Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

or any other Apostle, or any successor of one of these, this, I say, is utterly incredible, supposing the Apostles or their Master had really designed that there should be for the universal Church any institution answering to the oracle of God under the Old Dispensation, at the Tabernacle or the Temple.

cluded by the Founder and Supreme Governor of the Universal Church, is inconsistent with the character of his religion. It is not a little remarkable, therefore, -though in other matters also experience shows the liability of men to maintain at once opposite errors, that the very persons who are for restricting within the narrowest limits, or rather, indeed, an- The Apostle Paul, in speaking of nulling altogether, the natural right of a miracles as "the signs of an Apostle," Community to make and alter by-laws in evidently implies that no one NOT posmatters not determined by a superior au- sessing such miraculous gifts as his,* thority, and who deny that any Church much less, without possessing any at all, is at liberty to depart, even in matters left could be entitled to be regarded as even wholly undecided in Scripture, from the on a level with the Apostles; yet he does supposed, or even conjectured-practice not, by virtue of that his high office, of the Apostles, these very persons are claim for himself, or allow to Peter or found advocating the introduction into any other, supreme rule over all the Christianity of practices and institutions Churches.t And while he claims and not only unauthorized, but plainly ex- exercises the right to decide authoritativecluded, by its inspired promulgators;-ly on points of faith and of practice on such as Sacrifices and sacrificing Priests; which he had received express revelations, thus, at once, denying the rights which do he does not leave his converts any inbelong to a Christian Community, and as- junction to apply, hereafter, when he serting those which do not; at once fet- shall be removed from them, to the tering the Church by a supposed obliga- Bishop, or Rulers of any other Church, tion to conform strictly to some supposed for such decisions; or to any kind of precedents of antiquity, and boldly cast- permanent living Oracle to dictate to all ing off the obligation to adhere to, the Christians in all Ages. Nor does he plainest injunctions of God's written word. even ever hint at any subjection of one "Full well do ye reject the command- Church to another, singly, or to any numment of God, that ye may keep your own ber of others collectively; to that of tradition.* Jerusalem, for instance, or of Rome; or to any kind of general Council.

§ 15. Among the things excluded from the Christian system, we are fully author- It appears plainly from the sacred narized to include all subjection of the Chris- rative, that though the many Churches tian World, permanently, and from gene- which the Apostles founded were branches ration to generation, to some one Spiritual of one Spiritual Brotherhood, of which Ruler (whether an individual man or a the Lord Jesus Christ is the Heavenly Church), the delegate, representative and Head,-though there was "one Lord, one vicegerent of Christ; whose authority Faith, one Baptism," for all of them, yet should be binding on the conscience of they were each a distinct, independent all, and decisive on every point of faith. community on Earth, united by the comJesus Himself, who told his Disciples that mon principles on which they were foundit was "expedient for them that He ed, and by their mutual agreement, affecshould go away, that He might send them tion and respect; but not having any one another Comforter, who should abide recognized Head on Earth, or acknowledgwith them for ever," could not possibly ing any sovereignty of one of these Sohave failed, had such been his design, to cieties over others.‡ refer them to the man, or Body of men, who should, in perpetual succession, be the depository of this divine consolation and supremacy. And it is wholly incredible that He Himself should be perpetually spoken of and alluded to as the Head of his Church, without any reference to any supreme Head on Earth, as fully representing Him and bearing universal rule in his name,-whether Peter

* Mark vii. 9.

And as for-so-called-General Councils, we find not even any mention of them, or allusion to any such expedient. The pretended first Council, at Jerusalem,

* 1 Cor. xiv. 18.

† Gal. ii. 7-9.

Generally speaking, the Apostles appear to have established a distinct Church in each considerable city; so that there were several even in those of Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Amphia single Province; as for instance, in Macedonia, polis, &c.; and the like in the Province of Achaia and elsewhere.

[ocr errors]

does seem to me* a most extraordinary minds the independence and equality of chimera, without any warrant whatever the several Churches on Earth. from Sacred History. We find in the On the whole, then, considering in adnarrative, that certain persons, coming dition to all these circumstances, the from Jerusalem to Antioch, endeavoured number and the variety of the Epistles of to impose on the Gentile converts the Paul, (to say nothing of those of the yoke of the Mosaic Law; pretending other Apostles,) and the deep anxiety he as appears plainly from the contextt-to manifests for the continuance of his have the sanction of the Apostles for this. converts in the right faith, and his Nothing could be more natural than the earnest warnings of them* against the step which was thereupon taken-to send dangers to their faith, which he foresaw; a deputation to Jerusalem, to inquire and considering also the incalculable imwhether these pretensions were well portance of such an institution (supposing founded. The Apostles, in the midst of it to exist) as a permanent living Oracle an Assembly of the Elders (or Clergy, as and supreme Ruler of the Church, on they would now be called) of Jerusalem, Earth; and the necessity of pointing it decided that no such burden ought to be out so clearly that no one could possibly, imposed, and that their pretended sanction except through wilful blindness and obhad not been given. The Church at stinacy, be in any doubt as to the place Jerusalem, even independently of the and persons whom the Lord should have Apostles, had of course power to decide thus "chosen to cause his name to dwell" this last point; i. e. to declare the fact therein-especially, as a plain reference whether they had or had not given the to this infallible judge, guide, and gopretended sanction: and the Apostles, vernor, would have been so obvious, confessedly, had plenary power to declare easy, short, and decisive a mode of guardthe will of the Lord Jesus. And the ing against the doubts, errors, and dissendeputation, accordingly, retired satisfied. sions which he so anxiously appreThere is no hint, throughout, of any hended; considering, I say, all this, it summons to the several Churches in does seem to me a perfect moral imposJudea and Galilee, in Samaria, Cyprus, sibility, that Paul and the other sacred Cyrene, &c., to send deputations, as to a writers should have written, as they have general Council; nor any assumption of done, without any mention or allusion to a right in the Church of Jerusalem, as any thing of the kind, if it had been a such, to govern the rest, or to decide on part (and it must have been a most essenpoints of faith. tial part, if it were any) of the Christian System. They do not merely omit all reference to any supreme and infallible Head and Oracle of the Universal Church, -to any Man or Body as the representative and Vicegerent of Christ, but they omit it in such a manner, and under such circumstances, as plainly to amount to an exclusion.

It is worth remarking also, that, as if on purpose to guard against the assumption, which might, not unnaturally, have taken place, of some supremacy—such as no Church was designed to enjoy,—on the part of Jerusalem, the fountain-head of the religion, it was by the special appointment of the Holy Spirit that Saul and Barnabas were ordained to the very highest office, the Apostleship, not by the hands of the other Apostles, or of any person at Jerusalem, but by the Elders of Antioch. This would have been the less remarkable had no human ordination at all taken place, but merely a special immediate appointment of them by divine revelation. But the command given was, separate me . . . . let them go." Some reason for such a procedure there must have been; and it does seem probable that it was designed for the very purpose (among others) of impressing on men's

* See Burnet on Article 21. † Acts. xv. 24. Acts xiii. 2, 3,

It may be added that the circumstance of our Lord's having deferred the Commencement of his Church till after his own departure in bodily person from the Earth, seems to have been designed as a further safeguard against the motion I have been alluding to, Had He publicly presided in bodily person subsequently to the completion of the Redemption by his death, over a Church in Jerusalem or elsewhere, there would have been more plausibility in the claim to supremacy which might have been set up and admitted, on behalf of that Church, and of his own successors in the Government of it. His previously withdrawing, made it

* Acts xx.

the more easily to be understood that He cisions, or made any general enactment was to remain the spiritual Head in to be observed in all Ages and Countries. Heaven, of the spiritual Church uni-| And the inference seems to be inevitaversal; and consequently of all particular ble, that they purposely left these points Churches, equally, in all parts of the to be decided in each Age and Country world.

§ 16. This therefore, and the other points just mentioned, must be regarded as negatively characteristic of the Christian religion, no less than it is positively characterized by those truths and those enactments which the inspired Writers lay down as essential. Their prohibitions in the one case are as plain as their injunctions in the other.

There is not indeed any systematic enumeration of the several points that are excluded as inconsistent with the character of the religion; answering to the prohibition of Idolatry in the Decalogue, the enumeration of forbidden meats, and other such enactments of the Levitical Law. But the same may be said no less of the affirmative directions also that are to be found in the New Testament. The fundamental doctrines and the great moral principles of the Gospel are there taught, for wise reasons no doubt, and which I think we may in part perceive,* not in creeds or other regular formularies, but incidentally, irregularly, and often by oblique allusions; less striking indeed at first sight than distinct enunciations and enactments, but often even the more decisive and satisfactory from that very circumstance; because the Apostles frequently allude to some truth as not only essential, but indisputably admitted, and familiarly known to be essential by those they were addressing.†

according to the discretion of the several Churches, by a careful application of the principles laid down by Christ and his Apostles.

§ 17. At variance with what has been now said, and also at variance with each other, are some opinions which are to be found among different classes of Christians, in these, as well as in former times. The opposite errors (as they appear to me to be) of those opinions may in many instances be traced, I conceive, in great measure, to the same cause; to the neglect, namely, of the distinction-obvious as it is to any tolerably attentive readerwhich has been just noticed, between those things, on the one hand, which are either plainly declared and strictly enjoined, or distinctly excluded, by the Sacred Writers, and on the other hand, those on which they give no distinct decision, injunction, or prohibition; and which I have thence concluded they meant to place under the jurisdiction of each Church. To the neglect of this distinction, and again, to a want of due consideration of the character, offices, and rights of a Christian Community, may be attributed, in a great degree, the prevalence of errors the most opposite to each other.

There are persons, it is well known, who from not finding in Scripture precise directions, and strict commands, as to the constitution and regulation of a Christian Church, the several Orders of Christian Ministers,-the distinct functions of each,

[ocr errors]

On the whole then, I cannot but think an attentive and candid inquifer, who and other such details, have adopted the brings to the study of Scripture no extra- conclusion, or at least seem to lean, more ordinary learning or acuteness, but an or less, towards the conclusion, that it unprejudiced and docile mind, may ascer- is a matter entirely left to each individual's tain with reasonable certainty, that there fancy or convenience to join one Christian are points and what those points are- Society, or another, or none at all;—to which are insisted on by our sacred writers as essential; and again, which are excluded as inconsistent with the religion they taught; and again that there are many other points, some of them such that the Apostles cannot but have practically decided them in one way or another on particular occasions, (such as the mode of administering the Eucharist, and many others) respecting which they have not recorded their de

* See Appendix, Note (G.)

See Rhetoric, 6th Edition, Part I. ch. 2, § 4.

take upon himself, or confer on another, the ministerial office, or to repudiate altogether any Christian Ministry whatever: to join, or withdraw from, any or every religious Assembly for joint Christian worship, according to the suggestion of his individual taste:-in short, (for this is what it really amounts to when plainly stated) to proceed as if the sanction manifestly given by our Lord and his Apostles to the establishment of Christian Communities, and consequently, to all the privileges and powers implied in the very nature of a Community, and also the in

T

ulcation in Scripture of the principles on | duced by the Apostles, or to have prewhich Christian Churches are to be con- vailed in their time, or in the time of their lucted, were all to go for nothing, unless immediate successors, are to be considered the application of these principles to each articular point of the details of Church overnment, can also be found no less lainly laid down in Scripture.

.66

as absolutely binding on all Christians for ever;-as a model from which no Church is at liberty to depart. And they make our membership of the Church of Christ, Now though I would not be understood and our hopes of the Gospel salvation, s insinuating any thing against the actual depend on an exact adherence to every norality of life of those who take such thing that is proved, or believed, or even views, I cannot but remark, that their suspected, to be an apostolical usage; and node of reasoning does seem to me per- on our possessing what they call Apostoectly analogous to that of men who should lical Succession; that is, on our having set at nought all the moral principles of a Ministry whose descent can be traced he Gospel, and account nothing a sin that up, in an unbroken and undoubted chain, s not expressly particularized as forbid- to the Apostles themselves, through men Jen,-nothing a duty, that is not, in so regularly ordained by them or their sucmany words, enjoined. Persons who en- cessors, according to the exact forms oritertain such lax notions as I have been al- ginally appointed. And all Christians luding to, respecting Church enactments, (so called) who do not come under this should be exhorted to reflect carefully on description, are to be regarded either as the obvious and self-evident, but often- outcasts from "the Household of Faith," forgotten truth-the oftener forgotten, or at best as in a condition analogous perhaps, in practice, from its being self- to that of the Samaritans of old" who evident that right and duty are recipro- worshipped on Mount Gerizim,* or as in cal; and consequently that since a Church" an intermediate state between Chrishas a right (derived, as has been shown, tianity and Heathenism," and as "left to both from the very nature of a Community, the uncovenanted mercies of God.” and from Christ's sanction) to make re- § 18. Those who on such grounds degulations, &c., not at variance with Scrip-fend the Institutions and Ordinances, and ture principles, it follows that compliance vindicate the Apostolical Character, of our with such regulations must be a duty to own (or indeed of any) Church-whether the individual members of that Church. on their own sincere conviction, or as believing that such arguments are the best calculated to inspire the mass of mankind with becoming reverence, and to repress the evil of schism, do seem to me, in proportion as they proceed on those principles, to be, in the same degree, removing our institutions from a foundation on a rock, to place them on sand. Instead of a clearly-intelligible, well-established, and accessible proof of divine sanction for the claims of our Church, they would substitute one that is not only obscure, disputable, and out of the reach of the mass of mankind, but even self-contradictory, subversive of our own and every Church's claims, and leading to the very evils of doubt, and schismatical division, which it is desired to guard against.

[ocr errors]

On the other hand, there are some who, in their abhorrence and dread of principles and practices subversive of all good order, and tending to anarchy and to every kind of extravagance, have thought, or at least professed to think, that we are bound to seek for a distinct authoritative sanction, in the Scriptures or in some other ancient writings, some Tradition in short-for each separate point which we would maintain. They assume that whatever doctrines or practices, whatever institutions, whatever regulations respecting Church government, we can conclude, either with certainty, or with any degree of probability, to have been either intro

* By "ancient" some persons understand what belongs to the first three centuries of the Christian era; some, the first four; some, seven; so arbitrary and uncertain is the standard by which some would persuade us to try questions, on which they, at the same time, teach us to believe our Christian Faith and Christian Hope are staked!

"Scire velim, pretium chartis quotus arroget annus:

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

The Rock on which I am persuaded our Reformers intended, and rightly intended, to rest the Ordinances of our Church, is, the warrant to be found in the Holy Scriptures written by, or under the direction of those to whom our Lord had entrusted the duty of "teaching men to observe all things whatsoever He had

* John iv.

[ocr errors]

While they strongly deny to any Church the power to ordain any thing contrary to God's Word," or to require as essential to salvation, belief in any thing not resting on scriptural authority, they claim the power for each Church of or daining and altering "rites and ceremonies," "so that all things be done to edifying," and nothing "contrary to God's Word." They claim on that ground for our own Church a recognition of that power in respect of the Forms of Public Service; on the ground, that is, (Art. 36) that these "contain nothing that is in itself superstitious and ungodly."

commanded them." For in those Scrip-| tures we find a divine sanction clearly given to a regular Christian Community, a Church; which is, according to the definition in our 19th Article, "a congregation (i. e. Society or Community; Ecclesia,) of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things which of necessity are requisite to the same." Now since, from the very nature of the case, every Society must have officers appointed in some way or other, and every Society that is to be permanent, a perpetual succession of Officers, in whatever manner kept up, and must have also a power of enacting, abrogating and enforcing on its own members, such regulations or by-laws as are not opposed to some higher authority, it follows inevitably (as I have above observed) that any one who sanctions a Society, gives, in so doing, his sanction to those essentials of a Society, its Government,-its Officers, -its Regulations. Accordingly, even if our Lord had not expressly said any thing about "binding and loosing," still the very circumstance of his sanctioning a Christian Community would necessarily have implied his sanction of the Institutions, Ministers, and Government of a-And those we ought to judge lawfully Christian Church, so long as nothing is introduced at variance with the positive enactments, and the fundamental principles laid down by Himself and his Apostles.

§ 19. This, which I have called a foundation on a rock, is evidently that on which (as has been just observed) our Reformers designed to place our Church.

And they rest the claims of Ministers, not on some supposed sacramental virtue transmitted from hand to hand in unbroken succession from the Apostles, in a chain, of which if any one link be even doubtful, a distressing uncertainty is thrown over all Christian Ordinances, Sacraments, and Church privileges for ever; but, on the fact of those Ministers being the regularly appointed officers of regular Christian Community. "It is not lawful (says the 23d Article) for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the sacraments in the congregation, before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same.

a

called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord's Vineyard."

[ocr errors]

Those who are not satisfied with the foundation thus laid, and which, as I have endeavoured to show, is the very foundation which Christ and his Apos tles have prepared for us,-who seek to take higher ground, as the phrase is, and * In our Article as it stands in the English, it maintain what are called according to the is "The visible Church of Christ is," &c.; but modern fashion "Church principles," or there can be no doubt, I think, that the more cor"Church-of-England principles," are in rect version from the Latin (the Latin Articles appear to have been the original, and the English fact subverting the principles both of our a translation-in some few places, a careless trans- own Church in particular, and of every lation from the Latin) would have been "A Christian Church that claims the inhe visible Church," &c. The Latin Ecclesia rent rights belonging to a Community, Christi visibilis" would indeed answer to either and confirmed by the sanction of God's phrase, the want of an article definite or indefinite in that language rendering it liable to such ambi- Word as contained in the Holy Scripguity. But the context plainly shows that the tures. It is advancing, but not in the writer is not speaking of the Universal Church, right road, it is advancing not in sound but of particular Churches, such as the "Churches learning but error,-not in faith, but in of Jerusalem, Alexandria and Rome." The Eng- superstitious credulity, to seek for some lish translator probably either erred from momentary inattention, or (more likely) understood by higher and better ground on which to Ecclesia," and by the Church," the particular rest our doctrines and institutions than

66

66

Church whose Articles were before him,--the

Church of England.

† I.e. believers in Christ;-fideles;-WITTOL.

* See § 23.

« НазадПродовжити »