confirmation, is very painfully demonstrated by the scenes which
often follow its performance. I went some time since, at the request
of a friend who, like myself, still cleaves to the church, while he
loathes many of her Papal ceremonies, to witness a confirmation,
and what immediately followed. Some on leaving the church appeared
to be seriously impressed; but the majority were as mirthful as if
returning from a fair; many resorted to the public-houses, and in
the evening they were seen reeling home in a state of intoxication;
and I afterwards heard of some who fell into grosser crimes."[28]
[28] The writer of this paper once heard a young man say, when
reeling out of a public-house, "Well, as I have the old score wiped
away to-day by the bishop himself, I can afford to run up another
short one."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"There is no denying the fact, that what often
follows a confirmation service is most revolting to Christian
feeling; tending to bring its administration into popular disrepute.
Hence, I can subscribe to the truth of a statement, and an
accompanying opinion, given by a clergyman of high distinction, in
his reply to some official interrogations. 'I do not pretend to
know,' he says, 'what may have been the effect of confirmation in
former times, but I have witnessed enough in our day to make me wish
to see it abolished. In some persons it creates a superstitious
trust in the efficacy of the mere ceremony; to others it is a grand
festival, a time to see and be seen; and too frequently ending in
folly, drunkenness, and every kind of vice. I have heard more than
one reclaimed drunkard, in giving an account of himself, date his
first act of intemperance, or first intoxication, to the day of his
confirmation; and on these accounts it is, to many, a subject of
ridicule and contempt, bringing discredit upon our holy religion....
For more than ten years my own desire has been, that in any measure
of church reform that may be adopted, the _ceremony_ of confirmation
may be entirely left out.'"
THE ORDINATION SERVICE.
_Mr. Roscoe._--"I was not aware, till very recently, that the
ordination service is so very objectionable in many of its parts,
especially to any one who is jealous of the Divine honour. When a
person presents himself to be admitted to the order of priesthood in
our church (and it matters not whether he be a gay man of fashion
or a devout servant of God), after replying to certain questions
proposed to him, and giving certain assurances, he is then required
to kneel in the presence of the bishop, who thus speaks in a
tone of authority, as though he had all power in heaven and on
earth:--'Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest
in the church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition
of our hands; whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven,
and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou
a faithful dispenser of the Word of God and his holy sacraments,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen.' Does it not savour of blasphemy to concede to any man an
authority to forgive sins?"
_Mr. Lewellin._--"I think it does, Sir, and very strongly. And are
you aware that the priests of the Church of England are invested
with a much higher degree of authority in this matter than any of
the priesthood of the Papal Church of Rome?"
_Mr. Roscoe._--"Not with a higher degree of authority! That I think
is impossible."
_Mr. Lewellin._--"Indeed, Sir, they are. Their delegated power is
made absolute, and it is unlimited; but the power of the Papal
priesthood is placed under very stringent restrictions. Thus, when
the Papal priest puts into requisition the exercise of his ghostly
power, in the remission of the sins of the dying Catholic, the
bye-laws of his church make a distinction, _and for very lucrative
reasons_, between venial and mortal sins; he is authorized to remit
venial sins, but he is powerless to remit mortal sin; and hence his
form of absolution runs as follows: '_And by virtue of authority
committed unto me, I absolve thee from thy sins, in the name of
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost_.' The Episcopal
Protestants' form of absolution runs thus: '_And by His authority,
committed unto me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost_.' The Papal
priest remits _some sins_; the Protestant priest absolves from
_all sins_; the Roman Catholic, after his priest has absolved him,
has to go and live for a season amidst purgatorial fires; but
as Protestantism has no purgatory, her devotee passes at once,
according to this Episcopal legend, into the kingdom of heaven,
after her priest has exercised his absolving power. The priest,
then, according to this absolution ceremony, saves from hell, and
gives a passport to heaven, by virtue of the delegated authority he
received from the bishop who ordained him."
_Mr. Stevens._--"This, certainly, is a too glaring usurpation of
the Divine prerogative of mercy on the part of the priesthood, to
be tolerated, especially by us Protestants. Away with it from our
Prayer-book, and send it back to Papal Rome, from whence it came. It
is both a sin and a disgrace to a Protestant community to tolerate
amongst them such a close conformity to the blasphemous usurpations
of the Papal Church."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"I thought but little about it when I was
ordained, but I have thought much since, and I must admit that it is
most objectionable, so much so that I have made up my mind never to
attend another ordination service. The bishop assumes and professes
to convey a power which does not belong to man, and with which man
ought never to be intrusted."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"To invest a man with such power has a most dangerous
and servile tendency. If a priest really believes, as many of them
do, both Papal and Protestant, that he is actually endowed with
the authority which the bishop professes to delegate to him at his
ordination, must he not look upon himself as a great being, entitled
to great homage, having a disposing power over the final destiny of
the human spirit? will he not move about amongst his parishioners as
a demi-god in the human form?--whom he wills, he pardons and saves,
and whom he wills, he allows to perish. And if he makes the people
believe this, as the clergy are now attempting to do, will they not
stand more in awe of him, whom they see and hear, than they do of
God, who is invisible?"
THE BURIAL SERVICE.
_Mr. Stevens._--"I think some parts of this service require
revision, though, as a whole, I rather like it."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"As a service to be read at the interment of a devout
man, a believer in Jesus Christ, it is very appropriate; but it must
be a very painful infliction on a truly pious and conscientious
clergyman, to read the service at the interment of a very wicked
person."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"Yes, Sir, it is indeed; and I make it a rule
to vary the forms of expression when I have such an office to
perform on such an occasion."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"Yes, Sir, I am aware you do; and though it is, I
believe, a trespass on the sanctity of canon law, yet I think no
conscientious person will blame you."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"On one occasion, some years since, when I made
this variation, a complaint was lodged against me by the relatives
of the deceased for so doing. The bishop sent for me; and when I
told him that the deceased was a very impure man, an avowed sceptic,
and one who died in the act of sinning against God, his lordship
said, 'I do not wonder at your scruples. I cannot blame you.' The
service is often most painfully trying to a conscientious clergyman,
not only on his own account, but on account of the wrong impressions
it often makes on those who attend at the funeral. We know that
_last_ impressions, like first impressions, are often very powerful;
they linger long on the heart and on the imagination; and hence,
when the survivors of a wicked man hear a clergyman thanking God for
taking the soul of the departed one to himself, they very naturally
withdraw from the scene of death, under a firm belief that, however
profligate he may have been in his life, and however agonizing his
dying mental pangs, he is just as well off in the eternal world as
he would be if he had lived a religious or virtuous life."
_Mr. Lewellin._--"It appears, from the tone and style of your
Prayer-book, that the persons, when receiving the mysterious
efficacy of your sacraments, are just as passive, in one sense, as
a piece of marble is under the chisel of the sculptor. They stand
still, as the block of marble stands still, doing nothing; they
may be dozing. The clergy, like the sculptor, do all that is to be
done, and the sacraments they administer are to take effect on these
passive beings by virtue of their inherent power, when properly
administered by a bishop, or a priest who has received Episcopal
ordination from a bishop, who is in the regular line of succession
from the apostles. Now this Tractarian theory is in direct
contradiction to the Word of God, which makes it obligatory on every
sinner to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling; to
believe and to trust in Christ that he may be saved; to receive
the truth in the love of it, which is to effect his spiritual
freedom; to yield himself to God as made alive from the dead;
to purify himself, and to walk in newness of life; and even the
first great action of Divine grace, in his renewal and renovation,
is _making him willing to do_ what is essential for his present
happiness and safety, and his final salvation. Thus, according to
the Scripture theory, the sacraments have no self-acting power, nor
have the agents who administer them any self-sufficient power; the
regenerating and sanctifying power is in the Lord alone, and to him,
and him alone, is a sinner indebted for his salvation, which is an
act of sovereign and unmerited grace." See Ephes. ii. 8, 9, 10.
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"I deeply regret that we have in our
Prayer-book so many objectionable services and ceremonies, and
more especially as they bring us into so close a conformity with
the Papal Church of Rome. Any impartial person, who looks at the
two churches through the medium of these prominent services and
ceremonies, would pronounce us twin sisters, or ours a daughter
bearing a very strong resemblance to her mother; and it is only
by turning to our articles that we can point out any essential
difference between them. Our articles are Protestant and scriptural;
our ceremonies are derived from the Papacy, and are antiscriptural.
Hence we account for the existence of the two orders of clergy who
officiate at our altars--the evangelical and the Tractarian. We are
a kingdom divided against itself, and what the final issue of the
contest will be no human foresight can decide. You are for reforming
the Prayer-book by expunging that which savours so strongly of
the Papacy; and if this could be done, then Tractarianism would
disappear from amongst us, and we should hold the unity of the
faith in the bonds of peace. But who will undertake this herculean
labour? Will our clergy? They have no power, even if they had an
inclination. Will our bishops? No. They have gained the prize,
and are contented; they live in affluence and in ease, and care
but little about the strife and contentions which prevail amongst
their subordinates, with whom they hold but a very formal and
distant intercourse. The laity, at least the more enlightened, and
the pious, I know, are restless for a change; but I see not how
any change can be effected unless there be a breaking up of the
Establishment, for it to undergo a remodelling; and if such a great
crisis as this should come, there is no conjecturing, from the
present aspect of the times, whether the Prayer-book would receive a
more scriptural or a more Papal cast and complexion. We ought not to
forget that it is the civil power which appoints our bishops, sits
in judgment on the conflicting opinions which divide the clergy,
and rules the destiny of our church; and we know, from very painful
experience, that the civil power, whether embodied in a Whig or a
Tory administration, has uniformly evinced a stronger liking for
ceremonial pomp and display, than for the beautiful simplicity of
the church of the New Testament. Hence, I believe that reformation
is hopeless, as Cæsar disdains to admit the supremacy of Jesus of
Nazareth."
_Mr. Lewellin._--"That, Sir, is my decided opinion."
_Mr. Stevens._--"I am not sanguine in my hopes. The buyers and
sellers are again in the temple, but the Son of God is not now in
the form of the Son of man, or they would soon be driven out."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"Then, Sir, Tractarianism will spread more widely
and rapidly amongst us, and if an open and a positive junction be
not formed between the Church of England and the Church of Rome,
there will be a tacit one; and the reign of ecclesiastical delusion
and despotism will be established in Britain; and the English, like
the Irish and the Italians, will be, at least to a certain extent, a
priest-ridden people."
_Mr. Lewellin._--"You should all do as I have done, and then you may
breathe freely and without fear, and laugh to scorn all attempts,
open or insidious, to beguile you to Rome. Our principles render us
invulnerable; yours, constitute your danger."
_Mr. Stevens._--"Mr. Lewellin means we should all turn Dissenters,
and acknowledge no legislative dictation or authority in matters of
religion but that of the New Testament."
_Mr. Lewellin._--"You have often rallied me on my Dissenting
principles, but the time is fast coming when the problem will
be solved, that dissent from human authority in matters of the
Christian faith is the only invincible barrier against the
encroachments of the Papal power."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"I have no desire to forsake the church of my
fathers--the church of my early and long-cherished veneration and
attachment--but I will not remain in her communion if she form
an alliance with Papal Rome, or become semi-Papal herself. No!
I am a Protestant Christian, which is another designation for a
Bible Christian; the Bible is my infallible rule, which forbids
absolute yielding and subserviency to any human authority; and
if Protestantism be driven from the Church of England, or if she
gives that submission to priestly dictation which should be given
exclusively to the Word of the Lord, I will immediately leave her,
as I would leave my own mansion if I felt its foundation giving way,
preferring the woodside cottage as more safe, though less elegant
and imposing."
RIGHT AT LAST.
"I hope, Sir," said the venerable Mr. Ingleby to Mr. Roscoe, "you
were gratified by your late visit to your brother, now, I trust,
your son in the faith?"
_Mr. Roscoe._--"I was more than gratified; I was both astonished
and delighted. There is a marvellous change in him, in his spirit
and habits, as well as in his theological opinions and style of
preaching. He stands in the centre of a large circle of his clerical
brethren, a living monument to the honour of the enlightening and
renewing grace of God."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"All such changes are both marvellous and
natural. The unrenewed part of the community, both the clergy and
the laity, look at them with some degree of amazement, regarding
them as strange and mystical phenomena; but we know that they
are the moral workmanship of the Spirit of God. They are also
living evidences of the Divine origin of Christianity, bearing the
same relation to it now, as the miracles of healing did on its
first promulgation. Their production requires a power which is
extra-human; but, notwithstanding this self-evident fact, different
persons will attribute them to very different causes, as they
did the undisputed miracles wrought by Jesus Christ. Some of the
Pharisees asserted that he performed them by a power derived from
the devil; others said, can a devil open the eyes of the blind? thus
implying the absolute impossibility of his doing such a benevolent
action. The same difference of opinion prevails amongst men, when
they try to account for these moral miracles. Some refer them to an
undefined fanaticism, or to a love of singularity, or to the power
of persuasion, or to the imbecility or partial derangement of the
intellectual faculty; and others ascribe them to the direct agency
of the Spirit of God, which, certainly, is assigning an adequate
cause, and the ONLY _adequate cause_ for their existence."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"Surely no one who knew my brother before his
conversion, will accuse him of fanaticism, for a more doggedly stern
advocate in behalf of Tractarianism never undertook its defence and
support; and no one, I think, will venture to say that his intellect
has passed under an eclipse since his conversion. No, Sir; such
references would entail discredit on any one who would make them.
All must admit that he himself is competent to give evidence on the
fact and the cause of it; and he uniformly says, By the _grace of
God I am what I am_."
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"As you refer to his style of preaching, I
presume he has resumed his pulpit labours?"
_Mr. Roscoe._--"Yes, Sir, he has; and if my eyes had been closed,
and I had not known that he was in the pulpit, I should have thought
that I was listening to a preacher I had never heard before.
Formerly he was rather heavy, and there was a harsh monotonous tone
in his delivery--but now he speaks with great ease and fluency, and
with a pathetic earnestness which at times is thrilling. I have seen
some of his hearers affected to tears, who used to sit as unmoved
as stones. I was present when he delivered his first sermon, after
several months' absence from the pulpit; and as he had given notice
that he should assign the reasons which induced him to renounce
the Tractarian heresy and adopt the Evangelical faith, there was
an overflowing congregation. His text was a very appropriate one;
it was taken from 2 Tim. iii. 5: '_Having a form of godliness, but
denying the power thereof; from such turn away_.' From these words
of Paul he raised the following proposition, which he argued with
great accuracy and telling force:--'We should hold no Christian
fellowship with any order of ministers who unduly magnify the
form and ceremonies of Christianity, and who, either actually or
virtually, depreciate its doctrines and its precepts.'
"He concluded his discourse as follows:--'My dearly beloved
brethren, I have been labouring amongst you many years, but I
now publicly confess, with shame and confusion of face, that I
have been misleading you on the great question of your personal
salvation, simply because I have been living under the power of
self-delusion--advocating the form of godliness, while denying its
power. Like the priests of Rome, and like too many, alas! of our
own church, I have been teaching you to look for peace of mind
and for the hope of salvation to the efficacy of your baptism,
to the eucharist, and to priestly absolution; but, thanks to the
Divine Spirit, I now perceive that these are refuges of lies--the
inventions of a crafty and self-deluded priesthood--the fatal
quicksand of superstition, on which the people are perishing
in their sins, and are lost for ever. I now renounce these
Christ-dishonouring heresies, as opposed to the spirit and the
letter of the Bible, and embrace the truth which is embodied in the
simple and concise reply which the apostle Peter made to the members
of the Jewish council: "Neither is there salvation in any other:
for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby
we must be saved" (Acts iv. 12). In future, both by myself and my
excellent curate, the regenerating power of the Spirit of God will
be substituted for the regenerating power of water-baptism, and your
faith will be directed to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins
of the world, rather than to the officiating priest when exercising
his absolving power.
"'I fear that many of my parishioners have passed into the eternal
world under the influence of self-delusion, during the long period
in which I have been self-deceived; and this is to me a source of
bitter and agonizing sorrow. But, brethren, I have now resolved,
in the strength of the Lord, that none of the living shall perish
from the same cause, as, from this time forth, it is my intention to
preach the unsearchable riches of Christ--proclaiming him, in all my
ministrations, as an ever-living Saviour, able and willing to save
even the chief of sinners.
"'Christianity has been designated an experimental science, that is,
a science which may be submitted to the test of experience; and to
the truthfulness of this designation I can now bear my testimony.
The change which has taken place in my belief has been preceded
by a change of heart. While living under the fatal delusions of
Tractarianism, the Bible was to me a book of mysteries, but now
it is intelligible--it is the book of the heart. I now know what
it is to be born of the Spirit, to believe and trust in Christ,
to love and adore him, and also what it is to have joy and peace
in believing; and it is my earnest prayer that you, my beloved
brethren, may be made partakers of like precious faith, that we may
live and rejoice together in hope of the glory to be revealed in us
when our spiritual warfare is accomplished, and we are for ever at
rest. In conclusion, I would make the same request of you, which the
apostle made of the church of the Thessalonians: "Finally, brethren,
pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have _free_ course, and
be glorified, even as _it is_ with you" (2 Thess. iii. 1).'"
_Rev. Mr. Ingleby._--"How do the people appear to like this new
style of preaching?"
_Mr. Roscoe._--"Some are violently opposed to it, others express
no decided opinion, but I think the majority are pleased with it.
The Curate informed me that he has conversed with a few who have
recently felt the gospel to be the power of God to their salvation;
and, to aid their spiritual progress, a weekly prayer-meeting is
established, where I heard two laymen pray with great simplicity
and earnestness; and after the devotional part of the service was
concluded, the Curate delivered a short and an appropriate address,
which appeared to make a deep impression on this select audience.
He and my brother are very active, labouring in season and out of
season; they go from house to house, distributing tracts amongst the
people, conversing and praying with them; and, in addition to this,
they are training a lay agency to pay domiciliary visits to the
farm-houses and cottages that are scattered over the hamlet."