they seemed to themselves not so much to have abandoned the former, as to have perfected it by the addition of the latter. This, however, was an erro neous view of the case ; for, though the religion of the Jews> was the true reUgion till the establishment of Christianity, it then ceased to be such ; and, though many of its observances might stiU be practised without sin, as being indifferent in themselves, or even conducive to piety, LECTURE THE SECOND. 29 the practice of them became objectionable, when founded on the principle that they were still of obUgatidn. Hence, when the Jewish converts, not content with practising themselves such of their reUgious observances as were not inconsistent with Christianity, attempted to impose upon the Gentile converts the whole ceremonial law of Moses, as of di\ine obligation, they feU into an error against the Christian Faith, and it became absolutely necessary to op pose them. But how was this to be done ? By refut ing their doctrine from scripture ? Even St. Paul found this method ineffectual, and was obUged to have recourse to the authority of the Church. The event to which I allude is recorded in the 15th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, where we learn, " That some coming down from Judea, taught the brethren, that unless ye he circum cised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. And when Paul and Barnabas had no small contest with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain others of the other side, should go up to the apostles and priests to Jerusalem about this question." By this it would seem, that though the Jewish converts were unwilling to submit to the decision of Paul and Barnabas, who, being only individual teachers, were, as such, liable to error, they were wilUng to obey a decision which, should come from the apostolic body, that is, from the Church itself. The deputation, therefore, proceeded to Jerusalem, and laid the question before the apostles, who assembled in council for the occasion. After showing, from scripture, that the Gentiles were to be converted, and, from testi mony, that they had been so, and had received the Holy Ghost, though not circumcised, the apostles came to an un animous decision, and built upon it an authoritative decree, expressed in these words : " It hath seemed good to the 30 KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGION. Holy Ghost and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things, that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication ; from which things keeping yourselves you shall do well." (Acts xv. 28-29.) Nothing can be more striking than the words of this decree : " It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us" ! Certainly the apostles did not intend to place themselves upon a level with the Divine Spirit, which would have been blasphemy; but they meant to assert that, in exercising their office of teaching, the Holy Ghost spoke by their mouths,_ and gave to their decision the same infallible authority, as if it had proceeded directly from himself. Now, what think you would St. Paul have said, if, after this decree, some Jewish converts should have continued to enforce the necessity of circumcision, on the plea that such was thefr private interpretation of the scripture ? Would the apostle have repUed, " weU, you have a right to explain the scripture for your selves, and, therefore, the decision of the apostoUc body must in your regard go for nothing"? Certainly not. Indeed, it happens that we have an account of the manner in which he afterwards treated such reasoners. For, about five years after the Council of Jerusalem, he was obUged to address an epistle to his converts in Galatia, who had been drawn into the very error which that council condemned. And how does he address them ? He reproaches them that they should have listened to men "who would pervert the gospel of Christ ;" and adds, " if any one preach to you a gospel be sides that which you have received, let him be anathema," — that is, accursed. Nay, he hesitates not to pronounce the same anathema upon himself, or even upon an angel from LECTURE THE SECOND. 31 heaven, should either of thera presume to alter the un changeable doctrines of the gospel. " Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you, besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema." (Gal. i. 8, &c.) In the same epistle, St. Paul reminds his Galatian converts of the necessity of unity in belief, be cause there is but " one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and the Father of all;" and informs them, that it was to preserve tliis unity, and prevent Christians from being " I'tke children tossed to and fro, and carried about by every ivind of doctrine," that Christ gave to his Church " some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of the Church : iintil we all meet in the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the son of God." (Gal. iv, II, et seq.) He frequently inculcates the same doctrine, comparing the Church of Christ to the human body, of which the different members, though united together in one person, have their respective offices, distinct from each other, and he ridicules the notion of each individual Christian assuming to himself the office of teacher, which belongs of those only whom God has appointed. " Are all apvstles ? are all prophets? are all doctors?" (1 Cor, xii.) It is matter of notoriety, that the apostles transmitted to others the commission they had received from their divine Lord. This was done, as under the old law, through the imposition of hands, by which ceremony tl\e Holy Ghost was conferred, with aU the graces necessary for the fulfilment of the apostoUc office. Thus, St. Paul reminds Timothy of the power he had received by this means, and exhorts him to use it by teaching with authority, " These 32 KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGION. things command and teach." (1 Tim. iv. 11.) " Stir up the grace that is in thee hy the imposition of my hands." (1 Tim. i. 6.) " The things which thou hast heard of me by many witnesses, the same commend to faithful men, who shall be fit to teach others also." (Ibid. ii. 2.) " Continue thou in those things which thou hast learned, and which have been committed to thee, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." (Ibid. iii. 14.) " I charge thee before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming and his kingdom. Preach the word : be instant in season and out of season, reprove, intreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine, for there shall be a time when they will nof endure sound doctrine, hut, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears." (Ibid, iv.) The apostle gives the same advice to Titus, whom he had ordained to the apostoUcal office, and left in the Island of Crete, that he might " set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain priests in every city." (Titus i.) He gives him instructions, and com missions him to enforce the same as one in authority. " These things speak, and exhort and rebuke with all au thority. Let no man despise thee." (Ibid, ii.) Behold, my Christian Brethren, the simple and effica cious plan, which the wisdom of God has provided for preserving to mankind the inestimable blessings purchased for them by the death of his Divine Son. In this, as in other things, the old law becomes the type and model of the new. Moses receives from God himself the authority to teach and govern his people, which he transmits, by the imposition of hands, to Josue. " Josue, the son of Nun, was filled with the spirit of ivisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him ; and the children of Israel obeyed LECTURE THE SECOND. him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses." (Deut. xxxiv. 9.) In like manner, the divine Founder of Chris tianity having received from his Heavenly Father "all power in heacen and in earth," (Math, xxviii.) transmits the same, in an extraordinary manner, to his apostles (" as the Father hath sent me, I also send you' ), who, by the imposition of hands, transmit the same to their suc cessors, with whom remain the same promise of protec tion, and the same divine spirit to enlighten and to direct, through " all days, even to the consummation of the world." But is it credible that God could ever intend to preserve from error the collective body of Christian teachers, even to the remotest ages ? Whilst the apostles were only twelve in number, we can conceive the possibility of preserving unity amongst them, particularly as they had heard from the Ups of Jesus Christ himself the wonders which He commanded to be beUeved. But when, instead of twelve, the number of the apostoUc teachers should become multi plied a hundred fold, and when, instead of being confined to a Umited space, which admitted of occasional communi cation, they should be dispersed tlirough the remotest re gions of the earth, and cut off for ever from the compan ionship of thefr brethren, how could such vast numbers of isolated teachers continue in the same doctrine, and what security could the faithful of after-ages have, that what is taught at present was taught in the beginning ? It is clear, that if aU do not teach alike, it is no longer the Church, but the individual, who teaches, and, in this case, the believer may be deceived, since it was to the Church, collectively, that the proraise of the divine protection was made. These are, indeed, serious objections, and the D S4> KNOWLEDGE OF RELIGION. best way to answer them is to say, that what God pro mises he is able to perform. If he has promised to guard for ever the purity of his reUgion, its pastors, how ever numerous and remote, will undoubtedly teach alike ; as, on the other hand, if such protection has not been promised, the great probability, if not absolute certainty, is, that the Church will faU into disunion, and, conse quently, into error. Let us then examine into the facts. Ts there a body of men, the undoubted successors of the apostles, who, at the end of eighteen centuries, teach alike, even in countries the most remote ? The fact is undoubted. For, that the Bishops of the CathoUc Church are the successors of the apostles is matter of indisputable history, and that their faith is, and ever has been, perfectly uniform, in every part of the world, is equally notorious. Such an instance of uniform belief the world never before witnessed, and whether it be considered natural or supernatural, it speaks much for the plan which has been adopted, and for those who have exe cuted it. If the effect result from natural causes, stiU no other body of teachers could be so deserving of our confi dence as these ; for no other could be found so nuinerous and so consistent. But if this wonderful uniformity is out of the natural order of things, then has God fulfilled his promise, — then has Christ defended his Church against the infernal assaults, — then does the Holy Ghost continue to teach her all truth, and we may rely safely on her guidance. This extraordinary unity of the CathoUc Church coun teracts, in an admirable manner, the destructive efforts of time, aild renders the believer as secure at the end of the eighteenth as of the first century. For if, on the one LECTURE THE SECOND. 35 . hand, the period of the original revelation is more remote, the extent of its triumphs, and the multitude of its here ditary witnesses, are increased in a stiU greater proportion, and the fulfilment of the divine promise is become infinitely more striking. If the necessity of a teaching authority required farther demonstration, we might find it in the tacit acknowledg ment of every sect which has rejected it. For though all these sects adopted the principle of private interpretation to effect their separation from the CathoUc Church, not one continued to carry it out into fuU practice after the separa tion was made. Teachers were invariably appointed for the instruction of the people, articles and professions of faitli were drawn up, the punishment of excommunication, or ex clusion from the sect, was inflictedon the indocile who reject ed its tenets, and too often was persecution exercised against those who refused to be converted. What does aU this prove, but that a teaching authority is necessary'in reU gion ; that, as such, it must have been estabUshed by the provident Founder of Christianity; and, consequently, that all who would know the truth, must seek its author ised teachers, and submit to become their disciples, — " because they are the angels 'of the Lord of Hosts ?" (Malachi ii. 7.) LECTURE THE THIRD. HISTORY OF RELIGION. " By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles." — Math, vii. 16, My Christian Brethren, We have seen, in the preceding Lectures, that Religion, being revealed by God, can be known only by the evidence of testimony, and that though the sacred scriptures con tain the greater part, they do not contain the whole of revelation. We have seen that God, in his infinite wis dom, provided for the feithful transmission of his revealed ordinances, by appointing a teaching authority, who, in the first instance, received their commission directly from Himself, and then transmitted it to succeeding generations, by certain external rites, instituted by Him for this pur pose. We have seen how, by these means, the Mosaic religion was transmitted till the coming of Christ, when it was to be superseded by a more perfect dispensation, which was to last till the end of the world. Of this new dispensation, we have seen that Jesus Christ consti tuted his apostles and their successors the teachers and guardians, in these emphatic words : " Going teach all E 38 history of religion. nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and be hold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world." (Math. xxviU.) From these words I infer, ffrst, that the apostles were constituted teachers of the whole religion of Christ, " teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ,-" secondly, that thej' were estabUshed teachers of the whole world — " Going teach all nations ;" thfrdly, that their successors were authorised to continue the office of teaching all nations, without interruption, till the end of the world, under an express proraise of assistance from Jesus Christ himself — " Behold I am with you, all days, even to the consummation of (he world" Now, though no Christian wiU doubt the fulfilment of the Divine promises, acknowledged to be such, experience proves that sorae, explaining scripture for themselves, dispute the import of those promises, and deny that Christ did appoint his apostles and their successors the authorita tive teachers of His law in all nations, or that he did guarantee them from error in promising to be with them. How are such persons to be convinced of any error into ¦which they fall .'' By the words of scripture ? But those words they understand in thefr own pecuUar sense, and they deny the right of any authority to compel thena to adopt any other. Would you refer to other proofs inde pendent of scripture, they assert that scripture is their only rule, and that they wiU admit no other authority. This is unfortunate ; for if human testimony, for instance that of profane history, can prove, beyond the possibiUty of doubt, what were the laws, and what the form of government, of the ancient Roman empire, why should LECTURE THK THIRD. 39 such evidence not be capable of producing equal certainty respecting the laws and governraent of the Christian Church ; and if so, why should it be rejected when scrip ture is deficient, or is not sufficiently explicit, to unite the opinions of men as to its meaning. Surely there is nothing in reason to justify such rejection, and as to scrip ture, it certainly does not prescribe it. One thing, however, it does prescribe, viz, to judge of the tree by its fruits. Consequently, it is perfectly scrip tural to examine the Christian reUgion by this rule, and see what have been the fruits of the different plans for transmitting the ordinances of God. If we find that the plan of a divinely-appointed authority has been followed, from the days of the apostles, by thefr undoubted succes sors, through every age and in every country, and that it has had the effect of keeping the vast majority of the Christian world, from age to age, in perfect unity of be Uef, worship and government, whilst every other plan has been used only by innovators and self-constituted re formers, and has invariably led to division, contradiction^ separation and extinction, — no one, I think, can fail to see that the teaching authority is the plan appointed by God, and that the Church which has ever possessed it is the true Church. These positions, then, I wUl endeavour to estabUsh, by a brief reference to ecclesiastical history, particularly to that of the General CouncUs, and the errors they respec tively condemned. But, first, it may be proper to give some explanation of what is meant by the term general council, which, to many of my audience, may otherwise convey no distinct idea. By the term general council, is understood, in ecclesias tical history, a convocation of the bishops of the Universal e2 40 history of religion. Church, from every part of the world"; not merely the bishops of a particular country,, which is caUed a national council, or of a particular province, which is called a pro vincial council. Provincial or national councils may be called for local purposes : general councils are caUed fpr purposes relating to the Church at large, particularly for deciding questions relating to Faith, for suppressmg heresies and schisms, and for the general reforraation of morals and discipline. I have afready given an account of the first general council held by the apostles at Jerusalem, for settling the dispute respecting the obligation of the Jewish ceremonial law. This council furnished the model for aU which fol lowed it. The whole 'body of. the apostles attended, the question was stated and discussed, and a unanimous decree was issued, authoritatively declaring that the obUgation of the Mosaic law had ceased with the estabUshment of Christianity, and laying dovni certain regulations of a tem porary nature, to be observed by the Christian converts. In other words, it contained a doctrinal decision and a canon of discipline, the obUgation of both being enforced in these expressive words, — " It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." It is evident that, on this occa sion, the apostles considered themselves as exercising the double office of heavenly-guided teachers, and divinely- commissioned rulers of the Christian Church. If, during the lifetime of the apostles, one difficulty arose, which required the interference of a general council, it could not be expected but that such difficulties would frequently arise after their removal frora the government ot the Church. But how should a general council be assem bled, when the apostoUc body was greatly multipUed, and scattered over every part of the world ? During the first LECTURE TUE THIRD. 41 three centuries of the Christian era, the thing was impos sible. It would have excited suspicion in the Roman government, and probably added violence to the terrible persecutions which continuaUy raged. The defect was suppUed by national and provincial synods, the acts of wliich were transnaitted to the distant churches. When universaUy approved, as generaUy happened, those acts acquired ari authority equal to that of a general council, as equally expressing the sentiments of the Universal Church. We have the most satisfactory proofs that, during the first three centuries, the most active correspon dence was carried on between the churches of the three continents. Not a bishiop was appointed, but his promo tion was notified, through the great patriarchs and metro- poUtans, to all other bishops, and, if his orthodoxy was not doubted, letters of communion were addressed to him by all his episcopal brethren. Not so if his orthodoxy was denied or suspected. In this case, the most scrupu lous inquiries were made, and letters of communion re fused tiU he had removed every suspicion, by the most solemn professions of faith. Not an error arose in any quarter but it was instantly denounced, and the innovator compeUed to retract the sarae, or to quit the communion of the Church. We have a long Ust of such heresiarchs, some of whom had a considerable number of followers, before the conversion of the Emperor Constantine. Amongst other heresies which, at that period, disturbed the unity of the Christian Church, was that of Arius, a priest of Constantinople, whose vanity, and, perhaps, dis appointed ambition (for he had hoped to be chosen bishop of that great patriarchal see), led him to attract notice by endeavouring to explain, in a manner more palatable to human reason, the incomprehensible mystery of the Incar- 42 HISTORY OF RELIGION. nation. He maintained that Christ was not truly God, of the same nature as the Father, but a creature of a higher order than the angels, and the Son of God by adoption. With these opinions he atterapted toreconcile the different passages of the sacred scriptures. His vene rable bishop, St. Alexander, used every endeavour to reclaim him, by mild argument and tender entreaty ; but finding him obstinate, and perceiving that the poison began to spread amongst the flock, he summoned a synod of his suffragan bishops, in which he solemnly excom municated Arius, and anathematized his errors, sending intelligence of what had passed to the Pope and to the whole episcopal body. This stroke astounded but did not disconcert Arius. He continued to maintain his opinions, in opposition to the Church, and had the address to gain over to his party a very smaU number of bishops, the principal of whom was Eusebius of Nicomedia, the ordi nary residence of the Emperor. At first Constantine himself was deceived as to the real character of the here- siarch, but discovering the danger which lurked beneath his specious arguments and subtle distinctions, he em ployed the influence of the celebrated Osius, bishop of Cordova, and even wrote himself to Arius, to prevail on him to return to his duty. Finding, however, all his en deavours vain, he determined, in concert with St. Sylves ter, the bishop of Rome, to call a council of the whole Church, and thus arrest the progress of a heresy which as sailed Religion in its vitals, and aimed at the overthrow of aU the Christian's hopes. The project was worthy of the first of the Christian emperors, who had been converted twelve years before, and valued, as they deserved, the inestimable blessings which he had received at the sacred font. Letters were accordingly sent to all the bishops of the LECTURE THE THIRD. 43 Christian world, inviting them to meet at Nice, a princi pal city of Bythynia, where the Emperor had a palace. The Eraperor himself furnished all, who could come, with conveyances, and every other requisite for the journey. In the beginning of June of the year 325, not less than three himdred and eighteen bishops were assembled at Nice, besides two legates frora Pope Sylvester, whose great age prevented his undertaking the journey, and a vast num ber of other ecclesiastical dignitaries and theologians. After a few days spent in private conferences, at which Arius and his partizans were heard, the first pubUc session was held on the 19th of June in the year 325. The place of as sembly was a large haU in the imperial palace, fitted up by the Emperor for the occasion. On either side were rows of seats, raised above each other, on which the bishops sat according to the rank of thefr respective sees. At the upper end sat Osius, bishop of Cordova, who presided over the council in the name of St. Sylvester, supported by Vitus and Vincentius, the two papal legates. A golden chair was prepared in the same part of the hall, but on a lower level than the seats of the bishops, for the Emperor himself. In the centre of the room, on an elevated throne, was placed the_book of the gospels. The bishops being asserabled, Constantine entered with a small number of attendants, but without his guard, arrayed in his irape rial robes. Upon his entrance the whole asserably rose, whilst the Eraperor, with a respectful and embarrassed air, proceeded to the seat prepared for him, but refused to be seated, tiU requested by the bishops. He intimated his great joy at seeing around him that illustrious assem bly of apostoUc prelates ; and declaring that he appeared amongst them as a witness, not a judge, and that his object was to protect, not to control, the freedom of 44' HISTORY OF RELIGION. their deliberations, he conjured them to restore peace to the Church, by an authoritative exposition of its doctrine, and the enforcement of salutary discipline. Never, perhaps, had the world beheld an assembly so truly venerable and august. From the time of the last general council held by the apostles at Jerusalem, three centuries had elapsed, during which the fideUty of their successors had been tried by the most terrible persecu tions. Very many had died iriartyrs to the faith, whilst of those who were present at the Council of Nice, several bore tokens of the torments they had endured, in the loss of a limb, or an eye, or in being maimed in both hands. Not a few were venerable for their age and sanctity. There was St. Alexander, patriarch of Alexandria, ac corapanied by Athanasius his deacon, afterwards his sainted successor. There were St. Eustathius, patriarch of Antioch, and St. Macarius, patriarch of Jerusalem, St. Paphnutius, bishop of the higher Thebais, >St. Potomon, bishop of Heraclea, St. Paul, bishop of Neocesarea, and St. James, bishop of Nisibis, besides several others, distin guished by their talents and learning, no less than by the purity of their morals. It was indeed a cheering sight to behold the Church of Christ thus emerging glorious and triumphant from the sea of tribulation in which she had been so long plunged, her apostles multipUed a hundred fold, and numbering amongst her children the victorious head of the vast Roman empire, now no longer arrayed in the terrors of a perseeutor, sentencing to torments or death the pastors of the Church, but seated in the midst of them, .as a disciple, reverentially listening to thefr doc trines, and prepared to receive and execute their decisions, as those of God himself. Amongst this great number of holy and orthodox pre- LECTURE THE THIRD. *0 lates, were about twenty-two the partizans of Arius, but secretly so, wishing, Uke the heresiarch himself, to escape the condemnation of the Church, and to propagate their erroneous doctrines within its pale, without being separ ated from its commmiion. But thefr artifice was dis covered, and thwarted in the most effectual manner. Arius expressed his readiness to subscribe any profession of faith expressed in the language of scripture, knowing weU that there was no form of expression in the sacred volume which he could not, by subtle distinctions and verbal cavils, make subservient to his purpose. The councU, therefore, drew up a public profession of faith, purposely employing words not found in scripture, but expressing, in the most unequivocal manner, the doctrines of the Church. Arius had admitted that Christ was God, though not of the same nature or substance as the Father. The council, therefore, asserted in the creed, that Jesus Christ was ". God of God, light of the light, true of God of the true God; born not made, consuhstantial to the Father ; by whom {i.e. Jesus Christ) all things were made,'' — terms wliich rendered equivocation almost impossible, and compelled Arius and his foUowers, either to subscribe to the truth, or openly to brave the authority of the Church. The Nicene profession of faith was expressed in the foUowing words : — " We heUeve in one God the Father Almighty, the maker of all things, visible and invisible ; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, horn not made, consuhstan tial to the Father : hy whom all things were made in heaven and in earth. Who for us men, and for our salva tion, descended from heaven and was incarnate and made 46 HISTORY OF RELIGION. man ; he suffered and rose again the fhird day, and as cended into heaven ; and will come again to judge the living and the dead. And in . the Holy Ghost. But those who say there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that before his birth he had no existence, and that he was made of nothing, or of some pre-existing substance, or that he was created, or is mutable, or subject to change, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes." TiU the enactment of this solemn decree, the doctrines which it condemned, though essentiaUy erroneous in them selves, did not necessarily involve an exclusion from the external communion of the Church. From this time they could no longer be held, without the gmlt of heresy. The anathema pronounced by the council, in the name and with the authority of the Universal Church, necessarily fell on all who should thenceforth hold the opinions of Arius. They could not form a part of the Church of Christ: they were cast forth, and regarded as " the heathen and the publican," vdth the positive assurance, that unless they retracted their errors, and embraced, without reserve, and with an entire submission of the wUl and understanding, the authoritative decision of the council, there was no aid of reUgion for them in this Ufe, nor hope of salvation in the next. Henceforward ^the Symbol or Creed of the CouncU of Nice became as necessary to salvation, and as undoubted an exposition of Christian faith, as the Creed of the Apostles or the inspired Gospels themselves. Now, it is clekr, that either the Council of Nice inherited from Jesus Christ the awful power exercised on this occa sion, or it was guilty of a most unjustifiable and criminal usurpation, accompanied with an odious violation of the Christian's liberty, and a cruel privation ofhis just rights. If the council inherited this power from Jesus Christ, then LECTURE THE THIRD. 47 was it originally given to his Church, and belongs to her as much in the sixteenth century as in the fourth. Then must the anathemas of the Council of Trent have the same withering influence as those of Nice, and exclude equaUy from the sheep-fold of Clirist here, and from heaven here after, those on whom they fall. But' if the council did not inherit the power in question, I repeat that it was guilty of a most criminal usurpation, entailing enormous injustice on the flock of Christ, incurring a formal error regarding the apostoUc comraission, and establishing a principle on which the most awful errors and abuses might be buUt. And as these decisions of the council received afterwards the approbation of the whole Christian Church, it is clear that the whole Christian Church must, on this supposition, have fallen into error, — yea, grievous and fundamental error, — and have, consequently, forfeited her character of being " the pillar and ground of truth." Christ could have been no longer with her, and the spirit of truth must have forsaken her, — she mtist have ceased to be from that moment the immaculate Spouse of Christ, and have become an unfaithful and dishonoured outcast. WiU it be said that the errors of Arius regarded the fundamentals of reUgion, and that, therefore, the Church was justified in excluding their abettors from her com- iQunion, just as the Church of England does at the pre sent day ? But it was not merely against the Arians that the Church launched her anathemas. In one of the sub sequent canons of the same Council of Nice, -the case of the Novatians, a sect which had been previously anathema tized by the Church, was taken into consideration, and treated with simUar severity. They were refused admis sion into the Church, except on the express condition of subscribing to its doctrines and abandoning their doctrines. 48 HISTORY OF RELIGION. They were particularly required to acknowledge the power of the Church to receive to reconcUiation those who had apostatized from the faith, and the lawfulness of second marriages — both of which they had denied. In fine, the whole conduct of the council, the prin ciples on which it raet, the form of its discussions, the tenor of its enactments, all prove that it considered itself as invested by Christ with authority to " teach all nations," to rule the Church of God, to bind and to lose, to open and to shut the gates of heaven. Consequently, if the Church does not possess such authority, she fell into a fundamental error ; for it is clear, that if any error can be deemed fundamental in the Church, it must be that which usurps the right of defining articles of faith, of making new creeds, laying down new conditions of ecclesiastical communion,' and new terras of acceptance with God, Now, can we for a raoraent suppose that the Church of Christ was so soon abandoned by her divine Founder, who had proraised to remain with her for ever ? Surely during the three Jong centuries which followed her estabUshment, she merited His affectionate regard, by her fideUty in resisting, even to blood, the seductions of His enemies. Whilst every pastor of the Church was in disposition, if not in reaUty, a martyr ; when to die for Christ was the glory and pride of His universal fiock ; when for His sake every earthly comfort was sacrificed and every tor ment endured; in fine, when the Church of Christ, if ever, was pure in its doctrines and fervent in its practice, to suppose that, at such a time. He should abandon her to error, and cast her from Him, is incredible. But if the Church did not err on this occasion, then did she at that time possess the power she claimed. She had authority to LECTURE THE THIRD. 49 teach and to rule the flock of Christ ; to hear her was to hear Him, to despise her was to despise Hira. ¦ To incur her anathema was to incur the maledictioh of Christ. She was to mankind, as the divine Redeemer himself had been, " the way, the truth, and the life ;" and if these high pri vileges belonged to the Church of Christ at the period of the Nicene Council, they must belong to her at aU times. They are essential to her existence ; so that, wherever the Church of Christ is, she must be invested with these high powers, and wherever these high powers are not found, there is not the Church of Christ. The profession of the Nicene Council was transmitted to St. Sylvester, the bishop of Rome, who gave it his formal approbation. It was then sent to all the other bishops of the Christian world, and universally received, — some few adherents of Arius, who were no longer consi dered as raembers of the Church, and the smaU remnant of some previous heresies, excepted. The councU terminated its labours on the 25th of August of the same year, viz. 325. By this blow the heresy of Arius received a wound from which it never recovered. StiU, though checked and weakened, it was not destroyed. Experience has ever proved, that revolutions in reUgion, as in the state, are not easily suppressed. The minds of men long continue unsettled, the passions continue to ferment, and interests lend their bias to keep aUve, or to restore to power the fallen party. When one expedient fails, another is tried. When one form of expression has become obnoxious, another is adopted. If a suppressed heresy or a vanquished faction cannot recover their ground, on their original prin ciple, they easUy adopt another and another, to escape a dutiful submission to lawful authority. 50 HISTORY OF RELIGION. After the death of Constantine, Arianism found support in some of his successors, so that for a time it recovered strength, and seriously disturbed the unity of the Church. Macedonius, a semi-Arian, in the year 341 usurped the see of Constantinople, through the influence of the Arian faction. Being of a violent and turbulent disposition, he filled the city with troubles, and was deposed by the united efforts of the CathoUc and Arian parties, in 360. As if to revenge himself on both, he now maintained the divinity of Christ in opposition to the Arians, and denied that of the Holy Ghost in opposition to the CathoUcs. In these troubled and unsettled times, any novelty found its abettors, and Macedonius became the head of a consider able party. At the same time, Eunomius, who denied the divinity of both the Son and the Holy Ghost, and the foUowers of SabeUius, who denied all distinction of per sons in the Trinity, continued to add to the increasing confusion. To remedy this compUcation of evils, the same measure was adopted which had been employed against Arius. At the instigation of Pope Damasus, the Emperor Theodosius, in 381, assembled at Constantinople a councU of one hundred and fifty bishops. As the errors it met to oppose were chiefly confined to the east, few or none of the western bishops attended. ' Its manner and principles of proceeding were precisely siraUar to those of the preceding general council. They corapared the doc trines of Macedonius with those of the Universal Church, and solemnly anathematized them, as weU as their abet tors. They, moreover, made certain additions to the Nicene Creed, with a view to raeet more forcibly the prevalent errors. The Creed of the Nicene Council had simply said, we beUeve " in the Holy Ghost" but, as LECTURE THE THIRD. 51 Macedonius had denied the divinity of the third person of the adorable Trinity, the council added — " Lord and Life- giver, who proceeds from the Father, who, together with the Father and the Son, is adored and glorified, who spoke through the prophets." To impress more strongly on all heretics and schismatics the character of the Church, they added to the epithets in the Apostles' Creed, those of " one" and " apostolical," saying — " One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church." Eunomius, having, in conformity with his errors, adopted a new and invaUd form of baptism, the councU added — " We confess one baptism for the re mission of sin^." The councU, in its seventh canon, authorises the re ceiving into the Church the foUowers of aU these different heresies, but only on condition that they " anathematize their respective heresies, and every heresy which opposes the doctrines of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ." The decrees of this councU received the approbation of the Pope and of the whole westem episcopacy, and thus it acquired the force, and received the denomination, of a general councU. The Creed of Constantinople, speaking of the Holy Ghost, mentions only his procession from the Father, To prevent mistake, the words " and the Son" were shortly after added ; with which addition this Creed has continued ever since the standard of orthodoxy, and is StiU used by almost every denomination of Christians. It forms a part of the Uturgy of the Church of England. In the foUowing century, Nestorius, the patriarch of Constantinople, asserted that in Christ there were two distinct persons, the person of God and the person of man ; that the person of man only was bom of the Blessed Vfrgin Mary, and that, therefore, it was improper to style her, as was customary, the Moth'er of God. 52 HISTORY OF RELIGION. To quash this heresy, the Third General Council was called. It raet in the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at Ephesus, and was attended by one hundred and twenty- eight bishops. The council unaniraously declared the doctrines of Nestorius " erroneous and blasphemous" — deposed him from the episcopal dignity, — and, moreover, decreed that whoever held the sarae doctrine, should, if bishops, be in like manner deposed, if clerics of an inferior rank, be degraded from their station, and, if lay persons, anathema tized and excommunicated. This council also received the confirmation of the Pope, and the approbation of the episcopal body through every part of the Christian world. In opposing the errors of Nestorius, who asserted that there are two persons in Christ, Eutiches, abbot of a monastery near Constantinople, feU into an opposite error, teaching that there is in Christ only one nature. This error, no less than that of Nestorius, involved in its con sequences the subversion of the mystery of the Incarnation. To oppose the spreading evil, the Fourth General Council was assembled at Calcedon, in 451. It consisted of three hundred and sixty bishops. The legates of St. Leo, the bishop of Rome, presided. A decree, embodying, in clear and precise terms, the doctrine of the CathoUc Church, was drawn up, which the council declared with one voice, to be that of the Fathers and councils. They anathematized the doctrines of Euti ches, forbade thera to be taught, and ordained that any bishop or cleric holding them should be deposed, and any monk or lay person, excomraunicated. The Church of England professes to hold the doctrines and respect the decisions of these Four General Councils. LECTURE THE THIRD. •'" A century later, viz. in 553, great division and confusion having been created by certain writings of Theodoret of Mopsuestia, and Ibas, bishop of Edessa, the Fifth General CouncU was, held, at Constantinople, which decreed as foUows : — " We receive the four councils of Nice, Con stantinople, Ephesus and Calcedon. We assert that they taught the true faith. We condemn Theodoret of Mopsu estia and his writings. We anathematize the impious letter written by Ibas, in which he denies that the Word was incarnate and made man of the Virgin. ¦ We anathe matize the Three Chapters and their defenders, who pre tend to support them on the authority of the Council of Calcedon." In the foUowing century, the Sixth General Council was held, to suppress the errors of the Monotholites, who taught that there was only one will in Christ. It declared as foUows : — " We decide that there are two wills in Christ, and we forbid tfie contrary to he taught. We detest and reject the impious doctrine of the heretics, who admit only one ivill. This we pronounce to he contrary to the doctrine of the apostles, the decrees of councils and the sentiments of the Fathers." In the following century, viz. in the year 787, the Seventh General CouncU was held, at Nice, to condemn the error of the Iconoclasts, or image breakers, who as serted that it was unlawful to have images and pictures in churches, and that the honour paid to them by the CathoUc Church was idolatrous. Three-hundred and sixty bishops attended this council, and unanimously signed a decree condemning the errors of the Iconoclasts, asserting the lawfulness of images and pictures, and dis tinguishing between the relative honors shown to them and the supreme adoration paid to God alone. The usual F 54 HISTORY OF RELIGION. anathemas were pronounced against the new doctrine and its abettors. In the following century, the Pope having declared invaUd the election of Photius to the see of Constantinople, the latter rejected the supremacy of the See of Rome, and moreover, taught that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father only, not from the Father and the Son. To oppose these errors the Eighth General CouncU met, at Constantinople, in 870. The doctrines of Photius were condemned, and himself and followers anathematized. Photius set the council at defiance, and, by the aid of the secular authorities, continued to maintain his ground, and, ultimately, to drag with him into schism' the greater portion of the Greek Church. The schism was healed for a time by the Fourteenth General Council, held at Lyons, in 1274, over which the Pope presided in person, and at which five hundred bishops attended, besides sixty abbots, and about a thousand prelates of inferior rank. At this council the Greeks acknowledged the supremacy of the Holy See ; and in the solemn mass of thanksgiving celebrated on that occasion, the Creed of Constantinople, with the words "and the Son" was sung both in Latin and Greek, these words being twice repeated, in pubUc testimony that the Greeks renounced their error, which asserted the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father only. Unfortunately this happy reconcUiation was but of short duration, the ma jority of the Greek schismatics refusing to abandon thefr errors. It would be useless to recite the whole list of geriereil councils. Suffice it to say, that, in all of them, without exception, the same principles were acted upon. In every one of these councUs, the assembled bishops claimed to be LECTURE THE THIRD. 55 invested with a divine authority to define the Faith of the Church, to anathematize error, and to exclude from her communion all who held it. In every instance, the defi nitions of these councUs were based, not upon private interpretation of scripture, but upon the doctrines handed down in the Church by a uniform and unbroken tradition, and authoritatively propounded by the episcopal body. The last General Council was held at Trent. It met in 1545, and continued its sessions, with some interruptions, tiU 1563, a period of eighteen years. Its object was to define with precision the faith of the Church, on all thoseT points which were assailed by the different sects of Pro testants, as weU as to reform ecclesiastical discipline, and improve the morality of the Christian world, both in the clergy and laity, which a long period of prosperity, added to the continual disorders attendant upon the formation of the modern European states, had fearfully enervated. The scripture informs us, that " while men slept the enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat." Never was prediction more strikingly verified than at this period. Luther and his associates having broken from the centre of unity, round which the nations of the earth were re volving in peaceful harmony, flew off from the Church and from each other in every dfrection, obeying, in their vagrant course, the conflicting influences of a hundred systems, and throwing out fragments as they proceeded, which spread consternation through all the host of heaven. Never did error before assume such various and changeful forms. Some of the chief Reformers themselves lamented, that if any one knew the doctrines of his party to day, it was impossible for him to predict what it would be to-morrow. In the meantime, defection from the Church proceeded at a rapid speed. Province foUowed province. 56 HISTORY OF RELIGION. kingdom ¦ revolted after kingdom, till, if the promise of Christ had not been engaged to his Universal Church, fears might have been entertained for its safety. In this juncture the Council of Trent asserabled. And what were its proceedings ? Did it enter into a corapromise with its increasing foes, and offer concessions to any of their inno vations ? No : it assumed the high dignity which belonged to the Church of Christ, summoned before it every error, and fulminated against it the apostoUc anathema. Not a quibble, not a subterfuge, did it leave to innovation. On original sin it condemned five errors, and thfrty-three on justification alone. Its definitions were drawn up in clear and concise terms, calculated, not to disguise or mystify, but to place clearly before every eye what the Church approved and what she condemned. "If any one shall say that the first man Adam, did not, by transgressing the divine command in paradise, lose the sanctity and justice in which he was created — let him be anathema. If any one shall assert that man may be justified before God, by his own works, without divine grace through Jesus Christ — anathema. If any one shall assert that the sacraments of the new law were not all instituted hy Jesus Christ, or that they are fewer or more than seven — anathema. If any one shall deny that a true and propitiatory sacrifice is offered to God in the Mass — anathema." This was not the course which human prudence would have dictated, but it was that which truth required. The Church had no authority over the sacred deposit of re vealed truth, but to guard it from error and hand it faith fully down. To permit the smallest change, even to. pre vent the defection of a kingdom, would have been a criminal betrayal of her trust. Therefore, whilst, in the Council of Trent, she used every mild persuasion to induce her erring LECTURE THE THIRD. 57 children to return to thefr duty, and offered to listen to their arguments, she refused them a share in her councils, till they should have made their submission, laying before them, at the same time, in the clearest terms, the errors she requfred them to renomice. From these facts I deduce the following conclusions : — Ffrst, That fi-om the council of the apostles at Jerusalem, in the first century, till that of Trent, in the sixteenth, the CathoUc Church invariably pursued the same plan for preserving the purity of the faith, and reraoving the cor ruptions of error, viz. the plan of authority. In every suc ceeding council she asserted her claim to teach ReUgion to the world, and to be obeyed. She defined articles of faith, and pronounced anathemas on aU who refused to receive them. In this manner she suppressed hundreds of heresies, and expeUed from her communion thousands of their fol lowers. Clearly, if she was not constituted by Jesus Christ the infaUible teacher of his truths, and the supreme ruler of his people, she has, from the earUest periods, been involved in grievous error; and, as aU the sects which have revolted from her, and claimed to be the Church of Christ, were contradictory in their doctrines, evanescent in thefr duration, and limited in their numbers, true Christianity must have been lost to the world, before it had numbered the years of an ordinary sect. Secondly, It is evident from this brief history of the Church, that the principle she has foUowed has ever pro duced the fruits which Jesus Christ predicted should be the characteristics of his Church, viz. unity, universaUty and perpetuity. As to unity, it is manifest, that whenever the Universal Church met in generaL council, which she did upon an average once every century, she invariably found her 58 HISTORY OF RELIGION. ' bishops, from every part of, the world, agreed in doctrine ; so that she defined her articles of faith by universal acclaim, and, when she sent them forth to the world, they were received without opposition, not as doctrines known then for the first time, but as . the recognized and well known doctrines of former ages. Thirdly, This fact of the perfect agreement of the Universal Church, at so many different periods, with such short intervals between, proves that no change of faith can have been raade. For, in this case, there must have been a tirae when a few adopted the change, against the' many, tiU, increasing in nurabers, one half of the Christian world believed the same doctrine to be true, which the other half believed to be, false. But experience has shown that this was impossible ; every novelty in doctrine being, as we have seen, immediately denounced, and suppressed by the authority of the Church, in her provincial synods and general councils, as weU as by the decisions of her pontiffs and bishops. Hence, it is manifest, that the doctrine of the Church never has undergone a change, and that, consequently, the promises of Christ have been ful fiUed in her regard, and that He " remains with her'' still. Fourthly, That the Church which pursued the principle of authority has alone fulfiUed the command of Christ to " teach all nations," her general councils alone might suffice to attest ; for the vast number of bishops who at tended those councils, from every known country of the world, could belong only to a Universal Church ; and that that every country was originally converted by herself, is matter of historical fact. As to the sects which at any time revolted from her, they never bore the smaUest cora parison with her either in the number of their disciples, or in the extent of thefr locality ; nor was any pagan LECTURE THE THIRD, 59 country «ver converted by them. Thus, wliilst the CathoUc Church has ever been in reality what her name implies, — that is, universal, — others have assumed that appellation, in contradiction to fact, at the same time that their short-Uved duration proved how little their pretension to the title could affect its genuine possessor. If it be said, as it may be, that the Church of England, and most other sects, have also claimed the right "of teaching and governing by divine authority, after their first separation from the parent Church, I reply, that thefr claims have never been aUowed, even by their own foUowers, except when supported by the more dreaded and more respected authority of the state. — Who, in fact, ever feared the spfritual anathemas of, the Church of England ? Who beUeves that exclusion from her pale is exclusion from the sheep-fold of Christ ? Who imagines that he cannot participate in the benefits of the redemption, if he be unwiUingly cast, or voluntarUy walk forth, from her communion ? Even her Oxford defenders claim for her no higher honor than that of being a branch of the Church of Christ. What should prevent the bird, which is driven from one branch, from flying to another ? The fact is, her leamed and zealous divines may labour to buUd up the authority of their Church as they please ; unless the Lord buUd with them they labour in vain. An attentive observer of the signs of the times, would run no great risk in predicting the result of thefr bold and arduous attempt. How different is the authority of the Catholic Church ! Her doctrines are listened to by Christians of '^ every cUme, as the teachings of Truth itself ; her anathe mas are equaUy dreaded, though a vast Atlantic roll be tween, and though the feeble hand that weilds her thun ders can inspfre no alarm on the score of this world. But 60 HISTORY. OF RELIGION, this is superstition ? Yes; the sarae superstition, and no other, that inspired the incestuous Corinthian, when the apostle delivered him over to Satan ; the same that the bystanders felt when Ananias and Saphira withered away at St. Peter's reproof. And why caU it superstition ? If God instituted authorities, he intended them to be obeyed ; if he armed his Church with power, he intended it to be feared. To obey and to fear in such a case, is a proof of faith and grace, not of superstition ; to disobey or disregard, is a proof infidelity or abandonment, not of magnanimity. One word as to the principles of private judgment and scripture alone. It has produced, in the lapse of ages, a thousand sects, as different frora each other as frora the Church they deserted ; as divided frora each other as the faUen leaves in autumn ; without unity, without universal ity, without permanency ; tossed about a while, hke those leaves, by every wind of doctrine; tiU some mighty storm disperses them for ever, 'Reason tells us, that out of those thousand sects only one, at most, can be right ; but no reason can discover whether that one be amongst the sects of the present day, or is to be amongst the thousand others, which ages still raore enlightened may hereafter produce. If, then, " a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit" the principle of private interpretation cannot be good ; for disunion, separation and extinction, are bad fruits indeed. As, on the other hand, if " a bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit," the principle of divinely commissioned autho rity cannot be bad, its fruits being precisely those which the Redeemer loves, and truth demands for His Church, unity, imiversality, perpetuity. LECTURE THE FOURTH. THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. " The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end." — Luke i. 32-33. My Christian Brethren, Whoever is famiUar with the sacred scriptures, must have noticed how constantly the Church of Christ is spoken of as a great kingdom or universal empfre. In this character it is almost invariably described by the prophets, a circum stance which led the Jewish nation, whose national vanity and inordinate love of this world blinded them to heavenly things, to beUeve that the promised Messiah was to be the greatest of earthly conquerors, and Jerusalem the seat of his empire. " He shall rule from sea to sea" sung the Royal Prophet, " and from the river to the ends of the earth," — " all the kings of the earth shall adore him, all nations shall serve him." (Ps. Ixxi,) — " All the ends of the earth shall remember and be converted to the Lord, and all the kind/reds of the Gentiles shall adore in his sight ; for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he shall have dominion over 62 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. the nations." (Ps. xxi.) The prophet Daniel is even more explicit, comparing the empire of the Messiah with the four great universal empires, viz. the Babylonian, the Persian, the Grrecian, and the Roman, and pointing out one essential difference between it and them, viz. that it should never be destroyed, but should stand for ever. " In the days of those kingdoms, the God of Heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and his kingdom shall not he delivered up to another people ; and it shall break in pieces and shall consume all these king doms ; and itself shall stand for ever." (Dan. ii. 44.) Iri exact conformity with these predictions was the declaration of the angel Gabriel, when he announced to Mary the birth of her divine Son. " The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall he no end." (Luke i. 32-33.) Hence, our Blessed Saviour himself, being accused by the Jews of aspfring to royalty, when asked by Pilate if he were a king, answered posi tively that he was, but that his kingdom was not of this world. He added — " For this was. I born ; and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice." (John xviii. 37) ; as if he had said, Mine is the empire of eternal truth, to which all who love the truth must belong. Throughout the gospels, our Blessed Saviour constantly speaks of his Church as " the kingdom of heaven" and " the kingdom qf God." Thus, when speaking of its rapid progress, he says, " the kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed," and, when predicting the exclusion of the Jevvs and the vocation of the Gentiles, he says, " the kingdom of heaven is like to a king who made a marriage feast for his son." LECTURE THE FOURTH. 63 The constant repetition of the assertion, both in the old and new testament, that the Church of Christ is a kingr dom, can leave no doubt of its Uteral truth. But if any one will contend, that the language is in some degree figurative, stUl it cannot be denied, that, in all essen tial properties, the Church of Christ must bear a marked resemblance to a kingdom. What, then, is a kingdom ? It is a society of men united together under the government of a sovereign. But, as the sovereign cannot be every where present, nor discharge aU the duties which the office of a suprerae ruler impUes, he has under him magistrates and officers of different grades, who perform various offices in his name. And, that all the subjects may know what their social duties are, and not be the sport of the passions or caprice of thefr immediate rulers, a code of regulations, or laws, common to all, are an essential appendage of every govemment. But as laws would be of Uttie use unless there were authorities to explain their meaning and enforce thefr observance, hence, in every kingdom there are bodies of men set apart for these express purposes. - Such were aU the ancient kingdoms and monarchies, which the sacred writers must have had in view when they spoke of the Church of Christ as a kingdom. In fact, no king dom of any extent ever did, or ever could, exist without the appendages above mentioned, viz. a sovereign, a code of laws, and an authority to explain and enforce the laws. If it be said, that the kingdom of Jesus Christ " is not of this world." This can only mean, that the objects it has in view are not of this world. The objects of earthly kingdoms are the peace and happiness of man in this life ; those of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, their obe- g2 64 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. dience to the divine law in this Ufe, and their eternal happiness in the next. But the subjects of both kingdoms are the same, viz. men living in this world, and conse quently, their sovereign, their magistrates, their judges, and administrators of the laws, must also be men living in this world. The kingdom, then, of Jesus Christ, is like its divine Founder and Sovereign, partly divine partly human, partly spiritual partly corporeal, partly internal partly external. Divine, inasmuch as it regards the things of God, has God for its author, and tends to unite man eternally with God : human, inasmuch as the supreme sovereign himself, the God-man, is human, and all his earthly subjects human : spiritual, inasmuch as it regards the souls of men, re gulates their moral and religious conduct, and enforces the observance of the divine laws, with a view to the per fecting of man's spiritual nature here, and the salvation of his soul hereafter : corporeal, inasmuch as the soul being intimately and inseparably united with the body, cannot, ordinarily speaking, be approached, governed, controUed or directed, but through the medium of the body : internal, inasmuch as the conviction of the truths of reUgion, and the., obligation of obedience to its laws, as well as the graces by which alone its duties can be fulfiUed, are internal : ex ternal, inasmuch as neither the ignorant can be instructed, nor the obedient encouraged, nor the rebelUous reproved, but by external means. In this view of the kingdom of Christ, we perceive how perfectly consistent are His divine declarations, when, at one time, he says to aU, " the kingdom of God is within you," and at another, to his apostles, " Go teach, and baptise," — " he that hears you hears me, and he that despises you despises me." Now, if this be a true description of the kingdom of LECTURE THE FOURTH. 65 Christ, we shall most likely find some vestiges of it in the sacred scriptures, and in the Church itself we must necessar ily find it in full operation. For, as Jesus Christ expressly promised that he would remain with his Church for ever, we are sure to find in it, at aU times, whatever is essential to its legitimate constitution. And, in the first place, do the scriptures give any hint of a sovereign being appointed by Christ to govern His visible kingdom when he should be removed from it ? For the most essential characteristic of a kingdom or monarchy is undoubtedly a sovereign or monarch. On this head we have the most satisfactory information, both in the scriptures and in the history of the Church. You know the comrais sion given by Jesus Christ to his apostle Peter, after the latter had made his solemn profession of faith — " Thou art Christ, the son of the living God." Our Blessed Saviour had, upon his first acquaintance with this apostle, changed his name from Simon to Peter, which signifies a rock. He now assigns the cause : " I say to thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it : and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." (Math. xvi. 18, et seq.) As the apostle St. Paul assures us, and, as it is in itself clear, that Jesus Christ is himself the " chief corner stone," or foundation of his Church, Peter can be so in no other sense than as His representative on earth. In like man ner, as Jesus Christ will not surrender to His Eterpal Father the kingdom of His Church, tiU he shaU, at the day of judgment, " have put all things under his feet ;" (Cor. XV.) so, in constituting Peter the supreme govemor of His Church, under the usual formaUty of the deUvery of the keys. He could intend to constitute him so only as His vicegerent or vicar on earth. 66 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. But, on this occasion, our Blessed Saviour only makes the promise to Peter of the supreme vicariate of his Uni versal Church. Does he afterwards fulfil this promise ? Yes ; but not till the moment when he himself was about to withdraw his visible presence from the world. It was after his resurrection, when Peter and some of his feUow disciples, having spent a wearisome night in fishing on the sea of Tiberias, without the least success, Jesus, in the dawn of morning, appeared on the shore, and, calUng to the boat, bade thera " cast the net on the right side of the ship," proraising that they should be successful. They did so, " and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes." (John xxi.) This was not the first time in which the divine Saviour had given his disciples to comprehend, by this practical illustration, their own na tural helplessness in the conversion of nations, and their wonderful efficacy in this superhuraan work, when corarais sioned and aided by him. Jesus was pleased to premise it on this occasion to his official and fin5,l commission to Peter. He then proceeds to ask him, " Simon son of John lovest thou me more than these ?" — as if He had said ; For, as I am about to confer upon thee greater authority than upon thy fellow disciples, I demand in return a greater love. ¦ Peter answered, — " Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee," — not daring, as an ancient Father observes, after the sad experience of his recent fall, to say that he loved him more than his fellows. This was enough, and better indeed, than more ; for this bespoke humility, and more would have betrayed presumption. Jesus " saith to him, Feed my lamhst. He saith to him again : Simon son of Joh-n, lovest thou me ? He saith to him : Yea, Lord, thou. knowest that I love thee. He saith to hinu- Feed my lambs. He saith to him the third time : Simon son of John lovest LECTURE THE FOURTH. 67 thou me ? Peter was grieved because he had said to him the third time, Lovest thou me ? and he said to him, Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that I love thee. He said to him : Feed my sheep." (John xxi.) The narrator of this most striking and interesting event was the beloved disciple, who was present on the occasion, and whose amiable and generous humiUty seems to have taken plea sure in recountuig thus minutely the enviable preference shown by his divine Lord to Peter. Its import is clear. The name of shepherd was a common appellation assumed hy eastem sovereigns, as expressive of the mildness and gentleness of their sway. It frequently occurs in Homer, and other pagan writers, as weU as in the scriptures. In the latter, the prophet Isaiah thus describes the Messiah : " He shall feed his fiock like a shepherd : he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up' in his bosom." (Isaiah xl. 11.) These lambs and sheep, the objects of the Heavenly Shepherd's tender soUcitude, he entrusts, on his departure from the earth, to the care of Peter, — thus constituting him the visible pastor of his earthly flock, the vicarious sovereign of his spfritual king dom, and thus fulfilling the promise he had made, "IwiU give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." But as, under the old law, Moses, the visible ruler of the ancient Theocracy, could not discharge alone aU the duties belonging to his high station, and was, therefore, assisted by Aaron and his sons, who were solemnly conse crated for the frmctions of the priesthood, as well as by the seventy ancients, on whora a portion of the spirit of Moses was conferred, to aid hira in the general govern ment ; so, in the Theocracy, if I may so express it, of the new law, Peter, its supreirie visible ruler, was assisted by the other apostles, who received from Jesus Christ a por- 68 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. tion of the sarae power and of the same spirit whi»h had been given to their chief. For though to none of thera did he give " the keys of the kingdom of heaven," nor the general coramission 'to "feed his lambs and his sheep," he breathed on all, and said to them, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them ; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." To all he said,—" As the Father hath sent me, I also send you (John xx.) ,• he that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me (Luke x.) ,- go teach all nations, and behold I am with you all days even to the con summation of the world." (Math, xxviii.) Of the whole apostolic body St. Paul spoke when he said, — " Take heed to yourselves and to the whole fiock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops to rule the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." (Acts xx.) Whilst the episcopal body was thus appointed to assist the supreme ruler of the Church, in the government of its numerous provinces, the latter were commissioned to or dain priests and deacons, who might assist them within the limits of their respective dioceses, in preaching the word, administering the sacraments, offering the adorable sacrifice and discharging the other functions of thefr sacred ministry. Such is the form of ecclesiastical govemment which we trace in the sacred scriptures, too clearly to be easily misunderstood. But in the history of the Church it is traced, if possible, stiU more clearly. That such is its government at the present day none can dispute ; that it was the same in the time of St. Gregory the Great, in the sixth, and St. Leo, in the fifth century, is equally mani fest. That the episcopal body ruled the Universal Church in the second century, every page of ecclesiastical history LECTURE THE FOURTH. 69 demonstrates. That the bishop of Rome either did or could usurp a sovereignty over tlie other great patriarchs and metropoUtans, without any resistance being made, and historically recorded, is conti-ary to the nature of things, and more than morally impossible. So far the character istics of the Christian Church correspond with that of an ordinary: kingdom or empire. It has its monarch, it has its chief magistrates ; it has its various grades of ministers, aU moving in thefr respective spheres, subordinate to or connected with each other, for the preservation of unity, truth and peace, amongst the people of God, and for the extension of his holy reign on earth. With respect to the duties belonging to the rulers of the Church, they resemble those which belong to every govemment. To every govemment it belongs to enact laws for the benefit of the community, to promulgate and explain those laws, or, in other words, to teach them to the people, both as to thefr expression and true meaning, particularly the latter ; for it is evident, that, however desfrable it may be to know the exact words of the law, it is infinitely more so to know its true meaning, according to which judgment wiU pass and reward or punishment be awarded. It is true that in the Church of Christ, as in that of the Jews, the legislative authority is much limited, — God him self having, in both cases, taken upon himself the enact ment of the laws. But it belongs to the Church to make such laws or regulations as may appear necessary for en forcing the observance of the divine laws, and these, as coming from the legitimate authorities, are equally bind ing, as if they came dfrectly from God himself. Such was the law which the apostles made at Jerusalem, when they enjoined abstinence "from things strangled arid from 70 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. blood," and such were the regulations to which St. Paul alludes in his first epistle to the Corinthians, when, having complained of the abuses which had crept into the mode of celebrating the Blessed Eucharist, and given certain orders ori the subject, he adds, — " The rest I will set in order when I come." (1 Cor. xi. 34.) It is supposed that one of the regulations he then made was that of receiving the Blessed Sacrament fasting, a regulation which has been universal throughout the Church from the earliest ages, and which is stiU every were enforced as of strict and con scientious obligation. Such are the laws which the Church makes for the due sanctlfication of the Lord's day, the com memoration of the great mysteries of our redemption, the celebration of festivals, the times and manner of abstinence, fasting, and other simUar observances, which, though gene rally commanded by God, are not commanded as to the par ticular times or manner of their observance. Under the Jewish law, which was intended only for a single nation and for a limited period, less discretion was left to its visible rulers ; God himself having regulated every thing with con siderable detaU ; but in the new lawy which was intended for every nation of the world and for every period of time, our Blessed Saviour wisely left to the authorities of his Church a greater latitude as to the mode of enforcing his divine ordinances ; it being well known to Him, that the various circumstances of countries, climates, habits and constitutions, would requfre that the ceremonial, or mode of fulfilUng his immutable commands, should be Uable to change. It is evident, that to refuse to obey the laws of the Church, on the pretext that they are not expressly con-. tained in scripture, is to assume a right which no govern ment would tolerate, — that of individuals setting them- LECTURE THE FOURTH. I I selves above the law, and saying, "we will not obey, because we disapprove." In the Church, such conduct entails the guilt of disobedience to God himself, according to those words, addressed to his apostles, — " He that hears you hears me, and he that despises you despises me." (Luke x.) I have afready shown that the Church inherits, from the apostles, and has exercised, in every age, the right of pro mulgating and expounding the divine law. Is the law written in the sacred scriptures ? To the Church it be longs to declare its meaning, import, obUgation, and mode of observance. Is it not contained in scripture, but handed down by the authorities of the Church in some other way ? It is equally obUgatory as if contauied in scripture, being equaUy taught and commanded by Christ, who did not say, "teach thera to observe merely what shaU be written in the new testaraent ;" but, " teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." (Math, xxviii.) Thus, the sanctlfication of the Sunday is as obUgatory upon Christians as if contained in scripture, and the mode of frs sanctlfication prescribed by the autho rities of the Church, as obUgatory as the command itself. It is evident from this statement, that no individual, whatever his rank ; no nation, whatever its position, in short, no earthly power, can set aside the authorities ap pointed by Jesus Christ for the govemment of his Church, or substitute others in their place. Jesus Christ himself is the supreme though invisible sovereign of his spiritual kingdom, — as such, he possesses the undoubted right to delegate to whom he pleases his inherent powers. It is a criminal usurpation of the divine sovereignty, and high treason against God, to assume the govemment of his people, or the exposition of his law, without express au thority from Him. This is the crime of which Core, Dathan 72 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. and Abiron, were guilty, in the old law, and for which they were instantly destroyed, as recorded in the sixteenth chapter of the book of Numbers. The sarae is the crime of those who, rejecting the authority of the Church, fall into schism, or, denying her doctrines, incur the guilt of heresy, thus making new sects, dragging the ignorant and unstable into rebellion against the delegates of God, and consequently, against God himself. Hence is clearly seen the fallacy of the reasoning so common in thii country : " It matters little to what religion we belong, provided our moral conduct be good ;" — for we have seen, that it is not moral conduct alone which God requires of Chris tians, but the observance of " all things whatsoever he has commanded. It is equaUy fallacious to aUege, that the differences in religious belief, amongst different sects, are not fundamental. For, if any doctrine be held which the Church of Christ condemns, the teaching authority is, in fact, denied, and the guilt of heresy incurred by those who obstinately hold it ; and, if the doctrine be true, but held in willful separation from the true Church, there is the guilt of schism, which is rebellion against God. What would be said of the soldier, who should desert the ranks of his lawful sovereign and join the forces of his enemy, on the plea that the dress of both armies was the same and the military regulations similar ? The Church is the Ark, says an ancient Father ; he who_ is not in the Ark, must perish in the flood. " If a man could have heen saved who was not in the Ark ; so can a man be saved who is not in the Church." (St. Cyprian de unitate Ecclesiae.) But it is alleged, that belief is not an act of the will alone, but also of the understanding, and that, if the un derstanding is not convinced, beUef is irapossible. Yet our Blessed Saviour declares, " that he who believeth not LECTURte THE FOURTH. 1 3 shall he condemned." (Mark xvi. 16.) Does He, then, command impossibilities ? By no means ; but he requfres sincerity, he requfres exertion, he requires ai'dour in the cause of salvation. If our natural powers be insufficient, he bids us pray, and promises to strengthen thera by his grace. You say. Christian Brother, that you cannot be Ueve. Yet the vast majority of the Christian world be lieves. Is there something pecuUar in the structure of your mind, that you should not be able to believe what is believed by others ? Is your understanding weaker, or is it more powerful, than that of all others who beUeve ? The former, I am sure, you wUl not admit, and you would hardly have the presumption to assert the latter. The fact is, the argument you use is one of many, which those who think Ughtly of reUgion assume, without much reflec tion, and hold, because they have no great anxiety to be undeceived. If they were as anxious, as they ought to be, to know the truth, they would see the reasonableness of beUeving whatever God has revealed, upon the testimony of an authority, which He has commanded them to hear, and with which he has promised to remain. They would feel that they could beUeve, without violating their inteUectual independence, nay, that they could not disbelieve without abusing its privileges. If, from the frailty of their nature, they felt a difficulty, they would say, with the anxious father in the gospel, " I believe. Lord, help my unbelief." (Markix.) In this country, where much is known of the ancient reUgions of Greece and Rome, as weU as of every form of moderri paganism, and Uttie of the reUgion of the CathoUc Church, it is too often taken for granted that the latter resembles the former, in requiring from its followers the belief of gross absurdities, revolting to common sense and 74 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. repugnant to reason. Vast numbers, even of the well- informed,' are firmly convinced that the Catholic religion is a grovelling superstition, which debases the faculties of its foUovvers, and that it is utterly beneath the slightest investigation. The clergy, even of the Established Church, (who, being in general well educated men, ought to know better), spare no pains to convince the people that such is actually the case, and, for this purpose, are for ever misstating or caricaturing the doctrines of the Catholic Church. To compare the latter with the absurd systems of paganism is their favourite theme. To turn into ridi cule some mystery, perhaps that of the Blessed Eucharist, and then infer the superstition and folly of those who believe it, is their daily occupation. The pulpits resound, the press teems with these favourite topics. By degrees the public acquires a conviction, that what so many re spectable vritnesses attest must be true. Yet nothing can be more false. Reason b6ing given us by God as the guide of our conduct, cannot, if faithfully foUowed, lead us astray. It is, however, a limited faculty, and is every moment obliged to acknowledge its inabiUty to explain the phe nomena which even the external world presents. How the seed of the plant preserves its vitality for years, and when cast into the ground becomes an herb, a stem, a flower, a fruit; all this reason can attest, because it is visible to the eye, but explain it she cannot, any more than she can explain the Catholic doctrine of tlje Trinity or the Eucharist. In all such cases, where the powers of reason are insufficient, all she can do is to examine the evidence on which the fact is founded, and, according to that evidence, pronounce whether we are to believe it or not. If, in natural things, the intuitive or moral evidence LECTURE THE FOURTH. 75 is conclusive for the fact, she requires us to believe what she camiot herself comprehend. If, in the supernatural order of things, the divine revelation is clear, reason, in like manner, declares that we shall sin against her, if we do not believe the fuUy-attested but whoUy incomprehen sible mystery. It is evident, that a reUgion which professes to have no mysteries, above the comprehension of human reason, cannot be true Christianity, which is founded upon in comprehensible mysteries, the incarnation of the divine Word, the atonement of a crucified God and the Trinity of Persons in one divine Nature. But it is equally clear, that a reUgion which should require us to beUeve incom prehensible mysteries, without sufficient evidence, would be founded on false principles, and must therefore be a false rfeUgion. Only that Christianity can be true, which, whilst it requfres the beUef of mysteries above huraan comprehension, never does so but when reason itself attests the necessity of such beUef. Now, the Catholic religion is the only one which answers to this description. In every other system you meet with inconsistencies or contradictions, which reason condemns. Take as an ex ample the Church of England, which professes to be the most rational of aU the reformed sects. On what principle was it originaUy founded? Either on the principle of authority or of private interpretation of scripture. If, whemthe Church of England sat in judgment upon the doctrines of the CathoUc Church, and pronounced them erroneous, she acted on the principle of authority, that is, of a divine commission to teach and be obeyed, then must the Parent Church have previously possessed the same authority ; and, consequently, the decision of the EngUsh Church was an act of schism, its assumption of 76 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. authority a groundless usurpation, and its profession of doctrines, condemned by the Mother Church, a formal heresy. If, on the other hand, the Church of England professes to have founded her doctrines on the private inter pretation of scripture, the same privilege belongs to all her children, and the numerous sects, which daily separate from her, have as solid a foundation as her own. In this case, she must • renounce her claim to authority, cease to put forward her boasted apostolical commission and take her station amongst the host of self-constituted sects. In the Catholic Church, on the contrary, every thing is consistent. The direct succession of its bishops from the apostles is undisputed matter of history. That the apostles received authority from Christ to teach and to govem his universal flock, and exercised the sairie, is clearly asserted in scripture ; and that they transmitted the same to thefr successors is demonstrated by unquestionable historical evidence. That the undisputed successors of the apostles have continued to exercise this same authority, through every age, tiU the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth cen tury, and to the present day, has been demonstrated in a preceding Lecture. All this is plain matter of fact, in the examination and decision of which reason has full sway. She settles this as she might any other historical question, and the vast majority of the Christian world attests that her decision is right. But the raoment the teaching authority of the CathoUc Church is established, aU her doctrines are based upon an immoveable foundation. . Christ has spoken through his Church. " He is the way, the truth, and the life." Our beUef is no longer grounded on huraan opinion, but on the infallible word of God. The apostles heard the divine teacher hiraself, and be Ueved; we hear the the same divine teacher through LECTURE THE FOURTH. ( * the successors of tlie apostles, and we also believe. Our faith rests on his infaUible word, delivered to us by those to whom he corairianded us to give the sarae credit as to himself. "He that hears you hears me, and he that despises you despises me." (Luke x.) Do the senses seem to bear testimony against any Catholic doctrine, for instance the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist ? But the senses may be deceived, or, at least, the judgraent may be deceived in trusting to the evidence of the senses. The senses testified, to every ordinary spectator, that the infant lying in the stable of Bethlehem was merely a help less and destitute chUd of Adara ; to the shepherds and the magi, who were better informed, faith testified, in despite of the senses, that the helpless infant was also the omnipotent creator of the world. In Uke manner, to the uninstructed beholder, the bread and wine, after consecra tion, have undergone no change by virtue of the Re deemer's words, but to the instructed and believing Chris tian, the same external appearances conceal another sub stance, — and the God-man is seen by the eye of faith, though concealed from the eye of the flesh. Distrusting the senses here, as he did at Bethlehem, the Catholic beUeves, and reason approves his beUeving, upon the testi mony of the teaching authority, that the God-man is really and truly present, though in an unusual form, assumed for purposes which require such concealment. Compelled by the authority which reason and revelation establish, he adds to the evidence of the senses, the testimony of faith, and says, with St. Peter, " Lord...thou hast the words of eternal life." (John vi.) Hitherto we have shown the exact agreement between the CathoUc Church and a kingdom, in general. We have seen that it has ever possessed its visible sovereign, its H 78 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. magistrates, its legislature, its laws, and its legitimate promulgators, expositors and executors of the laws. But there are certain peculiarities belonging to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the whole of which never were nor could be centred in any earthly empire. The first of these is Universality. We have seen how the prophets and evangelists assert this characteristic as belonging to the Church of Christ, in the same manner as it had be longed to the four great' empires of antiquity. Reason shows that such ought to be the case ; seeing that the Messiah came to redeem, not this or that particular country, but, the world at large. This being the fact, we may safely conclude, that a church which is merely national, or confined to a limited space, is not the Church of Jesus Christ, and that, if, pn the other hand, there be one uni versal church, and only one, this must be that Church, if such an institution exists. There is another characteristic of the true Church strongly marked in the sacred scriptures, which, in earthly empires, seldora accompanies universality ; I mean Unity, with its usual attendant. Peace. The prophet Isaiah denominates its divine ruler emphatically " the Prince of Peace ;" and adds, " His empire shall he multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace." (Isaiah ix. 6-7.) " In his 'days," says the Psalmist, " shall justice spring up and abundance of peace, till the moon be taken away." (Ps. Ixxi.) Hence, when the angels announced the birth of Christ, they announced it as an event which should " bring glory to God and peace to men." Now, where there is not unity there cannot be peace. " Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation," says Jesus Christ. He, therefore, wisely secured unity to his Church, LECTURE THE FOURTH, it) by endowing his apostles with the spirit of truth, and commanding all men to hear them. At the same time, he offered up such fervent prayers to procure for them the blessing of unity, that wc might suppose he considered it the raost valuable and the most essential of all heavenly gifts. " Holy Father, keep them in thy 7iame, whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we also are ; and not for them only do I pray, but for those also who through their word shall believe in me, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me ; and the glory which thou gavest me, I have given to them, that they may be one, as ive also are one." (John xvii.) From these words it is clear, that our Saviour intended the unity of his Church to be so striking, as to become a proof of its truth, " that the world may believe that thou hast sent ¦me," and that this union should be of so strict a nature, as to resemble that ineffable union which subsists between the divine persons in the Godhead. Hence, the figure of St. Paul, comparing the Church of Christ to a human body, cannot be considered as conveying an exaggerated idea of Christian unity, — " We being one body in Christ, and every one members of another." (Rom. xii.) " There is one body and one spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism." (Ephes. iv.) These last words of the apostle are particularly striking, as describing the points in which the unity of the Chris tian Church must be exemplified — " one Lord," by which is indicated unity of govemraent, — " one Faith," which impUes unity of belief, — and " ohe Baptism," which implies unity of worship. We may, therefore, fafrly conclude, that, if in any society, claiming to be the religion of Christ, there is not 80 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. unity of government, unity of Faith and unity of worship, it cannot be the Church of Christ. On the other hand, if we find that, in any such society, there exists this three fold unity, particularly if the same is conjoined with universality, and this again with perpetuity, we may be moraUy, nay, more than morally, sure that the finger of God is there ; for, in human institutions, universality, unity and perpetuity, never did, nor ever can, go together. Another characteristic of the Church of Christ is Apostolicity , or, in other words, descent from the apostles. For as Christ, on leaving the world, gave his power to them, and commissioned them to estabUsh his reUgion in all nations, promising to remain with them for ever, it is clear that there cas be no true Christianity which does not come down from the apostles. Unless, therefore, any sect of Christians can trace its origin to the apostles, it cannot be the Church of Christ; as, on the other hand, if there is a reUgion, and only one, which can trace its origin to the apostles, that one must be the Church of Christ, if such an institution any where exists. Lastly, Permanency is a characteristic of the true Church, clearly promised in these and many other similar words, — " Behold I am with you all days, even to the con summation of the world." (Math. xxviU.) Now, every one of these characteristics are found in the Catholic Church, and in no other. It is universal. In numbers it immensely exceeds any other single sect, and, indeed, all Christian sects put together. Those num bers are variously reported — many CathoUc writers having computed the numbers of the CathoUc Church at above two hundred miUions, and the generality of Protestants at not less than one hundred and fifty miUions. The most numerous by far of the sects which are separated LECTURE THE FOURTH. 81 from the Catholic communion, are the Greek schismatics ; but thefr numbers bear no comparison with those of the Parent Church, and they are confined to the limited locality where they first arose. It is useless to speak of the Chui'ch of England. Though she is anxious to be called catholic, she never pretends that she is universal. She is a purely national estabUshment, confined to the Umits of the British dominions, and even there forming a small minority amongst the multitude of dissenting sects and the over whelming numbers of the CathoUc Church. As to unity of faith, she has never known what it is, and her condition becomes every day more desperate. Every one knows that there are Avithin her pale, dignita ries holding doctrines the most opposite and contradictory, on points immediately connected with practical duty and the terms of acceptance with God. AU is confusion, con test and crimination. WhUst one calm, reflecting and learned portion of her divines, is engaged in the laudable and not altogether unsuccessful effort to bring back her erring chUdren to the leading doctrines of the Parent Church, another portion, wUd, furious and fanatical, is throwing her articles overboard, denying the efficacy of her sacraments, or administering them wholesale, clamour ing for the alteration of her liturgy, and the aboUtion of her creeds, and stigmatizing those of their own party, who differ from them, as papists or infidels. It is seldora that division has arrived at such an extreme in any single sect, without immediate dissolution follow ing ; but the Church of England is wealthy, and gold can bind together the most. heterogeneous substances. Nor is this want of unity pecuUar to the Church of England. The difference between her and all other sects is merely as to the mode and manner of disunion. Disunion is the cha- 82 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. racter of them aU ; for the principle on which they are founded, that of private interpretation of scripture, is a principle which essentiaUy leads to disunion, and cannot possibly coexist with unity. In government and worship these different sects agree as Uttie as they do in faith. To call thera ' a kingdom would be absurd. If they resemble any thing in the shape of a government, it is a multitude of independent repubUcs, in which popular clamour, conflicting parties and system atic opposition, are the uniting principles. Take a survey of the whole coUection of sects, who have forsaken the unity of the Catholic Church, from the days of the apostles. It is ever the same. No extravagance, no impiety of doctrine, no diversity of government, no phantasy of worship, that has not prevailed amongst them. Were it possible to assemble them altogether into one place, the confusion would be indescribable. Not a doc trine, held by any of them, which would not be condemned by their motley associates ! scarce a single doctrine of the CathoUc Church, which, if put to vote, would not be approved by a large majority ! So that every impartial spectator must say of such an assembly, — " Out of thy own mouth I judge thee." How different is the state of the CathoUc Church. Her empfre extends to the remotest regions of the habitable globe. Her subjects are the various-coloured inhabitants of the four continents, who differ from each other in dis positions, habits, interests, civilization ; whose mental culture is of every grade, from -the profound scholar to the unlettered peasant ; whose secular rulers are of every rank, from the stately European emperor to the wan dering Indian chief. Yet in religion aU believe the same doctrines, aU adore at the same altars, all obey the LECTURE THE FOURTH. 83 same authority. In reUgion all are brothers, all fellow countrymen, all pursuing the same bright hopes, through the sarae narrow but well beaten path. The high have no advantage over the lowly, the rich over die poor, the learned over the ignorant ; for all are raerabers of the same body, each fiUing his respective office in obedience to the sarae head. To beUeve what God has taught, to worship as God has prescribed, to hear the teachers He has appointed, to obey the authorities he has placed over us, are the plain and simple duties of the Catholic, whether he wear the monarch's crown, the phUosopher's robe, or the peasant's humble garb. In all this, I grant you, there is no room for the pride of station or intellect. No one can say in reUgion, " I wiU be subject to no authority ; I am wiser than all the world ; my own judgment alone shaU be my guide." On the other hand, if submission be demanded of one, it is deraanded of aU. In matters of belief, the visible ruler of the CathoUc Church is as dependent as the humblest of his subjects. Should he attempt to teach or hold a single doctrine contrary to the faith of the Church, (an event whoUy out of the question), he would at once fall fi-om his dignity, and incur the same anathema as any private individual. For the office of the rulers of the Church is to guard the sacred deposit from error. Their commission extend^ not to the alteration of a single tittle of the revealed law. How faithfully they have fulfilled this commission is attested by the fact, that whereas they have met together in general council, from every part of Christendom, eighteen times during as many centuries, their faith was ever found to be uniform on every point; so that they condemned, with one voice, the novelties which from time to time were attempted to be introduced. 84 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. That the Catholic Church descends in direct and un broken succession from the apostles, and is, therefore, apostolical, is not disputed ; that she has so far been permanent, having never ceased to exist, is equally mani fest. Whether she will continue to exist till the end of the world, time only can disclose ; but as the promises of Christ are express, that he wiU remain with his Church, " all days even to the consummation of the world," and as there is no other church but the Catholic, in which, combining the past with the future, this promise can be fulfilled, we cannot doubt that she will continue to enjoy His divine protection for the future, as she has done for the past. Indeed, her present 'state promises weU for the future ; for never did she enjoy, in greater vigour, the strength and comeliness of youth. No symptoms of infirm ity or decay impair her force or tarnish her beauty. An increasing offspring of converted nations and continents, prove that she is still the Spouse of Christ. In the mean tirae, her disobedient children, who, three centuries ago, revolted against her parental authority, proclaiming to the world that she had been divorced for her infideUties, and that they had succeeded to her honours, have remained in their native barrenness, and, though youthful in years, exhibit the wrinkles and decripitude of age. Will it be said that the Church of England has lately, by asserting her apostolicity, established her claim to be a branch of the true Church of Christ. But where are the other branches ? Does she consider the English Dis senters as another branch ? No ; she rejects their feUow ship, on the ground that they have not the apostolical succes sion. Then where are the other branches ? for there is not an apostoUcal church in the world, which will hold communion with the Church of England. The Greek schismatical church , LECTURE THE FOURTH. 85 spurns her; the Nestorian andEutychian sects abhor her, the CathoUc Chui'ch anathematizes her. In vain, then, does she beastlier apostolical descent. Even if she could prove it, which she cannot, the consecration of her first bishops being generally considered iuvaUd, it could avail her no thing ; since apostolicity, though one of the essential cha racteristics of the true Chmxh, is not the only one. Whole national communities, with an episcopacy indisputably apostoUcal, fell into the Arian heresy. Will the Church of England say that they formed a branch of the true Church, because they were apostoUcal ? But a convocation of the- Church of England sat in judgment on the doctrines of the CathoUc Church, and pronounced them erroneous. Be it so ; but, at the sarae time, a general council of the Universal Church sat in judgment on the doctruies of the Church of England, and pronounced them heretical. Can both of these con fficting authorities be the Church of Christ ? If not, which has the best claim to be considered such ? One possesses all the characteristics of that Church — universality, unity, perpetuity, apostoUcity. The other possesses only the lat ter, and that upon a dubious title. One received frora the apostles, and had exercised for fifteen centuries, the authority to " teach all nations ;" the other, revolting against this authority, proclairaed her inde pendence, and insisted upon becoming her own instructor. She was accordingly judged by the Parent Church, con demned, anathematized and disowned. What avails it to call herself a branch of that Church, when she is severed from the parent stock ? What avails it to assert that her doctrines are true, when the only legitimate authority on earth has pronounced them false ? And who will obey her authority, which is founded on disobedience and usurpation ? 86 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. It is true, the evangelical tree has many branches, but these are aU connected together in the sarae common stem, from which they all receive their vitaUty and growth. Under the shade of this gigantic tree, all the nations of the earth repose. If a moral storm now and then tear from it some fair branch, the latter fades and dies, but the tree itself, rooted in the divine, promises and watered by the dews of heaven, flourishes still. Behold, my Christian Brethren, the characteristic marks of the true Church. It is the empfre of the Messiah, his universal, united, permanent empire. There is none other such in the world. What further proof do you require of its truth ? Will you say, I must examine its doctrines in detail, and see how they agree with my bible ? An arduous task indeed ! And why impose it on yourself in religion, when you would see the folly of doing so in the ordinary concerns of life ? You are sending a friend to London to consult the first legal authority of the day. No man of all the bench is so infallible an oracle as he. What directions do you give your friend to find him ? Do you , put into his hands some compilation of our civil code, and say to him, " Study this weU ; get to understand it all thoroughly, and, when you arrive in town, examine all the lawyers, one hy one, to see whose opinions agree best with your book" ? No ; you would consider such a course absolute insanity. You give the lawyer's name and address. This is aU you give, and aU your friend requires. Again : If some stranger were about to visit Bath, for the sake of seeing its venerable Abbey Church, would you send a book containing a minute description of aU its sepulchral monuments — (alas ! they are the only monu ments it now contains ; for its altars are thrown down, its saints have forsaken their niches, and the glowing inhabit- LECTURE THE FOURTH. 87 ants of heaven, who formerly looked through its windows, have all been scared away) ; — would you, I say, give your friend such a book, and teU him, when he arrives in Bath, to go to all the churches and compai-e their monuraents with his catalogue ? No ; you would teU him, " The Abbey Church is the ancient churcli built by our CathoUc ancestors, and towering above every edifice around it, Uke a cedar amongst the brambles." This is all you would tell him, and it would be enough. He would know the object of his search, before he had descended the surrounding hiUs. So does the wisdom of God act with all who seek his Church. He puts a creed into their hands, which aU leam ; and he teUs them, in that creed, that his Church is the " One, the Holy, the Catholic and Apostolic Church." There is not, there never was, more than one such Church. It is visible to every eye. It looks down on every other edifice in the city of this world. Its antiquity, grandeur and majesty, excite your admfration. Enter it, and you wUl be stUl more impressed. No partitions of wood and plaster divide it into separate and hostUe conven ticles. The beauty of unity and hoUness dweUs there. Its walls record the names of thousands of the faithful foUowers of Christ, frora the apostles of The Lamb to the last of the sainted throng. The ambitious monarch, the ensanguined warrior, the eloquent orator, the enlightened statesman, find no niche there ; but the heroes who shed their blood for Jesus Christ, who carried his gospel to pagan nations, who sold themselves to redeem the captive, who gave up their possessions to relieve the poor, who renounced earthly pleasures to follow raore freely the footsteps of their suffering Lord, — these are honoured in his temple as his faithful servants. But God hiraself is the sole object of supreme adoration ; for he alone is God. 88 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. To Him alone the altar rises and sacrifice is offered. A splendid priesthood throngs that altar, such as he himself instituted in the old law ; a thousand Ughts blaze around in token of holy joy ; clouds of incense perfume the sacred atraosphere, the sounds of heavenly music re-echo the divine praises, whilst millions of adorers, of every people and tribe and tongue, crowd around, mixed with the invisible hosts of heaven. There, in some silent recess, the humble penitent pours forth the sorrows of his heart to the minister of God, who looses him from the bonds of his iniquities,' and bids him depart in peace.— There the hungry soul is refreshed with a food more precious by far than the manna in the desert. — There, surrounded with the emblems of sorrow, the affiicted offer the commemorative sacrifice for sorae departed object of their affections, in the consoling hope that, if any human frailties remain to be expiated by him, his suffer ings may be shortened and his glory accelerated. But I have strayed beyond the object I had in view, which was to give you the distinctive marks of the Messiah's King dom, not to detail to you the doctrines of His Church, The subjects to which I have alluded, viz. the use of sacred representations, the intercession of saints, the nature of the Eucharistic sacrament and sacrifice, shaU form the subject of the two following Lectures. LECTURE THE FIFTH, STATE OF DEPARTED SOULS, " We will not have you ignorant. Brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that you he not sorrowful even as others who have no hope." — Thessal, iv. 10, My Christian Brethren, It was not the original intention of God that man should be subject to death. This violent destruction of his earthly frame was infficted as a punishment of sin. " By one man," says the apostle, " sin entered into the world, and by sin death." (Rom. v. 12.) It was, indeed, a punishment of man's own infliction ; for God had expressly declared to him, "In whatsoever day thou shalt eat of the tree of knowledge, thou shalt die the death." (Gen. ii. 17.) In itself death is sufficiently terrible ; in its consequences and accompaniments, as detaUed by God when he passed sen tence on our guilty forefather, it is infinitely more so. " Cursed is the earth in thy work : with labour shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee : and thou shalt eat of the herbs of the earth. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, till thou return to the earth out of which thou wast taken ; for dust thou art and into dust thou shalt return." K 90 state of departed souls. (Gen. iii. 17, et seq.) Thus was paradise changed into a desart, and a house of rejoicing into a house of mourning. Yet even so, had man in all cases been aUowed to run his usual course, and death forbidden to molest him till his years were full and his strength exhausted, the punishment of extinction would not have been so severe. But as no period of life was exempted from the assaults of death ; as he was permitted to Ue in wait for his victims and smite them at every age, in every manner and in every place, the condition of fallen man became one of continual alarm or continual mourning. No moment of his existence could be free from the apprehension of losing either his own life, or the Ufe of some other being, perhaps dearer to him than his own. . The evil was greatly aggravated by the inward convic tion of man that his soul was immortal, and by his imperfect information respecting the lot which awaited him beyond the grave. Would this Ufe terminate his sorrows ? or would its termination increase them ? Wpuld he in an other world bear the burden of his own iniquities, in addi tion to those of his guilty parents ? Would he ever again be united to those whora he loved, and of whom death had deprived him ? Do they concern themselves about him, as he does about them ? Can he be of any service to them or they to him ? Frora this state of misery the divine Redeemer alone could deliver man. He did so. He disarmed death of his principal terrors, by purchasing a resurrection for his victims, and offering them an asylum beyond the grave, of far greater happiness than that of the present life. He, moreover, Ufted up a portion of the veil that hangs before futurity, and informed us both of the condition of departed spirits, and of the communion we may hold with them. It is on this account that St. Paul said to the Thessa- lecture the FIFTH. 91 lonians — " / tvill not have you ignorant, brethren, con- cerning them that are asleep, that you be not sorrowful even as others who have no hope." What, then, does the revelation of Jesus Christ tell us respecting the condition of departed spirits ? First, That immediately after death, we shall appear before the judgment seat of God, to answer for our con duct during this time of trial, and receive a sentence cor responding to our deserts. " We must all be manifest ed," says St. Paul, " before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether it he good or evil," (2 Cor. V. 10) — a sentence which wUl be afterwards pub Ucly confirmed and ratified at the day of general judgment. Secondly, That all such as shaU be found at death fi*ee fr'om any stain of sin, wiU be immediately admitted to the beatic vision, and enjoy a happiness " which neither the eye hath seen, nor the ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." Thfrdly, That those who shaU be found guilty of mortal sin, that is, of a wilful, dehberate and grievous viola tion of the divine law, will be immediately banished from the presence of God, and* consigned to the torments of eternal fire, prepared originaUy for the devil and his angels. Fourthly, That those who shall be found neither so pure as to be capable of admission into that holy abode, " where nothing defiled can enter," (Rev. xxi. 27) nor yet so guilty as to deserve eternal banishment from God and consignment to eternal torments, wiU undergo a tempo rary punishment proportioned to their guilt, and then be admitted to the sight and enjoyment of God, With respect to the damned, they are subjected to an eternal anathema, which separates thera for ever from God k2 92 STATE OF departed SOULS. and his kingdom. They are, therefore, no longer a por tion of the Church of Christ. But the blessed in heaven ^and the souls in purgatory are not only a portion of that Church, but its most cherished portion. As the faith ful on earth, engaged, as they are, in a continual warfare with their spiritual enemies, are aptly denominated the Church militant, the blessed in heaven are appropriately caUed the Church triumphant, whilst the sufferers in pur gatory are denominated the patient or suffering Church. Thus, the whole body of the faithful, whether in this life or the next, constitute but one Church, under the same divine head, one sheep-fold under the same heavenly shepherd. Whilst the earthly portion of the spiritual empire may be considered as a distant province, governed by viceregal authority, heaven and its adjuncts may be considered .as the main body of the kingdom, over which the sovereign himself exercises immediate sway. But have these different portions of the Church of Christ any connexion with each other ? Does the " Com munion of Saints," mentioned in the Creed, extend beyond the limits of the present world ? and if so, in what does it consist ? According to the prevailing belief of the different Pro testant sects, death cuts off all communication between the inhabitants of the two worlds. These sects generally assert, that every man after death is sentenced instantly to heaven or hell; that the inhabitants of heaven have no knowledge or concern about what passes on earth, nor ever think of offering up a prayer to God in favour of their nearest and dearest connexions ; that should thefr surviving friends or relatives think of them and ask their prayers, as perhaps they were accustomed to do on earth, it would be useless, inasmuch as such prayers could not reach the ears of those, to whom they are addressed, anji lecture tiie fifth. 93 moreover, highly criminal — nay, idolatrous — as imputing to creatures attributes of the Deity, viz. ubiquity or omniscience. Hence, the moment the grave has closed over the remains of a parent, the child is forbidden either to address to him any more petitions, or to pray for him — the former being idolatrous, the latter useless and super stitious. The belief of the rest of the Christian world is very different. I say the rest of the Christian world ; for not merely the CathoUc Church, but the Greek schismatical church, aU the ancient Oriental sects, and, in fine, the whole of Christendom, except the Protestant sects, believe that aU comraunion with departed friends is not cut off by death ; that, on the contrary, a communication is kept up advantageous to one or both parties and acceptable to God ; that the blessed in heaven think of the children, parents and friends they have left behind them, are anxious for thefr true welfare, and offer up prayers to God for them ; that, on the other hand, the faithful on earth may address to thefr friends or relatives in heaven, or to any of the apostles or saints, such petitions as it would have been lawful to address to them whilst on earth, and that these petitions are either heard by, or communicated to, those to whom they are addressed, sufficiently to make them useful to those who address them, and are neither injuri ous, nor displeasing to God. The sarae great majority of Christians also believe that it is lawful and useful, nay, that it is a duty of charity, to offer up sacrifices and prayers for our departed friends, who may be in a state of temporary suffering ; that by these means their sufferings are mitigated or shortened, and their admission to the joys of heaven accelerated. And as, except in very extraordinary cases of guUt, accom panied with sudden death, it is impossible to know who 94 STATE OF DEPARTED SOULS. may or may not be in a state of temporary suffering in another world, hence prayers for all those who have died in the comraunion of the Church, is a regular duty of reli gion, and forras an essential portion of the burial service. In short, with the exceptions already mentioned, the whole Christian world beUeves^ with the CouncU of Trent, " That there is a purgatory, and that the souls detained therein are helped hy the suffrages of the faithful." But is there any authority in scripture for the doctrines of purgatory and the invocation of saints ? The whole Christian Church, the Protestant sects excepted, has al ways beUeved that there is. We will first consider the doctrine of purgatory, meaning by this term (and it is all the Catholic Church means by it) a temporary state of punishment after death. It is certain that, when Luther began his jCeform, the whole Christian world beUeved in a temporary state of punishment, and accordingly prayed for those who might be subjected to it. At that time, the only Christians in the world were those who belonged either to the Catholic Church or to the Greek schismatical church, or to some of the smaller oriental sects. Now, all these Christians believed, as they do at this day, in the existence of a teraporary state of punishment, and ;^rayed for the dead detained therein. This is a fact which has been fully demonstrated, and admits of no dispute. " Let not the ancient practice of praying and making oblations for the dead," says the Pro testant bishop Forbes, " received throughout the Universal Church of Christ, almost from the very time of the apostles, he any more rejected hy Protestants as unlawful or vain. Let them reverence the judgment of the primitive Church, and admit a practice, strengthened hy the uninterrupted profession of so many ages. The Universal Church has helieved this practice, not only to be lawful, hut likewise LECTURE THE FIFTH. • 95 beneficial to the souls departed," &c. Tho modern divines of Oxford, in their Tracts for the Times, admit that all the ancient liturgies used by the different Christian Churches contained " a prayer (which has been excluded from the English ritual) for the rest and peace of all those who have departed this life in God's faith and fear." This coincidence amongst the ancient -Uturgies, all of which, they admit, can be traced back to the middle of the fifth century, "proves (they say) the parts which co'inc'ide to he more than one thousand three hundred and eighty-three years old ,•" and, as they also admit that the said liturgies were, in the middle of the fifth century, considered ancient, and were believed to have been handed down from the apostles, their coincidence carries back the belief of the whole Christian world on this head to a much more remote period. We wUl, therefore, examine the Christian writers of both the western and eastern church prior to the middle of the fifth century. But let us first examine some passages of scripture, which these writers continually refer to, either in proof or illus tration of the prevailing doctrine and practice of the Church. First, Our Saviour says, (Math, xii.) " That whosoever shall speak a, word against the son of man, it shall be for given him ; hut he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this world or in the world to come." From this passage it is inferred, that some sins are forgiven in the world to come, as well as in this. Secondly, (Ibid.) " / say to you, that every idle word, that men shall speak, ihey shall render an account for it in the day of judgment." From this passage it is con cluded, that there must be a state of temporary punish ment ; since " every idle word," of which cognizance is 96 STATE OF DEPARTED SOULS. taken, at the judgment seat of God, could not justly be subjected to eternal punishment. Thirdly, " The son of man shall cpme in the glory of his Father, with his angels, and then will he render to every man according to his works." (Math, xvi. 27.) ' From this declaration we gather, that different degrees of punish ment will be awarded to different offenders, and that, whilst grievous crimes are punished eternally, such com paratively light offences as an idle word, will be punished only for a tirae. Fourthly, (1 Cor. iu.) St. Paul says, " Every mari shali receive his own reward according to his own labour. For other foundation no man can lay hut that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now, if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall he manifest: for the day of the 'Lord shall declare it, because it shall he revealed in fire ; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward : if any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss ; but he himself shall he saved, yet so as hy fire'' This passage is considered by most Catholic commenta tors as asserting the existence of different degrees of punishment, proportioned to the works of different indivi duals. . By those persons who Have kept the foundation, but built upon it hay and stubble, instead of more soUd materials, are understood that large class of offenders, who erring not fundamentaUy, are yet guilty of many smaller offences. These " will be saved, yet so as by fire,'' that is, they will be saved, but not till their imperfections have been adequately punished. Drs. Hamond and Whitby, as quoted by Mant, assert, that to be saved by fire was a proverbial expression for such as escape from any great calamity, and they refer to what they caU pai-- LECTURE THE FIFTH, 97 allel passages in Amos iv. 1 1 and Jude i. 23. But in both these passages there is question of saving persons from fire, not hy fire. To save a person from fire, as we snatch a brand from the flames, is undoubtedly to save him from imminent danger, but how to save him hy fire is the same thing, I do not comprehend. Fifthly, St. Peter, in his first epistle, says that Christ, after his resurrection, " came and preached to those spirits that viere in prison : which had heen sometime incredulous, when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noah." As we cannot suppose that our Saviour descended into the hell of the damned, where Jiis preaching could have been of no avaU, we conclude that there must be some other place or state of punishment, where departed souls are confined for a time on account of thefr sins. Lastly, St. John, in his Revelations, (xxi. 27) says, — " There shall not enter in it (the Heavenly Jerusalem) any thing defiled." Hence we conclude, that as all sin is a defilement of the soul, those who die under the guilt of such offences as do not deserve eternal torment, must be purified by suitable temporary punishment, before they can be admitted into heaven. I am aware that Protestants assert that these texts of scripture do not, to their minds, prove a temporary state of punishment after death. I think, however, that every imprejudiced person must admit that they form a strong plausible argument in favour of this doctrine, and that they cannot be got rid of without doing considerable violence to the sacred text. But suppose that scripture had been far less clear than it is in favour of the Catholic doctrine, ought the latter, on that account, to have been rejected ? Then why not reject also the Christian Sabbath — for the transfer of which from Saturday to Sunday there is not a shadow of 98 STATE OF DEPARTED SOULS. scriptural authority ? If every doctrine is to be rejected from the Christian creed, which has not " warranty of scripture" sufficient to demonstrate it to those whose incli nation or interest it is not to be convinced, there is an end not only of the observance of the Sunday and of infant baptism, but, as experience daily proves, of the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and of Christianity itself. As, therefore, the Protestant sects admit at least one doctrine, viz. the sanctlfication of the Sunday, — on an authority distinct frora scripture, viz. universal tradition, — they ought to have examined whether the same authority was not equally in favour of purgatory and prayers for the dead. Had they done so, the 22d article, pronouncing purgatory and prayers for the dead "fond things, vainly invented and grounded on no warranty of scripture," would never have formed a part of the creed of the Church of England. ~ We have seen that the Oxford divines have already carried up the doctrine of prayers for the dead beyond the middle of the fifth century. Let us see whether we cannot trace it still higher. The great St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, in Africa, lived in the fourth and the early part of the fifth century. He was one of the most learned men, not only of that period, so briUiant in ecclesiastical .literature, but of any period be fore or since. He was in correspondence, on religious matters, with all the learned riien of the time. In his controversial works against the Donatists and others, he constantly urged, as the fundamental principle of Chris tianity, the authority of the Universal Church; proving that she never did nor could change her doctrines, and that, consequently, whatever was universally believed by her was undoubtedly of apostolical origin; Now, such he asserts is the doctrine of purgatory and prayers for the dead. " We read" says he, " in the Second LECTURE THE FIFTH. 99 hook of Maccabees (xii. 43), that sacrifice was offered for the dead ; hut though in the old testament, no such words had heen found, the authority of the Universal Church must suf fice, whose practice is incontrovertible." (De curapro Mortuis.) He informs us, in the same work, that the Church was accus tomed in those tiines, as it is at present, to offer up prayers ibr the faithful departed in general, lest there should be any without relations or friends to pray for them. He mentions also, that it was considered an advantage to be buried near the tomb of some martyr, inasmuch as the living would thus be reminded to implore the intercession of that martyr in behalf of the deceased, " not doubting that succour may thence be derived." In his 32d Sermon (De Verbis ApostoU) he mentions, as almost aU the ancient Christian writers do, that the three principal modes of reUeving the dead, were prayers, the Eucharistic sacrifice and alms given to the poor. " It cannot he doubted (these are his words) that hy the prayers of the Church, and hy the salu tary sacrifice, and hy alms, which are given for the repose of their souls, the dead are helped." It having been lately proved, in an EngUsh Ecclesias tical Court, that praying for the dead is an undoubted practice of primitive Christianity, attempts have been made to show that prayers for the dead do not necessarUy imply a state of temporary punishment. Then what do they imply ? Do you pray for the blessed in heaven ? It is useless : . they are. happy afready. Do you pray for the damned in hell ? Thefr state, alas ! admits of no relief \ But is there any proof that the Church, in the time of St. Augustine, prayed for the dead, on account of their being in a temporary state of punishment ? Yes ; he over and over and over again asserts the fact. He even speaks of the_ extreme severity of such punishment, as of a thing w^ll understood at the time. In his commentary on the 100 STATE OF DEPARTED SOULS. 39th Psalm, he says, " Lord chastise me not in thine anger. May I not be numbered with those to whom thou wilt say, ' Go into eternal fite, which hath been prepared for the devil and his angels' Cleanse me sd in this life, and make me such, that I may not stand in need of that purifying fire, designed for those who shall be saved yet so as by fire. And why but because, as the apostle says, they have built upon the foundation wood, hay and stubble ? If they had built gold and silver and precious stones, they would he secured from^ both fires ; not only from that, in which the wicked shall be punished for ever, but likewise from that fire, which will purify those who shall be saved by fire. But because it is said he shall be saved, that fire is thought lightly of; though this suffering will be more grievous than any thing man can endure in this life." We have an interesting iUustration of the sentiments and practices of those times, in the history which St. Augustine gives of the death of his mother, St. Monica, which took place at Ostia, in Italy, in the year 387, on her way to her own country, Africa. He teUs us, that his mother, in her last illness, overhearing him and his brother expressing regret that she should be buried in a foreign country, iraraediately rebuked them, and said, "Never trouble yourselves about my body; bury it any where. All I beg of you is that wheresoever you may be you remember me at the altar of the Lord." Now, Monica was bom of Christian parents, as early as the year 332, and had been, throughout her life, a model of Christian piety. The intense grief she manifested, when her son Au gustine, in his youth, fell into the heresy of the Manichees, and the continual prayers and tears with which she im plored heaven for his conversion, prove that she was a strict Catholic, and, consequently, attached to the doctrines and practices of the Church. She must, therefore, have LECTURE THE FIFTH. 101 been taught in her childhood the importance of prayers for the dead, which made her so anxious on her death-bed to obtain their benefit. This carries up the doctrine in question to the early part of the fourth century. But we have higher authorities than St. Monica. The great St. Jerom, who was born in the year 340, repeatedly mentions the doctrine of pui'gatory and prayers for the dead. He quotes the passage of St. Paul, above cited, as illustrative of this doctrine, and even uses the terms "purged by fire" — an expression, the frequent occurrence of which, in the writings of the early fathers, has given the name of purgatory to the state of temporary punishment after death. We have seen what was the belief of the fourth centniry in the Western Church. Was it the same in the East ? I ask the question merely for the satisfaction of those who are ignorant of ecclesiastical history ; for all who are ac quainted with the annals of the Church, know that in matters of faith, the whole CathoUc body were^ at all tiraes perfectly agreed. St. John Chrysostom, the learned and eloquent bishop of Constantinople, was bom in 344 and died in 407. His voluminous works are full of allusions to purgatory and prayers for the dead. He informs us, that prayers, alms and the Eucharistic sacrifice, were offered for the repose of the dead ; and he constantly urges the faithful to perform these charitable offices in favour of their departed friends. " Let us not tire," says he, " in affording aid to the dead, in offering prayers for them." (Hom. 41 in Ep. I. ad Cor.) " Let us pity them : let us aid them as we may be able : let us obtain some comfort for them : small indeed, yet still some comfort. But how ? by what means ? Ourselves pray ing and intreating others to do the same, and for them un ceasingly giving alms to the poor. Hence comfort will he 102 STATE OF DEPARTED SOULS. derived." (4 Kings xix.) He expressly asserts that the apostles ordained the oblation of sacrifice for the dead. " It was ordained hy the. apostles" says he, " that in cele brating the sacred mysteries, the dead should be remem bered : for they well knew what advantage would thence be derived to them. Will not God he propitious when he looks down on the whole assembly of the people, raising up their hands to him : when he beholds the venerable choir of the priests, and the sacred victim lying on the altar ?" (Hom. 3 in Ep. ad PhiUp,) It is useless to multiply authorities for this period. I wiU, however, quote one passage from another great doctor of the Church, the celebrated St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan,' who was bom in the year 333 and died in 397. In his commentary on the passage of St, Paul, (1 Cor.) he says, — " He will be saved, the apostle said.. ..jet so as-hy fire ; in order that his salvation be not understood to be without pain. He shows that he shall he saved indeed, hut that he shall undergo the pain of fire, and be thus purified (purgatus) not like the unbelieving and wicked man, who shall be punished in everlasting fire." St. Ambrose men tions the custom which then prevailed, as it does to this day, of celebrating Mass for the dead, on the third and thirtieth, or on the seventh and fortieth day after their decease. He declared that he would never cease to pray for the Emperor Theodosius, " till hy his prayers and supplications his friend should he admitted to the holy mount of the Lord," Here I might safely close the investigation ; for who wiU pretend that the Church had fallen into grievous error, within less than three hundred years after the death of the apostles ? or who will prefer the decision of a few unknown English divines in the sixteenth century, pronouncing purgatory and prayers for the dead " a fond thing, vainly LECTURE THE FIFTH. 103 invented and grounded upon no warranty of scripture," to the decision of the Universal Church in the fourth century, speaking through such organs as St. Augustine, St. Jerom, St. Ambrose and St. John Chrysostom, declaring that the doctrine of purgatory is an article of the revealed faith, and that prayer and sacrifice for the dead are an aposto Ucal ordinance ? But to coraplete the chain of evidence, I will briefly aUude to three other authorities. Origen, St. Cyprian, and TertuUian, were all celebrated Christian writers, bom in the second century, and the last within a hundred years from the death of St. John the apostle. Origen, in his 16th Homily, on Jeremias, alluding to the text of St. Paul so often quoted, says, — " Would you enter into heaven with your wood and hay and stubble, to defile the kingdom of God ? or, on account of those incumbrances, remain without and receive no reward for your gold and silver and precious stones ? Neither is this just. It re mains then that you he committed to the fire, which shall consume the light materials; for our God, to those who can comprehend heavenly things, is a consuming fire. But this fire consumes not the creature, — hut what the creature has built, wood, hay and stubble. First, then, we suffer ,on account of our transgressions, and then we receive our reward." St. Cyprian, the celebrated bishop of Carthage, who died a martyr in 258, mentions a regulation estabUshed by his predecessors, therefore nearly, if not quite aposto Ucal, forbidding any one to nominate the clergy to be executors to wiUs. — Under what penalty, do you think, my Protestant brethren ? Why, under the penalty of having no sacrifices nor prayers offered for the repose of their souls, a penalty, he informs us, which was enforced in his time. " Our predecessors prudently advised that no 104 STATE OF DEPARTED SOULS. brother departing this life should nominate any churchman his executor : and should he do it, that no oblation should he made for him, nor sacrifice offered for his repose ; of which we had a late example, when no oblation was made, nor prayer, in his name, offered in the Church." (Ep.i.) What would the framers of the Thirty^iine Articles have said to this ? Why, they would have said, " What care we fpr your prayers for the repose of our souls ? we shall go straight either to heaven or hell; so your prayers and masses are fond things, vainly invented, and grounded on no warranty of scripture." Such were not the feelings of the Christians who Uved within a century of the apostles. To them the threat of having no sacrifice or prayer offered for their repose after death, conveyed the idea of a severe penalty, and deterred them from acts which they would otherwise have wished to perform. TertuUian mentions the custora, which is universal at the present day, of making oblations for the dead on the anniversary day of their death ; which he represents as so essential a duty, that, if a widow should neglect to per forra it in favour of her deceased husband, " she may he truly said, as much as in her lies, to have repudiated him." (De Monog.) How different were the doctrines and feel ings of Christians in the second century to those of Pro testants in the nineteenth ! But if prayers for the dead be a part of the Christian religion, it must probably have been a part also of that of the Jewish. Was it so ? The fact is undoubted. The well known passage in the 2d book of Maccabees, which was written only about a century before Christ, proves that the Jews were accustomed to offer sacrifice for the dead, and that it was considered " a holy and wholesome thought to pray for them, that they might be loosed from their sins." (2 Maccab. xii.) I quote the book of Mac- LECTURE THE FIFTH. 105 cabees only as an authentic history, not as scripture, though we have seen St. Augustine quoting it as such, and though it is so considered by the CathoUc Church. There can be no doubt that this practice was in use amongst the Jews in the time of our Saviour, as it is at the present day. If, then, an argument can be fairly drawn against praying for the dead from the mere opinion that the scripture does not approve it, surely as forcible a one may be dra'^ATi fi'om the certain fact that the scripture does not condemn it. For, had it been a "fond thing vainly invented," and had scripture been intended to constitute the sole rule o£ the Christian's faith, its con demnation ought to have formed part of the scripture then, as it has since of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. You need not then, my CathoUc brethren, deprive your selves of the comfort of praying for your departed friends, or of hoping, that, though they had thefr frailties, and may have departed hence not whoUy without stain, they may stiU be saved, after a teraporary chastisement, and that, in the meantime, your prayers, sacrifices and alms, maybe the means of alleviating or shortening their sufferings. I have, indeed, no fear that the 22d article of the Church of England wiU alarm you, or deter you from a practice prompted by the best feeUngs of your nature, and sanc tioned by the universal practice of the Church of Christ from its establishment, as well as of the Jewish church before it. With respect to the inhabitants of heaven, I have already stated the belief and practice of the Catholic Church. But, that my Protestant hearers may feel convinced that I have stated it accurately, and may be enabled to clear their minds of all the wicked and absurd notions which they have heard imputed to us, I shaU give the decision of the L 106 STATE OF DEPARTED SOULS. Council of Trent on this head, embodied in the decree of its 25th session. Its words are these : — " The holy Council commands all bishops and others, to whom the office of teaching is intrusted, that, according to the practice of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, received from __ the ear liest ages of the Christian religion, and according to the united opinions of the Fathers and the decrees of the holy Councils, they, in the first place, diligently instruct the faithful on the invocation of saints, the honor due to relics and .the lawful use of images ; teaching them that the saints reigning together with Christ offer up their prayers to God for men ; that it is good and profitable suppliantly to invoke them and to have recourse to their supplications and assist ance ; in order to obtain favours from God, through his son Jesus Christ, our Lord, who is our only Redeemer and Saviour." I shaU add a few words in explanation of this decree. It requires Uttie defence when properly understood. In the first place, it asserts that Christ is our only Redeemer and Saviour, through whom aU favours from God must come, by whomsoever they are solicited. Secondly, That " the saints reigning with Christ offer up prayers to God for men," — ^by which words it is clearly intimated, that the saints in heaven are merely inter cessors, just as saints or sinners on earth may be. Thirdly, " That it is good and profitable suppliantly to invoke them and to Jiave recourse to their supplication and assistance." It is not asserted that to invoke the sairits is an essential duty of reUgion, or that no one can be saved without it, but merely that the practice is good and profitable. That " Christ is our only Redeemer and Saviour" through whom all favours frora God must corae, is believed by Protestants in general, and. therefore requires no proof. LECTURE TUE I'IFTH. 107 But is there any proof that the saints reigning with Christ offer up prayers to God for us ? Do they not, when they leave this world, abandon all concem for their brethren, children and friends on earth ? That the damned in hell are not so unnatui-al, seems evident from the parable (if it be a parable) of the Rich Man and Lazarus. The former finding that he could obtain no relief for himself, in his place of torment, made earnest entreaty for his brethren on earth. " Father, I beseeth that thou wouldst send him (Lazarus) to my father's house, for I have five hrethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torments." (Luke xvi. 27, et seq.) NoWj is it likely that the blessed in heaven will feel less anxious for thefr friends, who may be in danger of perishing, than the damned in heU ? or may we not venture to infer the con trary, without incurring censure ? Unfortunately, Pro testants have excluded from the canon of scripture the books of Tobias and Maccabees, or positive proof could have been adduced that the good in another world are reaUy as charitable as the wicked. For, in the forraer book (xU. 12), the angel_ Gabriel says to Tobias, " When thou didst pray with tears and didst bury the dead, I offered thy prayers to the Lord." The same charitable office is assigned to the angels, in the Revelations of St. John (v. 8) ; and our Blessed Saviour represents these benevolent spirits as rejoicing in the conversion of a sin ner — a proof that they feel an interest in such con version, and a strong presumption that they would take some pains to accomplish it. In the 2d book of Mac cabees (xv.) it is recorded, that Judas Maccabeus had a vision, in which he saw Onias the priest and Jeremias the prophet praying for the whole nation of the Jews. " This," said Onias, pointing to the prophet, " this is Jere mias the prophet of God, who prays much for the people 108 STATE OF DEPARTED SOULS. and for the holy city." The way in which the account of this vision was received by the Jewish army, proves that there was nothing in it which clashed with their received doctrines, and, consequently, - that it was the beUef of the ancient people of God, that the departed just do interest themselves about^ their surviving friends. It is incumbent on those who deny that they do, to prove the libel ; for such, till proved, we must consider it. But is it good or useful to implore the saints to pray for us ? I recollect no passage in scripture which proves this fact. But neither have I ever met with any thing to condemn it, and common sense seems to justify it. For if God himself, who knows all our wants and desires, and is all mercy and goodness, stiU is moved by our prayers, surely we may suppose that the saints in heaven are Uable to the same influence ; and if so, it must be good and pro fitable to invoke them, and thus obtain the benefit of their intercession with God. But have the saints in heaven any influence with God ? Why should we doubt it ? The scrip ture tells us that Moses, Job, Daniel, and other saints, had influence with God whilst on earth ; and that, after the death of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David, God often spared the Jewish nation for their sake. It also informs us, that the angels offer their own prayers to God, as well as those of the saints, in behalf of mankind. Can we doubt, then, that their prayers wiU have influence ? But it is not merely the utility of invoking the saints which Protestants dispute. They deny it to be lawful ; they proclaim it idolatrous. In England they declare it to be so upon oath ! Yet, that the whole Christian world has invoked the intercession of the saints, from the first century downwards, is a fact so notorious that it were waste of time to prove it. You may fully satisfy yourselves on this head, if you will read the authorities coUected in a LECTURE TIIE FIFTH. lOf) work entitled " The Faith of Catholics," under thc article ' Invocation of Angels and Saints.' But do not CathoUcs worship saints as if they were Gods ? No ; they believe in one God only ; how should they worship more ? They know the saints, including the Blessed Mother of our Redeemer, to be mere creatures. Why should they wish to honour them as what they are not, viz. gods ? But do we not worship the reUcs or images of saints ? More incredible stiU ; for if we do not worship the saints themselves, is it Ukely that we shall worship their mortal remains or thefr images? But why, then, erect thefr statues in churches ? For the same reason that Protestants have begun to erect the statues of the apostles, and some times of other saints, viz. as appropriate ornaments in the house of God, and as edifying and useful instructions to the people. But do we not bow to them ? We may do so if we like ; provided we do it only as a mark of respect, just as we might bow to the saint himself, if he appeared amongst us, or as the EngUsh peers bow to the royal throne, on certain state occasions. Idolatry consists in giving divine honors to a crea ture. It is of three kinds. The first is committed when a person, believing that there can be more than one God, worships some creature as" such. , This idolatry, combining false belief with false worship, is the worst species of that sin, and is considered by Catholic divines as the most enormous of aU crimes. No ordinary confessor can absolve from it, without special faculties, however sincere the repentance and candid the confession of the offender.' The second species of idolatry is merely external, and is committed when a person, beUeving that there is only one God, and acknowledging that He alone ought to be 110 STATE OF DEPARTED SOULS. honored as such, is yet induced, by some interested or corrupt motive, to pay divine worship, either to the evil spirits or to some other creature. This crime- is commit ted by those who consult witches or fortune-teUers, and, on the supposition that these persons obtain their informa tion through supernatural agency, join in magical and superstitious ceremonies intended to worship and propi tiate the evil spirits. It is much to be feared that this crime is not uncommon amongst EngUsh Protestants, not only of the lower, but sometimes even of the higher classes. Amongst Catholics it is rarely, if ever, found. Those who are guilty of it incur the penalty of excom munication. The third kind of idolatry is that which has been occa sionally committed in tirae of grievous persecution ; when, for fear of torments or death, a Christian has been in duced to offer incense or pay Sorae other act of worship to an idol, despising it all the time, and reserving in his heart true allegiance to God. This, though the least guilty species of idolatry, is still an enormous crime. Now, into none of these kinds of idolatry has the great Christian Church ever fallen. She could not comrait the first ; for she always knew and professed that there is only one true and living God. She never committed the second ; there was no reason why she should. If any of her children have ever committed the third, it was in opposi tion to, not in conformity with, her doctrines. Protestants, in England, seera to have vague and inac curate notions of idolatry. They observe a certain re semblance between practices met with in the CathoUc Church, and those which they have read of as belonging to paganism, and they too hastily conclude, that all which. resembles false religion, is such. They refiect not that the sacrifices and religious rites of the old law, prescribed by LECTURE THE FIFTH. Ill God himself, were not only like, but in many instances precisely the same, as those used by the pagans in their idolatrous worship; and they forget that error usually results, not from the external act, but the internal motive. There is often, also, d great want of candour amongst Pro testants in judging of Catholic observances. In a country parish church abroad, the simple piety of the people leads them to show their veneration' for some favorite saint, by dressing and adorning his image. This is pronounced to be idolatry ; though the sole intention of the good people is to honor the saint merely as a servant of God, in a way which is at once natural and customary. Yet, when the very same acts are performed by thefr own party, Protestants pass not the same judgraent upon them. Thus, in a neighbouring capital, when the statue of one of the kings of England was annually painted and adorned, and when every act which could indicate affection and devotion, or constitute idola trous worship, was paid, no charge of idolatry was prefer red ; — and with reason ; because, though there were all the external acts of the grossest idolatry, there were not the internal motives. Neither the statue itself, nor the sovereign which it represented, was considered as a God, or intended to be honored with divuie worship. If the clergy of the Established Church of England consulted, either thefr own credit or the dictates of charity, they would not, as too many of them do, encou rage amongst their ignorant hearers the wicked and absurd belief, that the whole Christian world was for so many ages, and that the vast majority of it is still, involved in the horrid and debasing crime of idolatry. By thus lead ing the people to suppose that there is no true Christianity out of their own narrow pale, they run the risk, at no distant period, of finding them without any reUgion whatever ; for no one wiU long beUeve that the National Church of 112 STATE OF DEPARTED SOULS. England can be the Universal Church of Christ. How much more honourable would it be to them to follow the advice of one of their own learned and candid bishops, and teach their flocks the utility of those venerable practices, which the Christians of all ages have so happily cherished, " The blessed in heaven," says Bishop Montague, " do re commend to God, in their prayers, their kindred, friends and acquaintance, on earth. This is the common voice, with the general concurrence, without contradiction, of reverend and learned antiquity, for aught I could ever. see or understand ; and I see no reason to dissent from the Catholics touching intercession of this kind. Christ is not wronged in this mediation, and there is no impiety to say, as the Catholics do. Holy Mary, pray for me The pic tures of Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and of the saints, may he had in houses and placed in churches, and respect and honour may be given them." Happy, indeed, will be the day, and every disinterested minister of religion should feel it so, when England, lay ing aside its prejudices and its errors, shall unite itself once raore with that great and glorious society, which, in extent of time, touches the apostles on one side, and wiU touch eternity on the other, — which, in ampUtude of space, embraces every nation of the globe, and which, asso ciating itself with the sainted inhabitants of a better world, considers its members " no longer as strangers and foreign ers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of 6?oc?,'"(Eph. ii. 19.) LECTURE THE SIXTH. THE EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY. " This is my body which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of me." — ^Luke xxii. 19. My Christian Brethren, I have often felt surprise that, whilst Catholics experience no difficulty in the beUef of the Eucharistic mystery, and find in it an inexhaustible source of consolation, Protest ants should find it the greatest stumbling block to their faith, and speak of it as a thing altogether incredible, nay, contradictory and impossible. Is the nature of the Catholic and the Protestant different ? are the inteUectual powers of the latter superior to those of the former ? No ; we daUy see men of equal powers, equal information, and, in aU appearance, equal sincerity, who, according as they belong to one or the other religious creed, pronounce the Same doctrine credible or incredible, divested of all diffi culty, or surrounded by utter impossibilities. Yet these same persons, who differ so widely respecting the blessed Eucharist, are perfectly agreed on other subjects infinitely more difficult of comprehension. For instance. Catholics M 114 THE EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY. and Protestants equally profess their firm belief that the infant in the stable of Bethlehem was not, what he appeared tobe, a raere helpless infant, subject to all, the wants, necessities and infirraities of other children, but that he was, moreover, the Eternal God, the Almighty Creator, the Suprerae Lord and Ruler of heaven and earth. Nay, what is still more striking, both parties profess to believe in the existence and attributes of an eternal, self-existent, almighty, all-wise, omniscient and omnipresent God. What so incomprehensible as this mystery ! No other being can exist without God, God himself exists without a creator. Whilst the powers of other beings, however extensive, are still limited, those of God are without bounds. He can create and destroy worlds at pleasure ; adorn them, instantly and without effort, with all that is beautiful in form and wonderful in construction ; people them with inhabitants graduating in magnitude and perfection from the invisible insect to the enormous elephant ; from the raost inert of worms to the most active of the intellectual species; He extends through all space, is whoUy and equaUy present in every region ; sees all things, knows all things, past, present and to come ; is as perfectly cognizant of the events which took place, six thousand years ago, as of those which are now passing ; could trace, with equal certainty and preci sion, the devious flight of every little bird that inhabited paradise, and of every mighty comet that has ranged for thousands of years the boundless fields of space. Did he begin the works of his vast creation at any given period of time ? Then had a whole eternity preceded creation, dur ing whicii none but God existed. Did he create from all eternity? Then created things are like himself eternal. O abyss of mysteries, in which the miserable faculties of LECTURE THE SIXTH. 115 man are lost ! O dark and perilous path, where precipice follows precipice, and the dizzy mind seems perpetually trembUng on the brink of infidelity ! What is the mystery of the Eucharist compared with this ! That awful and incomprehensible Being, whom we believe to have been born an infant in a stable, and to have died as a malefactor on a cross, we are told is present under another disguise, to complete the work of mercy and love, which suggested his first concealment. This is the Eucharistic mystery. Now, shall I dare to say, that the Almighty Creator cannot be present, but I must behold him ? shaU I presume to assert that he who gave himself for me a bloody victim, cannot or wiU not give himself for me in mystic sacrifice ? shaU I dare to say that he cannot, or that he wUl not, spiritually and sacra- mentally unite himself to me, who united into one person the divine and human nature for my sake ? after seeing the world he has created out of nothing, can I question his power ? after believing that he died for me on the cross, can I doubt his love ? In feet, many Protestants, and, amongst others, the celebrated divines of Oxford, beUeve that Christ is present in the sacrament, and is verily and indeed received by the communicant. In this they find no difficulty. They ac knowledge that Jesus Christ can be present with his sacred humanity, without been perceptible to the senses. Thefr sole difficulty rests in what is termed Transubtantiation, a doctrine which asserts that, after the words of consecration, a change is wrought in the consecrated elements — that the substance or essence of the bread and wine is no longer there — but that, instead of that substance or essence, is the substance or essence of the body and blood of Christ — not m2 116 THE EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY. in their natural or usual state, but in a supernatural and unusual manner, suited to the nature of a sacrament. Here, again, the Protestant's belief is inconsistent. He admits the greater mystery and rejects the less. He admits that Christ can be present, though only bread appears, and he denies that bread can be absent when its usual appear ances or properties are present. Is it more easy to com prehend how a real human body can be present under no form whatever, than under the forms of bread and wine ? If Christ could assume an external appearance, so different from his own, that his familiar disciples, on their way to Emmaus, (Luke xxiv.) could not discover him either by his forirj, his manner or his voice ; if, whilst he broke the mystic bread, he could again assume his real shape, and then " vanish out of their sight" rendering wholly in visible the body which they had just partaken of solid food, why should the Protestant assert that he cannot assume stiU other fotras, and conceal himself beneath appearances, which usually accompany bread and wine ? The infidel is inconsistent, who says that he will beUeve no mysteries, for nature is as fuU of mysteries as religion ; but the Protestant is doubly inconsistent, who acknowledges that in religion, as in nature, mysteries must be beUeved, yet rejects the lesser mystery of Transubstantiation, whilst he admits the greater mystery of the Real Presence, It would be useless, in the smaU space allowed me in this Lecture, to undertake to demonstrate to Protestants that the CathoUc doctrine of the Eucharist is true, and their own opinions false. How should I proceed ? Should I prove that the words of scripture, taken in their Uteral .. and obvious sense, prove the mystery ? They answer that, because they do prove the mystery, if taken literally, they must be understood figuratively. Should I show that LECTURE THE SIXTH. 117 the universal tradition of the Christian Church, both Catholic and heterodox, tUl the gixteenth century, attests the truth of the Catholic doctrine ? They reply, that they can admit no authority which is not drawn directly from the scripture. Hence, though volume upon volume has been vnitten, proving, in the clearest manner, that the Catholic doctrine is alone consistent with the obvious meaning of the sacred text, and that it has been the doc trine of all Christendom for fifteen centuries, and of the vast majority of it till the present day, few Protestants have been con\inced, — ^because, in fact, they have closed against themselves almost every avenue that could lead to coijviction. I shaU, therefore, confine myself in this short sketch to a brief exposition of the Catholic doctrine, and to a general description of the grounds on which that doctrine rests. Those who are anxious to discover the truth wiU thus be put in the way of finding it ; and upon others it is useless to waste time and argument. We have seen, in the preceding Lectures, that from the beginning of the world, God has condescended to reveal the manner in which he was pleased to be pubUcly worshipped, which, tiU the coming of Christ, was indisputably by sacri fice. We find the first born children of Adam offering sacrifice, one the bloody sacrifice of slaughtered animals, the other the unbloody sacrifice of the fruits of the earth. We find the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, con tinuing to worship God in the sarae manner, and when their descendants became a nation, we find God himself prescrib ing, with extraordinary precision, all the forms and cere monies with which this exclusive worship of sacrifice was to be accompanied. Even before the Israelites had reached the -promised land, and immediately after the delivery of the Ten Commandments, they were commanded to offer 118 THE EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY. sacrifice. " You shall not make gods of silver, nor shall you make to yourselves gods of gold. You shall make an altar of earth unto me, and you shall offer upon it your holocausts and peace offerings, your sheep and oxen, in every place where the memory of my name shall he : I will come to thee and bless thee. If thou make an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stones : for if thou lift a tool upon it, it shall be defiled." (Exod. xx. 23, et seq.) As the whole nation was at that time living in tents, and .continuaUy on the raove, a tent or tabernacle was commanded to be made of great magnitude and extra ordinary richness, as a moveable temple. In the inmost recess of this tent was preserved the Ark of the Covenant, and in the outer compartraent the altar of incense, &c. whilst in front of the tent was erected the golden altar of holo causts. The order of sacrifice is thus described in the first chapter of the book of Leviticus : — " And the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tabernacle of the testimony, saying : Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them : the man among you that shall offer to the Lord a sacrifice of the cattle, that is, offering victims of oxen and sheep ; if his offering be a holocaust and of the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish at the door of the testimony, to make the Lord favourable to him : and he shall put his hand upon the head of the victim, and it shall he acceptable and help to his expiation ; and he shall immo late the calf before the Lord, and the priests of the sons of Aaron shall offer the blood thereof, pouring it round about the altar, which is before the door of the Tabernacle, and when they have slain the victim, they shall cut the joints into pieces and shall put fire on the altar, having before laid in order a pile of wood ; and they shall lay the parts that are cut out in order thereupon, to wit, the head and all LECTURE THB SIXTH. 119 things ihat cleave to the liver, the entrails and feet being washed with water; and the priest shall burn them upon the altar for a holocaust and a sweet savour before the Lord." This is the general description of the sacrifices of animals or bloody sacrifices of the Jews. The ceremonial varied in certain particulars, according to the intention for which the sacrifice was offered. In the sacrifice of holocaust here described, which was designed simply as a soleran act of divine homage, in testimony of the supreme dominion of God over all creatures, the whole victim was consumed by fire, as the name holocaust implies. In the pacific sacrifice, which was offered in thanksgiving for some benefit received, to obtain sorae new favour, or in fulfillment of some vow, the fat only, and certain por tions of the entraUs, vyere burnt upon the altar ; the breast and right shoulder being reserved to the priest, and the remainder to the person who offered the sacrifice. No stated time or particular description of animal was pre scribed for this oblation. It was only required that the animal, whatever it was, should be without defect. In sacrifices for sin, before the priest poured the blood of the victim about the altar, he dipped his finger in it and touched therewith the four horns of the altar. Of these sacri fices the offerers, as being in sin, did not partake, — all the parts, not prescribed by the ceremonial to be burnt on the altar, fell to the lot of the priests. When the priest offered sacrifice for his own transgressions, he sprinkled the blood of the victim seven times before the veil of the sanctuary, and poured the remainder at the foot of the altar of holo causts. (Levit. iv. et seq.) Another kind of sacrifice, not less common than that of animals, was the oblation of flour and wheaten cakes. " When any one," says the Almighty, " shall offer an 120 THE EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY. oblation of sacrifice to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine fiour, and he shall pour oil upon it and put frankin cense, and shall bring it to the sons of Aaron the priests : and one of them shall take a handful of the fiour and oil, and all the frankincense, and shall put it as a memorial upon the altar, for a most sweet savour to ¦ the Lord. And the remainder of the sacrifice shall be Aaron's and his sons', holy of holies of the offerings of the Lord." (Levit. ii.) One sacrifice was prescribed to be offered daily, which comprised both the bloody and unbloody form. " This," said the Lord, " is what thou shalt sacrifice upon the altar: two lambs of a year old continually, one lamb in the morn ing and another in the evening. With one lamb a tenth part of fiour tempered with beaten oil of the fourth! part of a hin, and wine for libation of the sfime measure ; and the other lamb thou shalt offer in the evening," Sfc. (Exod. xxix. 38, et seq. J When, after about four hundred and fifty years, the august temple of Soloraon was consecrated, " The king and all Israel with him offered victims before the Lord. And Solomon slew victims of peace-offering, which he sacri ficed to the Lord, two and twenty thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep; so the king and the children of Israel dedicated the temple of the Lord." (3d alias 1st Kings viii. 62-3.) It is probable that aU these sacrifices were accorapanied with prayer, either mental or vocal. In some cases it is prescribed that the priest shall pray for the offerer of the victim ; " He shall pray for him and for his sin, and it shall he forgiven him." (Levit. iv. 35.) At the dedica tion of the teraple, Soloraon uttered a long prayer, which is given in the chapter already quoted ; but there is no proof that any set form of supplication was prescribed in LECTURE THE SIXTH. 121 the oblation of sacrifice ; so that, whatever effect was produced, whether in propitiating the Deity, in obtaining the pardon of sin, or di-awing down other blessings, it was dwing mainly to the sacred oblation itself, not to the prayers %^ith which it was accompanied. UnbeUevers have often ridiculed as absurd a form of divine worship which consisted in shedding the blood of innocent creatures, and in destroying the most valuable gifts bf nature. Protestants might, with great consistency, join with them, and ask what could be the use of so many forms and ceremonies, which seem to have no immediate tendency to improve moraUty, and are often difficult of comprehension ? It certainly may appear strange at first sight, that slaughtering and cutting to pieces a beautiful animal,, burning its fat, and pouring its blood upon the altar, should be pleasing to a benevolent creator, and that the fumes ascending from such a butchery should be " a siveet odour to the Lord." But when we consider what was the meaning of these awful ceremonies, they assume a very different aspect. From the moment of our first parents' transgression there was no hope for thefr descendants, but in the sufferings and death of a future Redeemer. To Christ on the cross, so beautifully represented by the brazen serpent in the wilderness, all must turn their eyes who would be healed from the bite of the fiery serpent. It was, therefore, necessary that some reUgious rite should be estabUshed, emblematic of the future sufferings of the Redeemer; nor can we wonder that a form of worship which brought before the eyes of the divine Majesty the all- atoning sacrifice of his divine Son should be the most ac ceptable of all others. Such was undoubtedly the inten tion of the bloody sacrifices of the Jews. How strikingly did the innocent lamb, whose blood was sprinkled on the 122 THE EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY. i door-posts of the Israelites in Egypt, to save their first born from the destroying angel, and which was after wards offered in daily sacrifice, prefigure the " Lamb of God" who was to take away the sins of the world, and rescue the whole huraan race from destruction! But what did the other oblation prefigure, viz, that of flour and wine, which accompanied the sacrifice of the larab ? This oblation, so coraraon under the Levitical law, must have prefigured something. As the bloody sacrifices pre figured the bloody sacrifice of Christ, we may expect from analogy that the unbloody sacrifice of flour and wine pre figured some unbloody sacrifice ; and as it was regularly united with the sacrifice of the lamb, making as it were one sacrifice with it, we may reasonably expect that it refers to some sacrifice of an unbloody nature, connected with the bloody sacrifice of Christ, and forming with it but one and the same oblation. According to the doctrine of the CathoUc Church, which I shall now proceed to explain, the unbloody sacrifices of the Jews prefigured the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Chris tian Church, as the bloody sacrifices prefigured the Re deemer's death. It is certain that, by his death, Jesus Christ paid the ransom of the whole human race, and, as St. Paul expresses it, " by one oblation perfected for ever them that are sanctified," (Heb. x. 14) " and being consummated He became to all that obey him the cause of' eternal salva tion." (v. 9.) Hence, it was useless that the bloody sacri fice of Jesus Christ, like those of the Jewish law, should be continuaUy repeated. But as, during the existence of the Jewish law, their bloody sacrifices were daily repeated, and this by the express coraraand of the Almighty, though they could not, of their own efficacy, take away sin, so, after the abolition of the Mosaic dispensation, it LECTURE THE SIXTH. 123 was expedient that a sacrifice should be estabUshed which should derive its efficacy frora the same all-atoning sacrifice of Christ, and furnish mankind with a daUy and most ac ceptable pubUc worship tiU the end of time. Indeed, analogy would lead us to expect that, as God, before the coming of Chi-ist, had always chosen to be worshipped by sacrifice, though only the future sacrifice of Christ could, of itself, - take away sin, so would he continue to be worshipped by sacrifice after that great event had taken place ; for as faith in that great atonement was the source of justifi cation to the Jews, so it is also to Christians ; and, there fore, there is the same necessity for sacrifice to comme morate it when past, as to prefigure it when yet to come. Nothing can be so groundless or so inconsistent as the reasoning of those modern sectaries who pretend that the Eucharistic sacrifice derogates from the aU- atoning merits of Christ. For if baptism, or faith, or whatever other condition they require for salvation, does not derogate from the merits of Christ, how can Christ himself be said to derogate from thera, in comraemorating and perpetuating his own bloody sacrifice ? If he does not derogate from his own merits, by " ever living to make inter cession for us," (Heb. 'vii. 25) why should he be thought to derogate from thera by eraploying the commemoration of his passion as the means of his intercession ? In fact, the divine Redeemer, by his death on the cross, paid the ransom of our captivity, and entitled us to Uberation ; but he did not actuaUy set us free. Certain formalities were required to be compUed with before our prison doors could be opened and our chains broken. We required to be marked as his purchase by the covenant of baptism, and clothed with his uniform of Faith, Hope and Charity. And as, when actually Hberated, we were stiU weak and feeble, as the 124 THE EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY. poison introduced into our system by the fruit of the forbidden tree stiU rankled in our veins, it became necessary that the fruit of the tree of Ufe, even that of the cross, should supply an antidote, and restore our whole nature to its primitive soundness. This was what the divine Redeemer accomplished in the estabUshment of the Christian sacrifice. He had assuraed the disguise of a mere man, yea of a worm and no man, a malefactor and companion of thieves and murderers, that he might be able to offer a bloody sacrifice for us ; and as this did not satisfy his love, nor provide sufficiently for our wants, he assumed another disguise, that of an unbloody victim, that he might plead the more powerfully in our behalf, sanctify our bodies and souls by an ineffable union with himself, and furnish to all future ages a form of worship, as superior to that of the old law as the substance is superior to the shadow, and as Jesus Christ himself is superior to the victims which prefigured him. In this manner, all is satisfactorily accompUshed, which the Mosaic law foreshowed. The Redeemer, shedding his blood on the altar of the cross, solves the mystery of the innocent animals which daily bled in the temple at Jerusalem ; whilst the Eucharistic victim, " the lamb standing as it were slain," (Rev, v. 6) on the Christian altar, under the mystic forms of bread and wine, explains why the ancienf sacri fice of flour and wine should accompany, and vie in sanctity and efficacy with, the bloody victims. Thus also is accom plished the mysterious prediction of the Psalmist, that Christ should be a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedec ; for as Melchisedec, the king of Salem, being "priest of the Most High God," offered sacrifice in bread and wine, so Jesus Christ, the king of the Heavenly Jerusalem, having an eternal priesthood of the same order, LECTURE THE SIXTH. 125 offers for ever a far more precious sacrifice, under the sarae mystic forras. Thus, also, we see why, under the old law, all who partook of the sacrifices were required to be free from aU uncleanness ; for they represented those of whom St. Paul speaks when he says — " Wherefore let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of the chalice ; for he that eateth and drinketh un worthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not dis cerning the body of the Lord." (1 Cor. xi. 29.) Thus is reconciled the apparent contradiction in the epistle to the Hebrews, where the apostle says, at one time, that Christ " needed not to offer himself often," (Heb. ix. 25) and at another, that we Christians " have an altar, where of they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle." (Heb. xiii. 10.) For, in the former passage, he speaks of the bloody sacrifice offered by Christ upon the cross, which need not and cannot be repeated; and in the latter, of that unbloody oblation in which he daily commemorates his bloody sacrifice tUl the end of time. Thus, in fine, is fulfilled the beautiful figure supplied to us in the manna which nourished the aricient people of God in the desart. " I am the bread of life," says Jesus Christ, " who came down from heaven; not as your fathers did eat manna in the desart and are dead; he that eateth this bread shall live for ever." (John vi.) Behold, my Christian Brethren, the simple, the subUme, , the august, the consistent, the consoling doctrine of the CathoUc Church, which many of you have so often heard misrepresented, ridiculed and blasphemed, by the fanatical, the thoughtless and the ignorant. The Divine Word, in the depth of his wisdom and the excess of his goodness, assumed the form of man that Tie might die for us, and having thus redeemed us, put on 126 THE EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY. the form of earthly food, that he might become our daily sacrifice, by the oblation of which we might effectuaUy propitiate God, and by partaking of which we inight be united with himself, might be sanctified by his holiness, strengthened by his power and inflamed by his love ; thus commencing on earth that happy and glorious relation, which will constitute our eternal beatitude in heaven. In this manner, the Eucharistic sacrifice completes the great mystery of our redemption, crowns all the mercies of God to man, shows forth the divine goodness in the most affecting light, suppUes to man an inexhaustible source of grace and consolation, and requires from all mankind the warmest acknowledgments and most fervent gratitude. But are there, then, any proofs that the Christian Church indeed possesses such a sacrifice ? Yes, my Chris tian Brethren, proofs so 'strong as to amount to absolute demonstration. To draw them out in aU their force, in the short space aUowed me, is impossible. I can merely glance at and enumerate some of them. Even in this state, they will be sufficient to awaken serious reflections, and to stimulate to farther inquiry, the faithful and dis interested foUowers of Christ. In the first place, then, it is, a fact which admits of no dispute, that the whole CathoUc Church, in the four quar ters of the globe, professes, at this day, to offer up to God, in the Mass, " a true, proper and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead." (Council of Trent.) She professes that in this sacrifice the divine Redeemer offers himself, through the ministry of his lawfully ordained priests, as a victim of propitiation, to his eter nal Father, — thus renewing, in an unbloody manner, the sacrifice of the cross, and completing the mystery LECTURE THE SIXTH. 127 of oui- redemption, by a sacramental union with his chUdren. 2d, It is equally certain, that the whole schismatical Greek Church, situated in the Grecian provinces and throughout the vast empire of Russia, as well as every single individual of every ancient sect scattered through the continents of Asia and Africa, believe in, and worship God by, the very same adorable sacrifice as the Catholic Church ; so that, on this subject, there is not the slightest difference between her and aU these separated churches. Is it possible that churches, which have been separated from each other for so many ages, should all agree in this doctrine, if it were not the primitive and original doctrine of Christ ? That the same was the belief of all England from the period of its conversion in the sixth century, tUl the Reformation in the sixteenth, is matter of equal notoriety. Our most ancient churches stUl exhibit the marks where once the altar stood, where the wine and water used in the sacrifice were placed, where the officiants sat, and where the communicants received the bread of life. Are we Ughtly to assert that all our Christian ancestors for a thousand years worshipped God by a false and idolatrous ceremonial ? 3d, The Oxford theologians, in their Tracts for the Times, (Vol. II. No. 63), acknowledge that the ancient liturgies, used in aU the Christian churches, prove the Eucharist to have been universally considered as a true sacrifice frora at least the middle of the fifth century, and probably from a much earUer period,-^the said Uturgies being beUeved to be of apostoUcal origin. 4th, The learned Protestant editor of Irenseus, Dr. Grabe, in his comment on a striking passage of this early Father, makes the foUowing candid avowal : — " It is certain that 128 THE EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY. Irenceus and all the Fathers, either contemporary with the apostles or their immediate successors, whose writings are still extant, considered the Blessed Eucharist to be the Sacrifice of the new law, and offered bread and wine on the altar as sacred oblations to God the Father ; and that this was not the private opinion of any particular church or teacher, hut the public doctrine and practice of the Universal Church, which she received from the apostles and they from Christ, is expressly shown in this place by Irenceus, and before himiiy Justin Martyr and Clement of Rome" He accordingly expresses deep regret that the Protestant sects should have aboUshed the great Christian sacrifice, and strongly recomraends' its restoration ! Is it Ukely that these learned divines would, without necessity, make an avowal so favourable to the Catholic Church and so fatal to the Reformation, if they did not feel themselves com peUed to do it by the frresistible force of evidence ? I say so fatal to the Reformation : for if Christ appointed sacrifice as the true worship of God in the new law, the aboUtion of sacrifice is an aboUtion of the true worship of God. It is literaUy overthrowing the altar of God and consigning his temple to the abomination of desola tion. But did these ancient churches, who believed in the Christian sacrifice, believe also that the victim offered is no other than Jesus Christ himself, concealed beneath the appearances of bread and wine ? In the first place, it is certain that the whole CathoUc Church, the Greek schismatical church, and the various oriental sects, some of which have had no connection with the Catholic Church since the fifth century, beUeve, with out the smallest shade of difference, that the Eucharistic sacrifice is. not a sacrifice of bread and wine, but of Jesus LECTURE THE SIXTH. 129 Christ liimself under these external forms. — Such is the present belief of all these different churches, constituting a vast majority of the Christian world. We may here fairly adopt the words of the Oxford divines, in the tract above quoted, and infer, that " a coin cidence of this kind, between the most solemn religious rites of two churches which have, for one thousand three hundred and eighty-three years, avoided all communion with each other, of course proves the parts which coincide to be more than one thousand three hundred and eighty-three years old." Therefore, it is evident that what the Catholic Church now holds respecting the substance of the Eucharistic sacrifice, was held by all Christians from the middle of the fifth century tUl the Reformation, in the sixteenth. Can we carry the beUef stUl higher ? The Oxford divines, in the same tract, whilst they carry up to the middle of the fifth century, all the exist ing ancient Uturgies, aUow that they are evidently, as to their substance, of much higher antiquity, and probably apostoUcal. Now, it is evident, that if, in the middle of the fifth century, it was the general beUef that these Uturgies were of apostoUc orgin, we may be quite sure that they were at that time, at least some centuries old. The liturgy now used by the Established Church in England was originally compUed in the reigns of Edward the 6th and EUzabeth, viz. about three centuries ago. Should any one attempt to give it a more remote origin, ascribing it, for instance, to the reign of Henry the Sth, the imposture must utterly fail ; as not a single person of the slightest information could be ignorant of its posterior date. In like manner, if, in the fifth century, abounding as it did with men of pro- N 132 THE EUCHARISTIC Mi.'iTERY. of my life, that this is the life-giving body of thine only be gotten Son, our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ. He received it from the Lady of us all, from the pure and holy Mary, mother of God, and made it one with his divinity, without any comixture, confusion or alteration of the divinity / believe this to he so in truth." The sarae is the language of all the apostolical liturgies. All agree in these points, that the Eucharistic oblation is the sacrifice of the new law, and constitutes the essence of Christian worship ; that it is not a sacrifice of bread and wine, but of Jesus Christ himself, who is present on the altar in virtue of the words of consecration, which operate a real and substantial change in the elements. But the words of the liturgies are not the only part to which attention is due. The ceremonial itself, which accompanies the words, conveys the same doctrines in a still more striking manner. Catholics easily understand the force of this reraark. For Protestants some explana tion raay be required. You have most of you, my Protes tant brethren, been present at High Mass, and have been struck by a ceremonial so totally different from any thing you meet with in your churches or chapels. The greater part of this ceremonial must have been unintelligible to you in the detail; but all of you, who have had a liberal education, or' who have read with attention the book of Leviticus, must have recognized at once the nature of the act that was performing. You saw that it was the solemn and mysterious rite of sacrifice. A slight explanation of the ceremonial would have pointed out to you the nature of the victim offered. You may not have observed, that, up to a certain part of the service, the priest never kneels, (unless there b§ a tabernacle on the altar, in which the blessed sacrament is actually kept), but only bows towards the altar. At last a bell rings to give notice that the con- 130 THE EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY. found learning, any one had attempted to establish a belief that the liturgies used in the different churches were of apostolical origin, when in reaUty they were then recently estabUshed in the place of some more ancient form, such attempt must have been altogether vain. We may bo therefore, absolutely certain, that these Uturgies date their origin far beyond the fifth century. But again, we find the Fathers of the second and third centuries, ascribing these liturgies to the times of the apostles, a period which was nearer to them than we are to the reign of EUzabeth. Thus Irenaeus, who was almost contemporary with St. John, hav ing been a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of that apostle, asserts that the mode of celebrating the Eucharstic sacrifice was taught by Jesus Christ himself and received frora his apostles. Hence, the bishop of Strasburg, in his Amicable Discussion, where this subject is treated at great length, fairly concludes, that, " as a matter of history, if is beyond dispute that the liturgies were instituted by the apostles." Every one is, or easily may be, acquainted with the Roman liturgy, which is used in this country and in aU the western churches united with the Roraan See. It is trans lated into English in several editions of the Missal for the Use of the Laity. Of its doctrine, respecting the blessed Eucharist, no doubt can be entertained. It clearly teaches that, in the Eucharistic sacrifice, the bread and wine are changed, and becorae the body and blood of Jesus Christ. In other words, it attests the beUef of all the Latin Churches in the Real Presence and Transubstantiation. Hence, the Church of England, when she altered her faith on these heads, was obliged to alter her liturgy. Let us see how the other apostolical liturgies agree with the Roman, , In the ancient liturgy used by the westem Greeks, also LECTURE THE SIXTH. 131. by the Bulgarians, Russians, and Muscovites, as well as by all the modern Melchite Christians, whether subject to the patriarch of Alexandria resident at tJairo, or to the patriarch of Jerusalem, or to the patriarch of Antioch residing ^t Daraascus, the priest, holding the consecrated bread in his hand, makes this profession of faith: "I believe, 0 Lord, and I do confess that thou art' Christ the Son of the living God, who eamest into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief. Make me partake of thy mystical supper ; for I will not reveal the mystery to thy enemies, and I will not give thee a treacherous kiss like Judas, but like the good thief, I confess what thou art ; remember me, 0 Lord, in thy kingdom," &c. When the priest presents the chalice to the deacon, the latter says, " I come to the immortal king : I believe, Lord, and I do confess that thou aH Christ the son of the living God." The priest says, " Thou 0 Deacon [N.] the servant of God, receivest the holy body . and precious blood of Christ, -for the remission of sins and eternal life." The deacon, going to communicate the people, says, " Draw near with faith and in the fear of God." The choir answers, " Amen, amen, amen ; Blessed he he who cometh im, the name of the Lord." The communicant says, " I -believe, O Lord, and confess that thou art in truth the Son of the living God." Then the deacon says to him, " Servant of God, receive the most holy body and precious blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ." In the liturgy of St. Mark, used not only by the CathoUcs, but by the Jacobite Copts, who have been separated from the CathoUc Church above twelve centuries, the priest, before he communicates, makes the following profession of faith: " This is the holy body and the pure and precious blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God. This is in truth the body and blood of Emanuel our God : Amen. I believe, I believe, I believe, and I confess to the last breath LECTURE THE SIXTH, 133 secration is about to take place ; a silence ensues ; the awful words are pronounced by the priest in a low voice, and immediately he kneels down ; then raising the sacred bread on high, aU the people kneeling bow down their heads. Frora this time till after the communion, the genuflections of the priest and his attendants are incessant. Does he touch the sacred host ? he previously kneels down ; does he uncover the consecrated chalice ? he first makes a genuflection. In the meantime the people all kneel or stand. No one sits down till the priest has received both the sacred bread and chalice. What does all this imply ? Clearly that, till the consecration, there are only common bread and wine upon the altar ; but that, after the consecration, Jesus Christ is believed to be pre sent there — ^the inward substance of the consecrated elements being changed, their appearances continuing the same. The very same kind of ceremonial is prescribed in all the ancient liturgies. In aU of them is clearly bespoken the act of sacrifice ; in all of them the ceremonial changes its character the moment the words of consecration are pro nounced. Then, it is true, the oriental priest does not kneel down as the Latin ceremonial prescribes, but, re tiring back frora the altar, as if overwhelraed with awe, he bows down repeatedly almost to the ground, whilst the people are not merely kneeUng but prostrate. Again the ceremonial alters, after the sacred elements are consumed. Such, my Christian brethren, was the manner in which Christians of every denomination for fifteen hundred years worshipped God, and in which all, except Protestants, continue to worship hira to the present day. Had you lived in the beginning of the fourth century, you would have found these sacred rites in the Constantinian BasiUcks at Rome, you would have found them at 134 THE EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY. Alexandria, at Antioch, at Jerusalem, and in the remotest regions of the east. Had you lived in the third and second centuries, you would have found them in those vast subterraneous retreats, to which the early Christians fled in the days of persecution, as is sufficiently attested by the altars and other monument still standing in the Roman catacombs, so that the prophecy of Malachi has been literally fulfiUed, " From the raising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my naine a clean offering ; for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts." (Malachi i. 11.) When I say that you would have found these sacred rites in the Christian oratories, I allude to such of you ^as are Catholics ; for you, my Protestant brethren, would have been excluded from the Christian assemblies ; for, in those early times, the discipline of the secret was in force, which not only forbade any unbeUever or uninitiated person to be present at the sacrifice, but prohibited its forms being com mitted to writing, or its mysteries being even oraUy communi- 'cated to catechumens, till after they had made their profes sion of faith and taken upon themselves the solemn engage ments of baptism. Hence you will have noticed, that in one of the Greek liturgies, which I have quoted, the priest, be fore he receives the sacred host, solemnly promises to God that " he will not reveal the mystery to His enemies." This extreme secrecy, and the vague rumours of the sacrifice and'repast used by the early Christians in their assemblies, caused the latter to be accused, as we learn from the Fathers of the second and third centuries, of murdering an infant and feasting on its body and blood, — a calumny to which they submitted, rather than reveal the awful secret of the Euchar istic mystery. Some even suffered death rather than divulge it. Why so ? Clearly because, had it been made puhlic. LECTURE THE SIXTH. 135 the same blasphemous ridicule would have been poured upon it by the pagans of those times, as is done at this day by some ignorant or unreflecting Protestants. But I fancy I hear some of you say, that you want proofe from scripture, and that you will not be content with any other. But what if the sacred writers foresaw and acted upon the prudent reserve afterwards universally adopted ? That they did act upon it, to a certain de gree, is evident. The extremely brief accounts given of the Institution by the three evangeUsts, the entire omis sion of it by St. John, except in his sixth chapter, where it is merely promised ; the cursory reference to it in the Acts of the Apostles, under the concealed terms of " the breaking of bread," the obscure aUusions to it by St. Paul in his epistle tothe half-converted Hebrews, (Heb. v. 11, et seq.) and indeed every where, except in his epistle to the initiated Corinthians, prove clearly that the inspired writers spoke with studied reserve on this awful subject. But what they did speak is wholly in favour of the Catholic doctrine. AU Protestants admit (for it is impos sible to deny it), that the scriptures, as UteraUy explained, are clearly in our favour, and clearly against themselves. Our Saviour says in the scripture, " This is my body" The Catholic Church assents, and says " It is his body." Most •of the Protestant sects dissent, and say " It is not his body ; it is only a figure of it." Our Saviour says in St. John, " My fiesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." We say the same ; but the Protestant says, " His flesh is not meat indeed, except inasmuch as he is the object of our faith." St. Paul says, that " Whoever eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment to him self, not discerning the body of the Lord." We say the same ; but Protestants say, " It is impossible to discern what is not there," St. Paul says, " We have an altar," (Heb.xiii.) 136 THE EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY. (and consequently a sacrifice ; for one implies the other) and that " the chalice of benediction wliich we bless is the communion of the blood of Christ, and the bread which we break the partaking of the body of the Lord." (1 Cor. xi.) We say the same ; — but most Protestants deny both the sacrifice and the victim. It is for modern innovators to show that the literal sense of scripture is to be abandoned, and a figurative one pre ferred.^ In their favour they have their own private judg- mpat, at the end of eighteen centuries ; but against them they have the apostoUcal liturgies and' the universal belief and practice of the Christian world from the very days of the apostles. If their explanation is right, aU Christen dom was wrong frora the beginning. But if their explan ation is erroneous, the true worship of God is abolished araongst them, the channel, by which the merits of Christ were to be conveyed to their souls, is cut off, — they can " have no life in them," because they cannot " eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood ;" or if, eating and drink ing, they beUeve erroneously conceming this mystery, they " eat and drink judgment to themselves, not discerning the body of the Lord." Oh, that God would, in his tender mercy, open the eyes of his erring children, and, seating them once more as guests at his heavenly table, prepare them for future thrones of glory in His Eternal Kingdom. Amen. THE END. W Murray, Printer, St. Paul's Press, Prior Park.