w

amt

-> J. I \ \

\ MhgSG

H2fe

THB WORK OF OHRIST, AND THE WORK OF
THE SPIRIT.

TWO SERMONS.
BY R. D. HAMPDEN, D.D.
KEQIUS PEOl'ESSOE OF DIVIHITZ, ETC.

LONDON :
E. OLAT, PEINTEE, EEEAD STEEET HILL.

THE WORK OF CHRIST,
AND
THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT,

CONSIDEEED IN

TWO SERMONS,
PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
IN THE
GDatJbrtral of GDfirfst efiuwjb,
ON
THB XX™ AITD XXI" SUNDAYS AFTEE TRINITY,
OOTOBEE 25th, AND NoVEMBEE Ist, 1846,
WITH ADDITIONS.

BY
R. D. HAMPDEN, D.D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITT^ CANON OF CHRIST CHDRCH^ ETO.

LONDON :
B. FELLOWES, LUDG-ATE STREET.
1847.

SERMON I.

John xiv. 26.

" But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, wkom the
Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things,
and briny all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I
have said unto you."
It is impossible to study with attention those
deeply affecting passages of Scripture, such as the
text, speaking of the mission of the Comforter,
without being forcibly struck with the earnest,
anxious manner, in which our Lord connects the
dispensation of the Spirit for the building up of his
Church, with his own departure from the world to
the Father in heaven. The intimation of the
coming of the Comforter, is only given at the very
close of our Lord's own ministry ; and is 'conveyed
in accents of consolation to his disciples for the
B

2
loss which. He tells them, they were soon to
sustain, by his removal from their society. It
forms the burthen of a solemn parting admonition
to them, such as a dying friend would give to
those who had hitherto been most affectionately
bound to him and to one another, not to forget
how they had been united, and to continue in the
same love when He should be taken from among
them. He had called them, as he passed by the
wayside ; and they had gathered around him, for
saking all at the instant, and confiding themselves
at once to his guidance and teaching ; amidst per
secutions, even up to that moment when the hour
of darkness was fast deepening its shadow. And
now that he is soon to be withdrawn, the same
word — the same inspiring, "Follow me," is
sounded in their ears, though in another form ; re
vealing to them a new and more intimate invisible
bond of union with Him when absent, in the suc
ceeding dispensation of the Spirit.
They had indeed the Holy Spirit already given
them, according to their capacity and their need,
at that time when the Lord thus spoke to them;
for it was only through the Spirit that they had
been led to believe in Christ, and to love Him as they
had hitherto done. But the Spirit had not yet been

a
manifested to the world in them; they had only
received his secret influences and inspirations of
goodness, strengthening them, and keeping them in
the faith. They had not been distinctly placed
under the teaching and guidance of the Holy Spirit,
whilst Jesus Christ himself was with them in the
flesh. Neither, again, when after his resurrection
He breathed on them, and communicated to them
the Holy Ghost, ordaining them to their ministry,
did they then receive of that fulness of the Spirit
which Avas promised to them in the words of our
text. By that special gift at their ordination they
were indeed blessed with power, and prepared
to go forth on the Lord's errand, at the instant that
they should receive the fulfilraent of the promise
of their Lord. But after that, they had yet to wait
for the fulfilment of the promise ; until the Spirit
should be poured down on them ; and they should
know, that a new order of things was begun under
the dispensation of the Spirit.
The mission of the Comforter, accordingly, on the
day of Pentecost, in order to be rightly estimated,
should be regarded as constituting a distinct epoch
in the annals of the Gospel. It was the beginning
of the building of the Church on the foundation
laid by Christ. Christ, the great Master-builder, had
B 2

then finished his work; and the time was come
when another Almighty worker should enter on his
labours. There remained nothing more for the Son
of God, who was also the Son of Man, to achieve.
The bloody sacrifice which He had undertaken to.
perform, was accomplished, when He gave himself
to death, and rose again from the dead, leading
captivity captive, and destroying the power of sin
in his body. This was a work, which by its blessed
efficacy reached once for all to a whole world lying
in sin ; so that there is no sin, either in the past
generations of man before the offering was made by
Christ, nor in the generations following to the end
of the world, but is expiated by the one oblation
and satisfaction made on the cross.
Depicting the intensity of that struggle with the
enemies of our salvation, together with the glories
of the triumph, " Who is this," asks the prophet,
" that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from
Bozrah ? this that is glorious in his apparel, travel
ling in the greatness of his strength ?" Then he
gives the Redeemer's answer : " I that speak in
righteousness, mighty to save." Again he asks,
" Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy
garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat ?"
And again the Conqueror of death and sin answers,

" I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the
people there was none with me : for I will tread
them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury,
and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my gar
ments, and I will stain all my raiment."*
So St. Paul, throughout his whole Epistle to
the Hebrews, presents the work of Christ under
the same aspect, as standing alone, — admitting no
succession, no repetition ; so that for those who by
their impenitence refuse the blood of Christ, or who
having been enlightened, apostatise, and crucify Him
afresh by their sins, there is no hope ; as renounc
ing Him, they must perish in their guiltiness ; for
there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.
Such, then, is the absolute intrinsic efficacy of the
work of Christ— his Sacrifice and Atonement for the
sins of the world.
But though the Lord had thus laid the founda
tion of his church in his blood, and had finished
his work which the Father had sent him to do.
He had yet to superintend and direct and bless the
work, which was to be carried on in the building of
the church on his foundation. It was expedient,
therefore, that He should go away — that He should
be at the right hand of the Father, at the fountain
* Isaiah lxiii. 1 — 3. Ep. for Monday before Easter.

of grace in heaven, there to present himself as a
Priest fully consecrated, to intercede for those whom
He had atoned for on earth, and bring them to
Himself ; first making them members of his church
in the world, and then exalting them, by continual
supplies of his grace, to perfect blessedness with
Him in heaven.
For this holy work accordingly He sent down the
Holy Spirit the Comforter, not to perfect what he
had done, as if it were in any respect imperfect, or
supersede his own heavenly ministrations in our
behalf at the throne of grace, but to begin, as it
rnay be said, a new work on the earth ; to gather
a congregation of believers from all parts of the
world, without distinction of race, without respect of
persons ; and unite them in one body as a holy
temple, built up of living stones on the Lord him
self, the Foundation ; a work, which the world cer
tainly had never yet witnessed ; and which, but for
the Saviour's own work preceding, could never have
been accomplished. Without Him it would have
been as a building on the sand — soon to sink by
its own weight, and be scattered in ruin.
And how different, let us observe, was the work
for which the Holy Spirit was sent, in the actual
business of which it consisted, from that of our

7
Lord himself. The Lord called a few around Him :
preached but to few, confining his personal applica
tion to the lost sheep of Israel alone. The Author
of eternal salvation to all men, was a minister in
the days of his personal ministry, to his own people
only ; intent as he was — if we may venture thus
to analyze so mysterious and high a ministry as
His — more on suffering than on acting ; more in
combating with the Powers of darkness, than in
proclaiming .the redemption wrought out of their
hand ; more in showing forth in his own Person the
way and the truth and the life, than in didactic
exposition of the truth; scattering, indeed, the
seeds of heavenly doctrine as he walked through
the cities and villages of Israel ; but all the while,
bearing his cross, and Himself going before, and
Opening the gate, and making straight the path
through the grave to the life eternal.
When the Holy Spirit entered on his mission
the case was entirely changed. Then was wanted
a power which should diffuse itself far beyond the
narrow limits of the land of Israel — which should
be a word, like the sun, going forth into all lands,
even to the utmost extremity of the earth, and
calling all men, individually as well as collectively,
to embrace the salvation wrought by Christ; one

that should be present every where, and through
all ages, to the end of the world, with the Apostles
and their successors in the ministry ; giving them
thought, and utterance, and holiness, and zeal,
commensurate with their high calling; and enabhng
them mightily to convince the gainsayer and dis
puter of the world, that Jesus was the Christ, as
also to work persuasion and comfort in the heart
of each poor and contrite sinner. Thus did the
gift of the Holy Spirit, at his effusion on the day
of Pentecost, reahze the imaginative wish of the
poet, being as " a hundred tongues, and a hundred
mouths, and a voice of iron," to each first mis
sionary of the Gospel, speaking to every man in
his own tongue, wherein he was born, the wonderful
works of God.
Then how different was the result. When the
Holy Spirit goes forth on his work, we see imme
diately the church begins to be built up. Previously
we have only known that the foundation has been
laid. Now the walls begin to rise above the ground,
and the plan and dimensions of the building
appear to view. The httle true-hearted flock
gathered out of the wilderness of Judah by the
Lord himself, which is found tarrying in Jerusalem,
waiting for the fulfilment of the promise of the

Spirit, consisted only of about one hundred and
twenty — a happy assemblage indeed, an omen of
the future glorious countless church that shall be
gathered in the fulness of time, about the throne
of the Lamb, — but still a little flock then, amidst
the multitudes of an unbelieving world. Contrast
with this the effect of the first ministration of the
Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, when, under
his inspiration; the Apostle Peter preached Christ
to the Jews assembled frora the various countries
of their dispersion; in nothing dissembling the
unwelcome truth to Jewish ears ; in nothing keep
ing back the shame of the Cross ; but expressly
declaring as the sum of his doctrine, " Therefore
let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God
hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified,
both Lord and Christ." On that glad occasion,
we hear of three thousand souls added to the
number of believers at once ; and the increase pro
ceeded so that " the Lord," it is said, " added
daily to the church such as should be saved."
Then too, through the energetic working of the
Holy Spirit, many of those who had derided the
Lord himself when personally ministering to them,
and obstinately set themselves against Him, were
softened in heart. "A great company of the Priests/'

10
we read, became " obedient to the faith ;" and as
the narrative proceeds, it informs us of believers
counted by tens of thousands; and the word of
the Lord is described as " growing mightily and
prevailing." The converts, too, are represented
as " continuing stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine
and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in
prayers ;" whereas even of the thousands fed by the
Lord in the wilderness, many went back, and walked
no more with Him. And now, even in these dege
nerate times, so many hundred years since the
dispensation of the Spirit began, may we not
discern the fruits of the same blessed energy, in
the missionary zeal, which goes forth from among
us to new fields of labour ; and amidst much out
ward discouragement and hazard, gathers harvests
to the Lord, where before all was barren and
waste? So may we hope, that, as the Gospel is
more and more spread through the world ; as the
love of the Spirit works in more hearts through
faith, and the multitude of labourers is sent from
all parts into the field ; the work of the Spirit in
bringing men to Christ, shall be productive of still
raore wonderful effects, though by ordinary and
far humbler means than those vouchsafed to the
Apostles.

11
And do we derogate from the merit or the effect
of the Lord's own work, when we thus magnify the
work of the Spirit ? Far from this, indeed ! Rather
we give Him the glory of the whole. For it is in
His name that the Spirit thus works with might ;
it is by virtue of His sacrifice that the Spirit goes
forth to convert the world ; it is the boon granted
to the Saviour's prayer, that the Comforter first
came down to the work, and to his continued
intercession as the great High Priest at the throne
of grace, that the Spirit still unceasingly carries on
his blessed agency in the saving of a faUen world.
The text thus leads us to refer the work of the
Spirit throughout to the scheme of salvation set
forth by Christ. The Comforter, our Lord tells
his disciples, would be sent " in his name ;" not
with an authority distinct from His ; but as the
bearer to the world of an authority from Him to
carry on the work ; the same authority, which they
had seen so evidently manifested in Him by signs
and wonders. The Comforter again should teach
them all things, and bring all things to their
remembrance whatsoever He had said unto them."
As his own doctrine had been not his only, " but
the Father's who sent him,"* so should the doctrine
i* John xiv. 24.

12
of the Spirit, whilst it should be a full instruction
in ah things needful for the edification of the church,
be the doctrine which they had received from Christ
himself ; as He elsewhere says, " He shall not speak
of hiraself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall
He speak -." "He shall take of mine and show it
unto you." *
This it was that rendered the Holy Spirit the
representative, or substitute, of Chvist —vicarius
Christi, as Tertullian expresses it; not, as has been
before shown, that the Spirit would stand to the
church precisely in the same relation in which
Christ had stood ; but that He should revive and
perpetuate the same doctrine. The disciples should
experience in Him a full compensation for the loss
of their Master's society; they should hear the
same voice, which they had listened to with burning
hearts whilst he went in and out amongst them ; the
^ame heavenly teaching, which but a few weeks
before had been overborne and silenced for ever,
as it might then have seemed, by the mad uproar
of the people, shoiild agaiii be perceived by the
inward ear ; like the stiU small voice heard by the
Prophet, after the fire and the earthquake, and the
great aud strong wind, which rent the mountains
* John xvi. 13—16.

13
and brake in pieces the rocks. The presence of the
Holy Spirit thus awakening in them the image of
Christ, would enable them to proceed in the execu
tion of their commission from Him to evangelize the
world ; as the disciples of Christ, they would carry
with them the doctrine of Christ, repeating again
and again, as they addressed " themselves " to one
person after another, the same words which they
had learnt from Him ; ever preaching his death and
resurrection as the ground of the sinner's pardon
and acceptance with God ; and as the simple direct
arabassadors of Christ, putting nothing in their
teaching in front of the one great master principle
of faith in Him as the only way of salvation. They
would go forth indeed in the might of the Holy
Spirit. Without his aid, and strength, and guidance,
they would feel that they were nothing, and could
do nothing. Still they would be Christians through
out. It would be the savour of Christ that would
breathe from all their teaching. They would doubt
less, too, often speak of that blessed Comforter,
through whom they were enabled to bear true and
faithful witness to Christ. They would inculcate
on all whom they would address, a supreme reverence
for the Divine Majesty of the Holy Spirit, as the
coequal of the Father and of the Son, in the glory of

14
the Holy Undivided Trinity. For so had they been
taught by their Master to reverence the Comforter
whom He would send to them ; when he bade them
baptize behevers in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost. They would also im
press on their hearers, what their own experience,
as well as the word of their Master, had taught
them, that without the help of the Spirit they could
do nothing in the service of Christ. Stih they would
labour, as we find they do, from all that is recorded
of them in the Acts of the Apostles, or their teaching
in their Epistles, to make men disciples of Christ —
Christians, as we might say emphatically ; not
disciples of themselves, as teachers under the
dictation of the Spirit, nor even disciples of the
Spirit himself, but simply disciples of Christ.
And it is no insignificant testimony of this con
duct on their part, that the disciples whom they
gathered first out of the world obtained the name
of Christians. Had this name been given to the
infant flock whom the Lord himself brought into
his fold, this would have had nothing remarkable
in it. They might naturally have been called in
the world by that sacred name, when they were
seen to be the followers of Hira who claimed it.
But there must have been sorae ground in the

15
doctrine itself taught by the Apostles, when the
disciples whom they formed were not caUed by their
name, or by that of the Spirit, whose immediate
instruments they were in the work of conversion,
but after Christ only. It shows that the doctrine
of Christ must have been ever on their lips ; and
that their teaching was identified with that of Christ
himself; and delivered no other message but that
which they had received from their Lord. And it is
no sraall confirmation of this assertion, that it was
at Antioch that the disciples were first called
Christians; — a result, that may well be connected
with the teaching of that Apostle, who called forth
that marked blessing frora the Lord on his hearty
confession of his faith — " Blessed art thou, Siraon
Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it to
thee, but my Father whicii is in heaven ;" and who
on account of the same was surnamed the Rock ; as
Abram became Abraham, the father of a great
multitude ; so he, from Simon the son of Jonah,
becoming Peter, the Rock, as the first to proclaim
that faith in Christ on which the church should be
built. Do I seem. Brethren, to have been labouring
a point about which there is no difficulty ?
Let it be granted, that there is no difficulty in

16
the matter, to the simple student of Scripture, and
the follower of the teaching of our own Church.
But has there not been an attempt lately made,
to separate the teaching of the Apostles and their
successors, under the dispensation of the Spu'it, from
the case of our Lord's own personal teaching ; and
to characterize it as a perfection of doctrine beyond
what was imparted before that dispensation ? and
thus, in fact, to trace up Christian doctrine to the
mission of the Spirit and his working on the under
standing of man, instead of deriving it exclusively
from the primary work and doctrine of Christ ?
It may readily occur to you, that I allude to
a pubhcation recently circulated among us, and
which has attracted a degree of interest beyond
that intrinsicaUy belonging to it, as an indisputable
evidence of the real spirit and tendency of the
theological movement begun within these last few
years, in this place.*
According to the tenour of that publication, the
Holy Spir it was not sent down to the Apostles, simply
to inspire them with a wisdom and confidence and
zeal and power to deliver the doctrine already fully
set forth by their Master, but to suggest to them the
* Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian
Doctrine.

17
secret undefined consciousness of divine truth ; to
be in their minds a prolific germ of doctrine, opening
more and more in the progress of the Church.
The doctrine of Christ Himself is but a meagre
element in such a theological system ; the mere
unformed matter, waiting to be moulded into shape
by the plastic power of the successive authoritative
teachers of the Church, through whose hands, on
occasion of controversies and speculations arising
to demand more explicit statements, the truth is
wrought out to its perfect outline and body.
A great and most important question accordingly
has been forced on our notice, as to the proper his
torical character of the doctrines professed among
us ; whether, that is, they were Avholly committed
to the Apostles at first by our Lord hiraself, and
have been thus inherited by us as an original
bequest of Christ to his Church in all ages, vnthout
addition, dirainution, or alteration ; or whether, on
the other hand, they are the gradual result of the
abiding dispensation of the Holy Spirit, the accu^
mulated truth of successive ages bringing them to
maturity and perfection.
Or, as it might thus be stated, the question now
before us is ; whether the body of Christian truth
professed at this day in the Church, is a fixed and
c

18
definite scheme of doctrine, delivered once for all at
its own period, and simply transmitted in its entire
form from age to age; or whether its nature is, to
have been spread over the succession of ages, and to
be only what it is ultimately, by the successive
gatherings into it and increase of dimension.
This is the great question which we now seem
called upon to consider and resolve for the satisfac
tion and peace of the young members of our
Church, whose minds have been excited on the
subject by the appearance of the work to which
T have alluded.
The question is fundamentally connected with
that on which I have been speaking, the relation of
the mission of the Comforter on the day of Pentecost
to the mission of our Lord Himself. It turns
eventually on the point, what was the office of the
Comforter thus sent ; whether it was simply to be
a remembrancer of Christ, — a builder up of the
Church on the foundation of Christ, — an inculcator
of the doctrine and discipline of Christ,— an effec
tual worker with those already imbued with " the
trutii as it is in Jesus," — establishing, strengthening,
settling them' in the faith, — empowering them to bear
true witness to the resurrection of the Lord, to con
vince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of

19
judgment, and bow to the cross the stubborn heart
of man ; or whether the Comforter thus sent, came to
be an Institutor of the Religion which, assuming the
former dispensations as its point of outset, should
bear the name of Christ, as first preached by the
Apostles of Christ — to be an ever-speaking oracle of
Divine truth, giving forth the response of heavenly
instruction in the eraergencies of the Church, and
expressly dictating from time to time, the sentences
which contain its doctrine, and irhparting to such
sentences, at whatever period delivered, an infaUible
Divine authority.
This was the great question with which the
Church had to contend in its early history ; in
its struggles with the Gnostic teachers from the
very times of the Apostles. For we find such teach
ers disturbing the churches planted by St. Paul with
complaints of the imperfection of that Apostle's
teaching : disparaging the simple preaching of
the truth witnessed by the Apostle ; and professing
to impart to those who would listen to them, a
more spiritual doctrine ; a doctrine, not originally
communicated to the Apostles, but subsequently
revealed ; the effect of the teaching of the Spirit.
Though, however, the early Gnostics assumed the
principle of a Divine instruction imparted to the
c 2

20
Church subsequently to its foundation by the life
and death and teaching of Christ, the principle
itself does not appear to have been so formally
estabhshed in their system, as it was about the
middle of the second century, by the sect of Mon
tanus. It has been doubted what was the precise
character assumed to himself by that heresiarch :
whether to be the Comforter Himself, the Paraclete,
as Tertullian designates the Holy Spirit ; or only
to have received special communication from the
Teacher promised under that name to the Apostles.
The Bishop of Lincoln, however, has, I think, clearly
shown from the passages of Tertullian which refer
to the pretensions of Montanus, that he claimed
only to be regarded as a prophet inspired by the
same Holy Spirit, or Paraclete, who had been sent
down to the Apostles. Such a claim would proceed
on the notion that the Holy Spirit had been given
to the Apostles, for the revelation of truth beyond
what they had received from their master — to teach,
indeed, a religion not entirely new, — for it was to be
the religion of Christ, — but new in the way of addi
tions; as perfecting what had been left imperfect; as
settling what had been left undecided. For Mon
tanus, if we may judge of his teaching from his
disciple Tertullian, strictly raaintained the creed.

21
or rule of faith, as then received in the Church, but
asserted a power from the Spirit to develop what
was only implied in the records of the Apostolic
teaching ; to throw a light on the obscure intima
tions in them ; and fill out the parts of a perfect
discipline of life, too strict to be borne in the time
of the Apostles, but now, as he affirmed, enjoined
by the Spirit.
"For what a thing is it," asks TertuUian,* the
apologist of the system, " that, whilst the devil is
ever working, and is adding daily to the devices of
iniquity, the work of God should have either ceased,
or left off advancing ; when it was on this account
that the Lord sent the Paraclete, that, since human
mediocrity could not receive all at once, discipline
should gradually be directed and ordered, and
brought to perfection by that Vicar of the Lord,
the Holy Spirit. ' I have yet many things to say
unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit,
when He, the Spirit of truth is come. He wUl guide
you into all truth : and He wUl show you things to
come.' But above, also. He pronounced respecting
this work of His. What, then, is this admini
stration of the Paraclete, but that discipline is
directed ; that the Scriptures are unveUed ; that the
* De Virg. Vel. c. i.

understanding is reformed ; that there is an advance
to better things ? Nothing is without age, and aU
things wait for time. FinaUy, the Preacher says :
'There is a time for everything.' Behold the crea
ture itself graduaUy advancing to fruit. First it is
a grain, then from a grain a stalk aiises, and from
a stalk shoots forth a httle shrub ; next branches
and leaves grow, and a tree in fuU name is expanded ;
next is the sweUing of a germ; and from a germ a
flower opens; and from a flower a fruit is disclosed;
that too, for some time rude and unformed, gradu
aUy directing its age, is educated into mUdness of
flavour. So also righteousness, (for the same is the
God of righteousness and of the creature) was first
in its rudiments a nature fearing God; then, by
the Law and the Prophets, it advanced to infancy ;
afterwards by the Gospel it burst forth into youth ;
now by the Paraclete it is settled into maturity. He
is the only one from Christ worthy to be caUed and
reverenced as a Master. ' For He shaU not speak
of Himself, but the things which are committed
to Him by Christ.' He is the only antecessor,
because He is the only one after Christ. They
who have received Him, prefer truth to custom."
Thus was that theory- which has been lately pro
pounded to us, as the only solution of the Christian

23
doctrine in the church under the ministry of the
Apostles and their successors, originaUy the device
of heretics, seeking by it to recommend their inno
vations as the authoritative dictates of the Holy
Spirit. And Gnosticism, and Montanism, and afterwards
Manicheism, (for Manes, too, gave himself out to be
the promised Paraclete, the perfecter of the doc
trine of Christ ;) in this, have only been the pre
cursors of the Church of Rome, which has taken
up the principle of those sects, and pushed it to its
natural consequences. For if it be once granted
that the Holy Spirit, He who by Christ's promise is
to abide with the Church for ever, was sent to be a
revealer of new and as yet untaught truth in the
mind of the authoritative teachers of the Church;
there is no reason why such a revelation should be
limited to one age of the Church more than to another;
or one class of things, as for instance to matters of
discipline only, than to another class, that of doc
trines ; or why improvements, (not to say in
modes of statement or expressions only,) but in
doctrines themselves, should not be found in a
later age rather than in earlier ; and so the whole
present system of thfe Church of Rome be justified,
with aU its corruptions, as the highest, truest Chris
tian wisdom.

24
So necessary is it, that we should strictly observe
the great landmarks laid down in Scripture, be
tween the gospel itself of our Lord, — the great im
movable saving traths belonging to the Life and
Death, and Resurrection and Ascension, and Ever
lasting Priesthood of Christ, with all other truths
connected with them, respecting the nature of God
and man, which together make up the Doctrine and
Discipline of Christ ; — and on the other side, the
teaching and guiding of the Holy Spirit vouchsafed
to the Church for the maintenance and apphcation
of those great truths to the salvation of man.
Depart once from this solid ground, and attri
bute the Christian doctrine to the ReveaUng Power
of the Spirit dwelling in the hearts of its human
teachers, and you destroy the vital objective cha
racter of that doctrine.
Believe in the fullest inspiration, the most effec
tual guidance and strength, imparted by the mission
of the Spirit to the Apostles; enabling them to
preach the word without error ; enlightening them ;
sanctifying them throughout; and enduing them
further with those miraculous gifts and power of
working miracles, which they possessed by the
Lord's special promise ; and you only ascribe the
honour due to the Holy Comforter, and to the
Father, and the Son, by whoni He was sent.

9.h

But regard the truths of the gospel as the gra
dual production of the Holy Spirit working in the
mind of the teachers of the Church ; and you then
reduce Christianity to a series of doctrinal pheno
mena, possessing indeed their truth at the time of
their appearance, but not endued with any fixed
unchangeable character, as the word of God which
standeth fast for ever. The several objects of
Christian belief then assurae the varied livery of
human thought; shifting like clouds their form and
colour with the rays that fall upon them. Try to
realize them in the past, and they are already faded
away and indistinct. They exist in the present
only ; for to change is with them to live.
No limit can be assigned to the extravagances
of such a theory of Christian doctrine. Under a
religion which flows with the flowing of thought
through the mind of man, even the most opposite
statements may be held true in their tum. If the
nature of doctrines is, to be the exponents of ideas,
the same may be true at one time and false at another.
The Church, accordingly, is described by the advo
cate of this theory, as converting even contraries .to
its purpose — taking into its system, and applying
to the support of the faith, the errors of heresy and
the superstitions of heathenism. We learn how

26
Montanism, at one time cast out of the Church as a
fanatical innovation, puts off its heretical garb, and
reappears; no longer uttering unauthorized pro
phesyings and imaginary revelations; but now a
spirit of development, and infallibility, and holy
discipline in the doctors and saints of the Church.
SabeUianism, again, we are told, was a premature
effort in its day, " to complete the mystery of the ever-
blessed Trinity ;" destined at length to be " reahzed
in the true unitarianism of St. Augustine." And in
general, " doctrines, usages, actions, and personal
characters become," by the magic of this theory, in
corporated with the gospel, and are made " right
and acceptable to its Divine Author ; when before
they were either contrary to truth, or at best but
shadows of it."* Such is the ground on whichlmage-
worship, among other corrapt practices of the Church
of Rome, divests itself of its heathenism, and is
transforrned into a Christian service ; and heathen
philosophy, exiled from the Church by Apostles, is
brought back and consecrated to the use of the
Church by their successors.
And can we regard such a speculation as Chris
tian Theology ! Is it not rather wholly a Platonic
* Essay on Development, pp. 354 — 366.

27
phUosophy of ideas — of ideas, as types or forms of
existing things, passing through various outward
manifestations, as they enter into aud mingle with
this lower world, — the world of generation and
corruption — the world of shadows, in which nothing
really subsists, but all is flowing and changing with
out ceasing. Imagine ideas, according to this phUo
sophy, at one time appearing in the form of heathen
doctrine and heathen worship, or the speculations
of heathen phUosophy — and then only imperfectly
developed ; assuraing accordingly wUd, grotesque,
unreal forms ; distorted in shadow, or faintly
pictured in legend and fable ; then, as the state
of the world affords them happier occasions of
development, issuing in more and more perfect
forms, more according to their own proper nature,
as the true and real types of things; first, however,
stUl in shadows and symbols under the Law and
the Prophets ; then in an elementary raanner at the
outset of the Gospel ; afterwards expanding in then-
native vigour, and reaching their maturity, as the
elaboration of the church doctrine and disciphne
proceeds ; — conceive all this, and you have then a
just view of what is now recommended to us for
the Gospel of Christ, under the name of the
Development bf Christian Doctrine.

28
The most complete scepticism would result from
such a mode of dealing with Christian doctrine,
were not the strength of an Infalhble Authority
invoked to the aid of the wavering mind. A
peremptory dogmatism at once sUences and subdues
each rising doubt. This throws its chain of ice across
the flowing stream; stays the current, however
rapid and ruffled; and fixes it, for the time at least,
immovably. A complex dogmatic system exhibits
in one present scheme, the several presentations
under which the objects of behef have succes
sively appeared, as developed by the mind of the
Church through the course of ages. Hence the
profession exacted of members of the Church of
Rome, to believe whatever the Church believes.
Without such an acknowledgment of the absolute
power of the Church to fix the matter of belief, aU
would relapse into uncertainty. Deny the infaUi
bility of the Church at any period of its existence ;
relax but ever so slightly the despotic hold which
the Church of Rome has, by this high assumption
of infaUibility, on the minds of its people ; and the
fabric must fall to pieces.
Let us not wonder, therefore, that divines of that
Church are ready to sacrifice other principles at times,
when pressed with difficulties on particular points, so

29
long as this is strictly maintained. When it is pointed
out, for example, how in the religion of Rome there
is a vast accumulation of materials frora without ;
additions to the pure faith of the Gospel from
heathen philosophy and heathen practice; the charge
is adraitted ; as here in this Theory of Development
which I have been noticing. But the incorporation
of this extraneous matter into the rehgion, is boldly
justified on the ground of a perpetuated divine
authority in the Church, enabling it to discriminate
what should be approved, what rejected, in the
chaotic mass presented to it, and to determine the
truth with unerring judgment.
The infaUibiUty of the Church is thus the funda
mental assumption of the Roman church ; pervading
and animating its whole system, and which it
cannot part with but with its life.*
* " Nostra igitur sententia est, Ecclesiam absolute non posse
errare, nec in rebus absolute necessariis, nec in aliis, qua3 cre
denda vel facienda nobis proponit, sive habeantur expresse in
Scripturis, sive non ; et cum dicimus Ecclesiam non posse
errare, id intelligimus tam de universitate fidelium, quam de
universitate Episcoporum ; ita ut sensus sit ejus propositionis,
Ecclesia non potest errare, id est, id quod tenent omnes fideles
tanquam de fide, necessario est verum et de fide ; et similiter,
id quod docent omnes episcopi, tanquam ad fidem pertinens,
necessario est verum et de fide .... Sic igitur Apostolus
vocans Ecclesiam columnam veritatis, vult significare veritatem

30
And not only is the Church of Rome committed
to this assumption ; but no less so are aU who would
represent the doctrines of the Gospel as issuing
from the mind of the Church, and determined by its
authority, and not simply as doctrines of Christ
taught in Scripture. Great, indeed, is the blessing
to its members of a Church which professes, and
inculcates by its authority, the truth of Scripture ;
and we cannot lightly disobey the voice of such a
faithful teacher. But we cannot receive doctrines
absolutely on its word, without admitting its
infallibUity. You must, then, have some positive
determining authority to rule each point of faith.
Once, however, admit its infalhbihty, and you are
the disciple of Rome in principle; and the transition
is then easy, as experience has shown, to the disciple
in fact.
But with all this effort to fix the body of doctrine
as developed by the Church, and secure the faith of
behevers, the evident tendency of such a proceeding
is to, scepticism and ultimate infidelity. For it
throws a shade over the information of history in
fidei, quoad nos, niti Ecelesiae auctoritate, et verum esse,
quicquid Ecclesia probat, falsum quicquid improbat." — Bel-
larm. De Eccles. Milit. 1. iii. c. 1 4. p. 1 277.

31
regard to theological questions. We can then find
no resting place where we may terminate our inquiry,
and say, that we know this or that doctrine to be
the truth, by the evidence of it there found. Scrip
ture, and the writings of the Fathers are, in this
respect, on the same footing. As the sacred text
must be ruled by the subsequent comment of
church- authority ; so must the evidence of an
earlier Father be explained by the evidence of the
later, who lived when the doctrine in question
obtained its more explicit statement. To rescue
the living, it seems no offence to trample on the
dead. To clear the ground for erecting some
sightly edifice, the sanctuary of the tomb is invaded
without corapunction. Thus is the inquirer utterly
bewildered in his search after the truth. He walks
over the ground where the monuments and relics of
his faith should be found, but some one has been
before him, and obliterated the traces for which he
is looking. For thus we find advocates of this theory of
Christian doctrine, not only characterizing Scrip
ture as obscure and uncertain in its language on
the great mysteries of our faith, but destroying, or
at least weakening, the testimony in their favour
in the writings of priraitive antiquity. The case of

3.2
the leamed Jesuit Petau, or Peta%dus, is probably
weU known, even to those who have not examined
his own writings, from the distinct notice of it by
Bishop Bull, in his celebrated " Defence of the
Nicene Creed." In his blind zeal to cut away the
ground from Protestant controversialists, the Jesuit
was wUling to sacrifice the existing evidence to the
doctrine of our Lord's Divinity in the first three
centuries of Christian antiquit}- ; and to incur
the reproach of Arianism on himself; so that it
might appear, at any rate, that there existed no
more certain e\ddence in antiquity for the great
doctrines held in common by every sound Protestant
as weU as Romanist, than for the corruptions im
puted to Rome.* FoUowing in the same track,
the modem advocate of the Roman system of
doctrine wiUingly concedes that the evidence of
the first three centuries looks unfavourably for
* " Atenim complures antiquorum illorum quos auctores
ac testes appellamus, fidei nostrse, de plurimis dogmatibus
prsesertim vero de Trinitate, multum. a nobis diversa scrip
serunt," <fcc. — Petal: Dogm. Theol. tom. ii. p. 4.
He was foUowed in this argument by Huet, Bishop of
Avranches. Priestley attempted, on the same ground, to
impugn the Scripture evidence to the perfect divinity of our
Lord. — See Bishop Horsley's Charge. Gontrov. -with Priestley,
p. 64, &c.

33
establishing the truth ; that the Fathers of those
centuries are as clear for the doctrines of the ^lass,
of Purgatory, of the Worship of Saints, of the
Supremacy of the Pope, as they are for the acknow
ledged articles of a saving faith, the truths of the
Trinity in Unity, and the Incarnation.
No open adversary of Patristic authority could
have so effectuaUy damaged that authority, and
tosrether with it the intesritv of Christian belief,
as its professed advocates have done by such an
admission of its insufficiency. For if those who
lay 50 much stress on Tradition for ascertaining and
establishing Chi'istian truth, are found afterwards to
invalidate that very evidence of which Tradition
consists, what ground do they leave to the behever ?
what temptation do they not hold out to those, who
are not prepared at once to accept the alternative
of behenng whatever Rome beheves, to conclude,
that, as the evidence on which they have hitherto
been taught to depend, faUs on more mature con
sideration of it, in the judgment even of its
advocates, the Faith itself must be precarious and
uncertain.* * What can it avail against the force of such a conclusion
to urge as Petavius does : " C ceterum quod, in superioribus
capitibus tribus, Veterum sententias ac dicta recensuimus, qute
D

34
Such is the downward path, i\ie facilis descensus,
of those, who commit the first great error of setting
up an authority in the Church of infallible dictation
over the word committed by Christ to his Apostles,
and by them consigned to the Scriptures. Such

alienum quiddam, et abhorrens a Catholica professione, saltem
loquendi modo, continere videntur ; non sic accipi velim,
quasi nihil sincere, Catholiceque scriptum, in eorum libris
exstet," &c. {De Trin. 1. i. c. 6.) Or as Mr. Newman does,
after him ; " Let it not be for a moment supposed that I impugn
the orthodoxy of the early divines, or the cogency of their
testimony among /aiV inquirers," &c. — Introd. p. 15.
Bishop Horsley has pointed out the occasion which gave rise
to this mode of dealing with the testimony of the primitive
ages. " At the time," he says, " when Petavius wrote, the minds
of the most enlightened and liberal of the Romanists, were so
ill reconciled to the separation of the reformed Churches from
their communion, that it was the fashion for the champions cf
the Papal superstition, in order to weaken the support which
they were sensible the Protestant cause received from the
writings of the Fathers of the three first centuries, to take
every method to derogate from their authority. And this, it
was thought, could in no way be more efiectually done, than
by bringing them under a suspicion of misbelief, in doctrines,
which the reformed Ohurches, and the Roman, hold in equal
reverence. The learned Petavius considered not, that he
sacrificed the cause of our common Christianity to the private
views of his own Church, in thus attempting to corrupt the
stream of Tradition at the very fountain-head." — Charge —
Controv. ivith Priestley, p. 55.

35
an authority cannot, as I have endeavoured to show,
be attributed to our Lord's promise of the abiding
presence of the Spfrit with the Church. It does
not appear, at least, from the text of Scripture :
and surely the Romanist cannot, with any reason,
assert that infaUible authority for thus construing
the promise of the Spirit in Scripture, when the
very passages which contain the promise, are
those, on which the question itself of InfallibUity
chiefly depends.
Let the example of Rome, — the rocks and quick
sands which that Church has run upon, in thus
arrogating to itself a gift which the Lord has not
conceded to it, — be a warning to aU, how they
undervalue that degree of evidence for the truth
which the Lord has judged sufficient for us, in
a vain reaching after an infallibUity, which lies
beyond our present sphere of belief and action.
It is but the same principle on which the infidel
proceeds in rejecting the Gospel. The utmost that
he can aUege against it is, that its evidence is not
absolutely irresistible ; that it presents some difficul
ties to the speculative and critical reason ; and may
therefore be objected to by such as require a perfect
overpowering demonstration of its truth.* The
* See Butler's Analogy, Part II. cc. 6 and 8, Conclusion.
D 2

36
infidel accordingly seeks an infaUibility in the
evidence of the Gospel; and from this false as
sumption, refuses the blessing of a Faith, intended
by its Divine Author to prove and discipline the
receiver of it. So do those naturaUy miss the
true faith, who, neglecting the proper evidence of
its doctrines in the certainty and sufficiency of
Scripture, demand a more distinct evidence to enable
them to discriminate between the true and the
false ; and are dissatisfied with anything short of a
living infallible interpreter.
Would we know Christ, and the Salvation by Him,
we must indeed seek the aid of the same Holy
Comforter, who was given to the Apostles, to teach
them, and bring to their remembrance all things
whatsoever He had said unto them, in like manner
to teach us, and bring to our remembrance, — for
we too, who have been baptized and instructed in
the Faith, have already been taught by Him, —
whatsoever He has said to us. The Spirit has been
given to the Church — let us ever bear in mind — not
to dictate to us anew what we are to beheve ; but to
open our understanding that we may receive the
testimony of Christ ; and to cleanse and exalt our
hearts, that we may appreciate his truth and love
towards us. The fullest, most effectual superinten-

37
dence of Christ by the Holy Spirit over the Church
as a whole, and every member of it in particular,
is undoubtedly a great Scripture truth. We are
assured accordingly by our Lord, that his Church
shall never utterly perish, nor truth, consequently,
nor faith, faU out of the earth ; however iniquity, and
error, and aU the powers of Anti-Christ, may prevaU
for a season. We are to Uve on this promise ; not to
pride ourselves, as if in perfect security of possession
of the Truth and Faith. The gift of the Spirit,
though as Christians we already enjoy it, is yet to
be regarded as in promise — as it was to the Apostles
looking forward to the day of Pentecost, though
they had already been made partakers of the Spirit ;
" for unto every one that hath shall be given."*
Nor let us despise or slight the authority and
guidance of the Church in which we are providen
tially placed; though we reject the theory of an in
herent infaUibility in the Church. It was to the
Apostles in communion vrith each other as disciples
of Christ, that the Spfrit was promised, to teach them
and guide them and assist them in the work of the
ministry. It was on them when assembled together
as a Church, that the Holy Spirit descended. Let not
this example be lost on us. Let us remember, that
* Augustin. ill Ev. Joan. c. xiv. Tractat. 73.

38
none hveth to himself as a member of Christ. He
is a part of the body of Christ. Then let not " the
eye say unto the hand, I have no need of thee ;
uor again, the head to the feet, I have no need of
you ;" nor any one member claim to itseK to be the
body. But let us take to ourselves the counsel and
strength of the body, in which we have been placed
by the good pleasure of our Lord — our own Apo
stohc and Scriptural Communion ; and so obtain a
strong ground of trust, that the Lord vnU pray for
us, as for his ffrst disciples, and keep us by his
Spirit, that our faith faU not, nor He withdraw his
truth from us.

SERMON II.

Matt, xxviii. 18 — 20.
" Alid Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All jiojver
is given unto me in keaven andin eartk. Go ye therefore
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of tke
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching
tkem to observe all things wkatsoever I have commanded
you : and lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of
the world."
I CONCLUDED my sermon of last Sunday, with an
exhortation to you, to seek the teaching and gui
dance and strength of the Holy Spfrit, in order
truly to receive the doctrine and disciphne of
Christ ; not as solitary detached individuals having
no spfritual tie to others around you ; but as mem
bers of the body of Christ ; as persons united in
one Communion under Christ our Head. As the

40
Apostles received the special Ulumination of the
Spirit, for the work of buUding up the Church
founded by their Lord, at a time when they were
joined in holy feUowship with themselves and the
other disciples of the Lord; and, when, having
continued in thefr Lord's love according to his
earnest parting injunction, having but one heart
and one mind, they were met together, (as we
read,) with one accord in one place — the place of
common worship ; so should we, I urged, and
would still urge, after thefr example, look for the
promise of the Spirit to ourselves, as we abide in
communion with each other, remembering how God
has placed us in his Church in the world, and avaU-
ing ourselves of the benefit of this disposition of
his Providence.
The work of the Holy Spirit on earth thus is
essentiaUy connected with the visible institution of
the Church, the body of Christ on earth. Unlike
the work of the Son of God in this respect, it is
carried on within the cfrcle of an existing society.
The work of Christ had nothing to buUd on ; no
circumscribed ground on which its operations were
to be effected. Like the beginning of the heaven
and the earth, it was a new creation. " God said :
Let there be hght, and there was light:" and

41
a new heaven and a new earth appeared; no
longer material and perishable, like the first, but
invisible and immortal ; wherein righteousness
should dweU for ever. On this new creation, called
into being by the Word of God, went forth the
Holy Spirit, moving on the face of it with wonder
working energy, breathing into it life and holiness.
And as the natural creation became fruitful and
multiplied, by vfrtue of his blessing, so has the
Holy Spirit descended on the creation of grace — the
infant Church, — ^blessing it with increase ; until at
length the " thousands of the tribes of Israel," spoken
of in the Apocalyptic vision, shall be "sealed;"
and " that great multitude which no man can num
ber, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and
tongues, stand before the throne and before the
Lamb, clothed with white robes, and pahns in their
hands, and cry with a loud voice, saying. Salvation
to our God, who sitteth upon the throne, and unto
the Lamb." *
Glorious, unspeakably glorious indeed, will be
the result, when the work of the Holy Spirit shall
thua be consummated, and the Church of Christ
shall come forth as his bride, " arrayed in the fine
Unen, the righteousness of saints," amidst the
* Rev. vii. 4—10.

42
triumphant songs of myriads of angels ; and when
that day which we celebrate in faith and hopeful
anticipation, year after year, as now, shaU be realized
in joyous fruition. What happiness ! what encou
ragement. Brethren, to perseverance in our holy
calling ! to contemplate, even in this our distant un
worthiness, and amidst our awe at a thought too
great for our minds, the prospect of that last glad
celebration, and the hope held forth to us, that we
may at length have a name among those that Uve, on
the great day of All Saints !
This is the true development, — if we may use the
word in a sound sense, — which belongs to the reli
gion of Christ. From small beginnings, — from a
germ of life, planted, and watered, and fostered,
and nourished by the Holy Spfrit, shaU spring up
a vine, which shall " cover the hills with its shadow,
stretching out its branches to the sea, and its boughs
unto the river :" from the pure fountain, small at
its rise, shall flow rivers of water, pouring their
riches through all lands, and swelling in their course
into a mighty ocean : the city of Zion, no longer
bounded within the narrow cfrcle of its own hUls,
" shall be established in the top of the mountains,
and shall be exalted above the hills, and aU
nations shaU flow into it;" and " the kingdoms of

43
the world shaU become the kingdom of our Lord
and of his Christ." This is, I say, the true de
velopment of the religion ; because it is that held
forth by the word of God, to the faith and hope
of the Christian. He is told by that infaUible
oracle, that the Church is not now what it shall be.
As an individual of the body, he knows and feels,
that he is himself but in progress ; that he must grow
in grace; and that, though he may have made some
advance in his holy calhng, he is stUl far from having
attained to the Resurrection from the dead, or being
a fit citizen and subject of that kingdom which
is to come. He looks forward, therefore, with faith
in the word of prophecy and promise, — faith in the
efficacy of that Atonement and Salvation which the
Son of God has wrought for the world, — faith in
the sanctifying energy of the Holy Spirit, in buUd
ing on the foundation of Christ, — not doubting that
the Church now mUitant in earth shall finaUy be
triumphant, and shaU be presented to the Father,
having neither spot, nor wrinkle, nor any imperfec
tion whatever. He may be tempted, when he looks
either into his own heart, or abroad into the world,
to ask, " How long, 0 Lord, how long !" But he
wUl reflect that his ovra condition, as weU as that
of the Church, forbids the fond expectation of glory

44
to be reahzed at once. He returns to his scrip
tural assurance, that the Church of Christ is now in
a state of progress ; that it waits for its perfection
until the Lord shall have put all enemies under his
feet, and death shall be swallowed up in victory.
Thus was the revelation in Christ, comprising all
that the incarnate Son of God has done and taught
during his earthly ministry, complete, as soon as
his work was finished ; from the first dehvery of it,
summing up and closing all the previous dispen
sations of the Old Testament in the final mystery
of the Gospel. The Law and the Prophets were up
to that time — dispensations essentiaUy relative to
another age, which should foUow them — prophetic
and preparatory — destined to receive their perfection
of design, and fulness of light and blessing, when
God should in the latter days speak by His Son, and
put an end to the types and sacrifices of the Law,
and stamp an aU-powerful efficacy on the preaching
of repentance by the Prophets, by the one true Sacri
fice of the Son. The whole of the New Testament
is but a full description, elucidation, and enforce
ment, in all its grand points of view, in all its bear
ings and consequences, of this great truth. One
Evangelist may present some parts of the truth
more distinctly or more fully than another ; or one

45
Epistle exhibit to us the relations of the several tmths
into which it is distributed, more than another ;
as that, for example, to the Romans, compared with
any other, shows preeminently the relation of the
Sacrifice of Christ to the faUen condition of man
and to the principle of faith. But the whole New
Testament together is not an expansion of doctrine
from doctrine, or series of developments, but rather,
a combined riew of the whole doctrine and discipline
of Christ, as revived and impressed, through the
operation of the Holy Spirit, on the hearts and
minds of the Apostles, once for aU, and left in
writina; as the one indehble divine record for each
succeediuo: ase.
Not so, however, was the working ofthe Holy Spfrit
in brinsjinsj tosjether the Uvinsc stones of which the
Temple of the Lord is buUt up. WhUst we speak
of the Lord's work in the pecuhar and strict sense,
as the Foundation, yet subordinately to that, and in
an inferior sense, we may speak of the Church as
founded also on its Apostles and Prophets ; as in
that Scriptural account of it ; " buUt up on the
foundation of the Apostles and Prophets : Jesus
Christ himself being the chief Comer Stone."* As
I have said before, the commencement was made
* Eph. iL 20.

46
by the Lord, the Corner Stone : then the Apostles,
inspired and guided by the Spirit, proceeded to
the foundation for the vast Temple, which it should
be the work of ages to raise up on it. And surely,
if ever there were need of the perfect doctrine of
Christ, it was at that time, when the Apostles
were employed in beginning the buUding of the
Church through the Spfrit. If it was needed in
the process of ages, much more was it needed then
in its length and breadth ; to be the eternal basis,
on which the glorious fabric was afterwards to be
built by other hands — hands, less skiUed, less
divinely guided for the task, than their own. WeU
therefore may we believe, — what I endeavoured
to impress on your attention last Sunday, in dis
coursing on the special mission of the Spirit, — that
the Church possessed frora the first the knowledge
of the truth as it is in Jesus, as fully as it does
now ; and that the labour of subsequent ages has
not added to, or cleared up, or worked out, the
original doctrine, but only counteracted attempts to
vary and corrupt it ; not enlarging or improving the
doctrine itself, but only preventing its diminution
or change in any essential respect.
Augustine indeed, and Vincent of Lerins, have
been supposed by some to speak of a proficiency of

47
Christian Truth beyond this. But when we come
closely to examine their statements, we do not find
that they countenance a Theory of Development.
Augustine refers to certain doctrines as not per
fectly handled, until the rise of controversies had
exacted the full discussion of them. He does not
say that the truth itself on these points so contro
verted was brought out and perfected on such occa
sions ; but only, that the points were more fully
treated in the course of time and more fuUy ex
plained to the Church at large. It is not of the
doctrines themselves that he speaks as latent before
such discussion, or as obtaining development by the
action of controversy, but of persons in the Church,
— {multi latebant in populo Dei, are his words,)
— capable of discerning and handling the Scriptures,
and solving difficult questions, who were drawn
forth into the service of the Church by the need of
the occasion. Through such persons accordingly,
he observes, the truth already handed down and
known, when assaUed by the oppositions of heresy,
received its defence and elucidation from the Scrip
tures.* The amount of what he says on the sub
ject is : that, throu.gh such labours, the Scriptures
* S. August, in Psalm liv.

48
were better understood, and their bearing on the
tmths in question was more fully appreciated.
Vincent of Lerins, so far from being an authority
in favour of the Theory of Development, must he
regarded as an opponent of it. No writer insists
more strongly than he does on the sameness of
doctrine through all ages of the Church. As Ter
tuUian instances in the growth of the tree with its
fruit from the seed, to iUustrate the advancement of
Discipline in the Church under the dispensation of
the Spirit, — so indeed does Vincent appeal to the
natural growth of raan from infancy to old age, in
illustration of his argument. But his main object
in such an Ulustration is evidently the opposite to
that of Tertullian. It is to prove the sameness of
the doctrine of the Church at different periods, sub
sisting, like personal identity, under any apparent
changes which it may have exhibited. At the same
time, he would secure Christians against the temp
tation to change, which heretical teachers were
holding forth to them, whUst such teachers found
fault with the simphcity of Christian Faith, and
offered to advance them in the knowledge of the
truth. He shows accordingly, that there is a real
proficiency which the Christian may have in view.
The heretics, he says, treated the Christian religion.

49
" as if it were, not an heavenly dogma, which might
suffice once revealed, but an earthly institution, not
otherwise to be perfected but by assiduous emenda
tion, or rather reprehension." In opposition to this,
whUst he forbids all change, whether of addition or
diminution, he allows the teacher of divine truth to
polish, adorn, and illustrate his matter by expo
sition, regarding it throughout, at the same time,
as perfect in itself and incapable of any variety of
definition.* As far as Doctrine is concerned, TertuUian, even
in his Montanistic treatises, takes the same view.
He only argues for a development in the matter of
Discipline ; for a more rigid practice, a greater
austerity of life, than had hitherto been required
in the Church. The Rule of Faith, the Creed, he
strongly insists, is one and immovable.
According to this sense of proficiency, when the
Apostles themselves, by the inspiration of the Holy
Ghost, preached the Gospel, and afterwards com
mitted, the Faith, which they had delivered by
word of mouth, to the Scriptures of the New
Testament, we may say, there was a statement of
the truth raore distinct and full to the world
than had been given before. For our Lord, though
* Vine. Lirin. Commonit. pp. 331— 337, Ed. Baluz,_
E

50
he discoursed of his religion to the people, had
more clearly expounded it to his disciples, who
were afterwards to bear it to the world under the
guidance of his Spirit. It remained, therefore, for
them to state more at large what they had already
received ; to explain it, and enforce it on the
popular understanding, and invest it with an abid
ing authority. This the Holy Spirit which was
given thera enabled them to accomplish; so that
the Scriptures now present to us the truths of the
Gospel in their fulness of doctrine and heavenly
comfort; not beyond what the Apostles received,
but the same truths ; only those traths made more
familiar, and more accessible, by thefr statements
and expositions, to the hearts and understandings
of all men of all ages of the world.
In like manner, though at an infinite distance
from the authority of the inspired teaching of the
New Testament, does the Christian Church of aU
ages since the Apostolic, proceed in setting forth
and expounding the same original truth to its
members. Whether by formal decrees in CouncUs,
or by expositions of doctrine given in Creeds and
Catechisms, or in summaries, and treatises of Theo
logy, or by the sermons and pastoral exhortations
of its ministers, aU that the Church really effects

51
is, to explain more clearly, and enforce more
strongly, and guard from perversion and abuse,
the Word of God, as it exists in its original
depository of the Scriptures. And a valuable
service this is. The same doctrine may thus
receive a fuUer exposition and Ulustration from
time to time, and an accession of evidence, from the
increased study of Scripture, and a better under
standing of particular texts. But all the while that
this sort of practical improvement may be going on
in the Church, as the wisest of men can enter into
the mysteries of God no more than the simplest who
have but an honest reverent heart ; so neither will
the men of the latest age of the Gospel have to say
of themselves, that they possess a perfection of
Christian doctrine beyond the knowledge of those
of the earliest. A later age may possess a fuller,
larger, statement of this or that particular doc
trine, but there wUl be only a change of expression
at most; no change of the doctrine ; no advance
ment or perfection of the truth itself thus variously
stated. Such only is that improvement which Bishop
Butler suggests, — an improvement arising, as I
have said, from an enlarged study of Scripture, — ¦
a better understanding of particular passages in
E 2

52
themselves, and in their bearing on doctrine ; no
perfecting of the doctrine itself.*
But the Romanist theory implies much more
than simple elucidation of doctrine from Scripture,
and improvement in its statement. The sort of
improvement which it contemplates is, the drawing
forth of doctrine, making explicit what was held
implicitly before ; divulging what has hitherto been
kept secret or reserved. For instance ; according
to that theory, the doctrine of the Incarnation is
developed in the fifth century into that of the
deification of the Virgin Mary. It was then that
she received, we are told, " the public and ecclesi
astical recognition " of her " place in the economy
of grace ;" her " incommunicable dignity" was de
clared ; and a worship, only not that due to perfect
Deity, was assigned to her.f The sanctification, or
* Butler's Analogy, part ii. c. 3.
t "The votaries of Mary do not exceed the true faith,
unless the blasphemers of her Son come up to it. The
Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is ortho
doxy." — Newman's Essay, p. 406.
Another writer, in the " Tracts for the Times," seems
not to diff'er much, if at all, from this view of " the incommu
nicable dignity" of the Virgin Mary. " The thought ofher," he
says, " is inseparable from meditation on the true doctrine of
the Incarnation, that our Lord was ' God of the substance of
His Father, begotten before the world ; and man, of the sub-

53
rather the deification* of man, and consequently
the whole Citlttis Sanctorum in the Roman Church,
is derived also from the same ti'utli — from the notion
stance of His mother, born in the world.' To deny the word
Qeotokoq is, of course, heresy ; to shrink from it, then, is to be
ashamed of the truth of God ; to shrink from dwelling on the
doctrine conveyed in it, that He 'abhorred not the Virgin's
womb,' is secretly to have entertained some heretical counter
feit." — Pusey's Avrillon, Pref. Surely, however, one may
acknowledge the value ofthe term theotocos in stating the
truth of our Lord's proper Divinity, without acceding to the
doctrine respecting the Virgin Mary, here supposed to be implied
in it. The same writer seems disposed to speak of the Virgin
as "purer than angels," according to the text of the Jesuit
author, whose Devotions he edits for the " use of the English
Churoh," whilst he modifies it into the expression, " pure as
angels." For in making the correction he subjoins the remark,
" Yet this refers to the time before the Conception. For by
the Conception, indeed, any one who meditates on the Incar
nation must thiuk, that the Blessed Virgin has a nearness
to God, closer than that of any other created being." — JVote
on Avrillon, p. 132.
* " Christ, in rising, raises his saints with him to the right
hand of power. They become instinct with his life, of one
body with his flesh, sons, kings, gods. He is in them, because
he is in human nature ; and he communicates to them that
nature deified by becoming his, that it may deify them. He is
in them by the presence of his Spirit, and in them is He seen.
They have titles of honour by participation, which are properly
his. Without misgiving, we may apply to them the most
sacred language of Psalmists and Prophets. " Thou art a
Priest for ever," may be said of St. Polycarp or St. Martin, as
well as of their Lord," &c. — Wewman's Essay, pp. 402, 403.

54
of our Lord's having sanctified a portion of the
cormpt mass of Matter by taking on Him human
flesh ; and thus further, from the same truth, the
Resurrection of the Saints of Christ to their glorified
state ; tbe Real Presence in the Eucharist, as held
by the Church of Rome ; the sanctity of Rehcs,
and the merit of Virginity. Baptism again is
asserted to have been developed, ffrst into a
Sacrament of Penance, and, as time went on, into a
doctrine of Purgatory. These surely are not in
stances of expansion, or improvement, in the state
ment of known doctrines, adapted to the purpose
of exposition in altered circumstances of the Church;
but rather, (as the Theory of Development boldly
asserts, leaving the Scriptures far behind it,) in
stances of " the mind of the Church working out
dogmatic traths from imphcit feehngs under secret
supernatural guidance."
Whilst, however, the truth itself, as it is in
Jesus, has ever been one and the same, the Church
which has subsisted upon it, has been growing,
both by the increase of its members in grace indi
vidually, and by its spread through the world.
From the words of our text, it would appear,
that this future enlargement of the Church was
distinctly contemplated by our Lord Himself in
his ffrst charge to his Apostles concerning it. What

55
is that power which he speaks of as given to him ?
It is, " all power in heaven and earth ;" power ex
tending beyond the hmits of any one country or
age, and even beyond the visible universe, to the
courts of heaven ; signifying that the Chm'ch should
not only be the pillar and ground of his truth on
earth, but that by the Church also should be
known in heavenly places the wonderful wisdom of
God. Then how vast is the charge ! " Go ye and
teach all nations, baptizing 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;" a commission reaching far beyond
the possibility of execution by the individuals them
selves so sent ; implying, as it did, a personal address
from them to individuals of every nation. And
that the charge was thus extensive, and indeed
bounded by no limits of time, appears stUl further
from that wonderful assurance which carries it out
into His own infinity, " Lo, I am with you alway,
even unto the end of the world !"
It is plain, then, that a principle of hidefinite
extension was iraparted to the constitution of the
Church at its very eorameneement. The ground
work may have seemed, to huraan eyes looking on it
from without, to have been straitened and small.

56
unequal to the burthen of future greatness which
the Lord's word had laid upon it ; but He " who
layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters,
and maketh the clouds his chariots, and walketh
upon the wings of the vrind," had " stretched out
the line, and laid the measure thereof." As He was
Himself the chief Corner-stone of the building,
so had He " founded it on the seas, and prepared it
on the floods," that it should be for an everlasting
habitation, a house of many mansions, where aU
his saints, in the fulness of time, should be gathered
in one holy home.
Let us, then, consider what provision was made
by our Lord in the first establishment of His
Church for its perpetual enlargement ; and more
particularly, in what manner that enlargement
takes place and is effected through His abiding
presence. First, let us more particularly observe how it is
that the Church may be truly said to grow, or,
accordirig to the current expression, be " deve
loped" in the world ; whUst the doctrine of the
Church remains one and the same, undeveloped,
unchanged, and unchangeable.
When St. Paul, addressing the weak members of
the Corinthian Church, speaks of them as not yet

57
fit to be addressed but as babes not able to bear
the food of men ; and of a wisdom to be received
by them that are " perfect ;" he wUl be found, if his
meaning be duly weighed according to the tenor of
his whole epistle, and the occasion on which he is
writing, to be speaking, not of any difference in the
truths to be imparted, but of a growth in grace;
of the necessity of a growth in grace to render a
man a disciple of Christ, after he has once received
the truth. For he is complaining there of their
having forsaken the simplicity of the faith, of thefr
having given themselves over to seducing teachers,
of their having departed from the sincerity of a
pure Gospel profession, into carnal and worldly
ways, into party strife, and disputations of worldly
wisdom, into heresy and unclean living. They were
boasting ofa perfection in a wrong line, in a direction
opposite to the Gospel ; treating, in fact, the Gospel-
truth as a mere element in thefr system, as an idea
to be expanded in their ethereal region of thought ;
and soaring on the false wing of a profane specu
lation to a heaven of their own imagining. Mean
whUe, they were grovelling on the earth, immersed
in the mire of violent and unchastened passions,
returning into the ways of that corrupt nature
which they had once eschewed ; and that, at their
very entrance on the Christian Faith, when in the

58
laver of regeneration they had not long put off the
old man, and became again as little chUdren in
becoraing Christians. In the view of such apos
tates from their profession, the Apostle Paul
was far exceeded by themselves in the pursuit
of Christian perfection. He reminds them, there
fore, in his earnest expostulation, that such wisdom
was foolishness with God ; that he and his brother
Apostles had received " the mind ofChrist," without
which it were vain to speak of the things of God;
that his simple preaching of Christ crucified, though
with them it sounded as the foolishness of preach
ing," was "the wisdom and the power of God," — a
doctrine, such as would carry them to the perfection
of their caUing, eraptying them of mere earthly
wisdom, which was foolishness with God, and
purifying them as a Temple of God, the habitation
of the Holy Spirit.
So also to the Hebrews, he speaks more ex
pressly of " leaving the principles of the doctrine
of Christ, and going on unto perfection, not
laying again the foundation," &c. But does he
mean by this, that they are to proceed to some
more recondite truth, some more definite, more
expanded views of the truth they had received;
to look down on the fields of earlv Christian
Doctrine as from some lofty watch-tower, com-

59
manding from its survey the subject-plains of
sacred truth? Surely the Apostle had no such
meaning; he never anticipated that dream of modern
theorists, that the Gospel, as first revealed, was only
a nucleus of the truth, destined to grow in Christian
minds, and ripen to maturity by the processes of
human thought ; surely he never had this meaning
when he goes on, as we find, explaining himself
more fuUy, to speak of apostates from the Faith, of
those who crucified the Son of God afresh ; faihng
away from Him ; Uving as if they had never been
taught the necessity of being buried with Christ in
baptism, and of " repentance from dead works, and
faith towards God," and the truth of the resurrection
and the judgment to come.
It is in fact little else that he here expresses,
but the language of our own Church; where,
after having admitted into its bosom its infant
member, on the assurance of faith in the doc
trine of Christ, as that to which the child is
pledged, it bids all remember that "Baptism doth
represent unto us our profession ; which is, to
foUow the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be
made like unto Him ; that as He died and rose
again for us, so should we, who are baptized, die from
sin, and rise again unto righteousness ; continually
mortifying all our evil and corrupt affections, and
daily proceeding in all virtue and godliness of

60
living ;"* or where, again, our Church enjoins
on its ministers " to bring all committed to thefr
charge unto that agreement in the faith and know
ledge of God, and to that ripeness and perfectness
of age in Christ, that there be no place left either
for error in religion, or for viciousness of life ;" and
directs them further, " continually to pray to God
the Father, by the mediation of our Saviour Jesus
Christ, for the heavenly assistance of the Holy
Ghost, that by daily reading and weighing of
Scriptures, they may wax riper and stronger in
their ministry."! The same is the perfection in
Christian doctrine held out to the Christian's aim
by the Church here, and by the Apostle in the
places I have referred to; as also by St. Peter,
when he bids Christians " desire the sincere milk
of the word, that they may grow thereby." J The
individual Christian is taught to live and grow
in the holy doctrine, or as our Church again dis
tinctly expresses it, that " all things belonging to
the Spirit should live and grow in him ;" the same
unchanging doctrine being in him a living principle,
expanding and maturing him to manhood in aU
Christian graces, so that " the man of God may be
perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
It was then clearly for this purpose, first, that
* Office of Public Baptism. -f Ordering of Priests.
I 1 Pet. ii. 2. *

61
the Holy Spirit should abide for ever with the
Church, working continually in each member of the
body of Christ's Church, and bringing him nearer
to that perfect conformity to Christ, which is the
end of his holy oalling. Let each member of the
body of Christ thus cherish the abiding presence of
the Holy Spirit, in this respect the true Vicarius
Domini, the real representative of Christ, — not,
that is, as taking up what Christ has left undone,
but as sustaining in its integrity the work of Christ ;
speaking his words to the inraost heart ; fixing his
cross there; quickening the inert soul with his secret
influences ; and by his mysterious union with the
Father and the Son in the majesty of the Holy
Trinity, bringing down Christ, though absent in
the flesh, together with the Father, to dwell with
the contrite purified heart of man : — and then may
we feel a scriptural trust, that there is a work in
progress, — a change proceeding more and more
from darkness to light, — from the faltering tongue
and unsteady walk of the child in grace, to the bold
and consistent faithful profession of the full-grown
man, who puts away childish things, and reaches
on towards the measure of the stature of the fulness
of Christ.
Consider, on the other hand, the contrast of the
supposition, that it is the Doctrine which is deve-

62
loped in the Church, instead of simply the Church
itself in its members. Where can be the steadiness
of profession in the man who is the disciple of a
system of faith, which is continually developing
itself; of which he cannot be assured at any given
moment, that it is what it shall be ; or what he
shaU believe, or act upon, at some future period of
his life ? Such an one converts, by his theory, the
stable constitution of his religion under its ancient
code of fixed laws, into a fluctuating system of
government by popular decrees, the voice of a
majority from time to time. He may delude himself
indeed with the persuasion, that he is but following
out the same ideas, and pursuing an unity of thought,
under the various transformations which it succes
sively assuraes in its progress down the ages of its
course. But he is essentially the disciple of change.
He is embarked on a stream. He may look back
to the land which he has left, and think that it stiU
exists for him ; but soon it is to him only as a cloud
in the far distance; and he is on the wide ocean,
knowing not where he may be going.
Is it matter of surprise, then, that this system of
developing Doctrine should, in many instances, have
gone hand in hand with scepticism, and looseness of
belief, and unfaithfulness to the particular commu
nion in which the Christian has been placed by his

63
Lord ? Shall we wonder that men of morbid dis
satisfied minds, have found a congenial refuge in
the variable dogmatism of the Church of Rome ;
which gives them at once something to hold to with
positiveness, and something to change to without a
shock ? And have we not heard of Jews, and even
infidels, ministering at the altars of a Church, which
proclaims itself infallible, and seeks to invest its
decisions vrith the sanction of divinity ; not by the
warrant of the written word, but by the mere fiat
of its own authoritative decree ? The blame of
rationalism has been thrown on the religion of Pro-
testants. Far more justly is it due to the ascen
dancy of the Roman theory of Christian doctrine ;
essentiaUy rationaUstic as that is in its fundamental
assumption, that doctrines are ideas admitting of
development. Rationahsm has unhappily been the
bane of Protestant Germany ; but it has been fos
tered in the bosom of the Roman Church, and has
issued from thence. Of Dr. Moehler, the modern
advocate of the Theory of Development, to whose
work, entitled Symbolism,* we probably owe the
recent introduction of the speculation to our notice
* Symbolism, or "Exposition of DoctrinalDififerences between
Catholics and Protestants ;'' translated by Robertson : in Two
Volumes. The original work has passed through several
editions. Itwas first published in 1832. The author died at
Munich, where he was Professor of Theology, in 1838.

64
here, it is mentioned in the memoir prefixed to the
translation of his work, that, even after he had
been ordained a priest in the Church of Rome, and
had entered on a pastoral charge, " the Church had
not yet won all the affections of his heart, and the
objects of his enthusiasra lay, in part, beyond her
cfrcle : his views did not entirely harmonize with aU
her doctrines, nor agree with aU her disciplinary
institutions."* Of the first theological work of the
sarae author it is also observed, that " in this book
there was much which in his riper years he no longer
approved of."t Thus was this eminent controver
sialist of the Church of Rome naturally led into the
Theory of Developraent by the frame of his own
mind. It accorded with that frame of mind, and
gave hira an apology for the difficulties with which
he would otherwise have been embarrassed. In
like manner, among ourselves, the author who has
followed in the track of Moehler, and recommended
the same theory by the light of fanciful analogies,
appears to have passed through something of the
hke changes to that which is described of his Ger
man predecessor. We have seen his Retractations!
— not mere corrections of forraer errors on more
* Robertson's Memoir of Moehler, p. xcii.
t Ib. p. xcv. also p. cxxvii.
J Prefixed to his Essay, but separately published also some
time before that appeared.

65
mature reading and experience, but contradictions
of statements solemnly made at a former period,
when he w^as not what he has becorae since We
have seen him begin his career as a writer and
editor of the Tracts for the Times, graduallj' develop
ing an idea of indefinite approximation to the
Church of Rome, without an actual coincidence.
We have seen at length his confession of a change
which carae over him in the course of his composi
tion of his last work ; his development into a convic
tion in favour of the Church of Rome — a conviction
superseding further deliberation.
And if more evidence were wanting of the affinity
of the theory of Christian doctrine, held in the
Church of Rorae, to looseness and unsteadiness
of principle, we have it in the instances which have
appeared of men holding the whole cycle of Roman
doctrine, and yet continuing members, and even
ministers of our Church ; nay, even professing them
selves its best and raost zealous servants, whUst
holding to it only by the raost precarious tenure ; or
at length, only withdrawing frora its communion
under the pressure of outward circumstances, aud
ranging themselves where their hearts had gone
long before.* If some, again, alarmed at the rapidity
* Bishop Burnet, speaking of the conversion of several per^
sons in his times, says, " The method that carried over the men
F

66
of their progress, under the captivation of a theory
of a living oracle of doctrine in the Church,
have cast forth their anchor on sorae shoal which
they were drifting past, and refused to go further ;
let the shifts and expedients to which such have
resorted to maintain their position, be a lesson to
others, that there is no sure footing to those, whose
religion is a flowing principle — -a system of doctrine
drawn forth and moulded by the passing occasion —
not full-wrought and perfect, as it first was taught
of the finest parts among them to Popery, was this : they
brought themselves to doubt of the whole Christian religion ;
when that was once done, it seemed a more indiff'erent thing
of what side or form they continued to be outwardly." His
tory qf his own Time, vol. ii. p. 399. Svo.
The conversion of Gibbon, at an early period of his life, to
the religion of Rome, is an illustration of the same fact. It
arose from that sceptical habit of mind, which is so fully dis
played throughout his great work. With the same inconstancy,
he renounced his adopted faith shortly afterwards ; and in the
subsequent part of his life took refuge from his doubts in a sort
of indifferentism, " acquiescing with implicit belief," as he says
of himself in his Memoirs of his Life and Writings, " in
the tenets and mysteries which are adopted by the general
consent of Catholics and Protestants."
Bayle, the professed sceptic, in like manner, when a young
man, was for a time a convert to Romanism.
The conversion of Chillingworth may also be attributed to
the unsettled state of a mind craving after an infallible autho
rity in religion for its direction.

67
by inspiration of the Holy Ghost to the Apostles,
and consigned to the Scriptures.
On that holy truth then, perfectly communicated
to the Apostles, and by them imparted to the Church
in thefr preaching and the records of the New Tes
tament, the Church, as in its infancy, so now in its
advanced state, continues to grow : first, as I have
afready stated, by the increase of grace, strength;
and hohness in the individual members, each
"buUding up himself," as St. Jude speaks, " on his
most holy faith :" then, by the aggregate of its
members, in the whole collective body. For thus,
by the spread of the same unvaried doctrine, does
the Church lengthen its cords, and increase by
accession of members. By that same doctrine,
those who were lost, are found ; the fallen are re
stored ; the stranger is adopted into the family of
the Lord. It goes forth into the highways, and
brings in the halt, and the maimed, and the blind,
so that the Lord's house may be filled. So effica
ciously does that power, which the Lord impressed
on it at the beginning of his kingdom on earth, push
itself forth, and evince itself to be Divine by the
energy of its working.
What then are the means, by which the Spirit thus
continuaUy enlarges the kingdom of Christ ? What
F 2

68
is that method, by which the one unchanging word
is rendered effectual to the harvest of souls ?
In aword, we may answer, by the Church itself;
by the provision, which the Lord has made in the
institution of the Church, for its perpetual life and
sustenance by his Spirit.
First he appointed a Ministry, — the Apostles, and
those to be sent by thera in successive generations.
The commission was expressly given to the Apo
stles alone ; but it was evidently not confined to them
personally; since, as has often been observed, the
promise of the Lord's abiding reached beyond them
even unto the end of the world, and extends the com
mission, accordingly, to their successors in perpetuity.
Then, to this Ministry thus appointed, he assigned
their peculiar service. They were to go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the
narae of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Ghost ; and teaching them to observe all that he
had commanded thera : — or, as the commission
may be summarily stated, to administer his Word,
his Sacraments, and his Discipline. For though the
Sacrament of Baptism, as the initiation into the
Faith, is alone expressly mentioned in this place, the
other Sacrament, the Communion of His Body and
Blood, is doubtless included in the general observ-

09
ance of his commands here required to be inculcated
on all merabers of the Church — the celebration of
that being, indeed, an express coramand frora Hira,
when he said, "Do this in remembrance of Me."
Simple were these instruments ; — the Ministry,
the Word, the Sacraments, and the Discipline of
Christ; but wonderfully efficacious in carrying on
the work of bringing sons and daughters to Christ.
At the caU, — "repent, and be baptized for the re
mission of sins," — numbers came in, and were bap
tized. The word of the Lord, at first taught by
oral delivery, was soon secured in its invariableness
by being coramitted to writing, and read in the
assemblies of the Church. The prayers and songs
of Christian congregations rose as a daily incense
to the Lord. The Lord's Supper was constantly and
duly celebrated. Charity was spread abroad. The
discipline of Christ was faithfully observed and
administered. Ofienders were corrected, or restored
to the communion of the Church, as the case might O
require; first, with miraculous demonstrations of
the presence of the Lord, confirming the acts of
His Apostles and first disciples, — then by the ordi
nary power of his grace bequeathed for that purpose :
and the Church thus daily became " strong in the
Lord, and in the power of his might."

70
Such were the effectual provisions by the Lord
Himself, for the work of the Holy Spirit to be
carried on, through his ministers, in the building of
his Church through all ages. Only to his first
ministers, for the far heavier burthen imposed on
them of laying the first stones of the buUding, he
gave the Spirit in greater measure than to their
successors ; impow^ering them to speak with tongues,
and work miracles ; to confer the gift of the Spirit
on others, whether for the confirmation of the faith,
or for the work of the ministry ; and generally,
to establish the government and order of the Church
for the ages to follow. When these peculiar duties
of the first ministers of the Gospel were accom
plished, there existed no further occasion for the
exercise of these extraordinary powers. Aud we
have no reason from Scripture to believe that
they were continued beyond the Apostles, and
others, their conteraporaries, on whora the Apostles
laid their hands and conferred them The autho
rity of ordaining others to the ministry, of preach
ing the word, and of administering the Sacraments
and the discipline of Christ, would necessarily be
among those gifts of the Spfrit, which they would
transmit to their successors ; to be by them in thefr
turn transmitted to others after them, as it has

71
been to this day. And thus, on the whole, would
a complete groundwork be formed in the Church,
on which the future structure might proceed, under
the abiding presence of the Lord, its Founder, by
His Spfrit.
But the Church of Rome has not been content
with this siraple view of the means provided by our
Lord, for the strengthening and extension of His
Church. As it professes to have been employed in
elaborating the doctrine, and working it to a per
fection beyond the simplicity of the Scripture out
lines, so has it constructed an artificial theory of
the method set in order by the Holy Spfrit, for
the building of the Church on the foundation of
Christ. On what indeed has it rested for the
theoretic ground and defence of its teaching, but
on the assumption of a character for the Church
throughout its whole existence, with which the Lord
Himself and the Holy Spfrit have not invested it ;
that of a standing infallible oracle for the dispen
sation of the Gospel in all its parts ? Diwi, vos Dii
estis — Nolite tanyere Christos meos, — these are the
phylacteries which it binds on its forehead ; caUing
on aU men to believe it, and follow its teaching
throughout as the voice of Christ ; as they would
testify thefr allegiance and loyalty to Christ Himself.

72
Accordingly, to establish this claim of infaUible dicta
torship over the kingdom of Christ on earth, it con
founds together the work of Christ, and the work of
the Spirit; the salvation ofthe Gospel, and the means
provided by the Lord through the Holy Spirit for
the edification of the Church , or in other words,
the salvation wrought, — the truth revealed, — the
Church, as it is the body of Christ, — and the in
ternal constitution of the Church, as a provision for
disciplining its members, and extending the Faith,
and multiplying believers. AU these, which are
really distinct objects, when we contemplate them
by the light of Scripture, the Church of Rome
confounds, in one general aU-absorbing idea of the
Church, as an embodied representation of the reli
gion of Christ. Rather, if it may be so stated
without profaneness, (for this is the real notion at
the bottora of all these transcendental descriptions of
the Church, found in Romanist writers, and those
of kindred spirit,) the Word of God is again made
flesh, again lives and dies, and is offered up, and
makes atonement, and forgives sins, and confers
justification, and reveals the truth of God, under
His abiding manifestation in the Church, as He
did during the days of His own ministry in the
flesh.

73
"By the Church on earth," says Moehler, the
writer to whom I have already referred, " Catholics
understand the visible community of believers,
founded by Christ, in which by means of an endur
ing apostleship established by him, and appointed
to conduct aU nations, in the course of ages, back to
God, the works wrought by him during his earthly
life, for the redemption and sanctification of mankind,
are, under the guidance of his Spirit, continued to
the end of the world."*
And again, " Thus the visible Church, from the
point of view here taken, is the Son of God Himself,
everlastingly manifesting Himself among men in a
human form, perpetually renovated and eternally
young — the permanent incarnation of the sarae ; as
in Holy Writ, even the faithful are called ' the
body of Christ.' Hence it is that the Church,
though composed of men, is yet not purely human.
Nay, as in Christ, the divinity and the humanity
are to be clearly distinguished, though both are
bound in unity ; so is He in undivided entireness
perpetuated in the Church. The Church, His per
manent manifestation, is at once both divine and
human — she is the union of both. He it is who,
* Moehler's Symbolism, Transl. vol. ii. p. 5.

74
concealed under earthly and human forms, works
in the Church."*
Again he adds, "In and through the Church
the Redemption announced by Christ hath obtained,
through the medium of his Spirit, a reality ; for in
her his truths are believed, and his institutions are
observed, and thereby have become living. Accord
ingly we can say of the Church, that she is the
Christian Religion in its objective form — its living
exposition ; since the word of Christ (taken in its
widest signification) found, together with His Spirit,
its way into a circle of men, and was received by
thera, it has taken shape, put on flesh and blood ;
and this shape is the Church, M^hich accordingly is
regarded by Catholics as the essential form of the
Christian ReUgion itself."*
Nor is this the view of the Church presented us
by' a modern writer only of the Roman Church ; it
is also that of Bellarmine, who, in explaining in
what sense the Church should be regarded as the
body of Christ, says, " this cannot so conveniently
be referred to Christ as the Head, as to the same
Christ, as the hypostasis of that body. The Church
is caUed the body of Christ, and not that of St.
Peter, because Christ is the hypostasis of this body,
* Moehler's Symbolism, vol. ii. p. 6. f Ib. p. 7. j

75
sustains all the members, and works all in all, sees by
the eye, hears by the ear ; for it is Himself who
teaches by the teacher, baptizes by the minister,
fipally does all things through aU."*
" The Church," again says BeUarmine, " is
governed by Christ, as by its spouse the head, and
by the Holy Spirit, as by the soul, as is plain from
Ephes. i. ' He gave Him to be head over aU things to
the Chiu'ch, which is His body :' and Ephes. v. " The
husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is
the head of the Church.' Therefore, if the Chm'ch
should err in dogmas of faith or manners, error
might be attributed to Christ, and the Holy Spfrit.
Wherefore in John xvi. the Lord says, ' The Spirit
of truth will teach you all truth.' "*
And what, I would ask, is such a view of the
Church but a development, an attempt I should
rather say at a development, of the Scripture
account of the foundation and institution of the
Church? In this view, the Church as it now is,
reahzes to the world the events of our Lord's life
in thefr spiritual purport and application : what was
transacted once in the course of our Lord's own
ministry, this, the Church is here described as
more fully expressing under its permanent form.
* Bellarmin. De Bom. Pontif. i. 9, p. 635
f De Eccles. Mil. 1. 3, o. 14, p. 1277.

76
The scenes of Gethsemane and Calvary, with all
that preceded and immediately foUowed them, have
passed away, to reappear in living representations in
the body itself, and in the ordinances and teaching
of the Church ; successively presented, as the Church
is renewed, again and again, in the persons of its
merabers and rainisters ; as it teaches the divine
word, and adrainisters the Sacraments, time after
time. Where, then, scarcely is the difference of such a
theory ofthe Church from that ofthe Gerraan idealist,
who would destroy all reality in the life of our Lord,
and represent His Life and Death, and Resurrection
and Ascension, as only the impersonation of certain
traditionary, or philosophical ideas ? The only dif
ference is, that the Roraan theory adraits the original
historical truth as it stands in the sacred records ;
whereas the German, without pretending to anni
hilate the whole Gospel as a fiction, artfully labours
to spread a doubt over the whole, as to how much is
to be believed real, or how much rejected, whilst
it resolves the chief part into fable and aUegory.
But this difference is not so great in the result,
as it seeras at first. For though the Roman
theory presupposes the original historical truth, it
virtually destroys it. For, according to the illus
tration used in explaining the theory, whilst the

77
plant expands, the germ out of which it grows
disappears, and is lost in the maturity which it has
attained. So does this theory make the funda
mental historical truths of the Gospel but as germs
to vanish in their perfect expansion, whUst it
ascribes the realization of what was shadowed out
by the life and doctrine of Christ, to the existing
Church. The existing Church then becomes the
true Christ ; as in the German theory, his own
phUosophy becomes to the idealist his phantom-
substitute for the real body of the Lord. The
latter indeed, when the realities of the Gospel have
faded and dissolved, like pictures painted by the sun
beam, in the cold atmosphere of his criticism, still
clings to his speculative dogmatism as a reality re
maining to him at least. So does the Romanist,
after he has done aU that subtilty can accom
plish, to mystify the sacred text, and banish the
Gospel from its surface, strenuously maintain, that
the Gospel still survives in its integrity, in the
actual developments of it, which his Church pre
sents. The former may caU his interpretation of
Scripture, the mythical ; the latter may more
reverently term it, the ecclesiastical,* But both
* Something like a fusion of the two characters is
asserted by Mr. Newman, when in his Essay on Miracles, pre-

78
agree in substituting a latent sense of the text
for the manifest one, and explaining the primary
sense by the secondary, the direct and proper by
the mystical.*
Thus the author to whom I have before referred
characterizes " Prophets or Doctors" as " inter
preters of the revelation." " They unfold," he says,
" and define its mysteries, they Uluminate its docu
ments, they harmonize its contents, they apply it^
promises. Thefr teaching is a vast system; not
to be comprised in a few sentences, not to be em
bodied in one code or treatise, but consisting of a
certain body of truth, pervading the Church like an
atmosphere ; irregular in its shape from its very
profusion and exuberance, at times sepatable only
ih idea from Episcopal Tradition, yet at times melt-
fixed to a Translation of a portion of Fleury's Ecclesiastical
History, he speaks of sudden transitions in the sacred narra
tives, as " imparting to the sacred text that ecclesiastical or
mythical character, which is so solemn and elevating, yet so
unsatisfactory to the more intellectual critic.'' — Newman's
Fleury, Addit, Note, to p. clvii.
* It is not a little remarkable how persons sometimes
betray a weakness on a point, by their very air of confidence
in asserting it. Thus Mr. Newman commences his Essay
with a great parade of the historical character of true Chris
tianity; when the real effect of the work is to destroy that
character.

79
ing away into legend and fable, &c."* Such is
" Prophetical Tradition," in his view, "partly being
a comment, and partly an addition upon the arti
cles of the Creed " and such is that mass of doc
trine which, in its " vastness and indefiniteness," he
would propose to the Christian for the Gospel of
Christ. It was but pursuing the same line of thought,
when the author, whUst a member of our Churchj
proceeded to interpret the Articles in what one of
his foUowers caUed the non-natural sense ; reading
them, that is, not as they are written, but as he con
ceived they ought to be read ; as symbohzing and
representing to his mind the ideas of what he held
to be Catholic Theology.
In like raanner we have been exhorted, according
to that raethod of interpreting the Articles, to bring
out the catholic points in the doctrines and practices
ofour Church, and "develop" thera "as occasion may
offer," and thus "reaUze" what our Church should
be.f We have been told of an " ideal " proposed
* Newman's Essay, pp. 115. 116.
I " What we have not" (in the Liturgy) " is being daily
restored to us, if we in patience wait for it ; and for the mean
time, the humble minded will feel that all which is withheld
from us, is kept back in mercy to us, that what we have is best
suited to us." — Pusey's Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
p. 17. Also Pusey's Letter to Dr. Jelf in defence of Tract 90,
p. 183.

80
to themselves by the writers of the " Tracts for the
Times," and other publications of the same school ;
according to which, the existing system of the
Church of England might be wrought to a per
fection of which it is susceptible, but which it does
not actuaUy exhibit.* Thus do they use the doc
trines and practices found in the Church, as rudi
ments, out of which they may mature their supposed
Catholic system. f And they further intimate to us,
that we are not in a condition yet to bear all that
we ought tohave; thatwe must wait our time; and
so may at length raise our Church to that perfection
* " This is the ideal which we have proposed to ourselves,
not to alter anything in her, but to recall the minds of her
children to what she plainly has and teaches, and as occasion
may offer, to develop aooording to primitive antiquity those
doctrines and practices in her, which she has, yet for some
reason, not so explicitly as the rest." - Pusey's Letter to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, p. 50.
t " Now we have the rudiments of everything, but nothing
developed." — Ibid p. 25. — " The Editor is glad to take this
occasion of expressing his sense of the considerateness of the
article on Confession in the British Critic, (No 66,) and of the
great value of the practical hints and temperate and thought
ful cautions in Mr. Ward's recent book," {WarcCs Ideal, kc.)
" in the chapters vi. vii. ' on our existing practical cor
ruptions,' and 'additional suggestions by way of remedy,'
which are most seasonable to those who are in earnest about
the amendment of the deep practical evils and sinsof omission
i our Church." — Pusey's Surin, p. lv.

Sl
which is now impracticable, or inexpedient to be
pressed. They have themselves gradually advanced
in their teaching ; from putting forth humble efforts
as younger men, they have ripened more and more
with their age into boldness and fulness of teach
ing ; have drawn nearer and nearer to that theology
to which they were tending ; have become more
explicit in setting forth what they at first implicitly,
or perhaps unconsciously, held. Yet still, we may
observe, they practise a reserve. Imitating the
Discipline of the Secret of the early ages, they leave
a sort of haze around their statements as they
approach the point of distinct avowal, so that, whilst
there can be little doubt of what they would say, it
remains aU but said, to be completed by the
understanding or feehng of the hearer. Thus, too,
they find a plea for arguing the sameness of their
teaching with that of the Church itself ; while the
doctrine of the Church, under this process of deve
loping and realizing, goes into an alien system ;
and they sophisticate theraselves into a belief that
they are Church of England divines, whilst they
are but fondly pursuing their own ideal.
Tn opposition to all such fancied schemes of
improvement in Christian doctrine, whether by
mythical or ecclesiastical development of its truths.

82
Scripture strongly admonishes us to " hold fast
the profession of our faith," " the faith once for aU
delivered to the saints,"* " the form of sound
words" heard of an Apostle, " without wavering ;" to
be " stedfast and unmoveable," to " continue in
the faith grounded and settled," and the like in
other places. And that the Gospel has no sem
blance to human imaginings, — to fables and legends,
and mythical forms such as phUosophy of old
employed to recommend or veU its speculations, —
St. Peter pointedly instructs the Church, when, on
the eve of his departure from the world, he
exhorts, with so much stress, to faithful " remem
brance" of his teaching founded on the simple Apo
stolic testimony to Christ; contrasting it with the
seducing words of human wisdom : " For we," he
says, " have not foUowed cunningly devised fables,
— {a-ea-ocjito-fMevois fivdois,) — when we made known
unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but were eye witnesses of His majesty." fecf
* Jude 3. T^ oTra^ -rrapaSoBsitj-ri roTc dyiois ttiotec. This
description marks the completeness of the Faith in the times
of the Apostles.
t 2 Pet. i. 16. Our Lord indeed employed parables in
his teaching ; it was not, however, to darken the sense, or
throw a mystic air over his doctrine : on the contrary, it was
to illustrate the truth and render it more familiar to the

>3
The sacramental system of the Church of Rome,
is the working out of this theory of the Church
which I have afready described.
The Sacraments of Rome are not simply " out
ward and visible signs of an inward and
spfritual grace, given unto us, ordained by Christ
Himself, as a means whereby we receive the same,
and a pledge to assure us thereof;" but, as the
Church bears the Priesthood of Christ, so are the
Sacraments the several forms under which that
Priesthood is manifested with power.* Instead of
Justification being imputed to man, as our Articles
teach, by faith, on account of the merits of
Christ, — by a cause thus altogether external to our
selves; — the Sacraments, according to Roman
doctrine, are the means by which Justification is
first infused into us, then increased, or if impafred,
renewed, or if lost, restored.! They are regarded
people, that they might see and hear, and understand, if they
had buf the wilL We cannot with truth say of the whole of
hia teaching, that it is parabolicaL There are also symbo
lical actions recorded in the Bible, as, for instance, in the Pro
phecy of Ezekiel; yet it is untrue to say, as has been boldly
said, that the whole Bible is " one great parable."
* Respondeo, sacerdotium in Christum esse translatum, sed
Christum non per se, sed per suos ministros in terris fungi
sacerdotio. — Bellarmin. de Pcenit. iii. c. 3.
t Cone. Trid. Sess. vi. vii.
G 2

84
as containing in them the virtue of Christ, — as
applications of His atonement and merits to the
soul of the receiver. Thefr operation indeed, it is
said, may be hindered by any bar in the receiver;
and there must therefore be the wUl, and faith, and
repentance, in order that their virtue may take
effect in those to whom they are administered.
Still it is the outward action duly performed, which
in each of thefr seven Sacraments is held to work
the effect. But this can only be explained on the
supposition that the Church is endued, in the per
sons of its ministers, with the priesthood of Christ,
and the power of communicating his virtue, so
as to convey by the act grace to the receiver —
grace as from the touch of Christ Himself. If Rome
simply maintained that Christ had blessed His own
institutions, — had promised to give life and strength
by them to those who used them in faith accord
ing to His appointment, — the case would then have
stood quite differently. Such aii efficacy in the two
Sacraments instituted by the Lord Himself, our
own Church thankfully acknowledges, and doubts
not, that he gives the Ufe of grace to the chUd
baptized in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost, and imparts the spiritual
sustenance of His Body and Blood to the faithful

85
communicant.* But the view of the efficacy of
the Sacraments held in the Church of Rome, far
transcends this. An efficacy depending on the
institution and promise of Christ, would not answer
the requirements of the Roman theory. The sacra
mental character of the Church assumed in it,
would then want that perfect development, which
it now exhibits by ascribing an absolute intrinsic
efficacy of operation to the Sacraments.
Again there is a sound seuse in which the Lord
Himself may be said to do by His ministers, what
they do faithfully in His name according to His
command : that is, they have His authority to per-
* " The elements and words have power of infallible signi
fication, for which they are called seals of God's truth ; the
Spirit affixed unto those elements and words, power of ope
ration within the soul, most admirable, divine, and impossible
to be expressed. For so God hath instituted and ordained,
that together with due administration and receipt of sacra
mental signs, there shall proceed from Himself grace effectual
to sanctify, to cure, to comfort, and whatsoever else is for the
good of the souls of men." — Hooher, Eccl. Pol. vi. p. 86.
" For we take not Baptism, nor the Eucharist, for bare re
semblances or memorials of things absent, neither for naked
signs and testimonies, assuring us of grace received before, but
(as they are indeed and in verity) for means effectual, whereby
God, when we take the Sacraments, delivereth into our hands,
that grace available unto etemal life, which grace the Sacra
ments represent or signify." — Ibid. v. 57.

86
form that act, and they have reason, from His pro
mise of His abiding, to tmst that His Holy Spfrit
goes along with them in such faithful acts. But
there is no ground in Scripture, for identifying the
act of Christ with the act of His minister, and
making the latter the entfre representative of the
former. This, as I have endeavoured to shew, is
but a theoretic development of the doctrine of the
Incarnation, proceeding on the supposition, that our
Lord Himself is now personated in the world by
the Chiu-ch, as He was in the flesh in the days of
His own ministry on earth.
Would that those who have been labouring to
bring the doctrine and practice of our Church into
conformity with the Roman-Cathohc model, could be
brought to see in its true hght the theory on which
they have been working, and on which they must
ultimately lean, to justify thefr proceeding I If they
are prepared to identify the reUgion of Christ with
the Chnrch professing it — the earthly priesthood of
men with the everlasting Priesthood of the Lord
Himself — the word and the preaching and the ope
ration of the human instruments of the Spirit, with
the working of the Spirit HimseK, — then may they
exhort us to draw near to the Church of Rome, and
inter^iret and apply the doctiine and practice ofour

87
own Church hy the symbols of that Church. But
then, they cannot, with any reason, stop at such
approximation and such interpretation. They have
no right, then, to separate between sound doctrine
and corruptions of doctrine, where the whole is
sanctioned by the same authority. Nothing is,
then, a corruption, but what has not been incorpo
rated into the system of the Church. What exists
and is found in the system of the Church must
belong to it ; or it would not have survived. A
heresy would have run its course and died away.
The author accordingly, of the Essay on Develop
ment, could see no other corruptions of religion
but such as consist in the breaking up and shat
tering and dissolution of " Ideas." Seeking the
truth in the indefinite expansion of Ideas, he was
naturally led to place the false in the contrary ; in
what might appear to check such expansion or
he incapable of it.
If we tum from this fanciful speculation, to ask
of the Scriptures, what are corruptions of reli
gion and what are not ; they send us, not to om-
own minds for the solution of the question, — not
to the world of ideas, to note for our guidance
what ideas coalesce and are prolific in consequences,
or what start asunder and refuse to be expanded ;

88
but they simply teU us, that a corruption of the
Faith is a forsaking of the true God revealed to
us, for the love of idols. They characterize it as
spiritual adultery, — as a breaking of the chaste
and holy tie by which the Church is wedded to
Christ its Lord. Looking to this test, we can at
once decide that the doctrine of the Mass, the
worship of the Virgin, and other peculiarities of
doctrine or practice of the Church of Rome, se
ducing the heart from Him, who only is Holy, — who
only is the Lord, — are corruptions ; whatever may
be the consistency and perfection of the ideas in
volved in them.
If, however, we abandon this test, and estimate
doctrines by their ideal perfection, there is no cor
raption which we may not ingeniously reconcile to
ourselves and adopt into our system of faith. For
this excellence certainly cannot be denied to the
system of the Church of Rome, that all its parts
are adjusted to each other with consummate skill,
and, by the mere fact of their consistency, give the
semblance of truth to the whole. And it is scarcely
niatter of wonder, therefore, that those who have been
drawn within the cfrcle of her attraction, see nothing
to object to in point of principle in her doctrinal
system, and find her corruptions only in her practical

89
degeneracy from her standard of Faith ; instructing
us, as they do, to distinguish between the "prac
tical corruptions" of the Church of Rome and her
" theoretical errors." *
But if the doctrinal system of Rome appears in
itself, apart from its practical corruptions, to be so
worthy of reception, — ^if what has been ruled by the
authority of that Church is Catholic and true, no
reason can be assigned why some of the doctrines
so ruled should be accepted, and others, equaUy
resting on that authority, be refused. It is vain,
after such an admission, to object to the worship of
the Virgin, so incorporated as that is with the
Liturgy of the Roman Church ; or the doctrine of
Transubstantiation ; for these tenets may be no less
shewn to be equaUy authoritative developments, at
thefr proper period, of subsisting Catholic ideas. In
reference to such an arbitrary selection or rejection
* " It often happens that she leads her members into error
where her statements in themselves are not very unsound." —
Tracts for the Ti-mes, Vol. II. p. 192 ; also Pusey's Letter fo
Dr. Jelf in defence of Tract 90, pp. 159 — 185. It is a main
object of Tract 90 to shew that such only are the corrup
tions attributable to Rome — traditionary corruptions, by the
side of an orthodox standard of doctrine. Mr. Newman
admits corruptions of this kind even since his conversion. —
See Essay on Development, p. 363.

90
of the doctrines of Rome, the following expostula
tion of the author of the Theory of Development is
not out of place :
" ' Who told you,' he says, (personating one
whom he supposes to deal thus vrith the doctrines
of that Church,) 'about that gift?' I answer; 'I
have learned it from the Fathers. I beheve the
Real Presence, because they bear witness to it.'"
Then, citing several expressions from the Fathers
on the subject, he proceeds in the same assumed
character : " ' I cast my lot with them ; I beheve as
they.' Thus I reply — ^and then the thought comes
upon me a second time, — And do not the same
ancient Fathers bear witness to another doctrine
which you disown ? Are you not, as a hypocrite,
listening to them wheu you wiU, and deaf when
you will not ? How are you casting your lot
with the saints, when you go but half way vrith
them? For of whether of the two do they speak
more frequently, of the Real Presence in the Eu
charist, or of the Pope's supremacy ? You accept
the lesser evidence, you reject the greater."*
* Newman's Essay, p. 20. — His Sermon on the Theory of
Development, preached from the University pulpit in 1843,
furmshes ample evidence, that he then held, all but explicitly,
everything that he avows as a Romanist, in his Essay in

91
Whether the particular instance here adduced,
is to the point or no, it matters little. It point
edly Ulustrates the position of those who, having
surrendered themselves to the guidance of a false
principle, Avould too late reclaim thefr right of
private judgment.
A reverent estimation of the Church as the body
of Christ, sustained and nourished by His Spfrit,
and of the apostolical ministry within it, working
thi'ough the same Spfrit for the edification of the
body ; this is, indeed, a principle strictly belonging
to our own commimion, and with which the formu
laries of our pubhc profession, as weU as the
writings of our great standard divines, are deeply
imbued. But, whUe Ave thus duly estimate the
blessing of that union in Clirist, and the means of
cementing it, which the society of the Church
hears in its bosom, let us beware of being carried
1845. That Sermon is thoroughly rationalistic in prin
ciple, no less than the Essay, treating Christian Theology as
a subjective system, — an expansion of an Idea in the mind
— a collection of impressions — efforts to realize an internal
vision — representations true enough to act upon, but, so far as
man can know, nothing more. Such is the Theology which
has presided over the editing of the Tracts for the Times, and
the propagation of which, it is boasted by their contributors
and admirers, has done good in the Church.

92
away by an excess of admfration of the dirine idea
of the Church, and of being tempted to make
it aU in aU in our reUgion. In such case we
shaU surely find in the end, that we have quitted
the sohd ground of historical truth to walk amidst
shadows, and changed the Gospel into what the
coiTupt heart would wish it to be, from what the
word of God simply reveals it.
Be not ensnared then, I would eamestiy say to
the younger members of this congregation, by
high-wrought representations of the idea of the
Church, and of the benefits to be derived from it
as the channel of grace to the soul. Humbly and
thankfuUy use the means of grace prorided for you
by Christ, in the institution and ordinances of the
Church. But tiust not to them to work salvation
for you, and justification from your sins : matters
too high for them, and which God has reserved in
the hand of the Saviour of souls alone. Seek,
indeed, grace to repent and amend your hves, and
strength and comfort, by the help of every pious
ordinance of the Church; yet uot iu superstitious
feehng towards them, as if they were absolutely
efficacious in themselves ; lest, haply, any one should
be fomid taking comfort to himself where there is
no ground for comfort in him, and healing the

93
hurt of his soul lightly, where the wound of sin is
deep, and asks more searching remedy than any
help or medicine of man can give. Be not, then, too
eagerly anxious about obtaining at once that ease
and comfort of mind, which belongs only to him
that is well-grown in grace : for it is perfect love
alone that casts out fear. Strive, indeed, unceas
ingly after the attainment of this happy state ; but
let it be by active performance of Christian duty —
Christian duty founded on Christian truth; by
keeping constantly before the eye the mercy of
God in Christ, and the blessed example of the
Sariour; and so perfecting hohness in the fear of
God, working together vrith the Lloly Spirit that
has been given you, and wiU be given stUl. Be
not, however, I say, too eagerly anxious to realize
the comfort of the Gospel at once to yourselves.
Be patient; waiting for the consolation of the
Lord to be granted in His own time and His own
way. Impatience wUl only end in disappointment ;
especially if it carry any to seek counsel, but not of
the Lord ; to place their consciences in the hand of
man for spiritual dfreetion ; to create to themselves
unauthorized and unreal atonements for sin ; and to
rest satisfied in the forgiveness of sins pronounced
by human hps.

94
I feel it the more necessary to give this caution
to the younger members of the congregation, as
they have had views of the doctrine of Repentance
presented to them, utterly at variance, as I conceive,
vrith that patient waiting on the Lord which is the
spfrit of a true Gospel Repentance.
You have been taught to look at repentance as a
work of inward purgation of the soul, — as a second
baptism, — a baptism of tears washing out the stain
of sin — a laborious and painful process, by which
the obstacles to the shining of grace into the soul
are gradually removed, and the image of Christ,
the divine nature imparted to it by the sacrament
of Baptism, but since obscured and defaced, or
lost by sin, is again formed in the soul. Such is
the view taken of Repentance by the Church of
Rome, and those who adopt its teaching on this
point as Catholic truth.*
Now in the Church of Rome, such a view of the
nature of Repentance is perfectly consistent. Com
mencing with regarding itseff as the impersonation
of Christ, and developing the Sacrifice and Atone
ment of Christ, into an offering made by its Priests
at its Altars in the Sacrifice of the Mass, it con-
* Cone. Trid. Sess. vi. c. 14 ; xiv. cc. 2, 3, 5. Bellarmin.
de Poenit. I. c. 4.

95
sistently proceeds to develop the method of recon
cUiation to God by repentance, into a process of
reconcUiation to the Church by a discipline of
penance. To be reconcUed into the Church is,
then, in fact, the same thing as to be reconcUed to
God. The interrogatories of the Confessor, and
the arbitrations of the casuist, and the revenge of
self-inflicted chastisements, and the absolution pro
nounced by the Priest, are here accordingly in
perfect keeping. All these bring the penitent into
contact with the assumed hving representative of
Christ, the Church ; to derive from it the vfrtue of
Christ, with which it is conceived to be endued.
And the penitent himseff, as a member of the body
in which the vfrtue of Christ is thus supposed in
herently to reside, by his own sufferings represents
the Cross of Christ. Christ is thus crucified in him,
whilst he crucifies his flesh by his mortifications ; —
and whUst he is meriting grace and expiating his
sins by his works, he is enabled vrith some specious-
ness to say, that he is depending on the merits
of Christ for his salvation ; for his own works are
regarded as the works of Christ.*
* Quae enim justitia nostra dicitur, quia per eam nobis
inhserentem justificamur, ilia eadem Dei est, quia a Deo
nobis infunditur per Christi meritum. — Cone. Trid. Sess. vi.
c. 16.

96
Not such, however, is the view of Repentance
taken by our Church. As our Church commences
with regarding the Sacrifice and Atonement of
Christ as a work altogether external to man, and
requfres only, in its doctrine of Justification by
faith,* that the eflacacy of that one blessed Sacri
fice and Atonement should be fuUy beheved and
acted on by the Christian, — so it proceeds in caUing
Christians to daUy confession of sins and repent
ance towards God ; that they may testffy thefr faith
in Him who alone saves the soul, and thefr detes
tation of that sin which naUed Him to the Cross,
and thefr deep sense of their own corruption of
nature and need of the sanctifying grace of the
Holy Spfrit, that they may think or do any thing
in order to thefr salvation. Accordingly, instead
of considering Repentance iu the sense of the
Church of Rome, as a preparatory vfrtue only in
order to Baptism, to be succeeded after Baptism
by a sacramental rite of Penance serving to the
restoration of the lost pririleges of Baptism, it
enjoins the same repentance throughout the Chris-
* Most injuriously is this great truth represented as an
ascribing of our salvation to "mental energies;" as if we made
the justification of the sinner a subjective operation, and the
Romanists made it objective by ascribing it to the Sacraments.
Exactly the reverse is the truth.

97
Christian course which is begun at the font, as a
grace ever indispensable, ever to be sought from thc
Holy Spfrit, ever blessed with the Saviour's love
and the mercy of His Atonement.* At the same
time it prescribes the constant faithful use of the
word and sacraments and ministry of the Church
to further the work of hohness in its members ;
only however as instruments divinely appointed,
and helps, in their kind and degree, in order to the
work, not as causes operative in themselves of
hohness. Strange, indeed, would it be, had our Church
intended, that Private Confession with Absolution
should be brought back among us, on the strength
of the two cases,f to which alone the sanction of
* It has been weakly attempted to overthrow this great
truth of the ever-subsisting efficacy of the one Atonement of
the Cross, by an inference, (such as is common in the Unitarian
school,) from the mere tense in which in Rom. iii. 25, it is de
scribed, as a remission roiv -n-poyc-yovorw}' aixaprrijiaTuiv, — evi
dently, to make room for the notion of Penance, as the expiation
of post-baptismal sin.
The Church of Rome declares of the whole Christian life,
that it ought to be " a perpetual repentance" {Cone. Trid.
Sess. xiv. 0. 9.); but it means a perpetual Penance; for its
notion of pcenitentia there, must be taken from what it had
already explained on the subject.
t The case of persons perplexed with scruples about their
H

98
such Confession is given in the Book of Common
Prayer ; when it has so sedulously removed every
thing that ministers to it. The fact, that the
scandalous evUs arising out of the practice, were
a principal occasion of the Reformation, might be
sufficient to shew, that our Church had no design
of countenancing the practice itself, the abuses of
whicii were evidently not incidental merely, but
inseparable from it, as long as human nature is
what it is.* Would you learn, however, what our
Church thinks of Private Confession, look around
our places of public worship, and seek for the
Confessional. You see the Font and the Commu-
nion-Table, the Reading-desk and the Pulpit ; but
the Confessional, that constant accompaniment of
fitness to attend at the Communion, and that of persons at the
point of death desirous of making confession as a relief to their
conscience. For the former case no Absolution is provided in
the Prayer-Book, and none, consequently, can now, it seems,
be rightly given in such a case.
* The bulls of two Popes, Pius IV. and Gregory XV., at
the interval of nearly an hundred years, directed against the
same horrible evils attendant on the practiee of Private Con
fession, are an illustration of this.. It cannot be said that
these evils were consequent on the compulsoriness of the
practice. They arose out of the practice itself. And the like
evils have followed even out of the Church of Rome, where
the practice has been adopted.

99
Roman-Catholic churches, is no where to be seen
in those of our own Commimion. Look through
the various services. The rubric of the first Book
of Edward \1. desfring the form of Absolution for
the case of the dring penitent to be used in aU
cases of special Confession, has disappeared in the
second amended Book, together with the rubric
and prayer for anointing the sick ; and no form is
substituted for genei-al cases, as in the Roman
Ritual.* Look, again, through the charge laid on
* "' If a minister of the Established Church were desired to
pray with a sick person, and that sick person gave no intima
tion of a troubled conscience, or a want of spiritual relief the
minister would not be authorized by the Rubric even to
recommend a special confession. It would be a most imperti
nent and unjustifiable prying into secrets, with which he is no
otherwise concerned, than as the patient himself re'2'u ires his
asistance." — •• Even the absolution is not given, nnliivgi ' he
humbly and heartily d^ire it." Oi this absolution, though it
is a£iea quoted for the purpose of shewing the similarity of otir
Church to the Church of Rome, it cannot be necessarr to make
maiy ohearations. The case, in which alone it is to be used,
is a case which hardly ever occurs. It is to be used only
sccording to the Rubric, when the sick person has thought
proper to make a • special confesion of his sins." and then
heartily (fescres the absolution. The consequence is. that very
few clergymen have ever had occasion to use it." — Bishop
Mark's Comparatitie View of tke Churches of England and
Boate, pp. Iy6, 197, and Note.
Bishop BuU, in his last sickness, desired the form of Absolut
H -2

100
the ministers of the Church at thefr Ordination;
and you find no injunction relative to hearing Con
fessions or giving Absolution.* Above all, look
through the Scriptures, and you find no instance
of an Apostle confessing or absolving a penitent.
Calls indeed to that confession of sins, which is the
sign and earnest of repentance, and that reraission
of sins which Christ gives to the true penitent,
proceed from the lips and the pens of Apostles.
But there is no office of the Confessor or of
tion in the Communion Service to be read to him, in preference
to that in the Visitation of the Sick. — Nelson's Life of Bp, Bull.
* "And where that they do allege this saying of our Saviour
Jesus Christ unto the leper, to prove auricular confession to
stand on God's word, Go thy way, and shew thyself unto the
priest : do they not see that the leper was cleansed from his
leprosy afore he was by Christ sent unto the priest, for to
shew himself unto him 1 By the same reason, we must be
cleansed from our spiritual leprosy ; I mean our sins must be
forgiven us, afore that we come to confession. What need we
then to tell forth our sins into the ear of the priest, sith that
they be already taken awayT' — Homilies, Second Part of
Sermon of Repentance, p. 480, ed. 1840.
Compare with the above the following. " Well is it, if the
mind can bring itself to the solemn task of discharging the
heavy load, of which it will too often become conscious, under
the sacred seal of confession to God's priest ; for the Absolution
so solemnly bestowed has often been, among us, the source of
new life." — Pusey's Surin, p. liv. et alib.

101
the Director of the conscience, exhibited in any of
the Apostles, or their immediate successors in the
ministry : nor, are any such offices referred to in
the mention made by St. Paul of the ministrations
in the Church. We hear of Apostles, Prophets,
Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers, instituted " for
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the
ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ;"*
but no mention is made of the Confessor.
There can be little doubt then, that the offices of
the Confessor and the Director are to be regarded as
Romanist developments of the office of the pastor
and teacher of the Church. To receive indeed the
confession of the sinner who desires to make it,
and to declare and pronounce such absolutionf
as the ministry of God's word may impart to true
penitents, whether in the public services of the
Church, or privately to the dying and the scrupulous,
in order to their comfort as members of the Church,
and full enjoyment of its privUeges, is clearly within
? Eph. iv. 11, 12.
f The sense in which the Church of Rome regards the
Absolution pronounced by the Priest, is marked] in the Missal,
where, when the Priest in his turn absolves the ministri, the
Rubric says : " Postea Sacerdos junctis manibus facit absolu-
tionem dicens ; Misereatur,'' &c. Of the same form as used
before by the ministri, it is only said, Ministri respondent.

102
the province of one who is appointed a steward of
the mysteries of God, to dispense to the fanuly of
Christ thefr meat in due season. But these mini
strations are very different from the functions
assigned to the Confessor and the Director, by the
Church of Rome. They are in the view of the
Church of England simply ministerial; not mini
sterial in the sense that the priest is but the hand
and mouth of the Lord in what he does and says ;
but such helps and appUances as his sacred appoint
ment enables him to give to the members of Christ's
household, over whom he has been set by the Holy
Ghost.* Were those who are recommending to you Private
Confession, with Absolution foUowing, to give the fuU
* To refer to the words used in the Ordination of Priests,
and to the form of Absolution in the Visitation of the Sick, as
pKX'B of the doctrine of Absolution held in our Church being
the same as that of the Church of Rome, is clearly begging the
question ; which is. not whether remission of sins is a power
given to the ministers of Christ, but what is the nature of that
power so given. Then to explain that power, as given at the
Ordination of Priests in the words of Scripture,, by the form of
Absolution in the Visitation of the Sick, is to proceed on Mr.
Newman's principle, of interpreting Scripture as well as the
primitive statements of the Church, hy the comment of a later
age : the indicative form of Absolution being comparatively
modem.

103
development of their views, they must come at last
to the doctrine on the subject which Rome explicitly
avows. Now indeed they hold it forth as a counsel,
rather than a positive precept and command of our
Church, — as a way of perfection, rather than a
necessary duty, — as what the Church ought to teach
and promote, rather than what it actually incul
cates, — as invested with sacramental power,* rather
than as a sacrament generally necessary to salva
tion. But if Absolution be capable of making an
alteration in the soul of the sinner,! ^-nd if it be
* " Thus the priests of the New Testament have more power
than even this great Forerunner ; for being clothed with the
authority of Jesus Christ, whom they represent, they have
power to confer this remission, and to apply the merits and
the blood of the Saviour." — Puse-tfs Avrillon, p. 163.
" Use every means for obtaining this remission, through
the virtue of Penitence and the sacramental power of Absolu
tion." — Ibid. p. 164. "Par la vertu et le Sacrament de
Penitence.'' {Original.) " The word ' sacramental' is adopted
from Hooker." — Ibid. Note by Editor.
But where does Hooker set forth " the sacramental power of
Absolution t We find it in Bellarmine : Actiones autem
pcenitentis solum concurrunt ad remissionem peccatorum effi-
ciendam, quatenus vim Sacramentalem i. verbo Absolutionis, S,
quo formantur, participant." — Be Poenit. I. c. 8.
t " What is then the force of Absolution?" says Hooker.
" What is it which the act of Absolution worketh in a sinful
man t Doth it by any operation derived from itself alter the

104
divinely ordained, as a rite conferring grace, and aU
men are in a condition, on account of thefr sins, to
need such grace, what reason is there, that Absolu
tion, with its attendant Confession and Penance,
should not be regarded as a sacrament in the sense
in which the Church of Rome holds it to be, and
why it should not be laid down as necessary
for aU?
The only reason apparently that can be assigned
state of the soul 1 Doth it really take away sin, or but ascer
tain us of God's most gracious and merciful pardon t The
latter of which two is our assertion, the former theirs." — Eccl,
Pol, vi. p. 74.
And again : " Let it suffice thus far to have shewed, how
God alone doth truly give, the virtue of Repentance alone
procure, and private ministerial absolution but declare, remis
sion of sins." — Ibid. p. 99.
So also Bishop Taylor : " The result is, that the absolution
of sins, which in the later forms and usages of the Church is
introduced, can be nothing but declarative ; the office of the
preacher and the guide of souls, &c. . . . but the power of the
keys is another thing; it is the dispensing all those rites and
ministries by which heaven is opened ; and that is, the word
and baptism at the first, and ever after the holy sacrament of
the Supper of the Lord, and all the parts of the bishops' and
priests' advocation and intercession in holy prayers and offices."
— Boct. and Pract. of Repentance, Works, ix, p. 265.
" Absolution in whatever degree alters a sinner's state
before God." — Pusey's Letter in defence of Tr. 90, p. 99, etalib.

105
for thefr withholding the fuU doctrine on the subject,
is, that we are not yet prepared to receive it. In the
meantime, our established phraseology must be
construed as nearly as possible according to the
high sense which it is supposed capable of bearing ;
and the minds of the young must be excited to a
state of feehng,* when the concession of the
practice of Private Confession, and of the doctrine
involved in it, may seem to be naturally and pro
perly requfred in deference to an existing spfritual
demand for it.f
* "It is not our language, but our feelings towards holy
rites, which we need to have altered," &c. — Pusey's Letter in
def. of Tr. 90, p. 39 ; also Pusey's Serm. on Absol. Pref.
p. XV. and p. 49. In furthering of this object, Jesuit books of
devotion, and Manuals of Confession are edited bythe author just
cited; and among them is proposed the " Spiritual Exercises" of
Ignatius Loyola, the favourite manual of members of the Church
of Rome. Persons too are invited to register their names with
him; and are furnished with prayers of "Mutual Intercession"
for specific objects ; containing directions for applying the
Prayers of the Church, in particular the Holy Communion, to
such a purpose, " with the prayer that the memorial then made
before God of the Sacrifice on the Cross may be accepted in be
half of them;" recommending also "thrice every day, in honour
of the most Holy Trinity, to repeat the Lord's prayer three
times, applying it each time to one of the several objects."
f Already it is intimated that there is a great craving for
the comfort of Private Confession to a Priest, that there are

106
I would put the young, therefore, on their
guard, not to be betrayed by the enthusiasm of
persons who " long to know how they may be replaced in that
condition in which God once placed them ;" {Pusey's Sermon on
Absolution, p. 15) ; i,e. how post-baptismal sin, as he views it,
shall be effaced. Let the foUowing statements also be observed : —
" They hear of the value of habitual Confession of sins
before God's ministers, as a means of self-discipline, and of the
benefits of Absolution, and know not that our Church suggests
it for such as need it, and leaves them at liberty to choose for
their Confessor whom they will. In these, and in other ways,
it has continually happened that persons have sought in the
Communion of Rome, what was laid up for them in their own,
more fully, and vrithout corruption, had they but known it ;
and this valuable class will, of course, be the more secured
from wandering, the more the high Catholic doctrines of our
Church are developed, and her principles acted on." — Pusey's
Letter in defence of Tract 90, p. 158.
" There is a greater longing for discipline, for acting under
rule, for the comforts of Absolution under a burthened
conscience ; let the ' ministers of God's Word ' be encouraged
to train themselves to receive those ' griefs ' when others wish
to ' open ' them, and give them ' the benefit of Absolution ;' and
since the godly discipline which our Church yearly laments,
cannot yet be restored, at least let it be extended where it can
and is desired ; let not persons have the temptation (I know
such cases) of seeking relief for their consciences in the Roman
Communion, because they look for discouragement if they
apply to ministers in our own." — Pusey's Letter to tke Arck-
Inshop of Canterbury, p. 144.
The consequence here described was naturally to be ex
pected. "When persons have had Romanist principles studiously

107
reUgious feeling, into modes of expressing re
pentance, and seeking comfort under a sense of
sin, such as onr own Church, in that simplicity
with which it takes up the doctrine of the Cross, is
far from sanctioning. Let them look at that arti
ficial system of Repentance which has been set
before them, in its true Ught, as the development of
a degenerate age of the Church. Let them see it
in its perfect form, in the doctrine and practice of
the Church of Rome, together with its natural evil
consequences in the history of that Church.* Let
them indeed never cease to confess thefr sins to
God, and to pray heartUy for grace to repent truly.
But let them not disquiet themselves with despond
ing fears, or seek an unscriptural assurance of the
forgiveness of thefr sins, and reinstatement in their
instilled into them, and taught to develop every statement
of our Church into some supposed higher doctrine as implied
in it, it is but natural that they should go where the way has
been pointed out to them, and realize in their own persons
what has been developed to them in theory.
* Nothing is said here to dissuade any who may feel the
need, from asking spiritual advice of friends competent to give
it, or from such as the Exhortation to the Communion terms
" discreet and learned ministers of God's word." If it be left
as a matter of private feeling, there can be no objection to
such a proceeding. But it is quite another thing to recom
mend it as an ordinance of religion and a means of grace.

IOS
baptismal purity. Let thefr daUy walk be in the
humble simple path of Christian dutv', as I have
before said, by the hght of God's word, and in the
strength of his Holy Spirit, observing aU his com
mandments and ordinances. Let them watch and
pray that they enter not into temptation; as
knowing that God wUl not suifer his servants " to
be tempted above what they are able, but wUl with
the temptation, also make a way to escape that
they may be able to bear it ;" and that, though
they may be bowed down with a sense of thefr own
infirmities, they have a great High Priest in the
heavens ever interceding for them, ever succouring
them with the might of His Spirit, so that they
may be kept in safety against the great day.
And how should we aU, Brethren, who are in any
station of authority or trast in this place, this centie
of rehgious teaching and example, watch at our post
to preserve the deposit of the faith comnutted to the
keeping of our Church. Let us not be too ready
to beheve that the danger is passed away, because
some of the more prominent indiriduals of the
recent movement have cut themselves off from us,
and no longer therefore carry on their agitation
with the advantage of place and influence among
us. Often the danger to a state from a faction is

109
not frora those who go over to an enemy's side, and
carry on their warfare from without, as from those
that remain fomenting division within, and in sim-
pathy, if not in secret communication, vrith the
enemy. Nor is it very commonly the first authors
of a revolution who effect it in the end ; but rather
those who were at first comparatively of little note,
and who, as their leaders raove off the stage, suc
ceed to thefr place ; who can follow up and work on
an impression which they could not themselves have
made. In factions, too, there are persons generally
found, who, whUst fully embued with the principles
which bind the party together, are not committed to
aU the acts of their leaders, and who obtain for
themselves accordingly the credit of moderation —
men, who watch the signs of the times — ready to
advance or recede as the occasion may serve, — and
who, from that circumstance, are able to raUy round
them the discomfited forces, and partly, at least,
retrieve the effects of the precipitancy of the more
adventurous individuals. So may it be the case in
parties formed within the Church. Indeed, the
danger here is far greater than in merely political
factions. For here, they derive a force from the
religious feehngs which they enlist on their side, and
to which they address themselves. On the strength

no
of these the weakest instruments become power
ful; and the most unworldly in profession,— the
humblest and most submissive of men in out
ward demeanour, — may secretly rule with a des
potism the most absolute and imperious.*
* Such is the policy of the Papal power, in professing itself
Servus servorum Dei. — Clarendon gives us a picture of this in
his description of the power of the Presbyterian ministers at
the time of the Great Rebellion. Describing the strange con
descension and submission of the Scottish nobility " to their
ignorant Clergy, who were to have great authority, because
they were to inflame all sorts of men upon the obligations of
conscience," he goes on to say, that the Clergy " had liberty to
erect a tribunal, the most tyrannical over all sorts of men, and
in all the families of the kingdom : so that the preacher re
prehended the husband, governed the wife, chastised the
children, and insulted over the servants, in the houses of the
greatest men. They referred the management and conduct of
the whole affair to a committee of a few, who had never before
exercised any office or authority in public, with that per
fect resignation and obedience, that nobody presumed to in
quire what was to be done, or to murmur at or censure any
thing that was done ; and the General himself, and the
martial afi'airs, were subject to this regimen and discipline as
well as the civil ; yet they who were intrusted with this
superiority, paid all the outward respect and reverence to the
person of the General, as if all the power and disposal had been
in him alone." . . . . " This united strength and humble and
active temper, was not encountered by an equal providence
and circumspection in the King's councils," &c. — Clarendon's
Hist. B. ii. vol. i. p. 258.

Ill
Let us not, then, be too confident that the
danger is past, because our gates have been closed
on this or that leader, or this or that ostensible
agitator, with a few devoted followers. Let us
not, for that reason, lay aside our armom", and cry
down those that would keep us on the alert, as vain
alarmists ; nor let us listen to those who would
soothe us into supineness, whUe they proclaim a
hoUow peace. As our whole religion is a warfare
with the world, so is our post, as members of that
pure form of religion established among us, a state
of warfare with aU that is of Antichrist, — with aU
that is corrupt in religious profession. It is our
Christian duty, then, not to relax our efforts of
resistance. I say not to employ the instruments of
worldly warfare, — anger, bitterness, clamour, rio
lence, — but, with Christian plainness of avowal and
firmness, to make known, that we wiU not concede
one point of what our Reformers have bequeathed
to us, and sealed with the testimony of their blood,
whether by yielding to open assault, or by being
beguUed with the sophistry of enticing words of
insinuation. The rictory of the truth has been
gained. Let us watch^ that we do not lose it out
of our hands.
Nor are we without strong warning in the history

113
of our own Church, as well as encouragement
to such persevering vigUance. What we have re
cently experienced is nothing new in the history
of our Church. Not to dwell on the state of things
antecedent to the great outbreak of the RebeUion,
when such were the tendencies of many of the
Clergy to the Church of Rome, that, as the historian
observes, " so openly were the tenets of that Church
espoused, that not only the discontented Puritans
believed the Church of England to be relapsing fast
into Romish superstition, but the Church of Rome
itself entertained hopes of regaining its authority in
this island;"* and when many conversions to
Rome took place,f — to come to times, still nearer,
* Hume's Hist, of Eng. — The following remarks of Hume
convey an instruction bearing on the present times. " It
must be confessed, that, though Laud deserved not the appel
lation of Papist, the genius of his religion was, though in a
less degree, the same with that of the Romish. The same
profound respect was exacted to the sacerdotal character, the
same submission required to the creeds and decrees of synods
and councils, the same pomp and ceremony was affected in
worship, and the same superstitious regard to days, postures,
meats, and vestments. No wonder, therefore, that this prelate
was everywhere, among the Puritans, regarded with horror, as
the forerunner of Antichrist." — Charles I. vol. vi. p. 287.
I Bishop Hall, censuring the practice of foreign travel as
of evil effect in his times on the religion of England, notices

113
and more outwardly resembling the present, I would
refer you to what Bishop Burnet informs us was
the feehng then, in the reign of Queen Anne, the
early part of the last century.
"There appeared at this time," he says, "an
inclination in many of the Clergy to a nearer
approach towards the Church of Rome. Hicks, an
iU-tempered man, who was now at the head of the
some facts very apposite to the present times. He thus de
scribes the state of things then : — " The Society of wilful
idolaters will now down with them, not without ease ; and
good meanings begin to be allowed for the clokes of gross
superstition. From thence they grow to a favourable con
struction of the mis-opinions of the adverse part, and can
complain of the wrongful aggravations of some contentious
spirits ; and from thence (yet lower) to an indiff'erent conceit
of some more politic positions and practices of the Romanists.
Neither is there their rest. Hereupon ensues an allowance of
some of their doctrines that are more plausible and less im
portant, and withal a censure of us that are gone too far from
Rome. Now, the marriage of ecclesiastical persons begins to
mislike them : the daily and frequent consignation with the
Cross is not to no purpose. The retired life of the religious
(abandoning the world, forsooth) savours of much mortifica
tion ; and Confession gives no small ease and contentment to
the soul. And now, by degrees. Popery begins to be no ill
religion  All this mischief is yet hid with a formal
profession, so as every eye cannot find it ; in others, it dares
boldly break forth to an open revolt."— .Bp. Hall's Censure of
Travel. Works, pp. 678, 679. 1624.
I

114
Jacobite party, had in several books promoted a
notion that there was a proper sacrifice made in the
Eucharist, and had on many occasions studied to
lessen our aversion to Popery. The supremacy of
the Crown in ecclesiastical matters, and the method
in which the Reformation was carried, was openly
condemned : one Brett had preached a sermon in
several of the pulpits of London, which he after
wards printed ; in which he pressed the necessity
of priestly Absolution, in a strain beyond what was
pretended to even in the Church of Rome ; he said,
no repentance could serve vrithout it ; and affirmed,
that the Priest was vested with the same power of
pardoning that our Saviour himself had."*
Extravagant notions were propagated about the
same time on the subject of Baptism; and much
pains were taken to give them cfrculation in
" several little books," as he says, " spread about
the nation."
And what was the result of aU this agitation ?
Did it tend to strengthen the Church or to diminish
dissent, or work a religious and moral improvement
in the country at large ? The Bishops indeed exerted
themselves to stop the progress of such disputations
• Burnet's Hist, of Own Time, vol. vi. 123—125.

115
among the Clergy, and happily, though not with
out some opposition, the evil was checked within
the Church. But History is full of complaints of
the immorality of those times, — of a corruption of
principle and depravation of manners throughout
the people, with the spread of infidelity and atheisra.
And the state of religion becarae one of deadness ;
untU there arose out of it, (the crisis itself forcing
its own remedy,) a man who, — uniting in his person
and character, that high assuraption of the dignity
of the priestly office which the non-jurors had
taught, and the popular spirit craving a more
spiritual sustenance than could be obtained gene
raUy in the existing condition of the Church, —
became ultimately the leader of a schism greater
than any which had hitherto rent our Chm'ch.
Then, Brethren, if, though we may be thankful
for the good which has resulted through the trial
and awakening of the Church by the stirring zeal
of Wesley, we cannot but deplore the wide schisra
which has resulted ; — let us take warning, how we
neglect present indications of the like character to
those, which preceded the great schisra now existing
in the Christianity of this country. Let us stand
fast against the seductive doctrines, which now are
spreading their toUs around us ; first, on their own
I 2

116
account, as being corruptionsof the faith; and then,
as naturally leading to a violent re-action, and
as unsettling far more in the result than even
their advocates may profess to have gained to the
Church.* Consider, then. Brethren, the example set forth
to us iu the first preaching of the Gospel by the
Apostles. Study the provision made by our Lord
Himself for the edification of His Church, by the
light, which the proceedings of those to whom it was
first communicated, throw upon it. The Apostles
* See an article in the Lublin Review, No. XL. June 1846,
(said to be by Mr. Newman) on Mr. Keble's " Lyra Innocen-
<mm," in which the like favourable results to the Roman-Catholic
Church are augured from that publication, to those which the
Reviewer traces, not without reason, to Mr. Keble's " Christian
Year," That article very justly observes, that it is "by this
time abundantly clear " that " the young generation whose
pious and serious parents are now teaching them to cross
themselves, to fast or abstain, to reverence celibacy, and to
say Ave to St. Mary, if they grow up as serious and pious as
their instructors, will end in being converts to the Catholic
Church." — DuU. Rev. No. XL. p. 457. It says, also, of Mr.
Keble ; (they are the words of his former associate ;) that " if
there be one writer in the Anglican Church who has dis
covered a deep, tender, loyal devotion to the blessed Mary, it
is the author of the Christian Year. The image of the Virgin
and Child seems to be the one vision upon which both his
heart and intellect have been formed," &c. — Ibid. p. 460.

117
went forth on their raission, without any crucifix in
their hands, — without any relic even of their crucified
Lord, — only with the wonderful story of their Lord
on their lips, and his iraage in their hearts, to exe
cute his bidding. They had indeed the power of
working rairacles in the name of Christ, and declar
ing His salvation in every various tongue. These
were the special favours vouchsafed to their natural
feebleness, and inability to achieve the mighty work
on which they were sent, amidst difficulties appaUing
to flesh and blood. Still look to their mode of
going forth on their errand. Was it not in the
unseen strength of the Spirit, with the word of sal
vation, preaching Jesus, proving Liira to be the
Christ by the Scriptures, declaring the whole coun
sel of God in Hira, and calling sinners to repentance
and faith in Hira ? This was the preaching which
the Lord " conflrmed with wonders and signs fol
lowing;" by this fulfilment of His promise making
it evident, that, bytheir proceedings, they were rightly
discharging the mission with which He had entrusted
them. And when they had formed the infant
Churches in different parts of the world, do we
find them altering at aU the character of their
preaching, or substituting a ritual of Penitence in
the place of the one Gospel with which they had

118
begun ? What say the Acts of the Apostles gene
raUy of their preaching? " DaUy in the Temple
and in ever}- house, they ceased not to teach and
preach Jesus Christ."* " Testifying both to the
Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance towards
God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. "f
What say the Epistles of the same Apostles?
" We preach Christ crucified." " I determined
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified." The Epistles, as combining
refutations of error with statement and enforce
ment of the truth, treat the great heads of the
doctrine of Christ more discursively, or select
particular portions of the doctrine for distinct expo
sition, according to the occasion on which they were
written : but we may say of them stUl, as of the
several Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, that the
preaching of Christ Crucified is thefr great burthen.
Whatever may be their iraraediate instruction, they
send the penitent sinner for his only ground of
hope and rehef and comfort, at once to the mercy
of God in Christ; exhorting behevers continuaUy on
this ground, — not as bearing Christ Crucified in their
own deadened bodies, or as expressing it in the rap-
* Acts T. 42. t Acts XX. 24.

119
tures of mystic love,* — but as building on what God
in Christ had wrought for thera, — that, " as they had
received Christ Jesus the Lord, so they would walk
in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and stabUshed in
the Faith, as they had been taught, abounding therein
with thanksgiving, "t So truly was the Holy Spirit
to the Apostles a remembrancer of Christ. Like
them, let us too go forth ourselves, and send others
whom our instruction and example may reach, in
the strength of that mighty Name ; not only pro
fessing as our Gospel, that " there is none other Name
* " Then truly is the whole man changed into Christ, when
detached from himself, and rising above all creatures, he is
so wholly transformed into his suff'ering Lord, as to see
nothing and to feel nothing, but Christ Crucified, mocked,
railed at, and suffering for us. " — Bonaventura, quoted by
Dr. Pusey in his Preface to Surin, p. xxxviii. Such a view
of the Atonement (pantheistic as it is) is nothing strange
in a mystic writer of the Church of Rome. The strange
thing is, that a minister of the Church of England should
adopt suoh a sentiment as his own, and recommend it to
others. Dr. Pusey prefers the expression of " Christ Crucified "
to that of "the Atonement," or "justification by faith;"
which he regards .as " compendious or arbitrary selections, or
substitutions of doctrine." {Ibid. p. xxix.) That expression,
however, naturally jecommended itself to him, as being more
readily accommodated to that subjective notion of man's sal
vation, which he has been employed in developing.
t Col. ii. 6, 7.

120
under heaven given among men, whereby we must be
saved ;" but in every action, and every occasion of
our lives, — in all our temptations, — in every fear
that casts down the soiU, — in every hope that lifts
the heart towards heaven, — looking unto Jesus,
comforting ourselves in His Name.*
" 0 that God," I would conclude in the beautiful
words of Hooker, " would open the ark of mercy
wherein this doctrine heth, and set it vride before
the eyes of poor afllicted consciences, which flee up
and down upon the water of their afflictions, and can
see nothing but only the gulph and deluge of their
sins, wherein there is no place for them to rest thefr
feet ! The God of pity and compassion give you
all strength and courage every day, and every hour,
and every moment, to build and edify yourselves in
this most pure and holy faith. "f
* Admirably does our Church shew of what manner of
spirit it is, when it leaves its parting consolation with the
sick man, saying to him, " The Almighty Lord, who is a
most strong tower to all them that put their trust in him, .
make thee know and feel, that there is none other Name
under heaven given to man, in whom, and through whom, thou
mayest receive health and salvation, but only the Name of
our Lord Jesus Christ." — Visit, of tke Side.
t Hooker's Two Sermons upon part of St. Jude's Ep.

LATELY PUBLISHED,
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

CHEIST SANCTIFYING HIS CHUECH. A
Sermon preached before the University of Oxford in the Cathedral
of Ohrist Church in 1844. Is.
THE TRIAL BY FIRE, AND THE ONE SACRI
FICE POK SIN", Two Sermons preached before the University of
Oxford in the Cathedral of Christ Church. Is. 6d.
FOUR SERMONS. Preached before the University
of Oxford, in the Cathedral of Christ Church. 2s. 6d.
THE LORD OUR EIGHTEOUSNESS. A Sermon
preached before the University of Oxford in the Cathedral of Christ
Ohurch on the Sunday before Advent, 1839. Third Edition. Is.
LECTURE ON TRADITION. Eead before the
University in the Divinity School, Oxford, on Thursday, March 7,
1839. Fifth Edition, corrected and enlarged. 2s.
LECTUEE ON THE XXXIX ARTICLES OF THE
CHUECH OP ENGLAND. Eead before the University of Oxford,
in the Divinity School on Wednesday, June 1, 1842. Third Edition. 2s.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION
OF THE BAMPTON" LECTUEES of the year 1832. Second Edition.
1837. Is.
INAUGURAL LECTUEE. Eead before the University
of Oxford in the Divinity School, March 17, 1836. Fourth Edition. Is.

YALE UNJVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 03720 7884