members who have received ordination from the bishops of the church of
the brethren, or by those who have received that of the Calvinist or
Lutheran church. The deacons, according to the ancient constitution of
the church, are the chief assistants of the pastors, and are considered
as candidates for the ministry. The bishops, who are nominated by the
ministers, appoint the pastors to their stations, and have the power of
removing them when they think fit, and of ordaining the deacons as well
as the ministers. Every bishop is appointed to superintend a certain
number of churches, and has two or three co-bishops, who, if necessary,
supply their place. The ancient church appointed some of its members to
the business of watching over the civil affairs of the congregation,
under the name of _Seniores Civiles_, who were ordained with imposition
of hands. This office is still continued. The synods, which are held
every three or four years, are composed of the bishops and their
co-bishops the Seniores Civiles, and of “such servants of the church and
of the congregation as are called to the synod by the former elders’
conference, appointed by the previous synod, or commissioned to attend it
as deputies from particular congregations.” Several female elders also
are usually present at the synods, but they have no vote. All the
transactions of the synod are committed to writing, and communicated to
the several congregations.
A liturgy, peculiar to the Brethren, is regularly used as a part of the
morning service on the Sabbath; on other occasions the minister offers
extempore prayer. The singing of hymns is considered as an essential
part of worship, and many of their services consist entirely of singing.
At the baptism of children, both the witnesses and the minister bless the
infant, with laying on of hands immediately after the rite. The Lord’s
Supper is celebrated every month: love feasts are frequently held, i.e.
the members eat and drink together in fellowship: cakes and tea are
distributed during the singing of some verses by the congregation. The
washing of feet is practised at present only at certain seasons by the
whole congregation, and on some other occasions in the choirs. Dying
persons are blessed for their departure by the elders, during prayer and
singing a verse with imposition of hands. At funerals, the pastor
accompanies the corpse to the burial place with the singing of hymns; and
an address is delivered at the grave. Marriages are, by general
agreement, never contracted without the advice and concurrence of the
elders. {75a} The casting of lots is used among them to know, as they
express it, “The will of the Lord.” {75b}
With regard to discipline, “the Church of the Brethren have agreed upon
certain rules and orders. These are laid before every one, that desires
to become a member of the church, for his consideration. Whoever after
having voluntarily agreed to them, does not act conformably, falls under
congregation discipline.” This has various degrees, and consists in
admonitions, warnings, and reproofs, continued until genuine repentance
and a real conversion become evident in the offender, when he is
readmitted to the holy communion, or reconciled to the congregation,
after a deprecatory letter has been read, expressing the offender’s
sorrow for his transgression, and asking forgiveness. The Brethren
assert that the church government in the established Protestant churches
“does not apply to the congregations of the Brethren, because they never
were intended to form a national establishment: for their design is no
other than to be a true and living congregation of Jesus Christ, and to
build up each other as a spiritual house of God, to the end that the
kingdom of Jesus Christ may be furthered by them.” Hence the doctrine of
Jesus and his Apostles, and the order and practice of the Apostolic
churches, are the models by which they wish to be formed. It may be
added, that they are generally the most successful Missionaries, and that
their society seems the most nearly to realize the practice of the early
Christians, of any sect now remaining.
* * * * *
The SWEDENBORGIANS take their name from Emmanuel Swedenborg, who was born
at Stockholm in 1683. His father was Jasper Swedberg, bishop of West
Gothland. He received his education chiefly in the University of Upsala;
and in 1716 was appointed by Charles XII. Assessor of the Royal College
of Sciences; he was ennobled by Queen Ulrica Eleonora, and received the
name of Swedenborg. He published scientific works on various subjects,
but in 1747 he resigned his office, in order, as he himself states, that
he might be more at liberty to attend to that new function which he
considered himself called to, and the rest of his life was spent in
composing and publishing the voluminous works which contain his peculiar
doctrines. He died in 1772. He was a man of blameless life and amiable
deportment, and was distinguished for his attainments in mathematics and
mechanics.
His writings are so very obscure, that it is difficult to state what are
the opinions contained in them; he taught, however, that by the New
Jerusalem which came down from heaven, was intended a new church as to
doctrine, and that he was the person to whom this doctrine was revealed,
and who was appointed to make it known to the world. Swedenborg made no
attempt to found a sect; but after his death, his followers, in 1788,
formed themselves into a society under the denomination of “The New
Jerusalem Church.” They have several places of meeting, both in London
and Manchester, and send delegates to a “General Conference,” under whose
direction a liturgy has been prepared, from which I shall make a few
extracts to shew the peculiar doctrines of this sect.
The following are some of the questions asked of the candidate for
ordination, which is performed by imposition of hands, of course of a
minister of their own communion.
“_Min._ Dost thou believe that Jehovah God is One both in Essence and in
Person; in whom, nevertheless, is the Divine Trinity of Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit; and that these are, his Essential Divinity, his Divine
Humanity, and his Divine Proceeding, which are the three Essentials of
One God, answering to the soul, the body, and the operative energy, in
man, and that the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is that God?
Dost thou believe that by his temptations, the last of which was the
passion of the cross, the Lord united, in his Humanity, Divine Truth to
Divine Good, or Divine Wisdom to Divine Love, and so returned into his
Divinity in which he was from eternity, together with, and in, his
Glorified Humanity?
Dost thou believe that the sacred Scripture, or Word of God, is Divine
Truth itself, and that it contains a spiritual and celestial sense,
heretofore unknown, whence it is divinely inspired and holy in every
syllable; as well as a literal sense, which is the basis and support of
its spiritual and celestial sense?
Dost thou believe that the books which have the internal sense and are
truly the Word of God are,—the five books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, the
two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings, the Psalms of David, the
prophets, including the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the four Gospels, and
the Revelation?” {79}
It is further stated in their eleventh article of faith, “That
immediately after death, which is only a putting off of the material
body, never to be resumed, man rises again in a spiritual or substantial
body, in which he continues to live to eternity.”
On these doctrines it may be observed that the forms of worship founded
on them are not such as Christ and his apostles ordered. The doxology
is, “To Jesus Christ be glory and dominion for ever and ever;” the
blessing, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” The
prayers are addressed to the “blessed Lord Jesus.” Whereas Christ, when
he gave us a form of prayer, bade us address “our Father in heaven;” and
bade us ask of the Father in his name; and the form of the apostolic
doxology is, “To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever”;
{80a} and the blessing, “Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father,
and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” {80b} As at this time Christ had
ascended from the earth, had the human nature been entirely merged in the
Divine, as this sect asserts, Paul the Apostle would not have made this
distinction, which implies that the Lord Jesus still existed somewhere in
his human form as the everlasting visible temple of the Invisible father
of all things, for “no man hath seen God at any time,” says the beloved
Apostle, {81a} and this is confirmed by Christ himself. {81b} If the man
then be lost in the Deity, it follows that the Lord Jesus exists no more
for us. I am aware that this consequence is denied by the sect, but it
is a self evident proposition: for their creed runs thus, “I believe in
one God in whom is a Divine Trinity, &c., and that this God is the Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ who is Jehovah in a glorified human form.” Now
a human form must have some properties of matter; it must be visible, and
circumscribed, or it is not form; and what is circumscribed and visible
cannot be God, who, of necessity, is uncircumscribed, and therefore
invisible. The infinite Eternal Omnipotent Deity _must_ be where that
glorified body is not; therefore, the Great Father of all things must
always be the object of worship, through Jesus Christ, who is the
_visible_ image of his glory. The _form_ of baptism is retained by this
sect, though they assert that the rite was “constantly administered by
the Apostles in the name of Christ alone”; an assertion contradicted by
the whole testimony of antiquity from the earliest times; adding,
“nevertheless it is well to use the express words of the Lord, when it is
known and acknowledged in the church that the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit are not three separate persons but three Divine Essentials,
constituting the single Divine Person of our Lord Jesus Christ.” {82}
With regard to the “internal sense” of Scripture it is sufficient to
observe that if “every syllable” were to be considered as inspired and
holy, the long list of various readings would grievously shake our faith,
though these are quite immaterial as to the general meaning.
There are serious objections to the distinctive tenets of this sect, yet,
in justice to them, it must be allowed that the unguarded language of
some preachers does so split up the Deity into separate individuals as to
make the doctrine so taught a complete tritheism, and that a serious mind
returning to the express declaration of the Scripture, that God is One,
may be so far shocked by such unmeasured expressions, as to run into the
extreme which I have condemned. Unitarianism on the one hand, and the
doctrine of Swedenborg on the other, have equally sprung from a want of
proper caution when speaking of the different manifestations of the
Deity, and an unmeasured itch for the definition of things too far beyond
the reach of our finite faculties to admit of any precision of terms.
_Words_ were formed for the things pertaining to earth; how then can they
ever exactly express the nature of the Deity?
Notwithstanding the faith professed by this sect, their teaching,
nevertheless, returns to the doctrine of the Gospel. In a tract “on the
true meaning of the intercession of Jesus Christ,” published at
Manchester by their own religious tract society, we have the following
passage: “The Humanity named Jesus is the medium whereby man may come to
God, because the Father, _heretofore invisible_, is manifested and made
_visible_ and _approachable_ in him. This is meant by _our coming unto
God by him_;” and elsewhere, as we cannot obtain this “light of life”
without following the Lord, and doing his will, as he did the will of the
Father, agreeably to his own saying, “If ye keep my commandments, even as
I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love;” so neither
can we obtain that divine food by which our spiritual life is to be
sustained, unless we labour for it, as the Lord himself instructed us
when he said “Labour for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life”;
and is it not of the greatest importance clearly to understand what this
labour implies? Let the reader be assured that he must labour in that
spiritual vineyard which the Lord desires to plant in his soul, in order
that it may bear abundant fruits of righteousness to the glory of his
heavenly father.” {84} Thus we see again that the fundamental doctrines
of Christianity _will_ find their way, however men may speculatively
disclaim them. Why then do we differ outwardly, when at heart we agree?
* * * * *
The PLYMOUTH BRETHREN, so called probably from the place where this
society first arose, do not allow themselves to be a sect, though in
their practices they differ considerably from those of the Established
Church. They meet together on the morning of the first day of the week
to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, when any “Brother” is at liberty to speak
for mutual edification. In the afternoon and evening, when they have
preachers, the services are similar to those in the Congregational
Churches (Independents): the desk, however, for they condemn pulpits, is
not occupied by one man, but used as a convenient place for speaking,
being alternately occupied by the “Brother,” who reads the hymn, the one
who prays, and the one who teaches or preaches the Word. There are also
“Meetings for Prayer,” and what are technically called “reading
meetings;” when a chapter is read, and those “Brethren” who have made it
matter of reflection, speak upon it clause by clause for their mutual
instruction.
Before a person is acknowledged a “Brother,” his name is announced at one
of the times of “meeting together to break bread,” as it is termed, and
if nothing occurs in the interval, he takes his seat with them the next
Sunday.{85} Any one is admitted to their communion whom they believe to
be “a child of God;” but they do not receive or acknowledge him as a
brother, “while in actual connection with any of the various forms of
worldliness,” i.e. the other churches of Christ. Their preachers move
about from place to place, forming different congregations, which they
again leave for other places where their services are required. None of
their ministers receive any _stipulated_ charity. The “Brethren”
disapprove of any association of Christians for any purpose whatever,
whether civil or religious, and therefore discountenance all Sunday
School, Bible, Missionary, or even purely Benevolent, Societies. They do
not disapprove of sending either Bibles or Missionaries to the heathen;
but they say that if they go at all, “God and not the church must send
them.” They do not think that the Gospel is to convert the world, but
that it is to be “preached as a witness to” or rather against “all
nations.” The world, they say, “is reserved for judgment, and therefore
it is wholly contrary to the character of a Christian to have any thing
to do with it or its government.” When a child of God is born again, “he
lays,” say they, “all his worldly relations down at the feet of Christ,
and he is at liberty to take up none but those which he can take up in
the Lord.” They neither pray for pardon of sin, nor for the presence and
influence of the Spirit, and carefully exclude such petitions from their
hymns. Many of them think it inconsistent with the Christian character
to amass wealth, or to possess furniture or clothing more than is
_necessary_ for health and cleanliness; and very great sacrifices have
been made by the more wealthy of them.
These are most of them unimportant peculiarities; but the great feature
of this sect, for so notwithstanding their protest, I must call these
“Brethren,” is a degree of self approbation and uncharity for others,
which, to say the least, is not what Christ taught. “No sect,” says
Rust, {87a} “is more Sectarian, and none more separate from Christians of
all denominations than “The Plymouth Brethren.” The Church of Rome they
consider “bad.” The Church of England “bad.” “A popish priest and a
parish priest, both bad;” “but infinitely worse,” says one of the
Brethren (a Captain Hall), “is a people’s preacher.” They occasionally
indulge in what they term “biting jests and sarcastic raillery,” of the
ministers of our church, and of those who differ from them, which evince
but little of the meek and peaceable spirit of the Gospel; {87b} for, as
Lord Bacon has well observed, “to intermix Scripture with scurrility in
one sentence;—the majesty of religion and the contempt and deformity of
things ridiculous,—is a thing far from the reverence of a devout
Christian, and hardly becoming the honest regard of a sober man.” If I
have appeared to speak harshly of this sect, it is because they seem to
me to have abandoned so much of the spirit of the Gospel. “If the tenets
of the Plymouth Brethren be consistent with themselves,” observes Mr.
Rust, “they necessarily withdraw them from all society, and every
existing form of Christianity, shutting them out from all co-operation
with the holy and benevolent, for the relief and blessing of their poor
or sinful fellow creatures, making it sinful to fulfil the duties of a
subject, a citizen, &c.” But I hope and believe that these tenets must
be and are counteracted by the instinctive love of our kind, which for
the benefit of the world God has implanted in man. The human race is so
essentially social that they who endeavour to dissociate mankind, stand
in much the same situation as he would do who should hope to dam up the
ocean. It is in fact to these silent tendencies of human nature, whose
force we never know till we attempt to check them, that we owe much of
the innocuousness of false or overstrained opinions: the reason is
deluded, but the feelings which the Creator has made a part of our very
being, generally correct the false argument; and the man, if not
previously corrupted by vice, acts right though he argues wrong.
[Picture: Decorative header]
LETTER VI.
CALVINISM.
I have already noticed that the sects into which the reformed churches
are split, may be classified generally under two great divisions, the one
adopting mainly the milder views of Melancthon, whose advice was much
used in the reform of the Anglican church; the other following those of
Calvin, which were chiefly carried out, at Geneva, the birthplace of that
reformer, and among the Huguenots of France. It may be well, therefore,
before we proceed to notice the particular sects which profess to combine
in a greater or less degree the doctrines usually termed Calvinistic, to
examine what the opinions are which pass under that name. {90}
It was at the Synod of Dort, which was assembled in the year 1618, that
these opinions received a decided form; for James Arminius, professor of
divinity in the University of Leyden, having rejected some part of the
Genevan doctrine respecting predestination and grace, this synod was
called in order to settle the disputed points. After much debate the
opinions of Arminius were condemned, and the doctrine of Calvin was
summed up in five points, which gave name to what has been called the
Quinqueticular controversy between the Calvinistic and Anti-calvinistic
divines of Holland. They related to,
1. Predestination or Election.
2. The extent of redemption.
3. Moral depravity and impotency. {91}
4. Effectual calling.
5. Final perseverance of the sanctified.
Calvinists are understood to maintain that predestination is absolute;
redemption limited; moral impotency total; grace inevitable; and the
salvation of the believer, certain. But among Calvinistic as among
Arminian divines, there are many shades of difference indicated by the
terms _high_ Calvinist, and _moderate_ Calvinist, _sub_ lapsarian and
_supra_ lapsarian, _scholastic_ Calvinism and _popular_ Calvinism; which
latter has been described as “the Augustinian theology strained off from
its mathematics.” These all differ so materially that Bishop Horsley
found it necessary to admonish his clergy “to beware how they aimed their
shaft at Calvinism before they knew what it is, and what it is not;” a
great part of what ignorantly goes under that name, being “closely
interwoven with the very rudiments of Christianity.” I believe, however,
that though differences may subsist among Calvinists themselves, as to
the explication of their doctrines, they generally allow,
1. That God has chosen a certain number in Christ, to everlasting glory
before the foundation of the world, according to his immutable purpose,
and of his free grace and love; without the least foresight of faith,
good works, or any conditions performed by the creature; and that the
rest of mankind he was pleased to pass by, and ordain them to dishonour
and wrath for their sins to the praise of his vindictive justice.
2. That Christ by his death and sufferings made an atonement only for
the sins of the elect. {93a}
3. That mankind are _totally_ depraved in consequence of the fall.
4. That all whom God has predestined to life, he is pleased in his
appointed time effectually to call by his Word and Spirit out of that
state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and
salvation by Jesus Christ.
5. That those whom God has effectually called and sanctified by his
Spirit, shall never finally fall from a state of grace.
The prominent feature then, of the Calvinistic system, {93b} is the
election of some, and reprobation of others from all eternity; but to
this we may answer, that if all mankind are really appointed to sin and
punishment, holiness and salvation irrespectively to any act of their
own, then they will be judged in exact opposition to our Saviour’s
declaration, that he will reward every man _according to his works_:
{95a} and again, that it is “not the will of ‘our’ Father which is in
heaven that one of those little ones,” i.e. children, “should perish.”
{95b} These declarations would, I think, sufficiently prove that St.
Paul’s expressions on the subject relate to national, and not individual
election, even had the Apostle himself left his meaning unexplained: for
the servant is not greater than his master, and it is not possible that
an inspired Apostle should preach a doctrine different from that of Him
who commissioned him; but if I mistake not, he has himself taken especial
care that his meaning on this important subject should _not_ be
misunderstood. For first, it is a notorious fact, though often
overlooked in argument, that the very passage, “I will have mercy on whom
I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have
compassion,” which is the main support claimed for the doctrine of
absolute decrees, is quoted from Exodus, and forms the assurance given by
God himself to Moses, that He had separated _the Hebrew nation_ from all
the people on the face of the earth. {96a} Again St. Paul has asserted
that God will render to _every_ man _according to his deeds_, for there
is _no respect of persons_ with God. {96b} God will have _all men_ to be
saved, &c. &c.
God forbid that we should consider that a man may not be a sincere
Christian, who believes himself irrevocably called, “elect,” and
inevitably secure of his salvation; or declare that a strict Calvinist
cannot be attached to our church: but St. Paul teaches that “Christ died
for all;” that grace instead of being irresistible may be received in
vain; that those who have been once justified instead of being _sure_ of
“final perseverance” and salvation, _may_ “sin wilfully after they have
received the knowledge of the truth,” and “draw back to perdition,” so
that it behoves every one “who thinketh he standeth to take heed lest he
fall.” {96c}