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YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

EIGHT SERMONS

PREACHED BEFORE

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,

THOMAS HORNE, B.D.

The religious necessity of the Reformation as
serted, and the extent to which it was carried
in the Church of England vindicated.

EIGHT SERMONS
PREACHED BEFORE
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
IN THE YEAR MDCCCXXVIII.
AT THE
LECTURE FOUNDED BY
THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M. A.
CANON OF SALISBURY.

BY
THOMAS HORNE, B.D.
RECTOR OP ST. KATHARINE COLEMAN, AND FORMERLY
STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH.

OXFORD,
AT THE TJNIVERSITY PRESS FOR THE AUTHOR.
SOLD BT J. PARKER; AND BY C. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON.
MDCCCXXVIII.

PREFACE.

In committing the following Discourses
to the press, according to the terms of his
engagement, the Author is chiefly anxious,
whatever judgment may be passed upon
the result of his labours, that the motives
which have influenced him in the choice of
his subject may not be misinterpreted.
It may be reckoned among the greatest
advantages derived from the institution of
the Bampton Lectureship, that many of
the most interesting questions in Christian
theology have been accurately discussed,
and the peculiar excellencies of Chris
tianity itself successfully illustrated by the
different preachers on whom the ofiice has
devolved. At the same time it is obvi
ous, notwithstanding the ample range and
a o

vi PREFACE.
inexhaustible fertility of the subject-matter
of their disquisitions, that the selection of
an argument combining novelty with uti
lity, and in which he has not partially
at least been anticipated by some one of
his predecessors, is rendered proportionally
more difficult to each succeeding Lecturer.
In choosing, however, a controversial
topic of strong present interest in prefer
ence to others of intrinsic and lasting im
portance, of which he is sensible that many
still remain unexplored as well as consist
ent with the design of the Founder, the
Author has been animated by no gratuitous
love of polemical discussions, by no uncha
ritable spirit, or uncandid prejudice against
adversaries of any description. He trusts
that the manner in which he has expressed
himself on every occasion will sufficiently
guard him against such an imputation ;
though he would not seek the praise of li-

PREFACE. vii
berality at the expense of truth, nor ex
pose his sincerity to suspicion, by apparent
indifference concerning any thing of essen
tial moment.
But the insidious hostility with which
the Church of England has now for a se
ries of years been assailed by the agents
and apologists of that of Rome, and the
increasing confidence with which the long
dormant spiritual pretensions of the latter
have been again put forth, as her worldly
prospects have seemed to brighten, are the
reasons which have induced him to think
that he could not render a more useful
service, with his limited powers, to the
cause of true religion, than by recalling at
tention to the almost forgotten heads of
dispute between them and ourselves, which
it is once more become necessary for every
sincere and well-informed member of our
church to study and understand. He is
a 4

viii PREFACE.
sensible indeed that the subject which he
has thus been led to adopt is of too large
dimensions for the limits within which the
preacher of this Lecture is confined, and
such in its nature as would require the
hand of a much abler and more experi
enced controversialist to do it justice.
He hopes, however, that in treating it
according to his own imperfect conception,
and the necessarily restricted view which
want of space has constrained him to take
of it, he has fallen into no material error ;
conscious as he is that the elucidation of
truth, exclusive of any private inducement
or party feeling, has been his only object,
either in arguing against the corruptions
and misrepresentations of Romanists, which
it has been his main purpose to refute, or
the prejudices of Protestant Dissenters, to
which he has more briefly adverted in his
concluding Discourse.

PREFACE. ix
In fine, as it would ever be his most
cherished wish to serve the cause of that
church, to which he is still less attached
by professional, obligations than by the
most sindere conviction of her superior
excellence both in the soundness of her
doctrine and the spirituality of her wor
ship, above every other branch of the uni
versal church of Christ, so there is no con
sequence of his own insufficiency which he
would so earnestly deprecate, as that of
affording to any of her opponents an ap
parent advantage against her. A real one,
either in her doctrine or her discipline, he
is well assured that they will ever seek in
vain.

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.
1 Cor. xi. 9.
For there mu,st he also heresies among you, that they
which are approved may he made manifest among you.
Page 1.
LECTURE II.
Matthew xi. 19.
— But wisdom is justified of her children. P. 37.
LECTURE III.
Matthew x. 37, 38.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not
worthy qf me : and he that loveth son or daughter
more than me is not worthy qfme. And he that taketh
not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy
qfme, P. 73.
LECTURE IV.
Matthew xv. 9.
But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines
the commandments qfmen. P. 109.
LECTURE V.
John iv. 24.
God is a spirit ; and they that worship him must wor
ship him in spirit and in truth, P. 147.

xii CONTENTS.
LECTURE VI.
1 Timothy ii. 5.
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and
man, the man Christ Jesus. P- 185.
LECTURE VII.
Deut. iv. 15.
TaJce ye therefore good heed unto yourselves ; for ye
saw no manner qf similitude on the day that the Lord .
spaJce unto you in Hor eh out qfthe midst (fthe jir e.
P. 225.
LECTURE VIII.
Jeremiah vi. 16.
Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and
asJcfor the old paths, where is the good way, and walk
therein, and ye shall find rest for your soids. P. 267.

EXTRACT FROM
THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
OF THE LATE
REV. JOHN BAMPTON,
CANON OF SALISBURY.
 " I give and bequeath my Lands and

" Estates to the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars
" of the University of Oxford for ever, to have
" and to hold all and singular the said Lands or
" Estates upon trust, and to the intents and pur-
" poses hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I
" will and appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of
" the University of Oxford for the time being
" shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and
" profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations,
" and necessary deductions made) that he pay all
" the remainder to the endowment of eight Di-
" vinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for
" ever in the said University, and to be performed
" in the manner following :
" I direct and appoint, that, upon the first
" Tuesday in Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly

xiv EXTRACT FROM
" chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, and by
" no others, in the room adjoining to the Pnnt-
" ing-House, between the hours of ten in the
" morning and two in the afternoon, to preach
" eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year fol-
" lowing, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between the
" commencement of the last month in Lent Term,
« and the end of the third week in Act Term.
" Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Di-
" vinity Lecture Sermons shall be preached upon
" either of the following subjects — ^to confirm and
" establish the Christian Faith, and to confute all
" heretics and schismatics — upon the divine au-
" thority of the holy Scriptures — upon the author-
" ity of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as
" to the faith and practice of the primitive Church
" — upon the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour
" Jesus Christ — ^upon the Divinity of the Holy
" Ghost — upon the Articles of the Christian Faith,
" as comprehended in the Apostles' and Nicene
" Creeds. " Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight
" Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be always print-
" ed, within two months after they are preached,
" and one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of
" the University, and one copy to the Head of
" every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the

CANON HAMPTON'S WILL. xv
" city of Oxford, and one copy to be put into the
" Bodleian Library ; and the expense of printing
" them shall be paid out of the revenue of the
" Land or Estates given for establishing the Di-
*' vinity Lecture Sermons : and the Preacher shall
" not be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, be-
" fore they are printed.
" Also I direct and appoint, that no person
" shall be qualified to preach the Divinity Lecture
" Sermons, unless he hath taken the degree of
" Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Uni-
" versities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the
" same person shall never preach the Divinity
" Lecture Sermons twice."

LECTURE I.

I Cor. xi. 9.
For there must he also heresies among you, that
they which are approved may be made mani
fest among you.
X HE appearances both of the natural and
moral world, more especially if viewed as
insulated particulars, and not as constituent
portions of a great and connected whole,
are sometimes such as to stagger human
reason, and to contradict our preconceived
notions of wise and harmonious design.
In contemplating such apparent irregu
larities, the disputer of this world has re
course to fate and chance only, to account
for what he does not comprehend, and is
ready to question the existence of a su
preme Intelligence, because he is unable to
discern the principles by which it acts.
But in minds tempered and enlightened
by religion faith comes to the aid of reason,
and small objections, which do not admit

2 LECTURE I.
of an obvious solution, are not suffered to
outweigh great and undeniable truths.
V^^hatever anomaly, therefore, may seem
to exist in the actual constitution of things,
it must be the firm belief of every man,
who acknowledges the superintending pro
vidence of God in the world, that all things
are by him wisely ordered for the best ; and
no less must it be an article in the creed of
every true Christian, that it is the final
purpose of all his dispensations to establish
more firmly, and to diffuse more widely, that
religion which his only-begotten Son planted
in the world. Nor is this persuasion more
true in the abstract, than it is practically
necessary to inspire us with hope and pa
tience, while we look forward, through the
turbulence and obscurity of human affairs,
to that more perfect manifestation of the
kingdom of God, which our faith teaches
us to expect.
It is the exclusive attribute of the divine
Wisdom to see the end from the beginning,
and to make both the vicissitudes of earthly
things, and even the unruly wills and affec
tions of sinful men, when they least per-

LECTURE L 3
ceive or intend it, subservient to its own
designs ; and as in the material creation, a
clearer sky and a purer atmosphere succeed
to the convulsions of the elements, so in
the moral world we may see order rising
out of confusion, and the religious and in
tellectual state of mankind ultimately im
proved, through the operation of causes
which, in their rise and progress, seemed
only to tend to the production of evil.
In our present state of existence, in what
ever the agency of man is concerned, good
wholly unalloyed is not to be found. Where
the malignity of a corrupt will does not
betray itself, the evidences of infirmity are
yet abundantly visible ; error of judgment
accompanies the best intentions, and the
unperceived influence of passion disturbs
the most prudent counsels. But by the
merciful appointment of divine Providence,
evils are countervailed by evils, and reme
dies spring out of moral disorders ; and, in
equal contradiction to the hopes of evil
men and the fears of good, all things work
together for the glory of God, and the wel
fare of mankind, in ways which human
B 2

4 LECTURE L
reason could not anticipate, though the
ultimate effect is obvious to the most sim
ple observer.
The words of the apostle in the text,
though in a stricter sense applicable to the
case of individual Christians, and the trial
of their faith from the contagion of heresy,
seem to justify us in extending these prin
ciples to the state of religion in general,
and in contemplating with similar views,
as partial evils tending to final good, those
controversies to which Christianity has been
subject in almost every age, since it was
first preached upon eartji to that in which
we live.
Heresy, in various kinds and degrees, has
existed in every period of the church, has
troubled its peace, has partially destroyed
its union, has threatened widely to corrupt
its doctrines, and undermine its faith.
From such dangers the most fatal con
sequences might have been apprehended
and sincere piety justly alarmed ; and yet,
if we consider the actual state of religion,
and compare it with that which undoubted
history exhibits in former ages, we shall be

LECTURE L 5
led to conclude that discord, and even he
resy itself, have been rendered instrumental
to the great design of divine Providence;
that the cause of Christianity has been
more effectually strengthened and pro
moted by the zealous efforts of piety and
learning, which the obligation of vindicating
its purity has called forth ; that truth has
been illustrated by the refutation of error,
and faith more deeply rooted in the minds
of true believers, by the necessity of study
ing its foundations, and defending it against
the objections of gainsay ers.
But in attributing these eventual bene
fits to heresy, contrary to its own nature
and intention, it will not, I trust, be ima
gined that I mean indirectly to plead the
cause of heresy itself, or to represent it, as
some modern sectaries have presumed to
do, as a light offence against Christian piety,
to seek even the advancement of religious
knowledge, or any other problematical good,
by disturbing the foundations of Christian
faith. My view is, merely to contemplate
it in that light in which the words of the
apostle seem to justify us in placing it, as
B 3

6 LECTURE L
conducive to the vital efficacy of pure reli
gion, by exciting a cautious vigilance against
the propagation of error, and keeping alive
that zealous spirit of inquiry after truth,
which is so peculiarly characteristic of Chris
tianity, and which experience seems to jus
tify us in regarding as its conservative prin
ciple, and under the influence of divine
grace the most effectual antidote to the na
tural apathy of the human mind concern
ing spiritual things. Contending sects have
indeed been too ready to charge each other
with the guilt of heresy ; and in the heat of
religious controversy, slight disagreements,
concerning abstruse and purely abstract
points of opinion, have been too hastily as
sumed as a sufficient foundation for the
charge. From such mutual criminations the spi
rit of Christian charity should restrain us,
whenever the interest of necessary truth is
not concerned; and we should be slow to
cast upon others an imputation, which, if
we are true Christians, we ought above all
worldly reproaches to be unwilling to de
serve ; and whatever the ultimate conse-

LECTURE L 7
quence of heretical principles may be, wan
tonly to disseminate them, or in any way
to sow the seeds of animosity and causeless
division in the church, whether out of va
nity or a spirit of contradiction, we have
the highest authority for pronouncing to
be a sin of grievous impiety. I would
merely assume it as the basis of my argu
ment, that the machinations of designing
infidelity, as well as the crude conceits of
self-sufficient folly, have been permitted to
exercise the faith and provoke the zeal of
Christians, for the prevention of greater
evils. And as it must be our belief that
nothing comes to pass, in the natural or
moral creation, without the appointment
or permission of its omniscient Author, it
seems to follow by necessary consequence,
that a state of things, which in a greater or
less degree has attended upon Christianity
in all the successive stages of its duration
hitherto, would not have been suffered to
exist, if it had not been upon the whole
the most conducive to its advancement,
and perfectly consistent with those good
purposes, both ultimate and immediate,
B 4

8 LECTURE L
which that dispensation was designed to
effect. Nor is there any thing in this view of
the subject, which is not warranted by ex
perience and analogy, if we may be allowed
in questions of religion to reason at all from
temporal to spiritual things. It is well
known that the progress of every art and
science, and especially those which are most
refined and intellectual, has been greatly as
sisted by the discussion of opposite theories,
and the controversies maintained concern
ing their true principles ; and in like man
ner it is undeniably certain, that our reli
gion has derived the strongest additional
confirmation, not only from the sober dis
putations of learned and pious men con
cerning its general evidences and peculiar
doctrines, but even from the licentious vio
lence of its adversaries, who have left no
thing unsaid, which their depraved inge
nuity could suggest, to weaken its author
ity. The most artfully constructed system
of falsehood could never have resisted such
attacks as have been successively directed
against every side of Christianity which, in

LECTURE L 9
the opinion of its adversaries, has appeared
the weakest ; and if Christianity has not
only stood unshaken against them, but its
foundations have been strengthened, and its
true principles more perfectly illustrated,
through the vain attempts of infidels to
subvert the one, and of heretics to obscure
the other, we have in this very fact a ground
of confidence, which cannot be too highly
appreciated, and which it is evident that we
never could have possessed, if the abortive
attempts of its various enemies to effect its
ruin had not by their signal failure provided
it for us. It is indeed to the fiery trials
which it has so repeatedly gone through, and
which must have consumed it if it had been
of a baser texture, that we are indebted for
the strongest proof that it is imperishable,
and that it emanated wholly from the wis
dom of God, and not the invention of man.
But, indeed, the whole history of our
religion proves nothing more clearly, than
the truth which holy writ declares, that
"God seeth not as man seeth, and that ^his
ways are past {our) finding out.
a 1 Sam. xvi. 7. '' Rom. xi. 33.

10 LECTURE L
It is scarcely too much to assert, that al
most every circumstance, attending the pro
mulgation of the gospel, was directly the
reverse of what human wisdom would have
chosen for the furtherance of the same ends.
And certainly it is not more foreign to
our apprehension, that the arrogant and ir
reverent disputers of this world should be
rendered subservient to the elucidation and
final confirmation of Christianity, than is
that other unquestionable fact, " that the
" persecutions which the first Christians
" endured for the sake of their faith, and
" by which its enemies confidently expect-
" ed to crush it, powerfully contributed
" to its rapid diffusion and final establish-
" ment." It may seem an objection to this argu
ment, that harmony of doctrine and affec
tions is so strongly enjoined both by our
Lord himself and his apostles, and that the
faithful are warned to avoid those who should
seek to sow divisions among them, as well
as exhorted to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace ; and he indeed would
have learned Christ to little purpose, who

LECTURE L li
did not think it among the first of his du
ties, to promote, not only the spirit of bro
therly love among all his members, but that
also which is its surest and best foundation,
an entire agreement in all the articles of
the Christian faith. Such a state of reli
gion is unquestionably the most favourable
for the practice of every Christian virtue,
when discordant passions have ceased to
darken the understandings and pervert the
affections of true believers ; and whatever
branch of the universal church can most
truly boast of such an union, so founded,
among its members, may justly be consi
dered to have approached nearest to Chris
tian perfection. But that the kingdom of
God is not yet so come among men, that
his church in any nation or country may
joyfully serve him in all godly quietness,
without fear and without partiality, is la
mentably certain ; and while we humbly
hope that all things are tending towards
that blessed consummation, in so far at
least as may consist with the militant state
of the church upon earth, we cannot but
see that obstacles to it exist, which it is be-

12 LECTURE L
yond the power of human wisdom to re
move by the most zealous efforts of reason
or persuasion ; but for which a gradual re
medy appears to be provided even in that
licence of discussion which springs out of
religious corruption, and which, though nei
ther prompted nor guided by a spirit of
sincere piety, may yet, in spite of itself,
serve the cause of truth, by dissipating the
fictions of error, which sophistry, ignorance,
or fanaticism have raised to obscure it.
In attributing, therefore, to the here
sies which at different periods have agi
tated the church, and which may not im
properly be regarded as symptoms of a
diseased state of faith and morals, conse
quences ultimately beneficial to religion,
we merely assert, that in this, as in other
cases, the wisdom of God has brought good
out of evil ; not that heresy is either good in
itself, or void of fearful guilt to its authors;
although, like some who, as " St. Paul says,
preached Christ out of strife and conten
tion, and not sincerely, they may contri-

» Phil. i. 16, &c.

LECTURE I. 13
bute unintentionally to the advancement
of true religion.
It was but for a very short season that
the primitive church enjoyed perfect inter
nal tranquillity, with untainted purity of
faith. Even in the lifetime of the apostles
the arrogance, folly, and corruption of man
had ^brought in damnable heresies. Vari
ous errors were introduced into the infant
church which they had planted, by false
brethren, and no inconsiderable part of
their Epistles is occupied in the refutation
of such errors, and in warning those to
whom they wrote against the danger of
being seduced by them. The history of
the following ages exhibits a lamentable
picture of the workings of the same per
verse spirit ; and in proportion as the pale
of the church was extended among differ
ent nations and languages, the sources of
corruption were multiplied and enlarged.
Even before the great influx of the Gen
tiles into the church, which followed upon
the conversion of Constantine, and the adop-
b 2 Pet. ii. 1, &c.

14 LECTURE L
tion of Christianity for the religion of the
Roman empire, many depravations of the
Christian verity had crept into it, while
Christians were yet exposed to the rage of
persecution from without, and no worldly
inducement existed within, to tempt the
followers of a crucified Redeemer to vitiate
their faith. But after that event heresies
rapidly multiplied, of the greater part of
which the names only now remain, to at
test that they once existed ; and while we
are grieved in contemplating the actual
corruptions of Christianity in some coun
tries, and the variety of doctrines which
have arisen through the abuse of Christian
liberty in others, it is yet a source of great
consolation to observe how far they fall
short of the absurdity and impiety of those
pristine adulterations of evangelical truth,
whose characteristic peculiarities have been
preserved in ecclesiastical records. Various
were the sources of those ancient heresies ;
some originated with Jewish converts, who,
in their zeal for the Mosaic dispensation,
sought to amalgamate the old law with the
new ; but a much greater proportion with

LECTURE L 15
Gentiles, who had imperfectly unlearned
their former superstitions, and still par
tially retained them after their conversion
to Christianity ; and not a few were bor
rowed from different systems of heathen
philosophy, which their authors, wedded to
their former studies, attempted to blend
with Christianity. Some again were the
offspring of enthusiasm, which is ever the
disease of weak minds, and some owed their
birth to the more culpable love, of singu
larity, and the vain desire of distinction,
through which too many individuals, of un
sound principles and shallow understand
ings, have in all ages been tempted to seek
a worthless celebrity by the propagation of
error, rather than the silent approbation
of a good conscience by maintaining the
truth. To these causes severally the va
rious corruptions of Christian faith and
doctrine in the early ages may be referred ;
and the best practical view which, at this
distance of time, we can take of them all
collectively, is to look upon them as certain
symptoms of that moral corruption of hu
man nature, which our holy religion was

16 LECTURE L
intended to heal, and to learn from them,
to beware for ourselves of departing on
either side from that rule of faith and prac
tice which the divine Wisdom has prescribed
to us. But a total cessation of such evi
dences of sinfulness and infirmity, though
we are bound to pray for the continual in
crease of grace and truth, in the present
condition of mankind we cannot hope to
see; and hardly would such a degree of
Christian perfection be compatible with
that state of probation in which we are
here placed for our final good.
In fact, no age of the church has been,
nor, as far as we can conjecture by a re
view of the past, and a consideration of the
causes which have produced such effects, is
ever likely to be, exempt from the infesta
tions of heresy. But it would be incon
sistent with the belief that God is ever
wise and good, and that his mercy is over
all his works, to suppose that He would
suffer the existence of error and division,
without any countervailing good to be de
rived from them, and leave those whom the
scriptures represent as the peculiar objects

LECTURE L 17
of his regard, the poor, the simple, and un
learned, who must ever make up the bulk of
mankind, exposed to the imminent danger
of seduction through false apostles and false
teachers, such as have disseminated their fa
natical delusions and pestilent perversions
of the truth in every age, if the toleration of
these partial evils was absolutely inconsist
ent with the purity and effectual influence
of that religion which he has vouchsafed to
reveal, and which all men are required to
embrace, as the sole condition of obtaining
eternal salvation. Nor does it appear to be a
sufficient answer to such an objection, that it
is only by the abuse of their own free will
that men can be exposed to the danger of
heresy, and that the justice and goodness
of God are sufficiently vindicated, if he has
afforded to all men the means of knowing
the truth, but they choose error in prefer
ence to it. For, in fact, even in the most
improved state of human society which has
ever yet existed, or is ever likely to exist,
there are few comparatively who are ca
pable of judging for themselves in contro
verted points of doctrine, but the greater

18 LECTURE L
part must of necessity follow the direction
of those whom they believe qualified by
superior acquirements to guide them right;
and there have been times when errors have
widely infected the church, and seduced
multitudes in almost every Christian na
tion. If therefore such errors, not proceeds
ing from a wilful preference of darkness to
light, nor accompanied with impurity of
heart and moral corruption, could totally
deprive those who ignorantly fell into them,
or unconsciously imbibed them together
with the first rudiments of knowledge, of
the benefits of the gospel covenant, the
goodness of God, and the honour of his
moral government, would seem to require,
that the possibility of so dreadful a conse
quence should be precluded, even by de^
priving men, if the same end could not
otherwise be attained, of that free agency
which they were in so great danger of abus
ing to their own destruction, so as to con
vert the covenant of grace into an occasion
of heavier condemnation. Still less is it
consistent with the mercy of God and his
love for man, which the scriptures teach

LECTURE I. 19
us to consider as the essential, originating
principle of Christianity, to suffer his gra
cious designs towards our fallen race to
be rendered of none effect through causes
springing out of the inherent infirmity of
our nature, independent of our own indi
vidual wills, or to be defeated by the spirit
of delusion. That God is ever gracious and
merciful, and that he willeth not that any
should perish everlastingly, but that all
should be converted, and saved through the
knowledge of the truth, is a point of faith
which every Christian ought to hold as
firmly as any article of his creed, and not
to suffer any speculative view of mysterious
and unsearchable truths to shake his confi
dence in this first principle of true piety.
Seeing, therefore, that heresy, or the prin
ciple of discord, or by whatever other ap
pellation we may call it, (for we should not
with indiscriminating severity affix the same
stigma to the greatest and the smallest de
parture from orthodox opinion,) has been
permitted to exist, and that, notwithstand
ing its intrinsically pernicious character, it
has neither prevailed against the truth, nor
c 2

20 LECTURE I.
Vineakened its force, nor tainted its purity,
but, on the contrary, that our holy religion
has continued to shine forth with increas
ing brightness, in spite of those passing
clouds which human perverseness from
time to time has raised to obscure it, we
are led to consider it as one of those meanis
of apparent destruction, which the divine
wisdom has converted to the furtherance
of its own gracious purposes towards man
kind by the fuller confirmation of the truth.
It is readily admitted, that if all who ever
have professed themselves Christians, had
been animated by a sincere faith and a du
tiful respect for our Lord's commands for
the cultivation of unity and brotherly love,
neither heresy nor discord could have found
an entrance into the church. But this is a
state of religion which in reality has never
existed, and cannot therefore be assumed
in ideal possibility as a ground of argument
against that which is evident and palpable.
It is indeed a degree of perfection, at which
we are each in our several capacities bound
to aim, but such as we cannot hope fully
to attain, and much less that the aggre-

LECTURE L 21
gate Christian community shall ever be so
changed from its present imperfect condi
tion, as to be uniformly influenced by a
sense of religious duty; since our Lord
himself has assured us, that •= it must needs
be that offences come, and that ^ the wheat
and the tares must be left to grow together
till the great harvest.
Christianity, from the beginning, was de
signed for beings subject to much evil and
many infirmities, which the whole power of
religion is not more than sufficient to heal,
where its doctrines are set forth with the
greatest fidelity, and its precepts most sin
cerely obeyed. But if the fountain of living
waters be itself defiled, if religion be con
taminated by those vices and follies of man
kind which it was intended to correct, or
vitiated by the improbity of those whose
especial office it is to guard its purity, till,
like the salt which had lost its savour % it
become unfit for the purpose for which
the divine Goodness designed it, and its
corruptions be reduced to a system, it is
c Matt, xviii. 7. ^ Matt. xiii. 29—36. = Luke
xiv. 34. C 3

22 LECTURE L
evident, that unless its original soundness
and vitality can be restored, human de
pravity must be left to pursue its headlong
course without check or remedy.
When, therefore, moral degeneracy and
infidel indifference had succeeded to the
zeal and purity of the earlier ages, and
gross darkness had well nigh overwhelmed
the light of the gospel ; when, in conse
quence of the decay of true piety, the holy
and reasonable service of Christianity had
been supplanted by heathenish pomps and
idle ceremonies, and spiritual holiness ex
changed for bodily austerities ; when the
study of the holy scriptures was generally
neglected, and fabulous legends, rivalling in
absurdity, and scarcely inferior in impiety
to the mythology of the heathen, had ban
ished from the minds of the deluded mul
titude all just notions of God and religion,
it is evident that a crisis had arrived which
required the exertion of an extraordinary
force to burst the spell of delusion, and to
renovate the faith, that it might not be
come utterly extinct, and the gates of hell
finally prevail against the church. That such

LECTURE L 23
was the state of religion during a long pe
riod, in which the Roman pontiffs exercised
an absolute and undisputed power through
every country in these parts of Europe, is
attested by proofs which must bring con
viction to every unprejudiced mind, and is
very faintly denied even by those to whose
pretensions the admission of sueh a fact is
fatal, however they may attempt to qualify
or disguise it.
At the same time we willingly admit that
there have been holy, if not enlightened
men, even in the darkest ages of the church.
But that does not militate against our ar
gument. God did not leave himself wholly
without witness in the heathen world, when
it was generally overspread with supersti
tion and crime; and still less is it to be
supposed, that in the worst times of Chris
tianity there have not been some men wor
thy of the Christian name. But their num
ber was as nothing to the surrounding mass
of ignorance and corruption ; and their en
deavours to rekindle knowledge, and awaken
true piety, however honourable to them
selves and their religion, of which they
c 4

24 LECTURE I.
shone as lights in a dark place, were in
sufficient to effect any lasting amendment
of faith or morals, even in the circumscribed
scenes of their labours. A more efficient
principle than individual zeal or example
was required to accomplish so great a work;
and until men were awakened by some
strong excitement from the spiritual le
thargy in which they were sunk, there was
no power of sufficient energy to dissipate
ignorance, and break the bands of supersti
tion. Blind acquiescence in abused author
ity was the perpetual safeguard of cor
ruption ; and no remedy, short of the im
mediate interposition of divine power, ex
cept religious controversy of the most ani
mated kind, was adequate to the inveterate
and complicated evils under which religion
laboured. In that morbid state of religion,
even the effervescence of human passions
contributed to the removal of corruption,
and strife and contention, under the su-
preme control of divine Providence, were
rendered auxiliary to the correction of that
vitiated state of faith and morals out of
which they sprung, and in some respects

LECTURE L 25
availed to supply the place of a purer
zeal. Thus it was that, after a long night of
palpable darkness, as the light of knowledge
began again to dawn upon the world, a
spirit of religious inquiry arose with it,
which, from small and almost imperceptible
beginnings, led, step by step, to that great
event, the most important which has ever
engaged the attention of mankind since the
first preaching of the gospel — the reforma
tion of religion in the western church;
which, after many indications of its ap
proach in different parts of Europe, at
length, upon the revival of learning, and
the renewed study of the holy scriptures,
broke out with full force in the early part
of the sixteenth century, and still continues
to occupy the attention, aud in various
ways to interest the feelings of the Chris
tian world. The agitation of minds which
commenced with that great crisis has not
even yet subsided, and although the ex
ternal symptoms are less violent, we see
and feel that the moving principle has not
lost its force ; and we may be permitted to

26 LECTURE L
hope, that it will not cease to act, till, witl
the grace of God, it has had its perfeci
work ; till it has banished out of the uni
versal church those corruptions of faith
doctrine, and worship, which have giver
occasion to infidelity, and perpetuated dis
cord ; and until all true Christians are re
established in the unity of the Spirit ana
the bond of peace, not by blind and un
reasoning submission to any human au
thority, but by the increase of knowledge
and the demonstration of the truth.
The blessings of which the reformation
has been the source to those nations of the
Christian world which have embraced it,
and indirectly even to those which have
opposed it, can hardly be appreciated ade
quately to their vast importance. Without
some knowledge of ecclesiastical history, in
particular, no estimate can be formed of
the extent and variety of good which it has
accomplished. The light which sprung out
of religion, as soon as it was freed from the
incumbrances and pollutions of supersti
tion, widely diffused itself through the
whole circumference of human affairs. It

LECTURE L 27
was the commencement of a new era in the
history of the human mind, and without
incurring the charge of exaggeration from
any competent judge, it may be confidently
asserted, that its beneficial influence has
been felt in every branch of learning, in
every department of science, and in every
institution of civil society.
But how great soever the external and
contingent benefits may be, which have at
tended the reformation, it is by its religious
merits only, without worldly respects of any
kind, unless in so far as they may be ad
mitted as evidences of its real character,
that the cause of the reformation must be
tried and decided.
It did not originate in human policy,
but, like Christianity itself, in the begin
ning made its way in opposition to tem
poral as well as spiritual power. Its sub
sequent influence in improving the tem
poral state of society could not have been
contemplated by those who first raised their
voices against the corruptions of Rome ;
and among the many unworthy motives at
tributed to them by their adversaries, that

28 LECTURE L
of political calculation has hardly yet found
a place. With its political consequences,
therefore, we have properly no concern; and
in the prosecution of these Lectures, in
which it will be my humble endeavour to
vindicate its general principle, as well as
the particular modification of it adopted
and retained in this country, I propose
carefully to abstain from all secular and
ephemeral considerations, and to view it
only according to its permanent and strictly
religious bearings. Neither are we bound
to justify every circumstance attending its
rise and progress, nor to prove that those
who laboured in its cause or patronised its
increase, were free from the infirmities com
mon to man, though much may be said in
extenuation of the errors into which they
were sometimes hurried through the in
temperance of precipitate zeal, or goaded
by virulent provocation.
When first the human mind was relieved
from the pressure of religious bondage, and
men began to reason freely upon subjects
concerning which it had before been hardly
permitted to think, it is not to be wondered

LECTURE L 29
if they sometimes exceeded the bounds of
moderation, and displayed their attachment
to a cause which so strongly interested
their feelings, with unbecoming vehemence ;
nor is it any disparagement to the cause
itself, if its ablest and most distinguished
advocates were not agreed upon all points
among themselves.
According to the view which has been
taken, collision of opinion was necessary,
when first the spell of superstition was bro
ken, as in almost all cases it is highly con
ducive to the elucidation of truth.
The sluggish mass of unreasoning apathy
was to be awakened into life and motion,
before it could be enlightened, and purged
of its errors ; and we may be permitted,
without irreverent presumption, to con
clude, that what we still behold, that very
Concordia discors, that agreement among all
Protestants concerning the main points of
the Reformation, while at the same time
they disputed warmly concerning matters
of inferior moment, though yet not of tri
fling importance, was agreeable to the de
signs of divine Providence, to keep alive

so LECTURE L
the vital principle of renovated religion,
and to prevent the spark which had been
struck out from being extinguished by su
pervening indifference, till it had blazed
forth into a burning and a shining light.
It has been the necessary consequence of
this want of concert among the leaders of
the reformation in different countries, that
the local churches severally established un
der their auspices have been differently con
stituted, and that perfect harmony, which is
so much to be wished among those who hold
in common the same fundamental truths,
and appeal to the same authority, the writ
ten word of God alone, in support of all
the articles of faith which they respectively
profess, and in vindication of every doc
trine which they maintain, is yet unaccom
plished ; and while every church which has
thrown off" the dominion of Rome is stig
matized with heresy and apostasy by the
adherents of the papal power, each is occa
sionally called upon to defend itself against
some imputation of error, on the part of
those with whom it would wish to draw
more close the bonds of mutual affection.

LECTURE L 31
Such is, more especially, the position of
the established church of this kingdom,
which, in asserting its own independence,
neither retained demonstrable error, be
cause it pleaded the prescription of anti
quity against reason and scripture, nor em
braced novelties, because of the temporary
charm which belongs to them, nor rejected
what was useful and good, from a gratui
tous love of change. And as it is of the last
importarfce to us all to know the ground
whereon we stand, to be assured, on the
one hand, that we are not in sinful schism,
because we have renounced the communion
of the church of Rome, and on the other,
that we are in no degree partakers of her
corruptions, because we have retained the
primitive order of ecclesiastical ministry in
stituted by the apostles, and which that
church has also retained, though not in its
original purity; it will be my aim, in the
ensuing Discourses, to vindicate our church
from these opposite charges ; to shew, in an
swer to one class of accusers, that we did
not separate from that of Rome, till her
corruptions of faith, doctrine, and worship.

32 LECTURE L
had rendered it impossible to continue m
her communion, without hazarding, or ra^
ther abandoning the essentials of religion ;
and to the other, that we retained nothing
of her usages, but such as she had received
in times antecedent to her corruption, and
which were common to all churches found
ed by the apostles, and not peculiar to that
of Rome. On many different points of the
general argument, as it respects these va
rious heads, volumes have been written,
which claim the profound attention of the
student in theology, and to the demonstra
tive force of which it is scarcely possible
that any thing can be added by the future
advocates of our church, unless it be no
velty in the manner of conducting her de
fence, against similar novelty in the attacks
of her adversaries. But the substantial me
rits of her cause have long been settled, in
the opinion of candid and impartial judges,
by irrefragable argument and testimony.
To many, however, of her sound members,
even in the educated classes of society, there
is a want of leisure or inclination to enter
deeply into the subject ; and by too many

LECTURE I. 33
this most momentous inquiry, in an age,
too, of much literary and scientific preten
sion, though none can be imagined more
worthy of a truly philosophic mind, is over
looked with supercilious blindness, as if it
was fit only to occupy the attention of those
who are professionally bound to study it ;
and that too, although more important con
sequences evidently depend upon it, even
to the temporal welfare of mankind, than
upon all the discoveries of science or the
combinations of politics. Cautiously ab
staining, therefore, from abstruse subtleties,
which are more fit to engage the retired
student than the general inquirer, I trust
it will not be deemed unseasonable, or fo
reign to the purpose of these Lectures, if I
attempt to give a candid exposition of some
of the most prominent of the causes which
originally determined our separation from
the church of Rome, and to shew, inde
pendently of all extraneous and temporary
considerations, that they were not only of
sufficient moment to justify that definitive
measure, but to render the adoption of it
an imperative duty.

34 LECTURE L
In conclusion, I shall briefly advert to
the principal diflPerences which disunite us
from our protestant brethren, my ultimate
object being to shew, that as in respect to
the church from which we have ourselves
withdrawn, the reformation was on reli
gious grounds founded in absolute neces
sity ; so in respect to those who dissent
from us on minor questions, though em
barked in the same great cause with us,
that it was conducted on sound principles
by our reformers, and terminated at the
point which, when the heat of controversy
shall have yielded to sober reflection, and
the unreasonableness of inveterate preju
dice to the irresistible force of truth, wis
dom and piety must approve.
This is the extent of my design ; and how
imperfect soever the execution of it may
be, I humbly pray that my insufficiency
may never redound to the injury of the
cause, which it is my anxious desire as well
as my duty to serve ; and which, I am as
suredly persuaded, can never be overthrown
by the efforts of its enemies, if not weak
ened and endangered by the indiscretion of

LECTURE I. 35
its friends, who in the warmth of inconsi
derate zeal, without adequate experience
and due preparation, may come forward to
defend it.
That the truth of God will finally pre
vail over all opposition, it would savour of
infidelity to doubt. But in the opinion of
the world plausible error, advantageously
displayed, often obtains a transient superi
ority over it.
The best founded confidence in the in
trinsic goodness of our cause should there
fore neither inspire us with presumption,
nor render us inattentive to the legitimate
means of promoting its success.

D 2

LECTURE IL

Matthew xi. 19.
— But wisdom is justified of her children.
J. HE advocates of the church of Rome, in
their contests with protestants, exhibit a
policy which strongly indicates the con
scious weakness of their cause. Instead of
"" bringing forth their strong reasons, and
appealing to any mutually acknowledged
authority in support of them, they endea
vour for the most part to preoccupy atten
tion with points of inferior moment, or of
no moment at all, and studiously keep out
of sight those weightier matters, on the
right understanding of which the whole
merits of the question between them and
their opponents mainly depend; and not
unfrequently they become the assailants,
because they are unable to defend them-
a Isaiah xii. 21.
d3

38 LECTURE IL
selves. Upon these principles they have
acted from the reformation down to the
present day; and the modern champions
of the cause still continue to tread in the
footsteps of those who have gone before
them, adopting only such modifications as
the differeiit circumstances under which
they write appear to suggest.
To use unnecessary harshness in charac
terizing the conduct of an adversary in any
case is ungenerous, and more likely to in
jure than to benefit the party which has
recourse to it. But in controversies of re
ligion, from which passion and prejudice
should as far as possible be excluded, it is
peculiarly unbecoming ; and they who ar
gue in behalf of Christian truth should be
careful to do it in a Christian spirit ; and
not indulge in asperity of expression, be
yond what the necessity of the case de
mands. Neither would it be wise, in form
ing an estimate of the feelings of Roman
Catholics towards the church of which we
are members, or the protestant name in
general, to lay too great a stress on the
reasonings or statements of obscure and

LECTURE IL 39
narrow-minded writers ^ who may be dis
avowed by their superiors, if their absurdity
and intemperance should threaten injury to
their own cause.
But if we look to those whose characters
stand highest for talents and literary ac
quirements, and whose authority is held in
the highest estimation among the members
of their own community, we shall still find
such a lamentable want of equity and can
dour, as can be accounted for only by the
intolerant principles of their church; and
it is as true of the main pillars of the papal
cause as of its meanest supporters, that the
expedients on which their chief reliance is
placed are such as we cannot truly charac
terize, without departing from that mode
ration and forbearance which on all ac
counts it is most desirable to observe*, and
which are more especially suited to such a
•> Such as Eusebius Andrews, and others of the same
stamp. <= I allude here more particularly to Gandolphy's Ser
mons, Lingard's History, Milner's End of Religious
Controversy, and Butler's Book of the Roman Catholic
Church, all modern productions of English Roman Ca
tholics.
D 4

40 LECTURE IL
cause as we maintain, and which requires
indeed nothing more than impartial con
sideration to ensure its preponderance in
every mind accessible to truth.
It may be pleaded on the part of our ad
versaries, that they are not guilty of inten
tional injustice ; that whatever they advance
against us they believe to be founded in
reason and fact; and the strong delusion
to which they have given themselves up
may render it credible that they are so per
suaded. But in acquitting them of wilful
unfaithfulness, their competency either as
advocates or witnesses of the truth will be
little benefited by attributing their multi
form misrepresentations to the influence of
delirious bigotry, which distorts and disco
lours every object presented to the mind's
eye. Nor is there, after all the allowance
which can reasonably be made for the ef
fects of such a mental distemper, any suf
ficient apology for receiving and asserting
as true, whatever, by such candid and dili
gent inquiry as the importance of the sub
ject demands of every sincere man, might
certainly be discovered not to be so.

LECTURE IL 41
It is unnecessary to the attainment of
essential truth, which is the only valuable
end of inquiry, to notice the many irrele
vant arguments and unjust representations
which have been employed to discredit the
reformation, nor could it be accomplished
in the most cursory manner within a much
greater space than these Lectures afford.
Without adverting, therefore, to those mi
nor topics, which have been introduced only
to embarrass and confound and distract
attention, I shall apply myself solely to the
consideration of such heads of controversy
as are of essential importance to the right
understanding of the real question between
our church and that of Rome ; viz. " Which
" of the two, in its actual state, is the more
" justly entitled to be considered as a true
" church of Christ ?" abstaining as much as
possible from every thing which can irritate
or offend, without contributing to elucidate
the truth, at the same time suppressing
nothing which the vindication of our prin
ciples necessarily requires to be candidly
asserted. In two particulars, however, a slight de-

42 LECTURE IL
parture from this course appears to be re
quisite ; and the examination of these shall
form the substance of the present Lecture,
that we may afterwards proceed without
prejudice to the discussion of those funda
mental positions on which, religiously con
sidered, the cause of the reformation must
stand or fall ; and on none but such as are
properly and exclusively religious would
any honest inquirer or sincere Christian
wish to see it maintained. That this course
of proceeding is not agreeable to Roman
Catholics we have already observed. They
have used all sorts of weapons to dazzle the
ignorant and superficial, and to secure to
themselves an apparent victory: but on
none do they appear to place so much re
liance as on the imputations which they
incessantly cast on the personal characters
and motives of the reformers, and the ef
fects which, with the blindest injustice, they
persist in attributing to the reformation it
self. What the real importance of these cri
minations may be, and what weight they
ought to have in determining the judgment

LECTURE IL 43
of pious and prudent men, is therefore a
subject in a general point of view entitled
to our serious consideration.
It is natural to wish that the undertakers
and perfecters of every great and good work,
more especially of such as has for its pro
fessed object the glory of God and the spi
ritual good of men, should not only be free
from great blemishes, but, if possible, supe
rior even to the infirmities incident to the
nature of ordinary men ; and if the prin
ciple be not carried to excess, it cannot be
denied that it is reasonable and just to form
our judgment of the motives and intentions
of those, who profess more than a common
zeal in such a cause, by their known cha
racter and conduct in the ordinary relations
of life. It is not only agreeable to the com
mon feelings of mankind to judge by this
rule, but in the second chapter of the Epistle
to the Romans we find St. Paul pointedly
arguing against the hypocrisy of those who
condemned sin in others while they conti
nued in the practice of it themselves. We
see also the same principle exemplified in
its abuse by the insidious policy of the Pha-

44 LECTURE IL
risees, who, when they fotind themselves un
able to impeach the doctrine of our Lord,
calumniated him to the people as ^ a glut
tonous man and a winebibber, a friend of
publicans and sinners, hoping by such slan
derous charges to destroy his influence with
the people, if they could but persuade them
that his life was inconsistent with the cha
racter which he assumed of a teacher sent
from God. In like manner the apostles also
were traduced as disturbers of the public
peace, and subverters of the world ; while
at the same time they afforded not the
slightest pretext for such a charge, but
proved equally by their conduct and their
doctrines, that respect for lawful authority,
of every kind and degree, was enforceji and
cherished by them as a part of religious
duty. It is therefore the less to be won
dered, that the treatment which the re
formers have experienced from Roman Ca
tholic historians and controversialists should
be precisely similar in kind. But indeed
the animosity with which the most vene-
^ Luke vii. 34.

LECTURE IL 45
rable names among them are still attacked,
and the rancour with which every anti
quated charge is repeated against them,
however suspicious or improbable the ori
ginal grounds of it may be, afford a melan
choly proof how soon the principles of true
religion are forgotten, when men give them
selves up to the blind intemperance of a bi
goted spirit, while at the same time they
furnish a strong presumption against the
general credibility of those accusations,
which were alleged against them by con
temporary writers ; who, in addition to the
heat of so great a controversy, were ani
mated by feelings of personal resentment,
or allured by prospects of ambition, to sig
nalize their zeal against the authors of a
change which portended such a diminution
of their own influence and power. Against
such calumnious attacks the characters of
the reformers in general, both in this and
other countries, have been abundantly vin
dicated, where at least freedom of discus
sion is not precluded by the power and po
licy of their adversaries.
And though we claim not for the re-

46 LECTURE IL
formers of our own church an exemption
from human failings, we have just cause to
bless God for the grace bestowed on them,
when we contemplate the examples which
they have left us of piety and zeal, as well
as of patient fortitude, in supporting the
dreadful sufferings through which, like the
first Christians, they were doomed to pass
in the execution of their holy enterprise.
And if some of those, whose memory is
most dear and venerated among us, exhi
bited, under the near prospect of fiery trials,
something of human weakness, instead of
insulting their memories with envenomed
malignity, as too many of those have con
tinued to do, who have succeeded to the
inheritance of those tenets and principles
against which they contended unto blood,
it would better become them to lament the
cruel excesses of their predecessors, and to
disclaim any community of feeling with
men, who, whether instigated by polemic
rage, or a still more detestable spirit of
worldly policy, outwent the barbarity of
pagan persecutions under the cloke of reli
gious zeal. But the bitter calumnies in-

LECTURE II. 47
vented and continually repeated against the
leaders of the reformation, are not only un
worthy of any cause which good men may
espouse, but have recoiled upon those who
have condescended to employ them, as false
representations generally do, and by their
extravagance have refuted themselves. For
if we admit, for the sake of argument, that
the reformers were such as their enemies
have painted them", it must necessarily fol
low, that they could have had no adherents,
unless among the most worthless members
of society, a fact which even their accusers
have not yet ventured to affirm, and in the
next generation both themselves and their
reformation could have been remembered
only to be abhorred.
A short-lived enthusiasm has often been
excited in favour of a bad cause, and the
leaders and abettors of imposture have en
joyed the misplaced applause of their own
generation. But truth and reason must in
time resume their empire, and impartial
^ Vide passim Bossuet's Variations of Protestants, Mil
ner's End of Controversy, and Butler's Book of the Ro
man Catholic Church.

48 LECTURE IL
posterity seldom fails to atone for the m-.
justice and folly of preceding times, and to
stamp, according to their respective merits,
the opposing champions of every denomina
tion ; and yet it is certain, that, after the *
most rigid scrutiny into their conduct and
principles, the chiefs of the reformation
have lost nothing of that veneration which
the suffrages of former generations had
awarded them ; and the railing accusations
of their adversaries have been more inju
rious to the reputation of their authors,
and the cause in support of which such im
moral means have been employed, than of
those against whom they have been directed.
But, after all that can be said on either
side, of what value is this personal argu
ment in deciding the merits of the reform
ation ? While the Roman pontiffs arrogate ^
to themselves such powers and prerogatives
as are shocking to Christian piety, and claim
little less than the attributes of Divinity, it
might indeed be reasonably expected, that
they should at all times be free at least
from gross vices, and eminent in religious
and moral virtue. And yet, though the

LECTURE IL 49
contrary is most notorious with respect to
many of 'them, and among the rest concern
ing him who filled the papal chair when
first Luther rose up in opposition to his
spiritual domination, no rational protestant
would ever think that alone a sufficient
justification of the conduct of so many
Christian communities in rejecting his au
thority, and renouncing the fellowship of
the Romish church ; and still less could it
be pleaded in vindication of the continu
ance of that separation, if causes of infi
nitely greater moment than the personal
merits or demerits of any individual, or
number of individuals, at any given time,
had not determined them to adopt it, and
to persist in maintaining it. The duty of
preserving the unity of the body of Christ
is too strongly enforced in scripture to
admit the breach of it, unless the preserva
tion of truth and holiness demand it ; and
unless we can prove to our Roman Catholic
brethren, that our reformation was con
ducted and perfected upon that principle,
we must submit to bear the reproach of
heresy and schism, which they so unspar-
E

50 LECTURE IL
ingly cast upon us, and acknowledge our
selves guilty of criminal contumacy in re
fusing allegiance to their spiritual head.
But if, while we venerate the memory of
those who conducted our reformatioli; we
ground not that great work upon their per
sonal merits, nor place any reliance on the
notorious corruptions of the Romish hier
archy, at that period, in vindication of it,
unless in so far as those corruptions were
the natural or necessary consequence of
their system of religion, we must not suffer
them, on their side, to convert that which
is altogether a question of principles into a
personal dispute, nor to attack the reforma
tion itself through the real or imputed
faults and imperfections of any of its ad
vocates. Still less must we allow the con
duct of princes or statesmen, who may have
been influenced by worldly respects, by re
sentment, cupidity, or ambition, in adopting
or defending it, to have any weight in de
termining our judgment concerning it.
The despotic violence of that prince,
whose quarrel with the see of Rome first
made an opening for the reformation in

LECTURE II. 51
this country, has but an accidental con
nection with the reformation itself. It can
not be supposed that a man of his character
was much influenced by religious feelings
in the inconsistent conduct which he pur
sued, alternately formidable to its friends
and its enemies ; and it is probable that he
espoused it principally because it favoured
his purpose of emancipating his own sove
reignty from the spiritual supremacy of the
pope, and possessing himself of the enor
mous wealth which superstitious delusion
or mistaken piety had heaped upon the
monastic orders. Whatever his measures
were, he acted under the influence of his
own policy or passion ; and when Roman
Catholics attempt to bring forward his con
duct a,s an argument against the reforma
tion of our national church, it is little less
than an acknowledgment, that on religious
grounds they find it unassailable ; while, at
the same time, if there was any value in
recrimination, we might retort with tenfold
severity the massacres and persecutions
committed by Roman Catholic sovereigns
in almost every country of Europe, at the
E 2

52 LECTURE IL
instigation of Romish ecclesiastics, and even
of the popes themselves, and seconded by
their warmest applause. Not a few such
unhappy princes, misled by their spiritual
guides, have earned for themselves an im
mortality of infamy, scarcely exceeded by
that of the most cruel heathen persecutors
of the church'; but which ought to attach,
in an aggravated degree, to the memory
of those faithless ministers of rehgion, of
whose spiritual wickedness they were the
deluded, but not guiltless instruments.
But whatever advantage, in respect to the
personal merits of the friends and enemies
of the reformation, might result from such
a comparison, to the protestant cause — and
a greater could not well be desired — we re
ject it altogether, as irrelevant to the sub
ject of debate between us.
The truth of God will stand, though all
men should be found liars ; and what is
essentially good cannot be depraved by the
perverseness of those who abuse it. In
f Such as our unhappy Mary, Francis the First, Phi
lip the Second, Charles the Ninth, Lewis the Fourteenth,
&c. Charles Emanuel of Savoy, &c.

LECTURE IL 53
every other case this principle is admitted.
We do not therefore reject, as false or use
less, the moral philosophy of the Socratic
school, because many who made profession
of it were untrue to their own principles,
and led immoral lives ; nor would it be less
unreasonable to condemn indiscriminately
the entire system of religion professed in
the church of Rome, because its highest
places have sometimes been filled by bad
men, or even reputed infidels ; and many of
its external defenders have had little other
proof of faith to shew, except that very
equivocal one of persecuting zeal, against
such as popes and councils had marked out
for destruction with the stigma of heresy,
if the system itself was sound and good.
It is certainly time, and much to be desired,
that all such causes of animosity should be
buried in oblivion, if we were not com
pelled, by the pertinacity of our opponents,
to refer to them for the purpose of refuting
misrepresentations, which they are still too
industrious to propagate.
But the paramount question of the ne
cessity and' effects of the reformation must
E 3

54 LECTURE IL
be considered and determined in total dis
tinction from the merits of individuals;
and the secondary causes, of whatever kind,
which operated to advance or impede its
progress. It is not in the world, but in the
church, that we must look for the condem
nation or justification of it. If the pre
viously existing state of religion, both in
principle and practice, was conformable to
the true spirit of Christianity ; if essential
truth was preserved, and not defiled by the
intermixture of falsehood, and additions of
human invention ; if articles of faith were
not imposed as necessary to salvation, for
which the support of divine authority is
nowhere to be found ; if the modes of wor
ship used in the church were pure and spi
ritual ; if the sacraments appointed by our
Lord Jesus Christ were faithfully ministered
according to his institution ; if the doctrine
of the gospel was truly preached, and the
faith once delivered to the saints inculcated
diligently and without disguise ; then, in
deed, whatever corruption of life and man
ners may have attached to the rulers of the
church, we will admit that no adequate

LECTURE IL 55
cause existed for a perpetual separation
from their communion.
But if the contrary to all these supposi
tions were true ; if, in the ages of ignorance
which followed the downfal of the Roman
empire and the extinction of learning, such
depravations had either been introduced
into religion through the policy of church
men, or had imperceptibly crept in during
that long period of darkness, that when the
light of reason began again to dawn upon
a benighted world, men became sensible of
the deformity which through such causes
had been brought upon religion, the neces
sity of reformation must be admitted by
every lover of truth, who believes that reli
gion is not the device of human policy,
which may be changed and accommodated
to the prevalent inclinations of men, but
that it is, in very deed, of divine authority,
and immutable in its doctrines and pre
cepts ; and if, through the blindness or per
verseness of the rulers of the world or the
church, this necessary work could not be
effected with universal consent, then, how
much soever it may be the duty of Chris-
E 4

56 LECTURE IL
tians, in other cases, ta avoid the causes o
disunion, and to sacrifice all personal in
terests and feelings to the preservation o
the church's peace, yet the truth and purit;
of religion, for the guardianship of which thi
church itself was founded, and ever exists
were not to be surrendered to the fear o
disturbing its repose for a season. Fo
unity without sincerity is not the unit;
which our Lord has enjoined upon his foi
lowers, and the sin of schism must for eve
lie at the door of those who make acqui
escence in gross and palpable error the con
dition of remaining in their communion
not of those who refuse to dissemble befon
God, and solemnly to profess concerning
things of the highest and most awful mo
ment, what in their inmost conscience the;
believe to be contrary to his word and will
Upon these grounds the necessity of re
nouncing the church of Rome may be abun
dantly proved.
Nor was it necessary, as we have befor
observed, that the leaders of the reforma
tion should be free from the errors and iu
firmities of human nature.

LECTURE IL 57
They pretended to no new revelation ;
they came not, as it has been insincerely
alleged by their adversaries, to plant a
new religion in the world, but, by the ap
plication of that rule which the divine
Wisdom has provided for the perpetual re
medy against all corruptions through all
ages, to free that which was planted at the
first by Christ and the apostles, from the
mass of extraneous and incongruous matter
by which it had been darkened and over
loaded, and to exhibit it again in that
beauty of holiness and simplicity of truth,
by which its influence over pious and can
did minds is most firmly and beneficially
established. To accomplish this, it was not
necessary that the Almighty should raise
up men endowed with supernatural powers,
or exhibiting, in any way, proofs of an ex
traordinary mission from him. Nor did
the reformers lay claim to such a character.
Zeal, sincerity, and firmness, with a com
petent share of learning, and an intimate
knowledge of holy scripture, were the espe
cial qualifications which their undertaking
demanded ; and the proof that they were

58 LECTURE II.
instruments in the hand of God for achiev
ing the great work to which they had de
voted all their energies, and for the sake o
which they subjected themselves to evil
from which the weakness of human natur(
shrinks, must be sought in the issue o;
their labours, and the restoration of reli
gion which resulted from them ; not in theii
individual characters, nor in their mental
or moral endowments. Indeed, whatever
influence their personal qualities may have
had upon the immediate success of their
endeavours, that is at this time rather mat
ter of historical curiosity than practical im
portance. While we venerate the characters
of our martyred confessors, we build no
thing upon their authority. We do not
make our appeal to them for the decision
of our religious controversies, but, after
their example, to an infinitely higher juris
diction. The foundations of our faith are
precisely the same as they would have been,
if preceding corruptions had never rendered
reformation necessary. We prove nothing
by their dictation, but by the rule of scrip
ture only ; and our faith is built (as that of

LECTURE IL 59
the primitive church was) upon the found
ation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus
Christ himself being the chief corner stone ^.
Nor is the most holy cause of our religion
desecrated, even if it can be proved that the
temporal princes who espoused the reform
ation were determined by worldly reasons
only. We would fain believe, indeed, and have
fair grounds for believing, that their mo
tives in general were laudable and good.
But whether in the part which they per
formed they were actuated by the policy
of Jehu or the piety of Josiah, they were
equally subservient to the cause of religion.
They afforded the most essential assistance
towards the removal of the evils which op
pressed it, by resisting the pretensions of
the pope, and shaking off" his dominion ;
which, wherever it was maintained in un
broken force, rendered all attempts at re
formation hopeless of success, and destruc
tive to their authors. Death, confiscation,
and imprisonment, were every where array
ed against them. They were hunted down
S Eph. ii. 20.

60 LECTURE IL
as heretics on the one side, and devoted to
destruction, as enemies to the civil authority,
on the other ; and so long as the temporal
and ecclesiastical powers were confederated
by the bonds of a common interest against
every attempt to correct error and remove
corruption, the evil was without remedy.
Whatever, therefore, the particular causes
of their disagreement may have been, it
was clearly for the advantage of true reli
gion that a field was opened for its ad
vocates by the mutual opposition of its ene
mies ; and far from its bringing reproach
upon our cause, we have reason to bless
God, and to admire the ways of his provi
dence, who made those who least intended
it instrumental to its advancement, by ex
citing the jealousy of the temporal sove
reign against the encroachments of the spi
ritual usurper, and inflaming the rapacity
of the one against the unhallowed exactions
of the other.
The remaining objection to the reform
ation, which it was proposed at present to
notice, relates to its effects ; which its ad
versaries assert to have been altogether in-

LECTURE IL 61
jurious to religion, and productive of no
thing but anarchy and confusion ; and in
support of this charge, they rely chiefly
upon the discrepancy of doctrine between
the reformed churches in general, and the
variations which have taken place in the
confessions of faith set forth by some of
them in particular at different periods.
This has been exhibited as a most tri
umphant argument against the reformation
generally, and has been urged with great
plausibility, and concocted with infinite ar
tifice, by its most subtle and inveterate ene
mies, as a decisive termination of the con
troversy in their favour. They tell us that
while protestants have almost as many dif
ferent confessions of faith as there are dif
ferent churches among them, catholic unity
is every where preserved inviolable under
the papal system, and that there is not an
iota of difference between the adherents
of the sovereign pontiff" from " ^ Ireland to
" Chili, from Canada to India" and China;
from whence they infer that their church
is guided by the Holy Spirit, but that all
h Milner, Part II. Letter 16.

62 LECTURE IL
who do not symbolize with it are given up
to the spirit of delusion.
Formidable as this argument may look
at first view, it will be evident, on a nearer
inspection, that a weaker could hardly be
constructed in support of a baseless cause.
That this boasted unity does exist in the
Romish church, we may admit without giv
ing them any advantage; for all, in fact,
which is proved by it, if true, is that which
protestants have always objected to them
as a reproach ; i. e. that under their system
submission to authority has been substituted
for faith, and uniformity of ignorance pre
ferred to the investigation of truth. And
since the right of private judgment is ex
orcised among them, as something in its
very nature monstrous and impious, it is
no more to be wondered that no difference
of opinion subsists where no man is allow
ed to have an opinion, than that the blind
should not dispute concerning colours, nor
the deaf concerning sounds; and it is for
want of that wholesome spirit of discussion
and inquiry, which is equally consistent
with sincere piety and Christian liberty.

LECTURE IL 63
that popery has subsided into a stagnant
pool of corruption, to which no gale from
Heaven imparts motion, and which no
healthful current pervades and purifies.
They glory in the total surrender of their
reasoning faculties to their earthly head.
They deem it a sufficient account of their
faith " ' to believe what the church be-
" lieves," and if we look into the constitu
tion of the church, in the sense which they
attribute to it, and trace the whole chain of
dependence from the lowest link to the
highest, we shall find at last that one fal
lible mortal vainly pretending to infallibi
lity, thinks, believes, prescribes, and deter
mines, in all points of religion, for every
member of his communion ; while they on
their part receive whatever he ordains with
the passive uniformity of instinct. Accord
ing to the most recent and moderate ^ as-
sertor of the pope's pretensions in this coun
try, " his judgment in all cases connected
" with religion is final." He is in fact the
living oracle of the church, the dictator of
• Milner, Part II. Letter 16.
^ Butler, Book of Roman Catholic Church, p. 122.

64 LECTURE IL
its faith, and the Lord over God's heritage,
an assumption disallowed indeed by St.
Peter, (1 Ep. v. 3.) from whom the Roman
pontiffs audaciously pretend to derive their
spiritual sovereignty ; and as if the know
ledge of divine things was confined by geo
graphical limits, and no more than a re
flected ray of it shone on this side the
Alps, we are told, without a blush, " ' that
" when Rome has spoken, the cause is de-
" termined." That protestants, on the other hand, have
too often abused the right of free judgment,
is undoubtedly true, and greatly to be la
mented. But which of the most excellent
gifts of God has not been abused by the
folly and perverseness of men ? and yet it
has not been deemed necessary on that ac
count by the divine Wisdom to withdraw
them, or to impose any other than moral
restraints on the use of them. And so it is
in religion. For every gift of nature or
grace we are responsible to the almighty
Giver. They are talents committed to our
charge, for the use of which we must one
1 Butler, Book of Roman Catholic Church, p. \22.

LECTURE IL 65
day give account, and of none a more awful
account, than of the right, or, to speak more
properly, the duty of judging for ourselves
concerning those things which we are re
quired to believe and do, as the conditions
of eternal salvation.
And though individuals may irreverently
abuse it to their own great danger, their
folly does not defeat the gracious purpose
of God, nor make any sensible diminution
of the aggregate good which through the
right use of it accrues to religion.
Nor is it any disparagement to the re
formation, that temporary or even perma
nent differences have subsisted between the
reformed churches respectively, or that few
if any of them have retained without vari
ation the formal confessions which they
adopted at their first separation from Rome.
What has been said of the reformers indi
vidually may be equally applied to the re
formed churches collectively. For neither
do we claim infallibility, which we hold to
be the prerogative of God alone, and such
as cannot be assumed by human beings
without extreme impiety.

66 LECTURE IL
It is therefore a futile objection to say,
that some have given up, as uncertain or
unnecessary, points which, in the heat of
controversy, they viewed in a different light,
or that they have not yet been able to come
to a perfect agreement among themselves re
ciprocally concerning all things which they
retain and deem of perpetual obligation.
Whoever will but candidly consider the
nature of their differences will find, that
they relate, for the most part, not to essen
tial articles of Christian faith, but to ab
struse and difficult points, concerning which
it would always be most wise to reason with
the greatest moderation, and to exercise the
greatest mutual forbearance.
But when religious controversy occupied
every mind, and the smallest shades of dif
ference were magnified into importance by
the heat of disputation, it was scarcely pos
sible to leave such points untouched; and
it is no just reproach to the protestant
churches, that they have not been deter
mined by all alike.
Perfect unanimity on subjects of so eva
nescent and subtle a nature is unattainable

LECTURE II. 67
in our present state of infirmity, and could
only be the result of perfect knowledge,
which is superior to all error, or of submis
sive ignorance, which indolently admits for
truth whatever by assumed authority is
boldly declared to be so. Speculative ques
tions, however, were as vehemently and dis
cordantly debated among the schoolmen
before the reformation, as they have been
by those who have adopted its principles
since ; and although they are now insisted
upon as proofs that the protestant churches
are disowned and forsaken of God, yet so
long as those who were engaged in such
disputes were agreed in submission to the
authority of Rome, all minor differences
were little regarded. But not only do these
partial dissensions among protestants afford
no dangerous ground of objection to their
opponents ; it may be even doubted whe
ther the most perfect union among them
could have produced equal benefit to re
ligion. The representations which history gives
of the general ignorance of the people con
cerning religion before the reformation, are
r 2

68 LECTURE il.
too well attested to admit a doubt in the
main, even if some particulars should be
overcharged. For the same state of igno
rance is still seen to keep its ground, where
no form of Christianity is tolerated but that
of the church of Rome. In those countries
no ray of light is seen to pervade the gross
darkness in which the body of the people
are involved; but superstition retains an
undiminished hold upon minds studiously
kept in lethargic inactivity, and no alterna
tive is left but unlimited credulity or total
unbelief; while in protestant countries, by
the natural consequences of discussion and
inquiry, the knowledge of religion has been
widely diffused, and an active zeal excited
to extend its influence, and impart the
means of instruction to every class of the
community, so that ignorance is almost left
without excuse ; and without claiming a
miraculous exertion of divine power in for
warding the reformation, we need not hesi
tate to affirm, that a blessing has visibly at
tended it, and that it has been proved by
its fruits to be conducive to the glory of
God and the happiness of man.

LECTURE IL 69
But our more immediate concern is the
vindication of our own church against the
calumnies with which it is still assailed by
those whose corruptions it has renounced.
It is indeed a source of gratification, as
well as a ground of confidence, to every
sound member of the protestant episcopal
church, established in this country, to ob
serve how timid and reluctant its Roman
Catholic adversaries are to engage in a con
test of fair argument against it.
Its doctrines and discipline they feel to
be unassailable, and it is chiefly through
the sides of others that they seek to wound
it. This uncandid policy, unworthy of a
religious cause, has been pursued by the
most subtle and inveterate of its adversaries
from the time when our church obtained a
final settlement to the present day. Avail
ing themselves of the loose sense in which
the name of Protestant is used, as the com
mon designation of all those who reject the
papal supremacy, and having culled toge
ther all the absurdities, follies, or impieties,
of which the several sects calling themselves
Protestants have been guilty, they charge
F 3

70 LECTURE IL
upon all collectively a participation of the
same guilt ; and by means of this dishonest
artifice, impute to us the corruptions of
Arians, Socinians, Unitarians, and have not
even blushed to attribute to us a common
origin with Manicheans, and whatever else
is most odious in the list of ancient and
modern heresies. No doubt they have
deemed it expedient, for the perpetuation
of their own system, to raise such a mist of
prejudice around us, as should deter their
remaining adherents from looking into our
principles, and judging for themselves ; and
it is for the same reason that they presume
to pronounce us excluded from the hopes
of eternal salvation, to which they say that
none can be admitted who are not com
prised within the pale of their own church,
unless (the sole exception which they allow)
in the case of invincible ignorance'. To
those who have not this to plead for not
seeking reconciliation with the church of
Rome, they denounce, in the unregenerate
spirit of blind uncharitableness, inevitable
' Roman Catholic Catechism ; Papal Bull of Indiction.
Milner, Part III. Lett. 50, in conclusion.

LECTURE IL 71
perdition, from which neither faith, nor
works, nor sufferings for Christ's sake, can
deliver them ; while at the same time they
acknowledge, and even urge it as an argu
ment against them, that protestants are not
guilty of the same unchristian arrogance in
return". God forbid that we should ever
cease to be entitled to an acquittal from
the guilt of following such an example !
Our concern is not to render railing for
railing, nor to arm against us the feelings
of those whose reason, with God's blessing,
we would much rather convince.
Abstaining, therefore, as much as may be
from all such topics, and considering those
against whom we argue as brethren in Christ,
and adversaries only in the maintenance of
what we conscientiously believe to be great
and dangerous errors concerning some heads
of that divine faith, in the general profes
sion of which we are both agreed, I shall
proceed, as I proposed, to a review of the
most prominent of those causes which first
rendered our separation from the church of
Rome necessary, and which still render a
"» Milner, Part III. Lett. 50. Conclusion.
F 4

72 LECTURE II.
reunion with it utterly impossible. One
prehminary objection which they uniformly
urge against all protestant churches, and
which, if valid in its full extent, would for
ever be conclusive against all reformation,
it may however be convenient previously
to examine. And as this objection is inti
mately connected with some of the most
obnoxious characteristics and inadmissible
pretensions of the church of Rome, the ex
amination of it will be but an apparent di
gression from the intended course of our ar
gument ; while at the same time it will tend
towards the conclusion at which we aim.
This shall form the main business of the
next Lecture. Amen.
Note. The term " Papist," sometimes, though rarely,
occurring in these Lectures, to avoid circumlocution, is
not applied with any intentional disrespect to the mem
bers of the church of Rome, who prefer being styled
" Catholics." But this appellation, in the exclusive sense
in which they claim it, no well instructed protestant can
ever concede to them. And after all, it seems rather in
consistent, that the professed adherents of the pope should
object to be so designated. In like manner " Popery" is
used for the sake of brevity, and at the same time as most
properly characteristic of that form of Christianity, in
which subjection to the pope is declared to be necessary
to salvation.

LECTURE IIL

Matthew x. 37, 38.
JHe that loveth father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me : and he that loveth son or
daughter more than me is not worthy qf me.
And he that taketh not his cross, and follow
eth after me, is not worthy of me.
xHE preliminary objection advanced by
papists against the reformation, to which I
alluded at the close of my last Lecture,
may be most conveniently considered in
subordination to the principle asserted in
the text. We there learn, from the figu
rative expressions of our Lord, thrice re
peated with increasing emphasis, that there
is no tie of nature so sacred or so tender,
which must not give way to the demands
of our duty towards him ; no sacrifice of
worldly interest or security, which we may
refuse to make,. if such an evidence be re
quired to prove that we are truly his dis
ciples. And as he himself professed before

74 LECTURE IIL
Pilate, that the very end for which he came
into the world was, that he might bear wit
ness to the truth, it clearly follows, that we
cannot sincerely love him, if we are indif
ferent to the truth which he came to teach;
or, if we suffer any worldly considerations
to prevail upon us to reject it, or to con
tinue in error, which we perceive to be
such, especially if it be of such a nature as
to vitiate our faith or worship, and at the
same time so palpable, that the honest ex
ercise of a plain understanding is sufficient
to detect it.
It was therefore in vain for Jews or Pa
gans to be, as we read in the gospel that
many of the former were, secretly his dis
ciples, while they were restrained by regard
to their temporal interests or the world's
opinion, from avowing their faith, and ac
knowledging him before men for their Mas
ter. So likewise in this maturity of the
religion of which he was then the preacher^
it must be in the highest degree dangerous,
from the same interested inducements, to
dissemble our conviction, and to decide be
tween the conflicting claims of different

LECTURE IIL 75
churches or sects, in favour of that which
is recommended by secular advantage only,
or party prejudice, or any other imaginable
motive of preference, except the unfeigned
love of Christian truth.
The fervours of enthusiasm are at the
same time not less to be guarded against
than worldly affections ; and our Christian
liberty must be exercised with cautious hu
mility and dispassionate moderation.
Good intentions are no excuse for pre
sumptuous ignorance . attempting to stretch
itself beyond its measure ; and it is utterly
inconsistent with any rational notion of true
piety to stir up dissension for trivial causes,
and to hazard the interruption of that peace
and charity, which the commands of our
divine Master, and the exhortations of his
apostles, require all Christians to cultivate,
unless when the still more important obli
gation of maintaining the essential doctrines
of Christianity whole and undefiled, cannot
otherwise be fulfilled.
Then only the evils of discord and tem
porary confusion are to be encountered, in
the hope that they may be again healed,

76 LECTURE IIL
and that all who are sincere in faith and in
the study after truth, may in God's good
time be reunited in the undissembied pro
fession of it.
It is only by a faithful and conscientious
application of these principles that a duti
ful and necessary interruption of religious
communion can be distinguished from sec
tarian levity and presumption.
Human passions and worldly reasonings
must not be allowed to have any weight in
determining the judgment concerning spi
ritual things. Christianity, if allowed to
have its proper influence in human affairs,
by purifying the affections, calming the pas
sions, and correcting the moral sentiments
of men, is not only consistent with their
temporal happiness, but is alone capable of
advancing it to the highest degree of per
fection compatible with our present state
of existence. But to effect this, it must
lead, not follow ; it must be to things tem
poral what the rational soul is to the body,
the pervading and governing principle ; and
any attempt to render it subservient to poli
tical convenience or civil institutions, while

LECTURE III. 77
it can have no other consequence than that
of defiling its purity and diminishing its
efficacy, is but a modification of that sinful
insincerity, against which our Saviour warns
us, of attempting to serve God and mammon.
No sincere and sober-minded Christian,
therefore, will ever be influenced by such
considerations in embracing the form of
faith and doctrine, through which he hopes
to obtain everlasting salvation ; and far from
catching at frivolous pretexts for leaving
that which he has previously believed to
be the true and acceptable way of serving
God, he will adopt the resolution of so
doing rather as a painful alternative, upon
a full and deliberate conviction that he can
no longer safely or innocently continue in
it. Upon these principles our own renun
ciation of the church of Rome must be
judged. If the grounds of our disagreement are
of questionable certainty, or relate to things
indifferent or of small moment, the sin of
schism, with all its contingent and probable
consequences of heresy and uncharitable
ness, rests upon us. If, on the contrary.

78 LECTURE III.
the maintenance of the vital purity of our
religion demanded our secession from that
church, it was then an act of indispensable
duty to adopt it, and in perfect unison with
the fundamental maxim of obeying God ra
ther than man, and shewing our love for
Christ by keeping his commandments, in
stead of putting our trust in beings like
ourselves, and subjecting our faith to their
dictation. The force of historic truth has compelled
the most strenuous advocates of Rome to
acknowledge that many abuses and depra
vations of religion existed in the church,
when first Luther broke the slumbers of
the Christian world; and while they load
the reformers with obloquy, they virtually
admit the necessity of reformation. The
admissions of individuals, however, are not
wanted to strengthen our cause.
Before its unexpected commencement in
Germany, reformation had already been de
clared necessary by the highest authorities
in the church itself, even by popes and
councils ; and when that crisis had arrived,
it was demanded, with an almost unanimous

LECTURE IIL 79
cry through every nation in Europe, as well
those who finally adhered to the papal power,
as those which renounced it, as the sole re
medy for the evils of the church ; and that,
too, of no narrow compass or superficial
character, but such as, in the language of
the time, should comprehend both the
" head and members," and be applied to
every point of doctrine and discipline. It is
equally certain that nothing but the dread
of a general rejection of his authority, cou
pled with a hope of allaying, by an appear
ance of equity, the irritation which was be
coming every day more violent, and avert
ing the impending danger, at length de
termined the *pope, who at that time go
verned the church, (himself one of the most
crafty and subtle of men,) in deference to
the earnest solicitations and menacing re
monstrances of the most powerful princes
of Christendom, to call a general council of
the church at Trent, for the declared pur
pose of extinguishing heresies and reform
ing the church. But whoever shall review
the proceedings of that servile assembly,
a Paul III.

80 LECTURE IIL
composed for the most part of the creatures
and dependents of the pope, and influenced
by him in all their measures, will clearly
perceive that two things only were seriously
aimed at, and effectually accomplished by
it ; first, the prevention of that reformation,
which was the professed object of their
meeting ; and, secondly, the plenary con
firmation of the pope's power, wherever it
was still acknowledged; although the dimi
nution of it was considered by all, who were
sincerely concerned for the welfare of reli
gion*", and as the event has fully proved,
most justly considered, to be the first and
most necessary step towards the removal of
every corruption, and the redress of every
grievance. But while the advocates of the church of
Rome are constrained to admit that many
evils had crept into it which needed correc
tion, they utterly deny to those who at
tempted to apply the remedy, the merit of
good intention, and attribute all their ef
forts in opposition to the sovereign pontiff"
^ Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent, p.
550. ed. 1676, Brents translation.

LECTURE IIL 81
to an ambitious and disobedient spirit, ex
cited to such an undertaking by the spi
ritual enemy of mankind. They will not
allow the possibility of a separation from
the church of Rome ever being either ne
cessary or justifiable under any circum
stances ; since, as they pretend, the promise
of infallibility, exclusive salvation, and va
rious other high and inalienable privileges
belong to it, so that to forsake its commu
nion, and to refuse submission to its au
thority, is nothing less than to rebel against
God, to renounce Christ, and to incur a
more dreadful guilt than that of the most
heinous transgression of divine or human
laws, from the consequences of which the
combination of all moral and religious vir
tue can afford no exemption.
Assuming, but not attempting to prove
by reason or the evidence of fact, that their
church enjoys those singular and exclusive
prerogatives by the perpetual gift of God,
they argue, a priori, that in all controver
sies of religion she must be right, and all
who oppose her wrong ; that although the
relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline, or the

82 LECTURE IIL
corruption of manners, or abuses in the
temporal administratioh' of their church,
might have required correction, yet in mat
ters of faith and doctrine that she could
not err ; and therefore that the protestants,
in renouncing their allegiance to her on ac
count of imputed errors and corruptions of
religion, were guilty of the deadly sins of
heresy and schism.
This is the preliminary objection to the
reformation, which it was my intention to
notice upon the present occasion ; not that
it deserves notice from any value of its own,
nor that it can be necessary to expose its
fallacy to those who have the scriptures in
their hands, and are permitted to read and
understand them in their plain and obvious
sense ; but because the groundless assump
tions on which it is founded are so charac
teristic of the general spirit of the Romish
church, and prove so clearly the utter hope
lessness of internal reformation in a church
so constituted, which by its own extrava
gant pretensions is tied to the defence of
the grossest errors. In opposition to the
schismatic conduct, as they denote it, of the

LECTURE IIL 83
protestant refowLgrs, popish writers tell us
of the pious Mdness and holy severity
with with which St, Bernard, St. Francis,
and other canonized luminaries of their
church, arraigned the vices of the several
ages in which they lived, neither respect
ing the persons of the great and powerful,
nor fearing to incur their displeasure by
openly rebuking them ; who yet were never
carried away by the intemperance of their
zeal to attempt a separation between the
head and members of the church, but were
distinguished by their dutiful obedience to
the apostolic see, and their exertions to
promote its honour and authority.
Now admitting for argument's sake, that
the praises bestowed on these celebrated
personages, who in times of overwhelming
ignorance and gross immorality were dis
tinguished by superior piety and know
ledge, were justly merited, we may yet be
permitted to ask, what were the fruits of
their endeavours to reform the world, whe
ther by reproof, instruction, or example?
Did they change the face of rehgion and
morals in any one nation ? Did they in any
G 2

84 LECTURE III.
one region of the Christian world exter
minate the superstition by which the whole
was overspread? or were they in their own
persons free from its influence ? or was their
piety of that pure and enlightened charac
ter, which may be considered as the legiti
mate offspring, and correct illustration of
those spiritual doctrines, which- our Lord
and his apostles delivered to mankind?
That God never so totally forsook his
church, but that in the worst and dark
est ages individuals arose, who did honour
to human nature, and exhibited in their
lives the power of divine grace, is a truth
which, as I have before remarked ", we may
admit in its fullest extent, without the least
prejudice to the cause of the reformation,
or at all strengthening the hands of its ad
versaries. Without doubt there were many such,
men at least of pious minds and good in
tentions, in proportion to the measure of
their knowledge ; just as in the darkest pe
riods of states and empires, we sometimes
meet with individuals of exalted virtue, who
"= First Lecture.

LECTURE IIL 85
»
would have done honour to their best and
most splendid eras. But these rare excep
tions do not at all affect the main question,
which is not to be determined by solitary
particulars, but h^ a comprehensive view of
the aggregate whole. And yet even of those,
whose religious virtues are so highly ex
tolled by Roman Catholics, the names are
scarcely to be found in general history, so
little was the state of the world influenced
by them ; but the monuments of their praise
must be sought for the most part, in the ob
scurity and uncertainty of monastic records.
The efforts, too, of their zeal were princi
pally employed in renovating the decayed
discipline of preexisting religious orders, or
in founding new ones ; which, indeed, was as
much an object of emulation with the more
fervent spirits of those ages, as the founding
of new sects has been with similar characters
in later times ; but the general reformation
of the public religion rarely if ever entered
into their contemplation. Nor was the ex
ample of the austerities which they affected',
too nearly resembling those of certain orders
= Vide passim Butler's Lives of the Saints.
G 3

86 LECTURE IIL
of pagan priests'", from whom it is difficult to
believe that they were not originally borrow
ed, likely to make a favourable impression
on the minds of men in general, or to con
tribute to the advancemeht of religion, the
perfection of which was made to consist in
such self-inflicted sufferings. For such acts
of religion, if they could deserve the name,
are utterly incompatible with the ordinary
duties of life, the due performance of which
constitutes so essential a part of true reli
gion ; and if worthy of imitation, could be
imitated only in the seclusion of the clois
ter, to which, indeed, all ideas of piety in
those dark ages seem to have been wholly
confined. Those professed ascetics were
moreover the most strenuous assertors of
the pope's universal supremacy, and what
ever dogma or mandate was issued from
Rome, they were ever ready to receive
without question, and to propagate with
the most sedulous efforts of their zeal.
The members of the monastic orders were
then, as they still are in whatever country
^ Barefooted Carmelites, &c. aviTrroTroSsf, ¦ya.u.aiwven, &c.
Horn. II. XVI. 235.

LECTURE IIL 87
they have retained their influence, or re
gained a footing, the indefatigable instru
ments of the papal power, which they make
it their pride to strengthen and extend, and
consider the advancement of it identified
with the reputation of their fraternity, and
consequently with their own individual im
portance. But none of the inveterate errors and
corruptions of religion could be corrected
by men bound by such ties, originating, as
the worst of them did, in the express au
thority of their church, or consecrated by
its sanction ; and when we farther take into
the account the powerful bonds by which
every member of that church is held in
subjection to his spiritual chief, how much
soever reason and conscience may revolt at
particular doctrines or practices, it is evi
dently impossible that any one should
openly dare to call them in question, till he
first felt himself emancipated from that
bondage ^
6 The failure of the Jansenists is a decisive proof of
the impossibility of reforming the church of Rome, while
the sovereignty of the pope is acknowledged.
G 4

88 LECTURE IIL
Reformation, therefore, must have been
for ever renounced as hopeless, or it must
have been undertaken and perfected in de
fiance of that power, whose interest and au-.
thority were directly concerned in the per
petuation of every abuse which it had once
sanctioned, and which however gross it
could not condemn, without at the same
time renouncing its claim to infallibility,
which in less enlightened ages was the pal
ladium of its stren gtli, but is now a mill
stone round its neck. Of this we have the
most conclusive evidence in the undeniable
fact, that not one of the religious corrup
tions, or unscriptural doctrines, or offensive
pretensions, imagined, and asserted by the
pope or church of Rome in any former age,
however injurious to its present interest in
countries where that church is not predo
minant, has ever to this day been openly
condemned or disclaimed; and modes of
worship are still retained, of which the
more enlightened of those who yet observe
them are evidently ashamed, and because
they may not confess an error, strive to paL
liate them by sophistical explanations and

LECTURE IIL 89
groundless apologies ; but are equally un
able to defend them by argument against
the sober objections of sincere Christians,
or the profane irony of infidels. It is al
together incredible that among the multi
tudes in different nations, which still pro
fess unalterable allegiance to the see of
Rome, there should none be found, acute
and enlightened in other respects as many
of her most distinguished partizans have
shewn themselves, who are really sensible
of her gross corruptions in faith and wor
ship, and how necessary it is to the pre
servation of true religion, that these cor
ruptions should at length be removed. Yet
no such sentiment is avowed, but the same
debasing superstition is outwardly acquis
esced in by all ahke, and no medium is al
lowed in the papal system between the un
conditional surrender of the understanding,
nay, the very renunciation both of sense
and reason, and the guilt of infidelity. The
sole measure of right on every disputed
point is the decision of the church ; her
judgment must never be impugned, and to
presume to look beyond it, and to appeal

90 LECTURE IIL
to scripture against the decrees of councils,
or the judical sentence of the living occu
pant of the papal chair, would still subject
the disputant who should presume so far to
exceed the narrow bounds prescribed to his
inquiries, to the imputation of heresy and
the public condemnation of his opinions ;
and in the times preceding the reformation,
would have brought upon him far more
formidable consequences than mere eccle
siastical censures. In fact, the papal power
is still secured against all internal attempts
at reformation, by the worldly minded in
difference or superstitious timidity of its
adherents ; while by its own policy it has de
barred itself from the correction of abuses,
however indefensible, and the adoption of
improvements, however dictated by the in
crease of knowledge and the altered cir
cumstances of the world.
It has taken up a position from which
there is no retreat. " It is infallible, and
i" cannot err ; it has alone the perfect know-
" ledge of the truth, and cannot be deceiv-
" ed ; while all other churches have depart-
" ed from it, whereinsoever they have de-

LECTURE IIL 91
" viated from that system of doctrine and
" discipline, which that of Rome, by her
" assumed right to command, requires all
" Christians to receive and maintain." She
is, to use her own phraseology, the mother
and mistress of all churches, from which
she exacts by divine appointment the im
plicit obedience of dutiful children. She
solves their doubts and represses their dis
putes by her paramount authority, but does
not condescend to reason with them, nor
suffer any point, which has ever been set
tled by her decision to be called in ques
tion. She challenges to herself all the pro
mises of Christ to the universal church, and
denies any participation of them to such
Christians as are not in communion with
her, although they may never have even
heard her name. She asserts that the gift
of the Holy Spirit, which was, according to
the gracious promise of our Lord, to pre
serve and enlighten his people for ever
with the saving knowledge of the truth, is
exclusively hers ; and that to her alone it
belongs, in consequence of this incommuni
cable privilege, to expound whatever is ob-

92 LECTURE III.
scure, and to fix whatever is undefined, in
all things relating to religion.
By means of these inordinate pretensions
she maintains an absolute dominion over
the consciences of those, who believe her
entitled to assert them ; and she can at any
time silence their remonstrances, if they
should presume to think any thing erro
neous in her doctrine or worship, by sim
ply offering them the alternative of silent
acquiescence in what they disapprove, or
excommunication ; which to the apprehen
sion of a true Roman Catholic is equiva
lent to the sentence of eternal perdition;
since nothing is more carefully instilled
into their minds from early infancy, or
more sedulously repeated, whenever an op
portunity can be found for recurring to
it, than that impious pretension of their
church, that even the merits of the death
of Christ will not avail to the salvation of
those who do not believe that the bishop of
Rome is his vicar upon earth, and obey him
accordingly. If, therefore, the reformers were not pre
pared to concede to such extravagant claims,

LECTURE III. 93
separation was unavoidable. If they had
conceded to them, their reformation must
have ended, as all partial attempts had
done before ; and thev would have stood
condemned by their own admission of those
charges of heresy and schism, which the
abettors of the papal power had heaped
upon them. The unbending arrogance with
which the Romish hierarchy assert their
pretensions to dictate in religion to the
whole Christian world, is a remarkable fea
ture in the policy of that church, and was
never more strikingly displayed, than at
the crisis of the reformation ; of which, if
the thing had not been from God, it appears
in the highest degree probable, that the
issue might have been prevented, by a small
show of equity on the part of the church of
Rome, from which it is evident that no se
cession was contemplated, till the violence
and injustice, which were employed to ex
tinguish the first efforts towards the cor
rection of ecclesiastical abuses, had irritated
those who were so harshly treated, and at
the same sime convinced them that their
personal safety, as well as the final success

94 LECTURE IIL
of their undertaking, required a total rejec
tion of that spiritual domination, to which
so many states and kingdoms had till then
yielded implicit obedience.
The ground of controversy was thus con
tinually widened, and animosity inflamed,
by the arrogance with which it was con
ducted on the part of successive popes, who
rejected with judicial blindness every con
ciliatory proceeding, and thought it more
consistent with the character which they as
sumed, of vicegerents of the divine Saviour
of the world and common fathers of the
faithful, to arm subjects and sovereigns
against each other, and to stir up nation
against nation, than to reason where they
had been accustomed to command, to ex
terminate, than endeavour to persuade.
And if an argument was wanted at this
day to convince sober and impartial men,
that the honours assumed and the titles
claimed by the popes could not rightfully
belong to them, a simple enumeration of
the atrocities instigated, abetted, and sanc
tioned by most of those who wore the triple
crown successively for the first century after

LECTURE HI. 95
the reformation, and in many partial in
stances of much later date, for the purpose
of extirpating what they call heresy, would
seem to be most conclusive ; and the in
fatuation of those who still look up to them
as the living representatives of that Saviour
whose first advent was accompanied with
the songs of angels, proclaiming ^ glory to
God in the highest, and on earth peace, good
will toward men, and who professed of him
self, that his kingdom was not of this world,
while they have the opportunity of con
trasting their actions and professions with
the letter and spirit of the gospel, is to be
regarded with equal astonishment and re
gret. But the impolitic violence with which
the reformation was opposed cannot be im
puted to the mere offended jealousy of de
spotic power. In general, there is nothing
in which the court of Rome is less deficient,
than subtle refinement and dexterity in the
management of its own interests, and the
maintenance of its own pretensions. In
many disputes with sovereigns attached to
f Luke ii. 14.

96 LECTURE IIL
its communion, when it has not been able
to obtain all at which it aimed, it has known
how to moderate its demands, and to con
cede with a good grace, rather than risk
the total loss of its authority. But in the
controversies arising out of the reformation,
besides the little importance which it at
tached to the persons of the reformers, men
till then unknown to the world, and who
might well be presumed incapable of mak
ing head against a power with which the
most mighty princes in Christendom had
as yet been unable to contend, without the
certainty of ultimate humiliation or ruin, it
was rendered more precipitate by the con
scious unsoundness of the cause which it
had to defend, and dreaded much more an
appeal to reason and scripture, by which the
baseless foundation of its greatness might
be laid open to a long deluded world, than
any extea-nal shock to which it might be
exposed, without touching the secret of its
strength ; and a partial dismemberment of
its spiritual empire was less to be dreaded,
than a discussion of principles, which would
have endangered the stability of the whole.

LECTURE IIL 97
And accordingly, when the ambassadors
of some protestant princes in Germany, in
deference to the wishes of the emperor
Charles Vth, who hoped that the religious
differences of his empire might be composed
through the means of amicable conference,
had repaired to the council of Trent, it was
haughtily declared by the pope's legate,
who presided in it, " ^ that it was not to be
" suffered, that either they or any other
" protestants should present their doctrine,
" much less be admitted to defend it :
" that it was the office of the fathers" (i. e.
the agents and dependents of the pope, and
deputies of popish princes and states, of
whom the council was composed) " to ex-
" amine their doctrine taken out of their
" own books, and condemn that which did
" deserve it."
In this imperious and unaccommodating
spirit the pretended successors of St. Peter
acted towards the reformers in every coun
try; and they might well vindicate them
selves against the charge of schism, urged
g Council of Trent, 338.
H

98 LECTURE IIL
against them by their adversaries, in the
words of that holy apostle and the rest to
the council at Jerusalem, when they had
forbidden them to speak in the name of
Jesus, '' Whether it be right in the sight of
God to hearken unto you more than unto
God, judge ye. Or as when the same pro
hibition was repeated, with threats in case
of continued disobedience ; We ought to obey
God, rather than men, and consequently to
forsake the society of men who would not
suffer them, according to the dictates of
their own conscience, to fulfil that duty.
On these grounds we may be fully satis
fied, that the separation of our church from
that of Rome was originally necessary and
unavoidable, unless every thing valuable in
religion was to be sacrificed to avert it; and
that the continuance of that separation is
on the same grounds equally necessary at
the present day; and so long as that church
shall persist in retaining her corruptions,
and refuse to see, and understand, and be
converted from the error of her ways, it
^ Acts iv. 19.

LECTURE III. 99
will be impossible that ' those who have been
once enlightened, and have tasted the good
word of God, should reenter her fold, with
out the abandonment of every principle,
which can render the best services of a hu
man being acceptable in the sight of God.
Sometimes, however, forbearing to insist
upon the characteristic principles and high
pretensions of their church, according to
which Roman Catholics are bound to con
tend that a reformation of religion never
could be necessary, and still more, that a
rejection of that church, which claims an
universal supremacy over the household of
faith, could in no circumstances be justifi
able ; her more politic advocates will have
recourse to a more plausible course of argu
ment, and insinuate that the real differ
ences between their church and ours re
spect things of comparatively small mo
ment, and such as in times of less excite
ment, and disjoined from temporal consi
derations, would not have been deemed of
sufficient moment to produce such an issue;
and consequently, that as those adventi-
' Hebrews vi. 4.
H 2

100 LECTURE IIL
tious causes of alienation have now yielded
to the gradual operation of time, their ef^^
fects should cease also, and the breach be
tween us be at length made up by a tacit ac
knowledgment of our error, and a reunion
with the supreme head of the Christian
world, and so the divisions healed, by which
our common faith is endangered.
With a policy not ill adapted to an age
in which men who aspire to be wise in mat
ters of little or no moment, yet think it no
reproach to be ignorant of the first prin
ciples of religion, they will remind us of
various circumstances which might conduce
to such a reconciliation ; " that we hold in
" common with them the same apostolic
" faith conceived in the same form of words,
" that we use not a few. of the same pray-
" ers, that we retain the same apostolic form
" of church government, and observe the ap-
" pointed festivals of the primitive church."
That these are important points of agree
ment, we can have no hesitation to admit.
We rather accept it as the testimony of an
adversary, thus claiming relationship with
us, that in the conduct of our reformation

LECTURE IIL 101
we have been guilty of no rash innovations,
and have indulged no blind antipathies ;
that we have not changed that which stands
on the ground of divine command or apo
stolic institution, to make way for fanciful
improvements, or to accommodate religion
either to state convenience or popular pre
judice. But, fully admitting the fidelity of
this representation, we shall yet perceive,
that it leaves wholly untouched the sub
stantial causes of our disunion with the
church of Rome ; and consequently that it
forms no argument for our return to her
communion, though certainly it affords a
strong one, even upon their own shewing,
for them to reconsider their reasons for
refusing to accede to ours.
On our part, we do not charge them with
having renounced any of the essential ar
ticles of Christian faith, or mutilated the
form, of sound words, in which the profes
sion of it has been made in the church of
God, from the earliest ages of Christianity.
But we do charge them with having made
such additions to the truth, and introduced,
without any admissible authority, such doc-
H 3

102 LECTURE IIL

trines and modes of worship, as m a great
! degree to change the essential character of
'^ the Christian religion, and to render it a
vehicle of darkness and superstition, instead
of that, which in its native purity it ever
must be, a fountain of light and truth, dif
fusing its brightness on every side, and, to
gether with the increase of knowledge, pro
gressively improving the moral state of man
kind. We charge them with teaching for
doctrines the commandments of men, and
exercising over the consciences of Chris
tians such a dominion as the divine Author
of our religion has nowhere empowered his
disciples to assume ; and requiring, under
pain of eternal reprobation, an implicit as
sent to many things which cannot be proved
to be true, and to some which are demon
strably false and inconsistent with the let
ter and spirit of our religion.
The cause of truth may be not less in
jured by addition, than by suppression ; and
in the Old Testament we find the same
prohibition against ^ adding to, or diminish
ing from, the commands of God.
k Deut. xii. 32.

LECTURE IIL 103
Nearly all the corruptions which pro
testants impute to the church of Rome
come from this source, from the presump
tion of adding to that which they believe
already perfect; and the main diffPerence
between the two parties ultimately resolves
itself into this, — that Romanists have a
double rule of faith and morals, scripture
and tradition, which they call the unwrit
ten word of God, while protestants acknow
ledge as such the holy scripture or written
word only. By this alone protestants con
tend that every doctrine must be tried, and
every article of faith established, which is
enjoined upon Christians as necessary to
salvation. Those of Rome, on the other
hand, while they admit that tradition, or
the unwritten word, must not be contrary
to the written, yet claim an equal authority
for it, and contend that scripture is defi
cient in many important particulars, and in
others unintelligible without the help of
tradition. Tradition, being thus assumed
for the key of scripture, is in effect exalted
above it ; and Romish ' writers, of the high-
• Bellarmine, Milner, &c. &c.
H 4

104 LECTURE IIL
est eminence for orthodoxy and skill in the
principles of their church, have not hesi
tated to assert, that the written word of
God was neither perfect nor absolutely ne
cessary, and that tradition, or the unwritten
word, might have sufficed for the know
ledge and maintenance of our religion with
out it.
We see, therefore, notwithstanding the
agreement between the protestant episcopal
church and that of Rome in the first prin
ciples of religion, a church government,
there yet remains a wide diffierence be
tween them, concerning points of great im
portance to faith and practice. Though
starting from the same goal, we proceed on
diverging roads, and under the conduct of
different guides, Scripture and Tradition ;
and it is not to be wondered that we arrive
at very different conclusions.
But the subject of tradition is far too
important to be passed over with a brief
notice. It shall therefore form the main
subject of the next Lecture.
Suffice it for the present to observe, that
whatever may be pretended by the enemies

LECTURE III. 105
of our church, or inconsiderately allowed
by its ill-informed friends, concerning its
resemblance to that of Rome, that resem
blance consists only in such particulars as
are necessary to Christian faith, or in such
institutions as are common to all apostolic
churches, or in such things as are venerable
by ancient usage, and conducive to piety
and holiness. But here the resemblance
ceases ; and those points on which we differ,
are such as the church of Rome has pre
sumed to decide by her own authority
alone, or that of tradition, whatever it be,
without the sanction of scripture.
And in support of this assertion, we have
not only the evidence of legitimate deduc
tion from the writings of her most esteemed
theologians, but the express declaration of
her highest authority in that addition to
the Apostles' Creed, which, subsequent to
the reformation, she imposed, under the
pain of anathema, upon all her members;
and from which, if all other testimony were
wanting, the necessity of that reformation
might be irrefragably proved.
It is difficult, indeed, to contemplate this

106 LECTURE IIL
prodigious monument of infatuated pre
sumption, without, calling to mind the wish
of Job, Oh that mine adversaries had writ
ten a book!
If from the time of the reformation to
the present day the church of Rome had
maintained a cautious reserve, and silently
corrected her most glaring abuses, it might
at length have come to be doubted, whe
ther in the beginning the protestants had
truth and reason on their side : but when
in the plenitude of her arrogance, having
escaped the first shock of the reformation,
and reestablished her spiritual power more
firmly than ever in those nations of Eu
rope which were then accounted most con
siderable, she put forth that supplementary
exposition of her faith ; in equal contempt
of reason and scripture, she gave evidence
against herself of the justice of their accu
sations, which no sophistry can ever shake,
no artifice elude. By this the enemies of
the truth are convicted out of their own
mouths, and that which was intended to
add impregnable strength to the citadel of
superstition, must, unless the scripture be

LECTURE IIL 107
indeed, as some of them have reproachfully
called it, a dead letter, in time effect its
subversion. Thus, we trust, has the final triumph of
pure religion been prepared, through the
counsels which were devised to extinguish
it for ever; and the policy of those who
studied to perpetuate delusion, for the pur
pose of preserving their ill-gotten and im
piously abused power over the ignorance
and fear of mankind, will have turned to
their own confusion.
For which, and for all his spiritual mer
cies, let us bless God, " who taketh the wise
in their own craftiness, and by his holy
word "" giveth light and understanding to the
simple. Amen.
"" Job v. 13. n Psalm cxix. 130.

LECTURE IV.

Matthew xv. 9.
Sut in vain do they worship me, teaching for
doctrines the commandments of men.
We come now to that which I observed
in my last Discourse to be the great head
of difference between our church and that
of Rome, and under which almost all other
differences of substantive importance are
virtually comprehended, " the authority of
" tradition ;" — which Romanists elevate to
an equal rank in all respects with the writ
ten word of God, while we reject it in its
primary sense as apocryphal and superflu
ous ; and in its application, as a rule of faith
and doctrine, superlatively pernicious.
It is scarcely possible, in entering upon
this subject, not to remark the near analogy
between the practice of the modern church
of Rome and that of the Jews, in the time
of our Saviour, in respect to tradition.
The Jews employed it to explain away

110 LECTURE IV.
the precepts of the Mosaic law ; Roman
ists avail themselves of it, to put their own
construction upon holy scripture, which
they affirm to be insufficient, and in many
passages unintelligible, without it. The ef
fect too of tradition, so applied, seems to
have been in both cases essentially the
same, that of diminishing the authority of
scripture, and consequently of weakening
the influence of true religion. The strong
condemnation of it therefore among the
Jews, by our divine Master, who knew what
was in man, the weakness of his judgment
and his proneness to err, ought at least to
render all who profess themselves his dis
ciples very cautious of incurring a similar
censure. Religion, when it presumes to venture
beyond the limits which the wisdom of
God has appointed, of necessity departs
from the standard of truth, and degene
rates into superstition ; and human tradi
tion superadded to divine revelation, like
a parasite plant, exhausts the health and
vigour, and destroys the beauty, of the stem
to which it has attached itself

LECTURE IV. Ill
The traditions of the church of Rome,
in relation to scripture, if tried by their
fruits, will be found to form no exception
to this rule. In the pope's Creed, presump
tuously subjoined to that of the Apostles,
towards the end of the same century in
which the reformation had begun, and in
obedience to his mandate submissively re
ceived throughout the Romish church, the
belief in tradition with good reason occu
pies the first place, inasmuch as it forms
the sole basis of those corruptions of faith
and worship which are imposed upon the
consciences of all who still believe that the
pope is the vicegerent of the Son of God
on earth, and that salvation is the exclu
sive prerogative of the church which owns
him for its head.
The subject of tradition has indeed been
pronounced by the most able divines to be
replete with difficulty; and I have too much
reason to apprehend that I may be cen
sured for presumption in attempting to
handle it ; but yet I feel it to be of such
vital importance to the right understand
ing of the whole question between our

112 LECTURE IV
church and that of Rome, that, however
diffident of my ability to do it justice, I
cannot, consistently with the design of
these Lectures, leave it untouched. It is
not, however, my intention to entangle my
self in unprofitable intricacies, or to at
tempt to unravel the sophistical subtleties
with which Romanists have studied to em
barrass the argument; but to shew, as I
trust, upon plain and substantial grounds,
that it is our duty decidedly to reject it
in its most important aspects, and where
we admit it in any sense, to do so, as our
church has done, with scrupulous caution
and reserve.
To many among the audience which I
am addressing this must be a trite subject,
and I fear that I have nothing to offer
which may be worthy of their attention;
but, if not materially incorrect) it may have
some utility for those who are less advanced
in theological studies ; and if it should but
have the effect of exciting their attention
to a question of great, and, under existing
circumstances, I may add, though without
any political allusion, of growing import-

LECTURE IV. lis
ance, my wishes will not be wholly disap
pointed, nor my humble endeavours in the
cause of true religion altogether abortive.
Now the tradition of the church of Rome
is distinguished by her theologians into
three several kinds, divine, apostolical, and
ecclesiastical ; the first of which, the divine,
they assert to have been delivered by our
Saviour himself to the apostles, but not
committed to writing by them ; the second,
the apostolical, that which was taught by
the apostles to their converts, but is not
contained in their epistles, yet in the oral
communication of which they were not
without the assistance of the Holy Spirit ;
the third, the ecclesiastical, they define to
consist of things established by the usage
of the church, and constitutions, whether
written or unwritten, concerning rites and
ceremonies, ordinances, forms of worship
and discipline ; which, though not of equal
validity with the two former, they hold to
be perpetually and universally binding, un
less repealed by the same authority by
which they were at first enacted. The
divine and apostolical, the one proceeding.

114 LECTURE IV.
as it is asserted, from the immediate dic
tation of Christ himself, the other from the
suggestion of the Holy Spirit, are esteemed
of equal authority, both being in fact di
vine, and derived from the same origin, in
ways but little differing from each other^
and together constitute a rule of faith
which they call the unwritten word, and to
which the same deference is demanded as
to the written word of God.
This, therefore, is the tradition which all
protestants unanimously reject, as destitute
of all proof of authenticity, and on prin
ciples of reason utterly inadmissible. Ec
clesiastical traditions our church (in her
thirty-fourth Article) admits under certain
limitations, and in a sense materially dif
ferent from that in which the church of
Rome understands them ; asserting the
right of every national church to ordain,
change, or abolish such things, as it may
seem best, provided that all things be done
to edifying.
Romanists are at least consistent with
themselves in asserting the insufficiency of
holy Scripture ; since on no other ground

LECTURE IV. 115
can the necessity of that kind of tradition
on which articles of faith and doctrine are
founded, with any semblance of reason or
probability be maintained ; and happily for
the cause of truth, many of the articles
which they pretend to found upon it are
such, that without further examination of
its claims to our acceptation, we should be
justified in rejecting it altogether, as spu
rious and unworthy of the Holy Spirit, to
whose guidance and suggestion they ascribe
it. But omitting for the present any par
ticular notice of these Articles, and weigh
ing according to its own merit whatever is
advanced by the principal advocates of tra
dition in general, we shall find it utterly
unsupported by such evidence as should
induce us to receive it ; while, on the other
hand, we shall clearly perceive in the whole
system connected with it, and the purposes
to which it is applied by the church of
Rome, and even in the arguments adduced
in favour of it by her most eminent contro
versialists, enough to convince us that it is
our bounden duty to refuse our assent to
it, and to regard it with the greatest sus-
1 2

116 LECTURE IV.
picion. Most justly does our church assert',
" that whatever is necessary to salvation
" is contained in holy scripture," and the
same was undoubtedly the sense of every
branch of the universal church, before it
had departed from primitive truth and
sincerity. In proof of this we need not have re
course to the writings of the fathers, to ec
clesiastical history, or controversial argu
ment. An easier, and at the same time a
more satisfactory decision of the point at
issue, seems to lie within the reach of
every man moderately instructed in the
principles of his religion. The three creeds,
which our truly apostolic church has wisely
and dutifully retained, supply an incontro
vertible testimony, which neither party can
hesitate to acknowledge.
To these, therefore, our first appeal a-
gainst the authority of tradition shall be
made. That most venerable symbol of our faith,
which we call the Apostles' Creed, not be-
a Art. VI.

LECTURE IV. 117
cause it was composed by the apostles, such
as we now have it, but because of the apo
stolic doctrine contained in it, has undoubt
edly descended to us from very high anti
quity ; and when it was first drawn up, it
cannot be doubted that it was intended to
express every head of faith which was then
by its authors, and the universal church
which adopted it, deemed necessary to sal
vation. The Nicene Creed expresses, only
in a more enlarged form, and with some
thing more of technical precision, to guard
against heretical sophisms, the same pro
positions as the Apostles' Creed. And, lastly,
the Athanasian, which in a later age had
been deemed necessary, as a more full and
specific enunciation of the same articles of
belief which had been more briefly pro
fessed in the other two, to serve as an ad
ditional security against the continued at
tempts of heresy to pervert the truth, con
tains, like them, not a single article which
is not proved by the authority of holy
scripture, in its plain declarations, or in
just and necessary inferences from them.
At the several periods when these creeds
I 3

118 LECTURE IV.
were compiled, it cannot be admitted as a
possible supposition, that any thing was
left untouched which was judged necessary
to the completion of a true and perfect
Christian faith ; nor in reality is any point
of theology omitted in them, by which our
religion is essentially distinguished from Ju
daism, Deism, or Paganism. It would have
been utterly inconsistent with every pur
pose for which such summaries of faith are
designed, to suppress any article which a
Christian is bound to know and believe to
his soul's health, and by a diligent atten
tion to which he can alone be preserved
from those heretical fallacies by which, in
all ages, the faith of believers has been as
sailed. But what room do we here find for the
interference of tradition, either to vindicate
or elucidate the articles of our creed, every
clause of which is either expressly declared
in the written word of God, or plainly de
ducible from it ? And for the more enlarged
explication of what is there more concisely
affirmed, the ordinary methods of teaching,
such as are proper to the office of a Chris-

LECTURE IV. 119
tian ministry, which appeals to that word
only for the correctness of its instructions,
and assumes to itself no authority above or
independent of it, are abundantly sufficient,
with the grace of God, without having re
course to the auxiliary sanction of an un
written revelation.
If, therefore, the several articles of the
ancient creeds of the church are satisfac
torily proved from scripture alone, and no
extraneous testimony is required for their
support, it seems necessarily to follow, that
tradition is altogether superfluous in the
construction and defence of a pure and
apostolic faith. And, as it is inconsistent
with perfect wisdom to do any thing in
vain, nor do we see any similar redundancy
in the economy either of nature or grace,
by which a plurality of instruments is em
ployed to effect a single purpose, for which
one is evidently sufficient, we are justified
by these considerations, independent of its
intrinsic defects, in rejecting tradition alto
gether, as a ground or criterion of faith.
The next great purpose of our religion,
after that of inculcating a right faith to-
I 4

120 LECTURE IV.
wards God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
and right notions concerning the work of
our redemption by the joint operation of
the three Persons in the Godhead, is to
promote holiness of life, to teach men their
duty towards God and each other, and by
adequate sanctions to excite them to the
diligent performance of it. Here, then, we
have another test for ascertaining the ne
cessity, and consequently the authenticity
of tradition ; since, according to our argu
ment, if not necessary, it cannot be ad
mitted for true.
Again, therefore, we demand, with equal
confidence, is the written word of God suf
ficient for this second purpose of genuine
religion ? Do we not find in the collective
volume of holy scripture the great princi
ples of every duty, whether religious, social,
or personal, set forth with such perspicuity
that every individual of ordinary under
standing may comprehend them, and en
forced with such sanctions that none but
infidels can fail to feel their force? And,
lastly, is any thing more required to give
them full effect upon the minds of a Chris-

LECTURE IV. 121
tian congregation, than that they should be
diligently explained and applied to prac
tice, by the preaching and exhortation of
the ministers of Christ, ordained for that
very end ? To these queries it is impossible
to anticipate a dissentient answer. Con
cerning the vital principles of practical re
ligion, in which all men are equally inter
ested, there is nothing obscure or ambigu
ous in the Christian code. Even infidels
have professed to admire the morality of
the gospel, while they have refused to hum
ble their pride to its divine authority, and
have acknowledged it to be, as a discipline
of life and manners, superior to the most
renowned systems of heathen philosophy.
And it is worthy of remark, amidst the va
riety of heterodox opinions which have in
fested the church upon almost every sub
ject concerning which it was possible to
dispute, that there is no controversy be
tween serious and sober-minded Christians,
concerning the true meaning of those pre
cepts of holiness and honesty which per
vade the New Testament, and the practical
duties founded upon them. And those an-

122 LECTURE IV.
tinomian enthusiasts who have from time
to time arisen, both before and since the
reformation, denying the obligations of the
moral law, have never attempted to defend
their anomalous impiety by the alleged in
sufficiency of scripture, or the obscurity of
its precepts concerning those duties which
they reject ; but by the misprision of par
ticular passages, asserting the insufficiency
of that formal righteousness which the Mo
saic law required, they have taken away the
moral law altogether, as no longer binding
upon Christians, who are saved by grace,
and not by works.
Nor is such an insane abuse of scripture
any objection to its sufficiency as a code of
morality, to such as are willing to under
stand it ; while to those who are deter
mined to disregard its plain sense, and to
wrest it to an agreement with their own
preposterous conceits, it is evident that tra
dition would afford no security against er
ror; since it cannot be imagined possible
that those who acknowledge the holy scrip
ture to be the written word of God, and
yet presume to handle it deceitfully, should

LECTURE IV. 123
pay more respect to an unwritten comment
upon it, even if they should not deny it to
possess an equal degree of authority.
But though such arguments may be found
among those which are advanced by Ro
manists, to prove the insufficiency of scrip
ture without tradition, we are but combat
ing shadows in attempting seriously to re
fute them. Nothing can prevent the mis
apprehensions of wilful blindness, or the
aberrations of extravagant delusion. But
the perfect agreement of all churches, and
all sects of sincere men, concerning the
great heads of moral duty, prove incontest
ably that there also, as in the case of faith,
the scriptures alone are abundantly suffi
cient for the direction of believers, without
the supplemental aid of tradition. The
Christian life, indeed, is perfect only in pro
portion to its correspondence with the pat
tern exhibited in the New Testament ; and
he will be most like his Master, who most
carefully conforms to his Master's precepts,
as they are there delivered. And here we
might quit the subject, if the necessity or
utility of tradition, for any true and legiti-

124 LECTURE IV.
mate purpose of religion, was the sole ob
ject of our inquiry. For unless it is wanted
as a ground of faith, or a rule of life, there
is no third office for which its service can
be required.
But besides the necessity of tradition for
the right understanding of scripture and
for supplying its alleged deficiencies, for
which our opponents contend, they further
assert that its authority is clearly recognized
in the scripture itself ; as in the Old Testa
ment where the Israelites are enjoined by
^ Moses to teach their sons and their sons'
sons the mighty works of God wrought for
their deliverance, that they might also learn
to fear him, and not go astray after other
gods ; and as when in the New, St. Paul
exhorts the Corinthians " to keep the tradi
tions which he had delivered to them; and
the Thessalonians ''to standfast, and hold the
traditions which they had been taught, whe
ther, as he says, by word or our epistle ; be
sides some other equally irrelevant passages,
which they wrest to the same purpose, and
b Deut. iv. 10. <=¦ 1 Cor. xi. 2. ^2 Thess. ii. 15.

LECTURE IV. 125
which in fact prove nothing in their favour,
but when fairly examined go entirely against
them, and are only forced into the argument
to give it a colour of scriptural authority ;
of the whole support of which we at once
deprive them, by observing that it is to
written as well as unwritten tradition, that
the apostle refers, and by substituting a de
finite for an indefinite term, in the ambi
guity of which the whole secret of their
strength lies.
The sense which in modern usage is af
fixed to the word tradition is that of un
written history, or at least knowledge of
some kind, orally transmitted, without the
aid of letters ; but the classical sense of the
word, in which alone it appears to be used
in the passages cited from the New Testa
ment, and in every other, unless where it is
mentioned with evident disapprobation, as
invalidating the commands of God, is ma
terially diff(Brent, and comprehends instruc
tion of every kind, however conveyed. Ex
amples of this, both in Greek and Latin
authors, must be familiar to all my hearers,
and I should not have touched upon so tri-

126 LECTURE IV.
vial a point of verbal criticism, if it were
not for the purpose of fixing the true mean
ing of a word, which in the case before us
is of the greatest importance; since it is
from the indeterminate use of it that Ro
manists endeavour to draw arguments in
support of their cause^ which would be
wholly inapplicable to it, if that uncer
tainty were removed. Nothing can be
clearer, than that St. Paul, in speaking of
traditions, which he exhorts his converts to
keep, means nothing else than those in
structions which he had before given them
either verbally or in writing, and not occult
principles of doctrine unfit for general com
munication, but such as we still read in his
several epistles ; nor can there be found in
any part of the sacred volume the most dis
tant allusion to any esoteric system of doc
trines, which were neither to be committed
to writing, nor freely imparted to the whole
body of Christian believers, but retained for
ever in the custody and at the discretion of
the rulers of the church. In addition, how
ever, to the texts adduced from St. Paul, Ro
manists claim support from the concluding

LECTURE IV. 127
verse of St. John's Gospel, where the evan
gelist says, that many other things also were
done by our Lord, which if they were sepa
rately related, he supposes, speaking with al
lowable hyperbole, that not even the world it
self would contain the books that should be
written. These things, therefore, omitted by
the inspired writers, they would have us be
lieve to have been preserved in their tradi
tion, which must consequently be of high
authority as a rule both of faith and prac
tice. But ,they forget, that in the close of
the preceding chapter, the same evangelist
had thus observed upon the same subject ;
"But many other signs truly did Jesus in
the presence of his disciples, which are not
recorded in this book : but these are written,
that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God ; and that believing ye rnight
have life through his name; the unavoid
able inference from which appears to be,
that whatever was necessary to the faith of
Christians has been preserved in the writings
of the divinely inspired evangelists ; and
e John XX. 30, 31.

128 LECTURE IV.
that those particulars relating to the life
and actions of our Saviour which have been
omitted by them, to avoid too great pro
lixity, however it might gratify a pious cu
riosity to know them minutely, were not in
the judgment of the Holy Spirit of suffi
cient importance to be particularly recount
ed ; and if they have not been preserved in
writing, because the grounds of faith were
perfect without the knowledge of them, it is
preposterous to suppose, that they have been
handed down through the uncertain chan
nel of oral tradition, and that the reception
of them without any evidence of their au
thority can now at length be required of
all Christians, to whom the knowledge of
them was not judged necessary, till it had
been so ruled by the modern church of
Rome. Tradition, however, in the sense which
Romanists affix to it, is of such vital im
portance to their system of religion, that no
point has been more laboured by them, than
the maintenance of it in their acceptation
of the term.
Assuming, without hesitation, that the

LECTURE IV. 129
tradition spoken of in the apostolic writings
means the oral transmission of recondite
doctrines, they have recourse to such argu
ments, independent of the little support
which they imagine that they can derive
from* scripture, to prove the reality and ne
cessity of it, as men so expert in religious
controversy would never condescend to em
ploy, if they had any thing like direct tes
timony to bring forward. 'Some of them
seem to think that they have found a con
clusive analogy between their tradition and
the common or unwritten law of our own
country, and that the one holds the same
place in relation to the written word of
God, as the other does to the written or
statute law of the realm; forgetting that
this unwritten law is but the natural sense
of right and wrong which the Author of
our being has impressed upon our minds,
with its application to the unlimited variety
of human actions, and the usages and deci
sions formed upon it, where the written
law is silent ; whereas their tradition, if it
f Milner, Part I. Letter 10.
K

130 LECTURE IV.
has any real existence, comes not, like the
unwritten law, to which they compare it,
from the light of nature, but altogether
from revelation, and is in fact itself a sub
sidiary revelation, to supply the deficiencies
of another previously derived from the same
source, though conveyed through different
channels. ^ Others have had recourse to the senti
ments of ancient philosophers in approba
tion of this unwritten law, which from simi
lar causes must obtain in all states, as af
fording, by analogy again, a support to their
tradition ; and not only are the learned
sages of antiquity appealed to, but even the
barbarous Druids, who communicated their
most sacred mysteries by oral teaching only,
and did not commit them to writing, are
cited to the same effect by the ablest advo
cate of the papal cause. Yet, not relying
altogether on vague analogies in support of
their system, they tell us, that " '' within a
" short period after the age of the apostles
" the Christian religion did flourish and pre-
S Bellarmine, De Verbo Dei non Scripto.
^ Milner from Irenaeus, Letter 10.

LECTURE IV. 131
" vail among nations which knew not even
" the use of letters," and which must there
fore have been converted by tradition only;
an argument which, however irrelevant to
that which they want to prove, is not with
out its use ; since it shews, contrary to their
intention, that tradition anciently meant,
as we have argued, in its proper sense, in
struction, whether oral or written, while at
the same time it is evident that the former
was the only kind of instruction, which
men unacquainted with letters were capa
ble of receiving. Under the same deno
mination however, preaching, catechising,
and nearly every other kind of instruction
used at this day in our own church, except
the reading of the holy scripture and the
use of written forms, might with equal pro
priety be comprehended : and it is well
known, that all true protestants, while they
allow no other authority than that of holy
scripture for the establishment of doctrines,
lay at least as much stress on the oral ex
planation of doctrines so established as ever
the church of Rome has done; and without
doubt this legitimate kind of tradition is,
K 2

132 LECTURE IV.
and ever will be, necessary to the increase
and preservation of religion ; nor can the
mere diffusion of the scriptures without it
ever be expected by reasonable men to con
vert sinners to repentance and infidels to
the faith. The aid of a Christian ministry
to instruct, rebuke, exhort, must in all ages
and in every state of civilization be indis
pensable to the maintenance of religion;
and when we call to mind that in the first
ages, before the discovery of printing, the
multiplication of books was slow, difficult,
and expensive, and that in all probability
there were not to be found within the com
pass of the Christian world as many copies
of the Bible as are at this time contained
in this seat of learning, it is evident that
religious knowledge must have been propa
gated almost exclusively by oral tradition,
in the sense which we have affixed to the
word ; but this by no means sets tradition
on the same level with holy scripture, nor
supposes the existence of such a tradition
as Romanists contend for, either concur
rent with scripture, or independent of it.
The true tradition of the primitive ages

LECTURE IV. 133
was the unfolding of the truths of scrip
ture by those who were ordained to the
office of instructing the people in religion ;
and the correctness and propriety of it was
to be estimated by its congruity with scrip
ture, which it was employed to elucidate
and e'xplain ; and, instead of judging scrip
ture by oral tradition, the latter could only
be used as an auxiliary to scripture, and al
together subordinate to it.
But such a tradition ' would not at all
serve the purposes of the modern church of
Rome ; and therefore, while they presume
to assert that the holy scripture is not by
itself a perfect rule of faith, but must be so
taken in conjunction with tradition, they
contend also that this tradition, without
which, according to their principles, a true
faith cannot be established, should not be
made public, but reserved in the power of
the church, that is, of the priesthood, for
which they scruple not to assign this most
extraordinary reason, "'lest it should be-
" come as well known to heretics, Jews, and
' Bellarmine, De Verbo Dei non Scripto.
k3

134 LECTURE IV.
" pagans, as to the highest orders among
" themselves ;" as if it was agreeable to the
will of God, who calls all men to salvation
through faith, that the ground of this in
dispensable faith should be inaccessible, ex
cept to a favoured few, and such others as
they may think proper to admit to it.
Our blessed Lord's commission to his
apostles was, to preach the gospel to every
creature, the reward and the penalty being
annexed, he that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall
be damned; and if the Romanists really hold
that tradition is necessary to faith, as they
must acknowledge that faith is necessary to
salvation, they cannot but admit, that by
keeping it secret their church is guilty of
shutting the gates of eternal life against
those who, by their common Lord, are called
to enter in. But such an intention abstract
edly we lay not to their charge. We doubt
not that conscientious Romanists, as well as
ourselves, are desirous that all men should
be saved, and in them we impute it only
to the blindness of irrational superstition,
whatever our judgment may be concerning

LECTURE IV. 135
those who are more profoundly instructed
in their mysteries, that they exclude from
the promises of the gospel such as disallow
the sovereign power of their church, and
doubt the authority of its head to lock and
unlock the gates of mercy to whom he will.
The truth is, that dominion over the minds
of men is the great object of the church of
Rome ; and its rulers have found that the
fiction of a divine tradition which they ne
ver divulge, but which they assert to be in
their hands a certain guide to salvation,
gives them an enormous influence over or
dinary minds, and a firm hold even upon
the strongest, into which the belief of it has
been sedulously infused from infancy among
the first principles of religion. Their tra
dition in fact serves them for a witness
ever ready to attest whatever they want to
prove, but not liable to a counter-examina
tion, by which the real value of its testi
mony might be ascertained: it is heard
only, but never seen ; and by this dexterous
management it has been made as efficacious
an engine of spiritual power to papal Rome,
as the Sibylline books were of state policy
K 4

136 LECTURE IV.
to her pagan prototype : like them, it can
be adapted to all exigencies, and silence
every doubt ; so long at least as those who
willingly acquiesce in palpable delusion
shall by indolent credulity support its pre
tensions ; as soon as its foundations are ex
amined, it must vanish into air.
If the reformation had established but
this single point, " that all controversies of
" faith and doctrine should be decided by
" an appeal to scripture only," even that
would have been an inestimable service to
religion, the knowledge of which was be
fore to be sought in the voluminous works
of the fathers, and the decrees of councils,
instead of the sacred book of God's word,
and in a manner lay buried under the ever
increasing piles of scholastic divinity.
And as it is said of Socrates that he call
ed down philosophy from the clouds, and
made it to dwell in the abodes of men, so
did the leaders of the reformation, by turn
ing away the study of religion from idle
subtleties to the pious examination of holy
scripture, familiarize men's minds with those
immutable truths which are the foundation

LECTURE IV. 137
of sincere faith, and prepare them for the
spiritual worship of God which their reli
gion requires, instead of the gaudy pomps
and unedifying ceremonies in which a cor
rupt church had made so large a part of it
to consist.
The benefits which protestants have de
rived from the free use of scripture, though,
like the other good gifts of God, sometimes
misapplied, and sometimes grievously abus
ed, are great beyond all estimation, whe
ther we regard their temporal or spiritual
state. Familiar access to the fountain of living
waters has given a new impulse and a right
direction to the mind, and has banished the
long train of noxious delusions, by which
religion was before disfigured ; while those
who have rejected the reformation are
scarcely advanced beyond the point at
which that event found them. And al
though the upbraiding example of protest
ants has in a manner compelled the rulers
of the church of Rome apparently to relax
something of their prohibitory zeal against
scriptural knowledge, they have yet found

138 LECTURE IV.
means to render it unproductive of its pro
per fruit, by forbidding those who are in
dulged with a permission to read the dis
courses of our Lord, and the doctrine of his
inspired apostles, to understand what they
read in any other sense than that which
their church has set upon it ; and thus tra
dition still holds its preeminence in their
practical application of it, as the paramount
rule of faith and interpreter of scripture.
And unless it shall please God, in his great
mercy, to open their eyes, and to inspire
them with a sincere desire to discern and
embrace the truth, tradition must for ever
retain its supremacy ; for their systematized
corruptions of faith and doctrine and wor
ship cannot be maintained without it.
In this respect there is a striking ana
logy between Roman Catholics and the sect
which has assumed the appellation of Uni
tarians. The former, having adopted and
engrafted upon Christianity a mass of in
congruous superstitions, which, either ex
pressly or by necessary inference, are con
demned in scripture, and being determined
not to abandon them, have called in the

LECTURE IV. 139
assistance of tradition to defend their mani
fold adulterations of Christian truth ; while
the Unitarians, rejecting the Christian faith,
but insidiously retaining the Christian name,
and being sensible that the scheme of reli
gion which they have devised for them
selves was utterly untenable on scriptural
grounds, not many years since adopted the
bold expedient of making a new translation
of scripture, adapted to their own principles,
upon a plan which sets at nought all the
rules of criticism as well as the laws of
common honesty ; by this expedient making
it speak the language of their tradition,
which, after the example of the Romanists,
they have thus effectually placed above it.
I mean not, however, to insinuate against
Romanists the guilt of equal impiety with
men who have abjured the essentials of
Christian faith, but to mark how a similar
necessity has led in both cases, though in
different ways, to a similar result. The Uni
tarian, with sacrilegious boldness, cuts down
holy scripture to the measure of his own
negative creed : the Romanist impairs its
authority by teaching ybr doctrines the com-

140 LECTURE IV
mandments qfmen ; and, like the Unitarian,
he has no other alternative, but to forsake
errors which can no longer be defended by
sincere and enlightened men, and render
his religion conformable to scripture, or,
after the manner of his church, to weaken
the force of scripture against it by attribut
ing equal and practically greater authority
to an unwritten revelation, of the authenti
city of which no credible evidence nor pro
bable argument can be produced. But tra
dition and the church of Rome are indis-
solubly linked together : tradition is the
sole foundation for all her usurpations over
the Christian world, the sole authority for
all her innovations on primitive faith and
worship. Even the supremacy of the pope,
as derived by his asserted succession from
St. Peter — a matter of small moment to pro
testants, but which, from the consequences
which Romanists draw from it, ought to be
as clear as any fact recorded in sacred his
tory — depends wholly on tradition, mixed
up too with the ^ grossest fables, and having
^ Vide Cave's History of Christ and his Apostles.
Life of St. Peter.

LECTURE IV. 141
such a weight of negative testimony from
scripture against it, that, as a distinguished
! prelate of our church justly argues, "we
" must either renounce the opinion," (i. e.
that St. Peter was the founder of the church
of Rome,) " or let scripture give way to tra-
« dition." And yet on no better foundation than
this pretended succession does the pope ar
rogate to himself, and his adherents ascribe
to him, honours little less than divine, and
powers which, unless gifted with infallibi
lity — a prerogative indeed which they also
claim for him, though not quite agreed
among themselves on that point — no hu
man being can be competent to exercise.
But again, according to the invariable
pretension of the church of Rome, as it has
been already observed, there is no salvation
out of her pale ; and this with true Roman
ists is not merely a speculative opinion, but
a necessary article of faith. It ought, there
fore, to be as capable of demonstration as
any article of the Apostles' Creed, since
1 Marsh, Comparative View of Church of England and
Church of Rome.

142 LECTURE IV.
whoever for want of such demonstration re
fuses assent to it, must, upon their prin
ciples, be forthwith in a state of reproba
tion. And yet, if we search the scriptures
throughout for any proof of it, we shall
neither be able to discover it in any ex
press declaration of our Lord himself, nor
in any of the apostolical Epistles ; whether
addressed to particular churches or gene
rally to the whole body of Christians ; nor
in any probable inference from any thing
asserted by them, nor in any analogy to the
known dispensations of God.
Instead of such proofs from scripture, we
are referred to a few obscure and ambi
guous texts, arbitrarily explained in a sense
inconsistent with the general tenor of the
sacred volume, and scarcely appearing to
have any affinity to that which they are al
leged to prove. And yet on these scanty
and disputable grounds of scripture, so far
as scripture is relied upon,' the most im
portant of their pretensions are founded; as,
for instance, that St. Peter had not merely
a precedence among the apostles by age or
personal character, but that he was, in the

LECTURE IV- 143
sense of real sovereignty, prince of the apo
stles; and without the smallest pretence
of scriptural authority they assert that he
founded the see of Rome, and was himself
the first pope ; and, what is still more ex
traordinary, that the powers which they at
tribute to St. Peter have descended with
undiminished right to all his successors the
popes, and are to continue with them to
the end of time. That the support to be
found in scripture, by any mode of inter
pretation, was too slender to sustain the
hundredth part of the system establish
ed by the church of Rome, is self-evident :
to supply the deficiency, therefore, recourse
is again had to the never-failing help of tra
dition ; and it is on that alone that the in
admissible pretensions of the sovereign pon
tiff" are founded. In virtue of these pre
tensions, resting on tradition, many of the
worst corruptions of the church of Rome,
and against which the reformers had zeal
ously contended, were embodied into ar
ticles of belief, and imposed on all its mem
bers as necessary to salvation by the reign
ing pope, at the conclusion of that council

144 LECTURE IV.
which had been called to heal the wounds
of religion, by redressing wrongs and re
moving the corruptions of the church.
Many of these, which are referred to apo
stolical tradition, are of such a nature, that,
as I observed in the former part of this
Lecture, they would be alone sufficient to
justify us in rejecting as altogether spu
rious, and unworthy of the Holy Spirit, any
tradition to which such consequences could
be attributed.
And as these articles still retain their
place in the creed of the Romish church,
and are declared to be necessary to salva
tion by her supreme authority, some of the
most obnoxious of them shall be particu
larly examined in the ensuing Lectures,
commencing with Transubstantiation ; and
the result, I trust, will be an additional
confirmation of that which it is my object
to prove by unexceptionable evidence, " that
" on religious grounds the reformation was
" absolutely necessary ; and that if it had
" not taken place at a former period, it
" must have been eff"ected now ;" and that
separation from a church whose system of

LECTURE IV. 145
religion is so manifestly corrupt, as that of
the church of Rome is even at this day, is
the indispensable duty of every man who
in singleness of heart fears God, and hopes
for salvation through the alone merits and
mediation of his Redeemer. Amen.

LECTURE V.

John iv. 24.
God is a spirit; and they that worship him
must worship him in spirit and in truth.
It is an old complaint with Roman Ca
tholics, that protestants are ever fond of
applying this text to them. But in this at
least we do not act the part of enemies,
and much is it to be wished, that, laying
aside prejudice and party spirit, they would
be persuaded to apply it to themselves ; that
they would seriously consider the import of
the words, the authority of the speaker, and
the comprehensive application of the prin
ciple which is here laid down by him as an
indefeasible characteristic of his religion ;
and that they would remember how incum
bent it is upon them and all Christians to
try both their faith and worship by this
rule of their divine Master, if they hope to
render their service acceptable to God the
l2

148 LECTURE V.
Father, who has given us these instructions
by the ministry of his Son.
Apparently, however, forgetting the obli
gation of conforming to his precepts, it
seems to have been the principal object of
the church of Rome, in the multitude of
showy ceremonies with which she has en
cumbered her ritual, to strike the senses
and captivate the imagination, deviating in
a remarkable manner from the chaste sim
plicity of the gospel, and, if I may be al
lowed the expression, materializing the
Christian religion.
Whether the popish doctrine of transub
stantiation, to the discussion of which I
now proceed, in pursuance of the design
announced at the close of my last Lecture
upon the subject of tradition, may not be
referable in its origin to this fondness for
exhibiting spiritual truths under visible
forms to the admiration of an ignorant peo
ple, may possibly be not altogether a use
less subject of speculation. Certain, at least,
it is, that there are in the institutions of
that church other instances of a similar
propensity to subject things of a purely

LECTURE V. 149
spiritual nature to a grossness of interpret
ation, by which, if their power of impress
ing the senses is increased, their effisct on
the mind is proportionably diminished.
But whatever the origin of the doctrine
of transubstantiation may be, whether it
proceeded at the first from ignorance, su
perstition, or interested craftiness, it is now,
with all its monstrous consequences, ele
vated by the church of Rome to the high
est rank among the articles of her faith ;
and although the genuine progeny of tra
dition, yet, in defending it against the ob
jections of protestants, they would fain ap
pear to place their whole reliance on the
support of scripture.
According to their own principle, con
firmed, as it has been, by successive popes
and councils, guarded by the most terrible
anathemas against all who may presume to
impugn it, and the belief of it exacted of
every member of that church at the peril
of his soul, no man can be an honest Ro
man Catholic who entertains a doubt con
cerning it. If sense and reason should re
volt against it, he must reject their remon-
I. 3

150 LECTURE V.
strances as heretical, and assent to the in
fallible guide which assures him of its truth,
in defiance of the testimony of both ; and
when this absolute victory has been gained
over a pious and diffident mind, no limits
can be set to its credulity and submission.
The debasement of the understanding,
thus eff'ected, is the essential principle of
the well-compacted superstition of the
church of Rome, and the chief source of
the amazing influence which her priest
hood possess over the very highest, and, as
we should suppose, the most enlightened of
her laity.
When once, indeed, the mind of any
sincere and unsuspecting man has been so
scared out of its self-possession by spiritual
terrors, or so bewildered by sophistry or
overcome by plausible artifice, as to yield
assent to propositions so monstrous as those
which are asserted by Roman Catholic di
vines concerning the sacramental myste
ries of the Lord's supper, what thenceforth
can such an one refuse to admit for truth
which the same spiritual guides, on whose
authority he builds implicit faith, declare

LECTURE V. 151
to be both true and necessary for salva
tion? But, if the power of the church of Rome
seem to be consolidated by the absolute
surrender of the understanding, which is
necessary to the belief of this doctrine of
transubstantiation, we shall find, on a nearer
view, that it is a source of weakness also,
and yet that her very existence depends
upon maintaining it. Ofthis Romish writers
are themselves most evidently sensible: they
have therefore, as the occasion appeared to
require, exhausted the force of declamation
and the subtleties of elaborate sophistry in
their endeavours to defend it; well know
ing that not merely the maintenance of one
single article of their creed, but the infalli
bility which they claim for their church,
and its continued ascendancy over the minds
of men, are staked upon the issue ; that
what they profess to consider as the most
sacred part of their worship, and endeavour
to screen from inspection, and to render
most awful to timid credulity by the high-
sounding phrases which they apply to it,
must be abolished, and that a general re
formation can no longer be delayed when
L 4

152 LECTURE V.
this outwork of their system can no longer
be defended.
In the mean time it is a source of real
weakness which cannot be disguised by any
palliatives, unless to those who are wilfully
blind; and whatever eff'orts may be em
ployed to sustain the credit of so palpable a
fiction, it must, in God's good time, fall be
fore the united power of reason and scrip
ture, and draw after it the dissolution of
that fabric of error which is so intimately
blended with it.
In men of corrupt lives and worldly
minds, the eyes may be closed against the
light, and the heart hardened against the
impression of truth ; but with such as are
truly pious, and sincerely desirous both to
know and to do the will of God, as we
doubt not that many members of that
church are, it would argue a distrust of the
divine goodness, if we were to despair of
the final prevalence of truth, notwithstand
ing the prejudices of education, and the
obstacles arrayed against it by the policy of
those who have an interest in opposing its
progress. Truth alone is eternal, delusion can have

LECTURE V. 153
but a limited duration. The sunshine of
divine revelation must by degrees make its
way into the darkest recesses ; and when
men are required to believe incredible
things, without any warrant from God's
word, upon the testimony of pretended tra
dition, or the mere dictation of an unin
spired mortal like themselves, reason will
not for ever submit to authority so arro
gantly abused ; but those who do not think
it a sufficient reason of their faith, and the
hope that is in them, to believe implicitly
whatever " the church believes," will at
length presume to ask the " Jewish how %"
as it is artfully stigmatized by one who well
knew the danger of all inquiry to the sys
tem which he had devoted his utmost ener
gies and unquestionably powerful talents
to defend, in all its bearings, concerning
the possibility of things which they are
commanded to receive as truths necessary
to salvation, with none of the visible cha
racters of truth about them.
The controversies concerning transub-
^ Milner, End of Religious Controversy, part III.
Letter 38.

154 LECTURE V.
stantiation, which at earlier periods since
the reformation were carried on between
the advocates of the church of Rome and
protestants, have filled volumes without pro
ducing any decisive result on the minds of
those who had previously taken their ground
on the opposite sides of the question : the
one party being able to make no concession
consistently with truth, and the other being
bound to defend to the utmost whatever
popes and councils had decreed, or to con
fess error and surrender the claim to infal
libility, on which the whole of their spiritual
power is built. And, so long as an appear
ance of argument can be maintained by
quibbling upon words, they may persevere
in their endeavours to perplex and con
found what is naturally simple and perspi
cuous, and seem to the ignorant and cre
dulous to say a great deal ; while in fact,
if their intricacies are unravelled, and their
lofty diction subjected to the test of reason
and common sense, there will be nothing
found in them but emptiness and fallacy,
and their last stand must be made on tra
dition alone.

LECTURE V. 155
I should be guilty of great presumption
if I were to suppose myself capable of add
ing any thing to the force of argument ad
duced by so many of the most eminent pro
testant divines, who have gone deeply into
the question against this chimerical fic
tion. My object in regard to this, as well as
other glaring errors of the church of Rome,
is, not to entangle myself in the labyrinths
of false reasoning, which they have devised
for the purpose of obscuring the truth, but
merely to exhibit such reasons for rejecting
them as are obvious to plain understand
ings, and at the same time of sufficient
weight to determine all men, who believe
that their salvation depends upon the sin
cerity of their faith, to separate themselves
from her communion, and, by necessary
consequence, to justify the reformation ; the
end and object of which was to restore the
purity of religion, and to remove the errors
and corruptions by which both faith and
worship were vitiated and disfigured.
In the interpretation of the words of our
Lord, in the institution of the sacrament of

156 LECTURE V-
his body and blood at his last supper, the
church of Rome contends for the literal
sense, in support of her doctrine of tran
substantiation, ours for the spiritual.
They assert that when he brd,ke and gave
the bread to his disciples, after that he had
blessed it, saying these words. Take, eat,
this is my body, the bread was actually con
verted into the true substance of his body.
And in like manner when after supper he
gave them the cup, saying. Drink ye all of
it, for this is my blood of the new testa
ment, which is shed for many for the remis
sion of sins, that the wine was in like man
ner converted into the real blood of the
divine Redeemer. This being assumed, and
it being admitted by all Christians, that the
holy rite then instituted by our Saviour
was intended to be perpetual, they go on
to assert, that as often as the consecration
of the appointed elements of bread and
wine is performed by the priest repeating
the words of Christ, the same wonderful
conversion equally takes place ; and fur
thermore, as they have thought proper, ap
parently for the purpose of exalting the

LECTURE V. 157
dignity of the priesthood, to deny the cup
to the laity, in order to justify this mutila
tion of the sacrament, they require it to be
believed that the consecrated wafer alone,
without the wine, which our Lord had de
clared to be the new testament in his blood,
contains the " body, blood, soul, and di-
" vinity of our Lord Jesus Christ;" that the
Lamb of God is thus off"ered up to his hea
venly Father day by day, a bloodless sacri
fice for the living and the dead, being im
molated by the word of the priest, which
mystically separates the body from the
blood, instead of the sword ; and that being
laid upon the altar under the form of
bread, lifted up, and carried about in pro
cessions, he is to be worshipped under that
appearance, with the same profound adora
tion as if the heavens were opened, and we
saw him standing at the right hand of God :
in a word, that the eternal Son of God, who
is one with the Father and the Holy Ghost
in all the attributes of the Godhead, is made
visible to the eyes, handled by the hands,
masticated and eaten by his worshippers,
under the form of bread, as often as they

158 LECTURE V.
celebrate the eucharist according to the
usage of the church of Rome.
There is a repulsive grossness in this
doctrine, equally off'ensive to faith and rea
son. In a matter, however, of so sacred a
nature, while we firmly protest against er
rors and corruptions, it is our duty to guard
against all appearance of irreverence, and
not to wound intentionally the right feel
ings of those whose piety entitles them to
respect, while we lament their delusion and
feel ourselves bound to refute their mis
conceptions. In attempting, therefore, to state their
case, I take nothing from the invectives of
opponents, but have drawn exclusively from
their own sources, in addition to prescribed
formularies, relying upon the authority of
writers"' in the highest estimation among
themselves ; and without doubt, to Chris
tians who have derived the knowledge of
their religion from authentic sources, and
have studied with competent abilities and
impartial sincerity the holy scriptures, which
b Bossuet, Milner, Butler, &c.

LECTURE V. 159
are alone able to make us wise unto salva
tion, a simple exposition must be the most
eff"ectual refutation of such palpable per
versions of truth ; in which, at the same
time, the latent seeds of the most hurtful
errors in faith, doctrine, and worship, are
contained. But, indeed, if we consider the kind of
arguments with which Romanists endea
vour to recommend the belief of transub
stantiation, we shall be still more strongly
impressed with the conviction of its being
utterly untenable, and shall wonder how
sober-minded men, unless in ages of pro
found ignorance, which is the natural pa
rent of superstition, could ever be induced
to receive it.
We are assured, by the most distinguished
among the " advocates of this doctrine, that
the conversion of the consecrated elements
of bread and wine into the body and blood
of Christ, " by which he is received whole
" and entire at the same time, by so many
" people, in so many diff"erent places, is a
<= Bossuet, Var. of Prot. vol. i. p. 426.

160 LECTURE V.
" miracle equal to the greatest and most
" incomprehensible wrought by the power
" of God ;" a position which we may admit
without danger to the cause of the reform
ation, provided that the reality of it be first
proved. But how is this to be done ? They tell
us that this perpetual miracle, this greatest
of all miracles, " ^ by which all the other
" miracles which God has wrought for our
" salvation are confirmed," is imperceptible
to our senses and incomprehensible to our
reason ; so that, according to their own
showing, the greatness as well as the re
ality of this highly extolled miracle de
pends altogether upon the willing credu
lity of those to whom it is proposed, and is
utterly incredible till men have consented
to divest themselves of sense and reason,
and to forego the use of those faculties
which the Almighty has graciously bestow
ed upon us, for the very purpose of en
abling us, as in all other things, so in reli
gion, to discern truth from falsehood, and
good from evil.
"^ Bossuet, Var. of Prot. vol. i. p. 426.

LECTURE V. 161
All verbal subtleties in defence of such a
doctrine are unworthy of serious notice;
and it is as vain to argue upon a subject in
which the exercise of sense and reason is
proscribed, as to dispute concerning the
natures and institutions of another planet ;
and we should be justified in refusing at
once to believe what is imposed upon us in
a manner so inconsistent with the whole
course of providence and grace, if no other
argument were brought against it.
But the defenders of transubstantiation
are not content with placing their whole
reliance on passive credulity.
They endeavour to add credibility to it,
by the analogy which they pretend to have
found between it and some of the mi
racles recorded in the Old and New Testa
ment ; as the change of Moses's rod into a
serpent, and again into its primitive form
of a rod, the substance still continuing the
same ; the turning of water into blood
among the plagues of Egypt, and again wa
ter into wine, as at the marriage feast in
Cana of Galilee ; and they contend that
it is not more difficult for Omnipotence to
M

162 LECTURE V.
change the elements of bread and wine in
the eucharist into the real body and blood
of the Son of God, than to eff'ect these and
other miracles recorded in scripture, and
still less than the creation of the world out
of nothing; and therefore, that when our
Lord declared at his last supper, that the
bread which he brake and blessed, and gave
to his disciples, was his body, and the wine
his blood, to doubt that the eff'ect followed
his words, and still continues to follow each
successive repetition of them by the priest
in the consecration prayer, is to doubt his
veracity or his power, on which they found
a charge of heinous impiety against pro
testants. This, however, is but an artifice,
and a very shallow one, to divert attention
from the real point at issue between us and
them. We hold, as truly and unequivocally as
they do, the divine omnipotence of the Re
deemer, and his coequality with the Father
and the Holy Ghost in all the attributes of
the Deity.
But the question here is not concerning
his omnipotence, what it can do, but what

LECTURE V 163
in reality it does ; and nothing can well be
imagined more monstrous in absurdity, or
more audacious in impiety, than thus to
contend that the -promise of Christ has not
been fulfilled, unless it has been fulfilled
in its literal import, as they will have it,
though reason and common sense and the
context of scripture are unequivocally a-
gainst them ; and it is truly amazing to
hear them arguing, " " that it was easier for
" the Son of God to force the laws of na-
" ture, in order to verify his words, than
" for us to accommodate our understand-
" ing to violent interpretations, which over-
" turn all the laws of speech ;" whereas
these violent interpretations consist only in
receiving in a figurative sense what they
are determined to take in the literal, for
the sake of establishing what they call the
real presence of Christ under the species of
bread and wine.
Very difflerent were the miracles of our
Lord upon earth from this pretended mi
racle of the popish eucharist. The evident
« Bossuet, Exposition of Catholic Doctrine, p. 61.
M 2

164 LECTURE V.
design of his miracles was through the
senses to impress the mind, and to induce
those who were witnesses of them, to be
lieve that he came from God, by the evi
dence which they aff"orded, that the power
of God was among them ; and accordingly
when he upbraided the cities of Judah, in
which most of his mighty works had been
done, for their unbelief ^ and again when to
those who believed not his word, he ap
pealed to the evidence of his works ^, in both
cases we see equally the purpose of mi
racles ; that they were designed for a testi
mony to the beholders of the presence of
divine power, in the person by whom they
were wrought; in order to which it was ne
cessary that they should be perceptible to
the outward senses, and not, like the pre
tended miracle of transubstantiation, indis
cernible, even to those who most zealously
profess to believe it. But in the particular
cases which themselves allege, as in the
turning of water into wine, and the crea
tion of the world out of nothing, and the
* John X. 37, 38. S ,Iohn xiv. 11.

LECTURE V. 165
same might be said of every other scripture
miracle, instead of helping their cause, the
argument is decisively against them. For
there the eff'ect followed the word; he. spake
and it was done; and even unbelievers, who
conspired the destruction of our Lord, could
not deny that ^ many miracles were done by
him. The same power continued to the apo
stles contributed mightily to the growth of
Christianity: ^They went forth, and preached
every where, the Lord working with them,
and confirming their word with signs follow
ing; which men saw, and therefore believed.
But an imperceptible miracle, in things na
turally amenable to our senses, is little less
than a contradiction in terms ; and if such
had been the character of the scripture mi
racles, instead of convincing unbelievers, all
reasonable men would have deemed such
vain pretences a sufficient cause for discre
diting any doctrine, which they might have
been adduced to support.
But again, in addition to the forced and
fanciful analogies which the defenders of
h John xi. 47. ' Mark xvi. 20.
M 3

166 LECTURE V.
transubstantiation borrow from the Old and
New Testament in support of their cause,
an attempt is made to force into the same
service, even philosophy and experience,
unmanageable auxiliaries, it should seem,
in a case where all inquiry is forbidden;
and the ¦" possibility that our senses may
sometimes be deceived, is cited as a reason
for believing that they are deceived, or at
least that their testimony is less to be cre
dited, than the tradition of an infallible
church ; which, however, without disparage
ment of its infallibility, has condemned the
authors of some of the most splendid dis
coveries in science, and by which the most
exalted views of the wisdom, power, and
goodness of the Deity are exhibited to the
pious mind, as guilty of pernicious errors.
In a word, nothing which could wear the
appearance of an argument to confound the
ignorant and perplex the superficial, has
been omitted by popish divines, in their at
tempts to establish this delusion ; which, as
themselves avow, and the reason of the
•' Milner, Part III. p. 59, 60.

LECTURE V. 167
thing proves, cannot be done away, without
the dissolution of the whole fabric esta
blished upon it. For, on no other founda
tion than this asserted miracle of transub
stantiation, the pretended sacrifice of the
mass, the mutilation of the sacrament by
taking away the cup from the laity, their
doctrine of the real (or corporeal) presence,
the homage of the most profound adora
tion paid to the consecrated wafer, as if re
ally and substantially converted into the
body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord
Jesus Christ, as it is asserted in the supple
mentary papal creed, can possibly be justi
fied, nor can it be surrendered to the force
of reason and scripture, without tacitly ad
mitting a grossness of faith and worship in
that infallible church, to which paganism
alone could furnish a parallel.
It is not therefore matter of surprise,
when we see men of great learning and
equal acuteness,.and eminently wise in their
generation, as many of its defenders have
been, pertinaciously contending for it; while
at the same time the futile weakness of all
which they have been able to advance in its
M 4

168 LECTURE V.
support, compared with their general abi
lity, and the strong interest by which their
utmost efforts are called forth, is almost
conclusive against the cause which they
have laboured to maintain, and justifies the
confident assurance, that no weapon formed
against the truth shall ultimately prevail.
They have not however confined them
selves to a system -of self-defence, but have
shewn an eagerness in attacking the tenets
of their adversaries, which seems rather to
imply a conscious inability to justify their
own, than a real persuasion of their in
trinsic soundness ; so that in the most cele
brated expositions of Roman Catholic doc
trine on this head, nearly as much space
is occupied by controversial matter, as that
which is properly didactic and explanatory ;
and the differences of doctrine concerning
the eucharist, which existed in the earlier
days of the reformation between the dif
ferent reformed churches, are cited with
much aff'ectation of triumph, as a proof that
all were in error, and given up to a mind
void of judgment, as soon as ever they had
withdrawn from the church of Rome, and

LECTURE V. 169
presumed to study the scripture in prefer
ence to obeying her decrees. But though
we admit that there were many shades of
diff"erence between the reformers in their
doctrine of the sacrament, and serious er
rors in some of them, this neither militates
against the reformation in general, nor ca
nonizes the errors of the church of Rome.
On the contrary, I would rather ascribe
those original variations of the reformers,
according to the principle with which I set
out in the commencement of these Lec
tures, to the gracious purpose of divine Pro
vidence, to widen the basis and strengthen
the foundations of the reformation, by
awakening attention, and bringing into dis
cussion almost every principle of Christian
doctrine, among which that of the sacrament
of the Lord's supper must by all parties be
admitted to be one of the most important.
With men who are not tied to a pretended
infallibility. Christian charity must allow,
that in things which are not precisely defin
ed in scripture, nor simply discoverable by
human reason, it is possible for individuals
of competent knowledge and the greatest

170 LECTURE V.
piety to disagree in some slight modifica
tions of opinion ; and in regard to the sub
ject of our present inquiry, it is certain
that even in those doctrines of the early
reformers concerning the sacrament, which
we should least approve, there is nothing
inconsistent with good intentions and sin
cere faith, even if we take the representa
tions of their adversaries, who were anxious
to exhibit them in the least favourable
point of view. It is also certain, that the
diff'erences which did exist among them
may be accounted for in ways which reflect
no discredit upon any party.
Even those who were themselves the in
struments for restoring to the Christian
world the exercise of the understanding
and liberty of conscience, which are essen
tial to true religion, were not all at once
emancipated from the thraldom of ages.
The work was necessarily progressive.
Those corruptions of faith, doctrine, and
worship, which are self-evident, and utterly
indefensible, were forthwith condemned and
renounced, as soon as the papal dominion
was overthrown. The removal of such as

LECTURE V. 171
were less obvious was not undertaken, till
increasing knowledge had more clearly de
monstrated their erroneous character ; and
in our own church, at least, no step was
taken towards the correction of error, with
out that pious caution, which in departing
from one extreme, guards against the danger
of falling into another. All knowledge, ex
cept that which comes by inspiration, which
we claim not for our reformers, must be
partial and gradual ; and it is not a ground
of censure, but a title to praise, that in the
zeal of doing good, they did not forget the
dictates of prudence and Christian humi
lity. With whom the doctrine of transubstan
tiation originated is a disputed point of no
real moment. It is however certain that it
was first imposed on the belief of Chris
tians, in that dark period which followed
the irruption of the barbarous nations and
the downfall of the empire ; when learning
was extinguished, and the states of modern
Europe, as yet imperfectly formed out of
the broken merabers of that mighty ruin,
were sunk in ignorance and superstition ;

172 LECTURE V.
when the holy scriptures were almost un
known, and whatever the priesthood, in
obedience to the mandate of the pope, the
foundations of whose power were laid in
those ages of darkness, declared to be an
article of faith, was received without contra
diction by a gross and unreasoning people.
And this tenet of transubstantiation,
which added so largely to the influence of
the sacerdotal order had been so diligently
inculcated upon all minds, and was render
ed so familiar by the daily services founded
upon it, that many of those who at the
dawn of the reformation were most clearly
sensible of the corruptions of the church of
Rome, in other important points of faith
and worship, seem hardly at first to have
suspected error in this, which is the fertile
source of so many others ; and when, at
length, by the more careful study of holy
scripture, they came to be convinced that
the papal doctrine was erroneous, they
halted in their conclusions, and reluctantly
abandoned the creed of their infancy, in
proportion as diligent investigation and in
creasing knowledge convinced them, that

LECTURE V. 173
it was founded in delusion, or misconcep
tion of the truth. Such was especially the
case of our own Cranmer, who, from having
been a vehement assertor of transubstan
tiation, at length laid down his life in con
tending against it And this, in the judg
ment of every candid mind, must be a con
vincing proof, that instead of bold and li
centious innovators in religion, as the pa
pal writers with one accord have represent
ed them, the great leaders of the reform
ation were men of sincere piety and tender
consciences, and proceeded in the work
which they had undertaken, with that cau
tious moderation which its infinite import
ance demanded. There is, therefore, no
cause for exultation to the adversaries of
the reformation in the discrepancies of its
early advocates, concerning the true doc
trine of the eucharist ; and least of all does
it aff'ord any justification for cherishing
their palpable error, because some of those
who rejected it still lingered in too near an
approximation to it, or failed to express
their own sentiments with sufficient clear
ness against it.

174 LECTURE V.
They may refute the consubstantiation
of Luther with the same arguments as their
own transubstantiation is refuted, without
adding any strength to their own cause ;
nor yet will they be able to shew, erroneous
as it is, that his doctrine has ever been ap
plied to the same superstitious and truly
idolatrous purposes as their own. They
may invent or exaggerate diff'erences be
tween 'Calvin and Zuingle and their re
spective followers, and hold up to derision
the unsuccessful attempts which were made
in the heat of theological controversy, and
inefftectually repeated at later periods, to
establish uniformity of doctrine concern
ing the sacrament among the reformed
churches. Protestants do not pretend to exemption
from error, but only to sincerity in the
search after truth, with a humble confi
dence that while they seek it in a conge
nial spirit, and diligently endeavour to ap
prehend it, by the use of such helps as the
divine Mercy has provided for them, and
' Bossuet, Hist. Var. Part I. Book ix. Part II. Book xii.

LECTURE V. 175
above all, by the careful study of the writ
ten word of God, they will by his grace be
preserved from any dangerous misappre
hension of it. If they abandon those prin
ciples, and either in the vanity of human
reason prefer novelty to truth, or resign
themselves to the blind guidance of rash
enthusiasm, or dogmatical bigotry, then in
deed there will be reason to fear that God
will abandon them. In the mean time, as
the best security against error, let them
walk in the light as children of the light.
Thus much it seems right to say of the
reformation in general, respecting this sub
ject of the doctrine of the eucharist ; and
that, not merely as an act of justice to
wards our fellow protestants of other com
munions, but because, as I have before re
marked, it is the standing policy of the
enemies of every reformed church, to mis
represent the principles, and exaggerate the
real or imputed errors of all, and exhibit
them as proofs that the reformation, to
which they attribute such consequences,
must have originated in the spirit of delu
sion ; from whence they conclude, that the

176 LECTURE V.
only safe course for religious protestants to
pursue, is to return to the obedience of
that infallible church, which, by depriving
her dutiful children of the dangerous li
berty of judging and understanding for
themselves concerning articles of faith and
controverted points of doctrine, preserves
them in happy ignorance and uninterrupt
ed unanimity, and so insures their final sal
vation. This, when stripped of all disguise, and
exhibited in their true light, is the burden
of all their arguments with protestants.
Happily we have not so learned Christ, as
to be in any danger of being imposed upon
by them, nor of being induced by any per
suasions to prefer darkness, with all its al
leged advantages, before that light which is
the peculiar attribute of " the glorious gos
pel of Christ. Of their boasted infallibi
lity, and its necessary consequences, we may
leave them the unmolested and unenvied
possession. Happily for ourselves, our doctrine of the
'n 2 Cor. iv. 4.

LECTURE V, 177
sacrament is so surely established on scrip
ture and reason, that we can reflect upon
it with the utmost satisfaction, and have
much more reason to invite, than ta dread
discussion, if it should please our adver
saries of any denomination to descend into
the field of argument against us. Reli
giously speaking, the church of England
stands on a basis which cannot be shaken.
Her doctrine is the doctrine of scripture,
which is her only rule of faith and wor
ship ; is clear, consistent, spiritual, and full
of consolation to such as worship God in
spirit and in truth.
That of the church of Rome, on the con
trary, involves the most glaring contradic
tions, which can be defended only by the
most laboured and tortuous sophistry, and
is the source of multiplied superstitions;
and while it is founded upon an asserted
fact, which is acknowledged to be totally
imperceptible to sense and incomprehensi
ble to reason, she requires all her members
to receive it on pain of eternal damnation,
as if it were as intuitively certain, or as
capable of demonstration, as the being of

178 LECTURE V.
God, or any express article of the Christian
faith. Those, therefore, with whom the author
ity of an infallible church is paramount to
all objections, who can believe with her,
and in deference to her demands, in oppo
sition to sense and reason, that in the con
secrated wafer, and every the smallest par
ticle of it, the body, blood, soul, and divi
nity of the eternal only-begotten Son of
God are fully contained, and ought to be
worshipped with the highest degree of di
vine adoration, those who believe these
things do rightly in adhering to her com
munion, and may be respected for their
well-meaning piety, as well as commiserat
ed for their doating superstition.
But if there be any who do not in heart
and soul assent to this doctrine, nor be
lieve that it is either taught in scripture
or essentially true, nor that divine honour
may be lawfully paid by a Christian to the
consecrated elements in the eucharist and
the pretended sacrifice of the mass, and yet
continue professed members of a church
which exacts such pledges of allegiance

LECTURE V. 179
from all her people, and either by instruc
tion or example lead others to believe what
themselves do not believe, what can we say,
but that it is high time to lay aside all dis
simulation, and judge themselves, that they
be not judged of the Lord '' !
Whatever their motives may be for deal
ing with insincerity in the sight of Him
who seeth the secrets of the heart, whether
a regard to worldly honour or distinction,
the false pride of adhering to tenets once
embraced, and defending ancient errors ra
ther than acknowledge and renounce them,
or an undue deference to the wishes and
opinions of others, their conduct, as men
pretending to religion, is equally without
excuse. However they may disguise it to
themselves, the world has the first place in
their aff'ections, and they can never be ac
counted true disciples of that divine Mas-

" Bossuet artfully remarks. Variations of Protestants,
Vol. I, Book vi. p. 259. " There is no way of avoiding
" the sacrifice, adoration, and transubstantiation, without
" denying in the bread this real presence of Jesus Christ."
We may as truly add, There is no way of justifying them,
without proving it.
N 2

180 LECTURE V.
ter, who " came into the world, that he might
bear witness to the truth; nor can any be
farther from being governed by that Spirit
which was in him, than those who per
versely oppose or unfaithfully handle it.
These observations are not advanced in a
spirit of uncharitableness ; we are not ani
mated by ill will to the persons of those
whose errors we condemn and deplore ; nor
do we take merit to ourselves, because by
the singular and inscrutable mercy of God
we have been delivered from that bondage
of spiritual darkness to which so many
others are still left enthralled.
Well, therefore, does it become us to fol
low the advice of the apostle to the p Ro
mans, in circumstances somewhat analogous
to our own, not to be high-minded, but fear,
and use with moderation ¦> the liberty where
with Christ has made us free. To cherish
such a temper is at all times our wisdom
and our duty, and will best preserve us
from many occasions of falling. But hu
mility, charity, and godly fear are perfectly
<» Joiin .xviii. 37. P Rom. xi. 20. q Gal. v. 1.

LECTURE V. 181
compatible with a well-governed zeal for
the truth. Otherwise they would be in di
rect opposition to the highest and most
indispensable obligations of every sincere
Christian, but more especially of a Chris
tian minister.
For if, as our Lord teaches, it " is eternal
life to know the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom he hath sent, it must be an im
perative duty with them, above all men,
never to compromise with error, nor to for
bear to refute, when occasion is aff'orded
them, whatever may tend to impair that
knowledge, or render it of none eff'ect. And
if off'ence be taken where none is intended,
we must plead for ourselves to those who
suff'er our expostulation so impatiently, in
the words of St. Paul to the Galatians, ' Am
I therefore become your enemy, because I
tell you the truth P the attainment of which,
as it ought to be the object of all our in
quiries, so if it was pursued by all Chris
tians in singleness of heart, then indeed we
might hope to see an end to religious ani-
r John xvii. 3. « Gal, iv. 16.
N 3

182 LECTURE V.
mosities, if not a total cessation of those
extreme controversies, by which the house
hold of faith is divided against itself
By some persons the popish doctrine of
transubstantiation has been considered as a
mere speculative error, and by others as
diff'ering more in form than reality from
the doctrine of our own church. But, I
trust, it is sufficiently evident, that it must
be a very inaccurate and superficial view of
the subject which could lead any sincere
man to either of these conclusions.
Whoever will be persuaded to bestow
upon the study of it that careful attention
which its importance demands, will be con
vinced that both are equally unfounded.
He will unavoidably perceive, that the
Romish doctrine is not simply liable to the
imputation of speculative error, but that it
tends of necessity to great practical abuses
and corruptions of religion ; while the doc
trine of our church, on the contrary, is li
able to no such objections ; but is altogether
holy and spiritual, equally congenial to true
piety, and remote from superstition.
In a word, the diffierence between us

LECTURE V. 183
on this head, is in eff'ect the same which
pervades the respective systems of both
churches in all their parts. The one holds
to * the letter which killeth, the other to the
spirit which giveth life. The one exhibits a
shew of piety in rites and ceremonies, and
external exercises of devotion ; the other,
renouncing as utterly worthless and delu
sive all formal acts of religion without faith
and holiness, exhorts all her members to
"" sanctify the Lord God in their hearts;
and while they rely only on the merits and
intercession of their Redeemer for deliver
ance from sin and acceptance at the throne
of grace, to "present their bodies a living
sacrifice, holy acceptable to God, which is
their reasonable service.
t 2 Cor. iii. 6. "1 Peter iii. 15. ^ Rom. xii. 1.

N 4

LECTURE VL

1 Timothy ii. 5.
For there is one God, and one mediator between
God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
When once the genuine principles of
religion have been vitiated or forsaken, and
human presumption has ceased to respect
the landmarks and fences which the divine
Wisdom has appointed, to repress vain ima
ginations, and direct the researches of sober
piety striving to attain the knowledge of
the truth, the further it proceeds the more
widely it digresses from the right way; rea
son is bewildered, and one error follows as
a corollary to another.
It ought not, therefore, to surprise us,
when we see those who, without the sanc
tion of reason or scripture, in the true spi
rit of heretical perverseness, have proclaim
ed and strenuously contended for the doc
trine of transubstantiation, with its conse
quent and inseparable corruptions of faith

186 LECTURE VI.
and worship, as true and essential articles
of the Christian religion, carried away to
still greater lengths of grossness and infa
tuation. The intention which I professed in the
opening of these Lectures, was not to exhi
bit a detailed account of all the grave errors
of the church of Rome, a work not to be
attempted within so narrow a compass, but
to notice more particularly some of those
which by their greater enormity rendered
reformation on religious grounds absolutely
necessary; and because reformation was pe
remptorily denied by the rulers of that
church, made it the duty of all sincere
Christians who were sensible of her cor
ruptions to withdraw from her communion,
and of which, as the efficient and justifying
causes of that consummation, the force and
reason remain undiminished to the present
time. Some, therefore, of very serious import,
and which added not a little to the neces
sity of the reformation, but which calmly
reviewed, should rather be considered as
accessory, than as substantive causes of that

LECTURE VL 187
event, (and which, if the council of Trent
had not thought proper to confirm and per-
petuate them by her decrees, might have
been so modified as to render them in
noxious, or explained away, or tacitly aban
doned,) I must leave to be briefly touched
upon hereafter, and for the present pass on
to the examination of those more glaring
corruptions, by which the worship of the
church of Rome has been so nearly assimi
lated to paganism, and which, if the decla
ration of the apostle in the text be true, or
the warning which he elsewhere gives, that
"there is no agreement between the temple of
God and idols, or that of the prophet, '' that
the Lord will not give his glory to another,
nor his praise to graven images, must be ut
terly rejected without compromise by every
sincere and faithful Christian.
Not that those other causes of disagree
ment and separation, to which I have at
this time made but a cursory allusion, and
must eventually dismiss with inadequate
brevity, are either obsolete or of light im-
a 2 Cor. vi. 16. ^ Isaiah xiii. 8.

188 LECTURE VL
portance, seeing that they are still integral
parts of the Romish system, and pregnant
with hurtful superstition ; and are only
less worthy of distinct animadversion than
the invocation of saints and veneration of
images, because they are less forced upon
our notice, than these characteristic deform
ities of the church of Rome, which hold so
conspicuous a place in her authorized forms
of worship, and are at once so degrading to
Christianity, and so peculiarly off'ensive to
those who draw their principles of religion
from holy scripture, and not from apocry
phal tradition.
The first of these, the invocation of saints,
shall form the main argument of my pre
sent Discourse.
If all other evidences were wanting to
prove that the church of Rome is given up
to a "strong delusion, and is no longer a
true church of Christ, notwithstanding her
lofty pretensions and imposing display of
exterior sanctity, practices like these, ob
stinately retained and artfully defended, in
<= 2 Thess. ii. 11.

LECTURE VL 189
direct and manifest contradiction to all that
we know of the attributes of God by reason
or revelation, would fully justify us in pro
nouncing such a judgment concerning her.
Having scarcely a shadow of scriptural au
thority for either of these gross deprava
tions of Christian worship, it is boldly as
serted by that church, that they are both
founded upon apostolical tradition ; which,
as I have before observed concerning the
uses in general to which it is applied, would
be alone sufficient to destroy the credit of
tradition, and to justify our church in re
jecting it altogether as a rule of faith and
worship, and admitting its authority in any
sense, or for any purpose, under this re
striction only, "that nothing be ordained
" against God's word." Nor could a more
decisive proof be adduced of the pernicious
consequences of placing tradition on a level
with scripture, than that which the case
before us exhibits, of attempting to esta
blish by tradition principles of faith and
worship, which we may without hesitation
pronounce to be utterly incompatible with
the elementary truths of revealed religion.

190 LECTURE VL
and so unworthy of the infinite, incompre
hensible Deity, that even the reason of an
enlightened heathen would revolt at them.
And if it were possible, as Romanists
pretend, to trace up to the earliest ages of
the church, either doctrines or institutions
at variance with that immutable rule, which
the wisdom of God has provided in his writ
ten word for the perpetual security and cri
terion of our faith, it would not at all be
nefit the cause of those who contend for
them. It might prove the early origin of
corruption, but could not justify it. If but
the last link in the chain were wanting,
if that, for which apostolical authority is
claimed, cannot be traced up to the apo
stles themselves, of which their inspired
writings, if at least it be a point of doc
trine, are now the only admissible testi
mony, the whole must fall to the ground,
and is no more worthy of regard, than if it
were the invention of yesterday ; and when
Romanists boast of the superior antiquity
of their form of faith and worship, it is
proper to remember, that nothing is really
ancient in religion, which is posterior to

LECTURE VL 191
the age in which Christianity in its unadul
terated truth and purity was first preached
upon earth by our Lord and his apostles ;
and that whatever bf later origin has been
added to it, at however remote a period
from our own times, is truly and properly
a religious novelty. Whatever authority
may be claimed for the fathers by their
fondest admirers, they will not certainly at
tribute inspiration to them ; and if either
their glosses on scripture, or their histori
cal testimony, or recorded opinions, or un
guarded phraseology can be adduced in
support of manifest depravations of authen
tic Christianity, it may indeed weaken their
own credit for judgment or fidelity, but
can never shake that of the apostles and
evangelists, to whom the final appeal must
be made for terminating all controversies
of faith and doctrine among Christians.
Now it is declared by the modern church
of Rome to be an article of the true catho
lic faith, out of which no man can be saved,
" ^ that the saints reigning together with
d Creed of Pope Pius, Art. 8.

192 LECTURE VL
" Christ are to be venerated and invoked,
" and that they off'er prayers to God for us,
'' " and that their relics are to be venerated ;"
and no one can be received as a convert
into her communion, or honestly and with
a good conscience continue a member of it,
who does not, without subterfuge or mental
reservation, assent to every proposition ex
pressed or implied in this article.
Arguing with men who were permitted
to see the truth, and who were not bound
to the defence of corruptions once sanc
tioned in their church, by the necessity of
preserving unbroken the spell of her pre
tended infallibility, it would be sufficient for
the refutation of so gross a mixture of pre
sumptuous error and debasing superstition,
as are here engrafted on the faith necessary
to salvation, to exhort them to search the
scriptures whether these things are so, or
to consult the reason which God has given
them for their guidance, wheresoever he
has not interposed by a special revelation
of his will.
But, as it has been before observed, rea
son in its most pious exercise is scarcely al-

LECTURE VL 193
lowed a place by Romanists in controver
sies of religion.
It is the prerogative of the church, or of
those who speak in her name, to judge and
determine in all such cases, and the duty
of her members, unless they are prepared
to incur the stigma and penalties of heresy,
to bow to her authority, and abide by her
decision; and in the present instance, scrip
ture, in every part it, from Genesis to Reve
lations, is both in letter and spirit so de
cidedly against them, that ultimately they
have no resource left, but to take refuge in
church authority and tradition ; which, as I
have observed in a former Lecture, is their
grand expedient to escape from every diffi
culty and to cloke every corruption. A
very faint attempt indeed is made to de
rive an apparent sanction from scripture
for the invocation of saints, or rather, by
the artful misapplication of irrelevant pas
sages, to render the practice less off'ensive
to such of their own communion as might
possibly think that in a case of so great mo
ment the Bible-book, as they contemptu
ously term it, ought not to be altogether
o

194 LECTURE VL
superseded by the authority of tradition, or
the mandates of popes and decrees of coun
cils. But the attempt is so faint, the argu
ments so feeble and unnatural, that seri
ously to refute them would be to give them
an importance which they do not deserve:
a very slight notice of some of them in their
proper place will be sufficient for every use
ful purpose. As to protestants, therefore,
who admit no rule of faith, nor testimony
in support of any doctrine as conclusive,
but that of holy writ alone ; nor allow to
any uninspired mortal the right of chang
ing, suppressing, or adding to the faith
once delivered to the saints, it is superflu
ous to argue against that which is unsup
ported and unsanctioned by the only au
thority to which they believe it consistent
with the first principles of their religion to
defer. The want of such sanction and sup
port is with them the most decisive refuta
tion of any thing which is pronounced by
mere human authority to be entitled to
universal belief or observance; and upon
this ground alone, if other reasons were
wanting, we should be justified in rejecting

LECTURE VI. 195
the fellowship of a church, which attempts
to impose upon all Christians as an article
of faith necessary to salvation, that which,
by her own shewing, is incapable of being
proved true from scripture ; and much more,
when it is such in its nature, that we can
prove it false beyond the power of contra
diction, if the dispute is to be terminated
by the letter or spirit of scripture.
But the necessity of withdrawing from a
church which has introduced and pertina
ciously retains such a depravation of true
religion as that of addressing invocations
and prayers to created beings, and still re
quires all her members to adopt the prac
tice in obedience to her decrees, as the
church of Rome has done, is rendered yet
more apparent in her case by the argu
ments employed to vindicate and recom
mend it. — The church of Rome holds as
expressly, and, we doubt not, as sincerely
as ourselves, the first great principle of all
true religion, the unity of God, and the
fundamental articles of the Christian faith ;
and we are not called upon to argue these
points against her, for the refutation of her
o 2

196 LECTURE VL
doctrines upon the subject in question, or
the justification of our own church in her
total condemnation of them ; but to shew
the inconsistency of holding these immuta
ble truths, and yet, as we may boldly affirm,
in plain disregard of their necessary con
sequences, and in direct opposition to scrip
ture and reason, on the strength of a pre
tended apostolical tradition, unattested, as
we have already seen by any credible evi
dence, and intrinsically unworthy of the
origin to which they ascribe it, imparting
to inferior natures a portion of that ho
nour which is due to God alone ; of which
presumptuous impiety we hold that church
to be undoubtedly guilty.
St. Paul imputes it to the ancient hea
then, that ^ when they knew God, they glori
fied him not as God, that they became vain
in their imaginations, that professing them^
selves wise, they became fools; and to the
delusive vanity of being wise above those
simple and self-evident truths which are
attainable by reason, concerning the being
and attributes of God, from the survey of
<= Rom. i. 21, 22.

LECTURE VL 197
his visible works, they fell into idolatry
and its inseparable consequences of mental
blindness and moral corruption ; so that
while we find in heathen writers the most
just and beautiful sentiments concerning
the Deity, to whom they ascribe holiness,
justice, benevolence, and other truly divine
perfections, their systems of religion were
utterly unworthy of God, and incompatible
with their creed. They worshipped him
not as a Being invested with such attri
butes ; as the apostle speaks, they glorified
him not as God. They neither remembered
in their practice the holiness and spiritu
ality of his nature, nor honoured him with
services which such a Being might vouch
safe to accept from his rational creatures,
but invented ceremonies and forms of ado
ration full of licentiousness and impurity ;
and bestowing divine honours upon a vast
multitude of inferior beings, whom they as
sociated with the supreme God in the go
vernment of the world, they at length to
tally lost sight of those cardinal truths of
natural religion, which, if duly observed,
would have saved them from sinking into
o3

198 LECTURE VL
such depths of grossness and debasement.
Forsaking the real though imperfect light
of nature, and giving themselves up to a
vain imagination, they were carried away
with infinite delusions, and ^ their foolish
heart was darkened.
I would not be thought to insinuate in
the remotest sense, that the church of Rome
at this day stands in the same predicament
as the heathen world before the coming of
Christ. Nor is it possible that any sect of
Christians, while they continue to hold the
fundamental articles of the faith once re
vealed to the universal church, which that
of Rome assuredly does, though obscured
and grievously debased by spurious addi
tions, should relapse into all the darkness
and corruption of paganism. Between un
enlightened heathens, and Christians in the
most unfavourable state compatible with
their religion, there will still be a wide dif
ference : but it is certain that those of
Rome, while they claim to be alone entitled
to the true name of Christians, ^ have, like
' Rom. i. 21. g Eccl. vii. 29.

LECTURE VL 199
the heathen, sought out many inventions,
whereby the salutary truths which they
maintain are to a great degree rendered
ineffiectual ; and among the foremost of
these must be placed the veneration and
invocation of saints and angels, which can
not be practised without infringing upon
the attributes of God.
The Psalmist beautifully suggests the
grounds of divine adoration, in one of his
most admirable addresses to the Deity ;
'' Thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall
all flesh come.
On this principle alone it is that we pray
to God with full confidence, because we
certainly believe him to be all-wise, all-
powerful, and all-good; and by virtue of
these incommunicable attributes that he
knows our wants, and is ever ready to grant
what we ask aright, with a perfect resigna
tion of our will to his, " ' for the relief of
" our necessities, and the setting forth of
" his glory." The very act of praying im
plies this belief concerning the Deity whom
h Psalm Ixv. 2. » Collect after communion.
o 4

200 LECTURE VL
we worship; and without such a persua
sion, to pray at all, to supplicate the com
passion, or invoke the help of a being, whom
we did not believe conscious of our ad
dresses, or able to grant our petitions, would
be an act of the most senseless absurdity.
The Roman Catholics, therefore, who
have made it an integral part of their reli
gion to address themselves in prayer to de
parted saints, that is, to the spirits of men
and women, whose hearts, while they lived,
were known to God alone, and who are yet
waiting in another state the final award of
the great day, must be guilty of the fearful
presumption of ascribing to them some por
tion at least of the glorious perfections of
the Deity.
That they are sensible of the difficulty
of defending such a practice, and satisfying
the scruples of the more enlightened among
themselves, is sufficiently evident from the
fanciful and indefinite explanations by which
they endeavour to escape from it.
One of their most distinguished apolo
gists leaves it undetermined, after asserting
unequivocally, in his celebrated Exposition

LECTURE VL 201
of the Doctrines of the Church of Rome,
" that prayers addressed to the saints are
" exceedingly profitable to such as make
" use of them," through what channel this
great benefit is to be obtained.
Reason, however, would seem to require,
that, if the custom of addressing prayers to
the saints be indeed so exceedingly profit
able, the manner and principle of it should
not be left in vague uncertainty by the
most learned expositors of the Romish te
nets, while at the same time they feel them
selves qualified to speak so expressly of the
great advantages attending it; and yet in
that most celebrated treatise to which I
have just referred, and to the orthodoxy of
which every member of that church zeal
ously assents, we find nothing positively as
serted ; but instead of a precise explanation,
where, if the doctrine be but true, it does
not appear to exceed the measure of human
comprehension, or to involve any inscrutable
mystery, we are amused only with visionary
speculations, " ' whether, for instance, the
k Bossuet, Expos, of Cath. Doct. p. 27. ' Ibid.

202 LECTURE VL
" saints comprehend us by the intercourse
" or ministry of angels, who, being esta-
" blished ministering spirits by the order of
" God in the work of our salvation, know,
" as the scripture testifies, what passes here
" amongst us ; or whether God himself dis-
" covers our desires to them by a particular
" revelation ; or whether, in short, he dis-
" closes the secret to them in his infinite
" essence, where all truth whatever is com-
" prehended." Here, if there is nothing satisfactory to
the rigid inquirer after truth, there is at
least sufficient latitude of explanation in
an article of faith declared necessary to sal
vation, to render it palatable through some
mental fiction to those who might not
otherwise be easily reconciled to the ad
mission of it. But whether any of his in
genious hypotheses aff'orded satisfaction to
their eminently acute author, while he la
boured to remove the scruples of others
less clearsighted than himself, we may be
permitted to doubt.
Another very recent defender of the
church of Rome, inferior in ability to few,

LECTURE VL 203
and in zeal to none, who have advocated
the same cause before him, has laboured
this point with infinite art, but without
shedding any new light upon it "".
His object, indeed, has been too evidently
to elude unanswerable objections to the
whole system of saint-worship, and to ob
scure what he professes to illustrate; and
all that he attempts to say, bearing upon
the real question, amounts but to this ; that
although they grant that Christ alone is the
Mediator of salvation, it is not to be argued
from thence that there is no other me
diator of intercession ; (upon which I would
remark by the way, that it clearly amounts
to an unwilling acknowledgment that the
pretended mediation of the saints is incom
patible with the sole mediation of Christ
asserted in the text ;) and because St. Paul
requested the prayers of the churches in
his labours and trials, and Job those of his
living friends in his affliction, he adduces
this as a justification of the Romish prac
tice of praying to departed saints to inter-
""¦ Milner, Part III. p. 18. End of Religious Contro
versy, Letter 33.

204 LECTURE VL
cede with God for them by prayers on their
behalf. It is not worth while to analyze the un
intelligible phrase of a JMediator of inter
cession distinct from the Mediator of sal
vation, an office wholly unknown to holy
scripture, and therefore affiording an addi
tional illustration of the value of tradition,
by the aid of which so important a disco
very has been made ; nor to point out the
diff'erence between asking the prayers of our
brethren here on earth", for whom it is a
part of our commanded duty to perform
the same office of spiritual charity, and in
voking the spirits of the dead, to render us
that help which the scripture teaches us to
expect from the Son of God alone, who is
also the Son of man, and the only appointed
Mediator between God and man ; " ° who
having entered by his own blood into the holy
places not made with hands, ever liveth to
make intercession for those who put their
whole trust in him. To him we apply in
every time of need, in full confidence of his
™ 1 Tim. ii. 1. n Heb. ix. 24, &c.

LECTURE VL 205
favourable kindness towards us, because he
died once to deliver us from our sins ; and
of his power to save us, because he is one
with the Father and the Holy Ghost, hav
ing " all power both in heaven and in earth,
being p over all, God blessed for ever.
This is a substantial faith, which may
strengthen the weak, encourage the humble,
and raise up the fallen; and when the word
of God assures us, that we have him for
our Advocate with the Father who is him
self the propitiation for our sins, how great
must be the blindness, how excessive the
infatuation of those, who, doubting the suf
ficiency of such a mediation, have recourse
to other mediators of whose power to help
them they know nothing; and of whose con
sciousness to the prayers addressed to them
not even the wisest among the vindicators of
such a practice can give a rational and con
sistent explanation.
Such, however, are the consequences of
indulging a vain imagination, and suff*er-
ing human authority to dictate concerning
° Matth. xxviii. 18. P Rom. ix. 5.

206 LECTURE VL
things which can be known only by the re
velation of God. But if argument fail, our
last quoted author has recourse to persua
sion, to induce us to adopt the practice of
praying to saints and angels : " How sub-
" lime and consoling," he exclaims, " how
" animating is the practice of true catho-
" lies, compared with the opinions of pro-
" testants ! We hold daily and hourly con-
" verse, to our unspeakable comfort and ad-
" vantage, with the angelic choirs, with the
" venerable patriarchs and prophets of an-
" cient times, with the heroes of Chris-
" tianity, the blessed apostles and martyrs,
" and with the bright ornaments of it in
" later ages, the Bernards, the Xaverii, the
" Teresas, and the Sales's. They are all
" members of the catholic church." And,
proceeding in his address to his imaginary
correspondent, he adds, " Why should not
" you partake of this advantage? Your soul,
" you complain, (dear sir,) is in trouble ; you
" lament that your prayers to God are not
" heard : continue to pray to him with all
" the fervour of your soul; but why not en-
" gage his friends and courtiers to add the

LECTURE VL 207
" weight of their prayers to your own *• ?"
With more to the same eff'ect. After perus
ing this passage, one can hardly forbear ex
claiming. What a heaven must the author
of this rhapsody have contemplated ! And
yet, as I have before observed, these are
not the words of an unknown fanatic in a
distant age, but of "^one recently remov
ed from these sublunary abodes, and long
reckoned among the brightest luminaries
and firmest pillars of modern popery in this
country ; and, if true wisdom and excessive
superstition could coalesce in one person,
his talents and acquirements would give de
served weight to his opinion. And yet how
strange to the ears of Christians, who know
the scriptures, must such delirious extrava
gances sound ! and to what depths of anile
imbecility must not those be sunk, how
wise soever in their own conceits, who
could imagine or admit such fictions for
truth ? The holy scriptures indeed encou
rage us to look beyond this earthly scene,
q Milner, Part III. p. 18. End of Religious Contro
versy, Letter 33.
' Vicar apostolic and bishop of Castabala.

208 LECTURE VL
and to elevate our thoughts to those plea
sures which are at God's right hand for
evermore, and in our passage through this
vale of mortality to endeavour to fit our
selves for the society of angels and the spi
rits of just m,en made perfect. To attain
to this is the final aim and hope of all
true Christians ; but in vain shall we look
through the sacred volume for saints reign
ing with Christ, while the church is still
militant upon earth, and exercising power
and influence as the friends and courtiers
of the Almighty ! Such a figment of vision
ary superstition is monstrous to reason, and
shocking to Christian piety ; nor will a pa
rallel to it be any where found, except in
the mythology of the heathen, from whence
it was undoubtedly borrowed.
To be given up to such delusions is the
fearful penalty of following human tradi
tions falsely asserted to be divine, and re
fusing to submit to the sole authority of
the written word of God; which, to those
who piously study and dutifully obey it, is
a sure and sufficient guide to all that we
are required to know concerning the will

^ LECTURE VL 209
and dispensations of God, and all, probably,
that in our present state we are capable
of comprehending concerning those secret
things of eternity, which the divine Wis
dom has not more fully revealed. And if
the most profound and learned among the
advocates of such a system of religion, if
the most admired luminaries of the papal
church, have wandered into such mazes of
dangerous error, it is nothing wonderful
that their less enlightened followers should
be immersed in yet grosser superstitions ; a
'¦fact too notorious to be here insisted on,
though not without its weight in estimat
ing the merits of the system itself, to which
such consequences invariably adhere.
But it is not true, as they pretend, that
they pray to saints only as mediators, though
even that is a perilous and sinful presump
tion. They make also direct addresses to
them, as endued with power to grant their
requests ; and, though they generally in ar
gument refuse to acknowledge this, their
authorized books of devotion incontestably
prove it, and that consequences as injurious
to morality as religion have flowed from it.

210 LECTURE VL
But far beyond the pernicious delusion
of teaching men to rely upon the efficacy of
the prayers of the saints for securing the
favour of God, is the impious fiction con
cerning the merits of their works and suf
ferings, as contributing, jointly with those
of the divine Redeemer, to the remission of
the sins of men ; which is in direct opposi
tion to the doctrine of scripture.
For the scripture, far from teaching that
any man's righteousness is more than suffi
cient for his own justification, inculcates no
truth more emphatically than this, that the
best of men are still imperfect, and con
cluded under sin, that in the sight of God
no man living shall be justified, and that
we are delivered from eternal death only
through the sacrifice of the death of Christ,
and through faith in his blood.
This is the uniform tenor of the New
Testament, not the doctrine of any particu
lar section of it, but the great truth which
pervades the whole in characters not to be
mistaken ; so that we are justified in assert
ing that he cannot be a true Christian who
does not with his whole heart embrace it ;

LECTURE VL 211
and yet the church of Rome fears not to
delude her followers with doctrines utterly
at variance with it, concerning the superero
gatory virtues of the saints and the treasures
of their merits, which she has in her keeping,
to dispense, according to her good pleasure,
to such of her children as she deems worthy
of so precious a favour; and not only to the
suff'erings of real martyrs, but even to the
self-inflicted tortures of monastic recluses
and phrensied fanatics is this efficacy ascrib
ed; and while holy scripture teaches that the
best of men are saved only through the me
rits and intercession of Christ, that church
has appointed by her own authority, upon
the foundation of a vain tradition, other
mediators between God and man, to whom
she directs her members to make their
humble addresses, and to depend upon
their good offices.
This is more particularly true concerning
the prayers addressed to the blessed Virgin,
in whose honour the powers of language have
been exhausted, to furnish appellations and
epithets, some of which are off'ensive to
protestant ears from their extravagant ab-
p 2

212 LECTURE VL
surdity, and some it would be a breach of
Christian piety to utter. But not only to
her who enjoyed the supreme honour ot
being mother to the Son of God, and whom,
according to her own prophecy, ' all gene
rations shall call Blessed; nor to the inspir
ed apostles, by whom the gospel was first
preached to all nations, and by whose writ
ings the universal church is still edified
and enlightened, are these honours paid,
and these powers ascribed ; but to a multi
tude of others, whose names are almost un
known to the world, whose very existence is
in some instances doubtful, and whose piety,
recorded in fabulous legends, was, if sincere,
of that fanatical kind, which, if they had
been protestants, would have been attribut
ed by those who now venerate them above
the lot of mortality, to disordered intellects
or spiritual delusion.
Yet to such persons, pronounced by the
Roman pontiffs to be saints, honours all
but divine are paid, litanies addressed, pil
grimages performed, and miracles ascribed
in such abundance, that in the dark ages
' Luke i. 48.

LECTURE VL 213
in which they flourished the course of na
ture would seem to have been suspended,
for the exhibition of their prodigious en
dowments ; and that, for the most part, to
establish no important truth of religion,
but simply to signalize the sanctity of the
individual, or the excellence of some religi
ous order, or to confirm some artful pre
tension of the church of Rome.
And although the claims to *saintship are
said to be now liable to a severer scrutiny,
and works which in ignorant ages would
have excited astonishment would now only
provoke derision ; yet the power of canoniz
ing saints to whom prayers are to be offier-
ed, and by whose prayers in return the liv
ing are to be benefited, is still claimed and
exercised by the popes, and the power of
working miracles, which is one of the re
quisite marks of real saintship, is unhesi
tatingly asserted to be a perpetual and pe
culiar privilege of the church of Rome by
all her advocates ; and the " experiments of
' Vide Introductory Discourse to Butler's Lives of
Saints. " Prince Hohenlohe, &c.
r 3

214 LECTURE VL
that kind which in our times have been
attempted upon superstitious credulity, and
are yet fresh in the memory of us all, suffi
ciently prove that deceivers will never be
wanting, while there are those who are will
ing to be deceived.
Concerning the general character of those
mortals, who by the papal fiat are elevated
before the last judgment into courtiers of
heaven, and, as they express it, mediators
of intercession between God and man, a
just estimate may be formed by referring
to an authority, which on such a point is
above all exception. The latest specimen
of the Lives of the Saints, not long since
edited by a living layman of that church, a
zealous and distinguished partisan of all
her spiritual claims and pretensions, and a
partial admirer of the original author of
that notable compilation, though it is ac
knowledged that much has been retrenched,
as less fit for the public eye in these days,
exhibits, blended at the same time with
much appearance of misapplied piety, such
a picture of miserable credulity both in the
editor, who has in these days reproduced

LECTURE VL 215
such a work, and the community to which
such monuments of superstition can still be
acceptable, as cannot but excite the astonish
ment of Christians, who have been accus
tomed to the reading of holy scripture, and
the study of its history and doctrines, for
the edification of their faith.
It is unnecessary to adduce particular
instances in support of this position. Our
objections to the worship of created beings
««tand on much broader ground than the
unworthiness of particular individuals, to
whom the honours of saintship may have
been awarded ; and if it could be shewn
that, instead of the superstitious aberrations
which their historians attribute to them,
these semidei of popery were endowed with
the most exalted spiritual graces and vir
tues of which human nature in its most im
proved state is capable, they would be no
thing more entitled to the homage of vene
ration and invocation, how much soever we
might reverence their memory and desire
to imitate their example.
But far beyond the absurdity of praying
to saints is that of venerating their relicks,
p 4

216 LECTURE VL
which is equally required of Romanists m
the same article of the papal creed. And
to these also, as well as to the originals them
selves, miraculous virtues are ascribed, and
prodigies without number are affirmed to
have been eff'ected by them ; imminent pe
rils averted, inveterate diseases healed, pes
tilences stayed, " armies of aliens turned to
flight, by the presence of the mortal re
mains or cast-off* garments of the saints.
And so unlimited is the extent of this cre
dulity that, unless we had their own testi
mony against themselves, it would be deem
ed a gross injustice towards the existing
members of the Romish church in this
country, to believe them capable of it. The
histories of all nations in their earlier pe
riods are full of marvellous events and su
pernatural prodigies, which invariably cease
when civilization and knowledge have dis
pelled the clouds of ignorance, and awaken
ed the reasoning faculties of the mind ; and
tales of wonder which shock probability,
^ As the Persians by the hair-shirt of St. Theodosius,
&c. &c. &c. vol. I. of Butler's Lives of Saints, published
by Murphy, London, 1821.

LECTURE VL 217
and are inconsistent with all experience,
and irreconcileable with the order esta
blished by the providence of God among
the works of his creation, are deservedly set
down to the account of folly and imposture,
and are no longer believed, because no one
has an interest in procuring them belief.
And such must have been the fate of the
ridiculous miracles of the dark ages, if they
had not been necessary to support the au
thority of that infallible church, which has
undertaken to accredit them, and in so do
ing has staked her own infallibility upon
their truth.
In estimating the motives and characters
of individuals, much must undoubtedly be
allowed to the force of early impressions,
and the influence of education, upon the
most candid minds ; and it would be un
just to tax with conscious insincerity per
sons labouring under such disadvantages,
when we find them still professing their
belief of such absurdities, and endeavouring
to draw others into it. In itself, however,
it is matter of just astonishment, when we
see men of great natural acuteness, and no

218 LECTURE VL
mean attainments in literature, labouring,
as the most distinguished of modern Ro
man Catholic divines in the united king
dom have done, to perpetuate this mental
blindness, and to persuade the world that
this wonder-working power continually ex
ercised is a standing testimony of the Al
mighty in favour of their church. It exhi
bits, indeed, a very awful warning to all, who
are not themselves within the vortex of
error, to hold fast to the truth ; while at
the same time it is more equitable to attri
bute things, which cannot be justified on
rational principles, to the system of religion
maintained by that church, which denies to
any of her members the unfettered use of
their own reason, than to the individuals
who have been trained up in it, and have
devoted themselves to its support ''. Bound
by her authority to exercise their talents
in defence of things not only above reason,
which many things may be which are yet
essentially true, but contrary to reason,
which nothing can be, which is not essen-
y Milner, Murray, and Doyle; the two last of whom
wrote to establish the belief of Hohenlohe's miracles.

LECTURE VL 219
tially false ; it is too likely that the clear
ness and unity of perception which are con
genial to the study and love of truth will
in their minds be impaired by the necessity
of finding arguments to palliate and jus
tify those defects in their system which can
only be maintained by the utmost efforts of
sophistry against reason and probability.
We find not in the creed, imposed by
the pope after the council of Trent, any
express mention of angels ; but the invoca
tion of them forms a part of Romish wor
ship, and is equally inculcated by the same
^author from whom I have before quoted
the exhortation for praying to saints: "You
" believe, no doubt," says he, " that you
" have a guardian angel appointed by God
" to protect you ;" to which, adding an irre
levant quotation from scripture, he pro
ceeds, " address yourself to this blessed spi-
" rit with gratitude, veneration, and confi-
« dence." Foreseeing, however, the objections which
protestants might make to this doctrine of
z Milner, End of Religious Controversy, Letter 33.
Part III.

220 LECTURE VL
angel-worship, not only as inconsistent with
the general tenor of scripture, but expressly
forbidden by St. Paul, who attributes it to
the vanity of a fleshly mind, intruding into
those things which it hath not seen, and
not holding the Head, that is, the true doc
trine of Christ the only Mediator ; with an
attempt to deceive, which cannot be repro
bated with adequate severity in a matter
of such awful importance, he hesitates not
to assure his reader, " " that the worship of
" angels, condemned by the apostle, means
" only the worship of the fallen or wicked
" angels, whom Christ despoiled, and which
" was paid to them by Simon the magician
" and his followers, as the makers of the
" world." Simon Magus and the Mani
cheans seem to haunt the imaginations of
Roman Catholic divines ; they see the ves
tiges of them every where, except in their
own unerring church ; and whatever they
wish to bring into the greatest odium, in
utter contempt of reason and probability, is
commonly referred to their inventions. But
'^ Milner from Hawarden. End of Religious Contro
versy, Letter 35, Part III.

LECTURE VL 221
the present is a difficulty, out of which even
Simon Magus cannot help them.
The text of St. Paul is too plain to be
mistaken by any one who wishes to know
his meaning, and in fact bears a strong re
semblance to that passage in his Epistle
to the Romans, to which I adverted in a
former part of this Lecture, where he attri
butes the corruptions of the heathen to
the neglect of that which they might have
known concerning the invisible God from
the contemplation of his visible works ; the
consequence of which was, that professing
themselves wise, they became fools ; and in
like manner he attributes the voluntary
humility of worshipping angels, as we have
just now seen, to the vanity of a fleshly
mind, intruding into those secret things
which God has not revealed to man. It is
impossible to torture this into a prohibi
tion against imitating Simon Magus and
his followers. When the tempter approach
ed our Lord, he repulsed his suggestions
with these pregnant words, ^ Thou shalt
ivorship the Lord thy God, and him only
b Matth. iv. 10.

222 LECTURE VL
shalt thou serve. And surely it must have
been a very unnecessary caution in the apo
stle, to warn those to whom he had himself
preached the gospel, that it was inconsist
ent with their religion to worship evil spi
rits, the enemies of God and man, and from
whose power the Son of God came down
from heaven to deliver them. It was a-
gainst the voluntary humility, as the apo
stle speaks, of worshipping good angels, be
ings superior indeed to man, but inferior
to God, and possessing and exercising no
power or influence but what it may please
God to impart to them, that the apostle's
caution was designed. Such a practice he
considers inconsistent with the command
of God and the worship due to Him alone,
as well as derogatory to the sole mediation
of Christ, " who is the Head over all things
to his church. No truth can possibly be
clearer than this, to those who seek the
knowledge of their religion in the scrip
ture, and it will be a vain attempt, by the
forced interpretation of any insulated text,
to cast a plausible doubt upon it. Hardly
c Ephes. i. 22.

LECTURE VI. 223
will tradition itself avail them here, since
even the church of Rome does not contend
that tradition is to be obeyed in direct op
position to scripture.
Would Roman Catholics, therefore, but
consult the scripture with unbiassed minds,
and understand it in its own unadulterated
sense — not merely in that which a pretended
infallible church, systematically sinning a-
gainst its plainest truths, and dreading that
its own corruptions may be exposed by its
light, deems it necessary to fix upon it —
happier days would dawn upon the Chris
tian world, and the reign of error hasten to
its close : the unsightly pile of heathenish
superstition, erected in the darkest ages
upon credulity and fear, and guarded by
anathemas against the influx of light, which
might expose the rottenness of its founda
tions, would fall to pieces, and the true
church of Christ be renewed in the beauty
of holiness and the majesty of truth.

LECTURE VIL

Deut. iv. 15.
Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves ;
for ye saw no manner qf similitude on the
day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeh
out of the midst qfthe fire,
xROM the veneration and invocation of
saints, which was particularly discussed in
my last Lecture, the transition is easy to
the still grosser abomination of honouring
and venerating images, which I have re
served for the subject-matter of the pre
sent; both being equally of pagan origin,
and, however modified or refined, essentially
inconsistent with true religion.
St. Paul, arguing the superiority of the
gospel to the law, tells the " Galatians, that
the law had been to the Jews as a school
master to bring them to Christ ; that is, a
less perfect dispensation of religion, suited
to the times and circumstances in which it
» Gal. iii. 24.
Q.

226 LECTURE VII.
was given, and under the discipline of which
they were to be prepared for that more per
fect and spiritual, which was in the appoint
ed time to be revealed by Christ.
One great purpose of the law, therefore,
was to wean them from the corruptions of
the heathen nations by whom they were
surrounded, and which, as their whole his
tory proves, they were at all periods ante
cedent to the Babylonish captivity so prone
to imitate. But among those heathenish
corruptions of religion there is none more
striking, nor any against which they are
more frequently and earnestly cautioned,
or deterred from the practice of it by more
terrible denunciations of divine anger, than
that of idolatry or image-worship.
It cannot be necessary to make appeals
either to the law or the prophets in support
of so notorious and incontrovertible a truth;
but it is very important to observe, that it
is not merely against making the likeness
of any such imaginary being, whether good
or evil, as those which were worshipped
by the heathen, which is prohibited. Not
even the making of any graven image is al-

LECTURE VII. 227
lowed, whether as a representation or me
morial of the true God ; of whom, as they
are reminded in the text, they saw no simi
litude, when he spake unto them in Horeb,
at the giving of the law, with all the fearful
circumstances attending it.
Now it seems to follow, as a necessary con
clusion from these premises, that if image-
worship of any kind was too gross, and un
worthy of the Deity, to be allowed to a
people so little refined in understanding
as the Israelites were in the days of Moses ;
and if it seemed good to the divine Wis
dom to punish the violation of the com
mandment by which it is forbidden with
the heaviest judgments, and to suff'er no re
laxation of its strictness till the end of that
dispensation; that it never can be consist
ent with the spiritual perfection of the
Christian dispensation, of which the Mosaic
was but the shadow, to tolerate the intro
duction of it as a mode or accompaniment
of Christian worship.
And whereas our Lord declares that he
^came not to destroy the law or the pro-
b Matth V. 17.
Q 2

228 LECTURE VIL
phets, but to fulfil them, it is surely incredi
ble that his religion should have gone di
rectly against the law and the prophets in
a matter of such vital importance, without
at least some distinct avowal of the intend
ed change, or some explanation of the rea
son for adopting it, as we find in other in
stances where a new commandment is given
to supersede an ancient and received opin
ion or practice.
But so far is this from being the case,
that in the whole compass of the New Tes
tament not a single sentence is found which
can aff'ord the slightest semblance of an
apology for image-worship ; nor is the men
tion of it ever introduced, unless in the
way of reprobation, and for the purpose of
warning the Gentile converts to have no
fellowship with it.
Yet, notwithstanding the most explicit
and positive authority both of the Old and
New Testament to the contrary, the second
Nicene council dared to assert, that the wor
ship of images was an apostolical tradition ;
and the council of Trent, which has adopt
ed in general the errors of all its predeces-

LECTURE VIL 229
sors, has reaffirmed this in the most direct
and unequivocal terms ; and the pope, who
sanctioned its decrees, has reduced it into
an article of the faith, out of which, it is for
ever reitel-ated, that no one can be saved;
" ¦= That the images of Christ and of the
" ever Virgin mother of God," (may I be
pardoned for giving utterance to such im
piety !) " moreover of the other saints, are to
" be had and retained, and that due honour
" and veneration are to be shewn to them."
Here again, as in the case of the invocation
and veneration of saints and angels, the
church of Rome, in resting her doctrine
concerning the veneration of images on
apostolical tradition, has in eff'ect placed
tradition in direct contradiction to the ac
knowledged written word of the same apo
stles ; whose authority she thus most men
daciously claims for a practice not only not
sanctioned, but either expressly or con
structively condemned by every one of
them in their Epistles addressed to the
universal Christian community, or to the
c Creed of pope Pius, Art. 9-
Q 3

230 LECTURE VIL
particular churches severally founded by
them. But the direct and positive authority of
the law and the gospel, though abundantly
sufficient to convict the church of Rome of
enormous corruption in the instance be
fore us, is by no means the whole strength
of the case against her.
There is, besides, a negative testimony
against the possibility of the apostles ever
having taught or countenanced image- wor
ship, than which nothing more conclusive
can be desired, to disprove so groundless
and so shameless a fiction.
It will not be denied by any one in the
least conversant with the history and opin
ions of the Jews, subsequent to their re
turn from captivity, that image-worship was
thenceforward to their final dispersion
held in the greatest abhorrence by them ;
that they had endured the utmost cruelty
from Antiochus Epiphanes, because they
would not yield to his attempts to force
that and other heathenish rites upon them;
and that at a much later period they were
objects of ridicule to Roman wits and satir-

LECTURE VIL 231
ists ^ for their scrupulous adherence to their
own laws and customs, and in particular
for their singular resistance to this almost
universal usage of paganism. It is not less
undeniable, that the rulers of the Jews in
the days of the apostles and their succes
sors, till the destruction of Jerusalem and
the dissolution of their national polity, were
animated with the most furious zeal against
Christianity, and persecuted its professors
wherever their power or influence extend
ed. According to our Saviour's prediction
within a very short time after his ascension
his disciples were brought before rulers and
kings for his name's sake ; and various
crimes were laid to their charge, with the
hope of crushing Christianity in its infancy
by rendering them suspected to magistrates
and odious to the people. In pursuance of
this design they are accused of blasphemy,
sedition, deceiving the people, and design
ing the subversion of the law of Moses ; by
which last charge such a tumult was raised
against St. Paul, upon his first appearance
fi Nil praeter nubes, et coeli numen adorant. Juv.
Q 4

232 LECTURE VIL
in the temple after many years' absence
from Jerusalem, that he was saved only by
the interposition of military force from the
hasty vengeance of the enraged multitude.
And whether by private conspiracy, or open
violence, or false accusation, no efforts were
spared to eff'ect the destruction of the first
preachers of the Christian faith.
This is a fact which must be conceded
both by the friends and enemies of Chris
tianity, and is certainly not denied by the
church of Rome.
Is it then credible, if the apostles, as that
church dares to assert, had taught a doc
trine or introduced a practice upon the al
leged foundation of the new religion which
they were sent to announce to the wOrld,
so contrary as well to the law as to the pro
phets, to both of which the Jews amidst all
their corruptions were so zealously attached,
as that of image-worship, that it would not
have been brought as a charge against them
by any of their implacable adversaries, who
were so eager to compass their destruction?
or that they would have failed to employ
so eff'ectual an argument to prevent the

LECTURE VIL 233
further progress of the Christian religion,
if it had been possible for them to shew to
the Jewish nation its near affinity to pagan
ism in one of its most off'ensive features?
Assuredly not.
As, therefore, no such attempt was ever
made, where it is evident that no accusation
would have been omitted, which had the
smallest appearance of probability; and still
less one which, if it could have been sub
stantiated, must have proved fatal to the
cause of Christianity, we are justified by
this consideration in asserting, that it is an
instance of audacious impiety to endeavour
to fix upon the inspired apostles the ori
ginal guilt of this grievous corruption of
our holy religion, which they were sent to
teach to all nations, and qualified by the
extraordinary gift of the Holy Ghost for
the fulfilment of their mission; while at
the same time so false an imputation af
fords a conclusive argument against the au
thority of papal councils, to which the ad
herents of Rome demand implicit submis
sion, and affirm that their decisions are in
fallible.

234 LECTURE VIL
That the practice of image-worship was
introduced into the church at an early pe
riod, though long after the age of the apo
stles, there can be no doubt ; and its perpe
tuation in that of Rome down to this pre
sent time is one of the most irrefragable
proofs of the fatal eiFects of placing tradi
tion, by which it is attempted to justify it,
on a level with scripture.
For thus to prove that an error, how
ever gross, is both ancient and widely dif
fused, is, on their principles, sufficient to
make it pass for truth. It becomes forth
with a part of tradition ; and as no supe
rior authority is acknowledged by the ad
vocates of tradition, to which an appeal may
be made against it, no remedy remains ;
but corruptions which have crept into reli
gion through fraud, fanaticism, or igno
rance, during the darkness of remote ages,
must be retained for ever as integral parts
of it.
But if image-worship be not an aposto
lical tradition, which no man who is not
bound to defend inveterate error can pos
sibly pretend that it is, to what exact pe-

LECTURE VIL 235
riod its origin may be referred is a matter
of no real importance. That it was intro
duced into the church by Gentile converts,
or adopted, in a most reprehensible spirit of
worldly wisdom, by perfidious guardians of
the faith, to draw over with less difficulty
those who had been accustomed " to the
" pomps and vanities" of paganism, when
the powers of the world professed them
selves Christian, seems unquestionable. The
account which the younger Pliny gives
to Trajan in the beginning of the second
century concerning the simple worship of
the early Christians, which it had been his
official duty to investigate, is no bad au
thority for asserting that it had not then
begun. We will admit that if it was, pro
perly speaking, a question relative to an ar
ticle of Christian theology, or the interpre
tation of a disputed doctrine, the testimony
of a heathen magistrate could haye but
little weight in the determination of it.
But the point at issue in the present case
is a mere matter of fact, of which any im
partial man might be a competent voucher;
and where there was no partiality to warp

236 LECTURE VIL
his judgment, there can be no ground to
except against his veracity. ^ " They af-
" firmed," says he, i. e. those who were
brought before him on the charge of being
Christians, " that the sum of their fault or
" error was this, that they were accustomed
" to assemble before light on a stated day,
" and to sing a hymn to Christ as to a God ;
" to bind themselves by a solemn oath to
" no wickedness ; but not to commit theft,
" robbery, or adultery ; not to break their
" word, nor to refuse to restore a trust when
" called upon ; after which it was their cus-
" tom to separate, and to meet together
" again to take food, promiscuously how-
" ever, and innocently."
We have here no mention of images of
Christ or the blessed Virgin, or the saints,
nor even of transubstantiated wafers and
the sacrifice of the mass ; which on the au
thority of tradition an author *, from whom
I have largely quoted before, asserts to
have been celebrated " through a great part
e Epistle 97.
f Milner, End of Religious Controversy, Part III.
p. 54. Letter 37.

LECTURE VIL 237
" of the known world, before even St. Mat-
" thew's gospel was promulgated." And yet
it seems scarcely possible that a writer ap
parently so accurate as Pliny should have
entirely omitted to notice such things, if
they had then existed among Christians,
who were at the same time objects of so
much jealous vigilance and cruel persecu
tion ; more especially as he mentions the
images of the gods and of the emperor, to
which he subsequently states that he com
pelled those accused of being Christians to
off'er incense, and to address supplications,
as a test to which no true Christian could
be induced to submit. Yet the wisest of
those who are still held in the fetters of
Romish infallibility, with the letter and
spirit of all scripture against them, still
contend for this undoubted off'spring of
paganism with as much apparent earnest
ness, as if they had the unequivocal testi
mony of the law and the gospel in their
favour ^.
A consciousness however that all is not
5 Vide Bossuet, Milner, and Doyle's Parliamentary
Examinations.

238 LECTURE VIL
right evidently betrays itself in their mode
of arguing in defence of it, and more espe
cially in their endeavours to suppress the
second commandment, by which image- wor
ship is so strongly condemned, or to ex
plain it away and invalidate its force ; which
they could have no more reason for doing
in the case of that particular command,
than of any other precept or prohibition of
the Decalogue, if they were not intimately
sensible that the practice of their church is
in direct opposition to it; while, at the
same time, the reasons which they assign
for it are so evasive and unsatisfactory, that,
how much soever charity may require us to
abstain from the imputation of unworthy
motives, it is difficult to conceive how men,
at once enlightened and sincere, could ever
have recourse to them for the support of
a cause which themselves believed to be
founded in essential truth.
To the same sense of its inherent off*en-
siveness must we attribute the endeavour
to palliate the practice of venerating images
and relicks, by bestowing upon them the
plausible appellations of religious memo-

LECTURE VIL 239
rials and types of Christianity ; as if mate
rial objects, whether the perishable work
of men's hands, or the miserable remains
of mortality, the latter of which nature it
self prompts us to conceal from the sight
of the living, and to restore to the earth
from whence they were taken, could with
any propriety be considered as evidences of
spiritual truths, or appropriate monuments
of a religion which is to be diff*used through
the whole world, and to last till the con
summation of all things.
They tell us, however, that it is a relative
worship only which they pay to images, and
that the council of Trent in forbidding to
believe " '' that there is any divinity or
" virtue in them for which they should be
" reverenced, or that any thing is to be
" asked of them, or any confidence is to be
" placed in them, but on the contrary, that
" the honour given should be referred to
" those whom they represent," has esta
blished characteristic marks to distinguish
Romanists from idolaters ; " since, so far
^ Bossuet, Exposition of Catholic Doctrine.

240 LECTURE VIL
" from believing as they did, that any di-
" vinity resides in images, Romanists attri-
" bute no other virtue to them than that
" of reminding them more sensibly of their
" great originals." These, however, are but
imaginary distinctions between the image-
worship of Romanists and pagans, as it
would be easy to prove by a multitude of
examples. Juvenal, Seneca, and the elder
Pliny, nearly agree in the same sentiment,
" that their gods," referring to the early
ages of the Roman commonwealth, "seemed
" to be most propitious when their statues
" were moulded in clay, and not cast in
" gold ; '" which sufficiently shows that the
original and the representation were not
confounded in the mind of the worshipper,
as the author of this pretended distinction
would have it believed, even among nations
which were ignorant of the true God ; but
that the image-worship of the pagans was,
like that of the church of Rome, a relative
worship, not addressed to the carved or
molten figure, but to the being designated
i Plin. lib. XIV. 13.

LECTURE VII. 241
by it. And the very ground of the pro
hibition, under the Mosaic dispensation, to
make any visible object of such relative
honour, was, that which is inseparable from
it, in its tendency to inspire gross and un
worthy conceptions of the Deity, as if the
Supreme Being, whom our blessed Lord
declares to be a Spirit, whom no man hath
seen or can see, ''was like to corruptible man,
and to lead the ignorant to believe that
such objects had intrinsically something
divine and adorable in them. And not
withstanding the asserted caution of the
council of Trent to prevent such miscon
ceptions, it is very evident that the church
of Rome has not escaped the danger, but
has ' received in herself that recompense of
her error, which a presumptuous transgres
sion of the divine commands never fails to
draw after it. For it is a matter of the ut
most notoriety, that her members "' are still
carried away to dumb idols, like the Gen
tiles, from whom they imagine themselves
sufficiently distinguished by the groundless
plea of relative worship.
k Rom. i. 23. ' Rom. i. 27. "» 1 Cor. xii. 2.
R

242 LECTURE VII.
The histories of miraculous images, and
the wonders wrought by them, are found
in Roman Catholic authors of high reputa
tion ; and the superstitious legends of that
sort, which are still prevalent in Roman
Catholic countries far exceed in number
and extravagance the prodigies recorded in
all that remains to us of pagan antiquity.
But again, in derogation to the above-
mentioned caution of the council of Trent,
practically it is not true that images are
used in the church of Rome only as reli
gious memorials, to excite the attention of
the worshippers, and to awaken the fervour
of piety. For if that were the sole purpose
intended, it must necessarily follow, that all
images, as representations of the same ori
ginals, being equally fitted to answer that
purpose, would, unless for the costliness of
the materials, be held in equal estimation :
but this neither is nor ever has been the
real state of the case.
In every Roman Catholic country there
have been in all ages certain images of su
perior sanctity, to which costly off'erings
have been made, and pilgrimages perform-

LECTURE VIL 243
ed ; in return for which testimonies of de
votion, spiritual and temporal favours, in
great abundance and variety, have been
promised to those who perform such meri
torious acts of piety ; and if there be any
thing in these practices contrary to the in
tention of the church of Rome, which can
hardly be allowed, considering her jealous
vigilance and absolute power to suppress
wjiatever may be contrary to her doctrine
and discipline, it is still not the less a fear
ful proof of the extreme danger of depart
ing from the plain sense of the word of
God, however plausibly it may be palliated,
or however circumspectly it may be at
tempted to limit the departure. It proves
indeed, in a striking manner, the truth
of the saying of Samuel to Saul, that " re
bellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and that
when men have presumed to set up their
own reasonings or inventions against the
commands of God, they know not to what
lengths they shall be ultimately carried,
nor how fatal the consequences will be of
overleaping that inviolable barrier.
n I Sam. .XV. 23.
R 2

244 LECTURE VIL
Certain, however, it is, that the church
of Rome, far from disapproving, has highly
favoured these superstitions. In this coun
try, indeed, where the spirit of that church
is kept in check by fear of the censures of
protestants, great pains have been taken by
her adherents to exhibit the practice of
image-worship, as well as the other most
off'ensive characteristics of popery, under
the most innoxious aspect, and to obtrude
it as little as possible upon public observa
tion. But this is the eff'ect of policy only,
in which that church is seldom deficient;
not an abandonment of the idolatrous
principle, which, being incorporated into
the papal creed, is equally held by all
her true and sincere members in every
country. Popery, to be known, must be seen in
the ascendancy, where, unrestrained by po
licy or fear, she displays her gorgeous vani
ties with conscious pride ; where patron
saints are enshrined in almost every church,
and the image of the holy Virgin, splen
didly attired, and adorned with the ensigns
of royalty, sits enthroned like the deity of

LECTURE VIL 245
the temple, and is venerated by kneeling
crowds. The time was, when the same religious
drama was acted here, and devotees went
in pilgrimage to images of the like de
scription, which were supposed to possess
peculiar virtues, and to be endowed with
transcendent sanctity, from all regions of
the land; till the light of divine truth,
which shone out with the reformation, de
spoiled them at once of their miraculous
powers and their glory, and consigned them,
like the idols of the house of Israel, " to the
moles and to the bats.
But hardly can any thing in heathen
annals vie with the honours paid to the
fabled virgin of Loretto, a perfect counter
part to the great goddess Diana of the
Ephesians, whose image fell down from
Jupiter, except, indeed, that the popish fa
brication far exceeds in audacious impiety
and falsehood its pagan original ; and yet
such is the debasing influence of supersti
tion among the votaries of Romish infalli-
» Isaiah ii. 20.
R 3

246 LECTURE VIL
bility, that the greatest princes in Christen
dom P, not presuming to question the vera
city of the mortal ^ who dared to call him
self the vicar of Christ upon earth, seeing
that so monstrous an experiment upon hu
man credulity was first sanctioned, as there
is the strongest reason for believing also
that it had been secretly contrived by him,
have been emulous to evince their piety
by the costliness of their off'erings to this
miraculous image ; whose sanctuary, at no
distant period, was full of gold and silver
and precious stones, and round whose walls
myriads of pilgrims, of every age, sex, and
condition, went annually upon their knees' ;
nor is there any reason for supposing that
the practice is yet discontinued.
It would be difficult to conceive that
these are relative honours only, which are
paid to this far-famed similitude of the
blessed Virgin, and that it is not, in the

P Among the rest our James the Second.
q Boniface the Eighth.
f " On affirme &c. que dans les annees du plus grand
" concours on a diverses fois compte deux cens mille pe-
" lerins et plus," &c. Voyage d'ltalie, 1702, a la Haye.

LECTURE VIL 247
opinion of its worshippers, possessed of any
intrinsic properties which are not common
to it with every other representation of the
same person in wood or stone, and that it
has always been regarded only as " a me-
" morial of Christianity," to kindle piety
and excite devout aff'ections, as the modern
apologists of image-worship would have us
believe. And if this plea cannot be here
admitted, nor in other instances of venera
tion paid to miraculous images of the same
kind, though of less extensive celebrity, which
are found in almost every ' Roman Catholic
country, to what, after all, does it amount,
but genuine, undeniable idolatry, only less
to be reprobated than that of the heathen,
inasmuch as the object of it is a holy and
innocent creature, highly favoured indeed
of God, but not elevated above the level of
human kind ; whereas the images of the
heathen were the representatives either of
evil or imaginary beings ?
The worship of saints, if ever so well en-
s See Russell's Tour in Germany, published in 1825,
vol. ii. chap. 6. for an account of the annual pilgrimage
from Vienna to Mariazell.
R 4

248 LECTURE VIL
titled to that appellation, is an unwarranted
invasion of the honour due to God alone,
and a truly presumptuous sin in those who
authorize and enjoin it ; but to pay even to
their graven or molten images and pictures,
fashioned after the imaginations of painters
and sculptors, that sort of relative honour
which pagans paid to the images of their
gods, is at once so contrary to scripture and
reason, and the very first principles of true
religion ; so debasing to the mind of man,
and so apt to inspire in the simple and un
educated, if not in the more enlightened of
those who are addicted to it, unworthy no
tions of the being and attributes and pro
vidence of God, that we cannot wonder
when we see whole communities, which
have adopted such a carnalized system of
Christianity, immersed in the most infatu
ated and demoralizing superstition ; and
while they manifest the most bigoted zeal
in the cause of that church which instils
into their minds, from the tenderest in
fancy, her atrocious doctrine of exclusive
salvation, regardless of those weightier mat
ters of the Christian law which their Lord

LECTURE VII. 249
and Master exacts of all his disciples as the
proof of their love and faith in him.
The injury which Christianity has suf
fered from the corruptions of faith, doc
trine, and worship, introduced and en
grafted upon it by the church of Rome,
is not, however, confined within her own
pale. It is one of the unfounded boasts of
Romish writers, that their religion has
overspread the globe, and that numberless
nations, diff'ering in language, customs, and
manners, have been brought to the obedi
ence of the faith by the labours of their
missionaries : and it would indeed be most
unjust to deny to many individuals of their
church the praise of laborious zeal and
well-meant endeavours.
But yet, unless among the uncivilized
and unreasoning tribes of America, who,
for the most part, still continue in the
grossest ignorance, though partially re
claimed from savage life, and brought to
a compliance with the external formalities
of the church of Rome, their success has

250 LECTURE VIL
either been very small, or the eff'ects of it
very transient*.
But there is another race of men who
seem to want nothing but a true religion
to place them nearly on a level with the
Christian world ; on whose minds the sight
of such corruptions as we impute to the
church of Rome would of necessity pro
duce the most prejudicial impressions a-
gainst Christianity, of which they suppose
them to be essential parts.
The principal nations which have em
braced the Mahometan imposture lie round
the coasts of the Mediterranean sea, over-
against the chief seats of the Romish faith,
and have no opportunity of seeing Chris
tianity under any other form than that
which is exhibited in those countries, if
perchance they visit them, or in the fallen
church of unhappy Greece, which too nearly
resembles that of Rome ; having in a for
mer age renounced its dominion, but not
its errors, which both have alike derived
' Vide the Memoir of the Abbe Dubois concerning
their converts in India.

LECTURE VIL 251
from the polytheism and idolatry which
were common to their pagan ancestors. Of
the pure and spiritual worship which Christ
enjoined to his disciples, they have seen or
heard nothing ; but instead of it, the adora
tion of the host, processions and genu
flexions, with the abominations of the car
nival, juggling miracles, and images and
relicks exhibited to the gaze of besotted
multitudes. Among much that is false, fabulous, im
moral, and unworthy of the Deity in the
Mahometan doctrine, there are some things
also which are laudable and good, and in
near accordance with the Jewish and Chris
tian scriptures, from which they were un
doubtedly borrowed. Of these the most
prominent are the great and fundamental
truth concerning the unity of God, and the
strict prohibition and utter abhorrence of
every species of idolatry, in which the Ko
ran may be said to reecho the language of
the Bible. It is, without doubt, in conse
quence of their tenacious adherence to
these great principles, that they have hi
therto looked with scorn on those forms of

252 LECTURE VIL
Christianity which have been presented to
them ; and in which, although the same
cardinal truths are professed, they are so
little regarded in practice, and so overlaid
with corruptions, that those who are with
out may well suppose that they form no
part of the Christian faith.
And though we doubt not that all things
work together for ultimate good, as well
as for the glory of God, we can hardly
avoid believing that this has been the in
strumental cause of what is otherwise con
trary to all experience, and might be con
sidered an unaccountable phenomenon in
human aff'airs ; viz. that a race just emerg
ing from barbarism, such as the early fol
lowers of Mahomet, and more particularly
the Ottoman conquerors of the eastern em
pire were, having subjugated, by force of
arms, nations immeasurably superior to
themselves in every kind of knowledge;
and being by the occupation of the con
quered countries brought into frequent
communication with other states professing
the same religion as their conquered sub
jects, have yet continued for ages a totally

LECTURE VIL 253
distinct people, attached to their own false
religion by the force of a few immutable
truths blended with it, and prejudiced a-
gainst the true by the adscititious false
hoods with which it has been deformed.
For the same reasons the Jews have been
hardened in unbelief, and few, if any con
verts have been gained among them in po
pish countries, unless by the unchristian
means of persecution and force.
But this is not the heaviest of the inju
ries to religion which are justly chargeable
upon the church of Rome.
It was from her corruptions that the sect
of atheistical sophists who sprung out of
her bosom in the last century, in a country
whose sovereigns assumed the title of Most
Christian, derived all their power to injure
Christianity, and ultimately to produce by
the venom of their principles those dread
ful convulsions and sanguinary contests
which make up the eventful but instructive
history of our times. It was against the
bigotry, the frauds, the impostures, the cor
ruptions, the iniquities, and superstitions
of the church of Rome, that the main ef-

254 LECTURE VIL
forts of a host of infidel assailants were di
rected ; while the venerable truths of real
Christianity, polluted by the contagion of
the impious falsehoods which a worldly-
minded church had associated with them,
were subjected to the blasphemous con
tumely of men who knew them only by
their misrepresentation. And as the de
fenders of that church had nothing but
tradition without scripture, authority with
out reason or probability, to oppose to their
attacks, the issue, without a miracle in her
favour, could not have been otherwise than
it was. She fell by the hands of her own
children, which she had armed against her
self; and the unparalleled depravity which
instantly burst forth, as soon as the power
of coercion was removed, is an unanswer
able proof of the tendency of such a system
to destroy the salutary influence of true re
ligion, which it transfers from the mind to
the senses, and leaves the heart almost in
the disorder and impurity of unregenerate
nature. Again, indeed, beyond apparent
probability she has risen from her ruins,
and exhibits her ancient character unchang-

LECTURE VIL 255
ed, and her external proportions almost un
diminished. But of this we may be fully
certain, that until the light of unadulterat
ed truth shall have pervaded the dark re
cesses of the temple, and Christianity shall
have been purged from corruption and re
stored to its original perfection, as the rea
sonable service of regenerated man to his
Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, what
ever pains may be taken to repair and
beautify the out-walls, the glory of God
will not dwell within the sanctuary.
It is in vain that Romanists pretend, that
if the church had become corrupt, as pro
testants assert, the promise of Christ, that
the gates of hell should not prevail against
it, must have failed.
The correction of error and the removal
of corruption are the means employed by
Divine Providence to insure the accomplish
ment of that promise, which is not to be
assumed as an argument a priori that the
church shall never err, as they would re
present it ; for then it must apply to every
branch of the universal church with equal
force, and neither heresy nor error of any

256 LECTURE VIL
kind could ever have found an entrance
into it, but that its errors shall not be suf
fered to proceed to such lengths as to cause
its destruction ; nor are the friends of the
reformation at all concerned to shew that
some particular church always existed, which
preserved whole and undefiled the true
faith, such as they define it to be, with a
suitable form of worship, and which needed
no reformation. This is a difficulty which
the champions of the papal cause are fond
of proposing to us, but which we are not at
all concerned to solve. It has in fact no
connexion with the issue of the controversy
between us and them ; for the decision of
which it is not necessary to ransack ec
clesiastical antiquities, nor to look beyond
those proofs which are ever within our
reach. Either we are in sinful schism, or
they are in dangerous apostasy from the
truth : this is the impassable gulf by which
we are reciprocally divided, and they can
only make good their cause against us, by
proving that the charges brought against
their church at the reformation were un
founded, and that the errors of faith and

LECTURE VII. 257
worship, which protestants still impute to
them with equal constancy, are in very
deed not errors, but true expositions of
Christian doctrine, and suitable ways of
serving " the high and holy One that inhabit-
eth eternity. And unless they can prove
this, and that too not from the authority of
fathers and decrees of councils, convoked
and influenced in their deliberations by the
Roman pontiff's, nor by the unwritten tra
ditions of their church, but from holy scrip
ture alone, which all true Christians be
lieve to " have been given by the inspiration
of God, and which ought to be the last re
sort in all their diff'erences, it will be evi
dent to all impartial inquirers after truth
that their church had falsely pretended to
infallibility, that it had erred in things of
high and awful moment, and that reform
ation was indispensable to preserve the
light which was still left in her from be
coming total darkness. By such authority
only can controversy be decided to the be
nefit of both, and the satisfaction of either
party. " Isaiah Ivii. 15. * 2 Tim. iii. 16.

258 LECTURE VIL
If the- Romish doctrines and practices,
which have been discussed at large con
cerning tradition, transubstantiation, invo
cation of saints, and worship of images, are
of such a nature, that no Christian who
knows the scriptures can honestly sub
scribe to their truth, nor conform to the
institutions, forms of worship, and profes
sions of faith founded upon them, without
stifling the remonstrances of his own con
science and dissembling before God, then,
without looking for additional causes, or
laying any stress on temporary or adventi
tious reasons, it must be admitted, by every
man who believes it his duty to worship
God in spirit and in truth, that reformation
was imperatively necessary ; and if, either
through judicial blindness or selfish po
licy, the highest authorities in the church
at that momentous crisis obstinately resist
ed all reformation, and sought to secure
and perpetuate their power by persecuting
even to death all those who protested a-
gainst the reigning errors and corruptions,
then must it equally be acknowledged, that
separation from her communion and re-

LECTURE VIL 259
nunciation of her authority Avere fully jus
tified by the necessity of the case, as the
only conditions on which that reformation,
so earnestly desired by all good men, was
to be obtained.
Here, therefore, we may safely rest the
justification of our cause, without regard to
the studied mistatements or railing accusa
tions of our adversaries. But if to these
weightier reasons for casting off' the yoke
of papal supremacy any addition were re
quired, we might still insist upon other
abuses and corruptions of that church,
which, although of inferior moment to those
on which I have principally dwelt, are yet,
as I have observed on a former occasion, of
no slight importance, nor unworthy of a
special refutation, if it had been compatible
with the prescribed limits, or necessary to
the design announced in the commence
ment of these Lectures ; which was, not to
exhibit a perfect view of the causes of the
reformation, but to shew by an unexagge-
rated statement of the most prominent of
them, that on religious grounds, exclusive
of all worldly considerations, is was not

260 LECTURE VIL
only justifiable, but indispensably neces
sary. Of those accessory causes to which I
have made this general allusion, the first
place is due to the heathenish fiction of
purgatory, with its cognate appendages of
masses for the dead and indulgences for
sin, which, however palliated or explained,
are utterly inconsistent with the Christian
verity, and pregnant with hurtful supersti
tion and dangerous delusion. Nor should
we leave wholly unnoticed auricular con
fession, with absolutions and penances at
the discretion of the priest, besides other ob
noxious claims and practices, which appear
to have no other object than that of draw
ing advantage from the vices and fears of
mankind, and exalting • the power of the
priesthood, to whom, in all things relating
to religion, the laity are kept in a state of
pupilage and abject dependance. These
are still among the great practical evils of
the papal system, for the most part incor
porated with the creed, and perpetuated
by the assumed infallibility of the church,
evils which its most strenuous advocates
study rather to disguise and palliate, than

LECTURE VIL 261
openly to defend against the objections of
protestants ; nor need we, in pursuance of
the design with which we set out, enter
into a detailed examination of them, nor
investigate the moral and religious mis
chiefs of which they are the necessary
source; and as they are tenable on no
ground save that of tradition, if it has been
shewn by satisfactory arguments, that tra
dition is destitute of all authority as a rule
of faith and morals, in refuting the prin
ciple, whatever is deduced from it is equally
refuted with it. But that I may here be
permitted to repeat what has before been in
substance remarked, if tradition cannot sup
port the monstrous system of corruptions
founded upon it, these very corruptions do
on the contrary aff'ord a conclusive evi
dence against tradition, which is thus em-
pbyed for purposes inconsistent in many
respects with the fundamental doctrines
of Christianity, and, as it may be prov
ed by irrefragable arguments, injurious to
hohness and purity of life, which it is one
of the first objects of Christianity to pro
mote. s 3

262 LECTURE VIL
I trust that I have in some degree, though
yet I fear very imperfectly, fulfilled the
main purpose of these Lectures ; that I
have shewn, even by the partial review of
the leading diff'erences between us, which I
have been able to take, that the separation
of our church from that of Rome was not
founded upon worldly interests, or politi
cal expediency, or temporary causes of any
kind, as Romish writers have untruly re
presented; and consequently that the se
cular advantages which may have subse
quently accrued to this nation from it, and
which in the promotion of every thing con
ducive to moral or political good are great
beyond all estimation, were not the ends
contemplated by our reformers ; nor are
such the arguments with which, as sincere
Christians, we would attempt to vindicate
such a measure, if it could not be justified
on grounds strictly and purely religious.
It is indeed the duty of every Christian
state, not only to secure the peaceful exer
cise of religion in general, but to provide
for the religious wants of its people by
affording public support to some definite

LECTURE VIL 263
form of faith and worship ; nor among the
many important questions on which legis
lative wisdom may be called to decide, can
there be any of greater importance to the
governed, nor of more awful responsibility
to their rulers, under whatever form or no
minal distinction the sovereign power may
be administered, than that of choosing
rightly between the different religious de
nominations, which may claim to them
selves to be true and legitimate Christian
churches. By the merciful direction of di
vine Providence, that of which we are mem
bers has been established and preserved as
the national church of this kingdom ; and of
its fitness and efficacy in promoting all the
valuable ends of true religion ; and secur
ing to us, publicly and individually, the in
numerable benefits resulting from it, the
most satisfactory evidence is visible to all,
whose minds are sufficiently enlightened to
form a correct judgment concerning so high
and momentous a subject. But let it be al
ways remembered, that in defending her
sacred authority against adversaries of any
description, her temporal state adds no-
s 4

264 LECTURE VIL
thing to our strength. Her battles must
be fought, not under the shield of the law,
but with the whole armour of God. And
though every good Christian will bow for
conscience sake to the laws of his country,
in every thing to which human laws can
rightly extend, the cause of his religion
must be maintained with no other argu
ments than those which can be drawn from
the word of God, to which all sincere Chris
tians must yield assent, and the principles
of right reason, though they may not en
tirely agree in the interpretation of the
one, or the application of the other.
With these observations I take leave of
this subject, and have only to express my
anxious hope, that by the imperfect execu
tion of what I have attempted, I may not
have weakened the cause which it is my
earnest desire to serve, while at the same
time I am sensible that well-meaning zeal
is no sufficient apology for such a failure.
If such should be the judgment of my
hearers, may the blame fall upon the advo
cate only ; and as a great portion of the
younger part of them are destined for the

LECTURE VIL 265
sacred ministry, may they be only so much
the more strongly impressed with the ne
cessity of diligently cultivating professional
studies, and especially of endeavouring to
make themselves masters of a subject, which,
though for a while dormant, has now re
sumed its former station in the field of
theological controversy, and seems likely to
retain it through their generation ; and the
ignorance or defective knowledge of which
may render them incompetent guardians of
the flocks committed to their charge.
It remains for me now, in the closing
Lecture of th,is series, according to my ori
ginal intention, to take some notice of the
subjects of debate between our church, and
the various sects of Protestant Dissenters —
to endeavour to remove misapprehensions,
and to suggest reasons for laying aside all
party spirit in religion, and ceasing to keep
up causeless divisions ; the eff'ect of which
is most injurious to the progress of truth,
strengthens the otherwise worthless argu
ments of our common adversaries, and dis
poses men of worldly minds, and indiff'erent
to the truth, who form too large a portion

266 LECTURE VIL
of every community, to prefer the spiritual
slavery and Cimmerian darkness of Rome
to religious light and liberty perversely and
ungratefully abused. Amen.

LECTURE VIIL

Jeremiah vi. 16.
Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and
see, and ask for the old paths, where is the
good' way, and walk therein, and ye shall find
rest for your souls.
IHESE words of the prophet, addressed
to the perverse and erring people of Judah,
are pregnant with instruction for those who
desire to serve God acceptably, under the
Christian as well as the Mosaic dispensa
tion. At all times entitled to the most serious
consideration, they are peculiarly applicable
to the subject which I have reserved for
the conclusion of these Lectures, inasmuch
as they suggest to us, though figuratively
yet very distinctly, the proper object of re
ligious inquiry, the end at which it ought
to terminate, and the happy eff'ects of
rightly using the knowledge acquired by it;
ye shall find rest for your souls.

268 LECTURE VIIL
In matters of abstract science, an extra
vagant deference to antiquity, and a too
implicit confidence in received opinions,
serve only to impede the progress of im
provement ; and the mind engaged in such
researches, where even error leads to no
practical evil, having no light but that of
nature to direct it, and no landmarks to
observe, but those which its own previous
discoveries have ascertained, is confined
within no limits which it may not endea
vour to overpass.
But in things of positive institution, or
of which the extent is limited by their own.
nature, or the causes from which they are
derived, as revealed religion, law, or moral
obligation, there are limits beyond which
inquiry cannot be carried, consistently with
the quality of the subject upon which it is
exercised, nor speculation safely indulged.
But although the bounds of practical reli
gion, in which sense alone it is every man's
concern, are easily ascertained, yet if we
aim at more than this necessary knowledge,
which is nothing censurable, provided that
we do not suff'er ourselves to be carried

LECTURE VIIL 269
away by an insatiable spirit of sceptical
curiosity, nor forget that cautious humility
which the narrow compass of our own in
tellectual vision should perpetually suggest
to us; we shall find, connected with its fun
damental doctrines, mysteries as incompre
hensible to our understandings as eternity
and infinite space, and of which we never can
discover more than the Divine Wisdom has
seen good to reveal to us; and therefore, in
prosecuting our inquiries into things so ab
struse and unfathomable, sound discretion
as well as true piety warns us to guard
against rash confidence in our own saga
city ; that we may not presume to dogma
tize, upon the scanty and uncertain mate
rials which it is possible to collect by the
exercise of reason alone, in subjects so far
exceeding its utmost reach.
And, however it might gratify the desires
of the most pious mind to be able to look
into the deep things of God, it must ever
be remembered, that the great purpose for
which our religion was intended by its di
vine Author was, not to amuse the imagin
ations, or to exercise the speculative facul-

270 LECTURE VIIL
ties of the learned and studious, but to re
gulate the belief and influence the practice
of the great body of mankind, and to aff'ord
to us all that knowledge which is conducive
to the moral amendment of our nature.
This, therefore, marks the limits within
which religious^ discussions ought to be
confined between sincere Christians ; who,
consistently with the obligations of their
faith, can have no other object in their
mutual oppositions, than the elucidation
and establishment of necessary truth.
Provided that the essentials of faith, as
they are clearly though briefly set forth in
the Apostles' Creed, are held with equal sin
cerity on either side ; it is neither necessary
nor wise to seek occasion for widening dis
sension, and opening a door to interminable
controversy, by laying too great a stress on
inferences which are of questionable cer
tainty, or opinions which are either purely
abstract, or have at least a very remote con
nexion with the conduct of a Christian life.
On things of so subtle a nature, and which
present themselves to diffierent minds under
such diff'erent aspects, perfect agreement is

LECTURE VIIL 271
morally impossible ; and such slight diver
sity of opinion, where none exists concern
ing the duties or fundamental truths of re
ligion, is a very insufficient cause for dis
solving those bonds of union by which the
whole family of Christ should be held to
gether, as one body under one spiritual
head. It is certain, however, that the principal
part of the doctrinal diff'erences by which
the better classes of Protestant Dissenters
are divided from us are of this abstract
character ; while they nearly if not entirely
agree with us in those definite points which
we are justified in regarding as essential to
the Christian faith.
Certain others, it must be acknowledged
and lamented, have made shipwreck of
their faith ; and with them undisguised
heresy is the palladium of their schism.
Of such we can only entertain the charit
able wish that their eyes may be opened,
and that they may see the things which be
long to their everlasting peace, before their
day of grace is ended.
But of those whose hearts are right be-

272 LECTURE VIIL
fore God, and who have not sacrificed the
love of truth to the love of novelty, or the
vain emulation of sectarian fame, it may
be hoped that a time will come, when it
may please God to dispose them to review
the original causes of their separation, and
seriously to consider whether they are of
sufficient importance still to justify its con
tinuance, and so to keep up an irreparable
breach in the household of faith. And
whoever keeps in mind the strong and re
peated injunctions of scripture for the pre
servation of unity in faith and doctrine, as
well as aff'ection, among all Christians, will
be convinced that no slight cause will ex
cuse the violation of it, and that what ori
ginally owed its justification to circum
stances alone, can no longer be justified
when circumstances are totally changed.
It is trite to observe, but not the less
necessary to remember, that the greatest
blessings may be abused by the weakness
and perverseness of man ; and in things
which powerfully interest the feelings, the
experience of common life sufficiently de
monstrates the difficulty of maintaining an

LECTURE VIIL 273
invariable steadiness, and keeping at an
equal distance from opposite extremes ;
more especially when, to the excitement
which such incidents naturally generate,
the heat of party spirit and the irritation
of mutual contradiction are added.
These causes could not fail to produce
their eff'ects at the crisis of the reformation.
And when we further consider, how minds
previously accustomed to the absolute dic
tation of a spiritual authority which pro
hibited the exercise of the understanding,
and utterly denied the right of private
judgment in all things pertaining to reli
gion, were likely to be aff'ected by the sud
den restoration of mental liberty, and the
influx of light which burst upon the world
from the study of the holy scriptures, it
cannot be matter of surprise, if zeal often
outstripped knowledge, and all were not
temperately wise. That such was the fact
is much less a reproach to the reformation,
than to the authors of that thraldom and
darkness which rendered such a crisis ne
cessary for the resuscitation of religion.
To this we must look back for the origin

274 LECTURE VIIL
of those dissensions which have never since
been extinguished; and which, though not
unaccompanied with great good, have yet
in some respects so injuriously harassed the
protestant church.
By the degree of opposition which it en
countered in diff'erent countries, the cha
racter of the reformation, and the length
to which each particular church departed
from that of Rome, seem to have been in a
great measure determined; so that where
the greatest severity had been exercised
against the "reformers, the separation was
ultimately widest. Too often, under the
influence of feelings so excited, the legiti
mate object of the reformation was par
tially overlooked ; and whatever had existed
in the church of Rome, without reference
to its real origin or intrinsic propriety, was
indiscriminately condemned, as unfit, for
that reason alone, to be retained by those
who had thrown off" their subjection to
her.
a As in Holland, in consequence of the cruelties of
the duke of Alva, &c. and in the south of France, from
the persecution of Francis the First, &c.

LECTURE VIIL 275
It was the peculiar happiness of the re
formation in this country, that the prin
cipal authors and promoters of it were
found in the highest ranks of the sacer
dotal order ; men who in an eminent de
gree combined knowledge with piety, mo
deration with zeal ; by whose labours, finally
crowned with martyrdom, those foundations
of our church were laid, on which, though
once overthrown by religious infatuation
and popular madness, it was providentially,
and beyond all human probability, reesta
blished, and has since endured, unshaken,
the reiterated assaults both of infidelity
and fanaticism; and though the tempest
may again rage and swell against it, we
humbly hope that it will still be preserved
by the same Divine Goodness, as the centre
of light and truth, to all who desire to walk
in the one and love the other.
The purpose of those excellent men, in
the prosecution of their holy undertaking,
was to renovate what was decayed, to pu
rify what was corrupted, and, as far as the
difference of times and circumstances would
permit, to restore all things to the primi-
T 2

276 LECTURE VIIL
tive standard, and neither to retain nor
abolish any thing unless in conformity with
that principle.
The rule of scripture was alone admitted
for the proof and establishment of doc
trine ; while in regard to positive institu
tions, and things in their own nature in
diff'erent, respect was not refused to eccle
siastical tradition, provided that it was good
to the use of edifying, and not repugnant
to God's word. And subject to such limita
tions, tradition may be resorted to as a
safe and useful guide, conducive to decorum
and uniformity between diff'erent churches,
which otherwise, following no common rule,
necessarily fall into diversities of institu
tions, of which, diversity of opinion, and
the weakening of mutual aff'ection, are the
too probable consequence.
Between ourselves, indeed, and those Dis
senters to whom we would willingly give
the right hand of fellowship, there are yet
some shades of diff'erence upon doctrinal
points ; but those, as it has been already
observed, chiefly of an abstract, and, hu
manly speaking, incomprehensible nature ;

LECTURE VIIL 277
concerning which, therefore, it is unbecom
ing to pronounce dogmatically, and mutu
ally to condemn with severity, what we be
heve to be erroneous on either side, so long
as nothing is maintained on either which
is incompatible with sound faith and sin
cere piety.
The really efficient diff'erences which
still subsist between ourselves and that
class of Protestant Dissenters nearly all
merge in church government ; of the great
importance of which very inadequate no
tions appear to be generally entertained,
both in the church and out of it ; very
many persons seeming to think that it is
altogether a matter of the utmost indiffier-
ence ; so that whatever form may best suit
their own taste and convenience, they are
equally at liberty to adopt ; and that what
ever human laws sanction or allow in such
a case cannot be religiously wrong.
In combating such loose opinions, it is
very necessary to guard ourselves against
the imputation of intolerance, nor to afford
to such as might be willing to avail them
selves of it, a handle to misrepresent our
t 3

278 LECTURE VIIL
meaning. It should therefore be under
stood, and always kept in mind, that in
arguing of systems we are not passing sen
tence upon individuals.
In the best constituted Christian com
munities many unworthy members are al
ways seen to exist, who turn the advan
tages which they enjoy only into causes of
heavier condemnation ; while in the worst
it is to be hoped that some may still be
found, who, walking sincerely according to
the light which they enjoy, would not dis
grace, by their lives and conversation, a
purer faith and sounder doctrine. We do
not therefore take upon us to circum
scribe the mercy of God, nor to exclude
from the hope of eternal life all whose ab
stract belief is not entirely consonant to
the form cf sound words delivered in scrip
ture. We endeavour only to disentangle
truth from error, leaving the application of
it to every one's own sincerity; and in
judging, we judge ourselves, and not our
brethren. It is the invariable doctrine of scripture,
that it is impossible to serve God accept-

LECTURE VIIL 279
ably without his grace ; that no man can
live and believe as it becomes a Christian,
without the help of that Holy Spirit which
now in Christ's stead sanctifies and governs
his church ; whereas in the state of nature
we are all concluded under sin, and prone
to evil continually. From hence we ne
cessarily infer, wheresoever we see a man
consistently exhibiting in his life and con
versation the genuine fruits of faith and
holiness, and other Christian virtues, that
such an one, to whatever denomination he
may belong, is influenced by the Spirit of
God, and is in the way of salvation ; while,
on the other hand, to whatever church or
congregation he may profess adherence,
how orthodox soever its creed, or apostolic
its foundation, if he hold the truth in un
righteousness, and in his practice belie his
profession, the religious advantages which
he has so criminally abused will serve only
to subject him to that severer judgment
which our ''Lord has pronounced upon
those faithless servants who know their
Master's will, but do it not.
^ Luke xii. 47.
t 4

280 LECTURE VIIL
It is not, however, to be concluded from
hence, because we entertain this charitable
hope concerning those, who, though not
free from error, yet display in their lives
the evidences of Christian piety, that it is
a matter of no moment to what sect we be
long, provided that our faith be sincere as
it regards ourselves, and our actions con
formable to it.
Such a principle, once admitted, can be
confined within no limits ; but with the
same reason as it places error and orthodox
belief on an equal footing, if pursued to its
necessary consequences, will confound all
religious distinctions, provided only that
the plea of sincerity in individuals can be
plausibly maintained. In flying from in
tolerance therefore, we must beware of
running to the opposite and not less re
prehensible extreme of latitudinarian in
difference ; which is at the same time in
compatible with that very sincerity in which
it makes the whole essence of religion to
consist. In error there must always be pro
portionate danger, which no man who is
adequately concerned for the salvation of

LECTURE VIIL 281
his soul would willingly encounter where
that is at stake.
It is true, that a long and perilous voyage
has sometimes been performed without loss
in an unsound vessel ; but it is not from
thence to be argued, that it would not have
been much wiser, if the option were given,
to embark in a sound one ; and the same
reasoning may be applied with still greater
force against presumptuous rashness in re
ligion, where we are not abandoned to the
weakness and uncertainty of our own judg
ment, in choosing the most acceptable way
of serving God, and the safest road to sal
vation, but have strong scriptural authority,
if not an express command to direct us.
This also is a case in which ecclesiastical
tradition, intimately connected with un
doubted history, simply attesting a certain
fact, ought to have its due weight in aid of
scripture, even with those who most scru
pulously reject its authority in questions of
faith and doctrine.
Now it will hardly be denied by any man
in the least conversant with ecclesiastical
antiquity, whose mind is not wholly dis-

282 LECTURE VIIL
tor ted by prejudice, or overheated with
controversy, that the system of church go
vernment, instituted by the apostles, was the
episcopal; and there is no fact in sacred
history more certain, than that Titus and
Timothy were ordained bishops by St. Paul,
the one at Ephesus, the other in Crete, to
ordain elders, to take care that they preach
ed none but the true doctrine, which they
had learned of him, and to regulate and su
perintend the churches committed to their
charge. It is equally indisputable, that the same
form of church government was universally
established through the Christian world,
and that it continued every where un
changed till the sixteenth century, when a
diff'erent system was introduced by Calvin,
in that portion of the reformed church
which followed his opinions.
It is therefore a question of the most
serious importance, whether a form of go
vernment coeval with the church itself, and
every where received, was a matter of an
indifferent nature, which might be abo
lished on grounds of secular policy, or ar-

LECTURE VIIL 283
bitrary preference for another ; or whether
it had any thing of divine authority con
nected with it, and ought therefore to be
perpetually and universally retained ; in
the consideration of which the scripture it
self will be our safest guide, and history
need only be appealed to in support of the
conclusions which we draw from it.
The final commission of our Saviour to
his apostles, before his ascension into hea
ven, was, to "go forth and teach all nations,
to preach the doctrines which he had deli
vered to them throughout the world, and so
to lay the foundations of an universal church.
He had before assured them, that after his
departure he would send to them ^ the Com^-
forter, the Spirit of truth, who should lead
them into all truth, and * bring all things to
their remembrance which he had commanded
them. And again we read, that when the
time was come for his return to the Ma
jesty on high, he charged his disciples ^not
to depart from Jerusalem till they had re
ceived the fulfilment of this promise, by
<: Matthew xxviii. 19, 20. ^ Mark xvi. 15, &c.
e John xiv. 26. xvi. 7, &c, ^ Acts i. 4.

284 LECTURE VIIL
which they were to be qualified for the
execution of their office, and not to under
take it in reliance on their own unassisted
powers. And, agreeably to our Lord's com
mand, we read in the Acts that they con
tinued all together at Jerusalem till after
the miraculous effusion of the Holy Spirit
on the day of Pentecost, and in actual ex
pectation of that event ; after which they
went forth, as they were severally called, to
the work of the ministry in different re
gions, and preached the word both to Jews
and Gentiles.
The sum of the controversy, therefore,
between those who have retained and those
who have rejected the episcopal constitu
tion of the church, seems fairly reducible
to this issue : What was the extent of the
apostles' commission, and how far did they
enjoy the extraordinary assistance of the
Holy Ghost in the fulfilment of it ? Was
their commission limited to teaching the
principles of doctrine promulgated by our
Saviour, or did it extend also to the found
ing of a church in which those principles
should be preserved for ever ? and was the

LECTURE VIIL 285
extraordinary assistance of the Spirit li
mited to their oral and written instructions
in matters of doctrine, or did it extend
to the precepts which they gave, and the
rules which they prescribed for the go
vernment of all Christians incorporated
into one spiritual society; and however
widely diffused through the world, and dif
fering in their temporal states, yet united
in one holy fellowship, being called ^ in one
hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and
^ having access by one Spirit to the Father.
We hold, undoubtedly, that they were
equally guided by the Holy Ghost in the
execution of both these parts of their com
mission, between which so intimate a con
nexion subsists ; and the necessity of prov
ing the contrary, and explaining the rea
sons of it, rests with those who admit the
one and deny the other ; and that it is a
subject entitled to the most attentive and
respectful consideration of those who main
tain either opinion, must be equally ad
mitted by all serious Christians.
s Eph. iv. 4. h Eph. ii. 18.

286 LECTURE VIIL
Those who acknowledge the apostolical
origin of episcopacy, though not in our
sense, and yet have rejected it from their
ecclesiastical polity, rely principally on the
disputed meaning of the word swia-ao-jros,
which they affirm to be used in the New
Testament indiscriminately with Trfsa-fivTs^os,
without any idea of superiority attached to
it. I shall not attempt to abridge the argu
ments with which this assertion has been
so decisively overthrown by the illustrious
luminaries of our church. It will be suffi
cient for my present limited purpose to
observe, that if in any case, surely in this,
the concurrent testimony of all history may
be allowed to outweigh the force of ety
mological reasoning, and arguments found
ed upon the precarious basis of verbal cri
ticism ; and that the sense which through
eighteen centuries the whole Christian
world, with the exception of that mode
rate portion of it which since the reforma
tion has adhered to the system of Calvin,
has affixed to the title of an office which
has been maintained and exercised in the
church without intermission from the very

LECTURE VIII. 287
beginning to our own times, ought to be
received as the true one ; and that although
the extent of jurisdiction exercised by bi
shops may have varied at different times
and in different countries, according as the
church itself has been dominant or de
pressed, persecuted or prosperous, recog
nised and supported by the state, or merely
tolerated, the spiritual, which is the only
indefeasible attribute of the episcopal cha
racter, with power to ordain ministers and
to watch over the administration of the
word and doctrine, has ever been pre
served. To those who believe with us the plenary
inspiration of the apostles in all things ne
cessary to religion, to prove the apostolical
origin of any thing is sufficient to confirm
its authority; and to an apostolical tradi
tion, which can be incontestably proved to
be such by an unbroken chain of evidence,
we maintain that the utmost deference is
due ; and we must be careful not to con
found traditions, so attested, with those
which the church of Rome pretends to
have in her possession, and brings forward

288 LECTURE VIIL
to solve all difficulties where scripture is
either silent or against her.
The tradition of institutions, which is
capable of the most distinct historical proof,
stands on a totally different footing from
that of doctrines, which is destitute of all
proof; nor do we admit tradition of any
kind as apostolical, which is not before all
things consonant with scripture, as we have
already shewn concerning some of the most
obnoxious superstitions of the church of
Rome, and might equally prove concerning
many others, for which they claim the same
origin, but which we certainly know from
scripture to have been unheard-of in the
apostolic age, and therefore the inventions
of a later period.
But when an institution is plainly re
cognised in scripture, attested by the most
ancient and authentic history, and uni
versally received throughout the world in
every Christian church founded by the apo
stles or their immediate successors, we have
the utmost certainty which reason can de
mand or the nature of things admit, that
it is a genuine apostolical tradition ; and if

LECTURE VIIL 289
we respect the authority of the apostles, we
are bound to receive it, though not expressly
commanded. And such evidence we have concerning
the institution of episcopacy, which has
uniformly prevailed in every branch of the
universal church, whether orthodox or cor
rupt, from the western frontier of Europe to
the most remote regions of Asia, in which
the gospel has been preached, from the
Arctic ocean to the torrid zone, including
that extremely interesting member of the
Christian community, far separated from
the parent stock, and surrounded on all
sides by the darkness of paganism, which
modern researches have brought to light ih
the Syrian church of Malabar'. This pri
mitive branch of the universal church,
which had retained its faith and apostoli
cal order unchanged without external sup
port or communication with any other, ex
cept, indeed, the persecution which in mo
dern times it had endured from the agents
of Rome, comes forward in these late ages,
¦ Vide Buchanan's Christian Researches in Asia.
U

290 LECTURE VIIL
to confirm, by a testimony beyond all ex
ception, this important truth.
Even Calvin, while he labours consist
ently with the characteristic feature of his
system, to lower the episcopal office, and to
establish his favourite theory of the ori
ginal equality of bishops and presbyters in
the days of the apostles, is constrained by
the force of historic testimony to admit,
that at least in the age immediately fol
lowing, bishops, invested with a priority of
rank and authority above the order of pres
byters, were instituted in the church, for
the prevention of discord and maintenance
of order ; and apparently seeks to justify
the abolition of episcopacy in the church
over which he presided, by exhibiting the
abuses and disorders which had been in
troduced under the papal domination in
the appointment of bishops, and the fla
grant enormities, of which the most worth
less men advanced by such means to the
episcopal dignity, had been guilty ^.
But such a mode of arguing is in any case
'' Institut. lib. IV. cap. 4.

LECTURE VIII. 291
inadmissible, unless it can be shewn that
the thing abused was such in its nature,
that it necessarily led to abuse ; and there
is not an institution, civil or religious, which
ought not to be equally abolished, if the
demerits of individuals, who have at any
time grossly neglected or unfaithfully abus
ed their trust, can be admitted as a suffi
cient ground for concluding against the in
trinsic goodness and utility of the institu
tion itself; and on the same plea of abuse
the orders of presbyters might be proscrib
ed as well as that of bishops, since in the
dark ages preceding the reformation the
same corruption of manners and the same
neglect of their sacred duties are imputed
to both '.
It may be supposed possible, that in a
particular conjuncture the interests of true
religion might require an opposition to the
authority of those whose special office it is
to guard and adorn it ; and the pertinacity
with which the bishops in general, either
influenced by the civil government of their
• Vide Mosheim, passim.
U 2

292 LECTURE VIIL
several countries, or taking their tone from
the pope, who held them in abject depend
ence, or from a predilection for the errors
and corruptions in which they had been
bred, contended against the beginnings of
the reformation, affords as strong a case for
refusing canonical subjection to their au
thority, as can well be imagined ; since the
most venerable of religious institutions hav
ing for their object the preservation and
advancement of religion, if ever a real op
position should arise between them, which,
however, is in no case to be too hastily con
cluded, cannot be set in competition with
religion itself, but the means must give
place to the end.
But this, where it did exist, was only a
temporary, not a permanent necessity, and
did not require a final subversion of apo
stolical order ; the return to which should
not have been delayed beyond the crisis
which seemed to demand a temporary sus
pension of it.
In our own country, however, np such
necessity for innovation could ever be plead
ed. Here, as it has been above remarked,

LECTURE VIIL 293
the reformation found among the chief
members of the hierarchy its firmest and
ablest defenders ; and to no other circum
stance, divine Providence so ordaining, was
it so much indebted for its successful pro
gress and final completion. Under their
temperate guidance, it escaped the shoals
of fanaticism and popular tumult ; and
when a change in the supreme civil power
had placed the means of vengeance in the
hands of its enemies, they were the first to
feel their force. By their sufferings they
confirmed the work, which their zeal, piety,
and learning had achieved ; and their me
mory must be ever blessed by every friend
of the reformation, with which it is insepa
rably united.
To them, under God, we owe it, that our
church in that difficult season retained its
primitive order and apostolical constitu
tion, while it threw off the corruptions
which had grown over its venerable struc
ture in a long series of benighted ages,
under the spiritual usurpation of Rome.
Theirs is the praise, that no pernicious no
velties were introduced in doctrine or disci-
u 3

294 LECTURE VIIL
pline, no untried theories preferred before
the lessons of experience, and finally that
our church was settled on those sound and
solid foundations which can never be shaken,
while Christian faith remains ; and which
have rendered it the firmest pillar of the
reformation, as well as the most prominent
object of hostility to its enemies, and in
deed to all the enemies of religion ; who
evermore bear their testimony to its su
perior excellence above all other Christian
establishments, by the peculiar bitterness
of their hatred against it.
With such incontrovertible evidence in
favour of the episcopal system among us, it
seems difficult to account for the violent
prejudices which some classes of Dissenters
have assiduously cherished against it ; and
which, indeed, furnish a melancholy proof,
that even in things of the utmost import
ance, out of which all temporal considera
tions should be banished, men are yet too
often governed by their feelings rather than
their reason, and that party zeal is stronger
than the love of truth.
If ever, as some have pretended, honest

LECTURE VIIL 295
Dissenters did suspect our church of a se
cret leaning towards that of Rome, such a
prejudice is now without excuse. The com
paratively little account which Romanists
of latter times have made of any other pro
testant church, and the insidious attacks
which they are so eager and indefatigable
to make on ours, ought long ago to have
opened their eyes.
And yet there are those, of whom we
would not speak with intentional disre
spect, who reproach us as inconsistent pro
testants, because we have reformed without
changing what was essentially good, and
under the influence of inveterate prejudice
continue to couple together popery and
prelacy as cognate evils, which a perfect re
formation would have exploded with equal
reprobation, and seem still to think that
there is some essential affinity between
them. But of all the errors into which zeal
without knowledge ever betrayed men, this
is certainly one of the most flagrant and
extraordinary. While the Roman pontiffs were aiming
u 4

296 LECTURE VIIL
at that supremacy and dominion, which by
degrees they acquired over the whole west
ern church, there was no point which they
laboured with greater art and more con
sistent perseverance^ as conducive to their
main object, than to reduce all other bi
shops to a state of vassalage and subser
viency to themselves; in the accomplish
ment of which they principally availed them
selves of the zealous services of the mo
nastic orders, whom they kept in immediate
dependence upon their own authority, and
exempted from the jurisdiction of the dio
cesan bishops.
At the council of Trent the pope's agents
steadily pursued the same policy, and re
sisted every proposition for declaring that
bishops held their office in the church by
divine right, lest by admitting such a claim
they should render them independent of
him ; while not a few of that generally cor
rupt and subservient assembly strenuously
though ineffectually contended to regain the
privileges which belonged to them as Chris
tian bishops, and emancipate themselves
from the subjection to which they had been

LECTURE VIIL 297
reduced towards the see of Rome ; clearly
foreseeing, that unless that could be pre
viously effected, all attempts to bring about
such a reformation, as it was universally
acknowledged that the church required,
and the accomplishment of which was the
professed object of assembling the council,
would be defeated by the influence and po
licy of the court of Rome, which had an
interest in perpetuating abuses, of which
every province of the church loudly com
plained °'.
The event fully justified their apprehen
sions. The real wounds of religion were
slightly skinned over, or left untouched;
great evils were palliated, and little ones
ostentatiously corrected ; what the pope lost
in the extent of his spiritual sovereignty by
the reformation, was added to him in the
increase of his power over that which re
mained ; and all real reformation of errors
and corruptions was rendered thenceforth
irapossible, so long as that power shall
"> See Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent,
passim ; also Oath of Fealty to the Pope still taken by
every Roman Catholic bishop.

298 LECTURE VIIL
stand. And to this unhappy result nothing
was so materially conducive, as the enslav
ing of the episcopal order; which was effect
ed by the dexterous policy of the papal ma
nagers, in playing upon the fears of some,
and the hopes of others, and sowing di
visions amongst all.
Had the episcopal order in the church
of Rome retained its just independence, it
seems incredible that men so pious and en
lightened as Fenelon, Massillon, and others,
who were in their day the lights and orna
ments of the Gallican church, and are still
its greatest glory, should never in their zeal
for religion have ventured openly to ar
raign the corruptions of doctrine and wor
ship, of which they could not but be sensi
ble, nor have sought even by noiseless and
temperate means to apply a corrective to
them ; and that they did not do so, is one. of
the most melancholy proofs, that the sys
tem of the church of Rome excludes the
possibility of internal reformation, and that
the sovereignty of the pope is the indis
soluble bond of ignorance and corruption,
wherever it is acknowledged; and if ever

LECTURE VIIL 299
reformation should make its way into that
church in defiance of so many obstacles,
we may confidently predict that it will be
either the immediate cause or the neces
sary consequence of the restoration of the
episcopacy to its primitive rights.
That the consequences of abolishing or
degrading it in many protestant churches
have been extremely injurious to religion is
lamentably notorious, and is in effect ac
knowledged by the endeavours which have
been recently made in the chief protestant
"kingdom on the continent of Europe to
reestablish it : and wherever the evil re
sulting from its abolition has been less vi
sible, we shall there find that an equivalent
authority has been exercised by corporate
ecclesiastical bodies, which, however, if they
are equally efficient for maintaining church
government, are yet wanting in many of the
advantages which belong to the apostolical
constitution of the church.
But the full measure of the evil is found
in those smaller sects and insulated congre
gations, which individually acknowledge no
" Prussia.

300 LECTURE VIIL
superior authority, and maintain no bond
of union in faith or worship with any other
denomination of Christians, but assert their
own competency to regulate all the con
cerns of religion within themselves, forget
ting ° that the branch unless it abide in the
vine beareth no fruit, and that all true
p members of Christ are members also one qf
another. And so totally is the true notion
of the church, which to be true must be
catholic or universal in its principles, lost
among them by the necessary consequences
of religious anarchy, that there are those,
and not the most ignorant among them,
who even profess to believe, that every
kind of religious establishment, the main
purpose and primary effect of which is to
preserve unity in religion, and at the same
time to extend its benefits to the whole
community, is essentially inconsistent with
genuine Christianity ; and as our Lord, to
preclude the misconceptions of carnal Jews,
and to obviate the suspicions of the ruling
powers concerning the nature and design
o John XV. 7. P Ephes. iv. 25. v. 30.

LECTURE VIIL 801
of his religion, declared that his kingdom
was not of this world, these inconsequent
reasoners infer, that it ought to remain for
ever in the same state of alienation from
the civil commonwealth, as when the world
was yet unconverted and everywhere hostile
to it; and for the same reason they con
tend that all church government, beyond
that which each separate congregation exer
cises over its own members, is an usurpation
over their natural and religious liberty. By
many, in pursuance of the same anarchical
and antisocial principles, all creeds and
confessions of faith are rejected, as human
compositions void of authority ; and the
members of such religious sects left at large
to find out a creed for themselves, or com
mitted without reserve to the honesty, sin
cerity, and discretion of their teachers ; who
on their part are scarcely restrained by any
other necessity, than that of accommodating
their doctrine to the taste of their hearers,
and carefully forbearing to offend their
prejudices. The consequences of thus subjecting all
things to the unbounded licence of private

302 LECTURE VIIL
judgment, without guide or landmark, have
been such, as could alone be expected by
reasonable men.
Many who are full of sectarian zeal are
at the same time wholly unsettled in their
creed, and more apt to dispute about ab
stract principles, than to bring forth the
peaceful fruits of righteousness ; many are
ready to embrace every novelty ; and many
appear to have come to the dangerous con
clusion, that it is of small moment what
men believe, provided that they retain the
name of Christians, and manifest a decent
respect for the moral duties : and whereas
He who is himself "^ the way, the truth, and
the life, has in the most distinct terms warn
ed all who hope for salvation through him,
without whom no man cometh to the Father,
"¦ that strait is the gate, and narrow is the
way, which leadeth unto life, the sectarian
spirit, on the contrary, boldly assures its de
lirious followers, that the way is easy and
the gate wide, and that in fact the most devi
ous paths which men may choose for them-
Q John xiv. 6. f Matt. vii. 13, 14.

LECTURE VIIL 303
selves will finally lead to the same termina
tion. Causeless schism, though it generally sets
out with high pretensions of zeal for the
truth, is always in the end injurious to it,
and is scarcely reconcileable with any feel
ing of true piety. If religion, as it is osten
tatiously asserted by the advocates of these
latitudinarian principles, be indeed exclu
sively a concern between man and his God,
how fearful ought such a consideration to
make every serious Christian of acting with
levity, rashness, or insincerity, where he,
with whom he has to do, is no other than
his Creator, Redeemer, and Judge, " to*
" whom all hearts be open and all desires
" known !" And yet this natural inference
seems entirely to have escaped those whom
the sectarian spirit has possessed, and they
appear to think that the freedom of con
science which the laws of the land most
properly allow, (for without that freedom it
would be impossible by human means to
provide either for purity of doctrine or sin
cerity in religion,) makes that to be guilt
less before God, which is not cognizable by

304 LECTURE VIII.
human tribunals ; and liberty of conscience
is pleaded as the comprehensive apology
for the most dangerous aberrations of hete
rodox presumption.
Thus, too, a door is opened to the most
perverted species of ambition.
Tb raise themselves into notice, and to
draw congregations, men, conscious of some
talents, and not restrained by that fear of
offending, which is inseparable from true
piety, are tempted to start new opinions
and preach strange doctrines ; and if they
are but gifted with fluency of speech to re
commend them, which with those whose
itching ears can only be pleased with no
velty ever passes for wisdom, they become
the founders of new sects, out of which, by
the same process of subdivision, others again
are generated; blind leaders are blindly fol
lowed ; new errors are opposed to old ones,
and truth alone is unheeded and forgotten.
These evils we justly ascribe to the abo
lition of the primitive constitution of the
church, and the want of that mild con
trol, which the apostles, guided by the
Holy Ghost, established for the preserva-

LECTURE VIII. 305
tion of order and sound doctrine in the
household of faith ; and the efficacy of which,
for attaining those important ends, is so
evidently superior to that of any system,
which the inventions of later ages have sub
stituted for it.
Our dissenting brethren are not in ge
neral supposed to be more favourable to
the papal power than ourselves. But how
greatly is it to be regretted, that they do
not consider how much the cause of that
power is served by the abuse of Christian
liberty; how strong an argument is sup
plied to its advocates and apologists by the
varieties and variations of doctrine, which
different sects, unworthily assuming the
name of protestants, have introduced, and
which papists urge as a proof against all
protestants, whom it is their standing po
licy to confound under one denomination,
however differing among themselves, that
they have been given up to the spirit of
delusion, as a penalty for renouncing the
infallible church of Rome. And, indeed,
if the same charge of irreverent levity and
mutability of doctrine could be substanti-
X

306 LECTURE VIIL
ated against all protestants, as against these
ephemeral sects, we could hajrdly refuse to
confess with shame, that we had abused
the greatest mercy of God, and that man
was, in truth, as they represent him, in
capable of rendering to his Maker a reason
able service, and fit only for a slavish reli
gion. But, blessed be God, these are but
small blemishes upon the surface of our
system, which do not affect its internal
soundness, though they may expose us to
misrepresentation, and prejudice against the
cause of truth those who look no deeper
than the outside of things.
Against the whole protestant cause, often
as they are so applied by its adversaries,
they afford no argument whatever, though
a very strong one indeed against that de
parture from apostolical order, by which
some, otherwise sound and sincere mem
bers of Christ, are distinguished ; and it is
devoutly to be wished, that those whom it
especially concerns would seriously consi
der it; while to ourselves it is an additional
reason for fervent gratitude, that the same
good Providence which has delivered us

LECTURE VIIL 307
from the bondage of superstition, has
equally preserved as from the distractions
of religious anarchy ; nor if we weigh well
the manifold evils attendant upon both,
can we be too thankful that we have been
enabled to escape them.
But if in this we have much cause to
bless God for his signal mercies towards us,
we have none for flattering ourselves, but
should rather cherish a godly fear, lest we
prove ourselves unworthy of them ; for the
religious advantages which we enjoy, as it
may be truly said, above all other Christian
nations, are talents, which by Him who has
committed them to our keeping we shall
be expected to improve, and for which we
must hereafter give account. And as I
speak now for the last time in the dis
charge of this duty, in the presence of so
many who are either invested with the sa
cred ministry, or future candidates for it,
let me pray them to suffer without offence
the word of exhortation from one who
deeply feels his own deficiencies ; that they
would remernber the warning of our Lord,
X 2

308 LECTURE VIIL
that " to whomsoever much is given, of him
shall be'm^ch ?-equired; and therefore, that
if our church is, as we firmly believe, the
purest in doctrine and the most apostolic
in its constitution of any upon earth, a
more cogent necessity is laid indeed upon
all its members to shew by their life and
conversation, that they have profited by the
means of grace which have been so amply af
forded them; but in an especial degree upon
its ministers, according to their sacred and
awful engagement, by the discreet and zeal
ous discharge of their important functions,
to * magnify their office in the sight of men,
and by good example and sound doctrine
to excite and attract them to the service of
God. Concerning those whom we yet regard as
brethren in Christ, although we have re
nounced their communion, because they
had defiled the truth with the intermixture
of gross and sinful corruption, and those, on
the other hand, who have departed in the
s Luke xii. 48. » Rom. xi. 13.

LECTURE VIIL 309
opposite extreme from the apostolic stand
ard of doctrine and government- which we
have retained, it behoves us to hope the
best, and to think the most charitably ; to
respect sincere piety wherever we see it,
and to remember, after all, that an unholy
life is the worst heresy.
Great is the power of truth ; and al
though its progress may be retarded for
a while by obstinate prejudice, and its light
obscured by the mists of sophistry, we must
patiently wait for God's good time, pray
for his blessing upon the endeavours which
are used for its advancement, and never
doubt of its final prevalence over all oppos
ing errors.
In the mean while, equally rejecting the
spurious liberality which regards all creeds
and all forms of worship with the same
complacency, and guarding against the in
tolerant presumption which bars the gates
of mercy against all but the members of its
own community, let us, according to the
commmand of the Lord by the prophet,
seek the old paths and the good way, and
diligently walk therein, that we may find

310 LECTURE VIIL
rest unto our souls; remembering that
holy scripture, which 'wa^. given for the in
struction of all, is of " no private interpreta
tion, and that no doctrine of modern in
vention can be true, consistently with the
faithful promise of our Lord to his apostles,
and in them to all who should believe in
his name through their preaching, " that
" he would send his Holy Spirit "" to guide
" them into all truth, to teach them all things,
" and to abide with them for ever.
" 2 Peter i. 10. « John xvi. 13, &c. xiv. 16, Sec.

THE END.

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