There are two points of view in
which every system may be regarded—its external action, and
its internal principle. We may examine either the great
effects of its machinery, its plans, its purposes, its advances,
and its perils; or we may trace its inner principle, and
endeavour to detect the secret spring by which the whole is set
in motion. It must at once be obvious that this latter
inquiry is by far the more difficult; for our attention is
directed rather to the philosophy than the action of the system;
and we are called to examine the subtle tendencies of the human
heart, which, of course, are more difficult both of detection and
exhibition than the great, broad, startling facts which lie on
the surface of the world’s history. This difficulty I
have seriously felt in the preparation of the present lecture,
the subject of which, is, “Popery the accommodation of
Christianity to the natural heart.” The subject
plainly requires that we should study the secret working of the
natural heart, and should also examine into the corresponding
principles of Popery, in order to discover their mutual
accommodation, and to show how the whole system of the one is
dexterously fitted to allay the fears and supply the cravings of
the other. Throughout, therefore, we have to deal more with
principles than with facts. I must ask your forbearance,
therefore, if the lecture assumes a somewhat abstract form, and
contains but few of those startling statements which abound in
the history of Popery, and which are of the utmost importance in
arousing the dormant Protestantism of the land. But yet, as
facts are but the development of principles, I must ask the
attention of thinking minds, and earnestly beg the candid
consideration of all those Christian friends, whose desire it is
to be established in the truth.
In its outward dress, then, and external
presentation, we see at once that Popery adapts itself to the
natural man. The Bible presents the Gospel to us in the
most unmixed simplicity; the fruits of the Spirit are its
choicest ornament, and the humbling of the heart is its proudest
triumph. It goes to the unlettered cottager, places the
Bible in his hand, and gives him the saving promise,
“Believe in the Saviour as there revealed, and
live.” In the external aspect of such a system there
is nothing to catch the natural eye; to the man who is not taught
by the Spirit, there is nothing peculiarly lovely in its fruits,
and to the person who is not influenced by his grace, as there is
nothing to charm the senses, so there is little to attract his
favourable regard. But Popery, in presenting a spurious
Christianity, has dressed it up in all the meretricious ornaments
of sense. It has summoned to its aid all that may allure
the natural tastes, so that if it fail to win the heart, it may
at all events enlist the eye and ear in its behalf. Thus
there is no natural taste which is not pre-eminently gratified by
Popery. The lover of music and the fine arts will find his
highest delight while he hears the sounds of the well-sung anthem
thrilling through the vaulted roofs of a magnificent
cathedral. The admirer of architecture will draw a contrast
unfavourable to truth when he compares the noble ruins of Tintern
Abbey with the simple church on the hill side that overhangs
it. The antiquarian is provided with an ample supply for
the spirit of research in the legends, the brasses, the ruins,
and above all, in the claim it sets forth of resting its
pretensions on a far-gone antiquity: while the ignorant and
superstitious find all their wishes satisfied in the relics, the
charms, the pilgrimages, the holy coats, the miracles, and the
whole tissue of fanatical deception with which the system
abounds. The effect upon such minds is proved by the fact,
that in those countries where Popery prevails, there appears to
be no room for all the new schemes of quackery which abound in
our own. The Church has secured a complete monopoly, and
finding that poor death-stricken man is ever craving after some
unnatural mitigation of his woe, has undertaken to supply his
utmost necessities, and to furnish a thousand charms and remedies
to hush his longings, if it cannot cure his ill.
But if this were the only manner in which Popery adapts itself
to the natural man, there would be comparatively little cause for
complaint. There is no sin in an attractive exhibition of
the truth, nor is it wrong to enlist the tastes in favour of the
Redeemer’s kingdom, for the Apostle to the Gentiles was
himself “made all things to all men.” So soon,
however, as the truth itself is modified in order to suit the
prejudices or inclinations of those to whom it is addressed, the
accommodation from that moment becomes sinful in its
character. Now it is impossible to study the records of
Romanism without perceiving that it is perpetually guilty of this
sinful modification. Thus in different countries it assumes
different external aspects. In catechisms for the Irish,
for example, it omits the second commandment, while in those for
England it generally inserts it, adapting itself in each case to
what it considers that the people’s mind can bear. In
China the Jesuist missionaries actually went so far as to omit
from their teaching the great fact of the crucifixion, because
they considered that a truth so humbling would be unwelcome to
that proud and self-sufficient people. The foundation of
Christianity was removed in order to accommodate it to the pride
of the natural heart.
Thousands of other instances might be adduced to show the
pliability of the system. It is like the camelion, and
varies its colour according to the soil on which it treads.
It will even preach justification by faith in those parishes
where the people have learned the value of that blessed truth;
while, at the very same moment, in the decrees of the Council of
Trent, it levels its anathemas against those who venture to
maintain it. In Protestant countries it will be foremost in
its denunciations of idolatry, while in others, where the people
are prepared to bear them, it will fill its churches with its
idols. In all cases, it accommodates itself to the existing
bias of the mind addressed.
But these things are rather the dress of Popery than its
essence; they form the apparel with which she has arrayed herself
in order to appear before the world, but they do not constitute
the real deep secret of her strength. They are nothing more
than the paint upon the cheek, the arts which the system has
assumed, but are not the source from which the system itself has
sprung.
To this inner source, then, we have now to turn our
thoughts, and we have to shew that Popery has founded itself upon
the essential truths of Christianity, but has so altered and
perverted them by addition, by subtraction, and by alteration, as
to accommodate them to the wants of unconverted men.
And here we must just remark, that Popery did not at any time
appear ready made on the world’s platform. It was not
like Mahometanism, which was constructed by one man, and brought
out complete after a certain retirement from the world; but it
was like the growth of a little horn, commencing with soft and
unnoticed buddings, until, as time advanced, it acquired length
and strength, and hardness. In fact, the process has been
very much that which we see in dissolving views; you look at one
time at a given picture, and at the very time that you moat
admire it, certain lines become fainter, and others stronger, so
that after a while you discover that the whole landscape is
completely changed. You have had your attention
fixed throughout, but the change has been so gradual, the fading
and brightening of the different parts so imperceptible, that
though you now see the lofty tower where a few moments back the
cattle were grazing in the meadow, you are at a loss to decide
when the change commenced, or what were the distinct steps of its
accomplishment. Just so it has been with Popery. Men
began by looking at Christianity; they beheld its beauty and
admired it; but as they looked, a faintness gradually crept over
its outline; its finest touches began insensibly to disappear;
the lines of a new picture by degrees took their place, till at
length the whole scene became changed, and instead of
Christianity we found Popery; instead of Christ we saw Antichrist
exalted in his room.
Our business to-night is to shew that this transformation is
the work of the natural heart when brought into contact with the
Gospel: and in doing this, there are a few general principles
which it is important we should clearly understand in the
outset.
The first of these is, that every living man has a certain
conviction of God’s existence, combined with a sense of
right and of wrong naturally implanted in his heart. This
may be deadened and perverted, but it is implanted there at
birth, and has remained amidst the wreck of our ruined
nature. We do not require revelation to assure us of the
sin of murder, nor could any doubt the duty of obedience to
parents, even if there were no sanction for it in the written
word. Bishop Butler says, “Let any plain, honest man,
before he engages in any course of action, ask himself,—Is
this I am going about right, or is it wrong? Is it good, or
is it evil? I do not in the least doubt that the question
would be answered agreeably to truth and virtue.”
A second universal fact is, that every living man has sinned
against this natural law; that there never has been a single
individual in the whole race, who has not, in countless
instances, done that which he by the light of nature has known to
be offensive to the mind of God.
A third fact is, that there is within every heart a certain
faculty which is termed conscience, which sits like a judge, and
passes sentence on every action we commit. Like a sensitive
nerve, it feels the approach of sin, and, unless it be completely
seared as with an hot iron, it is ever sounding within the heart
the still small voice of just reproach. Thus every man in a
state of nature is uneasy; he may endeavour to palliate sin, and
discover excuses for its commission; but he cannot altogether
shake off the sense of it. A consciousness of insecurity
hangs around him. He is not ready to die; he has no joy in
the
prospect of the advent; and, though he may have some undefined
hope of mercy, he knows nothing of the calm peace of the child of
God.
A fourth remark is, that this uneasiness is increased just in
proportion as such a character is brought into contact with the
Gospel.
There are thousands who feel the power of the Gospel, but who
never know its grace. It throws its light beyond the range
of its salvation, and just in proportion as that light breaks in
upon a natural heart does it quicken conscience, and revive the
uneasiness of sin. When the revealed word is never
presented, the law of nature becomes gradually obscured, and the
voice of conscience gradually silenced, so that the uneasiness
begins to die away, and a fatal apathy by little and little
creeps insensibly over the soul. But when the revealed word
reaches the mind, even though the heart be never new-born by the
Spirit, conscience regains much of its power, the waters of the
heart are stirred up and troubled, and the sense of uneasiness
rises afresh with renewed vigour in the soul. Hence it
follows that the sense of uneasiness is always strongest amongst
the unconverted members of the visible Church. By their
outward profession they are brought into the closest contact with
the Gospel, and therefore, if not saved by it, they above all
others are rendered most uneasy by its holiness. Whatever
effects therefore are likely to result from this uneasiness,
those we should expect to find in greatest strength within the
limits of the visible Church. Accordingly, within those
very limits, we find that which I believe to be its great and
chief result, viz., Popery.
That men under such circumstances must seek out a remedy is
perfectly obvious, and that there is only one remedy provided by
the Lord is equally plain to the student of the Scriptures.
That remedy is the free grace of God in Christ Jesus. Let a
man be really brought to believe in Him, let him be taught by the
Spirit to take home the blessed truth that the whole burden of
his blackest sin has been laid on Jesus, and that a pardon, free,
immediate, and complete, is granted to the guilty man who stands
in Christ, so that “now there is no condemnation to them
that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit,” and that man being justified by faith has
peace with God. But then he is taken out of the rank of
natural men, and, by the new birth, he is separated unto the
kingdom of his Lord; he ceases to be a natural man, and all his
peace now flows into his soul through grace.
But suppose this change does not take place, what then?
The uneasiness still remains, and the contact with the Gospel
only quickens it. The conscious heart therefore is forced back
upon its own remedies, and these remedies are of two kinds.
The first is Infidelity. The heart struggles to get free
from the sense of condemnation by clearing itself if possible
from the sense of a God. When conscience convicts of sin,
Infidelity steps in and strives to hush its voice, saying,
“Thou shall not surely die;” and when the heart
persuades the man that he is guilty, he strives to find a refuge
in the soothing voice of unbelief, which pretends to teach that
there is no God to judge him.
But such a remedy cannot satisfy. There is such a deep
conviction of God in the heart, and such unbounded and
irresistible proofs of his presence throughout creation, that no
man can really rest in such a system. Even Paine himself,
when the vessel in which he was crossing to America was on the
point of sinking, cried out in his alarm, “Lord Jesus, save
me.” And Voltaire, with all his blasphemous daring,
six weeks after he had said he should die of glory, did die in
all the agonies of despair. The nurse who attended him
refused many years afterwards to nurse a devoted Christian
Protestant, because she confounded a Protestant with an Infidel,
and declared that she never again dare witness such horrors as
she had seen in the chamber of Voltaire. So it is told of
one who moved not many years back in the centre of Infidel
society, that on one occasion, being seized with severe illness
at midnight, and dreading the near approach of death, the
terror-stricken sufferer sent for an intimate friend, and on his
arrival, addressed him in words to this effect. “I
fear I am dying, and I am greatly alarmed; so I have sent for you
to remind me of the arguments which prove that there is no
God.” A fearful confirmation of a remark once made by
a Unitarian to a beloved relative of my own—“Our
principles are very well while you live, but they won’t do
to die upon.”
Thus there is no real peace secured by Infidelity, as it
cannot still the conscience, and leaves the heart in as much
uneasiness as ever. There appears, therefore, no remedy
left for the unconverted man. The Gospel is presented to
his view, and the effect is to fill his heart with fear. If
he were altogether to accept it, he would be at peace; or if he
could altogether reject it, then perchance, he might be at ease;
but now there is so much power in it, that he cannot altogether
shake it off; while, at the same time, there is so much opposed
to all his will in it that he will not by faith embrace it as his
own. The only hope that remains in such a case is to
discover, if possible, some modification of the Gospel—some
system which will profess the grand principles so as not to
violate his deep and irresistible convictions, but which at the
same time will so modify those principles in their practical
application, that it may still the conscience without a change of
heart, and give him something that he may rest in as a substitute
for peace, while, at the same time, it leaves him still a natural
man, with his heart unchanged, and his will unsubdued by the
grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Now Popery is neither more nor less than this modification of
the Gospel. It retains enough of its fundamental principles
to satisfy the conviction that it is the truth of God, while, at
the same time, it so modifies and alters them in their
application to the individual as to still his conscience, even in
those cases where it fails to change the heart.
Let us take a few particulars in illustration of this
modifying process, and let us see how it suits the different
phases of the character.
I. The mind inquiring after Christian truth.
It is impossible to give the slightest attention to the Word
of God without perceiving the vast importance attached to the
reception of Christian truth; and it is equally impossible to
avoid the conviction that it is declared in Scripture to be there
revealed decisively. It is the plain doctrine of the Word
of God that there is one way, one truth, and one life, and that
we are responsible for its rejection or reception. Now,
just in proportion as a man feels the pressure of a surrounding
religious atmosphere, does he feel the weight attaching to this
responsibility; and the more anxious does he naturally become to
have his mind settled and his doubts satisfied. It is true
that the humble believer, being led by the Spirit, quickly finds
an happy assurance in the simple statements of the Bible; but
there are many, like Noah’s dove, who can find amidst the
troubled waters of the world no resting-place for their
soul. Many shrink from the labour of investigation, and
many more from the responsibility of decision. The truth is
not arranged in a system of dogmatical statements, but lies
embodied in every portion of the book, from whence it arises that
men must search for it as for hid treasure; a duty in direct
opposition to the natural indolence of our nature. But,
still more, faith requires conviction and
decision—qualifications yet more opposed to the wavering
and vacillating tendencies of man. You see many men in life
who appear to have no power to take a consistent course
alone. If they are led they will follow, and, perhaps, will
follow well; but they do not appear to have the mental faculty of
decision. Indeed, this power of decision is the
characteristic of great men. They are not always either
wiser or better than those they lead, but they have this faculty,
that they are thoroughly persuaded in their own mind, and are capable
of full and unwavering conviction of any truth which they are led
to embrace. Such persons are sure to have a cluster of
dependent minds around them, and others of superior ability are
glad to lean on their superior decision. The fact is, that
man is a parasitic plant, and he must lean on something.
Now see the influence of such a fact on our connexion with Divine
truth. A thoughtful mind at once discovers that the
reception of truth is of the utmost importance to his soul, and
at the same time his conscience assures him that he is but
partially acquainted either with its evidence or its
statements. What, then, is the result? He begins to
lean on the judgment of those whom he considers better informed,
and to pin his faith on other men. Thus there are thousands
and tens of thousands who abhor the name of Rome, who are
depending wholly on the judgment of others in religion.
This is always the danger in those congregations where there is a
beloved and gifted minister. It is the case also amongst
those whom you would suppose to be at the antipodes of Popery,
viz., those who boast that they are peculiarly men of reason in
their faith. A friend of mine was conversing the other day
with an Unitarian, and proving to him the clear doctrine of the
eternal divinity of the Saviour. The man could make no
reply to the clear proofs adduced from Scripture, till at length,
when completely baffled, he said, “I cannot explain those
texts myself, but my minister can.” Could you have a
stronger proof that it is the tendency of human nature, even when
it boasts its own reason, to lean on other men for truth?
Now, from this tendency has arisen the whole system of Romish
infallibility. Anxious minds felt the necessity of leaning
upon something. Had they leaned on Scripture they would
have been at peace; but, in default of that, they required some
human judgment. The first and most natural process was to
lean on individuals, and, accordingly, most heresies bear the
names of their first leaders. But this fails in giving
peace, for individuals differ, and the authority of the
individual is too often weakened by his faults and errors.
Hence it follows, that these leaning minds are often involved in
perplexity of the most painful character. Not having the
one anchor, they are driven about by every wind that
bloweth. Was there ever a system more beautifully adapted
to such a case than that which steps in to the chamber of doubt,
and says, “Be still, it is not your business to decide at
all: it is for you, as a humble believer, to believe what the
Church believes?” All responsibility is thus taken
off the conscience, and thrown on an ideal object, the Church;
the indolence of human nature is at once satisfied, for investigation
is represented as a sin; and even the piety of the heart is
called into exercise, for blind reliance is honoured by the
hallowed name of faith. The whole weight of perplexity is
thrown off beyond the reach of investigation, and by that one
stroke a false relief is given. There are a thousand
questions which ought to be answered before the leap is
taken. What is the Catholic Church? Where is the
proof of its infallibility? What does it teach? and is the
teaching scriptural? But these it is said to be a sin to
ask. At one stroke the responsibility is transferred, and
the anxious mind finds what it terms “rest in the
Church.” Hence men often begin with anxious interest,
advance as a second step to perplexity, and then, at length,
abandon inquiry in a blind reliance on what they are told is the
teaching of the Church. One of the late perverts to Rome
said, when a gentleman quoted to her the Word of God, “I
thank God I am not called to perplex myself any more with the
perplexities of Scripture. I have placed the interests of
my soul in safe keeping, and shall not suffer myself again to be
disturbed.” She had plainly felt perplexity, and she
had found a false peace in throwing off her personal
responsibility. So there is mention made in
“Milner’s End of Controversy,” of one Anthony
Ulric, Duke of Brunswick, who, having commenced a search for true
religion, ended in writing a book entitled his “Fifty
Reasons for preferring the Roman Catholic Religion,” in
which he says, “The Catholics to whom I spoke concerning my
conversion, assured me, that if I were to be damned for embracing
the Catholic faith, they were ready to answer for me at the day
of judgment, and to take my damnation upon
themselves.” As he could find no Protestants who were
willing to undertake a similar responsibility, he decided on
joining the Church of Rome:—showing again how a state of
perplexity leads on to a blind transfer of personal
responsibility to others.
It is not our business to-night to shew the utter fallacy of
all such blind reliance, or to point out how widely it differs
from the faith with which it is confounded; how infinitely more
difficult it is to discover what the Church teaches than what the
Bible does; or how such persons receive without investigation a
monstrous dogma opposed to every evidence, viz., the pretended
infallibility of the Church on which they lean. My one
desire has been to show that such a system is a natural
accommodation of the doctrine of revelation to the wants and
waverings of the natural man.
II. Worship.
It is plain to any man that without worship there can be no
true religion, and the Gospel is a grand scheme whereby God
enables men to pray. Christ came that we might have
boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.
His blood removes every barrier, and his Spirit gives the needful
power. But unless that Gospel be embraced with an
appropriating faith, true prayer remains an impossibility; men
may repeat their prayers, but, like St. Paul, they will never
really pray. Hence, if a man remain in an unconverted
state, he must do one of two things; he must either give up
prayer altogether, which cannot satisfy an anxious mind; or he
must have some modification of true worship. If he cannot
rise in heart to heaven, he must have a shadow of the throne
provided for him on earth. Now mark the effect of this
necessity.
The first great difficulty in the way of earnest prayer is
realization. The natural man cannot realize unseen
spirits. There is a height and glory in them beyond his
reach. But yet there is no peace unless he does
realize. So what must he do? Me must invent some
representation, whereby to lead on his mind; some image, figure,
or effigy, which may stand before him, in order to bring the
object of his worship to his view, and which may stand as a
hallowed emblem, through which he pays God his honour; he invents
for himself just such a system as is described in the decree of
the Council of Trent, when it says, Sess. xxv., “The honour
which is given to the images is given to the prototypes which
they represent, so that through the images which we kiss, and
before which we uncover the head and make prostration, we adore
Christ, and venerate those saints of whom they are the
likeness.” Through the image they adore the Saviour,
and the image is employed as an accommodated help to assist the
process of realization in the worship of an unseen God.
If there were any doubt that this is the true history of
image-worship, it would be removed by the fact that the sin has
appeared under the same form, under all circumstances, and in all
ages. Aaron made the calf as a representation of God, and
said, “These be thy Gods, O Israel, which brought thee out
of the land of Egypt;” and the Hindoo of the present day
regards his idol as a representative of his deity. A Jesuit
priest was in conversation the other day with a learned Hindoo in
the neighbourhood of Madras, and urged him to embrace what he
termed the Catholic faith. “What is the good,”
said the heathen, “of my exchanging one system of idolatry
for another?” “Idolatry!” said the
priest, “you do not mean to say that ours is
idolatry. We do not worship our images; we merely set them
before us, and adore our Saviour and the saints in
them.” “And do you suppose,” replied the
heathen, “that we actually worship the images? No; we
merely set them before us as a representation of our gods.
No, Sir; a Christian I may become, but I shall never be a Roman
Catholic.” There was not a shade of
difference between the two systems, both having sprung from the
natural tendencies of the human heart.
This identity was on one occasion curiously illustrated by the
Church of Rome itself, for when they obtained possession of a
magnificent statue of Jupiter Tonans, they removed the
thunderbolt out of his hand, and gave him two large keys in its
place. By this slight alteration, they changed Jupiter into
Peter, and transferred him from a Pagan temple to a Christian
Church. Could anything shew more clearly that Paganism and
Romanism were nothing more than different accommodations to the
idolatrous tendencies of the human heart? There was no
opposition in principle, and the only difference was between the
thunderbolt and the keys.
What a refreshing contrast do we find in the records of the
Tinnevelly Mission, where the heathen idols have been used for
pavement at the Church doors, so that none can enter God’s
house for worship without first trampling the former idol under
foot!
From the same nature has sprung the system of saint
worship. There is always a tendency to deify the great, and
just in proportion as time advances does this tendency
increase. The man’s human frailty is daily witnessed
by his own contemporaries, and the humanity of his nature kept in
view by visible facts; but when the corrective evidence of real
life loses its power through the lapse of time, the human
failures are forgotten, while the great acts are exaggerated,
till something supernatural is attached to the memory, and the
earthly benefactor is adored as a god. This is the history
of all the tutelary deities of Pagan lands. Romulus,
e.g., was no sooner dead than deified; the most popular
deity of China, Laoutze, was one of the early emperors, and there
is scarcely a nation in the world that has not elevated its
benefactors into gods.
Here, then, is the natural tendency of the natural
heart—a tendency in direct opposition to
Christianity. But, though thus opposed to the Gospel, it is
not necessarily eradicated from the heart of every professing
Christian; and, hence, it has produced within the Church a new
mode of Christianized hero-worship, in which the martyrs have
taken the hero’s honours, and the Virgin is crowned with
the crown of Cybele. There was nothing wonderful in
this. They witnessed the martyrs’ faith, and met for
sacramental communion around the martyrs’ tombs; they knew
their souls yet lived, and they knew not but what they might be
even present. What, then, could be more natural than that
the waiting heart should begin to adore them? It was not
addressing a Pagan god, but a Christian saint, and the very
prayer was an acknowledgment of all the great principles of
Christianity. But when once that prayer was
uttered, the Rubicon was crossed, and the principle of
saint-worship established in the Church. Hence you find the
guardian saints and angels of the Church of Rome filling exactly
the same office as the tutelary deities of the Heathen.
And, as we have just remarked the identity of Pagan and Roman
image-worship as illustrated by the alteration of the image, so
there is another curious fact which exhibits the similar
correspondence between the hero-worship of the ancients and the
saint-worship of modern Rome. When the Emperor Phocas
issued his celebrated edict in recognition of the supremacy of
the See of Rome, he made a present to the Pope of the ancient
temple named Pantheon. Now this temple was originally
dedicated to Cybele, and all the Pagan gods, and when it fell
into the possession of the Pope, he made as slight a change as
possible, for he just turned it over to the Virgin Mary and all
the saints. The principle was left untouched, though the
objects of the idolatry were changed.
But there is a yet further principle involved in this saint
and virgin worship; for the human heart requires tenderness and
sympathy, so that we can never breathe out our secret burden to
one who has no fellow-feeling with our trouble. We want the
sympathy of a common nature, if not the tenderness of a
woman’s heart. Hence in Heathen systems you
constantly find a Heathen goddess to whom pertains especially the
office of patronage and mercy. Even Simon Magus had his
Helena in his system of Gnosticism; and the poor Buddhist, while
he looks with awe to his three Buddhas, has his Kwan-yin, or
Goddess of Mercy, to whom he may appeal in trouble. Yes!
the human heart needs tenderness, and if there is any one aspect
in the Gospel more glorious than another, it is the rich
provision made for this very want. There never was a scheme
so wonderful, or a Saviour so perfect as that presented in the
Gospel. Glorious in his divinity, he sways heaven’s
mighty sceptre, while, perfect in his humanity, he can be
tenderly touched with the faintest cry of human grief. He
governs angels, and weeps with men. But the natural man is
a stranger to this sympathy; yet he longs for it and feels the
need of it. He is exposed to the shocks and buffetings of
this rough world, and his bleeding heart needs a friend who
himself has bled. If he has not Christ, therefore, he
naturally craves a substitute; something which may give him the
sense of sympathy amongst the unseen powers. And this
desire has gradually run into saint and virgin worship. It
has taken hold of the hero-worship of the Heathen, and given it a
Christian character by transferring it to the Virgin and the
saints. It does not do away with Christ, but provides a
system of intermediate mediation which commends itself to the
aching heart by the assurance of a woman’s love and a
fellow-sufferer’s compassion. Hence, if any
particular saint was subject during life to any especial trial,
he is supposed to take a peculiar interest in those who labour
under similar affliction. Nor can you read much of the
adoration paid by Rome to the Virgin without perceiving that she
is the Kwan-yin, the Goddess of Mercy, in the Romish
system. There is a halo of awe thrown around the brow of
the Redeemer, while the Virgin is described in the attitude of
tenderness, “the comforter of the afflicted,”
“the refuge of the sinner,” and the ready listener to
the sufferer’s cry. We will adduce one instance in
illustration, as given by Mr. Tyler in his valuable little work
“What is Romanism?” The worship of the Virgin
is especially celebrated in Romish countries during the month of
May, and there is a collection of religious poems used in the
churches of Paris on these occasions. One of these is as
follows:—
“Vouchsafe, Mary, on this day to hear our
sighs and second our desires. Vouchsafe, Mary, on this day
to receive our incense, our love: Of thy heavenly husband calm
the rage. Let him shew himself kind to all those that are
thine! Of thy heavenly husband calm the rage: Let his heart
be softened towards us.”
Here God is presented in the attitude of terror, while the
female advocate is the sole depository of grace; and the whole
springs from the natural heart, which, under the sense of sin,
feels a dread of God; and longing for sympathy, appeals to a
woman’s love.
III. Holiness.
We may lay it down as a fundamental axiom, that there can be
no religion without holiness. Whatever be our doctrinal
opinions, if we be not holy we cannot see the Lord. And,
accordingly, holiness is the great gift of a risen Saviour to his
Church. He has shed forth the Holy Ghost to purify our
hearts by faith. Now, in this Christian holiness there are
two or three leading features to be carefully observed.
(1.) It is not a plant which grows naturally in the human heart,
but is the especial work of the Holy Ghost himself. (2.) It
consists in a sacred principle which controls the whole man, and
not in any one class either of actions or omissions. (3.)
This ruling principle is the constraining power of the love of
Christ. “The love of Christ constraineth
us.” From which remarks it appears at once that true
holiness is from its very nature impossible to the unconverted
man. He is not under the influence of the Spirit; he does
not know the love of Christ, and he is, therefore, incapable of
that hallowed principle which shall bend his whole mind in one
direction, and wean him from sin by the consecration of his whole
man to God. Hence, the unconverted man, if thoughtful
and conscientious, is sure to feel distressed. A holy
standard is presented to his view, while his conscience convicts
him of lamentable defect. He sees there must be necessity,
but has not felt its power. He sees there must be holiness,
but he knows he is not holy. He is aware that without
righteousness there can be no true religion, but he sees so much
sin within his heart that he cannot believe himself
righteous.
What, then, is to be done? What is the refuge of the
human heart under such circumstances? Either he must stifle
conscience, which is impossible, or he must embrace the Gospel,
in which case he would find joy in the Holy Ghost, or he must so
accommodate that Gospel as to soothe his heart without changing
it, which accommodation is Popery. And how is this
effected?
One mode is by ritualism.
There are two great classes of Christian duties combined in
the formation of Christian holiness—moral and positive;
moral being the general effect of Christian principle, positive
consisting in certain Christian acts. Now it is plainly in
respect to these moral duties or duties of Christian principle
that the natural heart finds the chief difficulty, and the
outward acts of a ceremonial religion are incomparably easier
than the holy dedication of a devoted heart. Hence it
follows that the human heart is naturally prone to slide
insensibly from the principle to the ritual, and to endeavour to
compensate the defects of the one by a rigid attention to the
requirements of the other. By such an accommodation no part
of Divine truth is professedly set aside, but yet, by altering
the proportions of the several parts, by throwing a strong light
on one side of the picture, and a deep shade on the other, its
whole character is completely changed, and religion is given to
the natural man though his heart is left unsanctified by the
Spirit.
This tendency to substitute ritual for principle may be daily
seen in every society. One thinks himself holy because he
has kept his church; another, because he is a regular
communicant; a third, because he attends daily service; a fourth,
because he never neglects to say his prayers; while a fifth is
quite sure that he is born again, because in his infancy he was
baptized; although, possibly, neither one nor the other has
learned anything of true holiness of heart. Out of this
tendency has sprung up the whole system of Romish
righteousness. The weed that grew out of the human heart it
has adroitly cultivated, till it has become the strongest flower
in its garden. What under the Gospel sprang up by nature
against the Gospel it has embodied and arranged so as to become a
substitute for the Gospel. Hence, under Popery,
ritual has in many cases overpowered principle, and attention to
ritual religion is made the substitute for spiritual holiness
before God.
It is extremely difficult to produce documentary evidence of
any such substitution, for, of course, it is in no case
acknowledged. The truth of our charge, however, may be
easily seen in the practice of indulgences. It is sometimes
thought that this monstrous practice has been abandoned by modern
Popery. But such is not the case; for I find in the
“Catholic Directory” for 1848, that there are eight
plenary indulgences granted to the faithful in the eight
districts of England, and four more for the peculiar benefit of
the London district. Now the essence of these indulgences
is the substitution of ritual for principle, for the remission of
moral sin is promised as a reward to the observance of an
ecclesiastical rite. Take, e.g., one of the
indulgences granted by Pope Sixtus IV.:—“Our holy
Father, Sixtus IV., Pope, hath granted to all them that devoutly
say this prayer before the image of our Lady the sum of 11,000
years of pardon. Ave Sanctissima Maria,
&c.” So the late Pope issued an apostolic brief
to Ambrose Lisle Phillips, Esq., in which, amongst other things,
he promises “indulgences of 100 days as often as the
members shall recite their appointed decade of the rosary on
working days.” He promises at the same time
indulgences of seven years and seven lents as often as they shall
recite the aforesaid decades on Sundays and holidays,
&c. It is impossible to imagine a more glaring
preference of ritual above principle. The guilt of moral
sin is remitted as a reward for the performance of an
ecclesiastical rite.
Another clear illustration of the same principle is seen in
the substitution for repentance of what they term the sacrament
of penance. Where you find repentance in the Scriptures you
find penance taught by Rome, as, e.g., in Ezek. xviii.
30:—“Repent and turn yourselves from all your
transgressions.” Luke xiii. 3. “Except ye
repent ye shall all likewise perish.” And Acts ii.
38:—“Repent and be baptized every one of you, for the
remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost.” In all these passages the Council of Trent,
Sess. xiv. 2, has changed “repent,” into “do
penance,” and has so made the rite a substitute for the
principle. Of course the pious Romanist would say,
“We have the principle too, for we truly repent in
penance.” But that does not affect the
question. The Bible has promised remission of sin, and
connected it with the principle; the Church of Rome has adopted
the promise, but transferred it to the rite.
The effects of this on different minds are, of course, very
various. In some of a devout and conscientious character,
it produces the most earnest attention to the positive
duties of religion, and gives them a dim gleam of doubtful hope
in the unceasing observance of all prescribed services. But
when there is not this spirit of devotion, it enables a wicked
man to make a compromise with God, and to follow the natural bent
of his natural heart, by attending to the Church’s
services, while he utterly neglects the weightier matters of the
law.
In the late trials for murder in Ireland, it was remarked that
many of the guilty culprits were persons remarkable for their
attention to the ritual of their Church; and there was a case at
the close of the last Irish rebellion in which the hour of a
murder was thus proved. One of the witnesses swore that it
took place after the hour of twelve o’clock on Saturday
night, and he was sure of the fact because the murderers were
determined to have a supper before they went on their guilty
errand, and that Saturday being a fast-day, they could not touch
meat until after the clock had struck. The ritual of
fasting was rigidly observed, while the regard for life was
altogether gone. In one of the jails at Rome there is a
celebrated bandit, by name Gasparoni. This man, by his
deeds of bloodshed, had desolated an extensive district in the
neighbourhood of Rome, though all the while he avowed himself a
very religious man. Sir Fowell Buxton inquired of him
whether he had fasted when he was a bandit. He said,
“Yes.” “Why did you fast?” was the
next question. “Because I am of the religion of the
Virgin.” “Which did you think was worse, eating
meat on a Friday, or killing a man?” He answered
without hesitation, “In my case it was a crime not to fast;
it was no crime to kill those who came to betray me.”
The man had no true holiness, but had taken the ritual of fasting
as its substitute, so that in the midst of his murders he
believed himself a very religious man.
The same principle appears in the Romish treatment of the
Lord’s-day. The moral commandment of the Most High
God is abandoned, and for it you find in many Romish catechisms
the substitute of human ritual, “Thou shalt keep the
festivals.” And this appears in the universal
practice of Romish countries. They appear to regard it as a
duty to attend mass, but that once done, the whole day is devoted
to amusement. The rite is observed, and the conscience
satisfied, so that the unregenerate heart is left at full liberty
to pursue its own course, and take its pleasure on the
Lord’s holy day. Thus the same persons who are
engaged in the utmost apparent devotion at mass in the morning
are found in throngs in the dissolute French theatre at
night. “Attend to the Church’s rites and live
as you please,” appears to be the maxim of their
morality.
You perceive the same thing in Romish literature. It has
been one of the characteristics of the late movement toward Rome
that amongst its most devoted followers it has let loose the
spirit of the world. You will observe, for example, in
Burns’s Catalogue the strangest possible mixture of
ritualism and worldliness, and will see the book of Romish
devotion placed side by ride with the wild German love story.
Thus has Popery taken hold of the great grand gift of
Christianity, and presented it to its votaries in a form
accommodated to human nature. It does not deny the
necessity of holiness, but it so transforms its character that
the unholy man may think he has attained it, and the Italian
murderer conscientiously believe himself religious.
A second substitution for true holiness is asceticism:
according to which system the unholy heart finds its refuge in a
separation from ordinary men. Christianity carries holiness
into life, asceticism takes the hermit out of it. But yet
it is perfectly natural that men should seek such a refuge.
When they feel the burden of sin, and experience the temptations
of a surrounding world, it is no wonder that they should seek a
remedy in a complete retirement from its influence. To give
themselves up to fasting, penance, and solitary communion with
God, must lead, they very naturally argue, to the enjoyment of
more holy peace than they can hope to find in the midst of the
duties and varied engagements of society. Hence every false
faith has produced its devotees. Under different systems
they have assumed a different character, but in all the principle
is the same. The Hindoo separates himself from the world,
and stands with his arm erect till it becomes stiffened into a
fixed position; while the Buddhist and the Romanist retire to the
convent that they may there withdraw from the world, and devote
themselves wholly to spiritual exercises and to God. But
though this is natural, it is a mere accommodation. The
real evil of the human heart is not corrected by the change, nor
have the hair shirt and the leathern girdle the slightest
influence in controlling the corrupt passions of the
nature. There may be as much pride, self-righteousness, and
ill-governed temper in the lonely hermit’s cheerless cell,
as in the deep current of the world’s society. At the
same time it is an accommodation, for it employs the name of
Christ, and gives the semblance of a very elevated piety.
It adopts the language of devotion, and prescribes a course of
action and self-denial. It gives the inquirer something to
do, and something to bear; it separates him also from other men,
and so, though his heart be not purified, it gives him the hope
that he is holy. This was remarkably seen in the case of
Ignatius Loyola. Like Luther, he was awakened to a deep
sense of sin, and it is a remarkable fact that the two greatest
phenomena of the sixteenth century, the Reformation, and
Jesuitism, should have sprung out of the same uneasiness for
sin. Luther found peace through the blood of the Lamb, and
holiness in the work of the Spirit; Loyola was as much distressed
as he, and failing in his discovery of Christ, he took refuge in
the substitute of an ascetic life. He tore himself away
from his kindred and father’s house, determining to undergo
penances of the severest character, and to serve God in
Jerusalem. He hung up his shield before an image of the
Virgin, and, having clothed himself in coarse raiment, he stood
before it for whole nights with his pilgrim’s staff in his
hand. At Manresa he passed seven hours daily on his knees,
and scourged himself regularly thrice a-day. He devoted
three whole days to making a general confession for sin, but the
more he explored the depths of his heart, the more painful were
the doubts which assailed him. Having read in some of the
fathers that God had been moved to compassion by a total
abstinence from food, he remained from Sunday to Sunday without
tasting anything, and at last only broke his fast in obedience to
the positive injunctions of his confessor.
Such were the efforts of a master mind, to create for itself
an artificial holiness, and such are the principles more or less
involved in the whole system of the monasticism of Rome. It
substitutes devotion of act, which withdraws men from their
appointed sphere, for devotion of heart which glorifies God in
its varied duties: and thus presents a spurious holiness within
reach of unconverted minds.
IV. But the great root of the matter yet remains in the
craving of the soul for Reconciliation.
That there is this craving none can deny. It is seen in
all classes, in all nations. Buddhists, Hindoos, Mussulmen,
Jews, Protestants, Romanists, and even Infidels, all bear
testimony to a certain undefined longing after peace. Now
this peace is given by the Gospel, in the free, full
justification of the believer through the perfect atonement and
imputed righteousness of the Lord. But in the practical
application of it to the heart there arises this
difficulty. Our safety depends on an invisible union with
an invisible Redeemer. Faith is not a thing which can be
seen and felt. It looks away from self to Christ, and
disappears as soon as you look back on self to find it. Now
if a man be enabled by the Holy Ghost to look simply to Christ,
this difficulty vanishes through the all-sufficiency of the one
object there presented to his view. But if, on the other
hand, this faith be wanting, and the freedom of Divine grace
remain unknown, the human heart at once makes an effort for some
visible, tangible mode of laying hold of acceptance in
Christ Jesus. The system, therefore, best accommodated to
the natural man would be one which embraced all the rich promises
of the Gospel, but connected them with something which could be
said or done, so leaving men in no doubt as to their
position.
Now this desire is exactly met by the Church of Rome. It
presents its pardon in a tangible, visible form, and it leads the
soul to rest for its assurance upon something safely done.
The sin is confessed, the penance performed, the absolution
pronounced, and there the matter ends. The guilty man has
no further occasion to distress his mind upon the subject.
The language of the catechism of the Council of Trent is very
curious as illustrating the endeavour to connect pardon with a
visible act. It first draws the distinction between the
inward disposition of repentance and the outward act of penance,
and adds, § 13, “That it is the outward penance in
which the sacrament consists, and which contains certain external
actions, which are subjects of sense through which the
inner feelings of the mind are manifest.” The next
section explains the reason why the sacrament of penance is said
to have been instituted, viz., to assure us of our pardon, for
without it, “there must have been most anxious suspense of
mind respecting inward repentance, since every man would
have had good reason to doubt his own judgment in those things
which he was doing.” To avoid this anxiety,
therefore, the pardon is connected with a visible act. It
is found, accordingly, in practical life, that the priest’s
absolution is regarded by the Romanist in the same light as
God’s forgiveness, and that, whatever be the state of
heart, that visible act is deemed sufficient. Pat Burns,
now a devoted Scripture Reader under the Irish Society, was for
ten years the leader of a desperate gang of Ribbandmen, and he
told a friend of mine that during that time he frequently went to
the priest, paid him all dues regularly, and obtained absolution
from time to time, as his conscience felt uneasy after the
commission of crime; that the priest generally put a penance upon
him, and that when it was performed, he considered himself as
good a man as any other, and as fit for heaven. This same
person added that the priest had never once directed him to the
Word of God, or to the Lord Jesus for salvation.
The same connexion between confession and reconciliation was
curiously illustrated by the following fact. The priest in
my friend’s parish gave nothing during the late
contribution towards Irish distress, but the poor creatures
excused his penuriousness on the plea that it was unlucky to take
a priest’s money—that a priest’s money being
paid at
confession and absolution, is the price of sin, and often comes
from murderers and other bad characters, as the price of
absolution and pardon; and if, therefore, you buy a horse with
it, he will get lame; and if you buy seed corn it will be
blighted.
I am perfectly aware that it may be justly argued that these
facts among the people do not prove that the principle has been
adopted by the Church; but I think it must also be admitted that
they do show how exactly suited to the natural man is the
connexion which Rome does assert between the pardon of sin and
certain visible actions amongst men. God connects his
pardon with a deep seated spiritual faith. The human heart
says, “Let me do something. Let me work it out.
Let me have some assurance that I am forgiven.”
Popery steps in, and adapts its principles to both, asserting on
the one hand the necessity of faith, but prescribing on the other
a certain penance, and then sealing the whole with the
priest’s absolution, so as to leave no doubt on the
sinner’s mind. According to the language of a late
pervert, the priest “shewed her how she must unite her
sacrifice with the holy atoning blood of Christ, and then in his
name pardoned and blessed her. Thus sin had not been
suffered to remain upon her soul.” See how the Gospel
was retained, and at the same time accommodated to the natural
cravings of the anxious heart. The atoning blood was
preached, but the act of penance received with it, so as to give
it a tangible application.
But this accommodation fails in giving lasting peace.
Nothing, in short, can really satisfy but the atoning blood of
Christ alone, and to this failure may be traced the whole
tissue of Romish rites. Penances, absolutions, masses, holy
waters, holy pilgrimages, holy retreats, and, last of all,
extreme unction, are nothing more than fresh efforts to satisfy
the heart; and, though all be combined, they are all found
insufficient. There are, we know, true believers, who,
though trammelled by the system, yet rise above it to Christ; and
there are others, again, whose conscience is so deadened that
they live at ease in Zion; but for conscientious anxious souls
the means are insufficient, and anxious fears keep rising up
within the heart. From these remaining doubts has arisen
the last crowning accommodation in the system, namely,
purgatory.
In former days I used to wonder what could be the attraction
of the doctrine of purgatory, more especially when I found that
there was scarcely any portion of the system which persons
embraced with equal readiness. It is said of it in the
catechism of the Council of Trent, “Besides hell there is a
fire of purgatory, in which the souls of the pious
being tormented for a definite time, expiate their sin; that so
an entrance may be opened to them into the eternal country, into
which nothing defiled can enter.” Now it may be
fairly asked from what principle in the human heart can such a
decree have sprung? We can understand men cheerfully
performing penance, and craving the absolution of the
priest. But what can make a pious soul desire to be burnt
up in purgatory? It is not merely a heavenly purification
of the ransomed spirit to prepare it sweetly for the rich
enjoyments of the kingdom, but it is a burning in the fire, and
that, strange to say, is the peculiar privilege of pious
souls. Can anything be more extraordinary? And yet,
when you consider it, can anything be more simple? Just
take the case of one of these anxious minds, of which we have
been speaking. He has been going about to establish his own
righteousness, but his heart is not holy. He has
endeavoured to unite his sacrifice of penance with the atoning
blood of Christ, and he has received the priest’s pardon,
but yet sin remains. There it is, eating into his
heart’s peace, and cleaving like a leprosy to his
soul. And now death approaches, the delusions of the lower
world begin to vanish, and then comes the question, Is sin
forgiven? He has received his last viaticum. Still,
is he safe? He has man’s absolution. Has he
God’s pardon? He has performed his penance. Is
sin fully expiated? Oh, that we could point him at once to
the simple sufficiency of the Lamb’s most precious
blood! But in default of that, what must be done?
There must be a further accommodation of Christianity. The
heart tells him that his own penance has been insufficient, so
the work of expiation must be carried out beyond the grave.
His conscience whispers that he is not yet prepared to die, so he
clings readily to the hope that something may still be done, that
complete preparation here on earth is not needful, for that an
intermediate state is to follow, in which, though unprepared at
his dying hour, he may yet be made meet for the kingdom of the
saints.
Or take the case of another character, the man who has spent
his life in neglect of God. In the day of health he has
been occupied with the world’s interests, and been enabled
to stave off the great question of his soul’s
salvation. But now the great enemy is upon him, the day of
account is near, and the Judge must be met in judgment.
Under such circumstances, a man will give anything for
time. If possible, time here; but if that is impossible,
time hereafter: at all events, time. He will do anything to
stave off the great decision,—he will grasp anything that
postpones the necessity of preparation. From this mind
arises the hope amongst all classes, of doing something for the
dead. I was once charged myself with carelessness as
to men’s salvation, because a certain dead body was not
carried into the church at burial. “If,” said
the woman, “you really believed that you saved souls by
carrying the bodies into church, you would have taken him in as
well as others.” Now the system of Popery has grown
out of this anxious fear. It has met the fears of dying
men, by giving a system to their ill-founded hopes. It has
given the man who knows he is unprepared to die a resting-point
beyond the grave. It has shifted the work of preparation to
a world unseen and unknown, and so hushed the voice of conscience
by assuring it that there still remains the hope of expiation for
its sin. Purgatory, therefore, is the last stay for an
unsatisfied heart. It gives the hope of pardon after death,
and serves as a sedative for death-bed fears.
Thus, then, we have traced some few particulars of the Romish
system to their hidden sources in the human heart, and have
observed some of the many perversions and modifications which it
has provided for the sinner, to assist him in the pursuit of
peace.
“Oh, how unlike the complex works of man,
Heaven’s easy, artless, unencumbered plan!
No meretricious graces to beguile,
No clustering ornaments to clog the pile,
From ostentation, as from weakness, free,
It stands like the cerulean arch we see,
Majestic in its own simplicity.
Inscribed above the portal, from afar
Conspicuous as the brightness of a star,
Legible only by the light they give,
Stand the soul-quickening words, ‘Believe and Live!’”
Here, therefore, we may safely leave our argument; and we
would make, in conclusion, one or two very simple practical
remarks.
In the first place, then, we must never feel surprised at
seeing amiable, excellent, and apparently religious men brought
under the influence of Popery; for it has surely appeared
to-night, that the characters most subject to its attraction are
those who have felt the power of religious impression, but who
have not been led by the Spirit to know the hallowed peace of
saving grace. Those who are justified in Christ are at
peace, and do not need it; those who are insensible to Divine
things are at ease, and do not care for it; while the
intermediate class, consisting of those who feel the necessity of
the Gospel, but do not enjoy its grace,—they are the
persons most open to an accommodated system, and most prepared
for the reception of a spurious Christianity. Until a man
has felt some perplexity, he has no desire to surrender his
responsibility to another; nor until he has felt sin’s
burden, does he care for the temporary relief which may be found
from penance and absolution. And this explains the at first
sight remarkable phenomenon of the rapid progress of Romish
principles in latter years, notwithstanding the spread of
evangelical truth, and the increased circulation of the Word of
God. The preaching of the Cross disturbs more minds than it
saves, and so drives the unconverted to have recourse to some
substitute for the Gospel.
A second remark is, that we must never be astonished at the
alliance often witnessed between Popery and Infidelity, for they
spring from the same elements in the human heart. Unbelief
and superstition appear, at first sight, to be directly opposed;
but in their secret springs they are closely allied. They
are two human remedies for the uneasiness of the human
heart,—the one rejecting, the other accommodating the
Gospel. And whenever the time shall arise, that the
witnesses for Christ shall be called on once more to bear their
cross for the name of Jesus, they must be prepared to encounter
both in a confederate effort against the faith. In two
particulars they agree, in one only they diverge. In their
uneasiness under the influence of the Gospel, and in their
rejection of its simple plan of life, they are one: the
difference is only at the third stage, when the one rejects
revelation, the other accommodates it to its will.
Lastly, we are surely taught that the one and only remedy for
Popery and Popish tendencies is the free, sovereign, and
unfettered grace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We
may discuss the many questions arising out of the system, and
overthrow the Romish advocate even on the ecclesiastical
argument; but in so doing we only protect the outposts. If
we would strike at the root of the evil, we must do it by setting
forth at once the fulness and freedom of the salvation that is in
Jesus. Let the doctrine of justification by faith be
written on the heart by the Holy Ghost, and there will then be
little fear from Popery. Let that one great fundamental
truth be neglected and obscured, and the more earnest that we are
in an awakening ministry, the more effectually do we prepare the
way for Rome. In every point, then, let us meet Antichrist
by exalting Christ. If men are harassed by perplexity, let
us assure their faith by proclaiming Christ as revealed in
Scripture. If men are craving after communion with God, let
us set Christ before them as the sinner’s advocate.
If they long for holiness, let us tell them of Christ as our
wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
If they seek justification, let Christ be honoured as the Lord
their righteousness; and if they look for some further
expiation of their in purgatory, let us still tell them of
Christ, who “by one offering hath perfected for ever them
that are sanctified.” This is the weapon which Peter
wielded on the day of Pentecost, and which burst the hold of the
Popery of Judaism. This was the message with which St. Paul
set at nought the rising Popery of Galatia. This was the
mighty power which, in the days of the Reformation, shook Rome to
her foundations; and this is the only name whereby the witnesses
for Christ can ever look for victory, for they overcome,
according to the scriptural record, “by the blood of the
Lamb, and by the word of their testimony.”