" PURITANISM NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. BEIMG A REVIEW OF " THE PURITANS AND THEIR PRINCIPLES, BY EDWIN HALL." BT THB REV. A. B. CHAPIN, M. A, STANFORD AND SWORDS, 139, BROADWAY. 1847. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1047, by STANFORD & SWORDS, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York. JOHN R. M'GowN, Printer. " CONTENTS. Introductory Letter - - -'...-* .'-. - 9 Nature and importance of the question - - -17 Misstatements of it - - - - - - 19 Romish view of the Church * 25 of tradition ... - - 26 Reformers' view of the Church - - - -26 of tradition 27 Agreement of the Reformers - - - - - 28 Romieh view of Justification - - - - 31 Protestant view .......32 its foundation - - - - 33 its consequences - 34 Sense of Scripture, how determined - 35 Who are true Protestants - - - - - 36 Puritanism a disease of Protestantism - - - 37 Summary of Puritan Principles - - - - 38 Deviations of Puritanism from the Reformation - 39 (1) Justification - - - - ' - 39 (2) Interpretation of the Bible - - 41 (3) Legislative power of the Church - - 42 1* IV CONTENTS. (4) Authority of the Church - - 43 (5) Nature of the Church - - - 44 (6) Nature of the Ministry 47 (7) Nature of the Sacraments - - - 47 (b) Sin of Schism .... 49 Results of ... 50 Our agreement with the Reformers 52 (1) Interpretation of Scripture - - 53 (2) Private judgment - 53 (3) Church authoiity - - - 54 (4) The Church the medium of graco - 54 (5) Baptismal Regeneration - - - 54 (6) The Real Presence - - 55 (7) Authority of General Councils - - 57 (8) Household Baptisms ... 57 (9) Representative character of the Ministry 59 (10) Absolution .... .58 (11) Justification 60 Ground of its necessity - - 61 Puritanism cannot understand the Reformers 61 The reason why - - - - 62 Why the Reformers said no more of the Church - 63 Divine institution of the Ministry in three orders - - 64 The Ordinal - .... 65 Apostolic Succession ...... 65 What must be shown to prove that Churchmen have departed from principles of the Reformation - 67 Mr. Hall's Proof. (1) The Institution of a Christian man 68 (2) A paper forming a part of third book 68 (3) The erudition of a Christian man 60 (4) Stillingfleet's Irenicum - - 69 His Puritan education 69 His account of its design - - 70 His maturer judgment 71 Mr. Hall's misrepresentation of him 7 1 Stillingfleet's own mistakes I - 73 A mistake of Burnett 74 Points of agreement with the Reformers - - - 75 Disagreement of Continental Reformers - - 76 Lutheran rites and ceremonies - '* ". - 78 Objections to the English Reformation (note) - .. The work of the State - - - - 77 Gradual in its character 80 Development of Ritual - - - - 81 Its canonical character - - - 85 Puritanism has changed, not we - - - - 86 Boasts of having changed 87 Mr. Hall's view of Antiquity. (1) Irenffius - - 90 (2) Clement of Rome .... 92 (3) Justin Martyr, Polycarp and Ignatius - 95 (4) Clement of Alexandria - - - 97 (5) Jewel and Stillingfleet - - 99 Mr. Hall's views of Scripture. (1) Schism 99 (2) The incestuous Corinthian - 101 (3) Our Lord'irianguage at the last Supper 101 (4) Ordination of Timothy -. - - 103 (5) Andronichus and Junia - - - 103 (6) Ordination of Titus - - - 104 Points of difference between us. (1) The Church - 107 (2) Baptismal Regeneration ' - - 108 (3) The Real Presence - - -/ - 109 (4) The Ministry - - - ; - 110 (5) Absolution .... " - 111 (6) Apostolical Succession - - - 111 Mr. Hall's account of the Church and her theologians 113 The sincerity of it - - - - - - -114 The fancied result - - - - - - 116 General character of the work .... n.7 History of Puritanism ; Toleration of Churchmen - 119 Exemplified at Stratford 120 at FairfieW ; law of 1727 123 Practice under that law : (1) Greenwich - 12. r ) (2) Simsbury - - ' - - - 125 (3) Waterbury 125 (4) Reading 127 (5) Churchmen exempt from public acts - 127 (G) Not allowed to tax themselves - 127 Taxation without representation - - - 128 Political tendencies - 129 Religious establishments in the Colonies - - 129 Change in Connecticut - - - - - 132 Episcopalians and the Government - - - 133 Toleration and new Constitution - - - - 135 Connecticut " Blue laws" 137 " Tables tunied " 141 Puritan kindness 142 Episcopacy in New- York - - - - 143 Gregson Glebe 145 % APPENDIX. Sympathy of the Reformers .... 151 English Reformation and Melanchthon - - - 152 Formula of Concord - - - - - . 153 Episcopacy in Germany - - - - - 154 Hermann's Plan of Reformation - - - - 155 Sympathy of Reformers - - - . . - 156 Lutheranism and the Reformation - - - 156 School of the PietisU 157 of Ernest i and Semler - - - - 158 of Rationalism ...... 159 of the Supernaturalists - - . - 160 New Lutheran - - . . - 160 CONTENTS. VU Neander's defects as a Church historian - ~ ' 163 New Lutheran view of the Sacraments - - - 168 Baptism. Rev. Dr. Hengsteiiberg - t ' 168 Christianity Sacramental - - - -169 One Sacrament in two parts - - - - 170 Difference of the two ; >- - > - 171 Rev. Dr. Martensen 171 (1) Baptism in an organic body - - 172 (2) Essentially infant Baptism - - 174 (3) Sacramental Predestination - - 175 (4) Sacrament of Regeneration - - 177 (5) Sacrament of Faith - 179 Papers which passed between Charles I. and Rev. Al- exander Henderson 183 ERRATA. Page 109, line 12, for " shall see," read Have seen. 121, " 8, for " 1780," read 1708. INTRODUCTORY LETTER. To the Rev. Wm. Cooper Mead, D. D. REVEREND AND DEAR SIE : In presenting the following Review to the public, it is my duty and desire to acknowledge, that, should it be of any service to the cause of truth, no small share of the thanks will be due to yourself, for calling my attention to the subject, for aiding me with many valuable suggestions, and for securing it a ready entrance upon the literary world. This statement is made, not with the wish or intention of avoiding any responsibilities which the course of argument here pursued devolves upon the author. For the positions, facts, and logic of the Review, the author is alone answerable. But since it was owing to your partial kindness, that I was led to undertake this subject, it is my desire to state briefly some con- siderations that led me to the course of argument here adopted. But first, it should be observed, that I do not 2 10 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. propose to write an answer to The Puritans and their Principles, hut only a review of those facts which bear upon what the author of that work cvi- dently regards as its leading and most important fea- ture, the' Protestant character of Puritanism. In doing this, it has been necessary to make a prelim- inary inquiry, to ask, What /.? Protestantism ? not as understood by the ten thousand sectaries, who cloak themselves under its mantle, but as under- stood by the Reformers themselves. The necessity of this inquiry does not seem to have occurred to our author, and he has been content to adopt certain vague and popular notions in regard to it, which are floating up and down in his own denom- ination, without making any effort to ascertain their truth or accuracy. Indeed, he does not seem to be aware of the diversity which exists between the principles of the Reformation and the principles of Puritanism. The first object of the following pages has been, therefore, to ascertain from unobjectiona- ble sources, what are the true principles of Protest- antism, as they were held by the Reformers. The next step is to try Puritanism by that standard ; and finally, to see how far our authors objections against the character of the Episcopal Church, as anti-Pro- testant, are sustained by the facts. The propriety, if not the necessity cf this course, will be apparent from a brief history of the Episco- paj controversy in this country. When that contro- INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 11 versy commenced, the Congregationalists of New- England called themselves Presbyterians, and insisted that the Presbyterian form of the ministry was an original divine institution, of perpetual and binding obligation, and from which it was schism to separate. The first publication in this country, which called that fact in question, so far as we know, was by a layman of Boston, (1723,) for which he was indicted as a libel on the government. From this time the Episcopal controversy was carried on with great vigor for near twenty years, (17231739,) by DICKINSON, FOXCROFT, GRAHAM, and WIGGLES- WORTH, on the Presbyterian side ; and by JOHNSON and BEACH, on the Episcopal side ; and the evidence to be derived from Scripture, Antiquity, and the Reformation, was pretty thoroughly scanned. The doctrine of Apostolical succession, as a matter of fact, however, was not debated, as both parties held it, one deriving it through the line of Bishops, the other through that of Presbyters. The effect of these discussions not arresting, as was hoped, the progress of the Church, but evidently accelerating it, the assailants left the worship and discipline, and turned to the doctrines of the Church. A ten years controversy (1739 1749) followed touching election, predestination, universal redemp- tion,baptismal regeneration, and other kindred doc. trines, of which DICKINSON was the principal cham- pion of the Calvinistic opinions, and to which were 12 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. opposed JOHNSON, BEACH, and WETMORE. This dis- cussion, like the preceding, adding numbers and strength to Episcopacy, was abandoned, and the old ground of the divine right of Presbyterianism re-as- serted. During the next twenty years, (1749 1768,) the constitution, worship and discipline of the Church were very thoroughly examined by HOBART, CHAUNCEY and WELLS, on the Presbyterian side, and JOHNSON, BEACH, WETMOHE, CANER, and LEAM- ING on the Episcopal si:le. A collateral discussion was also carried on, touching the right of the* Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to send Episcopal missionaries into places where there were Presbyterian ministers, by HOBAHT and MAYIIEW, against JOHNSON and APTHORP. Every one of these discussions increased the numbers, and strengthened the hands of the Episcopal Church ; until there was some prospect of obtaining what they had long desired, a Bishop to reside among them. A new element of debate was now brought out the right of the English Church to send a Bishop to this country, and the propriety of doing so, in- volving of course the whole theory of the Church ; and the subject was thoroughly canvassed by CHAUNCEY and CHANDLER, (1768-1774) over their own names, and by a host of anonymous scribblers, in the periodicals of the day. In the meantime, the INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 13 Presbyterian ministers, not satisfied with the aspect of things, formed a " Convention of Delegates," in 1766, for the alleged purpose of" defending the cause of religion against the attacks of its various ene- mies ; " by which was understood, as the sequel shows, the design of opposing Episcopacy. Among the most active men of this body were Messrs. HOBART, WELLS, and GOODRICH, of Connecticut, ROGERS of New- York, etc. This Convention spared no pains to create a prejudice against the Church, and was in no small degree instrumental in fomenting the difficulties between the colonies and the mother country. During these various controversies, the Church and her ministers were assailed by every species of warfare, by book and pamphlet, by song and satire, by ballad and poem, by men in their own names, without any names, and under assumed names, by legal process and by illegal process, now upon one point, and now upon another, until the whole field of controversy had been carefully survey- ed, and Churchmen became thoroughly informed as to the distinctive principles of the Church. These discussions and controversies served to confirm the Churchmen of the northern Colonies, (to which they were mostly confined,) in their at- tachment to the Church, and to the mother country, so that when the Revolution broke out, the Episco- palians, when they took an active part, were gener- ally found attached to the royal cause. For this, 14 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. Churchmen universally suffered every species of in- dignity and insult, thousands had their estates con- fiscated, many were imprisoned, and some suffered death ; to escape which, others abandoned their country and their possessions, and fled to the British provinces. The close of the Revolution, therefore, found the Church weak, and poor, and despised, de- prived of most of her clergy, and many of her laity, and for some time she seems to have ceased to bo an object of jealousy ; and an occasional essay on the subjects so sharply debated before, from SEA- BURY, LEAMING and BOWDEN, attracted little or no attention. , But the cause which rendered Churchmen so odious in the Revolution, was' the salvation of the Church. That love and devotion to it, which led them to submit to privation and degradation, during the Revolution, preserved it in its completness after its close. From this time, (1785,) a period of twenty years was suffered to elapse before any considerable assault was made upon the doctrines or discipline of the Church. A controversy was then (1805) com- menced, as was generally supposed, by concert among a great body of anti-Churchmen, which continued for several years, in which the principal writers on the Presbyterian si:le, were LINN, MASON, and MILLER, and on the Episcopal, WHITE, HOBART, BEASLEY, How and BOWDEN ; the effect of which was to make more and sounder Churchmen. INTRODUCTORY LETTER. ]5 The controversy in New- York coming to a close, it was renewed in Connecticut, about 1819, and the Church was exposed for several years to a series of assaults, which have been occasionally renewed from that time to the present. Most of the productions have been anonymous, and very few of them have attempted to discuss any important princi- ple, their general aim having been to excite prejudice against the Church, while some have assumed the false character of Churchmen, with the hope of be- traying the more successfully. The main questions, which have been debated in the controversies of the last century, have related to the character and claims of the Episcopal Church, as sustained by Scripture, antiquity, and the opinions of the Reformers. Churchmen have generally been content with maintaining their own cause, without car- rying the warfare into the enemy's country. But the time has now arrived, when the cause of truth requires, that the character of Puritanism should be investigated, that Puritanism itself should be put to the proof of its claims. These, so far as they de- pend upon Scripture and antiquity, have been inci- dentally considered in all those works which have been written in defence of Episcopacy. But there is another point which all Puritan writers assume, and which has been tacitly conceded by its oppo- nents, that requires to be investigated anew, the true Protestant character of modern Puritanism; 16 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. is it the form of life of Protestantism, or rather one of its diseases ? These are the chief points of inquiry in this Review. The other topics are only incidental, and important for the particular purposes mentioned. The authorities quoted on these points, are mostly anti-Episcopal, in order to obviate an objection that Puritan writers are always making against Churchmen, of wanting in fairness towards them. We trust that the facts and arguments here adduced will satisfy the candid and intelligent of all sects and parties, of a most certain fact, to wit, that modern Puritanism has little or nothing in common icith genuine Protestantism ; and that Puritan ca- luminators of the Church, will see that they have something to do to sustain their own character and claims. Trusting that this discussion may tend to advance that unity which should prevail in the Church of CHRIST, I have the honor to be, Rev. and dear Sir, your obedient servant, A. B. CHAPIN. NEW-HAVEN, Oct. 1, 1846. PURITANISM GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. NATURE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION. "The great question of the age," says a learned and thoughtful writer of the German Reformed Communion, " undoubtedly is that concerning the Church. It is evidently drawing to itself all minds of the more earnest order, more and more, in all parts of the world. When it comes to be apprehended in its true character, it can hardly fail to be of absorb- ing interest ; nor is it possible, perhaps, for one who has become thus interested in it, to dismiss it again from his thoughts. Its connections are found to reach in the end, through the entire range of the Christian life. Its issues are of the most momen- tous nature, and solemn as eternity itself. No ques- 2* 18 PURITANISM lion can be less of merely curious or speculative in- terest. It is in some respects, just now, of all prac- tical questions, the most practical. In these circum- stances, it calls for attention, earnest, and prayerful, and proiound." * To the truth of this representation, the history of the age bears abundant testimony. The new life so recently infused into the Romish Communion, the discussions going on in the Church of England and America, the recent birth and vigorous life of the new Lutheran and Reformed theology, as well as tli,; turbulence of all the sects and parties in Chris- tendom, go to prove that the question of the Church and of our relation and duty to it, is THE great question of the age. That great issues depend upon the proper settlement of this question, no one at all conversant 'with the history of the world and the Church, can for one moment doubt. And no man, who understands and appreciates the importance of the results depending thereupon, can approach the subject with other than a deep feeling of responsi- bility, and a solemn sense of the consequences which may flow from the manner of its treatment. By such, no word will be lightly or inconsiderate- ly spoken. No argument will be pressed beyond Rev. John W. Nevin, D. D., Introd. to Dr. Schhaf, on the " Protestant Principle, as related to the present state of the Church," p. 26. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 19 the limits of sound logic no statement ventured that is at all questionable. Nothing will be said for mere effect nothing done which truth does not de- mand. Appeals to passion and prejudice will not be permitted. All declamation will be forborne, and misrepresentation most carefully avoided. When, therefore, we find one employing any mere ad captan- dum declamation ; any palpable sophistry, any plain misrepresentation of facts, or of an opponent's po- sitions or his arguments ; any appeals to passion^ prejudice, or ignorance ; any unscrupulous asser- tions unsustained by proof; but above all, when we find one resting his whole case on mere second-hand or second-rate authorities, and in doubtful points quo- ting disputed and oft-refuted works, without any re- ference to the fact, we must conclude, either that he is intellectually deficient, not understanding the sub- ject, or which is worse, morally deficient, fighting for victory, not for truth ; insensible to the high and holy claims of the subject under consideration. MISSTATEMENTS OF THE QUESTION. Owing to some or all of these causes united, the popular mode of stating the question has been, and still is, in this country, to a great extent, monstrously false. Thus we are told by one class, that the great point of conflict and debate is, whether we shall have a religion of forms, or a religion of the 20 PURITAMSM spirit.* Such claim to be the friends of inward, liv- ing, practical piety, and often charge upon others, a secret dislike to all religion of the heart and life, and represent them as wishing to exalt the 'letter above the life, to substitute the sign for the substance. But this issue is false. The condition of humanity, renovated as well as depraved, is not body or soul, but body and soul. Religion too, in its application to man, must have body as well as soul, form as well as life ; and he who would be a spirit- ualist only, is as far from the truth as the most thor- ough-going formalist. The question relates not to the existence of forms in religion, but to their nature and extent. It is not whether religion shall have an outward form or body, but what that form and body shall be. So, too, we are told, that the great question of the day is whether salvation be the individual concern of every sinner, or something which comes to him only through the Church ; whether it is the result of a pri- vate, separate transaction of the sinner with GOD'S WORD and SPIRIT, or whether it comes to him through the comprehensive, but inexplicable minis- tration of the Church, which is the body of CHRIST, and especially in and through the Sacraments, f Nevin's Introd. 11 13, where the same view is taken of this and the two following 1 statements of the controversy. t The New-Englander, I. 545 555, has urged this charge with all its strength. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 21 This issue is also false. Mere Churchism, which denies all individualism is an error, a great error. But the substitution of mere individualism in its stead, is no les? an error. If the doctrine of spirit- ual individuality be so held, as to exclude the depen- dence of the individual spiritual life, upon the gen- eral life of the Church, it necessarily becomes one- sided and false. Individualism, without the Church, is as little to be trusted, as Churchism without individ- ual experience. It is the union of the two that con- stitutes the truth, and he who holds one side, to the exclusion of the other, is preparing the way for re- action in favor of the exclusive predominance of the opposite error. Again it is said, that the momentous question with which Christendom is now laboring, is be- tween the liberty of private judgment and the au- thority of the Church. This statement, too, is equal- ly false. * Nor is the matter mended when the ques- tion is represented as being between the Bible and the Church. In the language of the author already quoted: "It is indeed an abominable usurpation, when the Church claims to be the source of truth for the single Christian, separately from the Bible, or the absolutely infallible interpreter of the sense of the Bible itself; and so requires him to yield his judg- * The New Englander, II. 66 81, in a miserably false and feeble article, represents this as one form of the contro- versy. 22 PURITANISM ment blindly to her authority and tradition. But it is a presumption equally abominable for a single indi- vidual to cast off all respect for Church authority and Church life, and pretend to draw his faith immedi- ately from the Bible, only and wholly through the narrow pipe-stem of his own private judgment. No one does so in fact. Our most bald, abstract sects, ever show themselves here as much under authority almost, as the papists themselves Such a thing as an absolute, abstract, private judgment, we meet with in no denomination, party or sect. But if we had it what would it be worth ? For at last what sort of comparison can there be between the naked judgment of a single individual, and the general voice of the Church?"* OUR AUTHOR'S VIEW. The author of The Puritans and their Princi- ples, f enters fully into this false and one-sided view of things, bringing up and urging in every variety of shape against his opponents, every one of these ab- surd and erroneous assumptions, endeavoring to sustain them by every species of false argument we have noticed. He even goes so far as to say, with especial reference to the Episcopal Church, that the battle of the Reformation is once more to be fought with those who once gloried in the style of Protes- * Nevin's Introd. 13. t [Rev.] Edwin Hall, [of Norwalk, Conn.] NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 23 tant, but who are now beginning to be weary of the name.* And he marches forth, the boasted cham- pion of those great principles which he supposes to be in danger. But before we can accept his championship, or allow his charges, we must be as- sured of two things ; first, that he knows what were the points at issue in the Reformation what was disputed and what not; second, that he himself holds every one of the doctrines held by the Refor- mers, as they held them. If he is wanting on either point, or if, as we suppose, he is wanting on both, if he neither knows what they believed, nor believes as they did, he cannot be permitted to enter the lists in their defence, nor can his charges against others, of having departed from the principles of the Refor- mation, be allowed to have any weight, unless sus- tained by the most undoubted proof. OUR OWN POSITION COMPARED WITH THE REFORMERS. Since then, there is so much ignorance, and er- ror, and misrepresentation in the very statement of the question at issue, by the author of The Puritans and their Principles, it becomes important in the first instance to ascertain the true nature of the ques- tion to be considered, in order that we may deter- mine whether in his zeal against those he supposes to have departed from the principles of the Reformation, * p. 307. 24 PURITANISM he has not flown in the face of the Reformers them- selves ; and also lest while we are attempting to pull down the strong-holds of an enemy, we be ignorant- ly ministering to his strength. That the questions now at issue, are the same as those which called the Re- formation into being, that we are called upon to fight over the same battles which Luther and Melancthon, which Crammer and Ridley and Latimer fought, is so often and so loudly reiterated by our author and oth- ers, that none of our opponents will call the fact in question. But though many of the points at issue are the same, the enemies are not altogether the same. On the one side, it is true, we have, as the Reformers had, Romanism, with its claim to an authoritative infallible Churchism, swallowing up and destroying the proper individuality of its members ; but on the other side we have a more thorough-going Sectar- ism than they had, with its claim to a no less infal- lible individualism, swallowing up and destroying the Church altogether. * They fought with their eye chiefly, oftentimes only, on the papal mon- ster ; we are obliged look out for the dragon's teetk that are continually springing up around us. While, therefore, the language of the Re- formers is always guarded on the one side, it is not always so on the other ; and he who over- looks or forgets this fact, as our author does at See New Englandiem, 4142. NOT GENUINE PRbTESTANTILM. 25 every step, will never be able to do them justice, as he can neither enter into, nor appreciate their feel- ings. In order to understand, therefore, the true na- ture of the all absorbing questions which now oc- cupy the mind of the Christian world, we must in- quire, briefly as possible, what is the Romish idea of the Church, and of our relation and duty to it, and what was the idea opposed to it by the Reformers, and the consequences resulting therefrom ; and what is the sectarian idea of the same, which stands in the opposite extreme from Romanism itself; and how that view agrees with, and differs from the view of the Reformers. ROMISH VIEW OF THE CHURCH. The Romish system teaches that "the visible Church of CHRIST is the Son of GOD himself, ever- lastingly manifesting Himself among men in a hu- man form, perpetually renovated and eternally young, the permanent Incarnation of the same."* " The Church," therefore, with the Romanist, " is the body of the LORD, it is, in its universality, His visible form ; His permanent, ever renovated humanity ; His eternal revelation." f Conse- quently, " the authority of the Church," to use the language of one of its ablest modern defenders,:}: " is the medium of all which in the Christian reli- * Moehler Symb. 333. t Moeh. 351. t Moeh. 340. 26 PURITANISM gion rcsteth on authority, that is to say, the Christian religion itself, so that CHRIST himself is only so far an authority, as the Church is an authority." Out of this Church it holds that there can be no salva- tion.* ROMISH VIEW OF TRADITION. This view of the Church compelled Romanism to regard the Church as the primary source of all religious knowledge, the foundation upon which even the Scriptures themselves must rest for author- ity ; and tradition, which it regards as the living consciousness of the Church, must be independent of the Scriptures, and co-ordinate with them in au- thority, f REFORMERS' VIEW OF THE CHURCH. The Reformers could not accept this idea of the Church, but taught to use the language of a living writer of the German Reformed, that " the visible Church is the body of CHRIST," that it is " an institu- tion founded by CHRIST, proceeding forth from his loins and animated by his Spirit ; through which alone, as its necessary organ, the revelation of GOD in CHRIST becomes effective in the history of the world, and that " out of the Church, as there is no Christianity, there can be no salvation ;" that " as the life of the parent flows forward in the child, so Creed Pope Pius IV. t Coun. Trent Sew. IV NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 27 the Church also is the depository and continuation of the earthly human life of the Redeemer, in his threefold office, of Prophet, Priest, and King," and " like her divine founder, has a divine and human, an ideal and real, a heavenly and an earthly nature." In regard ta " single Christians, the Church is the mother from which they derive their religious life, and to which they owe, therefore, constant fidelity, gratitude and obedience ;" and that " only in such regular and rational subordination, can the individ- ual Christian be truly free, and his personal piety can as little come to perfection, apart from the in- ward and outward communion with the life of the Church, as a limb separated from the body, or a branch torn from the vine."* REFORMERS' VIEW OF TRADITION. With this view of the Church they could do nothing less than reject the Romish notion of tradi- tion. But they were far from rejecting tradition al- * Schaf. " Theses forthe Time," 3,4, 6, 7, 11, 12. This language is more precise and formal than any that can be found in the writings of Luther, or generally, in those of Me- lanchthon, and yet it is the only view that can give logical consistency to the doctrines which Luther taught ; his idea of baptismal regeneration,' of absolution, of the real presence, would be idle phantoms without it. But though the phrase- ology is not that of Luther, it is but the scientific develop ment of what he actually taught. 28 PURITANISM. together, as many seem to suppose. The thought of substituting their own private whims and fancies, for the general voice of the Church, never entered their minds. With them, tradition was, to use the language of the same author, " not a part of the divine word, separate from that which is written, but the contents of Holy Writ itself, as apprehended and settled by the Church ; not an independent source of revelation, but the one fountain of the written word, carried forward in the stream of Church con- sciousness."* AGREEMENT OF THE REFORMERS. According to our author, this opinion is the doc- trine of the Church of Ertgland and her daughter in America, and we may add, that it is the doctrine of the old and the new Lutheran schools, both in Europe and America,')' though not of the middle Schaf. Prot. Principle, 82, 87. Chemnitz Exam. Coun. Trent. Part I. 120. t See Dr. Nevin's Sermon before the German Reformed Triennial Convention, 1844, referred to in Schaf. 170. The doctrines of the New Lutheran Schtol are the undoubted doctrines held by Luther, though his language was not al- ways consistent with them. Indeed, it would be expecting more than we have any right to ask, to require, that a man, educated as Luther had been, circumstanced aa he was, with enemies like those about him, should always, in all situations, in public and in private, speak with entire accuracy or even NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 29 schools of dogmaticism, indifferentism and rational- ism,* and that it pervades extensively the Reform- consistency on every point. The latest deliberate acts of such a man, must be regarded as his maturest opinion as the best exposition of his own doctrines. But these Luther was not permitted to carry out. " Much," says a learned English writer, " both in the internal and external circumstances of the German Reformation, occurred to prevent its full and adequate development. Had this been perfected in the spirit in which its great instrument might have completed it, if per- mitted tranquilly to finish his work, or supported by others, acting in his own principles, and surveying the whole system of Revelation with the comprehensive and discriminating view of his master mind, the history of the German Church had probably been altogether different ; the results which it is now reaching, after centuries, [in the new Lutheran school,] and at which it is arriving through a fearful transi- tion, might have been even then attained." Pusey's Germ. Theol. I. 7. * This remark is true of the whole period, from the adop- tion of the Formula of Concord, A. D. 1580, to the rise of the new Lutheran School, of the orthodox, as well as of others. Though this Formula was composed almost entirely in the words of Luther, it did not fairly represent his sentiments, inasmuch as it embodied ideas hastily thrown out in contro- versy, and oftentimes subsequently recalled or modified, along with his maturer judgments. From the adoption of the For- mula, until the rise of the New Lutheran School, the ortho- dox scarcely spoke, except in the language of the Symbolical Books, and those who, as did Calixtus, referred to primitive antiquity as a secondary authority, were persecuted without mercy. No writers of this period, therefore, can be received as fairly representing the opinion of the Reformers. The 30 PURITANISM ed Communions of Germany and their descendants in America.* But though this was the common doctrine of all the Reformers, the Church of Eng- land alone so incorporated it into her system, as to be able to retain it in practical life, and has, there- fore, been able to retain entire, that objective tra- dition, which is " that aggregate faith of the Church through all ages, as exhibited in external historical testimonies,"f which all other bodies have, writers of the first age were too dogmatic those of the next, too indifferent to enter into the feelings of the Reformers. The Pietists, who sprung from the school of Spener, could not do it for want of ability, nor the later Supernatiiralists for the same reason. Even those who were among the most learned and orthodox, as for example, Storr and Flatt, and Rheinhard, seldom rose above the lowest sense of the 1'ible and Symbolical Books. They had no sense of the Holy Ghost in the Church, and many of them endeavored by va- rious compromises to make Christianity as agreeable as pos- sible to the natural man. They treated with the enemy, in fact, until many of them fairly fell over to his side, as in the case of Schott, Ammon, and Bretschueider. Wingard RPV. Church, 182, 183. Schaf. 147. Pmiey Germ. Theol. I. 725, 125-186, II. 119313, 362 422. Sack's Lett to Pusey, 11. Bretschneider's reply to Rose, 27-42. For the peculiarities and the influence of the Rationalistic School, see New England- ism not the Religion of the Bible, 22 33. And for some of the causes that have contributed to the introduction of the im- proved condition of things, the State of Religion in England and Germany Compared, 34 38. * Dr. Nevin's sermon, ubi supra. t Comp. Moeh. 352, Schaf. 7.45. NOT GENUINE PHOTESTANTISM. 31 in a greater or less degree, lost. Even the Con- tinental Reformers themselves, from the peculiarity of their situation, and the supposed necessity of the case, were led to give up one important point, which they acknowledged to be part of this " ag- gregate faith of the Church in all ages" the ne- cessity of Episcopacy to the well-being, if not to the being of a Church,* and all the evils arising from other sources, in those communions, have, no doubt, been increased and perpetuated by the ab- sence of this safeguard. KOMISH VIEW OF JUSTIFICATION. But there is another principle which, so far as the Reformation was concerned, is more important and vi- tal than this one, which called it into being, and which gave it that moral power that has enabled it to with- stand all the attacks upon it, from within and with- out the doctrine ofjustificaiion by faith. It was this which made Luther invincible, and which nerved the martyrs of England for the stake. The Church of Rome holds, that the natural state of man since the fall, is one of weakness, not of positive corruption ; so that the power of willing and doing good works, though weakened, is not destroyed, and that they * That the Continental Reformers would have retained the Episcopacy, if they could, at first, has been so often shown, that no proof need be added. 32 PURITANISM co-operate in the sinner's justification. Conse- quently, when these powers are invigorated by the gracious calling, the sinner disposes himself to the acquisition of the same, so that GOD'S grace and the -human will work in conjunction ; the one by illumi- nation, the other by freely consenting and moving towards GOD.* Justification, according to the teach- ing of Romanism, is not accomplished at once, but is the work of time, is not the accounting, but the mak- ing of us righteous, is not the act of GOD alone, but the conjoined effect of GOD'S grace, along with faith and works on our part. And it carries its estimate of human virtue so far, as to teach, not only the possibility of a perfect fulfillment of the whole law, but also of super-meritorious works, which are deposited in the treasury of the Church, to help out the short comings of less obedient souls. f Nor is the grace by which we are justified, in connection with faith and works, apprehended by faith alone, but communicated, in part, if not wholly, by the sacraments.^ PROTESTANT VIEW OF JUSTIFICATION. To this view the whole body of Reformers op- Coun. Trent, Sess. VI. cc. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, Can. 5, 6, 7, Moeh. 134142. Comp. Schaf. 56, 57. Views of Gospel Truth, ] 9, 23. t Coun. Trent, ubi sup. Hooker on Just. 3 5. Moeh. 168201. Views of Gospel Truth, 42-45, 78, 79. I Coun. Trent, Sess. VI. cc. 7, 8, 15. Sess. VII. c. 1. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 33 posed the primitive and scriptural doctrine, of man's entire alienation from GOD and his justification by faith only. Thus all merit on the part of man is set aside, and all ability of man to co-operate in the work of justification, forever set at rest. ITS FOUNDATION. The great principle of the Reformation, there- fore, -that which has with much truth and propriety been called the Protestant Principle, is that of justification by faith, and which, as taught by all the Reformers, both English and Continental, was based on the assumption, that man by the fall, " lost not only the image of GOD, but also all power and ability, either of willing or doing works, pleasing and acceptable to GOD, in consequence of which the heart became wholly estranged from GOD, and con- tinually prone to evil."* Hence they deduced that prime article of the Reformation, the absolute neces- sity of the sinner's justification before GOD, by the merit of CHRIST alone, through faith.~f * Schaf. 60. Views of Gospel Truth, 1719. Augs. Conf. Art. 2, 4, Smalk. Art. 3 : 1. Helv. Conf. ii. 8, 9. Heidi. Cat. Ques. 7, 8. Gall. Conf. Art. 10, 11. Belg. Conf. Art. 15. Can. Syn. Dort. cap. Ill art. 1, 2, 3- t This is the full statement as given by Schaf. Prot. Prin. p. 54. The New Englander, the champion of Puritanism, says " the fundamental principle of Protestantism," that is, Puritanism, " is that the Bible is authority, and the only au- 3 34 PURITANISM ITS CONSEQUENCES. Tliis doctrine, viewed in relation to the material or life.principle, is the doctrine of the justification of the sinner before GOD, by the merit of CHRIST alone, through faith. Viewed in relation to the formal or knoirledgc-princijJe, and it is the proposi- tion, that tlie Word of GOD, as it has been handed down in the books of the Old and New Testaments, is the pure and proper source, as veil as the only cer- tain measure, of all saving truth.* thority in religion, the sole and sufficient rule of faith and practice." N. E. II. 66, a position that is contradicted by every page of history relating to the Reformation. "It is a very current idea," says Schaf. Prot. Prin. 53, " particularly in the Reformed Church, that the doctrine of the exclusive authority of the Sacred Scriptures, form* the proper center and root of Protestanism. But this we can not admit, al- though the Christian life of the Reformers was shaped from the beginning by the Scriptures. For this principle is formal only, and so secondary, presupposing the presence of a defi- nite substance which it mast include. In order that tho Scriptures may be taken as the exclusive source and measure of Christian truth, it is necessary that the faith in CHRIST of which they testify, should be already at hand, and that their contents should have been made to live in the heart, by the power of the HOLY GHOST, accompanying the word and the Church." This is all for which Churchmen contend. * Schaf. 71. The Puritans say, " the sole fountain, stand- ard nnd judge," and the Romanist charge the same upon the Reformers. Comp. N. E. II. 66, and Moeh. 382. The Re- formers said " source and measure" not judge. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 35 SENSE OF SCRIPTURE, HOW DETERMINED. Thus far there is no controversy among true Protestants. Nor was there any controversy among the Reformers, as to the further question, how the sense of these books is to be ascertained and de- termined. The boasted right of private judgment, in the modern sense of the language, never entered their thoughts. They held, that while faith alone justi- fies, it produces good works, as its necessary fruit ; so also, that while the word of GOD is the only fountain and source of knowledge, it flows forward in the Church, and comes'there continually to clearer and deeper consciousness ; * and that the interpretation which we are bound to receive on all great points of doctrine, and by which we are to abide, is that sense which has been apprehended and settled by the Church.f Hence, the Catholic Creeds ; the de- cisions of all General Councils, that could properly be called such ; and the consent of the early Church, were considered as binding on us, in all important questions of doctrine.^: Schaf. 71. tSchaf. 81, 87. t This is substantially the view of all Churchmen, though it is one which has given Mr. Hall so much trouble. It IB evident that he neither knows the nature of the rule of Vin- cent of Lerins, which is applied to all such inquiries, nor un- derstands the principle of its application. Had he known th : s, he would have seen, that it matters little whether we 36 PURITANISM WHO ARE TRUE PROTESTANTS. This being the true Protestant principle, those only are true, are genuine Protestants, who con- tinue to hold and teach the same ; those only who do this, are prepared, or even able to fight over the battles of the Reformation ; they alone can enter into the feelings and understand the language of the Reformers. And it was the agreement of the Eng- lish and Continental Reformers, upon these great and fundamental principles, that produced the sympathy between them,* and not as our author supposes, a want of attachment to the primitive and apostolic organization that had been retained in England, but reluctantly given up on the Continent.f confine ourselves to two, three, four, or more centuries that we must come to the same result. The rule is, " first the Bible, next the teaching of the Church Catholic ;" that this teaching applies only to " what has believed every where, al- ways, and by all." Vine, on Heresy, etc. i. 1, 3. The three tests of Catholic teaching are, Universality, Antiquity, and Consent. When our author comes to understand the nature and application of these tests, he will be relieved of his diffi culty. * See on this subject Appendix, Note A. t On p. 279, our author, in reply to a passage in the Primi- tive Church, says, " it is notorious that the English Reform- ers uniformly treated the non-Episcopal Foreign Churchea and ministers, as true Churches and ministers." If this is " notorious," he should have specified some instances, not considered and disproved in the " Primitive Church." Until NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 37 PURITANISM A DISEASE OF PROTESTANTISM. We are now prepared to to inquire whether Pu- ritanism be genuine Protestantism ; whether it can fairly be employed as a standard by which to judge of the Reformers and the Reformation ; whether it is to be regarded, as we suppose, as one of its diseases ; or whether, as our author imagines, it is to be consid- ered as the form of its life. The author of The Pu- ritans and their Principles, with all his co-laborers, regards it as the purest form of Protestantism, as its most living, active, vital representative. On the other hand, the profound and eminently learned Dr. SchaffJ this is done, his wholesale assertions must go for mere decla- mation. He has given us nothing but the opinions of indi- viduals. We want the acts of the Church. But if we were to allow the facts to be as he alleges, it would by no means follow that we have departed from the principles of the Reformers. If our author desires to see what would have been then thought of such notions of the Church and the ministry as he holds, we would refer him to the history of Lewis Hetzer, John Campanus, Michael Servetus, Valentine Gentilis, and Loelius Socinius, all of whom were put to death by the Con- tinental Reformers, for teaching doctrines which we suppose our author would pronounce orthodox. Bayle III. 151, IV. 338. V. 168, Moeh. 536. If the Reformers put men to death as heretics for holding similar opinions to those of modern Puritanism, it by no means follows that we are to fellowship those doctrines now, because those who hold them, ignorantly suppose them to be the genuine doctrines of the Reforma- tion. 38 PURITANISM fresh from the new Lutheran School of Germany, and now Professor of Church History and Biblical Lit- erature in the Theological Seminary of the German Reformed Church at Chambersburgh, Pennsylvania, does not hesitate to classify it among the things pro- duced by one of the "diseases ofProtestanism" the Sect-system ; which he tells us, " must be considered the more dangerous, [i. e. than Rationalism, its other disease,] because it ordinarily appears in the imposing garb of piety Satan transformed into an Angel of light." * SUMMARY OF PURITAN PRINCIPLES. The principles of Puritanism, as stated by our author, and by which he judges of our departure from the principles of the Reformation, arejustifi- cation by faith a/one, the fundamental principle of the Reformation; the Bible alone, the rule of fii h and duty ; CHRIST alone, the sole law-giver of his Church ; no human traditions in proof for matters of faith ; no human inventions to be imposed as essen- tial parts of divine worship ; these were the origi- nal principles for which the Puritans contended, f This may be Puritanism, but it is very far from being genuine Protestantism, as that was understood by the Reformers themselves. What they would have said to such an unchurchly view of Church principles, Schaf. 117 t Hall. 30. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 39 those familiar with their writings can easily guess. They would have inquired for the Church, for the Ministry, and for the Sacraments. They would wished to have known why nothing was said of the body of CHRIST, why the sacred office of GOD'S min- istry had been overlooked, and how the holy Sacra- ments could have been forgotten ? The presentation of such a summary of principles as a Protestant Creed, would have subjected the proposer to the anathema of every Reformer, from Cranmer to Zuingle. DEVIATIONS OF PURITANISM FROM THE REFOR- MATION (1.) JUSTIFICATION. They taught the doctrine of "justification by faith alone," but as a consequence of their view of man's depravity. Had any then taught, as many now do, that man's natural state, subsequent to the fall, is one of spiritual weakness and debility, but not of positive corruption, they would have been handed over to the Romanists without ceremony. * They * The case of Victoria Strigel, a pupil of Melancthon, a clergyman of Weimar, and Professor in the University of Jena, is a case in point. For teaching that man still retains ability to repent and turn to GOD, and that he is not entire- ly passive in conversion, he was imprisoned three years, from 1559 1562, and was finally released through the interpo- sition of foreign princes. Mosh. III. 16. Pusey, 1. 16. Moeh. 144. 40 PURITANISM knew no middle ground. A being whose spiritual powers had been destroyed, and his nature corrupt- ed, could do nothing to merit pardon, nothing towards his justification: one whose powers had only been weakened, and whose nature was not sinful, might do something towards both. The difference was heaven-wide ; it was the difference between Prot- estantism and Romanism. We should be glad to know where our author stands in this respect. The old Puritans would not have left us in the dark upon so important a point. If he stands on the true Protes- tant ground, why is he silent? If, on the contrary, he stands on new Calvinistic ground, * he has giv- en up the foundation on which the "Protestant Prin- ciple" rests, and is no longer a a true Proteatant. WHAT IS THE BIBLE. There is a very important or fundamental inqui- ry arising in this place, which our author seems to have overlooked ; what is the Bible ? We refer not now to the proper mode of determining the sense of Scripture, but how are we to know what books should compose the canon. Our author says (p. 253) " The Bible is complete its canon is fixed and unalterable." But he adds, " no research has been able wholly to separate the spurious writings attribu- * As he is said to do, seo Calendar II. 26, and Views of Gospel Truth, 59 75, for the New Calvinistic opinions. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 41 ted to the Fathers, from the true." One knows not which of these assertions imply the greatest want of information. We have no doubt on the subject of the Canon, for the Church has settled the ques- tion for us. But " the private judgment" of our au- thor's associates is so far from being settled, that there is scarce a book in either Testament, that some of them do not doubt ; though there is a gen- eral agreement among them as to which of the Fathers are genuine.* (2.) INTERPRETATION OP THE BIBLE. The Reformers, too, received the Bible alone as " the source and fountain of all saving truth." But they never dreamed of the modern notion of making that blessed book, as construed by every man's whim and fancy, as interpreted by every man's pri- vate judgment, the rule either of faith or duty. They believed in a living, Christian consciousness, mani- fested in the Creeds and Confessions of the early Church, in the decrees of those General Councils that could properly be called such, and in the consent of primitive antiquity, which was binding on us ; and they continually appealed to all as proof, f They * See New Eng. not Rel. Bible, 2327. t Luther himself appealed from the Pope to a General Council, and the other Reformers did the same. Scott's Lu- ther, I. 106. Schaf. 81. Cranmer also made an " Appeal from the Fope to the next General Council," and so did the Reformers generally. 8* 42 PURITANISM aimed at making no discoveries, and pretended to no discoveries. They only desired to wipe off the accumulated dust of ages, and to restore the body of CIIKIST to its primitive brightness and purity, in doctrine and discipline. Puritanism on this point, as represented by our author, is as diverse from Prot- estantism, as from Romanism itself. (3.) LEGISLATIVE POWER OF THE CHURCH. The Reformers, too, in common with Romanists also, believed CHRIST to be the source and fountain of all power in the Church ; in the highest sense, "the sole law-giver of his Church." But that man can know little of those men or the history of their times, who imagines that they did not allow a subordinate legislative power in CHRIST'S Church, acting in His name, and by His authority, in things not contrary to the revealed Word. And this power was exercised in every Reformed community, in framing Articles of Religion, and prescribing forms of worship.* AuRsbarjjh Confession, 1530. Confession of Basle, 1532, re-adopted 1561. Helvetic Confession, 153(>. Smalkaldic Ar- ticles, 1537. Confession of Wittenberg, 1552. Gallic Con- fession, 1559. Bel gic Confession, 1566. Bohemian Confession, 1573. Our author himself, in another place, (p. 307,) allows the principle of a limited legislative j>ower in the Church, but supposes it to reside hi each particular congregation, ra- NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 43 (4.) AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. Tho Reformers too, Continental as well as English, admitted " human traditions," as our author calls them, as "proof in matters of faith." They received and bowed submissively to the testimony and tradition of the early Church, as expressed in the Council of Nice, in regard to the relation borne by the Son to the Father ; that of the Council of Con- stantinople, in regard to the character and office of the HOLY GHOST, and that of other later Councils on other important points of doctrine ; * and they even ther than in National Synods, or General Councils. And he quotes the opinion of Neander, whom he styles " the most distinguished ecclesiastical historian of the present day," as conclusive authority on this point. Our author seems not to bo aware that he has conceded the whole point at issue, in. regard to the existence of a legislative authority in the Church, reducing the inquiry simply to the place where that authority is lodged, and that the authority of Neander cannot help him. The General Association of Connecticut has been very express upon this subject. In a report on the subject of Councils, it is said, " though Christians have differed much in opinion as to what constituted the supreme judicature [of the Church,] yet in every form of Church government, there has been this supreme tribunal, whose decision has been es- teemed final." Proceedings, 1822, p. 23. See Note B. * " The Lutheran and Reformed Churches have unhesita- tingly appropriated to themselves the oecumenical symbols, as true expressions of Church consciousness." Schaf. 88, 9. 44 PURITANISM went so far as to appeal their own cause from the judgment of the Pope, to that of a General Council. They also retained, in Geneva and Germany as well as in England, many things in public worship which our author would consider as " human inven- tions."* (5.) MATURE OF THE CHVRC1I. But the difference between Puritanism and Pro- testantism, is even more clearly seen in the different views entertained by them, in regard to the Church, the ministry, and the sacraments. We have already seen that Protestantism regards the Church as the body of CHRIST, as an institution founded by Him, proceeding out of His loins, anointed by His SPIRIT, the medium by which His life is conveyed to its members, the continuation of the earthly human life of the Redeemer, in His threefold office of Prophet, Priest, and King,f and that it is the ful- ness of Him that filleth all in al!4 But Puritanism, * The Lutherans retain the gown, the cross, the crucifix, the wafer, candles upon the altar, make the sign of the cross, and practice confession, etc. etc. t But our author exclaims with astonishment at this very idea. 302, 355. t Our author expressly denies (p. 281) that Eph i. 23, from which this language is quoted, and also Eph. v. 25, 27, has any thing to do with the Church as an organized or visi- ble body. But Eph. iv. 11, 12, he applies to the visible NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 45 as represented by our author and his cotemporaries, knows nothing of all this, believes nothing of all this. It denies the existence of any such body, and can form no idea of any such means of communicat- ing grace. It begins by dividing off the whole body of the truly pious, into a distinct and independent regiment, united to CHRIST, not by means of the Church which is His body, but by some invisible bond, directly to the head itself, conferring upon these individuals, all spiritual blessings and graces,* thus leaving the invisible Church, poor, and wretch- ed, and naked, so far as any spiritual office, blessing, or object is concerned, f And having done this, having dwelt upon this beggarly idea of a Church, human in its origin, authority, and power, until it ia incapable, by its oAvn confession, even of understand- ing the language of the Reformers and of those who truly represent their sentiments,^: they turn round and gravely charge those who stand in the old paths, with having departed from the teaching of those eminent men of GOD, with idolatry almost, with superstition quite, in believing that "the Church is Church, (p. 282.) By what rule of logic or law of exegesis he applies the beginning and end of a narrative to an invisi- ble body, and the middle to a visible body, we are not told. * Hall, 2Bl, et. seq. New Englandism not the Religion of the Bible, 38, 39. t Views Gospel Truth, 9799. t Dick Lect. Theol. XCI. 40 PURITANISM the Mother from which the Christian derives his religious life, and to which he owes constant fidelity, gratitude, and obedience." And such are the men who charge Churchmen with having departed from the faith of the Reformers, and with being anxious to return to the embrace of the "mother of harlots." Because the ideas entertained by these men of the Church, are gross and carnal, they cannot un- derstand those who have entered into any thing like a full comprehension of the deep mystery of " CHRIST and his Church." They have lost sight of that doc- trine, so precious in the sight of the Reformers and the primitive Christians, that to those who have been justified by faith, through the merits of CHRIST, "a new nature has been imparted also, by an actual communication of the Saviour's life over into his person," through the medium of the Church. They know nothing of that blessed doctrine, "that the very life of the LORD JKSUS is found reaching over into the person of the renewed man, and gradually transfusing it with its own heavenly force." They can not even conceive how that "the life of the be- liever involves a communion with the body of CHRIST, as well as with His Spirit."* Nor can they imagine how bald, and barren, and unsatisfac- tory is the modern Puritan view of the Church, to those who have felt the power of the true faith in their inmost souls. Nevin's Sermon, 195, 196. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 47 (6.) NATURE OF THE MINISTRY. The Reformers also taught the divine institution and perpetual obligation of the sacred ministry, " and they attached, as every one knows," says a learned and judicious writer of the present day, " an impor- tance 'and sacredness to the office of preacher, which we are apt to consider extravagant ; and not without reason, if the circumstances of our own day are to regulate our belief."* With these exalted notions of the ministry, the Puritanism of our author and his cotemporaries, has nothing in common.f Nor would it be consistent or reasonable to confer any spiritual functions upon the officer of such an unspir- itual body as is the Church, according to their opinion. (7.) NATURE OF THE SACRAMENTS. And with the unspiritualizing of the Church and the degrading of the ministry, we also find among the modern Puritans, a degradation of the Sacra- ments also. " The idea of the inward union on the part of the believer, with the entire humanity of CHRIST, has in all ages," says a learned writer of the German Reformed Communion, " entered deep- ly into the consciousness of the Church Hence the earnestness with which the Reformers * Maurice, 103. t Views Gospel Truth, 100. 48 PURITANISM generally maintained the doctrine of the real presence in the sacraments."* Indeed upon no two doc- trines were the Reformers more universally united and none were urged, next after justification by faith, with more zeal, than those of Baptis- mal Regeneration, j" and the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of CHRIST in the Eucharist4 Up- on both of these points, modern Puritanism has de- parted so far from the principles of the Reformation, that it charges those who retain them with heresy, and finally confesses itself unable even to attach * Nevin's Sermon, 198. t Maurice, 94, 106. " This at least is certain, that the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration was held by Luther, not in conjunction with that of justification by faith, (as he might have held any doctrine which belonged to the natural philosophy of his age,) but that he grounded the one on the other." Ib. 255. For the opinion of Calvin see Institutes, b. IV. rv. 1, 2, 5, 6. xvii. 1, and New Eng. not Rel. Bib. 44, 45. " It works remission of sins." Luth. Short Cat c. iv. 4, 2. " Imparts regeneration and forgiveness of sins." Muensch. Dog.Hiet. Fart II. o. ii. $199. But " the sacraments do not produce justification as a matter of course," " without faith." Augs. Coiif. XIII. Luther also held, that the spiritual work begun in baptism, continues through life. " Where- fore also baptism, TO xot/T{o TC n Chand. Appeal Defended, 27. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 75 printing this paper, a fact which entirely changes the complexion of affairs in regard to Cranmer's opinion. . * POINTS OF AGREEMENT WITH THE REFORMERS. But our author is not content with charging us with having departed from the principles of the En- glish Reformers, he goes on to say that the Reforma- tion was not carried far enough in England ; not so far, even, as the Reformers themselves would have carried it, had they been permitted. Puritanism, of course, is the carrying out of that Reformation. Some of these points have been considered already. We have already seen, that the Reformers, Conti- nental as well as English, agreed in regard to the nature of the Church and its office, the nature, au- thority, and character of the ministry, though not as to its orders, baptismal regeneration, the real pres- ence, the authority of the Bible and tradition, though most of their descendants have, until recently, depart- ed from them all. Consequently the great question with our author is, whether the ministry should be perpetuated in three orders, or in one order. The Church of England decided in favor of three, and re- tained the Apostolical succession. The Church in Sweden did the same. The Church in Denmark retained the three orders, but has probably lost the succession. In Germany, Switzerland, France, and 76 PURITANISM Holland, one order only has been retained. The question has been so often, and so thoroughly dim- cussed of late, in regard to the ministry, that we shall not enter at all into the argument at present. Those who wish to examine it, will find books ready at hand, adapted to all their wants. DISAGREEMENT OF CONTINENTAL REFORMERS. In regard to other doctrines, our author should have told us, who he would have had us follow; which of the Continental Reformers, he would have had the Church of England taken for its standard : whether we should assert the ubiquity of CHRIST'S glorified body, with Luther,* or deny it with Calvin ;f whether we should hold that the elements in the Eu- charist contain, and thus convey the Body and Blood of CHRIST, with Luther, $ or that they represent, but do not convey them, with Calvin, or, that to the faithful, they convey, without containing them, with Melancthon, and Bucer, and Peter Martyn ; || * Muensch. Dog. Hist. Per. III. par. ii. 202. t Inst. IV. xvii. 30. { Muensch. Ib. 198. $ Muensch. Ib. 198. || Mosheim says Melancthon " agreed with Luther in re- gard to the LORD'S Supper, though he says he wished to use ambiguous terms and phrases in regard to it." III. 165. But Bucer, son-in-law of Melancthon, affirms the contrary- Bayle IV. 190. The doctrine of the Lutherans seemed to Bucer to attribute too much [corporeal] reality to the presence NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 77 whether we should hold to unconditional election, with Calvin, * or deny it with Luther ; f whether we should hold to universal redemption, with Luther,^: or deny it with Calvin ; whether we should pro- fess our faith in " one holy Catholic Church," with Calvin; || or, in "one Christian Church, "IT with Lu- ther ; or whether in the various points of difference, we should reject both, and follow the teachings of Zuingle.** . ' ; of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, he could not digest the consequence of it ; but he thought also, that the opinion of Zuingle was too narrow, and did not come up to the ideas which the Scriptures and ancient tradition imprint on our minds." Bayle II. 177. Bucer also, as well as his master, Melancthon, was charged by the Calvin- ists of employing " ambiguous and obscure phrases in regard to it." J. Simber, cited by Hetta Bayle II. 177. " Peter Martyn, conformed himself for some time to Bucer's lan- guage," and while " in England was exhorted [by Calvin] to speak more fully and clearly concerning the Eucharist." Bayle 11.178. These men were for taking ground, interme- diate between the Lutherans and Calvinists, and hence nei- ther party could understand them. * Inst. III. xxi. 5, 7. xxv. 12, 14. t Moeh. III. 212. t Augs. Conf. Art. III. Inst. III. xxi xxv. || Inst. IV. i. 2. \Short Cat. Sec. II. Ans. 3. " Eine heilige Christliche Kirche." This is adopted even in Sweden. Wingard, 143. ** One cannot avoid smiling at the manner in which the 78 PURITANISM LUTHERAN RITES AND CEREMONIES. But his remarks on this point, seem to refer rather to rites and ceremonies than to doctrines, for he says that the English Reformers " were by no means of the opinion of some at the present day, that all was done, which a regard for purity in worship demanded." (p. 54.) Perhaps he would have these things conformed to the Lutheran pattern, and would have us restore the high altar, and wear the embroidered surplice, burn lights upon the altar in the communion, use the wafer in its administration,* make the sign of the cross in consecrating the el- ements, as well as in baptism, have the cross on the outside, and in the inside of the Churches, the cru- cifix on the altar, chant the Liturgy, pray with the back to the people, and bow- at the name of JESUS, whenever it occurs ; practices which prevail to a greater or less degree in all the Lutheran Churches to the present day.f names of such " Reformers as Luther, Calvin, and Zuingle" are associated by the New Englander, II. 232, as though they all taught the same doctrine. * This was done in Geneva for a long time^Mas. Vind. by Linds. 505. It was abolished in 1623. Spon. Hist. Gen. 373. in Bayle III. 343. t Hoppu's Sketches, 74, 118. Jarvis' No Unioii with Rome, 13, 21. Pusey Germ. Theol. II. 402. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 79 OBJECTIONS TO THE ENGLISH REFORMATION (1.) THE WORK OF THE STATE. But the greatest objection of all, against the Eng- lish Reformation, seems to be, that it was the work of the " State and not the Church." (pp. 5462.) The articles he confesses were " such as the Reform- ers would have them," (p. 58,) but the " Liturgy" and " offices" were the work of " the State," (pp. 58, 62,) and only " so left by the Reformers for the present, with the hope of further amendment when the time would allow it." (p. 58.) These objections, in the mouth of a Romanist, might have some sem- blance of intelligent sincerity ; but in an avowed champion of the Reformation, they sound strangely enough ; for, if the English Reformation is to be censured, because the State took an active part therein, the German and Swiss must also be placed under the ban. Luther gave himself very little concern with any thing but doctrine, and it was not until the accession of John of Saxony, 1525, that any decided measures were taken to organize a dis- tinct Church. A confession of faith was drawn up by Luther and Melancthon, at the request of the Prince, and presented to the Diet at Augsburgh, 1530, by the Prince and Duke of Saxony, the Earl of Bradenburg, the Duke of Lunenburg, the Land- grave of Hesse, the Prince of Anhalt, the Senates of Nuremburgh, and Reutlingcn, together with a 80 PURITANISM list of " the corruptions of the Catholic Church, corrected by the Reformers."* The same interposi- tion of the civil authorities was also practiced in Geneva,f Denmark, and Sweden.:}: GRADUAL IN ITS CHARACTER ; DIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH AND CONTINENTAL. Another fact which our author appears to con- sider a serious objection to the English Reformation was the gradual and cautious manner in which it was conducted. And here it must be confessed, that the English and Continental Reformations were con- ducted on totally different principles. The English Reformation was characterized at every step, by the deliberation and inquiry, which should precede any change. It was the gradual dawn of the morning light upon those who had long been groping in dark- ness, but were anxiously looking out for the coming day. It was the result of prayerful study, and careful research. Nothing was conceded to passion nothing left to chance nothing rejected that could claim the sanction of the Bible and primitive antiquity no- thing retained but what might;, and nothing done, but * See App. to Am. Ed. of Burnett, on XXIX Articles, N. Y. 1842, or Schmilcker's " Elements of Popular Theol." &c. And. 1843. But the work of Dr. S. does not contain the entire confession. t Beza's Life of Calvin. t Mosheim, B. IV. Cent. XVI. 1, v. 4. NOT GENUINE PROTEST ANTISM. 81 as the laws of the Church Catholic directed.* On the contrary, Luther was the creature of circum- stances. He believed that he was fighting the LORD'S battles, and he left the whole direction of external matters to the hand of an overruling Provi- dence. Deeming himself the mere instrument of a higher power, he took no precaution to prevent the evils that might result from his own indiscreet or misguided actions.f Consequently his views were * Prim. Church, 401, and Bur. I. 372. Ogilby's Lec- tures on the Church, 133208. t No one can read Scott's Life of Luther, but especially D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, without feeling this fact in regard to Luther, continually. Having alluded to the history of D'Aubigne, it seems to -be incumbent on us to mention certain circumstances relative to that work, which materially detract from its authority. We say nothing of the fact, that being a strict Calvinist, the author could hardly be expected to enter fully into the views and feelings of Lather ; but we allude to the doubtfulness of the claim set up in the preface of the book, to originality. The au- thor says :_ " this history has been drawn from original sour- ces, with which a long residence > in Germany, the Low Counj tries and Switzerland, has made me familiar. Down to this time we possess no history of that remarkable period." The impression which this language will naturally convey to eve- ry reader is entirely erroneous ; for it could only be true of the French, (if of them,) that they had no such history ; and by " original sources," he can mean no more than German histories, for a learned German tells us that it is, " in its main parts, a skillful working up of German material, especially 82 PURITANISM always more or loss one-sided. Taking his stand "in the element of GOD'S umrrittcn word, and ani- mated by the one all regulating principle of justifi- cation, he uttered his judgment against certain parts of the Canon [of Scripture, the Epistle of St. James, and that to the Hebrews,] because they seemed to him to be in conflict with that [unwritten] word," "not being able to find in them, his cardinal tnith, justifi- cation by faith only."* That one idea was the all in all with him, and had it not been for the interven- tion of the State, and the labors of his friends, Lu- theranism would either have had no being at all, or have presented a very different character and aspect, from what it has hitherto done. It was the game one-sided view of things that led Luther to say: "could I, with the writings of Moses, the Psalms, Isaiah, have also the same Spi- rit, I could then make a New Testament as well as the Apostles who wrote it."f It was the same view which led him, in his controversy with the Papacy, to rest every thing in the Christian ministry upon the History of the Reformation, by Marheinecke, which still remains superior to it in the estimation of all competent judge*." Schaf. 166. And Dr. S. adds, "We have been really surprised to see how Dr. Merle [D'Aubignr] allows himself to plunder German authors ;" which charge he sus- *vns by other proofs. Schaf. 55. Pusey, II. C7, on authority of Iirt(:'chneidcr. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 83 " internal ordination," a doctrine which, later in life,. he abandoned.* Hence, 'also, the seeming inconsistencies in his life and writings. One point was pushed to the ex- treme, regardless of its bearing upon another, until he found his own arguments turned against himself, by those who wished to pull down what he was building up.f And the history and character of the two Churches, have been as different as the means of their Reformation were dissimilar. DEVELOPMENT OF EITUAL. And here it is proper to mention another distin- guishing feature of the English Reformation. We mean the care taken in developing the ritual as well as in settling the doctrinal of religion. All the Re- formers agreed, in making doctrine the basis of their system.:}: But while Luther left the ritual to devel- ope itself, as ' circumstances might call it forth, the English Reformers acted upon the principle that it should be developed by the Church, as well as in the Church. Hence, the ritual was labored with the same care as the doctrinal, and the result was, a sys- tem that has no equal for its purity of doctrine and * Authorities quoted in Moeh. Synb. 392, 393. t This was especially true in regard to the Church and the ministry, ^^j?^ t Views Gospel Truth, 9197. 84 PURITANISM propriety of worship ; a system that has endeared it- self to all her children, by its adaptation to the wants of their spiritual nature, and commanded the homage of the good and the great, of every name and nation, for its simplicity, propriety, and beauty. And it is no doubt owing, under GOD, to this close correspon- dence of principle and development of doctrine and ritual that both have been preserved in so much in- tegrity and purity, while the other reformed bodies have so sadly departed from one or both.* The English Reformers agreed, therefore, with the Continental, in regarding the doctrinal of reli- gion as the basis of their system in asserting man's utter inability, since the fall, to do any thing by which to prepare himself for repentance and faith ; and the necessity, therefore, of his " gratuitous justification for CHRIST'S sake, through faith,"f in making the Bible the only sure fountain and certain measure of divine truth, in receiving that sense of it, which had been apprehended and settled by the Church, and in regard to the character of the Church, the divine ap- * The Church in Sweden must be excepted from this re- mark, which, though strictly Lutheran in doctrine, is Episco- pal both in form and fact ; and which has suffered no serious inroad from the Rationalism of her German neighbors. Abp. Wingard's Church of Christ, 205. Denmark, which is Epis- copal in form but not in fact, has been very deeply imbued with Rationalistic principles. Wing. 196. ^ t This is the language of the Augsburg Confession. Art. 4. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 85 pointment of the ministry, the nature and design of the Sacraments. But they differed from the Conti nental, in regard to the manner in which the conse- quences of the fall were effected as to the manner and consequence of man's renewal as to the orders by which the ministry should be perpetuated as to the connection between the doctrinal and ritual o religion, and the importance of the proper develop- ment of the same. The English Reformation also differed from the Continental, in the means by which it was effected, and the manner of its accomplish- ment,* and consequently has been widely different from the others, both in its character and results. ITS CANONICAL CHARACTER. There is another circumstance connected with the English Reformation, which our author affects to treat with contempt, but which, nevertheless, is de- serving of careful consideration. The author of the " Primitive Church," had attempted to show, (c. 29,) that the English Reformation was Canonical, inas- much as no change was made, either in doctrine or discipline, without the consent of clergy and laity, according to the requirements of the law of the Church Catholic, while the retrogression made by Mary, was uncanonical, being done in violation of those Canons. But, without any attempt at disprov- * Sweden is an exception ; Denmark partially so. 86 PUBITAXISM ing the facts or principles there stated, our author sneers at the idea of a Canonical Reformation under Edward and Elizabeth, and in the same breath as- serts, that " Mary too, made a Canonical Reforma- tion, when she carried the Reformation back to Rome." (pp. 272 274.) The most favorable con- struction which charity can put upon this conduct, is, to suppose him ignorant of the meaning of the word " Canonical," as used by historians and Canonists. But however much Puritanism may affect to despise this feature of the English Reformation, no man can disregard it, who enters into the views of the Re- formers themselves, Continental as well as English, in regard to the Church. No right-minded man will be willing, for any slight cause, to break away from the life of the Church, and cast himself, a lone and withered branch, upon the bleak and barren hills of sin and death. And no man who understands the history of the Church, will think lightly of a " Canonical Reformation." PURITANISM HAS CHANGED, NOT WE. This brief survey of the Reformation, is sufficient to demonstrate that on all the points upon which we are charged with having departed from the faith of the Reformers, it is Puritanism that has changed, and not we ; that all those points of doctrine which were held in common at that time, are held by us NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 87 now, and that the discipline of which our author complains, is, by his own confession, a faithful and honest carrying out of the principles which the Re- formers established.* On the other hand, it is no less evident, that while Puritanism has retained substantially the same form of discipline as that es- tablished by the Genevan Reformers, it has departed from the doctrines of the Reformation, until it has scarcely a point in common with the Protestantism of the Reformers themselves. Under these circum- stances, no one can hesitate to say, that Puritanism is not geunine Protestantism. BOASTS OF HAVING CHANGED. Indeed in the same breath in which Puritanism charges us with having departed from the principles * We do not say, the "principles of the Reformers," but, "the principles which the Reformers established;" for, our author holds that the public documents set forth by those men, with the single exception of the XXXIX Ar- ticles, do not express their sentiments, nor set forth their principles. Our author's account of the origin of our Prayer- Book, is a real curiosity. He tells us, that "the offices of the Prayer-Book, (p. 58,) all but the Articles, were "framed from the old Mass books," (p. 60,) by " the State, and not the Church," (p. 62,) for the express purpose of " keeping Papists in the Church," (pp. 58, 78.) Hence he says, " its origin was neither divine nor ecclesiastical," (p. 62 ;) and he adopts the language of another, who said, " It was but an ill-mumbled mass," (p. 58.) Any other feeling than that of pity towards such a man, is impossible. 88 PURITANISM of the Reformers, it boasts of doing the same thing itself. Thus our author, speaking of Wickliffe, says ; "With the Bible in his hand, and taking that alone for his guide, he advanced further into the field of Apostolic truth and order, than Luther and his im- mediate coadjutors. He reached hold on results, which after a lapse of centuries, and after an age of suffering and research, the Providence of GOD un- folded once more to the eyes of the Puritans." (p. 29.) And the New Englander, the avowed and ac- knowledged organ of the latest form of New Cal- vanistic Puritanism, said in 1844 : " Notwithstand- ing their [the Reformers'] wisdom and piety and zeal, there was some serious defects in their man- ner of conducting the controversy of their age We can conduct the Reformation of our times to an issue more glorious and enduring than was even ant'cipated by the Reformers of the sixteenth cen- tury."* With two years more of development and it says : " The great battle fur religious liberty is yet to be fought. The idea of religious liberty which is yet to be the great idea of our age has yet been but slowly developed. The Reformers did not possess it. Even the Puritans did not ftilly grasp it, if we except him who does not need a statue, because he would not wear a crown ; whose truest, New Eng. II. 232. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 89 noblest title is TI*E MAN, Oliver Cromwell."* And yet for us to doubt the perfection of that work, * New Eng. IV. 418. This application of that name to Cromwell, which has been applied to CHRIST alone, and which is true of him alone, is in good keeping with ova author's appropriation of the epithet of " the' Great Repub- lican," applied to our LORD by the infidel De La Mennais. If this be not the' spirit of Rationalism, it is the spirit of infi- delity. The history of Puritanism it is not now our present pur- pose to consider ; but we cannot forbear an apt quotation from a learned and impartial writer neither Puritan nor Churchman ; we quote from a Discourse delivered ' before the Historical Society of Philadelphia, Feb. 21, 1842, by Job R. Tyson, Esq., one of the Vice -Presidents. He says, " Cromwell, who, with many points of greatness, was an usurper and a tyrant not satisfied with an untin- selled Protectorate, sighed for the pomp and glitter of a regal sceptre Subsequent events prove, that the voice of the people was as elFectually drowned by the din of arms, when Cromwell rose to the supreme power, as that of justice had been stopped, in the solemn mockery of the monarch's trial." p. 17. We add another extract, from a stanch Puritan, relating to the same period the late NOAH WEBSTER, ESQ., LL.D^ " To be a tyrant with any tolerable degree of safety, a man must be possessed of the confidence of the people. Charles I. of England, extended the royal prerogative to an unwarrant- able length and lost his head ; but that prince could not have sent a detachment of three hundred men, to drive the Commons of England from their hall, and have effected his purpose. That act of despotism was reserved for the repub- 5* 90 is to abandon all truth, to become semi-papists at once. Proh pudor ! OUR AUTHOR'S VIEW OF ANTIQUITY, (l.) IREX,EUS. After the specimens we have had, of our author's intelligence and candor, it can hardly be necessary for us to add more. But as he has attempted to dis- cuss the question of the Church on the ground of antiquity, it s,eems to be proper to examine his qualifications for the task, as exhibited in the work before us. His first attempt is on p. 275, where this passage occurs, as his first quotation from the Fathers of the "second and third centuries ;" given to show how far they had departed already from his draught of the Apostolic model. " Thus Irenaeus says, ' Wheresoever the Bishop shall appear, there also let the people be.'" There is no reference to the place where this language occurs, and we can find no such passage in Irenaeus ; though there is just such a passage in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Srnyrneans, c. 8. Again on the same page, we find his second quotation reading thus : " The same Father says, ' See that ye follow your Bishop, even as GOD the Father! ' ' Nor is there any refer- ence to the place where this occurs, nor can we find any such passage as this in Ircnaeus ; though there lican Cromwell the friend of the people .'" Oral. 4th July, 1802, p. 23. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 91 is one in Ignatius which seems to have been the original. It oceurs in the Epistle to the Ephesians, (c. 6,) out of which it was manufactured, and reads thus : " See that ye follow your Bishop, as JESUS CHRIST the Father." The original, there- fore, is an exhortation to follow the Bishop as CHRIST followed the Father, not to follow the Bishop as though he were GOD. Then follow two genuine quotations from Ignatius, properly ascribed to him, placed there apparently with the supposition that Irenaeus preceded Ignatius. And this is ren- dered probable, by the fact, that on p. 339, he says that Ignatius " comes too late by a whole hun- dred years" to testify of the primitive Church. We could hardly conceive of a writer of Mr. Hall's apparent reading, so ignorant as not to know that Ignatius was the disciple of St. John, that he was for many years cotemporary with him, and died only seven years after that Apostle. Nor can we imagine how he came to put the language of Ignatius into the mouth of Irenseus, nor how he could make such an egregious blunder, as to enthrone the Bishop in the place of GOD ; unless he has been led into the error by quoting second hand, from untrustworthy sources. Indeed, it must be perfectly evident, to every one, at all conversant with the Fathers, that our author has no personal acquaintance with the writings of the primitive Christians. 92 POHTAMSM (2.) CLEMENT OF HOME. Another example of his acquaintance with the Fathers occurs on p. 334. When speaking of Clement of Rome, he says, in his Epistle to the Corinthians "he uses the words Pastors and Bishops repeatedly, and throughout as synonymous." What he means by " repeatedly," we know not, as wo recollect no instance where the word "Pastor" occurs in the Epistle ; and the word Episcopus, (Bishop,) is found only three times, and that in a single sentence. In one instance it cannot signify " Bishop " in the official sense, and we have shown in another place, that there is no probability he intended to use it so in the other two cases.* He then proceeds to quote the address of the Epistle, and follows it by the forty-second chapter, as though it were the beginning of the Epistle. He also tells us that Clement " uses the words Bishop and Pres- byter as synonymous," (p. 325,) but he has oflercd no proof of the assertion, and we know of none that could be offered.*!* * Prim. Church, 226. t On pp. 336, 337, our author charges upon Perceval, in his work ou the Apostolical Succession, with " barefaced trickery," with a " piece of arrant fraud," for quot : ng a passage from Clement of Rome, in which he speaks of the High Priest, the Priest, and the Lcvites, as indicating that NOT GENtflNE PROTESTANTISM. 93 Our author supposes that the work of Clement is of paramount authority among the Fathers, because ; there were then three orders in the Christian ministry ; and very charitably imagines that the author of the " Primitive Church " has " stumbled into this ditch dug by Perceval ;" for he " cannot for one moment suppose, that he knowingly concurs hi so gross a piece of deception." But our author is too charitable in this respect, as he is unjust in charging the Primitive Church With omitting certain testimony of Clement. He can hardly be ignorant of what Beveridge said as early as A. D. 1 690, (Cod. Can. II. xi. 9.) inasmuch as he tells us that he has " searched very extensively into the standard writings of Prelacy," (p. 285.) After two quotations, in which he (Beveridge) thinks a distinction is clearly made between the " Praepositus and Presbyters," he says: " In another place he intimates that the same three distinct orders of the sacred ministry are established in the Christian Church, equally with the Jewish." Then quoting the passage in question, he goes on to say : " Who can doubt, that before these words were written, the distinction of orders in the ministry had been as certainly established in the Christian ministry, as in the Jewish." Nor ought he to be ignorant that the Rev. Dr. Learning quotes the same passage, in the same way, for the same purpose as Perceval, in a work published in 1766, (Defence of Episcopacy;) or, that the same sense has been given to it, from that day to this. That there are some difficulties attending the language of Clement, is granted : but we cannot admit the Presby- terian construction of his language ; because, (1.) it sup- poses him to be guilty of the absurdity of talking to the Gentile converts, as though they were Jews ; (2.) because it makes him guilty of misinterpreting Scripture, when nothing 94 PURITANISM " it is not two centuries since it was dug up from the dust, after having been lost and unknown for a thousand years ;"* for he supposes " that oblivion was its protection from the mutilations, the changes, and interpolations, which were inextricably mingled is to be gained by it ; and (3.) it makes him speak of things past, in the present time. The hypothesis of the Primitive Church makes Clement consistent with himself, and intelli- gible to others which no other has been able to do. But, as our author rejects the interpretation of the Primi- tive Church, we wish to inquire whether he believes Clement understood Is. Ix. 17, to which he refers, as describing the names of offices in the Christian Church ? If so, will he tell us why Clement did not quote the passage as it reads not substituting Episcopous, and diacouous, for archontat, and Episcopog? According to our interpretation, Clement merely referred to the passage, as proof of a principle, and gave the sense, without regard to the words. According to the Presbyterian interpretation, Clement first mis-quoted the passage, and then mis-interpreted it. Is this representation of Clement's proceeding, to be regarded as a specimen of Puritan exegesis ; for it is only by this double perversion, that he can be made a Puritan authority ? * An accurate man would not have spoken as Mr. Hall has done. The Epistle of Clement was certainly known to Photious, as late as 850, and was published at Oxford in 1633. The two dates, it will be seen, are not more than " a thousand years " apart, while the last was more than " two hundred years ago." There are no terms which a Christian gentleman may use, descriptive of our author's mode of treating primitive antiquity, especially on pp. 253 256. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 95 up with such works as monks and priests were able to lay their hands upon," (p, 253.) One would natu- rally expect from this account of the matter, that the Bible, which was in the keeping of the " monks and priests," and who were almost its sole copyists, would be the most corrupt of all. But whatever this argu- ment proves for the Epistle of Clement, it proves just the same for the shorter Epistles of Ignatius, which were for a long time in the same predicament. (3.) JUSTIN MARTYR, POLYCARP, IGNATIUS. Again, it would be a hopeless task for any one to attempt to find the language attributed to Justin Martyr, on p. 338, and none but those familiar with the writings of that Father could guess what was the original of which the statement was manufac- tured. His remarks on Polycarp,* (p. 338,) and Irenaeus, (pp. 343, 344,) are the old Presbyterian * The assertion which our author makes upon the probable supervision of Polycarp, over the Church at Philippi, (p. 338,) is more than uncandid. He says, the author of the Primitive Church " conjectures" that the Bishop of Philippi is dead ; and " conjectures" that " Polycarp had been invited to take the provisional oversight over them, though no history shows it, and Polycarp does not intimate any such thing." Yet the whole argument of the Primitive Church actually turns upon Polycarp's own language. Whatever Mr. Hall might think of the strength of the argument, he could not fairly and honestly use the language he has. 96 argument, reasserted as though it was entirely now with him, and without any notice of its repeated re- filiation. His view of the testimony of Ignatius, (p. 343,) by which he makes the Presbyters, si/c- cessors of the Apostles, will be as new to most of his readers, as it would have been to Ignatius himself;* * The representation of our author in regard to the mode suggested in the Primitive Church, for ascertaining the true text of Ignatius, (p. 340,) is as uncandid as it is nnscholarlike. The suggestion was not the hypothesis of the author of the Primitive Church, but of a Gennan historian, not even of the orthodox school; and what is there given, is not the conjectural, but the " certain text." But it was as far aa possible from our author's representation of it. The idea of collating" interpolated and altered copies with forged ones," for the purpose of ascertaining the genuine text of an author, is worthy only of its real paternity, and must be classed among the " Curiosities of Literature." The alleged " ana- chronisms and absurdities" contained in those Epistles, we confess ourselves unable to discover. We have read them carefully weighed every word and syllabic contained in them and the internal evidence alone would leave no doubt on our mind, that they must have been written by a person situated as Ignatius was, and that they could not have been written at any later age than the second century. Who those " deeply learned " persons are, of whom our author speaks, that " do not hesitate to pronounce them for- geries," he does not tell us ; and Coleman, who appears to be his authority, mentions but one man, and that man is an Unitarian. Of those who have rejected these Epistles, we know of no one who was not in reality a Socinlan, or an opponent of Episcopal government. In conclusion, we com- NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 97 as new as it was to us to hear that St. James the Greater was ever supposed to be Bishop of Jerusa- lem, as our author informs us, p. 314.* (4.) CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. The representation given of the testimony of Cle- ment of Alexandria, (p. 344,) may also be classed among the " Curiosities of Literature." Clement, in speaking of the true Gnostic, or model Christian, says : "There are two kinds of service j~ paid to men ; one emendatory, as the medical art to the body, philosophy, to the soul ; the other minis- terial, as that paid by children to parents, and sub- jects to rulers. In like manner, in the Church, the mend to our author's attention, the following opinion of Leslie : " It is impossible for any, not prejudiced against all convic- tion, to read the Epistles of St. Ignatius, and to doubt any longer that Episcopacy was the government of the Church at that time." (Letter to Parker, inserted in the Preface of his translation of Euseb. Ecc. Hist. 4to. Lond. 1729.) * A slight acquaintance with the history of the Church, would have shown our author, that though St. James the Greater was not himself Bishop of Jerusalem, he was one of the consecrators of James the Just, being assisted by St. Peter and St. John. (Euseb. Ecc. Hist. ii. 1. 23. Prim. Church, 185, 277.) t The Greek word is (StpnTrti*, which may signify the act of serving, worshipping, or healing. See Kay's Clem. Alex. 205. 98 PURITANISM Presbyters perform the emendatory, the Deacons the ministerial office. The angels minister in both capacities to GOD in the dispensation connected with earthly things; and the Gnostic does the same, ministering to GOD, and exhibiting to men an emendatory contemplation."* Our author renders therapeia, by " orders in the ministry," cuts off the beginning and omits the end of the passage, and renders the remainder thus : "just so in the Church, the Presbyters are entrusted with the dignified min- istry, the Deacons with the subordinate."! And hence he infers that there were but " tico orders in the ministry," notwithstanding Clement had said in the preceding book : " For the degree (irputoirett, literally progressions,) in the Church, of Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons are imitations of the angelic glory, and the economy of their dispensations."^: And this is all the evidence he could find to sustain the assertion that " Clement rcpcdtcrlly shows that as yet there are properly but two orders in the min- istry." (p. 344.) One can hardly help smiling at his rendering of Prokathcdria,^ in this connection, the "jirst scat in the Presbytery," and in truth, our author himself seems to be ashamed of it, for he Strom, vii. 700, 701, and Kay's Clem. Alex. 205. t We imagine this blunder is not original with our author, as the language seems to be copied from another writer on the same subject, without credit. t Strom, vi. 667. Protokathedria 1 Strom, vii. 667. NOT GENUINK PROTESTANTISM. 99 credits it to Coleman, from whom he copied what precedes, without credit. (5.) JEWELL AND STILIJNGFLEET. Again, the passages quoted from Jewell and Stil- lingfleet, (pp. 381, 382,) display the same want of acquaintance with the history and Fathers of the Church. Our author quotes a passage from Jewell, in which the argument turns upon the authority of a book now acknowledged on all hands to be a forgery, without seeming to be aware of the facts, and another from Stillingfleet's Irenicum, which shows " the youth and want of due consideration," of the author, being a total misapprehension of the sense of a passage in book third, chapter four, of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History. These examples must suffice to show our author's qualifications for discussing any question touching the early Church, and the dependence to be placed upon his conclu- sions. Indeed, it has never fallen to our lot, to pe- ruse a work making so much display of proof, which had so little that was pertinent to the real points at issue, or, that, while making great pretensions to accuracy, manifested such a glaring want of ac- quaintance with original sources. OUR AUTHOR'S VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. (1.) SCHISM. But though our author neither understands the prin- ciples of the Reformers, nor the history of the early 100 PFRITAM8M Church, it may be supposed that ho will bo at homo in the Bible, since the Bible aloneis his professed stand- ard. A few examples will enable us to see. One of his earliest attempts at exegesis, is found in his view of the Scriptural doctrine of schism. With him. schism is a not " splitting, rendering, and dividing " of the body of CHUIST, according to the original moaning and ordinary use of the word ; but "internal dissen- sion, within the bosom of the same Church." (p. 279) "Dissension," according to our author's interpreta- tion, is schism, but not disunion and separation. " Breaking away from the customs or rule of the Catholic Church," is not schism. Refusing " con- formity to a National Church," is not schism. " De- parting from the authority of a Diocesan Bishop," is not schism, (p. 270.) But sharp and earnest discus- sion of doctrine, such as we have in the Episcopal Church, is schism, because it does not produce di- vision, (p. 280.)* * Our author quotes (p. 271,) what he is pleased to call " a remarkable concession," from a letter of the present au- thor to a parishioner, on the subject of joining in " Sectarian Worship." And yet he cannot think it a " concession." He ought to know that it is a principle with Churchmen, and hence they do not hesitate to avow the belief, that " if we have no more Scripture warrant than other denominations, we are guilty of schism." This was claimed by the early Congregationalists, and conceded by the early Churchmen of Connecticut, as one may see by looking iuto the contro- versies of that period. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 101 (2.) THE INCESTUOUS CORINTHIAN. Again, on p. 297, speaking of the case of the incestuous Corinthian, he says that St. Paul's deci- sion was not a " sentence," not a judgment, in a "judicial sense," but a mere "laying down the law." But Professor Robinson, among other signi- fications, defines the original word (x.ptva,) " to judge, in a judicial sense," and refers to this very passage as one of the places where it has this sense.* (3.) OUR LORD'S LANGUAGE AT THE LAST SUPPER. Again, on p. 352, he calls the interpretation given to Luke xxii. 29, by the author of the " Primitive Church," (p.173,) "a monstrous claim," beyond which " the horrid impieties of Popery could go to no greater length of extravagance." He objects that our LORD did not make over to his Apostles, " as by demise or bequest, the kingdom which the Father had appointed or committed to him." And yet that is the meaning given to the original word by Professor Robinson. He objects that they were not to " sit on thrones, as the emblems of power," though Robinson says " as the emblem of regal * Our author's comment on the argument of ~the Primi- tive Church is pointless, as St. Paul's " sentence" was a judgment passed upou a case of " conceded facts," not of mere suspicion. 102 PURITANISM authority." He objects also that the language does not signify "judging, in a judicial sense ;" though this is the precise language of Robinson, in refer- ence to this very place. And finally he objects that it cannot mean as we suppose, because " there is no transferring of CHRIST'S kingly power, and no allusion to the Sacrament of the LORD'S Supper contained in it at all." (p. 353.) He then proposes to give " the whole passage," in its connection, begin- ning just at the place where it was requisite to keep out of sight, the most important fact that it was part of the address of our LORD to his Apostles at that sacred Supper. In lieu of this he gives us the meagor and lifeless interpretation of the Rationalistic Rosen- muller : and the exalted language of that solemn occasion is degraded to such unmeaning jargon as this : " As my Father hath appointed me a kingdom to be acquired by endurance of adversities : so I appoint you a glory like unto royal majesty,, to be acquired in a similar way."* * We might naturally infer, from our author's treatment of Scripture, that his sympathies would be with the Rational- izing theologians of Germany ; but we were not prepared to find him adopting the opinions of so thorough-going a Ncologist us Rosenmuller, on such a topic as this. Those who wish to know the character of the doctrinal theology ofthis commentator, may consult the Biblical Repository, III. 213215, or Home's Introd. Bib. Ap. IV. Par. ii. c. 4. An estimate of the man's works by a German, may be found NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 103 (4.) ORDINATION OF TIMOTHY. Again, on p. 324, he says " the criticism about meta and dia (fierce and JV) [adopted in the Primi- tive Church] is both erroneous and contemptible," and so " thoroughly exposed by Dr, J. M. Mason, that it was forty years ere Episcopacy ventured to revive it again." But it is the language of Profes- sor Robinson, quoted verbatim from his Greek Lex- icon of the New Testament ; a work which we are surprised our author should hold in such light es- teem.* (5.) ANDRONICHTTS AND JtJNIA. Again, on p. 317, he says that " Junia," men- tioned with Andronicus, Rom. xvi. 7, as one of the Apostles, or of note among the Apostles, " was be- in Hengstenberg on the Authenticity of the Pentateuch, Bib. Rep. XI. 425429 ; XII. 484, 485. The Rev. Dr. Nevins says, in a work which has been received since this Review was put to press, " Who now, of any true theological culture, thinks of taking the Rosenmullers, &c. for his guide in the study of the Scriptures?" Mystical Presence, 146. * Professor Robinson also gives the very sense to dia, in Acts ii. 5, 15, 22,23,43; iv. 16; xii. 9, etc.; and to meta, in Acts xiv. 27, (the passages referred to by Dr. Ma- son,) and at which he, and our author after him, sneers so contemptuously. We commend to his attention on this point, Stuart's Grammar of the New Testament Dialect, 104 PUBITAMSX yond all proper question a woman ;" and quotes Rosenmuller in proof. But Luther and Calvin both read Juntas, and of course considered it the name of a man. So did Hammond, and so do Professors Stuart and Robinson. But Hall tells us that " Chrysostom, Theophylact, and several other Fathers . . . take Junia for a woman." (p. 317.) But he forgot to mention that they changed the name to Julia, before supposing it to be feminine.* (6.) ORDINATION OF TITUS. Another specimen of our author's exegesis and logic, is found in Titus i. 5, " and ordain elders in every city." (p. 321.) In order to show that the word used " in the original has no possible reference to any ceremony or mode, of ordination," which no one ever supposed or pretended, he tells his readers, that it is the same word, " as that used in the passage ' by one man's disobedience many WERE MADE sinners.'" (Rom. v. 19.) Then follows this piece of Puritan Rationalism. "There is no more 84, 149; Buttman's Greek Grammar, 147; and Hist. and Crit. View of Ind. Enrop. Cases. (Quar. Chris. Spec.) IX. 115, 426. It would not be necessary to tell most theo- logians that the primary signification of the words is not Mie same, nor that no word can sijrn'fy two-different things, when the same subject is viewed under the same aspect. * Wells' Vindication, p. 67, on the authority of Blonde!. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM, 105 reference to a mystic ceremony of ordination in the case of Titus, than there is of a mystic ordination to make men sinners." This citation of Rom. v. 19, as evidence of our author's own view of Titus i. 5, is a very good illustration of his own remark, (p. 390,) that " pernicious doctrines, like other ra- venous beasts of prey, are not wont to go solitary." He adopts low notions of man's primitive state, low notions of the consequences of the fall, and then follows, necessarily, low notions of the necessity of the ministry, and consequently, of the ministry itself.* These must be sufficient as specimens of our author's treatment of Scripture. But there is one topic connected with the present point of inquiry too important to be passed without notice. Puritanism claims to be in an especial manner the champion of the Bible. Its watchword is, the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible ; and our author has been careful to reiterate it continually, as though fearful that it might be forgotten. And yet on nearly every point of dispute between us, Puritanism does not take the Bible in its plain, literal sense ; it does * Our author's grammar Is in good keeping with his logic. Though the word in both passages is a verb from the same root, it is not in the same mood and tense, nor subject to the same construction, nor expressive of the same sense. The parallel passages are Luke xii. 14; Acts vii. 10, 27,35; Heb. vii. 28 ; from which any reader may satisfy himself of the meaning of the word in Tit. i. 5. 6 106 PURITANISM not allow the Bible to interpret itselC* On the con- trary, it insists upon interpreting the obvious mean- Our author does not seem to understand what the Re- formers meant by the Bible's being the source and measure of saving truth, nor in what sense they regarded it as the " Rule of Faith," (which, by the way, was not their mode of describing it,) nor how it is to be its own interpreter, as his whole chapter on " The Rule and Judge of Faith," abundantly shows. The motto of the Reformers was, " Scrip- ture, its own interpreter." But how its own interpreter? It could not be so, in any reasonable sense, unless the ex- pression was understood to embrace the religious, the histo- rical, and the grammatical elements. If the Bible Is to bo understood from itself alone, the reader must possess a mind kindred to its Author must have a nice discrimination of the language he employed and be able to transport himself into the writer's stand-point, so as to be able to view things in the same order, connection, and relation, in which the writer viewed them. It was a strong sense of the import- ance of the religious element, that led Luther to say, " Had I as much of the HOLT SPIRIT as St. John, I could write such a Gospel." (Quoted in Pusey, II. 67.) And a strong sense of the importance of the grammatical element, that led him to say, " The best grammarian is the best theo- logian." (Titt Syn. N. T. 3.) It was also a strong sense of the value and importance of the historical element, that led them to appeal to antiquity, and the judgment of the Catholic Church. This appeal was no idle declamation, as may be seen in the works of Melancthon, and his disciple* Chemnitz. When our author comes to understand the views and principles of the Reformers on this subject, he will not accuse us of having departed from them. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 107 ing of the language out of it, before it is willing to receive it ; and that upon the very points where our author charges us with "monstrous or inexcusable perversion of the words of Holy Writ," (p. 335,) with "anti-scriptural" and "horrid" impiety (pp. 276, 356,) we follow the plain literal sense of the Bible, which Puritanism rejects. The chief points of difference are the five following. The others are incidental to these. (1.) THE CHURCH. We suppose that the body of CHRIST, which is the Church spoken of by St. Paul in his Epistles, especially to the Ephesians and Colossians, in which there is " one LORD, one faith, one baptism," to which he gave some Apostles, and some Pro- phets, and some Evangelists, and some Pastors and Teachers, for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, [i. e. of reconciliation,] for the edifying of the body of CHRIST," and for which he " gave himself, that he might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water,"* to be the Church to which these very Epistles are addressed, ac- * This " washing of water," we understand literally, and suppose it to refer to baptism. And so Robinson, Gr. Lex. 487, refers it to the same ; and Calvin does the same, Inst. IV. v. 3 ; and Luther also, Larger Catech. ; but our author can do no such thing. 108 PUHITAM8M cording to the plain and obvious meaning of the Apostle's language. But our author says no, that the Apostle meant no such thing, that he was talk- ing of some " invisible Church," (p. 280,) though the Apostle himself has been careful not to intimate any such thing, and seems to have had no know- ledge of any thing of the kind, in the modern Puri- tan sense of the term. (2.) BAPTISMAL HEGEXEHATIOX. We suppose that when our SAVIOUR said : " Ex- cept a man be born of water and the Spirit, he can- not enter into the kingdom of GOD," he meant to be understood just as he said, and that he referred to that new birth by water which we. receive in baptism,* and we know no right to scp'aratc it from the new birth by the Spirit. We also suppose that when St. Paul spoke of "the washing of regenera- tion, and the renewing of the HOLY GIIOST," he referred to baptism, and that we have no right to separate it from the renewal by the HOLY GHOST. f " The Fathers of the Church," says Tholuck, " and after them the interpreters of the Roman and Lutheran Churches, almost universally take ufctf here in the sense of Christian Baptism only : and this, in fact, is the sense which most readily offers itself to the reader. "-^-Com. on John iii. 5. t So Luther understood this passage. Short Cat. and Calv. lust. IV. xv. 2. But our author, of course, rejects this view. Tholuck speaks of the " intimate connection in which baptism and regeneration are generally placed in the New NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. But Puritanism, as we shall see, regards this as fundamental apostacy. (3.) THE HEAL PRESENCE. We suppose that when our SAVIOUR said : " Ex- cept ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you," and when he said of the Holy Eucharist, " This is my body, and this is my blood," that he meant precisely what he said, and that he intended to teach a real presence in the Eucharist, and a real participation of that divine life which dwells in his glorified nature.* But Puri- tanism, as we shall see, can find no words sufficient- ly strong to express its abhorrence of this literal meaning of our LORD'S language. Testament. Eph. v. 26 ; 1 Pet. iii. 21 ; Tit. iii. 5 ; Com. John iii. 5. And yet our author says, (p. 373,) that Paul " makes a distinction heaven-wide, between baptism and regeneration." All of the foregoing passages are quoted by Luther in his Catechisms, and Calvin in his Institutes, as referring to baptism ; and are referred to in Heidelberg Catechism, the common symbol of the Dutch and German Reformed Churches. * So taught Luther, Short Cat. c. 5. Appendix, quest. 1320; and Calvin, Inst. IV. xvii. 5 10; and the Re- formed Heid. Cat., quest. 75 79. It is immaterial for ou present purpose, whether we consider John vi. as spoken directly of the Eucharist, as many commentators have done from tlio earliest times, (Tliol. on John vi. 51,) or as includ- ing it as the general includes the particular. 110 PURITANISM (4.) OF THE MINISTRY. We suppose, that when the Apostle said, that "the ministry of reconciliation " had been given to them, and that " the word of reconciliation " had been committed to them, and when in pursuance of that ministry, they said; "Now then we are am- bassadors for CHRIST ; as though GOD did beseech you by us, we pray you in CHRIST'S stead, Be ye reconciled to GOD," he meant just what his language seems to signify ; that they were the personal repre- sentatives of CHRIST, charged with the important mission of reconciling sinners to GOD ; that their office was in fact, " ministerial intervention, that sins might be forgiven," through the conjoined opera- tion of the word and sacrament. But our author recognizes no difference between the " ministry" and the " word of reconciliation,"* (p. 373,) and denies that the ministry acts as CHRIST'S " personal representative s."f (pp. 302, 303.) Tittman (Syn. N. T. 179182,) has well shown, what no competent writer ever doubted, that the JWxer/ati' Tut Ka.Ttt.\KdLytit, and \oyov ttit xaTetxxotyxc, are distinct things; and also, what many have overlooked, that the " Jiaxo/etr T xatTAAMJ^-xf is not the office of teaching the doctrine of the remission of sins ; but [that] it is the office itself, .... the office of effecting the x*T*x\m friend and trusty counsellor, held many senti- ments to which Luther would not assent, especially touching the organization and discipline of the Church, being willing* if not desirous, to retain the ancient regimen. He also differ- ed from Luther somewhat in regard to the relation of faith and works, and also in regard to the importance of the Sacra- mental controversy.} After the death of Luther, in 1 540, to the death of Mclancthon, in 1560, he was the leading Ger- man Reformer, and efforts were made, both by him and his friends, to secure greater uniformity of sentiment among the reformed, and if possible to bring about a union between them and the Catholic Church of Germany.^ Failing in these attempts, and being persecuted by his brethren because of them, he gladly " hailed death as a refuge from the frenzy of the theologians."|| ENGLISH REFORMATION AND MELANCTHON. It was after the death of Luther, and while Melancthon was " the head and leader of the Theologians of the Luthe- * Schaf. 98. t Pusey I. 1826. Mucnsch. 133, 134. Mosh. III. 175178. j MH-|| HI. 1G5. Melauctlion made this attempt by means of a Conference held at Worms, o lute as 1527, only three years before hi* death; but was prevented from acconipliahing any thing by the violence of the parties. Scott. Luther, and Luth. Ref. II. 281. Bur. Rcf. II. 453, 456. || Bayle Hist. Crit. Die. IV. 137, "a rabie Theolo^orum," were his words before he died, as one of the reasons why he ought not to be lorry to die. Pusey 1. 11. Schaf. 120. Life Mclnuc. Am.Encyc. VIII. 392. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 153 ran Church,"* that English Reformation was effected. And no foreigner's opinions had as much influence in England as Melanchthon's. He was repeatedly invited to England, by Cranmer himself; and even the King wrote in his own name requesting him to come.t But though Melanchthon could not be prevailed upon to leave Germany, some of his friends and associates were obtained, who aided essentially in the work of Reformation. Now, if we compare the doctrines and disci- pline of the two Churches, it will be found that the English and Lutheran differ exactly where Luther and Melanchthon differed, and that the preference is always given to the opin- ion of Melanchthon. The sympathy of the English Reformers would therefore have been with Melanchthon and his friends, rather than with Luther himself, had he been living ; and hence it must necessarily follow, that the sympathy of the English Church itself would be with the Melanchthonian. school of the Lutheran Church. These points of sympathy, in addition to those which necessarily arose from their being engaged in a common cause, were chiefly preference for the primitive regimen of the Church, milder statements of doc- trine, with moderate and cautious measures in Reformation, so as not to rend the unity of the Church. MELANCHTHONIAN SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY FORMULA OF CONCORD. These opinions seem to have gained ground after the death of Luther, and vigorous measures were taken by those who claimed to be the representatives of genuine Luther anism, to prevent their increase. The most important and effective of these, was she Formula of Concord, adopted in various coun- tries, from 1576 to 1580, which was composed with an espe- cial reference to the dangers which were supposed to threaten pure Lutheranism, and which eventually rooted out the * Mosh. III. 164, f Massingberd. Eng. Ref. 105. 8 154 PURITANISM echool of Melanchthon from the Lutheran Church.* The Lutheran Church now received a fixed character, beyond all probability of change, and its theology was shut up within the narrow limits of its symbolical books. It changed, in fact, the character of the Reformation. Though speaking the words of Luther, it had no sympathy with his free spirit, nor any of the mild and cautious prudence of Melanchihon. Thenceforward it " appeared under the guise of an intricate scholastic system, and breathed a narrow sectarian spirit."! NEGLECT OF EPISCOPACY IN GERMANY. There was another circumstance which must have tended to the same result : a strange, and in some respect* an unac- countable inconsistency in the Continental Reformers, the fatal effects of which are felt to this day. It is well known that these men never pretended to seek the overthrow of the ancient regimen of the Church, but to desire its restoration to the primitive and Episcopal model, for which they always professed great respect. And it has been supposed that they would have retained it had it been possible. But while this is true in regard to some individuals, in regard to the great body of them it is doubtful. Once committed to an error, it was hard to break away from it. That the Epis- copal form of government might have been retained in Ger- many, and would have been retained in the Arch-Diocese of Cologne, but for the interference of the civil rulers, is evident from the history of Archbishop Hermann, who was ejected from his See in 154G, for adopting the principles of the Re- formation. He lived in retirement until 1552, when he died, aged eighty. Also, from the history of Frederic, brother of the Archbishop, and Bishop of .Minister, who resigned his * Muensch. 133. Moth. III. l~S. Puscy I. 20, II. 368. t Pusey I. 21. Schof. 130. Muensch. 138. Mosh. III. 172180. NOT GENTTINE PROTESTANTISM. 155 See in 1532, and died in 1553. He lived an exile in his own city, dependant upon the charity of its citizens.* HERMANN'S PLAN OF REFORMATION, AND THE ENGLISH. Hermann's scheme of Reformation, drawn up by Bucer, with the aid of Melanchthon and Pistorius, and carefully re- vised by the Archbishop himself, was substantially that pur- sued afterwards in England, for which it seems to have served as a model, as it wa translated into English, and twice published in London the last time in 1548.t Had that scheme been adopted by the German Reformers, that coun- try would no doubt have been saved many of the dire evils which have since afflicted it. The neglect of it, and of the men who had sacrificed all for it, could not fail lo produce an influence in England, when the time carne for reflection and consideration. NATURAL DECLINE OF SVMPATHT. We might have expected that this state of things would have effectually sundered every bond of sympathy which had heretofore subsisted between the two Churches, and which naturally arose out of their similarity of doctrine, had the Church of England remained precisely where it was in the days of Edward VI. But this was impossible. Though all * Scott's Luther and Luth. Ref. II. 142152. t Bayle's Hist, and Crit. Die. Art. Bucer, II. 171, with Calvin and Vos- sius's Epistles ihere quoted. Scott, 149. A similar rase ofiiiconsistencjr occurred in France, in 1561, showing the Ibrce of custom, when once men are committed to an error which their judgments at first con- demned. John ntony Carraccioli, Bishop of Troyes, publicly em- braced Protestantism in 1561, whereupon a Convention of the Clergy of the Hi-formed Church met to consider his case, and after a full dis- cussion acknowledged him as a true Bishop. But no effort germs lo have been made to perpetuate the office. Life of Carraccioli, iu Bayle, Hist. Crit. Die. II. 313, Note A. 156 PURITANISM the great principles of the Church, both f doctrine and ritual, had l>">-ii established by the Reformers, it required time to carry them out in all the details of their practical operation, and without this they could not be judged of as a system. The two systems, therefore, would prove to be much farther apart, in their details, than they had seemed to be from the mere statement of their principles; and consequently, the more thoroughly the two systems were developed, the lew ground there would have been for sympathy, had the For- mula of Concord never been adopted. FORMfLA OF CONCORD ITS EFFECT*. That instrument tended, also, not only to extinguish the sympathy existing between the two bodies, as such, but would stand in the way of its revival, so long as it remained the authoritative exponent of Lutheran doctrine. The de- parture from the primitive organization of the Church, which Melanchthon deplored, and which was justified at first only on the ground of necessity, was now upheld as a matter of right ; and this of itself would have prevented official minis- terial intercourse, had the bonds of sympathy, in other re- spects, been ever so strong. We see, therefore, that the decline of sympathy between the Church of England and the foreign Churches, was not the result of any change of opinion on the part of the Church of England, but of the altered circumstances of those foreign bodies ; and also that the same cause which led to its decline has prevented its revival. LUTHERAN MISREPRESENTATION OF THE REFORMATION. There is still another cause why this sympathy could never revive, arising -out of an erroneous estimate of the Lutheran Reformation, through Lutheran misrepresentation of it. W do not mean by this that there has been any intentional mis- NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 157 representation, but simply that the Lutheran Church never has been a true representation of the real sentiments of Lu- ther even, to say nothing of Melanchthon, and that "her theo- logians and historians have seldom presented it in its true light. From the time of the Formula of Concord, every theologian was shut up within the narrow bounds of the sym- bolical books, and no man was permitted to go beyond, or fall short of it in any particular.* The consequence was, that ecclesiastical history became comparatively useless, and was very generally neglected, and thorough and independent Bib- lical Exegesis unnecessary, if not dangerous. Polemics usurped the place of theology, and for a century most of the doctors of the universities, and a great body of the clergy, were occupied in explaining and defending the tenets and dogmas of the Church.f SCHOOL OF THE PIETISTS. It must be obvious that persons thus engaged could neither exemplify the principles of religion, nor of the Reformation. Some of the evils arising from this state of things, the Pie- tists, who sprung from the school of Spener, (born 1629, died 1705,) attempted to remedy. But though they saw and felt the neglect of ecclesiastical history and biblical interpretation, they did not pursue them with sufficient energy or accuracy to gain a thorough apprehension of them ; and the school itself either degenerated into mysticism, or passed over into unbelief, t The collisions of the Pietist and orthodox schools, however, produced some men of eminence, among whom * Pusey I. 20-26. Muensch. 133. tPusey I. 26--40, 139-147; II. 54-87, 119-127. Mosh. B. IV. cent. XVII. 2. Part II. c. 1; though the latter cannot be said, in every respect, to be an impartial witness. See, also, Schlegol's Notes on the same. Those interpreters of this period who still retain their value, either be- longed to the school of JVIelauchthon or partook of its mild spirit. t Pusey I. 68-110. 153 PURITANISM Mosheim is extensively known in this country, through his ecclesiastical history.* SCHOOLS OF ER.NESTI AND SKMI.ER. But these efforts were not without effect, as they ultimate- ly led to the establishment of two different schools, both of which have ministered largely to unbelief; that of Ernesti, which pursued the "grammatical," as opposed to the doc- trinal system of interpretation ; and that of Semler, which proposed to follow the " historical interpretation " of the sa- cred record. The principle of the Reformers, that the Bible was to be its own interpreter, includes within itself the reli- gious, historical, and grammatical elements ; and consequent- ly the schools of Spener.t and Semler, t and Ernesti, all failed of apprehending the true Protestant ground, inasmuch as they pushed (often iguortuilly, always unscientifically,) one element to an extreme, regardless of the consideration due to the other two. * Much praise is due to tin* author as a historian, since he was the first who raised ecclesiastical history in Germany above the charec- ter of a chronicle, (Pus.^y I. III..) though we cannot give him the credit nl III-IM.' always impartiul; especially ill the early ages of the Church. No one familiar with the subject can read a chapter touching the Church, without seeing the bias of his theological opinions. Nor at a later period can he always be trusted, as is cle.tr from his mutilation and misrepresentation of St. Elig.us, Bishop of Noyon, in the seventh century. Coinp. B. II. cent. VII. Part ii. c. n., with Waddington's Chur. Hist. 141, 251. There is also a gross error running through hiawork, that has done a vast amount of mischief: the continued miarepresen- tatioii that the vices of the early clergy led to the degradation or Christianity, which deepened through descending centuries. Pusey (I. 130. It is high time he was laid aside as authority in this country, M he has long been in Germany. Schaf. IG6. t Schaf. 99. Pusey I. 27, 81. { Schaf. 100. Pusey I. 142. 143. $ Schaf. 1R3. Pusey I. 132. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 159 SCHOOLS OF RATIONALISM. Out of this state of things arose the Rational'sm of Ger- many, whence proceeded its Neology, or New Theology, the supporters of which are divided by Bretschneider* into four classes. The first regard all revelation as superstition, and JESUS CHRIST, (if he ever existed,) as a well meaning fanatic or impostor. These were the lineal successors of the Eng- lish and French Deists and Infidels, embracing in the first instance no theologians ;t and second, those who regard Chris- tianity as a sort of republication of natural religion allowing CHRIST a real existence, but no divine authority making him a sort of mystagogue. To this class belong such men as Bahrdt, Venturing and Brennecke, among the theologians, and Reimaur and others not of the clergy. The third class are those which especially assume the name of Rationalists. These allow Christianity to be a divine, benevolent, and po- sitive appointment for the good of mankind, and that the word of Goo is contained in the Scriptures, and that JESUS was a messenger of Divine Providence ; but deny any thing miraculous, and separate that which they regard as local and temporary from that which they consider universal and per- petual in Christianity. To this class belong the philosophers Steinbert, Kant, Krug ; and among theologians, W. A. Tel- ler, Longer, Thiess, Henke, J. E. C. Schmidt, DeWette, Paulus, Wegscheider, Rohr, etc. The fourth class, who dislike to be called Rationalists, but are in reality such, allow the Bible and Christianity to be divine in a higher sense than the avowed Rationalists allow " a revealed operation of the power of GOD," but "distinguish between the Bible and word of GOD," and insist upon establishing the divine * Bretschneider's Ans. to Rose. 3032. f Strauss Bruno Baur, and Fuerbach, seem properly to belong here. 160 PURITANISM nature of Christianity upon internal proofs, rather than upon miracles. To this class belong Doederlin, Morus, Reinhard> Armmon, Schott, Niemeyer, Brctschncider, &c. SCHOOL OF THE BUPERNATt'RALIBTS. There was also another party, which Brctschneidcr doea not mention by name : the remnant of the old Orthodox Lu- therans, commonly known as tho Supernaturalists, which ho describes as being very small in numbers the greater share of clergy and laity belonging to his fourth class which he dignifies with tho name of " Evangelical."* Some of the men whom ho reckons as belonging to this clans, were once Supernaturalists ; but they endeavored, by means of various compromises, to make Christianity as agreeable as possible to the natural man. They treated about peace they made concessions they retrograded so far, that iu the end they fairly fell over to the enemy's side, as was the case with Armmon, Schott, and Bretschneider, or exchanged names with their opponents, and became Rational-Supernatnral- ists, as in the case of Reinhard.t Some of the peculiarities of this'' Evangelical" school, may be inferred from Bretschnei- dcr's representation of the teaching of the early Church ; for he says, up to the year 325, we find nothing of the " Trinity, Original Sin, man's inability to do good, or the satisfaction [atonement ?] of CHIUST ;" \ assertions it is diffi- cult to reconcile with the reputed learning of those men. NEW LUTHER SCHOOL. But these schools have had their day, and are on the decline. The half-infidel, half-pantheistic philosophies of Schelling and Hegel, led the way to a restoration of the * Bret. 35, 36. t Wingard, 183. Schaf. 147. * Reply, 32. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 161 belief in the Incarnation and Atonement,* and other impor- tant doctrines, naturally followed in their train ; especially a belief in a unity of the Church, and the importance and effi- cacy of the Sacraments Out of all this collision and dis- cussion, out of the joint influence of religion and philos- ophy, combined with various other causes, has arisen a new school of German theology, which is now the most preva- lent. It is not Rationalism, but orthodoxy resuscitated, with new life from its ruins. With the decision, power and fervor of the Old Church faith, it unites more scientific freedom, greater disentanglement from prejudice, and more fullness and roundness of method.t But we must not yet be too sanguine as to the result. The whole " Evangelical Church of Germany is at present in an interimistic state, involved in a process of fermentation and transition, which brings along with it necessarily a measure of uncertainty and experi- ment." t Men's minds are much in the dark. Philosophy holds too absolute a sway ; and often a philosophy of more than a doubtful character. The language of its theology is too human. It addresses itself too much to the man, to the neglect of the Christian. It bows too obsequiously to hu- man reason. Hence why it is that the writings of the most orthodox often contain things which cannot fail to give pain to every right minded Christian, and which could hardly fail * Schaf. 150. The philosophy of Schelling has its chief theological representation in Daub; that of Hegel inMarheinecke, (Pusey 1. 115;) but Rothe, Dorner, Martensen, Hoffman, and Husse, are more or less ruled by it, (Schaf. 148 ;) Tholuck is half a convert to it,(Stowe. Bib. Rep. 3d Series, I. 86 ;) Heugstenberg regards it as the very concentration of Atheism and falsehood, (Stowe, Ib.;) while Paulus considers that it only serves to make darkness more visible. (Stowe lo. I. 89.) t Schaf. 147.148. t Schuf. 155. See a graphic picture of the present state of things iu Germany, by Professor Stowe. Bib. Rep. 3d Series, I. 8G-96. 8* 16'2 PURITAMSM. to minister to unbelief if transplanted here, whatever may be their influence at home. Still, amid all this darkness there arc signs of hope. It breathes the free spirit of Luther, and the mild spirit of Me- lanchthon, associated with the orthodox sentiments of both, accompanied by truer views of the Church and the Sacra- ments, the importance of her unity, and the sin of schism, than could have been found at any time before, since the adoption of the Formula of Concord. With these men, or rather with these opinions, Churchmen can again have sym- pathy, notwithstanding their erroneous sentiments in regard to the form of the ministry; while Mr. Hall and his asso- ciates, if they ever come to understand the sentiments of those men, will regard them in no better light than they do us. But, in addition to this, there is a decided, and we believe, an increasing wish in many parts of Germany, to restore the Episcopal form of Church government. Sweden always has been Episcopal, in fact and form. Denmark is so in form, though (probably) not in fact. In Prussia an approximation has been made to Episcopacy in form, and so late as 1843 the periodicals said : " The state of ecclesiastical matters is yet unsettled in Prussia. Whether Presbytery or Episcopacy will prevail is uncertain. The tendency is rather towards the latter, and that High Churcliism."* And Dr. Schaf, who may be regarded as representing the most orthodox the- ologians of the Evangelical Church of Germany, says: "I huve all respect for the Episcopal system. It possesses, in fact, many undeniable advantages ; and by its antiquity, be- sides, must command the veneration of al! who have any right historical fcel,ng."t In this we see the wish of Me- lauchthoa revived, and may we not hope, about to be realized. B.b. Rep. X. [N. 8.] 43d. t Proi. Principle, 126. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 163 NOTE B. NEANDER'S DEFECTS AS A CHURCH HISTO- RIAN. The great reputation which Neander has obtained as a historian, and in many respects justly, renders it important that those who follow him as a guide, should know before- hand what are his deficiencies, and where he cannot be safely trusted. And it is precisely as a Church historian that his opinion has the least weight, and this because of his er- roneous notions in regard to the Church, and because he is deficient in Church feeling. In the history of the Church, says Rauch, (Church Historians in Germany Bib. Rep. X. 302,) " much depends upon what the historian understands by the Church. His notion of it may be considered his fun- damental view, upon which he raises the superstructure of his history." It is important, therefore, that the historian's views, both of the Church and its doctrine, be sound ; which is more than can be said of Neander on either point. In re- ligion he belongs to the school of Schleirmacher, (Schaf. 148,) who, according to Professor Stuart, (Bib. Rep. V. 266,) "aimed too much at system and theoretical perfection, of orderly and logical analysis and development in obtaining which he appears to have occasionally left out of sight some of the plain and practical deductions of the Scrip- tures." * In philosophy Neander is a disciple of Jacob! , (Rauch, Ib. 314,) and regards faith as " a rational instinct, a knowing from immediate feeling, a direct perception of the supersensible, without any intervening proof." (Murd. Ger. * And whom the Rationalistic Bretschneider says adopted the " Church system, in order to cloak a philosophical system under it." (Rep. Rose. 36.) 164 FUKITAMS3I Philos. 131.) That this "feeling differs in every one, and must bo peculiarly characterized in each Chrirtian," and con- sequently would be cramped and impeded in its development by symbolical books and confessions. Hence, with him " it matters little whether a man is an Arian, a Ncstorian, or a Calvinist, if he be only pious." He is opposed to any estab- lished Church, and allows no constitution to it, as a visible body. (Rauch, Ib. 313, 314.)* In the language of th New- Englauder, (II. 270,) " His views of the authority of certain books in our Canon of the Scripture, and on some topics of dogmatical theology, would not harmonize with the profes- sions and sentiments of our religious community." While, therefore, Neander has great learning, and thorough ac- quaintance with antiquity, he cannot be trusted as a Church historian. His fundamental view is more or less erroneous, and his views of the connection between the Jewish and Christian Churches altogether faulty. He may develope the piety of individuals well, but he has no proper idea of life in the Church. He may describe the separate parts of the system, as existing independently of each other, but he can- not put them together, so as to show the proper working of the whole body. He must ever bo deficient as a Church liisloritin, because his views of the Church must ever render him deficient in proper Church feeling. (Schaf. ItiC.) AIM! it is this very feature of his work, this uiichurchly view of things, that recommends him so .strongly to the uiichurchly sects of our own country. * Educated as a Jew, he went to the opposite extreme, as indeed hi* philosophy would be likely to carry him, when he became a Christian. A he formerly failed of apprehending the rpirit of the old ditpensa- tion, so now he fails of apprphondipg the form of the uew ; regarding the former as altogether " outward and visible," the latter as merely "internal and spiritual." (Intd. Colcman's Prim. Ch. 14.) His theolo- gical opinions are also unsound. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 165 These defects of Neander will be more apparent upon con- trasting his view of the Church with the more orthodox New Lutheran views of the present day. The idea of the Church, according to those, is to be found in the GOD-MAN, JESUS CHRIST, it being founded in the Incarnation itself. In its divine, ideal, and heavenly nature, it is eternal, invisible, and unchangeable. In its human, real, and earthly nature, it is developed in time, in doctrines, discipline, and rites, and is the continuation of the earthly human life of the Redeemer, in his threefold office of prophet, priest, and king. This idea of the Church, as existing in CHRIST, is necessarily that of a unity a icAoZe without difference or opposition. The Church, which is the body of CHRIST, is Christianity abso- lute in its nature, sacramental in its character so that with- out the Church there can be no Christianity. But though the idea of the Church implies a perfect unity, which shall one day be realized in its outward manifestation, its proper development has hitherto been impeded by the circumstances by which it has been surrounded, so that its true unity has never been fully realized since the primitive age. So, too, though Christianity is in itself the absolute religion, and in this view admitting of no improvement, its manifestation in the world has not come up to the perfection of the original. The apprehension of it by the Church, and its appropriation by individual Christians, have been more or less imperfect or faulty ; so that the world has seen no example of a perfect Christianity save in the life of its founder. To this standard of unity and truth the Church, under all its diversified forms, and amid all the conflicts through which it has to pass, both from within and without, is constantly advancing, even when it seems to be retrograding, under the multiplied evils brought to bear upon it.* - Rauch. Bib. Rep. X. 314316. Schaf. 177180. Hengstenberg, in Note C. 1 66 PURITANISM But Ncander'a view of things is as wide as possible from this. Ho makes the idea of an invisible Church the principle of historiography, and maintains that the visible Church on earth is at variance with this, instead of being a development from it. Consequently, the visible Church bears no relation to the invisible, being the product, merely, of those combina- tions of opinions, actions, and circumstances, by which Chris- tians have been surrounded. It is in no sense, therefore, a medium of grace, and consequently he can conceive of no such thing as life in the Church. Truth, therefore, is to be " apprehended " by individuals, not by the Church ; and to be developed in the history of individuals, not in that of the Church. What, therefore, we have been accustomed to regard as heresy, is mostly the peculiar apprehension of re- ligious truth by particular individuals, modified by the pecu- liarities of position, place, circumstance, and temperament of each.* With the former, the Church is (to adopt their own lan- guage) organic ; " the organism of CHRIST," and the princi- ple of " corporiety," or that of organized life, is the law of its being the " idea " t existing anterior to its development * Ranch. X. 314316. tA few words seem to be necessary concerning the seoie in which the Germans employ the term idea, especially those who re at all influenced by the philosophy of Hegel, as out of it arices the doctrine of development. They do not use it to signify merely the intellectual apprehension of a fact, nor to signify " habitual judg- ments " in regard to facts, as Mr. Newman supposes, (Theory Devel. c. i. 1.,) but to denote the abstract essence of an entity as. it exists, t and of itttlf; that generic csscntia which, though invisible itself, may be seen in every individual development These developments are re- lated to the idea, as tpecie to genus. Every development, therefore, must partake of the nature and essence of the "idea " from which it i* developed ; and no single development can ever come up to the " idea " itself, as that includes all specific developments, which together consti- tute the genut. Consequently, we cannot learn the character of the NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 167 the whole preceding the parts. With the latter, the visible Church, is an " atomic " compound of independent, (and for this purpose,) isolated individuals, and results from the mere choice of its individual members. With the former, the min- istry is " the organ of CHRIST," knowing itself to be incorpo- rated in the " organism of CHRIST," and bearing testimony from out of the common life of the Church. With the latter, every individual Christian is " a private organ of CHRIST," and may bear testimony from out of the particular spiritual life communicated to itself. With one, each individual is united to the body, in order that, by virtue of such union, it may partake of the life and spirit of the same. According to the other, each individual receives life, in order that it may be qualified for companionship with other living individ- uals. " idea " from the developments of the genus from the species until all specific developments are known. In regard to Christianity and the Church, we have the " idea" itself, in the GOD-MAN, CHRIST JE- SUS, made known in Holy Writ, at once the model of the Church and the example of the Christian, and the truth of all developments is to be determined by their correspondence to that ; until the Gospel shall be fully apprehended by the Church, and its influence have pervaded every walk of life and every department of society. The Romish and Pantheistic applications of this doctrine are both false and unscientific. Truly applied, it is the foundation of all that is true, in what is some- times called the sacramentaiity of nature, by which is meant the union of the Word and Element, and the correspondence of the external and visible with the invisible and spiritual. 168 PURITANISM NOTE C. NEW LUTHERAN VIEW OF THE SACRA- MENTS. REV. DR. IIE.NGSTENiERO. We have already seen what views the orthodox Lutherans of the present day entertain of the Church, and it will be in- teresting to see what are their opinions in regard to the Sa- craments. For this purpose we shall make a series of quota- tions from two living orthodox Lutherans, whose learning and piety entitle them to the highest consideration. Our first quotations are from an article in Erangrlisch-Kirchrn Zei* tung for March, 1846, edited by Rev. Prof. E. W. Heng- stenberg, D.D., the acknowledged leader of the New Luth- erans, and whose name is familiar to the theologians of this country. The article is entitled " The mystery of Baptism." We quote from a translation made for the Irish Ecclesiasti- cal Journal for May and June, 1846. " THE MYPTERY OF BAPTrsM. " Every evangelical Christian, who has been baptized, has herewith been also gifted with the desire, and placed under the obligation, of continually searching deeply into the mys- tery of holy Baptism. The desire each must feel according to the measure and manner of his calling, if he does not suppress it through carelessness or through design. The obligiit\in no one can deny, without disowning the Baptism iiM-il. which lias been conferred on him. " 'A.i 1 dear Christian ! let us not so carelessly regard and treat such unutterable gifts! Baptism is surely our only comfort, and admission to all divine gifts, and into the Com- munion of Saints. May GOD assist us! Amen!' NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM 169 In Luther's larger Catechism this exhortation is repeated, pressingly and often : ' Every Christian has, therefore, during his whole existence, enough to learn and to practice in refer- ence to Baptism ; for he has continually to take care that he firmly believe what it promises and confers, viz., the victory over death and the Devil, Remission of Sins, the Grace of GOD, the full participation of CHRIST, and the Holy Ghost with His gifts. In fine, it is so superabundant, that if feeble na- ture could reflect, it would certainly question whether the fact could be true.' " Our Catechism itself introduces us to the mystery of holy Baptism, which no baptized person can exhaust. The Cat- echism directs us, at the same time, to the Scripture-doc- trine of Baptism." [Here he quotes Matt, xxviii. 19. Mark xvi. 16. Rom. vi. 3, 4. Col. ii. 12. Eph. v. 25, 26. 1 Pet. iii. 21. Tit. Hi. 57. Heb. x. 21,22. Gal. iii. 27. 1 Cor. xii. 13,; when he proceeds.] " In these passages a good lesson is given to each for his entire life, in order, as Luther says, to carry on the work of Baptism, which remains with us, and works forward, although the Sacrament itself cannot be repeated." CHRISTIANITY SACRAMENTAL. " ' Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. GOD was manifest in the flesh.' ' The word was made flesh.' On this mystery Christianity depends. Christianity, on this account, is essentially sacramental; for a Sacrament im- plies this, that the Word comes to the Element (das Wort zum Elements kommt.) On the mystery of the Incarnation of GOD in CHRIST the Christian Church is founded nay more, the very marrow of the Church, the innermost mystery of the Church the Sacrament for the Sacrament is the real ap- propriation (Leibhaftige Aneignwng) of the God-Man." 170 PURITANISM O.NK BACRAME-NT IN TWO PARTS. "As there is only one Church of CHRIST, BO also there is only one Sacrament. B.it as the one universal Church com- prehends within itself several degrees and divisions, so also the Sacrament consists of two degrees and divisions, each of which contains the Sacrament whole and undivided: 'There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye arc called in one hope of oar calling ; one LORD, one faith, one baptism, one GOD and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in yon all ' (Eph- iv 4 (>.) One body, founded on one be- lief in one Spirit, in one Loan, in one GOD the Father, with the Son and the Spirit, thro'i^h one Baptism. The Apostle Paul names only one Sacrament, and that manifestly Bap- tism ; but in and with Baptism al.-o the Sacrament of the Supper (des Ahendmabls.) Baptism is, like, the Supper, a communion of Christians with CHRIST, and with the body of CHRIST, which is the Church and that, too, Sacramental Communion Communion through the Word in the Ele- ment. " In Baptism, also, the Supper has been already included, for we who are baptized are baptized into the death of CHRIST. In the Supper, the baptismal bond is also renewed, for ' the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the com- munion of the blood of CHRIST? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of CHRIST.' " DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PARTS. " CHRIST is in both Sacraments undivided, as in one. The distinction to be drawn in the first place, amounts only to this, that the Christian, through baptism, enters into commu- nion with CHRIST and his body, which is the Church ; there- fore, Baptism can only once be administered to each man : ' He that is washed, needeth not save to wash his feet, but is NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 171 clean every whit.' In the Supper, however, his pilgrimage is continued still further ; and at each participation he renews this same, communion, until he partake of it anew with CHRIST in the kingdom of the Father. The second distinc- tion is this, that in Baptism the Sacrament or, in other words, the real uniting of the triune GOD with man comes to the man; whilst, in the Supper, man approaches to the Sacrament. For this very reason, Baptism, as a Sacrament, is administered Lnt once ; while the Supper, as being the renewal of the baptismal bond, is held forth to us as often as we approach. There is the grace which hastes to meet us here that which fully prepares." REV- DR. MARTEXSE.V. Such is the language of Hengstenberg's Evangelical Church-Journal. We proceed to give another series of Ex- tracts from the same paper, not original with it, being a par- aphrastic translation and abridgment of a little work, entitled " Christian Baptism and the Baptist Question," by Rev. H. Martensen, D. D., Professor of Theology in the University of Copenhagen. The extracts already made, speak the language of the New Lutherans of Prussia, the following may be regarded as representing the opinions and sentiments cf those in Denmark ; approved, also, by Rev. Dr. Heng- stenberg. It will be seen, that both Dr Martensen and Dr. Hengstenberg suppose many other important doctrines to be immediately connected with Baptism." PLAN OF DR. M.'s WORK. " The little work [of Dr. M.] is divided into five sections ; for it seeks (always with respect to the erroneous doctrine of Baptism) to prove, from the idea of Baptism, according to Scripture 1st. That Baptism consolidates the Church, pub- lic worship, and preaching in the Church, and proportionably, 172 PURITANISM the faith also: 2d. That it is essentially designed for child- ren ; and besides these, for such persons only who have not been baptized as children, and who are therefore baptized by way of addition solely, however, on the supposition that they arc related to it as children: 3d. That it bestows itself as true, in other words, as sacramental Predestination : 4th. That it is the Sacrament of Justification and Regeneration, and consequently already contains the essence (das Weaen) of Justification and Regeneration : 5th. That it commences objectively with tho Apostolic Confession of Faith : and sub- jectively in Confirmation is put into action, and authenti- cated." BAPTISMAL ELECTION INTO AN ORGANIC BODY. " I. What the personal election of CHRIST was for the first band of disciples, the same is Baptism for the succeeding community ; namely, the Divine Act, whereby CHRIST gives individually to his Church the true, the eternal beginning ; whereby he also propagates the Church in the unending course of the method of Salvation. And this Act is not doc- trine, is not preaching, but a Sacrament, by means of which CHRIST pices Himself For this very reason must the Chris- tian preacher, who administers tho Sacrament in CHRIST'S name, knnir himself to be the organ [or minissteriiil represen- tative] of CHRIST; and as such he can only know himself so far as he is himself incorporated in the organism [or organ- ized body] o r CHRIST, or the Church. For only through the [organic] whole (das Game,) is CHRIST related to the indi- vidual ; and every true Communion with CHRIST is only a Communion with Him as the Head of the Body." THE CHURCH, ACCORDING TO THE 8LCT8, ATOMIC. "This organic idea of the Church, those Sects mistake, which regard the Church as the result, as the product only NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 173 of the individual members, and not as pre-assuming their existence. The Sects wish to produce the whole, through an atomic [or individual] compound of its [independent] parts; while, on the other hand, this is the secret of Organ- ism, that the whole precedes the parts ; and thus the Com- mnnion of Saints precedes the existence of individual mem- bers. But to this Organism the Church attains through the Sacrament of Baptism, by means of which she places Chris- tians, before they are yet conscious of it, in the most intimate relation of Communion with CHRIST, and among themselves, just as each individual man also in every respect is placed (even before he could give his assent) in determined rela- tions. The Sacrament of Baptism is, therefore, at once the opening point of all worship, and the door of Faith." WORSHIP AND BAPTISM. " Worship is to be understood not merely as the service of GOD, or as Communion in order to edification ; this is but one side of worship, according to which CHRIST is only its object : according to the other side, CHRIST is also the sub- ject of worship ; it is He who founds the Communion, who is the Eternal High Priest, who himself is present, and himself officiates ; the King, who perceptibly goes through the ranks, and causes his presence to be felt. This conception of the eternal Kingdom is precisely that fundamental mystery on which the Church reposes." FAITH AND BAPTISM. " In the same degree Christian Faith is not only faith on CHRIST, but also (and indeed in the first instance) faith through CHRIST ; and for that very reason, in the third place, faith in CHRIST. In this manner, faith (according to its Sac- ramental genesis} comes forth from Baptism, in which it is imparted through CHRIST, within his Organism." 174 PURITANISM PRKACIUNQ AND BAPTISM. " When it is written, ' Faith cometh by preaching,' (flu* der Predigt,) by this statement the exoteric side of truth is in the first place laid down. For it is added, in close con- nection, ' Preaching comes by the word ' (die Perdigt kommt an* dem Worte :) this is the esoteric side of truth. Baptism is the Word in, with, and under the water sprinkled by a priestly organ of the Church. It is, however, certainly not the final commencement of faith, which also comes by preaching, through the medium of one's own perception and determination of will." THE SACRAMENT ESSENTIALLY INFANT BAPTISM. " II. Because the Sacrament of Baptism institutes the Church, and then introduces into the Church, for ' Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of GOD (John iii. 5) so it is essentially (wesentlich) Infant Baptism." ADULTS RECEIVE IT AS INFANTS. "Again, the adult candidate for Baptism cannot be con- sidered as an independent personality, with reference to the Redemption and the Kingdom of GOD. All his independence is, when confronted with Baptism, a greatness which van- ishes away He, who is about to be born into the new world of Christianity, descends to the level of the child But in consequence of this very fact, that the Sacrament of Bap- tism lays hold of man before ho can independently lay hold of it, it proves by the efficacy of preventing Grace its sacra- mental nature." NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 175 GROUND OF INFANT BAPTISM. " By virtue of that need of Redemption innate in the child, it longs, indeed, for sacramental union with God, but it is conscious of no impulse of the will directed towards that union, still less does it exhibit a manifestation of the will : therefore Infant Baptism is not a proceeding conditional on the individual's choice. The child does not make the elec- tion at his own direction, but is, in the first instance, elected : thus the Church intervenes, in order to oppose the atomism (der Atomistik) of sectarian Baptism." SACRAMENTAL PREDESTINATION. " III. By this denial of self-actuated volition, Baptism exhibits itself in a striking manner, as the Sacrament of Pre- destination. Sacramental Predestination consists in this, that the child does-not exhibit itself as the subject, but is treated as the vessel of Grace as the material (als die creaturliche Stqffe ) out of which CHRIST will form a work. In Baptism it is CHRIST who assimilates to himself the natural man, in order, at a later period, in the Holy Communion, to cause Himself to be assimilated by man, through the means of faithful participation. But the child appears, at the same time, in Baptism, as the subject in which the beginning is made. Therefore, this effectual OBJECTIVE predestination is not complete, for from the election of grace in Baptism springs the call of grace to liberty. Our election stands fast through Baptism : the development of the fruit of Baptism, the appointed use of the gift of grace is, however, conditional on watching and prayer, on the living in communion, and on the Holy Supper. Sacramental Predestination is of a speci- fic and more intimate nature, in opposition to that universal predestination, according to which GOD wills that assistance should be given to all men. Between the former and the 176 PURITANISM: latter there exists tho same relation as between the Word which has become flesh, and the same Word which existed in the beginning. But what sacramental predestination is to the succeeding Christians, such was the original authoritative faith (Autoritatsglaube) for the original disciples, which es- sentially consists in this, that they did not make their choice, but were chosen that they were embraced before they could embrace it. In our time it is particularly important to draw attention to the deep import of authoritative faith," HOW DISTINGUISHED FROM CALVINISTIC AND ARMIMAN PREDES- TINATION. " Hence this sacramental predestination has for its oppo- site extremes, on the one side the fatalist, i. c. the Calvinistic particular election ; and on the other, the Pelagian predesti- nation, according to which the subject predestinates itself. The Apocatastasis also, (i. e. the restoration of all moral beings to a life of bliss in GOD,) rests on the very same point as the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination which is opposed to it namely, on that natural necessity to which, according to both doctrines, moral beings are subjected. The Apoca- tastasis has only this advantage, that it invests with the form of unity the Calvinistic dualism that separation be- tween the happy and the condemned already decreed from the beginning. According to the doctrine of sacramen- tal predestination, however, happiness alone has been be- stowed thetically '. e. by virtue of original determination, while there is no decree of condemnation ; which latter can, however, follow hypothetically, or, in other words, possibly. Nay, condemnation is to be regarded as a necessary hypoth- esis in other words, as an unavoidable possibility inasmuch as baptismal grace contains in itself no final, no magical, no doomed predestination. NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 177 SACRAMENT OF REGENERATION. " IV. If the Sacrament of Infant Baptism contain, in the full meaning of the words, not alone the call, but also the election without any prejudice, be it observed, to the free- dom of the subject it is also, at the same time, the Laver of Regeneration, in which the baptized ' put on CHRIST.' Thus we read in the holy Scripture ; thus too Reason confesses when enlightened by Faith. Baptism is the Act, whereby CHRIST imparts to the child (undoubtedly in a sacramental manner) his will, which confers justification on man. Through Baptism the child is really a participator in the righteousness of CHRIST, as the substantial, fruitful prin- ciple of a new life in the general community." . , . JUSTIFICATION COMMUNICATED IN BAPTISM, RECEIVED BY FAITH. " It is to be carefully remarked, that the gracious will of GOD in CHRIST is the principle of all justification, the com- munication of which takes place through Baptism, the recep- tion of which takes place through Faith. Thus it remains an unalterable fact, that it is Faith alone which justifies the sinner, and attains to regeneration ; but it is precisely in Bap. tism that this Faith, on, and through, and in CHRIST, is sac- ramentally received, according to its essence and according to its substance. Therefore, even Luther, the preacher of justification through Faith only, says in his larger Catechism, ' Undoubtedly Faith alone makes happy : but the blind will not see this, that Faith must have something which it can believe, which actually exists, and on which it may fasten and take its stand. Now Faith depends on the water, and believes that Baptism is that in which there is nought but bliss and life ; not, indeed, by virtue of the water itself, but through this, that it is incorporated with GOD'S word and ordinance, and that His name cleaves thereto. If I now 9 178 PURITANISM believe this fact, on what else do I believe than on GOD, as on Him who has herein given and planted His word, and proffers to us this outward thing, whereby we can lay hold of such a treasure? But now men are FO beside themselves that they separate from each other the Faith, and the thing on which Faith fastens itself, and to which it is bound, albeit that thing is external.' NECESSITY OF BAPTISM. " By these principles we at onco answer the question, ' It Baptism necessary for salvation ? ' Here is the reply : Bap- tism, as the Sacrament by which CHRIST is made (angee : g- nef) the Christian's own, is Christianity itself; but, otherwise than through CHRIST, none can come to GOD. It is also the appointed rule, that this Sacrament should be adminis- tered through water and the Word. Even Paul caused himself to be baptized, (Acts ix. 19,) and his sins to be washed away (Acts xxii. 16.) And the Apostles, who had 'seen, heard, looked on, handled ' JESUS in the form of a servant, were in the strictest sense baptized, ordained, predestinated, purified, through the means of water, by the Word of Life, by the personal Sacrament, by the Word in the Flesh (John xiii. 10 ;) they were elected by the Word, (John xv. 3,) with- out having made their own election, (John xv. 1C,) and at last were filled with the Spirit (Acts ii. 4.) Since that pe- riod Baptism in water and the Word is sacramental initiation, (AcUii.410" " The rule, however, does not exclude the exceptions. He who comes to the Faith, has either been already baptized, or will still receive, or, at any rate, desire Baptism, in order to be engrafted into the body of the Lord, for Christianity is no private matter. But he who does not believe that is, who NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 179 does not accept the grace actually offered to him that man, be he baptized or not, is condemned By these principles, likewise, the Baptism of necesaity* is justified, and every neglect of it is a transgression of t.lie ordinance of the Church. It is the ordinance and rule, that they to whom the command has been given should not depend on exceptions which con- cern not them, but the Lord alone. The notion of the pos- sibility of infinitely numerous and different means of grace can possess only a dialectical validity within the reality of the ordained economy of Revelation, and on the presupposi- tion of the necessity of its means of grace. Thus the truth of the Baptism of necessity (Nothtaufe) lies midway between the extremes of an unconditional necessity of the sensuous act, and the freedom of that spiritual Baptism maintained by the Baptists. So it is also, to regard the matter through the bare medium of sense, (ist es auch eine baare Sinnlichkeit,) when the super-sensuous Idealists do not acknowledge in the sensuous act of the Sacrament GOD'S invisible Being : but it is also a using of the bare medium of sense, when the Realists regard God's invisible Being as materially united to it. CHRIST obliges MS to it this is the reply to the super- sensuous Idealists : but not Himself this is the reply to the material Realists." OBJECTIVE CONFESSION OF FAITH IN BAPTISM. " V. For this reason Faith belongs to the child in the con- gregation, through Baptism. For this reason the Apostolic Confession of Faith is proposed to the Sponsors as the Faith of the child, in order to their professing it on its behalf. For this very reason the mystical union of the community exhi- * Baptism of necessity is given as the translation of the technical phrase die Nothtaufe, i. e. Baptism performed, in cases of urgency, by females or laymen, a practice allowed by the Lulheraui. 180 PURITANISM bits itself in Baptism, in the child who is incorporated in the community; and this organic uniting of all the members into one body, is also in Baptism the blessing of communion, in coniraposition to which all separation appears atomistic. But for this reason, also, Baptism, as a Sacrament, is com- pleted objectively by means of the administration, and re- quires, as the Act of CHRIST, no further completion, but, merely that it be developed in the subject on whom it has been bestowed. Therefore, Confirmation is neither a comple- tion, nor even a ratification of Baptism, but merely a rati- fication of its subjective development in the child." SUBJECTIVE IN CONFIRMATION. " Hence, therefore, Confirmation is for the subject of no less importance. It certainly possesses, at different periods of tfae Church, different degrees of importance ; while Baptism, regarded in its sacramental character, remains always iden- tical with itself: but although Confirmation does uot move precisely parallel with the Sacrament, it is, nevertheless, when regarded as an acknowledgment on the part of the subject of the Baptism administered to him, and as an ac- count which the subject gives of it in the presence of the congregation, at all times of great (in times like ours of the very greatest) importance, l-'or at present there has arisen among very many members of the Christian Church a wide opposition, a mighty separation, between Baptism and the subjective Confession. And yet even they have been bap- tized who have fallen from their baptismal .vow." CATECHUMENS. In the case of such persons, Baptism is not wanting, but Confirmation is. The Church, therefore, may not give up her baptized, but she must regard them as catechumen* as such persons who, cither through the fault of the Church NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM 181 herself have not preserved their Christian illumination, or who have made themselves under age (unmundig) in an ecclesiastical sense. Such persons are to be regarded as baptized, but in an unconfirmed point of view. They are baptized catechumens baptized, because they have been baptized once for all by Water and the Word unconfirmed, (however solemnly they may have been confirmed a long or a short time ago,) because they do not profess their Bap- tism, and consequently are to be regarded as catechumens afterwards, as well as before, who require the particular care of the Church ; and to this care belongs especially catecheti- cal and apologetical instruction." - jj*. ( ^ DR. HENGSTENBERG'S COMMENT. " The Sacrament of holy Baptism reminds us once more of the mystery of the organism in which the Church subsists. This organism of the Church, and the Sacrament of Bap- tism, stand in such a mutual relationship, that the one can- not exist without the other. From the organism of the general congregation the Sacrament of Baptism proceeds : the Sacrament in its turn, it is, which founds the organism in every new member, while it incorporates the latter in the former: in the next place, the Church itself; and this, we repeat, is the organic body whose head is CHRIST as the GOD- MAN : but the head is not merely the object, it is also the organic head of the body. Therefore, the more unadorned faith on the Goo-MAN that only treasure shall come to life and to consciousness among our contemporaries, with so much the more vitality shall the mystery of the organism of CHRIST again wake up that mystery now almost effaced from the consciousness of the community, and which has become a stranger not to the infidel alone, but even to the private Christian. By means of such a revival of the Church, considered as the Body, both the individual who administers 182 PURITANISM the Sacrament M the organ, and aa the ordained servant of the Church, as well aa the sponsors as members of the col- lective body, would arrive at their true position, as well with reference to the mystery of that organism, as also, in an especial degree, to the Sacrament ittelf: for out of that organism alone does the Sacrament of Baptism, in its full and real importance, disclose and expand itself as ' the en- trance into all divine blessings, and into the Communion of Saints.'" NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 183 NOTE D. , THE following correspondence, relating to a period upon which Mr. Hall has dwelt at much length, will be read wifh interest by all. It is the state of things as viewed by the parties themselves. We thought it better to permit the men of that age to tell their own story for themselves, than to make a formal answer to such a tissue of absurdities as Mr. Hall has penned concerning the men of those times. In 1646, Charles I. fled from Oxford, and took refuge with the Scottish army, then at Newark, and afterwards was conducted by them to Newcastle. Clarendon, in his History, &c., vol. III. p. 31, gives the following account of the circumstances connected with these papers : " Then they employed their Alexander Henderson, and their other clergy, to persuade the King to consent to the extirpation of Episcopacy in England, as he had in Scotland; and it was, and is still believed, that if hia Majesty could have been induced to have satisfied them in that particular, they would either have had a party in the Parliament at Westminster to have been satisfied there- with, or that they would thereupon have declared for the King, and have presently joined with the loyal party in all places for his Majesty's defence. " But the King was too conscientious to buy his peace at BO prophane and sacrilegious a price as was demanded, and he was so much too hard for Mr. Henderson in the argu- mentation, (which appears by the papers that passed between them, which were shortly after communicated to the world,) that the old man himself was so far convinced, and con- verted, that he had a very deep sense of the mischief he had himself been the author of, or too much contributed too, and lamented it to his nearest friends, and confidents, and 184 PUKITAXISM died of grief, and heart-broken, within a very short time after he departed from his Majesty." PAPERS WHICH PASSED BETWEEN ins MAJESTY CHARLES i. AND MR. ALEXANDER. HENDERSON, CONCERNING THE CHANGE OF CHURCH GOV1RNMENT. At Newtastle, 1646. I. His MAJESTY'S First Paper for Ma. ALEXANDER HENDERSON. MR. HENDERSON, I know very well what a great dis- advantage it is for me, to maintain an argument of divinity with so able and learned a man as yourself, it being your, not my profession ; which really was the cause that made me desire to hear some- learned man argue my opinion with you, of whose abilities I might be confident that I should not be led into an error, for want of having all which could be said laid open unto me. For, indeed, my humour is such, that I am still partial for that side which I imagine suffers for the weakness of those that maintain it, always thinking that equal champions would cast the balance on the other part. Yet, since that you (thinking that it will save time) desire to go another way, I shall not contest with you in it, but treating you as my physician, give you leave to take your own way of cure ; only I thought fit to warn you, lest if you (not I) should be mistaken in this, you would be fain (in a manner) to begin anew. Then know that from my infancy I was blest with the king my father's love, which, I thank God, was an invalu- able happiness to me, all his days ; and among all his cares for my education, his chief was, to settle me right in reli- gion ; in the true knowledge of which he made himself so eminent to all the world, that I am sure none can call in NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 185 question the brightness of his fame in that particular, with- out showing their own ignorant base malice. He it was who laid in me the grounds of Christianity, which to this day I have been constant in. So that whether the worthi- ness of my instructor be considered, or the not few years that I have been settled in my principles, it ought to be no strange thing, if it be found no easy work to alter them ; and the rather, that hitherto I have (according to St. Paul's rule, Rom. xiv. 22.) been happy in not condemning myself in that thing which I allow. Thus having shewed you how, it remains to tell you what I believe, in relation to these present miserable distractions. No one thing made me more' reverence the reformation of my mother, the Church of England, than that it was done (according to the apostle's defence, Acts, xxiv. 18,) " neither with multitude nor with tumult," but legally and orderly, and by those whom I conceive to have the reform- ing power ; which, with many other inducements, made me always confident that the work was very perfect as to essen- tials ; of which number church government being undoubt- edly one, I put no question but that would have been like- wise altered if there had been cause. Which opinion of mine was soon turned into more than a confidence, when I perceived that in this particular (as I must say of all the rest) we retained nothing, but according as it was deduced from the apostles to be the constant universal custom of the primitive church ; and that it was of sueh consequence, as by the alteration of it we should deprive ourselves of a law- ful priesthood ; and then, how the sacraments can be duly administered is easy to judge. These are the principal rea- sons which make me believe that bishops are necessary for a church, and, I think, sufficiejit for mo (if I had no more) not to give my consent for their expulsion out of England. But I have another obligation, that to my particular is a no 9* 186 ftRlTAMSM leas tie of conscience, which is, my coronation oath. Now if (aa St. Paul saith, Rom. xiv. 23,) ' He that doubteth is damned, if he eat," what can I expect, if I should not only give way knowingly to my people's sinning, but likewise be perjured myself? Now consider, ought I not to keep myself from presump' tuous sins? and you know who says, " What doth it profit a man, though he should gain the whole world, and lose hia own soul ?" Wherefore my constant maintenance of Epis- pacy in England, (where there was never any other govern- ment since Christianity was in this kingdom,) methinks, should be rather commended than wondered at, my con- science directing me to maintain the laws of the land ; which being only my endeavours at this time, I desire to know of you, what warrant there is in the word of God for subjects to endeavour to force their king's conscience, or to make him alter laws against his will. If this be not my present case, I shall be glad to be mistaken ; or if my judg- ment in religion hath been misled all this time, I shall be willing to be better directed ; till when, you must excuse me to be constant to the grounds which the king my father taught me. C. R. Newcastle, May 29, 1646. II. MR. ALEXANDER HENDERSON'S First Paper for His MAJESTY. SIR, It is your majesty's royal goodness, and not my merit, that hath made your majesty to conceive any opinion of my abilities, which (were they worthy of the smallest testimony from your majesty) ought in all duty to be im- proved for your majesty's satisfaction. And this I intended in my coming here at this time, by a free, yet modest, expression of the true motives and inducements which drew my mind to the dislike of Episcopal government, wherein I NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 187 was bred in my younger years in the university. Likeas, I did apprehend, that it was not your majesty's purpose to have the question disputed by divines on both sides, which I' would never (to the wronging of the cause) have undertaken alone, and which seldom or never hath proved an effectual way for finding of truth, or moving the minds of men to relinquish their former tenets, Dum res transit judicio in effectum ; witness the polemicks between the Papists and us, and among ourselves about the matter now in hand, these many years past. 1. Sir, when I consider your majesty's education under the hand of such a father, the length of time wherein your majesty hath been settled in your principles of church gov- ernment, the arguments which have continually, in private and public, especially of late at Oxford, filled your majesty's ears for the divine right thereof, your coronation oath, and divers state reasons which your majesty doth not mention, I do not wonder, nor think it any strange thing, that your majesty hath not at first given place to a contrary impres- sion. I remember that the famous Joannes Picus Mirandula proveth, by irrefragable reasons (which no rational man will contradict) " That no man hath so much power over his own understanding, as to make himself believe that he will, or to think that to be true which his reason telleth him is false ; much less is it possible for any man to have his rea- son commanded by the will or at tbe pleasure of another." 2. It is a true saying of the schoolmen, Voluntas imperat intellectui quoad exercitium, non quoad specificationem ; mine own will, or the will of another, may command me to think upon a matter, but no will or command can constrain rne to determine otherwise than my reason teacheth me. Yet, Sir, I hope your majesty will acknowledge (for your paper professeth no less) that, according to the saying of Ambrose, Non est pudor ad meliora transire, it is neither 188 PURITANISM sin nor shame to change to the better. Symmachus, in one of his epistles, (I think to the emperors Thcodosius and Valentinian,) allegeth all those motives from education, from prescription of time, from worldly prosperity, and the flour- ishing condition of the Roman empire, and from the laws of the land, to persuade them to constancy in the ancient Pagan profession of the Romans, against the embracing of the Christian fuith. The like reasons were used by the Jews for Moses against Christ, and may be used both for Pepery and for the Papacy itself against the reformation of religion and church government, and therefore can have no more strength against the change now than they had in for- mer times. 3. But your majesty may perhaps say, that this ta petitio principii, and nothing else but the begging of the question ; and I confess it were no, if there can be no reasons brought for a reformation or cliange. Your majesty reverences the reformation of the Church of England, as being done legally and orderly, and by those who had the reforming power ; and I do not deny but it were to be wished that religion, where there is need, were always reformed in that manner, and by such power, and that it were not committed to the prelates, who have greatest need to be reformed themselves, nor left to the multitude, whom God etirreth up when princes arc negligent. Thus did Jacob reform his own family, Moses destroy the golden calf, the good kings of Judah reform the church in their time; but that such reformation hath been perfect I cannot admit. Asa took away idolatry, but liis reformation was not perfect ; for Jehosaphat removed the high places, yet was not his reformation perfect ; for it was Hezekiah that brake the brazen serpent, and Josiah de- stroyed the idol temples, who therefore bearcth thin eulogy, that like unto him there was no king before him. It is too well known that the reformation of King Henry VIII. wan NOT GENUINE PROTESTANTISM. 189 most imperfect in the essentials of doctrine, worship, and government; and although it proceeded by some degrees afterwards, yet the government was never reformed ; the head was changed, dominus non dominium, and the whole limbs of the antichristian hierarchy retained, upon what snares and temptations of avarice and ambition, the great enchanters of the clergy, I need not express. It was a hard saying of Romanorum Malleus, Grosthed of Lincoln, that reformation was not to be expected, nisi in ore gladii cruentandi. Yet this I may say, that the Laodicean luke- warmness of reformation here hath been matter of continued complaints to many of the godly in this kingdom ; occasion of more schism and separation than ever was heard of in any other church, and of unspeakable grief and sorrow to other churches, which God did bless with greater purity of reformation. The glory of this great work we hope is re- served for your majesty, that to your comfort and everlast- ing fame the praise of godly Josiah may be made yours ; which yet will be no dispraise to your royal father, or Ed- ward the VI. or any other religious princes before you ; none of them having so fair an opportunity as is now, by the supreme Providence, put into your royal hands. My soul trembleth to think and to foresee what may be the event, if this opportunity be neglected. I will neither use the words of Mordecai, (Esth. iv. 14,) nor what Savonarola told another Charles, because I hope better things from your majesty. 4. To the argument brought by your majesty, (which I believe none of your doctors, had they been all about you, could more briefly, and yet so fully and strongly, have ex- pressed,) " That nothing was retained in this church but according as it was deduced from the apostles to be the con- stant universal practice of the primitive church ; and that it was of such consequence, as by the alteration of it we 190 MJRlTAWstt. should deprive ourselves of the lawfulness of priesthood, (I think your majesty means a lawful ministry ;) and then how the sacraments can be administered is easy to judge." 1 humbly offer these considerations : First, What was not in the times of the apostles, cannot be deduced from them. We say in Scotland, " It cannot be brought but, that is not the ben :" but (not to insist now on a liturgy, and things of that kind,) there was no such hierarchy, no such difference betwixt a bishop and a presbyter in the times of the apos- tles, and therefore it cannot hence be deduced : for I con- ceive it to be as clear as if it were written with a sunbeam, that presbyter and bishop are to the apostles one and the same thing ; no majority, no inequality or difference of office, power, or degree, betwixt the one and the other, but a mere identity in all. Second, That the apostles intending to set down the offices and officers of the church, and speaking so often of them, and of their gifts and duties, and that not upon occasion, but of set purpose, do neither express nor imply any such pastor or bishop as hath power over other pastors ; although it be true, that they have distinctly and particularly expressed the office, gifts, and duties of the meanest officers, such as deacons. Third, That in the min- istry of the New Testament, there is a comely, beautiful, and divine order and subordination ; one kiud of ministers, both ordinary and extraordinary, being placed in degree and dignity before another, as the apostles first, the evangelists, pastors, doctors, &c., in their own ranks ; but we cannot find, in offices of the same kind, that one had majority of power, or priority of degree, before another; no apostle above other apostles, (unless in moral respects,) no evange- list above other evangelists, or deacon above other deacons : why then a pastor above other pastors ? In all other sort* of ministers, ordinary and extraordinary, a parity in their own kind, only in the office of pastor an inequality. Fourth, GfiNtflNK PROTES* ANTISJf. 191 That the whole power; and all the parts of the ministry, which are commonly called the power of order and jurisdio-* tion, are by the apostles declared to be common to the presbyter and bishop ; and that (Mat. xviii. 15, 16, 17,) the gradation in matter of discipline or church censures, is from one to two or more ; and "if he shall neglect them, tell it to the church :" he saith not, tell it to the bishop ; there is no place left to a retrogradation from more to one, Were he never so eminent. If these considerations do not satisfy, your majesty may have more, or the same farther cleared. 5. Secondly, I do humbly desire your majesty to take notice of the fallacy of that argument, from the practice of the primitive church, and the universal consent of the fathers. It is the argument of the Papists for such tradi- tions as no orthodox divine will admit. The law and testi- mony must be the rule. We can have no certain knowledge of the practice universal of the church for many years : Eusebius, the prime historian, confesseth so much ; the learned Josephus Scaliger testifieth, that from the end of the Acts of the Apostles until a good time after, no certainty can be had from ecclesiastical authors about church matters. It is true, Diotrephes sought the preeminence in the apostles' times, and the mystery of iniquity did then begin to work ; and no doubt in after times, some puffed up with ambition, and others overtaken with weakness, endeavoured alteration of church government ; but that all the learried and godly of those limes consented to such a change as is talked of alerwards, will never be proved. 6. Th'rdly, I will never think that your majesty will deny the lawfulness of a ministry, and the due administration of the sacraments in the reformed churches wh ich have no dio- cesan bishops, sith it is not only manifest by Scripture, but a great many of the strongest champions for Episcopacy 192 PURITANISM do confess, that presbyters may ordain other presbyters ; and that baptism administered by a private person, wanting a public calling, or by a midwife, and by a presbyter, although not ordained by a bishop, are not one and the tame thing. 7. Concerning the other argument taken from your ma- jesty's coronation oath, I confess that both in the taking and keeping of an oath (so sacred a thing is it, and so high a point of religion) much tenderness is required : and far be it from us, who desire to observe our own solemn oath, to press your majesty with the violation of yours. Yet, Sir, I will crave your leave, in all humbleness and sincerity, to lay be- fore your majesty's eyes this one thing, (which, perhaps, might require a larger discourse,) that although no human authority can dispense with an oath,