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Cornell University Library 
 BR45 .B21 1840 
 
 Inquiry Into the connected uses of the p 
 
 olln 
 
 3 1924 029 181 002 
 
 THE 
 
 BAMPTON LECTURE 
 
 FOR THE YEAR MDCCCXL. 
 
AN INQUIRY INTO THE CONNECTED USES OF 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL MEANS OF ATTAINING 
 
 CHRISTIAN TRUTH 
 
 IN 
 
 EIGHT SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED BEFOKE 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 BAMPTON LECTURE 
 
 FOR THE YEAR MDCCCXL.' 
 
 EDWARD HAWKINS, D.D. 
 
 PROVOST OF OBIEE COLLEGE, AND PREBENDAET OF ROCHESTER. 
 
 OXFORD, 
 
 JOHN HENRY PARKER : 
 
 B. FELLOWES, LUDGATE STREET, LONDON. 
 
 1840. 
 
BAXTER, PBINTER, OXFOllD. 
 
TO THE 
 
 HEADS OF COLLEGES 
 
 IN THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 THE 
 
 FOLLOWING SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED BY THEIR APPOINTMENT 
 
 ARE MOST RESPECTFULLY 
 
 INSCRIBED. 
 
EXTRACT 
 
 thp: last will and testament 
 
 OP THE liATE 
 
 REV. JOHN BAMPTON, 
 
 CANON OF SALISBURY. 
 
 " I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates 
 
 ' to the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the Uni- 
 ' versity of Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all 
 ' and singular the said Lands or Estates upon trust, 
 ' and to the intents and purposes hereinafter rnen- 
 ' tioned; that is to say, I will and appoint that the Vice- 
 ' Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the time 
 ' being shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and 
 ' profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and 
 ' necessary deductions made) that he pay all the re- 
 ' mainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture 
 ' Sermons, to be established for ever in the said Uni- 
 ' versity, and to be performed in the manner following : 
 
 " I direct and appoint, tha,t, upon the first Tuesday 
 ' in Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the 
 ' Heads of Colleges only, and by no others, in the 
 ' room adjoining to the Printing-House, between the 
 ' hours of ten in the morning and two in the after- 
 ' noon, to preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the 
 ' year following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between the 
 ' commencement of the last month in Lent Term, and 
 ' the end of the third week in Act Term. 
 
vi EXTHACT FROM CANON BAMPTON'S WILL. 
 
 " Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity 
 " Lecture Sermons shall be preached upon either of 
 " the following Subjects — to confirm and establish the 
 " Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics and schis- 
 " matics — upon the divine authority of the holy Scrip- 
 " tures — upon the authority of the writings of the 
 " primitive Fathers, as to the faith and practice of 
 " the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our 
 " Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity 
 " of the Holy Ghost — upon the Articles of the Chris- 
 " tian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles' and 
 " Nicene Creeds. 
 
 " Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight 
 " Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be always printed 
 " within two months after they are preached, and one 
 " copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the Univer- 
 " sity, and one copj' to the Head of every College, and 
 " one copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one 
 " copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ; and the 
 " expense of printing them shall be paid out of the 
 " revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing 
 ' the Divinity Lecture Sermons ; and the Preacher 
 " shall not be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, 
 " before they are printed. 
 
 " Also 1 direct and appoint, that no person shall be 
 " qualified to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons> 
 " unless he hath taken the degree of Master of Arts at 
 " least, in one of the two Universities of Oxford or 
 " Cambridge ; and that the same person shall never 
 " preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice." 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Having thought it right to undertake 
 the Bampton Lecture for the present year, 
 at the desire of some of those in whom the 
 appointment of the Lecturer is vested, ex- 
 pressed to me on the eve of the election in 
 1839, 1 had scarcely an alternative as to tlie 
 subject. My other engagements seemed to 
 preclude my embarking upon any subject, to 
 some portion of which at least my thoughts 
 had not been previously directed. 
 
 But I had more than once endeavoured 
 to invite attention to a part of the subject 
 of the following Sermons, and particularly 
 in 1819, in a short Dissertation upon the 
 Use and Importance of what I ventured to 
 entitle Unauthoritative Tradition, as an In- 
 troduction to the Christian Doctrines. My 
 immediate purpose at that time was to meet 
 a religious Difficulty, which I had not indeed 
 experienced myself, but which, I knew, oc- 
 casioned considerable pain to many minds. 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 arising, as they supposed, out of the Indi- 
 rect teaching and Unsystematic form of the 
 Christian Scriptures. And the solution of 
 the Difficulty turned upon a Principle of 
 very extensive application respecting the 
 connexion between the Church and the 
 Scriptures, and the method of employing 
 them both, according to the intention of 
 their Divine author, in order to the at- 
 tainment of Christian Truth. There was 
 nothing new, indeed, in the principle. It 
 is, on the contrary, precisely that which 
 almost all Christian Parents constantly, 
 though perhaps unconsciously, pursue in 
 the communication of religious truth to 
 their children. And yet it is often denied 
 and opposed ; and the true theory has not 
 been always kept sufficiently in view, even 
 where it has been practically observed. This 
 principle, accordingly, I have endeavoured 
 to unfold in the following Discourses, and, 
 further, to throw it into its proper place in 
 the consideration, generally, of the Prin- 
 cipal Means which have been afforded to 
 
 us FOR THE INVESTIGATION AND ATTAIN- 
 MENT OF THE Truths of the Gospel. 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 There is a disadvantage, however, which 
 I may request the reader to bear in mind, 
 attending the discussion of any complex 
 subject in a Lecture of this description. As 
 the separate portions were to be treated in 
 a Hmited number of distinct Discourses, 
 designed for oral delivery on separate oc- 
 casions, they required to be formed each of 
 them into something like a whole, and the 
 effect of statements may often appear too 
 strong and decided, whilst they seem to 
 stand alone, when in fact they are modified 
 and counterbalanced by other connected 
 portions of the entire work. 
 
 And indeed the prosecution of my design 
 has opened an extended field of inquiry, 
 and has led me over not a little contro- 
 verted, ground, which on many accounts I 
 might have wished to avoid. It so hap- 
 pened, that about the time when I origin- 
 ally wrote upon this subject, it had been 
 a good deal considered in Ireland by the 
 late Mr. Alexander Knox, and some of his 
 friends ; and although I agree with him in 
 many of his views, yet I cannot always 
 acquiesce in the terms in which they are 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 stated*. And subsequently in this country, 
 and in this place, as is well known, various 
 questions connected with it have been very 
 earnestly pressed upon the public attention ; 
 and they have been often handled in a man- 
 ner , which , with great respect for the writers, 
 and even concurrence in their leading ob- 
 jects, I can still less approve. For contro- 
 versy, indeed, I have certainly no leisure, 
 and, I hope, no inclination. But having 
 found my own words and arguments some- 
 times employed to forward conclusions, to 
 which I think they do not properly lead, 
 and which appear to me exaggerated or 
 incorrect, I have supposed it to be little 
 less than my duty to endeavour to point 
 out the inferences to which they legiti- 
 mately tend. Any thing, therefore, which 
 I shall say will I trust be regarded as rather 
 the continuation of what I had begun to 
 treat before controversy arose among us, 
 than as an endeavour to enter the lists of 
 debate. At all events, I have persuaded my- 
 
 * See Remains of A. Knox^ Esq. vol. iii. p. 289 et sea. 
 Second Letter to I. S. Harford, Esq. on the Fathers of the 
 Christian Church, and on Catholic Antiquity. 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 self that I am not seeking Controversy, but 
 pursuing Truth. And I venture to hope 
 that, under the Divine blessing, the Lecture 
 may answer its intended purposes, as they 
 are described in the introductory and con- 
 cluding Discourses, and even when I may 
 have fallen into error myself, may yet point 
 out to others the path to Truth. 
 
 E. H. 
 
 Oriel College, 
 June-24, 1840. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 Page 1. 
 
 John xvii. 17. 
 Sanctify them through thy truth : thy word is truth. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 J'agB 
 
 Subject stated. Inquiry into the Nature and con- 
 nected Uses of the Principal Means of attaining Chris- 
 tian Truth. 
 
 I. Importance of Christian Truth. 1. Not all reli- 
 gious questions important, or of equal importance. 
 2. Yet Christian Truth important, generally, and as to 
 particular doctrines. (5 
 
 II. Of the Principles assumed in the following In- 
 quiry, viz. 1. Christian Truth Revealed. 2. The Revela- 
 tion Completed by Christ, and His Apostles ; 3. who were, 
 therefore. Inspired. 4. The Word of God altogether, 
 
 or almost all, contained in the Canonical Scriptures. 20 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 Page 36. 
 
 2 Thess. ii. 15. 
 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions 
 which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our 
 epistle. 
 
 ON THE COMBINED USE OF THE SCRIPTURES AND THE 
 
 CHURCH. 
 
 Page 
 
 I. Indications in the New Testament that the Chris- 
 tian Scriptures were not designed to be by themselves 
 Introductory to Christian Truth. 1. All the books 
 addressed to Christians previously instructed in the 
 faith. 9. Provision for oral teaching in the first age ; 
 3. and in succeeding ages. 4. The New Testament 
 indirect and unsystematic. .38 
 
 II. Observations. 1. The Scriptures and the Church 
 together, two of the principal means of attaining Chris- 
 tian Truth. 2. The Church to state, introduce, suggest, 
 doctrines, the Scriptures to prove them. S. The proof 
 of doctrines affected by this combination ; 4. but no 
 Defect imputed to the Scriptures, nor any thing asserted 
 against their Sufficiency. 53 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 Page 67. 
 
 2 Tim. iii. 14, 16. 
 Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned 
 and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast 
 learned them; and that from a child thou hast known 
 the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise 
 unto salvation through faith which is in Christ 
 Jesus. 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT HOW FAR INTRODUCTORY TO THE 
 
 NEW. 
 
 Page 
 
 I. Indications that the Old Testament, although pre- 
 paratory to the Gospel, is not the natural Introduction 
 to the Christian Doctrines, exhibited in 1 . The Histo- 
 rical Scriptures. 2. The Law. 3. The Psalms and 
 Prophets. 71 
 
 II. Application. 1. The Old Testament to be read 
 by Christians under the light of the Gospel. 2. Instance, 
 
 in the doctrine of the Atonement. 89 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 Page 105. 
 
 Matt. xxii. 41 — 45. 
 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked 
 them, saying. What think ye qf Christ? whose Son is 
 He ? They say unto Him, The Son of David. He 
 saith unto them. How then doth David in spirit call 
 Him Lord, saying. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit 
 thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy 
 footstool ? If David then call Him Lord, how is He 
 his Son. 
 
 THE USE OF THE SCRIPTURES AND THE CHURCH IN COM- 
 BINATION, AS TO DOCTRINES, EXEMPUFIED IN THE 
 INSTANCE OF THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 I. The Church offers, 1. an Unauthoritative Intro- 
 duction to the truth ; 2. Presumptive arguments in its 
 favour. 108 
 
 II. Hence, 1. the Disposition with which we should 
 approach the Scriptural proof of the doctrine ; 2. Sug- 
 gestions as to the mode in which the proof should be 
 examined and applied. 122 
 
 Scripture to be imitated in the practical application 
 qf the doctrine. 141 
 
xvi CONTEXTS, 
 
 SERMON V. 
 
 Page 145. 
 
 Tit. i. 6. 
 For this cause left I thee in Oreie, that thou shouldest 
 set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain 
 elders in every city, as I had appointed thee. 
 
 THE USE OF THE SCRIPTURES AND THE CHURCH IN COM- 
 BINATION, AS TO ORDINANCES AND INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 I. More committed to the Church with respect to 
 Ordinances, &c. than with respect to Doctrines ; a less 
 amount of Scriptural proof, superadded to universal 
 practice, sufficient to establish the divine authority of 
 Institutions and Ordinances. 150 
 
 II. This principle exemplified in the case of, 1. the 
 Lord's day; 2. Infant-baptism; 3. Episcopacy. 155 
 
 This no argument in favour of tradition of Doctrines. 
 Practical distinction between this kind of proof and 
 others. 178 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 
 Page 183. 
 
 2 Cor. i. 24. 
 
 Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are 
 
 helpers of your Joy. 
 
 CHURCH-AUTHOIUTY AND CHUKCH-PRIVILEGES. 
 
 I. Church-authorily, that of Order ; or of Influence ; 
 or Absolute. No absolute authority proved to belong- 
 either to, 1. the Church existing; or, 2. the Primitive 
 Church, whilst supposed to be One and Catholic. 1 89 
 
 II. What degree of authority to be ascribed to the 
 doctrines of the Church, by virtue of, 1. her Indefecti- 
 bility ; 2. the maxim. Quod ubique, quod semper, quod 
 
 et omnibus. 3. Tradition. 201 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 in. Privileges derived from Church-authority, fviz. 
 the authority of Influence,) whether that of, 1. any 
 Particular Church ; 2. the Universal Church. 211 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 
 Page 221. 
 
 1 Cor. xiv. 20. 
 In malice be ye children, but in understanding be men. 
 
 USE OF REASON AND JUDGMENT IN ORDER TO THE 
 ATTAINMENT OF CHRISTIAN TROTH. 
 
 I. Abuses of Reason. 1. Rationalism. 2. Views of 
 Christian Evidences &c. akin to Rationalism. 3. Unre- 
 strained Speculation. 224 
 
 II. Use of Reason and Judgment, as to, 1. The Evi- 
 dences of Christianity, Canon of Scripture, &c. 2. Scrip- 
 ture, and Interpretation of Scripture ; 3. Christian 
 Antiquity. 235 
 
 III. Aids of Reason, and safeguards against its abuse; 
 Spiritual assistance; the Judgment of others; Intel- 
 lectual culture; Moral and Religious training. 255 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 
 Page 263. 
 
 1 Cor. ii. 14. 
 The natural man receive th not the things of the Spirit 
 qf God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither 
 can he know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
 cerned. 
 
 ILLUMINATING GRACE. 
 
 I. The Grace of Illumination. 1. Doctrine of Reve- 
 lation concerning the Holy Spirit. 2. His offices. 
 .•?. Abuse of Grace (Enthusiasm). 4. Absolute necessity 
 of the aid of the Holy Spirit in order to the attainment 
 of Christian Truth. 264 
 
xviii CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 II. All the Means of Truth to be employed in com- 
 bination, and in due subordination of the less to the 
 greater. 1. Recapitulation. 2. Conclusion. The Holy 
 Scriptures the best means for Progress, not in Theology, 
 but in genuine Christian Truth. 287 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 St. John xvii. 17. 
 
 SANCTIFY THEM THROUGH THY TKUTH : THY WORD IS 
 TRUTH. 
 
 So far as the gracious prayer of our Lord 
 related to the eleven Apostles, it has, doubtless, 
 been fulfilled: but if the spirit of His suppli- 
 cation comprehended also, as He presently inti- 
 mated, all those " who should afterwards believe 
 on Him through their word," what period of the 
 Christian history has' hitherto witnessed its ac- 
 complishment ? Eighteen centuries have rolled 
 away, and we are even now debating. What is 
 Christian Truth, Whei<^ it is to be found, and 
 How it is to be attained. 
 
 Yet in fact the prospect of agreement in the 
 Truth would be even more remote, if we were 
 not at variance about the means by which it 
 should be pursued. Unanimity may not be hope- 
 less, when these shall first have been ascertained; 
 
2 SERMON I. 
 
 • but we cannot expect' to arrive at the same 
 termination of our journey, when we do not tread 
 in the same or at least converging paths. And 
 not a few, perhaps, and those very quiet and 
 humble efforts must yet be made, before Chris- 
 tian inquirers shall learn to acquiesce in the 
 same or similar methods of attaining to Christian 
 Truth. Mighty instruments are employed from 
 time to time for great purposes ; Athanasius, 
 Wiclif, Luther, Cranmer : — too often, however, 
 have great minds become the authors or occasions 
 of great errors ; whilst truth has been advanced 
 quietly and silently by far inferior powers. 
 Though the sound of the axe was heard where 
 the cedars fell in Lebanon, all was noiseless and 
 still where " the house of the Lord was in build- 
 ing "." Or, however, be these things as they 
 may, we must work each of us in his own ap- 
 pointed sphfere, humbly and patiently, no one 
 expecting that his work shall be perfect, nor 
 desirous to hear the echo' of his labours, or to 
 witness their success. 
 
 In the humble hope, accordingly, of being 
 permitted to contribute a little, though it be but 
 a little, towards the ultimate advancement of 
 Truth and Unity, I shall endeavour in the follow- 
 ing Discourses to inquire into the Principal 
 Means of attaining Christian Truth ; into 
 
 ' 1 Kings vi. 7- 
 
SERMON I. a 
 
 THEIR NATURE, AND VARIOUS USES, AND MORE 
 ESPECIALLY THEIR USES WHEN THEY ARE COMBINED 
 
 TOGETHER. — Not With any vain expectation of say- 
 ing what has not been said before, still less of 
 discovering any new method for the attainment 
 of Truth ; but desirous only of addressing useful 
 suggestions to the wants and circumstances of 
 my brethren in the present age, for every suc- 
 cessive period has its own peculiar exigences, 
 and of directing attention, which is always a 
 profitable and a grateful employment, to that 
 variety of resources, with which we have been 
 endowed in order to the reception of revealed 
 truth, in their harmonious and intended com- 
 bination. 
 
 Such an attempt will assuredly be furthered 
 by your favour and your prayers. There is 
 nothing in this world which you so earnestly 
 desire as the promotion of Christian Truth, with 
 all its legitimate fruits of holiness and piety, 
 charity, and unity. If harsh expressions occa- 
 sionally fall from pious lips, whether in speaking 
 of unbelievers or of those Christians abroad or at 
 home who do not altogether agree with the 
 Church to which we belong, deeply as such ex- 
 pressions are to be regretted, they are not so 
 much indications of an uncharitable spirit, as of 
 an earnest zeal for the extension of the Church 
 of Christ, and the advancement of His truth. 
 
 b2 
 
4 SERMON I. 
 
 They proceed upon what is unquestionably true, 
 and ought never to' be kept out of sight, that 
 religious errors, schisms, and heresies, are con- 
 tinually ascribed in Holy Scripture to a perverse 
 and rebellious principle within us, nay even to 
 the suggestions of our spiritual adversary ^ We 
 may hope, nevertheless, with a very learned and 
 zealous advocate for the truth, " that there is more 
 folly in the world than malignity, more ignorance 
 than positive infidelity, more error than heretical 
 perverseness '=." But if this be not the state of 
 the case, and so far as it is not, how much more 
 cause for the most intense desire for the removal 
 of error ! 
 
 Even the man of this world, in the spirit of 
 enlightened benevolence, ardently desires to 
 relieve the sufferings and depression under which 
 so many of the children of our common parents 
 are yet labouring; to clothe and instruct the 
 savage, liberate the serf, enfranchise the slave, 
 nay even in a land of freedom and civilization to 
 cheer and elevate the condition social, moral, 
 intellectual, of those who toil in our mines, or in 
 our ships, the peasant and mechanic, the poor 
 
 b Matt, xiii 18 — 23. John iii. 18— 21. viii. 47. x 24—27. 
 1 Cor. i. 18—31. 1 Tim. iv. 1—3. vi. S—5. 2 Tim. ii. 25, 
 26. iii. 1—7. iv. 3, 4. 2 Pet. iii. 15, I6. Gal. v. 18—21. 
 Jude 19. 
 
 ' Bp. Horsley's Letters in reply to Dr. Priestley, Letter 
 xvii. p. 320. Ed. 1810. 
 
SERMON I. 5 
 
 and the oppressed. And his aim is right and 
 good. But what is time to eternity ? What is 
 any misery or degradation, merely temporal, 
 compared with guilt and sin, and that spiritual 
 darkness, whose influence extends over countless 
 ages and into another world ? And yet it is too 
 true, (the greater are our sin and shame,) that 
 the powers of darkness still hold triumphant 
 sway over the far greater portion of the earth ; 
 millions of our fallen race are still the slaves of 
 Satan, delight in the cruelties and impurities of 
 Heathenism, cling to the sensualities of the False 
 Prophet, scorn and abhor the cross of Christ. 
 And it is not merely the sloth and weakness of 
 professing Christians which protract the reign of 
 error, but their unchristian lives and sad dissen- 
 sions obstruct the progress of the Truth. The 
 very Heathen observe our schisms and our open 
 sins ; and the Jew is confirmed in his disobedi- 
 ence by our offences. And still, even in Christian 
 countries the most highly favoured. Christian 
 Unity is broken without remorse, and, not to 
 speak of Infidelity and Profaneness, open or 
 secret, serious Errors are maintained in a spirit 
 of proud independence, and gross delusions, and 
 superstition, and idolatry itself, find but too 
 many votaries. It is impossible but that the sincere 
 and earnest Christian, if no unhappy circum- 
 stances have made him blind to the Importance 
 of Christian Truth, must desire above all things 
 
6 SERMON I. 
 
 to extend the blessings of a sound and enlight- 
 ened Faith. It is his daily prayer. And he 
 knows also that it is the gracious will of " God 
 eur Saviour," that " all men should be saved, and 
 should come unto the knowledge of the truth ;" 
 and he desires with the beloved Apostle to know 
 " no greater joy" than that all his brethren should 
 " walk in the truth "." 
 
 I. The sincere Christian, it was said, must 
 earnestly desire the removal of error, if no 
 unhappy circumstances render him blind to the 
 Importance of Christian Truth. But here, 
 unhappily, we are met on the very threshold of 
 our inquiry by one of the sad consequences, in 
 part at least, of our misconduct and dissensions. 
 Even Christians are led to doubt or to underrate 
 the importance of Truth itself; to acquiesce 
 perhaps in some vague general profession of 
 Christianity, slighting, or mistrusting, or resisting 
 any more particular and exact statements of 
 Christian doctrine. 
 
 It is not merely the flippant unbeliever who 
 detects with acute dexterity the various errors 
 and ignorances of contending philosophers, and 
 thence infers that Truth is unattainable, that all 
 we can know is only this, that we should love 
 God and love man. Nor is it the shallow 
 
 " 3 John 1—4. 1 Tim. ii. 3, 4. 
 
SERMON I. 7 
 
 journalist alone who decides dogmatically, that 
 " Christianity is a moral influence derived from 
 certain facts ; and whosoever receives the facts, 
 may, if he will, enjoy the doctrine." He " pre- 
 fers, therefore, to define Christianity to be the 
 reception of the life and character of Jesus, as 
 moral facts. All Christians agree in this, and it 
 is enough." — The truth is, and we must not 
 conceal it from ourselves, that not a few ac- 
 quiesce to a certain extent in sentiments of this 
 character. Even the earnest and inquiring mind 
 of Locke was for a time deceived into them — we 
 shall have occasion as we proceed to notice the 
 source of his error, and happily he lived to 
 discover and discard it himself — but for a time 
 he also contended, that the only truth which 
 Christians were concerned to know and confess 
 was, that Jesus was the Christ the Son of God. 
 Less inquiring minds, meanwhile, are in various 
 ways beguiled into these vague misconceptions of 
 the Truth. They are conversant perhaps with the 
 different professions of belief in different Christian 
 countries ; they observe good and estimable men 
 in every Church or sect ; and they either con- 
 clude that religious Truth is of little importance, 
 or infer from the variety and contrariety of 
 religious opinions, that Christian Truth cannot 
 with any tolerable certainty be attained at all. 
 And even at home, when men direct their 
 thoughts— and how can they avoid directing 
 
8 SERMON I. 
 
 them? — to the sad conflict of opinion upon 
 numberless questions of religion in our own 
 Church and nation, they are exposed to similar 
 dangers. They are tempted so to pursue Charity 
 as to sacrifice Truth ; to doubt whether there is 
 any clear and direct path to Christian Truth ; 
 to suspect from the very difficulty of attaining it, 
 that it was not even designed to be generally at- 
 tained ; to conceive that whatever be our religious 
 opinions or errors. Sincerity is all in all ; or to 
 dream of some general comprehensive profession 
 of Christian doctrine, in which all our religious 
 differences may be sunk and lost. 
 
 A few observations upon this subject will 
 suffice for our immediate purpose. 
 
 1. In the first place, indeed, we may readily 
 admit, nay it is highly necessary to observe, that 
 very many questions, supposed to be connected 
 with Christian Truth, are utterly unimportant; 
 and worse than unimportant, frivolous, curious, 
 irreverent, perhaps, and profane, overstepping at 
 once the limits of Revelation, and of the faculties 
 of the human mind. 
 
 In Abyssinia, we are told, nothing is so com- 
 mon as to dispute about the two natures of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ : and endless questions about 
 the manner of His anointing, whether He can 
 be said to receive the Holy Spirit, whether his 
 unction can be termed a birth, in what exact 
 
SERMON I. 9 
 
 sense He is the first-born among many brethren, 
 these and similar questions divide the Church 
 into separate sects, excommunicating and ana- 
 thematizing one another. 
 
 And if I have recourse to Abyssinia for one or 
 two examples which may be neither disputable 
 nor invidious, let it not therefore be imagined 
 that these are the errors merely of the unin- 
 structed. They are rather the besetting dangers 
 of the ingenious and refined. " Inveni," says 
 Stapfer, " in Theologi cujusdam celeberrimi 
 systemate ultra nonaginta solum de Christi 
 person^ distinctiones." None so likely as the 
 subtle Theologian to fall into the mistake, and a 
 most injurious mistake it is, of investing his own 
 unauthorized speculations with the sacredness of 
 the divine subject out of which they arose. 
 
 Again, it should be admitted with respect to 
 such questions as are quite legitimate, and not 
 without importance, that they are by no means 
 all of them of equal importance. There are 
 subjects connected with religious truth, which 
 are not properly parts of it. And desirable as it 
 might be, perhaps, that we should be agreed 
 upon every question, there are some upon which 
 we may disagree without any ill effect upon 
 genuine Christianity. And yet the points of 
 least importance have been sometimes, un- 
 happily, the occasions of the most bitter dis- 
 sensions. 
 
10 SERMON I. 
 
 That the Churches of Christ, for example, 
 should celebrate the Feast of Easter in remem- 
 brance of His resurrection was most desirable ; 
 that the day should be every where the same was 
 of little consequence ; yet what memorable dis- 
 putes have there been about the time of the 
 celebration ! It is important that we should have 
 Ministers of the Word and Sacraments, but those 
 who were perfectly agreed about the Christian 
 Ministry, its orders, and succession, have eagerly 
 contended about the Clerical Vestments. It is 
 most important, so at least we have " learned 
 Christ," that we should disbelieve the doctrine of 
 Purgatory, and believe in the Sacrifice of our 
 blessed Saviour ; but even at this day we meet 
 with acrimonious contentions, between those who 
 are not in the least at variance upon these great 
 subjects, about the exact condition of departed 
 spirits, and the divine or human origin of the 
 Patriarchal sacrifices — interesting questions, no 
 doubt, and connected with those momentous 
 subjects, yet not themselves, of necessity, affect- 
 ing Christian Faith. 
 
 And into this comparative importance of re- 
 ligious questions, it behoves Churches as well as 
 individuals to inquire with all earnestness. I 
 would venture to name as an instance in which 
 this consideration has been lamentably neglected, 
 the Westminster Confession of Faith, unhappily 
 adopted by the National Church of Scotland, 
 
SERMON I. 11 
 
 and imposed not only upon her Ministers, but 
 upon many at least of her Lay-members'. Its 
 peremptory decisions upon the most disputable 
 questions, and not essential to the faith of Christ, 
 however acceptable they may be to the minds of 
 some, will never surely obtain the assent of many 
 others ; and their general enforcement can 
 scarcely fail to become the fertile source of 
 hypocrisy or scepticism. 
 
 Still further it may be conceded, — it is at 
 least a point which if we could not prove, we do 
 not doubt, — that Sincerity, even amidst religious 
 error, will meet with due allowance at the judg- 
 ment-seat of Christ. But what sincerity ? not 
 surely that of the careless and indolent and 
 uninquiring, but of those alone who after diligent 
 use of their best advantages, and not only of 
 some but of all their advantages, have yet 
 unhappily failed to ascertain the truth. This, 
 I say, we do not doubt, though we might be 
 unable to prove it ; for it is most important 
 to observe, that the sacred Scriptures make but 
 little and occasional mention of Sincerity in 
 error, whilst they speak largely and constantly of 
 Truth and Faith. 
 
 2. Turning then from these admissions to the 
 
 ' See the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. ix. 
 p. 117—134. (May 26, to June 7, 169O.) vol. xi. p. 402. 
 (January 16, I707.) And the Act of Union, 5 Anne, c. 8. §. 10. 
 
12 SERMON I. 
 
 actual declarations of Holy Writ, we find the 
 Importance of Christian Truth written as with a 
 sun-beam throughout the volume of the New 
 Testament. 
 
 " To this end was I born, and for this cause 
 came I into the world/' says our blessed Lord, 
 " that I should bear witness unto the truth. 
 Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. 
 1 am the way, the truth, and the life." " For 
 the law," said St. John, " was given by Moses, 
 but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ'." 
 
 Again, the truth which God revealed, it was 
 the duty of man to believe. Faith and Truth 
 were correlative. Our pardon, acceptance, life, 
 salvation, depended upon our belief of the Truth. 
 Thus the forerunner of our Lord, " He that 
 believeth on the Son hath everlasting life : and 
 he that believeth not the Son shall not see life ; 
 but the wrath of God abideth on him." And our 
 Lord Himself, " As Moses lifted up the serpent 
 in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man 
 be lifted up : that whosoever believeth in Him 
 should not perish, but have eternal life. For 
 God so loved the world, that He gave His only- 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
 And His Apostles, " To Him give all the pro- 
 phets witness, that through His name who- 
 soever believeth in Him shall receive remis- 
 ' John xviii. 37. xiv. 6. i. 17. 2 Johni. 23. 3 John i. 3, 4>, 8. 
 
SERMON I. 13 
 
 sion of sins. — Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and thou shalt be saved. — As many as received 
 Him, to them gave He power to become the sons 
 of God, even to them that believe on His name. — 
 These are written, that ye might believe that 
 Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that 
 believing ye might have life through his names." 
 Yet again, our belief of the Truth was to be 
 an operative principle, and to be manifested by 
 its fruits. Faith was to work by love ; and to 
 overcome the world and the flesh. Hence such 
 expressions as " obedience to the faith," " obey- 
 ing the truth ;" and more particularly, " This is 
 His commandment. That we should believe on 
 the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one 
 another, as He gave us commandment. — Let us 
 not love in word, neither in tongue ; but in deed 
 and in truth. And hereby we know that we are 
 of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before 
 him. — Every man that hath this hope in Him," 
 of seeing Christ hereafter, " purifieth himself, 
 even as He is pure. — Whatsoever is born of God 
 overcometh the world : and this is the victory 
 that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who 
 is he that overcometh the world, but he that 
 believeth that Jesus is the Son of God''?" 
 
 « John iii. S6. 14—17- Acts x. 43. xvi. 81. John i. 12. 
 XX. 31. 
 
 " Rom. i. 5. Gal. iii. 1. Eph. i. 13, 1.5. 1 John iii. 23. 18. 
 19. 3. V. 4, 5. 
 
14 SERMON I. 
 
 And these expressions sufficiently illustrate the 
 more general language of our Saviour, " Ye 
 shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
 you free" — free, namely, from the slavery of sin ; 
 and in the text, " Sanctify them through thy 
 truth ; thy word is truth '." For it appears even 
 to demonstration from these passages, confirmed, 
 as every reader of the Scripture knows them to 
 be, by very many more, that our blessed Lord 
 did not come into the world merely to do and 
 suffer something on our behalf, nor simply to 
 exhibit " an ensample of godly life," but to 
 disclose some truth or truths — and these, as- 
 suredly, not confined to rules of conduct, most of 
 which were known before ; nor to ritual observ- 
 ances, those which were appointed by Him or 
 His Apostles being remarkably few and simple — 
 but some truth or truths which it was of the very 
 last importance that all his disciples should hear, 
 and believe, and receive into their hearts as the 
 very principle of their life on earth, and the 
 foundation of their hopes of heaven. 
 
 Did, then, the facts of our Saviour's life, and 
 these alone, constitute the truths of Christianity ? 
 or was the whole of Christian Truth wrapped up 
 in some general confession that Jesus is the 
 Messiah, that He is Christ, the Son of God ? 
 These are the questions that remain. — But it 
 seems quite impossible that we should acquiesce 
 
 ' John viii. 32, 34, 35. xvii. 17, ig. 
 
SERMON I. 15 
 
 in the conclusions to which they tend, if we 
 advert for a moment to the leading subjects of 
 what the Church of Christ has received, and 
 teaches as the doctrines of the Gospel. They 
 are such that we cannot escape from them, or 
 pass them by ; we must consider and understand 
 them, we must reject or accept them. 
 
 For example, we have received, and every 
 Christian has received, and almost every Chris- 
 tian has admitted, as a great elementary 
 doctrine of Christianity, that Christians have 
 a peculiar promise of Divine assistance ; that, as 
 an act of inexpressible condescension and favour, 
 the Almighty no longer manifests His presence 
 among his chosen people by outward symbols, 
 the flaming glory, the pillar of a cloud or of fire, 
 but dwells among them, and within them, by His 
 Holy Spirit, making His abode invisibly, but 
 really, in His Church, and in the hearts of its 
 members, in order to their holiness, and " obedi- 
 ence to the faith." — Is this doctrine true, or is it 
 not ? If true, it must be a part of that truth of 
 Christ which we must know, and receive, as a 
 subject of our prayers, an object of our gratitude, 
 a principle of our life. It is vain to talk of 
 Christianity as " a moral influence derived from 
 certain facts." It is through our acceptance of 
 the truth set forth in this doctrine, that we shall 
 become capable of receiving that influence, or 
 enabled to act upon the truth. Nay we must 
 
16 SERMON I. 
 
 not only know this particular truth, but know 
 something also, not indeed technically, but 
 practically, of some of the questions connected 
 with it ; as whether Grace is bestowed instan- 
 taneously and once for all, and irresistibly, or 
 the reverse ; and whether or not it is imparted 
 to us through our use of certain appointed 
 Means. But if this be true of the doctrine of 
 Sanctification through the Holy Spirit, it will be 
 no less true of any other doctrine of equal 
 importance. 
 
 Or to take another and a very practical 
 example. It is plainly possible that the faith 
 and uniform practice of the universal Church 
 till within the last three hundred years may 
 have been well founded ; and that as under the 
 old Covenant a particular mode of admission 
 into it was expressly appointed, and Infants were 
 received by it within the pale of the elder Church, 
 so likewise under the new the method of admis- 
 sion may be definite and prescribed, and our Lord 
 may have intended to suflPer even little children 
 to come unto Him, and be received into the 
 Covenant by that appointed rite. Where then 
 is the considerate Christian parent who will 
 regard such an inquiry as unimportant ? will 
 deem it a light matter to trifle with the eternal 
 interests of his child? and, by any hasty adoption 
 of a Theological conclusion, to deprive, possibly, 
 an immortal soul committed by an inscrutable 
 
SERMON I. 17 
 
 Providence to his care, of restoration to the 
 favour of his Heavenly Father, and a covenant- 
 titleto everlasting glory? — If it be only possible 
 that the doctrine of the Church respecting Infant- 
 baptism may be true, it is certain that it must be 
 important. 
 
 Let us advert only to one instance more. Not 
 of course that every instance must not be super- 
 fluous to all or very nearly all who hear me ; yet 
 is it the part of the well-instructed Christian, 
 and more especially of the Christian minister, 
 not to confine his regards to his own spiritual 
 necessities ; and the Founder of this Lecture 
 evidently designed that, although addressed in 
 the first instance to this congregation, it should 
 be adapted also, if possible, to the circumstances 
 of other minds. Let us briefly advert, therefore, 
 to the instance of that general confession which 
 has appeared even to reflecting and able men to 
 supersede every more particular statement of 
 Christian doctrine, the confession, namely, that 
 " Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." 
 
 And doubtless there was a time when the 
 confession of this truth was all-important. 
 Hence the frequent mention of it in the New 
 Testament, and especially in the Gospels ; nay, 
 and the mention of it in terms so emphatic, and 
 so exclusive, that, if they were to be regarded 
 only by themselves, it might well appear to be 
 the only confession required from the Christian 
 
18 SERMON I. 
 
 believer. I have given instances of the fact 
 already. For it was indeed the very rock upon 
 which the Church of Christ was to be founded. 
 At that time it expressed a belief, hardly to be 
 attained by Jew or Gentile, that Jesus of 
 Nazareth was the predicted Messiah ; those 
 who made this profession of their faith knowing 
 in part, and waiting to understand more per- 
 fectly, the nature of the Messiah's office, cha- 
 racter, kingdom''. But the question for us, 
 and which we cannot evade, is. What do zae 
 understand by this confession ? We must attach 
 some meaning to the words " Messiah," " Son of 
 God." Nay we cannot avoid connecting with 
 these expressions some of those statements of 
 Christian doctrine, whether to receive or to deny 
 them, which are the most keenly controverted. 
 Do we mean, then, that the Son of God came 
 upon earth to teach us certain new truths, to 
 assure us of the resurrection and immortality, to 
 die as our example, to be our future Judge — or, 
 besides and above these truths, that He died for 
 our sins, that He is the Mediator between man 
 and God, our Advocate, Intercessor, our Divine 
 Redeemer ? It is plain that the whole character 
 of our religion, our duty to Almighty God, our 
 gratitude to Him, our reception of Salvation and 
 
 " See this point well treated in Mr. Veysie's Bampton 
 Lecture, Sermon vii. p. 204, &c. 
 
SERMON I. 19 
 
 the means of securing it, the very character of 
 our daily worship, its piety or its profaneness, 
 turn upon these different senses of one expression. 
 It is idle to say that the question whether the 
 Son of God is or is not Divine, and is, con- 
 sequently, or is not the proper object of our 
 adoration, is unimportant, a mere question of 
 learned or curious speculation. Daily, and often- 
 times in every day, it forces itself upon our 
 attention. Not unnaturally or unreasonably has 
 it been deemed to be of such transcendent in- 
 terest and importance, that those who acknow- 
 ledge the Divinity of our Lord are regarded by 
 their opponents as well nigh degrading Chris- 
 tianity into Heathenism, those who deny it are 
 scarcely if at all admitted to be Christians. For 
 the point at issue is, in a word, whether our 
 worship of our Redeemer is piety or blasphemy, 
 a duty or a sin. 
 
 There are some Christian doctrines, then, or 
 doctrines alleged to be Christian truths, the 
 very reverse of curious, frivolous, unimportant, or 
 of secondary importance ; even doctrines of deep 
 and vital importance to us all. Not without 
 reason have Divines spoken of Fundamental 
 truths, and of Fundamental errors ; truths 
 directly essential to the doctrine of the Gospel- 
 covenant, errors directly subversive of it. Some 
 Christian truths there certainly are of which it is 
 
 c2 
 
20 SERMON I. 
 
 written, " he that believeth shall be saved, and 
 he that believeth not shall be condemned '." 
 
 But if there are some Christian doctrines of 
 this supreme importance, these also have often 
 been, nay they are at this very day, the subjects 
 of the most eager dispute. How shall a plain 
 man as-certain the truth ? This is the question 
 to which it will be the object of the present 
 Lecture to suggest the proper answer, by pre- 
 senting a general sketch of the nature and uses, 
 and more especially the combined uses, of the 
 principal means with which God has blessed us 
 in order to the attainment of Christian Truth. 
 
 And the remainder of this Introductory Dis- 
 course shall be devoted to a brief consideration 
 of a few positions, which by the general acknow- 
 ledgment of Christendom may be regarded almost 
 as Axioms, preliminary to the proposed Inquiry. 
 
 II. For it is almost universally admitted by 
 professing Christians, First, That Christian 
 Truth is no discovery of human reason, no 
 perfection of philosophy, but a Revelation from 
 Almighty God. Secondly, That the Prophets 
 having prepared the way, this Revelation was 
 
 ' Mark xvi. l6. Matt. x. 32, 33. Luke xii. 8—10. John 
 xii. 47, 48. Rom. x. 8—17. 
 
SERMON I. 21 
 
 finally completed by Jesus Christ and His 
 Apostles. Thirdly, That, whoever was com- 
 missioned to reveal the truth was in order to this 
 end INSPIRED, or had power to declare to man 
 THE WORD OF GoD. And, lastly, that the greater 
 part of this Revelation, that is to say, every thing, 
 or nearly every thing, which it is necessary for us 
 to know and believe, in order to salvation, is 
 contained, either expressly or by implication, in 
 the Canonical Books of the Old and New 
 Testament, 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to observe, that Chris- 
 tian Truth, in its most extensive acceptation, will 
 comprehend every truth of religion which a 
 Christian ought to believe ; including, for instance, 
 the doctrines of the Existence of God, and of His 
 Attributes, of Creation, and Providence. And 
 thus we might be involved in the old debate 
 respecting the origin of our knowledge of divine 
 things, and the office which Reason may have 
 sustained in suggesting some of them. Practi- 
 cally, however, an inquiry into the means of 
 attaining Christian Truth will relate almost 
 exclusively to the doctrines more immediately 
 connected with Redemption and Sanctification, 
 the Christian Covenant, and the divinely ap- 
 pointed Means of Grace ; which alone are the 
 subjects of dispute, and which, if admitted to be 
 true, will be admitted to be truths of pure 
 
22 SERMON I. 
 
 Revelation, With this qualification, accordingly, 
 the first of the four principles already stated will, 
 it is probable, be universally allowed. And the 
 others, and especially the fourth concerning the 
 Rule of Faith, have been so guarded and limited, 
 that although some individuals and a few incon- 
 siderable sects would not absolutely and altogether 
 assent to them, they would be admitted, probably, 
 by every National. Church, and even by the 
 Church of Rome. 
 
 Mere truisms, indeed, they may rather appear 
 to some, who may be disposed to ask to what 
 end or use are positions so undeniable laid down 
 at all. But the nearer they approach to truisms, 
 the greater is their practical value. Devoutly 
 were it to be wished, that there were many other 
 principles which we might thus be permitted to 
 treat as data almost universally conceded, and 
 so proceed to the consideration of their conse- 
 quences, and of truths more or less immediately 
 connected with them, but not as yet so generally 
 acknowledged. 
 
 And of no slight importance are the conse- 
 quences which flow at once from these acknow- 
 ledged principles. As, for example, — 
 
 1 . Do we admit, that to Christ and His Apostles, 
 and to these alone, after the inspired Prophets, it was 
 committed to reveal the truths of the Gospel ? — 
 Then, what an important line of demarcation 
 
SERMON I. 23 
 
 is thus drawn between these inspired teachers, 
 and all who have succeeded them ! We reverence 
 the Fathers, for example, study their admirable 
 writings, and recommend the study to all whom 
 we can influence; and we do well. The Fathers, 
 nevertheless, belong to a class of Teachers alto- 
 gether distinct in this respect from the Apostles ; 
 they were not commissioned to reveal any one 
 Christian doctrine whatsoever. Let us attach 
 what value we may to the venerable remains of 
 Christian Antiquity, and very highly are their 
 use and value estimated by the most capable and 
 candid judges, still the Interpreters are not the 
 Authors ; they whose office it was to witness, 
 preserve, unfold, or hand down the truths of 
 Revelation, must be cautiously and reverently 
 distinguished from those whom the Almighty 
 appointed to reveal them to mankind"'. 
 
 2. In like manner when we acknowledge that 
 the Apostles were inspired, — and they could not 
 but have been inspired if they were commissioned 
 to reveal the truths of God, truths undiscover- 
 able by human reason, — it follows that such 
 Inspiration was distinct from every other kind of 
 
 "' " Patres libenter amplector, et recipio: doctrina enim 
 ex veteri memoria plena antiquitatis, plena dignitatis existit: 
 sed recipio patres, ut ipsi jubent se recipi, hoc est, si con- 
 tineant se in sua ditione, et non migrent in possessionem 
 verbi Dei." Roger Ascham, quoted by Bp. Van Mildert, 
 Bampton Lecture, Sermon iv. p. 294. Appendix. 
 
24 SERMON I. 
 
 spiritual assistance denoted by this word. This 
 will not be denied by those who are forward 
 to speak of many others as inspired, as the 
 Septuagint Translators of the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures, for example, or the compilers of our own 
 Book of Common Prayer, nay, and certain even 
 of the Heathen Philosophers, as Socrates and 
 Plato. Doubtless we speak, and not improperly, 
 of " the inspiration of the Holy Spirit," with 
 reference to any of His most wonderful, although 
 ordinary and accustomed, gifts and graces be- 
 stowed upon the members of Christ. And the 
 writers alluded to desire only to magnify the 
 goodness of God in aiding and controlling the 
 eflPorts of some of His creatures in order to the 
 good of others, whether within the Church of 
 Christ, or even without it. I regret their use of 
 language, and deplore its apparent tendency to 
 confuse our apprehensions of sacred things, and 
 depreciate the proper inspiration of the sacred 
 writers. Yet that is not their intention. Nor 
 would they by any means deny, that the words of 
 those who are inspired in order to the actual 
 revelation of Divine Truth have pretensions and 
 an authority exclusively their own. 
 
 Some, indeed, will be found in every age 
 beguiled by vain pretences to special inspiration 
 and new revelations from on high. And rarely 
 may we hope to undeceive those who are willing 
 to be deceived, who are impatient of the control 
 
SERMON I. 25 
 
 of reason, and give the rein to a distempered 
 imagination. But this is a different question. 
 Such persons would not of course admit the prin- 
 ciples which we have here assumed. But they 
 form after all an inconsiderable exception to the 
 general mass of believers. And we are not 
 merely entitled, but obliged to demand, that 
 their pretensions shall be accredited by what 
 have ever heretofore been the credentials of 
 Revelation, prophecy or type or miracle, and 
 if not thus accredited to pass them by. 
 
 3. Or to revert to the first of these acknow- 
 ledged principles. — We admit that Christian 
 Truth is matter of direct Revelation from Almighty 
 God. — But if so, with what profound reverence 
 should we approach it, with what deep gratitude 
 should we receive whatever He has thus con- 
 descended to disclose to His poor creatures ! He 
 has endowed us with Reason, and doubtless we 
 should employ His gift in ascertaining the fact of 
 a Revelation, the authenticity of the written 
 records of the Divine Word, and their correct 
 interpretation ; but no sooner have we thus 
 ascertained the revealed doctrine, than Reason 
 bids us not presume to sit in judgment upon it, 
 but receive it with implicit veneration. Nay, 
 upon the high and heavenly subjects with which 
 Revelation is conversant. Reason teaches us even 
 to expect disclosures which, far more than in the 
 
26 SERMON I. 
 
 case of earthly knowledge, shall be only in part 
 within the limits of our present faculties ; not 
 indeed contradictory to Reason, but above and 
 beyond it, running up into mysteries inscrutable, 
 indistinct visions of the things in heaven, then 
 only to be fully known when we shall have put 
 on immortality, and walk in the full light of 
 heaven". 
 
 Or if this shall to any one appear doubtful, it 
 will at least be admitted to be consistent with 
 the plain dictates of Reason, that, a Future Life 
 being confessedly the end to which the Christian 
 Revelation directs our view, and Holiness evi- 
 dently the revealed path to Happiness, we cannot 
 hope to know the truth which God would reveal 
 to us, if we are not disposed to do His will; — 
 that, again, if He has blessed us with several 
 distinct means of ascertaining the Truth, we are 
 but too likely to misapprehend it, if we wilfully 
 slight any one of them ; — that, above all, if our 
 Maker has offered to us His especial aid, under 
 certain conditions, in order to a correct appre- 
 hension of revealed truth, that truth will be dark 
 and veiled to those who decline his gracious 
 offer. 
 
 Again, if Christian Truth is, exclusively. Truth 
 
 of Revelation, then by the very terms of the 
 
 hypothesis nothing which is not revealed can 
 
 compete with it or intrude into it. Carry the 
 
 " See Bp. Butler's Analogy, part ii. chap. iv. 
 
SERMON I. 27 
 
 authority of the Church to the utmost, yet any 
 declaration or decree of hers as to matter of 
 doctrine, say, the Decree of a General Council, 
 is either a revealed truth, or an expression or 
 explanation, at least, of a revealed truth, or it is 
 nothing. If by having admitted her Infallibility 
 we are debarred from inquiry into the ground of 
 her declarations, yet there was a time when 
 inquiry was supposed, and when through the 
 medium of Scripture or of Tradition it was sup- 
 posed to be shewn that such Decree expressed a 
 Truth of Revelation, or it was nothing. Leo X. 
 himself, when he anathematized that position of 
 Luther, " Certum est, in manu Ecclesiae aut 
 Papae prorsus non esse statuere articulos Fidei," 
 asserted the authority of the Church not to 
 reveal a new doctrine, but only to declare, of 
 course infallibly, a doctrine already revealed. 
 And those who do not recognize her Infallibility 
 will thei-efore scrutinize the foundations of her 
 most authoritative Decrees. 
 
 Some of these conclusions it will be right to 
 open more at large hereafter; yet they appear 
 to be involved in the elementary position, that 
 Christian Truth is Truth of Revelation. 
 
 4. Lastly, when we assert that the greater 
 part of the Christian Revelation, every thing, 
 or nearly every thing, which it is necessary for 
 Christians to believe in order to salvation, is 
 
28 SERMON I. 
 
 contained expressly or by implication in the 
 Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament — 
 we may appear perhaps to set forth a principle 
 somewhat too vague to be of great moment ; 
 yet does this also involve truths of the greatest 
 practical importance. 
 
 Seldom, perhaps, are we sufficiently alive to 
 the extraordinary blessing we enjoy in the 
 almost universal acknowledgment of the authen- 
 ticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. 
 Amidst all the unbelief around us, and number- 
 less dissensions within the Church of Christ, the 
 authority of the Canonical Books of the Old 
 Testament, maintained even by the most de- 
 termined adversaries of the Christian faith, is 
 almost if not altogether undisputed; whilst those 
 of the New Testament, with very few and those 
 for the most part transient exceptions, have 
 been received with one consent by every 
 Christian community. Even the sad disputes 
 of Christians on every other subject corroborate 
 the authority of these sacred Books. It is a 
 signal instance, in a word, in which the elder 
 Church and the Church of Christ, whatever their 
 transgressions in other respects, have done their 
 duty, and have handed down to us an undisputed 
 inheritance of the highest possible value. 
 
 Then as to the Rule of Faith, the Sufficiency 
 of these sacred Books, their Supreme Authority, 
 if the principle, as a principle, appears to be 
 
SERMON I. 29 
 
 confined within too narrow limits, its practical 
 effect nevertheless is very extensive. 
 
 Those, for example, in our own communion, 
 who enlarge upon the general value of Tradition, 
 do not however, so far as 'I am aware, found any 
 doctrine upon it. It is to be regretted that ex- 
 pressions have been used tending to depreciate 
 Scripture, whilst they would exalt Tradition. 
 Yet if any one has itidulged in fond expectations 
 of hereafter recovering through the medium of 
 Tradition some forgotten fragment of the re- 
 vealed word, his real employment of Tradition, 
 nevertheless, is only as subsidiary to Holy 
 Scripture. And if there are Protestant writers, 
 who do not appear to acknowledge in terms that 
 the Scriptures are the only Rule of Faith, they 
 are not in reality opposed to this important 
 tenet. When they speak, for example, of 
 " Scripture and Antiquity, or Scripture and 
 the Creed attested by universal Tradition," as 
 the Rule of Faith, or assert in so many words, 
 that " Scripture and Tradition taken together 
 are the joint Rule of Faith," they do not intend, 
 however, to deny " the supreme authority of 
 inspired Scripture," but would distinctly acknow- 
 ledge that the Scriptures are the one sole 
 foundation, proof,, and standard of doctrine. 
 And the too great similarity between their 
 language and that of the Church of Rome arises, 
 perhaps, in a great degree, from an indiscreet en- 
 
30 SERMON I. 
 
 deavour to bring into one and the same definition 
 both the Test of sound doctrine, which is Holy 
 Scripture, and one of the Means of ascertaining 
 the true sense of Scripture. 
 
 Nay even the Romanist, when he formally 
 asserts the doctrinal authority of the Apocrypha, 
 or maintains that " unwritten Tradition is 
 equally with Scripture a rule of Faith," does 
 he practically employ his principles to any large 
 extent ? — In the spirit of opposition to the prin- 
 ciples of the Reformation, the Church of Rome 
 was unhappily induced, fifteen centuries after the 
 commencement of Christianity, to introduce 
 these novel dogmas into her creed : but even the 
 Council of Trent endeavours to press Scripture 
 into the proof of some of those doctrines which 
 we controvert ; and sometimes, when the Council 
 appeals expressly to Tradition, the appeal is 
 made to it not as a distinct source of doctrine, 
 but as preserving or interpreting the doctrines of 
 Scripture : whilst popular writers of the Church 
 of Rome labour to borrow aids from holy writ in 
 proof of other controverted points, Indulgences, 
 the Invocation of Saints, the honour due to 
 Relics, for which no attempt was made at Trent 
 to discover Scriptural support'. As the sure test 
 and proof, meanwhile, of all these leading articles 
 of Christian doctrine, which are equally received 
 
 >■ See Dr. Wiseman's Moorfields Lectures, Lect, xii. xiii. 
 vol. ii. p 73, 102, W3, lao, 121. 
 
SERMON I. *^ 31 
 
 by them and by us, and by all the Churches of 
 Christ, neither they, nor we, nor any other 
 Christians, have any need to appeal to any autho- 
 rity save that of Holy Scripture. All Christians, 
 for example, who hold the Apostles', Nicene, and 
 Athanasian Creeds, believe that they can establish 
 every article contained in them by sufficient 
 proofs derived from the Scriptures alone. And 
 there are few Romanists, probably, who would 
 refuse to say with Bellarmin, Ilia omnia scripta 
 sunt ab Apostolis, quae sunt omnibus simpliciter 
 necessaria ad salutem. 
 
 Practically then, with whatever qualifications, 
 in order that the principle might not be opposed 
 to the views even of the Church of Rome, we 
 have asserted, that the Canonical Scriptures are 
 the depository of Christian Truth, the principle is 
 nevertheless of very extensive application. Nu- 
 merous questions, it is true, will still remain, 
 even after the admission of this and of all the 
 positions which have just been stated; fruitful 
 fields of controversy respecting the Sufficiency of 
 the Scriptures, the extent to which their authors 
 were Inspired, the means and method of Inter- 
 preting them. Private judgment. Church autho- 
 rity — and some of them must of necessity claim 
 our attention in the progress of the present 
 Inquiry — but above them all, the great truth of 
 the majesty of Holy Scripture stands preeminent, 
 like some bold cliff above the dark and restless 
 
32 SERMON 1. 
 
 waters, some tall mountain at whose feet rolling 
 mists and clouds are gathered, but the light of 
 heaven is upon its brow. Should any thing which 
 I may hereafter presume to offer in the next or 
 succeeding Discourses appear to any one, but for 
 a moment, derogatory to the supreme authority 
 and inexpressible value of the Inspired Scriptures, 
 the impression, I humbly trust, will be but 
 transitory. My aim and endeavovir, and earnest 
 prayer to the Divine Author and Finisher of our 
 Faith will ever be, that I may be permitted to 
 aid the endeavours of my brethren in the attain- 
 ment of Christian Truth, under a deep conviction 
 and grateful sense of the ineffable value of 
 Holy Scripture, assuredly believing, that through 
 the truth of God we must be sanctified if we 
 would inherit heaven, and that as the personal 
 Word that was " made flesh and dwelt among 
 us," so likewise His inspired and written word, is 
 Truth 1. 
 
 And it will be the part of piety and charity in 
 you, my brethren, to pray with me and for me, 
 and for yourselves also, and for those who may at 
 any time join with us in this Inquiry, that the 
 Holy Spirit may fill our hearts with a sincere 
 and fervent love of the Truth, and^ the word of 
 
 "< Sermo Evangelii non falsus est, ut Pseudoprophetarum 
 dicta, non falso admixtus, ut Pharisaeorum ut Philosophorum 
 dogmata, sed pura ac puta Veritas. Grotius in Joh. xvii. 17. 
 apud Crit. Sacr. 
 
SERMON I. 33 
 
 God ; that both I may })reach and you may hear 
 with singleness of heart and a candid spirit, not 
 seeking our own glory, nor the praise of men, to 
 please or to be pleased, drawn aside neither on 
 the -right hand nor on the left by the spirit of 
 party, neither studious of novelty, nor of anti- 
 quity, nor of any other thing, but only Truth, — as 
 men who know well, and earnestly aspire after 
 the end, looking to that Heaven "whither the 
 forerunner is for us entered," even Jesus Christ, 
 our only Mediator and Redeemer. 
 
 Now unto Him, with the Father, and the 
 Holy Spirit, be ascribed all honour, and praise, 
 and glory, and thanksgiving, for ever and ever. 
 Amen. 
 
 Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scrip- 
 tures to be written for our learning ; Grant that 
 we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, 
 learn^ and inwardly digest them, that, by patience 
 and comfort of thy holy word, we may embrace 
 and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting 
 life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 
SERMON 11. 
 
 2 Thess. ii, 15. 
 
 THRREFOEE, BRETHREN, STAND FAST, AND HOLD THE 
 TRADITIONS WHICH YE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT, WHETHER 
 BY WORD, OR OUR EPISTLE. 
 
 One extreme opinion ever tending to produce 
 its opposite, the Biblicists, or purely Scriptural 
 Divines, as they considered themselves, of the 
 twelfth and thirteenth centuries, setting them- 
 selves in array against the mischievous subtleties 
 of the Scholastic Divines, the unscriptural refine- 
 ments of a speculative reason, abjured the aid of 
 Reason and Philosophy in the investigation of 
 sacred truth*. Many of those who in later times, 
 and especially from the Reformation to the 
 present day, have valued themselves upon the 
 title of Scriptural Christians, have agreed with 
 their predecessors in striking off one of the aids 
 
 " See Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. Cent. xii. part ii. ch. iii. 
 §. viii. Cent. xiii. part ii. ch. iii. %. vii. viii. (vol. iii. p. 92, 
 249, 251.) and Bp. Vanmildert's Bampton Lecture, Sermon 
 iv. p. 87- Notes, p. 290. 
 
 d2 
 
56 SERMON II. 
 
 which they might have enjoyed in order to the 
 attainment of truth, but by quite another pro- 
 cess. Advocates of Reason even to a fault, but 
 much more the advocates of Independence and 
 Individual Judgment, these have been carried 
 away mediately or immediately by a strong re- 
 action against that extreme assertion of Church- 
 authority by which Christian liberty and truth 
 were long oppressed, and, rushing into the 
 opposite extreme, have deprived themselves in 
 their search after truth of the genuine uses 
 of the Christian Church. 
 
 But whilst we hear so much of the " Religion 
 of the Bible," and of " God's word" as opposed 
 to human creeds and human teaching, it is ex- 
 ceedingly remarkable, that not' only the history 
 and circumstances of the various books of the 
 New Testament, but their very form and struc- 
 ture, tend to establish an opposite conclusion. 
 Instead of the Christian Scriptures excluding 
 human teaching, they imply it ; instead of teach- 
 ing Christianity in the first instance, they are 
 addressed to Christians previously instructed in 
 the faith ; instead of being composed after the 
 manner of works designed to impart the rudir 
 ments of knowledge, they are indirect and unr 
 systematic : thus even of themselves going far to 
 negative the assumed propriety of an independent 
 study of this sacred volume, and to demonstrate 
 the use and, in general, the need of human 
 
SERMON II. 37 
 
 uninspired teaching, in conjunction with that 
 of the inspired word of God. 
 
 To many of my heairers, indeed, this argument 
 has of late years become so familiar, that this 
 brief allusion to it might be thought sufficient ; 
 but in truth, on several accounts, we ought every 
 one of us to be well acquainted with it. For it 
 involves principles of frequent and extensive 
 application, yet not always sufficiently observed 
 even by well-instructed Theologians ; and, per- 
 haps, the argument itself has not in every 
 instance been very carefully employed. But, 
 what is of greater moment, whilst we believe 
 that multitudes of our brethren walk in error, 
 some in very grievous error, partly in conse- 
 quence of their expecting to find in the Bible 
 what it was not intended to supply, we may 
 reasonably hope, that an argument of this kind 
 founded upon the Scriptures, and not merely 
 upon particular expressions, but upon their ge- 
 neral form and character, will be candidly enter- 
 tained by sincere disciples of the Scriptures. Nay, 
 and it has also been found capable of relieving 
 from painful difficulties some whose belief ac- 
 corded with our own : and few can have stronger 
 claims upon our sympathy, than those who 
 labour under any serious Religious Difficulty, 
 from the very fountain of joy and hope deriving 
 pain and doubt and perplexity. 
 
38 SERMON II. 
 
 I. On various grounds, then, I would request 
 your attention to some of the Indications af- 
 forded BY THE Christian Scriptures, that they 
 
 WERE NOT DESIGNED BY THEMSELVES TO SUPPLY 
 
 THE PROPER Introduction to Christian Truth — 
 first adverting to the Facts of the case, and then 
 to some of their more natural Consequences. 
 
 1. Thus it is obvious, as has been already 
 mentioned, that all the several books of the 
 New Testament were addressed to Christians, 
 and presuppose an acquaintance with Christian 
 doctrine. 
 
 The first verse of almost every Epistle states 
 the fact. They were addressed, for example, 
 " to all that were at Rome called to be saints, 
 whose faith was spoken of throughout the world ;" 
 " unto the Church of God which was at Co- 
 rinth ;" " unto the Churches of Galatia ;" " to 
 the saints which were at Ephesus — at Philippi — 
 at Colosse — unto the Church of the Thes- 
 salonians ;" by St. Paul, again, to Timothy, 
 Titus, Philemon, his " own sons in the faith ;" 
 by St. Peter to those who were " elect according 
 to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through 
 sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and 
 sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ;" to 
 those, again, who had " obtained like precious 
 faith with him through the righteousness of 
 God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ ;" by St. John 
 
S£RM0N II. 39 
 
 to the " elect lady and her children," or to " the 
 well-beloved Gaius whom he loved in the truth ;" 
 by St. Jude to " them that were sanctified by 
 God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, 
 and called." 
 
 Several of these Apostolical addresses at once 
 imply, that the great foundations of Christian 
 truth were, or were supposed to be, familiar to 
 these Christian converts. And if in a very few 
 cases the fact that an Epistle was addressed to 
 Christians does not appear on the face of the 
 superscription, it is presently implied in the 
 clearest terms : as by St. Paul calling upon the 
 Hebrews as " holy brethren, partakers of the 
 heavenly calling, to consider the Apostle and 
 High Priest of our profession, Jesus Christ ;" by 
 St. James, " My brethren, have not the faith of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, with 
 respect of persons ;" by St. John, " if we walk in 
 the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship 
 one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ 
 his Son cleanseth us from all sin""." 
 
 So obvious, indeed, and incontrovertible is the 
 fact, that the Epistles were all addressed to Chris- 
 tians already instructed in the faith, that Mr. 
 Locke, adverting to this fact, and assuming that 
 some books of the New TestameM must have 
 been designed to tefich mankind, in the strict 
 sense of the word, the great first truths of 
 '■ Heb. iii. 1. James ii. 1. 1 John i. 7. 
 
40 SERMON II. 
 
 Christianity, concluded that the Four Gospels 
 must have this design. And hence the serious 
 error in which for a time he acquiesced. But 
 the Historical Books were equally with the 
 Epistles addressed to Christians ; and to those 
 Christians, for the most part, according to the 
 well-known accounts usually received among us/ 
 who had previously enjoyed the benefit of the 
 personal ministry of the several Evangelists. But^ 
 waiving external testimony, we find it expressly 
 stated, that the Gospel of St. Luke was written 
 to Theophilus, in order that he " might know the 
 certainty of those things wherein he had been 
 instructed" Examine the other Gospels, and 
 their object, although not thus declared in so 
 many words, will be found to be of the same 
 kind. Whilst the Acts are only a continuation 
 of the Gospel of St. Luke, and addressed to the 
 same person. 
 
 2. But, again, all the several books of the New 
 Testament being thus addressed to Christians, 
 and implying some previous instruction in the 
 faith, the Teachers also were at hand by whom it 
 should be supplied. 
 
 " Hold the traditions which ye have been 
 taught, whether by word, or our Epistle." Here 
 we plainly recognize two distinct sources of in- 
 struction, the oral and the written teaching of 
 the Apostle ; — not, of course, any instruction 
 
SErRMON II. 41 
 
 derived from " Tradition," in the technical sense 
 of that word ; " traditions" in this place simply 
 meaning the truths which St. Paul had delivered 
 to the Thessalonians, and that very recently, 
 their conversion having occurred only the year 
 before ; — but the Thessalonians are distinctly re- 
 ferred to his oral as well as to his written in- 
 structions. 
 
 And what took place in Thessalonica, took 
 place also at Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, 
 and in every other scene of the Apostle's labours. 
 Every where he taught the Christian truths 
 partly by word of mouth, partly by his Epistles. 
 And the same method prevailed, we cannot 
 doubt, in all the other Churches planted by 
 other Apostles ; prevailed, in a word, throughout 
 the Universal Church, of which these several con- 
 gregations were so many branches. 
 
 For a time, indeed, perhaps for fifteen or 
 twenty years after the first preaching of the 
 Gospel, it does not appear that any instructions 
 were communicated to Christians in writing. 
 And after this period, twenty years and more 
 elapsed before the various books of the New 
 Covenant were all composed ; and a much longer 
 space of time before they were all received 
 by every branch of the Church. The Christian 
 Church, in short, was planted and flourished 
 antecedently to the very existence of the Chris- 
 tain Scriptures. 
 
 • 2 Pet. iii. 15, \6. 
 
42 SERMON II. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable perhaps, that, with 
 the single exception of the Revelation of St. 
 John^ we have no record of any divine appoint- 
 ment under which any one of the books of the 
 New Testament was composed. But whilst under 
 the direction of the Holy Spirit, silent and un- 
 observed, the admirable structure was gradually 
 reared, no man at first perceiving the harmony of 
 its parts and the just proportions of the whole; 
 Evangelists and Apostles often appearing to have 
 little further aim than to meet occasional emergen- 
 cies, compose dissensions, solve difficulties, obviate 
 errors, or bring back their sacred instructions 
 after their decease to the remembrance of their 
 disciples; — very different, meanwhile, was the care 
 openly employed in providing for continual oral 
 instruction in every Church. In every instance 
 where the Gospel was planted, a Society was also 
 established ; Teachers were appointed ; and, in 
 addition to those strong natural and religious 
 obligations by which Christian parents and 
 Christian masters are required to teach the 
 truths of salvation to their children and house- 
 holds, over and above all this, express provision 
 was made from the very first for the religious 
 instruction of the whole community, by the 
 selection and appointment of Ministers of the 
 word. What their various orders, and what 
 their other functions, we need not at pre- 
 sent inquire. It is evident, and it is written, 
 
 '' Rev. i. 11. 
 
SERMON 11. 43 
 
 that among the offices of the several orders of 
 the Christian Ministry were these — to " give 
 attendance to reading, exhortation, doctrine," to 
 " preach the word," to be " apt to teach," to 
 " labour in the word and doctrine," to be 
 " ministers of the new covenant, ministers of the 
 Gospel'." 
 
 3. Yet again, it is equally evident, that express 
 provision was also made for a continual succession 
 of Christian Ministers to preach the word in every 
 Church and to all conditions of men. And this, 
 it should be observed, not merely before the 
 completion of the Christian Scriptures, but after- 
 wards. 
 
 " The things that thou hast heard of me 
 among many witnesses," writes the Apostle Paul 
 to the first Bishop of the Ephesian Church, " the 
 same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be 
 able to teach others also '." No one will suppose 
 that similar injunctions were not equally ad- 
 dressed to all who held a similar station : but 
 this passage occurs in one of the latest of the 
 Epistles, written after the completion of the whole 
 volume of the New Testament, with the exception 
 only of the Gospel of St. John, and his Epistles, 
 the Epistle of St. Jude, and the Revelation — 
 
 ' 1 Tim. iv. 13. v. 17- iii. 3. 2 Tim. ii. 24. iv. 2. Tit. i. 9. 
 2 Cor. iii. 6. Eph. iii. 7- Acts vi. 4, 10. viii. 5, 35, 40. 
 ' 2 Tim. ii. 2. cf. 1 Tim. iii. Tit. i. 
 
44 SERMON II. 
 
 that is to say, for all the pui-poses of this argu- 
 ment, (since these are not the writings, certainly, 
 to supply elementary instruction introductory to 
 the rest,) this continual succession of Christian 
 Ministers was appointed after the Christian 
 Scriptures were complete. 
 
 To object that the office of the Minister is not 
 exclusive, is to add strength to my conclusion. 
 Doubtless the sacred obligation is binding upon 
 all - men, to spread the knowledge of religious 
 truth according to their several relations and 
 opportunities. The Author of nature, and of our 
 being, prescribes the duty. It was a duty before 
 the Law, and under the Law, and how much 
 more under the Gospel^? Christianity not only 
 adopts this general obligation, but heightens and 
 extends it''. But then, evidently, the more we 
 acknowledge the duty and importance of private 
 and domestic teaching, the more observable is 
 the special appointment of the ministerial orders 
 for public as well as private teaching and eater 
 chising. We find a great natural provision for 
 religious instruction, growing out of the very 
 constitution of our nature, and the methods by 
 which Divine Providence has appointed that we 
 shall be born, reared, educated, and distributed 
 
 « See Gen. xviii. 17— 19. Deut. vi. 7, 20. Exod. xii. 26. 
 xiii. 14. Josh. iv. 6, 21. 
 
 " See Rom. xiv. I9. xv. 2. Eph. iv. SQ. vi. 4. ) Thess. v. 1 1 . 
 Tit. ii. 10. 1 Cor. vii. 16. 1 Pet. iii. 1. 
 
SERMON II. 45 
 
 into the various relations of social and domestic 
 life ; we find Christianity adopting, and enforc- 
 ing the obligation to teach what we have been 
 taught, which flows from these providential 
 arrangements ; and yet, in addition to all this, 
 we find our Lord and His Apostles setting apart 
 and consecrating within the Church an express 
 Institution for the Ministry of the word, and 
 careful provision made for the continuation of 
 this Institution to all succeeding times. — Striking 
 intimations these of an original design and inten- 
 tion, that oral instruction, the teaching of men, 
 uninspired men, should introduce or accompany 
 the study of the written word. 
 
 4. Granted, however, that the facts adverted 
 to afford strong presumptions in favour of the 
 use of the Scriptures and the Church in com- 
 bination, it does not follow that the New Testa- 
 ment, or parts of it, might not be so clear and 
 elementary, so copious and complete, as to 
 supersede the necessity of additional instruction, 
 whether introductory or explanatory. Certainly 
 not. But the fact, I apprehend, is otherwise; 
 The fact appears to be, that the structure of 
 these writings accords with the circumstances 
 under which they were composed, and that they 
 are, to a considerable extent, indirect and un- 
 systematic, especially in the more doctrinal por- 
 tions as if they were neither adapted, nor 
 
46 SERMON II. 
 
 designed, by themselves to suggest or introduce 
 the doctrines of the Gospel. 
 
 I am perfectly aware, that this is a question of 
 much delicacy, and not very easily determined ; 
 that different minds will view the same facts 
 under different lights, some at once admitting 
 the indirectness and want of system thus ascribed 
 to the New Testament, others denying their ex- 
 istence altogether. 
 
 None indeed will dispute the occurrence of 
 local and partial difficulties ; since even an 
 Apostle describes " some things" in the Epistles 
 of St. Paul as " hard to be understood, which 
 they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as 
 they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own 
 destruction'." But that is not the present question. 
 There might be occasional difficulties amidst great 
 general clearness. Our position respects the ge- 
 neral indirectness and unsystematic form of the 
 Christian Scriptures as indications of the useful- 
 ness, and even general necessity, of uninspired 
 human teaching to precede or accompany the 
 study of the inspired word. If our Romanist 
 brethren would readily admit the fact, very 
 many Protestants, and some great Divines among 
 ourselves, strenuously deny it. " All those things 
 which concern the terms of man's salvation," they 
 affirm, " are delivered in the Scriptures with the 
 greatest evidence and perspicuity." — " Of the true 
 
 ■ 2 Pet. iii. 16. 
 
SERMON II. 47 
 
 fense of plain texts every one may be certain, 
 and for obscure ones it is not necessary every one 
 should." — " All controversies that arise about faith 
 are either not at all decidable, and consequently 
 not necessary to be believed one way or other, or 
 they may be determined by Scripture. In a word, 
 all things necessary to be believed are evidently 
 contained in Scripture, and what is not there 
 evidently contained, cannot be necessary to be 
 believed''." — In ihis summary manner have Stil- 
 lingfleet, Tillotson, Chillingworth, and other 
 Divines, disposed of the question ; the great 
 clearness of the Scriptures being a point con- 
 tinually insisted upon, sometimes in proof of their 
 general excellency,more frequently as an argument 
 against the pretensions of an Infallible Church. 
 
 Never may we be found in any way extenu- 
 ating or depreciating the excellency of the Scrips 
 tures ! \jet facts, nevertheless, be stated as they 
 are; and let us not be found, however unwittingly, 
 to " talk deceitfully for God !" But if every 
 important doctrine were indeed so plainly and 
 directly delivered in the Scriptures, what place 
 were there for the unhappy doubts and disputes 
 concerning them ? Or how could the want of 
 
 '• Stillingfleet, Origines Sacrae, b. iii. c. vi. §. 8. " The ex- 
 cellency of the manner wherein things are revealed in 
 Scripture in regard of clearness." Tillotson, Rule of Faith, 
 part ii. sect. iii. §. S. Chillingworth, Religion of Protestants, 
 &c. c. ii. §. 12. 84. 156. iii. §. 81. iv. §. 40—44 vii. §. 56, 57- 
 See note at the end. 
 
48 SERMON II. 
 
 systematic and direct teaching in the Scriptures 
 have, been urged as an objection against them ? 
 Or, which is much more important to our purpose, 
 how could sincere believers, even within the pale 
 of the Church of England, have laboured under 
 painful doubts and difficulties in consequence of 
 the inconsistency which they discerned between 
 the structure of the New Testament and what 
 they supposed to be its office? — Yet so it has been. 
 Believers have inquired not captiously, but in sin- 
 cerity. Why are so many important articles of faith 
 rather implied than taught in the Christian Scrip- 
 tures ? Why have we to gather them from mere 
 incidental notices in books written on particular 
 occasions, controversies, heresies, some of them 
 long since passed away and but obscurely con- 
 nected with the circumstances of later times ? 
 Natural and proper as such a method of writing 
 may have been in the first age, how is it adapted 
 to our own ? With whatever advantages of other 
 kinds it may be attended, what advantages can 
 compensate for the absence of clear, distinct, de- 
 finite instruction in saving truth ? And have not 
 the results of such a method been, in too many 
 instances, either painful perplexity, or serious 
 error ? Why then, they ask, all this hazard and 
 difficulty, when more direct and systematic state- 
 ments might have been with equal ease put forth 
 by the same authority, and would have been 
 received, by believers in the inspired volume. 
 
SERMON II. 49 
 
 with implicit veneration ? — Nay, perhaps, occa- 
 sionally their minds have been even overcast by 
 the clouds of scepticism, and the distressing doubt 
 has suggested itself. Whether after all it can be 
 of vital importance to believe in any doctrine not 
 to be collected without so much difficulty from 
 the sacred writings. 
 
 Now it is not of course intended that the ex- 
 istence of any perplexities of this kind proves the 
 point in question. But they deserve great con- 
 sideration ; and more consideration than those 
 general assertions, already cited, respecting the 
 plainness of Scripture. The question, meanwhile, 
 is a question of fact, and should be investigated 
 in the Scriptures themselves. 
 
 But in the conduct of such an investigation, we 
 must especially consider the need there commonly 
 is for an extreme simplicity and clearness in the 
 primary communication of knowledge. The 
 greater the experience of the instructor, the more 
 alive he becomes to this necessity. Little do we 
 sometimes suspect of what important truths 
 those who listen to our Sermons, and join in our 
 public devotions, will remain uninformed, when 
 they have not enjoyed the advantage of distinct 
 elementary instruction. What then if they were 
 to derive all their knowledge of Christian doctrine 
 only from an independent study of Holy Writ ! 
 
 If, again, we have enjoyed the benefit of early 
 instruction, introductory to the Scriptures, we 
 
60 SERMON II. 
 
 shall now have to regard them under a totally 
 new aspect. And it may require some effort of 
 mind to throw ourselves into the position of 
 persons searching the Scriptures, in the first 
 instance, for those elements of Christian doctrine, 
 which we did not ourselves derive originally from 
 the sacred writings, but from the lips of Parents 
 and Instructors ; to distinguish, consequently, im- 
 plications and allusions, from direct assertions 
 and declarations ; and observe the natural effect 
 of passages taken separately, which we have been 
 taught to combine; or the just force of those very 
 texts in teaching or suggesting doctrines, which 
 we have hitherto found so clear in proving, illus- 
 trating, or enforcing them. No single texts, for 
 example, are so frequently adduced in support of 
 the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, as the form 
 of Christian Baptism appointed by our Lord and 
 the Apostolic benediction of St. Paul "" : yet the 
 latter appears to some minds even inconsistent 
 with the doctrine, and in neither of them is it 
 directly taught, how strongly soever it is implied. 
 Or, suppose, in order to prove the doctrine of 
 Regeneration in Baptism, we throw several texts 
 together, as our Lord's commission to his Apostles, 
 " Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing them," 
 with His words in another place, " Except a man 
 be born again of water and of the Spirit, he 
 cannot enter into the kingdom of God," and with 
 ■" Matt, xxviii. 9. 2 Cor. xiii. 14. 
 
. SERMON II. 51 
 
 those of the Baptist, " Christ shall baptize you 
 with the Holy Ghost ;" and of St. Paul, God 
 has " saved us by the washing of regeneration, 
 and renewing of the Holy Ghost " ;" — such a com- 
 bination may afford an easy proof of the doc- 
 trine : but would such a collection of texts 
 have readily suggested itself to every student 
 of the Bible, or would the doctrine have been 
 easily gathered from any one of them by 
 itself? — At any rate, in no one of these pas- 
 sages, nor in all of them together, do we find 
 such a direct statement of the doctrine, as 
 is conveyed in a Catechism or an Article 
 of faith. " The inward and spiritual grace of 
 Baptism is a death unto sin, and a new birth 
 unto righteousness — we are hereby made the 
 children of grace "." 
 
 And this we should do, if we would ascertain 
 whether or not particular statements are direct 
 or systematic ; we should compare them with 
 those which evidently are so, inspired or un- 
 inspired. The teaching of the Mosaic Law, for 
 example, is direct. From the books of Moses 
 alone we could almost set forth in order the due 
 celebration of every Festival or Sacrifice through- 
 
 " Matt, xxviii. ip. Mark xvi. 15, l6. Matt. iii. 11. Mark i. 
 Luke iii. John iii. 5. Tit. iii. 5. 
 
 ° Compare Article xxvii. " Baptism is not only a sign of 
 profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men 
 are discerned from others that be not christened, but it is 
 also a sign of Regeneration, or new Birth, whereby, &c." 
 
 e2 
 
52 SERMON II. . 
 
 out the complex Ritual of the Law. Have we 
 any directions equally explicit in the New Tes- 
 tament respecting the only two Rites appointed 
 by our Lord ? Disobedience there might be, but 
 doubt or dispute there could not be under the 
 Law, respecting points of such transcendent and 
 practical importance as the time for admission 
 into the Covenant, or even the very object of 
 our worship. And in like manner, when un- 
 inspired men would explicitly state or teach the 
 Christian doctrines, they draw up Creeds, Ar- 
 ticles of Faith, Catechisms, Broken Catechisms, 
 taking all possible pains to render them direct, 
 explicit, simple, or systematic, as the case may 
 be ; but there is nothing like a formal Creed or 
 Catechism throughout the whole volume of the 
 New Testament. 
 
 Rudiments of systems there are, no doubt ; 
 passages which may form parts of Creeds, or 
 answers in Catechisms, explicit to us, but still not 
 as yet arranged into formal systems, or delivered 
 as our primary instruction in the faith ''. So 
 likewise there are entire Epistles which we may 
 regard as systematic, or at least with reference 
 to certain leading doctrines ; as the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews concerning the Priesthood and 
 Sacrifice of Christ, or to the Romans respecting 
 Justification by faith and Sanctification. But 
 
 1' As 1 Cor. XV. 3,4. Eph. iv. 4— 6. Tit. ii. II— 14. iii. 
 4 — 8. 1 John, i. 7, &c. 
 
SERMON II. 53 
 
 the question is, whether they have that kind 
 of system and directness which is requisite for 
 elementary and introductory teaching. And cer- 
 tain it is, that St. Paul addresses the Hebrews 
 as persons " who ought for the time to have 
 been teachers," and the Romans as saints, 
 " whose faith was spoken of throughout the 
 whole world P;" and if the Epistle to the 
 Romans is one of the most systematic, it is 
 also one of the most difficult of all the Apostolic 
 writings. 
 
 II. I shall assume, then, that inquiry has been 
 made, and that the structure of the Christian 
 Scriptures has been found upon examination 
 to be, to no inconsiderable extent, indirect and 
 unsystematic ; and now upon the various facts 
 that have thus passed under our review let us 
 observe, — 
 
 1. First, that they are all in perfect harmony 
 with one another, and all point together to the 
 same conclusion. 
 
 The structure of the New Testament exactly 
 accords with the circumstances under which it 
 was composed. If there is an absence of direct and 
 systematic teaching, which we should have little 
 
 1' Heb. V, 12. Rom. i. 7, 8. 
 
54 SERMON II. 
 
 anticipated, perhaps, in a written Revelatiort 
 from the Most High, and which is by no means 
 consistent with the language of many Protestant 
 writers, yet what can be more in harmony with 
 the other facts of the case, — the several books 
 all addressed to Christians, to those who, it is 
 implied, had been previously initiated in the 
 Christian doctrines, and for whose instruction 
 especial provision had been made, that provision 
 existing before the Christian Scriptures, and ever 
 afterwards preceding them, accompanying them, 
 formed and appointed to be continued and 
 carried down together with them to every suc- 
 ceeding generation ? In such harmonious ac- 
 cordance do we find the formation of the Christian 
 Scriptures, and the institution of the Christian 
 Church; and the obvious inference is, that we must 
 make use of the Church and the Scriptures to- 
 gether, as two of the principal means in order 
 to the attainment of Christian Truth. 
 
 2. Not less obvious, again, is the mode in 
 which we should, in the first instance at least, 
 employ both these instruments; — ^the Church afford- 
 ing that preliminary instruction, which the New 
 Testament presupposes ; the Church teaching, the 
 Scriptures proving; the Church introducing us to 
 the doctrines of the Gospel, which the Scriptures 
 enforce and establish ; the Church handing down 
 
SERMON II. 56 
 
 the system, the Scriptures the substance, of Chris- 
 tian truth. What the voice of Reason and of the 
 Moral Sense is to the Precepts of religion, that, 
 in a word, the voice of the Church is to those 
 revealed Doctrines, for which we have no natural 
 preparation. 
 
 We need not attempt to define the precise 
 extent to which this preparatory instruction is 
 necessary ; who require it, or as to what doctrines. 
 Suppose that some happily gifted individuals 
 could elicit for themselves from the Christian 
 Scriptures alone, or from the New and the Old 
 Testaments together, many, or most, or say 
 every one of the Christian doctrines ; it may 
 still be true that Christians in general neither 
 could have done this, nor were designed to do so. 
 And who shall say what grievous error may not 
 result from any unhappy attempt to make that 
 exclusive independent use of the Scriptures, 
 which the divine Author of Revelation did not 
 design ? 
 
 And so with respect to the truths themselves, 
 no one of course imagines that some Christian 
 truths are not more explicitly taught in holy 
 writ than others. Let us for convenience 
 sake distinguish the Facts recorded, from the 
 Doctrines connected with them, and again from 
 the Institutions of Christianity. Then it would 
 probably be true, in general, that from the study 
 of the New Testament alone we might collect 
 
56 SERMON II. 
 
 almost all the Facts, all at least which belong to the 
 personal history of our Saviour, but not all those, 
 perhaps, which illustrate that Dispensation of the 
 Spirit, as it may be called, which is recorded in 
 the Acts : still less should we be secured from 
 passing unobserved, or receiving with hesitation, 
 or possibly rejecting altogether, some of the 
 most important Doctrines which give life and 
 animation to the historical Facts : whilst of the 
 Christian Institutions, their design, permanency, 
 efficacy, we might never attain any adequate 
 conceptions. 
 
 Greater precision upon these subjects it is 
 needless at present to attempt. With the same 
 data before them, different minds might not arrive 
 at the same conclusions. Most Christians, it is 
 probable, would consider some particular doctrines 
 as so clearly taught, that they, at least, must 
 be excepted ; but different exceptions would 
 be made by different men. It is enough if we 
 recognise the general need there is for combining 
 the introductory teaching of the Church with 
 that of the Scriptures, and the imminent danger 
 consequently which we incur of missing some 
 important truth, if we perversely neglect either 
 of the divinely appointed instruments by which 
 truth is to be attained. 
 
 What, after all, are the common declamations 
 against the iniquity of biassing the minds of the 
 young by introducing them to the Christian doc- 
 
SERMON II. 57 
 
 trines, instead of leaving them to their own 
 unassisted study of the Scriptures, but en- 
 deavours to prevent our placing them in the 
 actual situation of those to whom these very 
 Scriptures were addressed ? And thus to per- 
 plex their path with unnecessary, nay, it may 
 be, fatal difficulties, which the Christian Scrips 
 tures neither contemplated nor provided against, 
 but from which the Christian Church was 
 expressly appointed to keep them free ' ? 
 
 3. But it is further to be remarked, that 
 wherever, or in whatever degree, this preparatory 
 instruction by living teachers throws light upon 
 some truth which had otherwise been obscure, or 
 suggests a doctrine which we had otherwise 
 failed to detect in the inspired word of God, it 
 affects at the same time the whole force and cha- 
 raeter of the Scriptural proof of the doctrine. 
 This it seems material to consider. 
 
 I am not claiming any authority, be it ob- 
 served, for this Introduction which the Church 
 supplies to the written word. Why I claim none 
 will be shewn hereafter'. There was a time 
 indeed, when it justly demanded implicit sub- 
 mission ; for the oral and the written teaching of 
 an Apostle were of exactly the same authority; 
 
 ' Quarterly Review. September, 1 8 1 9, p. 357, on Unautho- 
 ritative Tradition. 
 ' In Seriifion IV. 
 
58 SERMON II. 
 
 But no sooner were the inspired teachers of the 
 Gospel withdrawn, than that paramount authority 
 which they possessed was altogether withdrawn 
 with them, or rather descended to no living 
 teachers, but survived only in the word of 
 inspiration transmitted to succeeding times. If 
 the instruction of the Church could thence- 
 forward lay claim to any authority, (a question 
 which we must consider at a future time',) it 
 could claim none which was not altogether dif- 
 ferent in kind. But for the purpose in hand 
 there is no necessity that this introductory 
 teaching should be authoritative at all ; and 
 yet it will affect the whole character of the 
 Scriptural proof of any doctrine, in so far as 
 it shall have imparted a greater simplicity and 
 clearness to the doctrine and the proof of the 
 doctrine taken together. 
 
 For there seems to be almost an instinctive 
 demand in our nature that revealed truth should 
 be clearly revealed ; not that it should be dis- 
 coverable by those who will not look for it, or 
 that it should not be mysterious when discovered, 
 but that to those who seek it with diligence and 
 simplicity it should appear with some plainness 
 of evidence to have been communicated from on 
 high. Hence pious and able men have even 
 ventured to assert the great clearness and per- 
 spicuity of Scripture, upon the principle that the 
 • In Sermons IV. V. and more expressly in Sermon VI. 
 
SERMON II. 59 
 
 absence of these qualities would be absolutely 
 " repugnant to the wisdom and goodness of 
 God." " Strange !" exclaims Stillingfieet, " that 
 ever men should judge the Scriptures obscure 
 in matters necessary, when the Scripture ac- 
 counts it so great a judgment for men not to 
 understand them"." Hence also the painful 
 difficulty before adverted to, when the pious 
 believer is staggered by the seeming obscurity 
 of those scriptural proofs, which nevertheless he 
 cannot but perceive to be valid. — The very root 
 of his difficulty is the assumption, that both 
 the statement of a doctrine and the proof of it, 
 are of necessity to be sought in one and the same 
 document. Let him once perceive distinctly that 
 the statement may be supplied by the Church, 
 and the proof by the Scriptures, and the diffi- 
 culty vanishes. I do not here refer to the 
 Church as speaking collectively, or speaking 
 with authority. Let us derive the statement 
 of a doctrine from Parent, Teacher, Pastor, 
 Friend, it matters not from whom, it matters 
 not whether it comes to us with or without any 
 force of authority, still the unauthoritative state- 
 ment and the authoritative proof are together 
 sufficient. No matter in such a case how in- 
 
 " Origines Sacrae, b. iii. c. vi. §. 8. Thirty Protestant Prin- 
 ciples, annexed to ch. vi. of the Discourse concerning the Idol- 
 atry practised in the Church of Rome, Principle 13. Works, 
 vol. V. See note at the end. 
 
60 SERMON II. 
 
 direct the proof; as a proof it may be even 
 stronger, because it is indirect, built upon mere 
 implications and allusions ; but the direct state- 
 ment and the indirect proof together constitute 
 that clearness of evidence, which we almost in- 
 stinctively require in whatever professes to be 
 truth of Revelation. 
 
 4. And yet, lastly, let no one imagine that the 
 argument which has been maintained insinuates 
 any defect in the volume of the New Testament, 
 or detracts in any way from the just Perfection 
 and Sufficiency of the Scriptures. 
 
 For in what sense do we assert the SuflSciency 
 
 or Completeness of the Scriptures ? They are 
 
 evidently expressions of convenience, relative 
 
 terms, not to be used or understood without 
 
 reference to certain implied objects and purposes 
 
 for which the Holy Scriptures were designed. 
 
 Doubtless for their proper and intended purposes 
 
 the Scriptures are perfect; but not so for all 
 
 imaginable purposes ; not even for some which 
 
 have been supposed to come within their range, 
 
 as, for instance, the purpose of teaching, or even 
 
 stating correctly, truths of natural science. 
 
 Astronomy, or Geology. Neither are theysuflScient 
 
 for all conceivable purposes, but for their own ; 
 
 manifestly not, for example, for performing many 
 
 of the active functions of the Church or the 
 
 Ministry ; and why may not this very function of 
 
SERMON II. 61 
 
 stating, suggesting, introducing Christian truths, 
 be among the offices, not exclusirely, but prin- 
 cipally, of the Christian Church ? 
 
 The Sufficiency of the Scriptures for salvation 
 is, I believe, truly and correctly laid down by 
 the Church of England in her sixth Article. 
 " Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary 
 to salvation : so that whatsoever is not read 
 therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be 
 required of any man, that it should be believed 
 as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite 
 or necessary to salvation." — There is nothing 
 here which militates against my present argu- 
 ment; nothing to affirm, that every Christian 
 truth must be clearly and distinctly " read in 
 the Scriptures ;" nothing to declare, that they 
 are our only means of attaining Christian truth. 
 The means of attaining truth the Article does 
 not define; but in declaring that no truth is to 
 be thought requisite to salvation which is neither 
 " read in" Holy Scripture, nor may be " proved 
 thereby >" it implies that we may derive our know- 
 ledge of the truth from other sources besides the 
 Scriptures, although these, and these alone, in the 
 judgment of the Church of England, supply the 
 proof of every truth necessary to salvation. And 
 this also I have desired to maintain. And in 
 order to declare the more distinctly the para- 
 mount authority of Holy Scripture as the proof 
 of Christian truth, I would even avoid every 
 
62 SERMON II. 
 
 phrase which might seem in any way to place 
 the Church on the same footing of authority 
 with the inspired word ; never speaking of the 
 Church and the Scriptures together as " the 
 Guide and Rule of Faith," but of Holy Scripture 
 only as " the sole Rule of Faith." 
 
 And far, very far from conceiving the indirect 
 structure of the New Testament to be a defect, 
 we should rather regard it as an excellence, and 
 an additional title to our admiration and gra- 
 titude. 
 
 For the purpose of proof, of proof as distinct 
 from clear statement or primary instruction, 
 nothing is comparable to a train of implications 
 and allusions pervading a whole work, rendering 
 corruption or interpolation impossible, and de- 
 monstrating the habitual presence to the author's 
 mind of the important truth, which thus runs 
 along like a golden thread interwoven with the 
 whole tissue of his composition. 
 
 And what if instead of that indirect and un- 
 systematic form which some have lamented in the 
 Christian Scriptures, we had found there definite 
 statements of doctrine. Creeds, Catechisms, Arti- 
 cles of Faith ? — Assuredly there is enough and 
 too much in the Church of Christ of that strong 
 tendency to formalism in ourselves, and unchari- 
 tableness towards others, which contents itself with 
 repeating the language of orthodoxy, or exacts 
 from other men the most scrupulous and literal 
 
SERMON II. 63 
 
 adherence to every word and phrase in our own 
 confessions of Faith. And yet at present for the 
 most part we acknowledge them to be after all, 
 however useful, or necessary, or admirable, the 
 compositions of uninspired men. It is no fanciful 
 alarm with which we may imagine the supersti- 
 tious, the almost idolatrous, reverence with which 
 our Creeds would have been too often regarded, 
 had they been indeed and confessedly the very 
 language of Inspiration. 
 
 The actual form of the Scriptures, meanwhile, 
 by its very indirectness, want of system, and ap- 
 parent adaptation to local and temporary cir- 
 cumstances, tends to a variety of important moral 
 results ; awakening attention, stimulating curi- 
 osity, promoting research, rewarding diligence, 
 humility, reverence, and conducing to the growth 
 and strength not of mere belief, but of a genuine 
 religious Faith — " to that excitement of the best 
 feelings, and that improvement of the heart," to 
 borrow the language of a living writer, " which 
 are the natural and doubtless the designed result 
 of an humble, diligent, and sincere study of the 
 Christian Scriptures." And " How admirable," 
 he continues, "do the provisions of Divine Wisdom 
 appear, even from the slight and indistinct views 
 we obtain of it ! It has supplied us by revelation 
 with the knowledge of what we could not have 
 discovered for ourselyes; and it has left us to 
 
64 SERMON II. 
 
 ourselves precisely in those points in which it is 
 best for us that we should be so left"." 
 
 To ourselves alone, however, we have not been 
 left. There is yet another result of the actual 
 Structure of the Scriptures, and the only one 
 which I shall at present notice, upon which we 
 ihay dwell with devout thankfulness, the full play 
 and opportunity, namely, which it aifords to the 
 best feelings of our social nature. 
 
 Our Heavenly Father, did not send forth a 
 Book to evangelize the world. He would have 
 living teachers of the word of truth. Man was 
 to teach man. None were to be independent of 
 their brethren. And almost all in their various 
 spheres, not Ministers alone, but Parents in an 
 especial degree, and Mothers almost more than 
 Fathers, and not only these, but Teachers, Cate- 
 chists. Masters, friends, neighbours, have been 
 permitted to share in the heavenly employment 
 of communicating to others the blessed truths 
 which they have received, and of adapting them 
 moreover to every capacity and every age. 
 " Revelation," says an eloquent writer, " is not 
 at war with nature. Revelation has a striking 
 agreement with the chief method which God has 
 instituted for carrying forward individuals and 
 
 " Abp. Whately, Peculiarities of the Christian Religion, 
 (Sdedit.) Essay vi. p. 342 — 345. on the omission of Articles 
 of Faith, &c. in the New Testament. 
 
SERMON II. 65 
 
 the race, and is thus in harmony with his ordinary 
 operations. Whence is it that we all acquire our 
 chief knowledge? not from the outward universe ; 
 not from the fixed laws of material nature ; but 
 from intelligent beings, more advanced than our- 
 selves. The teachings of the wise and good are 
 our chief aids. Were our connexion with superior 
 minds broken off, had we no teacher but nature 
 with its fixed laws, its unvarying revolutions of 
 night and day and seasons, we should remain for 
 ever in the ignorance of childhood. Nature is a 
 volume which we can read only by the help of an 
 intelligent interpreter. The great law under 
 which man is placed is, that he shall receive 
 illumination and impulse from beings more im- 
 proved than himself. Now revelation is only an 
 extension of this universal method of carrying 
 forward mankind. In this case, God takes on 
 Himself the office to which all rational beings 
 are called. He becomes an immediate teacher 
 to a few, communicating to them a higher order 
 of truths than had before been attained, which 
 they in turn are to teach to their race. Here is 
 no new power or element introduced into the 
 system, but simply an enlargement of that 
 agency on which the progress of man chiefly 
 depends''." — The sentiment is just. And would 
 to heaven that this intelligent but not well-in- 
 
 ' Dr. Channing's Discourses, i. p. 15, 16. Compare also 
 Discourse iii. p. 120 et seq. 
 
 F 
 
C6 SERMON II. 
 
 structed writer, and all who think with him, and 
 all our brethren, and they are many, who if they 
 do not cherish a spirit of proud independence in 
 their search after religious truth, yet take con- 
 fined and partial views of the Divine purposes 
 and of their own duty, could be induced to trace 
 this just sentiment to all its consequences ; — 
 no longer seeking to collect the truth from the 
 Scriptures alone, as if the Church had no ex- 
 istence or use; but observing, and with profound 
 gratitude, how the Christian Scriptures and the 
 Christian Church grew up together, in harmony 
 with one another and with nature and with pro- 
 vidence, two several Instruments of Truth, distinct 
 in their uses, and altogether different in authority, 
 yet concurrent, and cooperating, having one con- 
 sistent purpose, and the same allwise, and most 
 gracious Author. 
 
 O Almighty God, who hast built thy Church 
 upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, 
 Jesus Christ Himself being the head corner-stone; 
 Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit 
 by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy 
 temple acceptable unto thee; through Jesus Christ 
 our Lord. Amen. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 2 Tim. iii. 14, 15. 
 
 CONTINUE THOU IN THE THINGS WHICH THOU HAST 
 LEARNED AND HAST BEEN ASSURED OF, KNOWING OF 
 WHOM THOU HAST LEARNED THEM ; AND THAT FROM A 
 CHILD THOU HAST KNOWN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, WHICH 
 ARE ABLE TO MAKE THEE WISE UNTO SALVATION 
 THROUGH FAITH WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS. 
 
 That the Scriptures of the Old Testament 
 should thus be able to make the Christian wise 
 unto salvation, affords at once a striking at- 
 testation to the importance of religious truth, 
 and a signal proof of the wisdom and goodness of 
 Almighty God. 
 
 The Volume of the New Covenant was begun 
 and completed almost within the compass of a 
 single generation ; as if when God had " in these 
 last days spoken unto us by his Son," the sound 
 of that heavenly voice, once uttered, was never 
 to die away. But " at sundry times and in divers 
 
 f2 
 
68 SERMON III. 
 
 manners He spake in time past unto the fathers 
 by the prophets ;" revealing His will and His 
 ways from time to time in Psalm and Prophecy, 
 the Law, and History, during ten successive 
 centuries, and to thirty generations of men. Yet 
 whilst these various Scriptures were in every 
 instance mercifully adapted to the various wants 
 and exigencies of the age to which they were 
 originally addressed, all were contrived, never- 
 theless, for great religious uses, prospective as 
 well as immediate ; built up together into one 
 vast system of Preparation for the Gospel ; and 
 fitted to be " profitable for doctrine, reproof, 
 correction, instruction in righteousness," to us 
 and to our children for ever. 
 
 Of this merciful display of the Divine wisdom, 
 and this great instrument of Truth, no account 
 was taken in the last Discourse. And not only 
 is it essential to an Inquiry into the Means of 
 attaining Christian Truth, that the signal uses in 
 this behalf of the Old Testament as well as the 
 New should not be left without notice, but I am 
 also obliged to advert to them, in order to guard 
 the argument already maintained from an ob- 
 jection of some moment. 
 
 For, looking to the structure of the New Tes- 
 tament, to the circumstances under which it was 
 composed, and the persons to whom it was ad- 
 dressed, I attempted to shew both that the 
 Christian Scriptures required and implied some 
 
SERMON III. 69 
 
 extrinsic Introduction to their doctrinal teaching, 
 and also that it was provided and intended from 
 the first that this Introduction should be supplied 
 by the Christian Church. And the inference 
 was, the general necessity of combining together 
 the uses of the Church and of the Scriptures. — 
 But might not the Scriptures of the Old Testa- 
 ment themselves discharge the very important 
 office, here ascribed to the Church, of introducing 
 men to the truths of the Gospel ? Do they not in 
 fact abound in Christian instruction ? Is it not 
 written, that they " testify of Christ ?" are " able 
 to make us wise unto salvation?" Was not the 
 law " our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ ?" 
 And is not the righteousness of God by faith of 
 Jesus Christ " witnessed by the Law and the 
 Prophets"?" 
 
 I reply, that this is the truth, but not the 
 whole truth ; that, however plausible the ob- 
 jection may appear to the strenuous advocate of 
 the exclusive and independent study of the Scrip- 
 tures, it does not express the true use of the Old 
 Testament, nor the exact sense of the passages 
 upon which it appears to rely. When St. Paul 
 describes the Old Scriptures as able to make 
 his disciple " wise unto salvation," he adds — 
 " through faith which is in Christ Jesus." To 
 discover the right method of ascertaining " the 
 
 ^ John V. 59, 40. Acts xvii. 2, 3. 11, 12. Gal. iii. 2^>, 
 2 Tiai. iii. 14 — 17. Hom. iii. 21, 92. 
 
70 SERMON III. 
 
 faith which is in Christ Jesus," is the very 
 business of our inquiry. But to Timothy the 
 doctrines of the Gospel were already known ; 
 they were the very " things which he had learned 
 and had been assured of, knowing of whom he 
 had learned them ;" in which therefore he was 
 exhorted to " continue/' being indeed " the 
 form of sound words," " the things which he had 
 heard of St. Paul among many witnesses," and 
 which he was himself in turn to " commit unto 
 faithful men, able to teach others also ^" Far 
 from implying that the Old Scriptures are the 
 appointed Intrqduction to the New, the lan- 
 guage of St. Paul would rather indicate that 
 they shine with reflected light ; that radiant as 
 they are to the Christian with the wisdom of 
 salvation, they derive this splendour from the 
 beams of Gospel truth. For although the Law 
 and the Prophets testify of Christ, it may require 
 the knowledge of the Christian to interrogate 
 them aright. Texts which involve a Christian 
 doctrine, may not of themselves either state 
 or suggest it. Type and prophecy may be to 
 the Christian as a pillar of light, yet as " a cloud 
 and darkness" to those who are without the 
 camp of God. Or, again, the successive Dispens- 
 ations recorded in the Old Testament may be 
 every one of them preparatory to the Gospel, 
 and yet the Records of those dispensations may 
 " 2 Tim. i. 13. ii. 2. iii. 14. 
 
SERMON III. 71 
 
 not be the intended Introduction to the doctrines 
 of the Gospel. Or the Old Scriptures may have 
 happily prepared the Jew for a better covenant, 
 but may prove nevertheless an insufficient guide 
 to those who have not been educated and living, 
 like the Jew, under a preparatory system and 
 typical institutions. 
 
 It is obvious that an adequate discussion 
 of this subject would far exceed our present 
 limits. But by some particular examples, and 
 observations, and by separate notices of three 
 principal portions of the sacred Volume, — the 
 Historical Scriptures, namely, the Books of the 
 Law, and those of the Psalmists and Prophets, — 
 I shall endeavour to give some degree of form 
 and distinctness to the general views which have 
 been suggested respecting the uses of the Old 
 Testament subsequently to the Christian £era ; — 
 seeking to illustrate, rather than to establish, 
 them ; and to offer a few hints to those who would 
 inquire at greater length, how far the old 
 
 SCRIPTURES ARE, OR ARE NOT, INTRODUCTORY TO 
 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES. 
 
 I. In the first place, it is plain, that through- 
 out the whole volume of the Old Testament, 
 a deep foundation is laid for the Gospel 
 by the establishment of the great truths 
 of Natural Religion, the doctrines of Creation, 
 
72 SERMON III. 
 
 and Providence, the power, wisdom, goodness, 
 justice, and faithfulness of God, and His moral 
 government of mankind. All the several books 
 concur in this important object. It constitutes 
 one of the leading purposes of the Mosaic Law ; 
 and to foretell future events was scarcely so much 
 the office of the Prophets, as to be Preachers 
 of Righteousness \ But no one would describe 
 these doctrines, how necessary soever they are to 
 the Christian system, as an actual Introduction 
 to it. 
 
 1. Not so the history of the non-observance of 
 the laws of Natural Religion, and the easting 
 away its truths. The record of man's guilt and 
 weakness is more immediately preparatory to the 
 Christian doctrines, since it tends directly to 
 establish the need both of Redemption and of 
 Sanctification. To supply this record, accord- 
 ingly, is one of the great purposes of the His- 
 torical Scriptures, whilst they first relate the 
 history of the Fall, and then trace out the long- 
 continued proofs of human depravity, under 
 every variety of trial, with a written law and 
 without one ; and this with such unsparing 
 minuteness and naked fidelity, as are indeed 
 afflicting to all men, but perplexing to those who 
 are not sufficiently aware of the purpose of these 
 painful histories. 
 ' See Mr. Davison's Discourses on Prophecy, Discourse IL 
 
SERMON III. 73 
 
 This historical record, then, of human guilt 
 and weakness is, no doubt, a signal preparation 
 for the Gospel. Yet to describe the disorder, is 
 not to suggest the remedy. Upon the basis of 
 this sad history the Apostle could indeed con- 
 struct his indissoluble argument, proving that 
 the whole world was guilty before God, in order 
 to teach the Christian doctrines of Justification 
 and Grace * ; but who would have anticipated 
 them from the history itself? Nay, it is re- 
 markable, that the historical narratives of human 
 guilt overflow with proofs of the Divine loving- 
 kindness ; and that fearful Enmity which sin had 
 interposed between fallen man and his Creator, 
 is not described in the strongest terms, until the 
 Reconciliation also had been disclosed ". 
 
 But this Reconciliation, some will say, had 
 been revealed even from the asra of the Fall. 
 And, certainly, there were intimations even from 
 the Fall of some gracious Restoration. Not for 
 a moment was the condemned sinner left without 
 a principle of hope ; type and prophecy even 
 in the Historical Scriptures point to the Re- 
 deemer ; and the eye of faith was under every 
 dispensation of Religion directed towards the 
 Saviour, however dim and indistinct the heavenly 
 
 *' Rom. i. — viii. 
 
 ' I have treated of these subjects more at length in 
 Discourses on the Historical Scriptures, II. and III. 
 
74 SERMON III. 
 
 image upon which it rested ^ Nevertheless, 
 theirs is a very dangerous theology, which seeing 
 more in the Scripture than it contains, " fur- 
 nishes to others one pretext of excuse for seeing 
 less ^." And the earlier Scriptures have been 
 continually supposed by Christian readers, 
 and even by Christian divines, to preach the 
 very truths of the Gospel, of which, until the 
 full light of Christian truth is poured upon 
 them, they only afford remote and obscure 
 intimations. 
 
 Of Types, of course, it is not to be expected 
 that they should of themselves reveal their secret 
 import. We are taught by St. Paul, for example, 
 to view in the history of Melchizedek a remark- 
 able adumbration of the eternal priesthood of 
 Christ ; but surely without this instruction we 
 should scarcely have discovered any the slightest 
 shade of evangelical meaning in the passage 
 itself; nor should we have been guided to its 
 spiritual sense even by the allusion to it in the 
 110th Psalm^. The Christian Church, again, 
 has with one consent recognised a conspicuous 
 type of the Gospel sacrifice in the commanded 
 
 f Sherlock, Discourses on the Use and Intent of Pro- 
 phecy, III. p. 45. (Ed. 1812.) Davison on the Origin and 
 Intent of rrimitive Sacrifice, p. 151 — 153. 
 
 s Davison on Primitive Sacrifice, p. 73- 154, 155, J 56; and 
 see instances there cited from Lightfoot, Bochart, and 
 Lamy, p. 70, 71, 164, lG5. 
 
 '' Gen. xtv. Ps. ex. Heb. vii. 
 
SERMON III. 73 
 
 sacrifice of Isaac. We need not hesitate to adopt 
 the language of a great Divine, that " of all the 
 Prophetic Types, this one, in the commanded 
 sacrifice of Isaac, appears to be among the most 
 significant. It stands at the head of the dis- 
 pensation of Revealed Religion, as reduced into 
 Covenant with the people of God in the person 
 of their Founder and Progenitor. Being thus 
 displayed, as it is, in the history of the Father of 
 the Faithful, it seems to be wrought into the 
 foundations of Faith. In the surrender to sacri- 
 fice of a beloved Son, the Patriarchal Church 
 begins with an adumbration of the Christian 
 reality'." But to whom is it thus significant? to 
 the uninstructed reader, or to the Christian ? 
 The uninstructed reader, it may be feared, far 
 from detecting a sense like this, is more likely to 
 find a stumblingblock in the very nature of that 
 divine command. 
 
 But the Historical books record also a succes- 
 sion of very early Prophecies of the Redeemer ; 
 and in the first of them, that the seed of the 
 woman should bruise the serpent's head, some 
 Christian commentators have even discovered a 
 complete revelation of the mystery of salvation 
 by the sacrifice of the Son of God. Yet, not to 
 dwell upon the likelihood that many a student, 
 left to his own guidance alone, might altogether 
 pass by a prediction so obscure in itself, and 
 ' Davison, Primitive Sacrifice, p. 170. 
 
76 SERMON III. 
 
 involved so indirectly in the sentence pronounced 
 upon the serpent, this at least may, I apprehend, 
 be stated safely, with the Divine already cited, 
 that the promise could comprehend only the 
 prospect of Redemption ; that it conveys no in- 
 timation of Atonement by Sacrifice ; that the 
 expression " the seed of the woman" could not 
 suggest the idea of the Supreme nature of the 
 Saviour, nor the " bruising of his heel" of his 
 penal sufferings and death''. But nothing is so 
 easy as to forget that texts may imply a truth 
 without suggesting it. The Resurrection of the 
 dead, for example, is shcM'n in that appellation, 
 " the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob ;" 
 but had any one discovered the doctrine in these 
 words, until our Lord unlocked their secret 
 sense^? And so of the prophecy to Abraham, 
 " in thee shall all nations be blessed," this the 
 Apostle describes as the very preaching of " the 
 Gospel ;" for indeed it implies the Universality 
 of the Gospel-covenant, and the Gospel-doctrine 
 of Justification by Faith"'. Yet so far were the 
 Jews from having imbibed either of these great 
 truths, that nothing was so difficult as to lead 
 them to the evangelical doctrine of Justification, 
 
 " Davison, Primitive Sacrifice, p. 168. and 153. 164., l60. 
 19s. 
 
 ' Excd. iii. 6. Matt, xxii 31 — 3S. 
 
 '" Gal. iii. 8. Acts x. xi. IS. xv. 13 — 18. See Discourses on 
 the Historical Scriptures, V. VI. 
 
SERMON III. 77 
 
 whilst as to the Universality of the Gospel, even 
 the Apostles were not without difficulty in- 
 structed, and this seven years subsequently to 
 the descent of the Holy Spirit, that to the 
 Gentiles also had God " granted repentance unto 
 life." 
 
 The Historical Scriptures, then, of the Old 
 Testament, it may thus appear, are and are not 
 a preparation for the Gospel. They do indeed 
 disclose to the eye of the Christian some of the 
 great foundations upon which the Christian Sys- 
 tem is established, but they do not offer to the 
 uninstructed that Introduction which we are 
 seeking to the doctrines of the Gos})el. And 
 if we proceed in the next place from the few 
 Types and Prophecies scattered up and down 
 in the Historical Scriptures to the full disclo- 
 sures of Gospel-truth in the Psalms and Prophets, 
 and the very remarkable system of Typical Insti- 
 tutions in the Law, we may still discover, that 
 although they are throughout prospective, looking 
 forward to the Gospel, and preparing the way 
 for it, yet neither do they constitute the natural 
 Introduction to the Christian doctrines. 
 
 And to this conclusion we may be led in part 
 by what has been already mentioned, the general 
 inability of the Jews to anticipate such element- 
 ary truths, as the Evangelical doctrine of Justi- 
 fication, or the Universal extent of the New 
 Covenant. 
 
78 SERMON III. 
 
 2. For that the Law of Moses was wonderfully 
 framed to prefigure the truths of Christianity, 
 the Christian could have scarcely doubted, even 
 if the New Testament had not informed him 
 that the law had " a shadow of good things to 
 come," and its singular institutions " served unto 
 the example and shadow of heavenly things"." 
 
 Even in the Facts upon which it was founded, 
 and which are made so prominent in the history, 
 as the Redemption of the Israelites from Egypt, 
 their Election, their conquest of Canaan, the land 
 of Promise, not for their righteousness, nor by 
 their own strength ; and again in their signal 
 privilege, the manifestation of the presence of 
 God dwelling among his people, the Christian 
 reader observes illustrations of the most import- 
 ant Christian doctrines, so apt and so remarkable, 
 that he cannot but regard them as designed ; and 
 to his mind they are striking confirmations of the 
 truth, although he would not employ them as 
 arguments to convince the unbeliever. 
 
 We pass on, however, to Rites and Institutions 
 avowedly typical, and possessing all the characters 
 of perfect and unequivocal Types ; that is to say, 
 
 " Heb. X. 1. viii. 2, 5, 6. ix 23. Col. ii. 17. The same truth 
 is also shewn incidentally ; as e. g. with respect to God's 
 dwelling among his people visibly under the Law, in\asibly 
 by his Spirit under the Gospel, and for a time in the person 
 of Christ, cf 2 Cor vi. 16. John i. 14. with Exod. xxv. 8. 
 xxix.4..'j. Lev. xxvi. 1 1, 12. and with the Prophets, Jer.xxxi. 3S. 
 xxxii. 38. Ezek. xi. 20. xxxvi. 28. xxxvii. 26, 27. xliii. 7. 
 
SERMON III. 79 
 
 being divinely appointed, and having their typical 
 import declared by divine authority, and ceasing 
 themselves and vanishing away when their Anti- 
 types appeared. Of this class, I need not say, 
 were the remarkable figures of the Christian 
 Atonement, and of Christ our only Mediator 
 and Advocate, in the Priesthood and the Sacri- 
 fices of the Law. Would that all Christians 
 admitted without reserve, as very nearly all do, 
 and, without some mistrust of the authority and 
 inspiration of the New Testament, cannot but 
 admit, the weight and value of these typical 
 appointments in establishing and enforcing the 
 infinite importance of the Christian realities ! 
 And would also that the Church of Rome had 
 not by doctrines, unknown to the Scriptures^ 
 concerning the Christian Priesthood, and the 
 sacrifice of the Altar, grievously obscured the 
 typical character of the Mosaic shadows ; causing 
 them to appear as if continued still in the Chris- 
 tian Church, instead of being fulfilled in Christ 
 our Lord, the one Priest and only Sacrifice under 
 the new covenant " ; obstructing, consequently, 
 the argument derived from the types of the Law, 
 and impeding the universal reception of the all- 
 important doctrine of the Christian Atonement ! 
 But further, because the Law, although sur- 
 
 " See Outram De Sacrificiis, lib. i. c. xix. §. v. See also a 
 Sermon by Abp. Whately on " Christ the only Priest under 
 the Gospel." 
 
80 SERMON III. 
 
 rounded by circumstances of awe and splendour 
 fitted to arrest the imagination and affections 
 of the chosen people, was nevertheless designed 
 for an office subordinate and preparatory, there 
 were seeds of weakness and vmprofitableness sown 
 within it from the first ; and by these also it 
 paved the way for Christianity. I do not allude 
 merely to the general Inferiority of the Law 
 when contrasted afterwards with the Gospel ; — 
 as, for example, in the visible presence of God 
 within the Tabernacle compared with His spiritual 
 presence in the Christian Church, or the succession 
 of its mediators mortal, and sinful, contrasted with 
 our heavenly Mediator, one, spotless, and eternal; — 
 for this inferiority, it is evident, could not be dis- 
 covered until after the advent of the Redeemer. 
 But I refer to particular Defects and Omissions 
 in the Law, which may well be conceived to have 
 been designed beforehand to lead reflecting minds 
 towards a "^ better covenant established upon bet- 
 ter promises," or at the least to incline them to 
 hail its approach with gladness, when it should at 
 length arrive. 
 
 Thus throughout the whole Law there are only 
 three instances in which the great natural duty of 
 Prayer is enjoined ; only one in which a blessing 
 is promised to Prayer; and not one, in which the 
 injunction is applicable to the whole people •". 
 Yet more remarkable is the fact, that the books 
 
 ■■ Lancaster, Harmony of the Law and the Gospel, c. vii. 
 
SERMON III. 81 
 
 of Moses, a collection of writings nearly equal in 
 extent to the whole volume of the New Testament, 
 contain no one express revelation of the Immor- 
 tality of the soul ; whilst the Law did not com- 
 prehend a future state of Retribution among its 
 sanctions, and did not afford one promise of 
 Eternal life. And, again, in that complex system 
 of sacrificial atonements, the Israelite would look 
 in vain for any complete expiation of moral guilt, 
 except in a very few specified instances, making 
 the general defect even more remarkable. For 
 the legal atonements, although they removed the 
 stain of ceremonial offences, only so far put away 
 moral guilt, that they procured acceptance for the 
 worship of the sinner ; enabling him indeed to 
 approach the presence of God and not die, but 
 not procuring for him the promise of forgiveness. 
 Neither did the Law, although it taught the effi- 
 cacy of national repentance in order to national 
 restoration, declare that personal Repentance 
 should avail for the forgiveness of personal guilt ; 
 nor would the sinner discover under the Law any 
 complete and sufficient Justification'. 
 
 So elaborately was the typical system adapted 
 by its negative as well as its positive character, 
 by its very defects and omissions as well as by 
 
 1 Bp. Warburton, Divine Legation. Davison, Discourses 
 on Prophecy, II. Lancaster, Harmony, &c. eh. vii. Sermon 
 on Extent and Efficacy of Mosaic Atonements, appended to 
 Discourses on Historical Scriptures. And see note at the end. 
 
 G 
 
82 SERMON III. 
 
 its positive Institutions, to be the forerunner of 
 the Gospel — its Rites and Institutions tending in 
 various v\'ays to excite and foster religious im- 
 pressions the most appropriate to fallen beings, 
 the sense of guilt and the hope of pardon, the 
 prospect of a mysterious road to reconciliation 
 and favour through mediation, intercession, and 
 vicarious sacrifice ; the unvirorthiness of man, the 
 holiness and justice, yet the mercy and placability 
 of his Maker — for indeed the mercy of God is the 
 basis of the whole religious creed of man fallen — 
 yet, again, its singular Omissions and Defects, 
 creating in reflecting minds as it were a want 
 and desire of a better covenant, which might 
 "bring immortality to light," and "justify them 
 from all things from which they could not be 
 justified by the law of Moses""." — Nevertheless, 
 when all these things have been unreservedly 
 admitted, is it to be supposed that the mere 
 study of the Law will be efficacious to lead the 
 minds of men, not previously initiated in Gospel 
 truth, to the genuine doctrines of the Gospel, 
 when so many even of those who were trained 
 up under the Legal Institutions misread them 
 altogether, and looking to the Law itself for Life 
 and Justification, rejected Him who came to com- 
 plete and to fulfil the Law ? 
 
 3. And now, if we attempt in like manner to 
 ' Acts xiii. 38, 39, 2 Tim. i. 10. 
 
SERMON III. 83 
 
 throw a rapid glance over the Preparation for the 
 Gospel as it was continued and enlarged by the 
 Psalmists and Prophets, let us bear in mind, that 
 the Jew who thus misunderstood the oracles of 
 his Law, had read them nevertheless under the 
 full light of Prophecy. 
 
 It was of necessity that a veil should be spread 
 over the face of Moses. It is of the essence of a 
 Type to be a concealed prophecy ; " needing to 
 be interpreted either by its divine Author, or by 
 the event ; that is, either by his Word, or by his 
 Providence'." But the import of his typical' 
 Institutions was unperceived or misinterpreted 
 by the Jew, notwithstanding that their Evange- 
 lical interpretation had been in part supplied 
 by the Prophets, and that mysterious veil in 
 part withdrawn. And if he failed to perceive 
 the Gospel when it had thus been '^ witnessed 
 both by the Law and by the Prophets," we may 
 be the rather inclined to believe, that the Old 
 Scriptures do not in fact supply that Introduc- 
 tion, which we are in search of, to the doctrines 
 of the New Testament. And yet it is almost 
 superfluous to mention what a vast flood of light 
 was poured upon the doctrines of Redemption by 
 the volumes of later prophecy. No longer like the 
 occasional predictions in the Historical writings, 
 exciting faint hopes of a reversal of the sentence 
 consequent upon the Fall, or obscurely promising 
 
 ' Davison, Primitive Sacrifice, p. I74. 
 
 g2 
 
84 SERMON III. 
 
 some great spiritual blessing ultimately to descend 
 upon all mankind, nor merely restricting the con- 
 veyance of this blessing through the line of Shem, 
 of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the tribe of Judah, and 
 the family of David, the later prophecy gradually 
 unfolded the very nature of the promised blessing, 
 the office of the Messiah, his Kingdom, his Divine 
 Nature, Incarnation, Vicarious Sufferings, his 
 Death, and its Atoning efficacy. What the Law^ 
 foreshadowed, the Prophets foretold; and foretold 
 gradually. Thus " the Atoning Sacrifice was 
 simply foreshadowed in the Law ; the Sufferings 
 of the Messiah, but not their expiatory office, are 
 depicted in the Psalms ; His Passion and Atone- 
 ment are united together in the later Prophecy*." 
 Whilst the proofs of human guilt and weakness 
 were gradually accumulating, the means of pardon 
 and grace were gradually unveiled. With the 
 dawn of the doctrine of the Atonement appeared 
 intimations of the efficacy of Personal Repentance, 
 the doctrines of a Resurrection, of Life and Im- 
 mortality. And the later Prophets did not simply, 
 as some have imagined, interpret the Mosaic 
 system, but gradually altered and expanded it, 
 shading it off into a better covenant, spiritual, 
 universal, everlasting. 
 
 Still " even these last oracles of Prophecy," 
 observes the eminent Divine already cited, " had 
 their difficulty and darkness resting upon them*- 
 ' Davison, Primitive Sacrifice, p. 175 — 177. 
 
SERMON III. 85 
 
 till the Gospelj which they foretold, gave them 
 their complete elucidation. — The doctrine of the 
 Gospel had been revealed, and not revealed. It 
 was dark, with the excess of the mystery, till it 
 shone in the person of the Saviour, in whom was 
 seen ' the fulness of grace and truth.' For then 
 was come the time when the plan of Grace and 
 Redemption was to be revealed by being ac- 
 complished, and the doctrines of it to be made 
 explicit objects of Faith*." Then, and not before, 
 according to St. Paul, came " the revelation 
 of the mystery, which was kept secret since 
 the world began, but now," he continues, " is 
 made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the 
 Prophets made known to all nations for the 
 obedience of faith "." 
 
 And this obscurity of Prophecy, antecedently 
 to its accomplishment, is occasioned not merely 
 by the nature of the subject, and the nature 
 of man, but by its own accustomed form and 
 structure. Not only is the work of our Re- 
 demption altogether " a Supernatural Dispens- 
 ation, and the mind of man is slow in appre- 
 hending the counsels of God ;" but the predictions 
 of this Supernatural Dispensation so spring for 
 the most part out of the history and circum- 
 stances of persons and dispensations then ex- 
 isting, as the sufferings of David, for example, 
 
 ' Davison, Primitive Sacrifice, p. 177- 
 
 " Rom. xvi. 25, 26. 1 Cor. ii. 7- Eph. iii. .6, 9. Col. i. 26. 
 
86 SERMON III. 
 
 or the captivity and restoration of Israel, that 
 even the Christian cannot always distinguish 
 them readily and certainly from the stock on 
 which they are engrafted. Hence even the 
 Prophets themselves " enquired and searched 
 diligently, searching what, or what manner of 
 time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did 
 signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings 
 of Christ, and the glory that should follow " :" 
 and how then should their predictions be other- 
 wise than obscure to those who have neither 
 the inspiration of the Prophet, nor the knowledge 
 of the Christian ? — " They pierced my hands and 
 my feet — they part my garments among them, 
 and cast lots upon my vesture ;" — ^interpreted by 
 the event, and by the Spirit in the New Tes- 
 tament, these words indeed, together with the 
 Psalm which contains them, bear certain and 
 evident testimony to Christ : what would they 
 suggest to one who has not been already 
 brought to Christ ? And yet this twenty-second 
 Psalm is described by Luther as " a kind ,of 
 gem among the Psalms that contain prophecies 
 of Christ and his kingdom. David," he says, 
 " does not seem to be delivering a prophecy of 
 the future, but a history of the past ; he speaks 
 of Christ nailed to the tree, and the piercing 
 of his hands and his feet, as if the whole had 
 
 ^ 1 Pet. i. 10—12. 
 
SERMON III. 87 
 
 taken place before his natural sight y." Just so 
 the heading of the hundred and tenth Psalm in 
 the English version is, " The kingdom, the 
 priesthood, the conquest, and the passion of 
 Christ ;" and Luther again declares concerning 
 it, " there is not a Psalm like it in the 
 whole Scripture ; and it ought to be very dear 
 unto the Church ; seeing that it confirms that 
 great article of faith — Christ's sitting at the 
 right hand of God the Father Almighty. For 
 Christ is here declared to be a King and Priest ; 
 sitting at God's right hand, not only as truly 
 man, but also as properly God, the Propitiator 
 and Mediator between God and men ; the Omni- 
 potent and the Eternal!" This is the com- 
 mentary of a Christian, when the Psalm had 
 been interpreted by Christ Himself ; but was not 
 our Lord's interpretation evidently received by 
 the Jew as a new and surprising doctrine * ?" 
 For the Jew did indeed expect in the Christ the 
 Son of David, but not his Lord. And thus also 
 Justin Martyr reasons with the Jew from the 
 Jewish prophecies, to prove this great doctrine of 
 the Divinity of the Messiah ; but this he does, 
 not as a Jew might have regarded them before, 
 but as they are illuminated by the full light of 
 
 ' Argumenta Psalmorum. Lutheri Op. torn. iii. p. 363, 
 382. Ed. Wittebergae, 1 583. See note at the end. 
 ' Matt. xxii. 41—46. Mark xii. 35—37. 
 
88 SERMON III. 
 
 Christian doctrine ; — nay, he confesses that they 
 had not been understood before, " since had ye 
 understood," he writes, " the things that were 
 spoken by the Prophets, ye would not have 
 denied that he is God, the Son of the only, and 
 unbegotten, and ineffable God"." Or let us 
 take the fifty-third chapter of the Prophet Isaiah, 
 which one eminent writer selects as the very 
 clearest example of ancient prophecy, and of 
 which another declares, that " this chapter, or 
 perhaps a single text in it, ' Thou shalt make his 
 soul an offering for sin,' comprehends more of the 
 real disclosure of this Christian principle, (the 
 Atonement,) than could be previously gathered 
 from all the Law and the Prophetsi>" — yet we 
 know that the Ethiopian, zealous as he must have 
 been in the pursuit of truth, was constrained 
 to ask, " of whom speaketh the prophet this ? of 
 himself, or of some other man?" — a fact pregnant 
 with instruction to those who would study the 
 Scriptures with no man to " guide them "." 
 Nay, we know who it was that opened the Scrip- 
 tures to his Disciples, and how " slow of heart" 
 
 " 'Evil ii nniiMji lu, ti^nfiha, u7tl tav Tr^oCfiifSy, owe iti \%ii^mrti 
 
 Dial, cum Tryphone, p. 355. Ed. Coloniae. (p. 408. Ed. 
 Thirlbii.) 
 
 '■ Paley, Evidences, Part II. ch. i. Davison, Primitive 
 Sacrifice, p. 176. 
 
 ■ Acts viii. 27 — 35. 
 
SERMON III. 89 
 
 had those Disciples been, " to believe all that the 
 Prophets had spoken," until their " hearts burned 
 within them," as their Lord and Master, " begin- 
 ning at Moses and all the Prophets, expounded 
 unto them in all the Scriptures the things con- 
 cerning Himself*," But indeed, as was observed 
 before, they had lost one of the very keys of the 
 ancient prophecies, which, in general, are then 
 most distinctly perceived to be Evangelical 
 predictions, when they speak of the calling of the 
 Gentiles, and that Universality of the Gospel 
 covenant, which in so marked a manner dis- 
 tinguishes it from the transitory partial covenant of 
 the Law ; but this very doctrine, notwithstanding 
 the teaching of the Prophets and of Christ Him- 
 self, even Apostles had not recognised until seven 
 years after the ascension of their Lord ^. So 
 vast is the difference between the anticipation 
 of events and their accomplishment, between the 
 disclosure of doctrines by prediction,, and by 
 direct instruction ; and so true is it that the Old 
 Scriptures are indeed " able to make us wise 
 unto salvation," but " through faith which is 
 in Christ Jesus." 
 
 H. I cannot, however, but be sensible that it 
 is somewhat difficult to carry the mind over 
 
 ^ Luke xxiv. 25—32. ' Acts x. xi. 1—18. xv. 13—18. 
 
90 SERMON III. 
 
 so large a field, and survey without distraction 
 at a single glance the varied subjects of the His- 
 tory, the Law, and the Prophets of the Old 
 Testament ; and this more especially when the 
 very business of the Discourse is to exhibit the 
 Old Scriptures as preparatory and not pre- 
 paratory to the New; as at once a studied 
 preparation for the Gospel, and yet not the 
 natural Introduction to the Gospel doctrines. 
 
 Let me then endeavour to bring these observ- 
 ations to a point, guard them against misappre- 
 hension, and finally illustrate them by one 
 distinct and important example. 
 
 1. In the first place, let it be repeated, that 
 in the Old Testament Religious Truth is indeed 
 written in characters of light, but not Christian 
 Truth ; truths of revelation of deep interest and 
 importance, but not Christian doctrines. Nay, 
 and Christian doctrines are written there also, 
 and to the eye of the Christian vividly and 
 distinctly written, but they are dark and enig- 
 matical to the uninstructed ; the Old Scriptures 
 being wonderfully adapted to cor^rm the faith of 
 the Christian, but not, in general, to introduce 
 the religious inquirer to Christian truth. 
 
 Not, however, by any means that we are to 
 withhold them even from the child. There is 
 nothing, I believe, so suitable even to the tenderest 
 
SERMON III. 91 
 
 years as the very words of the Scriptures of both 
 Testaments, explained, of course, illustrated, in- 
 troduced by the voice of the Christian teacher. 
 But we are speaking rather of the method of 
 proof than the order of perusal. Not, again, 
 that the successive Dispensations of Religion, 
 nay and the records of those Dispensations, and 
 every portion of the Old Scriptures, Historical, 
 Legal, Moral, Prophetical, might not, and did 
 not in very many ways prepare the minds of men 
 for the reception of the Saviour. It was their 
 office from the very first to keep alive in the 
 breasts of fallen and guilty men some cheering 
 hope of a Restoration ; and doubtless the figures 
 of the Law, and the voice of Prophecy, sounding 
 louder and louder, as the kingdom of heaven 
 came nearer, and sometimes even in distinct 
 Gospel strains, not obscurely blended with the 
 subjects of the temporal covenant^, but compel- 
 ling attention to Messiah and His kingdom, did 
 in effect awaken and sustain an expectation of 
 His advent. And thus when the Messiah at 
 length arrived, there were found some who 
 " looked for redemption in Jerusalem''." And 
 it would be presumptuous to affirm, that no indi- 
 vidual could be thus prepared even at this day 
 to accept the doctrines of salvation. But yet 
 
 s As, e. g. in Is. ii. xi. xl. Micah iv. Jer. xxiii. 5. xxxi. 31 . 
 Ezek. xxxvii. Dan. ix. Zech. iii. vi. Mai. iii. iv. 
 I- Mark xv. 43. Luke ii. 25. 38. xxiv. 21. 
 
92 SERMON III. 
 
 the doubts, and difficulties, and misconceptions, 
 and extreme slowness of heart " to believe all 
 that the Prophets had spoken," even in those 
 who had thus been prepared for the Gospel, and 
 who not only " waited for consolation in Israel," 
 but hung upon the lips of Him " who spake as 
 never man spake," may well assure us, that the 
 independent study of the Old Scriptures is not in 
 general the designed and appointed road to 
 Gospel truth. 
 
 For it is against the Theory of the exclusive, 
 independent study of the Scriptures that the pre- 
 sent argument is directed. This it is which I 
 would fain shew to be untenable, and opposed 
 to the intention of the Scriptures themselves, 
 whether we regard the New Testament or the 
 Old — the New Testament, as was formerly in- 
 ferred both from its history and its structure, 
 requiring some previous Introduction to the 
 Christian doctrines ; the Old Testament, as I 
 have now endeavoured to shew, although in various 
 ways preparatory to the Gospel and abundantly 
 confirming its sacred truths, not affording that 
 Introduction to them, which the Christian Scrip- 
 tures require, and which the Christian Church 
 supplies ; — both the volumes of Holy Writ, in a 
 word, leading us to one and the same conclusion, 
 and pointing out the true path to the attainment 
 of Christian Truth in the combined use of the Scrip- 
 tures and the Church. 
 
SERMON III. 93 
 
 2. But why so anxious, I may be asked, to 
 oppose the Theory which does not recognise this 
 appointed use of the Church, when it is but a 
 Theory after all, seldom if ever reduced to prac- 
 tice ? — Perhaps it very seldom is directly reduced 
 to practice. The advocate of the independent 
 study of the Scriptures would instruct his chil- 
 dren, probably, even as we should ; not obliging 
 them to discover Christian truth absolutely for 
 themselves by their own unaided study of the 
 sacred pages, but transmitting to them the light 
 which he had himself received. Nay in a Chris- 
 tian land it can scarcely be otherwise. Almost 
 every one must of necessity approach the Scrip- 
 tures with some previous knowledge of those 
 doctrines which the Church believes them to 
 convey. Thus the method of study will be 
 usually the same, whether we hold this theory or 
 not. But its indirect effects, when it is not 
 apparently reduced to practice, constitute its 
 chief danger. Not to speak of its ill effects 
 upon the disposition and the heart, the whole 
 proof of doctrine, as was formerly explained, will 
 be seriously affected by it. And the Scriptures 
 will appear under totally diflFerent aspects to 
 those who do, even in theory, and those who do 
 not, regard them as their sole Instructors in the 
 faith of Christ. 
 
 But enough or too much of general observa- 
 tions. One distinct example may be of more avail 
 
94 SERMON III. 
 
 to exhibit practically the use which we should 
 make of the Scriptures and of the Church, of the 
 Old Testament and of the New, and the practical 
 importance of that method which I would recom- 
 mend of attaining Christian truth. 
 
 How is it then, that to us the great doctrine 
 of the Christian Atonement is taught in every 
 page of the New Testament, and confirmed by 
 the united voice of the Law and the Prophets, 
 and yet others cannot read it there ? That to 
 them the Scriptures proclaim Eternal life, and 
 Christ is their Prophet, and their future Judge, 
 but He is not their Saviour 1 — One reason is, — 
 doubtless there may be many other reasons, and 
 some of them may be noticed hereafter, as we pro- 
 ceed to consider other means of attaining truth, and 
 the qualifications for employing them aright,— 
 but one reason surely is, that the Scriptures have 
 been regarded as the exclusive source of Christian 
 instruction ; that recourse, accordingly, has been 
 had to the Scriptures alone both for the state- 
 ment and the proof of the doctrine ; and the 
 statement not appearing sufficiently direct and 
 clear, neither does the proof appear sufficiently 
 convincing. 
 
 Then as we tender the eternal welfare of the 
 souls of men, believing that the King of kings 
 has appointed and revealed one only method by 
 which His subjects shall have access to His 
 throne, let us earnestly endeavour to dissipate a 
 
SERMON in. 95 
 
 theory which may be fatal to them. Let it be 
 supposed, — I feel indeed that it is peci^liarly 
 difficult in the instance of this particular doctrine 
 to make the supposition, but, considering how it 
 has been controverted, recollecting that there are 
 those who so far from thinking that it is clearly 
 taught, do not perceive that it is taught at all, 
 let us suppose — that the Christian Atonement is 
 not declared in the Scriptures with sufficient 
 clearness. But the Church can state the doc- 
 trine with all the distinctness of which the sub- 
 ject is capable ; and nothing but the living voice 
 of the Church, we may add, could adapt the 
 statement, by every conceivable variety of ex- 
 pression, to every mind of every age and capacity. 
 Only let her beware that she does not encumber 
 the simple doctrine of Revelation, with her own 
 conceptions of the grounds and reasons or the 
 fitness of the Atonement, as that it was necessary 
 as an adequate Satisfaction to the Divine justice 
 and the like, but simply declare the revealed 
 fact, that Jesus Christ, by His blood upon the 
 cross, effected the Reconciliation of a guilty 
 world to their Maker, and procured for them 
 Pardon and Acceptance". 
 
 ■■ See Mr. Veysie's Bampton Lecture, On the Atonement, 
 Sermon 1. p. 12—27- vi. p. 156 — 162. viii. p. 212, 213. where 
 human opinions concerning the grounds of the Christian 
 Atonement are distinguished from the revealed doctrine 
 itself. Altogether I would reccommend Mr. Veysie's work as 
 
96 SERMON III. 
 
 If it has been thus provided that the disciple 
 shall receive the statement, what place is there 
 for surprise or complaint from whatever quarter 
 the statement reaches him, whether from the 
 Scriptures or the Church ? But let him then 
 " search the Scriptures" with all diligence, 
 " whether these things are so '." He reads in 
 the New Testament, almost in every page, and 
 under a remarkable variety of expressions, that 
 Jesus is " the Lamb of God which taketh away 
 the sin of the world ;" His blood, " the blood 
 of the New Covenant, shed for many for the 
 remission of sins ;" that " we are justified by His 
 blood ;" that " when we were enemies, we were 
 reconciled to God by the death of His Son, by 
 whom we have now received the atonement;" 
 that " God was in Christ reconciling the world 
 unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto 
 them;" that we ''who sometimes were far off are 
 made nigh by the blood of Christ ;" that " He 
 is our peace," He " reconciles both (Jew and 
 Gentile) unto God in one body by the cross ;" 
 " through Him we both have access by one Spirit 
 unto the Father ;" we are " sanctified through the 
 offering of the body of Christ," " redeemed with 
 the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without 
 blemish and without spot ;" " He is the pro- 
 better calculated to satisfy a doubting mind, than Arch- 
 bishop Magee's able and ingenious Dissertations. 
 ' Acts xvii. 11. 
 
SERMON III. 97 
 
 pitiation for our sins/' " His blood cleanseth 
 us from all sin ;" " the Son of man came to give 
 His life a ransom for many ;" He " gave Him- 
 self a ransom for all," dvTiXvrpou a ransom 
 instead of all; hence we are "bought with a 
 price," by Him, namely, who " was slain, and 
 has redeemed us to God by His blood," who " was 
 offered to bear the sins of many," who " His own 
 self bare our sins in His own body on the tree :" 
 who " loved us, and gave Himself for us, an 
 oflFering and a sacrifice to God ;" for He was 
 " a merciful and faithful High Priest, to make 
 reconciliation for the sins of the people ;" " by His 
 own blood he entered in once into the holy place, 
 having obtained eternal redemption for us ;" and 
 by virtue of His " unchangeable priesthood," " He 
 is able to save them to the uttermost that come 
 unto God by Him, seeing he ever liveth to make 
 intercession for them '." 
 
 And after this, is it not the true and natural 
 question, by what expressions, if not by these, 
 would it be even possible that the doctrine of the 
 Atonement could, if true, be established at all ? 
 And yet this is not all. For we turn to the 
 
 ' John i. 29. Matt. xxvi. 28. Rom. v. 9— U. 2 Cor. v. 
 18—21. Eph. ii. 13— 18. Col. i. 20. Heb. x. 10. 1 Pet. i. 
 18, 19. 1 John i. 7 ii. 2. iv. 10. Rom. iii. 25, Matt. xx. 28. 
 1 Tim. ii. 6. 1 Cor. vi. 20. 2 Pet. ii. 1. Rev. v. 9. Heb. ix. 
 28. 1 Pet. ii. 24. Eph. v. 2. Heb. ii. 17. ix. 12, 14. vii. 24, 
 25, &c. And see Veysie's Lecture*, II, III, IV. 
 
 H 
 
98 SERMON III. 
 
 Old Scriptures to illustrate and confirm the 
 New. We do not read them, (why should we ?) 
 without the benefit of whatever light man can 
 throw upon them ; much less do we study them, 
 (as professing Christians how can we ?) without 
 that light from heaven, with which our Lord 
 Himself and His Apostles have illuminated their 
 sacred pages. Nay, we dare not read them 
 otherwise, lest that should happen to us which 
 formerly befell so many of those to whom the 
 oracles of God were first committed ; who 
 thought that in the Scriptures they had eternal 
 life, and overlooked their testimony to Him who 
 is our life ; or they expected Christ as the Son of 
 David, not as both the Son of David and his 
 Lord ; or " going about to establish their own 
 righteousness, they did not submit themselves 
 unto the righteousness of God, which is through 
 faith "." These are no imaginary dangers. The 
 errors of the elder Church are written for our 
 warning. 
 
 Therefore, " through faith which is in Christ 
 Jesus," we look to the holy Scriptures of the Old 
 Testament for wisdom unto salvation. And they 
 evidently disclose not only a wonderful chain of 
 testimony to the Saviour, linking together in one 
 harmonious system the successive revelations 
 
 " See John v. SQ, 40. Matt. xxii. 41—4(5. v. 17. Rom. x. 
 1—4. ix. 30, 31. 
 
SERMON III. 99 
 
 from the Fall to the Redemption, but a striking 
 confirmation of some of the most important 
 Gospel truths ; and perhaps above all others, of 
 this mysterious doctrine of the Atonement, in the 
 records of the Sacred History, and the types 
 of the Law, and the gradual disclosures of 
 Prophecy. 
 
 Both the volumes of Inspiration, again, throw 
 mutual light upon one another. Was blood 
 prohibited to Noah ? was it expressly given 
 under the Law as an atonement for the soul ? 
 were " almost all things under the Law purified 
 by blood, and without shedding of blood was 
 there no remission ?" — We have all these sur- 
 prising appointments of the typical system more 
 than accounted for by the great sacrifice under 
 the Gospel. Whilst this sacrifice, on the other 
 hand, its use and its efficacy, and all the various 
 ofllices of our great High Priest, our only Me- 
 diator, Intercessor, Advocate, are wonderfully 
 illustrated and interpreted by the typical insti- 
 tutions of atonement and expiation. 
 
 Hence also the utter disproof of that perverse 
 interpretation, (how can we express it by a 
 milder term, if we admit the authority of both 
 Testaments ?) which would resolve the whole 
 rhystery of the Gospel into a mere figure of 
 speech, making the shadows real, and the sub- 
 stance nothing. The Apostle instructs us, on 
 the contrary, that the figures are in the Law, the 
 
 h2 
 
100 SERMON III. 
 
 great realities in the Gospel ; and they are ex- 
 pressed in terms not strictly figurative, but 
 analogical ; the only terms in fact by which the 
 things of heaven can be expressed to earthly 
 ears. That is to say, when we term the Eu- 
 charist a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, we 
 do indeed employ a figure of speech, the Eucha- 
 rist not being itself a sacrifice, but the com- 
 memoration of a sacrifice ; when the death of the 
 Saviour, on the contrary, is called a Sacrifice, or 
 He is called our High Priest, these expressions 
 denote the substance, of which the Jewish sa- 
 crifices and high priest were the shadows. We 
 are incapable of exactly understanding the nature 
 of the sacrifice upon the cross, or the actual 
 offices of our Mediator and heavenly Intercessor, 
 and we have no proper terms by which to express 
 them ; but we obtain some notions, however 
 imperfect, of these great mysteries, by analogies 
 derived from their types under the Law, and we 
 are taught to borrow our expressions for them 
 from the types of the Law. As the animal 
 sacrifices or the Priesthood of Aaron to the 
 Jewish Economy, so is the Priesthood of Christ 
 or the great Sacrifice upon the Cross to the 
 Economy of Salvation. The Gospel realities 
 exceed the Legal shadows as heaven surpasses 
 earth ; it is impossible that we should form 
 worthy and adequate conceptions of them in any 
 ease ; were it not for the aid of the typical 
 
SERMON III. 101 
 
 institutions, could we have even expressed them, 
 or apprehended them at all"? 
 
 Lastly, the holy Scriptures of both Testaments 
 combine to demonstrate and enforce the extreme 
 importance of the doctrine of the Atonement ; 
 not simply by the long course of preparation 
 studiously carried on during four thousand years 
 for its ultimate reception, but by the remarkable 
 fact that it was made, as it were, the basis of 
 religious sentiment and action, even before it 
 could be revealed as an explicit article of faith. 
 For the sentiments and principles of faith were 
 taught and acted upon through the media of 
 promises and types, long before the explicit 
 revelation of Evangelical truth. And why was 
 this, but because it is the religion of man fallen ; 
 and it reconciles together the Holiness, and the 
 Justice, and the Mercy of Almighty God. Hence 
 our earnest and continual prayer, that we, and all 
 who acknowledge the unspeakable " love of God 
 in the Redemption of the world by Jesus Christ," 
 " may always most thankfully receive that His 
 inestimable benefit, and may also shew forth our 
 thankfulness not only with our lips, but in our 
 
 " On the important distinction between analogical terms, 
 and terms simply figurative, see Veysie, Bampton Lecture 
 V. See also Abp. King's Sermon on Predestination, edited 
 by Abp. Whately, and Bp. Copleston's admirable Note on 
 Analogical Terms, annexed to his third Discourse on 
 Necessity and Predestination, p. 115 — Ul. 
 
102 SERMON III. 
 
 lives ;" loathing the sin and the sinfulness which 
 required the sacrifice of the Son of God, " and 
 daily endeavouring ourselves to follow the blessed 
 steps of His most holy life ;" " looking for that 
 blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the 
 great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave 
 Himself for us, that He might redeem us from 
 all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar 
 people, zealous of good works ;" having our 
 conscience cleansed " from dead works, to serve 
 the living God >." And hence also our ex- 
 treme, our inexpressible anxiety, that not one 
 of our fallen and sinful race who has ever heard 
 the name of his Redeemer, may fail to know Him 
 as indeed his Saviour, approach the majesty of 
 the King of kings by the only appointed mode 
 of access to His throne, and render to the 
 God of Holiness not only a willing but an ac- 
 ceptable service % through His atoning blood, 
 and all prevailing merits, whom not only the 
 Church declares, but the Holy Scriptures, Old 
 and New, demonstrate, to be " the way, the truth, 
 and the life." 
 
 O Almighty God, whom truly to know is 
 everlasting life ; Grant us perfectly to know 
 thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, 
 
 V Tit. ii. 11 — 14. Heb. ix. 14. General Thanksgiving. 
 Collect for Second Sunday after Easter. 
 ' \ Pet. ii. 5. 
 
SERMON III 103 
 
 and the life ; that, following the steps of thy 
 holy Apostles, we may stedfastly walk in the 
 way that leadeth to eternal life ; through the 
 same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 Matt. xxii. 41 — 45. 
 
 WHILE THE PHARISEES WERE GATHERED TOGETHER, 
 JESUS ASKED THEM, SAYING, WHAT THINK YE OF 
 CHRIST f WHOSE SON IS HE ? THEY SAY UNTO HIM, 
 THE SON OF DAVID. HE SAITH UNTO THEM, HOW THEN 
 DOTH DAVID IN SPIRIT CALL HIM LORD, SAYING, THE 
 LORD SAID UNTO MY LORD, SIT THOU ON MY RIGHT 
 HAND, TILL I MAKE THINE ENEMIES THY FOOTSTOOL ? 
 IF DAVID THEN CALL HIM LORD, HOW IS HE HIS SON ? 
 
 Notwithstanding our descent from the same 
 first parents, it is plain that there is a vast diver- 
 sity, natural as well as acquired, in the consti- 
 tution of different minds. This great mysterious 
 doctrine, accordingly, of the Divinity of our 
 blessed Lord, whilst to some it is surrounded 
 with painful perplexities, and is hard to be re- 
 ceived, and difficult to prove, to others, it would 
 appear, presents scarcely any difficulty at all. 
 And hence one cause among others of the facility 
 with which Christian teachers too frequently refer 
 
106 SERMON IV. 
 
 the inquirer for proof of this doctrine, or of that 
 of the Trinity in Unity, to inconclusive arguments, 
 fanciful analogies, and texts inapplicable, or then 
 only applicable when the proof has already been 
 securely established upon other grounds. But 
 upon every principle of Christian charity we are 
 deeply bound to bear constantly in mind the 
 diflSculties which beset other men. Whatever 
 may have been the case with ourselves, we should 
 recollect the painful slowness and hesitation with 
 which others, not so happily circumstanced per- 
 haps, have at length embraced the truth. We 
 should consider also that there is nothing within 
 us or about us, which could naturally prepare our 
 minds for this great mystery of the Divinity of 
 Messiah ; that it is purely a doctrine of Revela- 
 tion ; and not only so, but that it appears at 
 first sight to conflict with other revealed facts, 
 and even with the great fundamental truth both 
 of natural and revealed religion concerning the 
 Divine nature : and further, that, unlike some 
 other important doctrines, (as, for example, that 
 of the Christian Atonement, when correctly apT 
 prehended,) it does not demand a belief which 
 even if unfounded could do no harm ; but that, 
 if untrue, it directly involves the believer in the 
 deepest guilt, since upon the correctness or incor- 
 rectness of this most important doctrine it imme- 
 diately depends, whether our worship of the Son 
 of God is piety or blasphemy, a duty or a sin. 
 
SERMON IV. 107 
 
 Altogether irrational, therefore, and inexcus- 
 able as it is, we must not be surprised if many 
 minds start away at once when they perceive, 
 or think they perceive, the advocates of such a 
 doctrine advancing in its support arguments 
 merely fanciful, or positively fallacious, or, as 
 it appears to them, even tending to heighten 
 the difficulty of the subject, and to strengthen 
 the opposite conclusion. But the greater the 
 danger of such a course as this, and the more 
 important the doctrine itself, so much the more 
 tremblingly alive ought we to be to the danger, 
 and scrupulously cautious in our method of 
 handling and proving the doctrine. 
 
 On the other hand it is easy to shew, that the 
 very difficulty, and ineffable importance of this 
 mysterious truth, combined with its almost uni- 
 versal reception, suggest a strong antecedent 
 presumption in its favour. And to unfold this 
 presumptive argument will form a part of the 
 business of the present Discourse, of which it will 
 be the general object — and may I be permitted 
 and enabled to pursue it, if not with advantage to 
 the cause of truth, yet without detriment to that 
 sacred cause, and without irreverence! — my ge- 
 neral object will be, to exhibit not indeed the full 
 
 PROOF OF THE DiVINITY OF OUR BlESSED LoRD, 
 
 but THE NATURE OF THAT PROof, SO far as it may 
 illustrate the present branch of the proposed 
 inquiry, the use, namely, of the Scriptures 
 
108 SERMON IV. 
 
 AND THE Church together, in order to thjb 
 
 ATTAINMENT OF CHRISTIAN TrUTH. 
 
 I. For I have been endeavouring hitherto 
 to lay a broad foundation for a very simple but 
 very important principle ; a principle, indeed, 
 with which you have become, of late years 
 especially, perfectly familiar, but which is still 
 denied in theory by many of our brethren, or 
 neglected in their practice ; whilst the opposite 
 theory, even when it is not directly acted upon, 
 seriously and injuriously affects their views of 
 revealed truth, and of the proofs of Christian 
 doctrines. This principle is the Use and Im- 
 portance, not to say the Necessity, of the teaching 
 of the Church of Christ as an Introduction to the 
 truths of the Gospel. And the Scriptures them- 
 selves, and of both Testaments, the Old as well 
 as the New, have been shewn to bear upon 
 the establishment of this great practical principle. 
 For we collected, in the first place, several Indi- 
 cations both from the external history of the 
 New Testament, and from its internal form and 
 structure, tending to prove the design and 
 intention of its inspired authors, or rather of 
 Him who inspired them, that the Church should 
 supply that Introduction to the Sacred Volume 
 which of itself it presupposes and requires ". 
 
 ' Sermon II. 
 
SERMON IV. 109 
 
 And, again, from a rapid survey of the varied 
 contents of the Old Testament, the History, 
 the Law, the Psalms and Prophets, it was 
 inferred that the Old Scriptures were in har- 
 mony with this design *"; and whilst they formed 
 altogether a vast and most important preparation 
 for the Gospel, yet were they not intended to 
 supply the usual and natural Introduction to the 
 Gospel-doctrines ; which were rather to be taught 
 by the Church, proved by the New Testament, 
 illustrated and confirmed by the Old. 
 
 1. But up to this point I have studiously 
 regarded this Introductory teaching of the Chris- 
 tian Church as without authority : — and this, not 
 because it is altogether, or always, or usually, 
 destitute of all authority, but because it ^nay 
 have only the slightest possible authority, or none 
 at all ; and because the total absence of au- 
 thority does not prevent the first and leading 
 use of this Introduction to the knowledge of the 
 truth. 
 
 It is a plain matter of fact, that from the days of 
 the Apostles down to our own, every Christian, 
 almost without exception, has been thus intro- 
 duced to every Christian doctrine, antecedently 
 to the study of the Scriptures ; and it is of no 
 slight importance to dwell upon the fact, prior to 
 any consideration of the authority, or the degree 
 '' Sermon III. 
 
no SERMON IV. 
 
 of authority, to which such an introductory sug- 
 gestion of the truth may or may not be entitled. 
 Does the Romanist, for example, affirm, that " the 
 fundamental principle which Protestantism pro- 
 poses as its basis, is, the individual examination 
 and discovery of its doctrines in the word of 
 God;" or does any Protestant writer incautiously 
 assume it to be the duty whether of Churches or 
 of Individuals to " draw out" of the Scriptures 
 for themselves the articles of the Christian faith"; 
 or is the alleged indirectness of the Christian 
 Scriptures the occasion of distressing doubt to 
 the believer, or a ground of objection with the 
 unbeliever ; — in any one of these cases let us 
 before all things advert to the fact, that another 
 method of discovering the truth, that is to say of 
 receiving the statement of the truth in the first 
 instance, is, and ever has been, in continual 
 operation. Whatever imaginary instances Lord 
 Bacon and others may have supposed'' of conver- 
 sions to Christianity effected by the Scriptures 
 alone, neither accompanied nor introduced by 
 the teaching of Christian men, the actual cases 
 of this kind have been exceptions to the common 
 
 ' Dr. Wiseman's Lectures at Moorfields, vol. i. p. 2?. 
 Mr. Benson's Discourses on Tradition, &c. p. 6, 14. 
 
 '' See the New Atlantis, Lord Bacon's Works, vol. iii. 
 p. 241 (1730). Hev. W. D. Conybeare's Bampton Lecture J. 
 p. 35, 36. Preface to Saurin's Sermons, translated by Robin- 
 son, vol. iii. p. 23, 24. 
 
SERMON IV. Ill 
 
 rule, and exceptions of rare occurrence. For the 
 most part, it is almost impossible that the Chris- 
 tian should have first discovered for himself in 
 the Scriptures any one of the great leading 
 doctrines of Christianity. From some source or 
 other of human uninspired instruction the state- 
 ment of the doctrine will have been first presented 
 to his mind ; and it cannot be his duty to make 
 that discovery of the truth originally in the 
 Scriptures, in v^hich he must of necessity have 
 been anticipated in consequence of the very ex- 
 istence of the Christian Church, and the natural 
 constitution of human society. It can only be 
 his duty to compare the statement with the 
 proof, and ascertain, as he best may, and doubt- 
 less with the best advantages within his power, 
 that the statement which he has received from 
 the Church is supported by the authority of 
 Revelation. 
 
 Looking to that continual stream of oral and 
 uninspired instruction, which, in point of fact, 
 has ever conveyed from age to age the truths of 
 the Gospel, and with the view of marking its 
 perpetual succession and continuity, which is 
 indeed an instance of a gracious and merciful 
 provision for our necessities, we might, perhaps, 
 venture to denote it by the term " Tradition ;" 
 but if so, we must be careful to add, that it is 
 Tradition " Unauthoritative." And this, not 
 merely to distinguish it from that authoritative 
 
112 SERMON IV. 
 
 Tradition, whose usurping or ambiguous claims 
 have so frequently perplexed the Church of Christ, 
 but also because it is not essential to the use of 
 that Introductory teaching of which we speak, 
 that it should possess any authority at all. Any 
 particular tradition, in the common sense of the 
 word, depends for its use and value upon the 
 degree of authority which it may justly claim. 
 And we must ascertain its authority before we 
 can adopt or employ it. This Tradition, on the 
 contrary, if we may apply the term to that 
 constant stream of oral teaching, by which, in 
 fact, the doctrines of the Gospel have ever been 
 suggested, and primarily introduced to the 
 minds of men, has its use, not on account of 
 its authority, but of its office in suggesting 
 the truth. 
 
 Nay, and there are cases in which it may be 
 entitled to no just authority. The truth may be 
 first suggested to us, for example, by one to 
 whom we owe no deference in respect of his age, 
 wisdom, learning, character, office, or relation ; 
 or the statement of a doctrine may be derived to 
 us from a Christian Society greatly and mani- 
 festly corrupt in doctrine and practice; or we 
 cannot but know, perhaps, that different in- 
 dividuals or different Churches advance con- 
 flicting statements, and if we are utterly un- 
 able to hold the balance of contending au- 
 thorities, it is to us as if either statement were 
 
SERMON IV. 113 
 
 presented to our minds altogether devoid of 
 authority. 
 
 And yet it may be, and surely it is, a very mer- 
 ciful dispensation of Providence, and a gracious 
 appointment of our Lord and Saviour, by which 
 we are not directed to His written word for the 
 primary intimation of the truth ; but man is to 
 teach man ; and upon no one is the arduous duty 
 imposed of drawing out for himself originally the 
 truths of Revelation. It may be of .vital con- 
 sequence to us thus to have received the state- 
 ment of some important doctrine, and so to 
 proceed to the investigation of its truth ; not 
 merely because the doctrine itself might have 
 been overlooked by the unassisted student of the 
 Scriptures, had it not been thus presented to his 
 mind ; but further, because, as has been more 
 than once observed before, the character of the 
 proof itself of the doctrine is immediately 
 affected by this combination of the unauthoritative 
 statement, with the. authoritative Scriptural proof. 
 What might have seemed oblique or indistinct in 
 the Scriptures, nay painfully so even to the 
 Christian believer, whilst they were supposed to 
 be the sole fountain both of the statement and 
 the proof, now becomes luminous, and powerful, 
 and irrefragable, when regarded merely as the 
 proof of a doctrine, the statement of which was 
 by the Divine intention and appointment to be 
 sHpplied from another source. 
 
114 SERMON IV. 
 
 And thus, I doubt not, has the great truth of 
 the Divinity of the Messiah been introduced to 
 the knowledge of many a devout and sincere 
 inquirer, vi^ho has then perceived the full force 
 of the Scriptural proof of the doctrine, has 
 bowed to the indisputable authority of Revela- 
 tion, has believed and adored. 
 
 2. But not every mind passes on by a path so 
 smooth and direct to the acceptance of this high 
 and mysterious doctrine, exposed to no painful 
 trials from distressing doubts or perplexing 
 objections. And has the Church nothing fur- 
 ther to present to the inquirer besides this 
 Unauthoritative Introduction to the truth ? Are 
 there no considerations to be offered to him, 
 intervening between the mere statement of the 
 truth and its proof by Scripture, and calculated 
 to relieve his difficulties, and assist his progress ? 
 Assuredly there are. And here of course it is that 
 many would introduce the Authority of the Church, 
 if not to remove his doubts, yet to silence them ; 
 some, as the Romanists, generally, with respect 
 to every doctrine which the Church professes to 
 teach ; others only with reference to a particular 
 class of Christian truths, of which this doctrine 
 would undoubtedly be one. The general subject, 
 however, of the Authority of the Church will be 
 more conveniently considered upon a future 
 occasion. At present I would only advert to 
 
SERMON IV. 115 
 
 certain presumptive arguments in favour of the 
 Divinity of our blessed Lord, (and applicable 
 also to other doctrines in various measures and 
 degrees,) probabilities in support of it, or im- 
 probabilities opposed to a contrary conclusion, 
 of such a kind as must, in the judgment of a 
 reasonable mind, affect the estimate of the 
 nature or amount of the proof itself. 
 
 Of this class is the general, the almost uni- 
 versal, reception of the truth, not in this country 
 alone or in this age, but to the East and West, 
 and North and South, throughout all Christen- 
 dom in every Church, and from our own times 
 upwards, so far as the records of Christianity 
 extend ; overcast only, from time to time, by 
 dark but passing clouds of unbelief, or inter- 
 rupted by the dissentient voices not of any 
 national Church, but of individuals, or of small 
 societies. 
 
 Does any one doubt whether a presumption of 
 this nature ought to be entertained at all by the 
 free unprejudiced inquirer ? — Let him only for 
 one moment consider what would have been the 
 natural and just effect of opposite circumstances. 
 Suppose that now, in our own age, eighteen 
 centuries after the Revelation of the Gospel, 
 the Divinity of Messiah had been put forth as 
 the new discovery of some diligent student of the 
 Scriptures : what a weight of argument and 
 evidence would be required to induce any one to 
 
 I 2 
 
116 SERMON IV. 
 
 believe, that so momentous a doctrine had up to 
 this day lain dormant in the book of Revelation ! 
 Or suppose that the general belief of all ages and 
 Churches had not extended beyond the simple 
 Humanity of Messiah, and that His Divinity had 
 been maintained only by a few zealous men, not 
 without learning and ingenuity, but whose efforts 
 and talents had never achieved any thing more 
 than a limited and occasional success, had never 
 won the consent of a single National Church : 
 would not a reasonable mind consider their ill 
 success as some argument against their creed ? — 
 Then is there some deference naturally due to 
 the general belief of the Church at large ; and 
 universal consent, or an approximation to it, 
 justly affects our estimate of the nature and 
 amount of the Scriptural proof of doctrine. It is 
 but an ineffectual struggle against Nature and 
 against Providence, to maintain a contrary po- 
 sition. We cannot, if we would, .undo the natural 
 and social ties which link our minds to those of 
 other men. And whosoever, through a blind fear 
 of prejudice, attempts to insulate himself, and 
 study the Scriptures as if they had been unknown 
 before, will fail indeed in his attempt ; but, in 
 so far as it is successful, he will have thrown 
 away advantages, for the just use of which he is 
 and must be responsible. 
 
 But may not the general assent to the doctrine 
 have been indolent, passive, uninquiring ?— Then 
 
SERMON IV. 117 
 
 in proportion to the zeal and judgment, the 
 honesty, intelligence, and piety, with which the 
 proof has been investigated, will the presumption 
 in favour of the doctrine gain strength. If that 
 branch of the Church of England, for example, 
 which has taken root in the United States, is 
 known to have considered and revised the Book 
 of Common Prayer, and. to have judged it better 
 not to retain the use of the Athanasian Creed in 
 her public services, still retaining her full belief 
 in the doctrines of that Creed, shall we not 
 presume that the ground of those doctrines was 
 reconsidered at the same time ? But how much 
 more if we look back to the aera of the Re- 
 formation, and observe the whole of Western 
 Christendom engaged in one monstrous discus- 
 sion concerning the first principles of faith and 
 worship ? — ^vast powers, and vast erudition, the 
 _piety and intrepidity of Martyrs, all brought 
 to bear upon the great truths of the Gospel, 
 their import, definition, and proof — and the re- 
 sult of those awful discussions, in every Church, 
 the solemn and repeatedly renewed asseveration 
 of the truth of this great doctrine. Is it possible 
 that any one can take into his hands any col- 
 lection of the Confessions of Faith put forth 
 by the various Protestant Churches at this 
 momentous sera, and observe their agreement 
 .with one another and with the Universal Church, 
 .their absolute unity as to this truth, and I may 
 
118 SERMON IV. 
 
 add as to all the other connected doctrines 
 touching the mystery of the Unity in Trinity, 
 and still believe that there is nothing in this 
 remarkable consent of judgments ? that he is 
 to examine the proof of doctrine as if it were 
 altogether new, and none of his race had ex- 
 amined it before ? — Naturally, and reasonably, 
 on the contrary, do several of these Confessions 
 of Faith, as those of Helvetia, Augsburg, Saxony, 
 in the very midst of their appeals to Scripture, 
 their assertions of the Sufficiency of Holy Scrip- 
 ture, their repudiation of human Traditions, and 
 their remonstrances against Romish Errors, dwell 
 nevertheless upon their having retained the true 
 Scriptural faith of the Church Catholic". The 
 force, meanwhile, of their unanimity in this 
 doctrine, it is obvious, is greatly heightened 
 by their pointed discrepancies upon other sub- 
 jects. Compare, for example, the Confessions 
 and Articles of faith of the Churches of England 
 and Scotland, differing exceedingly not merely 
 in some important particulars, but in their 
 general tone and spirit ; or compare all the 
 Confessions of the Protestant Churches with 
 one another, and again with those of the Greek 
 
 " See the " Sylloge Confessionum,'' (Oxford, 1804.) Pre- 
 face to the Helvetic Confession, p. 10, 16. cf. Art. II. p. 18, 1 9. 
 The Confession of Augsburg, p. J 27. cf. Art. XV. p. 137. 
 and the Epilogus, p. 196. Of Saxony, Preface, p. 205, 206, 
 207, 208, 209. cf. 280. 
 
SERMON IV. 11!) 
 
 Church and the Church of Rome, and consider 
 their disagreement upon so many points even 
 of great importance, and their universal agree- 
 ment in this doctrine, and judge whether some 
 deference is not justly due to a unanimity so 
 remarkable in itself, and amidst circumstances 
 so remarkable. 
 
 All these things are known to almost every 
 one who is likely to approach the proof of the 
 Divinity of our Lord with misgivings and mis- 
 trust ; but some may ascend higher towards the 
 source, and trace the doctrine to primitive times. 
 Not that it is to be desired of every inquirer that 
 he should study the history and decrees of Coun- 
 cils, and examine the copious remains of Christian 
 Antiquity at all ; much less that he should do so 
 prior to his examination of the Scriptures them- 
 selves. But at a very little cost of learning and 
 labour certain facts may be ascertained sufficient 
 to establish a presumption in favour of the doc- 
 trine received and taught by the Church, and to 
 weaken the effect of adverse prejudices. Is it as- 
 serted, for instance, by modern Unitarian writers, 
 that the Fathers of the first three centuries were 
 generally Unitarians, and believers in the simple 
 humanity of Jesus Christ '' ? It is easy to ascertain, 
 
 "* Lindsey's Apology, p. 23, 24. Belsham's Calm Inquiry, 
 p. 255, cited by Dr. Burton, Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene' 
 Fathers to the Divinity of Christ, Introduction, p, viii. 
 
120 SERMON IV. 
 
 on the contrary, not only, what is notorious, that 
 early in the fourth century His Divinity was the 
 distinct and deliberately asserted belief of the 
 Church, but that the Confessions of faith of that 
 century were professedly the transcript of those 
 truths which had been handed down in the 
 Church ; that these Creeds were the results of 
 actual discussion and conferences, occasioned by 
 tenets of a diflFerent description maintained in- 
 deed by many but condemned as heretical by the 
 majority of the Bishops and Clergy of every 
 branch of the universal Church ; that the very 
 heresies, however, of primitive times were Trini- 
 tarian in their character, indicating the truth 
 whilst they misconceived it ; (for what indeed 
 are the errors of the Docetae, of Eutyches and 
 Nestorius, and Sabellius, nay what are the vain 
 eflfbrts of the Arians ancient or modern, but in- 
 direct attestations and reluctant testimonies to 
 the true doctrine ?) and that finally, looking 
 back from these unhappy discussions, we can even 
 now trace the doctrine of the Divinity of the 
 Messiah in writer after writer throughout each 
 preceding century up to the very age immediately 
 succeeding that of the Apostles ; and this not as 
 the belief of those individuals alone, but frequently 
 as the expression of the faith professed by the 
 Church at large, and not in one country alone, 
 but at Antioch, Sardis, Ephesus, Athens, Rome, 
 
SERMON IV. 121 
 
 Carthage, Alexandria, in almost every branch of 
 the then existing Church «. 
 
 Important, however, as facts like these would 
 be in any case, their importance is immeasurably 
 enhanced by the nature of the doctrine itself. 
 Granted that in many things many Churches 
 have erred, and that no one in particular, nor all 
 of them together, or speaking by their bishops or 
 representatives in General Councils, are infalli- 
 bly secured from error, yet is there some mean- 
 ing, and we must repose some confidence, in the 
 glorious predictions of the Prophets, and the 
 merciful promises of the Lord Himself. In some 
 sense He is to be with His Church always 
 even unto the end of the world. But if every 
 Church has indeed throughout every age erred 
 to this extent, and not merely has Heathenism 
 been overthrown, but the true faith of the Jew 
 has been set aside, only to make way for a 
 blasphemous and degrading superstition, the 
 adoration of the creature, the worship of a mere 
 mauj then must we confess that Revelation, as a 
 Revelation, has signally and altogether failed. 
 We have no other alternative. We must either 
 admit the total failure of the Christian revela- 
 tion, as a Revelation of the truth, or we must 
 recognise a presumption, and a very strong pre- 
 
 ' See Dr. Burton's Testimonies, &c. : and note at the end. 
 ' See Waterland, Importance of the Doctrine of the Holy 
 Trinity, ch. vi. vii. Works, vol. v. 
 
laa SERMON IV. 
 
 sumption, in favour of the doctrine of the Divinity 
 of our blessed Lord. 
 
 II. Is then the teaching of the Church infalli- 
 ble ? Or is Tradition after all the ground upon 
 which we rest the doctrine ? Far otherwise. Let 
 us hold to the Scriptures. Upon them let the 
 proof be established. Only let us not consult 
 them at a disadvantage by no means designed by 
 their Divine Author, but gratuitously introduced 
 by man, in contravention to His gracious purpose. 
 And what has hitherto been stated, or rather 
 briefly hinted, and just suflRciently touched upon, 
 it is hoped, to exhibit the nature of the subject, 
 may indicate the mode in which the Scriptural 
 Proof should be approached, and how it should 
 be examined and applied. 
 
 1. For with what frame of mind should we in 
 all reason approach the consideration of the proof 
 of a doctrine, in whose behalf such strong ante- 
 cedent presumptions are advanced ? It is not 
 merely that in any case the whole character of 
 the proof is altered, when what might have 
 otherwise appeared unaccountably oblique and 
 indirect, is found to have been ever preceded,, 
 and accompanied, and intended to be so, by 
 statements of the truth as direct and explicit as 
 could even be desired : but in the instance of a 
 
SERMON IV. 123 
 
 doctrine so important in itself, and so examined 
 and received as this has been, to approach the 
 proof of it without the utmost seriousness, and 
 docility, and even self-distrust, becomes alto- 
 gether irrational, and plainly presumptuous. 
 
 Be it so that the Church in the Nicene period 
 was too subtle and curious in her definitions of 
 doctrine; or that instead of repressing the Here- 
 tic in his daring speculations, she has sometimes 
 presumed to follow him, and cope with him, 
 upon ground too holy for human tread ; or that 
 she has set too great store occasionally by the 
 exact enunciation of mysterious truths, and neg- 
 lected the weightier matters of the law — if these 
 things be so, and I fear, to a certain extent, 
 they are — whilst they speak of human infirmity, 
 they tell also of so much anxious thought em- 
 ployed upon the mysteries of faith, as may well 
 demand our gratitude in some instances, and 
 always deference and respect. Rate the in- 
 herent difficulty and improbability of the doc- 
 trine .at the highest possible amount, — and we 
 must not measure that improbability, as it may 
 appear to other minds, by the facility with which 
 we may have embraced the truth ourselves — still 
 reason and religion alike forbid the hasty disr 
 missal of the proof, and that of course a cumula- 
 tive proof, because the inquirer thinks he has 
 discovered here and there a flaw, a weakness, an 
 
124 SERMON IV. 
 
 absurdity. — " We think that the phrase ' God 
 manifest in the flesh' is a corruption ; we are con- 
 fident that the text of the heavenly witnesses is an 
 interpolation ; for ' in the beginning was the 
 Word' we have an interpretation different from 
 that of the Church ; we acknowledge no proof 
 of the Divinity of Messiah in His assertion, * I 
 and my Father are one,' since the unity of Christ 
 and His disciples is expressed in terms of exactly 
 the same import." — After this manner, it is 
 greatly to be feared, and upon such grounds as 
 these, have some presumed to cast away the 
 faith of the Universal Church, and never enter 
 upon the full and calm consideration of its proof 
 in the Scriptures, And this is most irrational. 
 It is irrational even if some of the arguments 
 alleged in its support are utterly baseless, or 
 unsound. One man, for example, would reason 
 in favour of the Unity in Trinity, from the traces 
 of Trinitarian notions amidst the superstitions of 
 the East, which may appear to other minds 
 even to militate against his conclusion^; another 
 argues that infinite justice required an infinite 
 sacrifice, and therefore the Saviour was Divine, 
 whereas the contrary argument would be no less 
 valid, in other words both would be equally 
 fallacious, if it were replied that the sins of finite 
 
 8 Bishop Tomline (after Mr. Maurice) on the 39 Articles, 
 Article I. Elements of Theology, vol. ii. p. 73. 
 
SERMON IV. 125 
 
 beings required only a finite sacrifice, wherefore 
 the Saviour was not Divine''. 
 
 Nothing of this kind will move a reasonable 
 man from the plain path of duty. He will feel 
 assured, that the faith of the Universal Church 
 has not been established upon arguments like 
 these. He will " search the Scriptures" patiently 
 and thoroughly " whether these things be so." 
 To weigh and analyze the Scriptural proof with 
 all carefulness may now appear to him a more 
 important duty, but it would in any case have 
 been his duty. And the more startling the doc- 
 trine to his mind, the more difficult it appears to 
 him to conceive of such a manifestation of God as 
 this, the un'.on of the Divine and Human natures 
 in the person of Messiah, the eternal Word made 
 very man, " God manifest in the flesh" — so much 
 the less will he deem it probable, that such a 
 doctrine could have been acknowledged, and 
 maintained, century after century, by " the holy 
 Church throughout all the world," without an 
 overwhelming proof in the word of Revelation. 
 
 2. To display that proof in its full proportions 
 upon the present occasion would be unnecessary, 
 
 '■ See Mr. Veysie's Bampton Lecture, Sermon I. p. 23, 24. 
 and Archbishop Magee's Dissertations on Atonement and 
 Sacrifice. Yet the argument has been formally employed, 
 subsequently to the exposure of its fallacy by these able 
 writers. 
 
126 SERMON IV. 
 
 and is in truth impossible. Whoever would 
 investigate it aright, must search the Scriptures 
 themselves. He must not only search them for 
 single texts, but thoroughly study and peruse the 
 Scriptures. Every even the fullest collection of 
 single texts and insulated passages impairs the 
 proper force of the proof, which depends upon 
 the combined effect of the whole ; upon the 
 manner in which the doctrine which the Church 
 declares is not merely taught in the book of 
 Revelation, but is assumed, and implied, and 
 interwoven, as it were, with its very texture. 
 
 But, as has been said, carefully to weigh and 
 analyze the Scriptural proof, is the very duty of 
 the devout inquirer. And with a view to the 
 more complete illustration of the use of the 
 Scriptures and the Church together, in the 
 investigation of sacred truth, it may not be 
 unprofitable even now to offer a few suggestions 
 upon the mode in which the declarations of Holy 
 Writ should be examined, and should be applied 
 more or less directly, in proof of the teaching 
 of the Church. 
 
 Thus, having admitted that Jesus Christ was 
 indeed a Prophet sent from God, we naturally 
 turn, in the first place, to His own declarations 
 concerning His own office and person. But 
 supposing Him to be in truth " God dwelling 
 among us," we could not expect that He should 
 openly declare his Divine nature so long as He 
 
SERMON IV. 12T 
 
 appeared in this world under the veil of the 
 nature of man. His words upon earth would 
 rather be strange, startling, and mysterious, 
 fitted to excite awful expectations of the truth, 
 such as devout men would muse upon, and lay up 
 in their hearts, even until He was exalted and 
 glorified. Such a preparation for the doctrine, 
 accordingly, we discover not merely in some few 
 insulated passages, but even in His usual and 
 accustomed turns of expression. To this purpose 
 is His frequent designation of Himself, as " the 
 Son," as contrasted with " the Father," and that 
 Father the Most High. *' All things are de- 
 livered unto me of my Father ; and no one 
 knoweth the Son, but the Father ; neither know- 
 eth any one the Father, save the Son, and he to 
 whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." " But of 
 that day and that hour knoweth no one, no not the 
 Angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but 
 the Father." He does not employ this language 
 merely in parables, — " last of all He sent unto 
 them His Son ;" " having yet one Son, His well-be- 
 loved," — but in His most explicit declarations of 
 fact and doctrine ; " God sent not his Son into 
 the world to condemn the world — God so loved 
 the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, 
 that whosoever believeth in Him should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life." " As the 
 Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth 
 them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. 
 
128 SERMON IV. 
 
 For the Father judgeth no one, but hath com- 
 mitted all judgment unto the Son ; that all men 
 should honour the Son even as they honour the 
 Father." " The Son abideth ever. If the Son 
 therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free 
 indeed." " Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, 
 that will I do, that the Father may be glorified 
 in the Son ^." — And not only is the truth implied 
 in our Lord's continual use of the expressions, 
 "the Son," "the Son of God," "the only-begotten 
 Son of God," it is indicated again, in His other re- 
 markable designation of Himself, as " the Son of 
 man," which is evidently employed to signify 
 that He was also more than man. " The Son of 
 man hath power on earth to forgive sins ;" " the 
 Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day;" " of 
 him shall the Son of man be ashamed when he 
 Cometh in the glory of His Father with the holy 
 angels ;" " the Son of man is not come to destroy 
 men's lives, but to save them;" "the Father hath 
 given Him authority to execute judgment also, 
 because He is the Son of man." " What and if 
 ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He 
 was before ?" " no one hath ascended up into 
 heaven, but He that came down from heaven, 
 even the Son of man which is in heaven V This 
 
 '' Matt. xi. 27. Luke x. 22. Mark xiii. 32. Matt. xxi. 37. 
 Mark xii. 6. John iii. 16, I7. v. 19—23. vi. 40. viii. 35, 36. 
 xiv. 13. 
 
 ' Matt. ix. 6. xii. 8. Mark viii. 38. (cf. Matt. xvi. 27. xxv. 
 
SERMON IV. 129 
 
 designation, in a word, implies His humiliation ; 
 and His humiliation implies His previous glory ; 
 and the seeming paradox of a great advocate! 
 of the faith is justified, " The title of the Son 
 of man belongs to Him as God the Son, the 
 title of the Son of God belongs to Him as 
 man ''." 
 
 But these frequent and yet peculiar expres- 
 sions ' are only unfolded, or rather preparation 
 is made for their being fully unfolded at the 
 proper time, in those passages which plainly 
 invite the attention of the people to the dignity 
 of Messiah's person. As in the text, " What 
 think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He?" And 
 when the Pharisees reply in terms applicable 
 only to His human nature, they are expressly 
 remanded to their own Scriptures, and pressed 
 with the argument, " If David then call Him 
 
 31. Luke ix. 26. Zech. xiv. 5. Jude 14. John xvii. 5.) Luke 
 ix. 56. John v. 27. vi. 62. iii. 13. 
 
 ' Bp. Horsley, Sermon xiii. Works, vol. i. p. 261. See 
 note at the end. 
 
 ' Of the expression " the Son of man," it is observed by 
 Archdeacon Paley, that it " is in all the Evangelists found 
 under the peculiar circumstance, of being applied by Christ 
 to Himself, but of never being used of Him, or towards 
 Him, by any other person. It occurs seventeen times in St. 
 Matthew's Gospel, twelve times in St. Mark's, twenty-one 
 times in St. Luke's, and eleven times in St. John's, and 
 always with this restriction.'' Evidences, part ii. ch. 4. Con- 
 trast with this the expressions used by our Lord in Rev. i. 
 a. 11. 17, 18, &c. 
 
130 SERMON IV. 
 
 Lord, how is He his son ?" — To the same 
 purpose the question to the Disciples, " Whom 
 do men say that I, the Son of man, am ?" and 
 the emphatic blessing pronounced upon St. Peter 
 for that confession of faith, " Thou art the Christ, 
 the Son of the living God," which in effect de- 
 clared that He was both the Son of man and the 
 Son of God. And again, the striking instances, 
 more than once or twice recorded, in which our 
 Lord intentionally adopts expressions, which to 
 those who knew not His Divine nature must, 
 and did, appear profane and blasphemous, 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto you. Before Abraham 
 was, I am ;" " My Father worketh hitherto, and 
 I work ;" " The Father is in me, and I in Him ;" 
 " I and my Father are one'"." Does the Unita- 
 rian say, and say correctly, that the forms of 
 expression in the two verses last cited, being 
 precisely the same with those in which our 
 Saviour would describe the union of His disciples 
 with one another and with God, they cannot 
 be adduced in proof of His Divine nature? 
 Nevertheless, how were they understood at the 
 time ? " For a good work," said the Jews, " we 
 stone thee not, but for blasphemy ; and because 
 that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." 
 We are not therefore to cite words like these 
 
 ™ Matt. xxii. 41— 4,5. xvi. 1.3— 20. John viii. 58. v. 18. 
 X. 29—39. (cf. John xvii. 11. 22.) xvii. 5. Matt, xxviii. 
 19, 20. 
 
SERMON IV. 131 
 
 apart from their context, as distinct propositions. 
 Viewed in their place, and with their context, 
 and with their effect upon the hearers considered, 
 and that effect clearly foreseen by our Lord, they 
 become arguments of His meaning and intention. 
 They harmonize with those continual designa- 
 tions of Himself before alluded to, they are parts 
 of one common plan. And that awful sense 
 assigned to them at first by the Jews, and by 
 the Church ever afterwards, what is it but 
 a solution of other expressions otherwise inex- 
 plicable ? as in our Lord's latest prayer and last 
 command, " And now, O Father, glorify me with 
 thine own self with the glory which I had with 
 Thee before the world was ;" and, " Go ye there- 
 fore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost." Explained by the doctrine of the 
 Church, all these passages are consistent and 
 intelligible. And however difficult that doctrine, 
 it is at least incomparably more easy than to 
 suppose a mere man, being yet a Prophet, a 
 true and inspired Prophet, thus to speak and to 
 pray, and to command His Disciples thus to be 
 baptized, according to the Socinian hypothesis, 
 into the name of God, and of a man, and of 
 a Divine energy or operation. 
 
 But once more let the text claim our attention. 
 It directs our thoughts to another source of proof, 
 sometimes, perhaps, too much insisted upon, 
 
 k2 
 
132 SERMON IV. 
 
 sometimes unaccountably omitted", the indica- 
 tions, namely, of the doctrine in the Old Tes- 
 tament. 
 
 For the Divinity of Messiah is not only not a 
 discovery of these later days, it was not altogether 
 a new doctrine even at the first preaching of our 
 Lord. True it had been shrouded in thick 
 clouds and darkness, scarcely to be penetrated 
 except by the direct beams of the Gospel ; yet 
 glimpses of the truth seem to have been caught 
 by pious men in earlier times. Thus the Son of 
 Sirach, for example, appears to have apprehended 
 the words of the text in the sense indicated by 
 Christ Himself I'. But the text does not stand 
 alone. I forbear indeed to allege some of the 
 passages with which it has been supposed to be 
 connected''. Nor would I even venture to sup- 
 port this doctrine, or that of the Trinity in 
 
 " As by Dr. Clarke in his Scripture-doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
 '' See Ecclus. li. iO. (15.) and notes by Arnald; and by 
 Drusius and others in the Critici Sacri. 
 
 'I As in the following note upon Ecclus. li. 15. Kv^/ov ftcu 
 Filium Dei intelligit, ut Gen. xix. 24. Fs. ii. J. ex. 1. Prov. 
 XXX. 4. (in quem locum consule epist. D. Aug. 49. ad Deograt.) 
 Dan. ix. 1 7. Hoescelius apud Crit. Sacr.in loc. And to the same 
 purpose, W. Lowth, and Waldo on Dan. ix. 1 7. who suppose 
 the Prophet to pray in the name of Christ, " for the Lord's 
 sake." But this seems rash criticism. It is more probable 
 that the expression is equivalent to that in v. 1 9- " defer not 
 for thine own sake, O my God." It is one thing to believe that 
 the Prophets prophesied of Christ as the " Lord," and quite 
 another to imagine that they prayed in His name. This be- 
 longs to the last dispensation. See John xvi. 24. 
 
SERMON IV. 133 
 
 Unity, by any of the passages commonly cited 
 from the history of the Creation and other parts 
 of the Historical Scriptures ; the inferences from 
 which, if they can satisfy the believer, are much 
 too precarious to convince the unbeliever". In 
 the Psalms and Prophets, on the contrary, there 
 are many expressions parallel with the text, and 
 equally applicable to Messiah. As in the Psalms, 
 " The Lord hath said unto me. Thou art my 
 Son ; this day have I begotten thee." " Thy 
 throne, O God, is for ever and ever." — And Isaiah, 
 " A Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and 
 shall call His name Immanuel." Again, " Unto 
 us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given : and 
 the government shall be upon His shoulder : and 
 His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, 
 the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the 
 Prince of Peace." And again, " The voice of 
 him that crieth in the wilderness. Prepare ye the 
 way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a 
 highwayforour God :-^say unto the cities of Judah, 
 Behold your God!" And Jeremiah, " This is His 
 name whereby He shall be called. The Lord 
 (that is, Jehovah) our Righteousness." Zechariah, 
 " Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion : for, lo, 
 I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, 
 saiththe Lord." And Malachi, " The Lord, whom 
 ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even 
 the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight 
 ■■ As Gen. i. 2. 26. xviii. I, 2. 22. xix. 1. 24. 
 
134 SERMON IV. 
 
 in ; behold He shall come, saith the Lord of 
 hosts'." — Now these are but a few out of many 
 passages in which the Messiah (as learned Jews 
 themselves acknowledge^) is named " Jehovah," 
 or is in various ways represented by the Prophets 
 as God, as the Lord, as Immanuel, " God with 
 us ;" the presence of God among His people 
 (and this in some far higher and more glorious 
 sense than before, and which the Church under- 
 stands, and cannot but understand, partly of the 
 manifestation of God in Christ, partly of the 
 indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our souls) being 
 one of the very signs and characteristics of 
 Evangelical prophecy. But to ascertain the ap- 
 plication of several of these passages requires 
 some familiarity with the genius of the Prophe- 
 tical writings, and much exact comparison of 
 Scripture with Scripture, sometimes indeed of 
 the New Scriptures with the Old. Wherefore 
 texts of this kind are rather to be sought out at 
 a later period in confirmation of the doctrine by 
 those who have already embraced it. Such texts 
 as have been cited, on the contrary, are obvious 
 
 ■ Ps. ii. 2. 7. 12. (cf. 2 Sam. vii. 14.) Ps. xlv. 1. 6, 7. 11. 
 (cf. xciii. 2. xcv. 6, 7.) Ps. cH. 25—27. (cf. ver. 16—22. ciii. 
 Is. ]x. 1.) Is. vii. 14.. (cf. Matt. i. 22^ 23. Luke i. 31—34.) 
 ix. 6, 7. (xi. 1—9.) xl. 3—11. Jer. xxiii. 5—8. Zech. ii. 10, 
 11. (ix. 9, 10. Zeph. iii. 14—20.) Mai. iii. I. 
 
 ' See Bp. Pearson on the Creed, Art. II. note, p. 148, 149. 
 Ed. fol. 1676; and Parkhurst's Heb. Lexicon on the word 
 
 ninv 
 
SERMON IV. 135 
 
 and direct ; not always secure, it is true, against 
 the captious criticism of a Socinus or a Crellius, 
 but yet of a nature forcibly to arrest the atten- 
 tion of the devout inquirer, and oblige him to 
 confess that our Lord did not refer him to the 
 Old Testament for some solitary indication of 
 his Divinity. But if so, let him consider what 
 an extraordinary force we must needs ascribe to 
 passages of such an import, when they are found 
 in the very midst of unnumbered declarations of 
 the incommunicable majesty of God, ever em- 
 phatically described in the Old Scriptures as the 
 " jealous God," who " will not give his glory to 
 another \" 
 
 Then let him return to the Gospels, and observe 
 the Saviour not simply speaking, but acting as 
 Divine ; familiarly displaying even during His 
 sojourn in the flesh the attributes of God. I do 
 not cite His Miracles in direct attestation of His 
 Divinity. Directly they only attest His truth 
 and His Divine Commission ; and cannot be 
 alleged in proof of His Divine Nature, until it 
 can be shewn, which is impossible, that such 
 miraculous powers could not be communicated 
 to a finite being. Yet the nature of some of our 
 Lord's miracles, the occasions of others, and the 
 manner in which they were usually wrought, have 
 been always taken, and with reason, as remarkable 
 
 » Exod. XX. 5, &c. &c. Is. xlii. 8. xliv. 6. xlviii. 11. See 
 note at the end. 
 
136 SERMON IV. 
 
 corroborations of His own expressions, and those 
 of Holy Writ concerning Him. Was it believed 
 that God alone could forgive sins 1 was the Holy 
 Spirit, the Spirit of the Most High ? was it em- 
 phatically written of God, that He " createth the 
 wind, stilleth the noise of the seas, treadeth on 
 the waves of the seas, declareth unto man what 
 is his thought, revealeth secrets ?" — the Son of 
 man also walks upon the sea, controls the waves, 
 communicates miraculous powers, inspires the 
 Holy Spirit, knows all thoughts, and discovers 
 that He knows them'. Why, one such instance 
 happening to us as to Nathanael, would have 
 doubtless forced from us as from him the instant 
 confession, " Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou 
 art the King of Israel." And it was but the 
 natural effect of other miracles upon the minds 
 of men who knew the Scriptures, by which they 
 were prompted to those expressions of wonder 
 and awe, " Who is this that forgiveth sins also ?" 
 " What manner of man is this, that even the winds 
 and the sea obey Him ?" " What a word is this I 
 for with authority and power he commandeth the 
 unclean spirits, and they come out," or which 
 
 ' Compare Amos iv. 13. Ps. cxxxix. 2. Dan. ii. 28. Job ix. 8. 
 Ps. Ixv. 7. Ixxix. g. cvii. 29. Is. xiii. 25. with Matt. ix. 4. 
 xii. 25. Luke vi. 8. xi. 17. Johni. 48, 49. xiii. 1. 11. xvii. 19. 
 xviii. 4. (Heb. iv. 12, 13.) Matt. viii. 26, 27- xiv. 25—33. 
 Mark iv. 40. vi. 48—52. viii. 17, 18. Luke iv. 36. viii. 
 24, 25. X. 17. ig. John xx. 22. Matt. ix. 2—8. Mark ii. 3—12. 
 Luke vii. 49. 
 
SERMON IV. 137 
 
 tferew His disciples at His feet, exclaiming, " Of 
 a truth thou art the Son of God." Yet this was 
 not all : to heighten this impression, and to 
 justify it. He confirmed by express miracles His 
 most remarkable assertions of Divine authority. 
 He causes the sick of the palsy to take up his 
 bed and walk, to this end, that they might " know 
 that the Son of man had power on earth to forgive 
 sins." He not only asserts that He " has power 
 to lay down His life, and has power to take it up 
 again," but thereupon He is " declared to be the 
 Son of God with power by the resurrection from the 
 dead." He not only breathes upon His disciples, 
 and saith, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost," promises 
 that He will come to them, and be ever with 
 them, promises that when He is departed He will 
 send the Holy Spirit from the Father, but after 
 His departure He fulfils these glorious promises, 
 and visibly sheds forth those manifest gifts of 
 the Spirit, which are an earnest of His unseen 
 presence in the Church " even unto the end of 
 the world"." 
 
 Now the effect of these considerations is two- 
 fold. They go far of themselves to establish the 
 truth of that mysterious confession of the Church, 
 " that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is 
 God and man ;" but they do more. They so 
 
 " Matt. ix. 2—8. John ii. I9. x. 19. Rom. i. 4. Matt, 
 xxviii. 20. John xx. 22. xiv. l6, 17, 18. 23. 26. xv. 26. 
 xvi. 7. Acts ii. 33. Eph. iv. 8. 
 
138 SERMON IV. 
 
 prepare the mind for the teaching of the 
 Apostles, that it appears little more than the 
 natural expansion and application of what had 
 been taught before. Do the Apostles continually 
 assume and imply the truth of the doctrine ? 
 We can no longer dream, as the sceptic has 
 dreamed, that St. Paul indeed and St. John 
 believed in it, but that they were mistaken. 
 What is that mistake, which is common to 
 Apostles and Prophets and to our Lord ? Is not 
 Revelation itself upon such terms a thing impos- 
 sible ? Or do they assert the doctrine in the 
 most startling terms, or do they act upon it, 
 worship Him, pray to Him, bless His people 
 in His name conjointly with those of the Father 
 and of the Holy Spirit ? We can hear none 
 of these things with an air of suspicion and 
 distrust. " In the beginning was the Word, and 
 the Word was with God, and the Word was 
 God. All things were made by Him." And yet 
 "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among 
 us ;" — " by Him were all things created that are 
 in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and in- 
 visible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or 
 principalities, or powers ; all things were created 
 by Him and for Him : and He is before all 
 things, and by Him all things consist," and yet 
 " He is the head of the body, the Church ;" — 
 " being in the form of God, He thought it not 
 robbery to be equal with God :" and yet " He 
 
SERMON IV. 139 
 
 made Himself of no reputation, took upon Him 
 the form of a servant, and was made in the 
 likeness of men :" " He took not on Him the 
 nature of angels ; but He took on Him the seed 
 of Abraham : forasmuch as the children are par- 
 takers of flesh and blood. He also Himself like- 
 wise took part of the same." Nevertheless, He 
 is " the first and the last ;" " glory and dominion 
 are unto Him for ever and ever ;" the Baptist 
 acknowledges, " He that cometh from above is 
 above all ;" Thomas addresses Him, as " his 
 Lord, and his God ;" Stephen, " full of the Holy 
 Ghost," breathes his last prayer to Him, and 
 to Him commends his spirit ; even to Christ 
 " who is over all," says St. Paul, " God blessed 
 for ever. Amen "." — None of these things, I say, 
 however mysterious, can we receive with sus- 
 picion or distrust, when we also arc full of the 
 language of the Holy Spirit, speaking not only 
 by Evangelists and Apostles, but by the Prophets 
 of old, and in our Lord Himself. The only thing 
 we can distrust, is that minute and captious 
 criticism, which labours to invalidate the force of 
 here and there a solitary expression, and forgets 
 the tenour of the whole collective and harmonious 
 proof ; for we feel that the structure of our faith 
 
 X John i. 1. S. 14. Col. i. 15—20. Phil. ii. 5—11. Heb. ii. 
 14. l6. Rev. i, 6. 11. 13. 17. ii. 8. xxi. C, 7. cf. Is. xli. 4. 
 xliv. 6. xlviii. 12. John iii. 31. xx. 28. Acts vii. 55—60. 
 Rom. ix. 5. 
 
140 SERMON IV. 
 
 is strong and sure, built upon the foundation of 
 the Scriptures, New and Old, Jesus Christ Him- 
 self being the chief corner-stone. 
 
 After this manner then is the doctrine of the 
 Church to be established by the authority of 
 Holy Scripture. Not of course that the par- 
 ticular method of investigation here suggested is 
 the only or the best method to be observed. 
 It is but one out of many lines of argument 
 tending to the same conclusion. Nor let it ever 
 be imagined that any investigation of Scripture 
 whatsoever, which rests in the mere collection of 
 texts, and does not proceed to the diligent, and 
 continuous, and devout study of the whole book 
 of God's word, is to be recommended at all. 
 But supposing such a faithful and pious study of 
 Holy Writ, then after this manner by comparison 
 of Scripture with Scripture, and of the New 
 Testament with the Old ; weighing well the force 
 and design not of mere words, but of passages 
 taken together with their context, and illustrated 
 by others, all equally proceeding from the same 
 Inspiration, may we hope, by the Divine blessing, 
 to attain the truth : — yet not even thus, if we 
 regard the truth as if it were now for the first 
 time proposed, or ourselves as if we were the first to 
 consult the word of God ; but accepting from the 
 Church gladly yet not blindly, modestly yet not 
 implicitly, what God has enabled her to offer ; 
 
SERMON IV. 141 
 
 that is to say, first the statement of the truth 
 itself, and next a strong presumptive argument in 
 its behalf. For not to accept these advantages 
 with every other aid which our brethren and our 
 fathers in the faith can bestow, what is it but to 
 throw away blessings for which we are responsible, 
 desert the advantageous position in which God 
 has placed us, and worship independence at the 
 hazard of truth ? 
 
 So much at present for the combined use of the 
 Scriptures and the Church in the attainment of 
 truth of doctrine. And what has been here 
 observed with reference to one great doctrine, 
 will be easily applied, with the requisite modifi- 
 cations, to every other. The relation, on the 
 other hand, of the Church to the Scriptures, with 
 respect to external ordinances and institutions, will 
 demand a separate consideration. 
 
 But let us not rise from the contemplation of 
 that awful and amazing doctrine which has now 
 engaged our attention, without reflecting, though 
 but for a moment, upon the serious duty which 
 it imposes upon us in exact proportion to our 
 belief in its own intrinsic importance, and in 
 the use of the Christian Church in establishing 
 its truth. 
 
 The more highly we estimate the vast im- 
 portance of the doctrine, (and to estimate it too 
 highly, nay to esteem it sufficiently, is utterly 
 
142 SERMON IV. 
 
 impossible,) the more devoutly cautious let us 
 ever be to rest its importance upon true and 
 Scriptural grounds. And the more we dis- 
 countenance an unnatural independence in the 
 pursuit of Christian truth, and extol the use and 
 necessity of those advantages which the Church 
 confers upon the devout inquirer, so much the 
 more scrupulously let us guard, — I do not say 
 against intentional irreverence in our treatment 
 of so high a mystery, that in a devout believer is 
 impossible, — ^but against every thing which may 
 obstruct the proper use of Christian teaching, by 
 promoting irreverence in other minds. 
 
 Therefore let us avoid, so far as we may, 
 not merely the fanciful or incautious argument 
 which the rash inquirer may easily turn aside, 
 and together with it throw aside the truth itself, 
 but the dry disquisition, the subtle distinction, 
 the vain attempt at theory and explanation, nay 
 even, in ordinary cases and so far as we safely 
 can, the exact and precise Theological statement. 
 Doubtless it is the very office of the Church 
 to state the truth directly, and clearly, and adapt 
 her statements to every variety of human ca- 
 pacity. Yet even in this she ought to keep 
 Scripture constantly in her view, and imitate 
 Scripture, so far as she may, in the enunciation 
 of Scriptural truth. Let us never forget the 
 proneness of men, of the believer as well as the 
 unbeliever, to seek to be wise above that which 
 
SERMON IV. 143 
 
 is written, and to tamper with the simplicity of 
 Revelation. 
 
 It is true again, this awful mystery, like every 
 other dtoctrine of Revelation, is addressed to our 
 reason : yet not in order to exercise the intel- 
 lectual faculties, which indeed it baffles, con- 
 founds, overwhelms, but to purify our hearts, 
 exalt our pious affections, and sanctify our lives ; 
 not to be explained, but believed ; to be gratefully 
 accepted, not curiously scanned. We may be 
 driven in mere self-defence to exact distinctions 
 and definitions ; but they are fastnesses and 
 strongholds in which we are unwillingly pent 
 up, not the pleasant mansions of faith and love ; 
 checks and safeguards against error, not the 
 devout expressions of gratitude and adoration. 
 Woe to us if our faith in the manifestation of 
 God in Jesus Christ rests only in a barren 
 self-complacent orthodoxy, which is unhappily 
 consistent with a heart full of all impurity 
 and all uncbaritableness. Vain, and worse than 
 vain, noxious to others, pernicious to ourselves, 
 is our belief, that the Eternal Son of God 
 emptied Himself of the glory which He had 
 with the Father before the world was, and came 
 down vipon earth to save us, and will hereafter 
 come again in His own glory and the glory of 
 His Father to be our Judge, unless it bring forth 
 fruits of holiness, of love to our brethren and to 
 all mankind, of deep humility and self-abasement. 
 
144 SERMON IV. 
 
 of a devout fear and a heartfelt love of God, 
 " who so loved the world, that He gave His 
 only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
 Him should not perish, but have eveflasting 
 life." " If God so loved us, we ought also to 
 love one another ;" — " looking for that blessed 
 hope, and the glorious appearing of the great 
 God and our Saviour Jesus Christ ; who gave 
 Himself for us, that He might redeem us from 
 all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar 
 people, zealous of good works '." 
 
 " Now unto Him that is able to keep you 
 from falling, and present you faultless before 
 the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, 
 to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory 
 and majesty, dominion and power, both now and 
 ever. Amen.'' 
 
 Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given 
 unto us thy servants grace by the confession of 
 a true faith to acknowledge the glory of the 
 eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine 
 Majesty to worship the Unity ; we beseech thee, 
 that thou wouldest keep us stedfast in this faith, 
 and evermore defend us from all adversities, who 
 livest and reignest, one God, world without end. 
 Amen. 
 
 y John iii. l6. 1 John iv. 10, II, &c. Tit. ii. 13, 14. Jude 
 24, 25. 
 
SERMON V. 
 
 Tit. i. 5. 
 
 FOR THIS CAUSE LEFT I THEE IN CRETE, THAT THOU 
 SHOULDEST SET IN ORDER THE THINGS THAT ARE 
 WANTING, AND ORDAIN ELDERS IN EVERY CITY, AS I 
 HAD APPOINTED THEE. 
 
 For gracious purposes, and with a manifest 
 accommodation to the nature of man, it has 
 pleased Almighty God to reveal His nature 
 and will and ways, to a very remarkable ex- 
 tent, through the medium of Historical records. 
 He has not merely declared the fact that He 
 created the world, or that He is our Governor, 
 or that He is Holy, Just, Faithful, Merciful ; 
 but He has set forth in order the history of the 
 Creation, and displayed as it were in action His 
 moral attributes, and disclosed the principles of 
 His Providence by the living records of His 
 government of mankind. And man's nature also 
 has He mercifully caused to be laid bare and 
 open to our view by the same impressive as well 
 
 L 
 
146 SERMON V. 
 
 as instructive process. We are not simply told 
 what man was, or what he is ; we are taught 
 experimentally to know ourselves by the history 
 of our race, the recorded conduct of our fathers 
 under every variety of trial. 
 
 And the sad picture would have been incom- 
 plete, had not the method of the Old Testament 
 been continued in the New. It was necessary 
 that we should know the infirmities of Apostles, 
 and the sins of the first saints, the errors and 
 sins of men already members of Christ's body, 
 living under the Sacraments, when Reconciliation 
 had been effected, and the Saviour had ascended 
 to His Father, and the Holy Spirit had made His 
 abode in the Church. And not this alone ; but 
 the work of Redemption itself was effected by 
 transactions and events, capable of being seen 
 and known and recorded. The gracious work 
 was accomplished not in heaven but on this 
 earth ; and we have the history of its accom- 
 plishment. " The Word was made flesh, and 
 dwelt among us ;" we have, as it were, heard 
 the Saviour's voice, observed His actions, wit- 
 nessed His agony in the garden and His sufferings 
 upon the cross, conversed with Him after His 
 resurrection, seen His ascension into the heavens. 
 Nay even the Dispensation of the Spirit, al- 
 though His gracious influences are unseen and 
 trackless as the winds, yet commences with 
 historical transactions ; a visible descent, mira- 
 
SERMON V. 147 
 
 culous powers displayed in their effects, a per- 
 sonal agency, interpositions of authority, express 
 directions, frequently, to Evangelists and Apostles 
 where and in what order to preach the word to 
 Jew, or Samaritan, or Proselyte, or Gentile, and, 
 continually, extraordinary gifts, the proofs and 
 earnests of unseen spiritual graces. 
 
 The foundations of Religion having thus been 
 deeply laid, in the New Testament as well as in 
 the Old, in Historical Narratives ; and these sin- 
 gularly clear and direct, in style inimitable, sur- 
 passing in interest, and for the most part obvious 
 in their application, the office of the Church is 
 so far inconsiderable. She is indeed " a witness, 
 and a keeper" of these as of the other portions of 
 Holy Writ ; she has to aid her members in their 
 devout and profitable use of them ; but she is 
 scarcely called upon to introduce, or prepare the 
 way for the sacred narratives. In general they 
 speak at once to the conscience and the heart ; 
 are felt even by the child ; and utter failure 
 attends the efforts of inspired men, when they 
 v^'ould substitute their language for that of the 
 inspired Historians. 
 
 But Revelation is not only Historical, but also 
 Doctrinal. God has not left us solely to the 
 inferences, however impoi-tant, which may be 
 deduced from the sacred records, or the im- 
 pressions, however deep, which they would en- 
 
 l2 
 
us SERMON V. 
 
 grave upon our souls. We have also those 
 revealed truths or facts which are more espe- 
 cially termed Doctrines — whether results, which 
 might possibly have been collected from the 
 histories, touching the nature of God or man, 
 as the doctrines of Providence or of Original Sin ; 
 or mysteries which could not be developed by 
 the narratives, as the Pre-existence of Christ, 
 His Divinity, the Personality of the Holy Spirit ; 
 or promises, and events to come, as the Resur- 
 rection of the body, a Future Judgment, Eternal 
 Life ; or the purposes and uses of facts past or 
 present, for what end the Saviour died, or by 
 what means we are to be justified, and sanctified, 
 and saved. 
 
 And here the province of the Church has 
 a wider range. She is not to content herself 
 with placing the Bible in the hands of her 
 babes in Christ, or of sinful men slow to receive, 
 unwilling to " endure sound doctrine." The 
 Bible itself presumes that she will introduce 
 and recommend the truth, suggest and state 
 the doctrines, prepare the minds of men to 
 accept them, adapt her statements to the various 
 capacities of men, and to the various conditions 
 of thought and of error at different periods. 
 And this is her continual and abiding office, so 
 long as the world shall endure. In a word, 
 what Reason and the Moral Sense are to the 
 Precepts of Religion, for which there is a na- 
 
SERMON V. 149 
 
 tural preparation in the hearts of men, that 
 the Church is, and ever will be, to those Re- 
 vealed Doctrines, for which we are not prepared 
 by nature, nay, to the acceptance of which we 
 are by nature indisposed. 
 
 And this office of the Christian Church we 
 have already considered at length, and exem- 
 plified with respect to the doctrines of the 
 Atonement, and the Divinity of our Lord. 
 
 But there is yet another merciful provision 
 for the wants of human nature in Religious 
 Ordinances and Institutions. Few and simple 
 as are the Christian Rites and Institutions, as 
 they proceeded from our Saviour and His Apo- 
 stles, and striking as is the contrast in this 
 respect between the Gospel and the Law ; still 
 the Gospel is not, and never was, devoid of 
 appropriate and very important outward Ordi- 
 nances. Nor are the Christian Institutions un- 
 connected with Christian Truth, and therefore 
 with our belief; and so far as this connexion 
 extends, they come within the scope of an In- 
 quiry into the means of attaining Christian 
 Truth. This is the point, accordingly, which 
 comes next in order ; and we must now en- 
 deavour to develop the office and uses of the 
 Christian Church with regard to the truths 
 
 IMMEDIATELY CONNECTED WITH THE CHRISTIAN OR- 
 DINANCES, or rather, as before, the uses of the 
 
160 SERMON V. 
 
 CHURCH, in this respect, in conjunction with 
 
 THOSE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 
 
 I. Now it is obvious at once that the office of 
 the Church is far more extensive in relation to 
 Rites and Institutions, than in the instance of 
 Doctrines. Less is prescribed to her ; more, 
 consequently, committed to her charge and her 
 discretion. And it will easily appear, that the 
 difference is in harmonious accordance with the 
 circumstances of the two cases. — " Let all things 
 be done unto edifying." " Let all things be done 
 decently and in order." Such are the compre- 
 hensive directions addressed by St. Paul to the 
 Church of Corinth ; in the Church of Crete 
 an individual is commissioned, as in the text, 
 "to set in order the things that are wanting"." 
 Our Lord Himself prescribes two Rites, and only 
 two; but neither does He nor do His Apostles 
 bequeath to the Church any written instructions 
 concerning the time or the details of their cele- 
 bration. 
 
 Most unreasonable, indeed, would it be to 
 imagine, that the Church was left at the close 
 of the Apostles' ministry with no other than these 
 general directions, no models for the edifying and 
 orderly administration of her Religious Ritual or 
 Polity. Titus of course did " set in order" in the 
 
 " Tit. i. h. 1 Cor. xiv. 36. 40> cl 35, 34. xi. l6. Si. 
 
SERMON V. 151 
 
 Church of Crete " the things that were wanting." 
 St. Paul having given to the Corinthians some of 
 the most important precepts respecting the cele- 
 bration of the Eiicharist, and having promised 
 besides that " the rest he would set in order 
 when he came," did no doubt prescribe such 
 points of order and decorum as would tend to 
 check in practice as well as in principle any 
 future profanation of that holy ordinance. Never- 
 theless it remains true, and it is generally ad- 
 mitted, that a very large discretion was still 
 allowed to the Catholic Church, and to each 
 of her separate branches, both then and thence- 
 forward, respecting a variety of details connected 
 with her Polity and her Public Worship; and even 
 with those parts of her Polity or her Ritual, as 
 the Sacraments, and the Orders of the Christian 
 Ministry, which she confesses to be in their origin 
 and essence of Divine appointment. Notwith- 
 standing some trifling on such subjects, nay, 
 worse than trifling, serious and unchristian dis- 
 sentions occasionally occurring respecting Vest- 
 ments, Postures, the sign of the Cross, the time 
 of Easter, and the like, this is the conclusion 
 almost universally acknowledged by the Churches 
 of Christ. Almost all, for example, would assent 
 to those positions of the Church of England, that 
 " the Church hath power to decree Rites or 
 Ceremonies," and that " the particular Forms 
 of Divine worship, and the Rites and Ceremonies 
 
162 SERMON V. 
 
 appointed to be used therein, are things in their 
 own nature indifferent, and alterable, and so ac- 
 knowledged ''." 
 
 This part of the subject, accordingly, we may 
 pass by, as relating rather to Order than to 
 Truth ; requiring only on the part of the Autho- 
 rities of the Church the exercise of a sound dis- 
 cretion ; on the part of the private Christian, in 
 general, only a modest compliance with the esta- 
 blished rules or customs of that branch of the 
 Church of Christ in which he has been baptized, 
 or that with which he may have occasion at any 
 time to communicate. 
 
 It is otherwise when the Divine Origin or 
 Obligation of a Rite or Institution, as of the 
 Sacraments or Episcopacy, is the point in ques- 
 tion ; or when matter of Doctrine is immediately 
 connected, or supposed to be connected, with a 
 sacred ordinance, as Transubstantiation with the 
 Eucharist. Truth is in such cases the object of 
 investigation ; and the means by which it may be 
 attained are the proper subjects of the present 
 Inquiry. 
 
 But we have already considered the method of 
 proof in the case of Christian Doctrines ; and 
 there is no apparent ground of distinction be- 
 tween the mode of proving the truth of a doc- 
 
 " Art. XX, and xxxiv. and Preface to the Book of Common 
 Prayer. 
 
SERMON V. 153 
 
 trine immediately connected with an Ordinance 
 and any other. When Bellarmin, for example, 
 brings together a multitude of passages from the 
 Old Testament and the New to establish the 
 doctrine of our Lord's Divinity, and then, when 
 he would prove the truth of Transubstantiation, 
 alleges one solitary text, speaks indeed of that as his 
 first proof, but brings no second, and this solitary 
 passage is after all a text of doubtful and disputed 
 interpretation, do we ever suspect that there is 
 any ground in the nature of the subject for so 
 great a difference? Do we not rather conclude, 
 and with reason, that whatever other warrant 
 there may be for the belief in Transubstantiation, 
 there is at least no Scriptural proof of the doctrine 
 whatsoever''?" 
 
 When, on the contrary, the Divine Appoint- 
 ment, and the Universal Obligation, of an ordi- 
 nance or institution are the only points to be 
 established, there are obvious reasons why a less 
 amount of proof from Scripture should be abun- 
 dantly satisfactory to a reasonable mind. For 
 any thing external might be handed down by the 
 Church from age to age with far greater safety 
 and certainty than a simple doctrine. We some- 
 times hear, indeed, the selfsame word " Tradi- 
 
 ' See Bp. Stillingfleet's " Doctrine of the I'rinity and 
 Transubstantiation compared as to Scripture and Reason •" 
 and the places there referred to. Fell, de Christ. ]. i. c. 4. &c. 
 and de Euch. 1. iii. c. 19- 
 
154 SERMON V. 
 
 tion" applied to the continual transmission of 
 Christian doctrines and of the books of the 
 sacred Canon ; but we cannot fail to observe the 
 broad distinction between the two cases ; the 
 manifest facility which doctrines so transmitted 
 would offer to corruption, against which the 
 books themselves, publicly read and seen, and 
 possessed by various and opposite parties, are 
 comparatively secure. Just so might an external 
 ordinance, cognizable by our very senses, be com- 
 mitted to the safe-keeping of the Church ; its 
 constant existence might be easily traced up^ 
 wards to primitive times ; and a comparatively 
 slight recognition of it in the inspired volumes 
 might be all we should require. 
 
 Moreover, the Church herself, whilst she has 
 no pretence of authority to originate a Doctrine, 
 has full power to fashion and decree a Rite. And 
 supposing her to discharge this function with any 
 tolerable piety and discretion, the private Chris- 
 tian will obey her directions, and justly expect a 
 blessing upon his obedience. Had no such ordi- 
 nance, as the Supper of the Lord been instituted 
 by our Saviour or His Apostles, the Church 
 might well have appointed such a service to 
 commemorate the sacrifice of the Redeemer; and 
 well might we have joined in it as a sign, and 
 means, although not an assuring sign and 
 blessed pledge, of Divine grace. A slight recog- 
 nition, consequently, of the Rite in the inspired 
 
SERMON V. 155 
 
 Scriptures might have sufficed to establish its 
 obligation upon the most sacred authority, and 
 thus convert a pious obedience to the Church 
 into a faithful compliance with a Divine com- 
 mand. Not of course that the Divine appoint- 
 ment of this blessed Sacrament is but slightly 
 recognised in the Christian Scriptures. The 
 supposition was offered not as an example, but 
 merely as an illustration of the principle con- 
 tended for; sufficient to shew on general grounds 
 that we have absolutely no need of such an 
 ample array of Scriptural proof to convince us 
 of the Divine original of an ordinance, as we 
 might have desired for our belief in a Revealed 
 Doctrine. Nay, we may not only acquiesce in a 
 less amount of proof, but even observe, as was 
 said, in such a diflference one of the numerous 
 instances of a merciful accommodation to our 
 wants, every where to be traced throughout the 
 whole economy of Revelation. 
 
 II. To pass, then, from these general remarks, 
 and try the principle in some particular ex- 
 amples ; proceeding from the less controverted 
 cases, to those which have become the unhappy 
 occasions of disputes and separation. — 
 
 1. The religious observance of the Lord's Day, 
 
156 SERMON V. 
 
 for instance, is almost universally acknowledged 
 as a Christian duty throughout the Christian 
 world. And a cheering thought it is, amidst our 
 manifold divisions, to observe scarcely a single 
 sect, and not a single Church, interrupting in this 
 great article of belief the general concord ; 
 millions of our brethren offering at the same 
 hour their solemn protest against irreligion and 
 idolatry, and suspending their cares and toils to 
 celebrate the Redemption of the world, and adore 
 with one consent the one true God, our Creator, 
 Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Is it even necessary 
 that the duty should be explicitly enjoined in 
 the Christian Scriptures, which even without a 
 specific command can be distinctly perceived, 
 and this not only by the considerate Christian, 
 but even by the Statesman, the Moralist, the 
 Philanthropist, to be at once a duty and a bless- 
 ing ? To the poor, that is to the great majority 
 of our race in every land and under every con- 
 dition of society, this day of religious rest is 
 simply a boon. If a seventh part were added to 
 the amount of labour, although the number of 
 the poor might be increased, their temporal con- 
 dition would be exactly what it is. But suppose 
 the weekly rest abandoned, a seventh part would 
 not be therefore added to the produce of our labour ; 
 for the physician knows that this merciful provision 
 for a remission of human toil is absolutely necessary 
 
SERMON V. 157 
 
 to the best exertion of the strength of man, 
 bodily or intellectual'. And how much more 
 does every religious man feel it to be essential 
 to the well-being of our higher nature, to the 
 health of- the soul, and to our preparation for 
 that future existence, which is our real life ! 
 
 But then, assuredly, the Statesman and the 
 Philanthropist would never of themselves have 
 devised or enjoined the ordinance. Nor can 
 even its external observance, greatly as it may 
 be promoted, be effectually secured by any efforts 
 of theirs. We must look to higher sources for 
 the origin of the duty and its obligation. We 
 trace back, accordingly, the general religious 
 observance of the Lord's day to the very sera of 
 the promulgation of the Gospel. We find the 
 universality of the practice recognised by the 
 earliest extant writings, genuine or apocryphal, 
 by Ignatius, Justin, the Epistle attributed to 
 Barnabas, the so-called Apostolical Constitutions, 
 as well as by various other works of the second 
 and third and succeeding centuries'*. And this 
 
 •- See the evidence of Dr. Farr and others before the Com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons on the observance of the 
 Lord's Day, 1 832. The remark in the preceding sentence 
 is somewhere made, I think, by Archbishop Whately. 
 
 '' See Ignatius, Ep. to the Magnesians, ix. and notes by 
 Cotelerius, in loc. and by Mr. Jacobson and Mr. Chevallier. 
 Ep. of Barnabas, xx. and the notes and references ap. Coteler, 
 in !oc. (74.) Justin. Apol. 89- (p. 98. Ed. Thirlbii.) Tertul- 
 lian, Apol. xvi. and in many other places. See Bp. Kaye's 
 
158 SERMON V. 
 
 universal observance of the Lord's day is rendered 
 especially striking, not only by varieties in prac- 
 tice in other cases, but even in respect of the 
 Jewish Sabbath ; the observance of which we 
 find retained by many in early times together 
 with that of the Lord's day, then discontinued, 
 then revived, and revived amidst so much dis- 
 crepancy of opinion, that the day was regarded as 
 a Fast in the Western Churches, in the Eastern 
 as a Festival. Why this difference, but because 
 the universal observation of the Lord's day was 
 based upon Apostolical authority, whilst the same 
 Apostles, wheresoever the continued observance 
 of the Jewish Sabbath did not appear to under- 
 mine, as in the Galatian Church, the foundations 
 of the Gospel, permitted the practice gradually 
 to disappear before the increasing light of Chris- 
 tianity". Add then but a few recognitions in the 
 Christian Scriptures themselves of the actual ob- 
 servance of the Lord's day even in the age of the 
 Apostles, and with their sanction, nay, appa- 
 rently, with the implied sanction of our Lord 
 Himself and of the Holy Spirit, and we have all 
 
 Eccles. Hist, illustrated from Tertutullian, p. 412. (2d Fdit.) 
 -Apostol. Constitutions, b. v. c. 19. Routh, Reliq. Sacr. i. 
 p. 114. and note p. 129- iii. p. 237. and note p. 250. Hey- 
 lin's History of the Sabbath, and Strictures on Heylin's work 
 annexed to Sermons by the Rev. VV. James, I8.S0. 
 
 ' Gal. iv. 9, 10. cf. Rom. xiv. 5, 6. Col. ii. 16, 17. and see 
 Bishop Horsley's Sermon xxiii. Works, vol. ii. 
 
SERMON V. 159 
 
 the proof which we really require of its Divine 
 authority. 
 
 But can we not also support its Divine obliga- 
 tion by cogent arguments derived from the Old 
 Scriptures ? Undoubtedly, I conceive, we may. 
 Yet these do not appear to be the proofs by which 
 the duty was at first established. They were 
 not its original authority and foundation. For very 
 remarkable has been in this respect the difference 
 of views in later and in primitive times; all indeed 
 agreeing in the same conclusion, but reaching it by 
 very difiFerent means. In modern times it is not 
 uncommon to appeal directly to the Fourth Com- 
 mandment in the Decalogue as a decisive authority 
 for the observance of the Lord's day ; and again 
 to assert without hesitation the existence of a 
 Primitive Sabbath commanded and observed 
 from the aera of the Creation, and thence to 
 infer the universal obligation binding on all men 
 in all ages to hallow one day in seven to the 
 service of their Maker. The Fathers, on the 
 contrary, interpreted otherwise the apparent com- 
 mand to this effect in the book df Genesis, and 
 denied the existence of a Patriarchal Sabbath ; 
 whilst, instead of appealing to the Fourth Com- 
 mandment, or considering the Lord's day to be 
 substituted for the Jewish Sabbath, they en- 
 deavoured, some of them at least, to prove the 
 foreshewn superiority of the eighth day, i. e. 
 the Lord's day, above the Sabbath of the Jews 
 
160 SERMON V. 
 
 by weak and fanciful arguments, drawn from the 
 command to circumcise a child on the eighth 
 day, or the supply of manna vouchsafed for the 
 first time on the eighth day, and not poured 
 down at all upon the seventh. 
 
 Between these fanciful analogies on the one 
 hand, and too peremptory decisions on the other, we 
 shall steer a surer and a safer course, if adverting 
 at once to the evidence of Scripture, and also to 
 the genius of the successive dispensations of 
 religion, we admit the probability of a Patri- 
 archal Sabbath, and appeal not indeed to the 
 letter but to the spirit of the Fourth Command- 
 ment, so adducing both in confirmation of the 
 Divine appointment of the Christian Sabbath. 
 
 That is to say, granted that we cannot prove 
 historically the observance of a Sabbath in the 
 Patriarchal times, yet the fact is probable from 
 the natural unconstrained interpretation of the 
 words in the book of Genesis, " God blessed the 
 seventh day, and sanctified it ;" this inter- 
 pretation being also supported by some scattered 
 intimations of the division of time into weeks, of 
 the connexion of the number seven with the 
 doctrine of the Creation, and of a Sabbath among 
 the children of Israel anterior to the giving of 
 the Law '. This probability, accordingly, affords 
 
 ' Gen. ii. 1 — S.viii. 10. 12. Exod. xvi. 22—30. Numb, xxiii. 
 1. 14. 29. See Bp. Horsley's Dissertation on the Prophecies 
 of the Messiah dispersed among the Heathen, Works, vol. iii. 
 
SERMON V. 161 
 
 some confirmation of the Divine appointment of 
 a Sabbath under the Gospel. Yet so far is this 
 from being the foundation- of our belief in such 
 appointment, that the institution of an Evan- 
 gelical Sabbath, together with that of the Law, 
 itself supplies one of the strongest supports to the 
 scanty evidence of a Patriarchal Sabbath. The 
 later institutions reflect a clearer light upon the 
 earlier history, connect the successive dispens- 
 ations in one harmonious scheme, and contribute 
 to assure us, that there never was a period when 
 one day in seven was not hallowed to the glory 
 of the Creator, and blessed to the benefit of His 
 creatures, from the very time when creation itself 
 was accomplished, and " the morning stars sang 
 together, and all the sons of God shouted for 
 
 joy." 
 
 Just so, again, with respect to the Mosaic 
 Sabbath, the Fourth Commandment is not, I 
 apprehend, the true foundation of our Christian 
 duty. Nay, I dare not appeal directly to that, 
 as a commandment obligatory upon Christian 
 men, which no Christian Church has ever yet 
 enjoined or observed. Neither may any Chris- 
 tian Church presume to teach as a Divine com- 
 mandment one portion of a positive precept, whilst 
 of her own authority she abuogates another. 
 That is the privilege of Inspiration alone. 
 We say indeed, and we say justly, that not 
 hallowing the seventh day, yet hallowing one 
 
 M 
 
162 SERMON V. 
 
 day in seven, we fulfil the spirit of the Law. 
 But a Positive Institution, if obligatory at all, is 
 to be obeyed also in the letter ; and what now 
 appears so slight a change, (to say nothing here 
 of the total abandonment in the Christian 
 Church of the awful strictness in the com- 
 manded observance of the Mosaic rest,) the 
 mere alteration of the day would scarcely, in the 
 first instance, have appeared a trivial change. 
 Insomuch that a great divine has considered, that 
 as to hallow one day in seven is the public pro- 
 test of the true wbrshipper against false religion, 
 so to sanctify the first day of the week instead of 
 the seventh is the protest of the Christian 
 against the Law ^. It is to the spirit of the 
 Commandment that we appeal, not to its letter. 
 The letter we believe to have been abrogated, 
 but the spirit survives. The spirit of that com- 
 mand was not to be abrogated, which was 
 distinguished in so marked a manner from the 
 other positive institutions of the Law ; prbnounced 
 by the awful voice bf God, placed alone among 
 tttbral precepts, the authoritative declarations of 
 our natural duties, itself unconnected with 
 shadowy and typical rites, which were partial 
 enactments temporary in their very nature, 
 whilst this rested upon the ground of universal 
 religion^ applicable alike to all the sons of men. 
 
 s See Horsley's Sermon xxiii. Works, vol. ii. p. 11, 
 12, 13. 
 
SERMON V. 163 
 
 The spirit of this great command survives, 
 accordingly, in another ordinance equally of 
 Divine appointment, but more spiritual and 
 more comprehensive ; pointing to the doctrines 
 of Redemption, yet still embracing every thing 
 which pervaded the Mosaic precept, of glory to the 
 Creator and benefit to His creatures, even to the 
 lowest of His creatures, those whom we too fre- 
 quently oppress, but who are never forgotten by 
 Him. In this sense, and in this sense alone, the 
 Church of England, I believe, prays that we may 
 observe the Fourth Commandment, the spirit, 
 namely, of the Mosaic Law, as it still lives in the 
 Christian ordinance of the Lord's day. 
 
 And in this sense we adduce the Mosaic 
 Institution, together with the Patriarchal, as a 
 strong confirmation of the Divine appointment of 
 the Christian Sabbath, and a yet stronger proof, 
 perhaps, of its importance. Nevertheless, the 
 prime and independent proof of its Divine 
 original remains, as before, in the universal 
 consent of the Christian Church, but, not resting 
 there, traced up to Apostolic practice, and ina- 
 plied Apostolic authority — the resurrection of 
 our Lord commemorated on this day from th<e 
 very first ; that commemoration, apparently, 
 blessed and sanctioned by the re-appearance of 
 our Lord at first only on this day ; the day dis* 
 tinguished next by the miraculous outpouring of 
 the ^fts of the Holy Spirit ; and then set apart 
 
 m2 
 
164 SERMON V. 
 
 for the contributions of charity, and the solemni- 
 ties of public worship, and at length, even before 
 the sacred Canon was closed, distinguished by its 
 expressive and appropriate title, " the Lord's 
 day." — And upon this concurrent testimony of 
 the New Scriptures and the Old, slight indeed in 
 its separate parts, yet strong in its combination, 
 we may well esteem this sacred ordinance far 
 above every other, which can make no such 
 appeal to Holy Scripture ; valuing others, indeed, 
 in proportion to their uses, and importance, and 
 universality, and antiquity, as ordinances of 
 the Church, but reverencing this, and this 
 alone, among Christian Festivals, as of Divine 
 authority. 
 
 2. And would to heaven that some who can 
 recognise in this instance the force even of few 
 and scattered notices in Scripture, when com- 
 bined with indisputable evidence of a universal 
 practice, would apply the same method of proof 
 in parallel cases ! So might the Unity of the 
 Church be less disturbed, and none of our 
 brethren be deprived of divinely appointed 
 means of grace ! 
 
 The Baptism of Infants, for example, upon 
 what principles is it to be maintained ? — For, is 
 the practice any where enjoined in Holy Scrip- 
 ture ? Do not the Scriptures, . on the contrary. 
 
SERMON V. 165 
 
 prescribe conditions for the due reception of 
 Holy Baptism, sometimes faith, sometimes re- 
 pentance, sometimes both ; how then do we 
 presume to administer the rite to those who are 
 incapable of either '' ? And do we not, in fact, 
 perceive every day that the unauthorized ob- 
 servance produces no fruit, or fruits of bitterness, 
 a fatal confidence, a reckless life ? 
 
 Now all these plausible objections — some of 
 them indeed are altogether unwarrantable, for 
 who are we,.that we should pretend to determine 
 by any man's conduct after Baptism, what it 
 would have been had he remained unbaptized, 
 or judge by any external signs at one time 
 of what passed within the soul of another being 
 at another time ? — but these objections, so far as 
 they are plausible at all, derive their only force 
 from a misconception of the real question. That 
 question is not whether we shall introduce a new 
 practice, but whether we shall reject the ancient 
 and established practice of the Universal Church. 
 Doubtless we should need the most overpowering 
 arguments for the introduction of some new 
 administration of the Sacrament, or even new 
 institution in the Church, professing to be 
 founded upon some new discoveries of the sense 
 
 '' Acts ii. 38. viii. 36, 37. xx. 21. cf. Matt. ix. 13. Mark 
 ii. 17. Luke xxiv. 47. Acts iii. 19. v. 31. xvi. 31. xvii. 30. 
 xxvi. 20. Rom.-ii. 4. iii. 25. v. 1, 2, &c. vi. 3, 4, &c. Gal. 
 ii. 16. Eph. ii. 8. iii. 12. 2 Thess. ii. 13. 2 Tim. ii. 25. Heb. 
 x. 39. 1 Pet. iii. 21. 2 Pet. iii. 9. 
 
166 SERMON V. 
 
 of Scripture, (such as Calvin's appointment of 
 lay-presbyters, for example, based upon a novel 
 exposition of a solitary text',) but here the 
 question is, whether the received practice is not 
 warranted by the nature of the case and the au- 
 thority of Holy Writ, and, therefore, whether we 
 may presume to lay it aside. 
 
 This plain and practical distinction, accord- 
 ingly, the Church of England bears in mind 
 when she declares, that " The Baptism of young 
 children is in any wise to be retained in the 
 Church, as most agreeable with the institution 
 of Christ ''." — To be " retained," be it observed, 
 not introduced, not adopted, not even revived, 
 but retained. For what was the fact ? At that 
 time, as at present, the baptism of Infants was 
 the universal practice of all the Churches of 
 Christ ; and a practice neither rejected nor 
 questioned by any considerable number of in- 
 dividual Christians. It was not, moreover, like 
 Infant Communion, the offspring of indiscreet 
 piety or superstitious fears, begun, perhaps, some 
 two hundred years after the death of Christ, not 
 supposed to be necessary until the ninth century, 
 and, afterwards, because it could pretend to no 
 Apostolical authority, discontinued and con- 
 demned '. Superstition in this instance had 
 
 ■ 1 Tim. iv. 17. See note at the end. ' Art. xxvii. 
 
 ' See Waterland's History of Infant Communion, and 
 note by Mr. W. D. Conybeare, B. L. viii. p. 491 — 493. 
 
SERMON V. 167 
 
 even taken a contrary direction ; baptism having 
 been sometimes deferred to the latest possible 
 period, in order that the person baptized might 
 depart this life vi'ith the plenary remission of 
 his sins conveyed in baptism unsullied and un- 
 impaired. The baptism of Infants, on the con- 
 trary, could be distinctly traced to the Apostolic 
 age. About one hundred and ten years after 
 the death of our Saviour, Justin speaks of 
 persons then alive of sixty and seventy years 
 of age \yho had been made disciples to Christ 
 from their infancy ; (Jfia6T]Tev6r}aav, the vpord 
 employed in the institution of baptism.) They 
 had therefore been made disciples to Christ in 
 their infancy within the Apostolic age ". Is it 
 doubted whether they had also been baptized ? 
 Irenaeus, about thirty years later, whose practice 
 it is to speak of Baptism as our " Regeneration," 
 expressly states, that infants were among those 
 \yho were riegenerated unto God ". And the 
 practice of the Apostolic Church could not be 
 unknown to Irenaeus, a Christian Bishop^ at 
 this time nearly eighty years of age, himself 
 the disciple of Polycarp, as Polycarp had been 
 of the Apostle St. John. 
 
 Passing by then, that is to say in this mere 
 
 "' Apol. I. See W. Wall's Hist, of Infant Baptism, 
 part i. ch. ii. 
 
 " Adv. Haercses, ii. 39- ed. Grabe, See Wall, ibid, parti, 
 ch. iii. 
 
168 SERMON V. 
 
 outline of the argument passing by, the multitude 
 of early writers by whom these well-known testi- 
 monies are succeeded and supported p, we turn 
 to the Scriptures, and inquire. Do the Scriptures 
 justify the Church ? Do they sanction the uni- 
 versal practice ? nay, do they prohibit it, or 
 justify us in laying it aside ? For that is the 
 point at issue. — True it is, that in the compre- 
 hensive language of Scripture, " Go, make disciples 
 of all nations, baptizing them," or such and such a 
 person " was baptized, he and all his straightway," 
 the baptism of Infants is neither commanded nor 
 recorded. Yet is it not excluded. And the 
 history relating to the conversion of grown men 
 might be silent respecting Infant-baptism, and 
 leave us no inference to be deduced from that 
 silence. But then Baptism was, undeniably, the 
 gate of admission into the Christian Church ; 
 and the admission of believers was immediate ; 
 Jew, and Samaritan, and Proselyte, and Gentile, 
 were no sooner converted than they were bap- 
 tized, " straightway," " the same day," the same 
 night ^; and they who administered the rite were 
 Jews, accustomed to an earlier covenant into 
 which the infant children of Jewish parents had 
 
 ^ See W. Wall on Infant Baptism, part i. and part ii. ch. x. 
 and Bp. Kaye's Eccles. Hist, illustrated from Tertullian, 
 p. 329. 449. (2d Ed.) 
 
 "i Compare John iii. 3. 5. Matt, xxviii. ] 9. Mark xvi. 15, 16. 
 Tit. iii. 5. with Acts ii. 38 — 41. viii. 12, 13. 36 — 38. x. 47, 48. 
 xvi. .?1 — 33. 
 
SERMON V. 169 
 
 ever been admitted ; how could they suppose 
 that the children of Christian parents were 
 excluded from the New Covenant, when they 
 had no command to shut them out? and if 
 admissible, how receive them except by the 
 appointed door ? Nay, and if they could have 
 forgotten Circumcision, and its obvious bearing 
 upon the corresponding rite of admission into the 
 New Covenant, they could not but remember 
 the displeasure of their Master, when they had 
 lately been disposed to debar the young children 
 from His presence, and those touching words, 
 " Suffer the little children to come unto me, 
 and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom 
 of God'." 
 
 We " doubt not," therefore, " but earnestly 
 believe," that the same blessed Saviour will 
 " favourably receive, and will embrace with the 
 arms of His mercy," the infant children of Chris-, 
 tian parents brought unto Him at this day by 
 Holy Baptism ; for we conclude that an absolute 
 prohibition would have been required to prevent 
 the Apostles themselves from commencing that 
 " charitable work ;" in one word, that the practice 
 of the Church began upon Apostolic authority, — 
 provided only that there was nothing in the very 
 institution of Christ to forbid the practice. — 
 True, the child is incapable alike of Repentance 
 
 ' Mark X. 13 — 16. Matt. xix. Luke xvii. Compare Matt, 
 xviii. 1 — 14. 
 
170 SERMON V. 
 
 and of Faith; but of Repentance he has no need; 
 and the faith of his parents may he accepted fpr 
 his own by Him who forgave the sins of the 
 paralytic for the faith of his friends'. Nay, and 
 if the goodness of God were indeed restrained 
 within the letter of his promises, the adult con- 
 vert would be equally incapable of Faith and 
 Repentance in order to Baptism, since they are 
 not to be attained without some portion of that 
 spiritual aid to which he has only through Bap- 
 tisin a covenantftitle. If there bp any other 
 semblance of 4eficiency attaching to Infant- 
 baptism, that the primitive rite of Confirmation 
 seems expressly calculated to supply'. The in- 
 estimable blessings, meanwhile, of Baptism itself, 
 the remission of the sentence consequent upon 
 our natural corruption, the reconciliation, the 
 new birth, the adoption, the title to spiritual 
 gr3,ce, the inheritance ,of heaven, of alj these the 
 Infant is as ^evidently capable as he is absolutely 
 in need. Who shall say how early moral agency 
 
 • 
 
 ' Matt. ix. 2. Mai'k ii. 5. Luke v. 20. 
 
 « See Abp. Whately's Address to his Clergy, 1834. p. 14. 
 " The Ordinance of Confirmation is the cor;n,ecting link 
 between the one Sacrament and the other ; the conclusion 
 and completion of the Baptismal Service, and the introduction 
 to the Holy Communion. And though too often so mistaken 
 and perverted as to become an empty and unmeianing form, 
 or a dangerous snare, it has, when rightly used, this benefit 
 among others, that it does away the objections to fnfant- 
 bajptisra, and conjjii-peis the advantragesboth of that and of 
 the opposite systems," 
 
SERMON V. 171 
 
 begins, and how early therefore spiritual assistance 
 is required ? or where is the Christian parent, 
 who doubts that his child, if he died to-morrow, 
 would be capable through Christ of being ad- 
 mitted into heaven, how then shall he doubt that 
 he is capable of admittance to-day into the Church 
 of Christ upon earth ? or how presume, upon the 
 ground of some plausible theory, to withhold his 
 child from the presence of that Saviour, who 
 would " presently embrace him with the arms 
 of His mercy ?" 
 
 Nay, the Baptist himself appears to bear a 
 reluctant testimony to the strength of that con 
 elusion, to which he is unprepared to yield a full 
 assent. For he too would bring his children to 
 Christ, but by a rite unauthorized in the Christian 
 Church ; dedicating them to God, as he terms it, 
 by aspersion with water, yet not in the name of 
 the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ; thus in some 
 sort admitting the principle, though he does not 
 as yet reform his practice, but rather presumes 
 to substitute a device of human invention for a 
 Sacrament of Divine institution". 
 
 3. And is not something of the same kind 
 
 ° The practical effect of this device is to make the members 
 of a Baptist congregation consider themselves, though their 
 Minister does not, as already baptized; and the general 
 result of the system must needs be, I fear, in too many cases, 
 that they are deprived of the benefit of both the Sacraments. 
 
172 SERMON V. 
 
 observable in some of those Protestant Churches 
 which have unhappily rejected, what we at least 
 believe to be the Divine Institution of Episcopacy? 
 Has there been nothing here also of human ap- 
 pointment substituted for the Divine ? — But into 
 this subject, the third and last example on which 
 I proposed to touch, the limits of this Discourse 
 preclude our entering at any length. And after 
 what has been already said, it will be unnecessary 
 to do more than briefly to advert to the discussion, 
 in order to elicit from it two or three practical con- 
 sequences affecting ourselves as well as others. 
 
 For the general conduct of the argument is as 
 before, In the instance of Episcopacy, indeed, 
 the Scriptural evidence appears far more distinct 
 and clear than in the preceding example. But 
 the method of investigation is the same. We 
 should still begin with a universal practice of the 
 Church, and trace it upwards to its origin in the 
 Scriptures of truth. Let this method be reversed, 
 let men examine the Scriptures first, perplex 
 themselves with the meaning of terms, denoting 
 ministerial offices and functions before the terms 
 had acquired their technical senses, and then 
 proceed by these to interpret the records of the 
 Primitive Church, what do they but involve the 
 subject in gratuitous difficulties ? And yet, ob- 
 serves an excellent writer, " this method of ex- 
 pounding an ancient record has been made the 
 
SERMON V. 173 
 
 principal ground on which arguments against the 
 Apostolical institution of Episcopacy have been 
 supported"." 
 
 But nothing can be clearer than the distinct 
 existence of three Ministerial Orders in all Epis- 
 copal Churches at the present day. Other terms 
 there may be. Patriarch, Archbishop, Arch- 
 deacon, Curate, Acolyte, with whatever else has 
 been adopted to denote a peculiar charge, or 
 precedency, or subordinate ministry ; but no 
 inquirer fails to recognise the existence and the 
 essential functions of the three distinct Orders of 
 Bishop, Priest, and Deacon. Nor, again, is it 
 either doubted, or disputed, that three hundred 
 years ago every Church in Christendom acknow- 
 ledged the same threefold institution of the Chris- 
 tian Ministry ; that the first Reformers, where- 
 soever they departed from the general usage, 
 openly expressed their reluctance, and pleaded 
 necessity as their sole excuse ; nay, that Calvin 
 himself pronounced those to be worthy of every 
 anathema, who should not reverently observe and 
 obey such an Episcopacy as should be subordinate 
 to Christ, and dependent upon Him''; and, in fine, 
 
 " Bp. Russell's Sermon upon " the Historical Evidence for 
 the Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy." p. 14. 
 
 ' Talem si nobis hierarchiam exhibeant, in qu& sic eraineant 
 Episcopi ut Christo subesse non recusent, ut ab illo tanquam 
 unico capite pendeant, et ad ipsum referantur, &c. turn verb 
 nullo non anathemate dignos fateor si qui erunt qui non 
 earn reverenter summftque obedientia observant. Calvin, de 
 
174 SERMON V. 
 
 that tracing the historical evidence of Episcopacy 
 from the Reformation up to primitive times, we 
 find it universally established in all the Churches 
 in the second century. But it cannot be pre- 
 tended that Episcopacy had its commencement 
 in that century. If we cannot prove, as I think 
 w^e cannot, that at the close of the first century 
 every considerable Church had its Bishop as well 
 as its Presbyters and Deacons, — for the Church 
 of Corinth, from whatever cause, appears from 
 the Epistle of Clement to have been at that time 
 an exception, — there is at least abundant evi- 
 dence that it was the ordinary practice ; and 
 that evidence, moreover, extends to the very age 
 of the Apostles themselves. The earliest Eccle- 
 siastical historians enumerate the first Bishops of 
 the Churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, 
 Smyrna, Alexandria, Rome, and trace them 
 in each case from the Apostles ^ Polycarp is 
 
 necessit. Eccles. Reformandse. To the same effect Beza, 
 speaking of the English Church and her Hierarchy, Fruatur 
 sane istft singulari Dei beneficentiS, quae utinam illi sit 
 perpetua. Resp. ad Sarrav. p. 111. See these, and several 
 other testimonies to the same purpose of Melanethon, 
 Luther, Bucer, and other French and German divines, 
 cited by Bp. Hall, Episcopacy by Divine Right, part i. §. ii. 
 §. iii. §. iv. See also many of them briefly summed up in 
 Note K to Bp. Russell's Sermon, above cited. See also 
 Confession of jVugsburgh, p. 150, Sylloge Confessionum. 
 (1804.) 
 
 ' Hegesippus and Eusebius. See Euseb. 1. ii. c. 24. iii. 2. 
 14, &c. iv. 1. 22. Bingham's Antiquities, book ii. c. i. §. 3. 
 
SERMON V. 175 
 
 expressly said to have been appointed Bishop 
 of the Church in Smyrna by the Apostles ; 
 Ignatius Bishop of Atitioch within the lifetime of 
 some of the Apostles". The well-known testi- 
 mony, therefore, of both theSe Fathers, although 
 written in the sedond century, belongs to the 
 first, and reaches back to the very age of the 
 Apostles. And language cannot be more full, 
 and express, and particular, than is the testi- 
 mony of Ignatius, in his Epistles to the ChurfcheS 
 of Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, Philadelphia, 
 Smyrna, and to Polycarp himself, not merely to 
 the bare existence of Episcbpacy, but to its 
 irtiportance> and sacredness, its value even in 
 conjunction with the hbly Eucharist as a prinie 
 bond of Christian unity. 
 
 Such is the broad historical testimony to the 
 universality and antiquity of the institution ; its 
 universal adoption so early as the second century ; 
 its general adoption earlier still ; its afttiquity 
 and its origin traceable up to Apostolic times, 
 and to the Apostles themselves. Now it is not 
 a little difficult to account for facts like these, 
 except upon the hypothesis of the Divine original 
 of Episcopacy. If they stood alone they would 
 supply, not, I readily admit, a conclusive proof, 
 
 §. 4. Waddington's History of the Church, part i. ch. ii. 
 p. 21. 
 
 ' A.D. 69. Euseb. 1. iii. c. 22. 36. iv. 14. '(a:fter IrenteUs.) 
 See Bp. Russell's Sermon, p. 25. 29. and note F. 
 
176 SERMON V. 
 
 yet such a strong presumption in its favour, as 
 cannot be lightly set aside by any devout in- 
 quirer after the will of God. But they are far 
 from standing alone. It is Scriptural testimony 
 which crowns the argument from history ; whilst 
 the light of present facts and the history of the 
 past, clear away every shadow of obscurity from 
 the pages of Scripture. Knowing what we thus 
 know, we cannot be perplexed by the fluctuations 
 of language or of offices ; extraordinary offices 
 discontinued with the cessation of extraordinary 
 gifts ; terms not as yet used with technical pre- 
 cision when they had but as yet become techni- 
 cal ; Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Teachers'"; 
 Apostles termed Presbyters, and Presbyters 
 Bishops" — in all these things we see only the 
 natural change of words and things correspond- 
 ing with the changes of events and circumstances, 
 and through them all we discern with perfect 
 clearness in the New Testament itself, and in 
 the very infancy of the Church, the two distinct 
 ecclesiastical offices of Presbyter and Deacon ; 
 and, again, the Apostles evidently exercising 
 a jurisdiction over both ; and lastly, as the 
 Churches multiplied, the only Apostle of whose 
 labours and cares we have any full account in 
 
 " 1 Cor. xii. 28—30. Eph. iv. 11. 
 
 = Compare 1 Pet. v. 1. 2 John 1. 3 John 1. 1 Pet. ii. 25. 
 Phil. i. 1. Acts XX. 17, 28. 1 Tim. iii. 1- -7, 8—13. 2 Tim. 
 iv. 5. 11. Tit. i. 5—7. 1 Cor. iii. 5. 
 
SERMON V. 177 
 
 the sacred pages delegating to other men as 
 in the text a portion of the same office and 
 jurisdiction, such portion as uninspired men 
 <iould exercise, and such exactly as we behold 
 committed to Bishops at the present day; 
 authority to reprove, rebuke, exhort, to main- 
 tain sound doctrine, reject the heretic, to lay 
 on hands, to continue a succession of faithful 
 teachers, judge of the qualifications of Presbyters 
 and Deacons, appoint Elders in every city'^ 
 Finally, we observe these acknowledged func- 
 tions of the Episcopate, which the Apostles had 
 indisputably ex:ercised themselves, committed to 
 Timothy and Titus at the close of the ministry 
 of the Apostles, at the very time, namely, the 
 most natural and reasonable for the continuation 
 of the office, if it was indeed to be perpetuated. 
 We see it continued, probably, during the life- 
 time of the last of the Apostles in the " Angels," 
 
 ■* Compare Acts xiv. 23. 2 Cor. xi. 28. Acts xx. 17, 18, &c. 
 Rom. i. 11. 14. Phil.i. 1. iTim.i.S. ii. 1.8,9. 12. iii. 1— IS. 
 iv. 6. IJ, 12. 14. V. 1. 7- 17- i9, 20. 22. 2 Tim. ii. 2. iv. 
 1, 2. 5j 6. Tit. i. 5 — 14. ii. 15. iii. 10. I do not employ the 
 text, it may be right to observe, as if the word " ordain" 
 »«T«irT«Vi|{ were used in its modern technical sense. Its 
 meaning is nearer, perhaps, to the ecclesiastical sense of the 
 modern word " institute." But the various passages above 
 referred to shew the fact, that 'limothy and Titus were 
 appointed to select, and examine, and ordain Elders, and 
 we are concerned not wijth words but facts. 
 
178 SERMON V. 
 
 as they are called, of the Apocalyptic Churches ; 
 we see no trace of this method of Church 
 Government having been superseded ; and whilst 
 this was sanctioned, we find no other enjoined. 
 Combining, therefore, present facts, and con- 
 tinuous history, with Apostolic usage, and re- 
 membering by whom the Apostles had been 
 themselves ordained, we derive from the whole 
 evidence. Historical and Scriptural, a sufficient 
 and satisfactory proof of the Divine origin of the 
 Institution. 
 
 I dwell upon the word a " sufficient and satis- 
 factory" proof of the Divine origin of Episcopacy 
 for a practical reason, to which I would briefly 
 advert before we conclude. 
 
 For as to the method and the principle of 
 investigation which have now been advocated, 
 these, I trust, will have been rendered abun- 
 dantly clear by the foregoing examples. The 
 method of investigation, which I have recom- 
 mended, may not indeed have been always sufii- 
 ciently observed. The advocates for Episcopacy, 
 for instance, often appear to reject the more 
 simple and obvious proceeding; not bringing 
 forward in the first instance the clear and con- 
 fessed to illustrate the doubtful and obscure, but 
 dwelling upon the sacred pages first of all, in- 
 stead of making well-known facts and admitted 
 
SERMON V. 179 
 
 history the natural commentary upon Holy Scrip- 
 ture*. But for the principle of all these argu- 
 ments, that, I need scarcely say, has been recom- 
 mended again and again. So, for example. Bishop 
 Stillingfleet ; " As to the divine institution of 
 the Lord's day," he writes, " we do not go about 
 to lessen it, but only to shew that some examples 
 in Scripture being joined with the universal 
 practice of the Church in its purest ages, hath 
 been allowed to be a sufficient ground, not only 
 for following ages to observe it, but to look on 
 it as at least an Apostolical institution." And 
 Augustine long before. Sunt multa quae universa 
 tenet ecclesia, et ob hoc ab apostolis preecepta 
 bene creduntur, quanquam scripta non reperi- 
 antur ^ 
 
 Nevertheless, how reasonable soever the prin- 
 ciple may be in itself, we have need of caution in 
 applying it ; and this not merely, as in the case of 
 every argument, lest we conclude too much from 
 insufficient premises, but lest we apply the prin- 
 
 .« E.g. Bishop Taylor, on Episcopacy, Works, vol. vii. 
 Bishop Hall, Episcopacy by Divine Right. Bishop Russell, 
 Sermon cited above. 
 
 f Stillingfleet's Ordination Sermon, cited by Bishop Russell, 
 p. 44. who also cites the extract from Augustine De Bap. 
 cent. Donatistas, lib. v. c. 7- and the following, Multa quae 
 non inveniuntur in Literis eorum, neque in Conciliis poste- 
 riorum, et tamen quia per universam custodiuntur ecclesiam, 
 non nisi ab ipsis tradita et commendata creduntur. Ibid. 1. ii. 
 c. 7. and other passages to the same purpose. Note G. p. 58. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 SERMON V. 
 
 ciple where it is not justly applicable. For the 
 tradition of facts must not be confounded with 
 tradition of doctrine. It may very well be that out- 
 ward Ordinances, the constitution of the Church 
 itself, the baptism of infants, the Lord's day, 
 may have been committed to the safe-keeping of 
 the Church, and with some scriptural sanction, 
 although without any specific command, super- 
 added to universal practice, they may carry the 
 conviction to our minds of their Apostolic origin. 
 Yet will it by no means follow that Doctrines 
 also are likely to have been thus committed to 
 Tradition with a similar imperfection in the 
 Scriptural proof of their Divine authority. The 
 Ordinance might have been binding, although 
 not so binding, had Scripture never noticed it ; 
 but the alleged Christian Doctrine, if it cannot 
 be proved to be revealed, is, as a Doctrine, 
 nothing. 
 
 Lastly, whilst on the one hand the recognition 
 of an ordinance in Holy Scripture, even without 
 express record of a command for its observance, 
 sets it upon an eminence far above those on 
 which Holy Scripture has been silent — and thus 
 the Ember days, for example, and the Friday 
 fast, are not to be compared with the Lord's 
 day — yet again, on the other hand, the absence 
 of a specific command is not to pass unheeded, 
 whensoever the authority of an ordinance is the 
 subject of controversy between ourselves and our 
 
SERMON V. 181 
 
 brethren in Christ. In such a case, and with 
 reference to them, the obligation of Episcopacy, for 
 example, is not to be compared with that of the 
 Sacraments. The argument may be abundantly 
 sufficient and satisfactory to us, which we may 
 not expect to carry conviction of necessity to 
 other minds. This is the plain practical distinc- 
 tion which the Church of England appears to 
 have observed with respect to this very instance 
 of Episcopacy. In her Articles and her Ordina- 
 tion Services she is definite and decided, as to 
 the constitution of the Church, which she had 
 received, and which she preserved inviolate. Her 
 conviction was complete, and she acted upon it. 
 It was her bounden duty so to do. And doubt- 
 less she judged an Episcopal succession to be 
 among the " things that were wanting" in some 
 sister Churches, and deeply lamented the inter- 
 ruption even of external union in the body of 
 Christ. Nevertheless she cautiously abstains from 
 the condemnation of others ; and does not so 
 define a visible Church, or a lawful Ministry, as 
 to exclude the Churches which had not retained 
 Episcopacy. And may her faithful children imi- 
 tate her moderation and her charity ! Let us not 
 suspect her conduct of indifference to sacred 
 Truth, or imagine that Christian Unity will be 
 better promoted by a more earnest zeal. Truth 
 is but one, and the Church of Christ should be 
 one ; and in our love of truth, and the fervency 
 
182 SERMON V. 
 
 of our daily prayers for Christian unity, there 
 can be no excess. But the known principles of 
 human nature may well assure us, that few 
 things are better calculated than arguments 
 overstrained, or the very appearance of authority 
 unduly assumed, to perpetuate Disunion, and 
 retard the much-desired progress of Christian 
 Truth. 
 
 O Almighty God, who' hast built thy Church 
 upon the foundation of the Apostles and Pro- 
 phets, Jesus Christ Himself being the head 
 corner-stone ; Grant us so to be joined together 
 in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may 
 be made an holy temple acceptable unto thee, 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
SERMON VI. 
 
 2 Cor. i. 24. 
 
 NOT FOR THAT WE HAVE DOMINION OVER YOUR FAITH, 
 BUT ARE HELPERS OF YOUR JOY. 
 
 It is with our spiritual, as with our natural 
 birth, with our second birth, as with the first ; 
 we are not born, nor are we born again, insulated 
 independent beings. Nor are we dependent upon 
 our Maker alone. His protection or His grace, 
 but mutually dependent upon one another ; nay, 
 even the governor is in many ways dependent 
 upon the governed, and the teacher upon the 
 disciple. And our dependence upon others does 
 not cease when we can walk alone, or think 
 alone ; it continues throughout the whole period 
 of our probation ; we are born, and we continue, 
 members of civil society as well as the domestic ; 
 and we are born again by baptism into the Churfih 
 of Christ, and when we shall have attained, if we 
 do attain, " unto a perfect man, unto the measure 
 
184 SERMON VI. 
 
 of the stature of the fulness of Christ," we are yet 
 to live on in her communion, and die in her com- 
 munion. 
 
 So it was at the first preaching of the Gospel. 
 We hear of disciples " added to the Church," 
 and " continuing in the Apostles' doctrine and 
 fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in 
 prayers ;" but was it ever recorded of any 
 Christian in Apostolic times as of an eminent 
 person in this country, that "in the latter part 
 of his life he was not a professed member of any 
 particular sect of Christians, he frequented no 
 public worship, nor used any religious rite in his 
 family"?" Yet even at first there might be no 
 inconsiderable danger lest the fellowship of Chris- 
 tians, and the unity of the Church, should be 
 unheeded or undervalued. The Greek might 
 imagine that he was to become not a member 
 of a community, but a partizan of certain philo-t 
 SOphical opinions ; and even the Jew, accustomed 
 to bonds of union more narrow and more external. 
 
 ' Newton's life of Milton. The acconnt, however, 
 " must be received, as Dr. Symmons observes, with some 
 caution. Milton's blindness and other infirmities might be 
 in part his excuse ; and it is certain that his daily employ- 
 ments were always ushered in by devout meditation and 
 study of the Scriptures." Note on Newton's Life of Milton, 
 p. xeix. Ed. 1824. But will not the description in the text 
 apply to many who have no similar excuses to plead } Cf. 
 Acts ii. 41, 42. 47. iv. 32. v. 14. xi. 24. ix. .31. xiii. 1. xiv. 23. 
 XV. 22. 36. 41. xvi. .5. 
 
SERMON VI. 185 
 
 one race, one nation, one temple, might be slow 
 to apprehend a spiritual society embracing all 
 the world, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, by 
 which all alike, Jew and Gentile, bond and free, 
 are "by one Spirit baptized into one body''." 
 And there was corresponding care to counteract 
 the danger. A visible form and polity were 
 given to the new society ; the Sacraments ap- 
 pointed to be the means and bonds of spiritual 
 communion ; all the brethren bound by a new 
 commandment suited to their new spiritual bro- 
 therhood ; their union and communion illustrated 
 and enforced by the most expressive figures, the 
 " vine and the branches," the " one body in 
 Christ, and every one members one of another ;" 
 the one spiritual and " holy temple in the Lord, 
 in whom all are builded together for an habi- 
 tation of God through the Spirit." — Nay, the 
 building up a holy Church is sometimes described 
 as the very purpose of God in Christ, and all 
 those things which are literally true only of 
 individual Christians, the constituent parts of 
 this one Society, are in a figure transferred to 
 the Society itself, and Christ is said to have 
 " loved the Church, and given Himself for it ; 
 that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the 
 washing of water by the word, that He might 
 
 » 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13-. Gal. iiL 27. 2*. Eph. iL 14—22, 
 iv. 1 — 6. Col. iii. 11. 
 
186 SERMON VI. 
 
 present it to Himself a glorious Church, holy and 
 without blemish"." 
 
 It may deserve our notice, moreover, that no 
 where are the Apostles so full and express in 
 setting forth the mutual and intimate com- 
 munion of all Christians one with another, of 
 all the members of that " one body in Christ," 
 as where the subject is the variety of offices 
 appointed by our Lord in His Church, or the 
 variety of gifts bestowed by that " one and the 
 self-same Spirit, who divideth to every man 
 severally as He will ;" the " word of wisdom," the 
 " word of knowledge," " prophecy," " interpreta- 
 tion of tongues;" or the various offices of Apostle, 
 Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher ; — 
 those gifts, namely, and those offices, which have 
 the most immediate connexion with our present 
 subject, having been given and constituted in 
 order to the attainment of Christian truth, the 
 perfection of Christian knowledge, the unity of 
 the faith''. — Was there no prophetic wisdom in 
 this ? no melancholy anticipation of the mutual 
 errors of Christians on both sides, of the governors 
 and the governed, the teachers and the taught, 
 the proud assumption of an usurped dominion, 
 the equally proud resistance to just authority ? — 
 
 ' John XV. 1—4. 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17- 2 Cor. vi. 16. 1 Pet.ii.- 
 5. Eph. ii. 19—22. Rom. xii. 4, 5. 1 Cor. xii. 12—27. 
 Eph. i. 7—14. ii. 14—22. iv. 1— 16. v. 26, 27. 
 
 " 1 Cor. xii. Eph. iv. 
 
SERMON VI. 187 
 
 But of this hereafter. For the present it will be 
 recollected, that the preceding Discourses have 
 been largely occupied in displaying the con- 
 formity, the harmony, between the structure of 
 the Christian Scriptures, (nay, even of the Old 
 Scriptures as well as the New,) and the constitution 
 of the Christian Church ; and in setting forth, 
 accordingly, some of the uses of the Church in 
 connexion with the Scriptures, whether in sup- 
 plying an Introduction to the Christian Doctrines 
 always intended and generally necessary, or a 
 Presumptive Evidence of their truth, or a still 
 stronger Presumption in favour of the Divine 
 origin of certain Christian Ordinances. 
 
 Other means and privileges we indeed possess 
 in order to the attainment of Christian Truth, 
 which yet remain to be considered. But some- 
 thing must still be said in this behalf, although 
 very briefly, of the uses of the Church ancient, or 
 existing, of Creeds, and Articles, and Fathers, in 
 one word of Church Authority, or, to speak 
 more correctly with reference to our present 
 purpose, of Church Privileges. 
 
 But what? it will be said. Shall we then 
 number Church authority among the Privileges 
 of the Christian? Shall we strive to introduce 
 again the most intolerable of all tyrannies? 
 " Substitute the priest for the human under- 
 standing ?" " bow to the authority of human mas- 
 
188 SERMON VI. 
 
 ters, acknowledge human creeds, claim juris- 
 diction over others' consciences, or suffer others to 
 dictate to us ?" Suffer fallible men to " prescribe 
 to us the Articles of our Christian faith, and 
 interpose between us and our heavenly Guide 
 and Saviour'?" — Now I believe without doubt 
 that sentiments of this description, which are 
 frequently insinuated and sometimes openly ex- 
 pressed, instead of being rational and enlarged, 
 are the very offspring of prejudice and contracted 
 views. Yet is it not to be dissembled, that the 
 melancholy history of the Church of Christ has 
 given them somewhat of a specious and plausible 
 air. There have been grievous faults on both 
 sides ; a disposition to claim too much, as well 
 as a disposition to concede too little. Hence, as 
 was said, the prophetic earnestness with which 
 the Apostle labours to impress upon all the 
 members of the body of Christ, the teachers and 
 the disciples alike, the g^eat ends for which 
 various gifts were bestowed, and various offices 
 appointed in the Church, and the great duty of 
 mutual love in the pursuit of Christian truth and 
 of our mutual edification. Hence also whilst the 
 younger are exhorted to " submit themselves to 
 the elder, yea all of us to be subject one to 
 another, and to be clothed with humility," 
 Christian Pastors are directly enjoined to feed 
 
 ' Dr. Channing'a Letter on Creeds, &c. 1837- p- 6", 7, 8. 
 and Discourses^ 1833. Disc I. p. 3. IFI. p^, 147- 
 
SERMON VI. 189 
 
 the flock of God, " not as being lords over God's 
 heritage, but being ensamples to the flock'." 
 Nay even St. Paul himself, and speaking of 
 himself, addresses the Corinthians in the meek 
 language of the text, " not for that we have 
 dominion over your faith, but are helpers of 
 your joy" — upon which words Erasmus, an eye- 
 witness, yet not always among the sternest re- 
 provers, of a corrupt Christianity, remarks, Haec 
 animadvertenda nobis, qui fidei ac religionis 
 titulo ad tyrannidem abutimur. Nee alio for- 
 tassis studio quidam cupimus Orbem redigi ad 
 professionem Christi, quam ut ipsi latius regne- 
 mus ^. — Bearing all these things in mind, there- 
 fore, I am constrained on the present occasion to 
 depart from the method hitherto observed, and 
 not to inquire directly into the advantages which 
 we enjoy connected with Church Authority, until 
 I shall have first in plain terms disclaimed such 
 pretensions to Authority as I believe to be erro- 
 neous, and modified those which I suppose to be 
 exaggerated. 
 
 I. It is of course to be recollected, that the 
 " Authority" of the Church is not always spoken 
 of in the same sense ; and the mere statement of 
 three different senses in which the term is com- 
 
 f 1 Pet. V. 1—6. Rom. xii. 10. Eph. v. 21. Phil. ii. 3. 
 » Critici Sacri, in loc. 
 
190 SERMON VI. 
 
 monly employed will conduce not a little to jusf 
 conclusions upon the whole matter. These senses 
 are, first, the authority of Order ; secondly, of 
 Influence ; thirdly, an Absolute authority, founded 
 upon Infallibility. 
 
 Thus it appears essential to the very existence 
 of a Church, as a Society, that is to say, of any 
 particular branch of the Universal Church of 
 Christ, that she should exercise what has been 
 called an authority of Order, not merely with 
 respect to discipline and ceremonies, but also 
 with respect to matters of faith. For she must 
 determine, how difficult and responsible soever 
 may be the office, and most responsible it is, 
 she must determine who shall, and who shall 
 not, be members of the Society, in other words, 
 she must settle the terms of Church Communion. 
 And, further, in these later days, considering the 
 unhappy controversies which have distracted the 
 Christian community, she can scarcely avoid 
 pronouncing her judgment upon some of the 
 more important subjects of debate, and requiring 
 a concurrence in that judgment on the part of 
 her Pastors and Teachers. All this a Christian 
 Society may do, and must do, according to the 
 best exercise of her judgment and discretion, 
 although she lays claim to no immunity from 
 error. And thus the Church of England, whilst 
 she openly disclaims all pretensions to infallibility, 
 yet, acting as a Society, requires the assent, first. 
 
SERMON VI. 191 
 
 of all her members to the Apostles' Creed and 
 the Church Catechism, and, besides, of the 
 Ministers of the Word to her larger " Articles 
 of Religion." ' 
 
 And in this sense of the terra, accordingly, she 
 has declared in the twentieth of those Articles, 
 that she has " authority in controversies of 
 faith :" — yet not, I apprehend, in this sense 
 alone, but probably with reference also to the 
 second sense of the word already mentioned, 
 the authority, namely, of Weight or Influence, 
 or by whatever other expression we may best 
 denote that authority which, without pretending 
 to immunity from error, claims only respect and 
 deference. 
 
 And who is there who does not admit some 
 notion of Church authority, in this sense of the 
 term, except the visionary assertor of an unnatural 
 independence ? For indeed, the deference which 
 it implies is the same in kind, and with the 
 degree of it we are not at present concerned, but 
 in kind it is the same, with the respect due from 
 the child to his parent, the young to the old, the 
 rude to the skilful, the unlearned to the learned, 
 the individual to the society of what kind soever 
 to which he may belong : a deference which, 
 although it may, doubtless, sometimes foster 
 prejudice, and promote error, and therefore 
 requires to be duly regulated and restrained, is 
 
I9'i SERMON VI. 
 
 nevertheless the dictate alike of nature and of 
 reason, and may be an auxiliary and a guide to 
 truth. 
 
 It is in this second sense of the term, accord^ 
 ingly, that I shall have more to say hereafter of 
 Church authority; whilst to the mere authority 
 of Order I shall have no occasion to refer, 
 because it is not of itself a guide to truth, but 
 becomes a guide only as it passes on into the 
 authority of Weight and Influence, and makes 
 a just demand upon our deference and respect. 
 Church-authority, meantime, in the third sense 
 of the expression, when it claims to be Absolute, 
 not admitting of question, founded upon Infal- 
 libility asserted or implied, this it is which we 
 must disallow, by what Church soever it may 
 have been maintained, or for what Church soever 
 it may now be claimed. 
 
 1. And, first, the clearest assertion of this 
 claim is that put forth by the Roman branch of 
 the Church of Christ, not indeed as a branch of 
 the Universal Church, but as the Catholic 
 Church itself. Nothing can be more simple and 
 complete than the authority which she claims in 
 matters of faith. It places obedience to the 
 Church, to the existing Church, in lieu of all 
 inquiry into truth, nay, it repudiates inquiry as 
 in itself a crime. So the claim is stated by her 
 
SERMON VI. 193 
 
 popular writers ; as, for example, in the instance 
 of Transubstantiation, " The unerring authority 
 of the Church has declared it to be true, and 
 injoined the belief of it ;" and after such a 
 decision, " it is the part of an infidel rather than 
 a Christian to ask, how can this be '' ?" If indeed 
 it were only meant by this, that the Christian must 
 acquiesce in a doctrine which he allowed to 
 be revealed, not inquiring into the mode when he 
 admitted the fact, this would be only the rea- 
 sonable modesty of the creature submitting to 
 the Creator, the finite to the Infinite : but what 
 is really required is the unreserved submission of 
 the Christian to the Church, the finite to the 
 finite, the fallible to the fallible. So it is laid 
 down by another popular writer. The one gate 
 of entrance into the Catholic Church is " abso- 
 lute, unconditional submission to the teaching 
 of the Church," This is styled " the fundamental 
 principle of Catholicity." " No one is, or can be, 
 a Catholic, but by his entire submission to the 
 authority of his Church." And the ground of 
 this submission is no less simple and compre- 
 hensive ; for, " God has appointed His Church 
 the infallible and unfailing depository of all 
 
 ■■ " The Catholic Christian instructed, &c." cited by Dr. 
 Middleton, in the Preface to his Letter from Rome, p. 
 Ixxvii. (fourth edit.) See Dr. Hey's Lectures, book iv. art. 
 zx. sect. i. 
 
194 SERMON VI. 
 
 truth '." In the same peremptory terms the 
 Rhemish annotators, speaking of General Coun- 
 cils, " Holy Counsels — have ever the assistance of 
 God's Spirit, and therefore cannot erre ''." And 
 in the recent Theological Lectures at Maynooth, 
 " Concilia, convocatione et celebratione generalia, 
 sunt infallibilia '." And Bellarmin, " All Ca- 
 tholics are agreed, that the Pope and a General 
 Council together are absolutely infallible, when 
 they make Decrees on Faith and Morals, Pon- 
 tificem cum Generali Concilio non posse errare 
 in condendis fidei decretis vel generalibus prae- 
 ceptis morum '"." 
 
 However guarded, therefore, the Church of 
 Rome may be in some of her Authoritative 
 Decrees and SymbolSj it is impossible to doubt 
 the sentiments of her members respecting the 
 Infallibility, and consequent authority, of the 
 Church, her " supreme," nay, as a living writer has 
 even dared to term it, her " divine authority" in 
 
 ' Dr. Wiseman's Moorfields Lectures. Lect. i. p. 17. 20. 
 ii. p. 27. iii. et seq. See note at the end. 
 
 " Rhemists on Acts xv. 28. cited by Dr. Hey, Lectures, 
 b. iv. art. xxi. sect. 12. 
 
 ' Tractatus de EcclesiS, Christi, ad usum Theologiae can- 
 didatorum. Accedunt duse Appendices, de Traditione, et 
 Conciliis Generalibus. Autore L. 1&. Delahogue. Dublin. 
 I8O9. p. 166. cite4 by Bp. Marsh, Comparative View of the 
 Churches of England and Rome, p. 37- 
 
 "■ De Romano Pontifice, lib. iv. cap. ii. See Bp. Marsh, as 
 above, p. 36. 
 
SERMON VI. 195 
 
 matters of faith. But this portentous claim we 
 repudiate altogether, not only as not proved, but 
 even as incapable of proof. It is not presump- 
 tuous to say " incapable of proof," considering the 
 acuteness and learning which have been employed 
 upon the proof in vain. And why employed in 
 vain? but because the proof has been constructed 
 upon insufficient presumptions, and texts of dis- 
 puted meaning. No presumptive arguments, 
 from the supposed insufEciency of the Scriptures, 
 from the advantage, expediency, the alleged ne- 
 cessity, of an Infallible Interpreter, can prove 
 the fact, that such authority has been committed 
 to the Church ; nor, again, can that fact be 
 proved by any arguments from the words of 
 Scripture, so long as the meaning and applica- 
 tion of the passages are themselves disputed, and 
 the dispute can only be determined by that au- 
 thority of the Church which is the very point iu 
 question. Take, for example, any the strongest 
 passage which the Romanist alleges, such as 
 the closing words of our Lord upon earth, " All 
 power is given unto me in heaven and earth. 
 Go ye therefore and teach all nations, — teach^ 
 ing them to observe all things whatsoever I have 
 commanded you : and, lo, I am with you alway, 
 even unto the end of the world :" or take all the 
 prophetic descriptions of the Christian Church, 
 and the promises of the Comforter, and of the 
 perpetual support of our Lord, and the terms, 
 
 o2 
 
196 SERMON VI. 
 
 how emphatic soever, in which He conveyed His 
 commission to the Apostles and their successors 
 in the Christian Ministry, and what is really esta- 
 blished by them all ? They prove an authority 
 to teach, but not absolute authority ; continued 
 protection, not immunity from error ; the Inde- 
 fectibility of the Church, not her Infallibility. 
 
 Yet further, the claim might perhaps be prac- 
 tically refuted, or even reduced to an absurdity, 
 by exhibiting actual instances of contradictions 
 between General Councils ; of Councils deposing 
 Popes, and Popes neglecting Councils"; or by 
 displaying at large the unscriptural errors of that 
 Church which insists upon her own immunity 
 from error. But I forbear to enter into this dis- 
 cussion. Those who are involved in the errors 
 of the Church of Rome suffer no contradictions, 
 it would appear, to shake their faith in her Infalli- 
 bility. And to those who are not, one example 
 of error, palpable error, repugnant to the word 
 of God, is sufficient to overthrow the claim. 
 Who is there, indeed, that loves the truth, and 
 has any tolerable acquaintance with the Scrip- 
 tures of truth, if he has chanced to hear the 
 Litany chaunted to the blessed Virgin, or seen 
 her image exalted in a Christian house of prayer, 
 but must deny every pretence to infallible au- 
 
 " See Dr. Hey's Lectures, vol. iv. p. 99. 107- art. xxi. sect. 
 5. l6. and Mr. Newman on the Prophetical Office of the 
 Church, Lect. iv. p. 149. 
 
SERMON VI. 197 
 
 thority in that Church which can tolerate the 
 fearful impiety? nay which can more than tole- 
 rate, can palliate, excuse, sanction, encourage, 
 any thing so utterly unscriptural and unchristian 
 as adoration of whatever kind, or under what 
 denomination soever, offered to a dead woman or 
 her departed spirit ? 
 
 2. But it will be said again, and by Protestants 
 and even members of the Church of England, 
 " True, we deny Infallibility to the Church of 
 Rome, for she is but a branch and a corrupt 
 branch of the Universal Church ; nor do we con- 
 cede Infallibility at all to the Existing Church, 
 as at least she exists at present, the East divided 
 from the West, and either branch rent and torn 
 by multiplied dissentions ; but the Universal 
 Church of Christ, whilst she was One and truly 
 Catholic, had the promise of our Lord's con- 
 tinual presence, and was the abode of the Spirit 
 of truth, and she did not and could not err. 
 Wherefore the articles of the first Creeds, and 
 the decisions of the first Councils, are to be 
 received with implicit faith, and possess authority 
 absolute and unquestionable, as the sure and 
 certain witness of the Church to the teaching of 
 the Apostles"." 
 
 Here doubtless our best feelings are not pained 
 
 " See Mr. Russell's Judgment of the Anglican Church, 
 Introd. p. xii. xx. xxi. And see note at the end. 
 
108 SERMON VI. 
 
 and shocked as before. The Church no longer 
 seems to say, " Believe in me, and you are safe;" 
 as if she herself were the foundation, and not 
 Jesus Christ. What is gained in modesty, how- 
 ever, is lost in simplicity ; and the original 
 foundations of either theory appear alike pre- 
 carious. For it may be asked. When was the 
 Church truly one ? When, since the days of the 
 Apostles, has she acted as a whole, as the Church 
 Catholic? And how shall the assertion be proved, 
 that " the Church Catholic is unerring in its 
 declarations of faith, or saving doctrine ?" 
 
 For if we must first examine the records of 
 the Church, and determine what divisions are 
 not inconsistent with her Unity, and how long 
 that Unity was preserved, for all practical pur- 
 poses the theory is not a little embarrassed ; 
 much more, if we must proceed to shew in what 
 instances the Church really spoke and acted as a 
 whole, when Apostolic authority had been with- 
 drawn. Do we indeed in any instance literally 
 obtain the unanimous judgment of the Universal 
 Church ? Did any Council terminate in unani- 
 mity? And if not, what majority decides the 
 question of the real testimony of the Church 
 Catholic, or how shall we determine k priori that 
 the minority must be in error 1 And if we cannot 
 decide these questions, but only infer that a 
 Council could not err from our conviction that 
 it did not err, this is of course no ground 
 
SERMON VI. 199 
 
 for belief in the principle of its absolute autho- 
 rity. 
 
 I am not denying the probability, the very 
 high probability, that the Primitive Church knew 
 and preserved the genuine doctrine of the Apo- 
 stles. And the use of this probability I have 
 already endeavoured to display p. But that we 
 may employ her judgment as unerring, and ab- 
 solutely certain, we must have arrived at a pre- 
 vious certainty that she could not but have 
 preserved inviolate, in any given instance, the 
 true Apostolic faith. Nor again do I dispute the 
 fact, that in all the more important articles of 
 faith she actually possessed the truth. This is 
 nothing more than the Church of England has 
 long ago admitted by her acceptance of the early 
 Creeds and the principal decisions of the early 
 Councils. But to have attained and to possess 
 the truth, by no means establishes an incapacity 
 to err. We hold of course that the Church of 
 England has attained the truth, but we neverthe- 
 less believe her to be fallible. This is not to 
 deny that there are doctrines absolutely true 
 in themselves, or to confound, as it is sometimes 
 expressed, objective truth .with subjective ; it is 
 only to distinguish between truths ascertained to 
 be such by subsequent examination, and those 
 which we receive as indisputable without ex- 
 amination by reason of our antecedent admission 
 I" In Sermons IV, V. 
 
200 SERMON VI. 
 
 of the unquestionable authority by which they 
 are declared. 
 
 We must be satisfied, therefore, antecedently, 
 of the absolute authority of the Primitive Church, 
 before we can receive her decrees as infallible and 
 unquestionable. But where is the satisfactory 
 proof of her infallible authority ? or what is 
 alleged in that behalf, but the same precarious 
 reasons to which we adverted before in the in- 
 stance of the Romanist ? Arguments from pro- 
 babilities which can never prove the fact, and 
 arguments from passages of Scripture, which, 
 whatever gracious promises they may convey of 
 support and aid to the Universal Church, give 
 her no charter of Infallible authority ? — Too 
 well we know, that the promises of spiritual aid, 
 of the abiding presence in the Church of our 
 Lord and His Spirit, unspeakably precious as 
 they are, have never been intended to exclude 
 the possibility of moral corruption, neither may 
 they be safely construed to exclude the possibi- 
 lity of intellectual error '^. 
 
 I am constrained, accordingly, to disallow the 
 claim of Infallibility and Absolute Authority, whe- 
 ther advanced in behalf of any particular Church, 
 or of the Church Universal ; of the Ancient Church 
 in the period of her comparative unity, as well as 
 of the Modern Church in her state of sad disunion; 
 
 1 See Abp. Whately, Dangers to Christian Faith, Essay iii. 
 J, 4. p. 132. 
 
SERMON VI. 201 
 
 yielding indeed, to use the words of Dr. Jackson, 
 " a conditional assent and a cautionary obedience" 
 wherever it is justly due, but never in any case 
 conceding, except to the original messengers of 
 Revealed truth, " absolute assent and unlimited 
 obedience^" And to the same effect, I appre- 
 hend, the English Church, whilst she accepts 
 the decrees of the four first Councils in matters 
 of faith, confesses nevertheless that " General 
 Councils may err," wherefore, she adds, their 
 decrees have no authority, " unless it may be 
 declared that they be taken out of Holy Scrip- 
 ture :" and whilst she acknowledges that " the 
 three Creeds ought thoroughly to be received 
 and believed," yet does she not presume to men- 
 tion as the ground for her belief any consent of 
 Fathers, judgment of Antiquity, or authority of 
 the Universal Church, but this only basis of her 
 pure and scriptural faith, — " for they may be 
 proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scrip- 
 ture \" 
 
 H. From the assumed Infallibility, then, and 
 Absolute Authority of the Church, which I would 
 entirely disallow, let us proceed, secondly, to 
 other principles which we may thankfully admit, 
 
 ' Cited by Bp. Van Mildert, Bampton Lecture IV. p. 90. 
 See also notes ibid. p. 291 . ' Art. viii. xxi. 
 
202 SERMON VI. 
 
 although not without some qualification and re- 
 serve. 
 
 1. Thus the Indefectibility of the Church is a 
 signal blessing, and ever to be remembered in the 
 investigation of Christian truth. 
 
 Weak and wayward as we are, we are not 
 permitted altogether to defeat the gracious pur- 
 poses of God. We have the promise of Christ 
 Himself, that He will be " alway with us even 
 unto the end of the world ;" that " the gates of 
 hell shall not prevail against His Church ;" that 
 " the Spirit of Truth shall abide with us for ever." 
 For we are the inheritors of the " Everlasting 
 Covenant," and of those merciful declarations, 
 " My spirit that is upon thee, and my words 
 which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart 
 out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy 
 seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, 
 saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever^" 
 The prophecy speaks, indeed, of obedience rather 
 than of truth and faith ; but religious truth and 
 religious obedience are indissolubly united ; and 
 so in fact have the promises been hitherto fulfilled 
 much to the same extent in respect of both ; never 
 an age recorded of spotless purity, none of un- 
 sullied truth, none, however, witnessing a total 
 
 ' Matt, xxviii. 20. xvi. IS. John xiv. 16. Is. Iv. 3. lix. 20, 21. 
 Jer. xxxi. SI — 37- xxxii. 40. xxxiii. 15 — 26. Ezek. xxxvii. 
 26—28. Heb. viii. 10. x. IC. 
 
SERMON VI. 203 
 
 defection. Amidst the many and deplorable 
 errors and apostasies of individuals and commu- 
 nities, amidst the heresies that have occasionally 
 reigned far and wide, the truth has never been 
 renounced by the Universal Church ; it has been 
 often obscured, but never lost ; the precious 
 metal tarnished, and crusted over, but not in- 
 capable of recovering its original lustre ; the 
 fabric of the faith deformed by unsightly ad- 
 ditions, but not overthrown ; its foundations 
 weakened, but not destroyed'. 
 
 To these remarkable and cheering facts, of 
 course, we are not entitled to appeal, when we 
 have to inquire. What is the truth ; we must 
 believe that we have ascertained the truth before 
 we can take satisfaction in the continued fulfil^ 
 ment of the promises now for eighteen hundred 
 years. But the promises themselves are a guide 
 to truth ; they assist us in the investigation. 
 They do not indeed enable us to determine 
 in any single instance that any given doctrine 
 of the Church, however universally taught and 
 received, is necessarily true ; because they do 
 not in any single instance exclude the fallibility 
 of the Church, nor teach us in what direction 
 and to what extent error may creep in, and yet 
 truth upon the whole prevail, and the promises 
 stand sure. But this they do; and it is most 
 
 ' See Bishop Van Mildert's Hampton Lecture VIII. p. 
 222— 2S1. and notes p. 359—365. 
 
204 SERMON VI. 
 
 important ; they afford a strong antecedent 
 presumption, that the universal or the general 
 teaching of the Church in its main outlines, 
 and in the great leading doctrines affecting the 
 foundations of the faith, cannot be wholly erro- 
 neous, but must be substantially true, or must at 
 the least have truth for its basis. 
 
 2. Hence, again, we may perceive the true 
 value and utility of the principle, that such 
 Christian doctrines must be true, as have been 
 received every where, always, and by all. 
 
 Obviously, indeed, the application of this cele- 
 brated maxim will be so restricted, that it will 
 be practically useless, if we would carry it down 
 to these later days, when there is scarcely a 
 doctrine that has not been disputed by some 
 Christians and in some places. Nay, so early 
 and so insidious were the rise and growth of 
 religious error, that even in respect of the 
 Primitive Church the theorem is hardly ever 
 to be employed precisely in its literal sense. 
 But taken in a practical sense, more or less 
 approximating to its literal meaning, it is of 
 considerable use positively, and negatively of 
 still more. 
 
 For what can be more improbable than that 
 the first Christians should have been absolutely 
 unacquainted with any saving doctrine, or of 
 great and serious moment ? The absence there- 
 
SERMON VI. 205 
 
 fore of any Primitive testimony to any alleged 
 truth of this character, whenever it cannot be 
 supposed that the dpctrine if known and believed 
 should have been passed by in silence, is a strong 
 negative argument against its truth. Nay, it is 
 almost conclusive against any novel doctrine 
 imposed by any modern assembly as affecting 
 salvation, or Christian communion ; against the 
 novelties of Trent, for example, or of the 
 Synod of Dort. Again, the positive force of 
 the argument is by no means inconsiderable. 
 Nothing can be more remote from my meaning 
 than to assert, with some modern writers, that 
 " Catholicity is the only test of truth." It is 
 not to many articles of faith that the test applies 
 at all ; and we are blessed with a superior and 
 a supreme authority in the sacred Scriptures. 
 But the truths to which the test is applicable, 
 although few, are most important, the articles 
 for example of the Apostles' Creed. And the 
 universal reception of these and a few other 
 Christian truths even in the earliest days of the 
 Christian Church, wherever the Gospel was 
 preached and received, aflFords so strong a pre- 
 sumption in their favour, as will not be lightly 
 set aside by any sincere and considerate inquirer 
 after truth. For where indeed was the Gospel, or 
 what was the Revelation, if the universal belief 
 from the very first was only universal error? — 
 And so, accordingly, at the great sera of the 
 
20{) SERMON VI. 
 
 Reformation, when the foundations of the faith 
 were re-examined, and the genuine truths of the 
 Gospel were carefully discriminated from every 
 spurious addition, and not then alone, but by 
 the most considerate Divines from that period 
 to the present age, a great value has been justly 
 assigned, — but saving always to Holy Scripture 
 its sole absolute authority, — to the strong pre- 
 sumptions, as well positive as negative, derived 
 from Catholic Antiquity. 
 
 3. But these remarks have yet another ap- 
 plication. They carry us on into a kindred 
 subject, and will enable me in few words to 
 state with sufficient accuracy, perhaps, for our 
 present purpose, what I apprehend to be the 
 just use and authority of Tradition. 
 
 Of that continued stream of traditional in- 
 struction, which may be termed Unauthoritative 
 Tradition, I have already endeavoured to dis- 
 play at large the signal use and importance 
 as an Introduction to Christian truth". But 
 has Tradition no authority ? or has it any 
 absolute authority ? or does it constitute an 
 integral portion, as some affirm, of the Rule of 
 Faith ? To these questions also a practical 
 answer has been returned, in the use which has 
 been already made of Tradition, with reference 
 both to Doctrines, and to Institutions "- It will 
 " In Sei-mons II, III. 'In Sermons IV, V. 
 
SERMON VI. 207 
 
 suffice to add a very few direct observations upon 
 the Theory. 
 
 For we may employ the term " Tradition," 
 with reference either to the doctrines conveyed, 
 or the mode by which they are handed down. 
 But we need not discuss the mode of conveyance, 
 that is to say, oral teaching, in the first in- 
 stance, with a gradual admission of the docti'ines 
 into written records, but these the writings of 
 uninspired men as contradistinguished from the 
 Holy Scriptures. Few will deny, on the one 
 hand, the possibility that truths of Revelation 
 might be thus transmitted; on the other, the 
 greater uncertainty which would attend the 
 transmission of doctrines by oral teaching com- 
 pared with written records, or by the writings of 
 fallible men compared with those of inspired 
 Apostles ; and the consequent improbability that 
 the Author of the Faith, who, as all confess, con- 
 signed some great truths of the Gospel, and very 
 early, to the more certain conveyance, would 
 continue to transmit others by the less certain. 
 But not on any of these grounds do we refuse to 
 receive what the Romanist calls " the unwritten 
 word of God." We pass by the mode of con- 
 veyance, and turn to the doctrines themselves, 
 and to each of them separately, and enquire into 
 \hefact, whether they have been thus conveyed or 
 not. It is on, this point that we are at issue 
 with the Church of Rome. " We refuse nothing 
 
208 SERMON VI. 
 
 at all," says Bishop Patrick, " because it is 
 unwritten," but merely because it is not proved 
 to have been revealed ; we do not dispute the 
 absolute authority of any tradition which can be 
 proved to flow from our Lord or his Apostles, 
 but we deny that any article of faith, not capable 
 of proof from the Scriptures, has yet been traced 
 to this supreme authority. It is a question 
 altogether, not of theory, but of evidence and 
 history. We cannot ascertain the fact that any 
 unwritten word, distinct from the written Word 
 of God, exists at all ; and therefore we cannot in 
 this sense admit that the Scriptures and Tra- 
 dition together constitute the Rule of Faith. 
 
 True it is, and much, I think, to be regretted, 
 that even Protestant writers have sometimes 
 appeared to favour sentiments to which they 
 were in fact opposed. But one would merely 
 express his readiness to accept any truth, by 
 whatsoever mode conveyed to him, which shall 
 have been proved to be revealed ; another his 
 fond hope, that haply some long lost truth of 
 revelation may yet be recovered by Tradition ; 
 another does, indeed, lay it down expressly, that 
 " Scripture and Tradition together are the joint 
 Rule of Faith," yet not one maintains the known 
 existence of Tradition as the unwritten word of 
 God. They refer to no doctrine or system of 
 revealed truths not to be found in His written 
 word ; but sometimes speak of the Scriptures 
 
SERMON VI. 209 
 
 themselves as " a Tradition," plainly in another 
 sense of the word ; sometimes of such truths 
 as the Canonicity of the books of Scripture, 
 or their Sufficiency, manifestly truths not of the 
 substance of revelation, but connected vpith its 
 evidence ; sometimes, again, of the Apostolic 
 authority of certain Rites and Institutions, the 
 ultimate proof of which is still deduced from 
 Holy Writ ; more frequently of the traditionary 
 Form or System of revealed doctrine, the 
 Apostles' Creed, for example, or of traditionary 
 Interpretations, such, for instance, as were pre- 
 sented at the Council of Nice, as the faith re- 
 ceived by the several Churches of Christ — yet 
 evidently still they speak of no unwritten truth, 
 but only of the means and advantages with 
 which the Church has provided us for the more 
 easy comprehension, or better arrangement, of 
 the truths actually contained in the written 
 Revelation. 
 
 This is the Tradition, Explanatory, Con- 
 firmatory, or by whatever title it may best be 
 designated, which Protestant writers have some- 
 times joined with the sacred Scripture in their 
 definition of the Rule of Faith; not intending 
 the " unwritten word" of Romanist writers, nor 
 any new doctrine, or additional source of doc- 
 trine, yet unadvisedly, I conceive, coupling the 
 subordinate authority with the supreme, the 
 means of interpretation with the document to be 
 
210 SERMON VI. 
 
 interpreted. — As to the proper use and authority 
 of such Traditions, these are distinct questions ; 
 and if their authority is not rested upon the 
 supposed infallibility of the Church, they are 
 questions of history, evidence, judgment, not 
 of principle. Let the historical evidence be 
 irrefragable, let any tradition be traced incon- 
 trovertibly to the Apostles, its authority is 
 obviously that of the Apostles, and is supreme. 
 In every other case it is presumptive. I am not 
 aware of any tradition which is thus entitled 
 to supreme authority ; but the presumptive 
 authority of several is exceedingly high ; varying 
 of course in every instance with the proofs 
 of their antiquity and universality, the im- 
 portance of the subject, the certainty that it 
 was understood and attended to ; and not ap- 
 plying, therefore, to interpretations of particular 
 texts, nor to nice and subtle points of doctrine 
 not at first, happily, the subjects of debate. 
 Those, in a word, will be the probable traditions 
 which belong to the general system of the faith, 
 and to the greater and more prominent doctrines, 
 with which, if true, the earliest Churches could 
 not be unacquainted, and which, if they had 
 once received, they could scarcely misapprehend. 
 To this instrumental use, and subordinate 
 authority of Primitive Tradition, the most Scrip- 
 tural Christian may cheerfully subscribe ; nay, 
 he will pay to Tradition so employed a willing 
 
SERMON VI. 211 
 
 and a grateful deference, not as superseding in- 
 quiry, but inviting it ; not as having dominion 
 over his faith, but as the helper of his joy ; not as 
 the mistress of Scripture, but her handmaid. 
 
 III. And now, at length, in the third and last 
 place, having thus disclaimed such pretensions to 
 Church Authority as appear to me unfounded, 
 and endeavoured to moderate those which may 
 have been advanced too far, I would fain hope 
 neither to be misapprehended, nor to mislead, 
 whilst I conclude with some brief but thankful 
 survey of the abundant Privileges which we enjoy 
 through the very medium of Church Authority, 
 the authority, namely, of Weight or Influence, 
 with a view to our attainment of the Truth. 
 
 1. It is a great privilege that we are born into 
 the Church ; that we are no sooner Christians 
 than we are members of a Christian Society; 
 never insulated, but introduced at once into 
 a system of mutual dependence ; never left to 
 wander at large in quest of truth, without a 
 beacon or a guide, but travelling in a company, 
 the road ascertained, leaders and guides pro- 
 vided. We are inheritors of Christian truth ; 
 and we then enjoy the very perfection of our 
 privilege, when we are most exposed to the 
 singularly shallow taint of an " hereditary faith ;" 
 
 p2 
 
•212 SERMON VT. 
 
 that is to say, when we are baptized in earliest 
 infancy, and imbibe the truths of Christianity 
 with our earliest knowledge, at the very time 
 when the force of natural authority is the 
 strongest, and the disposition to doubt the 
 weakest. And why ? not in order that we may 
 never inquire, and examine, and try the found- 
 ations of truth with all accuracy ; but because it 
 is a blessed privilege to believe, before we can 
 inquire, and pray as Christians, act as Christians, 
 be Christians, long before we can arrive at the 
 capacity and opportunity to weigh evidence and 
 argument, — and yet, which especially deserves 
 our regard and admiration, not without our 
 having already acquired a covenant-title to that 
 spiritual aid which is essential alike to holiness 
 and to faith. For thus it is that the systems of 
 nature and of grace agree in perfect harmony ; 
 and the institutions of the Church, the gifts of 
 grace, the capacities and dispositions of youth, 
 and the natural authority of Parents and In- 
 structors, all conspire not to exclude inquiry into 
 the truth and tenets of Christianity, but to bless 
 us with Christianity itself before inquiry is 
 possible. 
 
 And what if inquiry never should be possible ? 
 or if it should be exceedingly partial and in- 
 complete, from imperfect powers, or slender 
 opportunities, or premature departure out of 
 this preparatory scene? — Does any considerate 
 
SERMON VI. 213 
 
 Protestant imagine, strangely as our sentiments 
 have been misconceived, that the youngest mem- 
 ber of the Church of Christ, who departs this life 
 in His faith and fear, is the less a Christian 
 because he could not have ascertained the cor- 
 rectness of his creed by his own individual 
 examination ? We do not thus confound the 
 end with the means ; nor do we teach the duty 
 of inquiry, except in proportion to the age, and 
 capacity, and circumstances, and opportunities of 
 the believer. 
 
 Too true it is, indeed, that to lean upon 
 authority will often be to imbibe error. But we 
 cannot, if we would, on this account exclude 
 authority. If the young are to be taught at 
 all, they will and they must, in some degree, 
 be it more or be it less, defer to the authority 
 of their teachers. It is the law of nature, and 
 we cannot abrogate it. And if they are taught 
 nothing, where religion is the subject, until they 
 are of age to discard authority, they will only be 
 involved in greater error. Better be the slaves 
 of superstition, than of infidelity ; better, far 
 better, that we should even invoke the Saints, 
 than disbelieve the necessity of Mediation ; 
 better bow down before an image of the Virgin, 
 (fearful as is such a departure from the truth 
 of religion,) than know nothing of our respon- 
 sibility, or doubt the existence of the Most 
 High. 
 
214 SERMON VI. 
 
 Nevertheless, in almost every case, except in 
 that Church which forbids the study of the 
 Scriptures, and makes the belief in her own 
 Infallibility the foundation of all belief, every 
 where else, and partially even there, some inquiry 
 will always go hand in hand with authority, 
 whilst authority will be of essential use as a 
 guide to inquiry. I do not speak of formal 
 and systematic inquiry, but of that tacit, and 
 almost unperceived comparison of the authori- 
 tative word with the fallible instructions of 
 Parents and Pastors, which is constantly going 
 forward in a healthful state of the Church; 
 which is indeed almost the sole inquiry of 
 which the majority of Christians are capable ; 
 and which, when nothing more is possible, may 
 be abundantly blessed to their salvation. But 
 suppose greater opportunities, more cultivation 
 of the intellectual powers, more exposure to 
 difficulties and doubts, and therefore more in- 
 quiry both required and possible; then, again, 
 it is a great privilege that we do not stand 
 alone ; that we succeed to the inquiries of our 
 Fathers in the faith ; that they have been ex- 
 posed to the same doubts, have traced out the 
 true course, marked the rocks and shoals, and 
 left their charts in our possession. And not 
 this alone; we have not only the advantage 
 in each successive stage of our progress of the 
 successive authority of Parents, of Ministers, of 
 
SERMON VI. 215 
 
 the good and the wise who have departed in the 
 faith, and bequeathed to us their testimony, a 
 testimony perhaps which they have sealed with 
 the blood of martyrdom ; but we have the col- 
 lective witness of the Church herself to the truths 
 which she has received and proved, and handed 
 down, incorporated into Liturgies or Offices of 
 devotion, or at least stated and determined in 
 her Confessions and Creeds. And this, let it be 
 gratefully remembered, accessible to the most 
 humble of her members ; nay, if there be, as in 
 our own favoured Church, a book of Common 
 Prayer in our native tongue, not accessible alone, 
 but actually possessed by all. 
 
 2. But even more than this ; for it is true 
 again that any particular Church may err, and 
 if she does not formally deny any essential article 
 of the faith, (as I know not any National Church 
 that errs to this extent,) she may yet have cor- 
 rupted the truth, or superadded grievous error — 
 then is it no slight additional privilege that we 
 can turn from the authority of any Particular 
 Church to that of the Church Universal. That 
 is to say, we can compare the several Confessions 
 of all the several Churches, Protestant or Roman, 
 in the East or in the West, observing their con- 
 current testimony to the more important truths 
 of Christianity, and inquiring into the reasons 
 of their disagreement on the questions of debate. 
 
216 SERMON VI. 
 
 And we may ascend higher towards the sources 
 of truth, and pass from this distracted scene to 
 happier periods, when all the Churches were 
 comparatively united in discipline and doctrine, 
 when they all grew and flourished under one 
 common form of Ecclesiastical Polity, and, 
 whatever were the sins and negligences and 
 ignorances and errors of obscure individuals, 
 there were at least no Arian bishops, no Nes- 
 torian Churches, no single Church throughout 
 the world that mutilated a Sacrament, invoked 
 a Saint, or excused Idolatry. 
 
 We owe it to a gracious Providence that we 
 should even be permitted, after the lapse of so 
 many centuries, and after so many convulsions of 
 Empires and Churches, to consult the records of 
 early Councils, observe their censures of what 
 they believed to be heretical, possess in the 
 Creeds their solemn testimony to what they 
 believed to be the truth delivered to them from 
 the first and approved by Holy Scripture, trace 
 the same truths in the remains of the primitive 
 Fathers, and so connect the teaching of Apostolic 
 men with those authentic and only sacred do- 
 cuments which were bequeathed to the Church 
 by the Apostles themselves. And here again I 
 describe a privilege not restricted to men of 
 great research and learning. The most im- 
 portant monuments of the Universal and the 
 Primitive faith, are contained within a narrow 
 
SERMON VI. 217 
 
 compass. Nay, even the unlearned members of 
 most Christian Churches possess the Apostles' 
 and the Nicene Creeds ; and are thus enabled 
 to identify their own belief with the faith of " the 
 holy Church throughout all the world." 
 
 And why should it be supposed impossible 
 to use our privileges without abusing them ? — 
 Doubtless it is easy, and we should ever re- 
 member that it is easy, to confound subordinate 
 instruments with supreme authority, and so to 
 reverence Antiquity, as to forget the Bible. 
 But I have throughout supposed the continual 
 and concurrent study of the Scriptures, and no 
 abdication of our rational powers, but, on the 
 contrary, a rational and discriminating use of 
 various instrumental advantages in order to the 
 more certain attainment of Scriptural truth. It 
 ought not to be difficult, and assuredly it should 
 be our endeavour, to employ all the means with 
 which God has provided us for the knowledge of 
 His Holy Word. We may value the testimony 
 of the Fathers, for example, where we dis- 
 trust their judgment ; slight their private 
 teaching and separate opinions, and yet defer 
 to their concurrent decisions and traditionary 
 teaching; esteem their honesty even where we 
 perceive them sliding gradually into error, the 
 mere rhetorical invocation, perhaps, of a de- 
 parted friend paving the way for the unscrip- 
 
218 SERMON VI. 
 
 tural doctrine of the intercession of the Saints. 
 We may gladly turn to the Apostles' and the 
 Nicene Creeds for the primitive arrangement 
 and definite statement of certain important 
 truths, yet never dream, as it has been strangely 
 objected to us, that a Scriptural faith is to be 
 restricted to these articles, or always expressed 
 in these terms. Or we may acknowledge the 
 Athanasian Creed to be a very incomplete ex- 
 hibition of the whole Catholic faith, and greatly 
 prefer the more simple and reverent phraseology 
 of Scripture, to its harsh and antithetical state- 
 ments even of those few articles of faith which 
 it sets forth ; and yet we may value it highly for 
 its negative uses, as a limit to irreverent con- 
 troversy, and an important barrier against 
 daring errors, unscriptural doctrines, and pre- 
 sumptuous modes of thought. 
 
 In a word, we may at once listen to the 
 Church, and obey the Scriptures ; use all the 
 various human instruments, whether securities 
 against error or positive means of truth, with 
 which the Providence of God has blessed us, 
 and yet not for a moment confound them with the 
 Divine. Nay, so natural and reasonable is this 
 subordinate deference to human authority, this 
 considerate use of our existing Privileges, that 
 the unnatural opposition which they have some- 
 times encountered has assuredly not arisen solely 
 from the perverseness of those who should have 
 
SERMON VI. 219 
 
 profited by them, but from the indiscretion also 
 of those who proffered them. A thankful use 
 of Church-privileges has been grievously im- 
 peded by exaggerated statements of Church- 
 authority. Amidst the continual oscillations of 
 human opinions, if we ever raise the weight too 
 high on the side of authority, it is sure to rise 
 again too high on the side of an unnatural in- 
 dependence. And the converse is no less true. 
 Even at this day and among ourselves we may 
 observe the influence of overstrained views of 
 liberty and independence re-acting upon the 
 minds of others, and generating notions equally 
 overstrained of Ministerial dignity and authority. 
 It may be difficult to hit the exact mean, but let 
 us at least aim at it. If it is easy to nurture 
 a rebellious spirit under the specious guise of 
 independence, it is no less easy, let us recollect, 
 to foster a domineering spirit under the sacred 
 name of Religion, and suffer even a pious zeal for 
 the honour of God to be insensibly corrupted by 
 a jealousy for our own. But the more sincerely 
 anxious we are that all our' brethren should 
 enjoy and use their privileges, so much the more 
 careful let us be to recommend them to their 
 acceptance. And never let us lose sight of the 
 obvious but important truth, that there are 
 antagonist principles in the human mind, a dis- 
 position to believe, and a disposition to inquire, 
 a spirit of submission, and a spirit of inde- 
 
220 SERMON VI. 
 
 pendence, of dutiful submission to just authority, 
 and of indignant resistance to usurped dominion; 
 and either class of dispositions has its appointed 
 use. Each of them is to be duly cultivated and 
 properly controlled, and both must be combined 
 in harmony, under the gracious aid of the Spirit 
 of God, if we would avoid false doctrine, heresy, 
 and schism, promote unity and a right faith 
 together, and build up in its true proportions and 
 upon solid foundations the hallowed temple of 
 religious truth. 
 
 O Almighty God, who hast instructed thy holy 
 Church with the heavenly doctrine of thy Evan- 
 gelists and Apostles ; Give us grace, that, being 
 not like children carried away with every blast of 
 vain doctrine, we may be established in the truth 
 of thy holy Gospel; through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord. Amen. 
 
SERMON VII. 
 
 1 Cor. xiv. 20. 
 
 IN MALICE BE YE CHILDREN, BUT IN UNDERSTANDING BE 
 
 MEN. 
 
 If a right use of the Church is of vast import- 
 ance in order to a wholesome knowledge of the 
 Scriptures, the proper exercise of our own Un- 
 derstanding is essential to both. 
 
 This is a truth so obvious, as scarcely to be 
 controverted except by the mere Fanatic. Even 
 he who maintains the absolute authority of the 
 Church, must at least allow to her members one 
 deliberate act of their own reason ; whilst those 
 who only yield a just deference to her authority 
 will of course be called upon for many. Admit 
 with the Romanist the absolute Infallibility of the 
 existing Church, and no doubt it covers all her 
 declarations of doctrine ; we must accept them 
 all with implicit faith ; but we must still have 
 determined by a prior act of judgment the cor- 
 
222 SERMON VII. 
 
 rectness of the claim. Or allow only the Infalli- 
 bility of the Primitive Church whilst she was one 
 and truly catholic, this will in fact extend only 
 to a few doctrines, and leave the truth of every 
 other to be weighed and examined. But if, with the 
 Church of England, we see no proof of the Infal- 
 libility of the Church any where, and consequently 
 disallow in every case, but that of Christ and 
 His Apostles, the claim of absolute authority, 
 then the province of Reason, however it may 
 require to be regulated and restrained by the 
 nature of the subject, or by our duty to the 
 Divine Author of Revelation, will be co-extensive 
 with the whole range of Christian truth. 
 
 How is it then that even from Protestant 
 writers, and at this day, we hear so many in- 
 vectives against the exercise of Reason in mat- 
 ters of Religion ? Faith is invidiously contrasted 
 with Reason, and the cultivation of our moral 
 affections with that of the intellect ; as if the 
 principle of Faith excluded argumentation, and, 
 the heart being right, the judgment must of 
 necessity be sound. Or sacred criticism is dis- 
 countenanced ; we must study the Scriptures, 
 it is said, not with a grammar and a dic- 
 tionary, but with a Catechism and a Liturgy ; 
 as if Criticism and History were incompatible^ 
 and traditional interpretations were not to assist, 
 but to supersede the consideration of the text 
 itself. Or the very examination of the Christian 
 
SERMON VII. 223 
 
 Evidences is censured, as a profane and irreverent 
 re-opening of questions long ago decided ; as if 
 Christian truth were a person once tried and 
 acquitted, and therefore not to be again sub- 
 mitted to trial, instead of being, as it is, a 
 subject ever new, and of the deepest interest to 
 each individual man in each successive genera- 
 tion". 
 
 But when these and similar sentiments are 
 expressed, as they often are, neither by fanatical 
 enthusiasts, nor by covert assailants of religious 
 truth, but by men of learning, ingenuity, and 
 sincere piety, shall we greatly err if we ascribe 
 them for the most part either to overstrained 
 conceptions of Church-authority, or to an over- 
 whelming dread of the abuse of human Reason ? 
 
 Of Church-authority, however, its use and 
 limits, I have formerly endeavoured to speak''. 
 At present it may be expedient, before I advert 
 
 to THE PROPER EMPLOTMENT OF OUR ReASON UPON 
 
 MATTERS OF RELIGION, briefly to notice some of 
 the mischievous or fatal consequences resulting 
 from its abuse. 
 
 I. The abuses alluded to are not, of course, 
 the illogical exercise, but the misuse and misap- 
 
 ' See British Critic, No. LI. Articles on the Evidences, and 
 upon Ancient MSS. And see note at the end. 
 " In Sermons IV, V, VI. 
 
224 SERMON VII. 
 
 plication of our intellectual powers; not incorrect 
 reasonings or faulty judgments, but the undue 
 exaltation of the intellect, that is to say, of the 
 human understanding generally, not necessarily 
 of our own in particular^ and its undue, because 
 unrestrained, employment upon subjects only in 
 part within its grasp. And let it be carefully 
 observed, that some of these abuses of Reason 
 are by no means confined to men of a sceptical 
 turn of mind verging upon infidelity, but are 
 committed every day by Christians of fervent 
 piety, and of what are often called high religious 
 views. 
 
 1. The most fatal of these abuses are obviously 
 those which tend to set aside the very possibility 
 pf Revelation. If when God condescends to reveal 
 any truth to man, man is to accept it or not, accord- 
 ing to his judgment not of the evidence in its 
 favour, but of the nature of the truth itself. 
 Revelation, it is plain, must be confined within 
 those narrow limits which our own narrow under- 
 standings shall be pleased to draw. But what- 
 ever the AUwise has indisputably declared, that 
 we must implicitly believe. 
 
 True, He has previously implanted within us a 
 Rational Mind and the Moral Sense ; and we 
 
 " Archbishop Whately, Note? to Archbishop King's Sermon 
 on Predestination, p. 102, 103. 
 
SERMON VII. '225 
 
 could not receive any subsequent revelation con- 
 tradictory to what they had already disclosed to 
 us with absolute certainty. But of what do they 
 inform us with absolute certainty ? Of scarcely 
 any thing ; some elementary principles, perhaps, 
 excepted of number and quantity, some conclu- 
 sions in Mathematics flowing in reality from our 
 own arbitrary Definitions. If the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, for example, really declared, as is some- 
 times supposed, that the same Persons were three 
 and one in the same sense, that would be contra- 
 dictory to our reason, being a contradiction in 
 terms, and therefore incapable of being received. 
 But there are no revealed truths of this character. 
 And it is no ungrateful disparagement of these 
 gracious gifts of Reason and the Moral Sense, 
 all-important as they are, to aflSrra, that there is 
 scarcely any thing within the province of Truth 
 or Morals, of which they inform us with such 
 certainty, that the truths of Revelation, although 
 in some few instances appearing at first sight to 
 contradict them, may not possess through the 
 overwhelming force of the evidence a far higher 
 certainty. 
 
 Hence the reasonableness of that astonishing 
 act of faith, when the Father of the Faithful at 
 once obeyed the Divine command to " offer up his 
 only-begotten son," and yet believed the promise 
 that " in Isaac should his seed be called ; ac- 
 counting that God was able to raise him up, 
 
 Q 
 
226 SERMON VII. 
 
 even from the dead ;" and thus obeying and 
 believing against the most urgent dictates of 
 the natural sense, and affections, and under- 
 standing, upon the still surer and infallible 
 evidence vouchsafed to him, that the promise 
 and the command proceeded from God''. The 
 abuse of reason of which we speak exactly re- 
 verses this process. Where Abraham's faith 
 stood upright, there this perverted reason stum- 
 bles and falls ; and when it can detect no flaw 
 in the evidence of revelation, presumes never- 
 theless by its own light to judge of the truths 
 revealed ; allegorizes the history of the Fall, for 
 example, or rejects that of the Judgment upon 
 the Canaanites, preferring the dim notices 
 which nature had presented of the Divine Be- 
 nevolence to the clearest revelations of His 
 Providence and His Justice. Just so at Athens 
 and in Jerusalem, the Resurrection was mocked 
 and derided as a thing incredible and impossible, 
 by those who doubtless conceived that they were 
 the most devoted followers of Reason, when in truth 
 they neither knew the Scriptures, nor that which 
 Reason might have taught them, the infinite 
 power of God. And in our own age and country, 
 those who pride themselves perhaps upon their 
 superiority to this ignorance, and are fond of 
 exhibiting the Resurrection and Life Eternal as 
 the very truths to which Christ set His seal, yet 
 
 '' Heb. x-i. Gen. xxii. 
 
SERMON VII. 227 
 
 reject that great truth of revelation, upon which, 
 as we believe, our sole claim to eternal life is 
 founded, acting upon the self-same principles of 
 perverted reason, which moved the Sadducee to 
 deride the doctrine of a life to come. The doc- 
 trine of the Atonement is incredible, it is said, 
 because it is calculated to give to the minds of 
 men " unfavourable impressions of the Divine 
 government, which, if not corrected by something, 
 else, must have an unfriendly aspect upon their 
 virtue ;" or it is inconsistent with the goodness 
 or benevolence of the Deity, of which His justice 
 is only a modification, and which is " His sole 
 governing principle "=." Dr. Priestly, it is true, 
 argued against a mistaken theory of the Atone- 
 ment. But the principle of the argument is not 
 affected by the error. That fatal principle is, 
 that no revelation is credible which we cannot 
 altogether understand, or account for and ex- 
 plain, or perceive to be practical, or reconcile 
 with our previous knowledge*^. The doctrine of 
 the Trinity is incredible, for we cannot compre- 
 
 • See History of the Corruptions of Christianity, vol. i. 
 p. 168 — 170, cited by Mr. V'eysie, Bampton Lecture VIII. 
 p. 210 at seq. 
 
 ' Etsi Scriptura pluries dixisset Christum esse Deum, se 
 id tamen non crediturum, quia Ratio nempe ipsi dictetj illud 
 omne quod ea assequi non potest, pro absurdo esse habeiv 
 dum. Quoted from Smalcius, a "Socinian writer, by Stapfer, 
 in his Inst, fheol. Polem. torn. iii. p. 364. See Notes to 
 Bp. Van Mildert's Bampton Lecture, p. 285, 286. 
 
 q2 
 
■228 SERMON VII. 
 
 hend it ; a vicarious sacrifice is incredible, for we 
 cannot explain it, or reconcile it with the idea of 
 the Divine Justice or Goodness ; Prayer itself is 
 absurd, for why should we inform the AUwise of 
 what He already knows ? — This is Rationalism. 
 It is in truth unreasonable ; for right Reason 
 would have taught us even to expect in a Divine 
 Revelation things surpassing our previous con- 
 ceptions, not to be wholly understood, running 
 up into mysteries inscrutable. It is plainly a 
 perversion of Reason to make our first instrument 
 of knowledge the measure of every other, to make 
 Reason the judge of Revelation, one gracious gift 
 to shut out another. And it is plainly an abuse 
 which is boundless in its principle, and in its effects 
 may be fatal ; neither revealed doctrine nor in- 
 spired writing is excluded from its operation ; 
 and even Heresy is not so much its natural 
 result, as Apostasy and utter Unbelief. 
 
 2. Nevertheless it is exceedingly remarkable, 
 that a mistake akin to Rationalism has some- 
 times sprung up even in religious minds. The 
 fatal abuse of which we have just spoken may 
 have occasioned a painful suspicion, that its sup- 
 porters were insincere in their profession of belief; 
 that if they would not openly assail the Lord of 
 life with swords and staves, they would betray 
 Him with a kiss ; but the error to which I would 
 now advert has grown out of a pious, however 
 
SERMON VIT. 229 
 
 incautious, endeavour to advocate and maintain 
 the cause of Christian truth. 
 
 For, although it is true, that whatever God 
 has undouhtedly revealed, that we must implicitly 
 believe ; and it is further true, and was even to 
 have been expected antecedently, that Revelation 
 contains many doctrines to be understood only in 
 part, in part mysterious and obscure ; nay, that 
 every truth of revelation runs up into some mys- 
 tery impenetrable by our finite understandings — 
 so it is even in our knowledge of earthly things, 
 much more of heavenly— nevertheless, it has 
 pleased Almighty God, in the book of grace as 
 of nature, to afford us glimpses of His infinite 
 wisdom, to adapt His dispensations to the nature 
 of man, and permit us to trace the connexion of 
 successive Dispensations, and something of the 
 system of revealed doctrines, and something of 
 their fitness to influence our minds, purify our 
 affections, excite and cherish every latent prin- 
 ciple of virtue and holiness. Hence a variety of 
 what we are accustomed to call Internal Evidences 
 of Revelation — a beautiful subject of devout con- 
 templation, on which pious and ingenious minds 
 have delighted to expatiate, and which is, perhaps, 
 unconsciously pursued by very many more to their 
 continual profit and edification. 
 
 But hence also, occasionally, incautious men 
 have so extolled these internal evidences of truth, 
 as to make their existence, and our perception of 
 
230 SERMON VII. 
 
 them, essential to our very belief. " There is a 
 principle of our nature," says a popular writer on 
 this subject, " which makes us dissatisfied with 
 unexplained and unconnected facts — and which 
 teaches us to believe or disbelieve in the truth of 
 any system which may be presented to us, just 
 as it appears adequate or inadequate to afford 
 that explanation of which we are in pursuit." 
 Again, as to the object of Revelation, " The 
 hallowed purpose of restoring men to the lost 
 image of their Creator, is in fact the very soul 
 and spirit of the Bible ; and whenever this object 
 does not distinctly appear, the whole system be- 
 comes dead and useless." Or, as to the system 
 of Revealed truths, " The doctrine of the Atone- 
 ment is the corner-stone of Christianity, to which 
 all the other doctrines of Revelation are subser- 
 vient — they radiate from this as their centre. 
 In subservience to it, the distinction in the unity 
 of the Godhead has been revealed." Or, again, 
 " In order to understand the facts of Revelation, 
 we must form a system to ourselves ; but if any 
 subtilty, of which the application is unintelligible 
 to common sense, or uninfluential on conduct, 
 enters in our system, we may be sure that it is a 
 wrong one 8." 
 
 » Erskine on " Internal Evidence," p. 1, 2. 96. See an in- 
 genious Essay, to which I am indebted for this section, in the 
 Tracts for the Times, No. 73, " on the Introduction of 
 nationalistic Principles into Religion." See note at the end. 
 
SERMON VII. 231 
 
 Now it is devoutly to be hoped, that the authors 
 of these sentiments have not acted upon them. 
 Nay it is obvious, that they were not themselves 
 led into Christian truth by the path which they 
 would trace out for others. They did not dis- 
 cern Christianity by virtue of reasonings based 
 upon the very principles of Rationalism. They 
 were Christians before they observed those inter- 
 nal evidences which they would recommend ; but 
 having perceived and admired them, they began 
 to treat what were indeed strong confirmations, 
 in some instances, of the divine origin of revela- 
 tion, as the necessary evidence of divine truth in 
 every other. What was true of some doctrines, 
 they rashly concluded must be true of all. They 
 made their partial knowledge the test of what 
 was important in Revelation, nay the test of 
 what was true ; and thus incurred the peril of 
 making Reason, — not, indeed, uninformed human 
 reason, for their very arguments were built upon 
 a certain acquaintance with truths revealed — but 
 still their own reason and understanding, the 
 measure and limit of revealed doctrine. 
 
 3. But let us not imagine that these are the 
 only modes in which Reason may be misapplied, 
 and by religious men, in the pursuit of Christian 
 truth. It is a very common error, on the con- 
 trary, among religious men, — and one which is 
 far more likely than those which have just been 
 
232 SERMON VII. 
 
 mentioned, to entangle Theologians circum- 
 stanced as we are — to indulge the vanity of the 
 intellect in attempts to explain the Christian 
 doctrines, and so, adding to them even unawares, 
 to reason upon the words of Scripture, construct 
 theories upon the doctrines, and pursue them 
 into consequences beyond the limits prescribed to 
 us by Revelation. 
 
 We know, for example, that the Son of God 
 took on Him the nature of man, we also know 
 that He offered Himself upon the Cross a sacri- 
 fice for our sins ; and these facts being known, 
 we may well believe that in some mysterious way 
 His Divine nature was essential to the Atone- 
 ment, and we have distinct intimations in Holy 
 Writ that in some mysterious way the Divine 
 Justice was propitiated by the sufferings of the 
 Redeemer. Nevertheless, we neither know, nor 
 can we understand, the principle of a vicarious 
 sacrifice ; and we travel beyond the bounds of 
 our actual knowledge, whether derived from rea- 
 son or from revelation, when we lay it down 
 that the infinite justice of God required an infi- 
 nite sacrifice, or that the Divine nature of the 
 Messiah enabled Him to make an adequate satis- 
 faction to the Divine justice. Now whether this 
 theory of an adequate satisfaction to the Divine 
 justice is correct or not, I neither affirm nor 
 deny ; I merely mention it as an instance of a 
 human addition to a revealed doctrine, intended. 
 
SERMON VII. 233 
 
 probably, to explain and recommend the truth, 
 but quite as likely, perhaps, to prove a stum- 
 bling-block in the way of its acceptance ; as in the 
 instance already mentioned of Dr. Priestley, who 
 argued against this very theory, as if it had 
 actually been the revealed and Scriptural doc- 
 trine of the Atonement. 
 
 And so in many other instances have men of 
 great and sincere piety unconsciously pursued 
 Christian truth beyond Revelation ; and, without 
 any ill effects, possibly, upon their own minds, 
 have seriously shocked and offended those of 
 others, and not those of sceptical men or of a 
 doubtful orthodoxy, but of Christians as sound 
 and sincere as themselves in the true faith of 
 Christ. 
 
 To this class belong the theories of some of the 
 Fathers, and of most of the Schoolmen, who would 
 appear to have compensated themselves, as it 
 were, for their submission to Church-authority 
 by their unlicensed speculations on sacred sub- 
 jects, where the Church had not prescribed the 
 line which Reason was not to overstep. And 
 shall we imagine that these are dangers passed 
 away ? Whatever may be the progress which 
 the race of man is gradually making towards 
 a better condition of the mind, it is a very slow 
 progress, assuredly, and continually interrupted ; 
 and our natural powers and tendencies are the 
 same, our temptations similar ; and few and 
 
234 SERMON VII. 
 
 fleeting are the years in which each individual of 
 every successive generation is permitted to train 
 his powers and know his dangers. I apprehend, 
 accordingly, that all the peculiarities of Cal- 
 vinism are recent instances of similar errors ; the 
 peremptory decisions of human reason upon 
 subjects which Revelation has left undecided. 
 And we may still hear from pious lips indiscreet 
 endeavours to penetrate into mysterious doc- 
 trines, those, for example, of the Trinity and 
 the Incarnation, and pursue them into their 
 apparent consequences, with a precision and 
 minuteness, and point, and contrast, unknown 
 alike to the Scriptures and the earliest Fathers ; 
 and such as I will not express in words, lest what 
 some regard as the language of reverence, should 
 appear to others painfully irreverent. For let 
 us not forget the various constitutions of equally 
 pious minds, and the consequent need of mutual 
 forbearance, nay, and of mutual correction ; 
 whilst some are disposed to dwell too much upon 
 the facts of Revelation, others upon its doctrines ; 
 some upon the devotion of the heart and affec- 
 tions, others upon the submission of the under- 
 standing ; some upon the truths which are more 
 obviously practical, others upon the more ab- 
 struse ; some upon those doctrines which are 
 brought the most within our comprehension, 
 others with a peculiar delight upon those which 
 are encompassed with an awful and mysterious 
 
SERMON VII. 235 
 
 darkness. Neither let it be forgotten by those 
 who enlarge the most upon the mysteries of 
 Revelation, dwell upon the childlike submission 
 of the intellect, and magnify Faith almost as 
 if they decried Reason, not only that they may 
 incur the serious guilt of " causing offences," and 
 obstructing the path to Christian truth by 
 impediments of their own devising, but that they 
 may even impair unconsciously the texture of 
 their own faith and piety ; learning insensibly to 
 prefer human Creeds to holy Scripture, to 
 indulge a captious, inquisitorial, uncharitable 
 spirit in their censures of the language of their 
 brethren ; nay, with singular inconsistency whilst 
 they seem to bow the understanding before the 
 mysteries of heaven, gratify the taste of the 
 natural man for over-curious refinements, or the 
 daring flights of a speculative reason. 
 
 II. Fearfully important, however, as are some 
 of the various and even opposite abuses and 
 misapplications of Reason upon which I have 
 animadverted, they have been noticed only for 
 our warning. Far from deterring us from as- 
 siduous endeavours after the right use of our 
 Understanding, they should rather excite us to 
 make them as the more carefully, so the more 
 strenuously ; even until we attain to a manly 
 perfection in our understandings, according 
 
236 SERMON VII. 
 
 to the full import of the Apostolic precept, 
 TOLS (})pe(ri reXeioi yiveade. And this, upon the 
 evident principle, that we are responsible for 
 the right use of whatever advantages God has 
 bestowed upon us. Our Reason is such an 
 advantage ; and that it is to be employed upon 
 religious subjects. He Himself has demonstrated 
 by His own continual appeals to our minds 
 and understandings throughout the whole his- 
 tory of Revelation, not to mention express 
 directions, more or less explicit, that we should 
 " judge what is right ;" " search the Scriptures ;" 
 " prove all things, hold fast that which is 
 good ''." 
 
 Hence the right exercise of our Judgment and 
 Reason in the pursuit of Christian truth becomes 
 a necessary Duty. Not, of course, a duty in- 
 cumbent alike upon all persons at all times ; 
 but, like Benevolence and every other duty, 
 expanding or contracting with our respective 
 capacities and opportunities, and so varying in 
 every possible degree from the almost latent 
 principle, up to the highest exercise of the duty of 
 which we are capable. Nor, again, that this 
 advantage is to exclude the use of every other 
 privilege with which we may be endowed ; what 
 could be more unreasonable ? nor yet, that 
 our understandings are to be exercised upon 
 
 '' Luke xii. 57. 1 Cor. x. 15. John v. 39. Is. viii. 20.- 
 xxxiv. l6. Acts xvii; 11. 1 Thess. v. 21. 
 
SERMON VII. 237 
 
 sacred subjects without restraint or limitation, 
 whether from the nature of the subject, or the 
 nature of the mind itself; rather is it one of the 
 very offices of Reason to discover these limits, and 
 to observe them is our best wisdom. 
 
 With these brief observations I may be per- 
 mitted to dismiss this part of a subject, to which 
 I invited your attention, and that of the public, 
 not very long ago'. And I may proceed to 
 notice some of the instances in which the Under- 
 standing may be legitimately and beneficially 
 employed either upon the Evidences of Revelation, 
 or its Substance, or the various Subsidiary means 
 of investigating the truth. 
 
 1. Thus, it is the express direction of an 
 Apostle, " Be ready always to give an answer 
 to every man that asketh you a reason of the 
 hope that is in you with meekness and fear''." 
 The spirit of the precept extends to a knowledge 
 of the Evidences of Christianity, and the proof of 
 the Canqn of Scripture, its Authority, Inspira- 
 tion, Sufficiency, and to the negative argument 
 as well as the positive, the disproof of spurious 
 Scriptures, or the abatement of the authority 
 
 ■ In a Sermon upon the Duty of Private Judgment, 
 preached before the University of Oxford, Nov. 11, 1838, 
 and published 1839. 
 
 ' 1 Pet. iii. 15. See the notes of Erasmus and Grotius on 
 this verse in the Critici Sacri. 
 
238 SERMON VII. 
 
 of Apocryphal, — a wide and ample field for 
 the best exertion of the Understanding. And 
 although the Evidences of Religion, like Religion 
 itself, are addressed to the whole man, to the 
 heart and the affections, to hope, and love, and fear, 
 and even to the Imagination, as well as to the Rea- 
 son, still I trust I may be permitted to assume, that 
 Reason must hold sway and dominion over them 
 all, if we would be secure against Infidelity, 
 Superstition, or Fanaticism, or, at the least, some 
 of the slighter forms of kindred error'. 
 
 I am speaking, it will be perceived, of the 
 province of the Understanding, and the extent of 
 the Apostolic precept in general ; and I would by 
 no means assert, that every Christian either need, 
 or can, trace out all the Evidences of Chris- 
 tian truth for himself, or unfold them to others. 
 No doubt the answer of a holy life is the 
 best and most convincing evidence which very 
 many can offer of the sincerity of their faith ; 
 and by a simple reference to the authority of 
 their teachers some will fully satisfy the spirit 
 of the injunction. For a sufficient authority 
 is a sufficient reason for our hope, and to judge 
 of moral evidence is not the province of all persons 
 or of every age. But the answer which is suitable 
 to the child, the peasant, or the layman, may very 
 
 ' See the Preface to Bishop Butler's Sermons at the Rolls. 
 See also a full discussion of this subject in Archdeacon 
 Goddard's Bampton Lecture. 
 
SERMON VII. 239 
 
 ill become the parent, the man of education, or 
 the Christian Minister. When, and by whom, 
 and how far the precept is to be obeyed, are 
 questions to be determined by reason and con- 
 science ; questions of propriety and discretion, — 
 and therefore, let it be carefully observed, ques- 
 tions on which it is to be expected that indiscreet 
 decisions will be sometimes pronounced. Still, 
 the indiscretion of others will not excuse our 
 neglect of duty. If the Christian evidences have 
 been prematurely pressed upon the intellect of 
 the child, we are not therefore to withhold them 
 from the manly understanding. If they have 
 been so treated as to obstruct a wholesome 
 deference to authority, or hinder the growth 
 of faith, or even to shock our best feelings, by 
 some irreverent familiar scrutiny, for example, of 
 the character and actions of the Divine Saviour"" — 
 let none of these things tempt us to the opposite 
 errors of teaching all Christians to lean solely 
 upon authority, and always to substitute con- 
 viction for evidence, and to decline the devout 
 and grateful contemplation of those intrinsic 
 signs of truth which abound throughout the 
 Scriptures, and are the proper food of an habi- 
 tual piety. 
 
 For piety no less than charity demands the 
 exercise of our reason upon the evidences of 
 
 '" See Tract for the Times, No. 73, where several faults of 
 this kind are justly attributed to Mr. Abbott. 
 
240 SERMON VII. 
 
 truth ; and God Himself is the author alike of 
 the Revelation and of its proofs. He has ac- 
 credited His messengers by miraculous powers, 
 and accumulated His miracles especially at the 
 times of special need ; as, for example, at the 
 three great aeras of miracles, when pure Religion 
 was to be established by Moses, or restored by 
 Elijah, or fulfilled and completed by Christ 
 Himself: and the growing and enduring evi- 
 dence of Prophecy proceeds from Him ; and He 
 has thickly sown the book of Grace, as well as 
 the book of Nature, with those internal proofs 
 of His Wisdom, Goodness, and Truth, which are 
 the more abundantly discovered, the more we 
 advance towards the perfection of piety as well 
 as understanding. And if one of His servants, 
 in these later days, has been enabled to refute 
 objections by unfolding the Analogy of Religion 
 to the Constitution of Nature, or another to 
 prove the genuineness of Apostolic writings by 
 the natural and inherent characteristics of truth, 
 far from despising or decrying their efforts, we 
 are to use them gladly, and even ascribe them 
 to the same gracious Providence". 
 
 True, we are not therefore to be always arguing, 
 always proving, as if we were ever inquirers and 
 not believers. And if we have been blessed with 
 the inestimable advantage of inheriting the Faith 
 through a long line of faithful men from the 
 
 " Bp. Butler, Analogy &c. Dr. Paley, Horse Paulinae. 
 
SERMON VII. 241 
 
 Apostles of Christ, we are not to forget the 
 two-fold privilege thus conferred upon us, first 
 of being Christians before we could prove the 
 truth of Christianity, and next of knowing what 
 the truth is, and how it is established ; not having 
 to search here and there for truth, if haply we 
 may find it, but already in possession of the 
 Scriptures, the Church, the Sacraments, the 
 Faith itself, and knowing also upon what found- 
 ations they are to be established securely. 
 But neither are we to speak or act as if Chris- 
 tianity did not rest upon secure foundations ; 
 lest we should even incur the guilt of betraying 
 the cause of truth, and endangering the souls of 
 men, and hiding from them the very character- 
 istic distinction of the true Religion, by which it is 
 widely separated from every other, that it is indeed 
 founded upon Evidence, and addressed to our 
 Reason". 
 
 2. And these observations are almost equally 
 applicable to the due exercise of our Understand- 
 ings upon the substance of Revelation, and the right 
 Interpretation of Holy Scripture. No abuses of 
 Reason upon these subjects, how great or how 
 frequent soever, must induce us to hide our talent 
 in the earth when we are responsible for its 
 employment. And if responsible at all, we are 
 
 " Abp. Whately on some of the Dangers to Christian Faith, 
 Essay II. %. % Disc. I. §. 3. 
 
 R 
 
24-2 SERMON VII. 
 
 accountable doubtless for the use of the best 
 means of attaining the truth, and of all the best 
 and most suitable means within our reach, and 
 required by our respective offices or opportu- 
 nities. 
 
 Hence, for example, the use and propriety, and, 
 in some instances, the necessity, of Learning and 
 Sacred Criticism. The very language of the New 
 Testament in the original can scarcely be known 
 exactly and thoroughly without an intimate ac- 
 quaintance with the Greek Classics, and with the 
 style of the Septuagint, and with some of the 
 Oriental tongues, at the least the Hebrew and 
 Syriac and the Rabbinic dialect. But it is fur- 
 ther important to " compare spiritual things with 
 spiritual," and " rightly to divide the word of 
 truth;" we must exercise our best powers of 
 Reason and Judgment in the Analysis of Scrip- 
 ture, in distinguishing the objects of the several 
 Dispensations of Revealed Religion, and the dif- 
 ferent occasions on which the various sacred 
 writings were composed ; and we must study 
 the Analogy of faith, and pay attention to Ver- 
 bal, Historical, and Doctrinal analogies, to the 
 Figurative and Mystical Interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture, and other similar subjects too familiar to 
 the Theologian to require further notice in this 
 place. Serious errors have resulted from inat- 
 tention to these pursuits. And surely it is pos- 
 sible to value sacred learning, yet not to over- 
 
SERMON VII. 243 
 
 value it ; not to substitute learning for piety, or 
 independence of mind for a candid spirit, nor to 
 imagine that Thjeology and Criticism are neces- 
 sary to all Christians or at all times, or that 
 Translations ojf the Scriptures are insufficient in 
 order to a saving faith in that Gospel which was 
 preached emphatically " to the poor p." 
 
 But, agaiuj when the sense of Scripture shall 
 have been ascertained. Reason and Judgment 
 must be employed on the most important of all 
 subjects, not certainly to determine whether what 
 is admitted to have been revealed shall be rejected 
 or received, which is impiety ; nor yet to carry 
 forward sacred truths beyond the limits of Reve- 
 lation, which is the frequent error of mistaken 
 piety; but to ascertain whether received doctrines 
 and practices are or are not Scriptural, to under- 
 stand and apply the .doctrines of Revelation cor- 
 rectly, sometimes to unfold and arrange them, 
 and observe their mutuE^l dependence, more fre- 
 quently to estimate aright their relative im- 
 protance. 
 
 Doubtless upon occasions we may have a 
 
 ■■ See Bp. Marsh's Translation of Michaelis' Introduction 
 to the New Testament, vol. i. chap. iv. sect. 13. Elsle3r's 
 Annotations, Introduction, p. xxi^xjcvii. iBp. ^an Mildert's 
 Bampton Lecture on Scripture- Interpretation, ,particularly 
 Sermons V, VI, yil. Rev. John J. Conybeare's valuable 
 Lectures on the Secondary Interpretation of Scripture. 
 Mr. Lancaster's Bampton Lecture on the Popular Evidences 
 of Christianity. 
 
 r2 
 
244 SERMON VII. 
 
 hazardous course to steer between the difficul- 
 ties and dangers on the right hand and the left ; 
 but this is of the very essence of a probationary 
 state. Hence the Berceans, when they had heard 
 the preaching of an Apostle, are commended 
 for two things, not only because " they received 
 the word with all readiness of mind," but also 
 " searched the Scriptures daily, whether those 
 things were so." Hence likewise our Lord Him- 
 self, when indeed He reveals a new doctrine, 
 declares it with an absolute authority, " I am 
 the resurrection and the life ;" " Except a man 
 be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter 
 into the kingdom of God ;" yet even then perhaps 
 He vouchsafes to communicate a reason, " the 
 Father hath given to the Son authority to exe- 
 cute judgment also, because He is the Son of 
 man ;" but when His doctrine may be ascer- 
 tained from earlier revelation. He makes direct 
 appeal to the reason of His hearers, " Now 
 that the dead are raised even Moses shewed at 
 the bush — for God is not a God of the dead but 
 of the living." " If David then call Him Lord, 
 how is He His Son''?" — But how much more need 
 have we in these later days to prove all things, 
 and only hold fast that which is good ? The 
 whole work of the Reformation, accordingly, 
 was a vast exercise of the Understanding in 
 
 1 Acts xvii. 11. John v. 39- iii. 3. 5. xi. 25. v. 22, 23. 26, 
 27. Luke XX. 37, 38. Matt. xxii. 41 — 45. 
 
SERMON VII. 245 
 
 this great endeavour; and, surely, not the less 
 a necessary work because not always blessed to 
 a successful issue. Amidst demands so many 
 and so urgent upon the discretion of fallible 
 men, it was only to be anticipated that some 
 might even make shipwreck of important truth ; 
 nay, that on subjects of less importance at the 
 least. Churches would err as well as individuals. 
 Hence a variety of new demands upon our judg- 
 ment, the unavoidable incidents of our proba- 
 tionary state ; new sects, new controversies, nay, 
 and half-extinguished heresies kindled into new 
 activity. The most learned Divines, the most 
 intimately acquainted with Christian Anti- 
 quity, could not refute the Arian errors of the 
 last century without continual appeals to Reason 
 and Judgment''. Various subjects, indeed, of 
 minor importance, as Fasting, Celibacy, the pos- 
 tures and times of Devotion, have been left by 
 the Christian Scriptures, we can scarcely doubt, 
 in a designed and appointed obscurity, for the 
 continual exercise of our discretion and good 
 sense. And, subsequently, the frequent contro- 
 versies among Christian men, even when they 
 have resulted, as has often been the case, in large 
 accessions to the clearness and certainty of our 
 religious knowledge, have opened nevertheless 
 new fields for the exercise of a sound and pious 
 discretion, by investing the immediate subject of 
 ' See Bp. Van Mildert's Life of Waterland, p. ^S. 150. 
 
•240 SERMON VII. 
 
 dispute with an adventitious importance, and dis- 
 turbing the proper relative importance of various 
 truths or errors. Hence, for example, the almost 
 exclusive teaching of some one great doctrine, 
 as Justification by Faith only, to the apparent 
 disparagement of others ; or the exaggerated 
 estimate of the error of Transubstahtiation in 
 comparison of other and greater errors of the 
 Roman ChUfch ; or the general and indiscrimi- 
 nate eulogy of the Protestant Faith, as if there 
 were not greater errors sometimes comprehended 
 under that name than all the heresies of Romfe 
 herself. Nay, even the more ancient controversies 
 still disturb the sober estimate of truth and error ; 
 Sabellianism is even more dreaded than Tritheism; 
 the subtle errors of Nestorius and Eutyches are 
 still viewed through the false medium of the old 
 polemics ; nay, from the same cause we are 
 still but too apt to form somewhat exaggerated 
 conceptions of the importance not certainly of 
 the Doctrine itself, but of the Theological State- 
 ments, of the mysterious truth of the Trinity in 
 Unity. 
 
 3. And now, if in opposition to what has been 
 said it should be urged, that the resources of 
 Primitive Christianity have already superseded 
 these perplexing exertions of a precarious reason, 
 that the Fathers are our teachers, and Christian 
 Antiquity is our sure and certain guide to the 
 
SERMON VII. 247 
 
 sense of Scripture and the faith of Christ — I 
 reply, that this is only to point out another and a 
 wider field for the continual exercise of Judgment 
 and Discretion. 
 
 Nothing can be more opposite to my design 
 than intentionally to depreciate the treasures of 
 Antiquity. Every where it has been my very 
 object to recommend the combined use of all our 
 various advantages, as the dictate alike of 
 Reason and of Conscience. But we cannot have 
 recourse to Christian Antiquity at all, or to any 
 good and saving purpose, without discretion and 
 discrimination. Antiquity is neither our only 
 guide, nor always a safe guide. Yet we may 
 often, and to the greatest advantage, take counsel 
 with those, whom nevertheless we must not follow 
 implicitly and blindly. 
 
 Take, for example, the Ancient Liturgies, of 
 which some have even ventured to affirm, " that 
 next to the Holy Scriptures they possess the 
 greatest claims on our veneration and study, nay 
 that they are " far too sacred for human criti- 
 cism." And yet it is admitted by the same 
 writers, " that they have been much interpola,ted, 
 and in parts corrupted ;" and how then can they 
 be prpfitably used without discrimination and a 
 cautious judgment ? or what, in fact, are ques- 
 tions of genuineness or of value, but questions 
 of judgment, and of historical research ? We 
 are but too apt, in truth, in the study of 
 
248 SERMON VII. 
 
 such documents to regard them by degrees with 
 all the fondness of an Antiquary, but perhaps 
 without his accuracy. We may forget, possibly, 
 that to ascertain even the Apostolical antiquity 
 of the " Sursum cor da" contributes nothing to 
 the proof of Christian truth ; or, in discussing the 
 remains of distant ages, we may overlook the 
 march of centuries, nay the progress of admitted 
 error. The judgment of two hundred bishops 
 upon the genuineness of the Liturgy of St. Basil 
 may be supposed to be decisive, because it was 
 pronounced only three hundred years after it was 
 written ; or we may trace back these monuments 
 for 1400 years, and almost forget that there are 
 four centuries yet behind, that serious errors 
 abounded in the periods to which they have been 
 really referred, and that, consequently, whilst we 
 listen to them, we must also judge them. 
 
 Or let us turn to the Canons of those Four 
 Councils which have so long, and on some ac- 
 counts so justly, received the veneration of Chris- 
 tendom. In few instances in fact do they relate 
 to Christian truth at all ; and the practical regu- 
 lations, with which they are almost exclusively 
 occupied, are neither always applicable to an 
 altered, and in many respects an improved, con- 
 dition of Christian Society such as our own, nor 
 are they always wise. Without adverting to the 
 history of these Councils, I frankly confess I can- 
 not read their Canons without at once assenting 
 
SERMON VII. 249 
 
 to the sober decision of the Church of England, 
 that " General Councils may err." Whence im- 
 mediately follows the important consequence, 
 that neither can the Creeds which they drew up 
 be received upon the authority of the Councils, 
 but only because " they may be proved by most 
 certain warrants' of Holy Scripture'." Neverthe- 
 less, those who would take the Fathers for their 
 masters are bound to look yet a little further 
 into this matter. I am speaking, it will be care- 
 fully observed, not of the substance of these 
 Creeds, as if I distrusted that, but only of their 
 foundation : and the more entirely we believe in 
 their truth, the more anxious, surely, we shall be, 
 that none of our brethren should rest them, or 
 even appear to rest them, upon unstable ground. 
 Nor do I by any means assert, that the plain 
 unlettered Christian will miss his way, who, 
 knowing nothing of Antiquity but what is em- 
 bodied in our Creeds and Liturgies, proceeds at 
 once from the Church to the Scriptures, and 
 easily discovers there the proof of every article 
 of faith which the Church has delivered to him. 
 But addressing myself to those who would lean 
 upon Antiquity, and speak of the authority of 
 Fathers and Councils, as if it superseded the use 
 of the' r Reason and Judgment, and yet have the 
 means of scrutinizing that authority, they, I would 
 say, are bound to look a little further into this 
 • Compare Articles viii. and xxi. 
 
250 SERMON VII. 
 
 subject, examine the history of these Councils 
 and of these confessions of faith, compare them 
 also with the various Creeds of the Ante-Nicene 
 period, and making that best exercise of their 
 judgment and reason, for which they are respon- 
 sible to Him who gave them, consider whether it 
 does not follow from the whole inquiry, that none 
 of these early documents, venerable and useful as 
 they are, have intrinsic authority ; that although 
 their general substance, and with few exceptions 
 the substance even of their separate articles, can 
 be traced up to Apostolic times, yet the actual 
 language of the later Creeds (as those of Nice 
 and Constantinople, and much more the Athana- 
 sian) is the work for the most part of uninspired 
 men, and subject, consequently, to examination 
 and criticism,and, if needwere, to correction; whilst 
 the varied expressions of the earlier Creeds, even 
 if they all proceeded from the lips of Apostles, 
 would yet disprove the hypothesis, that any one 
 form of words was to be rigidly and scrupulously 
 adhered to upon all occasions'. Is it not indeed 
 evident, that the language of successive creeds 
 was gradually altered and enlarged as successive 
 controversies arose ? Whilst into one of the very 
 earliest of all the extant statements of the faith, 
 as it is collected from TertuUian, there has crept 
 an article concerning the appearing of the Son 
 
 ' See Abp. Wake, Introduction to Apostolical Fathers, 
 chap. ii. §. 23. Bingham, Antiquities, b. x. ch. iii. iv. 
 
SERMON VIL 2i)l 
 
 of God to the Patriarchs, which to say the least 
 is but a questionable opinion, and not an article 
 of Christian faith at all. 
 
 What then can be more clear than the need 
 of Judgment and Reason in ascertaining the 
 verity and propriety of every article in the most 
 ancient or most venerated Confessions of Faith ? 
 Nay, and not only as to their proof, but in our 
 use of Creeds, or our language concerning them, 
 or concerning their history, into what strange mis- 
 takes may not even Theologians fall, from the wilful 
 abandonment of those powers of discrimination 
 with which they have been entrusted — gravely 
 repeating such an idle tale as the fable of the 
 contribution of the several articles of the Apo- 
 stles' Creed by the several Apostles ? dropping 
 some four or five centuries in the successive form- 
 ation of our acknowledged Creeds ; speaking 
 of them all as of one age, or of the first age, or 
 as if all alike were stamped with the authority of 
 General Councils, or of the Church Catholic ; or 
 confounding their uses negative and positive, their 
 uses in correcting error and declaring or arranging 
 truth, or the object and usefulness of the Apostles' 
 Creed with those of the Athanasian, or, worst of all, 
 the uses of Creeds generally, with those of Holy 
 Scripture? — And what surer method is there of 
 putting to hazard the true uses even of things most 
 valuable, as these symbols really are, than by 
 ascribing to them unreal uses or an undue authority? 
 
252 SERMON VII. 
 
 Just so as to the Fathers — take them as 
 Individuals, and it is obvious that we must 
 consider the age, country, character, education, 
 advantages of each separate writer. Nay, it 
 would be no less ungrateful than unwise, in 
 many instances, and when their Testimony is not 
 the point in question, to forget the superior 
 advantages of later writers, and even our own 
 superior blessings ". Is it not a superior ad- 
 vantage, and an invaluable blessing, to have been 
 born and brought up in a Christian country, 
 trained by Christian parents, nurtured in the 
 bosom of an Apostolical Church, instead of being 
 converted, perhaps, from heathenism, brought late 
 into the Church, the whole mind imbued with the 
 prejudices of a vain philosophy, by profession a 
 Rhetorician or a Sophist, or, possibly, a late con- 
 vert after a life of profligacy ? There is no com- 
 parison, so far as we are permitted to judge, 
 between the spiritual advantages of Hooker and 
 Butler, and those of Justin, TertuUian, Cyprian, 
 Augustine. And accordingly — but no, I will not 
 enter upon the ungracious task of singling out the 
 errors of venerable men, holy men, confessors, mar- 
 tyrs, who, whatever their advantages, or even the 
 more so on account of their disadvantages, have 
 deserved nobly of the Church of Christ. It is 
 sufficient for the purpose in hand to refer to 
 
 " See Bp. Van Mildert, Bampton Lecture IV. p. q6 — 100, 
 and 101—10(5. 
 
SERMON VII. 253 
 
 the writings of some of my predecessors in this 
 Lecture, who have considered the works of many 
 of the Fathers in the only way which piety and 
 candour can approve, not adverting to their 
 faults without at the same time extolling their 
 merits ". Only let it be observed, that no age, 
 not even the earliest, and no writings, not even 
 of Apostolical men, bold, faithful, gifted men, 
 disciples of Apostles, or appointed by them to 
 the highest offices, great as is their value, are 
 exempt from this exercise of our best judgment. 
 By this, for example, we must determine whether 
 the Epistle ascribed to St. Barnabas is genuine, 
 and, if genuine, that it is assuredly not inspired ; 
 or ascertain what are the genuine Epistles of 
 St. Ignatius, and of these whether, their testi- 
 mony to the truth being irrefragable, they 
 breathe, however, a tone and spirit in every 
 respect Apostolical >'. And how has it been 
 at length admitted, that errors of judgment, and 
 mistaken interpretations of Scripture, are to be 
 detected in the Patristic remains ? not in con- 
 
 =" See the Barapton Lectures of Mr. Collinson, 1813. 
 Rev. J.J.Conybeare, 1824; and the Rev. W. D. Conybeare, 
 1839, written independently, from actual study of the 
 Fathers, and with great candour. 
 
 ' See e. g. Epistle of Barnabas, ch. vii. viii. ix. Ep. of 
 Ignatius to the Trallians, §. v. respecting the Orders of the 
 Angels, and his Epistles generally concerning the respect 
 due to the Orders of the Christian Ministry. See note at 
 the end. 
 
251 SERMON VII. 
 
 sequence of any decisions of the Church Uni- 
 versal, or even of Particular Churches; but 
 though a sounder judgment gradually and si- 
 lently prevailing within the Church, by whose 
 influence, we may humbly trust, ancient errors 
 will be by degrees exploded, and Christian know- 
 ledge in this department of truth will, with 
 whatever interruptions and aberrations, be upon 
 the whole progressive. 
 
 Or, lastly, if we are referred from the In- 
 dividual Fathers to their general spirit and com- 
 mon consent, the same conclusion appears no 
 less inevitable. Their common consent, indeed, 
 upon some few prominent articles of the Chris- 
 tian faith, and these certainly of the very first 
 importance, is every where discernible. But 
 otherwise, of course, to determine the source 
 of a given opinion or interpretation, to distinguish 
 between the fancy of an individual and his 
 testimony, and ascertain whether the common 
 report ^of several writers is only successive 
 testimony to one man's opinion, or the index of a 
 truth universally acknowledged, what are all 
 these but so many calls upon our research, 
 and diligence, and judgment, questions of critical 
 and historical probability ? Whilst as to the 
 spirit of the Fathers, that requires a yet severer 
 exercise of care and discrimination. For how 
 early and extensive were the inroads of error and 
 corrupt or mistaken practice, concerning the 
 
SERMON VII. 255 
 
 invocation of saints, for example, relics, asce- 
 ticism, monachism, celibacy, the undue exalta- 
 tion of the Christian Ministry ? And where 
 there was neither error, nor heresy, nor ig- 
 norance, nor subtle refinement, nor a vain 
 philosophy, there was controversy, and, too often, 
 bitter controversy. And the sure result of con- 
 troversy is to distort, or exaggerate, or tinge 
 with an adventitious colouring, the sacred sub- 
 jects of dispute. Difficult as it may be, when we 
 are living in an atmosphere of controversy, to 
 recover the sober estimate of religious truths, yet 
 we must endeavour to do so : and surely we are 
 no less bound to exert our best endeavours, with 
 piety and with discretion, to measure the contro- 
 versialists of former ages by a higher standard, 
 and, even whilst we gladly and thankfully use 
 them, try them nevertheless by a continual 
 appeal to the word of Inspiration. So that, 
 to sum up all, in this as in so many other 
 instances, we must not sacrifice our privileges,, 
 nor can we forego our responsibility; and the 
 treasures of Christian Antiquity invite and de- 
 mand, instead of superseding, the most dis- 
 criminating exercise of our Reason. 
 
 III. No attempt has been made, in the course 
 of these observations, to determine the proper 
 occasions or ;precise limits of the duty of exerting 
 
256 SERMON VII. 
 
 the best faculties of our minds upon sacred sub- 
 jects. It is impossible to determine abstractedly, 
 when, and how far, and by whom, by the learned 
 or unlearned, by individuals or by Churches 
 that is, by individuals acting separately or to- 
 gether, in their private or in their public pursuit 
 of truth, the duty is to be discharged. Reason 
 and Conscience after all must pronounce upon 
 the proper limits and occasions as well as sub- 
 jects for the exercise of the duty. 
 
 But if indeed, as the foregoing hints may have 
 sufficed to shew, the Uses of Reason are so many 
 and so important, and yet the Abuses and mis- 
 applications of Reason are numerous and awful, 
 clearly we have the greatest need not only to 
 cultivate and improve with all diligence the 
 faculties with which we are entrusted, but also 
 with all humility and circumspection to employ 
 the necessary safeguards and securities against 
 their perversion. It is obvious that I cannot 
 enter fully into this important subject ; but I 
 must not conclude, without briefly indicating the 
 chief sources of our safety and our strength, from 
 within and from without, from moral and re- 
 ligious culture, intellectual training, from man, 
 and from heaven. 
 
 For, first, we have the blessed promise of 
 Divine assistance; the great, I had almost said 
 the peculiar, privilege of the Christian, the illu- 
 
SERMON VII. 257 
 
 mination of the Spirit of truth, to develop our 
 Judgment, aid our Reason, and guard us against 
 the innumerable frailties of our fallen nature. 
 May we never fail to make a devout and grateful 
 use of this " unspeakable gift !" There is nothing 
 comparable to this. And without this every 
 thing else is vain and fruitless. Without the 
 " holy inspiration of the Lord we can neither 
 think those things that be good, nor without His 
 merciful guiding can we perform the same." 
 " Every good gift and every perfect gift is from 
 above, and cometh down from the Father of 
 lights ;" and " the natural man receiveth not the 
 things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolish- 
 ness unto him ; neither can he know them, 
 because they are spiritually discerned*." But 
 upon this surpassing subject of Christian thank- 
 fulness, I shall have a fitter opportunity hereafter 
 to speak somewhat more at large. 
 
 Secondly, we have the great advantage of the 
 aid of man. We are never to forget, even amidst 
 the most strenuous exertions of our own under- 
 standings, that others also can judge and reason 
 as well as ourselves. The judgments of our 
 brethren are the natural correctives of the aber- 
 rations of our own ; and it is at once our privilege 
 and our duty to consult them. And just as in 
 the case of spiritual assistance there may be a 
 " James i. 17- 1 Cor. ii. 14. 
 S 
 
258 SERMON VII. 
 
 seeming conflict of duties, but there is no prac- 
 tical difficulty, when we are required to be as 
 humble as if we could do nothing for ourselves, 
 yet as active as if we could do every thing, 
 so also is it in the case before us. Whatever 
 apparent inconsistency there may be, there is no 
 real difficulty in l-econeiling a modest deference 
 to the judgments of the Church or of our fathers 
 in the faith, with the most honest exertion of our 
 own understandings which our respective abilities 
 will require or justify. We are equally respon- 
 sible for the use of both our advantages. And 
 these Discourses, I humbly trust, will not have 
 so entirely failed of their intended purpose as not 
 to have shewn, however imperfectly, that our 
 safety lies neither in the exclusive use of our own 
 Reason, nor in blind submission to the judgment 
 of other men, but in the combination of our 
 varied privileges both as individual beings, 
 rational and accountable, and also as members of 
 the great human family and of the Church of 
 Christ. 
 
 It follows, in the next place, that in order 
 to our thus making due advantage of the fruits 
 of other men's understandings, and yet a manly 
 and vigorous exertion of our own, we must 
 cultivate our intellectual faculties with all assiduity; 
 and not only with assiduity, perhaps, but with a 
 patient forbearance, recollecting that it is the 
 
SERMON VII. Q59 
 
 solid improvement of our faculties which should 
 be our real aim, not the rapid acquisition of 
 knowledge ; not forced blossoms and precocious 
 fruit upon a languid stem ; not the gratification 
 of the taste, the fancy, the imagination, nor any 
 mental luxury how refined soever. Nay, we must 
 even resist the fascinations of knowledge, and 
 the demands of a superficial and vain-glorious 
 age ; and although all acquirements, and the 
 cultivation of all our faculties, and the pursuits 
 of history, eloquence, poetry, may, and should, be 
 rendered subservient every one of them to the 
 great end we have in view, still we must look to 
 the severer studies, mathematical and moral, for 
 the more direct cultivation of the Reason and the 
 Judgment ; and we must be content to appear 
 ignorant for a time, that we may be ultimately 
 wise. 
 
 Lastly, not alone, but above all, moral and 
 religious training are absolutely necessary, if in 
 understanding we would be men — not alone, for 
 what we really need is the improvement of the 
 whole man, the whole soul of man ; but yet 
 above all, for in knowledge and intellect, mere 
 intellect and mere knowledge, we are infinitely 
 surpassed, perhaps, by the Evil spirits, but in the 
 moral affections of the soul we have our part 
 with the Angels of God, and their due cultivation 
 is essential to our preparation for heaven. 
 
 s2 
 
2G0 SERMON VII. 
 
 Whilst as to their influence on the attainment 
 of religious truth, it was our Lord Himself who 
 said, " He that doeth the will of my Father 
 which is in heaven, shall know of the doctrine 
 whether it be of God." He did not mean that 
 a disposition to obey the truth was the only 
 requisite in order to its attainment; for He 
 Himself at other times appeals likewise to our 
 Reason ; but this He meant, and less than this 
 He could not have intended, that without obedi- 
 ence to the truth, so far as we have ascertained 
 the will of God, no further knowledge of His 
 truth is to be attained. And how should it be 
 otherwise ? It is commonly admitted with respect 
 to all moral questions, all questions of probable 
 as opposed to mathematical truth, that the heart 
 and the intellect must go together, that the will 
 and the understanding must not be opposed, that 
 humility, docility, and a modest deference to 
 superior powers and experience, must be com- 
 bined with our own proper diligence, and ac- 
 tivity, and upright love of truth, in order to the 
 successful pursuit of truth : but how much more 
 evident is the need of teachableness, reverence, 
 love of truth, and love of goodness, in the pur- 
 suit of that Christian truth which comes from 
 God, relates to God, and of which the fruits are 
 charity, purity, piety ? No wonder, therefore, 
 that we are enjoined to " lay apart all filthiness 
 and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with 
 
SERMON VII. 261 
 
 meekness the engrafted word which is able to 
 save our souls ;" that it is written, " God re- 
 sisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the hum- 
 ble ;" that the Beroeans are commended both for 
 their diligence and for their" readiness of mind ;" 
 and that not to have " received the love of the 
 truth," may be the fearful cause even of judicial 
 blindness ". And the awful declaration con- 
 cerning Prophecy, " None of the wicked shall 
 understand ;" is it not also applicable to every 
 doctrine which demands holiness of us, or relates 
 to the God of holiness''? How is it even 
 possible that he should love the truth, or seek it 
 honestly, who more than suspects that it is 
 opposed to him, and is predetermined not to obey 
 the truth ? who neither " loves what God com- 
 mands," nor " desires what He has promised ?" 
 How, indeed, shall the very elements of Christian 
 doctrine obtain admittance into that unhappy 
 soul, which takes no thought of the unapproach- 
 able holiness of God, " who is of purer eyes than 
 to behold iniquity," which feels no inward sense 
 of guilt and weakness, no need therefore of a 
 Sanctifier and a Saviour ? And whatever other 
 doctrines Revelation may have disclosed, no one, 
 with whom we at least have to do, is so utterly 
 
 * James i. 21. iv. 6. Acts xvii. II. 2 Thess. ii. 10, II. 
 cf. 1 Cor. iii. X— 3. Gal. v. 19—21. Jude ig. 
 
 •■ Dan. xii. 10. cf. Is. vi. Q. Hos. xiv. Q. John vii. 17. 
 viii. 47. X. 27- xviii. 37. Ps. xxv. 9, 12, 14. Prov. iii. 32. 
 
262 SERMON VII. 
 
 unacquainted with the truth of Christ as not to 
 know, that Heaven is the object which it sets 
 before us, and that the only path to future Hap- 
 piness lies through present Holiness. 
 
 O God, who knowest us to be set in the midst 
 of so many and great dangers, that by reason of 
 the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand 
 upright ; Grant to us such strength and pro- 
 tection, as may support us in all dangers, and 
 carry us through all temptations ; through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
SERMON VIII. 
 
 1 Cor. ii. 14. 
 
 THE NATURAL MAN EECEIVETH NOT THE THINGS OF THE 
 SPIRIT OF GOD : FOR THBY ARE FOOLISHNESS UNTO 
 HIM : NEITHER CAN HE KNOW THEM, BECAUSE THEY 
 ARE SPIRITUALLY DISCERNED. 
 
 If we could suppose, and, unhappily, the sup- 
 position is not altogether imaginary, if we could 
 suppose an inquirer after Christian Truth study- 
 ing evidences, listening to the teaching of the 
 Church and of the Scriptures, but perplexed 
 amidst the dissonant voices of conflicting inter- 
 pretations, and not as yet informed that God Him- 
 self vouchsafes to be his guide, with what profound 
 gratitude would he receive the gracious intima- 
 tion ! With what devout and unspeakable glad- 
 ness would he learn, that there was not only a 
 general presumption that the Author of Revela- 
 tion would shed His own blessing upon His own 
 work, but a distinct promise of spiritual assist- 
 ance and heavenly illumination to the humble 
 
264 SERMON VIII. 
 
 student of revealed truth ! Nay more, that there 
 was not only a revelation and a promise to this 
 effect, but that the great and distinctive doctrines 
 of Christianity were but the various aspects and 
 consequences of those two inestimable truths, " the 
 Lord is our light and the strength of our life," as 
 well as our " salvation*;" the support of our weak- 
 ness, not less than the propitiation for our guilt ; 
 our Sanctifier, not less than our Redeemer ! 
 
 Now although beyond all question, the infinite 
 condescension of the Holy Spirit of God in sup- 
 plying the place of our departed Lord, and 
 making His abode with us and in us for ever, 
 is indeed among the truths of Christianity the 
 most familiar to your minds, nevertheless the 
 great doctrine of Spiritual Illumination must not 
 be so briefly noticed, because it is so intimately 
 known. It may rather become us, before, we 
 attempt to draw some of the more obvious con- 
 clusions from the considerations which have been 
 hitherto offered concerning the Principal Means 
 of attaining Christian Truth, to dwell for a short 
 space upon that Divine assistance, which is at once 
 necessary to all other means of truth, and above 
 them all. 
 
 I. For, to advert only to a few of the more 
 prominent points in the doctrine of Grace, — to 
 " Ps. xxvii. Dominus Illuminatio. xxiii. Is. Ix. \Q, 20. 
 
SERMON VIII. 265 
 
 the doctrine of Revelation, namely, concerning 
 the Holy Spirit ; and His offices ; to the abuse of 
 grace ; and yet its absolute necessity. 
 
 1. Although unhappily it may have, and it 
 has, occurred, that individual Christians, even 
 in our own Church and nation, have not known 
 " whether there be any Holy Ghost," yet was " 
 there never any Church of Christ which did not 
 distinctly confess and teach the existence and 
 Divinity of the Holy Spirit, and the necessity 
 of His gracious influences in order to our Faith, 
 and Obedience, and therefore our Salvation ; not 
 an Ancient Creed has come down to us that does 
 not declare the belief of the Church in the Holy 
 Ghost; not a Primitive writer who does not state 
 or imply the same doctrine, which was indeed 
 that faith in which holy Martyrs offered up their 
 souls to God, and into which every individual 
 Christian was baptized. 
 
 But, in truth, the scanty remains which the 
 providence of God has preserved to us of the 
 Primitive Church are far from being so full or 
 so explicit upon this great subject as the Scrip- 
 tures themselves. Clement, Polycarp, and Igna- 
 tius, do not by any means teach the doctrine with 
 the clearness and frequency of the Apostles Paul, 
 and Peter, and John. From the Apostolical 
 Epistles, as might have been expected of a truth 
 which was embodied in the form of Christian 
 
266 SERMON VIII. 
 
 baptism, it is plain, that with this doctrine even 
 the least instructed, the very babes in Christ, 
 were expected to be familiar : " Know ye not 
 that ye are the temple of God, and that the 
 Spirit of God dwelleth in you? — Know ye not 
 that ye are the temple of the Holy Ghost which 
 is in your The whole tenor of the Epistles 
 .speaks to the same effect. The book of the 
 Acts is a history of the personal intervention 
 of the Spirit in the economy of our salvation, 
 bearing His testimony to Christ, completing the 
 Christian Revelation, and teaching the Apostles 
 where, and to whom, and in what method, to spread 
 the faith ''. And even the history in the Gospels 
 of the ministry of the Saviour does not close 
 without a distinct account of His also conveying 
 to His disciples such explicit revelations concern- 
 ing " the Comforter," " the Spirit of truth," « the 
 Holy Ghost'," as might almost by themselves, 
 even without the introductory teaching of the 
 Church, initiate the humble student of holy 
 Scripture into the peculiar doctrines of the 
 Gospel covenant concerning the grace of the 
 Divine Spirit. 
 
 " See, for the Dispensation of the Spirit, Acts i. 4, 5, 8. 
 ii. 1—39. iv. 8. 31. V. 3—9. vii. .55, 56. viii. 5, 6. 14—17. 
 29. 39. ix. 17. X. 19, 20. 44. 48. xi. 12. 15. xiii. 2—4. xv. 28. 
 xvi. 6, 7. xix. 1 — 6. XX. 22, 23. 28. xxii. 11. xxviii. 25. See 
 also Lord Harrington's Miscellanea Sacra, Essay I and IV. 
 
 " St. John xiv. xv. xvi. 
 
SERMON VIII. 267 
 
 Yet when it is said that the gracious influences 
 of the Holy Ghost are among the distinctive bless- 
 ings of the Gospel, I am far from imagining 
 that our Heavenly Father has ever withholden 
 His spiritual aid from His rational creatures. 
 Exceedingly brief as are the Scriptural narratives 
 of the early history of man, they record, neverthe- 
 less four distinct occasions, and some of these 
 implying many more, on which God conde- 
 scended to converse with man before the Fall*. 
 After man's fall from his original innocence, five 
 special instances are noticed, between the Fall 
 and the Flood, of the same Divine condescen- 
 sion". We have other distinct records of the 
 extraordinary intercourse of the Creator with His 
 creatures before the call of Abraham'. And even 
 after the selection of one family and one people 
 to be the special depositaries of the oracles of 
 God, there are yet some intimations of prophetic 
 revelations vouchsafed to the Gentile world, to 
 concur with the voice of conscience and of the 
 external creation in bearing witness to God, and 
 maintaining some faint hopes of His Christ*'. 
 Whilst the history of the chosen race, we all 
 
 "• Gen. 1. 28—30. ii. l6, 17- 19- "i- 18—21. 
 
 <= Gen. iv. 6, 7. 9—15. v. 24. vi. 13 — 21. vii. 1—4. 
 
 ' Gen. viii. 15-17. ix. 1—7- 
 
 ' Bishop Horsley's Dissertation on the Prophecies of Christ 
 dispersed among the Heathen. Davison on Primitive Sacri- 
 fice. Numbers xxii. xxiii. xxiv. Matt. ii. I — 12. Rom. i. 
 19—21. Acts xvii. 22—30. xiv. l6, 17- 
 
268 SERMON VIII. 
 
 know, is one continued record of miraculous in- 
 terpositions, and express revelations of the Divine 
 will by voice, or dream, or vision, or the Spirit 
 of God which was in His Prophets. " All Scrip- 
 ture," accordingly, writes St. Paul, " is given by 
 inspiration of God." And St. Peter, " the Pro- 
 phecy came not of old time by the will of man, 
 but holy men of God spake as they were moved 
 by the Holy Ghost''." — And not only so, but, 
 over and above these extraordinary communica- 
 tions, there are traces also in the Old Testament 
 of what we are accustomed to call — little reflect- 
 ing, perhaps, what an infinite exertion of grace 
 the word implies — the ordinary influences of 
 the Holy Spirit, vouchsafed not indeed by the 
 Law but under it, not by the earlier Dispensa- 
 tions yet under them, to touch the hearts of men, 
 and lead them, if it might be so, to holiness'. 
 Thus of mankind before the Flood it is declared 
 by the Lord, " My Spirit shall not always strive 
 with man ;" in Nehemiah and the Prophet Hag- 
 gai there are remarkable expressions which have, 
 probably, a similar import ; Isaiah speaks ex- 
 pressly of the whole house of Israel, as " rebelling 
 
 •■ 2 Tim. iii. l6. 2 Pet. i. 21. 1 Pet. i. 10—12. 
 
 ■' Datus erat Spiritus sub Lege quidem, at non ex Lege— 
 tarn sub veteri, quam sub novo Testamento, magno tamen 
 discrimine — Legis enim temporibus parce adiriodum ac re- 
 stricte; sub Evangelio largiter atque efFusissimfe, Bp. 3ulJ, 
 Harm. Apost. Diss. IL c. xi. §. 4. §. 5. See also Mr. Lancaster, 
 Harmony of the Law and the Gospel, ch. vii. 
 
SERMON VIII. 269 
 
 and vexing God's Holy Spirit;" and David prays 
 in the very language of Christian humiliation, 
 " Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew 
 a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from 
 thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from 
 me^" 
 
 Yet, all these things notwithstanding, let us 
 not be blind to the peculiar blessing of the Chris- 
 tian Dispensation. What are all the notices of 
 the Spirit in the Old Testament, compared with 
 the habitual recognition of His presence in the 
 Church and in its members, which is to be 
 traced in almost every page of the Apostolical 
 Epistles ? It- is one of the great and marked 
 distinctions between the Old Testament and the 
 New* It gives a different character to these dif- 
 ferent portions of the Word of God. The Pro- 
 phets themselves declared beforehand this great 
 distinction of the new covenant. " It shall come 
 to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour 
 out of my spirit upon all flesh" — " I will pour 
 water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the 
 dry ground : I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, 
 and my blessing upon thine offspring." — " In that 
 day living waters shall go forth from Jeru- 
 salem." — " Then will I sprinkle clean water upon 
 you, and ye shall be clean — a new heart also 
 will I give you, and a new spirit will I put 
 
 ' Gen. vi. 3. Neh. ix. 20. Haggai ii. 5. Is. Ixiii. 10. Ps. li. 
 10—12. cxliii. 10. 
 
270 SERMON VIII. 
 
 within you; and I will take away the stony 
 heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an 
 heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within 
 you"—" they shall be my people, and I will be 
 their God." — " The Lord is in the midst of 
 thee" — " great is the Holy One of Israel in 
 the midst of thee"'." And although after the 
 long cessation of miracle and prophecy in Israel 
 during four hundred years, there began to be 
 a return of spiritual gifts coeval with the very 
 dawn of the Gospel, as in the instances of 
 Simeon and Mary, Elizabeth and Zechariah, 
 still, it is written, " the Holy Ghost was not 
 yet given, because that Jesus was not yet 
 glorified." For it was to be clearly shewn, 
 we may presume, that He was " the Spirit of 
 Christ" as well as of the Father. Our Lord 
 Himself was to send the Spirit from the Father ; 
 and not until He " ascended up on high" did He 
 " lead captivity captive, and give gifts unto men"." 
 Then was that great outpouring of the Spirit 
 which was to set the seal to His religion, and 
 enable the Apostles and first teachers of the 
 Gospel to preach the word " in demonstration 
 
 '" Compare John vii. 37— 39. Acts ii. 4. 16— 18. 2 Cor. vi. 
 16. Heb. X. 16. with Joel ii. 28, 29. Is xliv. 3. xii. Iv. Zech. 
 viii. 8. xiii. 9. xiv. 8. Ezek. xi. 20. xxxvi. 25 — 27- xxxvii. 
 26, &c. Zeph. iii. 15. Jer. xxxi. 31. xxxii. xxxiii. 
 
 ° John vii. 39. Eph. iv. 8. cf. Ps. Ixviii. 18. 
 
SERMON VIII. 271 
 
 of the Spirit and of power"." And then also 
 were all Christian men to have their birth not 
 of water only, but " of the Spirit ;" to be " all 
 baptized by one Spirit into one body ;" " builded 
 together for an habitation of God through the 
 Spirit ;" enabled to bring forth " the fruits of the 
 Spirit ;" " sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day 
 of redemption''." To so great an extent was 
 this true Shechinah of the New Covenant to 
 surpass its typical shadow, the cloud of glory 
 which dwelt between the Cherubim in the taber- 
 nacle of old. 
 
 But yet further, in this last dispensation, and 
 not, so far as we are informed, before, was the 
 great mystery of the Personality, as well as the 
 Divinity, of the Holy Spirit to be revealed as 
 a distinct article of faith. All Christians were 
 now to be baptized into His holy name. One 
 with the Father and the Son, proceeding from 
 both, indifferently termed " the Spirit of God," 
 " of the Father," or " of the Son '," yet in some 
 mysterious way distinct from both. He was now 
 to be " worshipped and glorified with the Father 
 
 " Luke xxiv. 49- Acts i. 8. ii. xix. Rom. xv. 19. 1 Cor. ii. 
 4. 1 Pet. i. 12. 
 
 P John iii. S— 8. Tit. iii. 5—8. 1 Cor. xii. \a. Eph. ii. 22. 
 iv. 4—6. 30. Gal. V. 16 — 26. Rom. viii. 1 Pet. i. 1 John iii. 
 24. iv. 12—16. 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 9—11- Gal. iv. 6. Phil. i. 19. 1 Pet. i. 11. 
 Acts ii. 24. 
 
272 SERMON VIII. 
 
 and the Son together." And, accordingly, He 
 is now described by the inspired writers as exert- 
 ing a distinct personal agency — if we may pre- 
 sume to speak in most inadequate terms of the 
 mysteries of heaven — discharging peculiar offices 
 in the gracious economy of the redemption of 
 mankind ; or, in the words of inspiration, " di- 
 viding" His wonderful gifts " to every man seve- 
 rally as He will — " searching all things, yea, the 
 deep things of God" — " making intercession for 
 the saints according to the will of God '." Nay, 
 even by our Lord Himself before His departure 
 was the same mysterious doctrine riot obscurely 
 intimated ; " I will pray the Father, and He 
 shall give you another Comforter, that He may 
 abide with you for ever ; even the Spirit of 
 truth. — I will not leave you comfortless ; I will 
 come to you. — If a man love me, he will keep 
 my words ; and my Father will love him, and 
 we will come unto him, and make our abode 
 with him. — The Comforter, which is the Holy 
 Ghost, whom the Father will send in my Name, 
 He shall teach you all things. — When the Com- 
 forter is come, whom I will send unto you from 
 the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which pro- 
 ceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of 
 
 ' 1 Cor. xii. 4—11. (cf. John iii. 8. Heb. ii. 4.) 1 Cor. ii. 
 iO, 11. Rom. viii. 26, 27. (cf. ver. 34.) 
 ■ John xiv. 16. 18. 23. 26. xv. 26. xvi. 7—16. 
 
SERMON VIII. 273 
 
 2. Now whether this great Christian mystery 
 could or could not be shewn to have any im- 
 mediate bearing upon Christian practice, we 
 must receive and we must teach it simply 
 because it has been revealed. But can it be 
 that there are many minds so constituted as 
 not to feel at once, that the doctrine of the 
 Unity in Trinity is fitted to exert the most 
 overwhelming influence upon our whole souls^ our 
 hearts and our understandings, our feelings and 
 our conduct? It appeared right, accordingly, 
 before I adverted to the gracious offices of the 
 Holy Spirit in our behalf, to dwell for a few 
 moments upon His Divine essence and His 
 personal intervention in the work of our salva- 
 tion, that we might think and speak of Him 
 with the greater reverence, seek His aid with 
 more earnestness and gratitude, and above all 
 things endeavour not to " grieve the holy Spirit 
 of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of 
 redemption." 
 
 And indeed I am not solicitous to enquire 
 very curiously into His various ofiices. His 
 various Gifts or Graces, ordinary or extra- 
 ordinary. What we seek at present is usually 
 termed the Grace of Illumination, given linto 
 us not for the benefit of others, but in order 
 to our own salvation ; and not for the dis- 
 covery of new doctrines, but in order to a 
 saving faith in those which have been already 
 
274 SERMON VIII. 
 
 revealed. And what we are concerned to know 
 and to be assured of is, that whilst this illu- 
 minating grace is indeed emphatically " a gift," 
 a free gift to which we had no natural claim, 
 yet that the Holy Ghost is in truth vouchsafed in 
 order to this end, and that we may seek His 
 grace humbly, earnestly, reverently, but with all 
 gladness and all confidence. This is the assur- 
 ance we desire for our hope and our prayers. 
 And this the Scriptures evidently confirm. For 
 " the Spirit of Truth" was not only to dwell with 
 the Apostles, to " guide them into all truth," to 
 " teach them all things, and bring all things to 
 their remembrance whatsoever Christ had said 
 unto them," but He was that Comforter who 
 was to supply the place of our departed Lord, 
 and to abide with the Church " for ever," " even 
 unto the end of the world." And Truth, and 
 Faith, were to be among His especial gifts. 
 Not only is it a general doctrine of Holy Writ 
 that " Every good gift and every perfect gift is 
 from above, and cometh down from the Father 
 of lights," but the knowledge and confession of 
 the truth are in an especial manner ascribed to 
 the influence of the Holy Spirit — " No man can 
 say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy 
 Ghost ;" " the fruit of the Spirit is faith ;" " the 
 fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righte- 
 ousness and truth ^" Thus the promise of His 
 ' .John xiv. 26. xvi. ^3. xiv. 16. 18. Matt, xxviii. 20. 
 
SERMON VIII. 275 
 
 aid is clear and sure. But to make accurate 
 distinctions between His illuminating and His 
 sanctifying graces, or to attempt to scan the 
 methods by which He may be pleased to illumine 
 our souls, whether by directly enlightening the 
 understanding, or by dispelling adverse preju- 
 dices, inclining the will, purifying or exalting 
 the heart and the affections, these things are 
 needless and unprofitable. " The Holy Ghost is 
 shed upon us so abundantly," says a well-known 
 writer on this subject, that " it is impossible to 
 number the drops of this plentiful effusion, or 
 distinguish them severally which imperceptibly 
 run into one another. Our occasions and neces- 
 sities may call the application of it differently, as 
 shores give names to the seas that wash them, 
 which yet are indistinguishable parts of the same 
 ocean. But we cannot say here begins or here 
 ends such and such a grace. They are to mend 
 and alter our nature, and therefore mingle with 
 it." Better to believe that as " we want assist- 
 ance in every faculty," so grace is as various as 
 are our various wants and corruptions, and " the 
 Holy Ghost vouchsafes to dwell in our heartSj 
 that He may influence the whole soul "." And 
 better to pray with the Church of England for 
 
 James -i. l6, 17- iv. 6. 1 Cor. xii. 3. (cf. Matt. xvi. 17. 
 1 John iv. 15.) Gal. v. 22. Eph. v. 9. 
 
 " Glocester Ridley, Sermons on the Divinity and Opera- 
 tions of the Holy Ghost. Sermon III. p. 95. 108. 
 
 t2 
 
276 SERMON VIII. 
 
 the graces of Illumination and of Sanctification 
 together, that the good Lord may " give to all 
 His people increase of grace to hear meekly His 
 word, and to receive it with pure affection, and 
 to hring forth the fruits of the Spirit ;" that by 
 the guidance of His good Spirit " all who profess 
 and call themselves Christians may be led into 
 the way of truth, and hold the faith in Unity of 
 spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness 
 of life." 
 
 3. But what gift of Heaven is there so 
 gracious or so awful, that the weakness and 
 corruption of man may not misconceive or 
 misuse it ! And the history of the Church pre- 
 sents so many melancholy pages respecting the 
 abuse of the doctrine of Grace, from Montanus to 
 Bourignon, or from the Messalians of Syria down 
 to the Methodists of England, that a few passing 
 words of caution may be requisite on this subject". 
 Nay, and they may be requisite even here. Neither 
 the seats of science and learning, nor age and 
 experience, are secure against Enthusiasm. The 
 very unbeliever has imagined himself directed by 
 
 « See Glocester Ridley, as above. Sermon IV. p. 148, 
 et seq. Dr. Nott's Bampton Lecture, Sermon I. p. 20. 43. 
 and Sermons III. IV. V. Suicer. Thes. Eccles. ad voc. 
 ^ix,lrcu. Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. Cent. II. part ii. eh. v. 
 §. xxiv. and Cent. IV. part ii. eh. v. §. xxiv. Cent. XVII. 
 sect. ii. part ii. §. iv. Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 
 p. 172. (1778.) 
 
SERMON VIII. 277 
 
 a supernatural vision to send forth to the world 
 his attempt to discredit the existence of super- 
 natural revelation. Swedenborg was distin- 
 guished by the successful pursuit of Physical and 
 Mathematical Science, was long engaged in 
 active and official life, and had attained the age 
 of fifty-five, before his supposed call to be the 
 medium of a new revelation, or what was equi- 
 valent to a new revelation, and to hold a pre- 
 ternatural intercourse with the spiritual world. 
 And the latest schism which has rent the Church 
 of England was occasioned by the Enthusiasm of 
 educated men, members of our own University, 
 admitted to Degrees, elected to Fellowships, 
 occupied in this place with the instruction of 
 youth, called to the sacred Orders of Deacon 
 and Priest in our own Apostolical Church. 
 
 It is only not impossible, perhaps, that the 
 actual subject of Enthusiasm should be reclaimed 
 from his delusion. Yet even of this there have 
 been happy instances ; and, under the Divine 
 blessing, the repeated failure of his own pre- 
 dictions has at length convinced the Enthusiast 
 himself, that he had not been prompted by the 
 Spirit of truth. But for ourselves it is very 
 possible, ' and very necessary to prevent the 
 danger, by the due culture and religious em- 
 ployment of the whole man, body, mind, and 
 soul : endeavouring always to maintain Reason 
 on her proper throne ; not to indulge the Imagin- 
 
278 SERMON VIII. 
 
 ation at the expense of the Judgment; not to waste 
 and enfeeble the body by ascetic rigours, lest we 
 mistake feverish fancies for holy inspiration; not 
 to disjoin pious contemplation from active duties 
 and the offices of charity ; not to pursue any one 
 single study, not even religious studies, exclu- 
 sively ; above all to be ever seeking the moral 
 graces of the Spirit, and of these, especially, the 
 graces of " meekness and humbleness of mind y." 
 If indisposition of mind or body may surrender 
 us a prey to a disordered imagination ; vain-glory, 
 ambition, and pride, may work far deeper mis- 
 chief, even opening a ready way to the delusions 
 of the Evil Spirit ; whilst it is the reiterated 
 declaration of the Old Scriptures and the New, 
 that " God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace 
 unto the humble "." 
 
 And whilst we may thus preserve ourselves 
 from danger, it is possible also that we may 
 undeceive the deluded followers of the Enthusiast. 
 Not that we can prove, perhaps, and why should 
 we attempt it ? that new or additional revelations 
 are never more to be expected. It is but too 
 true, on the contrary, and we cannot deny it, 
 that the manifold ignorances, and sins, and 
 divisions, of the Christian community still sup- 
 ply the Enthusiast with a plausible argument 
 
 y Gal. V. 22—26. vi. 1—3. Col. iii. 12. 
 •^ Prov. iii. 34. Ps. cxxxviii. 6. Is. Ivii. 15. Ixvi. 2. Matt, 
 xxiii. 12. Luke xiv. 11. xviii. 14. James iv. 6. 1 Pet. v. 5. 
 
SERMON VIII. tJ79 
 
 for the probability of his alleged commission 
 to remedy these fearful evils. But every new 
 division is a new evil. Every separation is 
 either a duty or a sin. We are expressly 
 warned that " false prophets and false teachers 
 may arise." It is therefore our duty to " try the 
 spirits whether they are of God ;" nay, and to 
 look well to our own hearts, lest we " heap to 
 ourselves teachers, having itching ears, and be 
 turned unto fables ; not enduring sound doctrine ; 
 turning away our ears from the truth *." Does the 
 new teacher, then, profess only to disclose a new 
 interpretation, some hitherto hidden sense of the 
 sacred Scriptures ? That at least is a subject ad- 
 mitting of investigation, and which we are bound 
 to try accordingly, and by the same means with 
 which we are enabled to try the soundness of any 
 other interpretation. Or is he the Prophet of a 
 new Revelation ? But the method of Divine Re- 
 velation has become to us, as it were, a matter of 
 experience. Whatever the probability or the 
 improbability that the Christian Revelation was 
 complete and final, that the Holy Spirit did 
 indeed lead the Apostles into " all truth," that 
 they no longer, like the Prophets of former 
 dispensations, " enquired and searched dili- 
 gently," prophesying of some mysterious grace 
 not as yet disclosed ; but that, on the contrary, 
 
 -"' Matt. xxiv. U. 24. 1 John iv. 1. 2 Pet. ii. 1. 2 Tim. iv. 
 3, 4,. 
 
283 SERMON VIII. 
 
 they " preached the Gospel," of which the end was 
 " the salvation of our souls," and were enabled, 
 accordingly, to impart to their disciples " all 
 the counsel of God ;" and that all which they 
 taught we also at this day inherit'' — without 
 entering into these things, or considering whether 
 we do not, in fact, know every thing which it 
 really imports man to know in order to his 
 salvation, this at least we cannot but perceive 
 and know, it may be said, by experience, that 
 every Revelation has been hitherto attested and 
 authenticated by Him who gave it, and always 
 by the same credentials, and that every suc- 
 ceeding Revelation has been found to be consistent 
 with those which preceded it. We are not only 
 authorized, therefore, but obliged to look for 
 similar proofs, internal and external, of the 
 reality of any new communication from the same 
 Divine Being ; the same consistency with former 
 Revelations, the same evidence from Miracles, or 
 Types, or Prophecies, separate at least if not com- 
 bined ". And, perhaps, it will almost always be 
 discovered, that the Enthusiast himself, by some 
 palpable contrariety between his conduct and his 
 ereed,his teaching and that of the Scriptures, gives 
 evident tokens of the human origin of his doctrine. 
 
 " John xiv. 25, 26. xvi. 12, 13. Acts xx. 26, 27- 1 Pet. 
 9—12, 
 
 ■ SeeGlocester Ridley,as above. Sermon IV. p. 153 — 155. 
 and Dr. Nott's Bampton Lecture, Sermon IV. 
 
SERMON VIII. 281 
 
 Thus Wesley presumed to ordain Elders, wan- 
 tonly violating the order of that Church which he 
 professed to revere ; Fox suffered women to teach 
 in the churches, in direct opposition to the 
 precepts of St. Paul ; and the latest Enthusiasts 
 of our own age and country, with the same 
 literal disobedience to Apostolic authority, per- 
 mit the utterance of unknown tongues, so at 
 least profanely called, where " there is no inter- 
 preter ''." 
 
 4. Nevertheless, let no extravagance, or excess, 
 or abuse of the doctrine of Grace, cast that all- 
 important doctrine into the shade. Neither 
 Enthusiasm itself, nor any schism which it has 
 occasioned, can compare with Unbelief. And 
 without the grace of the Holy Spirit we cannot 
 believe. 
 
 " No one can come to me," says our Lord, 
 " except the Father which hath sent me draw 
 him. — It is written in the prophets. And they 
 shall be all taught of God. Every man there- 
 fore that hath heard, and hath learned of the 
 Father, cometh unto me. — No man can come 
 unto me except it were given unto him of my 
 Father." And so of our continuance in the faith, 
 as well as of our approach to it ; " Abide in 
 me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear 
 fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more 
 ■' 1 Cor. xiv. 27, 28. S4>, 35. 1 Tim. ii. II, 12. 
 
282 SERMON VIII. 
 
 can ye, except ye abide in me — without me ye can 
 do nothing." But we know, and have already 
 seen, that the mode by which we abide in Christ 
 or He in us, is by " the Spirit of God dwelling 
 in us." And all the truth of God is darkness 
 to him who is not taught of God. " The natural 
 man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
 God : for they are foolishness unto him : neither 
 can he know them, because they are spiritually 
 discerned'." 
 
 For the creature cannot separate himself from 
 his Creator ; nor the disciple of truth from its 
 heavenly Author. It is with the mind as with 
 the body, with our spiritual as with our natural 
 life, with the system of Grace as with the method 
 of Providence. As we are the creatures of God, 
 so we only live by Him ; as He has formed our 
 minds and souls, so He sustains them ; and as 
 He has vouchsafed to reveal His will to man, so 
 without His continual aid and light man has not 
 sight or strength even to comprehend the know- 
 ledge of His truth. Thus when the Apostle first 
 made his open confession of that great prime truth 
 of the Gospel, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
 the living God," and our Lord therefore pro- 
 nounced him " blessed," He added, " for flesh and 
 blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father 
 
 ' John vi. 44, 4.5. 64, 65. cf. Is. liv. 13. Jer. xxxi. S3, 34, 
 1 Thess. iv. 9. Heb. viii. 10. x. 16. 1 John ii. 20. — John xv. 
 1 — 7-— Horn. viii. 9— II. 1 Johniii.24. iv. 13. — 1 Cor.ii.l4. 
 
SERMON VIII. 283 
 
 which is in heaven." And what was true of him 
 is true of us, " No man can say that Jesus is the 
 Lord hut by the Holy Ghost." And, universally, 
 of all Christian truth as of all Christian men, 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and 
 righteousness, and truth ^" 
 
 But then, blessed be God for His great mercy, 
 there is not one sinful soul of all our sinful race 
 whom He is not willing and desirous to draw unto 
 Himself. We are graciously informed and assured, 
 that He is ever willing to enlighten those who 
 seek the truth in obedience to His will : that as 
 our Mediator " gave Himself a ransom for all," 
 even so " God our Saviour will have all men to 
 be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the 
 truth." — For, " Hath He any pleasure at all that 
 the wicked should die ? and not return from his 
 ways, and live ?" N ay, " He is not willing that 
 any should perish, but that all should come to 
 repentance." And therefore hath " the grace 
 of God that bringeth salvation appeared unto 
 all men." " God so loved the world, that He 
 gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
 lieveth in Him should not perish, but have ever- 
 lasting life." And " this is life eternal," said our 
 Lord again, " that they might know thee the 
 only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou 
 
 ' Matt. xvi. 13—19. 1 Cor. ii. 10. Gal. i. 16. 1 Cor. xii. 3. 
 Eph. V. 9. and see Dr. Biber's Standard of Catholicity, 
 ch. ii. 
 
284 SERMON VIII. 
 
 hast sent*." — Whatever our weakness, and short- 
 sightedness, and imperfection of every kind, let 
 us but be vi^illing and obedient, feeling our de- 
 pendence upon Him, trusting in Him, and seeking 
 His gracious aid, and all our manifold wants are 
 presently supplied by Him. We shall be 
 " powerful by His power, and wise in His 
 wisdom ; we shall reap, as it were, the benefit 
 of every Divine attribute, and lose our own insuf- 
 ficiency in the fulness of Infinite Perfection''." 
 
 Only let us not mistake the way and the means 
 of heavenly wisdom. The end of Christian truth 
 is our Salvation. Therefore also the method of 
 salvation will be observed in the communication 
 of Christian truth to our souls. It will neither 
 be bestowed upon us arbitrarily nor irresistibly. 
 As " God our Saviour will have all men to be 
 saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the 
 truth," so it would appear to be the necessary 
 consequence, that He must aid us after one and 
 the same manner in our acceptance of Truth, and 
 in our pursuit of everlasting Salvation ; that is to 
 say, gently, persuasively, drawing but not com- 
 pelling, guiding but not controlling us, working 
 out continually that great mysterious problem, 
 the preparation of free agents for a life to come, 
 without impairing their free will. There was 
 
 g 1 Tim. ii. i, 5, 6. Ezek. xviii. 23. 2 Pet. iii. p. Tit. ii. 
 11—14. John iii. l6. xvii. 3. 
 '■ Addison. 
 
SERMON VIII. 285 
 
 nothing irresistible even in the Extraordinary 
 Gifts of the Spirit; how much less in his Ordinary 
 Graces ? " The spirits of the prophets were sub- 
 ject unto the prophets." The blessed Apostles 
 themselves were not compelled to preach the 
 Gospel '. Ecstasy, perturbation, indomitable 
 control, are the very marks of Natural Enthu- 
 siasm, or of the agency of the Evil one, whilst 
 the characteristics of spiritual grace are gentle- 
 ness, quietness, and calm. No reason can be 
 given why the same rule should not prevail in 
 the instance of Illuminating as of Sanctifying 
 Grace ; and that rule we know from the Scriptures 
 themselves is, that we should " work out our own 
 salvation with fear and trembling," for this very 
 reason, that " it is God which worketh in us both 
 to will and to do of His good pleasure''." 
 
 And of all these things, what is the practical 
 consequence, but that we must seek the aid of 
 the Spirit by the devout use of the appointed 
 Means? " God will give His Holy Spirit to 
 them that ask Him." Have we any ground to 
 hope that He will give His grace to those who 
 can, but who will not, ask Him ? But what is 
 true of one of the means of grace, is true of all ; 
 we have no warrant to expect His aid but through 
 
 ' 1 Cor. xiv. 32. ix. 16^ 17- See also Dr. Nott's Bampton 
 Lecture, I. p. 10. 25. &c. and Glocester Ridley, Sermon IV. 
 p. 151. 
 
 » Phil. ii. 12, 13. 
 
Q8(i SERMON VIII. 
 
 our devout use of all the appointed means with 
 which He has blessed us. Why has He " caused 
 all holy Scriptures to be written for our learn- 
 ing," but that we may " hear and read and mark 
 and learn them ?" Why permitted us to pray, but 
 that we may use our great privilege ? or given us 
 opportunities of public worship, but that we may 
 employ them to our good and to His glory ? or 
 appointed the blessed Sacraments, but that they 
 may begin and sustain our new and spiritual life ? 
 or built up the ark of His Church, but that within 
 it we may be saved ? 
 
 There is no real inconsistency in speaking thus 
 of the privileges of the Christian as among the 
 means of attaining Christian truth. The child 
 of the Baptist, we may humbly hope, may be 
 permitted a measure of that illuminating grace, 
 from which the theory of his sect might debar 
 him ; and even to the Heathen the overflowing 
 goodness of God will grant beforehand such a 
 measure of the privileges of the Covenant, as may 
 suffice to draw him towards it. But they are 
 Christians, for the most part, who are interested 
 in the present Inquiry ; they are already bap- 
 tized ; they already believe all the great truths 
 of the Gospel, and they seek to prove them ; 
 or they believe in part, and are desirous to 
 apprehend all Christian truth ; their humble 
 prayer is, " Lord, I believe, help thou mine un- 
 belief;" and they have a covenant-title to that 
 
SERMON VIII. 287 
 
 gracious aid which will be granted to their 
 earnest prayer — only not to their prayer alone, 
 apart from their use of the Scriptures, the 
 Church, the Sacraments ; not to their prayers as 
 insulated beings, but as members of that one 
 Christian body which is the body of Christ, and 
 the abode of His Spirit. " For by one Spirit are 
 we all baptized into one body ; and have all been 
 made to drink into one Spirit \" In one word, 
 the means of Truth, the means of Grace, the 
 means of Salvation, are all indissolubly con- 
 nected; all parts of one common and harmo- 
 nious plan, by which salvation is to be wrought 
 out, and the creature brought nigh to his Cre- 
 ator, the sinner to his Saviour, the rational and 
 free but weak and corrupt being of this brief 
 period of trial prepared for life eternal, through 
 the mercy of Christ, unto the glory and praise of 
 God. 
 
 II. And thus has the consideration of this 
 day, like every other portion of the present 
 Inquiry, brought us home to the same practical 
 conclusion — that in order to the efficacious and 
 salutary employment of the Principal Means of 
 attaining Christian Truth, we must not separate 
 what God has joined, we must employ them in 
 harmonious combination. 
 
 ' 1 Cor. xii. 
 
288 SERMON VIII. 
 
 1. Was it an unnecessary labour thus to have 
 endeavoured to develop so very simple and obvi- 
 ous a principle as the Duty of combining all our 
 advantages in order to the attainment of Chris- 
 tian truth ? But if few^ or none would deny the 
 principle in the abstract, the practical neglect of 
 it is the very characteristic of the great leading 
 errors of different portions of the Christian com- 
 munity. It is not only the Enthusiast who 
 employs one of the means of truth and casts 
 away the rest, seeking the aid of the Spirit, but 
 neglecting Reason, and the Church, and the 
 Scriptures : the Romanist exaggerates the uses 
 of the Church till he lays the Holy Scriptures 
 practically in abeyance ; large classes of Protest- 
 ants, and individuals in all classes, pushing the 
 principles of Protestantism to extravagance, exalt 
 the Scriptures till they virtually forget the 
 Church ; the Rationalist begins with setting the 
 Church aside, and ends with degrading Holy 
 Scripture to the level of mere human compo- 
 sitions. 
 
 And so it is also with the various parts and 
 details of several of these great means of Truth. 
 Practical errors are for ever growing out of some 
 partial, or exclusive, or exaggerated use of va- 
 rious portions of the whole system. Even the 
 different parts of the Scriptures themselves are 
 not exempt from this treatment; the Gospels are 
 valued to the exclusion of the Epistles ; or St. 
 
SERMON VIII. 289 
 
 Paul is extolled, St. James forgotten ; or the 
 New Testament alone is studied, the Old practi- 
 cally set aside. Or again, the entire volume of 
 the Scriptures is studied, and studied with reve- 
 rence and prayer, but yet without the due use of 
 Reason and Judgment, studied as one work of 
 one age with no discrimination made between 
 the different Books and the different Dispensa- 
 tions to which they more especially belong. Or 
 one abuse alone of Reason is avoided, others 
 countenanced by those who would the most 
 severely condemn the former. Or in our use of 
 Church-privileges, the Modern Church alone is 
 valued, or the Ancient alone, the Reformers, or 
 the Fathers, or some one exclusive School of 
 Theological Writers; or human sums and systems 
 and symbols are overvalued, or valued exclu- 
 sively, to the practical depreciation of the Sacred 
 Scriptures. 
 
 And are not these things, I do not say the causes, 
 but among the causes, of Heresy, Dissent, and 
 Schism, and Party-strife ? And may we not enter- 
 tain some hope of their alleviation by a more con- 
 siderate use of all our privileges in their due con- 
 nexion, under the gracious aid of the Spirit of God? 
 
 Therefore it is, that I have made a very humble 
 but a very earnest and anxious endeavour to draw 
 your attention not simply to the uses, but to the 
 connected uses, of the four Principal Means of 
 attaining Christian Truth — the Inspired Scrip- 
 
290 SERMON VIII. 
 
 tures ; the Church of Christ ; our own Natural 
 powers ; and God's preventing and assisting 
 Grace. To which end I have briefly touched 
 to-day upon the great privilege of the Illumin- 
 ating grace of the Holy Spirit in its necessary 
 connexion with our study of the Scriptures, and 
 the exercise of our Reason, and our use of all the 
 Privileges of the Church, whether for instruction, 
 or for edification, and the growth of those moral 
 qualities which are essential to the attainment of 
 moral and religious truth. With the same view, 
 after some distinct notice of the more prominent 
 Abuses of Reason, I formerly adverted also to 
 the Use of our Reason and Judgment, not only 
 with reference to the Evidences and the Books of 
 Revelation, but also in connexion with some of 
 those very aids and lights derived from the trea- 
 sures, of Christian Antiquity, which some would 
 almost appear to value even to the abdication of 
 our Reason. And v/ith the same design, in the 
 earlier portions of the Lecture, the connected 
 uses of the Church and the Scriptures were 
 opened more at large. The Structure of the 
 New Testament and the Institution of the Chris- 
 tian Church were shewn to be in exact accord- 
 ance ; and the character of the Old Scriptures 
 to be in harmony with both ; from which an 
 argument was derived, not to be lightly set aside 
 by the devout student of the Inspired Volumes, 
 to establish the very simple but very important 
 
SERMON VIII. 291 
 
 truth, that the teaching of the Christian Church 
 is the appointed Introduction to the Christian 
 Scriptures. The value of this principle was 
 urged even when this Introductory teaching was 
 regarded as without authority ; yet the use 
 likewise of the Presumptive authority of the 
 Church was pointed out, with reference both to 
 Christian Doctrines and Christian Institutions. 
 Some attempt was alsomadetodefinethe just limits 
 of Church- Authority, and yet direct our thoughts 
 and our gratitude to the true value of Church- 
 Privileges : whilst to guard if possible against 
 misapprehension, and prevent the waste of 
 thought upon empty generalities, I have en- 
 deavoured to exemplify the proper combination 
 of the uses of the Old Testament and the New, 
 of the Church and the Scriptures, in the proof of 
 some of the more prominent instances of contro- 
 verted truths ; — the Divine origin of the Lord's 
 day, of Infant Baptism, and of Episcopacy ; the 
 doctrines of the Christian Atonement, the Di- 
 vinity of our blessed Lord, and the Personality 
 of the Holy Spirit, the main elements of that 
 comprehensive principle of Christian faith, the 
 doctrine of the Trinity in Unity^ 
 
 2. That I should have been enabled to escape 
 all error on so many subjects is utterly beyond 
 my hope ; "but neither is it necessary to the end 
 in view. If your own inquiries have been upon 
 
 u2 
 
292 SERMON VIII. 
 
 the whole directed aright, and some suggestions 
 have been offered not without use at all times, 
 and sufficiently adapted to existing circum- 
 stances, the end will have been sufficiently 
 attained. 
 
 I frankly confess, indeed, that if I could ima- 
 gine that the views which have been suggested 
 would approve themselves at once to every mind, 
 this I should regard, considering our innumerable 
 divisions, as a sign of error rather than of truth. 
 But it is more than probable, that as the different 
 phases of erroneous opinion successively pre- 
 sented themselves to my mind, they will of them- 
 selves have prompted erroneous thought or un- 
 measured language in an opposite direction ; 
 and what was opposed at one time to dogmatism, 
 at another to a spurious liberality, to the idolatry 
 of Creeds, or the idolatry of Reason, to an 
 unnatural independence, or a blind submission 
 to Authority, to an excessive attachment to the 
 Church, or an exclusive devotion to Holy Scrip- 
 ture, will not always have been restrained within 
 the precise limits of truth and soberness. We 
 live amidst false glares and reflected lights, and 
 may easily mistake the genuine colours and true 
 proportions of the objects around us. And 
 besides, we have been travelling over an ex- 
 tensive country, and not a little tangled and 
 intricate ground ; and I have no pretensions to 
 the learning and judgment which are really 
 
SERMON VIII. 293 
 
 required in order to weigh exactly the intrinsic 
 value, and the relative value, of all the various 
 aids to truth which have been considered or 
 touched upon, directly or incidentally, with re- 
 ference to the Church, ancient or modern, to 
 Scripture or Tradition, Reason or Spiritual 
 grace. Still I would fain hope that I shall 
 not have led others into error, but rather that 
 I have pointed out what we ' all should aim 
 at. We may see our course. You can very 
 readily perceive, that the Rationalist can go 
 wrong by his Reason, and the Enthusiast by 
 his private spirit, and the Ultra-protestant by 
 the Scriptures ; and so may we also, and this 
 is the more likely danger in the seats of learning 
 and in a well-ordered and Apostolical Church, 
 by too exclusive or excessive a regard for 
 learning, and theology, and the Fathers, and 
 the Church itself. And others also, it is de- 
 voutly to be hoped, from observing our errors, 
 may learn to suspect their own. And so may 
 we all become more and more sensible of the 
 danger of neglecting any one of the appointed 
 means of truth, or of overvaluing any one 
 of them, and feel the importance of endea- 
 vouring at least, according to our respective 
 opportunities, to use all our advantages, and 
 all, which is no light attempt, in harmonious 
 combination, and with the due subordination of 
 the less to the greater. 
 
294 SERMON VIII. 
 
 There is One indeed, whose infinite bene- 
 volence is continually occupied in drawing good 
 out of evil ; and so He bends the errors and 
 mistakes and extravagances of individuals to 
 His own gracious purposes, and the ultimate 
 and general profit of His Church. And Truth 
 is advanced upon the whole, whilst different 
 Theologians, unconsciously pursuing each of 
 them his own particular taste, turn aside here 
 and there from the true path, one refining 
 upon the spiritual interpretation of Scripture, 
 another upon the Christian Sacraments ; some 
 dwelling too fondly upon Dogmatic, others 
 upon Historical Christianity ; some upon the 
 Constitution of the Church and the dignity of 
 the Ministerial Orders, others upon the prac- 
 tical Fruits of Grace without due reference 
 to its appointed Means. Only let thoughts 
 like these incline our hearts to Charity, but 
 never tempt us to Indifference. Let them 
 dispose us to cheerful and hopeful views even 
 of this melancholy and distracted scene, and 
 bid us gladly observe and select and use that 
 degree of truth which is commonly the basis 
 even of error, and the aim of those who walk 
 in error ; but still the more we witness the 
 frailties and weaknesses of the heart and under- 
 standing, and the more we are moved by 
 such reflections towards Charity and Chris- 
 tian Unity, so much the more closely let us 
 
SERMON VIII. 295 
 
 watch our own souls, and steadily pursue the 
 Truth, and employ gratefully, yet discreetly, 
 all the various Means by which it is to be 
 attained. 
 
 Finally, if it shall be said by some that 
 after all we have touched only upon the mere 
 elements of Christian knowledge, how then 
 shall we make progress in the Truth ? or again, 
 by others, that we have rather dwelt upon a 
 store of learned labours, and how then, which 
 was the very object of the Inquiry, shall a 
 plain man be enabled by such means to as- 
 certain the Truth ? — let me endeavour to ob- 
 viate both these conflicting objections, and so 
 conclude. 
 
 For indeed I have spoken of learning only 
 for the learned ; for the Christian Pastor, for 
 example, whose duty it is, and often his painful 
 duty, to trace the mazes of error, and the sad 
 history of successive errors, in order to their 
 avoidance by himself and by his flock ; or for 
 those who have at once leisure for theological 
 learning, and enjoy the requisite instruction and 
 guidance in order to their pursuing it not un- 
 profitably ; or for those who are unhappily 
 exposed to .serious doubts respecting some im- 
 portant doctrine, and who are not entitled to 
 speak and act as if they understood a subject 
 upon which they have not brought to bear all 
 those various resources which God has placed 
 
296 SERMON VIII. 
 
 within their power. And He who proportions 
 our trials to our strength preserves, I doubt not, 
 the simple and unlearned from those painful and 
 distressing difficulties, which it may require the 
 aid of Learning, under a far higher aid, to set us 
 free. 
 
 The plain unlettered Christian, meanwhile, 
 let me once more repeat, will attain to Christian 
 truth, by a simpler process, indeed, and yet the 
 same in kind. He need not be acquainted with 
 the original languages of Holy Writ, or read 
 a single Father, or even read at all. God has 
 provided for him Ministers of the Word and 
 Sacraments, and has addressed to him the glad 
 tidings of Salvation intelligible in any language, 
 and intelligible to the poor ; nay, too frequently, 
 through our waywardness, best understood by 
 those who have the very least of those advan- 
 tages of learning and wisdom so called which 
 we perversely turn to our disadvantage, even 
 until the things of God are " hid from the wise 
 and prudent, but revealed unto babes "." And 
 yet his path to truth is still the same, and it 
 is that which has been here displayed. He 
 listens to the Church, but obeys the Scriptures ; 
 yet will he not obey the Scriptijres without 
 listening to the Church; nor yet without the 
 diligent use of his own Understanding, still 
 less without the gracious aid of the Holy Spirit, 
 '" Matt. xi. 25. 
 
SERMON VIII. 297 
 
 nor without holiness, 9.nd docility, and love of 
 truth, and of goodness, and therefore not with- 
 out Prayer and the Sacraments and all our other 
 blessed Means of faith and holiness. 
 
 And the Progress also of the learned and 
 the unlearned in Christian Truth will be the 
 same in kind, and will be furthered by the same 
 means. 
 
 If they were elementary Christian truths to 
 which I have adverted by way of example in 
 these Discourses, yet they were also among the 
 most important of all truths. They are among 
 the principles, moreover, by which we are sepa- 
 rated from bur brethren, and the most widely 
 separated, from the Romanist, for example, and 
 the Protestant Dissenter, from the Presbyterian, 
 the Baptist, the Socinian, and Unitarian. 
 
 The very sum and substance of Christian 
 doctrine is made up of these and but a few 
 other kindred truths ; such truths as answer to 
 the great practical questions. What are we ? and 
 Whither are we going ? How shall we serve and 
 worship God ? How be reconciled to Him ? How 
 enabled to continue in His favour ? How attain 
 to Life Eternal ? The unlearned and the learned 
 are equally interested in the answers to these 
 questions, and equally capable of apprehending 
 them. And to " grow in grace and in the know- 
 ledge of pur Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ"," 
 " 2 Pet. iii. ^8. i. 5—11. F.ph. iv. 15. Phil. iii. 12—14. 
 
298 SERMON VIII. 
 
 which is open alike to learned and unlearned, is 
 all that really deserves the name of Progress — not 
 indeed in Theological learning, but in Christian 
 Truth. 
 
 I would not derogate from the just praise of 
 Theological learning. When Theology holds her 
 subordinate station, and serves as a handmaid 
 to Scriptural truth, elucidating the sacred text, 
 opening and enforcing its doctrines, disclosing 
 the harmony of the divine Dispensations, she is 
 to be highly esteemed. And to this very end 
 have Teachers been ap})ointed, and various 
 talents entrusted to our use by Christ Himself, 
 that we may minister to the edification of our 
 brethren, and smooth their path to truth. Nei- 
 ther would I disparage the utility of exact 
 statements, or elevate sentiment above doctrine. 
 Without some statements of the truth we could 
 not apprehend it ourselves, much less convey it 
 to other minds. And without exact and cautious 
 statements, seeing that all are not teachable and 
 well disposed, nay rather that we are all disposed 
 to evil, and prone to self-deceit, we may minister 
 unconsciously to error or to sin : wherefore the 
 negative as well as the positive uses of Theology 
 are very great. And we must study the history 
 of error, that we may check its growth or prevent 
 its revival ; and be acquainted with exact state- 
 ments, as of the doctrine of the Trinity, for 
 example, that we may repress the daring specu- 
 
SERMON VIII. 299 
 
 lations of heresy ; and with cautious statements, 
 as of Justification or of the extent of human 
 Corruption, lest we secretly favour licentiousness 
 on the one hand, or pride on the other, and 
 assist the self-deceit of the strong who would 
 build upon their own merits and be saved 
 without Christ, or of the weak who would be 
 saved by Christ but without holiness. 
 
 Still the means may become insensibly con- 
 founded with the end ; and Theological truth, 
 or what is supposed to be such, with the genuine 
 Truth of Christianity. We may pass from exact 
 definitions of Doctrine into Dogmatism, or from 
 speculations upon the Sacraments into Mysti- 
 cism, or mistake curious refinements, peremptory 
 decisions, presumptuous and irreverent reason- 
 ings, for progress in the truth of Christ. That 
 our " Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son 
 of God, was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the 
 Virgin Mary," that He " did no sin," but suffered 
 for our sins, " the just for the unjust"," these 
 are Christian truths, if elementary yet most 
 momentous ; but there is a Theology which 
 dilates without authority upon the consequences 
 of that mysterious union of the Divine and 
 human natures, and analyzes the causes of that 
 sinless perfection. That we are " justified by 
 faith" in Jesus Christ, and that He is " the Lord 
 
 " Nicene Creed. John i. 14—19. Luke i. 26—35. 1 Pet. 
 ji. 21, 22. iii. 18. 
 
300 SERMON VIII. 
 
 our righteousness ■'," are all-important Chris- 
 tian" truths ; but that " our Saviour was obedient 
 to the Law not only for our good but in our 
 stead ; that all His obedience to the Law is 
 imputed to us, and our Justification consists not 
 only in the remission of sins, but also in the 
 imputation of Christ's active righteousness," these 
 are the speculations of the Theologian '. That 
 it was of " the eternal purpose of God which He 
 purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" that we 
 should be " chosen in Him before the foundation 
 of the world," is a Christian truth most gracious 
 and most consolatory ' ; that in order to magnify 
 the grace of God in our Election, we must also 
 believe in the Decree of Reprobation, by which 
 some were to be passed by, left in their sins, 
 touched with no grace, condemned and punished 
 eternally in order to set forth the Divine Justice, 
 this is the peremptory decision of a presumptuous 
 Theology'. That " all men shall rise again with 
 their bodies and shall give account for their own 
 works," that " we shall all stand before the judgment- 
 
 p Art. xi. Rom. iii. 21 — 28. viii. 33. x. 3—10. Jer. xxiii. 
 5, 6. 
 
 1 French Protestant Synod, l6l2. Synodes Nationaux 
 &c. par Aymon, cited by Jortin, Remarks on Eccles. Hist. 
 Preface, p. xv. 
 
 ' Art. xvii. Rom. viii. 28 — Sg. Eph. i. 3—12. iii. 10, 11. 
 2 Tim. i. 9, 10. 
 
 ■ Synod of Dort, Art. xv. Sylloge Confessiotium, p. 375. 
 
SERMON VIII. 301 
 
 seat of Christ," that "them also which sleep in Jesus 
 will God bring with Him — and the dead in Christ 
 shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain 
 shall be caught up together with them in the 
 clouds to meet the Lord in the air : and so shall 
 we ever be with the Lord ' :" these are the simple 
 but amazing truths of the Gospel ; but Theolo- 
 gians, passing above and beyond them, have 
 determined that " the souls of men after death 
 (which neither die nor sleep) immediately return 
 to God who gave them ; that the souls of the 
 righteous being then made perfect in holiness, 
 are received into the highest heavens, where they 
 behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting 
 for the full redemption of their bodies ; and the 
 souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where 
 they remain in torments and utter darkness, 
 reserved to the judgment of the great day"." 
 
 There are Theological conclusions then which 
 are not Christian verities, and a progress in 
 Theology, real or supposed, which is no pro- 
 gress towards the perfection of Christian know- 
 ledge. And what has been here advanced was 
 not designed to assist your progress in Theology 
 properly so called, except, perhaps, by here and 
 there an occasional suggestion ; whilst with that 
 supposed Theology, which is but a vain exercise 
 of the human understanding grasping at things 
 
 ' Athanasian Creed. Rom. xiv. 10. 1 Thess. iv. 14—18. 
 ° Westminster Confession of Faith^ chap, xxxii. 
 
302 SERMON VIII. 
 
 above its reach, we have no concern except to 
 restrain it. Nay, Christian truth itself has .suf- 
 fered so much from its very contact with specu- 
 lative controversies and this spurious Theology, 
 that our great problem often is to restore it to its 
 proper simplicity. But in order to our progress 
 in genuine Christian truth, the self-same means 
 will avail us most which also suffice for its attain- 
 ment. That truth has Salvation for its end, and 
 our progress towards perfection in the truth must 
 be a progress at once, in grace and in knowledge. 
 There is no study like the study of the Sacred 
 Scriptures to promote this two-fold progress in 
 knowledge and in holiness. So shall we " have 
 more understanding than all our teachers, when 
 thy testimonies, O Lord, are our meditation. We 
 shall understand more than the ancients, if we 
 keep thy precepts"." That very structure of the 
 sacred Books, which presupposes another Intro- 
 duction to the truth, makes them the very best 
 of all our means in order to Progress in the truth. 
 And the Canon of Scripture was providentially 
 closed, not indeed until various errors and igno- 
 rances of great moment had appeared and had 
 been corrected, but before verbal controversies 
 began, and any specious Theology was known. 
 Yet are the Scriptures so rich in various and 
 copious treasures of heavenly truth, that they 
 are not to be exhausted even by daily study 
 " Ps. cxix. 99, 100. 2 Tim. iii. 14. 17- 
 
SERMON VIII. 303 
 
 throughout our threescore fleeting years. Only 
 let them not be studied for purposes of vanity 
 and display ; nor let Christian truth be sought 
 as a thing to be admired, or commented upon, 
 as a thing external to ourselves, but, as indeed 
 it is, as a subject in which we have each of us a 
 deep, vital, personal interest, by which we must 
 live, in which we must die, with which we hope 
 to rise again. Let it be our prayer and our 
 desire .not only that God may " grant us in this 
 world the knowledge of His truth," but also " in 
 the world to come life everlasting y." Then will 
 the Holy Spirit assuredly bless the study of those 
 Scriptures which He has inspired, and every day 
 will give us a more and more distinct apprehen- 
 sion of our own corrupt nature, more vivid and 
 enlarged conceptions of the ways and providence, 
 and promises, and grace of God, will confirm our 
 faith, and strengthen our hopes, expand our 
 charity, till we desire nothing so much as that 
 we ourselves may live in Christian truth, and all 
 mankind may unite in it, " that God in all things 
 may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom 
 be praise and dominion for ever and ever. 
 Amen\" 
 
 O God, the Creator and Preserver of all man- 
 kind, we humbly beseech thee, that thou wouldest 
 
 * Prayer of St. Chrysostom. 
 
 '1 Pet. iv. 7—11. Eph. i. 10—12. 
 
304 SERMON VIII. 
 
 be pleased to make thy saving health known unto 
 all nations; and more especially that the Universal 
 Church of Christ may be so guided and governed 
 by thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call 
 themselves Christians may be led into the way of 
 truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the 
 bond of peace, and in righteousness of life, through 
 the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and 
 reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, 
 world without end. Amen. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 Page 3. line 21. Harsh expressions from pioics lips, 
 '^c] We shall do well to suspect, that the Odium 
 Theologicum has not passed into a proverb without 
 some fault on our part. The Ancients have some- 
 times set us a bad example. See e. g. Vincentius 
 Lirinensis, Commonitorium, §. vi. " Quis tarn sacri- 
 legus, qui Donatistas et caeteras pestes, quae illius 
 auctoritate concilii rebaptizare se jactitant, in sempi- 
 ternum neget arsuros esse cum diabolo." §. xiii, " Haec 
 ergo Nestorius, Apollinaris, Photinus, adversus Catho- 
 licam fidem rabidi canes latrant : &c." §. xxi. " Et 
 post haec inveniuntur aliqui tanti inveteratse frontis 
 duritiS,, tantS. impudentiae incude, tanto adamante per- 
 tinacise, &c." §. xxv. " Lege Pauli Samosateni opuscula, 
 PriscillianijEunomii, Joviniani,reliquarumque pestium ; 
 
 tanto magis cavendi et pertimescendi sunt, 
 
 quanto occultius sub divinae legis umbraculis latitant. 
 Sciunt enim foetores suos nuUi fere cito esse placituros, 
 si nudi et simplices exhalentur : atque idcirco eos 
 coelestis eloquii velut quodam aromate aspergunt, ut 
 ille, qui humanum facile despiceret errorem, divinanon 
 facile contemnat oracula." §. xxvi. " Sicut tunc caput 
 capiti, ita nunc quoque membra membris loquuntur, 
 
 X 
 
306 NOTES. 
 
 membra scilicet diaboli membris Christi ; perfidi fide- 
 libus, sacrilegi religiosis, haeretici postremo Catho- 
 licis." 
 
 But the moderns have one new temptation at least 
 from their writing anonymously in Reviews and 
 Journals on religious subjects. Young Clergymen, 
 perhaps, and persons aspiring to be Clergymen, it 
 is to be feared, are often so employed, and may be 
 easily tempted accordingly to mistake the most un- 
 charitable expressions for wit and point. Yet the real 
 sentiments of the writers, I hope, are such as 1 have 
 described in the text. Take the following examples. 
 " These passages are valuable in many ways, .... 
 and for the effects they may have, as upon others, so 
 especially upon some who, from very untoward circum- 
 stances of education, would be deserving of com- 
 passionate consideration. For as for those who talk 
 about their conscience being wounded at not seeing a 
 thing they are to believe in the Bible, they only mean 
 their pride by their conscience, and are not worth 
 considering." British Critic, No. LI. Art. on Ancient 
 MSS. p. 85. 
 
 " In like manner some talk of the spirit of the 
 Psalms not being Christian, which is very like the 
 Marcionist notion just mentioned. Now where this 
 amount of Marcionist spirit exists, it will of course 
 have a tendency to exert itself in a similar way ; it 
 would like interpretations and readings which made 
 Christianity a harmless inoffensive sort of religion, not 
 at all intended to send fire and sword upon the earth. 
 Owing to the same paltry views of religion, as is very 
 obvious, men speak amiss of the Athanasian Creed 
 and the Commination Service, or explain them away." 
 Ibid, p. 79. 
 
NOTES. 307 
 
 " Tliey read the Psalms still, many of which, 
 they complain, are unchristian in their tone and 
 temper. They nevertheless palm them off on the 
 vulgar as fit parts of Christian worship, much as the 
 Papists do their idols. Both of them have a way of 
 explaining their own systems to themselves, though 
 both must allow that they are in a fair way to deceive 
 common honest minds. We who do not think the 
 spirit of the Old Testament contrary to the New, can 
 use the Psalms alluded to in the plain sense which 
 plain men would naturally give them." Ibid. p. 84<. 
 
 These sentences, it may be observed, are not written 
 against either Dissenters, or Foreign Churches, but 
 against members and Ministers of the same Church 
 with the writer, who believe in the Athanasian Creed 
 as entirely as himself, although they may not think it 
 the best for public worship, and may not approve of the 
 general, unlimited, unexplained clauses of condemna- 
 tion attached to it ; and again, who equally with the 
 writer venerate the Old Testament, and conceive the 
 Psalms to have been wonderfully and providentially 
 adapted to Christian uses, although they may not 
 consider that all the successive dispensations of 
 Religion, though not contrary one to another, are the 
 same, or that even the Psalmists may not sometimes 
 have been permitted in some of their expressions as 
 well as their actions (Matt. xix. 8.) to fall below the 
 Christian standard of holiness and charity. 
 
 Of Dissenters, without distinction, it is doubted 
 whether they are members of the Church at all ; 
 " Dissenters were the chief defenders of its omission 
 [the text concerning the Heavenly "Witnesses] in this 
 country, who (to speak with fear) if aliens from the 
 
 x2 
 
308 NOTES. 
 
 Church, may be therefore wanting in those gifts of 
 discernment which belong to the members of it," 
 Ibid. p. 87. 
 
 Again, but it is not clear to whom in particular the 
 writer alludes, " Men cannot be wide awake who 
 talk in the way they do against the Fathers and 
 Tradition. They really are fairly getting themselves 
 round into the second childhood of infidelity, and they 
 ought to be told so in severe, plain-spoken language." 
 Ibid. p. 98. 
 
 The Reviewer would no doubt write more cautiously 
 and charitably if he wrote in his own name and at greater 
 leisure. And our Dissenting Brethren will believe, I trust, 
 that the spirit of the Church of England is of another 
 kind, and not unlike what it is said to be by Bishop 
 VanMildert,Bampton Lecture VIII. p. 238 et seq."But 
 notwithstanding this care to avoid Error on her own 
 part, and to discountenance it in others, no uncharitable 
 invectives, no bitter anathemas, are fulminated against 
 those who separate from her Communion : nor is any 
 unwillingness manifested to give the right hand of 
 fellowship to any other Churches with whom it is 
 possible to hold lawful communion. — Great too have 
 been her concessions towards those who have stirred 
 up dissensions among her members : concessions, not 
 made for the sake of popularity, or to enlarge her pale 
 for the admission of them who are unsound in the 
 Faith, but that Separatists might hereby be rendered 
 more willing to listen to her instructions upon essential 
 points, and to examine with candour the lesser matters 
 on which such difierences existed. Utterly disclaiming, 
 therefore, the notion, that ' every man shall be saved 
 by the Law or Sect which he professeth,' she never- 
 
NOTES. 309 
 
 theless shews a, disposition to approximate, as nearly 
 as truth and sincerity will allow, to tenets not entirely 
 accordant with her own. — She is Catholic in hep actua,! 
 communion with every pure and genuine branch of the 
 Christian Church, and in her desire to extend that 
 union wherever it can be done without a violation of 
 essential principles. She is Catholic in the soundness 
 of her Creed, and in the care she has taken to restore, 
 and to preserve uncorrupted, ' the Faith once dielivered 
 to the Saints.' She is Catholic also in the real liberality 
 of her sentiments towards those who refuse to unite 
 with her; a liberality shewing itself, not in affected 
 indifference to the truths she has espoused, nor in an 
 unworthy suppression of her own belief; but in dis- 
 claiming any external coercion to compel assent, and 
 in forbearing harsh or offensive conduct towards the 
 members of other Churches, or of other Congregations, 
 at variance with herself." 
 
 P. 4. 1. 3. Errors, schisms, heresies ascribed, ^c] 
 <' No error can be supposed to issue from Divine 
 wisdom, or to be the object of Divine approbation. Its 
 source must be sought elsewhere ; since the very term 
 error denotes a deviation from some line of rectitude : 
 and what but rectitude can proceed from Him who is 
 the acknowledged Fountain of perfection 1 
 
 Searching the Scriptures for an elucidation of this 
 subject, we there find not only unbelief, but heresy 
 and schism also, ascribed partly to human perverseness, 
 and partly to the influence of a spiritual adversary 
 operating upon fallen man's predisposition to evil. 
 This indeed is the solution there offered to us of moral 
 evil in general, as well as of that particular species of 
 it which leads men to * make shipwreck of their faith,' 
 The parables of the sower and of the tares place the 
 
310 NOTES. 
 
 subject in this point of view : and various Apostolical 
 admonitions concur in representing that the will of man, 
 whether yielding to its own inward propensities, or to 
 some evil suggestions from without, is deeply concerned 
 in every departure from the truth. 
 
 Conformably with this representation our Lord fre- 
 quently charges the Jews with wilfulness and obstinacy 
 in rejecting his doctrine. He addresses them as persons 
 possessing the means of reasonable conviction, but not 
 disposed to use them aright. He says of them that they 
 had ' no cloke for their sin' in this respect ; (John xv. 22.) 
 that they ' would not come to Him that they might have 
 life ;' (John v. 40.) and that they loved darkness rather 
 than light, because their deeds were evil.' (John iii. 19.) 
 In the words of the text ( « if any man will do His will, 
 he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God') 
 he virtually conveys a similar reproof; intimating that 
 their ignorance of the justness of his pretensions (if ig- 
 norance it might be called) proceeded from an indispo- 
 sition to do the will of God." Bp. Van Mildert, Bampton 
 Lecture XL p. 24, 25. 
 
 P. 6 1. 22. the flippant unbeliever — shallow journalist, 
 8;c.'\ Voltaire, " Le Philosophe Ignorant." Christian 
 Teacher, Oct. 1835. p. 625. (cited in the British Critic. 
 No. LI. p. 60.) Locke, " Reasonableness of Christianity." 
 Dr. Channing (Letter on Catholicism &c. p. 13.) contends 
 for the great advantage resulting from differences in the 
 creeds of Protestant communions, as a bulwark, namely, 
 against Popery; which, however, is to admit that some 
 errors at least are of importance ; or why resist them ? 
 Elsewhere he writes as if no Christians had yet attained 
 to any substantial truth, but we were merely in a state 
 of progress towards it. This is the dream of an ardent 
 but somewhat superficial mind, not likely, perhaps, to 
 
NOTES. 311 
 
 deceive many. There may indeed be progressive ad- 
 vancement in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and, 
 generally, in Theology as distinguished from elementary 
 Religious truth ; but it is idle to regard our Lord as a 
 divinely-commissioned Teacher of the truth, and to 
 suppose that He taught no substantial truths which his 
 disciples should apprehend within 2000 years. 
 
 P. 8. 1. 24. In Abyssinia, nothing so common as to 
 dispute, Sfc] See Journal of a Three Years' residence 
 in Abyssinia, by the Rev. Samuel Gobat, (1834.) p. 
 190, 191. 
 
 " On returning I found two Alacas and some priests 
 at my house. They questioned me on the doctrine of 
 the anointing of Jesus Christ, and on the two natures. — 
 All this afternoon I had my house full of people, Alacas, 
 priests, and laymen. They also put questions to me on 
 the anointing of Jesus Christ, and on the two natures. 
 I began by reproving them for always dwelling on the 
 same topic, as if the Bible contained nothing else ; and 
 I added, that their continual disputes on the non-essentia,l 
 points prove their want of true Christianity; because 
 the mark of Christianity is love; and that if they. had 
 Christian love, their disputes would be finished in a 
 day." 
 
 Ibid. p. 196. " They were hardly departed, when the 
 priests of Coscouam came with a party of young people. 
 They had asked the Etchegua for a copy of the Gospel ; 
 and he sent them to me to ask my permission. They 
 put several questions to me on the anointing of Jesus 
 Christ, and the two natures: then they began to dis- 
 pute together on useless points; for example. Did Adam 
 rule over the Angels? Is it as man, by gift conferred 
 on Him, that Jesus Christ rules over the Angels, or 
 is it as God? &c. Not being able to agree, they wished 
 
312 NOTES. 
 
 to constitute me their judge ; but I confined myself to 
 telling them, that these are vain questions, which St. 
 Paul desires the priests and other Christians to avoid." 
 
 Ibid. p. 249. " I found means to avoid, or to cut 
 short, the perpetual discussions on the two or three 
 births of Jesus Christ, by constantly asking them to 
 address themselves to this question, ' What is a birth ?' 
 They commonly remain mute ; but when I press them, 
 they all say, « We do not know.' 1 then say to them, 
 ' Thus you see that for more than three centuries you 
 have been disputing on a word, which is, to you, without 
 meaning.' " 
 
 Ibid. p. 342, 343. " The Christians of Abyssinia are 
 at present divided into three parties; so inimical to each 
 other, that they curse one another, and will no longer 
 partake of the Sacrament together. It is one single 
 point of theology that disunites them; but I have so 
 much enlarged upon it in my journal, that I need only 
 mention it here ; it is the unceasing dispute concerning 
 the unction of Jesus Christ. One party is of opinion, 
 that when it is said that Jesus was anointed with the 
 Holy Spirit, it is meant that the Godhead was united 
 with the human nature of Jesus Christ; and that in 
 all the passages of the Bible where the Holy Spirit is 
 represented as having been given to Jesus Christ, the 
 name Holy Spirit only signifies the Divinity of Christ, 
 who had no need of the assistance of the Holy Spirit, 
 whom He could not receive, having always possessed 
 Him. 
 
 " Their manner of expressing themselves is, that Jesus 
 Christmas anointed; that He has been anointed; and that 
 He Himself is the unction. This party is chiefly in 
 Tigre — the most exasperated one. This doctrine was that 
 of the last Abuna. — The second opinion is, that when it is 
 
NOTES, 313 
 
 said that Jesus Christ was anointed with the Holy Spirit, 
 it is signified merely that the Holy Spirit accomplished 
 the union of the Godhead with the human nature in the 
 person of Christ. This party is principally to be found 
 in the provinces of Godjam and Lasta. — The third 
 opinion predominating in all the other Provinces of 
 Abyssinia, even in Shoa, is, that Jesus Christ, as 
 man, although united to the Godhead from the moment 
 of His conception, received the Holy Ghost in the 
 human part of His nature, in the same manner as 
 we receive Him; viz. as a gift of the Father; in 
 order that He might be enabled to accomplish, as 
 man, the work of our redemption : whence they con- 
 clude, that, because Jesus Christ received the Holy 
 Spirit as we receive Him, His unction is to be called a 
 third birth. These are the most tolerant. I have 
 understood, that after my departure from Gondar, 
 some of the most learned men left oiF calling the 
 unction of Jesus Christ a birth. It appears that 
 these differences of opinion are founded upon the 
 diiferent views they have adopted of the two natures of 
 Jesus Christ ; although, according to the letter, they are 
 all Monophysites." See also ibid. p. 101, 102. 132, 133. 
 220—227. 242. 249. 254. 
 
 P. 9.1. 15. investing his own speculations mth the sacredness 
 of the divine sjdiject, <§-c.] Borrowed from Dr. Hampden, 
 but I forget from what place in his writings. It is a 
 caution which no Theologian should lose sight of. 
 
 The passage alluded to in Stapfer occurs in his reply 
 to objections taken against the want of system in the 
 New Testament, Tertio, non inficiamur doctrinam 
 Christianam tunc temporis nondum in artem fuisse 
 redactam, uti hodie ; neque tot tricis ac inutilibus quae- 
 stionibus ac distinctionibus fuisse refertam. Inveni in 
 
314 NOTES. 
 
 Theologi cujusdam celeberrimi Systemate ultra nona- 
 ginta solum de Christ! persona distinctiones : at Christus 
 et Apostoli modo simplicissimo, oinni humanse scientiae 
 apparatu vacuo, totam illam disciplinam tradiderunt. 
 Stapferi Inst, Theol. Polem. torn. ii. p. 1174. cited by 
 Bishop Van Mildert, Notes on Bampton Lecture V. 
 p. 304. 
 
 P. 19. 1. 14. Well nigh degrading Christianity into 
 Heathenism, 8^e.] " In the sound and solid view of the- 
 ological controversies, the first object of all controversy 
 is the doctrine of the Trinity. This concerns the very 
 foundation-stone of our Religion. This affects the very 
 pillar and ground of the truth. If this doctrine he false, 
 then nine tenths of the Christians through every age and 
 in every country have been guilty of idolatry ; of an 
 idolatry indeed, not so gross as that of the Heathens, 
 because not the worship of devils in the place of God ; 
 yet of an idolatry more gross than that of the Papists at 
 present, because not merely the worship of saints and of 
 angels, in subordination to God; but the worship of a 
 creature along with the Creator, placing him equally 
 with God upon the throne of the universe, giving God a 
 partner in his empire, and so deposing God from half 
 his sovereignty. And if the doctrine be true, then the 
 opposers of it are bold and blasphemous abusers of the 
 faith ; are like the giants of old brandishing their arms 
 directly against heaven ; and are vainly endeavouring to 
 tear down our blessed Redeemer from the throne of the 
 Godhead there." Whitaker, Origin of Arianism, pp. 4, 5. 
 cited by Bp. Van Mildert, Bampton Lecture, Notes, 
 p. 311. 
 
 P. 19. 1. '25. Fundamintal truths, fundamental errors, 
 4-c.] See Van Mildert's Bampton Lecture V. p. 
 117—127. and several useful notes on the same subject, 
 
NOTES. 315 
 
 p. 304 — 313, with references to various writers, p. 307. 
 But see particularly Dr. Waterland's Discourse of 
 Fundamentals, Works, vol. viii. Importance of the 
 Doctrine of the Trinity, Works, vol. v. 
 
 It must of course have often occurred, that those who 
 have denied what we regard as amongst the most im- 
 portant Christian verities, have fully admitted their 
 importance. Dr. Priestley, e. g. acknowledges, that " if 
 the Doctrine of the Trinity be true, it is no doubt in 
 the highest degree important and interesting." (See 
 Horsley's Tracts, p. 306. cited by Bp. Van Mildert, as 
 above.) No really thoughtful person can do less. But 
 it is not difficult to allow the mind to glance over subjects 
 of the deepest interest, and never pause to consider 
 them seriously. 
 
 P. 20. 1. 21. No perfection of Philosophy.^ I except 
 of course incautious language, which may have been 
 sometimes used without any sceptical meaning. Thus 
 the summary of the Helvetic Confession (Sylloge 
 Confessionum, p. 105.) speaks of the Canonical Scrip- 
 ture as " omnium perfectissima et antiquissima Phi- 
 losophia," but still not intending to derogate frorn its 
 Divine original, calling it " Verbum Dei, Spiritu S. 
 tradita." 
 
 P. 23. 1. 13. The Interpreters are not the Authors, ^c] 
 See Bp. Van Mildert's Bampton Lecture III. p. 57. 
 and IV. p. 94—101. and notes, p. 293—296. 
 
 P. 24. 1. 3. Speak of many others as inspired.'] Com- 
 pare Rev. W. D. Conybeare's Bampton Lecture IV. 
 p. 211 — 215. on the very similar language of Clement 
 of Alexandria. 
 
 P. 24. 1. 24. Pretensions and an authority exclusively 
 their own.'] " The Bible has pretensions exclusively its 
 own. In his interpretation of it, the critic must ever 
 
^'^Ifi NOTES. 
 
 bear in mind, that it is the work of Sacred Penmen, not 
 of unassisted human powers. Therefore, not only an 
 ordinary solicitude to avoid error, but also a readiness to 
 submit, where the subject requires it, the understanding 
 and the affections to what is propounded on such autho- 
 rity, becomes the duty of the theological student; a 
 duty, never to be unconditionally exacted, where the 
 composition is merely human ; never to be on any pre- 
 tence dispensed with, where it is confessedly Divine." 
 Bp. Van Mildert, Bampton Lecture II. p. 33. I have 
 copied the spirit of this passage ; but the writer, usually 
 most cautious and exact, by his use of the words " unas^ 
 sisted human powers," " composition merely human," as 
 if none but the sacred writings were ever superintended 
 in any degree by Divine assistance, gives a handle to 
 the incautious language just before alluded to, of an 
 opposite kind, of those who delight to dwell upon the 
 spiritual aid which may have been afforded to writers 
 who were not, in the strict sense of the expression. 
 Inspired writers, 
 
 P. 27. 1. 14. Certum est, in manu Eccksia, Src.'] See De 
 Moor in Marckii Compend. cited by Bp. Van Mildert, 
 note on Bampton Lectures, p. 306. 
 
 P. 38. 1. 8. TTie almost universal acknowledgment of the 
 authenticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures."] The 
 very terms of our 6th Article, it has been well observed, 
 indicate in a remarkable manner the general consent 
 of Christian Churches upon this most important subject. 
 " In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand 
 those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, 
 of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church. — 
 All the Books of the New Testament, as they are com- 
 monly received, we do receive, and account them 
 Canonical." 
 
NOTES. 317 
 
 P. 29 . 1. 22. Scripture and Tradition the joint Rule of 
 Faith.'] See further on this subject Sermon VI. and the 
 note on p. 206. 1. 24. 
 
 P. 31. 1. 6. Believe that they can establish every Article 
 in the three Creeds by the Scriptures alone,] See this well 
 put, with respect to Protestants, by Rev. W. D. Cony- 
 beare, Bampton Lecture I. p. 28 — 30. But Romanist 
 writers admit the sufficiency of Scripture for the proof at 
 least of all the Articles in the three Creeds. See Abp. 
 Tillotson, Rule of Faith, Part I. Sect. III. §. 2. Works, 
 vol. X. p. 239. (1820.) And to the same purpose a very 
 learned and exact Romanist writer of the 17th century, 
 citing several authorities of his Church. " As for the 
 sufficiency or intirenesse of the Scriptures, for the contain- 
 ing all those points of faith, that are simply necessary of 
 all persons to be believed for attaining salvation, Roman 
 Catholics deny it not ; but only deny such a clearness of 
 Scripture, in some of those, as Christians cannot mistake 
 or pervert. Catholics contend indeed, that there are 
 several things necessary to be believed by Christians, 
 according as the Church, out of Apostolical Tradition, 
 hath or shall declare and propose them, (as, touching the 
 Government of the Church ; several Functions of the 
 Clergy; Administration of the Sacraments, and some 
 other sacred Ceremonies; and particularly concerning 
 the Canon of the Scriptures,) which are not contained in 
 the Scriptures, at least, as to the clear mention therein 
 of those appertinents, which yet have been ever ob- 
 served in the Church. But though (I say) Catholics 
 maintain several credends, that are not expressed in 
 Scriptures, necessary to be believed, and observed by 
 Christians, after the Churches Proposal of them, as 
 Tradition Apostolical, amongst which is the Canon of 
 Scripture; yet they willingly concede, that all such 
 
318 NOTES. 
 
 points of faith as are simply necessary for attaining 
 salvation, and as ought explicitly hy all men to be known 
 in order thereto, either ratione medii, or pracepti (as the 
 Doctrines collected in the three Creeds; the common 
 precepts of manners, and of the more necessary Sacra- 
 ments, &c.) are contained in the Scriptures; contained 
 therein, either in the Conclusion itself; or in the principles 
 from whence it is necessarily deduced. [See Bellarmine 
 de verba Deinon Scripto, 1. 4. cap. 11. — Ilia omnia scripta 
 sunt ah Apostolis, qua sunt omnibus simpliciter necessaria 
 ad salutem. Stapleton Relect. Princip. Doctrines fidei 
 Controver. 5. q. 5. art. — Doctrinam fidei ah omnibus et 
 singulis expUcite credendam omnem aut fere omnem, scripto 
 commendarunt Apostoli. — The main and substantial points 
 of our faith (saith F. Fisher in Bishop White, p. 12.) 
 are believed to be Apostolical, because they are written 
 in Scripture, S. Thorn. 22. q. art. 9. ad primum, art. 10. 
 ad primum. — In Doctrvia Christi et Apostolorum [he 
 means scripta'] Veritas Jidei est sufficienter explicata; sed, 
 quiaperversi homines Scripturas pervertunt, idea necessaria 
 fait temporibus procedentihus explicatio fidei contra insur- 
 gentes errores. And ib. q. 5. et 13. Omnibus Articvlis Jidei 
 inhceret Fides propter unum medium, sci. propter veritatem 
 primam propositam nobis in Scripturis, secundum doctrinam 
 Ecclesice, sane intelligendis. See several authorities to 
 this purpose collected by Fr. a S. Clara in System. Fidei, 
 e. 7.] Therefore the Church from time to time defining 
 any thing concerning such points, defines it out of the 
 Revelations made in Scripture. And the chief Tradition, 
 the necessity and benefit of which is pretended by the 
 Church, is not the delivering of any additional doctrines, 
 descended from the Apostles' times extra Scripturas, i e, 
 such doctrines as have not their foundations at least in 
 Scripture; but is the preserving, and delivering of the 
 
NOTES. 319 
 
 primitive sense, and Church-explication of that which is 
 written in the Scriptures, but many times not there 
 written so clearly, (which traditive sense of the Church 
 you may find made use of against Arianisme in the 
 first Council of Nice.) — Or as Dr. Field. This Tradition 
 is that form of Christian doctrine and explication of the 
 several parts thereof, which the first Christians, receiving of 
 the same Apostles that delivered to them the Scriptures, 
 commended to posterity/. Thus he. This then being the 
 Tradition that is chiefly vindicated by the Roman 
 Churchj it is not the deficiency of Scripture, as to all the 
 main, and prime, and universally necessary-to-be-known, 
 Articles of Faith, (as if there were any necessity, that 
 these be supplied, and completed with other not written 
 traditional Doctrines of Faith,) that Catholics do ques- 
 tion : but such a non-clearness of Scriptures, (for several 
 of these points,) as that they may be mis-understood, 
 (which non-clearness of them infers a necessity of making 
 use of the Church's Tradition for a true exposition and 
 sense,) is the thing that they assert : and wonder, that, 
 after the appearance of so many grievous heiresies, any 
 should deny. For as to the Scriptures containing all 
 the chief and material points of a Christian's belief; 
 what article of Faith is there, except that concerning the 
 Canon of Scripture, (which Protestants also grant cannot 
 be learnt out of Scripture ;) and excepting those Prac- 
 tical wherein, the Church only requiring a Belief of the 
 lawfulness of them, it is enough, if they cannot be 
 shewed to be against Scripture ; I say what Speculative 
 ai*ticle of Faith is there, for which Catholics rest merely 
 on unwritten Traditions; and do not, for it, allege 
 Scripture ; I mean, even that Canon of Scripture, which 
 Protestants allow ? 
 
 " (A thing observed also by Dr. Field, but too much 
 
;y^o NOTES. 
 
 extended, — This is so clear (saith he), that there is no 
 matter of Faith [it is granted, no principal point thereof] 
 delivered by bare and only Tradition ; that, therein, the 
 Romanists contrary themselves, endeavouring to prove by 
 Scripture the same things they pretend to hold by Tradition ; 
 as we shall find if we run through the things questioned 
 between them and us, [they contrary not themselves in their 
 holding several things to be delivered clearly by Tradition, 
 which are also obscurely, or more evadably, contained in 
 the words of Scripture. Again — So that for matters of 
 Faith (saith he) we may conclude according to the judgment 
 of the best, and most learned, of our adversaries themselves ; 
 that there is nothing to be believed, which is not either ex- 
 pressly contained in Scripture, or at least by necessary con- 
 sequence, from thence, and by other things evident in the light 
 of nature, or in the matter of fact, to be concluded. Thus he.] 
 " I say then; not this, whether the main, or if you will, 
 the entire, body of the Christian Faith, as to all points 
 necessary by all to be explicitly believed, be contained 
 there ,■ but this, whether so clearly, that the unlearned, 
 using a right diligence, cannot therein mistake, or do 
 not need therein another Guide, is the thing here con" 
 tested." Rational account of Doctrine of the Roman 
 Catholics concerning the Ecclesiastical Guide in Con- 
 troversies of Religion. By R. H. 2d Ed. 1673. Disc. 2. 
 chap. V. §. 40. p. 136—139. 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 Page 40. 1. 4. The Historical Books according to the 
 well-knoion accounts, ^c."] Thus Mr. Conybeare, for 
 example, writing with a very different purpose, states 
 the facts in the same way. " The account which][one of 
 the Evangelists has himself given us of his motives in 
 
NOTES. 321 
 
 composing his written Gospel, and which may well serve 
 for all, sufficiently attests his conviction of the necessity 
 even at this early period of embodying the substance of 
 the previous catechetical instruction in a written record, 
 as the only effectual means by which they could be 
 transmitted and preserved with the certainty of truth; 
 'iva. BTTiyvca; irsg) a)v xarri^Yidr^s Ac'ycuv tIJv &(r(paXsiM. 
 
 " In every other case the very same anxiety dictated 
 the original composition of the Gospels. Thus when 
 St. Matthew (see Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ii.) was about to 
 withdraw from his ministry among the Hebrews, he left 
 with them his Gospel, (originally published in their 
 own language,) in order to supply by a written document 
 the loss of his own personal instructions ; a labour surely 
 superfluous, if he could have trusted to tradition. 
 
 " Thus also St. Mark (generally called by ecclesiastical 
 antiquity the interpreter of St. Peter) is said to have 
 composed his Gospel at Rome, in consequence of the 
 earnest request of those who had there heard the preaching 
 of his Apostolic companion, that he would leave with 
 them a memorial in writing of the truths which had been 
 so delivered. 
 
 " And last of all, the aged survivor of the whole 
 Apostolical band, St. John, lest any thing essential 
 should remain uncertified to future ages by a sure 
 record, composed his own Gospel, with the obvious 
 design of completing the evangelical series, by a 
 document strictly supplemental to all those which pre- 
 ceded it." Bampton Lecture (1839), p. 19, 20. 
 
 P. 42. 1. 3- No record of any divine appointment under 
 which any one of the books of the New Testament was 
 compared.'] This fact is much dwelt upon by Mr. 
 Parkinson, in the Second of his Hulsean Lectures for 
 the year 1838, p. 31 et seq. He has some other ob- 
 
 Y 
 
322 NOTES. 
 
 servations to the same effect with mine in this Discourse, 
 and they ave independent judgments, my Sermon having 
 been written before I became acquainted with his 
 Lectures. 
 
 P. 47. 1. 9. Stillingjleet, Sj-c. and note.] But if we 
 examine the instances which Stillingfleet adduces, they 
 prove nothing at all as to the clearness of Scripture in the 
 inculcation of Christian doctrines. The passage is as 
 follows.; " As the matters themselves are of an excellent 
 nature, so is the manner wherein they are revealed in the 
 Scriptures, and that, 1. In a dear and perspicuous manner; 
 not but there may be still some passages which are 
 hard to be understood, as being either prophetical, or 
 consisting of ambiguous phrases, or containing matters 
 above our comprehension; but, all those things which 
 concern the terms of Man's Salvation are delivered with 
 the greatest evidence and perspicuity. Who cannot 
 understand what these things mean, What doth the Lord 
 require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to 
 ualk humbly with thy God ? that without Faith it is 
 impossible to please God ; that without Holiness none sh&ll 
 see the Lord; that unless we be born again, we can never 
 enter into the Kingdom of Heaven? These and such like 
 things are so plain and clear, that it is nothing but 
 men's shutting their eyes against the Light can keep 
 them from understanding them: &c." Yet, as was 
 said, only the last of these texts relates to an express 
 Doctrine, aud that a doctrine which, so far from being 
 clearly expressed and determined in these words, 
 has proved a most fertile field of debate and contro- 
 versy. See also several strong passages, ancient and 
 modern, respecting the clearness of Scripture, at least in 
 all necessary matters, in Laud's Controversy with Fisher, 
 §, 26> p., \9&, — 198. But all these passages shoujd really 
 
NOTES. 323 
 
 be interpreted with the proviso that theire was a Church 
 existing by which the sense of the Scriptures was taught. 
 Abp. Laud, of course, and Abp. Tillotson did not intend 
 to exclude the use of the Christian Church. Neither 
 did Chillingworth, though his authority is so often 
 quoted as if he forgot the Church in extolling the 
 Scriptures. Thus chap. ii. §. 87. " That the true 
 interpi-etation of the Scripture is to be received from the 
 Church, you need not prove ; for it is very easily 
 granted by them who profess themselves very ready to 
 receive all truths, much more the true sense of Scrip- 
 ture not only from the Church, but from any society of 
 men, nay, from any man whatsoever." And more 
 definitely, chap. i. §. 7. " In your graduation I shall 
 rise sb far with you as to grant. That Christ founded a 
 visible Church, stored with all helps necessary to Salvation, 
 particularly with sufficient means to heget and conserve 
 Faith, to maintain Unity, and compose Schisms, to discover 
 and condemn Heresies, and to determine all controversies in 
 Religion, which were necessary to be determined. For 
 all these purposes, he gave at the beginning Apostles, 
 Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Doctors; who by 
 word of mouth taught their contemporaries, and by 
 writings taught their Christian Posterity to the world's 
 end, how all these ends, and that which is the end of all 
 these ends, Salvation, is to be achieved. And these 
 means the Providence of God hath still preserved, and 
 so preserved, that they are sufficient for all these 
 intents." 
 
 P. 55. 1. 2. What the voice of Reason and of the Moral 
 Seme is to the Precepts, Sfc.'} See remarks on this subject 
 in Abp. Whately's notes on Abp. King's Discourse on 
 Predestination, p. 1 19 — 126. 
 
 P. 59. 1. 3. Repugmmt to the wisdom, Sfc. and note.i] 
 y2 
 
324 NOTES. 
 
 It should, however, be observed, that Bp. Stilling- 
 fleet only writes upon the hypothesis that God has 
 given a written Revelation, and that he disclaims the 
 idea of arguing a priori to the mode of His Revelation. 
 Moreover, as was observed in a former note, he in 
 reality supposes the existence of the Church, and its 
 proper office in connexion with the Scriptures, but 
 denies the Infallibility attributed to the Church by his 
 Romanist opponents. 
 
 The whole Principle is as follows; " 13. Although 
 we cannot argue against any particular way of Reve- 
 lation, from the necessary attributes of God ; yet such a 
 way as writing being made choice of by Him, we may 
 justly say, that it is repugnant to the nature of the 
 Design, and the Wisdom and Goodness of God, to give 
 infallible assurance to persons in writing His will, for the 
 benefit of mankind, if those writings may not be under- 
 stood by all persons, who sincerely endeavour to know 
 the meaning of them, in all such things as are necessary 
 for their salvation." Works, vol. v. p. 216. 
 
 P. 60. 1. 10. Any defect in the Volume of the New 
 Testament.l Dr. Miller of Dublin, in his Strictures on 
 my Dissertation upon Unauthoritative Tradition, an- 
 nexed to his Plea of Tradition (1826), seems to have 
 supposed that I had treated the Indirectness of the 
 Christian Scriptures as a Defect. I had however spoken 
 of it, though briefly, as an advantage and an excellence. 
 The advantages arising from the omission of Creeds, 
 &c. in the New Testament were afterwards more fully 
 considered by my friend Abp. Whately, in Essay VI. on 
 some of the Peculiarities of the Christian Religion. 
 (Third Edit. 1831.) 
 
 Mr. Woodgate also, in his Bampton Lecture, 1839, 
 has pointed out the adaptation of the actual structure of 
 
NOTES. 325 
 
 the New Testament, taken in connexion with the teach- 
 ing of the Church, to the moral constitution of man. 
 There are several things indeed in this second Sermon 
 which may be supposed to be borrowed without acknow- 
 ledgment from his Lectures; they will however be 
 found, I believe, to have been previously expressed in 
 the Dissertation above mentioned, or in a Sermon in 
 continuation of the same subject which I printed in 
 1830, entitled, " Christianity not the Religion either of 
 the Bible only or of the Church." 
 
 P. 65. Note.] " Revelation we must remember is not 
 our earliest teacher. Man is not born with the single 
 power of reading God's word, and sent immediately to 
 that guide. His eyes open first on another volume, that 
 of the creation. Long before he can read the Bible he 
 looks round on the earth and sky. He reads the 
 countenances of his friends, and hears and understands- 
 their voices. He looks, too, by degrees within himself, 
 and acquires some ideas of his own soul. Thus his first 
 school is that of nature and reason, and this is necessary 
 to prepare him for a communication from Heaven. 
 Revelation does not find the mind a blank, a void, pre- 
 pared to receive unresistingly whatever may be ofieredj 
 but finds it in possession of various knowledge from 
 nature and experience, and still more in possession of 
 great principles, fundamental truths, moral ideas, which 
 are derived from itself, and which are the germs of all its 
 future improvement. This last view is peculiarly im- 
 portant. The mind does not receive every thing from 
 abroad. Its great ideas arise from itself, and by these 
 native lights it reads and comprehends the volumes of 
 nature and revelation. We speak indeed of nature and 
 revelation as making known to us an intelligent first 
 cause, but the ideas of intelligence and causation we 
 
326 NOTES. 
 
 derive originally from our own nature. The elements 
 of the idea of God we gather from ourselves. Power, 
 wisdom, virtue, beauty, and happiness, words which 
 contain all that is glorious in the universe and interesting 
 in our existence, express attributes of the mind, and are 
 understood by us only through consciousness. It is true, 
 these ideas or principles of reason are often obscured by 
 thick clouds, and mingled with many and deplorable 
 errors. Still they are never lost. Christianity recognizes 
 them, is built on them, and needs them as its inter- 
 preters. If an illustration of these views be required, I 
 would point you to what may be called the most funda- 
 mental idea of religion. I mean the idea of right, or 
 duty. Do we derive this originally and wholly from 
 sacred books? Has not every human being, whether 
 born within or beyond the bounds of revelation, a sense 
 of the distinction between right and wrong? Is there 
 not an earlier voice than revelation, approving or 
 rebuking men according to their deeds ? In barbarous 
 ages is not conscience heard ? And does it not grow 
 more articulate with the progress of society ? Christianity 
 does not create, but presupposes the idea of duty ; and 
 the same may be said of other great convictions. Re- 
 velation then does not stand alone, nor is it addressed to 
 a blank and passive mind. It was meant to be a joint 
 work with other teachers, with nature, with Providence, 
 with conscience, with our rational powers ; and as these 
 all are given us by God, they cannot differ from each 
 other. God must agree with Himself. He has but one 
 voice. It is man who speaks with jarring tongues. 
 Nothing but harmony can come from the Creator ; and 
 accordingly a religion claiming to be from God can give 
 no surer proof of falsehood, than by contradicting those 
 previous truths which God is teaching by our very nature. 
 
NOTES. 327 
 
 We have thus seen that reason prepares us for a Divine 
 communication." Dr. Chatining's Discourses, 1833, III. 
 p. 1-20. 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 P. 73. 1. 20. Not for a moment left uiithout hope, <^c.] 
 " Had our first parents been left thus, they might have con- 
 tinued in their labour and sorrow for their appointed time, 
 and at last returned to dust, without any well-grounded hope 
 or confidence in God : they must have looked upon them- 
 selves as rejected by their Maker, delivered up to trouble 
 and sorrow in this world, and as having no hope in any 
 other. Upon this foot, I conceive there could have been 
 no religion left in the world; for a sense of religion 
 without hope is a state of phrenzy and distraction, void 
 of all inducements to love atid obedience, or any thing 
 else that is praiseworthy. If therefore God intended to 
 preserve them as objects of mercy, it was absolutely 
 ftfecessary to communicate so much hope to them, as 
 might be a rational foundation for their future en- 
 deavours to reconcile themselves to Him by a better 
 obedience. This seems to be the primary intention of 
 this first Divine prophecy : and it was necessary to the 
 state of the world, and the condition of religion, which 
 could not possibly have been supported without the 
 communication of such hopes. The prophecy is ex- 
 cellently adapted to this purpose, and manifestly con- 
 veyed such hopes to oUr first parents." Sherlock on 
 Prophecy, Discourse III. p. 45. 
 
 " As to the persuasion which is so confidently indulged, 
 that the Object of Faith has been in all ages one and the 
 same, it is true in one sense, erroneous in aiiother. One 
 object of Faith has been always the same ; that object, 
 the Redeemer. The Original promise, in Paradise, 
 
328 NOTES. 
 
 created this prospect of Faith, to be the light and hope 
 of the world for ever. But that original promise could 
 not be interpreted by itself into the several parts of its 
 appointed completion. The general prediction of the 
 Redeeming Seed, ' It shall bruise thy head, and thou 
 shalt bruise his heel,' though adequate in the mind of 
 God to the determinate form of the Christian Redemp- 
 tion, could not be so deduced into his final sense by the 
 
 mind of man It was the office of later Revelation to 
 
 fill up the design of this Promise : and Revelation alone 
 could do it. For the dediwtions of Supernatural Truth, 
 are not within the sphere of the human intellect. They 
 are not to be inferred, as discoverable conclusions, from 
 one primary principle. A Redeemer being foretold j 
 his Divine Nature, his Incarnation, the Vicarious nature 
 of his Sufferings, his Death, and the Atoning Efficacy of 
 it, all these, though real connexions of truth, compre- 
 hended, with the original promise, in the scheme of the 
 Divine Economy, came down to man, like new streams 
 of light, by their separate channels ; and when they are 
 communicated in their proper form, then we know 
 them ; not before." Davison on Primitive SacrificCj 
 p. 151, 152. 
 
 P. 74. 1. 5. the earlier Scriptures supposed to preach the 
 very truths of the Gospel.'] " To what extent this 
 freedom, however, has been carried, in the interpolation 
 of the Primitive Creed, cannot be unknown to those 
 who are ever so moderately acquainted with the state of 
 Theological opinion, either in our own times, or in those 
 which have preceded. As an example of it in its more 
 prominent form, I shall subjoin a passage from Bochart. 
 The passage expresses at large what may be found dif- 
 fused through many other authors. For the same 
 notions are traditional, and derived into the writings of 
 
NOTES. 329 
 
 a numerous class of divines ; some of our own country 
 and our own age. But I purposely select the example 
 from the writings of a remote author, that the allegation 
 of it may be the less liable to invidious reflexions : whilst 
 that author himself is one, who, by his great erudition, 
 piety, and high esteem in the Reformed Church, might 
 give credit to error, if Truth were not above the authority 
 of men's names and persons. ' In Abel,' says Bocliart, 
 • every thing was diffferent. For he knew that God had 
 appointed these Sacrifices of lambs for a figure of the 
 Sacrifice to be offered for us by Christ, in whom alone he 
 had placed his whole hope of salvation and reliance. 
 Therefore, in slaying the lamb, he thought of the Lamb 
 slain for us before the foundations of the earth were laid. 
 Pouring forth the blood of the Victim, he had Christ in 
 his mind, who was afterwards to shed his blood for the 
 remission of sin. In the fire sent down from heaven, as 
 shall immediately be explained, by which that part of 
 the victim was consumed which had been reserved for 
 God, he beheld an image of the Divine wrath justly 
 kindled against sinners, and demanding of right, the 
 punishment due, from Christ our Surety and Redeemer, 
 Finally feeding upon the remaining fksh of the same 
 Victim, by faith he embraced Christ, whose flesh is meat 
 indeed, and His blood drink indeed : so that whosoever 
 eateth his flesh or drinketh his blood, hath eternal life.' 
 
 " Here is a person, a prodigy of learning, &c. who yet 
 errs in judgment so far, as to offer to us for the Primeval 
 Faith, what it cost the revelation of the last line of the 
 Prophets, and the Advent of the Saviour Himself, to 
 discover to the world." Davison, Primitive Sacrifice, 
 p. 163—165. 
 
 " Luther's version of Genesis iv. 1. has contributed to 
 diffuse in the Lutheran Church high notions of Early 
 
330 NOTES. 
 
 Information on the Christian Subject — ' Acquisivi homi- 
 nem, qui Dominus est,' viz. according to his idea, ' the 
 Man Jehovah.' There is no question, in the present 
 day, but that this version is founded on an inaccurate 
 knowledge of the original text. But the authority of 
 this great Chief of the Reformation has given currency 
 to the same opinions. Deylingius, a writer of the 
 Lutheran Church, thus represents them in their fullest 
 extent. ' ^que igitur illustris est confessio Evangelica 
 Evce, ac '!r\Yigo(fio§lu Thomse Christum ex mortuis red- 
 ditum amplectentis, et exclamantis : 'O Kugio; (i-ou xa) 
 Qeos [iov.' — Deyling. Observ. Sacr. torn. v. p. 302. 
 But, in truth, the manifest mistake of Eve, if such had 
 been her thought, might have hindered the supposition 
 of such an extraordinary belief being present to her 
 mind." Ibid. p. 193. 
 
 P. 79. 1. 21. Christ, the one Priest and only Sacrifice 
 under the new covenant.'] " Jam vero quamvis S. PauUis 
 tralatitio loquendi genere utens Sacerdotis personam sibi 
 sumat, quamvis et Christiani omnes, ex sacris illis 
 spiritualibus, quae ipsi quotidie Deo oiFerunt, Sacerdotes 
 nonnunquam appellentur, id tamen maxime adverten- 
 dum, nuUos Evangelii ministros, quocunque in ordine 
 constituti fuerint, hujus ipsius muneris ratione usquain 
 in scripturis sacris isgsTf aut ug^isgslg vocari. Quod ideo 
 moneo, ut ministerium Evangelictim a Sacerdotio 
 Aaronico multum differre intelligatur; idque in eo 
 praecipue cerni, quod illud pro Deo apud homines 
 praecipue constitutum sit, hoc pro hominibus apud 
 Deum. Ex quo et illud intelligitur, illud praecipue 
 circa homines, hoc circa Deum versatum esse. Quibus 
 adde, quod Sacerdotio Judaico successit Sacerdotium 
 Christi, non ministerium Evangelicum. Ut nemo nunc 
 nisi ipse Christus autoritate a Deo data U§^;, aut 
 
NOTES. 331 
 
 &gX'^P"i supersit; nempe hominum apud Deum patro- 
 nus." Outram. de Sacr. 1. i. c. xix. §. 5. 
 
 Compare the following passage. " Nous vous con- 
 jurons avant tout M. T. C. F. de vous montrer cdnstam- 
 ment les dignes ministres et represeritans de Jesus Christ 
 qui a daign^ vous associer d, son auguste sacerdoce, &c." 
 Pastoral Instruction of the Archbishop of Rouen to his 
 Clergy, 1825. 
 
 P. 81. 1. 4. Tlie Law did not comprehend a future state 
 of Retribution among its sanctions, Sfc. and note p. 81.] 
 This is a mere question of fact, and quite independent 
 of another question often mixed up with it, whether the 
 people of Israel believed in the doctrines of Eternal 
 Life and a future Retributive state. No doubt they did 
 so, or some of them at least did so; and their belief 
 in these doctrines became clearer and stronger, as the 
 Prophets gradually opened the subject more and more, 
 and the time of Redemption came more near. Heb. xi. 
 and compare 2 Mac. vii. Bp. Warburton, as Dr. Graves 
 and others have shewn, argued illogically, and quite 
 unnecessarily for his own purpose, that the people could 
 not have the doctrine of a Future State, because Moses 
 did not teach it. Nevertheless, notwithstanding occa- 
 sional faults and inconsistencies, the Divine Legation is 
 a most able, learned, and valuable work: and whereas 
 Bp. Bull, Bp. Taylor, Episcopius, and others, had 
 fully and explicitly admitted the fact, that the sanctions 
 of the Mosaic Law were only temporal, Warburton first 
 pointed out, that the omission of the doctrine of a future 
 state in the Law viewed in combination with its temporal 
 sanctions, became a proof of the Divine Legation of 
 Moses instead of an objection to it; and that it exactly 
 harmonized with the Christian doctrine, that Eternal 
 Happiness is a " gift" solely dependent upon Justification 
 through the Redeemer.- 
 
33'2 NOTES. 
 
 P. 86. 1. 21. Twenty-second Psalm described by Luther, 
 and note p. 87.] Bp. Home describes Ps. xxii. as 
 altogether spoken by our Lord Himself, " He com- 
 plainetii of being forsaken, describeth his humiliation, 
 &c." Compare also the following passage from Luther's 
 larger Commentary on Ps. xxii. 17. " De sensu autem 
 verborum nulla quaestio, cum toti orbi, etiam impiis sit 
 notissimus. Videmus tamen hie spiritus Davidici in- 
 comparabilem gloriam qui Christi omnia Sacramenta 
 adeo pernoverit, ut etiam crucifigendi modum pra;viderit. 
 Nam in spiritualibus illis malis, et ipse non parum fuit 
 eruditus et exercitatus, ut facile fuerit et Christum 
 similia vel majora passurum praenosse. Sed fodi manus 
 et pedes nunquam expertus fuerat, nee tale aliquid in 
 alio quopiam viderat unquam, et tamen ita pronunciat, 
 ut nullus alius Scripturse locus aeque clare tradiderit, ne 
 Evangelia quidem cum toto Novo Testamento. Et 
 quod magis miremur obscurissimus simul et clarissimus 
 est, eisdem verbis. Nam antequam impleretur, quis per 
 fossionem manuum et pedum et ossium dinumerationem 
 intellexisset crucifixionem ? cum tot modis possint fodi 
 non crucifixo ullo; post impletionem vero, nihil aptius, 
 nihil clarius dictum est, quam fodi manus et pedes, 
 et nuraerari ossa, ut et Augustinus hie dicat, Non 
 potuisse melius describi extensionem corporis in ligno." 
 Lutheri Opera, tom. iii. p. 341. 
 
 P. 89. 1. 9. most distinctly pei-ceived to be Evangelical 
 predictions, when they speak of the calling of the Gentiles, 
 ^c] That is to say, To Abraham in fact there were two 
 distinct lines of promise : two covenants were made with 
 him, one temporal and restricted to his natural descend- 
 ants, his successors in the inheritance of the promised 
 land; the other eternal and universal, conveying a bless- 
 ing in his spiritual seed to " all the nations of the earth," 
 the inheritors through Christ of the heavenly Canaan. 
 
NOTES. 333 
 
 (See Davison on Prophecy, Disc. III.) But hence the 
 occasion of subsequent Prophecy, whenever it becomes 
 Evangelical, rising above the fortunes of the natural 
 descendants of Abraham, and the partial temporal cove- 
 nant, and launching into the everlasting covenant which 
 was also universal. Thus the Universality of the Gospel 
 Covenant becomes one of the keys of an Evangelical 
 prophecy. Other characteristics of the Gospel covenant, 
 as " Peace," " Righteousness," are keys of the same 
 kind. 
 
 P. 100. 1. 2. Terms not strictly figurative, hut analogi- 
 cal.'] " There is great difference between the analogical 
 representations of God, and that which we commonly 
 call figurative. The common use of figures is to repre- 
 sent things that are otherwise very well known, in such 
 a manner as may magnify or lessen, heighten or adorn, 
 the ideas we have of them. And the design of putting 
 them in this foreign dress, as we may call it, is to move 
 our passions, and engage our fancies more effectually 
 than the true and naked view of them is apt to do, or 
 perhaps ought. And from hence it too often happens, 
 that these figures are employed to deceive us, and make 
 us think better or worse of things than they really 
 deserve. 
 
 " But the analogies and similitudes that the Holy 
 Scriptures or our own reason frame of divine things, are 
 of another nature ; the use of them is to give us some 
 notion of things whereof we have no direct knowledge, 
 and by that means lead us to perception of the nature, or 
 at least of some of the properties and effiects of what our 
 understandings cannot directly reach ; and in this case to 
 teach us how we are to behave ourselves towards God, 
 and what we are to do, in order to obtain a more perfect 
 knowledge of His attributes. 
 
334 NOTES. 
 
 " And whereas in ordinary figuraUve representations, 
 the thing expressed by the figure, is commonly of much 
 less moment than that to which it is compared ; in these 
 analogies the case is otherwise, and the things repre- 
 sented by them have much more reality and perfection 
 in them, than the things by which we represent them. 
 
 " Thus, weighing a thing in our minds is a much more 
 noble and perfect action than examining the gravity of 
 a body by scale and balance, which is the original notion 
 from whence it is borrowed ; and reflection, as in our 
 understandings, is much more considerable than the 
 rebounding of one hard body from another, which yet is 
 the literal sense of reflection. 
 
 " And after the same manner, what we call knowledge 
 and foreknowledge in God, have infinitely more reality 
 in them, and are of greater moment, than our under- 
 standing or prescience, from whence they are transferred 
 to Him ; and in truth these, as in man, are but faint 
 communications of the Divine perfections, which are the 
 true originals, and which our powers and faculties more 
 imperfectly imitate, than a picture does a man : and yet, 
 if we reason from them by analogy and proportion, they 
 are sufficient to give us such a notion of God's attributes, 
 as will oblige us to fear, love, obey, and adore Him. 
 
 " If we lay these things together, they will furnish 
 Us with sufficient reasons tO' satisfy us why the holy 
 Scriptures represent divine things to us by types and 
 similitude^ by comparisons and analogies, since it 
 appears that we are not capable of better; that such 
 knowledge answers all the designs of religion ; and that 
 when the matter is duly examined, we hardly know any 
 thing without ourselves in a more perfect manner." 
 
 Archbishop King, Discourse on Predestination, §. 21. 
 ^. 22. But Dr. King, as Archbishop Whately remarks, 
 
NOTES. 335 
 
 did not always use the words " resemblance" and 
 " analogy" with a sufficiently precise distinction of their 
 respective senses. On this subject see Bp. Copleston's 
 note referred to p. 87. and for the application of the 
 subject to the doctrine of the Atonement, see Mr. 
 Veyaie's Bampton Lecture. 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 P. 120. 1. 13. Heresies of primitive times Trinitarian in 
 their character, indicating the truth whilst they misconceived 
 if] A remarkable attestation to the truth of the doctrine 
 of the Trinity, well commented upon by Dr. Hampden. 
 
 " There is another observation, which the present 
 inquiry has suggested, and which I think of great 
 importance, in order to a just view of the Trinitarian 
 Controversies. Let it then be remarked, that all the 
 theories proposed on the subject are Trinitarian in 
 principle. If the opinions of Praxeas, and Artemon, 
 and Theodotus, of Paul of Samosata, Noetus, Sabellius, 
 and others, amounted to Unitarianism ; it was in the 
 way of consequence, or inference. They set out with a 
 Trinitarian hypothesis, and either explained it away 
 themselves by their speculations, or had the consequences 
 of their theories forced on them by their adversaries, as 
 the principles of their belief. We can plainly perceive, 
 though unfortunately but very slight memorials remain 
 to us of their disquisitions, that their anxiety was, to 
 account for certain acknowledged facts of the Scripture 
 narrative. They refer to admitted manifestations of 
 God, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit : and 
 the desire of accommodation to Jewish or Heathen 
 prejudices, the refutation of the theories of others, the 
 fancies of private speculation, — these, and other in- 
 
336 NOTES. 
 
 Alienees concealed from our research, — suggest to the 
 several inquirers peculiar combinations, or analyses, of 
 the given facts, in their respective doctrines of the 
 Trinity. Take the reverse of the case, and you will 
 judge, vphat a difference would have been in the language 
 of these theorists. We should have had no attempts to 
 explain the Divine Unity consistently with Trinitarian 
 distinctions. They would not have been employed in 
 explaining away distinctions, which they did not admit 
 in some sense at least. They would have simply ex- 
 plained, and enforced, the Unity which they did admit. 
 Or, had they referred to Trinitarian distinctions as 
 maintained by opponents in argument, they would have 
 endeavoured to disprove them, instead of labouring, as 
 they have done, to retain these very views, however im- 
 perfectly, erroneously, or vainly, in their own systems." 
 Bampton Lecture III. p. 148, 149. 
 
 P. 120. 1. 25, And this not as the belief of those indi- 
 viduals alone, but as professed by the Church, 8^0.'] That is 
 to say, we see the faith of others also, by implication, as 
 well as of the writers themselves, when we read testi- 
 monies borne to the Efivinity of Messiah in published 
 Apologies, as by Justin, TertuUian, &c. or in letters 
 written to Churches, as those of Ignatius or Clement of 
 Rome, or in published Creeds, or writings against Here- 
 sies. And thus the mere English reader may almost at 
 a glance behold the faith of Primitive times, if he only 
 consults such common works as Bingham's Antiquities, 
 or Dr. Burton's Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers 
 to the Divinity of Christ; and compares the Nicene 
 Creed in the book of Common Prayer with the ancient 
 Formularies collected by Bingham, b. x. ch. iv. (as e. g. 
 that from Irenseus, " The things which are manifestly 
 handed down by the Apostolical preaching are these ; 
 
NOTES. 337 
 
 First, that there is one God, who created and made all 
 things, &c. The next article is, that Jesus Christ, who came 
 into the world, was begotten of the Father before every 
 creature, who ministering to His Father in the creation 
 of all things [Jbr by Him all things were made], in the last 
 times made Himself of no reputation, and became man ; 
 He who was God was made flesh, and when He was 
 man. He continued the same God that He was before, 
 &c.") or with the testimonies, of the classes above men- 
 tioned, in Dr. Burton : as, e. g. from Clement of Rome, 
 p. 6, 7. (Ed. 1826.) « dementis P Ep. c. 16. p. 156. 
 The following passage may remind us of St. Paul's 
 words in Phil. ii. 6, 7. ' For Christ belongs to the 
 humble-minded, who do not exalt themselves over his 
 flock. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the sceptre of the 
 majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of splendour 
 or of pride, although he might have done so, but 
 humble,' &c. This passage strongly confirms the usual 
 interpretation of Phil. ii. 7. that the first humiliation of 
 Christ consisted in His divesting Himself of His divine 
 nature and assuming the human. Clement expressly 
 says, that Christ might have come in pomp and splen- 
 dour, which power He could not have had, if He were a 
 mere man, and had no existence prior to His human birth. 
 Neither is it probable that Clement would have called a 
 mere man the sceptre of the majesty of God. 
 
 " The passage may remind us of similar expressions in 
 the Fathers : e. g. Justin Martyr : ' God sent Him to 
 them : and was it, as we might suppose of a man in 
 regal power, to awe and to confound ? by no means : 
 but in gentleness and meekness.' Irenaeus ; ' For He 
 might have come to us in His own incorruptible glory, 
 but we could not have borne the greatness of His glory ;' 
 which words may remind us of the passage already 
 
338 NOTES. 
 
 quoted from Barnabas, at p. 2. (c. 5.) and of a still 
 stronger passage in Origen : ' Who [the Word] being in 
 
 the beginning with God became flesh, that He might 
 
 be comprehended by those who were not able to look at 
 Him, in that He was the Word, and was with God, and 
 was God.' And in another place, ' Coming down once to 
 that which was not able to look at the dazzling brightness 
 of His divinity. He became in a manner flesh.' Tertullian 
 says, ' God could not have entered into conversation with 
 men, unless He had assumed human feelings and affec- 
 tions, by which He could temper the greatness of His 
 majesty, that would have been intolerable to human 
 weakness, with a humility which might be unworthy of 
 Him, but necessary for man.' See also Arnobius, No. 
 344. It will perhaps be thought, that these later writers 
 did not carry the doctrine of Christ's divinity at all 
 higher than it was maintained by Barnabas and Clement 
 in the first century." 
 
 Ignatius, ibid. p. 14, 15. " 11. Ignatii, Ep. ad Eph. 
 The first Epistle of Ignatius is adressed to the Ephesians, 
 and the title of it contains the. following words : ' Ig- 
 natius — to the Church at Ephesus — which was preor- 
 dained before the worlds — according to the will of the 
 Father and of Jesus Christ our God.' The same ex- 
 pression of ' Jesus Christ our God' occurs in the title 
 of the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans, p. 25. 
 
 " The Epistle begins thus : ' I approve in God of the 
 much beloved name which ye have justly obtained, by 
 faith and love in Jesus Christ our Saviour. Being imi- 
 tators of God, having animated yourselves by the blood 
 of God, ye have performed perfectly the congenial 
 work.' In this passage the term blood obliges us to refer 
 the annexed term God to Jesus Christ, who shed His 
 blood for us. The blood of God is certainly a very strong 
 
NOTES. 339 
 
 expression : but it was not unusual with the Fathers ; 
 and seems to afford an additional confirmation of the 
 received reading in Acts xx. 2%. feed the church of God, 
 which He hath purchased with His own blood." 
 
 Justin, ibid. p. 38, 39. " 26. Justin. Dial, cum 
 Tryph. c. 36. p. 133. Justin begins a new line of 
 argument with these words : ' You must allow me in 
 the first place to quote such prophecies as I please, to 
 prove that Christ is called God, and Lord of .Hosts, 
 and figuratively Jacob by the Holy Ghost.' He then 
 adduces the whole of the 24th Psalm, and makes this 
 comment upon it ; ' That Solomon is not the Lord of 
 Hosts has been proved : ~ but when our Christ rose 
 from the dead, and ascended into heaven, those whom 
 God has appointed officers in heaven are commanded 
 to open the gates of heaven, that He who is the King 
 of Glory may enter in, and, having ascended, may sit 
 down at the right hand of the Father, until He make 
 His enemies His footstool. For when the officers in 
 heaven saw him bearing an uncomely and undignified 
 and inglorious form, they did not recognize Him, and 
 asked, Who is this, the Kincf of Glory ? and the Holy 
 Ghost answers them either in the Person of the Father 
 or in His own, The Lord of Hosts Himself He is the 
 King of Glory: Compare Hippolytus, No. 165. 
 
 " The next passage which he quotes is Psalm xlvii. 
 from ver. 5. to the end, ' God is gone up with a shout,' 
 &c. He makes no comment upon these words ; but 
 we may observe, that no passage in the whole of the 
 Old Testament contains more express mention of God, 
 the Lord of heaven and earth, than this Psalm : and 
 Justin applies it to Christ." 
 
 To the same purpose see many other passages, as of 
 Irenmus, (Burton, Test. p. 61, 63, 75.) Clemens. Alex. 
 
 z2 
 
340 NOTES. 
 
 (ibid. p. 128. 148.) Tertull. adv. .TudsEOs, c. ix. p. 192 
 (.p. 167, 168.) Tertull. adv. Marcion. lib. ii. c. xxvii. 
 p. 395. (p. 197.) Hippolyt, contra Beronem et Helicem, 
 vol. i. p. 225. (p. 226. 246.) Origen. c. Celsum. lib. iv. 
 ad fin. vol. i. p. 577. (p. 274, 5.) Cyprian, (p. 325.) 
 Dionysius Alex. adv. Paul, Samos. (p. 868, 385.) Condi. 
 ^«iiocA.(p.391.)^™o&.adv.Gentes.lib.i. p.24.(p.410.) 
 P. 129. 1. 3. The seeming paradox of a great advocate, Sfc.'] 
 Bp. Horsley, Sermon xiii. Works, vol. i. p. 261. He is 
 commenting upon our Lord's questions, and the answer 
 of St. Peter, Matt. xvi. 13, 16. « Our Lord puts his 
 first question in these terms : ' Whom do men say that 
 I the Son of Man am ?' Then He says, ' Whom do ye 
 say that I am ?' Simon Peter answers, ' Thou art the 
 Christ, the Son of the Living God.' Our Lord, in the 
 terms of His question, asserts of Himself that He is the 
 Son of Man: St. Peter's answer, therefore, connected 
 with our Lord's question, amounts to this : ' Thou, who 
 sayest rightly of Thyself that Thou art the Son of Man, 
 art Christ, the Son of the Living God.'- St. Peter 
 therefore asserts these three things of Jesus; — that He 
 was Christ,' that He was the Son of Man; and that He 
 was the Son of God. The Son of Man, and the Son of 
 God, are distinct titles of the Messiah. The title of the 
 Son of Man belongs to Him as God the Son; the title of 
 the Son of God belongs to Him as man. The former 
 characterizes Him as that one of the three Persons of 
 the ever-blessed Trinity which was made man; the other 
 characterizes Him as that man which was united to the 
 Godhead. St. Peter's confession therefore amounts to 
 a full acknowledgment of the great mystery of godliness, 
 God manifest in the Jksh to destroy the works of the devil; 
 and the truth of this faith is the rock upon which Christ 
 promises to build his Church." 
 
NOTES. 341 
 
 P. 135. 1. 12. Who will not give His glory to another'] 
 This argument is said by Bp. Van Mildert, to be well 
 maintained by Mr. Richard Mayo against Dr. Clarke. 
 The tract " turns chiefly upon one simple argument, 
 deduced from Scripture, namely, ' that the Supreme 
 Independent Being has declared, that there are no other 
 beings, inferior or dependent, to whom Divine titles, 
 attributes, or worship, do or ought to belong, or to 
 be ascribed : and, by consequence, that the Son of God 
 (to whom it is confessed that Divine titles, attributes, 
 and worship do belong) is indeed a distinct Person from 
 the Father and the Holy Ghost, in the same essence; but 
 is not another Being, but of one and the same substance 
 with the Father and the Holy Ghost.' This point is 
 enlarged upon with considerable ability; and un- 
 questionably it is one, which, when firmly established, 
 completely overthrows Dr. Clarke's theory." Life of 
 Waterland, p. 54. 
 
 P. 142. 1. 26. Imitate Scripture so far as she may, in 
 the enunciation of Scriptural truth.'] Bp. Gastrell, in his 
 excellent " Considerations on the Trinity," after men- 
 tioning how " it came to pass, that defences and vindica- 
 tions of the orthodox faith produced more heresies," 
 proceeds thus : " Wherefore in all such matters as these, 
 which are too big to be grasped, we had better sit down 
 contented with what we have firm hold of, than tire 
 ourselves with vain endeavours to take in more. It 
 would certainly be the truest, and the safest way, strictly 
 to confine ourselves to Scripture expressions, and never 
 speak of supernatural things, but in the language of reve- 
 lation; which being the proper standard of all other 
 words that shall be used on these occasions, it is in vain 
 to shift the measure, when there is never another to be 
 found which can or ought to reach farther. 
 
342 NOTES. 
 
 " It may, however, sometimes be necessary to change 
 this method, and introduce new terms to secure the true 
 faith against the false interpretations of such as pervert 
 Scripture. For if heretics will make use of new ex- 
 pressions to contradict the received doctrine, we must 
 have new terms to express the same truth in, in op- 
 position to their heresy, and in this case the Church 
 may very reasonably require her members to shew their 
 steady continuance in the ancient faith, by the use of 
 such terms as plainly infer their denial of any later 
 erroneous inventions set up against it." Enchiridion 
 Theologicum, vol. i. p. 447. 
 
 SERMON V. 
 
 P. 162. 1. 11. Public protest of the true worshipper 
 against fake reliffion — of the Christian against the Law.'2 
 " The original observation of a sabbath on every seventh 
 day was a public and distinguishing characteristic of the 
 worship of the Creator, who finished His work in six 
 days, and rested on the seventh. This was the public 
 character by which the worship of the true God was 
 distinguished, that his festival returned every seventh 
 day ; and by the strict observance of this ordinance, the 
 holy Patriarchs and the Jews their descendants made as 
 it were a public protestation once in every week against 
 the errors of idolatry, which instead of the true God, the 
 Creator of the universe, paid its adoration either to the 
 works of God — the sun and moon and other celestial 
 bodies, — or to mere figments of the human imagination, 
 misled by a diabolical illusion— to imaginary beings 
 presiding over the natural elements, or the departed 
 ghosts of deceased kings and heroes — and in the last 
 stage of the corruption, to inanimate images, by which 
 the supposed influences of the celestial bodies and 
 
NOTES. 343 
 
 physical qualities of the elements were emblematically 
 represented, and the likenesses of the deified kings 
 supposed to be pourtrayed. To this protestation against 
 heathenism, the propriety of which binds the worshippers 
 of the true God in all ages to a weekly sabbath, it is 
 reasonable that Christians should add a similar protesta- 
 tion against Judaism. It was necessary that Christians 
 should openly separate, as it were, from the communion 
 of the Jews, who, after their perverse rejection of our 
 Lord, ceased to be the true Church of God: and the 
 sanctification of the Saturday being the most visible and 
 notorious character of the Jewish worship, it was neces- 
 sary that the Christian sabbath should be transferred to 
 some other day of the week. A change of the day being 
 for these reasons necessary, the choice of the Apostles 
 was directed to the first day of the week, as that on 
 which our Lord's resurrection finished and sealed the 
 work of our Redemption; so that in the same act by 
 which we acknowledge the Creator, and protest against 
 the claims of the Jews to be still the depositaries of 
 the true Religion, we might confess the Saviour whom 
 the Jews crucified." Bp. Horsley, Sermon XXIII. 
 p. 11—13. 
 
 P. 166. 1. 2. Novel exposition of a solitary text.'] I take 
 leave to extract part of a valuable note by Bp. Russell on 
 Lay Presbyters, and the interpretation of 1 Tim. iv. 17. 
 
 " It was not till the sixteenth century thaJt this famous 
 text was understood to afford any authority for lay 
 Presbyters as a standing order in the Christian Church. 
 When Calvin's notion was first started, it puzzled many 
 persons of great judgment and learning, who saw not at 
 once how the distinction maintained by him between a 
 presiding and a teaching Presbyter could be rejected 
 or his reasoning refuted. Archbishop Whitgift, for ex- 
 
344 NOTES. 
 
 ample, in his controversy with Cartwright, yielded the 
 point in debate, and acknowledged that in the Primitive 
 Church they had in every congregation certain Elders 
 to whom the government of it was committed : — ' A 
 gross mistake,' says Bilson, ' into which that learned 
 Prelate allowed himself to fall, from not consulting with 
 sufficient care the opinions of the ancient commentators.' 
 " ' It is not indeed possible,' continues Bilson, ' to 
 determine with accuracy and confidence in this matter, 
 without having recourse to the Fathers of the Church, 
 and ascertaining what was the practice of the Christian 
 world in the times nearest those of the Apostles. If we 
 look into the Epistles of Ignatius, who lived in the 
 Apostles' days, who was made Bishop of Antioch by 
 them, and who suffered martyrdom not long after the 
 time of St. John, we shall find him frequently enjoining 
 obedience to the Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, but not 
 one word of any ruling Elders. In the subsequent 
 Fathers we find the same. So also if we look into the 
 Canons called Apostolical, which were enacted in the 
 several Councils held during the three first centuries, we 
 shall there find that no class of men had then any rule 
 in the Church besides the three Orders just mentioned. 
 Let us examine the discipline and government of all the 
 Churches from their very foundation down to Calvin's 
 days, and we shall not find among them any traces of a 
 ruling Elder. From this unanimity in point of opinion, 
 and this agreement in point of practice, we may most 
 confidently conclude, that Calvin and his followers have 
 given a wrong exposition of St. Paul's words as addressed 
 to Timothy. Had~ the institution of ruling Elders, in the 
 modern sense of the phrase, been received in the 
 Church, it is next to impossible but there must have 
 been some mention made of them, at some time or 
 
NOTES. 345 
 
 place, in the long course of fifteen hundred years. An 
 Apostolical injunction could not have been thrown aside 
 by all the Churches in the world, without leaving some 
 trace of it in history, or the records of Councils.' 
 
 " He again recurs to his argument, and remarks, that 
 if this (the conclusion of Calvin) ' were the true mean- 
 ing of St. Paul's advice, and that it applied, in fact, to 
 two distinct Orders of Presbyters, some traces of this 
 institution would appear in the writings of the ancients. 
 It would be strange, if lay Elders every where governed 
 the Church under the Apostles, that no Council, no 
 history, no Father did ever so much as name them, 
 or remember them, or so much as conceive the words or 
 meaning of St. Paul until the days of Calvin.' — ' The 
 first reason I have of the weakness of this place to uphold 
 the lay Elders is, that many learned and ancient Fathers 
 have debated and sifted the force of these words, and not 
 one of them ever so much as surmised any such thing to 
 be contained in this text. Chrysostom, Jerome, Ambrose, 
 Theodoret, Primasius, CEcumenius, Theophylact, and 
 divers others, have considered and expounded these 
 words, and never dreamed of any lay Presbytery to be 
 mentioned in them. If, then, the words of St, Paul 
 stood fair and clear without this late device, as in the 
 judgment of these learned and ancient writers they do, 
 what reason after fifteen hundred years to entertain a 
 new platform of governing the Church by laymen, upon 
 a bare conceit that the words of St. Paul may sound to 
 that effect as some imagine.' 
 
 " Having given his reason for not coming into this new 
 interpretation of the text, he shews us in what manner 
 Chrysostom and other writers of primitive times were 
 wont to understand it, namely, ' that whereas in a 
 Minister of the word, good life, good government, and 
 
346 NOTES. 
 
 good doctrine are required; tlie two first are commended, 
 but painfulness in the word is chiefly to be preferred in 
 men of their calling ; and so, not two sorts of Presbyters 
 but two parts of the pastoral office and function, are 
 implied in these words."— Bilson's Perpetual Government 
 of Christ's Church, Preface. Brett's Tradition necessary 
 to interpret and explain the Holy Scriptures, p. 9 1 ." Note D. 
 appended to Bishop Russell's Sermon on the Historical 
 Evidence for the Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy, 
 p. 52—54. 
 
 P. 166.1.21. Irtfant Communion, note.] See a valuable 
 note upon this subject and on Waterland's History of 
 Infant Communion by Mr. Conybeare, Bampton Lecture 
 VIII. p. 491—493. (1839.) 
 
 P. 175. 1. 9. The testimony of Ignatius, Sj'c.'] This is one 
 of the cases in which we are especially bound to dis- 
 tinguish between the testimony of an early writer and his 
 judgment; a point to be further noticed hereafter. Our 
 immediate subject is thus noticed by Mr. W. D. Cony- 
 beare. " The great point on which in every Epistle 
 Ignatius most strenuously and repeatedly insists, is the 
 necessity of a strict conformity to the discipline of the 
 Church, and a devoted submission to Episcopal authority, 
 which he makes to rest on the same principles with our 
 obedience to our Lord Himself. It is needless to remark, 
 that such passages have afforded the great reason why so 
 many writers of the Presbyterian party have been so 
 reluctant to admit the authenticity of these remains ; and 
 we, while it is most satisfactory to our minds to find so 
 early a testimony in confirmation of the primitive and 
 apostolical origin of the constitution faithfully preserved 
 by our own Church, yet even we ourselves shall probably 
 shrink from some of the language employed in these 
 Epistles, as seeming excessive and overstrained. We do 
 
NOTES. 347 
 
 trust indeed that our Episcopal authority is in and through 
 the Lord, and most suitable for the edification of His 
 body the Church ; and we may hope that this was all 
 that Ignatius meant to imply ; but we must regret, that 
 in the somewhat overcharged and inflated style of his 
 rhetoric, he has too often'been betrayed into expressions, 
 which seem almost to imply a parity of authority over 
 the Church, between its earthly superintendent, and its 
 heavenly Head." Bampton Lecture IL p. 83, 84. 
 
 P. 181. 1. 15. It was her bounden duty so to do.] " No 
 man is more firmly convinced than myself of the 
 apostolical succession of Bishops and Presbyters in the 
 Church of Christ; and that it is the duty of every 
 member of that Church to conform to this rule, and to 
 submit to their spiritual authority. Yet I do not feel 
 myself justified in saying, that without a Bishop there is 
 no Church — that Presbyterian ordination is not valid^ — 
 that without Priests episcopally ordained, the Sacraments 
 cannot be administered, nor the Gospel preached. To 
 decide peremptorily in such matters appears to me pre- 
 sumptuous and unwarrantable. To pronounce that 
 those who depart from this rale are thereby excluded 
 from the Christian covenant, I hold to be not only un- 
 charitable, but impious. 
 
 " Yet it is our duty to search out the truth to the best 
 of our ability, and to adhere firmly to that which we 
 believe to be true, ' to prove all things — to hold fast 
 that which is good.' If any man, in a matter of this 
 kind, acts against his better judgment, he is guilty of 
 sin. If from prejudice, or passion, or levity, or personal 
 disgust, or worldly motives of any kind, he violates that 
 order which he believes to be established by Divine 
 authority, he offends against his own conscience; 
 he disobeys the law of Christ. It is our part to 
 
.348 NOTES. 
 
 warn, to admonish, to reprove him. Let God be his 
 judge. 
 
 " I know it is a wide-spread and prevailing error, espe- 
 cially in this part of the kingdom, to think that all sects 
 are equally genuine branches of Christ's Church ; and 
 that individuals are at liberty "to join that communion 
 which they like best. It cannot be too often, or too 
 earnestly inculcated, that this is not matter of inclination, 
 but of sacred dut^, — that there is such a sin as schism, — 
 that each man is deeply responsible to the Lord for hjs 
 error, if, trusting to his own judgment, he rejects the 
 counsel of Christ's ministers, — still more, if, to gratify 
 his own humour, he offends against the rule of Christ's 
 Church. There is no medium in this question. To 
 separate is either a duty or a sin. That there is a 
 Church, founded, and authorized, and spiritually go- 
 verned by Christ Himself, is as true as that Christ came 
 into the world, and suffered and rose again. That He 
 enjoined all His disciples to preserve the unity of His 
 Church, is equally certain. What the precise limits of 
 this Church are, and how they are to be described in 
 words, may perhaps be questioned. We cannot attain 
 absolute certainty in this, any more than we can in a 
 thousand other questions of the gravest interest to 
 mankind. But though we may hesitate to say what is 
 not a Church — we are quite sure what is a Church. It 
 is a fearful thing to leave a certain for an uncertain path. 
 Reason, and duty, and self-preservation all conspire in 
 the conclusion, that when we know what is right, we are 
 bound to follow it, and if we cannot reach the perfect 
 pattern, that we are in all cases and under all circum- 
 stances to come as near to it as we can." Bp. Copleston, 
 Appendix to Sermon, 1838. " Who are the persons 
 authorized to preach the Gospel ?" p. 30, 31. 
 
NOTES. 349 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 
 P. 193. 1. 17. Absolute unconditional submission to the 
 teaching of the Church, the fimdamental principle of Catho- 
 licity ; and note i, p. 194. J It may be useful to observe 
 how this writer (Dr. Wiseman) in England, and in the 19th 
 century, further states and applies to practice the doctrine 
 of the " supreme, the divine authority" of the Church. 
 
 " Now the Catholic falls in with a number of very 
 strong passages, in which our blessed Saviour, not con- 
 tent with promising a continuance of His doctrines, that 
 is to say, the continual obligation of faith upon m^n, 
 also pledges Himself for their actual preservation among 
 them. He selects a certain body of men: He invests 
 them, not merely with great authority, but with power 
 equal to His own; &c." Lect iii. p. 63. — " From the 
 moment he (the Roman Catholic) is satisfied that Christ 
 has appointed a succession of men, whose province it is, 
 by aid of a supernatural assistance, to preserve inviolate 
 those doctrines which God has delivered, from that mo- 
 ment, whatever these men teach is invested with that 
 Divine authority, which he had found in Christ through 
 the evidence of His miracles." Ibid. p. 64. — " Where 
 there is a supreme authority given, and man is com- 
 manded to obey it, from that command there is 
 assuredly no retreat. And therefore the Scripture must 
 needs be received, so as to be reconciled with the 
 existence of a supreme authority, in matters of faith, 
 existing in the Church." " We, on our side, are not 
 content with vague allusions to the authority of the 
 Church, as a voucher for the doctrines therein taught : 
 but believe that we have, an express definition, that 
 its authority is the rule of faith, and that all must 
 obey and follow its guidance." — " Our Saviour gives 
 a divine authority to the Church ; the Church with that 
 
350 NOTES, 
 
 authority sanctions the book of Scripture." Ibid. p. 67. — 
 " But now if you will only examine, in its action, the 
 principle which the Church admits, you will see that 
 it is fully equal to those objects for which the rule 
 was given : inasmuch as its necessary tendency is to 
 bring all the opinions and understandings of men into 
 the most perfect unity, and to the adoption of one only 
 creed. For, the moment any Catholic doubts, not alone 
 the principle of his faith, but any one of those doctrines 
 which are thereoti based ; the moment he allows himself 
 to call in question any of the dogmas which the Catholic 
 Church teaches as having been handed down within her, 
 that moment the Church conceives him to have virtually 
 abandoned all connexion with her. For she exacts 
 such implicit obedience, that if any member, however 
 valuable, however he may have devoted his early talents 
 to the illustration of her doctrines, fall away from his 
 belief in any one point, he is cut off without reserve : 
 and we have, in our own times, seen striking and awful 
 instances of this fact." Ibid. p. 76, 77. 
 
 P. 194. 1. 14. However guarded the Church of Rome 
 may be in some of her symbols, Spc.'] Thus Infallibility is 
 not asserted in the Bull of Pius IV. " Sacram Scrip- 
 turam juxta eum sensum, quem tenuit et tenet sancta 
 mater Ecclesia, cujus est judicare de vero sensu et 
 interpretatione sacrarum Scripturarum, adraitto, nee earn 
 unquam nisi juxta unanimem consensum Patrum acci- 
 piam, et interpretabor." Professio Fidei Catholicae se- 
 cundum Concilium Tridentinum ex Bulla Pii Papse IV. 
 P. 195. 1. 19. Any the strongest passage which the 
 Romanist alleges, Sfc] Dr. Wiseman's method of arguing 
 from the texts in question, is to give an elaborate proof 
 of the points which are the least or not at all disputed, 
 (as, that the clause in St. Matthew xxviii. 20. " I am 
 
NOTES. 351 
 
 with you," is a scriptural expression for " special pro- 
 tection," or " unto the end of the world" for " all 
 time,") and then introduce without proof at the end 
 the desired conclusion. See his Moorfields' Lecture IV. 
 vol. i. p. 101 — 109. 
 
 P. 197. 1. 5. Adoration ofv}hatever kind, or under what 
 denomination soever, Sf'c.'] I allude of course to the 
 Romish distinctions between Image-worship and Idol- 
 worship, between Latria, Dulia, Hyperdulia, of which it 
 would be superfluous to say more. But I cannot forbear 
 adding an expression of my deep regret, that we should 
 have lately witnessed indiscreet attempts in this country 
 to extenuate and qualify tiie error of the Invocation of 
 Saints, or revive such objectionable appellations of the 
 Blessed Virgin, as Deipara, Semper Virgo, which had 
 happily become obsolete among the members of the 
 Church of England. It is among the uses of Tradition, 
 we have been lately told after Bp. Patrick, to supply us 
 with "pious opinions," and as an instance, the only 
 instance given by Bp. Patrick, or in the work to which I 
 allude, we have the Perpetual Virginity of the Mother 
 of our Lord, which were it true or false, would be equally 
 and totally remote from a truth of Christianity. And as 
 to the Invocation of Saints, or their Intercession for us, 
 doubtless it is right on proper occasions to shew how 
 Romish Errors from slighter deviations from the truth 
 gradually advanced to greater impieties; but let us 
 beware of offering apologies for the beginnings of error ; 
 and certainly it ought never to be insiimated, that the 
 Church of England has any where favoured the doctrine 
 of the Intercession of the Saints. 
 
 My expression in the text, " adoration offered to a 
 dead woman" has, I understand, been objected to. But 
 let it be observed, I am not speaking of the blessed 
 
352 NOTES. 
 
 Virgin herself, but of the worship paid to her. Certainly 
 we should not, and I do not, speak with flippancy or 
 disrespect of her who was " highly favoured," and whom 
 " all generations shall call blessed;" but we must speak 
 without reserve against any species of adoration paid to 
 one who, in spite of all the fictions invented respecting 
 her birth or her assumption in order to gloss over 
 Idolatry, did not differ in nature from any other woman. 
 And as the Invocation of Saints invades the Intercession 
 of our only Mediator and Advocate, so is there nothing 
 perhaps which tends so much as the worship of the 
 blessed Virgin to undermine the doctrine of the Divinity 
 of Christ, and rob Him of His title to our adoration. 
 
 P. 197. note o.] Mr. Russell cites Mr. Newman, p. xii, 
 as an authority in favour of the Infallibility of the 
 Universal Church; but Mr. Newman, I think, has never 
 advanced such a doctrine positively, though, like Abp. 
 Laud, he may have spoken of it hypothetically ; as in 
 his Lecture viii. on the Prophetical Office of the 
 Church, " since the Church is now not one, it is not 
 infallible ; since the one has become in one sense many, 
 the full prophetical idea is not now fulfilled ; and with 
 the idea, is lost the full description, and the attribute of 
 Infallibility in particular, supposing that loere ever included 
 in it." " Higher measures of truth may be attached to 
 a unity of jurisdiction and external order, whilst the 
 highest of all, amounting to a continual Infallibility, were 
 it ever intended, S^c." p. 239, 240. The very subject of 
 the chapter, indeed, is not the Infallibility of the Church 
 but her Indefectibility. 
 
 Other living writers, however, have spoken of the 
 Infallibility of the Universal Church, as in the text; 
 but as they are living writers, they may yet be permitted 
 to modify their statements. 
 
NOTES. 353 
 
 P. 198. 1. 3. As if she herself were ttie foundation, Sfc.'] 
 Thus Dr. Wiseman, having assumed that the prin- 
 ciple upon which the Apostles at once received the early 
 converts into the Church, vpas the implicit belief of the 
 converts in their infallible authority, proceeds to shew, 
 that the Missionaries of Rome, and they alone, can act 
 upon the same principle. The Protestant Missionary 
 indeed cannot thus teach and forthwith baptize his 
 converts. " But they can do it at this day, and they 
 have done it in every age ; for St. Francis Xavier, like 
 the Apostles, converted and baptized his thousands in 
 one day, who remained stedfast in the faith and law of 
 Christ. And all may be so admitted at once into 
 the Catholic Religion, who give up their belief in their 
 own individual judgment, and adopt the principle, that 
 whatever the Catholic Church shall teach them, must be 
 true." Moorfields' Lectures, L. v. p. 131 — 133. 
 
 P. 205. 1. 14. Catholicity is the only test of truth.} The 
 expression occurs in the anonymous Preface to No. 78. 
 of the Tracts for the Times, p. 2. " No individuals, since 
 the Apostles, are by themselves expositors of the will of 
 Christ; the unanimous witness of Christendom is the 
 only, and the fully sufficient, and the really existing, 
 guarantee of the whole revealed Faith, Catholicity is the 
 only test of truth." — But I do not think it will be found 
 that the authors cited as maintaining these doctrines do 
 really for the most part maintain them ; but that, on the 
 contrary, the extracts in this " Catena Patrum," con- 
 veying the " testimony of writers in the later English 
 Church to the duty of maintaining quod semper, quod 
 ubique, quod ab omnibus traditum est," are most of 
 them in harmony with what is said in the text. 
 
 P. 206. 1. 23. Does, Tradition constitute an integral 
 portion of the Rvle of Faith f\ That the Romanists 
 
 A a 
 
354 NOTES. 
 
 consider Tradition and the Scriptures together as the 
 joint Rule of Faith is sufficiently known ; and for distinct 
 proof of the fact I refer to Bp. Marsh's Comparative 
 view of the Churches of England and Rome, {'2d Edit.) 
 p. 22. et seq. The Church of Rome, according to the 
 Decree concerning Scripture and Tradition made in the 
 4th Session of the Council of Trent, April 8, 16416, 
 asserts, that the Christian doctrine and discipline are 
 contained " in libris scriptis, et sine scripto traditionibus," 
 and receives the Scriptures and Traditions with sen- 
 timents of equal piety and reverence, " omnes libros tam 
 Veteris quam Novi Testamenti, cum utriusque unus 
 Deus sit auctor, nee non traditiones ipsas, tum ad Fidem 
 turn ad Mores pertinentes, tanquam vel ore tonus a 
 Christo, vel a Spiritu Sancto dictatas et continui succes- 
 sione conservatas, pari pietatis alFectu ac reverentia 
 suscipit et veneratur." Pag. xx. ed. 1564. 
 
 The expressions, of a similar kind, employed by Pro- 
 testant writers, to which I refer in Sermon I. p. 29. and 
 in this Sermon, p. 208, 209. are to be found in the 
 Preface to No, 78. of the Tracts for the Times, p. 2. 
 " Considering the copiousness and value of the following 
 extracts, (the Catena Patrum above referred to,) the 
 doctrine maintained in them need not here be discussed. 
 With relation to the supreme authority of inspired Scrip-* 
 ture it stands thus:— ^ Catholic Tradition teaches revealed 
 truth. Scripture proves it ; Scripture is the document of 
 Faith, Tradition the witness of it ; the true Creed is the 
 Catholic interpretation of Scripture, or Scripturally 
 proved Tradition ; Scripture by itself teaches mediately 
 and proves decisively; Tradition by itself proves ne- 
 gatively and teaches positively ; Scripture and Tradition 
 taken together are the joint Rule of Faith." And in 
 Mr. Russell's Judgment of the Anglican Church, Pre- 
 
NOTES. 335 
 
 face, p. xxxiv. " What has been said must, I think, 
 convince every unprejudiced mind, that although holy 
 Scripture, in the judgment of the Anglican Church, is 
 the sole Standard, Record, and Depository of saving 
 Truth, and in this sense may rightly be termed the Rule 
 of Faith ; yet that the written word, as taught and inter- 
 preted by the Universal Church, is to be our Guide in all 
 matters of Religion, and that, therefore, in this sense. 
 Scripture and Catholic Tradition constitute the joint 
 Rule." 
 
 See also Appendix to Sermon on the Rule of Faith 
 by Rev. H. E. Manning, 1838, p. 1, 2, 3. « The 
 Rule of Faith is the test by which we ascertain the 
 character of Revelation, the proof of the Jact being pre- 
 supposed.-^And this Rule is commonly and shortly 
 expressed in the words. Scripture and Antiquity, or 
 Scripture and the Creed attested by Universal Tra- 
 dition." That is to say, having considered the mean^ " by 
 which we are to ascertain the particular character of 
 the Evangelical doctrines," the means being connected 
 with " the institution of the Church and the delivery of 
 the Holy Sacraments and Scriptures," he concludes, that 
 " the right use of" these means " must be the test by 
 which to distinguish truth from falsehood in matters of 
 belief." There are similar expressions in other modern 
 English Protestant writers ; but still they call Scripture 
 " the sole standard of doctrine," and so it is called by 
 Mr. Manning " the one sole foundation and proof of the 
 faith." Sermon, p. 14, and 23. 
 
 It seems to me far better to separate altogether the 
 authority for doctrine from the means by which we are to 
 seek the true sense of Scripture ; and thus, according to 
 the usual practice of Divines of the Church of England, 
 to call the Scriptures simply the Rule of Faith, and speak 
 
 Aa2 
 
356 NOTES. 
 
 of the Church, and Reason, &c. as subsidiary to our use 
 of the Scriptures. It is a question of convenience, yet 
 not of convenience alone, because the distinction ought 
 to be carefully made between our doctrine and that of 
 the Church of Rome. Anciently, it is true, the Creed 
 was called the Rule of Faith ; but so also it was called 
 T§oi.<pri, and as we now universally restrict the latter 
 expression to the Inspired writings, we had better retain 
 the received practice of modern times, and call the 
 Scriptures alone the Rule of Faith. And it is in this 
 word Rule that the confusion lies. The Church may 
 perhaps be called the guide to faith without danger ; but 
 when the Church or Antiquity or Tradition is dignified 
 by this use of the word Rule, which commonly implies 
 authority, and which being used also to express the 
 authority of Scripture, appears to attribute to the Church 
 the same kind of authority which belongs to the Scriptures, 
 there is then great danger lest we should confuse the 
 two, the presumptive authority namely, to which alone the 
 Church or Catholic antiquity has a claim, and the sove- 
 reiffn, paramount, indisputable authority of the sacred 
 Scriptures. 
 
 P. 216. 1. 28. The most important monuments of the 
 Universal and the Primitive faith contained within a nar- 
 row compass.'] Some of the most important writings 
 referred to are few, and not voluminous, accessible often 
 to the English reader, all of them to those who are also 
 acquainted with the Latin language. As the English 
 book of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles; The 
 Scotch (Westminster) Confession of Faith; The Con- 
 fessions of many of the other Reformed Churches together 
 with the Bull of Pius IV. in the Sylloge Confessionum, 
 (one 8vo. volume) ; the principal ancient Creeds, Bing- 
 ham's Antiquities, vol. i. b. x. ch. iv ; The Nicene and 
 
NOTES, 357 
 
 Athanasian Creeds, with the Canons of the 4 first Councils, 
 and the writings of several early Fathers in Dr. Routh's 
 Opuscula Sacra, (2 small 8vo. volumes) ; the extant 
 works of the Apostolical Fathers (one 8vo. volume) 
 translated into English by Abp. Wake, or by Mr. 
 Chevallier. 
 
 I am speaking of course of the most important works 
 with reference to the attainment of Christian truth, 
 so far as the voice of Antiquity and the consent of the 
 Church immediately declare the truth; not of the uses 
 of Fathers and other great Divines in other respects. 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 
 P. ii22. 1. 1 7. Invectives against the exercise of Reason 
 in matters of Religion, S^c. and note, p. 223.] The 
 instances alluded to are such as the following; " In this 
 way every mind creates for itself its own system ; esta- 
 blishes as it were a heavenly kingdom of its own. Thus 
 much to show that we do not live by argument; we are 
 not drifted about by conclusions of reason, we are not 
 quite at the mercy of syllogisms. Reason seems but a 
 light which shows us the various tracks over the world's 
 wide waste, without guiding us ; and we choose our road 
 as we like." British Critic, No. LI. On the Study of the 
 Evidences, p. 26. 
 
 " In like manner for the sake of a few sceptics, 
 Christianity has been removed by the school, of which 
 we are writing, from the old basis of faith, and founded 
 anew on argument. Rome has tainted religion with 
 force, Protestants with rationalism. On the one side 
 the law of liberty has indurated into bondage; on the 
 other belief has melted into a doubtful disputation." 
 ibid. p. 48. 
 
358 NOTES. 
 
 Not that there is nothing of truth in this crusade 
 against the Evidences; but why apparently set Faith 
 in opposition to Reason and Argument? And the 
 writer, probably, does not mean to do so. Although he 
 speaks as if he absolutely decried Reason, yet he only 
 means by Faith that temper of mind, not excluding 
 reason, by which we are disposed to confide in authority, 
 as children, e. g. in the authority of their parents, on 
 which he has some good remarks; but then he would 
 have young men, and indeed all men, treated like chil- 
 dren all their lives long. , 
 
 P. 230. note. An ingeniom Essay,' S^c.'] I by no means 
 adopt, indeed, the sentiments of this writer to their full 
 extent; and in particular I think that he does great 
 injustice both to Mr. Erskine and Mr. Abbott, by not 
 sufficiently attending to the avowed objects of their 
 works, and confounding incautious expressions, want of 
 accurate knowledge, and even want of good taste, with 
 irreverence and heresy. But as to the extracts given in 
 the text, and others like these, the author says soberly 
 and considerately, " So far as we see an adaptation, 
 even though Scripture does not expressly mention it, 
 let us praise God and be thankful ; but it is one thing 
 to trace humbly and thankfully what we surmise to be 
 God's handy work, and so far as we think we see it, and 
 quite another thing to propound our surmises dogma- 
 tically, not only as true, but as the substance of the 
 revelation, the test of what is important in it, and what 
 not; nay, of what is really part of it, and what not." 
 p. 28. 
 
 P. 246. 1. 15, Sabellianism is even more dreaded than 
 Tritheism.2 This remark has been objected to on the 
 ground, that we ought not to presume to pronounce 
 which of two errors is most to be dreaded, when they 
 
NOTES. 359 
 
 relate to a subject so entirely beyond our capacities 
 as the Divine Nature. The nature of the subject, how- 
 ever, does not prevent our judging, by Scripture, of the 
 difference between two errors. I am no Sabellian. But 
 I perceive that Tritheism strikes directly against the 
 first principle of all Revelation respecting the Deity: 
 whereas though Sabellianism does not satisfy what 
 Scripture declares respecting the distinction between 
 the Divine Persons, and therefore does not reach the 
 true doctrine of the Trinity, yet it does not militate 
 like Tritheism against all revelation, and consequently 
 is not so great an error. 
 
 P. 253. 1. 1 3. Epistle ascribed to St. Barnabas, assuredly 
 not inspired, Sfc. and note y.] Abp. Wake, in his Intro- 
 duction to the Apostolical Fathers, ch. iv. 7. 15. 27. sets 
 down several questionable opinions as the opinions of 
 these Fathers; yet upon examination they will all be 
 found to have been taken from the works ascribed to 
 Hermas alone. Abp. Wake, indeed, continually presses 
 the ^oint of the extraordinary inspiration of the Aposto- 
 lical Fathers, which, were it granted, would raise their 
 authority to the same level with that of the inspired Apo- 
 stles : but it is evident upon a comparison of passages, 
 that he did not really mean that they were assisted in 
 their writings by an extraordinary inspiration properly so 
 called. Compare Bp. Van Mildert, Bampton Lecture 
 IV. p. 98. 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 
 P. 265. 1. 12. Not an ancient Creed has come dawn to us 
 
 that does not declare the belief of the Church in the Holy 
 
 Ghost; not a Primitive writer, ^c.'] I except, of course, 
 
 some fragments of Creeds, sometimes called Creeds, but 
 
360 NOTES. 
 
 which only give such articles of faith as were necessary 
 to be cited for some particular occasion. 
 
 As to the earliest writers, see Epistle of Clement of 
 Rome, c. 45. (Mr. Chevallier's Translation, p. 45.) 
 " Look into the holy Scriptures, which are the true words 
 of the Holy Ghost." c. 46. " Have we not all one God 
 and one Christ? Is not one Spirit of grace poured out 
 upon us all ?" Compare ch. 36. where the illumination of 
 the understanding is attributed to the Son. (ibid. p. 35.) 
 
 There is no mention of the Holy Spirit in the only 
 extant Epistle of Polycarjp ; but in the account given in 
 Eusebius of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, in the Letter 
 of the Church of Smyrna, the prayer ascribed to Polycarp 
 speaks of " the resurrection of eternal life, both of soul 
 and body, in the incorruption of the Holy Spirit" — and 
 concludes — " For this and all things else I praise thee, I 
 bless thee, with the eternal and heavenly Jesus Christ, 
 thy blessed Son, with whom to thee and the Holy 
 Ghost," [or, " to thee with Him, in the Holy Ghost,"] 
 " be glory, both now and to all succeeding ages. Amen." 
 (ibid. p. 160.) The Circular Epistle itself concludes, 
 22. " We wish you, brethren, all happiness, by living 
 according to the rule of the Gospel of Jesus Christ ; with 
 whom, glory be to God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, 
 for the salvation of his chosen saints: after whose 
 example the blessed Polycarp suffered; at whose feet 
 may we be found in the kingdom of Jesus Christ," 
 (p. 167.) 
 
 The conclusion of the account of the Martyrdom of 
 Ignatius is to the same eflFect — ^" in Jesus Christ our 
 Lord, by whom and with whom, all glory and power be 
 to the Father with the Holy Spirit for ever. Amen." 
 <ibid. p. 146.) 
 
 Ignatius in the Epistle to the Ephesians, c. 8. (p. 78.) 
 
NOTES. 361 
 
 " They that are of the flesh cannot do the works of the 
 Spirit ; neither they that are of the Spirit the works of 
 the flesh."— c. 9. " The stones of the temple of the 
 Father, prepared for the building of God the Father, 
 raised up on high by the engine of Jesus Christ, which 
 is the cross, and using the Holy Ghost as the rope." 
 c. 18. (p. 84.) " Our God Jesus Christ was borne in 
 the womb of Mary, according to the dispensation of God, 
 of the seed of David, yet by the Holy Ghost." Epistle 
 to Magnesians, c. 13. (p. 94.) " In the Son and in the 
 Father, and in the Spirit, in the Beginning and in the 
 End." — " Be subject to your Bishop, and to one another, 
 as Jesus Christ to the Father, according to the flesh; 
 and the Apostles to Christ and to the Father, and to the 
 Spirit." — c. 15. " Fare ye well in the concord of God, 
 possessing His inseparable Spirit, which is Jesus Christ." 
 
 Epistle to Philadelphians, Introd. (p. 112.) "in all 
 firmness by the Holy Spirit." — Epistle to Smyrneans 
 (Introd. p; 120.) " all joy through the immaculate Spirit, 
 and the Word of God."— c. 13. (p. 129.) " Be strong in 
 the power of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Compare several passages in Justin's Apology, ch, 6. 
 16. 77. 85. 87. See also Epistle oi Barnabas, c. xi. « That 
 we go down into the water full of sins and pollutions, but 
 come up again, bringing forth fruit; having in our hearts 
 the fear and hope which is in Jesus, by the Spirit." 
 c. xii. " the Holy Spirit put it into the heart of Moses, &c." 
 c. xix, " Thou shalt be simple in heart, and rich in the 
 Spirit." — " He came not to call any with respect of 
 persons, but whomsoever the Spirit had prepared." 
 (Archbishop Wake's Translation.) 
 
 P. 266. L 1. With, this doctrine even the least instructed 
 were expected to be familiar : " Know ye not," Sfc.'] 1 Cor; 
 iii. 16. vi. 19. It is true that this expression, " Know ye 
 
862 NOTES. 
 
 not, &c." is also employed by St. Paul in speaking of truths 
 by no means so important or elementary; " Do ye not 
 know that the saints shall judge the world ? Know ye 
 not that we shall judge Angels?" (I Cor. vi. 2, 3.) It 
 is a form of expression which he uses when he would 
 have his disciples draw an obvious inference from a 
 truth which he had distinctly taught them. Still it 
 remains that he had distinctly taught them the doctrine 
 concerning the Holy Spirit ; and that it was also taught 
 as an elementary Christian truth, is abundantly clear 
 from the whole tenor of the Apostolical Epistles. 
 
 P. 269. 1. 14. It is one of the great and marked distinc- 
 tions between the Old Testament and the New.'] In the 
 heading of the nineteenth Psalm and others in the 
 English authorized version, " grace" is used as Chris- 
 tians would employ the term for the gracious influences 
 of the Holy Spirit. David however is not speaking of 
 the Holy Spirit. But we read the Old Testament as 
 Christians, and forget the comparative disadvantages of 
 members of the Old Covenant. How otherwise could it 
 be said as it is in the following passage, that the func- 
 tions of the Holy Spirit are as prominent under the old 
 Dispensation as under the Christian ? " The analogy of 
 Scripture will nevertheless forbid us to doubt that the 
 functions of the Holy Ghost, peculiarly so called, were 
 as important and as prominent under the ancient as the 
 Christian Covenant." Bp. Heber, Bampton Lecture IV. 
 p. 238. 
 
 P. 277. 1. 22. The repeated failure of his own predictions, 
 ^c] See a very ingenuous and instructive account of the 
 lapse of an intelligent man into Enthusiasm, and his 
 rdcovery from it, in " Irvingism, its Rise, Progress, and 
 Present State," by Robert Baxter, 1836. 
 
 P. 278. 1. 25. Ignorance, 8^c. of the Christian Community 
 
NOTES. 363 
 
 still supply the Enthusiast with a plausible argument, S^c.'] 
 This topic, e. g. is largely insisted upon by Mr. Clissold 
 in his Letter to the Archbishop of Dublin, in defence of 
 the alleged Revelations of Emanuel Swedenborg, p. 
 75 — 86. And the only plausible argument advanced. by 
 the disciples of Mr. Irving in favour of their new Hie- 
 rarchy of Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, &c. is, that these 
 Orders were appointed for the edifying of the Church 
 " ^7/ we all come into the unity of the faith," &c. Eph. 
 iv. 11—13. 
 
 P. 285. 1, 23. What is true of one of the appointed means 
 is true of all, Src] " The sacred Scriptures are not the 
 whole of revealed Religion ; and in the second place, the 
 sacred Scriptures, taken by themselves, are not adapted 
 to the whole of our nature. Revealed Religion includes 
 
 divine institutions an hierarchical Church ; days 
 
 of commemorative observance; the two Sacraments; 
 
 and public worship. Holy Scripture does all for 
 
 man, that a book, the best of books, can do : but is this 
 all that can be done ? The answer is obvious. It has 
 pleased the Almighty Author, and Divine participator, 
 of our nature, to do much more ; .... in subordination 
 to, and furtherance of, the agency of the ever-blessed 
 Trinity, the aggregate of Holy Scripture, and of divinely- 
 appointed ordinances, and that alone, makes full pro- 
 vision for the whole of man; for his body, soul, and 
 spirit." (Bp. Jfebb, Life, &c. vol. ii. p. 339.) 
 
 P. 300. notes q. s.] The passages respectively re- 
 ferred to are as follows, " Je soussigne re9ois, et aprouve 
 tout le contenu de la Confession de Foi des Eglises 
 Reformees de ce Royaume, et promets d'y perseverer 
 jusq' a la fin, de ne rien croire ni enseigner qui ne lui 
 soit conforme : et parceque quelques-uns contestent 
 sur le sens du 18. Article, oili il est parle de notre 
 
364 NOTES. 
 
 Justification ; je declare et proteste devant Dieu que je 
 I'entend selon le Sens re<^^ dans nos Eglises, aprouve 
 par les Synodes Nationaux, et conforme h la Parole de 
 Dieu, qui est que notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ a et6 
 soumis a la Loi Morale et Cerenioniale, non seulement 
 pour notre Bien mais aussi en notre Place : et que 
 toute I'Obeissance qu'il a rendue a la Loi nous est im- 
 putee,et que notre Justification consiste non seulement en 
 la Remission des Peches, mais aussi en I'Imputation de 
 sa Justice Active; et c'est parceque m'assujetissant k 
 la Parole de Dieu, je crois que le Fils de 1' Homme est 
 venu pour servir, et non pas qu'il a servi parce qu'il est 
 venu ; promettant de ne me departir jamais de la 
 doctrine re9u'e dans nos Eglises, et de m'assujettir aux 
 Reglemens de nos Synodes Nationaux sur ce sujet. 
 Synodes Nationaux des Eglises Reformees de France. 
 Tome 1" p. 399. 
 
 " Caeterum aeternam et gratuitam banc Electionis no- 
 stri gratiam eo vel maxime illustrat, nobisque commendat 
 Scriptura sacra, quod porro testatur non omnes homines 
 esse electos, sed quosdam non electos, sive in aeterna 
 Dei Electione praeteritos, quos scilicet Deus ex liber- 
 rimo, justissimo, irreprehensibili, et immutabili bene- 
 placito decrevit in communi miseria, in quam se sua 
 culpa praecipitarunt, relinquere, nee salvifica fide et 
 conversionis gratia donare, sed in viis suis, et sub justo 
 judicio relictos, tandem non tantum propter infideli- 
 tatem, sed etiam caetera omnia peccata, ad declara- 
 tionem justitiae suae damnare, et aeternum punire. 
 Atque hoc est decretum Reprobationis, quod Deum 
 neutiquam peccati authorem (quod cogitatu blasphe- 
 mum est) sed tremendum, irreprehensibilem, et justum 
 judicem ac vindicem constituit," Synod. Dordrechth. 
 Art. XV. (Sylloge Confess, p. 375.) 
 
NOTES. 365 
 
 Compare the following observations in the Preface to 
 
 the Sylloge Confessionem, p. x. " Profuerit etiam Ec- 
 
 clesiae Anglicanse libros cum his conferre, ex qua com- 
 
 paratione luculentior, ut opinamur, evadet prudentia 
 
 Ecclesiae nostras, quae cum antiquarum Confessionum, 
 
 praecipue Augustanae, vestigiis inhaeserit, et studiosa 
 
 certe fuerit, ut cum aliis communibnem retineret, et in 
 
 oflfensionem quam minimam incurreret, suramam tamen 
 
 cautelam adhibuit, nequid durum aut facile abutendum 
 
 suis imponeret, et in eo laboravit maxime, ut illud quod 
 
 ex utraque parte certura sit et plane verum constanter 
 
 teneret, caetera in medio relinqueret: v. gr. in difficili 
 
 ilia de decretis Dei circa Redemptionem hominis quae- 
 
 stione ita se exercuit, ut salvam et illaesam teneret 
 
 liberam in homine mali et boni electionem, (sine qua 
 
 neque poenae, neque praemiis obnoxii esse possumus, 
 
 neque nostram ipsi salutem juxta Apostolum Paulum 
 
 operari,) simul autem agnoscat infinitam Dei praescien- 
 
 tiam, et gratiam ejus unice humanae salutis eflScacem, 
 
 minus solicita, quo pacto haec inter se committantur, et 
 
 suos hinc inde limites et explicationem habeant." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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