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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. by errata ned to lent une peiure, fapon A 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 STRICTURES ON THB TWO LETTEES OF PROVOST WHITAKER IN ANSWER TO CHARGES BROUGHT BY TIIS LORD BISHOP OF HURON AGAIMST THB TEACHING OF TRINITY COLLEGE. EKRA.T A.. Page 7, Line 9, for " ante," read anti. (( (( u i( <( 28, 82, 83, (I 87, 93, 16, for " rom," read from. 28, for " they," read thy. 3, for " called." read calls. 20, for "signs," read sign. 8, for "could," read would. " n] for "Provost's," read Provost. t( u (t i( (( STRICTURES ON THE TWO LETTEES OF PEOVOST WHTTAKEE IN ANSWER TO CHAEGE3 BROUGHT BY THE LOKD BISHOP OF HUEON AQAIUST THE TEACHING OF TRINITY COLLEGE. BY A PRESBYTER. LONDOlSr, C. W^.: PRINTED BY THOMAS EVANS, DUNDAS STREET EAST. 1861. STEICTTJRES ON THE LETTERS OF PROVOST WHITAKER. The controversy respecting the teaching of Trinity- College has fully brought to light that which, without it, might have remained long in caikness. It is now patent to the world \i'hat kind of theology is taught in Trinity College. But Tor the part which the Bishop of Huron ha« taken, this Tractarian poison would still have been secretly ard qui'^tly infused into the minds of the students of that institution. It is well, therefore, that this insidious system has been dragged into daylight. The Provost was evidently, at first, determined to deny that such a book existed as " the Provost's Catechism." Strange to say, the book had been in use for several years daily before his eyes, and he had lent his own manuscript to enable the students to have a correct copy of his questions, and yrt he asserts that he never knew of the existence of the Catechism until he heard of it from Dr. Bovell, who learned it from the Bishop of Huron II! At length, how- ever, when overwhelming testimony to the fact was adduced, he was compelled to admit that such was the case. None but those whose eyes are completely blinded by prejudice can fail to see in that document the same prin- ciples which, at the first, were adopted by Newman, Oakley, Manning and others, and which, when carried out to their legitimate consequences, resulted in their apostacy from the pure faith of Christ's church, and in handing them over to the Church of Rome. This discussion has also revealed that for which we ought to feel most thankful to Almighty God, namely, that our laity, for the most part, are sound in the faith, and that it is in Canada, as in England, that however some of the clergy may have declined from thoao Protestant principles which have been the glory of England's Church since the Reformation, still the people are devotedly attached to those principles, and will not tamely submit that their beloved church shall be again subjected to *' the woman arrayed in purple and scarlet, who has made all nations drunk with the wine of her fornication." It must be evident to all, from the Provost's own letters, that the Bishop of Huron had good grounds for the fears he expressed concerning the teaching of Trinity College. Which of us who loves the truths of the Bible would not share in His Lordship's fear ? In fact the Provost has actu- ally admitted more than the Bishop accused him of ; this be- ing the case. His Lordship may rest satisfied without offer- ing any reply to the Provost's pamphlet. It remains now for others to follow up the work which has been so well and so judiciously begun. It will appear from the following strictures how reck- lessly and disingenuously the Provost has heaped quotation upon quotation which manifestly have nothing whatsoever to do with the matters discussed, ignoring altogether the authority of God's word. The Provost has filled his book with quotations from the writings of fallible men like himself, and he appears to think that the members of the church will be satisfied with his teaching because a *' Sparrow " has said this, or a " Crakanthorp " has said that. But he will find that the laity of the Church of England know too well that (he Bilile is the cmly ride of faith to the Christian man, and that they will not be satisfied with the teaching of the Provost until he can shew that it is plainly written in God's inspired word, or may, by clear, logical inference, be deduced therefrom. The most chari- table way in which we can account for the inapposite quotations of the Provost is by supposing that he employed some of the students to hunt up passages for him, and that he used such as they provided without a careful examina- tion. Had he not done this, he surely could not have quoted many passages which appear in his pamphlet. »•/• I will Conclude these preliminary remarks with a passage from Chrysostom's lloinily on 2 Cor. xvi., with the altcra- tionjonly of a word. •• I dread not ro much the war without as the contest within. A root, when well fixed in the earth, will not be harmed bv the winds ; but if it bo made unstable itself by a worm gnawing it from within, it will fall, even though nothing assault it. How long shall he, like a worm, gnaw through the root of the church ? " I. — The Inbtrumentauty op the Viroin Mary in the MEANS OP Human Salvation, and the typical relation OP Miriam to her. The Bishop of Huron charges the Provoi^t of Trinity College with a desire to unduly and injudiciously exalt the Blessed Virgin, and to prove this he quoteo the passage iound in the ProvoHt/s Catechism in his possession, in answer to the question, " Show that she may be regarded as holding a position tnder the old dispensation typical of that which Mary held under the new." The answer is as follows : '• Miriam was an instrument in bringing the children of Israel into the promised land, and Mary was an instrument in bringing mankind into the kingdom of glory or heaven." This is the passage which the Bishop thinks is calculated to give an undue exaltation to the Blessed Virgin. First, because she is spoken of by the Provost as " a type" and, therefore, of necessity a Divine type, for it would be mani- festly absurd to speak of a human type ; and secondly, because the words would evidently imply that the Virgin had some part or permanent ministry in the salvation of mankind. We are glad to find that the Provost emphati- cally denies the correctness of the answer, and then proceeds to give the real answer, as found in his own notes. " The sister of Moses and Aaron, coupled with them by the Prophets as a joint leader of Israel from Egypt, Micah vi. 4 ; and thus answering, in some typical respect, to the place which Mary bore instrum - .itally in the means of human redemption." We must confess that we are unable to see any substan- tial difference between the passage found in the Catechism 6 " in the hands of tho Bishop of Huron, wliich the Provost ropudiatos, and tho ono which ho admits ho finds in hia own manuscript. Both injudiciously speak of Mary as being an instrument in our redemption. If we permit ourselves thus loosely to talk of tho remote instruments of our salvation, whore shall we end ? The Romish Church worships tho wood of the cross, the nails which wounded tho hands and feet of our Redeemer, the spear which pierced his side, and the crown of thorns which lacerated his brow. These wore, 'tis true, remote instruments in the work of our salvation, but it would bo blasphemy to say that they were instruments in bringing us redemption. The question found in th© " Provost's Catechism,*' the correctness of which he does not deny, speaks of Mary as typified by Miriam. In his answer to the Bishop of Huron he modifies this a little and says, •' I say that sho answers, in some typical respect, to tho place Mary bore." To this we reply that if Miriam was in any respect a type of Mary, she must have been a divinely appointed type, for, as before stated, it would be absurd to speak of a humanly appointed type. Some resemblance may be traced between many of the persons spoken of in the Old Testament and those mentioned in the New. But we apprehend that there is and must be a wide difference between a type and a resemblance. But it is the spirit rather than the letter with which we find fault ; a spirit manifested in the desire to drag forward every circumstance, however trifling, that can, in any possible way, exalt the Blessed Virgin. The Provost then asks the Bishop if it be "Irreverent or superstitious to trace with caution and diffidence the points of agreement between the shadows of good things to come and the very images of the things." We answer. No ; because the shadows were none other than the typical shadows referred to by the Apostles as appointed by God himself fur the very purpose of convey- ing the knowledge of good things to come to the people. ft But whcro aro tho caution and difTulonco spoken of by the Provost, when wo find Miriam mado a typo of Mary, and tho Eastern Gate of tho Vision of Ezekiel represented as a type of the womb of tho Blessed Virgin ? Such inter- pretations of Holy Scripture can only bo characterized as rash and presumptuous. When we have an inspired intima- tion that any person or circumstance was divinely intended as a type, we mav then cautiously and reverently compare the type and ant#-type ; but to fancy a typical resemblance between historical personages in the Old Testament and our Lord's mother can tend to no good, and may bo pro- ductive of serious evil. Our Lord and his apostles studiously avoid to advance anything concerning the Blessed Virgin at all likely to encourage superstitious feelings towards her ; as if tho Spirit of God, foreseeing tho danger, was desirous not to furnish any pretext for the idolatrous honors which have been paid to her. Let the Provost follow this example, and he need not fear that any exception will be taken to his teaching. The Provost adds : " If it bo " (i. e., irreverent and superstitious to trace points of resem- blance,) " what does the Bishop say of tho use which our Church makes of Genesis xxii. on Good Friday ? " I hope that the Provost does not intend to class tho fact of Abraham's oflfering up his Son, of which Genesis xxii. speaks, in the same category with what is recorded of Miriam. There is something more to be found in that transaction than mere casual points of agreement. There is a divinely appointed typical agreement between Abra- ham and Isaac and the Father and the Son, touching the redemption wrought out for the human family. Now, unless the Provost is still determined to hold and teach that Miriam is a divinely appointed type of Mary, why does he institute a comparison between these two cases ? Let the Provost consult his Greek Testament at the 19th verse of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, and then refer to Parkhurat's lexicon for the meaning of the word "parahole'- and under the fifth head he will find the meaning to be 8 i I I "a visile type or emUem,'' followed by the words "so Abraham received Isaac from the dead, even, in or for a figure, or as a type of ChrisVa resurrectkmP Was the Provost aware of this when he presumed to insinuate that our Church had no better authority for using this passage as a divinely appointed type of our Lord, than he had for feigning Miriam to be a type of Mary ? If he knew this, his conduct was most disingenuous, and if he did not know it, I am happy to have an opportunity of imparting to him some necessary information which ho may embody in his future prelections, and which will keep him from exposing himself for the future to the charge either of " disgrctjceful ignorance or of stUl more disgrac^id dishonesty.^' (See the temperate h/nguage of the Provost's second letter.) >! The Perpetual Virginity op Mary, Under this head, the Provost's answer to the Bishop says : " The Bishop does not state what special objection he has to the communication of this instruction ; but as it is evident that it excites his apprehension, I will endeavor to allay that apprehension by the following extracts." Now one would suppose that as the Bishop had made no special objection, nor, in fact, any objection to the thing, per se, but only to its being brought injudiciously forward, and made a matter of discussion in Trinity College, among young men, destined, some of them, to be Lawyers, Doctors, Engineers and Merchants, and more especially when there is in the minds of many, even within the pale of our own church, a disposition unduly to exalt the Blessed Virgin. One would have supposed that the Provost would have abstained from the discussion of such a point ; but no, this was an opinion evidently dear to his heart, and in order to prove his position he quotes no less than eighteen authors, who, he tells us, believed this doctrine. Now, with regard to this point, I dare say the 9 Bishop of Huron would say with many of us, " let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind ; " it is a matter of no moment in the economy of our redemption. This question in our church is evidently an open one, and it would be just as easy t array a large number of great names against it as for it, even some of those whom the Provost has most disingenuously quoted as supporting it. On this subject I will quote a passage from that remarkable book some time published in England, which has obtained the highest approval of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, and which has done much to check the spread of Puseyism in our church — I mean " Goode's Divine Rule of Faith and Practice/' — and then I shall conclude on this point with a passage from Calvin, an author whom the Provost doc^ not quote for the love he bears him, but that he may give vent to a i unbecom. ing sneer against his superior the Bishop of Huron. — In vol. 2, p. 153 of " Goode's Divine Rule of Faith and Practice," he thus expresses himself : " One point remains, viz., the alleged perpetual virginity of the mother of our Lord. It is with much unwillingness that f enter upon the discussion of this point, lest I should appear to any one to speak slightingly of one so highly honored of God, and to whom, if upon earth, we should be disposed to pay higher reverence and respect than to the most potent empress that ever sat upon an earthly throne. Far be it from us to speak with any degree of levity respecting one so 'highly favored ' of God, and whom ' all generations shall call blessed.' But, let me ask, what possible meaning can they have who connect this matter with religion ? What possible bearing can such a point have upon faith or piety ? How, moreover, was it ascertained ? Will our opponents venture to assert that it was divinely revealed to the Apostles, and by them delivered to the church ? If not, who could know any- thing about it ? for it is at least clear from Scripture that Joseph took her to wife, and that they lived together as in that relationship, though he 'knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born Son,' which words, by the way, notwithstanding the criticism which Basil proposes as a way of getting over the diificulty, are clearly rather favorable to the notion of union after that birth. But be that as it may, all that we protest against, and what we do earnestly protest against, is the laying down such a point, as one that has any connection with piety or religion in any way, when it has no more connection with them than the color of her dress. The blue hood with which she is usually depicted might as well be made an article of religious belief; unless, indeed, the auUior- ity of the primitive father, Clement of Alexandria, shall prevail in favor ol white, which he seems to think the only proper color for Christians ; and so the blue (which, by the way, is one of those he particularly B 10 l> excepts against) be voted heretical, and this, forsooth, is one of the great recommendations of tradition, that to it, as Mr. Newman reminds us. we are altogether indebted for this doctrine ! Whether tradition has delivered it we shall see presently. But wherein does the religion of it consist ? Is it in the supposed honor thus done to the mother of our Lord ? I know not why the contrary supposition should be con- sidered dishonorable to her, under the circumstances in which she was placed, living with Joseph as his wife. Or is it 'n the honor paid to certain Fathers, in our receiving whatever they deliver to us ? If this is religion, we must add many more such notions to our articles of belief to be religious. Granting even that it is more honorable to the mother of our Lord to suppose that she remained separate from her husband to the end of her life, what we inquire is, of what moment is the kno^' ledge of such a fact to us ? No one, I suppose, will presume to say that it is a revealed fact ; in which case I admit that the fact of its being revealed should be sufficient to prevent our asking such a question. But if it be not a revealed fact, then such a question may fairly be asked. Nor is it a matter of little moment that such points should be imposed upon Christians as matters which they ought to believe, and of sufficient importance even to recommend tradition to us as being the only medium by whi'^h such truths can be made known to us. They are a snare and a burthen to the conscience which men have no right to impose under the sacred name of the ' Church,' when they are, in fact, or at least can only be traced to, the mere private fancies of individuals. Any one who will cast his eye over Geunadius's list of the doctrines of the church will at once see how this name has been abused. Nay, more ; how stand the testimonies of the Fathers on this point ? The only Father that can be quoted upon this subject for the first two centuries and a half is TertuUian ; and he, instead of defending the doctrine, uses words which confessedly show that he believed the contrary. And what reply does Jerome give to Helvidius, when quoting TertuUian in favor of his opinion ? This only : — That he did not belong to the church. But this is evidently no reply ; because the errors that TertuUian had embraced would have induced him to favor the doctrine of her perpetual virginity, if he had conceived himself to have had any ground for it. If there had been such a tradition, as Bishop Stillingfleet says, ' one would think that one so near the Apostles as TertuUian was might easily have learned such a tradition ; and so great a friend to virginity as he was, while a Montanist, should not have been apt to believe the contrary.' — It is clear, then, that at that time there was at least no general agree- ment upon the point. * * * * ^j^jj again, when meeting tha strange notion that some had maintained that Jesus denied Mary because of her having married Joseph after his birth (which shows, at least, their view of the matter), all that he ventures to affirm is, — ' Moreover, they have no proof of what they assert, that she married after his birth ;' though, by the good Father's leave, it is plain enough from Scripture that Joseph and Mary lived together, as far as external appearances went, as man and wife ; and possiMy it might have been better for all parties if they had been contented there to leave it, without indulging an idle and impertinent curiosity about a matter which no way concerned them." yir .V 1 I would commend this passage to the Provost, as exhibit- ing the calm and cautious manner in which a subject such 11 as that under discussion should be treated by men desirous to protect the name and person of iim ever Blessed Virgin from those curious and dishonoring disquisitions and investigations to which the discussion of this subject has given rise. The young men in the University could surely be better employed than in discussing the legends invented by monks to support this dogma of the Church of Rome. These men, who had vowed celibacy, appear to have compensated themselves by indulging in prurient speculation on every occasion which admitted it, and the subject of the perpetual virginity of Mary appears to have been eagerly seized upon by them for this purpose. I would not dare, even in Latin, to publish some of the things written on this subject which are now before me. The Provost has quoted Calvin as one of his authorities. We hope from henceforth we shall hear no more of that ignorant cant about Calvinism in which the students of Trinity College so freely indulge. If the Provost has placed Calvin amongst his authorities, surely he, in some degree, must be classed amongst Calvinists. It cannot be that a man like the Provost would avail himself of the learning and the name of Calvin, and quote him for such an opinion as the " perpetual virginity of Mary," and yet spurn with contempt his opinion upon the vital doctrines of the gospel. But let us hear what Calvin says in the latter part of the passage quoted by the Provost : ^*^ And surely no one would raise a question about this matter tut one •who is over curious, and no one will pertinaciotisly urge it but a conten- tious brawler." Now the Provost raised a question about this matter in the questions put in his Catechism. By the decision, then, of his ovm authority, he has evinced an over curious spirit. And when the Bishop of Huron, with the modesty and delicacy which became him when handling such a subject, simply quoted the words of the Catechism without remark, the Provost dons his armour, and at the head of 18 selected champions rushes to the conflict and devotes If 12 9 pages of his pamphlet to the discussion of this topic 1 1 I do not agree with Calvin in all that he has written, but assuredly he has spoknn the truth in the passage before us. P^or no one would have thus pertinaciously urged this topic but such a man as Calvin describes. And I might add that no one would go about so earnestly as the Provost has done to establish such a point but one who, like him, apparently above all things wished the undue exaltation of the Blessed Virgin, for to no other end can such a proceeding lead. The Intercession op Saints. Under this head the Provost proceeds to remark : "The next article to which exception is taken is that of ' the Com- munion of Saints.'" The Bishop of Huron has never taken objection to this article of our Creed. It is dishonest in the highest degree for a controvertialist to impute to his opponent statements which he has never made. Does the Provost forget that there is such a law as "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor ? " When he next lectures his pupils upon the 9th commandment, let him be sure to teach them that the man who belies his neighbor by imputing to him opinions which he never held, and sentiments which he never uttered, violates the Law of God, and incurs the just condemnation of the righteous Judge of all the earth. The Provost cannot find one expression in the objections which the Bishop of Huron made to the teaching of Trinity College to justify this calumny. What the Bishop objected to was the attempt made to foist an unwarrantable meaning, for which no Scriptural ground could be adduced, upon this Article of Faith. The Provost professes to have derived bis teaching concerning the intercession of saints from Bishop Pearson, but not one word does he give us from that author. But what he has conveniently left undone we will do for him. On this subject, the Communion of Saints, Pearson says : n *' This communion of saints in heaven and earth upon the mystical union of Christ their head being fundamental and internal, what acts of external operations it produceth is not certain. That we communicate with them in hope of that happiness which they actually enjoy is evi- dent ; that we have the Spirit of God given us as an earnest, and so a part of their felicity, is certain. But what they do in heaven in relation to us on earth, particularly considered, or what we ought to perform in reference to them in heaven, beside a reverential respect and study of imitation, is not revealed unto us in the Scriptures, nor can be concluded by necessary deduction feom any principles of Christianity." To this Pearson adds that this article of our creed, viz., the communion of saints, was not found in any of the ancient creeds prior to the 4th century. We should like to know where the Provost found in this author the doc- trine contained in these words : the saints departed exercise an " interest in our behalf and probable interces- sion with God for us." So much for the Provost's unwar- antable assertion : " This teaching I derive from Bishop Pearson." This is but a sample of the reckless statements and quotations made by this theological teacher. Amongst other testimonies from men of inferior note, he produces one from that profound scholar and eminently pious man, Archbishop Usher, as proving that that prelate held " the intercession of saints for us." The Archbishop's words are " Whether these blessed spirits pray for us is not the question here, but whether we are to pray for them. That God only is to be prayed unto is the doctrine that was once delivered to the saints for which we so earnestly contend The saints praying for us doth not cross this, for to whom should the saints pray but unto the King of Saints ? they being prayed unto is the only stumbling block that lieth in this way." Archbishop Usher's answer to a Jesuit. It cannot be gathered from this by any man but the Provost that the Archbishop held the " intercession of saints." He is treating of another subject, and for tb-^ sake of the argument says : " Whether this be so or not is not here the question." And then adds as quoted, "The saints praying for us doth not cross this," that is, even if we allow that the saints pray for us, it does not cross the doctrine " that God only is to be prayed unto, for to whom should the saints pray but to the King of saints ? " 14 !BI I These words are put in italics by the Provost, thinking, no doubt, that the hasty reader would accept the qiiatation as a proof of his favorite doctrine. But to mako thena pertinent to the point in question there ought to have been two words more in the sentence ; the question is not, whether saints in heaven pray, but whether they pray fw lis. It is not here stated by the Archbishop that they do. He simply says : " To whom should the saints pray but to the King of saints ? " But as the Provost has quoted Archbishop Usher, a divine whose opinions he holds in contempt as much as he does those of John Calvin, we will do the same. He has the following pass- age on the point in question : "Yea, in the darkest times of the Papacy there wanted not some who for certain reasons resolved that neither ths sainU do pray for us, neither are we to pray unto them. ' With these and such like reasons,' saith Biai (a Popish writer), * were the heretics deceived, and some Christians in our time are now deceived,' which, moved John Sharpe, in the University of Oxford, publicly to dispute the two questions of pray- ing to saints and praying for the dead, because it was esteemed by some famous men, and not without probability, that such suffrages and prayers were superfluous in the church of God, although some other wise men thought the contrary,' and in this particular question now in hand Altissiodorensis (another JPopish writer,) telleth us that ' Many do say that neither we pray unto the saints nor they for tis, but improperly, in respect we pray to God, that the merits of the saints may help us.' " Archbishop Usher's answer to a Jesuit, p. 452. The same divine, in another part of the same work, thus traces up the invocation of saints to the doctrine of their intercession for lis. He says : " Here a man may easily discern the breedings of that disease, and, &s it were, the grudgings of that ague that afterwards brake out into a pesti- lentialfever. The Martyr is here vocatus only,not invocatus yet; not called upon by being prayed unto, but called to join with others in putting up the same petition to his and their God. For as here in the church militant we have our fellow soldiers striving together with us, and helping together with their prayers to God for us ; and yet because we pray one for another we do not pray cue to another, so the Fathers which taught thM the saints in the church triumphant do pray for us, might with St. Basil acknowledge that they had the Martyr's fellow- helpers to their prayers ; and yet pray with them only, and not unto them. For howsoever this evil weed grew apace, (among the supersti- tious multitude especially,) yet it was so cropt at first by the skilful husbandmen of the church that it got nothing near that height which under the Papacy we see it has now grown into." Archbishop Usher'* amwer to a Jesuit, p. 445. 16 We see from this passage that the Bishop of Huron has pretty high authority for holding that the belief of the " intercession of the saints for us " is a step towards the '• invocation of saints," and his Lordship might add, a necessary step, for if a man never believed in the inter- cession, he could never be induced to be guilty of the invo- cation of saints. The latter doctrine, the invocation of saints, found its way into the church through the door of the "probable intercession of saints for us." The argument of the Provost on this pointisa specimen of the most extraordinary reasoning ever attempted in order to defend a bad cause. He says if a young man is taught to believe that the intercession and invocation of saints stand or fall together, when he " learns in controversy that concerning the intercession of saints he has neither Holy Scriptures or reason on his side, he will be prepared to make a very easy transition to that which he once regarded as a kindred error, but which he is now prepared to accept as the inseparable truth." Let us examine the mental process thus described. The Provost says that " when in controversy the young man learns to his dismay that he has neither Holy Scripture nor reason on his side." But how can he learn this? BishopPearson, as quoted above, has declared that the intercession of saints departed "is not revealed uifdo us in the Scriptures, nor can be conduded., by neces- sary deduction, from any principles of Christianity.'^ If the young man has been taught that Holy Scripture is the only and the sufficient rule of faith and practice, he will not be in danger of accepting as a divine verity what *'i5 not revealed to us in the Scriptures," and as for finding right reason against him, how is this possible, unless right reason and " the principles of Christianity" are opposed? For the inter- cession of saints, according to Pearson, cannot be deduced "from any principles of Christianity.'' There is therefore no vlanger that a man who has learned that to the word of God alone he is to bow in all matters concerning religion, and that, however he may esteem the learning and piety of men who lived in the ages past, still, that their opinion 16 t|ii i upon any doctrine is to be tested by the word ^f God, and reiectod if imt found in strict accordance therewith. — There is no danger, I say, that a man thus instructed will ever yield up his conscience and accept as a truth any thing which he clearly sees is not taught in Holy Scripture. On the contrary, I would say that when a man is taught to accept, on mere human authority, a doctrine "not re- vealed in the Holy Scripture" and which " cannot he deduced from any principles of Christianity,^ and to regard this as a divine verity, when he comes to reflect that the sayings of fallible men are the only foundations on which h's faith has been built, he v/ill be ready to apply the same rule to other doctrines, and to accept the traditions of men as his rule of faith in all things. Such is the pre ess which has been going on in Trinity College, and the Provost himself furnishes an example of the elFects of such a system, for he comes before the Canadian public to vindicate his teaching from the charge of unsoundness, and he thinks he has done so sufficiently and triumphantly when he has brought together a large number of what he calls authori- ties^ which, yet, are no more authorities than himself. The Provost next cites Calvin (of whorji he appears to have become suddenly fond), as holding the doctrine of the intercession of saints for us. It is pitiful as well as painful to find how the Provost has misrepresented many of the great divines whom he has q^ oted. Who ever thought that Calvin, that arch-heretic in the Provost's estimation, would have been summoned by him to estab- lish the semi-Popish doctrine of " probable intercession." The passage quoted by the Provost is " so far as concerns the saints who, dead in the flesh, live in Christ, t/" «^;e attribute any prayer to them" Here Calvin, like Usher, is making a supposition for the sake of tiie argument, viz., invocation of saints, and yet the Provost has had the har- dihood to quote this passage in the face of most manifest testimony that Calvin repudiated the doctrine of the " probable intercession of saints for us " as a fiction of 17 Now let us hear Calvin speak fairly iession.' weak minded men. on this point : " T ask if this isi not to transfer to them that office of sole intercession which we have above claimed for Christ? Then, what angel or devil ever announced one syllable to any human being concerning that fan- cied intercemon of theirs f There is not one word on the subject in Scripture. What ground, then, was there for the fiction ? Certainly, yrY Ic the human mind thus seeks help for itself in which it is not sanctioned by the word of God, it plainly manifests its distrust But if we appeal to the consciences of all who take pleasure in the intercession of saints, we shall find that their only reason for it is that they are filled with anxiety, as if they supposed that Christ were insufficient or too rigorous. By this anxiety they dishonor Christ, and rob him of his title of sole Mediate-- a title which, being given him by the Father as his special privilege, ought not to bo transferred to any other. By so doing they obscure the glory of his nativity, and make void his cross; in short, divest and defraud of due praise everything which he did or suffered, since all which he did and suffered goes to show that he is and ought to be deemed sole mediator." And again : " In regard to the office of intercession, we have also seen that it is peculiar to Christ, and that no prayer is agreeable to God which he, as Mediator, does not sanctify. And though believers mutually offer up prayers to God in behalf of their brethren, we have shown that this derogates in no respect from the sole intercession of Christ, because all trust to that intercession in commending themselves as well as others to God. Moreover, we have shown that this is ignorantly trans/erred to the dead, of whom we nowhere read that they were commanded to pray for us. The Scriptures often exhort us to offer up mutual prayers, but say not one syllable concerning the dead ; nay, James tacitly excludes the dead when he combines the two things, to ' confess our sins one to another, and to pray one for another.' Hence it is suflBcient to condemn this error, that the beginning of right prayer springs from faith, and that faith comes by the hearing of the word of God, in which there is no mention ofjictitioua intercession, superstition having rcjshly adopted intercessors who have not been divinely appointed." Calvin's Institutes, Booh III, chap. 22. From these passages we may see that others besides the Bishop of Huron have traced in the history of the church the connection which naturally exists between the " probable intercession of saints for us " and their invoca- tion. In ?11 probability after this we shall have no more quotations by the Provost from the writings of John Cal- vin. As the Provost lays so much stress upon human authority, I would recommend him to peruse carefully the following passages from the works of Becon, who was chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer : f' 18 " Moreover, forwrt-uch as the education and bringing up of a child doth P'thcr make or mar him, whether it be in religion, doctrine or manners, it shall be necessary that a good and godly schoolmaster cnarm the breasts of his scholars against all heresies and wicked opinions with the sound and wholenome iloctrlncR f^ ' ^oly Scriptures ; yea, and that so much the more because this , ,o is most miserably vr xed with divers and sundry damnable sects," &,c.\ "that with whatsoever error or heresy any sectary shall assail them, they, thus defenced by the armour of the Holy Ohost, may not be seduced, but continue constant and steadfast in the wholesome doctrine of Christ, that master and teacher of truth, unto the end ; and so be made his true disciples, as Christ himself saith, 'If ye continue in my word then are ye my disci- ples indeed, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.' " And again ; — " The Papists teach that Christ alone is not our Mediator, Advocate and Intercessor ; but if we will have our prayers heard and our petitions granted of God, we must also desire the help of Mary the Virgin, of Paul, Peter, James, Ac, and make them as media- tors, ad /ocates and intercessors unto God, that they may pray far tis. Against this wicked eiTor of the Papists, set these sentences of the Holy Scripture. Our Saviour, Christ, saith, ' I am the way, and the truth and the life ; no man comcth unto the Father but by me," " and what- soever ye shall ask in my name that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye ask anything in my name I will do it.' ' If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, whatsoever ye will, ask, and ye shall have it.' ' Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit may abide, that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name he may give it you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name. — Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be perfect.' St. Paul saith * There is one God, and one mediator between God and man, even the man Christ Jesus, which gave himself a ransom for all." Again, ' Christ is on the right hand of God, and maketh intercession for us.' Also in another place he saith ' Christ is able ever to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us.' St. John saith : ' If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He it is that obtaineth grace for our sins ; not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world' " Worlcs of Thomas Beeon, pp. 379, 380. The consideration of these passages may be useful in showing that the foundation on which the faith of the young should be placed is not the pious or rather the superstitious fancies of fallii^le men, however learned, but the immutable word of the living God. Let the Provost give up lecturing on ''probabilities," to which he appears to be so wedded, and fix the attention of the youths com- mitted to his caro on certainties, oven upon the everlasting 19 verities of God's word. Surely this will furnish sufficient "cope for the youthful mind without tempting young men to indulge in speculations upon the state of the blessed mother of our Lord after the birth of Christ, concerning which Scripture is silent, or upon the employment of the saints who rest from their labors and enjoy perfect happi- ness in the presence of Christ our Lord. I add a short passage from the same work of the Rev. Wm. Goode which I before quoted. It is marked with that peculiar clearness and force which characterizes all his writings : *' But our opponents, though certainly differing from the Romanists in this matter, nevertheless are not contented to leave the matter thus, but will presume to know more than Scripture has revealed respecting the nature of that state, and assert that those in the intermediate state may be benefitted, that is, may gain an increase of happiness by our prayers, and that they pray /or tis, laying this down, moreover, as the doctrine of the Church, and thus as demanding our belief, rashly intruding into things not revealed. What is the authority upon which it is asserted that it is the doctrine of the church that the condition of souls in the intermediate state can be altered or benefitted by our prayers, or that they pray for usf To put it even upon the consentient testimony of the Fathers is out of the question, as we have seen we have not their consent for an intermediate state at all." Ooode^s Divine Rule of Fait' vol. 2, p. 149. The last passage which I shall quote upon this point is from the work of Bishop " Burnett on the 39 Articles." This is a work which has for many ages been a text book in the Universities at home, and in which every Bishop examines candidates for Orders. We might say, there- fore, as the Provost says of Pearson, " We claim Burnett as an authority." Still \n do not wish to give to any man the position of an authority in matters pertaining to religion. We only quote Burnett or any other man when we find that his opinions are in accordance with God's word and thr deductions of sound reason. I believe Bishop Burnett's work on the 39 Articles is not used in Trinity College ; the sound Protestantism of that work would not amalgamate with the Tractarian atmosphere which invests that institution. The passage is : 20 " Another consideration urged for the invocation of saintfi ig, that they seeing Ood, wo linve reason to believe that they see in him, if not all things, yet at IcaHt all the conccmH of the church, of which they are still partR ; and they being in a inost perfect Htato of charity, thoy must certamly lovo the houIh of their brethren hero below ; so that if Haints on earth, whose charity is not yet perfect, do pray for one another here on earth, they in that state of perfection do certainly pray most fervently for them, an(f as wc here on eorth do desire the prayera of others, it may be as reasonable and much more usefid to have recourse to their prayers, who arc both in a state of higher favor with God and have a more exalted charity ; by which their intercessions will be both more earnest and more prevalent. They think also that this honor paid to saints is an honor paid to (iod, who is glorified in them, and since he is the acknowledged fountain of all they think that all the worship offered to them ends and terminates in God." * ♦ ♦ ♦ * *» jju^ to take this to pieces. Wo have no rea.son to believe that the saints see all the concerns of the church. God can ntake them perfectly happy without this ; and if we think the seeing of them is a necessary mgredicnt of perfect happiness, we must from thence conclude that they do also see the whole chain of Providence; otherwise they ma} seem to bo in some suspense, which, according to our notions, is not consistent with perfect happiness. For if they sec the persecutions of the church and the miseries of Christians without seeing on to the end, in what all that will issue, this seems to be a stop to their entire ioy ; and if they see the final issue, and know what God is to do, then we cannot imagine that they can intercede against it, or indeed for it. To us, who know not the hidden counsels of God, prayer is necessary and commanded ; but it seems r'nconsis^ont with a state in which all these events are known." Surely we have, in this passage from the able work of Bishop Burnett, the deductions of sound reason, and yet Provost Whitaker says that if young men believed that departed saints did not pray for us, they would learn in controversy that right reason was against them. Let the Provost introduce the work above quoted, and the sound reasoning of the Bishop, he may be assured, will obviate that danger. " The Forgiveness op Sins." We come now to the consideration of the above question, and we find the Provost approaching the subject with these words, " The next point to which the Bishop objects is that of the 'remission of sins.'" We have before remarked upon this dishonest way of stating the Bishop's objections. The Bishop of Huron has never objected to 21 that or any otbor Article of the Greed. lie has objected to Provost Whitaker's mode of teaching the forgiveness of sins. Ho believes that, through the precious blood of Christ, there is full, free, and everlasting forgiveness of all the sins of the believing people of God, that where the sinner believeth in Ciirist he " is justified from all things from which he could never bo justified by the law," and that though his sins, before he believed, wore " as scarlet they shall be white as snow ; though they be rod like crimson, they shall bo as wool." Where the Provost can descend so low as to falsiify the views of a Bishop of his own church, surely we may not be surprised to find him in his zeal to maintain his own unscriptural views, quoting the writers and divines of past centuries to support opin- ions which they never held, and against which many of them earnestly contended. The Provost says that " sins are forgiven first in baptism to infants, or to adults duly prepared by faith and repent- ance, and that after baptism it is granted on repentance, which remission is declared in the authoritative absolutions of the church, and sealed by the reception of the Holy Communion." To this the Bishop of Huron objects, and so do we, most emphatically, and would, with his Lord- ship, say that " if baptism, the Supper of the Lord, and the authoritative absolution, take away sins and seal the pardon of the transgressor, then the Church of Rome is right, and our forefathers were unjustifiable schismatics in separating from her communion." It does seem to us that there is no middle way, no consistent view which can be taken of this article between that held by the evangelical portion of the church of Christ and that held by the members of the church of Rome. We must agree with the Bishop of Huron that the mode of forgiving sins taught in the " Provost's Catechism " (which is the same as that taught in the Catechism of the Council of Trent,) is widely different from that which we find in the eleventh article of our church, and alio in the Homily on justifica- 22 tion. It is stated in the Article and repeated in the Homily that we are "justified by faith ordy,'^ and that this is " a most wholesome doctrine." The sacraments are set forth as only signs and seals of that justification which we have already received. The Provost feels it to be a diffi- cult matter to make the language of the Articles and Homilies express the same thing as his teaching, and con- sequently he struggles hard, flounders much, and blunders more. But in order that he may make a show of con- founding the Bishop he quotes a passage from the Homily on justification to prove that "sins are forgiven in the sacraments and by the authoritative absolution of the Priest." Let the world judge whether the Provost's quo- tation makes in any way for this Popish doctrine. If it does we have failed to discover it, and we believe that the same will be the case with the public. The passage is this : "Insomuch that infants being baptised, and dying in their infancy, are ly this sacrifice washed from their sins, brought to God's favor, and made his children, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. And they who, in act or deed, do sin after their baptism, when they turn again to God unfeignedly they are likewise washed by this sacrifice from their sins, in such sort that there remaineth not any spot of sin that shall be imputed to their damnation. This is that justification of righteousness which St. Paul speaketh of when he saith, 'No man is justified by the works of the law, hut freely iy faith in Jesus Christ.^ " There is not one word here about sins being forgiven in sacraments. It states plainly that both infants and adults have forgiveness of sins by the washing of the sacrifice of Christ. What an unfortunate thing for the Provost that the Homily did not say that sins are forgiven by the " washing of the sacraments and the authoritative absolu- tion of the Priest." But not satisfied with the first failure to prove his doctrine by the Homily, he quotes another passage : " Nevertheless, because faith doth directly send us to Christ for remission of our sins, and that by faith given us of God we embrace the promise of God's mercy and of the remission of our sins (which thing none other of our virtues or works properly do), therefore Scripture useth 23 to say thai faith without' ivorks doth justify ." And then he vauntingly adds, " Surely the doctrine of justification by faith, rightly understood, is not inconsistent with the statement that faith sends us for remission of our sins to Christ, through sacraments and ordinances of his appoint- ment." But the quotation from the Homily plainly states ihdiX faith doth directly send us to Christ for remission of sins. How can such a statement consist with that of the Provost, that faith sends us, iiot directly^ hut through sacra- ments and ordinances, to Christ for salvation. It is not possible that any man, unlesj wedded to a favorite doctrine and resolved to support it, per fas aut nefas, would have dared to hazard his reputation for honesty and sound judg- ment by bringing forward such a quotation as in any way supporting his views. As well might he quote a passage rom * ' Newton's Principia." I will give one more quota- tion from the Homily on Justification, in the hope that the Provost and all who read this may ponder it well, and by the divine blessing receive the precious truth which it contains into their souls. *' But our justification doth come freely by the mere mercy of God ; and of so great and free mercy, that whereas all the world was not able of themselves to pay any part towards their ransom, it pleased our Hea- venly Father, of his infinite mercy, without any of our own desert or deserving, to prepare for us the most precious jewels of Christ's body and blood, whereby our ransom might be fully paid, the law fulfilled, and his justice fully satisfied : so that Christ is now the righteousness of all them that truly do believe in him He for them paid the ransom by his death. He for them fulfilled the law in his life : so that now, in Mm and hy him, every true Christian man may be called a fil filler of the law ; forasmuch as that which their infirmity lacketh, Christ's jus- tice hath supplied. Here is no sacramental justification. Christ is fully and plainly set before us as the wisdom, the righteousness, the sanctification and the redemption of all who hdieve. The Provost next overwhelms us with a number of what he calls the Fathers and authorities of the church on this point, and amongst the rest we find Bishop Sparrow, from whose writings we shall quote but two scraps, believ- ing that an intelligent public will be perfectly satisfied 24 after reading these that they have had enough of such divinity. These will clearly show the kind of men who are most dear to the Provost's heart, and whom he con- siders *' the Fathers and expounders of our faith." " Heaven waits and expects the priest's sentence here on earth " ! 1 Again, " the apostles, and in them all priests, were made God^s vicegerents here on earth, in his name and stead to retain or remit sins." These words the Provost puts in italics, and therefore we conclude that he has unquestionably embraced them as his own. We boldly ask the Christian world if ever anything more Romish issued from the Vatican mint than these words. This of itself is sufficient to stamp the character of the Provost's teaching. Well might the Bishop of Huron pronounce such teaching as dangerous in the highest degree, and we are only surprised that he has ever received into his dio- cese a man who has been subject to such teaching. From henceforth let it be known that all the students of Trinity College are taught that so soon as they are ordained priests they become " God^s vicegerents upon earth to remit and retain sins in his name and stead," and that " where the priest absolves God absolves " 1 ! ! But the Provost would lead all the world to believe that he has all the great divines of the church supporting this Romish teaching. We shall see. I have before quoted from Becon, chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer. I shall again return to him as one among those able divines who were the shining lights of the Reformation. He thus writes in a work called the " Castle of Comfort." " Hitherto have I been bold, in few words, to prove that in the time- of the old law Ood alone forgave the sins of the people, without the help either of bishop, prophet, priest, scribe, or any other ; that the whole glory of their salvation might be ascribed to him alone. Now let us labor to declare that God alone doth the very same thing in the new testament; that he alone may still remain the God of health, flrg^aiywi the pestilent doctrine of the wicked Papists, lohich so hoarishly sweat to maintain their tisurped power and feigned authority in forgiving sin, to the great obscuring of God's glory; and that to him aione all honor and praise may be given." 25 Again : — *' Neither did the apostles absolve any otherwise than by the preach- ing of God's word, which when it was heard and believed, then were the diligent hearers and faithful believers of the same truly absolved, as Christ saith, * Now are ye clean for the word's sake that I have spoken unto you'; that is, now ye are delivered from your sins because ye have believed my preaching. The faith of the heart justifieth, saith St. Paul; whence it may be learned, that if faith be not given to the word there is no absolution or deliverance from sin, ' For whatsoever is not of faith is sin '; and where faith is not, there abideth the wrath of God, as holy St. John Baptist saith, ' He that belicveth the Son hath ever- lasting life ; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.' Therefore, before Christ absolveth any man of his sins, he did behold and see whether he had faith or not. If Christ found true faith in his heart, then he always said, ' Thy faith hath saved thee.' Seeing, then, that none can search the heart, whe- ther it be faithful or unfaithful, but God alone ; seeing olso that the absolution beareth no strength but where faith is, it foUoweth that none can absolve me of my sins but the Lord alone, which ' searcheth the reins and the heart.' The Priest is only God's minister, appointed of God (if he be truly sent) to preach that absolution and free deliverance from my sin, through the name of Jesus Christ ; which preaching if I believe, I am so sure to be delivered from all my sins as though Christ himself had said to me, 'I freely absolve thee,' or 'Thy sins are forgiven thee for thy faith's sake in my name.' Are not these the words of Christ, who is the self-truth, and cannot lie, .-ipoken to all faithful minis- ters ? ' He that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me, and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.' And, again, St. Paul to the Galatians aifirmeth that Christ ' gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world ;' that is to say, from all evil in this present world ; ergo^ God alone it is who delivereth us from our sins in this vale of misery. ' Ye are washed away from your sins,' saith he ; yea, ye are sanctified and made right- eous by the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.' Ergo, our absolution, our deliverance from sin, our sanctification, our justification, and all that ever good is, cometh from God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Again, he saith, ' God the Father hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings ;' ergo, with the blessing of absolution and free deliverance from all our sins. God ' hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and carried us into the kingdom of his well-beloved Son, by whom we have redemption — even by his blood — remission of sins ;' ergo, by Christ's blood are we absolved and delivered from our sins. ' Every good gift, and every perfect gift,' saith St. James, ' cometh down from the Father of Light;' ergo, absolution, which is a good and perfect gift, cometh down from the Father of Light. And, again, when Christ sent forth his disciples he said unto them on this manner : ' Go into the universal world and preach the gospel to every creature ; whoso believeth and is baptised, be shall be saved ; but whoso will not believe shall be condemned.' Here is it evident enough what authority priests have, and what their office is : verily, to preach the gospel and to baptize. * * * * What other thing is it to preach the gos- pel than to declare unto the people that their sins be forgiven them D 26 freely of God, if they repent and believe in Christ, as it is written, * He that believcth the Son hath everlasting life ' ? If sins be forgiven of God, and the ministers commanded to declare the same unto the people, then doth it follow that they forgive not the sin, but only are ministers appointed of God to publish that benefit of our salvation. * ♦ * * The sense of their commission is this : that whomsoever will repent his former life, and believe to have remission of their sins through the mercy of God in Jesus Christ our Lord, they shall be forgiven. The ministers of God publish these joyful news, exhort unto repentance and faith. The people repent and believe ; their sins are forgiven. Who forgiveth the t.ins of the faithful repentant ? The granter of the com- mission or the declarer thereof ? God or man ? 1 doubt not but ye will answer, God. If God alone, whom we offend, forgiveth the sin, and not the declarers of the forgiveness, I have gotten that I have desired for the probation of the second part of this treatise." And again : *' What can be more plainly spoken ? Who is able once to hiss against these things ? Who will once open his mouth to bark against this doc- trine? No man, I suppose, except he he altogether drowned in Papism. This, therefore, is the meaning of the aforesaid text : whensoever the ministers of the Lord's Word declare unto me the sweet promises of God the Father, made to me in Christ's blood, and I believe them, then are my sins forgiven me at the very imtant; but if I do not believe them, then are my sins retained, that is to say, not forgiven. And forasmuch as I either repent and believe, or else continue still in my old damnable state, at the preaching of the Lord's ministers ; therefore the Scripture attributeth my deliverance from sin or otherwise to them, when not- withstanding God alone remitted my sin, if I repent and believe. If I do not, the uncircumcision of my heart, that is, my incredulity and unfaithfulness, is the occasion that my sins are retained, and not forgiven. For this saying always must needs abide true : ' Thy destruction, Israel, cometh of thyself, only of me cometh thy help and salvation.' So that the priests (I mean the ministers of God's Word) are counted to forgive sins when they preach to the truly repentant remission of sins through Christ, and to retain sins when they declare to the unfaithful damnation, and that the wrath of God abideth upon them so long as they remain still in their incredulity and unfaithfulness, as it is written : ' He that believeth not on the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth upon him.' " And again : " Moreover he hath given to his faithful ministers the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that whatever tney loosen in earth may be also loosened in heaven ; and whatever they bind in earth may also be bound in heaven ; that is to say, he hath committed to them the office of preach- ing the gospel, that they should go forth into the world and preach unto all men the grace and favor that is given of God the Father for Christ's sake ; yea, and that they should proclaim, publish and set abroad unto all men that so many as repent and believe are loosened from the cap- tivity of Satan, purged from sin, delivered from death, and made inhe- ritors of eternal life ; again, that so many as believe not remain still the 27 .' captives and bondslaves of Satan, and continue bound in their sins and in the state of damnation, and that therefore they shall die the death, and for evermore be damned, except they repent and believe. And thus their preaching is so certain and sure before God, that whatsoever they pronounce, being conformable to the word of God, shall as certainly come to pass as though God himself had spoken it." I will close my quotations from this author with this passage : " And this preaching of remitting and retaining sins are the keys of the kingdom of heaven which Christ promised his apostles before his death, as we may see in Matthew, and after his resurrection performed his promise, as we read in the gospel of St. John ; and by a metaphor Christ calleth the preaching of his word a key. For as a key hath two properties — one to shut, another to open — so hath the word of God. It openeth to the faithful the treasure of the gifts of God — grace, mercy, favor, remission of sins, quietness of conscience, and everlasting life ; but to the unfaithful it shutteth all his treasures, and suffereth them to receive none of them all, so long as they remain in their incredulity and unfaithfulness. These keys are given to so many as, being truly called unto the office' of ministration, preach the word of God. They loosen, that is to say, they preach to the faithful remission of sins by Christ. They also bind, that is, they declare to the unfaithful damna- tion. Buthe'that preacheth'not thejword of God can neither bind nor loose, though he challenge never so great dignity, authority and power. For Christ calleth it ' the key of knowledge ;' and the prophet saith, ' The lips of a priest keep knowledge, and at his mouth shall they require the law, for he is the angel orjmessenger of the Lord of Hosts.' There- fore, where there is no knowledge there is no Tcey, and where there is no Tcey there is neither opening nor shutting, that is, neither binding nor loosening." I have quoted thus largely from Becon's work " The Castle of Comfort," because that it is a treatise on the subject before us, as the author states in the preface. "First, T will prove, with manifest Scriptures, that God alone for- giveth sins. Secondly, that the priest is but a minister appointed of God, to declare free remission of sins to the truly penitent, to declare, I say, not to forgive. Thirdly, I will answer the objections of the adver- saries and utterly wipe them away, restoring the Scriptures to their native sense. At the last, lest I should seem to despise the true and Christian absolution of a faithful minister, and the use of the keys, which consisteth in preaching, I will express my mind concerning them also, so that, to any indifferent person, I doubt not but that my judg- ment shall appear godly and conformable to the true vein of the Holy Scriptures." Becon was for many years chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer, and was employed by him to assist in composing 28 the Homilies. We have, therefore, in this treatise not only the mind of Bacon but also that of the good Arch- bishop, who was one of that glorious army of martyrs who laid down their lives to deliver the Church of England from priestly absolution and the other superstitious and corrupt practices of the Church of Kome. The next divine to whose works I would refer is the eminently pious and learned Archbishop Usher, who was not more famed for his great learning and unequalled knowledge of anti- quity than for the soundness of his views, which were what are now known as Evangelical. I the more readily quote him in order to vindicate the reproach which has been cast upon his memory by being classified in the Pro- vost's pamphlet with many of those who in their day did all in their power to corrupt the doctrines of the Church of England, and to drag her back into the slough of Rom- anism. "But the word of reconciliation is it wherein the Apostle doth especially place that ' ministry of reconciliation ' which our Lord has committed to his ambassadors here on earth. This is that ' key of knowledge' which doth both open the conscience to the confession of sin, and include therein the grace of the healthful mystery unto eternity ; as Maximus Taurinensis speaketh of it. This is that powerful means which God hath sanctified for washing away the pollution of our souls ; ' Now ye are clean,' saith our Saviour to his Apostles, 'through the word which I have spoken unto you.' And where as every transgressor is ' holden with the cords of his own sins,' the apostles according to the commission given unto them by their master, that ' whatsoever they should loose on earth should be loosed in heaven,' 'did loose those cords' by the word of God and the testimonies of the Scriptures and exhortation unto virtues." Again : — " And here are we to understand that the ministers of Christ, by applying the word of God to the con- sciences of men, both in public and in private, do discharge that part of their functions which concerneth the forgiveness of sins ; partly opera- tively, partly declaratively. Operatively, inasmuch as God is pleased to use their preaching of the gospel as a means of conferring his Spirit upon the sons of men, of begetting them in Christ, and of working faith and repentance in them, whereby the remission of sins is obtained." Again: " Thus likewise in the thirteenth of Leviticus, where the laws are set down that concern the leprosy, which was a type of the pollution of sin, we meet often with these speeches, ' the priest shall cleanse him,' and 'the priest shall pollute him,' and 'the priest with pollution shall pollute him,' 'not,' saith Jerome, ' that he is the author of the pollution, but that he declareth him to be polluted who before did seem unto many to have been clean.' " Again : — " The ministers of the gospel 'I 29 >. 'I may not meddle with the matter of sovereignty, and think that they have power to proclaim war or conclude peace between God and man, according to their cm discretion. They must remember that they are * ambassadors for Chris' ' and therefore in this treaty they are to pro- ceed according to the ins. ructions which they have received from their sovereign, which if they do transgress they go beyond their commission." Again : " Our Saviour, therefore, must still have the privilege reserved unto him of being absolute Lord over his own house ; it is sufficient for his officers that they be esteemed as Moses was, ' faithful in all his house as a servant.' The place wherein they serve is a steward's place, and the Apostle telleth them that ' it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful.' They may not, therefore, carry themselves in their office as the unjust steward did, and presume to strike out his master's debt without direction, and contrary to his liking. Now we know that our Lord hath given no authority unto his stewards to grant an acquit- tance unto any of his debtors that bring not unfeigned faith and repent- ance with them. ' Neither angel nor archangel can, neither yet the Lord himself, who alone can say I am with you, when we have sinned doth release us, unless we bring repentance with us,' saith Si Ambrose." And again : "The master of the sentences after him, having propounded the divers opinions of the Doctors touching this point, demandeth at last, ' In this so great variety, what is to be held ?' and returneth for nswer ^surely this we may say and thinJc, that God alone doth /org ice and retain sins, and yet hath given power of binding and loosing unto the church ; but he bindeth and looseth one way and the church another. For he only hy himself for giceth sin who both cleanseth the soul from inward blot and looseth it from the debt of everlasting death, but this hath he not gro/nted ttnto priests, to whom, notwithstanding, he hath given the poVer of binding and loosing, that is to say, of declaring rnen to le hound or loosed.''^ Again : "In like manner Hugo Cardinalis sheweth that it is only God that forgivcth sins, and that the priest cannot bind or loose the sinner with or from the bond of the guilt and the punishment due thereunto, but only declare him lo be bound or loosed, as the Levitical priest did not make or cleanse the leper, but only declared him to be infected or clean. " Archbishop Usher's answer to a Jesuit, vol. Ill, pp. 143, &c. I trust these passages from the writings of the great and good Archbishop will vindicate his character as a Protest- ant divine from any imputation which might be against him from the fact of having been quoted in such doubtful company, and for such a purpose, by Provost Whitaker. 30 I I shall adduce one passage from the works of Hooker with tlio same object, viz., to shoio that he tvas no supporter of t/i£ Popish Jigment of the priestly power to forgive sin. " The act of sin God alone rcmitteth, in that his purpose is never to call it to account, or to lay it unto men's charge ; the stain he washcth out by the sanctifying grace of his Spirit ; and concerning the punish- ment of sin as none else hath power to cast body and soul into hell-flre, so none hath power to deliver eitht-.', besides him. As for the minis- terial sentence of private absolution, it can be no more than a declaration what God hath done. It hath but the force of the Prophet Nathan's absolution, ' Ood hath taken away thy sin,'' than which construction, especially of words judicial, there is not anything more vulgar — (i. e., common.) For example, the publicans are said in the gospel to have justified God ; the Jews in Malachi to have blessed proud men, which sin and prosper ; not that the one did make God righteous, or the other the wicked happy, but to ' bless,' to 'justify ' and ' absolve,' are as commonly used for words of judgment or declaration as of true and real efficacy. Yea, even by the opinion of the master of the sentences, " it may be soundly affirmed and thovght that God alone doth remit and retain nin, although he have given the church power to do both : but he one way and the church another. He only by himHelfforgiveth sin who cleanseth the soul from the inward blemish, and looseth the debt of eternal death. So great a privilege he hath not given unto hia priests, who, notwithstanding, are authorized to loose and bind, that is to say, to declare who are bound and who are loosed. For albeit a man be already cleared before God, yet he is not in the face of the church so taken, but by virtue of the priest's sentence ; who likewise maj?^ be said to bind by imposing satisfac*^.ions and to loose by admitting to the holy communion. Saint Hierome also, whom the master of the sentences allegeth for more countenance of his own opinion, doth no less plainly and directly affirm, ' tJiat as the priests of the law could only discern, and neither cause or remove leprosies, so the ministers of the gospel, when they retain or remit sin do but in the one judge how long we continue guilty, and in the other declare when we afe cleai" or free.' — For there is nothing more apparent than that the div^ipline of repent- ance, both public and private, was ordained as an outward mean to bring men to the virtue of inward conversion, so that when this by manifest tokens did seem effected, absolution ensuing (which could not make) served only to decla/re them innocenf^ Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Booh vi. I will now present a few passages from the sermons of this divine which will most clearly shew that he regarded faith in the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the only means of obtaining from God the pardon of our sins^ and our justification, and that without this faith neither bap- tism, nor the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, nor our own obedience, be it never so perfect, can procure )■ 81 the forgiveness of our sins and our justification before God, and also that many outward members of fhe visible church who have been baptized into its communion, and who partake outwardly of all the ordinances and means of grace, are yet " not of the mystical body " of Christ, be- cause they lack that faith which is the operation of the Spirit of God, and which both ensures and testifies the justification of those who possess it. In his sermon on Jude, verses 17-21, we find the fol- lowing powerful statements of divine truth : •* There were then, as there are now, many evil and wickedly dis- posed persons, not of the mystical body, yet within the bounds of the church " — [and of course baptised] — " men which were of old ordained to condemnation, ungodly men, who turned the grace of God into wantonness, and denied the Lord Jesus. For this cause the Spirit of the Lord is in the hand of Jude, the servant of Jesus and brother of James, * to exhort them that are called, and sanctified of God the Father, that they would earnestly contend to maintain the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.' " Hooker, then, evidently does not agree with Waterland as quoted and endorsed by Provost Whitaker, that it is " impertinent, frivolous and even hurtful " to address on the subject of justification such persons as are here des- cribed as members of the visible church, and therefore baptized, and yet, not pertaining to tJie mystical body of our Lord a7id Saviour, Jesus Christ. Again, we find him thus opening bis meaning to his hearers : ** For your better understanding what this severing and separating of themselves doth mean, we must know that the multitude of them that truely believe, (however they be dispersed far and wide each from other,^ is all one body, whereof the head is Christ; one build- ing, whereof he is comer stone : in whom they, as the members of the body, being knit, and, as the stones of the building, being cou- pled, grow up to a man of perfect stature, and rise to an holy temple m the Lord. That which linketh Christ to us, is his mere mercy and love towards us. That which tieth m to him, is our faith in the promised salvation revealed in the word of truth. That which unit- eth and joineth us among oureelves, in such sort that we are now as if we had but one heart and one soul, is our love. Who be inwardly in heart the lively members of this body, and the polished stones of 32 this building, coupled nnd joined to Christ, a« fleah^of his flesh and bones of his bonoa, by the mutual bond of his unspoHknble love to- ^vards them, and their unfeigned faith in him, thus linked and fasten- ed each to other by spiritual, sinceie and hearty atioction of love, without any manner of sinuilation; who be Jews within, and what their names be, none can tell, save he whose eyes do behold the se- cret dis))08ition of all men's hearts. We, whose oyes are too dim to behold the inward man, must leave the secret judgment of every ser- vant to his own Lord, accounting and using all men as brethren both near and dear unto us, supposing Christ to love them tenderly, so as they keep the ])rofes8ion ot the gosj>el and join in the the outward communion of saints." Again : — " God has left us infallible evidence, whereby we may at any time give true and righteous sentence upon ourselves;— we cannot examine the hearts of other men, we may our own. * That we have passed from death unto life, we know it,' saith St. John, 'because we love our brethren;' and 'know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ dwelleth in you, except ye be reprobates.' I trust, beloved, we know that we are not reprobates, because our Spirit doth bear us record that the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ is in us. It is as easy a matter for the spirit within you to tell whose you are, as for the eyes of your body to judge where you sit or in what place you stand. For what saith the Scripture? * Ye which were in times past stra' ^ers and enemies, because your minds were set on evil works, Christ hath now reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to make you holy and unblamable and without fault in his sight; if you continue grounded and established in the faith, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel.' And in the third to the Colossians, ' Ye know that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of that inheritance; for ye serve the Lord Christ.' If we can make this account with oui-selves: I was in times past dead in tres- passes and sins, I walked after the prince that ruleth in the air, and after the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience, but God who is rich in mercy, through his great love wherewith he loved me, even when I was dead, hath quickened me in Christ; I was fierce, heady, proud, highminded, but God hath made me like the child that is newly weaned ; I loved pleasure more than God ; I followed greedily the joys of this present world ; I esteemed him that erected a stage or theatre more than Solomon, who built a temple to the Lord; the harp, viol, timbrel and pipe, raen-singers and women- singers, were at my feast, it was my felicity to see my children dance before me ; I said of every kind of vanity, how sweet art thou to my soul ! all which things are now crucified to me and I to them. — Now I bate the^pride of life and pomp of this world ; now * I take as 88 groat deli^bt in the way of thy toHtimonios, Lord, as in all riches;* now 1 find more joy of heart in nay Lord and Saviour than the worldly-minded man when his wheat and oil do much abounrl ; now I ta«to nothing sweet but the * bread which came down from heaven' to give light unto the world :' now mine eyes see nothing but Jesus rising from the dead; now mine ear refuseth all kind of melody to hear the song of those that have gotten victory of the Beast and of his image, and of his mark, and of the number of his name, that stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of Ood, and singing the song of Moaea the servant of Ood, and the song of the Lamb, saying, • Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord Ood Almighty ; just and true are thy ways, O King of Saints.' Surely if the Spirit has been thus effectual in the secret work of our regeneration unto newness of life; if we endeavor thus to frame ourselves anew, then we may say boldly with the blessed Apostle, in the tenth of the Hebrews, ' we are not of those which withdraw ourselves to perdition, but follow faith to the salvation of the soul.' For they that fall away from the grace of God, and separate themselves unto perdition, they are fleshly and carnal, they have not God's Holy Spirit. But unto you, * be- cause ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts,' to the end ye might know that Christ hath built you upon a rock unmovable ; that he hath registered your names in the book of life ; that he hath bound himself in a sure and everlasting covenant to be your God and the God of your children after you ; that he hath suffered as much, groaned as much, prayed as heartily for you as for Peter, ' Father, keep them in thy name ; righteous Father, the world hath not known thee but I have known thee, aud these have known that thou sent me. I have declared thy name unto them, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.' The Lord of his infinite mercy give us heaits plentifully fraught with the treasure of this blessed assurance of faith unto the end.' Ameu and amen. Again : ** The thing prescribed is faith. For, as in a chain which is made of many links, if you pull the first you draw the rest, and, as in a ladder of many staves, if you take away the lowest all hope of ascending to the highest will be removed ; so, because all the precepts and promises in the law and in the gospel do hang upon this, believe; and because the last of the graces of God doth so follow the first that he glorifieth none but whom he hath justified, nor justifieth any but whom he hath called to a true and lively faith in Christ Jesus; therefore St. Jude, exhorting us to build ourselves, mentioneth here expressly only faith as the thing wherein we must be edified ; for that faith is the ground and the glory of all the welfare of this building." ffooker^s two Sermons on Jude, E 84 t Wo cannot refrain, cvon though we may appear somcwliat prolix, from extracting a passage from Hooker's Hormon on justification, which will show that thin greatest of Eng- land's divines regarded the mode of forgiving sins and of obtaining justification upheld and taught by the Provost and some of his auHiorUuN as Identical with that taught by the Church of Rome. Wo tiie more readily transcribe this because wo consider it as one of the finest passages in the works of this great writer. Wo would more particu- larly direct attention to the latter paragraph, where ho sets forth tho true doctrine of justification as taught in the Scriptures, and as propounded by our church, over against the ^^ maze^' of the Church (/ i?owe, which he has fully and most faithfully exhibited in the first paragraph. Wherein, then, do we disagree ? We disagree about the nature of tho very essence of the medicine whereby Christ cureth our disease — about the nmnncr of applying it — about the number and power of tho means which God requiretli in us for the effectual applying thereof to our soul's comfort." * * * ♦ * "W'herefore the first receipt of grace is in tlieir divinity" (that is, the divinit\ of the Church of Rome,) "the first justification; the increase thereof, the second justification. — As grace may be increased by the merit of good works, so it may bo diminished by the demerit of sins venial ; it may be lost by mortal sin. Inasmuch, therefore, as it is needful in the one case to repair, and in the other to recover the loss that is made, the infusion of grace hath its sundry after-meals ; for which cause they make many wa} to apply the infusion of grace. It is applied nnto irifdiits through haptism, without either faith or works, and in them it really taketh away original sin and the punishment due unto it. It is (qtpfied iinto wjidels and ?r/f^T(Z rw<';i in their first justification through baptism without works, yet not without faith ; and it taketh away both sin actual and original, together with all whatsoever punishment, eternal or temporal, thereby deserved. Unto such as have attained the Jirst justification, that is to say, the first receipt of grace through ?mptism" (sec Waterland as quoted by the Provost in his third letter) "it is applied further by good works to the increase of former grace, that is the second justification. If they work more and more, grace doth more and more increase, and they are more and,more justified ; to such as have diminished it by venial sins, it is applied by holy water, Ave Marias, crossings, papal salutations, and such like, which serve for reparation of grace decayed. To such as have lost it by mortal sin, it is applied by the sacrament, as they term it, of penance " (query — the repentance of the Provost) " which sacra- ment hath power to confer grace anew, yet in such sort that being so conferred it hath not altogether so much power as at the first. This is the mystery of the man of sin. This maze the Church of Rome doth cause her followers to tread, when they ask her the way of justification." 86 We would call the particular attention of tlio roador to tho above (luotation. It is a masterly view of tho " mys- tery of ini(iuity," from tlio first justification by baptism to tho pardon of ain after baptism by what they term "tho sacrament of penance." In all the essential features " this maze" of Romish error agrees with the mode of forgiveness of sins and justifi- cation as set forth by the Provost and clearly enunciated in tho passage from Waterland. First, forgiveness of sins and justification imparted in baptism, so that " ten thomand to onc^' are justified. Second, the evils caused by sin remedied by repentance, sealed by the reception of tho holy communion, and declared by the authoritative abso- lution of the Priest. But let us see what Hooker sets over against this, as the true Scriptural and Protestant doctrine of justification : "But the righteousness wherein we must be found if we will be justified is not our oiDn\ therefore we cannot be justified by any inher- ent quality. Christ hath merited rUjhteovsncss for as many as are found in him. In him Ood findeth nsifwe he faithful^ for by faith we are incorporated into Him. Then, although we be in ourselves altogether sinful and unrighteous, yet even the man which in himself is impious, full of iniquity, full of sin ; him being found in Christ through faith, and having his sin in hatred through repentance, him God beholdeth with a gracious eye, putteth away his sin by not imputing it, takcth quite away the punishment due thereunto by pardoning it, and accepteth him in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous, as if he had ful- filled all that is commanded in the law. Shall I say more perfectly righteous than if himself had fulfilled the whole law V I must take heed what I say : but the Apostle saith, ' God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' Such are we in the sight of God the Father as is the very Son himself. Let it be counted folly, or phrenzy, or fury, or whatsoever ; it is our wisdom and our comfort ; we care for no knowledge in the world but this, that man hath sinned and God hath suffered, that God hath made himself the sin of men, and that men are made the righteousness of God." Hoolcer's Sermon of Jmtification. To the article, "the forgiveness of sins," thus Scrip- turally expounded tlie Bishop of Huron does not object ; nay, with this pious and judicious writer he would say, " I care for no knowledge but this, that man hath sinned," and 36 therefore deserves punishment, tut that God in our nature has suffered, and has thus obtained for us the forgiveness of sins, so that now all that believe in Christ are fully justified before God, and are made " the righteousness of God " in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Provost will not find it easy to show that justifica- tion by faith alone, thus scripturally understood, can be reconciled to the system which he has been teaching in Trinity College. We shall now present a few passages upon the same subject from the sermons of that sound divine, the good old Bishop Latimer, who sealed his testimony to the truth of God with his blood. He is speaking of the marriage supper, and he quaintly makes (he merits of Christ Tnade ours by faith the chief dish at the feast. *• Also the merits of Christ which are made ours ; for when we feed upon this dish worthily, then we shall have remission of our sins, we shall receive the Holy Ghost. Moreover, all the merits of Christ are ours; his fulfilling of the law is ours \ and so we be justified before God, and finally attain to everlasting life. As many, therefore, as feed worthily of this dish shall have all these things with it, and in the end everlasting life. St. Paul saith, ' He which spared not his own Son, but^delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him give us all things also ? ' Therefore they that be in Christ are partakers of all his merits i nd benefits, of everlasting life and of all felicity. He that hath Christ hath all things that are Christ's. He is our preservation from damnation ; he is our comfort, he is our help, our remedy ; when we feed upon him then we shall have remission of our sins. The same remission of sins is the greatest and most comfortable thing that can be in the world. O what a comfortable thing is this, when Christ saith — *thy sins are forgiven unto thee;' and this a standing sentence; it was not spoken only to the same one man, but it is a general proclamation to all of us. All and every one that believeth in him shall have forgive- ness of their sins. And this proclamation is cried out daily by his ministers and preachers, which proclamation is the word of grace, the word of comfort and consolation. For like as sin is the most fearful and the most horrible thing in heaven and in earth, so the most comfortable thing is the remedy against sin ; which remedy is declared and ofiered unto us in this word of grace, and the power to distribute this remedy against sins he hath given unto his ministers^ which he God's treasurers^ distributors of the Word of Ood. For now he speaketh by me, he calleth you to this wedding by me, being but a poor man ; yet he hath sent me to call you. And though he be the author of that word, yet he will have men to be called through his ministers to that word. — Therefore let us give credit unto the minister when he speaketh God's Z1 word ; yea, rather let us credit Ood when he apeaJceth hy his ministers^ and offerethiM remission of sins hy his word. For there is no sin so gi-eat in this world but it is pardonable as long as we be in this world and call ior mercy ; here we may come to forgiveness of our sins." Again : "There is neither man nor woman that can say they have no sin, for we be all sinners. But how can we hide our sins ,' Marry, the blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ hideth our sins and washeth them away. — And though one man had done all the world's sin since Adam's time, yet he may be remedied by the blood of Christ ; if he believe in him he shall be cleansed from all his sin. Therefore all our comfort is in him, in his love and kindness. ***** jf you be disposed to hide your sins, I will tell you how you shall hide them. First, acknowledge them, and then believe in our Saviour, Christ; but him in trust withal; he will pacify his father, for to that end 'he came into the world to save sinners. This is the right way to hide sins ; not to go and excuse them or to make them no sins. No, no; the prophet saith, 'Blessed is the man to whom the Lord impute th not his sins.' He saith not — Blessed is he that never did sin, but, Blessed is he to whom sin is not imputed." Again : " Our sins let us and withdraw us from prayer, but our Saviour maketh them nothing. When we believe in him it is like as if we had no sins. For he changeth with us ; he taketh our sins and wickedness from us, and giveth unto us his holiness, righteousness, justice, fulfilling of the law, and so, consequently, eternal life ; so that we be like as if we had done no sin at all ; for his righteousness standeth us in so good stead, as though we of our own selves had fulfilled the law to the utter- most. Therefore our sins cannot let us nor withdraw us from prayer, for they be gone ; they are no sins ; they cannot be hurtful unto us. — Christ dying for us, as all the Scripture both of the Old and New Tes- tament witnesseth, ' He hath taken away our sorrows.' Like as when I owe unto a man a hundred pounds ; the day is expired, he will have his money. I have it not, and for lack of it am laid in prison. In such distress cometh a good man and saith, 'sir, be of good cheer, I will pay thy debts,' and forthwith payeth the whole sum and setteth me at liberty. Such a friend is our Saviour. He hath paid our debts and set us at liberty, else we should have been damned world without end in everlasting prison and darkness. Therefore, though our sins condemn us, yet, when we allege Christ and believe in him, our sins shall not hurt UB." Sermons of Bishop Latiiner, ParTcer Society. In the second part of the Homily on Justification we read : " And after this wise to be justified, only by this true and lively faith in Christ, speaketh all the old and ancient writers, both Greeks and Latins ; of whom I will specially rehearse three, Hilary, Basil and Am- 38 brose. St. Hilary saith these words plainly in the ninth canon upon Matthew, ' Faith only justifieth.' And St. Basil, a Greek author, writeth thus, ' This is a perfect and a whole rejoicing in God, when a man advanceth not himself for his own righteousness, but knowledgeth himself to lack true justice and righteousness, and to be justified by the only faith in Christ, and Paul,' saith he, ' doth glory in the contempt of his own righteousness, and that he looked for his righteousness of God by faith.' These be the very words of St. Basil. And St. Ambrose, a Latin author, saith these words, ' This is the ordinance of God, that he that believeth in Christ should be saved without works, by faith only, freely receiving remission of sins.' Consider diligently these wor(£, Without works, by faith only, freely we receive remission of our sins. What can be spoken more plainly than to say that freely, without works, by faith only, we obtain remission of our sins." In the above quotations we have the true and Scriptural mode of remission of sins^ or justification, so plainly set forth and so earnestly enforced upon the reader, that no man can be ignorant of it whose mind is not pre-occupied with an unscriptural system of religion. The precious truth here declared is the very key stone of our doctrinal system, and those enemies of our church within her pale who have desired to bring us again into subjection to the Church of Rome, knowing this, have ever directed their fiercest attacks against the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ imputed to us and accepted by God for the full and perfect justifica- tion of all that believe. Let any man compare this doc- trine with that taught from the writings of Waterland and others, in Trinity College, and he will be constrained to confess that they are entirely opposed one to the other, and that by no ingenuity can they be made to agree with- out doing violence to every principle of sound criticism. Our reformers, to a man, were zealous maintainors of this vital doctrine ; Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Hooker, Brad- ford and a host of others who laid down their lives in defence of the truth, proclaimed it unceasingly and with wonderful power. It was oyAj when corruption seized upon the court and country in the time of the Stuarts that another school of divinity arose which, blending the semi- popery of the court with the doctrines of the Reformation, 39 \ J produced that hybrid system which, in the days of Laud, was attempted to be forced upon the church by the terrors of the Star Chamber, and which has of late been revived in England under the name of Anglo- Catholicism, but is better known by the name of Tractarianism. The follow- ing pert but pointed answer, given by the daughter of the Earl of Devonshire to Archbishop Laud, when he asked her why she had become a Roman Catholic, will show how well the tendency of Laud's divinity was understood in his own day. This lady replied, " 'Tis chiefly because I hate to travel in a crowd." Being asked for an explana- tion she added, " I perceive your Grace and many others are making haste to Rome, and therefore, in order to prevent my being crowded, I have gone before you." Those persons who in late days commenced this 3vil work in our church were Oxford divines, many of whom have followed out these views to their legitimate consequences, and have gone over to the apostate church of Rome, while some of them still remain, and are incessant in their efforts to destroy the beautiful fabric of the doctrines of our church by assailing the foundation upon which the whole is built, namely, the justification of the sinner before God by the alone merits of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, by faith. Heretofore in Trinity College this cardinal doctrine has had no place, nay, the very opposite has been taught. The Provost now announces this, sets forth his views in the words of " Waterland," claimsfor himself and the clergy the absolute power to forgive sins, and thus follows closely in the footsteps of those who in England have been endeavoring to undermine the doctrines of our church, and to assimilate them to those of Rome. We would specially commend to the consideration and prayerful study of the Provost the explanation given above, in the words of Becon, Usher, Hooker and Latimer, of the authority confided to the ambassadors of Christ when ordained to the ministry of our church. He will 40 find that these eminently pious and godly men regarded the commission to forgive and retain sins committed to them as an authority to " preach the gospel of reconcilia- tion," and to declare to the penitent and believing sinner the full pardon of all his sins, through the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. These men we must believe, were just as pious and conscientious as the Provost of Trinity College, yet they did not think that their commission would be " a nullity," and their ordination " a mockery of God," unless they maintained, as the Provost and some of his authorities do, that " heaven waits and expects the priest's sentence here on earth ;" that " the Lord follows the servant," that " all priests were made God's viceger- ents here on earth," and that " when the priest absolves God absolves, if we be truly penitent." They, on the other hand, believed that a high honor was conferred upon them when they were chosen and commissioned to declare through Christ the forgiveness of sins, and to call upon sinners to repent and believe the gospel. In the words of Becon before quoted, they believed, " the priest is only God's minister appointed of God, if he be truly sent, to preach absolution and free deliverance in the name of Jesus Christ." They were content with the office of *' ambassadors of Christ," even though God reserved to himself the power of forgiving sins, while he committed to his faithful ministers authority to " declare and pro- nounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins," and that " He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel." When these eminent divines, bishops and martyrs of our church thus believed concern- ing the ministerial office, they did not think, as the Provost expresses himself, that they were hypocritically bowing down in the house of God, as Naaman in the house of Rimmon. Neither did they imagine, when they inter- preted the article, " I acknowledge one baptism for the 41 \ remission of sins," as meaning not alone the outward sign, the washing with water, but also the inward grace, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, that they were ** required, as a matter of conscience, to attach a non-natural sense to that article of the Creed," Let the Provost ponder well the following passage from a sermon of Bishop Latimer's, and he will learn from it the true meaning of the words — " one baptism for the remission of sins." The passage is from the sixth sermon preached by Bishop Latimer before Edward the Sixth. "Beware, beware, ye diminii^h not this office" (i. e., of preaching,) "for if ye do ye decay God's power to all that do believe : hrist saith, consonant to the same, ' except a man be born again from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' He must have a regeneration ; and what is this regeneration ? It is not to he christened in water, as these firebrands expound it, and nothing else. How is it to be expounded, then ? St. Peter showeth that one place of Scripture declareth another. It is the circumstance and collation of places that makes Sciipture plain. St Peter saith 'And we be born again' how? 'not by a mortal seed, but by an immortal.' By the word of God preached and opened. Thu3 Cometh in our new birth." Surely this aged Bishop and martyr is to be heard in preference to Brett, Waterland, Crakenthorp, et hoc genua omne. As absolution is properly and logically contained under the article, " the forgiveness of sins," we have con- sidered them under one head ; for the statements and quotations which have reference to one are applicable to both. The Sacraments. We would not have noticed this subject but that we may direct attention to the fact that no man but one deeply imbued with Tractarian views would think it necessary to agitate the question of the number of the sacraments amongst the under-graduates of a University, many of whom were not intended for the sacred ministry, and who would not prosecute theological studies when they had entered upon their several professions in after life. As a feather will indicate the course of the wind, so F i! 42 the Provost's teaching In this particular proves that his earnest desire is to seize upon every opportunity to bridge over the gulf that separates the church of England from that of Rome. We cannot regard the statements made in the Provost's Catechism, or his defence of these statements in his pamphlet, in any other light than as an apology for the church of Rome in the matter of the sacraments. We must presume that the young men in Trinity Col- lege have, before their entrance into that institution, not only learned by rote the Church Catechism, but that they have comprehended its meaning. In that formulary of our church they had been taught that the meaning of the word " sacrament " is " an ouhvard and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grare given unto iis, ordained by Christ himself^ as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof" Thus, by the authority of the church, they have been led to belie j that whatever may have been the ancient meaning of the word Sacrament, that now, and since the authoritative adoption of the Catechibm, the word is limited in its application, and can only, with pro- priety, be applied to the " two only " sacraments which have been " ordained by Christ himself," and that, there- fore, the application of it to other rites cannot be regarded as at all ct-nsistent with the teaching of our church. It is implied in the question and answer of the Provost's Cate- chism to which the Bishop of Huron objects, that the only error of the church of Rome in making " seven sacraments" consists in this, that she " has not drawn a due distinction between the tioo great sacraments and other holy rites." It is clearly implied in these words that had the church of Rome made this distinction, she might, with perfect pro- priety, have classed the five ceremonies: which she has presumptuously added to the sacraments " ordained by Christ " with what the Provost calls the " two great sacra- v^£nts." Such teaching as this is calculated to weaken the attachment of our young men to the formularies which 43 they have learned to venerate in their youth, and to lead them to look with a longing eye to those " good things " which, according to the Provost, were lost to the church of England at the time of the Reformation , and which might " have been enjoyed in happier times." (See Pro- vost's pamphlet, p. 34.) The statement of the Bishop of Huron, therefore, remains unimpeached by the remarks of the Provost. It is " that our church does not speak of tivo great sacraments, leaving us to infer that there are lesser sacraments, and that the church of Rome, in adding to the sacraments ordained by Christ himself, has otdy erred in not making a due distinction between the two * great sacraments ' and other holy rites, or sacraments." "With respect to the miserable quibble of the Provost touching the word " generally," that it means " generically," that is, universally, it is truly beneath notice. Whatever human autJiorities the Provost may quote upon this subject, the meaning of our Catechism evidently is that the " two only" sacram£nts which Christ has ordained in his church, while they are generally necessary, are not universally necessary to salvation ; that is, that salvation may, in some cases, be had without them. But the Provost, by the introduction of the word generically, as explanatory of the word gener- ally, has made our Catechism speak to the students the opposite language. Let the Provost at his leisure read the following from one of the great divines of the church* Becon, in his Acts of Christ and antichrist, page 524 of his works, thus writes : •' Christ instituted in his holy Testament two mysteries oi sacraments, that is to say, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which he added to his word as signs and seal of his good will unto us, that they might be the same to the eye that the word is to the ear, and, so joined together through the operation of the Holy Ghost, bring salvation to the faithful believers. " Antichrist, not content with so small a number, hath added five more, so that now they be seven in number, which are more openly known than they need here be rehearsed," 44 It ill becomes a minister of the church of England to be found pleading an apology for this proud and presumptu- ous act of the Roman antichrist. The next subject upon which we enter is contained in the words wherewith the Provost heads the sixth chapter of his pamphlet : " Participation in the Glorified Humanity op our Lord BY means of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper." This is a subject which we desire to approach with all humility, "with reverence and godly fear," because in treating it we shall be called to speak of that great mys- tery of godliness, " God manifest in the flesh." The Provost says, " this is not my teaching, but the teaching of the Rev. Francis Procter, in his book on the Common Prayer. Still," he adds, " for the sake of the college and of the church, for the sake of truth, I proceed to show that Mr. Procter's doctrine is the doctrine of our great divines." Why not proceed to show that it is the doctrine of God's word ? The Provost appears, through- out his letters, to have altogether set aside the word of God in favor of those whom he styles our great divines. By the expression " glorified humanity of our Lord," the Provost can mean nothing else, but that same human body with which our Lord ascended up to heaven from the Moimt of Olives, in the presence of his disciples, and which, now glorified, is set at the right hand of God wait- ing until all his foes are made his footstool. Believers are frequently in the Scriptures said to " be made partakers of Christ," to " eat his flesh and drink his blood,'' " to dwell in him and he in them," ** to put on the Lord Jesus Christ," " to be found in him," " to be members of the body of which he is the head," *' to be joined unto the Lord," " to be one with him as the wife is one with the husband," to " be partakers of the divine nature." All , 45 ' / these expressions are employed by the sacred writers to denote " the ra^'^stical union that is betwixt Christ and his church," by virtue of which union his people are cleansed from all their sins and presented without spot before God, clothed in his perfect righteousness, for " he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." This mystical union, which is spiritual in its nature, is close and insepar- able. The manner of it cannot be fully comprehended by man. If we undertake to explain it we shall, in all proba- bility, fall into error, but the illustrations employed in the word of God will enable us to understand as much con- cerning it as it is God's purpose we should know, and as it is necessary we should believe. In the 12th chapter of St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians the apostle employs the figure of the human body to illustrate this " mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his church." He says : "For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the mem- bers of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ" Here the Apostle compares believers in Christ to mem- bers of the human body, and as the members of the body are all united to the head, are all animated by the same spirit that animates the head, are all controlled and di- rected by the same will which originates in the head, and thus are one body. Eve'n so all believers in the Lord Jesus are united unto him, for " he is head over all things to the church ;" they " have been made to drink into one Spirit." That Holy Spirit poured upon Christ without measure, " like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, and went down to the skirts of his garment," descends from Christ the head of the church to every member of his mystical body. Thus do they receive out of his fulness " grace for grace," and being, by joints and bands, knit together, " grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even 46 Christ, from whom the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edify- ing of itself in love." (Ephesians iv. 15,16.) In order that this blessed union should be effected Christ assumed our nature, he took the manhood into the Godhead, so that " God and man is one Christ." Without this union of the human and divine natures, the church could never have been united unto Christ and become his body. Ho could not have stood as our covenant head, and represented us before his Father. He could not have suflfered for us the . just for the unjust. He could not have obeyed the law and thus become *' Jehovah our righteousness." Therefore, ' forasmuch as the children are partakers of fle
  • faith of Christy the righteousness which is of God hy faith." Again, in Colossians ii. 6, 7, " As ye have, therefore, received Christ Jesus the Lord, so work ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and stf him, since the Lord bestows upon us through his Spirit this benefit, that we should be made one with himself in body, soul and spirit. The bond, then, of this union is the spirit of Christ, by whose tie we are connected, and which is a kind of conduit, through which whatsoever Christ himself both is and has is derived to us. For if we see the sun darting forth to the earth with his rays, transmit, in a manner, his substance to it to gene- rate, cherish and invigorate its products, why should the irradiation of the Spirit of Christ be less effectual to transmit to us the communion of his flesh and blood ? Wherefore the Scripture, where it speaks of our participation with Christ, refers its whole efficacy to the Sjnrit. — One passage will suffice for many, for St. Paul, in the 8th chapter of the Romans, says that Christ dwells in us no otherwise than by his Spirit, by which statement, however, he does not set aside that com- munion of his flesh and blood of which we are now speaking, but teaches us that it is hy his Spirit alone we should possess Christ in his entirety, and have him remaining in us." "We have transcribed this entire quotation from the pamphlet of Provost Whitaker because it exhibits in strong and striking language the view which all evangeli- cal Christians entertain of the mystical union that is be- twixt Christ and his church. The great reformer in this 62 passage states that he holds it to be absolutely unlawful to draw Christ's glorified body hack again from heaven to earth under tJie perishable elements of bread and ivine,or to imagine that it is everywhere present. How then could the faith- ful recipient partake of the glorified humanity of our Lord in the sacrament ? That glorified humanity is in heaven, and cannot be everywhere present, and it is not represented hy the dements of bread and wine, and therefore it is nx)t present in figure or in sacrament. To conclude with the Provost that it is partaken of in every place where a faith- ful communicant receives the bread and wine of the sacrament is contrary to the plain nature of a human body. Therefore we conclude that the position assumed by the Provost contradicts the great truth of the verity of our Lord's human nature. Before we proceed to the consider- ation of the third reason why we object to the proposition embraced and defended by the Provost, we would ask for what purpose did he quote this passage from the works of John Calvin ? Was it not to prove that Christ's glori- fied humanity is partaken of in the sacrament ? Is there one word upon this subject in the entire passage ? On the contrary, does not the great reformer carefully state that Christ's human nature is in heaven? That it is by his Spirit we communicate with him and receive from him ? That Christ dwells in us no otherwise than by his Spirit ? and that it is effected by the Spirit alone that we should possess Christ In his entirety ? This quotation, then, from Calvin entirely destroys the theory of the Provost, and we thank him sincerely for having supplied us with it ; by and by we shall see that many of his quotations are of the same kind, and when they are examined they will be found to be against and not for him. In this instance, as in that of Pearson and Usher, we have taken one of his great guns and turned it with effect upon his own position, and we shall do so often before we have concluded our stric- tures upon hia pamphlet. ! 63 Thirdly, we object to the position assumed by the Pro- vost because it represents the Lord's supper as the only mean whereby Holy Scripture assures us that wo shall receive the supernatural gift of Christ's body and blood. I wish the Provost had given us the Scriptural proof of this. He says " Holy Scripture assures us." Where ? Perhaps he will quote the 6th chapter of St. John. But he has himself admitted that many of our divines do not consider this portion of Scripture as intended by our Lord to apply to the sacraments, and that others only use it by way of accommodation. He, therefore, cannot adduce that portion of Scripture to prove his assertion. The many passages of Holy Scripture which we have adduced to show that faith is the mean by which ^7e put on Christ, by which we are incorporated with Christ, by which we dwell in Christ and Christ dwells in us, by which we feed upon him in our hearts, by which we grow up into him in all things, prove incontestably that the sacra- ment of the Lord's supper is not the only mean whereby we are assured that we shall receive the supernatural gift of the body and blood of our Lord to our soul's nourish- ment. Our blessed Lord saith, *' For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." Is not the word of our Saviour Christ sufficient to assure the believer that he shall enjoy the blessing ? The apostle says, " Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Therefore, the word of God is the mean or instrument by which the faith which saves the soul is produced in man. The position, then, of the Pro- vost is evidently untrue. The sacrament is not the only mean whereby Holy Scripture assures us that we shall receive the supernatural gift at the hand of God. The rubric in the service for the communion of the sick, which I have quoted before, instructs us that if a man repent and believe the gospel he eats and drinks Christ's body and blood aa profitably to his soul as if he partook of the 64 sacrament with his mouth, and in the absolution ser- vice we are to declare to the people that " He (God) pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel." Is there not sufficient assurance here for the faithful penitent ? — We therefore conclude that the position of the Provost is inconsistent with the plain statements of God's word, and the doctrine of our church clearly enunciated on this point. There is a passage from the work of Bishop Ridley on transubstantiation quoted by the Provost in page 75 of his pamphlet, which, like that from Calvin, is directly op- posed to the positions of the Provost. Were we looking for a quotation from this writer to exhibit the views which we hold on these points, kind to condemn those ad- vocated by the Px'ovost, we should select this one. We, therefore, thank him for having furnished it for our use. "Now then, you will say what kind of presence do they grant, and what do they deny ? Briefly, they deny the presence of Christ's body in the natural substance of his human and assumed nature, and grant the presence of the same by grace ; that is, they affirm and say that the substance of the natural body and blood of Christ is only remaining in heaven, and so shall be until the latter day, when he shall come again in glory, accompanied with the angels of heaven, to judge both the quick and dead, and the same natural substance of the very body and blood of Christ, because it is united in the divine nature in Christ, the second person of the Trinity, therefore it hath not only life in itself, but is also able to give and doth give life unto so many as be or shall be partakers thereof; that is, to all that do believe on his name, which are not born of blood, as St. John saith, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but are born of God, tliough the self same substance abide still in heaven, and they, for the time of their pilgrimage, dwell here upon earth. By grace, I say, that is, by the gift of this life (mentioned in John) and the properties of the same for our pilgrimage here upon earth, the same body of Christ is here present with us, even as, for example, we say the same sun, which in substance never removeth his place from the heavens, is yet present here by his beams, light, and natural influence where it shineth upon the earth. For God's word and his sacraments be, as it were, the beams of Christ, which is the sun of righteousness." This quotation overthrows every position of the Provost against which we contend. Here we are told that Christ's glorified body is in heaven, and cannot with propriety b© 66 said to be on earth, that by union with the godhead, its influence ie extended to all who believe on his name, that is, by the gift of this life (mentioned in St. John), the same body of Christ is here present with us. And the martyr explains his meaning by the use of the same illustration which Calvin has employed (as quoted by Provost Whita- ker.) He takes as his example the sun in the heavens. He removeth not from the place assigned him by the great Creator from the first. But he is present with us by his beams to enlighten, to cheer, to warm, to fructify the earth. Even so Christ, the sun of righteousness, al- though in hia " glorified humanity," he is in heaven, and cannot at the same time be here and everywhere, still by liis Spirit, his word, his grace, his truth, his gospel, his love, which are the rays which emanate from him he is ever present with his church and people, and will be so to the end. But let us hear this Bishop and martyr as he plainly explains his meaning in " A brief declaration of the Lord's Supper," page 21. Quoting the words of St. Augustine, he says : " ' If,' (saith he) ' the Scriptur«» doth seem to command a thing which is wicked or ungodly, or to forbid a thing that charity doth require ; then know thou (saith he) that the speech is figurative.' And, for example, he bringeth the saying of Christ in the 6th chapter of St. John, ' Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye cannot have life in you.' It seemeth to command a wicked or an ungodly thing. Wherefore it is a figurative speech, commanding to have communion and fellowship with Chrisfs passion and devoutly and wholesomely to lay up in memory that hisjiesh was wounded and cruci- fied for us.^' Again : " This lesson of St. Augustine I have therefore the rather set forth ; because as it teachethus to understand that place in John figuratively^ even so, surely the same lesson, with the example of St. Augustine's exposition thereof, teach-ith us, not only by the same to understand Christ's words in the institution of the sacrament, both of his body and of his blood figuratively, but also the very true meaning and under- standing of t IP same. For if to command to eat the il^^sh of the Son of Man, and to d' ik his blood, seemeth to command an inconvenience and an ungodliness ; and is even so indeed, if it be understanded, as the words do stand in their proper signification, and therefore must be un- derstanded figuratively and spiritually, as St. Augustine doth godly 56 r ! and learmdly interpret them ; then surely Christ, commanding in his last chapter to eat his body and drink his blood, scemeth to command in sound of words, as great and even the same inconvenience and un- godliness, as did his words in the Cth chapter of St. John, and therefore must even by the same reason be likewise understandcd and expound- ed figuratively and spiritually as St. Augustine did the other. Whereunto that exposition of St. Augustine may seem to be the more meet, for that Christ in his supper, to the commandment of eating and drinking of his body and blood addeth, ''Do tim in rcmembi ance of »n^,' which words, surely, were the key that opened and revealed this spiritual and godly exposition to St. Augustine." And again : "Tn the same treatise, jagc 42, the bishop and martyr saith," What can be more plain or more clearly spoken, than are these places of St. Augustine before rehearsed, if men were not obstinately bent to main- tain, an untruth, and to receive nothing whatsoever doth set it forth ? yet one place more of St. Augustine will I allege, which is very clear to this purpose, that Christ's natural body" (His glorified humanity) "is in heaven, and not here corporally in the sacrament, and so let him depart. In his 51st treatise, which he writeth upon John, he teacheth plainly and clearly how Christ, being both God and Man, is both here, after a certain manner, and yet in heaven, and not here in his natural body and substance which he took of the Blessed Virgin Mary," (his glorified hu- manity) "speaking thus of Christ and saying, '■By his divine majesty , hy his providence, hy his vnspjeaTcahle and invisille grace, that is, fulfilled which he spake, ' Behold I am with you unto the end of the world.' But as concerning his flesh which he took in his incarnation ; as touch- ing that which was born of the Virgin ; as concerning that which wauj apprehended by the Jews and crucified upon a tree, and taken down from the cross, wrapped in linen clothes, and buried, and rose again, and appeared after his resurrection ; as concerning that flesh," (his glorified humanity) "he said, 'Ye shall not ever have me with you.' Why so? For, as concerning his flesh, he was conversant with his disciples forty days ; and, they accompanying, seeing, and not following him, lie went up into heaven, and is not here. By the pre- sence of His Divine Majesty, w'c have Christ ever with us ; but, as con- cerning the presence of his flesh," (His glorified humanity) "he said truly to his disciples, 'ye shall not ever have me with you.' For as con- cerning the presence of his flesh, the church had him but a few days. A^oio it holdeth him hy faith, though it see him not." The Provost has adduced three quotations from Hook- er's Ecclesiastical Polity in proof of his proposition that the glorified hun?,anity of our Lord is partaken in by the faithful recipient in the Lord's Supper I shall now show that these quotations do not prove anything for the Pro- vost ; nay, that they do not touch the question in hand, and I shall adduce other quotations from the same book 67 i' of " the Polity," directly opposed to the position enunciated by the Provost. The first quotation in the pamphlet is from Book V, Chapter Iv, Sec. 7. There is nothing in this quotation to favor the Provost's error. Hooker is here merely stating what he is about to do in the chapter. The last clause of the sentence, however, entirely overthrows one false position of the Provost, that the supper of our Lord is " the only mean " whereby we partake of Christ. — Hooker says " to the end that it may hereby better appear how we are made partakers of Christ," [not of his " glori- fied humanity,"] " both otherwise and in the sacraments themselves." According to this the sacrament is not the ordy Tnean whereby we partake ; there are other means. The sacrament is only one mean amongst many for effect- ing this blessed result for the people of God. But let us pass on, therefore, to the 4th section of the same chapter, and we find Hooker explaining most fully his views on this deeply important topic. " Seeing, therefore, that presence everywhere is the sequel of an infi- nite and incomprehensible substance, (for what can be every where but that which can no where be comprehended) to inquire whether Christ be every where is to inquire of a natural property, a property which cleaveth to the deity of Christ. Which deity, being common unto him with none but only the Father and the Holy Ghost, it foUoweth that nothing of Christ which is limited, that nothing created, that neither the soul nor the body of Christ, and consequently not Christ as man, or Christ according to his human nature," (his glorified humanity) "can possibly be everywhere present, because those phrases of limita- tion and restraint do either point out the principal subject whereunto every such attribute adhereth, or else they intimate the radical cause out of which it groweth. For example, when we say that Christ as man or according to his human nature suffered death, we show what nature was the proper subject of mortality ; when we say that as God or ac- cording to His Deity, he conquered death, we declare his Deity to have been the cause, by force and virtue whereof he raised himself from the grave. But neither is the manhood of Christ that subject whereunto universal presence agrceeth, neither is it the cause original by force whereof his person is enabled to be everywhere present. Wherefore, Christ is essentially present with all things in that he is very God, but not present with all things as man, because manhood and the parts thereof can neither be the cause nor the true subject of such presence.* Section 6 : " Notwithstanding somewhat more plainly to show a true imme- diate reason wherefore the manhood of Christ" (his glorified humanity) H 68 " can neither be everywhere present, nor cause the person of Christ so to be ; we acknowledge that of St. Augnstine concerning Christ most true. In that ho is personally the word, he created all things, in that he is naturally man, he himself is created of God ; and it doth not ap- pear that any one creature hath power to be present with all creatures. Whereupon, nevertheless, it will not follow that Christ cannot therefore be thus present, because he is himself a creature, forasmuch as only in- finite presence is that which cannot possibly stand with the essence or being; of any creature, as for presence with all things that are, sith the whole race, mass, and body of them is finite, Christ, by being a crea- ture, is not in that respect excluded from possibility of presence with them. That which excludeth him therefore as man from so great large- ness of presence, is only his being man, a creature of this particular Mnd, whereunto the God of nature hath set those bounds of restraint and limitation, beyond which to attribute unto it anything more than a creature of that sort can admit, were to give it another nature, to make it a creature ofsome other kind than in truth it is." Section 6: "Furthermore if Christ, in that he is man, be everywhere pre- sent, seeing this cometh not by the nature of manhood itself, there is no other way how it should grow but either by the grace of union with Deity, or by the grace of unction received from Deity. It hath been already sufficiently proved that by force of union the properties of both natures are imparted to the person only in whom they are, and not what belongeth to the one nature really conveyed or translated into the other. It hath been likewise proved that natures united in Christ continue the very same which they are, where they are not united. And concerning the grace of unction, wherein are contained the gifts and virtues which Christ, as man, hath above men, they made him really and habitu- ally a man more excellent than we are, they take not from him tlie na- ture and suhstance that we have, they cause not his soul nor hody to he another hind than ours is. Supernatural endowments are an advance- ment, they are no extinguishment of that nature whereto they are given. The substance of the body of Chrisf^ (his glorified humanity) '^^ hath no presence, neither can have, hut only local. It was not therefore every, where seen, nor did it everywhere suffer death, everywhere it could not be entombed. It is not everywhere now being exalted into heaven. There is no proof in the world strong enough to enforce that Christ had a true body, but by the true and natural properties of his body, amongst which properties, definite or local presence is chief. ' How is it true of Christ (saith TertulUan) that he died, was buried, and rose again, if Christ had not that very flesh, the nature whereof is capable of these things, flesh mingled with blood, supported with bones, woven with sinews, embroidered with veins?' If his majestical body" (his glorified humanity) " have now any such new property, by which it may every- where really, even in substance, present itself, or may at once be in many places, then hath the majesty of his estate extinguished the verity of his nature. 'Make thdh no doubt or question of it, (saith St. Augus- tine) ' but that the man Christ Jesus, is now in that very place from whence he shall come in the same form and substance of flesh, which he carried thither, and from which he hath not taken nature, but given 69 crea- with large- icular straint than a mako thereunto immortality. According to this form he spreadeth not out himself into all places. 'For it behoveth us to take great heed, lest while we go about to maintain the glorious Deity of him which is man, we leave him not the true substance of a man.' According to St. Augus- tine's opinion therefore, that majestical body" (his gloriiicd humanity) "which we make to be everywhere present, doth thereby cease to have the substance of a true body." We have quoted thus largely from the fifth book of Hooker's great work, in order that this judicious author should speak for himself on the very subject in hand, the participation in Christ's glorified humanity by the faithful recipient of the Lord's Supper in every place at one and the same moment. Hooker plainly teaches that to ascribe vbiquity to the glorified humanity of our Lord is to deny the verity of his manhood, " for neither the soul or the body of Christ," {which constituteth his humanity,) " and conse- quently not Christ as man, or Christ according to his human nature, can possibly be everywhere present. The Pro- vost, by making the glorified humanity of our Lord vbiqui- tous, invests it with the attributes of Deity, and violates the article in the creed which teaches that Christ is " one, not by conversion of the godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God ; one altogether, not by con/'usion of substance but by unity of person." The Provost says in his first letter, " both objections appear to be raised for the purpose of throwing upon my teaching a vague sus- picion of a leaning to the error of transubstantiation." No hint of such a suspicion was given by the Bishop of Hu- ron. But evidently the Bishop apprehended, and had good reason to apprehend, that such teaching as that con- tained in the Provost's Catechism would induce young men in the first instance, to embrace a cloudy, superstitious idea of the Supper of the Lord, and thus lead them to in- vest that holy Sacrament with an unscriptural character, and thus pave the way for the final reception of the Rom- ish doctrine of transubstantiation. The Provost will see, or, at least, the public will see, that the passage quoted by him from his notes on the catechism might faithfully 60 U .\ represent the opinion of a man who, while he rejected the gross doctrine of transubstantiation, yet hold and taught the equally absurd and unscriptural doctrine of consub" stantiation. Some of those who hold this latter doctrine say that while Christ is conveyed, under the dements, to the faithful, and they are thus and thus only made partakers of him, ho is withdrawn from the elements when they are partaken of by the wicked and unbelieving. This view would reconcile the disclaimer of transubstantiation with the holding of the doctrine of consubstantiation. The Pro- vost, winding up this part of the subject, remarks, " before the charge, or rather the insinuation of the Bishop of Hu- ron, I should have thought it quite unnecessary to explain to any one that I do not understand by * the glorified hu- manity' of our Lord anything which can be orally received." What, then, does he mean ? For " sum Davus non (Edi- pus » (( I mean," says he, " simply that in faithfully receiving the sign we surely receive the thing signified." What is the thing signified ? Is it " the glorified human- ity " of our Lord ? " No," says the Provost. We verily believe that he has no intelligent idea as to what he does mean ; no, nor any one else. He means this, if anything^ that where the faithful recipient partakes of the " outward material sign " in the sacrament, the body of Christ, or his glorified humanity, is also mysteriously partaken of. la not this the Provost's meaning ? " No." Then what is ? " I understand by the sacrament the holy celebration of it." This is above our comprehension, we confess. To tell us that Christ's humanity is in the sacrament, and partaken of by the faithful, and yet has *' no local presence," is, as it appears to us, the veriest contradiction. We will just give a short passage from a work edited by the Arch- bishop of Dublin, " Cautions for the Times." Perhaps the Provost may be disposed to confess that " right reason " and conclusive logic may be expected from the great master and teacher of the art of reasoning, Archbishop Whately. 61 "Accordingly as their own eyes" [that is tho eyes of the Tractarians •'gradually opened to the real state of tho case they first perceived an( then began cautiously to avow tho necessity of drawing daily neai-cr anc nearer to Romanism. They taught, for example, that the Lord's sup- per is a real sacrifice offered by the i)riest for the living and the dead — • only they added, that this doctrine has been much abused by tho chiirch of liome. They said that the bread and wine were changed by tho words of consecration and 'became the body and blood of (Jhrist,' otdy they would not call the change transubstantiation" [nor would the Pro- vost] "but regarded the manner of it as a mystery not to bo curiously inquired into." What says tho Provost upon this point ? See his pam- phlet, page 95 : "I am persuaded that this great mystery- is exposed to danger, not only from those who would ex- plain it away, but also from those who would unduly explain it. Their zeal for a high and heavenly truth " (the parti- cipation of the glorified humanity of our Lord in the sacrament) " does, as I think, really place t'lat truth in jeopardy, by requiring a belief more or less explicit as to the mode in which a divine gift is communicated, and aa to circumstances contingent on its communication." From this it would appear that the process is going on in the mind of the Provost which the Archbishop so well de- scribes in the above quc^tation. Evidently the Provost re- gards the mode in which the divine gift of the glorified hu- manity of our Lord is communicated in the sacrament as a " great mystery " not to be " unduly explained" or in the words of the Archbishop, " not to he curiously inquired into" We have thus a standard by which we can form an opinion of the position which the Provost holds on the inclined plane described by the Archbishop. It may be that the classi- cal adage, "facilis descensus, &c." may not be realized in his case, as there are many obvious Idndrances ; but of this we are as certain as of our own existence, that if he hon- estly follows out the principles contained in his pamphlet, and the convictions which he avows, he must at last (it may be distant because of the hindrances above alluded to,) take his place beside those renegades from the faith of Christ who have united themselves to the Church of Rome. After many struggles with conscience they at 62 length burst through the barriers whicli pride and eelf- intorest opposed, and yielding themselves to the conclu- sions legitimately drawn from the false principles they had adopted, renounced the exercise of those mental powers which God had bestowed upon them, and the use of that holy word with which he had favored them, and cast them- selves beneath the chariot wheels of *'Tho Man of Sin."— One passage more from the book of the Archbishop of DubHn : "It was no wonder then that many of those who had thus been brought on to the very brink of Roinanisni should, when they becatno aware of their real position, pass on. But much as their case is to be lamented, and great as is the damage which they have done to tho church, they are not the members of tho party that are most to bo feared. — They have left us and become avowed Komanists, and by that very act have set us on our guard against them. Much more formid- able are tho leaders of the party who still remain in outward commu- nion with us. They 'come to us in sheep's clothing,' professing to bo devoted members of our church, and therefore they find too often ready listeners — they may be compared to a recruiting depot for tho church of Home, kept up among ourselves, and sooner or later tho persons who fall under their influence, very generally become open converts to Ro- manism ; and their efforts are the more insidious, because they, for tho most part, begin by loudly declaring that they teach nothing but the recognized doctrines of the Established Church — that they are inculcat- ing 'church principles,' and that all who are opposed to them are little better than schismatics." But wo must notice the Provost's quotation from the 56th chapter of the 5th book of the Ecclesiastical Polity, He commences his quotation about tho middle of the 7th Section with the words, " The church is in Christ as Eve was in Adam." We are disposed to ask the question, — Why did he not begin with the 6th Section, which is very short, or even with the commencement of the 7th Section? Hooker is treating in this chapter of the union of the per- sons of the godhead, and how, by virtue of this union Christ as man is in the Father " by eternal derivation of being and life from him." For he argues, " His incarnation causeth him also as man to be now in the Father, and the Father to be in him. For in that he is man he receiveth life from the Father, as from the fountain of that ever- 68 \ ■ living Doity which in the person of the Word hath com- bined itself into manhood," and ho proceeds to show that not only is Chrifit ati man thus in the Father and the Fa- ther in liim, but " all things which Ood in their times and seasons hath brought forth were eternally and before all times in Ood, a.s u work tinlx'gim is in the artificer which bringeth it into effect. * * * So that all thhujs ivldch God hath made are in that respect the offspring of God. They are in him as effects in their highest cause, he like- wise actually is in them, the assistance and influence of his Deity is their U/e.^' Ho then proceeds to show how, when " saving eflicacy " is added to this union of God with " all things which God hath made," then " a special off- spring is brought forth amongst men containing them to whom God hath himself given the gracious and amiable name of sons." Hooker proceeds, 6th Section : "We are by nature the sons of Adam. When God created Adam ho created us, and as many as descended from Adam have in themselves the root out of which they spring. The sons of God wo neither arc all nor every one of us otherwise than only by grace and favour. The sons of God have God's own natural Son as a second Adam from heaven, whose race and progeny they are by spiritual and heavenly birth. God therefore loving eternally his Son, he must needs eternally in him have loved and preferred before all others them which are spiritually sith- ence [since] descended and sprung out of him. These were in God as in their Saviour and not as in their Creator only. It was the purpose of his saving goodness, his saving wisdom, and his saving power, which inclined itself towards them I" And in Section 7 he thus writes : *' We are therefore in God, through Christ eternally, according to that intent and purpose whereby we are chosen to be made his in this present world, before the world itself was made. We are in God through the knowledge which is had of us, and the love which is borne towards us from everlasting. But in God we actually are no longer than only from the time of our actual adoption into the body of his true Church, into the fellowship of his children. For His Church he knoweth and loveth, so that they which are in the church are thereby known to be in him. Our being in Christ by eternal foreknowledge saveth us not without our actual and real adoption into the fellowship of his saints in this present world. For in him we actually are by our actual incorpo- ration into that society which hath him for their Head, and doth make together with him one body, [he and they in that respect having one name] for which cause, by virtue of this mystical conjunction, we are of 64 him and in him, even as though our very flesh and bones should bo made continuate with his. We are in Christ because he knoweth and loveth us, even as parts of himself. No man is actually in Him, but they in whom He actually is ; for ' he which hath not the Son of God hath 'lot life.' lam the vine and you are the branches. He which abide th in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit ;' but the branch severed from the vine withereth. We are therefore adopted, sons of God to eternal life by participation of the onlv begotten Son of God, whose life is the well-spring and cause of ours. We have transcribed this passage at length because in it we are enabled to see into the mind of the great writer upon this most important and wonderful subject, "the mystical uii'im which is betwixt Christ and his church/' Here we are taught the meaning of the figure which he employs to illustrate that union, " The church was in Christ as Eve was in Adam." Christ from ever- lasting undertook to represent his church. God beheld all thus represented, as one with him. He became in the eternal purpose the second Adam ; and thus his mystical body, composed of all true believers who have existed or shall exist until the end of time, has been the object of the Father's eve rlasting love. In this sense we are of Christ and in him even as though our very flesh and bones should be made continuate with his." We may take the words of the Psalmist, in the 136th Psalm, 16th verse ; as ad- dressed to God by the church, the mystical body; the spouse of Christ. " I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made ; marvellous are thy works, and that my soul know- eth right well. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect ; and in thy book all my members were written, what days they should be fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." From these blessed truths of the everlasting love of the Father to the Son, and of the union of all the members of Christ's mystical body to the very last and least of them. Hooker deduces all his con- clusions concerning the blessedness which God's people enjoy here and shall enjoy for ever. But in all this is there one word about " participation 65 in the glorified humanity of our Lord by means of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper ? " Not one. Why, then, was this passage quoted? The only reason we can imagine for this quotation and for many others which we find in the pamphlet of the Provost is, that Hooker's name was necessary amongst his authorities, therefore some pas- sages must be had from his writings, and this was the best that could be found. Let the reader judge whether Hooker gives any support to the unscriptural tenet put forth by the Provost. Although our quotations upon this important subject, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, have extended farther than we at first contemplated ; yet because every one will acknowledge that it is a vital point in our religion, we shall, therefore, make a few remarks upon the Provost's quotations from Calvin and Usher, and then adduce some passages from those divines of the Reformation whose names are embalmed in the memories of all true members of the Church of England. And first, the Provost quotes a passage from the Archbishop's treatise on " the incarna- tion of the Son of God," in which the necessity of the incarnation is shown, in order that the " head should be of same nature with the body, which is knit into it," and that " the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, that is, Christ crucified, should, by that death of his, make his flesh broken and his blood poured out for us upon the cross, to be fit food for the spiritual nourishment of our souls, and the very well-spring from whence, by the power of his Godhead, all grace is derived unto us." Is there here one word about the sacrament of the Lord's Supper ? Not one. The mystical union between Christ and his church, upon which the Archbishop delighted to dwell, is the theme throughout. This union, as we have said before, is efi'ected by the incarnation of our Lord. He took our na- ture. He became the second Adam, and, as " in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all (or all in Christ shall) be 66 made alive." But let us hear the Archbishop explaining this truth in the passage which immediately precedes the one quoted by the Provost. *' The bond of this mystical union betwixt Christ and us [as elsewhere hath more fully been declared, viz : in sermon before parliament A. D. 1620, vol. II. page 415] is on his part, that quickening spirit, which being in him as the head, is from thence diffused to the spiritual ani- mation of all his members, and on our part, faith, which is the prime act of life wrought in those who are capable of understanding by that same spirit, both whereof must be acknowledged to be of so high a na- ture, that none could possibly, by such ligatures, knit us so admirable a body, but he that was God Almighty. And, therefore, although we did suppose such a man might be found who should perform the law for us, suffer the death that was due to our offence, and overcome it ; yea, and whose obedience and sufferings should be of such value that it were sufficient for the redemption of the whole world, yet could it not be efficient to make us live by faith, unless that man had been able to send God's spirit to apply the same unto us. Which as no bare man or any other creature whatsoever can do, so for faith, we are taught by St. Paul, that it is the operation of God, and a work of his power, even of the same power wherewith Christ himself was raised from the dead." Here, then, we find the Archbishop's explanation of the union betwixt Christ and those who believe. There is not one word here concerning " the Supper of our Lord." The union is purely spirikuxl, eflfected by that qicickening Spirit which being in Christ the head without measure, is dif- fused through all his members, received and enjoyed by them through faith which is of the operation of God the Spirit. This is the doctrine now held by all who are truly evan- gelioal in their views. They would not desire a more faithful and powerful expositor of their doctrines than this great divine, in the above passages. We have now ex- hibited the real views of Archbishop Usher, and shall only quote a passage from his sermon before the Parliament referred to by himself in the above quotation. " If any do further require, how it is possible that any such union should be, seeing the body of Christ is iu heaven, and we are upon earth. I answer, that if the manner of this conjunction were carnal and corporal, it would be indeed necessary that the things conjoined should be admitted to be in the same place ; but it being altogether spiritual and supernatural, no local presence, no physical nor mathematical con- tinuity or contiguity is any way requisite thereunto. It is sufficient for the making of a real union of this kind, that Christ and we, though never so far distant in place each from other, be knit together by those 67 spiritual ligatures, which are intimated unto us in the words alleged out of the 6th of John, to wit: the quickening spirit descending downward, from the Head, to be in us a fountain of supernatural life; and a lively faith, wrought by the same spirit, ascending from us upward, to lay fast hold upon him, who having by himself purged our sins, sitteth on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Furthermore, for the commu- nion of the spirit, which is the ground and foundation of this spiritual union ; let us call to mind what we have read in God's book ; that Christ the second Adam, was made a ' quickening spirit,' and that, ' he quickeneth whom he will:' that unto him 'God hath given the spirit without measure,' that 'he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit,' and that 'hereby wo know that we dwell in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his spirit.' By all of which it doth appear, that the mystery of our union with Christ consisteth mainly in this; that the self-same spirit which is in him, as in the Head, is so derived from him into every one of his true members, that thereby they are animated and quickened to a spirited life.' ***** Now among all the graces that are wrought in us by the spirit of Christ, the soul, as it were, of all the rest, and that whereby, the just doth live, is faith.' 'For we through the spirit wait for the hope of righteousness, by faith,' saith St. Paiil to the Galatians, and again, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, that we do receive Christ, and so likewise Christ dwell- eth in our hearts by faith.' ' Faith therefore is that spiritual mouth in us, whereby we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood:* that is, as the apostle expresseth it without a trope, are made partakers of Christ ; he being by this means as truly, and every way as efifectually made ours, as the meat and drink which we receive into our natural bodies." From these quotations we see what the learned and pious Archbishop taught concerning the presence of Christ in the sacrament, that it is altogether spiritual, and that Faith in his passion and death is the hand by which we receive him, the mouth by which we eat his body and his blood, or as the Apostle expresses it without trope or figure, " are made partakers of Christ." Where here is the participation of " the glorified humanity of our Lord?" No where. Becon, from whom I have before quoted, thus teaches in his Catechism, p. 201.: " For whatsoever the Holy Ghost saith inwardly unto us the very same doth the word of God to our ears, and the sacraments to serve our eyes, preach, declare and set forth outwardly, that we may be taught both corporally and spiritually, again, who knoweth not that things seen with the eyes are more surely fixed in the minds of men than those things which are only heard ? and therefore a sacrament may right well be called a visible word. For whatsoever the word is to the ear, the 68 ^'• very same thing is the sacrament to the eye. The word of God saith to mine ear, the body of Christ was hroTcenfor thee ; the Hood of Christ was shed for thee. The very same thing doth the sacrament preach unto mine eye, while in the holy action of the Lord's Supper, I see the tread "broken and the wine shed. Therefore Christ the Lord, to inform and instruct our outward senses, ordained these outward signs and sacra- ments, that by the consideration and beholding of these, that things might the more easily slide into our minds, which hath been inculked and beaten into our ears, through the voice of the preacher." And again in the form of question and answer he thus teaches : Ques. "Thou boldest then that Christ as concerning his bodily presence, (l^is glorified humanity) is only in heaven, but, as touching nis Godly presence, he is everywhere. An»w. So am I taught by the word of God as you have heard. Ques. Yea, but what say the ancie ■'t fathers' of Christ's church, do they also affirm this thing ? Ansvs. Most certainly, and with one voice." Again : "Of these words of the ancient writer, Origen, we plainly are taught that the Lord Christ, as touching his divinity, is present at all times and in every place, neither can he be comprehended in any one several place only, hue as concerniny his humanity or hodily presence, he is not m all places, neither is he here with us on the earth, but he is gone home into a far country, that is to say, into heaven." Again : " Who seeth not now, except he be wilfully blind, that forasmuch as the body of Christ is a creature, although glorified and clad with im- mortality, it is and can be but in one place at once ? To teach the con- trary is none other thing than to evacuate and utterly to destroy the nature of ChrisVs humanity, and to affirm with certain heretics, that the iody of Christ is ('eifed, and so swallowed up of the Godhead, that it is now in all places with the Godhead at all timco, which is a most henious and detestable heresy.''^ Before we have done with this learned author, we will adduce a few passages, having reference to the other sacrament, from which it is apparent that whatever views the writers of the school of Laud entertained, our reformers held the true Scriptural view of that as well as of the other sacrament, and did not go about to delude and deceive the people by teaching them that all baptised persons are justified in the sight of God. In . ' ir-i 69 the same work, "the Catechism," page 203, he thus writes : Qiies. " Is this baptism of the spirit necessary to everlasting salva- tion? Answ. " So necessary that without it the baptism of water profitetTi nothing. As, in the old Testament, the circumcision of the fesh profit- ed the Jews nothing at all, without the circumcision of the spirit ; so likewise in the new Testament the haptism of the water availeth no- thing without the haptism of the spirit.^' Again, in page 225 : •' This thing considered right well certain fathers of Christ's church, which affirm that baptism is divided into three kinds, that is to say, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, the baptism of Blood, and the baptism of Water ; and of all these three the baptism of water is the most inferior, forasmuch as we read that divers so bf 'ised have notwithstanding perished. But whosoever is baptised with the Holy Ghost, and so dieth, he cannot perish, for without this baptism, the baptism of water profiteth nothing." Again : " With water alone are the ungodly and wicked hypocrites baptised, which outwardly feign repentance and faith, when inwardly they have nothing less, and therefore the baptism profiteth them nothing at all, but rather turneth unto their damnation. With the spirit or Holy Ghost they are baptised, which do truly repent and believe, and fix the eyes of their mind on the commandment of God, and the promise an- nexed to baptism. To them is the baptism of water wholesome and profitable. With blood they are baptised, which, prevented of death through the cruelty of the persecutors, cannot come unto the baptism of water, although greatly wished, and yet notwithstanding boldly and stoutly confess Chv' 5t aiid his Holy Gospel before the tyrants of this world, yea, and confirm with their death and seal with their blood, this their confession. These are holy martyrs and blessed witnesses of Christ, and therefore they are as acceptable and dear unto God, as though they were baptised with water." We would preface the further quotations which we are now about to adduce from the Reformers of our church with a passage or two from the same work of Archbishop Whately quoted before, in which His Grace plainly sets forth the " respect and deference which we should entertain for the writings of our old divines ; but they are not of authority as determining what any man should hold in order to be a consistent member of the Anglican communion. Our eminent divines have, in their writings, declared their owi m 70 opinions, which in some matters are very various. But they had no power to determine the principles of the church. Those were settled by the church itself, and set forth in its public documents." To these tue must defer, believing them to be based upon God's word. We only adduce quotations from the writings of these eminent divines, confesssors and martyrs of the Eeformation to show that if the Provost can array passages from the writings of those men who lived long after the Jteformation, when a partial darkness settled upon the Church of England, accompanied by what almost amounted to a spiritual death, and which lasted from the days of the* Stuarts to nearly the close of the 18th century, we can produce the writings of our Reformers, who, taught by God's Spirit and purified in the fires of persecution, lived close to God and daily drank in from his Holy word those life-giving truths which strengthened them for the bloody warfare to which they are called, and enabled them to bear a noble testimony for Christ their Lord even in the fires. If we want human authorities, let us look to these men, not to the degenerate race of divines who succeeded them, and who learned their religion under the influence of a semi-popish and licentious court, which exerted all its power, and with too much success, to corfupt the minds of the clergy and the people, and to draw them away from the simplicity of the gospel. The following are the passages from " Cautions for the Times :" "Our Saviour, yon know, in condescension to our weakness, was pleased to appoint t\\o outward rites assigns of spiritual graces — favors — bestowed on us — baptism or washing with water, as a sign of our being cleansed from sin ; and partaking of bread and wine as the sign of our enjoying the benefits which He made in giving his body and blood for us. One might think at first that such signs as these were safe enough from idolatry — that no one could be so stupid as to fancy that there was any spiritual power in mere drops of water out of a common well or river ; or so besotted as to worship the bread which had been made by a baker and which the worshipper was about to eat. Yet so strong is man's tendency to superstition that even these simple signs could not escape being perverted by it. Men first, in spite of our Lord's 71 warning that " the spirit only quickeneih, the flesh profitelh nothing ;" — began to fancy that Christ's flesh as such had a power of giving Hfe. Then that Christ's body was present in the bread, by some mysterious change, became to all intents and purposes of giving life, all one with Christ's body. This was plainly the notion of some ancient writers who distinguished Christ's sacramental body, from his natural body. It has been held also by Protestants. And lastly that it was not bread at all, but Christ's body hidden under the appearance of bread. As for the water in baptism though none have yet pretended that it is transub- stantiated into the Holy Ghost yet many are in the high road to it. " "In all these cases it was man's misdirected reverence for the outward sign growing stronger and stronger under the notion that they could not be too pious which produced the erroneous doctrine, and then texts of scripture were perverted, and strange philosophical explanations made out to keep the error in countenance." Again : — " If our Church had meant to teach that the bread and wine in the communion, do literally become or contain the body and blood of Christ, so as that the body and blood of Christ are received into the hands and mouths of the communionists, would it teach us^ — as we find it teaching in article xxviii. — that the body and blood of Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spirit- ual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten, is faith ? If our Church had really meant to teach that her presbytery had the power of remitting or retaining sins, as against God, 1? it credible that when our Reformers retained the old form of ordain- ing priests — 'whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven, and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained' — they should have explained them by this addition: 'And be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of- God and of His Holy Sacraments.' And take thou authority to preach the word of God and to minister the Holy Sacraments.' Is it not mani- fest that our Reformers have here distinctly explained what privilege they thought to be conveyed by those words of Christ — namely the pri- vilege of declaring by the word and sealing by the sacraments the pro- mise of God's forgiveness to all penitent sinners. Accordingly you will find that the ordinary form in our morning prayer of 'declaring and pronouncing' God's forgiveness, though plainly only a declaration of God's pardon, is called the absolution or remission of sins.' And like- wise in the communion, that is called an 'absolution,' which is manifestly nothing more than a prayer for God's forgiveness. Nor, when the church has thus explained what it means by the privilege of 'remitting sins' imparted to its presbyters, and given notice of the large sense in which it uses the term 'absolution,' can anything be more unfair than to lay hold of the word 'absolve' in the office of the visitation of the si ck as if it must needs mean more than 'declare God's forgiveness.' If the Church really held that the priest could forgive sins, and that his min- istry was instituted for the express purpose of remitting them, upon confession and penance, it would have been grossly negligent of a plain duty, if it had not earnestly pressed all men to seek the benefits of ab- solution. On the contrary, you know, it never speaks of penance, but as a punishment inflicted on sc^dalous transgressors to bring them to I: 72 repentance and as a warning to others, as in the commination service ; never invites any to confession, but sucli as are troubled in conscience and perplexed with doubts, nor permits private and personal absolutions, but upon the 'earnest entreaty' of the penitent." Has A-rchbishop Whately "reduced the ministerial author- ity thus solemnly bestowed to a nullity, and rendered the acquiescence in the form by which the church professes to convey that authority a mockery of the Most High " ? — When he thus explains these words, " whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven, an.! whose sins thou dost retain they are retained " ? " o viU venture to say that the doctrines of our church s ih. .s explained by the Arch- bishop of Dublin, are held aui taught by the Bishop of Huron, and if he errs in these matters, it is in the high company of one of the most exalted dignitaries and most powerful reasoners of the present day, much more learned, too, and more capable of judging between right and wrong than even the Provost of Trinity College. Hooker, known to scholars by the title of " the judicious," has said, speaking of Bishop Jewel, that he was " the worthiest divine which Christendom hath bred for the space of some hundreds of years." From the works, therefore, of this eminent Prelate and Confessor we will adduce some passages which will plainly set before us what he and the other Eeformers believed concerning the Sacraments. And first of the Lord's Supper : *' So likewise, saith St. Augustine, ' as many as in manna understood Christ, they did eat the same spiritual meat that we eat (that is, the very body of Christ) and so unto them manna was Christ's body, and not the same thing it was before. And for better declaration hereof, Bertramus saith, ' Christ, as he now turneth the bread into his body, even so, then, in like sort the manna which fell from heaven, invisibly he made his body.' Thus, as the bread is Christ's body, even so was manna Christ's body, and that invisibly, and by the omnipotent power of God. Thus are the elements of manna, of the bread, of the wine, and of the water changed, and are not as they were before ; and, therefore, in every of the same we honor the body of Christ invisible, not as really and fleshly present, but as being in heaven." Again : " Verily Bertramus, an ancient writer, saith, 'he that now in the church by his omnipotent power spiritually turneth the bread and the 73 » the the wine into the flesh and blood of his body, the same invisibly made his body of the same manna that came from heaven, and of the water that flowed from the rock invisibly he made his own blood.' Thus, as the Fathers say, manna was made Christ's body, or the water in the wilder- ness was made his blood ; even so they say the bread and wine are likewise made Christ's body and blood." Again : "Touching that is here alleged of secret and privy being, the Catholic fathers do confess that Christ is in the sacraments of the New Testa- ment as he was in the sacraments of the Old. So St. Augustine saith : ' As many as in manna understood Christ fed of the same spiritual bread that we feed of.' Again he saith, ' Behold the faith standing one. The signs or sacraments are changed. There the rock was Christ ; unto us that thing is Christ that is laid upon the altar.' As Christ io now here, so was Christ then there. And as Christ is now in the bread, so was Christ then in the rock, and none otherwise." Again : — "Mr. Harding saith. We are thus joined unto Christ and have him corporally within us, only receiving the sacraments, and by none other means. This is utterly untrue, as it is already proved by the authc "ties of St. Augustine, St. Basil, Gregory Nazianzene, Leo, Ignatius Bernard, and other holy fathers, neither doth Cyrillus or Hilary so ouch it Certainly neither have they all Christ dwelling in them that ivjceive the sacrament, nor arc they all void of Christ that never received the sac- rament." The reader can compare this latter statement with the words of the Provost in page 80 of his pamphlet. He says, " But for the reception of which the holy communion is the a'ppointed mean and the only mean whereby Holy Scrip- ture assures us that we shall receive it if duly prepared." This is another point in which we find the Provost giving utterance to opinions which are directly opposed to those of Bishops and Archbishops of our church, and what is of much more consequence, in opposition to the plain teaching of God's holy word. Harding, the Romish opponent of Bishop Jewel, had stated that we are joined to Christ, and partake of the supernatural gift of his body (wZ?/%recewi7igf the sacrament, and in no other way. This is, in substance, the statement of the Provost. Bishop Jewel denounces this statement as " utterly untrue," so, we feel assured, would the Bishop of Huron. But we know from e;tperienc© E ^% 74 that no dcforcnco will bo paid to tlio opinion of a Bishop, nay, that common respect will not bo shown to him, or becoming language used concerning him, by men who hold the doctrines enunciated by the Provost, if ho does not agree with all the probable opinions which they choose to avow and to invest with the name of "pious." Bishop Jewel, and the writers of the ancient church whose names he enumerates, teach that the believing Israelite, when he eat of the manna and drank of the water in the wilderness, partook of the body and blood of Christ as truly and as effectually, and in precisely the same way as the believer now does who eats the bread and wine in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And surely no man will be so irrational as to arguo that the ' ' glorified humanity" of our Lord was partaken of by the Israelites before the human nature had been assumed by Christ, or his blood shed for the sins of men. In the everlasting purpose of God he was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and those who lived before his coming spiritually partook of his sacrifice, looking forward to it by faith. Just so, now, the believer, looking back upon the bloody scene enacted on Calvary, has his soul nourished by the same spiritual food, the sacrifice of the cross. This is the true Scriptural view of the Supper of our Lord, as held by the early fathers of the church, and as maintained by our noble army of martyrs at the time of the Reformation. One passage more from this author must suffice, although a large volume might be filled with quotations to the same effect : " Now let ui3 examine what difference is between the body of Christ and the sacrament of the body. It behoveth us to take each part right as it is, lest we be deceived and take one for another. Origen saith 'simple men not being able to discern what things in the scriptures ought to be applied to the outward man, and what to the inner, being deceived by the likeness of words, have turned themselves to a sort of peevish fables, and vain fantasies.' Therefore, saith St. Augustine, ' Believe me, it is a great matter to understand what is the creature, and what is God the Creator; what are the works and what is the workman ?' The difference herein is this : ' A sacrament is a figure 76 or token • the body of Christ is figured or tokened. Tho sficramont- bread is bread, it is not the body of Christ; tho body of Christ is flesh it is no bread. The bread is f)encath, the body is above. 'I'he bread is on the table, the body is in heaven. The bread is in tho mouth, tho body in the heart. The bread feudeth the outward man, the body feed- cth tho inward man. The bread feedoth the body, the body feedeth tho soul. The bread shall come to nothing, the body is immortal and shall not perish. The bread is vile, the body of Christ glorious. Such a difference is there between the bread which is a sacrament of the body, and the body of Christ itself. Tho sacrament is eaten as well of tho wicked a.s of the faithful ; the body is only eaten of the faithful. The sacrament may be eaten unto judgment, the body cannot bo eaten but unto salvation. Without the sacrament wo may be saved ; but without the body of Christ we have no salvation; wo cannot bo saved. As St. Augustine saith, ' lie that receiveth not tho flesh of Christ hath not life ; and he that receiveth tho same hath life, and that for over.' " Jewels controtersy icith II m. 83 belief, in sin, in the rejection of the truth of Cod, and in their natural unrenewed and unregenerato state, and ho *S called upon them to repent and turn to God, to fly for re- fuge, to lay hold of the hope set before them in the gospel, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to accept the gracious offer of eternal life made in the word of God, and he en- courages them to trust their souls to Christ, " because the blood of the Son of God has purchased eternal life ;" be- cause " the faithfulness of God is engaged to make the promise good ;" because " preachers are sent through the world to proclaim it ;" and because " the sacraments were instituted for the solemn delivery of the mercy offered." Where here is the system propounded by Waterland and maintained by the Provost ? "When the sinner has be- lieved the gospel, when he has closed with the offer of mercy, when he is thus taught of God and made partaker of the Holy Ghost, he receives the sacraments as signs of the blessings which Christ has purchased for his people, and as God's seals to the promises which he has made to all believers. Abraham received the sign^ of circumci- sion as a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had being yet uncircumcised, and so now the believing and repentant sinner takes the sacraments as signs of covenant blessings, and as seals of the promises made of God in Christ to all that believe. This is what Baxter taught, and this what all true ministers of the gospel proclaim. According to Waterland, " Baxter's call to the unconvert- ed," being addressed to the men already baptised, and therefore justified, (ton thousand to one) would be imper- tinent, frivolous, and even hurtful. Let the Provost tbl- low the example of Baxter in this particular, and call up- on the unconverted amongst his pupils to turn to God, and not to rest satisfied with a name to live, while in reality they are dead, before God, and he may then be instru- mental in sending into the ministry, men wise to win souls to Christ. Let us hear Baxter in his work "Reformftd Pastor," page 23 : m 84 *' Alas, it is the common danger and calamities of the church, to have unrcgenerate and unexperienced pastors, and to have so many men be- come preachers before they are Christians; who are sanctified by dedi- cation to the altar as the priests of God, before they are sanctified by hearty dedication as the disciples of Christ ; and so to worship an un- known God, and to preach an unknown Christ, to pray through an un- known spirit, to recommend a state of holiness and communion with God, and a glory and a happiness that are all unknown ; and like to be unknown to him for ever. He is like to be but a heartless preach- er, that hath not the Christ and grace that he preacheth in his heart, O, that all our students in our Univei'sities would well consider this! What a poor business it is to themselves, to spend their time in ac- quiring some little knowledge of the works of God, and of some of those names which the divided tongues of the nations have imposed on Jheax, and not to know God himself, nor to be acquainted with that one renewing work, that should make them happy. They do but walk in a vain show and spend their lives like dreaming men, while they busy their wits and tongues about abundance of names and notions and are sti'sngers to God and the life of saints. If ever God awaken them by his saving grace, they will have cogitations and em- ployments so much more serious than their unsanctified studies, that they will confess that they did but dream before. A world of busi- ness they make themselves about nothing, while they are wilful stran- gers to the primitive, independent, necessary Being, who is all in all." Let the Provost and his pupils ponder well this passage. When they are such men as Baxter would approve as pas- tors, then they will know how to use the word^i of Baxter, as he himself intended tliem, and to speak of the " absolv- ing words of per.ce" proclaimed in the gospel without be- ing suspected of holding the Romish doctrine of priestly absolution, and of the sacraments, as seals of God's pro- mises without being thought to ascribe salvation to them. A passage from "the confession of John Hooper's Faith," p, 89, sets the true scriptural views of the posi- tion which the fi-icraments occupy in the Christian eco- nomy, so plamb'- bofore us that we gladly call attention to it : " In the Law of Moses was circumcision and the Paschal Lamb ; and in iheir place ■ we have Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, di- verse in external elements and ceremonies, but one in effect, mystery, and che thing itself; saving that their sacraments showed the graces of God to b« given unto men in Christ to cx)me ; and ours declare the 85 graces of God to be given unto men in Christ, that is already come ; so that the sacraments be not changed, but rather the elements of the sacraments, and every one of these sacraments have their own peculiar and proper promises, unto the which they hang annexed, as a seal unto the writing; and therefore be called after St. Paul, the confirmation, or seals of God's promises. "And of baptism, because it is a mark of our Christian Church, I thus judge, after the Doctrine of St. Paul, that it is a seal and confir- mation of justice, either of our acception unto the grace of God. For Christ, his innocency, and justice, by faith, is ours, and our sins and injustice, by his obedience, are his; whereof baptism is the sign, seal and confirmation. For although freely by the grace of God our sins be forgiven, yet the same is declared by the gospel, received by faith, and sealed by the sacraments, which be the seals of God's promises, as it is to be seen by the faith of faithful Abraham. "As for those that say circumcision and baptism be like, and yet attribute the remission of original sins to baptism, which was never given unto circumcision; they not only destroy the simihtude and equality that should be between them, but also take from Christ the remission of sin, and translate it into the water and elements of bap- tism. "As for the Supper of the Lord, which is the other sacrament whereby the church of Christ is known. I believe it is a remem- brance of Christ's death, a seal and confirmation of his precious body given unto death, wherewith we are redeemed. It is a visible word, that preacheth peace between God and man, exhorteth to mutual love and godly life, teacheth to contemn the world for the hope of the life to come, when as Christ shall appear, and come down in the clouds, •which now is in heaven, as concerning his humanity, and nowhere else, nor never shall be, till the time of the general resurrection. " I believe that this holy sacrament hath its proj^er [promises, pro- per elements, proper commandments, and proper ceremonies." Thomas Rogers, an able and learned divine, chaplain to Bancroft, bishop of London, lived and wrote about the year 1600. In his work " the Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England," he thus sets forth the do -'trine of the church, with reference to the sacraments, p. 249. In all probability, this eminently learned man knew what the Catholic doctrine of the Church of England, with reference to the sacraments was, as well as even the Provost of Trinity College, that doctrine remains the same, unchanged and unchangeable : •* Without the sacraments, many have lived and died, who pleased 86 God, and are, no doubt, saved, either in respect of their own faith, (as we are to think of the godly, both men who were born and died before the institution of circumcision in the wilderness, and in the time of grace, (fee, yet by some extremity could not receive the seal of the covenant, and women, who afore and under the law for many years were partakers of no sacrament, and never of one sacra- ment,) or that be heirs of the promise. Some have taith, afore they receive any of the sacraments. So had Abraham, the Jews unto whom Peter preached, the Samaritans, the eunuch, Cornelius ttti centurion, and have the godly of discretion, wheresoever not yet bap- tised. Some neither afore nor at the instant, nor yet afterwards, though daily they receive the sacraments, will have faith ; such are like unto Judas, Ananias and Saphira, Simon Magus, the old Israel- ites, and the wicked Corinthians. In some the sacraments do effect- ually work in progress of time, by the help of God's word read or preached, which engendereth faith. Such is the state principally of infants, elected unto life and salvation, and increasing in years." The last quotation which we shall adduce is from the writings of Wm. Whitaker, an able divine, highly es- teemed by all at the close of the sixteenth century, who wrote a work bearing the following title, ^'Disputatio de sacra scriptura, Contra hujus temporis Fapistas, Inprimis, Mobertum Bellerminum Jesuitam. From this work we ex- tract the following brief passage : " The Jesuit subjoins, there is no doubt but that infants dying be- fore the 8th day, had some remedy against original sin, but this is nowhere found in the scripture. I answer : this is futile, and like the former objection unworthy of a reply. For the salvation of infants depends not upon the sacraments. Others, however, answer that they might be circumcised before the eighth day, if they were in any dan- ger of loosing their lives : how truly I inquire not. But as it was not all who were partakers of the sacraments that were saved ; so nei- ther were all damned who had them not. If God had determined that all who died before circumcision should be damned, he would not assuredly have deferred that rite until the eighth day. The Jesuits third example is no more suited to the purpose than the pre- vious ones. In the time of the Old Testament, saith he, many Gen- tiles were saved; and yt we read nothing in the scriptures of their justification from original and other sins. I answer that we do so read, for they were justified by faith in the Mediator without sacra- ments. But, if he speak of external means, there is a law found in the Books of Moses, for incorporating Proselytes into the Jewish state. These three arguments are derived from the foul spring of 1 liai Ca ( 91 aiiiiior lie will state it boldly, and will give his reasons for so doing. But does Pearson assign to the Virgin Mary an instru- Tnentality in the means of human redemption ? We dis- tinctly sitaje he does not. Pearson does not state that Miriam wa» a type of Mary. He traces some fancied resemblance between Miriam and Mary, and goes farther thaii we think him warranted to do by God's word. But the PioTOst goes beyond him ; he leaves his text-book far behind, and teaches things which Pearson never dreamed of. The Provost says " it will be a fatal day for the College when this question is answered in the nega- tive" ! I What did the church and the Universities do before " Pearson on the Creed " was written ? Highly as we value this work, still we are far from thinking that were it lost to the world, it would be fatal to the prospects of the church, of the Universities, and of true reUgion. Let " Pearson on the Creed " be treated as a human, not an inspired work, and much good may be derived from its use. But his views on some subjects should be carefully and cautiously handled, otherwise great evil may be done to the minds of the young. II. Respecting the Perpetual Virginity. We shall merely give the Provost sor .e advice on this point in the words of his forefather of the i6th century. He says, writing against Bellarmine, "As to the perpettm. virginity of Mary, it is no business of mine to meddle with that dispute" We would say it is no business of the Pro- vost to meddle with it either. Hie students will be none the worse if he allows the veil to remain which the Holy Spirit has drawn over it in the Holy Scriptures. Whita- ker of the 16th century also adds: " Now, as to the Jesuits' assertion that it is an article of faith to believe the perpetual virginity of the blessed Mary, I say that Basil thought otherwise, for, in his homily on Christ's nativity, he says, that we should not curiously dispute upon this subject, but that it is enough to know that she had no children before Christ." If that was enough for theolo- gians to know, in the days of Basil, it surely should be enough for young lawyers, doctors, engineers and mer- chants in the present time. All that the Provost has said upon this point about an " Index Expurgatorius," " a grand specific," «fec., is simply foolish. We wonder any man of common sense could write it. III. Respecting the Intercession of Saints. Here, again, the Provost states " that Pearson, our text book, is followed." We have before showed that this is not the case. When Pearson states his own views on this 4 W, I I ' 1 1 i 93 point, he say^s : *' But what they (the saints) do in hea- ven in relation to ns on earth, particularly considered, or what we ought to perform in reference to them in heaven, is not revealed unto us in the Scriptures, nor can be con- cluded by necessary deduction from any principles of Christianity." As in the case of the perpetual virginity of Mary, so in this also, the Provost has gone far beyond his text book. Pearson states that we have no warrant of scripture for this tenet, and that it cannot logically be deduced from Christian principles. The Provost, on the other hand, teaches it as a "probable opinion ; " now for the very lowest degree of probability, some basis is ne- cessary. Upon what, then, does the Provost found this " probability ?" He acknowledges that it is " not a truth revealed to us in holy scriptures," and his text-book teach- es that it had no foundation in the principles of Christian- ity. It must rest then upon " the authorities which the Provost has quoted." Alas, then, for our young men, if they have no better foundation for the " probable opin- ions and pious thoughts," which they learn in Trinity College I ! We have before briefly noticed the Provost's argument upon this point, but as we fihd him, in p. 93, applying it to the question of the perpetual virginity, it may be desirable to notice it a little more at large. In order to apply his argument, the Provost produces a pu- pil who has been taught that "the two things" viz. : the intercession and invocation ofsaints stand or fall together." This imaginary pupil must have been educated in some school of which we never before heard. Do the students of Trinity College learn that doctrines are bound together in pairs, and that they must stand or fall together ? If they do, we firmly believe that it is the only institution on the continent of America which adopts such an ab- surd mode of teaching. We have always thought that every doctrine should have its own basis in the word of God. Here, then, is the first false assumption of the Provost, sufficient of itself to invalidate his entire argument. For no such pupil as he imagines can he found outside the walls of Trinity College. But the Provost proceeds, "when in controversy he learns to his dismay that, concerning the intercession of the saints, he has neither Holy Scripture or reason on his side." By the Provost's own admission, in page 92 of his pamphlet, and by the teaching of his own text-book, his pupil can never learn this, for Scripture is silent upon the subject, and reason can prove nothing un- less it has some principles from which to deduce its mfer- ences, and Pearson states the intercession of saints for U8 cannot be deduced from any principles of Christianity ; n bea- red, or leaven, )e con- pleB of nity of jeyond warrant illy be on the ow for is ne- id tbis a truth : teach- ristian- ich the men, if e opin- Tfinitv rovost's p. 93, rginity, ge. In )s a pu- z. : the jether." n some tndents ogether Br? If titution an ab- ht that word of ?rovo8t, ;. For \ie walls ^hen in ling the iture or ision, in his own pture is [ins un- s infer- ints for tianity ; 93 therefore the Provost's pupil can never learn that Scripture and reason are against him. This is the second sophistical blunder made in the course of this argument. But the argument proceeds. When this imaginary pupil has, accor- ding to the Provost, learned what we have just proved he never can learn, then he will be prepared to do, what ? To accept what he before believed to be false ? No, says the Provost, but " to make a very easy transition from that which he once regarded as the kindred error, but which he is now prepared to accept as the inseparable truth " ! ! — What an extraordinary logician this pupil oi the Provost^ must be ! He is not satisfied to accept what, by the show- ing of the Provost, has been proved to be true, but he makes haste to embrace that which he knows to be false, and in proof of which no arguments have been offered ! But the Provost proceeds to apply his argument to the question of the per- petual virginity. His model pupil has been taught that the perpetual virginity and the '* idolatrous reverence paid to the blessed Virgin by the church of Bome " are coupled to- gether, like the Siamese twins, and ** stand or fall together.'' Now we would venture to suggest to the Provost that this pair of doctrines is badly matched, and that it would require too mi\ch activity, even for his ideal pupil, to take at one bound the sulf which separates between the perpetual vir- ginity and the " idolatrous reverence of Mary.^' If he reconstructs the argument we would suggest that he should substitute *' the immaculate conception" for the ^* idolatrous reverence." This will make the passage over the " chasm" spoken of by the Provost much more easy for his young friend. We would ask. Is not all this argument of the Pro- vost's the veriest trifling ? If his pupils are such dolts as the one which he has made to figure in his argument, they will fall an easy prey to any man who would think them worth the trouble of converting, and a host of auch logicians would be no acquisition to either side of an argu- ment. Before leaving this point, we would ask an important question which the E"^bject suggests : Who teaches logic in Trinity College ? The Provost asks, in page 93, ** Is it our primary duty to oppose Romanism or to advance the truth V We answer. It is the primary duty of every minister of Christ to preach the gospel, and to be ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's word. To lift up his voice as a trumpet, and to proclaim the wrath of God against that foul system V i 94 t!'^ II of imposture \fliich in Holy Scripture is called the " mystery of iniquity.'* It is our duty to cry aloud and spare not, but with all faithfulness to warn those who are still held bound by the iron chain of Rome's spiritual despotism, that they may be aroused from their stupor, if God peradventure may grant them repentance to the acknowledgement of the truth. It is our duty, in love to the souls of the members of the church of Rome to be plain in declaring to them Qod's truth, and in denouncing the system which we believe to be op- posed to it. We will also tell the Provost what is not our duty as ministers of Christ, and specially of the church of England. It is not our duty lo become the apologists of Rome in any of her unscripturai roceedings. It is not our duty to invent or to adopt " pro' ile opinions,'' having no basis in God's word, or the prin mIps of Christianity, that we may be able to come as c). ,3e to the Romish system as possible, and even to nestle amongst her feathers. It is not our duty to speak of " that foul spring of error, the popish tenet of salvation, being inclosed in the sacraments,'' as a *' Catholic verity,'' and thus to lull into false security those who, through the belief of this invention of Satan, are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise. It is not our duty to teach thoi^ who, though baptized outwardly, yet live in sin, and give no evi- dence by their lives that they are baptized with the Holy Ghost, that they are born from above. It is not our duty to tell our congregations that they are all justified (ten thousand to one) ; neither is it our duty to look with regret upon " good things " lost by our church at the time of the Reformation, and to teach others to do the same. Finally, it is not our duty to give up the great principle of our church that the Clble alone is our rule of faith and practice, and to collect a large number of the sayings of fallible men and to parade them before the world as the authorities fur our faith and teaching. This may suffice as a sufficient answer to the Provost's question as to our duty. IV. '* Respecting remission of sins, I must teach as I have ever done.'* This is the statement of the Provost in page 94 of hia pamphlet. With reference to this point we would venture to recom- mend to the Provost the careful consideration of the quota- tions which we have adduced from Becon, Usher, Latimer and Hooker. He will learn from them the interpretation of the solemn words, " Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven, and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained/' I 1 96 which, in accordance with the analogy of the faith, our protestant forefathers received and maintained, and should ho not be satisfied with their exposition of the passage, let him take his place at the feet of the eminent men who now occupy the highest positions in our church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Archbishop of Armagh, and the Archbishop of Dublin, from whom he will learn that these are not " idle " words, but that they convey authority to go forth as the Ambassadors of Christ, and de- clare his salvation and preach his gospel to every creature ; and that he is not " required, as a matter of conscience,'* to play the hypocrite, and " to bow himself down in the house not of Kimmon, but of God." The Provost says — V. *' On the sacraments I believe my doctrine to be that of Holy Scripture and of the church of England." We were always assured that the Provost held and taught what he believed to be true. As to his sincerity we never heard it called in question for a moment. But this does not prove that he is right. Saul of Tarsus was sincere when he persecuted the church of God and wasted it. He verily thought that it was his duty to do many thinss against the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and when he imbrued his hands in the blood of the proto-martyr, St. Stephen, he imagined that he was doing God service. In the same way we believe that the Provost and many of those who think with him have embraced doctrines opposed to the word of God and at variance with those of the church of England, and while we give them credit for sincerity, we feel our- selves constrained to denounce their errors. The Provost says, page 95, " If I could not accept the teaching of the baptismal service and of the Catechism, in its plain and obvious sense, I would not consent for another day to discharge my duties as a minister of the church of England." We would ask the Provost whether he applies this rule to all the services of our church? When he is called to read the burial service over a careless member of his congregation, who has been suddenly snatched away without time for repentance, does he use the words of that beautiful service in their plain and obvious sense ? or when he celebrates the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, does he use the words of institution in their plain and ob- vious sense ? Or when he addresses a mixed congrega- tion, some of whom have not, perhaps, been baptized, does he use the words " dearly beloved brethren," in their plain and obvious sense ? In all these cases he must use the i M' ^. ! .Hi; : ■ i 1 , t !i 96 words of our services, not in their plain and obvious sense, but conditionally, hypothetically or figuratively. And lastly, we would ask. In what sense does he use the same words in the service for the baptism of adults which occur in the service for the baptism of infants ? Here he must use the words conditionally and hypothetically, and if the conditional and hypothetical use or the words in the ser- vice for the baptism of infants would be sufficient to cause the Provost to forsake the communion of the church of England, it follows that a similar use of the same words in the service for the " baptism of such as are of riper year*'* ought to produce the same result. In reviewing the Provost's pamphlet, we have endea- vored to restrain our spirit and keep under our temper, though often tried by the many hard and unchristian terms 60 unsparir ;ly used hy the v^riter, more especially when we called to mind against whom those terms were covrrtly directed. We have endeavored to avoid the dictatorial and dogmatical tone as much as possible, we can make some allowance for these in the Provost of a University. For as the captain of a man-of-war, by long use, contracts what may be called a quarter-dock manner of speaking to those with whom he has intercourse, so the master of a school is apt to regard the community whom he address- es, as composed oi his scholars, to whom his word is law, and to address them in the same tone and spirit as if he wa