LECT. III.] SPIRIT OF THE REFORMERS. 63 love. Nor ought dissimilitude and variety of rites and ceremonies to disunite our affections." Calvin did not regard the peculiarities of the Lutheran church, as any just cause of disunion between it and the Reformed. He desired that the most catholic union should subsist among all the churches of the reformation, exclaiming, "I should not hesitate to cross ten seas, if by this means holy communion might prevail among the members of Christ." In his exhortation to the Lutheran churches, he says, "keep your smaller differences, let us have no discord on that account; but let us march in one solid column, under the banners of the Captain of our Salvation, and with undivided counsels pour the legions of the cross upon the territories of darkness, and of death." Knox ministered to a church at Frankfort, in which a form of modified liturgical service was employed. "We do not," says the Helvetic confession, "by a wicked schism separate and break fellowship with the holy churches of Christ in Germany, France, England, or other nations of the christian world." "For it is of little moment," says the Polish agreement at the synod of Sendomir in 1570, "what rites and ceremonies are employed, provided the fundamental doctrine of our faith and salvation be preserved entire and incorrupt." "In 1614, at the general synod held at Tonneins, a plan of union was proposed, which was to allow each of the churches to retain its independence, and its own order." The sixth article of the Church of England, declares that "whatsoever is not read in scripture, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed AS AN ARTICLE OF THE FAITH!" Again, in article 20th, after the interpolated passage, (as we must regard it,) it is said, "It is not lawful for the church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's word written . . . and as it ought not to decree any thing against the same, so, besides the same ought it NOT to enforce any thing to be believed for NECESSITY OF SALVATION." Again, in the canon of 1571, it is enjoined that "preachers shall be careful NOT to preach aught to be religiously held and believed by the people, except what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testament, and collected from THAT NEW DOCTRINE, by the catholic fathers and ancient bishops." Bishop Burnet, in his commentary on the thirty-nine articles, very strongly contrasts this characteristic of the Church of 1) See these quoted on Schism, p. 483, &c. England, with "the tyranny of the church of Rome; which has imposed the belief of every one of her doctrines on the consciences of her votaries, under the highest pains of anathemas, and as articles of faith." This he regards as "intolerable, because it pretends to make that a necessary condition of salvation, which God had not commanded." That this was the doctrine of the English reformers, cannot be doubted. Thus Hooper tells us, that Christ left his will "unto the world in writing, by the hands of his holy apostles, unto which writing only he has bound and obligated his church, and not to the writings of men." "It is mine opinion unto all the world," he adds, "that the scripture solely, and the apostles' church, is to be followed, and no man's authority, be he Augustine, Tertullian, or even cherubim or seraphim." "The church of God, therefore, must be bound to no other authority than unto the voice of the gospel and unto the ministry thereof, as Isaiah saith, 'seal the law among my disciples.'" Indeed, the very first article in the confession which this bishop and martyr drew up, as monitory articles for his clergy, in A. D. 1551, is "that none do teach any manner of thing, to be necessary for the salvation of men, other than what is contained in the books of God's holy word." That such also were the sentiments of the earliest puritans, is made manifest from the very first paragraph in the "Sacred Discipline," drawn up by Cartwright, the opponent of Archbishop Whitgift. "The discipline of Christ's church, that is necessary for all times, is delivered by Christ and set down in the holy scriptures; therefore, the true and lawful discipline must be fetched from thence and from thence alone, and that which resteth upon any other foundation ought to be esteemed unlawful and counterfeit."5 "We say," says Cartwright, "the word is above the church, 1) See Introd., p. 8. 2) See in the Brit. Reformers, vol. vii., p. 30. 3) Ibid., p. 28 and p. 27, and again at p. 200 and 220. 4) "The cause why I die," said John Frith, who was offered up a sacrifice on the altar of British tyrrany, by the bloody hands of Henry VIII., "is this: (Price's Hist. of Nonconf., vol. i., p. 48,) for that I cannot agree with the divines and other head prelates, that it should be necessarily determined to be an article of faith, and that we should believe, under pain of damnation, the substance of the bread and wine to be changed into the body and blood of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, the form and shape only not being changed. Which thing, if it were most true, (as they shall never be able to prove it by any authority of the scripture or doctors,) yet shall they not so bring to pass, that that doctrine, were it never so true, should be holden for a necessary article of faith. For there are many things, both in the scriptures and other places, which we are not bound of necessity to believe as an article of faith." 5) In Neal's Puritans, vol. v., Appendix, p. xi. LECT. III.] THE SPIRIT OF EARLIER REFORMERS. 65 [Eph. ii. 20,] then, surely, it is above the English church, and above all these books before rehearsed." "The puritans contended for a rigid adherence to the letter of apostolic institutions and practice, while Whitgrift maintained that a discretionary power was vested in the rulers of the church, to modify and regulate its ceremonies. The one appealed to the Word of God, the other to the writings of the fathers. The one required conformity to the example of the apostles; the other obedience to the mandate of the prince."-"Neither is the controversy betwixt them and us," say the writers of the Admonition, "as they would bear the world in hand, as for a cap, a tippet, or a surplice; but for greater matters, concerning a true ministry and regiment of the church according to the word, which things once established, the other melt away of themselves."1 This fundamental principle of the sole and exclusive supremacy of scripture, as the arbiter and judge in all controversies, and the only fountain of authority and source of necessary doctrine; was the foundation upon which truly enlightened christians, in all ages, even the darkest, rested their confidence in bearing testimony against the growing corruptions of the church. Thus, for instance, that eminent man, Claude, metropolitan of Turin, in the ninth century, in his commentary on the epistle to the Galatians, "with an evident reference," says Faber, who quotes the original words, "to the state of religion in his own time, declares, that what constitutes heresy, is a departure from that interpretation of scripture, which the sense of the Holy Spirit demands." He remarks, at the same time, "that real heretics, of this description, are to be found within, as well as without the pale of the church."2 "It is in vain, therefore," that I may employ against prelates what they address to Roman catholics, "to adduce passages from the fathers, where they speak of the catholic church as one communion, from which all heretics and schismatics are cut off." "These," says Mr. Palmer, "do not touch the question whether the catholic church itself may ever be divided in point of external communion." There is no "promise," he adds, "of its perpetual and perfect external union," and yet "this is what Romanists ought to produce before they affirm the impossibility of any division in the church, or the certainty that the catholic church can only exist in some one communion."3 1) Second Admon. in Price Hist. Nonconf., i. 250, and pp. 236, 237, and 230. 2) See Faber's Albigenses, p. 313. 3) Palmer on the Church, vol. Now, claiming, as we do, but not in exclusion of others, to be one communion of the catholic church; before we are cut off from this privilege, some promise or declaration of Christ, by which we are excommunicated, and by which the church of Christ is confined to the one communion of the prelacy, must assuredly be produced. The assumption that they are the church, which prelatists so frequently make, we interpret as arrogance. Their retreat to the authority of the fathers, we regard as an avowal of the fact, that they have no sufficient evidence from scripture. These very pretensions, thus built upon the fathers, the best of those very fathers, as we have evidence to show, would most sternly rebuke.1 And to such an outcry against this tyranny over Christ's free-born subjects, would be added the loud and unmingled reprobation pronounced upon it by the fathers of the English church, and the noble army of modern reformers. Their history informs us, that they perilled life, endured the loss of favor and of fortune, and suffered even unto death, that they might establish and perpetuate the sole supremacy of scripture, and the inalienable right of appealing from the decision of man to the judgment of God, as the only test of the purity and the perfection of our faith; the only infallible rule 1) Upon the authority which is claimed for the early christian writers, Mr. Isaac Taylor remarks: "It would be doing an injury to the reputation of the illustrious men whose writings are in question, if we were to speak as if they had claimed, in their own behalf, any such power to interpret scripture despotically; or to legislate for the church in all following ages. They do no such thing. Whatever may have been their faults, this impiety is not of the number. It is altogether the product of the wicked despotism of a late age. None do the fathers so grievous a wrong as do those modern champions of church principles who are attributing to them an authority which they themselves religiously disclaim. Who are the enemies of the fathers? the men who now are thrusting them, by violence, and against their solemn protest, into Christ's throne. "The harsh treatment to which these good but greatly erring men must unavoidably be exposed, in the rude struggle which is yet before us, for rescuing apostolic christianity, cannot but do an injury to their just reputation. In proving them to have grossly perverted the gospel, and to be among the worst guides which the church can follow, we are driven to the necessity of producing evidence which no motive less imperative would have led us to bring forward. The same happens in every analogous instance; to thrust a man into a position not due to him, is to expose him to the peril of being treated ignominiously. "Let it then be clearly understood that, in vigorously contending, as we shall, for the paramount and unshared authority of the inspired writings, and in demonstrating that the strongest and most peremptory reasons of fact as well as principle, forbid the attempt to conjoin the records of the ancient church with them; we are at war, NOT WITH THE MEN whose writings are in question, but with those ill-advised champions of church power, in modern times, who have put these writings in the room of God's word. It is the modern mystery of wickedness, not so much the ancient error, which we are laboring to overthrow." Anct. Christ'y., vol. ii., Eng. edit. LECT. III.] THIS PROOF REQUIRED BY OUR OPPONENTS. 67 of faith and practice. "The Bible and the Bible alone, is the religion of protestants." "The religion of the protestants is the Bible. The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of protestants. Whatever else they may believe besides it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of opinion; but as a matter of faith and religion, neither can they with coherence to their own ground believe it themselves, nor require the belief of it from others, without the most high and schismatical presumption." V. We therefore make this appeal, fifthly, on the ground, that the right and privilege to demand it is not only recognized by the fathers of the reformation, and by all the reformed churches, but is, as has been already in part shown, a right admitted and acted upon whenever needed, by our opponents themselves. However far high-church prelates may be disposed to carry their sacerdotal claims of exclusive prerogative and authority, against those whom they denominate dissenters; yet are they obliged, in coming into collision with the Romish church, to fall back for protection, into this fortress of scriptural supremacy. Nor do they even decline to make such a retreat, when hard pressed by the force of some one of those protestant arguments, which may be termed—to use a military phrase-invincibles. If, therefore, we require the most clear, irrefragable, and indubious scripture proof, for this divine right of prelates, and for this passive obedience of all but the favored few; they will themselves teach us how to frame our apology. Thus, in arguing against the great protestant doctrine of private judgment, (which we had supposed was now a received, and not a disputed truth among protestants,) Mr. Newman asks: "Can any one text be produced, or any comparison of texts, to establish the very point in hand, that scripture is the sole, necessary instrument of the Holy Ghost in guiding the individual christian into saving truth." Now, surely, to say the very least, it is as important to establish, by such positive scripture evidence, the divine right of prelacy, as the co-ordinate authority of tradition. Take a second illustration, from another Coryphæus among modern high-church writers. Mr. Palmer, in arguing against popular election, as sufficient to constitute any man a minister, says: "But the grand, and unanswerable proof of its unscripturality," is the fact, confessed by the most ardent advocates for such election, that "no case occurs in the inspired history, where it is mentioned that a church elected its pastor. This 1) Chillingworth's Wks., vol. i., ch. 7, 56. 2) On Romanism, p. 199. |