Images de page
PDF
ePub

herein is our speedy repentance, further infection of this our cala

with prayer and fasting, together also with the good use of ordinary means, and wary and careful carriage of ourselves out of the danger of contagion: let us be truly wise, and demean ourselves in this time of our trial, as those that make good use of God's corrections; let us neither murmur nor grudge against the will of God, nor take impatiently what our sins have deserved, and God in his fatherly care hath inflicted upon us for our amendment; let us not now add sin unto sin, but forasmuch as the desperate security of those that seem neither to fear, nor to fly from this infection, is but a tempting and provoking of the judgment of God; seeing it may be an hindrance unto the fruit of the prayers and fasting of the church, which, be they never so strict and zealous, shall hardly procure a release of this burden of God, if wilful and intemperate spirits will not be kept in order; seeing such their unruly licentiousness extendeth itself to the breach of all charity, and bringeth upon their own heads no less than the guilt of wilful murder, both of themselves, their children, their families, and neighbours, which hateful cruelty against their own kind, Turks and infidels would abhor; seeing it procureth also a public and manifest detriment to the state and places where they dwell, by hindering their traffic, and impoverishing their neighbours in their trades and occupations; let men at the last be warned, and if there be any fear of God, any obedience to his word, any conscience of the magistrate's authority, any fruits of our faith and Christian profession, whose badge and cognizance is mutual love and charity, to further and procure the common good of all; let us not go forward to tempt God, to continue so cruel to ourselves, and so harmful to others; let us be more humble in the day of our affliction, submitting ourselves to those good and wholesome orders and decrees already published for preventing the

mity, and making account of all good means, and medicinable help made known unto us for our better preservation; lest we may seem to mock God by prayer and fasting, to beg a mitigation of this his useful chastisement, and yet we frame our actions contrary and opposite to the success we pray for.

And, among all other things yet spoken of, let this one advice be added without offence unto any; That though it be a Christian and laudable custom to accompany the bodies of the dead unto the grave, and commend them in decent manner unto their rest; yet, seeing the end of such assemblies as are then gathered together is, by the use of prayer and the word preached rather to give comfort unto the living, than any benefit unto the dead; let men be advised, persuaded, and content, that their dead should be buried with no more company than is needful for the interring and laying them up in the earth, because the gathering together of friends and neighbours in so common a contagion cannot be without present danger, and hazard of their health and lives: and it is verily thought that infection by this means of meeting hath ensued unto many; and here, if time and place served, the magistrates might be admonished of their oversight, in that they have taken no more care in the beginning for the stay of the overflowing of this evil. But now the contagion being grown so general, there is no probable means, especially in the city of London, how they can by any circumspection do that good which might at the first entrance have been effected. So that now the chief remedy to be expected from man is, that every one would be a magistrate unto himself and his whole family, and endeavour by all good care both to preserve themselves, being yet sound; or, being diseased, not to scatter their infection upon others. If men acquainted with the custom of other countries should compare the great

severity there used in such times as these are, with the remiss indulgence which our magistrates have used, they shall find great difference of care and government; which is not here remembered to urge any sharper directions than may well agree with the nature of our people. The conclusion of all is this, That though there cannot be too much care taken for the preserving of those that are yet sound, and for the secluding and separating of those that are sick, yet must this warning be therewith given: That the infected households may not be so shut up, as that they be also shut out from all succour, and relief of necessary maintenance, very many of those families which have been, and are yet visited, being of the poorer sort. To whose affliction, if you shall add affliction, and suffer them to want means of ordinary sustentation, alas! what shall become of them, seeing necessity knoweth no law, and want and hunger break stone walls. In which case of need they must, and will break forth for the succour of their lives, though with never so much danger to themselves or others. Wherefore, it shall well beseem those that are rich and able, to shew their fellow-feeling of their brethren's necessity; it shall well become the misery of the time for men to be fruitful in good works, whereby their Christian duty may be testified unto God and men. And it shall agree also with the exercise of fasting and prayer now in hand, that in every assembly gathered together to that end, there be a collection made of the benevolence of the people, to be faithfully and truly distributed by those that are put in trust, unto the poor shut up and visited with this affliction. So shall your prayers, fastings, and almsdeeds, as the incense and odours of the faithful, qualify the stench and corruption of our sins, and as sacrifices, wherewith God is well pleased, being made acceptable in that sweet smelling savour of our Saviour Christ, whose intercession shall mitigate the

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

"

Altar," as applied to the worship and services of our Christian, Scriptural, Apostolical, Protestant church; of which my heart says, "May it be perpetual."

1. The sacrament of the Lord's supper is a commemorative feast, and not a preparatory sacrifice; therefore there is no victim, no "altar." 2. A supper is partaken of at a table, and not at an "altar."

3. The original institution of the holy communion was made at a table, (around which the Apostles sat, or rather reclined), and not at an "altar."

4. The Sacred Scriptures no where call the place where the elements are administered, an "altar," but expressly use the words "the table of the Lord."

5. The word "altar" either carries our ideas back to the Mosaic sacrifices, or reminds us of what has been called by some the "unbloody," and even the "vicarious" sacrifice of the Mass.

6. The use of this term "altar," it is feared, has an almost irresistible tendency, to say the least, to lead men away from the one offering or sacrifice for sin of the only Saviour; and to cause them to attempt to substitute in its place an imaginary and self-righteous sacrifice, as though it were equally acceptable to God, and perfective of the one and already perfect sacrifice of Christ.

[ocr errors]

7. The sacrifices of "praise," of "a broken spirit and a contrite heart," of "ourselves, our souls and our bodies," are not expiatory as if brought to an altar," but a eucharistic, "living," and "spiritual" surrender or dedication of the soul to God at the Throne of Grace, in the exercise of Christian graces and duties. In this sense, alms given from love to Christ, are a sacrifice pleasing to God.

8. The body of Christ having been once offered, this sacrifice neither needs to be, nor can be repeated.

9. As "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin,” no “altar” is required on which to offer a sacrifice.

[ocr errors]

10. The altar" which St. Paul says "we have" as Christians, is not the table of the Lord, but the Lord himself; presented in whose name, and through faith in whose blood, our prayers and praises are accepted by our Heavenly Father, through his prevailing intercession.

So much for the arguments from reason and Scripture. I proceed to state several other objections from history, to this use, or rather misuse, of the term "altar."

1. The ancient communion "tables" were made of wood, and had legs attached to them as those in common use, which "altars" had not, and have not.

2. "Altars," both the thing and the name, are of Popish invention and application; Pope Sixtus the Second having first introduced them into the Church of Rome, whence they came to us.

3. The most learned and pious foreign, as well as our English,Protestant divines have written against this use of the word "altar," as applied to the communion table.

4. The statute, 1 Edward VI., chap. 1, (A.D. 1547), which denominated the communion "table" an "altar," was shortly after repealed; and in the act of repeal, the word "altar" was changed to "table."

5. The stone "altars" used in our unreformed church, were, in 1550, ordered to be taken down, and tables of wood to be provided in their room.

6. Day, bishop of Chester, and Heath, bishop of Worcester, for refusing to obey the royal injunctions of our Sixth Edward, (which ordered the then "altars" to be removed, and "tables" to be placed in their room, and to be so called), were actually deprived of their bishoprics, Oct., 1551.

7. Queen Elizabeth's first injunctions order the "table" to be placed in the chancel, without any mention of the word "altar."

8. The rubric of the communion service several times uses the word table," but never" altar."

[ocr errors]

9. The 82d canon of 1603, or

ders the "table" to be placed in the body of the church.

10. Archbishop Laud was expressly accused of favouring, if not of reintroducing, Popery, mainly because he elevated the "table" by means of steps, (as though he wished it to appear like an altar, and to be so considered and denominated), and also fenced it in with rails, and placed on it a knife; all which circumstances favoured the Jewish and Popish notions of a sacrifice.

For these twenty reasons I object to the words "altar services," and should have sent my objections to the Cambridge printer as recommended by an aged, pious, zealous, and distinguished member of that University, with the sanction of his name to my strictures, but for the consideration that the error having extended far beyond that renowned seat of learning, the correction of it ought to be made equally extensive. Patriots and warriors may fight "pro aris et focis," and Politicians may write of "the throne and the altar," while others, who ought to be taught better, will use their "Companion to the Altar," which those who know better ought not to print and circulate; but let the "watchmen" of our Israel, and, the "porters" of the temple, who are "commanded to watch," take heed that no such errors find admission within our walls, or, if they do, lift up their voice against them. J.W. N.

P. S. Since I wrote the above, I find with much regret, that the sister University has printed a volume with the same improper title.

LETTER FROM THE REV. DANIEL
WILSON.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. My time has been so completely absorbed by duties that could not be postponed, that I have not been able to write a line on the subject of the paper of the Reverend the Regius

Professor of Divinity at Oxford. I therefore send you a letter which I addressed nearly fourteen years since, to a Right Reverend prelate in the United States (who had been kind enough to favour me with his thoughts upon a sermon I had then published on the doctrine of regeneration), and which anticipates much of what I might have said on the present occasion; with the advantage of introducing the argument without the irritation that might arise from a personal controversy. This irritation, in the present crisis of the church, is peculiarly deprecated by Your obedient servant,

[ocr errors]

D. WILSON.

"Worton, Oxon. July 31, 1818.

....On the great subject of your letter, Right Rev. sir, I am sure you will expect me to write with that frankness and sincerity which become the cause of truth, tempered with that respect and deference which your longer experience in the sacred functions of the ministry, and your superior rank as a father and bishop in the church, necessarily demand; not to say that a spirit of meekness and humility is the best recommendation of an argument which touches the vitals of religion, and which should therefore be peculiarly adorned by charity and forbearance.

"Permit me then to say, in the first place, that I am far from imagining the doctrine of regeneration to be free from difficulties. In the broad and commanding features of it, it stands clear and conspicuous; but in the details, and especially as connected with the expositions of our church, various questions arise. In fact, I believe this to be the case with regard to every great doctrine of religion. Humility is the way to knowledge. Christianity is more a science of the heart than of the un

derstanding; more a matter of faith than mere reason. I have seldom therefore found much gained by controversy. The passions are soon inflamed and irritated, and truth eludes and escapes from the tumult.

[ocr errors]

Whilst we keep on plain and practical topics, and follow the varying stream of Holy Scripture wherever it flows, I find I can proceed with comfort; but when I come to minute explications and rigid system, I am aground my bark refuses to obey the helm-I am bewildered and lost. Whoever then holds the fundamental truths of the total corruption of our nature, and the indispensable necessity of our becoming new creatures' in Christ Jesus, 'old things passing away and all things being made new,' is my friend and my brother. Whoever, on the contrary, explains these truths away, and virtually resolves this mighty change of nature into an external reception of the sacrament of baptism; and flatters men with the hope of being real Christians when they are still dead in sin, and far from God and spiritual religion, is, in my judgment, essentially wrong. I say this the more freely, because I perceive with pleasure that here you entirely agree with me. If those on our side of the Atlantic, who have been agitating this controversy, had all agreed with you that baptism confers only privileges as a deed does an estate; that it is only a translation from a state of nature into the Christian church, conveying no moral change in the inward dispositions of the heart, no new nature, but only placing us in a new situation and pledging to us certain benefits (which is, I perceive, your view of the case), whilst the absolute necessity of an entire change of heart and nature, or, as you better express it, 'a radical change in the carnal and sinful heart,' must be enforced on all who are living in sin and neglect of God and serious religion;-if this, or any thing like this, had been the prevailing sentiments of the clergy here, no controversy would have arisen. Mutual charity would have covered those less differences of opinion which seem unavoidable in the infirmity of the militant church. But the case with us, as I conceive, was very different. A bold and open attack was made on the

doctrines of many truly pious clergymen; the errors and extravagancies of enthusiasts were charged upon them; and they were even branded as heretics for maintaining that an entire change in all the powers of the soul is not invariably communicated in baptism, and that such a change is indispensably requisite in order to salvation. In order to support this acccusation, Dr. (now Bp.) Mant asserted that a change of heart, sanctification, an inward work of the Holy Ghost, a new taste and disposition does uniformly accompany the administration of baptism; and that it is impossible for any man to say when such a change takes place, if it were not at the sacramental font. The whole statement was calculated to loosen the very key-stone of real. practical religion, as beginning in a communication of a principle of holiness, and leading to conversion, penitence, faith, love, and obedience. Dr. Mant, one would have thought, must have seen clearly enough, that the entire arch rested on this connecting and binding point; and that, if he could resolve all that the Scriptures say on the subject of a change of nature into the grace exclusively and inseparably attendant on baptism, the whole of spiritual and vital piety would sink to its fall; whilst a cold and formal religion, decent but not energetic, would be reared in its stead-a religion of external ceremony, worldliness, vanity, and pride, founded on merely human wisdom and power, and extending only to a civil prudence, -a religion whose foundation was no longer 'Jesus Christ and him crucified,' but the natural efforts of reason and education, and the external privileges of the church. But I retract this,I ought not to say that Dr. Mant intended this, let me charitably hope that better motives actuated him: it is sufficient for me to assure you, that such an attack on spiritual religion had not appeared in my memory, and that whatever might be the designs of the author, the effect on the judgments and preaching of

« PrécédentContinuer »