faults which I have alluded to as marking the writings of the supporters
of Mr. Newman's system. But what is become of the assertion, that this
security of the apostolical commission was "expressly authorized" by our
Lord, when it is admitted that it is only indirectly taught in
Scripture? And what becomes of the notion, that what our Lord did or
instituted may be learned from another source than Scripture, when Mr.
Newman has most truly stated, in the passage quoted in the preceding
note, that our Lord's history, the history of his words and works, "is
in Scripture, and Scripture only: tradition has no part in it?" I pass
over the surprising state of mind which could imagine a distinction
between things necessary to be believed, and necessary to be done; and
could conceive such a distinction to be according to the meaning of our
article. It would appear that this shift has been since abandoned, and
others, no way less extraordinary, have been attempted in its place; for
an extraordinary process it must be which tries to reconcile Mr.
Newman's opinions with the declaration of the sixth article. But now for
Mr. Newman's scriptural proof, that our Lord "committed to the
priesthood the gift of consecrating the Eucharist." "When Christ said,
'Do this,' he spake to the apostles, who were priests, not to his
disciples generally." This would prove too much, for it would prove that
none but the clergy were ordered to receive the communion at all: the
words, "Do this," referring, not to any consecration, of which there had
been no word said, but to the eating the bread, and drinking of the cup.
Again, when St. Paul says, "the cup which we bless,'--the bread which we
break," it is certain that the word "we," does not refer to himself and
Sosthenes, or to himself and Barnabas, but to himself and the whole
Corinthian church; for he immediately goes on, "for we, the whole number
of us," ([Greek: oi polloi] compare Romans xii. 5,) "are one body, for
we all are partakers of the one bread." Thirdly, Tertullian expressly
contrasts the original institution of our Lord with the church practice
of his own day, in this very point. "Eucharistiæ sacramentum et in
tempore victus, et omnibus mandatum a Domino, etiam antelucanis coetibus
nee de aliorum manu quam præridentium sumimus." (_De Coroná Mililis_,
3.) I know that Tertullian believes the alteration to have been founded
upon an apostolical tradition; but he no less names it as a change from
the original institution of our Lord; nor does he appear to consider it
as more than a point of order. Lastly, what shadow of probability is
there, and is it not begging the whole question, to assume that our Lord
spoke to his apostles as priests, and not as representatives of the
whole Christian church? His language makes no distinction between his
disciples and those who were without; it repels it as dividing his
disciples from each other. His twelve disciples were the apostles of the
church, but they were not priests. In such matters our Lord's words
apply exactly, "One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are
brethren."]
On the whole, then, the movement in the church, excited by Mr. Newman
and his friends, appears to be made in a false direction, and to be
incapable of satisfying the feeling which prompted it. I have not
noticed other presumptions against it, arising from the consequences to
which the original doctrines of the party have since led, or from
certain moral and intellectual faults which have marked the writings of
its supporters. It is enough to say, that the movement originated in
minds highly prejudiced beforehand, and under the immediate influence of
passion and fear; that its doctrines, as a whole, resemble the teaching
of no set of writers entitled to respect, either in the early church, or
in our own; that they tend, not to Christ's glory, or to the advancement
of holiness, but simply to the exaltation of the clergy; and that they
are totally unsupported by the authority of Scripture. They are a plant,
therefore, which our heavenly Father has not planted; a speaking in the
name of the Lord what the Lord has not commanded; hay and stubble,
built upon the foundation of Christ, which are good for nothing but to
be burned.
I have spoken quite confidently of the total absence of all support in
Scripture for Mr. Newman's favourite doctrine of "the necessity of
apostolical succession, in order to ensure the effect of the
sacraments." This doctrine is very different from that of the Divine
appointment of episcopacy as a form of government, or even from that of
the exclusive lawfulness of that episcopacy which has come down by
succession from the apostles. Much less is it to be confounded with any
notions, however exalted, of the efficacy of the sacraments, even though
carried to such a length as we read of in the early church, when living
men had themselves baptized as proxies for the dead, and when a portion
of the wine of the communion was placed by the side of a corpse in the
grave. Such notions may be superstitious and unscriptural, as indeed
they are, but they are quite distinct from a belief in the necessity of
a human priest to give the sacraments their virtue. And, without going
to such lengths as this, men may overestimate the efficacy of the
sacraments, to the disparagement of prayer, and preaching, and reading
the Scriptures, and yet may be perfectly clear from the opinion which
makes this efficacy depend immediately on a human administrator. And so
again, men may hold episcopacy to be divine, and the episcopacy of
apostolical succession to be the only true episcopacy, but yet they may
utterly reject the notion of its being essential to the efficacy of the
sacraments. It is of this last doctrine only that I assert, in the
strongest terms, that it is wholly without support in Scripture, direct
or indirect, and that it does not minister to godliness.
In truth, Mr. Newman and his friends are well aware that the Scripture
will not support their doctrine, and therefore it is that they have
proceeded to such, lengths in upholding the authority not of the creeds
only, but of the opinions and practices of the ancient church generally;
and that they try to explain away the clear language of our article,
that nothing "which is neither read therein (i.e. in holy Scripture,)
nor may be proved thereby, is to be required of any man that it should
be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary
to salvation." It would be one of the most unaccountable phenomena of
the human mind, were any man fairly to come to the conclusion that the
Scriptures and the early church were of equal authority, and that the
authority of both were truly divine. If any men resolve to maintain
doctrines and practices as of divine authority, for which the Scripture
offers no countenance, they of course are driven to maintain the
authority of the church in their own defence; and where they have an
interest in holding any particular opinion, its falsehood, however
palpable, is unhappily no bar to its reception. Otherwise it would seem
that the natural result of believing the early church to be of equal
authority with the Scripture, would be to deny the inspiration of
either. For two things so different in several points as the
Christianity of the Scriptures and that of the early church, may
conceivably be both false, but it is hard to think that they can both be
perfectly true.
I am here, however, allowing, what is by no means true, without many
qualifications, that Mr. Newman's system is that of the early church.
The historical inquiry as to the doctrines of the early church would
lead me into far too wide a field; I may only notice, in passing, how
many points require to be carefully defined in conducting such an
inquiry; as, for instance, what we mean by the term "early church," as
to time; for that may be fully true of the church in the fourth
century, which is only partially true of it in the third, and only in a
very slight degree true of it in the second or first. And again, what do
we mean by the term "early church," as to persons; for a few eminent
writers are not even the whole clergy; neither is it by any means to be
taken on their authority that their views were really those of all the
bishops and presbyters of the Christian world; but if they were, the
clergy are not the church, nor can their judgments be morally considered
as the voice of the church, even if we were to admit that they could at
any time constitute its voice legally. But, for my present purpose, we
may take for granted that Mr. Newman's system as to the pre-eminence of
the sacraments, and the necessity of apostolical succession to give them
their efficacy, was the doctrine of the early church; then I say that
this system is so different from that of the New Testament, that to
invest the two with equal authority is not to make the church system
divine, but to make the scriptural system human; or, at the best,
perishable and temporary, like the ceremonial law of Moses. Either the
church system must be supposed to have superseded the scriptural
system[6], and its unknown authors are the real apostles of our present
faith, in which case, we do not see why it should not be superseded in
its turn, and why the perfect manifestation of Christianity should not
be found in the Koran, or in any still later system; or else neither of
the two systems can be divine, but the one is merely the human
production of the first century, the other that of the second and third.
If this be so, it is clearly open to all succeeding centuries to adopt
whichever of the two they choose, or neither.
[Footnote 6: This, it is well known, has been most ably maintained by
Rothe, (_Artfãnge der Christlichen Kirche und ihrer Verfassung_,
Wittenberg, 1837,) with respect to the origin of episcopacy. He contends
that it was instituted by the surviving apostles after the destruction
of Jerusalem, as an intentional change from the earlier constitution of
the church, in order to enable it to meet the peculiar difficulties and
dangers of the times. To this belongs the question of the meaning of the
expression, [Greek: oi tais deuterais ton Apostolon diataxesi
parakolouthaekotes], in the famous Fragments of Irenæus, published by
Pfaff, from a manuscript in the library of Turin, and to be found in the
Venice edition of Irenæus, 1734, vol. ii. _Fragmentorum_, p. 10. But
then Rothe would admit that if the apostles altered what they themselves
had appointed, it would follow that neither their earlier nor their
later institutions were intended to be for all times and all places, but
were simply adapted to a particular state of circumstances, and were
alterable when that state was altered: in short, whatever institutions
the apostles changed were shown to be essentially changeable; otherwise
their early institution was defective, which cannot be conceived. And
thus it may well be that the early church may have altered, in some
points, the first institutions of the apostles, and may have been guided
by God's Spirit in doing so; but the error consists in believing that
the now institutions were to be of necessity more permanent than those
which they succeeded; in supposing that either the one or the other
belong to the eternal truths and laws of Christ's religion, when they
belong, in fact, to the essentially changeable regulations of
his church.]
To such consequences are those driven who maintain the divine authority
of the system of Mr. Newman. Assuredly the thirst for "something deeper
and truer than satisfied the last century," will not be allayed by a
draught so scanty and so vapid; but after the mirage has beguiled and
disappointed him for a season, the traveller presses on the more eagerly
to the true and living well.
In truth, the evils of the last century were but the inevitable fruits
of the long ascendency of Mr. Newman's favourite principles. Christ's
religion had been corrupted in the long period before the Reformation,
but it had ever retained many of its main truths, and it was easy, when
the appeal was once made to Scripture, to sweep away the corruptions,
and restore it in its perfect form; but Christ's church had been
destroyed so long and so completely, that its very idea was all but
lost, and to revive it actually was impossible. What had been known
under that name,--I am speaking of Christ's church, be it observed, as
distinguished from Christ's religion,--was so great an evil, that,
hopeless of drawing any good from it, men looked rather to Christ's
religion as all in all; and content with having destroyed the false
church, never thought that the scheme of Christianity could not be
perfectly developed without the restoration of the true one. But the
want was deeply felt, and its consequences were deplorable. At this
moment men are truly craving something deeper than satisfied the last
century; they crave to have the true church of Christ, which the last
century was without. Mr. Newman perceives their want, and again offers
them that false church which is worse than none at all.
The truths of the Christian religion are to be sought for in the
Scripture alone; they are the same at all times and in all countries.
With the Christian church it is otherwise; the church is not a
revelation concerning the unchangeable and eternal God, but an
institution to enable changeable man to apprehend the unchangeable.
Because man is changeable, the church is also changeable; changeable,
not in its object, which is for ever one and the same, but in its means
for effecting that object; changeable in its details, because the same
treatment cannot suit various diseases, various climates, various
constitutional peculiarities, various external influences.
The Scripture, then, which is the sole and direct authority for all the
truths of the Christian religion, is not in the same way, an authority
for the constitution and rules of the Christian church; that is, it does
not furnish direct authority, but guides us only by analogy: or it
gives us merely certain main principles, which we must apply to our own
various circumstances. This is shown by the remarkable fact, that
neither our Lord nor his apostles have left any commands with respect to
the constitution and administration of the church generally. Commands in
abundance they have left us on moral matters; and one commandment of
another kind has been added, the commandment, namely, to celebrate the
Lord's Supper. "Do this in remembrance of me," are our Lord's words; and
St. Paul tells us, if we could otherwise have doubted it, that this
remembrance is to be kept up for ever. "As often as ye eat that bread or
drink that cup ye do show the Lord's death _till he come_." This is the
one perpetual ordinance of the Christian church, and this is commanded
to be kept perpetually. But its other institutions are mentioned
historically, as things done once, but not necessarily to be always
repeated: nay, they are mentioned without any details, so that we do not
always know what their exact form was in their original state, and
cannot, therefore, if we would, adopt it as a perpetual model. Nor is it
unimportant to observe that institutions are recorded as having been
created on the spur of the occasion, if I may so speak, not as having
formed a part of an original and universal plan. A great change in the
character of the deacon, or subordinate minister's office, is introduced
in consequence of the complaints of the Hellenist Christians: the number
of the apostles is increased by the addition of Paul and Barnabas, not
appointed, as Matthias had been, by the other apostles themselves, but
by the prophets and teachers of the church of Antioch. Again, the
churches founded by St. Paul were each, at first, placed by him under
the government of several presbyters; but after his imprisonment at
Rome, finding that they were become greatly corrupted, he sends out
single persons, in two instances, with full powers to remodel these
churches, and with authority to correct the presbyters themselves: yet
it does not appear that these especial[7] visitors were to alter
permanently the earlier constitution of the churches; nor that they were
sent generally to all the churches which St. Paul had founded. Indeed,
it appears evident from the epistle of Clement, that the original
constitution of the church of Corinth still subsisted in his time; the
government was still vested not in one man, but in many[8]. Yet a few
years later the government of a single man, as we see from Ignatius, was
become very general; and Ignatius, as is well known, wishes to invest it
with absolute power[9]. I believe that he acted quite wisely according
to the circumstances of the church at that period; and that nothing less
than a vigorous unity of government could have struggled with the
difficulties and dangers of that crisis. But no man can doubt that the
system which Ignatius so earnestly recommends was very different from
that which St. Paul had instituted fifty or sixty years earlier.
[Footnote 7: The command, "to appoint elders in every city," is given to
Titus, according to Paul's practice when he first formed churches of the
Gentiles (Acts xiv, 2.) Nor did Timothy, or Titus, remain permanently at
Ephesus, or in Crete. Timothy, when St. Paul's second Epistle was
written to him, was certainly not at Ephesus, but apparently in Pontus;
and Titus, at the same period, was gone to Dalmatia: nor indeed was he
to remain in Crete beyond the summer of the year in which St. Paul's
Epistle was written; he was to meet Paul, in the winter, at Nicopolis.]
[Footnote 8: Only elders are spoken of as governing the church of
Corinth. It is impossible to understand clearly the nature of the
contest, and of the party against which Clement's Epistle is directed.
Where he wishes the heads of that party to say, [Greek: ei di eme stasis
kai eris kai schismata, ekchoro, apeimi, ou ean, boulaesthe, kai poio,
ta, prostassomena upo tou plaethous], c. 54, it would seem as if they
had been endeavouring to exercise a despotic authority over the church,
in defiance of the general feeling, as well as of the existing
government, like those earlier persons at Corinth, whom St. Paul
describes, in his second Epistle, xi. 20; and like Diotrephes, mentioned
by St. John, 3 Epist. 9, 10. But in a society where all power must have
depended on the consent of those subject to it, how could any one
exercise a tyranny against the will of the majority, as well as against
the authority of the Apostles? And [Greek: ta prostassomena upo tou
plaethous] must signify, I think, "the bidding of the society at large."
Compare for this use of [Greek: plaethos], Ignatius, Smyrna. 8;
Trallian. 1, 8. A conjecture might be offered as to the solution of this
difficulty, but it would lead mo into too long a discussion.]
[Footnote 9: Insomuch that he wished all marriages to be solemnized with
the consent and approbation of the bishop, [Greek: meta gnomaes tou
episkopou], that they might be "according to God, and not according to
passion;" [Greek: kapa Theon kai mae kat epithomian].--_Ad.
Polycarp_. 5.]
On two points, however,--points not of detail, but of principle,--the
Scripture does seem to speak decisively. 1st. The whole body of the
church was to take an active share in its concerns; the various
faculties of its various members were to perform their several parts: it
was to be a living society, not an inert mass of mere hearers and
subjects, who were to be authoritatively taught and absolutely ruled by
one small portion of its members. It is quite consistent with this,
that, at particular times, the church should centre all its own power
and activity in the persons of its rulers. In the field, the imperium of
the Roman consul was unlimited; and even within the city walls, the
senate's commission in times of imminent danger, released him from all
restraints of law; the whole power of the state was, for the moment,
his, and his only. Such temporary despotisms are sometimes not expedient
merely, but necessary: without them society would perish. I do not,
therefore, regard Ignatius's epistles as really contradictory to the
idea of the church conveyed to us in the twelfth chapter of St. Paul's
First Epistle to the Corinthians: I believe that the dictatorship, so to
speak, which Ignatius claims for the bishop in each church, was required
by the circumstances of the case; but to change the temporary into the
perpetual dictatorship, was to subvert the Roman constitution; and to
make Ignatius's language the rule, instead of the exception, is no less
to subvert the Christian church. Wherever the language of Ignatius is
repeated with justice, there the church must either be in its infancy,
or in its dotage, or in some extraordinary crisis of danger; wherever it
is repeated, as of universal application, it destroys, as in fact it has
destroyed, the very life of Christ's institution.
But, 2d, the Christian church was absolutely and entirely, at all times,
and in all places, to be without a human priesthood. Despotic government
and priesthood are things perfectly distinct from one another. Despotic
government might be required, from time to time, by this or that portion
of the Christian church, as by other societies; for government is
essentially changeable, and all forms, in the manifold varieties of the
condition of society, are, in their turn, lawful and beneficial. But a
priesthood belongs to a matter not so varying--the relations subsisting
between God and man. These relations were fixed for the Christian church
from its very foundation, being, in fact, no other than the main truths
of the Christian religion; and they bar, for all time, the very notion
of an earthly priesthood. They bar it, because they establish the
everlasting priesthood of our Lord, which leaves no place for any other;
they bar it, because priesthood is essentially mediation; and they
establish one Mediator between God and man--the Man Christ Jesus. And,
therefore, the notion of Mr. Newman and his friends, that the sacraments
derive their efficacy from the apostolical succession of the minister,
is so extremely unchristian, that it actually deserves to be called
anti-christian; for there is no point of the priestly office, properly
so called, in which the claim of the earthly priest is not absolutely
precluded. Do we want him for sacrifice? Nay, there is no place for him
at all; for our one atoning Sacrifice has been once offered; and by its
virtue we are enabled to offer daily our spiritual sacrifices of
ourselves, which no other man can by possibility offer for us. Do we
want him for intercession? Nay, there is One who ever liveth to make
intercession for us, through whom we have access to ([Greek:
prosalogaen], admission to the presence of) the Father, and for whose
sake, Paul, and Apollos, and Peter, and things present, and things to
come, are all ours already. His claim can neither be advanced or
received without high dishonour to our true Priest and to his blessed
gospel. If circumcision could not be practised, as necessary, by a
believer in Christ, without its involving a forfeiture of the benefits
of Christ's salvation; how much more does St. Paul's language apply to
the invention of an earthly priesthood--a priesthood neither after the
order of Aaron, nor yet of Melchisedek; unlawful alike under the law and
the gospel.
It is the invention of the human priesthood, which falling in,
unhappily, with the absolute power rightfully vested in the Christian
church during the troubles of the second century, fixed the exception as
the rule, and so in the end destroyed the church. It pretended that the
clergy were not simply rulers and teachers,--offices which, necessarily
vary according to the state of those who are ruled and taught,--but that
they were essentially mediators between God and the church; and as this
language would have sounded too profanely,--for the mediator between
God and the church can be none but Christ,--so the clergy began to draw
to themselves the attributes of the church, and to call the church by a
different name, such as the faithful, or the laity; so that to speak of
the church mediating for the people did not sound so shocking, and the
doctrine so disguised found ready acceptance. Thus the evil work was
consummated; the great majority of the members of the church, were
virtually disfranchised; the minority retained the name, but the
character of the institution was utterly corrupted.