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THE LORD BISHOP OF HURON, AND THE CORPORATION OF TRINITY COLLEGE, WITH THE HOPE THAT THE EXPLANATIONS NO'V GIVEN MAY REMOVE ERRONEOUS IMPRESSIONS, AND SATISFY THE CHURCH AT LARGE THAT I AM LOYAL AND TRUE TO HER. '* Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you, a ason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear."— 1 S. Peter, reason cap. iii., r. 15 JAMES BOVELL, LATE PR0FEB60R OF KATURAL TUEOLOGT, AND CURATOR, TRINITY COLLLEQE, TORONTO. TORONTO: ROWSELL k ELLI8, rillNTEKS, KING STllEET. : ; ;,y,?-^ 18G0. ' M TO THE LORD BISHOP OF TORONTO, THE LORD BISHOP OF HURON, AND THE CORPORATION OF TRINITY COLLEGE. Toronto, Nov. 17th, 1860. My Lords and Gentlemen, I trust that you will admit I have been gufficiently punished for my temerity, in presuming to enter on a con- troversy which was in able hands. Whether my indis- cretion deserved censure or not I do not intend to ques- tion. My present purpose is, 1st, to show that I stand con- demned for holding erroneous opinions ; 2nd, condemned because that those opinions are directly opposed to the teaching of the College, and therefore of the Church; 3rd, that I have been condemned unheard, and that neither my opinions nor my written statements have been examined nor compared with those enunciated by the Provost of Trinity College. On Thursday, the loth November, I saw in the morning issue of the 6r7o6e, a commentary on a pamphlet letter ad- dressed to the Bishop of Huron by me, and which had been withdrawn from circulation. The moment I saw the letter in question I wrote to the editor, explaining that the pamphlet letter had been suppressed, and gave the strongest assurance that it was not written under the sanction of the College ; this was withdrawn by a friend until evening. I fully expected and was prepared to receive a summons from the Provost to wait upon him, and I left town as late in the (lay as I could, hoping that I might have an opportunity of showing to the authorities that no time was lost in taking the 1)1 amo on myself. No message tvas sent to me 5 no intima- tion ivhatever was given that any immediate action on the matter was to l)e taken. I am informed thq,t after the busi- ness of Convocation was over, the Rev. Provost assembled a meeting of the Corporation, and forthwith proceeded to impugn my conduct with reference to the pamphlet, and endeavoured to urge on the Corporation the necessity o^ immediate action, denouncing my doctrinal statements as hostile to the interests of the College and directly at vari- ance ivith his own. A Committee was appointed, and they met on the following day. In the morning, at an interview with two of the gentlemen composing that com- mittee, and to w^hom I am under deep obligation, I was informed that the Corporation had ^'unanimously disavowed and repudiated doctrinal statements put forth by me.'' 1 accordingly placed in the hjinds of the gentlemen above referred to the following communication, in place of the one first sent to the Globe, and which was submitted at half-past five o'clock to the deputation from the Corporation author- ised to receive from me an exoneration of the College from any connection at all with my writings : — ii. {To the Editor of the Globe.) '' Sir, — I beg leave to contradict an error into which your correspondent ' A Protestant Churchman' has fallen, in alluding in his letter in your issue of yesterday to a ' pamphlet letter to the Bishop of Huron,' circulated by me. Such a letter I admit I wrote, but its circulation on consideration I sup- [)ressed, beyond a few copies which I gave to private friends, through the indiscretion of one of whom it can alone have got into the hands of your correspondent. '' With regard at the same time to the views it contains, I am alone responsible for them. I wrote as a private member ! J 5 of the Church, not as a professor of the College ; and whether they are the views of Trinity College or not, you may infer from the following letter to the authorities, which I will thank you to insert. '' I am. Sir, '^ Your obedient servant, '•JAMES BO YELL." ''Toronto, lOthNov., ISfiO. *' To the Reverend the Provost of Trinity College, To- ronto : ' " Rev. Sir, — I regret to learn that the Corporation of Trinity College, at their meeting yesterday, were unanimous in disavowing their agreement with doctrinal views put forth by me in a pamphlet addressed to the Bishop of Huron, but which I afterwards suppressed — as well as repudiating them as the teaching of Trinity College. ''As they are nevertheless my own convictions, and con- scientiously holding them as true, 1 cannot retract or depart from them ; and I feel that I have only one course left me, via., to place in the bands of the College my resignation of the Professor's chair, which I have hitherto held. I will only add that, in taking this step, I am severing a connexion dearer to me almost than life itself. '' I have the honour to be, " Reverend Sir, '' Your obedient servant, ''JAMES BOVELL." My resignation was accepted by the deputation 5 and thus I am placed under the very grave charge of uttering false doctrine. And if this be so, I am indeed guilty of having injured an institution which I ought to have defended, and have become a atone of stumbling and an offence to ray fellow men. The documents were approved by the deputation, and sent to the Globe at a late hour for publication. I gave the letter of resignation on r 01 resignation on the grounds tliat, '^ the Corporation of Trinity College were unanimous in disavowing their agree- ment with doctrinal views put forth by me.'' My Lords, I believe that in the annals even of leligioua controversy, it would be difficult to find a case where a man was condemned for his opinions, not only unheard — not only when he was not present to defend himself, but even when the very document on which he is condemned was not placed before the tribunal before whom he was arraigned, nor com- pared with that from which it was professed that it differed : and yet, my Lords, by such an assembly as the solemn convocation of a University in Council, I am branded before the world and the Church, as a professor of Jalse doctrine^ upon the mere extract from a newspaper. I appeal, my Lords, from this injustice. If the Corporation had in place of repudiating and dis- a,vowing my doctrinal statements, directly deprived me of my professorship for presuming to step into a controversy conducted by such exalted dignitaries as the Lord Bishop of Huron and the Provost, the public would have laughed at me and returned the verdict of *' served him right." But what has been done ? — that which now drives me to defend '* doc- trinal statements " which the Council have sanctioned and avowed in the Provost's letters. And now I pass on to the averment of the Provost, that there is such a difference between the doctrinal statements which I have put forth, and those also put forth by the sanction and under the full authority of the College, that it was necessary publicly to repudiate mine. A close examination of the opinions which were advanced in the ^'letter" would have convinced the Provost, and have satis- fied the Corporation that those opinions were not only not contrary to[the doctrines of the Church of England, but were Buch as no Christian would say placed in jeopardy the soul of him who holds them. Omitting the personal allusions to the Bishop of Huron, which I very much regret having used, and which were not intended as mere angry invective, I extract from the suppressed letter the condemned doctrinal opinions, as well as state- ments which were in that letter, and to one of which the Pro- vost properly objects, and was an accidental error on my part. THE ErnURTST. '^ The Church Catechism teaches us that in a sacrament ^^ there is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us.*' In baptism the water and Christ's words of consecration are the outward sign and the inward grace, the Holy Spirit ; and in the Holy Eucharist, the bread and wine, and the words of iristitution, are the outward signs •, and the objective and therefore spiritual and real presence of Christ according to His own promise and word jriven to us is the inward thing signified. Now we will take the latter sacrament for explanation, — first : ^*In construing Ihe meaning of the words of our Lord, the papist declares that they are to be taken in their plain and literal sense, and that therefore there is in the blessed sacra- ment a material change into the carnal ])ody and blood of Christ. ''The Catholic Church, when primitive and pure, as when reformed and purified at the Reformation, says that the words of Christ are Spirit and are to be understood as spirit, where- fore it is taught that there is such a reordering of the elements by ''the Word " as makes them efficacious to convey to us after a spiritual and heavenly manner the body and blood of Christ ; for says Dr. Pusey, (pray, my Lord, do not start at the name, for his work is a glorious refutation of Romish error, and will be a standard work for our Church,) neither re-order nor re-fashion^ in their etymology or their usage, express or imply any change of the substance, but the con- trary, to re-order, re-fa*hion, expresses a re-arrangement of that which is; an ordering for some other end, which is e.vactltj our belief of the consecrated elements, as the out- ward visible signs of the inward substance." Thus as the bread and wine by God's appointment are made ordinarily to nourish the carnal body, so the word of the same God may make them also the means of conveying the divine energy to 8 the spiritual man — even the energy from Christ's glorified BODY FROM BEFORK THE HEAVENI.Y ALTAR. WhoSO Cateth this bread and drinketh this cup ivorthili/, doth really receive Christ. The wicked receive Him not, they drive Him away, reject Him, and receive that which was an instrument of good to their condemnation. Virtue goes not out for them; the multitude pressed upon Him insomuch that they marvelled, the woman only was healed ; and he doth know whom he healeth. Our Lord's body is now in heaven, a glorified l)ody; a glorified humanity ; it is there before the Father's throne pleading and interceding for lost men — there is the only real propitiatory sacrifice that was ever offered. The REPRESENTATIVE SACRIFICE of Him here on earth is to set forth his death, that like as they of old did lay their hands on the representative victim to be slain, so we representing in MEMORiAf. the slain Christ before t^ 3 Father, may receive and eat Christ crucified, for the bread and wine after consecration are so re-ordered to a new use, that they become instruments whereby from heaven is sent into the soul of the penitent receivei^ the energy, the divine life, the glorified humanity, the body and blood of Christ, the life of Christ, like rays from the great sun of heaven, to warm and vivify the life of the soul.* It is possible to convey to the mind some definite con- ception of the doctrine of '' the rejil presence " by viewing it as the Fathers, did as '^ Objective "; to be 'Hhe perception of an existing thing.''' To illustrate, — Greek philosophy, no less than Greek art, was eminently objective : now what is the objective theory, but the tendency to form our conceptions into perceptions; to project our ideas out of us, and then to look at them as images or as entities; carry this into the domain of '^ faith," let our conceptions of Christ be percep- tions, and do we not then that which St. Paul requires, ** ap- prehend Christ," or rather '' discern the Lord's Ijody." Jesus is the sole object in the sacrament ; the eye of faith rests upon, the hand of faith reaches unto Him. '^ Again, let us look to the meaning of the term objectire, — relating to the object ; contained in the object ; extrinsic ; — relating to the object of thought, and not to the thinker; o] ^)Osed to, subjective : having the quality of coming in the way; as ^^ objective certainty;" i. e. certainty in outward *Rev. chap. v. verse 6, ^r IIFIED eateth eceive away, "good J the relied, )m he orified ither's the The to set hands things, ill distinction from subjectire certainty, whicli lies in the mind itself. Objective certainty is when tiie i)ro})osition is certainly true in itself, and subjective when Me are certain of the truth of it. The one is in tilings, tii<.' other is in our minds. Objective is now used to descril)e tiie absohite independent state of a thing ; but l)y the eiihn- nieta|)hysioiaiis to the aspect of things, as '• objcct.s of .^aisc or understand in such sense, th(! penitent I'hristian realizes with the eye of faith, ^Hhe ol)ject'' of the blessed sacrament to him, not as a mere carnal, but as '^ a spiritual l)eing," the bodv and blood of Christ are before him : in the ribaldry and blasphemy that swell up from the deriding crowd surrounding the cross, he hears but the echo of the tumult of his own sins, in the agony and out-poured blood, the ie(lem})tion, the only atonement for bis sins. Timk and si'ace are not — the spiritual man sees Christ crucitiet! h«' feels the effect of that lieavenly, holy presence, sacrificed and before the i^'ather, which teaches him to exclaim, '' truly this is iho Son of God." '' We openly differ from the llonian Catholic Chuvch, in that we receive the doctrine of the luicharist as declared out of Scripture, to be the memorial of thi: skcrifkk of ihe death of Christ, and not only the memorial of the death of Christ, we accept it as the Saviour instituted it, as a mkmohiai. or REPRESENT ATIVK SACIll IKE, and nOt a rROPITIATORV .SACRIFICE. We commemorate tliiit which Christ did when He made the oblation of jiimsei.k on that night on which he was betrayed, when '" he took bread and brake it, and gave to His disciples, saying take eat, this is My body," and we in- clude and look with agony and grief on the awful guilt and sin with which we nailed him to the cross : for the slaying of the sacrifice was the bloody wicked work o Satan and a sin- cursed race. V/e thus from Scrij)ture prove that there is a commemorative sacrifice of the death of Christ, in direct contradistinction to the ''Propitiatory sacrifice of the Papist." If the day should ever come when we may not declare these truths, woe be to the Church. \ Yet, it is not only at that most awful moment when we receive the outward elements, that we alone realize the presence of the Saviour, it is not only tiieii, that faith brings to us the Substance of things hoped for, it is in the whole 10 celebration of that sublime sacrifice of praise and tliankcgiv- insr, when in one srreat and crlorious act of adoration — which even in t his world of trial the soul entei-s on- -we bow before the Lamb that was slain. — See Rei\ Chap. v. 6, :o 14 v.* It was sfiven to St. John to see with illumined vision some- what of the adoration given to the Lamb of God. " And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, havin^^ seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth, .u-. w^; v*:-: And he came and took the book out of the hand ot him that sat upon the throae. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the piayers of the saints. "' *' ^'^" '' And they sung a new song, saying. Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation ; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the ^arth. ^^;i>i-ri And I beheld, and I heard the voice of manv angels round about the throne and the beasts and the eldei-s : and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and strength, and honour, and glory and blessing. .», t, w^♦^ And every creature which is in heaven, and on the eartl , and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. * - • This paragraph I add : it was not in the printed letter. 11 And the four beavSts said amen, and the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever." Ls the heart of the faithful servant of Christ never elevated, by thai; Spirit which alone teache.s aright, to enjoy with wrapt delight some dim and distant glimpse it may be, even of that intensefied glory and worship which was given to the Lamb that was slain ? God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth, ^'for our conversation is in heaven." Every act of true devotion, every truthful effica- cious prayer, every act of true reverence, must be done in spirit and in truth. Xo man, T care not what his religious sentiments, enters even God's house without feeling in some measure subdued : in spirit he feels that he is more immediately before that uns'^en Presence " that dvvelleth not in temples made bv hands," but vet who hath set his name there in the place where his honour dwelleth, and is present when two or three are gathered together in his name ; anody." Since ))y the special appointment of my (jiod these representatives of Him, the elements, even the oldation, are brought in for His clnn-ch, and among the rest forme. 1 must mind what Tsiael did when the cloud filled the tabernacle. I will not fail to worship (Jod aa soon as these sacraments, and ^'(ros2)el clouds" appear in the sanctuary. Neither the ark, nor any clouds, were ever adored in Israel ; 12 m hut sure it is, the ark was considered quite otherwise than an ordinary chest, and the cloud than a vapour, as soon as God had hallowed them to be the si^ns of His presence. There- fore, as the former people did never see the Temple or the cloud, but that presently at that sight they used to throw them- selves on their faces, so I will never behold t^ese surer and better sacraments of the glorious mercies of God, but as soon as I see them used in His Church to that holy purpose that Christ has consecrated them to, I will not fail to realize my Saviour whom these sacraments do represent. Such is the language of one of England's great divines. May such a spirit of fer- vent contemplation ever be vouchsjifed to me and every Christian brother. Now it will be seen by reference to the language employed that it is distinctly held 'Hhatth^ words of Christ are Spirit and are to be understood as Spirit, that the Eucharist is therefore a spiritual not carnal service, and that the elements are not changed but set apart for a new use without any cHAxciE OF SUBSTANCE, that our Lord's body is now in heaven, a glorified body, a glorified humanity ; it is there before the Father's throne pleading for lost men, — there is the ONLY REAL propitiatory sacrifice of Him that was ever offered, and that the faithful receiver doth receive when he takes that bread and that wine — not in them, not under them but by them — not from the earthly altar, not from the breadj not from the cup, but from Heaven is sent into the soul of the faithful receiver, the energy, the divine life, the glorified hu- manity, the body and blood of Christ, the life of Christ, like rays Jrom, the great sun of heaven to warm and vivifi/ the life of the soul," such my Lords are some of the doctrinal statements unanimously condemned by the Col- lege Corporation. I now turn to the authorised statements of the College as set forth l)y the Provost in his larger letter to the Lord Bishop I 13 ban an as God There- or the w them- rer and soon as t Christ Saviour nguage of fer- l every aployed Spirit larist is lements Ut ANY heaven, ^ore the is the offered, kes that but bj adj not I of the fied hu- Christ, m and of the le Col- /-« I of Toronto; section vi. is entitled ^^Participation in the glorified humanity of our Lord by means of the sacrament of the hordes Supper.'' Here in capital letters bold and clear it is stated that we have a participation in the glorified humanity of our Lord by means of the sacrament ot* the Lord's Supper and it is said that for the sake of the Collego, for the sake of truth, &c. I proceed to shew that Mr. Proc- tor's doctrine is the doctrine of our great divines, that they regard the "glorified humanity'' of our Lord as the source from which all grace is immediately derived to man, and worthy participation of the Lord's Supper as the appointed means of communion with that humanity. The Provost then quotes and says : The following extracts from l^ishop llidley go more expressly to show that the Humanity of our Lord is partici- pated by means of the Holy Communion : "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 unto the latter day, when he shall come again in glory, accompanied with the angels in heaven, to judge both the quick and the 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, that to all who 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 v.ill of man, but are born of (Jod, though 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 meet for our pilgramage here npon 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 i)lacc 14 out of the heavens, is yet present here by his beams, light, and natural influence wliere it shineth upon tlie earth. For God's word and his sacraments be, as it were, the beams of Christ, wjiich is Sol Justitice, the sun of righteousness. Bp. Ridley's Treatise against Transubstantiation- Works, Parker's Society, page 13. "Of Christ's real presence tliere may be a double understanding. If you take the real presence of Christ according to the real and corporal substance which he took of the Virgin, that presence being in heaven, cannot be on earth also. ]3ut if you mean a real presence, ' secundum rem ifliffuam qucB ad corpus Chrisii pertinet,'' i. e., according to somethhig that appertaineth to Christ's body, certes the ascension and abiding in heaven are no let at all to that presence, wherefore Christ's body, after that sort, is here present to us in the Lord's supper ; by grace, I say, as i^^piphanius speaketh it." Bp. Ridley's Disputation at OxJ'ord. Works, Parker Society's Publications, page 213. Uidley's view seems to be fully borne out by the following iitatement of Calvin: '•' '^ '" '^Another disputed point relates to the term 'spiritually,' from which many shrink, because they conceive that it denotes something imaginary and unreal. It is consequently necessary here also to have recourse to a definition. Spiritual eating then is op})osed to carnal, by which some imagine that the very substance of Christ is transfused into us, just as bread is eaten. On the contrary, the body of Christ is said to be given to us in the supj)er si)iritually, because the secret energy of the Holy Spirit occasions that things, which are locally distant, are united with each other, and accordingly that life penetrates from liear en to us from the flesh of Christ; which power and capacity of vivifying might not unsuitably be styled something derived (r/^.s7/7/c/«»0 from the substance, l^rovided that this be soundly and aptly understood, that is to sav, that the ])ody of Christ remains in heaven, and yet life from its substance Hows forth and reaches unto us who are ])ilgrims upon earth.'* Joan. Calvin. De vera participatione Christi in C(.2na. Opera, vol VIIL, p. 714, Amstelodami, 1857. u These authorities tippear to me i'ully to estahh'sh the sound- ness of the doctrine a<^ receiving of it by us u meaiis whereby He night 'dwell in us, and we in him ;' He taking our llesh, and ^e receiving His Spirit; by His flesh which He took of us [eceiving His Spirit which He imparteth to m-, that, as he V. 16 1 ! l)y ours became ^ consors humancB naturcBy so we by Him Ymg\iih(icoTi\Q consort es DiviruBnaturce J 'partakers of the Divine nature.' " Bishop Andrewes^ Sermons. 1st Sermon on the Nativity, vol. L, p. 10. Oxford. And again, Nor may we, by broken mductions, gathered from the effects or etiicacy of natural bodies, or created substances upon other bodies, take us to limit or bound the efficacy of Christ's body upon the bodies or souls which he hath taken to his pro- tection. We may not collect, that Christ's body, because comprehended within the heavens, can exercise no real oper- ation upon our bodies or souls here on earth ; or that the live influence of his glorified human nature may not be diffused through the world as he shall be pleased to dispense it, or to sow the seeds of life issuing from it, sometimes here, some- times there. '^ This real, though virtual influence of Christ's human nature, is haply that which the Lutherans call the real ufn- ijuitary presence of Christ's body. Luther himself never denied Christ's very body or human nature to be compre- hended within the heavens; and yet he affirmed it to be ' present with us in such a manner, as the sound is present with us which is really made or caused a great way from us.' And we may not deny this real influence or virtual presence of Christ to be in a manner infinite 5 or at least to extend itself to a!l created substances that are capable of it, in what created distance soever they be from his body, whose resi- dence we believe to be in the highest heavens at the right hand of God. f M i ■» ■? ''The only sure anchor of all our hopes for a joyful resur- rection unto the life of glory, is the mystical union which must be wrought here on earth betwixt Christ's human nature glorified, and our mortal or dissoluble nature. The divine nature indeed is the prime fountain of life to all, but though inexhaustible in itself, yet a fountain whereof we can- not drink, save as it is derived unto us through the human nature of Christ." Jackson^ s JVorks, vol. X., pp. 34-30, O.rford, 1844. 17 In letter No. 1, by the Provost, is this quotation from Arch* bishop Usher, ''Yet was it fit also, that this head should l)e of the same nature with the body which is knit unto it ; and therefore that He should so be God, as that He might partake of our flesh likewise. 'For we are members of His body,' saith the bones.' And, saith 'of His flesh, and of His the flesh of the Son of man our same Apostle, * except ye eat Saviour Himself, ' and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.' 'He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.' Declaring thereby, first, that by His mystical and supernatural union, we are as truly con- joined with Him, as the meat and drink we take is with us, when by the ordinary work of nature it is converted into our own substance ; secondly, that this conjunction is immedi- ately made with his human nature^ — Usher's Works, vol. IV., p. 608, — (see also page 617.) " Inasmuch as we doubt r^ot at all that (his body) agreeably to the invariable condition of a human body, is limited, and is contained in heaven, whither it was once for all received, until it return to judgment j even so to draw it back again under these perishable elements, or to imagine that it is every- where present, we hold to be absolutely unlawful. Nor is there indeed any need of this, in order to our enjoying participation of him, since the Lord bestows upon us through his spirit this benejit, that we should be made one with himse0] 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 himselj 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 generate, 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 spirit. One passage will suffice for many. For St. Paul, in the 8th chapter to the Romans, says that Christ dwells in us no other- wise than by his spirit, by which statement however he does not set aside that communion of his flesh and blood of which we are now speaking, but teaches us that it is c I, 1 ! 18 J ( . effected by the spirit alone that we should possess Christ in his entireti/^and have him remaining in ws." Joan Calvin. Jnstitutionum Liber JV., cap. XVII. ^ 11, 12. Opera, vol. IX.j pp. ?>67-8, Amstelodami, 16G7. I never read this opinion of Calvin's until it appeared in the "approved letter:" the ideas and phraseology are so close to those employed in the " condemned letter " that it might have led to the inference that they were borrowed. Here are five extracts from the Provost's own letter. Now comparing the doctrinal statements above sanctioned by the Corporation, and used by the learned author in support of his teaching, with the views unanimously disavowed and repudiated by them as appearing in my letter, it is left to some abler mind than mine to tell wherein I diifer from the teaching authorised by the college, and I will add, sanctioned by an array of English divines, dating from the time of the Reforma- tion to the present hour : nor do I think that anything which I have recorded in the letter justifies the Vice-Provost in addressing the students with the remarks. **I must add that the satisfaction is very greatly increased by the discretion which you have shown in your choice of the manner of your support. You have, I think, most wisely and most properly confined yourselves to mere matters of fact; you have not ventured into the arena of polemical divinity. The reason, I take, of your abstaining from so rash a step is that you have learned enough of such matters to know the danger of it. You know how delicate a matter a theological discussion is to deal with. You know how the utterance of a very few words on such solemn matters — words of which the writer may not be able to see the force — may carry a man, and those for whom he is arguing, completely over from one school of doctrine to another ; a danger of which we have had a very painful illustration in a case which hai, I fear, ended iu a loss to the College, which we cannot but look upon as the most deplorable result of this unhappy controversy." These remarks made public on the 22nd Nov. are quite characteristic of the treatment which has been meted out td- 19 one, who was but lately a Professor in Trinity College, but wh© is now considered guilty of rashness, and pronounced before the whole class of graduates as not capable of understanding the force of his own words. Christian forbearance would have suggested that '' A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger." Proverbs, cap. xv. 6. In Prof. Irving' s address, I am made to appear in the most unfavourable light. Dr. Pusey and Arch-Deacon Denison are prominently named, in order to she that if not worse than them, at all events I am in the same boat with them. With many others, I venerate the first named Divine for that instruction on the doctrine of the incarnation and atonement which has been to me a source of unspeakable delight and consolation, and I am not ashamed to confess that his arsru- ments against the dogmas of trausubstantiation, and consub- stantiation, opened my eyes to the truth, and settled me firm in the faith, as held by the Church of England. Towards Arch-deacon Denison I have not the same affectionate regard, because I am not well acquainted with his writings, nor do 1 hold his views with reference to the relation which the wicked have towards the blessed Sacrament, since they do not seem to be consonant with those of Scripture or any number of the Divines of our Church — so far therefore from being at all terrified at l)eing supposed to draw water from the fountain which Dr. Pusey has opened ; I am as ready to confess my obligations to him, as either the Provost or Prof. Irving are now, to John Calvin. The tendency of the present day, is to trust too exclusively to party leadei-s, and not to accept aids to truth which are not fashioned after a certain pattern j, Fenelon and Calvin, Wesley and Pusey may each have some- thing to say, and are messengers to present to us truth in some peculiar aspe-H. But while I openly profess to have derived convictions from Dr. Pusey, neither the Vice-Provost nor any one else has the right deliberately to hand me over body 20 and soul to a particular Appollos without having the candour to show the j)lain simple grounds on which he does so. I feel thankful that the graduates and undergraduates in their address, did not adopt the manner of defence which the Vice-Provost assumed — that they had the justice not to pre- judice my cause — and that '' in a delicate matter" they have escaped the rash use of words ^' of which they may not have felt the full force." With the view still further to remove from the mind of the Provost and Corporation the impression that has been made by the Vice-Provost that I belong to another school, in the words of the author of that excellent work, '^ The Second Adam," I will confess that, the second Adam must not only atone for the guilt. He must also be a fountain of healing to His brethren, as His prototype was a fountain of corruption. How was this to bo, seeing the second Adam was born when the earth was peopled with myriads of a sinful race ? It could not be in the way of nature, seeing that mankind, by the very condition of their being could have but one origin 5 they could only spring from one man, because that God originally created but one, and having derived their being from this one, they could not be born by way of nature from another. If in this respect, Jesus Christ, the second Adam, was to answer the first (i. e., if He was to be an Adam at all,) if His unde filed human nature was to l)e to mankind, or any part of them, a principle of life counteracting the death received from the human nature of the first Adam, this could not be in the way of nature 5 it must be effected supernaturally. If this was to be, the nature of the Lord Jesus must be made so that it could be imparted to, and diffused amongst. His brethren, and means must also l)e taken to diffuse it. That Christ's nature was so constituted (after his resurrec- tion at least) that it could l)e imparted is expressly asserted in 1 Cor. xv. 45 : " The first Adam was made a livinor souk 21 the last Adam was made a quickening (i. e., a life-imparting) spirit." His body received by God's almighty power, not only the properties of a spirit, but that His very body became life-diffusing as well — '4here is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body," for says Hooker,* ^'doth any man doubt but that even from the flesh of Christ our very bodies do receive that life which shall make them glorious at the latter day, and for which they are already accounted parts of His blessed body. Our corruptible bodies could never bear the life they shall live, were it not that here they are joined with His body which is incormptible, and that His (body) is in ours as a cause of immortality, a cause by removing through the death and merit of His own flesh, that which hindered the life of ours. Yet the mixture of His flesh with ours through mystical conjunction, as the Fathers say, receive from that vital efficacy which we know to be in His 5 and from bodily mixtures they borrow divers similitudes rather to declare the truth than the manner of coherence between His sacred body and the sanctified body of saints." BAPTISM. • • The doctrinal statement with reference to this Sacrament in '' the condemned letter" is as follows : — With reference to the other great sa<':?rament— Baptism — Using the authority of Saint Paul, he says that the invisible things of creation are plainly seen from the things thiit are, &c., so be it. The seed of the wild plant is even the seed of a cursed tree ; so long as it remains in the forest or in the uncultivated field it retains its wild nature, but transplanted into the garden, or brought into cultivation under the influence of man's improving power, it is then put into a new state, and surrounded by those external influences which are capable to effect progressive improvement, it be- * Ecclesiastical Polity, Book v. cap. yi. sec. 7. ■A I I I I i l\ I 22 ; i comes a new thing, it has a useful and vigorous life. Are we worse than plants — less cared for than the lilies ol the field ? God forbid ! The child that is baptised, is baptised into Christ's death ; is buried with him ; by baptism is planted in the garden of Christ's nature, his agony and death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead, so it also may rise to new life in Christ. Adam's guilt is put away and Christ's righte. ousness and nature is imparted, and in the soul of the receiver is implanted a capacity to live the life of Christ. Predestinated and fore-known, the baptised is called to Christ ; God's preventing grace is given, and he is required to fight manfully that he may make his calling and election sure. It is not the question whether' the doctrine of baptismal regeneration is found in the fore-front of scripture or not ; the question is, " does the Church ot England in her service book, and in her prayers, speak of and teach the doctrine?'* We answer that the Prayer Book is full of the doctrine, it is openly taught, not only in the baptismal service, but it is set forth in the collects and in the homilies ; it is breathed out in the Church's fervent prayers. Indeed no honest man can say that the doctrine is not most glaringly set forth in the Prayer Book. Let us then see what this horrible term is, this ''regeneration" so stoutly called in question. It would appear that the whole difficulty arises from confusing the two terms ''regeneration" and "renewal ;" terms and states which by the Prayer Book are kept perfectly distinct. In an admirable essay on the sacrament of Baptism, the authoi-, who is delivering the doctrine from Scripture and the prayer ]5ook, thus speaks : C. If God tells us any thing plainly and distinctly, we must take good heed that we do not fritter away the meaning of what He says, by applying to it such terms as metaphorical, hypothetical, figurative, &c. Here are the passages : — •^3 ""J Kxe we s field? id into nted in lat like to new righte. of the Christ. Christ -, to fight are. ftptismal or not; : service ctrine?" :ine, it is t it is sel thed out man can ;h in the term is, It would using the ind states 5t. In an le author, ;he prayer T. St. John's Gospel iii. again, he cannot see the kingdom of (lod. nctly, we e meaning aphorical. '' Except a man be born Nicodonuis saith unto Him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his motlier's womb, and be born ? Jesus answered. Verily, verily, T say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." H. St. Matthew xxviii. 19, 20. <' Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Qhost : teach- ing them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- manded you : and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.'' HI. St. Markxyi. 16. "He that believeth and is bap- tised shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned." IV. Acts ii. 37-39. " Men and brethren, what shall we do ? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ ^r the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy GhG3t. For the promise is unto you and to your children," &c. |V. Acts xxii. 10 and 1(), ''And I said, what shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto me, x\rise, and go unto Damascus ; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do. And now, why tarriest thou? arise and be baptised, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord." 1. Romans vi. 1, 2, 3, 4. '^What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound ? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us. as as were baptised, were baptised into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death ; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." \\i, Colossians ii. 12, 13. ^^ Buried with Him in bap- tism wherein also ye are risen with Him through the 24 P' i faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins, and the uncirenmcision of your flesh, hath He quickened tof^ether with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses." iii. 1. — '*If )'e thou be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. F07' ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." YIll, Ejshesians y. 25 J 26. ''Husbands, love your wives, even as. Christ also loved the Church, and gave Him- self for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." IX. Titus iii. 5. '' Not by works of righteousness which we have aone, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewinjir of the Holy Ghost." X. Galatians'm. 26, 27. ''For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ." XI. Hebrews x. 21. 22. "Having an High-Prieot over the house of God 5 let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.'' XII. 1 St. Peter iii. 21. " The like figure whereunto, even Baptism doth also now save us (not the putting %- away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience tov/ard God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." - -, ■ . Xin. 1 Corinthians x. 1, 2, 3,4,5, G, 11. "Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea ; and were all baptised unto Moses in the cloud ana In the sea ; and did all eat the same spiritual meat ; and did all drink the same spiritual ^ drink ; for they drank of that spiritual rock tliat fol- ' lowed them ; and that rock was Christ," &c. "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples 5 and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." 25 ■-■■ f XIV. 1 Corinth'am xii. 12, 13, 27. ^'For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, bein/^ many, are one body : so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptised into one body, whether we bo Jews or Gentiles, whether we be T)ond or free ; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. . . . Now ye are the body cf Christ and members in particular.*' Here arc the fourteen i)assu.2jea In which salvation and re- mission of sins, union imih Christ, and being brought into Chirsfs body are connected with baptism •, I might have added several more, but T was desirous to confine myself to passages containing a direct allusion to the sacrament. D. I allow that many of thtse passages seem to favour the doctrine you draw from them ; respecting some, however, I am not able to see in what way you make them support your view. I grant that the greater part do connect salvation in some way or other with baptism ; still, two objections occur to my mind respecting tliem : one is, that a number of other })assages may be brought of a contrary tendency ; the other, that they refer to the baptism of adults, believing Christians of mature age, and not to that of infants. C, As to your first objection. To do away with the force of what our Lord says to Nicodemus respecting baptism, one must be expressly told that, in spite of our Lord's own words, a man need not bo ''born of water and of the Spirit" to enter the kingdom of (lod. Again, with reference to Acts xxii. IG, if we could find it any whore asserted that St. Paul was cleansed from his sins before his ])aptism — when he first repented or prayed, for instance — then we might say that one pacsage was neutralized by another ; l^ut which, I ask, should we then be called upon to believe? And so with respect to Romans vi. 1-4. Jf in another ])asRago of that epistle we found that not all the Romans who had l)eon baptised had been ''buried with Christ" in ba])tism, — that not so ^^many of them as had been ba[)tisod into Jesus Christ had been baptised into his death," and consequently "buried with Him l)y baptism into death, tliat like as lie was raised from the dead by the glory of tlio l^'athor, even so they also should walk in newness of life." — but only a part of thcm^ who lived answerably to their Christian profession, had been so 26 II co-buried and co-raised with Him 5 then there would be a real contradiction in the Apostle's words. But mark what would be the consequence : St. Paul is urging against the abuse of God's grace, and he uses an argumeit that reaches all to whom he addresses himself. All wore in his view buried with Christ in baptism, i. e., baptism communicated to all a real interest in Christ's death, made them partakers of it, in order that all the baptised might ''walk in newness of life." If only a part of them had been buried with Christ in their baptism, the great all to live holy lives, while the Apostle urges from the fact ol each one's baptism being a burial with Christ unto death, would not be applicable to all. The men who were inclined to abuse God's grace by continuing in sin that grace might abound, would say, '* This does not apply to us. Baptism in our case was only a form. It conveyed no gra^efor which we are responsible. We may now live on according to the dictates of our natural hearts, until we receive some future baptism of the Spirit to give us a saving interest in Christ." D. Do not think 1 would willmgly disparage any one pas- gage of God's Word ; but I am not convinced that all these passages refer to the outtvard rite of baptism. May not some of them allude to a baptism of the Spirit independent of the application of water ? C Let us take the first of these passages ; our Lord's words to Nicodemus : '' Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of Uod." If our Lord here does not allude to baptism by water, to what can He possibly allude ? He cannot surely intend to mislead His Church by connecting the new birth, i. e., if God does not make it his instrument for conveying the grace of regenera- tion. If the passage alludes to spiritual conversion at some period of life when the reasoning powers arc fully developed, some change of hopes, views, affections, and desires, (which in modern phrase is called le general ion.) why does our Lord mention water at all ? for, according to your view of these matters, water as an outward sign, is no means in affecting this ; and mark, too, what is most important, that the mention of water occurs in the second answer of our Lord to Nicodemus, not in the first. Our Lord Jirst an- swered Nicodemus by saying, " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God f and when Nicodemus li •JI»!!WW«JJiPii 27 asks for an explanation, in the words, ^* How can a man be born when he is old ? '' our Lord then answered, '^Exc pt a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God/' He explains being '^1)orn again,^' bj the phrase ^^ being J)orn of ivater and of the Spirit.'^ If the order had been inverted, — if our Lord had said in the frst instance, '^ Except a man be born of the water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,'' and, on Nicodemus asking for an explanation, He had said, ''except a man be born again," omitting all mention of water, — in that case it might be said that our Lord intended to qualify his previous assertion, so as to make the outward sign, in all cases, not necessary to the new birth. But the passage in the Word of God is exactly the contrary, and leads us to a conclusion from which we cannot possibly escape. D. But does it follow from our Lord's woreated sin, before they arrived at the promised land. St. Jude, in his epistle, in a similar passage, applies the word '^ saved^^ to the deliverance of the Israelites : ''' I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, kow that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed them that believed not." Both Apos- tles, then, bring before their converts the e"^T,mple of a multi- tude of persons whom (lod saved, and yet they finally attained not the end for which He saved them. He saved them from Egyptian bondage, from Pharaoh and his host, and brought them into the wilderness, for the very purpose of giving them the promised land 5 but, in the words of the Psalmist, '' they thougjit scorn of that pleasant land, and gave no credence unto His word." The Apostle would warn the Corinthians by their example ; but how is he to do this ? The salvation of the Israelites was a salvation from slavery in brick-kilns, from a bondage of the outward man ; the salva- tion of the Corinthians was, on the contrary, of a spiritual nature, altogether from spiritual foes, from the guilt and pun- ishment of sin. How then can St. Paul show any likeness between these two salvations, so as to make the one a figure or type of the other, and thus induce his Corinthian converts to ''take heed" after the example of the Israelites? One being, so to speak, a salvation in the visible j the other in the invisible world. He does so in this way. You observe how he uses the word all — '' all our fathers,"— '' all passed 29 through the sesi,'' — '^rt// were l)a})tiye(l/' Now between all the Israelites and all the Corinthian Christians there was but one point of rcsenibhinee, and that we may call a sacramental one. Every Israelite, without exception, was baptised to Moses in the iled Sea ; every Corinthian Christian was bap- tised into Christ. St. Paul seizes on this one resemblance for his purpose. The baptism of the Israelites in the Red Sea was their salvation ; it was the thing by which, and the moment at which, they were saved from Pharaoh; and all, without exception, who partook of the Red Sea baptism were thus saved — those who perished in the wilderness equally partook of the salvation with those few who resisted the temptations of the wilderness, passed Jordan, and entered into rest. The baptism of the Corinthians must have been to each one qflhem a corresponding salvation, a salvation answering to the different dispensation under which they lived, or St. Paul could not have brought the whole body of the Israelites as an example to the whole body of the Corinthian ('hurch. If the Corinthians had not all been brought into a real state of salvation at their baptism, how could any com- parison be instituted between them and a body of men, all of whom had, at their baptism, been so signally delivered from bondage and death, and translated into liberty ?" Is the bai)tism of John still continued in the Church, or has it been supplanted by the baptism wherewith Christ was l)aptised? For John testifieth that in the latter baptism, '' he that sent me to baptise with water, the same said unto me. Upon whom thou slialt see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, the same is He which baptiseth with the Holy Ghost.'' Again : Does not this show us, that if we deprive the sacrament of what God has joined to it, viz., its saving grace, we deprive ourselves of the power of making use of it as a motive to holiness ; and that if we restrict the reception of grace to those who afterwards improve that grace, we are utterly un- able to apply the sacrament, as a motive to holiness, to those to whom the apostle applied it, that is, to those who moat needed it — to men who, so far from improving grece given, i::! i m ■ 'm I f^ n 80 r i were taiiij)erHig with idolatry, and defiling their bodies with gross sin ? Such as these St. Paul was alluding to when he wrote this part of the epistle, for he had said a little before to these same persons, ^'Flee fornication," (chap. vi. 18,) and in the fourteenth verse of this chapter, ''Flee from idolatry," and both on the same ground, that they had been made ''the body of Christ." (Chap, x, 17.) If the baptism of such as these had been of no present efficacy, as some would assert, because they afterwards showed themselves to be unstable, or sensual, how could the Apostle have made the use of it he did ? His argument for present holiness because of past deliverence, AND THE RESPONSIBILITY THEREBY INCURRED, would fall to the ground, and be utterly inapplicable to the case of the very individuals for whose especial warning he was writing at the time. Surely it cannot "be dangerous in the extreme" to hold this doctine. So soon as the priest has washed the child by command of Christ, in the " laver of regeneration," in the sanctified water, i. e., water set apart as the out- ward visible sign of the inward spiritual grace "given unto us,"* so soon as this is done, he is directed by the rubric of the church to address the congregation in the following words : — " Seeing now dearly beloved brethren that this child IS regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church, let us give thanks to Almighty God for these benefits j and with one accord make our prayers unto him, that this child may lead the rest of this lite according to his beginning ^ What benefits ? Is it not put in a state of salvation ? Is Adam's guilt and merited death, his sin not washed away ? In the collect for Christmas day we say; "Almighty God, who hast given us thy only begotten Son, to take our nature ♦*' Sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin. — Baptismal Serv. T add this note as showing that I could use no other term to exprew what the Prayer Book declares. n lPW?W5!H«f»V«^T^ il 31 upon Hinij and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin ; Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily he renewed by Thy Holy Spirit } through the same, our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen." In this sublime prayer, both re- generation and renewal are spoken of as distinct things ; and in the collect for Easter Eve : '' Grant, Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of Thy blessed Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections, we may be buried with Him 5 and that through the grave and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection ; for His merits who died, and was buried, and rose again for us. Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." Under the teaching of St. Paul, the Church thus confi- dently appeals to us as being in a most responsible state, pre- destinated to salvation by a union with Christ, and furnished with the capacity by that union, (effected in baptism,) we are guilty before God of our own souls. We have resisted Him if so be we fall, and have driven Him away from our souls and bodies. — "Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear My words. Then I went down to the Potter's house, and behold He wrought a work on the wheels, and the vessel that He made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter ; so He made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it*" and are not we marred vessels ? were we not in Adam sadly marred ? are we not in baptism again made other vessels as seemeth good to our Potter, Christ and the Spirit, to make us ? The free grace of God thus given to us, not for any merits of our own, — for ot His own free will begat he us — James, chap, i., v. 8, enables each one who has received the gift, ** daily to advance in godliness:" but ''if it do evil in My sight, that it obey not my voice, (implying that there is the i„ m 1 ; ■ ; i n m tii S"^ 32 power to obey,) then will I repent of the good where- with I said I would benefit them." — Is. chap, xviii. The baptised man taught to know that the Holy Spirit has im- planted in him a capacity to live in Christ, and Christ prom- ising to feed him with His life-giving body and blood, and daily to renew him by the Holy Spirit, rises refreshed and strengthened from every act of ol)edience, he knows and feels the awful responsibility that is on him, and dreads to pollute the garment of Christ, which has been put upon him 5 but if he neglect all these, and cast away the gift of God, he is as Judas or they of Sodom. REMISSION OF SINS IN BAPTISM. We are brought under covenant with Christ by Baptism. — On His part he puts away Adam's sin, which we by nature inherit, and plants us into His death, giving us the capacity to grow unto His likeness. If we live according to His Spirit, we are receivers of the reward of that clause of the covenant which is of mercy. If we do evil, and repent not of that evil, we fall under the clause which declares to us our damnation — He will certainlv perform His promise — so in the language of the creed, ^'I believe one baptism for the remission of sins." " What sparkles in that lucid flood Ts water, by gross mortals ey'd, But seen by Faith, 'tis blood Out of a dear Friend's side. A few calm words of faith and prayer, A few bright drops of holy dew Shall work a wonder there, Earth's charmers never knew." THE VIRGIN. With reference to the })osition Avhich the ever ]31esso(l Virgin holds in the Church's affections. Throughout the whole subject she is put on a level with and compared to 33 Miriam, in no one sentence is she described as being entitled to more than our human affection and respect, aud because a universal tradition which assigns to her perpettial Virginity, is made known to students, an opinion which Cranmer said was only rejected by '' heretics," forthwith your Lordship discovers the heresy of Maryolatry. INTERMEDIATK STATK. I had not in my '^ condemned letter " said a word about the intermediate state. I believe it. The doctrine is consistent with God's justice and with His mercy — ^It is not the Romish idea of Purgatory ; '^ This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise " was the language of Him of whom St. Peter says — (1. Peter iii. v. 18.,) '^ For Christ also hath once suffered for sin, the just for the unjust ; that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison," and who after his resurrection said, (John;20 xvii,) ^Uouch me not, for I am not yet ascended unto my Father, but go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God and your God." Acts ii. 33-3.5, ^^ Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise ot the Holy Ghost» he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear, for UAVID IS NOT ASCENDED INTO THE HEAVENS : but lie himSclf saith, the Lord said unto my Lord sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Luke xvi. 31. — ''As touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying I am the God of Abraham, and the G od of Isaac, and the God of Jacob j God is not the God of the dead, hut of the living. '^ Christ said unto her, Talitha cumi, dams(0, arise ; and her spirit ml ijl 'It i CAME again. £ ? m Wi i ii 34 r i & ' That the immortal spirit of man does lie sleeping in the grave I cannot believe, it is contrary to my reason to think so, and that God takes the departed spirit to the heaven of heavens — the special presence of the ''I Am,'' or sends it to hell directly, to bring it back to judgment is alike con- trary to his goodness, and his justice. As the soul departs, so shall it be at the judgment day, we are to be judged by deeds done in the body, and rewarded for deeds done in tl ) body, so neither prayers for the dead, nor prayers of the condemned, could they make such for themselves, will avail. ''Fear not them which kill the body, but cannot kill the soul;" and lastly Pearson says, ''the soul of man, which while he lived gave life to the body, and was the fountain of all vital actions, in that separate existence after death, must not be conceived to sleep, or bo bereft or stript of all vital actions, but still to exercise the powers of the understanding and of willing, and to be subject to the affectioiis of joy and sorrow," upon which is grounded the different condition and estate of the souls of men during tlmt time of separation, some of them by the mercy of God being placed in peace and rest, in joy a'ld happiness; others by the same justice of the same God, left to sorrow, pains, and misery." But "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward," for says Pearson, "at the death of man nothing falleth but his body." Man's nature is compound, we are body, soul, and spirit, and St. Paul was willing to depart and be with Christ; he was willing rather to travel and he absent from the body, and to be present and at home with the Lord. We know that nothing imperfect can enter in the im- mediate presence of Jehovah, and altho' blessed spirits may not enter into that perfect bliss (for the consummation of which we pray) which is to be their portion hereafter, i. e., after the final judgment, yet it is dishonouring to God, and a violation of our sense of His absolute perfection, to suppose i# 35 le same that those happy ones are not enjoying, and delighted by, the presence of the Lamb. Christ has under the veil of the flesh shown himself to us, and shall he not show himself to His redeemed ones, altho' they be not in the heaven of heavens. It is the general judgment of the Church, that the soul of Jesus, contradistinguished from his body, after separation from the flesh, was really and truly carried into those parts below, where the souls of men departed were detained. There is nothing which the Fathers agree in more than this, a real descent of the soul of Christ into the habitation of the souls of the departed. It is a fearful thing to lead men to think that the spiritual body is capable of even temporary destruction j the next easy step is a denial of immortality. Charged publicly with holding a belief in the intermediate state as if they were false, I close with the remark that, — ' ''Formerly all persons who rejected, or sought to iiivalidate the statements of our sacred writers, used to profess them- selves opponents of Christianity. But in these days the' same arguments — such as these are — are brought forward by persons professing themselves Christians, and proclaiming their high veneration for the Gospel. It is as if the assail- ants of some fortress should assume the garb of its defenders, and thus obtain admission within its walls, that they might batter them the more easily from without.'' — Whately, p. V2j Evil Angels. There is one point in the pamphlet to which the Rev. Provost very justly takes exception, the term ''fourth" — this is an error, the Church of England I know does not acknowledge the fourth century, as constituting the close of that period of doctrinal purity to which she has ever appealed in contro* versy. I had in my mind Blunt' s excellent and very able writings, and without taking the trouble to refer to him, I used the word ''fourth" instead of third — all I meant wai no .-:t ■S ( that the Church does acknowledge certain Councils as fficumenical, and to those only have I, or had I, any refer- ence, and to those did the Reformers appeal, and to whatever source they appealed I am satisfied. In the letter I say "I was trained to believe that in the Reformers, in the early English divines, and in the Fathers of the church of the first four centuries, I have safe guides to the truth." And in a second place I say the articles and canons of our Church refer for interpretation to the Church of the first four centuries, and to her own standard divines. We believe the Reformation to have secured for us a full re- cognition of divine truth, of holy doctrine therefore, and needs no new Cranmers, or Ridleys, or Latimers to '^develope new ideas." I should have thought my bitterest opponent incapable of so perverting my opinions, as to seize upon the term ^< fourth " as a frightful error. To convince the Corporation that the employment of the term ^^ fourth century " was a clerical error. I here direct their attention to the language employed, first, — *' We believe the Reformation to have secured for us a full recognition of divine truth, of holy doctrine therefore, and needs no new Cranmers, or Ridleys, or Latimers to * develope new ideas.' " And again. ' < "It is to the doctrine contained in the Prayer Book that we must appeal in settlement of controversy; and by that book, sealed with the blood of martyrs and full of truth, we must, as English Churchmen, stand or fall." These avowals are on the very page on which the " fourth century" is named, and yet, as I learn, the Provost charged me with holdmg a belief in the efficacy of prayers for the dead. . . / >^ ABSOLUTION. .; The Bishop of Huron, I know, does not deny the power of Ministerial Absolution as a gift to the Church, but he dreads both the use and I'buse of it, so must every man, but let people understand what its use is as well as its abuse. The Church, obeying the express command of our Saviour to His Apostles, offers to receive, through discreet and duly ordained Ministers, those whose consciences by sin are so disquieted that they cannot apply to themselves the atone- ment of Christ, that by Godly conversation in God's scriptures, and by havmg the mercy of God ^ointcd out, by His own appointed officer, and discovering to them their repentance, God's forgiveness of sin may be proclaimed. Salvation is offered, it is forced on none. So with absolution, and the duty of confession ; it is to be the voluntary act of the re- pentant sinner only. Now, is confession not a much more common practice than is generally supposed? only it is used under another name. Is it not a fact that many persons do go to their clergy, when in distress and suffering from sin ? do they not express contrition and sorrow for their evil lives ? does he not apply to their cases the healing balm of God's Word, and boldly declare to them God's pardon ? Is not this done constantly in the case of prisoners, and persons caught and convicted of crime, and who become penitent? Yet because the Church of Rome has abused the service of con- fession, must every one not of Home discard its benefits ? The voice of an accusing conscience must have vent, and so long as a good God has endowed us with a power of sympathy, which is "brotherly love," so long will we look for a bosom into which, even here on earth, we may pour our griefs, our trials, our struggles, our sorrows, our weakness, our wickedness. Jesus Christ has told His people to confess their sins one to another, and left with His Apostles power to convey to His church, of which they were the foundation stones, and to their successors, the declaration of forgiveness of sin to the penitent — and as long as the Holy ^Catholic and Apostolic Church lasts. His command must remain : — '^ Whosesoever t V I ' .* II 11 38 sins ye remit, Xlity are remitted unto them, and whosesoevei* sins ye retain they are retained." These are not man's words, they are the words of Him who is High Priest and King over His Church — who once had power on earth to forgive sins, and never abrogated that power, but left it to be exercised for Himself by His duly appointed Priesthood. ' r^vt:.^j.--.^,:^:y-^^-.. The Church of England receives every doctrine detailed in the sacred Scriptures. She, therefore, accepts that solemn trust reposed in her by the Saviour Himself. To declare and pronounce to His teople being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins. In obeying this injunction, the Church openly in the congregation declares the message, to the end that all may be moved to repentance, and she has made ample provision for the reception of those who desire to have absolution pronounced for them, when sin so op- presses them that they need be confirmed in their hopes of forgiveness by an assurance from a servant of the Most High, that such is commanded. In the first pla,oe, she has prefixed a rubric to the Com- munion Service, requiring those who intend to go to the sacred feast, to signify their intention to the Priest some time 1)0 fore. Now this is required for many excellent reasons, and among these reasons we may mention: 1st, That the Clergy- man may have an opportunity of knowing something of the communicant, and the communicant may have an opportu" nity of speaking soberly and religiously of his preparation for so awful a service. This watchfulness is necessary, since among the essential acts which the Christian is called upon especially to exhibit, is charity in its scriptural sense : and if the Minister finds this awanting, he is in duty bound to rea- son with and convince the offender, if such should come to him. In the same manner, he would have the opportunity of dealing with sins deep and fatal. The Anglican Church, therefore, contemplates in all that she does, the admission of 39 the penitent to all the privileges of the Gospel of Christ, or his re-admission into that body of which our Lord [is Head. Such intercourse as this, kept up between pastor and flock, would not only tend to the comfort of all true Christians, but would largely increase the number of Christ's disciples, and restore again that wholesome discipline, the want of which has brought such scandal on the Church. How many doubts, how many falterings and backslidings would be prevented, if the intending communicant, or the newly confirmed, would obey the law of their church, by signifying to their pastor, or ''some other discreet minister," their intention to wait on the Lord's altar, so that by counsel and advice, and the neces- sary, ministration of God's word, they may receive the benefit of absolution, their sins forgiven by God, by his declaring, if their repentance is hearty and sincere, and they l)e desirous to receive the Seal of their forgiveness, the partaking of the Eody and Blood of Christ. All this is very different from the Roman confessional, and from the assumed judicial deliver- ance from the sin by that Church. Tu all her services, the necessity of repentance and a life of penitence, if life l)e granted, is set forth as the essential voluntary act and ne- cessity of the applicant for pardon — and no where does the scripture enforce the impenitent — ''We persuade," says the apostle. The use of words under different senses, renders it difficult to convey a truth to those who may be strongly prejudiced against one of the senses in which they have been used. It is so with the terms " confession " and ''absolution." Many can only think of them from a Roman point of view. But, is it not clear that we must necessarily confess our sins when- ever we engage in serious conversation with, and seek the counsel of, our pastor? and is not he authorised to declare and pronounce God's pardon to us, we being penitent, and to admit us to communion with Christ, upon no other terms \\r, il t I (* 40 than those of hearty, honest, deep-rooted sorrow for the whole body of sin ? . It is quite clear both from the Acts of the Holy Apostles as well as from the Epistles, that private admonition was employed in the first case with offenders, in the second, the open rebuke and expulsion of those who scandalized the religion of Jesus. Indeed, from the nature of our Holy Gospel union, it must be so,* for we are brethren — a brotherhood in Christ — one family one body — and each one a member. Christ's servants and ministers are then not over us as lords, but as elder brothers, sent to warn men every where to repent, — sent, as Christ Himself was sent, to give deliverance to the captive, and to heal — not the hard, but the broken and contrite heart. ** As my Father hath sent me, so sctv^ » you." Again, *'Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." If this promise be true, how is Christ to be with us on whom the ends of the world have come, unless he be essentially present in all the offices of His Church. The Son of Man claimed power on earth to forgive sins ; that power He has left with his own servants, to be exercised for Him, and that the power was meant to be effectual, we may be sure for the words are His own. Our Lord designed His Apostles to know the sheep, they were not to be strangers to each other, — when, therefore, it is said that the Apostles only excluded from communion the gross sin- ner, the statement is untrue, atid introduces to us a sad Roman error, the making a distinction between sins which should not be made. Multitude of sins may eat up the soul, and yet to the eye of the world that soul may seem right. Many sin through ignorance, many foolishly, many through careless- ness, — to many, very many such it is an untold blessing if they may but ask counsel and guidance : and how many young persons, in this age of laxity and disregard for authority, look back with thankfulness to the saving consolation which had he! int( whole postles jn was le open gion of union, GOD in ember, [ lords, lere to rerance broken ito the Christ come, of His forgive to be t to be Our i^ere not aid that OSS sin- I a sad [i should and yet [any sin iareless- ssing if y young ty, look ich had 41 been administered to them by the minister of Christ. We believe that holy men of old never would have acted and written as they have done, unless they felt very strongly the great benefit of mutual confession of their sinfulness, and that this severe humiliation is sometimes necessary for the burdened and oppressed soul. The Church of England does not enjoin private confession on her children as an essential act 5 she urges it on those whose consciences are so sorely smitten that they cannot apply to themselves God's mercy to sinners, and she allows it to those who are in doubt and fear. And how does she require them to seek the counsel and advice of the discreet and able minister ? Not by any means after the manner of the Romish confessional. In such case the sinner is catechised as to the manner and form, and mode of each sin, and the very minutest detail is to be given to the confessor. But this is not required by scripture nor by the Church. Let us take that case which the opposers of confession are fond of adducing, as most calculated to arouse the feeling of disgust against confession at all or in any shape . the case of adultery. The sinner dis- covers, or is brought to discover the alarming condition of her soul: remorse and an awakened conscience throw her into a tempest of affliction, and fill her with doubts and fears. 'h.3 goes, or is persuaded to go, to a clergyman. How is she Vi "e received? Is the clergyman to seat her down, and coT-iOnce a series of interroar(lon be extended to such a sinner?" ^ m 42 This open, honest confession, with an open evidence of contrition and sorrow, surely, is what the law re- quires — and it is enough; and the '^discreet and learned minister " does so act, and should so act, with sin and towards sinners, wherever he encounters, them, as to draw out peni- tence with as little of the filth of sin : and now by the healing application of the Word, and good advice, and fatherly help, the way is open for the returning prodigal, to the admission to those blessed privileges which is afforded by being restored to communion with Christ and his Church, The Koman con- fessional is n t the only mode of access to God's ministers: we believe it to m unscriptural one. But no sane man would refuse to acknowledge his faults to his pastor, or refuse to receive most thankfully what God has ordered him as His minister to pronounce, and declare "His remission of the sins of the sincere penitent." This being done, reconciliation with God is positively assured to the true and hearty penitent ; his pardon is sealed, even here on earth, by his partaking of the body and blood of Christ, or on his earnest and hearty desire so to receive Christ. We say again, would that a closer and more frequent intercourse existed between pastor and people than now exists, and that they sought each other's society more than they do, and talked more to each other of Christ and His kinirdom. We would further remark that the law of God makes no difference in sin, so that when confession is made with a view to absolution and full reconciliation with God, it is idle to talk of forgiveness for this or that sin. It is quite true that in some cases restitution has to bs made and the pardon of those we have wronged has to be sought ; but abso- lution or reconciliation, to bo truly effectual, is to be the absolution of the penitent from his sins, — this is particularly the case with the sick person who, according to the rubric, should be moved to make acknowledgment of his sins, with a view, no doubt, to humility and confession of his faith only 43 in Christ Jesus our Lord, preparatory to the declaration of forgiveness of sins, and the application of the declaration to liis own case. The same language is contained in the rubric with reference to prisoners in the Irish Prayer Book, where a special form is provided admirably adapted to their wants. In the Anglican Church, therefore, the absolution of sins on confession of Christ is a gift of power left by our Lord to His Church to be used only by, and useful only to, the truly penitent — ^so that there is no room for cavil or doubt.— Every being, in the day of his sad trial, can answer to his own conscience whether he is really and heartily sorry for his guilt, and can therefore find an answer in his own conscience, believing Christ's promise true, whether God's minister has effectually declared and pronounced His forgiveness, so that at the grave and gate of death, he may be assured that mercy awaits him on his entering on that rest from which there is no return. The following testimony of English divines is enough to prove that confession is proper to the truly penitent : ARCHBISHOr CHANMEK. God dothe not speak to us with a voyce sounding out of heaven. But He nath given the kayes of the kingdom of heaven and the authority to forgyve synne to the ministers of the church. Wherefore, let him that is a sinner go to one of them ; let him acknowledge and confess his synne, and pray him that according to God's commandment, he will give him absolution and comfort him with the word of grace and forgiveness of his synnes. And when the minister does so I ought steadfastly to believe that my synnes are truly forgiven in heaven.— ilr^ 8, Cranmer's Works, t. iv., p. 281, 3 ed. lUSHOP LATIMER. But to speak of right and true confession, I would to God it .were kept in England j for it is a good thing. That those who found themselves grieved in conscience, might go to a learned man and there fetch of him comfort of the word iii * 1 ' i 44 of God, and so come to a quiet conscience, which is better and more to be regarded than all the riches of the world. — Sermorij 'drd SuTuiay after Epipk. . . Auricular confession was instituted only that people might give an account of their faith, and from their hearts confess an earnest desire to receive the holy sacrament. We ioTce no man thereunto. Christ gave the keys to the Church for comfort, and commanded His servants to deal therewith according to His direction, to bind the impenitent and to absolve them that repenting acknowledge and confess their sins, are heartily sorry for them, and believe that God for- gives them for Christ's sake. — Luther's Tahle-Talk. ' ,1'. - BISHOP RIDLEY. Confession unto the minister which is able to instruct^ iMTfect, and inform the weak, wounded and ignorant conscience, indeed, I ever thought ought to do much good to Christ's congregation, — and so, I assure you, I think to this day. — Ecd. Biog., vol. ui., p, Q7 . BISHOr JEWELL. Touching the third — private confession — if it be discreetly used, without superstition or other ill, it is not in any wise by us reproved. The abuses and errors set apart, we do no more mislike a private confession than a private sermon. — Defence of The Apology of the Church of England, ch. vi., div., i., ii. HOOKER* ' ' For private confession and absolution, it standeth thus with us : that the priest's power to absolve is publicly taught and professed -, and the Church not deemed to have authority either of abridging or enlarging the use and exercise of that power. — Eccl. Pol., vol, v., 4, 15. BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR. In all which circumstances, because we may be very much helped, ij we take in the assistance of a spiritual guide : therefore, the Church of God in all ages hath commanded, and in most cases enjoined, that we confess our sins, and dis- 46 cover the state and condition of our souls to such a person as we, or our superiors judge fit to help us in such needs. — Holy Living, ch. iv. Confess your sins often, hear the word of God, make re- ligion the business of your life, your study and chiefcst care ; and be sure that in all things a spiritual guide takes you in hand. — Golden Grove Agenda, No. 32. Again: — That besides the examination of your conscience — which may be done in secret beUveen God and your soul, — there is great use in holy confession ; which, though it be not generally in all cases, and peremptorily commanded, — as if without it no salvation could possibly be had, — yet you are advised by the Church under whose discipline you live, that before you are to receive the Holy Communion, or when you are visited with any dangerous sickness, ifyoujind any one particular sin or more that lies heavy upon you, to disbur- den yourself of it into the bosom of your confessor ; who not only stands between God and you to pray for you : but hath the power of the keys committed to him, upon your true repentance, to absolve you in Christ's name from these sins which you have confessed unto him. Agam : — Having made choice of such a confessor who is every way qualified that you may trust your soul with him, you are advised plainly and sincerely to open your heart to him. * * * ♦ That for the frequency of doing this you are to consult with your own necessities. BISHOP OVERALL. Confession of sins must necessarily be made to them, to whom the dispensation of the mysteries of God is committed. For so they which in former days repented amongst the saints are said to have done. ■ ST. PAUL. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness 5 con- sidering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ. Wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another, even as also ye do. And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you ; 46 li > di And to esteem them very highly in love ; for their works' sake. * * * * We exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, com- ibrt the feeble-minded, be patient toward all men. Obey them who have the rule over you and submit yourselves ; for they watch for your souls as they that must give account. ST. JAMES. Is any sick among you ? Let him call for the elders of the church : and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord ; And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up : cmd if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed 5 the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. f THE LORD JESUS. Then said Jesus unto them again. Peace be unto you j as My Father hath sent Me even so send I you. And when He had said this. He breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost 5 Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained. Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. I say unto thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church : and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And I mil give unto thee the keys of the King* dom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven. Jesus spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. * » ♦ Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and lo ! I am with you always even unto the end of the world. — Holy Bible — TheWora of God. If then it be true that the Loi*d Jesus sent Jiis Apostles and servants, as His Father had sent Him, we must dis- cover in what way and for what he was sent. 47 And when He saw their faithj He said unto him, Man^ thy sins are forgiven thee. And the Scribes and Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blas- phemies : who can forgive sins but God alone ? But when Jesus perceived their thoughts he answering said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts ? Whether is it easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee I or to say. Rise up and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, — He said unto the sick of the palsy, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that receiveth whomso- ever I send receiveth Me ; and he that receiveth Me receiveth him that sent Me. * * * As Thou hast sent Me into the world even so also have I sent them into the world. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also ivhich shall believe on me, through their word : that they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in me 5 and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us •, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou gavest Afe, I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one. * * ♦ Isaiah, chap. Ixi., v. 6. — Ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord. Men shall call you the ministers of our God. Chap. Ixvi., v. 21. — And I will also take them for Priests and for Levites, saith the Lord. For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make, shall remain before me, so shall your seed and your name remain. This was fulfilled by our Lord, when he named and called His Apostles,i and on leaving them said, ''Behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you : but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." Previous to this, before His sacrifice. He had commissioned them, and in the person of St* Peter, endued them with authority : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall bo bound in heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Again, in chap, xviii., v. 15: ''Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between him and thee alone : if he shall hear thee, then thou hast gained thy brother. But if 4S 41- 1' ?; It .1. 1 )i :1i! Ill the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be you : as My Father hath sent Me, so send 1 you. he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. And if ho shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church : but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Again, the third time : '^ The same day, at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, when the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and said unto them, Peace be unto you. And when He had said so He showed them His hands and His side. Then were the disciples gladwhen they saw ~ " unto . . And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them j and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained." In obedience to our Lord's commands, the disciples tarry at Jerusalem, ^'and when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter and James, and John and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Mathew, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. These all contmued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren. And in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfil- led, which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spake before, concerning Judas, who was guide to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry Wherefore of these men which have conipanied witli us all the time that the Lord Jesus was in and out among us, beginning with the baptism of John unto the same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection — and they gave forth their lots, after prayer, and the lot fell upon Matthias. And when the day of Pentecost was come, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing, mighty wind. Hi! 49 and it filled all the house where they were sitting, and there appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat on each of them : and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." A like visible call to apostleship was given to St. Paul. The whole world, therefore, is positively assured that the foundation stones of the Church and its called minis- try are surely established, and from these Apostles up to the present hour, an unbroken ministry has been preserved. From this time, (i. e. from the Apostles,) the visible calling and sealing of the Christian priesthood has been by the laying on of hands and prayer. It is interesting to trace the con- tinuance of the office briefly through the writings of the New Testament. Thus we will first take the commission of St. Paul, and then His own to Titus and to Timothy. - ■ COMMISSIOX TO ST. PAUL. *' I heard a voice speak unto me and saying in the HeWew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me ? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And 1 said, who art Thou. Lord? and He said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But rise and stand upon thy feet : for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these thmgs which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee : delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now 1 send ihee to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive FORGIVENESS OP SINS and INHERITANCE amoug them which are sanctified by faith which is in Me." St. Luke, chap, xxiv., v. 47 : '* Thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day ; and that repent- ance and remission of sins should be preached in His name," St. Luke, chap, xxii., v. 29. ; '^ And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as My Father has appointed unto Me, that ye may EAT and DRINK at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." St. Paul to Timothy, chap. I: ''This charge I commit' unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them might war a good warfare j holding faith and a good conscience j which some G « 3t m .\- ' J I i r4 %■: \ 50 having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck : of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander ; whom I have delivered UNTO SATAN that they may learn not to blaspheme." St. Paul, in his Second Epistle to Timothy says, *' Where- fore, I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands, for God has not given us the spirit of fear ; but of power and of LOVE, and of a sound mind. Hold fast the form of sound words which thou has heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed iTNTo THEE KEEP, by the Holy Ghost who dwelleth in w*." St. Peter to the Presbyters, says, ''Feed the flock of God, which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by con- straint but willingly ; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind ; neither as lords of God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. Likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility." St. Paul to Timothy, chap. iv. : "I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall juc' the quick and the dead, at His appearing and His kii ti ; preach the word 5 be instant m season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine." St. Paul to Titus, saith, '' These things speak and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee." Again, " A man that is an heretic, after the first and sec- ond admonition, reject ; knowing that he that is such sub- verted and sinneth being condemned of himself." St. Peter's First General Epistle, chap, ii., v. 5 : Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priest- hood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." The call to the Gentile world is exactly the same in terms as that of the Jews. Speaking unto Moses, the Lord said, — "And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation;" Exodus, chap, xix., v. 6.; and inasmuch as the people had to make offerings to God, so was there a special priesthood set apart to present them ; exactly so under the Christian Church, there are people still to make offerings to God, and He has left His representative priesthood to present them reverently and humbly before Him. " Wherefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar and there rememberest that HI 51 thy brother hath ought against thee ; leave there thy gift be fore the altar, and go thy way : first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." The office of priesthood in the Church is not done away. — It is only a changed priesthood, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself constantly proclaimed His mission to bo a mission of reconciliation ; ana commanded repentance and remission of sins, to be every where proclaimed by His own representative priesthood ; and as we have seen, He thrice commissioned His Apostles to administer absolution to penitents, and to bind the impenitents, — once, before His death, — a second time in the person of St. Peter, again before his ascension. And St. Paul, who did bind^ as we have seen, Hymenaeus. Now, if rightly considered, this gift of our Lord to His Church is one of the most charitable, considerate, loving acts which the all-holy, blessed Jesus ever gave to mortal man, after the gift of Himself, of which this is a part. A miserable sinner, bowed down with grief for a load of sins unbearable, pros- trate, contrite, broken in spirit, I go to the foot-stool of my Lord, and in bitterness of soul confess my wickedness, and am heartily sorry for my sin. I am repentant, I feel it, and know in my heart my sorrow. Ls it no sweet consolation to me, or to him about to leave the world, well nigh crushed down with shame, to hear an authorised minister of Christ say, — '*ln the name of Jesus Christ, thy sins are forgiven thee?" The words are Christ's, not the minister's: he is ordered to come to me, ministering in Christ's stead, and say, ''Thy sins are forgiven thee," upon plain unmistakeable con- ditions, unfeigned repentance and faith in Christy as alone able and willing to save sinners ; the only atonement for sin. Yes, truly, under such circumstances, the Son of Man even now on earth doth forgive sins. Our Lord, commisserating the weakness of man, left authority with those who minister in His stead, to declare and pronounce (to His people being penitent) the absolution and remission of their sins. INTERCESSION OF SAINTS. No one pretends that it is necessary to salvation to believe that the spirits of the just, the saints departed, offer up prayers for the individual members of the Church of the Redeemer. It is an opinion which has i'i ■ l> ■ f Kr ill •III ft IV. I ■I T ? U 52 ever found advocates amongst those who believe in the indestructibility of the human soul, and its immortality therefore. If we are not so utterly changed when separate from the human body, if our life here be a continuance of the same life in eternity, it may be supposed that our best and holiest affections will be intensified, and our love for Christ and desire for the consummation of His kingdom, worthy of the occupation of blessed spirits. At all events, Pearson says, " The saints of God, in the living Church of Christ, are in communion with all the saints departed out of this life and admitted to the presence of God. Jerusalem sometimes is taken for the church on earth, — sometimes for that part of the church which is in heaven, to shew that as both are represented by one, so both are but one city of God. . . . *' This communion of the saints in heaven and earth, upon the mystical union of Christ, their head, being fundamental and internal, what acts or external operations it produceth arc not so certain. That we communicate with them in hope of that happiness which they actually enjoy is evident f 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 relation to us on earth particularly considered, is what we ought to per- form in reference to them in heaven, beside a re verential respect and study of imitation, is not revealed to us in the Scriptures — no greater enlargement of the communion is made as to the saints in heaven, than the society o^ hope, esteem and imitation on our side, — of dkstues anp sri'PMCATioNS ON THEIR SIDE.'* 1 \i' My Lords and Gentlemen, it is evident from the constitu- tion of our holy branch of the Church that she has fully real- ize! the fact, that the nature of man is so fashioned, that the various avenues to his soul — the external senses r*,nd internal emotions — must receive recognition, and ieuce with 'Mmiform 53 prayer," she permitc variety in the external mode of exprei;,s ing that prayer : from the splendour of the cathedral to thi3 log-built church in our backwoods, the external sym])ols of the same religion are variously expressed. Would to God that this spirit actuated us in our dealings with each other, we should then cease in bitterness of spirit to call each other Puseyite or Calvinist. It surely is not safe ground to explain away entirely the most solemn words and acts of the Holy One. His whole life m the flesh was engaged in doing His Father's will, no in thinking it, and He has promised to reveal that will to those who do it. Throughout the whole sacred Scriptures, the Incarnation and Atonement are set forth to (juicken our sense of the utter depravity of the haman race 5 the life, the character, the suffering, the death of the Second Adam arc there, to convince us that in Him, through the Spirit, is the restoration and reconstniction of lost man. As in Adam — not by Adam — all die 5 even so in Christ shall all be made alive, so that they may live in and for Christ. The union with Adam no man professing to believe Scripture, doubts ; unfortunately, many Naamans are to be found, who prefer the rivers of Damascus to all the waters of Jordan. The philosophic schools seize upon this weakness of our nature to dilute the meaning of the reality of our union with Christ, and cheat the credulous fancy with abstractions which are opium to the soul — the denial of the restoration of our human nature by the imparting of Christ's nature to us, is not only destroying a belief in the necessity for whe Incarnation and atonement, but also leads to the rejection of that other revealed truth, that ix Adam all die. In the Church, the declension of a living faith yields up tlio belief in the regeneration of each individual man in Christ? and obscures the doctrine of an e([ually necessary condition — the daily renewal by the Spirit, thus robbin^x Christ of His ii J I i f 54 honour, in the participation of our restoration, and dishonouring the Holy Spirit, nndeV the false notion of magnifying his office.' The doctrine is closely allied to, and is an exaggeration of a philosophic speculation, which has been met by Mr. Han- sel's arguments, against an irrational conception of an abstract humanity— which subordinates the individual to the universal, the person to the species. If there is one dream, he says, of a godless philosophy, to which, beyond all others, every mo- ment of our consciousness gives the lie, it is that which subor- dinates the individual to the universal, which deifies kinds and realises classification, which sees Being in generalisation and Appearance in limitation 5 which regards the living and con- scious man as a wave on the ocean of the unconscious infinite, his life a momentary tossing to and fro on the shifting tide, his destiny to be swallowed up in the formless and boundless univer=5e. Yes, there is and must be a sense in which we must admit the existence of human nature as the common property, a sense in which that human nature was depraved in all, as it has been re-constructed for all. We desire to shew that the inheritance of the flesh and inner nature is by con- tinuous descent, by direct, unbroken, Imeal progression, and in like manner the reconstruction of that nature ; and so it comes to pass that, in the personality of Christ — ^the new Adam — we have that rock which contains the living water ; the stream of life flowing only for those who, havmg been grafted into His body, readily and heartily receive Him as their only source of life. Humanity is drawn into Himself, that it may flow out again purified and cleansed for the in-dwelling of the Spirit of God ; but inasmuch as the Second Man reclaims human nature through the sacrifice of Him- self, it is by Sacramental union that we receive the gift of a regenerated nature, and are preserved by His strength imparted to us from lapsing into eternal death. If we accept the doctrine which plainly intimates that the human soul, or the spiritual man, being one and the same, has been clothed upon by different kinds of human flesh ; then we can- not understand the doctrine of a fallen humanity y or the relationship which runs through the family as human beings ; but, on the contrary, the personality of each man being estab- lished, and his human origin being traced from one even as himself, we can understand how there is a common humanity 55 through wb'^h all are bound together, and all reclaimed through the God-Man. My Lords, I cannot understand the object and intention of that system of religious instruction which seems to teach that one portion of our religious life and duty is spiritual and real, and another portion carnal and less real. *' My king, dnn is not of this world 5" is engraved over the door-way to every Christian fane, and no man may enter as a true servant of this kingdom, but through that door which is alone the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We must be partakers not only of the ideal pattern of Christ, but there must be a real entrance into spiritual union with Christ, for we are partakers of His body, His flesh and His bones. In wonderful condescension to our weak natures he hath not left us without witnesses of His love. He has instituted and appointed seals to His new covenant, and with and by these, are we, if led and taught by God's Spirit, per- fectly assured of our true and complete, real and not ideal, union with Christ. For more than six thousand years the many coloured Bow has ever and again drawii, in harmoniously blended rays, the sure promise of the ^re.it I AM across the blue vault of heaven 5 shall we in eigL. imi hundred and sixty years forget the sure and certain seals of a gnater redemp- tion, salvation from a greater Hood, even the flood of the waters of iniquity ? Surely neither the Lord Bishop of Huron nor those that are in agreement with him, are uncharitable enough to suppose, that because we hold what we beli» ve to be most certain truths of the reality of Christ's work, that therefore we are not enlightened by God's Spirit, and are un- lit to remain in the Church of England ? My, Lords, it has been the fault of the Church of England that she has driven men from her fold, whom by kindness she might have retained. John Wesley, and then his followers, were persecuted by the fire of galling controversy, until no r)G 1ii . ■ place was found for them ; and yet Wesley awakened the world from a sleep that had well nigh passed into the stupor of death. Again watchmen on the towers are sounding the alarm, and with trumpet tongues are calling men every where to repent 5 the blast is shrill and clear, and awakens the dreamy world : again God is holding a controversy with his people : let each man burnish his armour, and although in the sudden awakening friends may seem to stand opposed us foes, yet the sound of ''The uniting voice" shall be heard soft and clear above the din of strife, and the bright glow of His cross in the heaven of His kingdom, shall rally His own to the standard of peace. Let those who earnestly desire to realise that union with the adorable Jesus, which the word of God so diligently inculcates, cease to preach and to teach mere Subjectivk ideas with reference to these holy mysteries, the Sacraments, for until men grasp by the power of a Living Faith, the knowledge of the fact that the Holy Spirit does now^exercise His Personal influence on them ; and that Christ is still redeeming His people — that there is a real active spiritual work going on, we shall never believe St. Paul, when he says, '' But you are come unto Sion, and unto THE CITY OF THE LiVINO GOD, THE HEAVENLY JERUSALEM, and to an innumerable company of angels," to the general assembly, and church of the first-1)orn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to spirits of just men made perfect^ and to Jesu^ the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of ^'Sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel." For we are His workman- ship, CREATED in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. * ♦ * liut now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ:" thu testifying to the truth of that which was spoken by Isaiah : ''The labour of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine ; they shall come after thee — in chains shall they come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, the} shall make supplication unto thee saying, Surely, God is in thee, and there is none else, there is no God. Verily thou art a God, that hidest thyself, God of Israel, the Saviour.*' — Isaiahj c. xlv. v. 14 to 15. Lastly, in the whole of this discussion, if there is one thing more tham another that is desirable to be avoided, it is any explanation of the mode how the body and blood of the Redeemer are verily and indeed taken. By Divine appoint- ment bread and wine are the Christian oblation, and con- joined on the part of the faithful receiver with true repent- ance, prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, this incense com- pletes the sacrifice by which we show forth the Lord's death. How by this service he gives himself to us, we know not now. After his resurrection His wounded body was shewn to His disciples, and first to her from whom His adorable peace-giving voice drew forth the answer, Rabboni ! and, (possessing power over all things, and triumphing over all material things,) the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith nnto them, peace be unto you — three times supernatural power took him into the bodily presence of His disciples. We know not how Jesus did this, but we know that he did it, and that in the same body he ascended. With Thomas, our eyes being opened by faith, when seeking Him at His altar, may each have grace to exclaim, ^' My Lord, and my God,'' for the same Jesus that took bread and brake it, and gave to His disciples, saying, take, eat, this is My Body, is the very Jesus who now in the same Body says exactly, and does exactly the same for each one of us. In whatsoever super- natural manner He gave His human nature to His Apostles, I must believe that in the same manner lie gives Himself to us even at this day. H i&i. f\ I ; ! m ,58- :'Vl.* - -*o ■.•t**.' If ^' by ail act of rashness," I have inflicted injury on the Collecre, and widened a breach in the church which all should try to close, I do most bitterly regret it, and if in this unbur- dening of my soul I have let loose thoughts and feelings which are more fitly poured out in the secret of the closet, I am only actuated by the desire to make reparation for an error and to seek from your Lordshi[)s a withdrawal of that displeasure which I have unfortunately incurred. I do not desire to be misundei-stood 5 the events of the past week have been too severe in their effects to enable me under present circumstances, (even if I could suppose it possible on your Lordships' part) to resume active duty in any of the Church's institutions in this Province — I am not therefore seeking for restoration to office, but I do desire to make it plain to the church, and I will add to the Bishop of Huron and his Diocese, that I am not tainted with Roman- ism, and to convince the corporation of Trinity College, and the Provost, that misled by a partial publication of my sen- timents, friends aided in my condemnation upon imperfect grounds. I am aware that the Provost does not recognise Dr. Pusey as a guide in his teaching, and my having made a quotation from a work by this author — written, however, ex- pressly against the Roman views of the Sacrament, might have appeared to identify the Provost's opinions with Dr. Pu- sey' s views in general. I quoted the paragraph on the use of the word ^'re-order," expressly to disprove the notion oi ELEMENTAL chaugc, aud in subsequent explanations most un- mistakeably as I have shewn, I accepted the scriptural teaching of a spiritual, but no less Real Presence, in contradistinction to the carnal and therefore Roman interpretation. , I am, my Lords, Your faithful Servant, ' " ' *" * JAMES BOVELL. f: ' on the 1 should 5 unbur- feelings closet, I an error )f that I do he past able me >pose it duty in I — ^I am lo desire 2 Bishop Romah- ege, and my sen- mperfect ecognise made a ever, ex- t, might I Dr. Pu- he use of lotion of most un- teaching istinction !H ^ELL.